Chapter 11
Claudio made his way along the twists of the Ministry Quarter with a certain amount of wariness.
Lawson’s office was in the building up on the right.
Wednesday had persisted in producing minor emergencies, though at least in sequence rather than all at once.
He’d been in London, Yorkshire, and Devon before he’d finally got home at nearly midnight last night.
He’d missed supper with Tiberius, the one night they could be certain Mother would be occupied.
He’d hated that, though his son had said he understood.
Today, Claudio had spent six hours locked in a room with three other Penelopes trying to untangle a particular ritual working that had gone awry in entirely unbelievable ways.
They’d at least got it stable enough that all of them could take a break and come back to it fresh tomorrow.
He’d immediately wanted to check on Lawson.
And needed to, because if he didn’t, the Tuesday meeting was going to be awkward, maybe in a way impossible to solve.
None of the other Penelopes wanted to take it on.
Lawson giving it up would be a mark against him.
It wasn’t Lawson’s fault, so that wasn’t an option.
The man had worried him on Tuesday. Claudio had only melted away when it was clear that the man who’d come up while they were in the pub had visibly known Lawson much better.
Called him by his first name, for one thing.
Asking to stick around would have made it awkward.
York, the publican, had been keeping an eye out, too, and he’d made it quietly clear Lawson was a regular.
Lawson had been among friends, and Claudio hadn’t been needed. So he’d gone without a fuss.
Most people wouldn’t have stepped in, or not like that.
Near enough every single man and woman in Britain, as well as Albion, and no fair percent of the children would have left, kindly, but not extended themselves.
No one knew how to deal with those places where the mind froze and the heart cracked, and everything went dim and dark and hopeless.
But Claudio couldn’t. He remembered what it had been like, the day that Orion had checked on him, had given him that stone.
How Orion had just been present and there, back when Claudio was fifteen in the aftermath of someone trying to abduct him.
That was when he counted their friendship from, the hand there, unwavering.
A door had opened, and that one had never closed.
He’d made the same offer many times since, though none of them had ended in a closer friendship.
Up in Scotland, in the first years of the war, he’d watched three of his colleagues smack into something that shattered their psyches.
He’d been the only one to hear the sounds through un-insulated and insufficiently charmed walls, and go to bring a mug of hot weak tea, and just sit.
Two of them had been invalided out. The third had come back, and it had continued to be painfully awkward.
He didn’t regret turning up and being there, though.
Now, here he was again, knowing that he needed to make what had happened acceptable. That he didn’t think less of Lawson for seeing the cracks and the scars of whatever it was he’d been dealing with. He had to make it normal. Well, as normal as he could manage.
He glanced down at his hands and realised they were splattered with a rainbow of colours.
He’d had gloves on for some of the work and taken his jacket off, but the splatters had dusted his cuffs, blues and greens and purples and reds.
No matter. He didn’t have time to run home and change, though he’d swap shirts in his office before his four o’clock meeting.
Claudio turned into the building, nodding at the woman at the desk at the front. He was a known factor, of course, people recognised the Penelopes well enough in the Ministry, and he had the pin visible as well. “Had a question for Master Lawson.”
The woman just nodded, and Claudio went past, up two flights of stairs, and along to the correct office number.
He’d double checked the layout first thing this morning, before he’d got dragged into the ritual problem.
Lawson’s office was down at the end of the hall, not quite the corner, and the door was slightly ajar.
There were no voices inside, so that was promising.
Claudio rapped lightly on the frame. “Lawson? Penelope Warren, if you had a minute for a question?”
There was a slightly odd sound from inside, then Lawson clearing his throat. “Yes? Come in.”
The office was in fact tiny, just wide enough for a desk and space to get around it, with Lawson facing the door.
Claudio couldn’t bear to have his back to a door either, not anywhere someone else might enter.
He’d more or less trained himself to it at home, but the warding didn’t permit anyone else near his office door when he was in there.
Now he put on his calmest smile. “I’d mentioned Tuesday I had a question.
Sorry, I’d have stopped by yesterday, but the day kept adding tasks, I didn’t get home until nearly midnight.
” He took in the desk, which had a few things out.
