Thirty-Eight #2
Jehan choked, and turned it into a cough.
He’d never met her himself, but he’d heard a lot from Estiene about his grandmother.
Marguerite Marcelle was one of that long line of healers Estiene had come from, and had married another highborn healer who’d done the sensible thing and taken her name.
All three of her children had also tested as mage-healers.
Estiene’s grandfather had died in a flooded river crossing after being invited to come and teach advanced techniques to the court healers of Skapiesta, and Marguerite herself had carried on working until Estiene entered the Academie, when she retired to—as far as Jehan could tell—become even busier in having opinions about Sieuxerr’s healing workforce and the Hospital itself, and engineering healer society to be exactly the way she wanted it.
And now here she was, in a shabby building owned by one of Sieuxerr’s most dangerous criminals, looking at Jehan as though he were an unattractive but rare fish she intended to pull from the river and sell at a profit.
Jourdain, in his mother’s wake, had a similar expression. Jehan looked wildly behind them for Estiene. Nothing.
“Scholar Fortier,” said Marguerite. There was no hint of question to it, even though she’d never met Jehan either.
“What an idiotic pickle you’ve gotten yourself into.
No, you don’t need to say anything,” she added, even though Jehan hadn’t moved.
“In fact it’s probably best if you don’t. You’ll only make things worse.”
“Indeed,” said Jourdain. He levelled a warning look at Jehan. “Now, where is the gentleman in charge of this . . . establishment?”
Jehan did consider himself clever enough to realise he would make things worse, or at least trample on someone’s carefully constructed plan, if he expressed any surprise or tried to contribute.
“You’d better get Blavot,” was all he said.
Lenoir whistled someone else over, and then sent them to fetch Blavot from the offices.
It took several minutes for him to arrive.
Under Marguerite’s judgmental gaze Jehan fought the urge to fix his hair and rumpled feast clothes, and became aware all over again of the scratches Estiene had left on his skin.
Estiene had done this, somehow. Whatever it was.
It took a lot to ruffle Guion Blavot—especially here, in his realm. He ambled over at a relaxed pace, curious but not alarmed, and introduced himself.
Madame Marcelle said, “Finally. I don’t know what passes for manners in the society you move through, Master Blavot, but I can’t say I care for it. But I shan’t waste your time as you’ve wasted ours with this nonsense. We’ve come to retrieve our agent.”
Jehan, through heroic effort, kept his face from twitching. Agent? Had they gone poring through the Chambely books in search of ideas? Was this one of Alys’s stage-play fancies?
Blavot looked equally perplexed.
“It’s all right, Fortier,” said Jourdain impressively. “You’ve done enough. Master Blavot, how do you think we knew where Fortier would be?”
And then he proceeded to spin an absolute sugar-fluff mountain of outrageous lies.
Apparently, Jehan had risked the displeasure of the city’s most senior healers by virtuously reporting to them that he had been blackmailed, that he had been hired to steal from the Academie and the Hospital, and that he had been asked to do deeply dubious and illegal work, degrading Mathé’s gifts by falsely enhancing the strength and stamina of fighters so that illegal bets could also be made.
The Committee for Healer Workforce, in concert with the highest committees of the Hospital Sieuxerr and certain important members of the Duchy Council, had permitted—requested—Jehan to keep on doing it, in order to gather information on the practices in question and Guion Blavot’s wider operations.
And also because, Jourdain managed to imply, it was sometimes convenient for healers to be doing technically illegal work while the higher powers pretended not to know about it, so that the field of healing magic and knowledge could be advanced.
Jehan had developed some very promising new techniques, after all.
At the end of this Blavot looked as if he’d bitten off a huge morsel of steak and it was now stuck in his throat. Was he buying it? Probably not all of it.
But there was no denying that Jourdain Marcelle was standing here, admitting to full knowledge of Jehan’s many crimes, and saying that they were going to be ignored. Blavot had nothing to hold over him anymore. Nothing.
Jehan was light-headed with the dawning enormity of this.
Blavot gathered himself and his bluster.
“Fortier has done some healing work for me, for a very reasonable fee. Perhaps his zeal for experimenting has led him to use some techniques outside of what’s expected and legal, but I’m not a healer—I’m sure I’m not the best judge of that.
