Gabe opened the door to the meeting room, leaned his cane against his thigh, and blinked. “So I should tell Isobel we might be a bit?” Isobel, in the hallway behind him, was a year or so out from finishing her apprenticeship. She could certainly start processing the materia they’d collected this morning and do it properly without his supervision.
Aunt Mason snorted, and Aunt Witt arched an eyebrow. They were seated facing the door, with Witt in the centre of the three seats on that side of the table and Mason to her right. Witt looked entirely proper, as always, while Mason’s hair was up in a remarkably tidy bun compared to her usual. She was setting out her pen and notebook.
Gabe glanced at Isobel, and let his mind shift over to a more professional mode. “Back down to my workroom, Isobel, and get a good start on the sympathetic resonances. I’ll be down when,” he turned back to the room, considering the number of chairs and the coffee and tea service. “Eventually.”
“I should get a sandwich for you from the canteen if it gets on for lunchtime.” Isobel had taken a step back when he paused, pushing a bit of her blonde hair back behind her ear from where it had escaped from her bun.
“Please.” If it were a substantial sort of project, he’d both need to eat and forget to eat. “And for yourself, mind.”
She laughed, turning away. She was wearing the near enough standard uniform of the Penelopes, as he was. In her case, that was a black skirt, dark green vest, and a white blouse. Like his, the cuffs were a bit splattered. They’d had a bit of a problem with the ink earlier, and there was a small rainbow of delicate pigment droplets like dots of embroidery. Ah, well. No help for it. He didn’t have time to go change. He’d grabbed his jacket on the way up here, and it hid most of the staining. It was rather artistic, actually. Rathna would approve of the bright colours.
Instead, he stepped inside and took his place, nodding at his two aunts by choice. They both looked particularly well, which suggested they knew what was going to get proposed here and approved of it. Mason had looked decidedly worn when she’d been out at the house on Saturday. Now, she had a better glow to her skin, rather than the more ashy pale brown she’d had then. He hadn’t seen Witt for a week. She’d been busy with some research. She had smudges under her eyes, but her cheeks were rosier.
He checked to see that they both had sufficient tea to be going on with and poured himself a coffee. The decent coffee, not the canteen. “You’re softening me up.” Gabe said it half-teasingly, half to see what other information he could get out of them. Now it was time to get himself settled and focused on the task at hand, not the dozen other things on his mind.
“We want your brain fully engaged, and I gather you were out early.” Witt waved a hand. He and Isobel had been on duty overnight, and they’d got called out at half-five, which his seniors clearly knew.
“All sorted now, other than the analysis. And Betts had a grand idea for simplifying some of that. She wants to talk it through with you, Mason, when you get a minute. Not urgent, but interesting.” Mason smiled at that. Those were the best conversations, the ones that fuelled them all.
Witt and Mason were largely retired from field work these days; they were both in their seventies and had declared that was what younger bodies were for. But they’d kept on coordinating the work as the senior most active Penelopes. No one - not the Ministry, not the Guard, certainly not their juniors - had wanted to argue with them. They didn’t miss much, and Gabe found it immensely reassuring, especially at the moment.
Before he could say anything else, he heard footsteps on the stone tile work, and he took his seat to Witt’s left. Right as he was properly settled, in came two men he knew by sight, and one woman he didn’t. He felt a faint shiver, the sort of thing he’d need to track down and follow to its root when he had a moment.
Cyrus Smythe-Clive was the head of the Council. He looked appropriately resolute and formal in a deep purple robe that was striking against dark hair and strong features. Malcolm Rolls was beside him, wearing a black robe over his suit, steady. He was the usual Council liaison to the Guard and Penelopes, so Gabe talked to him regularly. He thought the woman was Hespasia Wallace, one of the senior department heads of the Ministry Outside the Borders. That was curious.
He was fairly sure he knew more about Smythe-Clive these days than the man knew about him. Gabe had the advantage because Alexander Landry, also of the Council, was a close connection of Gabe’s family the last few years. But Alexander had kept that connection quite private, far more than his alliance with the Carillons on a number of matters. It likely meant Smythe-Clive only knew the public things, and Gabe could do a great deal with that. Gabe nodded once and let the senior Penelopes take the lead.
