Chapter 5
“Moment.” Claudio sucked in a breath. Orion was keeping him moving today, and he was going to ache gloriously tomorrow.
Later tonight, too. One pleasure of having settled into his rooms at home was the bath.
It was not as extravagant as the entire suite of bathing spaces, Roman baths style, at the Edgartons.
But he’d still be wanting a good half hour in the soaking tub later.
An hour if he could spare it, which he could if he brought the reading he wanted to do before tomorrow.
And Orion, well, every day he got time with Orion was a good day.
His chosen brother was the man who got him to buck up and do what needed doing, a mirror that let Claudio figure out how to face the world.
And, of course, a bloody good duellist. The duelling was part of the routine, of course.
It helped them both keep sharp. Also, it was excellent exercise, and it gave them a chance to talk about things, just the two of them. When there was talking.
Now, Orion tilted his head. He’d taken the far end of the salle today. He’d wanted to test a couple of approaches. “Take a breather? I had a question, actually.”
“Sure.” Claudio straightened up, then went off toward the half-wall of the viewing area of the salle.
He didn’t so much need to grab something to drink as something to balance while he stretched out both thighs.
Once he was leaning into it, steadily, the way Isembard had trained into both of them, he asked, “What’s up? Last night’s meeting?”
“Isn’t it always?” Orion had gone for the keep-cool box, pulling out a glass bottle of water.
He flipped the lid open and passed it automatically to Claudio before turning to get one for himself.
That too had been their custom for years now.
Twenty-five, in fact, which made Claudio stop and consider the dates.
When Orion turned back, he raised an eyebrow. “What’re you thinking of?”
“That we missed an anniversary. Well, I suppose it depends on how we count.” Claudio took another long drink from the bottle before balancing it on the wall.
“Let’s see. Twenty-five years, a month, and five days including today.
If we’re counting from when you checked on me and gave me a rock.
The one that’s still in my bag, mind. Twenty-five years and twenty-three days if we count from when we agreed we were friends. ”
“You work from a lot more places than I do. Still think it’s silly to carry the thing around,” Orion said, amused.
The rock was occasionally a little odd, but Claudio had plenty of times when he wanted a tangible reminder that people cared about him and wanted him happy and well.
Carrying it around with him wasn’t much of a bother, given how good it felt to have it.
Orion’s own rock lived on the top of his desk in his private office, tucked away safely.
Orion launched himself at the wall to perch on top of it.
It was a wide wall, a good foot and a half in width.
He’d had it rebuilt because both Orion and Cammie enjoyed perching, and it wasn’t like Claudio hated it.
Hypatia liked her feet on solid ground, but that was why there were comfortable chairs.
“Is this the sort of thing where I ought to apologise for forgetting the date and offer to take you out to supper?”
Claudio laughed. “I’d ask if you’ve done that with Hypatia.
But I know she reminds you in good time about that sort of thing when she actually cares about it.
No, just thinking about the time. And that there aren’t so many people I’ve got that kind of history with.
” Also, if Claudio hadn’t been certain Hypatia had it in hand, he’d have reminded Orion himself, because he knew Orion’s gifts and challenges.
“Me. Isembard and Thesan.” Orion glanced up toward where the main house was. “Cammie and Hypatia, we’ll get there in time.” He considered. “Actually, that’s part of what I wanted to ask about. History. People’s histories.”
“Council, I assume?” Back when Orion had been looking at making his second and ultimately successful Challenge for the Council, Claudio had pointed out that it’d simplify dealing with people rather a lot.
Instead of having to keep potentially hundreds of people’s priorities and needs in mind, he only really had to keep track of twenty.
Since two of those were Gabe and Alexander, and a third was Claudio’s own mother, it was a little easier than that.
Alexander Landry was not known for answering questions, but he could be enticed to a little explanatory Socratic dialogue.
Gabe would actually answer questions if they were interesting.
And Claudio’s mother was at least a known quantity.
Well, as much as any parent ever was. So, seventeen, really.
