“What are you trying to sort out, sir?” Isobel caught herself before Gabe could say anything in reply. “Pardon, sorry, not that.” He expected her to apologise for overstepping. She had a tendency to do that, even when she hadn’t. Instead, she shook her head as if to clear it. “I know what you’re working on. My question is about the mode.”
“The mode?” They were in the New Forest, about at the midpoint, having borrowed horses from Geoffrey for what could pretend to be a pleasant ride. They were skirting well away from the towns with better connections to the outside world, like Brockenhurst.
“You’re...” Isobel pulled her mare to a stop, and Gabe did the same. “You were all over the place, sir, before. And then you were settled. And now you’re not, again, but it’s different. Is it just Mistress Rathna being gone?”
“You don’t have to use the title, you know.” Gabe knew he wouldn’t win this particular battle with Isobel’s formality, though he was going to utterly treasure the moment she referred to him just as Edgarton. Whenever that came.
“Sir.” That was amused and disapproving, both, and she didn’t bother to comment further. “What I can’t make out is why it’s different. Obviously, you’re worried.”
“I am. They were likely to get to Donnart today if all went well, she hasn’t had time to write much. They got held up in both Basel and Amsterdam, people wanting to be difficult about the papers, and then they needed a bit of quiet with the portals. Which was, you know, midnight or something like that.” Gabe pulled his cap off his head, and ran his hand through his hair. Then he reached back to arrange the braid so it sat tidily and wouldn’t be too obvious.
He kept to the old custom of Albion, that hair held power, and kept his long. The length of it was tucked down the back of his shirt again. Isobel did the same, but it was far more common for women than men, even in this era of curls and waves and even a fringe. He might well need to cut it if they had to mingle more, but he hoped not.
The mare he was riding stamped once, and he grinned. “Up for a bit more of a ride? I was thinking to circle by Burley, see what I feel. Or - hmmm. Depends on your stamina.”
Isobel stretched slightly. “Which means we’re going to be out for hours, if I say yes.”
“You do know me.” Gabe grinned, cheered, a bit despite himself. “We’re in Bolderwood, now. I’d like to go down to the Naked Man.”
“Pub, landmark, or someone who really ought to reconsider his choices, seeing as how it’s early March after the coldest winter in near a century?”
Gabe let out a barking laugh. “Landmark. A particular tree, in this case. Stump of a tree.” He gestured. “If we make a large circle, it’s about a twenty-mile ride. Though there’s a good pub on the way back, Rufus says. We can stop in there for a pint and something to eat.”
“So, five hours or so at a walk. This is one of your fiendish plans to get me comfortable doing an extended trot and canter, isn’t it?” She was a perfectly reasonable rider, about Rathna’s current standard, but she needed to build stamina and confidence. Not everyone had to match Gabe’s skill. Or his father’s or Geoffrey’s or Rufus’s. On the other hand, it was the lot of a Penelope to need to get places quickly that were not handy to a portal. And seeing as that was how he’d met Rathna, it often had unexpected benefits besides.
“It might be. You know how I like to have a thing that’s useful in half a dozen ways.” Gabe waited to see what she did with that.
Isobel let out a long, beleaguered sigh. He’d felt a lot better about her insistence on the formal title when she’d started doing that. Quite early on, though, he was fairly sure it was after Doyle had a talk with Isobel. His own apprentice mistress had opinions about Gabe and what was good for him, as was right and proper. And Mason and Witt would have left that bit of education in managing the chaos that was Gabe to Doyle. She had first dibs. “All right. I’ll cope.”
Gabe had been about to ride off, but he tightened his legs, without really thinking about it, and shifted his weight. The mare he was riding backed up until he was parallel to Isobel. “You could stay at Veritas, you know.”
He’d managed to completely wrong-foot her. Delightful. Glorious, in fact. One of the things he liked about her very much as an apprentice was that he had to work for that.
“I couldn’t. It’s not proper.” Her voice had gone breathy.
“You’re my apprentice. We’ve been in far more improper places.” They were at what, five months in a tent or a bothy or a rundown cottage on cases at this point if he added it all up. “And it’s not as if there aren’t plenty of other people around the place. The guest rooms are on the far side from mine. The food’s better.”
“That’s not a high bar to get over.” The refectory wasn’t horrible, but they were cooking things that had to hold for a long meal period and an unknown number of people eating. “You can’t just invite someone like that.”
“Yes, I can. Mama suggested it a while ago, actually, but up until now we’ve mostly been working from Trellech. If you’re out at Veritas, we don’t have to wait for that portal unless we need the office.” His logic was impeccable.
He could see Isobel was thinking about arguing with him. “If I say yes, what am I in for?”
“Lots of discussions in the library. Plenty of working through notes. Probably me blowing up the workroom once a fortnight or so. You can help. That’s about my current average. You can watch me duelling, and we can keep getting your skills up. Without having half the Guard watching.” There had been a tremendous amount of that. It soaked up all the spare time Gabe might have once had.
“That’s an incentive.” She didn’t like being watched, Gabe had discovered. He didn’t exactly care to show off his skills, but he didn’t mind informed viewers.
“And a very nice soaking bath. I mean, the ones in the suites are fine, but there’s the Roman bath. You have to pry Mama out of there with a stick some days. Nothing better after a long day in the field.”
“You’re not making this easy. No one will, I mean.” She ground to a stop.