Witt, in specific. The Council didn’t know what to do with Mason’s tendency to associative thought - or Gabe’s - and Witt’s order and behaving to expectations was a much better choice to lead here. “Council Members, Minister. Please have a seat. Tea?” None of the three Penelopes moved. After a moment, Rolls went and got cups, bringing them back for the other two before gathering his own. He was the decidedly junior member, then, though he was fifteen or so years older than Gabe himself. One didn’t ask the experts to fetch your tea. It started the negotiations on entirely the wrong foot.
“We appreciate your time.” Smythe-Clive got right down to business. He was in control of himself and the setting, but Gabe could see the minute tell of his nerves about something in this situation. “We have a particular challenge at hand, and we do not know if the Penelopes are the solution. We are quite sure that if you are not, you will have an idea who is.” He glanced around from his place, across from Witt. “I assume there’s a reason you have Penelope Edgarton here, in particular.”
“Your request for this meeting mentioned the land magic. Edgarton is our choice for such matters, due to his own familial commitments and his long-standing interest in the land and all who live on it.” Witt was clipped and precise. Gabe inclined his head once. All three of them knew who he was, he was sure. Heir to his father, entering middle age himself, and established as an expert in his field, even if most people weren’t quite sure what that actually meant. He, himself, felt for the land magic, almost instinctively. There was the bubbling surge that always responded in Trellech, that this was land, but not his to particularly tend.
“There are several matters since the start of the war that have come to the attention of the Council and the Ministry.” Smythe-Clive went on without hesitation, though he was choosing his words carefully. “On the one hand, we have numerous reports of esoteric organisations from Britain seeking to lend their energies to occult protections of the land.” That meant folks not counted as magical by Albion’s standards. Certainly no one who’d made their promise to the Silence at twelve and was now bound by it. Gabe knew perfectly well that people dabbled. It was a significant part of the work of the Penelopes, to tidy up the mess when it went wrong.
“The Society of the Inner Light, and all that?” Mason was the one who spoke up, a bit surprisingly. “They’re sending out letters every week.” She glanced at Gabe and arched an eyebrow. “Two people I know are getting them.” Ah. One of them was his mother, then. The other was probably Doyle, his own former apprentice mistress. She liked a bit of esoteric literary analysis as a hobby.
Smythe-Clive nodded. “Exactly so. Good, so I don’t need to explain the context. We don’t want to stop them, mind. We instead need to make sure that whatever they get up to neither goes against the Pact, nor causes problems for those who are doing our own work on the magical front.”
That raised half a dozen questions for Gabe, and he pinched the skin between his thumb and index finger to keep from saying anything. He hoped Witt and Mason appreciated his self-restraint and containment. Fortunately, Witt asked one of the most demanding questions immediately. “And on the other?”
“We have verified reports of the Wild Hunt riding in the opening days of the war.”
There was dead silence in the room for a good minute. Focus was no longer a problem. Gabe’s mind was rapidly whirring through the implications. He desperately wanted to discuss this with half a dozen people. They’d not sworn him to secrecy. Everyone he wanted to talk to was either on the Council or sworn as an analyst to the Guard or under the same oaths. Even his wife. He had an idea what Mason and Witt were working through as well.
When no one spoke, Gabe finally leaned forward slightly. He could feel something spinning now, the sorts of magics that changed the world. “That would be a Council matter, surely?” By one count, each of the Council was a twenty-first part of a sacred king. They were ennobled and enjoined by the Pact to handle those matters that needed negotiation between humans and the Fatae, after the Fatae had retreated to their own magical realms.
Smythe-Clive spread his hands. “Yes. And no. We have no one available who can travel widely who can be spared for this. And no one who has the range of skills. We have duellists, alchemists, ritual specialists, experts in protective magic, illusionists. But we need, we think, someone who can be a dozen things, and do them well.”
Well, that was Gabe, in a nutshell. “And able to pass between magical and non-magical society easily. Comfortable with both.” Which he was. He lived and breathed a life woven through the magical community’s heart, half a dozen ways. But he also delighted in a day at the British Museum Library, or a lecture on the latest natural history in London, or even listening to a skilled mechanic go on about the wonders of an automobile. And he could wander agreeably through London’s markets and drive a suitably hard bargain, without drawing much notice. Or he had, before the war began, and he hoped he would still when it ended. Not that he said any of that.
