The manor stirred reluctantly, like a hungover Wizard at the crack of noon.
Laila stood at the gallery overlooking the entry hall, watching the movements of the staff below. They were slow this morning, careful with each other in the way people are when nobody has told them the new rules yet. They moved with the same creeping trajectory as the frost on the windows, and perhaps just as cool.
Three of the newer staff had resigned since the ruling. She had found their uniforms folded on their beds yesterday, a neatness that struck her as both courteous and final. The ones who remained were the ones who had weathered worse: Elariana, Divina, Ursula, Cedric.
Percival.
Wylan had wanted to speak with her about Percival, and she had not yet found the time, and the time had not yet found her.
Standing here watching servants was not going to accomplish anything, and she had not checked her correspondence since Althday. Three days. A mother’s work was never done, even when the mother in question would rather have stood at this railing until the frost took her.
She girded herself for epistolary battle and went to her study.
The pile of letters on her desk was smaller than she expected. She stood in the doorway for a moment before she understood why. Phaedra was no longer here to bring them. Nor her tea, for that matter.
Perhaps for the best.
She sat at the mahogany desk and tried to make sense of what was there, but the words slid across her attention without finding purchase. She read the same line of an invoice three times and could not have told anyone what it said. Focus had been difficult since the trial. Since before the trial, if she was honest.
She set the invoice aside and pressed her palms flat against the desk. The wood was cold beneath them, and the fire had been banked to embers by someone who had not thought to come back and build it up.
A knock at the door. She looked up before she could stop herself, the reflex older than thought.
It wasn’t the right knock. Too tentative, too high on the door. She sat with the absence of the correct one for a moment before the door opened and Wylan stepped through.
He looked about as well as she felt, which was to say not at all. He was carrying two cups, one of which he set on her desk.
“Morning,” he said, and dropped into the chair opposite.
The cup contained something dark and steaming. Not tea. She picked it up and smelled it. Bitter, roasted, faintly earthy. Wylan had been drinking the stuff for several years now, ever since he’d discovered a Barsoomian trader at the Quai des Philosophes.
“Coffee, Wylan?”
“It’ll wake you up.”
“I’m not sure I want to be awake.”
“It’s that or tea,” he said, and the silence that followed did the work for him.
She took a sip. The bitterness was immediate and total, the kind that announced itself at the door and made no apology for entering. She grimaced.
“Give it a moment,” Wylan said. “The warmth catches up.”
It did. Beneath the bitterness there was heat, and beneath the heat something almost grounding. She took another sip, with marginally less revulsion.
“You drink this voluntarily?”
“Every morning. It’s an acquired taste.”
“How many cups before one acquires it?”
“I’ll let you know.”
She drank. It was terrible and warm and it wasn’t tea. It made the morning fractionally less cold than it had been a minute ago.
Cedric appeared in the doorway with a parcel of letters. Something ground inside her as he set them on her desk, only for them to scatter in a loose pile.
“That’s three days of post,” Wylan said, looking at it.
“Four, possibly. I haven’t opened anything since Althday.”
They pulled the pile apart between them and began sorting. Wylan took one side, Laila the other, working with the quiet efficiency of thankless household administration.
Most of them were invoices, which Laila put into a concerningly growing pile. She noted the social invitations were rather diminished.
The rest were petty grievances disguised as condolences, or officiants looking for an angle amid the recent affairs. Some were still arriving late for Alexios’ funeral anniversary, and she wondered at the efficiency of the Gallian postal service.
? Noble correspondence in Gallia followed an unwritten hierarchy: invitations arrived promptly, and invoices inevitably, but delivery times were ‘seasonal estimates’. Complaints could be filed by post.
Of particular note was a letter from Saffron. It smelled of lavender and money; it was one of the few letters with genuine warmth.
Her hand found and stopped over a letter sporting the Beaumont crest, but the stationery was of a style she recognised from the Autumn Court.
“A letter from Isadora?” she said aloud, drawing Wylan’s attention.
“Is cousin Isadora writing to chide us over Alexisoix? Saffy was rather cordial in hers.”
She opened it, and the bitter taste of the coffee ceased to matter.
Dear Aunt Laila,
I write with some urgency and, I hope, with the understanding that this reaches you in the spirit of family rather than protocol.
Isabella presented herself at the Embassy by the Sea two days ago, on the evening of the 7th. She identified herself as Ondine Marinelle and has requested asylum of the Autumn Court.
She continued.
I have received her with all the care and courtesy I would a minor cousin until we sort this out, but that pretence can only last so long. She is safe and well, though I will not pretend she is at ease.