And he’s never been involved with any of my other, equally legitimate businesses. ”
Though he sent a quick, murky look at Jehan, as if imagining Jehan sneaking off and reading his secret papers. Jehan looked at the floor.
“Perhaps we can come to some sort of arrangement without having to involve the gendarmerie,” said Jourdain Marcelle.
“You will, of course, release Fortier immediately. He’s finished working for you, and for us.
His path now is as a qualified healer, using Mathé’s gifts in the service of the wider world. ”
Blavot pressed his lips together and looked at Marguerite. And then nodded.
And then Jehan was cut loose.
“You have an exam to prepare for, Scholar,” said Marguerite, with strong overtones of shoo.
Jehan didn’t need to be told. He walked quickly right out the front door of the gym and into the street.
Estiene was there. His face changed at once when Jehan exited: a sort of crumpling relief.
Jehan took two more long strides and crushed Estiene in his arms, only realising once he’d done it that he’d been about to fall over as all the tension dropped out of him at once.
He clung to Estiene and shivered, and Estiene clung back and—didn’t murmur reassuring nothings, because he was still Estiene, but was reassuring anyway.
“How,” said Jehan fervently, “the fuck.”
“I went to Mamie,” said Estiene. “She doesn’t know any details about the murders, she thinks my arrest was a trumped-up nonsense plot by someone who wants Papa’s job.
But she does know that a member of my Grand Exam group was in danger of not showing up, and therefore forfeiting my own result.
I didn’t think bluffing would work, so I had to tell her absolutely everything you told me about Blavot.
Sorry. She’s terrifying, though, and she knows everyone with any power on the Committee, and I figured she might be—a surprise. ”
“She was.” Jehan gave a strangled laugh. “And your father?”
“Well, once Mamie was involved . . .” Estiene looked away. “And I can’t come to Mostau with you. I have to stay in Sieuxerr.”
That was a hairpin turn. “What?”
“He’d said he had favours he could call in to protect himself and me, some of them with the Committee, and he’s on the Duchy Council too, and— Look, it was all I could think of.
I had to swear up and down that you being free for the exam would allow us to clear my name and catch Ysabel’s real killer, so . . . we’d better succeed.”
So Estiene had persuaded Jourdain to pick up a weapon he’d intended to use in self-defence, and wield it in Jehan’s defence instead. It was unthinkable.
“Anyway,” Estiene continued, voice tight. “I told him I’d do whatever he wanted. Stay in Sieuxerr and work at the Hospital, in whatever post he thinks is best for me. Give a long, glowing interview to one of the Gazette’s reporters about what an honour it’s been growing up as his son. Anything.”
Anything.
“Did you . . .” Jehan had no idea how to phrase it. “Does he know that we . . .”
“I—”
They were interrupted by the senior Marcelles, both of whom looked as if they were about to call for a scented hand-wipe.
Now Jehan knew what was going on, he could translate Jourdain’s look as one of fury that he’d been forced to go and fight for the son of a medic he disliked, instead of his own prestige, and that Captain Thoury still stood a chance of arresting him or Estiene or both.
He had, however, done that fighting with absolute aplomb. Jehan thanked the both of them for it effusively.
Marguerite waved him to a stop. She looked between Estiene and Jehan with raised eyebrows.
Perhaps that question of Jehan’s was being answered after all, along with the doubts that had grabbed him in the early hours of the morning.
Estiene had recruited his family, had erased once and for all the boundaries between Jehan and this part of his life.
Jehan wanted to wrap himself around Estiene like strangling ivy.
Estiene was leaning into him as if he’d welcome it.
“To thank me, you will pass this exam,” said Marguerite.
“And Estiene told me about these new techniques of yours. You will publish and demonstrate them for the Hospital’s theatre specialists to review, before you take them inconsiderately off to Fenehaf with you.
If they’re as good as all that, you owe it to your fellows. ”
“Yes,” said Jehan. “I did intend to publish, and I . . . I think I’ll be staying here the whole summer. No need to rush off, after all.” A wide, giddy smile was trying to take over his face.
“Estiene,” said his grandmother.
“Yes, Mamie?”
“Take your—fellow scholar, and get back to the Academie at once. You have an exam to sit.”