Chapter 39
“Good evening, Claudio.” Mother came into the dining room, perfectly dressed. Particularly for a Sunday, where she’d been out in the afternoon, but he thought she’d been home for several hours. “Tiberius is out this evening, isn’t he?”
“He is.” Tiberius was out with Minerva, in fact.
He was escorting her to a summer concert in Trellech as a particular treat.
It was, he was fairly sure, also partly an excuse for the two of them to talk with no parent or grandparent being too nearby.
He came around to push Mother’s chair in as she sat and flicked the charm that would show they were ready for the meal with one finger. He took his seat.
The opening course— a chilled soup— was spent in ordinary conversation about the week.
Mother had been at the usual range of meetings, as well as two philanthropic gatherings.
She had spoken with Electra. There were plans for a shopping trip for a proper trunk before Minerva went off to tutoring school.
It was not the same school Tiberius had attended.
That had closed the previous year. But a cousin of the woman who’d run that had started one, focusing particularly on music and the arts that seemed a good fit for Minerva’s interests.
The calendar involved a number of concert outings, as well as practice space for those who played instruments, like Minerva’s piano.
Claudio was pleased it had worked out so smoothly, and grateful to Electra for having done most of the practical work on it.
As he’d told her again that afternoon. He continued to be relieved that while they’d never been passionate about each other— for reasons he was coming to understand better now— they continued to work well together when it came to their children.
Not like Orion and his first wife, for all Orion had given her a number of chances to do better by their children.
Likewise, the entrée course went simply enough.
Mother did not inquire about his work. She never did.
But she asked if he’d read two recent articles, one about alchemy, one about a sympathetic magic theory.
He’d read both and naturally referenced several pieces of current materia research in the process.
He’d read two of the materia pieces because Hypatia had mentioned them, and the third because Matty had passed it along to both Claudio and Hypatia.
Who had apparently flung herself upon it with exclamations and red ink queries, which was at least entertaining Orion.
Translating that into something Mother would make sense of, however, was a challenge.
Claudio settled for noting that the third one had serious quality concerns, and a synopsis of the most relevant problems. He saw her decide to shift the conversation before she did, as they were both finished with their plates.
He was, perhaps in self-defence for the way he’d been raised, particularly attentive to her tells.
She didn’t have many, but he had a lifetime of observing them. Definitionally.
“We should talk about a particular matter.” That was unsubtle by her standards. Her voice was even, but he was clear she was being as deliberate about this as she ever had been in her life.
“Yes?” No ‘Mother’ on the end, he wanted to see if he could have this conversation without highlighting that aspect. “Do go ahead.” He was bracing himself now. She had not brought up the gossip since it happened. Not to him. Only barely with Mabyn, from what Cyrus had conveyed in a thoughtful note.
“Others have noticed how you are behaving in the preparations for your Challenge. Obviously, they assume that I have opinions and expect that you have consulted me.” Her lips were tight, but Claudio could not decide, not with the narrow lines of information available to him, whether she was more angry or frustrated.
He was not as gifted at reading emotions in conversation as either Gabe or, admittedly, Ursula were.
Being her son did not convey any particular benefit here.
“People do like their gossip.” Claudio said it evenly.
“I am confident in my preparations. Of course, what happens in the Challenge will be what it will be. But I am certain that I am approaching it in the proper way for who and what I am and what I might offer.” There, that was a framing he could be proud of when he told Gabe tomorrow.
Or maybe later tonight by note. Gabe was busy tomorrow, dawn to after dark, unless at least two of his current investigations went more quickly than expected.
“Who have you consulted, may I ask that?” Mother was watching him now, rather like Cammie watched rabbits before fascinating them with leaps and twists and a sudden death.
“Oh, everyone you expect. Gabe. Orion. Alexander. Cyrus has had a few suggestions, and I had a question for Paul last week he was pleased to help with.” He gave most of the names, but left out Mary.
Mary Sprite had no desire to make her considered shifts in affiliation visible to anyone yet, and he respected that.
“And of course, my own understandings of the history, patterns, and customs of the Council, as much as can be observed from the outside.”
“You have not asked me. Why not?” Mother’s voice had a sharper edge.
“What would you tell me now that you have not told me before?” He could match her at that.
Not that he let himself become sharp, exactly.
It was far more like building a wall, sturdy, the way Orion’s magic made protections.
Not just solid, but strategically designed to deflect damage away from those it sheltered.
There was a silence, one that grew longer and longer.
Claudio waited it out. He could. There were plausibly things she might offer that he would leap at.
But they were not, he was fairly sure, things that she would actually put forward.
Not unless something changed in her. Those things might change.
If their theory was right about her seat and the archetype of the Fool, there were changes there, waiting.
The question was whether she’d move forward in some way or not.
But he could not hope for that. He’d hoped before, and nothing had happened.
Not from Mother. Not from Father. He’d learned that hoping for anything beyond what he knew from either of them would break his heart.
He’d learned to look to other stars for hope, as Thesan would put it.
Claudio had to work for a moment to keep himself from smiling at that.
After a good two minutes, she said, her voice just as measured as before, “You find others more forthcoming.”
“Yes.” It was a simple statement of fact. She must have known that already, long since.
“Are they also forthcoming with the fact that there has been gossip? About your personal habits?” Now her lips were pursed, a straight line, unyielding.
“My friends have let me know, yes.” Claudio didn’t specify when, or how, or which friends.
Though she’d certainly correctly assume that Orion was one of them.
Claudio had privately won a bet with himself about how long it would take her to bring the matter up with him.
Up to this point, she had said nothing about it at all, not in their two weekly suppers since or any of the other opportunities she might have arranged.
“I have been asked if it is true. I did not have a suitable answer.” His mother was watching him now, a different sort of look.
Not a predator waiting to pounce, exactly, and he would be thinking for a long time about what metaphor might serve.
He might need to consult Gabe’s encyclopaedic knowledge of natural history.
Claudio permitted himself one small shrug. “I did mention that I was seeing someone you would not approve of.”
“But not why?” There was the knife-blade, though it did not pierce. They’d need to have a far different relationship for her emotions to have that sort of effect now. She was tense all through her body. He could read that easily.
“In what world do we have a relationship where that’s something I might say to you, Mother?
Where that was ever going to be a permitted topic?
” Claudio kept his voice absolutely even.
Not neutral, he could not be neutral about this.
Being neutral would be in direct opposition to the way he was shaping himself for the Challenge.
There was so much more he wanted to say, and he didn’t.
He would see what she did, he would play out the battle, and he would trust that everything he’d learned from people other than his parents would be enough.
There was silence again, a silence edged around with sharp blades, where any movement had painful consequences.
Claudio just waited. He’d learned how to wait, and admitted that was something his parents had taught him well.
Finally, she said, each word spaced out precisely, the consonants clipped. “We raised you better than that.”
“Define your terms.” He flung it the way he’d have flung a charm in a fight. Not a duel, a fight. Deliberate, sharp, fast, and aiming where it would connect. “Better?”
“You know what is expected of you.” Now the words had walls around them, as if they were echoing oddly for the size of the room.
“I have done every single thing you expected. I excelled in my classes and in my additional training. I married. I have fathered two children, growing in their own excellence. Which I define not by whether they have met my standards, but by whether they are happy and fulfilled.” That was something he had not been given.
“Now, I am choosing to go at the world my own way.”
“Why? What was not enough for you?” Mother gestured, a little sharp twitch of her fingers above the table. “Your marriage was a good one.”