Chapter 22
Matthew settled into his chair at the end of the table with a little uncertainty.
He and Claudio had made plans for drinks last week.
But right at the end of the meeting, one of the Guard apprentices had shown up.
Claudio had taken off at something like a run.
It had been urgent, whatever the problem was, and so involved that he hadn’t written a note to Matthew about it until Thursday morning.
The note had also been notably vague, the sort of vagueness that Matthew understood immediately likely involved something in the Courts.
Of course, he had his own contacts in the Courts, and during his break on Monday he’d wandered that direction with a plausible excuse.
By that point, the gossip had been easy to get.
There’d been a situation of an abusive husband, a wife locked into an attic room after an argument, and an unpleasant bit of alchemy intended to hide evidence.
There were about eight charges in progress as they figured out which ones were most applicable and as they got the truth magics in play.
All of which meant that Matthew couldn’t feel upset about Claudio charging off like that.
He’d been doing something both important and pressing.
Resenting that would not be good for anyone.
Not Matthew and not Claudio. Besides, it wasn’t like Matthew didn’t have practice dealing with people having other necessary things to be doing.
But it meant that he was feeling a tad off kilter on the ninth, and he didn’t know what to say.
Making a comment about it seemed wrong. He couldn’t say something like ‘Gather your last week was someone taking inspiration from gothic novels in entirely the wrong way?’ Acknowledging that he knew more than Claudio had said also seemed wrong.
In the end, he’d just nodded, and then had gone full steam ahead into the meeting.
Partway through the agenda, Matthew considered his options.
They’d been going round and round about planning for the next harvest. Of course, some of that was entirely an unknown right now.
That was the trick with the harvest. And it wasn’t as if they could look at the harvest records for the past decade as reliable predictors of this year.
There had been too many other variables— unsettled weather, bombs, who was available to do the actual agriculture, and who was available for specialised processing.
But by now, most of that had settled out.
It was the problem of ossification, again, from yet another angle. The procedures said to look at the last five years, the last ten. Further back wasn’t worth doing, apparently, even though the records were there, carefully indexed and processed.
Matthew let them circle around proposals for a bit before clearing his throat.
“Couldn’t we do a long-term survey. Twenty, thirty years?
The data exists. Surely there’s someone who could do the collation and mark out— with an appropriate list for guidance— where techniques have advanced and there’s improved yield or efficacy?
Setting that up might take a handful of hours.
” Matthew suggested it, mostly to see what people said to it.
There was some debate around the table, people going back and forth.
Three of them— predictably Brown and Short from the Ministry and Tess Manfred from the Courts— refused to consider taking on any additional work.
Professor Rowland had plans for the summer in France.
Healer Lovel was busy, though in his case, quite reasonably.
From his left, Matthew heard a slow comment, “Seems to me what we need is a graduating Schola student who isn’t starting their apprenticeship until late summer.
I’m sure I could get a couple of recommendations by next week. Probably sooner.”
Professor Rowland blinked at him and then started laughing. “Will you take bets on how fast?”
“Not from you, madam.” Claudio said, with a certain amount of mock deference.
“Who is it you know now?” Manfred spared Matthew having to ask about it.
“I’ll be seeing Hypatia Sisley on Thursday, assuming no crisis.
But writing her brother— that would be Ibis Ward, for those without the family trees in their heads— is easy enough.
I remember he mentioned he was looking for something for someone.
I just don’t know if there’s still a need.
We’d have to sort a salary and space to work, but I’m guessing that could be arranged.
And there’s some similar work from the Penelope side if whoever it is wants to have more hours.
We just can’t commit to the supervision of someone who’s not an apprentice. ”
Matthew hesitated, then decided to leap.
He knew there were some options for funding, or at least there should still be.
“I can see about that. I’d want to consult about the details, but being in the office for questions, well, I’m reliable about that.
” It got a little laugh from the rest of the table, and someone commented that was what the Ministry was good at.