“Half the Penelopes have entirely unusual sorts of personal arrangements. More than half, I haven’t actually counted up recently.” He shrugs. “This one is actually terrifyingly traditional. It’s odd we don’t have you live with your apprentice master or mistress, like most apprenticeships.”
“Because,” Isobel pointed out, “of all those unusual arrangements. Also, the usual difficulty of finding a spare bedroom that isn’t covered with books, turned into an alchemy laboratory, or whatever it is Mason does with paints and inks. Or something else.”
“She also has a darkroom and a stillroom. Though, admittedly, only by sacrificing what used to be the box room.” Gabe nodded and said. “Talk as we ride?”
She got her horse walking, and Gabe fell in beside her. They were on one of the smaller paths, and just had to keep an eye out for the local livestock. “Will it help you if I’m there?”
That was a very clear-eyed question. Gabe nodded once. “It will. I mean, I’ll try not to drag you out of bed, metaphorically speaking. I’d just bang on your door or something. But some of my best ideas come at odd times.”
Isobel looked him up and down. “All right. I’ll have to pack my things. Not tonight, even if the bath is tempting. Tomorrow.”
“I can get someone to come by the apprentice dorms with a cart. Ten?”
She snorted. “Nine. We’ll have a full day’s work. If that’s not a bother for them.” Her voice got an odd note. “I’m not—”
“The apprentice rooms have staff. Just a bit different. You know we make sure everyone’s treated well, that they can get the education and training to move on to other things if they want.” He felt more than a bit embarrassed sometimes at the sheer number of staff Veritas employed, but many of them insisted they’d rather be there than elsewhere. They did treat people well, and the work was varied, with everything from Mama’s parties to Papa’s magisterial duties to Gabe dragging people home to talk with them at length.
“How much managing your files am I in for?” That was also an excellent question from her, really. And not one of his good skills.
“I could, in fact, use someone to make sure I’m not late for half a dozen meetings a week. And that the stacks of files on my desk get reduced over time rather than toppling.” Finding things in files was, at least often enough, exciting. Putting them back was decidedly not.
“Still.” Gabe watched her, thoughtful now. She’d certainly shaped herself into a distraction to get him to settle, and he had no idea if she’d done it deliberately. Isobel wasn’t exactly disapproving, but she saw a shape to the thing that he didn’t quite, and that was exceedingly interesting. “All right.”
They rode along in agreeable silence for a bit, first at a walk. They picked up a comfortable trot once they got over the road that cut through the New Forest, and into the woods beyond. The ground was smooth enough they could have a reasonable canter. It meant they pulled up to the Naked Man at about one.
“So, landmark, then. What was it?”
Gabe pulled up his mare to a tree stump covered in ivy. It had been a massive tree, once upon a time, but a stump as long as Geoffrey had been alive, and then some. “A gibbet, when it was still standing. For smugglers and highwaymen, so the legend goes.”
He heard the footsteps before anything else and forced himself not to turn with his usual reflexes. He did make it obvious to Isobel, and they’d not said anything that might cross the Pact. There was a man behind them, wearing a uniform, but by himself. “Afternoon.”
Gabe nodded back. “We were out for a bit of a ride.” He didn’t give his name. There were plenty of reasons not to. “I’ve been by this grand old former tree a few times. I wanted to show him off.”
The other man grunted. “Moving on, then?”
“Oh, got to get the horses back in time for their tea.” Gabe knew how Geoffrey made use of the slightly foolish aristocrat mode, and he could certainly do the same thing. “They’re some of Geoffrey Carillon’s. He was kind enough to lend them.” He didn’t use the title, as he was reasonably sure this man was not Albion.
“Ah.” That got another grunt. Also not informative. “Heard a bit about him.” He looked the mares up and down, but without a particularly trained eye. “Isn’t that rather far?”
“Thought we’d make the most of it when it wasn’t actually raining.” Gabe shrugged. There was something about this that was odd. Or rather, several things that were odd, and he wanted to count them up properly. “We should get on.” He’d hoped to have Isobel get a sense for the land here, but they could pick some other location for that. Perhaps they could circle back that way after the pub. “Ready?” That was directly to Isobel, of course.
“G’day.” It was gruff, uncompromising. Gabe waited for Isobel to get her mare going. They kept it at a leisurely walk until they were well away.
“Was that as queer as I thought it was?” Isobel’s voice was conversational. “What was he up to?”
“He was in uniform. I’ve heard rumblings - so has Geoffrey - about Brockenhurst being used for things. It’s on a train line, the roads are decent. We weren’t too far away. But what they’d want with that bit of clearing, I’ve no idea.”
“And you wanted me to do something there, didn’t you? Blast. Why do people have to be so, so pervasive?”
The tone in her voice, that mix of baffled annoyance, made Gabe laugh. “It’s a rather large forest, and yet, you keep tripping over people. Come on, pub, and then we can circle up back by the Knightwood Oak, and see if we have more luck there.”
“How do you know all this?” Isobel picked up a slow jogging trot. She was getting better at riding to it, excellent.
“Flung myself on Geoffrey and Rufus’s superior knowledge. I don’t need to know everything in the world. I just need to know who does.” It was, in fact, one of the keys to what any Penelope did. They all knew a great deal, but no one knew everything, and he had no shame in asking for expert advice. Especially, particularly, when it came to local magic.
The trick, always, was figuring out who was actually an expert, and who was pretending to be.