Rathna was near enough climbing the walls by the time Gabe, Isobel, and Rufus returned. Lizzie and Geoffrey had been exceedingly considerate, but none of it had helped.
Isobel had written right around dawn, when Gabe hadn’t yet woken. Now it was getting on for eight, and they were finally turning into the courtyard. Gabe was riding upright on his own, but she was certain it was only sheer bloody-mindedness and force of habit that was keeping him there.
As soon as the horses stopped, she was at his leg. “Come here, love.” He blinked at her, owlishly, as Rufus came over with one of the stable lads. Strong, broad-shouldered men, both of them.
“Here, mistress, or would it be better to get him back to Veritas?”
That was a trick to sort out. Only it wasn’t. He’d be better on his own land, even if he wasn’t going to be any good for the rites today. “Veritas, please.” She turned over her shoulder to nod at Lizzie and Geoffrey, Alexander standing beside them. “We’ll let you know?”
It got a silent nod, a half-salute from Geoffrey, and then Rathna was consumed in getting everyone home. Isobel, thankfully, was in better shape, and Ferdinand was glad to carry the satchel and lend an arm. Twenty minutes later, Gabe was tucked into bed in their rooms. Rathna had checked in with the children and Alysoun and Richard, before they went off to the village for the various festivities. Those were both about the wheat and about the bread.
She stayed and waited, hour on hour. She nibbled at sandwiches the staff had left; she drank tea from what seemed like an endless pot, and she flicked through pages in her book before going back to read them again, a dozen times. Around noon, she dared leave him for long enough to go downstairs to the stillroom and the potions cabinet, and pull out half a dozen options from the stores there.
It wasn’t until nearly three that Gabe made much noise. He normally moved around in his sleep without being restless. Today he slept like the dead. He wasn’t. She kept checking that he was breathing.
It wasn’t a nightmare that woke him. Gabe didn’t have nearly as many of those as he probably should, given his work. This time, it was him waking and reaching for something, his hand closing on the air, before he pulled his hand back toward his chest, curling around it.
She cleared her throat. Rathna had talked with others about it - Thesan and Lizzie, mostly. Their husbands had fought in the War, in ways they didn’t ever talk about, that stalked them in dreams. Thesan had been pragmatic about it, that she never got between Isembard and his magic, never between him and the door. She’d made it a habit, and Rathna didn’t have the knack of it.
All she could do was make a noise and wait. Gabe took far longer than usual to figure out what was going on, to blink at her and push up on one elbow before he fell onto his back. “Come here?”
She went, of course she did, settling on the bed with her foot tucked up, one hand resting on his shoulder. “Potion? Your choice of the pain potion you’ll probably take, the one you’ll resist but I have to try, the one I will make you take tonight if you don’t now, or a restorative. Or if you insist, a stamina potion or that one that makes you ignore everything your body is shouting at you.”
Gabe’s eyes wrinkled up at the list, at least a sign of his humour being largely intact. “The first and the restorative. We’ll see about the others.” He pushed up on an elbow as she reached for those two from the bedside table, his hand shifting to rest on the curve of her hip. He drained them and handed the empty bottles back. “Isobel?”
“Tucked into bed, one of the staff was checking on her regularly. In better shape than you are, from what I gather.” Her glance flicked up to the little lights. “Everyone else is still out, though I expect them back in an hour or two.”
Gabe nodded once, flopping onto his back, reaching for her fingers with his other hand. “You?”
“Not my favourite means of passing the time.” She hesitated. “Do you think it’s the sort of thing you’ll be taking up regularly?”
“Rituals with unknown groups all night? Four of us, I think, to the point of collapse? I have no idea. I don’t know how well it worked.”
“Well. Even if Hitler dropped dead of a heart attack, it would take a little to be sure of it. And that’s not what you were doing, was it?”
“Goodness, no. He’s got his own protections. That sort of frontal assault ends badly. Basic tactics. Ask Isembard or Alexander for the potted lecture.” Gabe blinked up at her. “Did I not explain that bit?”
“Only in snippets.” Rathna said. “To be fair, I was rather occupied at the time.” She let out a slow breath. “What do I need to know, then?”
There was a long silence, a time where Gabe didn’t say anything. He let his thumb brush against her skin in no particular rhythm or pattern, his eyes half closed. Finally, without opening them, he said, “I gave it my all. I don’t think she expected that. Any of the three that pronoun might apply to.” He stopped. “No. Two of the three didn’t. I think.”
“Define your terms, please? Or your personages.” Rathna was not entirely following, but she wasn’t expecting that at this stage. Gabe, in the midst of working through a problem, only glancingly made sense to anyone outside his head. Aunt Mason had slightly better odds sometimes, but only because she and Gabe shared a whole language of references strung together by tremendous leaps of logic.
“One, the land herself. That one’s known.” Gabe opened his eyes, watching her again. “Two, the Knightwood Oak. That’s where we were. I want to go back and take readings, actually, but...” He pushed up on an elbow. “Tomorrow.” He considered. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Ask Geoffrey to go. You know you can trust his work.” Rathna kept watching. Something was still odd. Out of place, maybe out of season. She didn’t begin to have the language for this.
Gabe shrugged once. “We’ll see.” That listlessness worried her more and more.