“There. Worth asking about. I’ll send around the names.” Claudio looked rather pleased. Matthew was too. If it worked out, it’d be good for whoever did the work. It would be good for them, and the data would have an ongoing benefit.
The rest of the meeting was more routine, thankfully. When everyone else packed up, Matthew tilted his head. “Drink?”
“Gods, please.” Claudio sounded like he had never wanted anything more. “Somewhere where no one’s going to have just one more question for me, do I have a minute? You don’t count. Your questions are different and relaxing.”
Matthew had no idea what to say to that, but he managed a little smile.
They walked off to the pub together and got a table at the back.
Their food and drink came out promptly and Claudio brought up the privacy protections immediately.
Then he added, as he lowered his hand, “Doyle mentioned you’d noticed where I’d learned them.
Glad to teach you sometime. It’d take half an hour and some quiet, though.
The underlying theory’s a little obscure. ”
“Is that like you saying you were only a little busy last week?” Now Matthew could add, “You know I know people in the Courts. I got the three sentence overview yesterday. What you were doing needed doing.”
Claudio’s entire face and shoulders shifted. “It was bad. An entirely and utterly awful domestic bit of badness. Going to take some healing, on several levels, but at least she can now. Can’t talk about the details, you understand, yeah? Not until the trial, at least.”
“Of course not.” Matthew hesitated, then said, “Does it help you to talk about it after? Do you, I mean?”
“The Penelopes have customs about some of it. Otherwise we’d go off a cliff about it. That’s no good to anyone.” Then Claudio tilted his head. “I’m guessing you haven’t. You’ve been alone with it. With yours.”
“No. And there’s—” Matthew gestured back toward where they’d been.
“What gets me is that there’s simultaneously a rush of having figured out a way forward.
Maybe a solution, maybe just another few steps stumbling in the dark with a lousy dim light.
” Claudio’s mouth twitched upward at that; he clearly had that experience too.
“But then there’s realising the horrible things you’ve been dealing with, and you can’t talk to most people about it. Maybe you can?”
“Lucky that way. Now.” Claudio’s lips pursed, then carefully, he reached out a hand to rest his fingers on Matthew’s hand. It wasn’t, in a purely definitional way, a particularly intimate touch. People did, after all. Now Matthew stared down at it.
They were private, sound but also a sort of shimmer that made it hard to see the details of what they were doing, facial expressions or something like this.
Besides the fact that they were in the back corner and no one was aimed their way.
The nearest two tables had games of cards going.
Claudio added, before Matthew had to figure out what to say.
“It shapes you. Going alone. Besides the nightmares. A bit of my war, I couldn’t talk about.
It’s a lot worse when there’s no one but the inside of your head. ”
“Yeah,” Matthew let out a puff of air. “People don’t understand.
May Day was sort of horrific that way. Mum had invited someone my older brother had walked out with.
She’s a widow now. Young daughter, obviously the nice, stable Ministry job is appealing.
Or a nice steady job, anyway. She doesn’t think much of Trellech.
I just couldn’t figure out how to say any of it.
Not the bit about how I’d be a horrible husband.
Not the sort you were dealing with. I like to think I’m better than that.
But I wake up with nightmares, and I’m prickly, and there are all sorts of things I don’t know how to say.
And I’ve got no interest in a woman like that, but of course I couldn’t say that to Mum. ”
Claudio had not moved his hand, and Matthew was becoming more and more aware of that. Softly, Claudio said, “Oof. What did you do in the end? You did something?”
“Excused myself for a smoke. My uncle came out, and something I said got him to realise the, I don’t know, size of the problem?
He was in the trenches during the Great War.
I said it was like that. I didn’t want to hurt him, and I probably did.
But it got the point across, so I also don’t know that I actually feel sorry about it.
Calibration problem, yeah? Anyway, he’s more or less got Mum off my back.
Not that she’s apologised, and solstice is going to be awful in a different way.
But I’ll deal with that when we get there, I guess. No use borrowing misery ahead of time.”