“Lord Thanet?” Gabe cleared his throat cautiously. The older man was standing on the top of the Great Tower, looking out over the water, across to Calais. Not that one could actually see either Calais or, more relevantly, Dunkirk at the moment. “Your man told me you were up here. Can I be of help?” He leaned slightly on his cane. His leg was complaining about the number of stairs up to this point.
Lord Vitruvius Thanet was of the generation between Gabe and his parents, but there were ways in which he hearkened to Gabe’s grandmother’s era in attitude. He’d left Isobel down with the car. No need to subject her to this particular conversation. It was delicate enough as it was; he didn’t need to juggle the man’s attitudes toward Isobel herself as well.
Papa and Lord Thanet were civil enough when it came to issues that touched them both. Or, more to the point, issues that touched the land magic. Kent was Kent. It did not care so much where the boundaries of who was responsible for which bit of the land’s magic might be. But it was a touchy sort of civility, with something sharp boiling just under the surface. In older times, they’d probably have had a proper duel and sorted it out and been able to leave it. But Papa was a duellist, and Lord Thanet wasn’t and had the sense to know it, and so it was like a dog that worried at a bone long past any usefulness.
Gabe had an even more tenuous place. Lord and Lady Thanet were civil to Gabe too, but it was a bare and scant sort of civility. No snub direction, but certainly no invitation to even the most general sort of casual conversation, even when they were next in line to each other at some procession or another.
It wasn’t even about Rathna, which Gabe would have hated, but which would have made some sense. Or not sense, but which was common enough that Gabe had a reliable method for how to handle it. They’d been like that since Gabe had apprenticed. Before, a bit. And they weren’t even the ones he’d doused with wine when he flipped a table over, entirely accidentally, when he was eleven.
He’d apologised for that, profusely, not that it had helped. Mama had told Gabe it wasn’t a thing he could mend, he’d just have to work around it. He had, up until this point. Only now he couldn’t leave the man alone. Some things mattered more than old aggravations.
Lord Thanet was also - as he’d learned from talking to Alexander and Cyrus and Mabyn - one of the ones who was being difficult about joining up when it came to shared protections. Kent was at the forefront of the worry there, along with Hampshire and the rest of the lands along the south coast.
Hampshire was fine, Geoffrey was sensible. He’d seen the last War up close, and he knew what they might be facing. West Sussex was held by the Fortiers, and Alexander was able to negotiate with Garin Fortier, at least. The Edgartons’ edge of the coastline was well enough. But from east of Folkestone? That was another matter entirely.
Thanet and his lady wife were both given to alchemy and materia. They were fine magical arts, but not as focused on the protection of the land and her people as they might be. Worse, they didn’t want to listen to expert advice. They wanted to keep with methods that had been outdated in the last war, if not well before. That was not today’s problem, though it might well be tomorrow’s or next week.
Right now, what mattered was a miracle. With any luck, some number of men would be coming across an ocean, threading through minefields and avoiding U-Boats and other disasters. Dover lay in the Thanet part of Kent, but not by so much as that.
Thanet looked him up and down, grunting once, before staring back out over the water. “What sort of help could you be?”
“For one, sir, I’ve access to the latest news from the journals, including the Guard reports. For another, I - and my apprentice, she’s downstairs - are glad to lend whatever we can to the effort.”
Another grunt. “Not your sort of problem, now is it? These are fighting men. Brave men, seen things you can’t dream of.”
Gabe didn’t twitch. It was an old barb, one that Rathna had helped him defang years ago now. It still smarted, but Lord Thanet hadn’t bothered to learn even the public truth. He just mocked Gabe as weak, for not having gone to the War in 1918.
Now, Gabe just shrugged. “Of course they have, sir. As you did in the last War.” He’d fought, though mostly a safer sort of fighting, behind the trenches making decisions that got other men killed. Gabe had - on purpose - not dug into the specifics beyond that. If Lord Thanet had a part in the death of Gabe’s village friends, or in Del’s life-changing head injury, Gabe would have had to do something about it. And that would cause problems, even the more subtle forms of misery any trained Penelope could arrange without getting caught. Besides, Gabe in fact did have ethics.
Lord Thanet grunted one more time. He continued looking out to sea, not even acknowledging Gabe so far as that. “What do you think you can do, then?”
“Vitality, if you need it.” Gabe led with that. He didn’t much want to share his magic with this man. He could think of thousands of people he’d rather do that with. Possibly hundreds of thousands, by category. Every fishwife along the Thames, for example. “Relay communications. I’ve the Guard news access, as I said. Both Isobel and I are trained in emergency healing. We can get a few people to the portal, and on to Trellech, I brought our car.” He inhaled, then added, “And whatever help I can be with the land magic.”
“Your father?” Thanet looked over his shoulder at that. “He should be the one here.”
“Coordinating the Guard response.” Gabe half-closed his eyes, feeling for his father’s magical signature. It was one of those things that worked far better on Kent’s fair lands. “Down on the beach, there. With your permission, he’d like to do the rituals for Vortimer’s Arm.” Bones, buried a millennia and a half ago, to protect Albion from invasion.
He gestured, pointing out a knot of people laying out preparations, a dozen people in the Guard uniform. From here, it looked like just another of the aid battalions, all smart navy wool that would be battered and drenched within an hour or two.
Thanet grunted again. “And you’re not?”
“I’m not in the Guard.” Gabe shrugged. “Different skills.”
“Scrying?” Thanet kept scanning the water.
“Some. Not much weather magic.” Gabe hesitated, but the way the man kept looking made Gabe think he was right. “Are you looking for something specific, sir?”
