The fencing school recommended by Lynsey Blair proved to be a nest of United Albion sympathisers. This did not surprise Rian in the least, and she danced around their avid interest in dragons while learning all she could about their former Alban instructor.
This was little enough. Lynsey was twenty-two, and had been born in Craigneith. She had taken a first in mathematics from Argynion, but had followed her interest into practical combat, and made it a career. Her family had suffered a slide in fortune, thanks to some complication of an entailed property, but were otherwise unremarkable.
Since casual gossip did not produce any revelations, Rian abandoned this particular rabbit to concentrate on lessons. Her instructor, Dem Tilit—a short, scarred man originally from Wabanaki—outlined the stages of her training, then taught her how to grip a wooden practice sword, and began on foot placement and movement.
"Do not concern yourself too much with the weapon, just yet," he said, as she attempted to keep her knees slightly bent and her feet facing in different directions. "Until this is second nature to you, your drill will be entirely stance and movement. No, keep your back straight. And forward. Retreat. Yes. Practice that for the next week, at least an hour each day."
With thigh muscles screaming after even a short lesson, Rian did not regard this command with any enthusiasm, but thanked her teacher and took her time in the changing room, thinking over protective clothing and practice rooms. The school would rent her equipment, such as the wooden practice weapon she was taking home today, but obtaining her own would be necessary. Strange not to have to budget for the cost, let alone the time involved.
"Arianne!"
"Lyle." Rian thought he looked particularly well that evening, dressed more casually than usual, but very handsome. "Come to watch me sweat?"
"Should I admit to it?" he asked. "My excuse is making good on my invitation to dinner. I know the area thanks to Lynsey, and there's an excellent place down the street that's used to the students and their weapons."
"That sounds ideal," Rian said, hefting her cloth-wrapped stick-with-a-hilt, and followed him down the stairs from the fencing studio. "You seem to be spending more time in Prytennia than Alba at the moment."
"Or my mornings in one and evenings in the other," he agreed. "Alba initially escaped most of the scouring, but as it's grown worse, Prince Gustav's become less inclined to leave Prytennia to solve this herself. Not least because if he should happen to ride in heroically and fix things, there's every chance the vote to extend the Protectorate will pass. I am, incidentally, under orders to cultivate you. I expect you understand why."
"Shattered dragon, etcetera etcetera," Rian said. "I am very bored with being asked."
"Playing witness to that foreseeing won me no end of approval, however. It was very obliging timing." He led her to an unprepossessing door that opened on to a gust of spicy scents, and a busy interior, worn but clean.
"Do you find all the conflicting loyalties difficult to manage?" Rian asked, as she glanced over the menu tacked by the door. "Alba first, and Gustav second, and with a sister who is a Unionist? Doesn't that make the prince suspicious?"
"Gustav trusts me to be Alban," Lyle said, with a satiric tilt to his brows. "He has other aides for matters where it's necessary to be Swedish. Lynsey…well, Gustav admires Lynsey very much and she wisely avoids him. Probably the best thing about her deciding to work for Folly is it'll keep her safely out of Gustav's path."
Rian considered this while Lyle ordered and then led them to a table. Gustav would make a political marriage eventually, and—from what she'd seen of the man—probably keep several mistresses. She doubted Lynsey had the temperament for that: both the Swedish Empire and Alba allowed women to own property and seek careers and education, but they had the same confusing divide between 'proper' and 'improper' women that Rian had struggled to adjust to when she'd first started travelling. It was little wonder so many of the United Albion League happened to be female—particularly since Alba's inheritance laws favoured sons over daughters.
"And where do you stand on union?" she asked.
"My ideal would be for one of Alba's own gods to Answer," he said. "But I'm resigned to it not happening. We barely know their names, after so many centuries of the Duodecim, the Cour d'Lune, the Aesir and the Green Aesir. There is so little of the true Alba remaining: our days are Swedish, our months Roman and our years Egyptian."
"So are Prytennia's," Rian pointed out.
"But you at least have Sulis. For all the gods whose conquerors have trampled Alba's fields, not one could establish territorial allegiance. We thought it a triumph once, proof that we had our own Otherworld, that there was a place where Albans truly belonged. Now all I want is certainty."
"And you think Sweden will bring that?"
"They managed it with Greenland, and Highfall. It's one of the biggest advantages of the Protectorates—the Swedes are able to systematically bring about territorial allegiance with the Aesir through the simple choice of the people, and so I'm willing to encourage Alba to make that choice. Anything to end this eternal disadvantage to Alban souls, this uphill struggle to gain an Otherworld, or face unlife. To which point, I'm happy enough for a united Albion if you—or anyone—should happen to find the Dragon of the North, since Sulis and Arawn's territory is tied together. But enough of the Union—I'm sure you've had your fill of the subject. What did you think of Folly's collection of follies?"
"I liked it. But I'm afraid the children have ruled Tangleways out on account of animals and exercise. It's such an unusual array of classes—I would never have thought of teaching animal care in an academically-focused school."
Lyle laughed. "Folly met some precocious brat who didn't know where milk came from. That's what started him off on the whole thing. It's unfortunate: his heart's in the right place, and he's found some excellent teachers, but it's looking like the whole thing will flop badly."
"And then Lynsey will be back in Gustav's path?"
"Well, she'll be disappointed." His face grew solemn. "And is already dismayed, having learned who it is your family have recently lost. She looked up to Eiliff Tenning, and feels responsible for suggesting her for Folly's commission."
"How did Lynsey know Eiliff?" Rian asked, pleased not to have had to raise the subject herself.
"Through the Mini-T Scholars program—which actively recruits at Alban universities, and causes no end of tension in doing so. Fortunately Folly knows Lynsey well enough to be certain she hasn't gone around babbling about his secret projects to all and sundry."