“Exactly.” That was Wallace. She had a remarkably pleasant voice. “The Ministry and Council are willing to provide support - staffing, equipment, all that - for a suitable person to take the lead on it. We do not know where to send someone. That is the first part of the task.”
Frankly, for a Penelope, that was an average Tuesday. Gabe considered saying so, but a look from Witt made him subside. Witt made a series of precise inquiries. They were all about clarifying what that support meant in practical terms. Gabe didn’t follow all of it, but he thought it meant half a dozen analysts and secretaries, an alchemist on tap, and high priority draw on materia. Ah, no. Not just for this project, the materia, Witt was making short work of arguing they should also get priority for other projects of national interest.
In a different time, Gabe would have found the negotiations fascinating. He always did. This time, though, he was trying to decide what it meant, how he would tackle it. Mind, none of them had said that he would. He could think of a dozen reasons he should be the one to do it, and rather more that made that complex.
For one thing, it would likely mean a lot of travel, and even with the portals, he’d be away from home far more than he preferred. For another, nothing about this was simple, and a lot of it was potentially dangerous. Not so much physically, he could take care of himself there, but magically. Arguably spiritually, if the various things he’d picked up about what the Germans were up to on the magical front were valid. He’d be in the midst of it.
When Witt wound down, Wallace looked amused and surrendered with good grace. “That’s about what I expected we’d actually come to.” Clearly she knew Witt’s measure there well enough.
Smythe-Clive cleared his throat. “I assume you have someone in mind, Penelope Witt?”
Witt didn’t look at him, she didn’t need to, her fingers had brushed his in signal under the table, and he’d already replied. “We are glad to assign Penelope Edgarton to this matter, as well as his apprentice Isobel Thomas. We’ll consult about the analysts and other staff once we have the full brief on what you have in mind.”
Gabe smiled cheerfully. Oh, they were going to have questions; he knew that. He wanted them to.
It was Rolls who first cleared his throat. “Pardon, this might require quite a bit of travel and ...” He gestured with his chin. “I know you use a cane, routinely.”
Gabe didn’t bother to glance at it. “I do. I can, however, ride anything with four legs, rope myself up to climb a mountain, and run a good few miles without tiring if I’ve got the right boots on. I can fight a duel and best near anyone except the top duellists of Albion, and I’d give them a fair run. I have acknowledged expertise among the Penelopes in architectural and structural magic, with a decided sideline in those magical effects touching on the land magic. I can identify most native plants, animals, reptiles, and fungi, and more importantly, I know the limits of my knowledge. My ritual skills, formal and informal, pass muster with several acknowledged experts of Albion, and my wife’s knack for sympathetic magic has transitive properties.”
He considered and added a smile. “And I am no longer nearly as impulsive as I was in my youth, which means I give Mason and Witt somewhat fewer white hairs every year.” They both laughed at that, uniformly, from his right, and the tension in the room cracked. It meant Gabe went on. “My ankle’s not as sound as some, but it’s more a question of pain than a limitation of movement. I have a great deal of experience working through it.”
Smythe-Clive considered. “What’s your duelling standard, then?”
“I look forward to my matches with Isembard Fortier, and we’re evenly partnered. I think I’m currently ahead by three bouts, but I picked up a new trick on a trip to India two years ago that I’ve been improving.” Isembard was the Protective magics professor at Schola, well known to the Council members. He consulted for them, and Isembard’s brother Garin had been on the Council for years. And it was a connection Gabe could make clear, because Rathna and Thesan were known to collaborate. “I don’t advertise my skills generally. It’s such a bother when people try to rise to the challenge when you had something else to be doing.”
There was a silence again, this time more amused. Good, the way he’d gone at that had hit exactly the right note.
“All right.” Smythe-Clive wasn’t going to argue. That was good. “Let’s get down to the details, as we know them at the moment. Malcolm, you have the materials?” The other man produced a stack of folders from a satchel and handed them out. Gabe thumbed through them, paused ten pages in, glanced at Mason, and got a nod. They’d be here for a bit, but this might just be captivatingly interesting.