“I don’t know where you’d prefer to talk?
” He gestured. “Here. Or I don’t know if it’s time for your afternoon break or something of the kind. I could come back later?”
“You were out with your work?” Lawson didn’t quite stammer. Then he looked down at his desk and back up. “I was thinking I might go to a cafe, actually. Something like. Stretch my legs. If you don’t mind?”
“Not at all.” Claudio rather liked the idea. “Do you have one you like near here?”
“Bakery?” Lawson suggested it a little cautiously. “You might know it, the Moon and Stars?” He said it as if there were some sort of particular weight on it.
“I do know it. A friend introduced me to it. Well, Ursula Fortier, you heard me mention her, at one or two of the meetings. A niece by choice, technically, or at least she calls me Uncle, when we’re not being professional.
That’ll make a nice walk. It’s warmed up a bit, I think it was fifty-two when I left the office. ”
Lawson nodded, not bothering to snag his coat, coming out in his jacket.
Claudio retreated into the hallway to give him space to lock up his office with a quick touch to the warding panels, and then followed him downstairs and out into the street without further conversation.
It wasn’t until they’d gone four blocks, about halfway the way to the bakery, that Lawson spoke again.
“You had a question?” They’d come out of the Ministry Quarter, into the mid-range shops.
“To be honest, just to check in, Lawson.” Claudio tried not to sound nervy.
“You did?” Lawson stopped for a moment. “I mean.” He cleared his throat. “You were very kind, Tuesday. I didn’t thank you, but I’m grateful.”
Claudio hesitated. “It can be awkward sometimes. I didn’t want it to be awkward. Certainly not at the meeting. You’ve got enough to manage— and manage well— there.” Then he was momentarily distracted by something in the window two shops down, before he brought his attention back.
“You’ve done that for people before.” Lawson didn’t make it a question. Then he hesitated. “Under the circumstances, I suppose I’m Matthew.” That definitely sounded uncertain, but Claudio couldn’t figure out why.
“Claudio, then. And glad to go out for a drink some other time, if you’re not busy. Well, and if I’m not busy, which happens rather a lot, I’m afraid.” Then he cleared his throat, trying to stay on topic. “Enough times. Someone ought, people don’t, I won’t let myself duck that.”
“And the stone?” Lawson— Matthew— pressed the point.
“A long time ago, when I was at school, in my third year, you’d not have been there yet, right?
” Claudio knew that well enough, but asking sounded better.
Matthew nodded. “I’d had the sort of rough week that involved someone trying to abduct me.
Entirely unsuccessfully, but it shook me up, even though it was just a few bad minutes.
Not very long. Two days after that, Orion— um, Lord Sisley, now, my best friend since— turned up.
It was the first time we’d really talked like that.
He came to check on me. He gave me that rock.
I’ve had it ever since. A touchstone, and yes, that’s an awful pun. ” Claudio stopped. “I’m babbling.”
Matthew’s face went through a few shifts. Claudio didn’t know how to read them. “I thought you were the sort who had babbling trained out of you in infancy? You always seem so together.”
“Not always. I have bad times, too. The rock helps. It’s not a talisman or anything like that. Just a rock from the beach at Schola. Anyone could have one.” Claudio shrugged, spreading his hands out.
“Not everyone does. Or offered it. No one else has, actually.” Then Matthew’s eyes focused on something. “What’s that on your wrists?”
“Oh,” Claudio kept himself more controlled.
“Charm work, today. I didn’t have a chance to change out my cuffs.
It’ll come out with some charmwork and bleach.
Though I rather like the effect, the colours,” He nodded up towards the windows.
“That’s what caught my eye up there. The lampshade, the stained glass one in the window. ”
Matthew edged a little closer to that shop window.
“Huh.” He looked at it as if the idea of a decorative lamp was rather outside his experience.
Though if he’d been living in Nuremberg or wherever else, his housing had likely been rather bleak until recently.
Claudio had honestly been wondering if it was the lamp Mother had once sent to Camp 020.
They’d not had room for such a thing without one of them risking knocking it over a dozen times a day.
But it was an attractive sort of lamp of its kind, jewel tone colours, all the Schola house ones.