"Did she tell you?"
"Well, yes." He grimaced. "At least, she mentioned that she'd been able to send a plum commission Eiliff Tenning's way. But I didn't know the details, and certainly haven't mentioned it to anyone. Even so, Lynsey's second-guessing herself, convinced she somehow caused this, so I've strongly hinted to Evelyn that he should go tour Folly's latest extravagance. That's sure to take her mind off blaming herself."
"Because?"
"Oh, Lyn's been in love with Evie since the first time I dragged her down to Sheerside. I pretend not to know. He certainly has never realised—thinks of her as my pig-tailed little sister. It would be unfair to tell him, don't you feel?"
"But you're telling me?"
Lyle's expression turned mischievous. "What's a little light sabotage between friends?" he asked, then leaned back as a server approached with a steaming platter.
Because she wouldn't indulge in an affair with Evelyn if she thought it would hurt Lynsey? Rian decided to take this leap of logic as a compliment, and settled back to enjoy a good meal with an accomplished flirt. The food was an eclectic mix—beginning with a Stomrurian grain dish, then a meat-and-potatoes staple, with a sorbet for afters—but it was all nicely done, though the wine a little heavy for her tastes. She didn't push particularly hard for information relating to Eiliff, and only learned that Lynsey would provide a little mathematical tutoring at Tangleways, along with swordcraft.
"Let me find you a taxicab," Lyle said, as they emerged back on the street.
"No need—that omnibus runs right into Lamhythe. Thank you again Lyle."
She kissed him lightly on the cheek—for they were cheekbones worthy of such a salute—and trotted to catch a passing omnibus. It was a new double-decker model, and yet steam-powered, and as she climbed up to the open top level to enjoy the evening breeze, she reflected on her involvement in matters that might solve the shortage of fulgite, and change how buses were made.
And then she thought about catching an omnibus, even though she could afford a taxicab easily. Habit dies hard. Still, the view was better, especially now that shadows held no mysteries for her.
And what now for her ponderously slow investigation? It had only taken most of summer, but at last the question of Lynsey was solved. Yet the answer brought her so little. Two weak suspects in Folly Fennington and his Matthiel. She was fairly certain Fennington had held back something about the third piece of unusual fulgite he'd retained—possibly an investigation into whether it had been artificially created—but her unreliable new sense had found a distinct lack of murderous guilt in any of the four who admitted to knowing about Eiliff's commission. If not them, then perhaps an eavesdropper?
The one thing she had gained, as tactfully as she could manage, was the name of the less-than-reputable person who had sold and then tried to buy back several pieces of unusual fulgite. She'd taken a certain pleasure in adding that to the brief report she'd sent on to the palace, and hoped very much that it was something that Makepeace had not already learned, when he'd questioned Folly Fennington before she had the chance.
Undecided on her next step, Rian allowed her thoughts to drift to flirtation. She did not mind that the pursuit had openly become part of Evelyn and Lyle's playful rivalry. No-one was pretending they had fallen in love. But was Lyle right in thinking that long-standing feelings on Lynsey's part would make Rian less inclined to trifle there? And what would it be like to bed anyone when contact would inconsistently tell her exactly what they were feeling? Exciting, or awkward?
A greater complication were her 'niblings', and whether the idea of aunts with lovers would put further strain on them. Particularly with Eleri, who would be raw to all instances of romance.
There was unmissable irony in an aunt and niece meeting the Queen's two daughters and having entirely opposite reactions to overwhelming attraction. Eleri saw Celestine and was convinced she had found the one person she would ever want to marry. Rian's pulse might quicken whenever she let herself think of Aerinndís Gwyn Lynn, but Rian also knew that she had a type—incisive, highly competent, and with a hint not so much of disdain as of being supremely hard to impress. This combination invariably hooked her deeply, and she had learned to recognise when she was being pulled off balance, and avoid the cause.
That was not a response she had considered wise to suggest to Eleri, and she hoped she'd chosen the correct attitude: to not quite dismiss the possibility that the girl might find some future with Princess Celestine, and to do what little she could to support plans for courtship. It seemed unhappy timing, though, for such a goal-oriented creature as Eleri to face another challenge that could not be reliably solved by a precisely-drawn schematic and a stint in the workshop.
Leaving the bus for the short walk back to Forest House, Rian set aside travails of the heart and tried to decide her next step. If the thieves suspected she had the last piece of artificial fulgite, could she use that to bait them? Or should she attempt again to communicate with the 'haunt' that seemed to drive the converted mannequin's movements? She'd chosen, at least, not to mention its existence to Lord Fennington, even though it appeared he was the true owner of both fulgite and finely-crafted commission.
"Llllland of Whores, Land of Euuu-nuchs!"
Two women and a man, arms linked, were making unsteady progress down the street toward her, bellowing Prytennia's unofficial national song. It must be later than she'd realised. Well-versed in the vagaries of drunks, Rian started to move further to the side of the street, but then stopped and stood still, concentrating.
"Lleeeeggss are wide, brrrreasts are bare!
"They'll wring you dry and hang you oooout to air!"
The three passed her by, weaving faintly and not glancing once in her direction. Which proved nothing at all, of course, especially since to them this would be a very dark and unlit section of street.
Shaking her head, Rian wondered if Makepeace would ever stop resenting her long enough to give her some idea what to expect. He was not someone who would respond well to polite requests.
A cool breeze whisking around her legs, Rian turned back toward Forest House, and then froze. Directly in front of her, running silently in place, was a long-eared, long-legged, and insubstantial black hare.
One of the Night Breezes of the Sulevia Sceadu.