Now she leaned back. “Talk to me, Gabe.” It was not her habit to press. For one thing, she didn’t usually need to. Gabe, on average, moved at a dizzying speed.
He grimaced, rubbing his face with his free hand. “What am I for, then? There wasn’t a question there, not anywhere. I gave and gave, and it was welcome. But it wasn’t - whatever the Fatae expected, it wasn’t that. No questions at all, not to say yes or no to.”
“You said three. The land, the tree, and…”
“The tree’s glorious. She dates back to just before the Pact, I’m sure of it. There’s a study for you. Your Guild, too, maybe. Which trees date before the Pact, what that means for materia. I’m sure there’s an article on it somewhere.” He rubbed his face again. “Yews. Lots of yews. Some bones. Animals, I mean, not people. People would be very rude.”
That last bit at least sounded more like Gabe should. “The third, Gabe?” He was decidedly more scattered than usual, as if every guide he usually funnelled his thoughts through had disappeared in a puff of wind.
“The, I don’t know. Priestess. Priestess is a good word. She was in her seventies, and I think I surprised her? I mean, I have manners. Mama made very sure of it. I wasn’t going to try to take over.” Now he just sounded indignant. That was also a good sign, honestly.
“Did you find out any more about her? Any of them?”
Gabe tilted his head. “There are connections between some of them. More than others. I think she was married to one of the men, the one who looked rather bored. But friends, close friends, with two of the women. The one who met us at the pub, Theano, was close to one of the other men. Most of them were older, though. A couple of them might have been siblings? The one who called himself George. Cousins, at least, they looked alike, as well as the, um. Magical bits.”
“So people who knew each other, but also people who weren’t as close? How did the priestess work with all of that?”
“It was really very simple as rituals went. I expected a lot more fuss and mysticism and I don’t know, all the drawings and designs. Though of course, it’s hard to do those on grass and leaves, it’s not like a working room floor or a temple or whatever.” There was a moment at the end of that when something caught at his attention. It wasn’t a catch in his breath, it wasn’t nearly that long, just a slight gap. “She announced it, said something that some of them had obviously heard before. Isobel wrote it down, she said. And then we got to it. Very simple. Quite long, dancing around, then in and out. I wasn’t the only one who collapsed.”
Then he flushed. Rathna leaned forward and kissed his forehead. “You were going at it rather differently than they were, several ways round. How do you feel now?”
Gabe shrugged one shoulder. “Barely warmed over. I should probably soak in the baths.”
“Soak in the baths and not talk about something some more?” Rathna raised an eyebrow.
He grimaced. “Come soak with me, and I’ll do my best to talk? I should soak. I must smell awful.”
“Not your best self at the moment, no. Come on.” She spent a minute or two getting him into a dressing gown and handing over his cane. Then she checked with one of the housemaids for a change of bedding and to let the other staff know they’d be in the baths, and that they’d want a solid tea after. Most of the staff would be off in the village, still, but there would be a couple here.
It wasn’t until Gabe was neck-deep in hot water that he spoke again. “I think I’m haunted by it. If this wasn’t what the Fatae meant, what is?”
“Do we need to figure it out immediately, do you think?” Rathna leaned back, letting Gabe settle a bit against her shoulder.
“Sooner than later. It has a, I don’t know. It feels like it’s ticking. A time pressure.” Gabe lifted his hand out of the water, twisting it sideways, like he was reaching for something again. “I can’t find the words for it. Very annoying.”
“You have had rather a day of it.” This was true. It was also not exactly helpful. “Talk it out with people, and see what comes to you? Go for a ride, teach Isobel something entirely different. Explode something in the workroom.”
The last one made him snort. “You are very patient, bright lady.” His lips brushed against her ear. “However do you put up with me?”
“You have a number of virtues.” It came out a tad prim before she smiled at him. “Quite a few.”
He was quiet again for a couple of minutes, then he asked, “What do you intend to do this week? Fortnight. Month, I don’t know.”
“Ferdinand has a visit with his mother scheduled for Wednesday. Other than that, we’re picking up taking care of the older portals. Schola, the Keep, and figuring out a rota for Trellech.”
“How annoyed is Fortnum?” He could be exceedingly prickly about his prerogatives.
“Working on Dover and several of the other ports. He’s finding the challenge interesting, actually. Ferdinand ran into him in the Guild library. When was it? Tuesday. I think Fortnum’s not really happy with an apprentice, and he’s glad to be freed up to be obtuse on his own. He does know his work. Ferdinand came and told me after, and he’s rather pleased to be with me. I apparently explain things better.”
“Well, of course you do. To begin with, you explain them in the first place, and you certainly didn’t get that from me.”
It made Rathna laugh. “You keep a lot close to your chest, love, but you also talk about all manner of things. Some of them are even explanations. Anyway. We’re getting on well enough. We can base ourselves here as easily as anywhere else. Though I’ve made sure there’s a room ready for Ferdinand in the Trellech townhouse in case we need to be there overnight. Everything else is, I don’t know. There’s a war. Things keep changing, but it’s steady enough.”
Gabe nodded once, but didn’t say anything. This time, Rathna did not press him to. Whatever it was in his mind that was nagging at him, it would take time to grow into words.