“Yes. Can you give me the several minute summary of the Powells and why they’re touchy about security?
More than just Cyrus’s predecessor, right?
I know that bit well enough.” It had been a terrible, awful thing, and that stuck in the mind.
Metaia Powell had been murdered in 1889.
“I don’t remember the rest of the family and how that relates to Nonus. ”
Claudio considered, then twisted, boosting himself up to perch on the wall, because that was easier.
More friendly. Next to him, Orion grunted in amusement.
It gave Claudio enough time to figure out how to lay it out.
“Metaia Powell, Seal House, illusionist. She made her Challenge fairly young in 1875. She’d have been twenty-six, I think.
I’d have to check her birthdate, but she was the same year at Schola as Father.
She had quite a reputation as a trickster— that’s part of the illusion work, really.
And she was killed in 1889. Her cousin Owain, also on the Council for ages.
He was eighty-one when he died in 1929. On the Council from 1877.
Yes.” Claudio had to call up the lists in his memory.
But there were actually a finite number of people on them, and it was easy enough for him to chain person to person and anchor them to key events.
“Cousin how? Or does that matter here?” Orion swung his feet slightly. “And what was Owain’s focus?”
“Salmon House, he was, um.” Another pause for the maths, “Twenty-nine when he Challenged. And that bit of the family’s not as relevant.
Not close in terms of the family line, but close in age and compatible personalities.
He was not as magically flashy as Metaia was.
Sympathetic magic focus. From everything Mother and Father said, he got on well with your father.
But I don’t think they were the sort of close that meant he’d have been a guest often? ”
“No, and 1929’s only a couple of years of Father being Lord here, and able to invite people freely. Great-Uncle Phineas might have tolerated the Council part, but subjecting a guest to that wouldn’t have been hospitable.”
“I’m pretty sure Owain Powell was entirely out of patience with that sort of nonsense by that stage in his life, anyway.
Not crotchety, but just refusing to cater to idiots.
” Claudio nodded. “What we’ve been thinking of as the Star seat.
A little distant, but with a clarity that’s compelling. Not charismatic, but steady.”
Nearly five years ago, Claudio had proposed a theory about tendencies in the Council seats that mapped them onto the archetypes of the Howard Tarot.
Orion had Challenged before, but he’d made a second go on the strength of the theory, taking the seat they’d labelled as Temperance.
It wasn’t the sort of theory they could test broadly— there had only been two Challenges since then.
But at least one of those had proven out sensibly, with Paul Wicken taking what they thought of as the Empress.
Given that he was a farmer with a particular care for the land, that made a lot of sense.
Mary Sprite, who’d succeeded Cyrus Smythe-Clive in what they’d named the Magician’s seat, was rather more of an enigma.
That had been Metaia Powell’s seat before.
Cyrus had been Head of the Council between Claudio’s parents, and he certainly had a great deal of strength and skill at his disposal.
“Like Kerran now.” Orion’s comment pulled Claudio back to the conversation of the moment. “And the same sympathetic magic focus. Huh,” Orion nodded. “All right, Nonus?”
“Different line of the family. Um, neither Owain nor Metaia had children. Owain had a sister, Enfys. Alwyn Powell was their cousin— same grandparents. Nonus is his grandson, son of Gwladys and Ilar. A rather more martial line of things. Though Nonus was Seal House, not Bear or Fox, as you might assume. Though the Powells, not generally in Fox.”
That was his house, shared with Orion, for all these days neither of them thought that had been the ideal choice.
Schola ran how they handled that sort of thing differently now.
Claudio envied all the people who’d have a chance to grow in their own shapes, not the ones defined tightly by expectations, like he had.
“Anyway, Nonus was a Captain in the Guard until he retired when he couldn’t do the physical side as easily.
Good at logistics work and investigation, not charismatic, but not entirely stubborn. Usually.”
“Depends on the scale we’re using.” Orion said, amused. Since Orion was often on the exceedingly stubborn end of whatever scale was being applied, he should know. “So what’s the touchy part?”