That got him a sharp look. “Think you’re clever, son?”
Not your son. And yes, Gabe did think he was clever. Or rather, he knew he was and didn’t need to defend himself on that count. Water was wet, the sun shone above, Gabe was clever. They were simple realities. “I’ve a device with me, sir, that might be a help.”
“Something bound to you?” Thanet leaned forward a hair, and Gabe knew he had a hit.
“I can set it for you, sir. It goes on your head, acts like a telescope, more or less. Magically focused, it’s possible to use a charm to direct you toward a particular object if you can describe it using locational or sympathetic resonances.”
“Let me have it, then.” An order, not a request, but Gabe wasn’t going to fight that battle. Not here, not now. And who knew, maybe being generous here would make something easier down the road. Gabe was doing this by feel, by thinking about what Rathna would tell him about restraint and patience and feeling for the magic of the earth and rock. Besides, Thanet hated his hastiness, his leaps of logic, the way his mind worked best. He’d have to hold back to have any hope of progress, no matter how tiring and hobbling that was.
Silently, Gabe opened the satchel over his shoulder, drawing out the broad shallow wood case. He set it on a wooden bench, fitting the lens to the strap carefully. He straightened up, holding it out in his hands. “I am glad to do the charm work if you let me know what you’re looking for.”
“The Ridgeway. Small vessel. There’s someone on it, I hope.” Someone else - near anyone else, Gabe would have asked who, if it were family or some particular connection. Here, he didn’t. “What do you need to know?”
“Size, material, anything you know about when to expect her.” Gabe used the feminine for ships, as one did. There was an interesting linguistic tendency there, a rabbit hole for him to chase some night when he couldn’t sleep. The day after the day this evacuation was over, probably.
Thanet shook his head once, like shaking off a fly. “Wood, about thirty-foot, usually a fishing boat.”
Gabe contemplated that for a couple of seconds, how to name that in the enchantment, then he put together a string of Latin, under his breath. Mason would be proud of him, and Witt would make him decline his nouns better, but it would work and that was what mattered. After five breaths, he held it out. “This strap over your head, tighten the others so it’s steady, or I can do that for you, sir. Please don’t touch the lens itself. It smudges very easily and takes a while to clean.”
The man would not be helped, Gabe saw that at once, so he stepped back, folding his hands over the handle of the cane so he wouldn’t fidget. He saw the moment when the effect kicked in, as Thanet took a staggering step back, and Gabe refused to admit he’d seen it. He kept his face steady and polite.
Thanet recovered quickly enough, beginning to scan the water. “What’s the range?”
“A good few miles on that setting. Enough to cross the Channel near here.”
“Do you know why the smoke?” Gabe hadn’t had a look, but he knew why. The journals were a miracle of their own that way.
“The Luftwaffe bombed Dunkirk harbour.” He cleared his throat, carefully. “Last I heard, they couldn’t take the more direct route. They may be coming in more from the west. The ship it’s set for, the Ridgeway, should be in sharp focus, everything else much less so.”
It got him another grunt. Lord Thanet’s mother clearly hadn’t put the time into teaching him to be a charming conversationalist. Mama had drilled Gabe on that endlessly, though at least she’d made it interesting. They stood in mutual silence for a good five minutes before Thanet let out a long sigh. “I see her. Closer in than I expected.”
“I’m glad, sir.” Gabe didn’t make a move. This was the delicate point, whether this had made any difference at all.
“Your father said you’re working on a project to unite protections. I have no truck with that. We’re lords of the land. We stand for the land and the people, and what suits him does not suit me.” Thanet didn’t look at Gabe, he kept watching the water. But his tone was a bit more conversational, not as rigid as earlier.
“I am, sir.” Gabe hesitated, checking with himself, with the land, to see whether this was the time to launch himself. “Can I ask, sir, what might convince you?”
“A unanimous vote of the Council, and we all know you won’t get that.” Gabe could make that count, too. They had a solid majority for this, but not unanimity. “Or a sign from the Fatae, the sort of thing that can’t be forged.” Theoretically, the Council could arrange something like that, but whether they could in reality was an entirely different sort of question.
“Do you think the others would accept the same?” Gabe kept his voice even, the way he did when questioning someone in a case, letting them hear he wasn’t making assumptions at all, just taking everything in.
Thanet moved his head slightly, winced, and went back to looking out over the water. “I think it would change the ground, certainly. If you produce such a thing, I’ll cooperate, and tell everyone why. How’s that?”
“Quite fair, sir.” Gabe took a slightly easier position. The question was still impossible, the sort of thing he couldn’t shift, no matter how clever he was. But he could take it to Alexander, to Geoffrey, and to Cyrus and Mabyn, and the others who were cooperating, and he could see what ideas they had.
After a moment, Thanet took the straps off. “I can see her getting close. I’ll go down to the docks.” He hesitated. “You mean it, about the help? Here and now?”
“In the service of the land all my days, and here, especially, right now. As long as I’m needed.”
“Can you get yourself down to the ground level, somewhere I can find you again when I need you, and set up Thanet’s Eighth?”
Gabe knew it, of course he knew it. Not his favourite of the supportive rituals for the land. But of course the Thanets would prefer it and use it, it had been their umpteenth great-grandfather who’d come up with it. “Of course, sir.” He glanced over the edge of the tower. “I’m thinking there, when you want me again. I’ll set my apprentice to running messages.”
“Good.” Thanet exhaled. “Having someone else to anchor will be a help. Bring all our boys home safe, as many as we can.”
“That is all I want at the moment, sir.” Gabe leaned to put his device away, giving time for Thanet to lead the way down the stairs. They had work to be doing.