I must be candid. Her presence here remains widely unknown, but it will be just a matter of time before the name Ondine Marinelle becomes the currency of gossip. At that point I will be unable to treat this as a family matter and must treat it as a diplomatic one. I have delayed formalities as long as I reasonably can, but I cannot delay indefinitely.
Please come, and soon.
With love and worry in equal measure, Isadora
She set the letter down.
“She’s at the Autumn Embassy. She went the night of the trial. She presented herself with her original name.”
Wylan was quiet for a moment. “Ondine?”
“Yes.”
He looked at the pile of letters, then at the window, then at nothing. “Is she safe?”
“Isadora says she’s safe.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I know.”
Neither of them spoke. The quiet was braided by the scrape of a shovel in the snow from outside.
“She’s with family,” Laila said.
Wylan nodded. “Of a kind. It’s not like she knows any of them. It’s been what, twenty years?”
“Twenty-two years,” she said without looking up. She sighed. “I suppose our afternoon plans have changed once again. We will have to pay a visit to the Emb—”
She stopped. Another letter, this one marked with the ecclesiastical seal of the Pontifarchy.
Laila broke the seal and read.
The letter was dated the 8th of Frostember: yesterday. Vaziri’s office, as the acting spokesperson for the Pontifarchy, informing the Duke of her intention to visit Pharelle. A fast rider had carried it ahead of her procession.
“She left Auriliene yesterday,” Laila said. “Shortly after the Pontifex’s death. The letter came by courier. She’s following by carriage.”
Wylan did the arithmetic. “Auriliene to Pharelle is a day by road. Longer in snow.”
“Which means she could arrive tomorrow. Perhaps today, if the weather permits.”
“And she sent this to warn us?”
“To ready us. Warning would imply she thinks we have options.”
“What is it with this household and emergencies falling into our laps?”
Laila set the letter on the desk beside the coffee she had not finished. “We’re heroes, darling. Fate throws all manner of slings and arrows at us. It’s our lot.”
“I’d like to file a complaint with Fate.”
“Our afternoon plans have changed. Again.”
She stood.
“Find Lambert. Find Maximilian and tell Cedric to prepare the audience hall. Trust that the arrival will be today and not tomorrow.”
Wylan was already at the door but then paused to turn back.
“Finish the coffee. You’ll need it.”
She finished the coffee. He was right.
The weather, it transpired, had been clement. Cedric’s ability to marshal the household for a diplomatic assault was to be held in high regard.
What had begun as careful and considered preparations assumed a rather different character upon news that Prelate Vaziri had arrived at the gates of Pharelle. Laila and Cedric prayed that the news was travelling considerably faster than its subject.
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What resulted was what might charitably be called a spit polish. Rather than the deep clean that time might have afforded them, all attention was directed at the visible parts of the household only, and the audience chamber itself.
One could follow the progress of the audience hall preparation with the percussive noise of invectives, prayers, and an occasional panic attack. That was until Divina stepped in and offered to help with an experimental cleaning device. Cedric, in his desperation, agreed.
What resulted was a technically clean room, best not examined too closely.
? Divina’s devices did what they were designed to do, and several more things unprompted. The cleaning device had also managed to tessellate a corner of the ceiling that had been a fresco before.
Wylan’s hair was still damp.
Lambert observed it all rather impassively, as he normally did. The affairs of domesticity eluded him today as he watched the entry courtyard with some anticipation. His outfit was black, which itself was not unusual. Yesterday’s black had been a cassock, while today’s was merely a coat. Lambert mused on the theological difference.
He recalled the way his hands had tried to dress him by rote, even as he offered prayers and supplications to Invictus. Now alongside a few offered up to Death as well. The sense of lingering guilt over that had abated.
Now, alongside the solar disk, he allowed a silver ankh to hang. The symbols of his faith would remain until someone with authority he recognised told him otherwise. At present, no such person existed.
“They’re here,” Wylan said from the doorway.
Lambert looked down. A procession was moving up the Rue de Clairmont, and it was not making any effort to be subtle about it.
At least this pageantry gave us time to prepare, he mused.
Two outriders entered first, mounted on grey horses whose breath plumed in the cold air. Behind them, a herald in ecclesiastical livery bore the standard of the Pontifarchy: the golden sunburst on a field of deep blue, snapping in the winter wind.
After them came eight attendants in dark vestments, walking in pairs with measured cadence.
Behind them came the carriage. Black lacquer and gold fittings; the Pontifarchy’s seal on the door.
So you’re using the official stationery and the official carriage. Acting as though the decision was a foregone conclusion.
It had come a long way in bad weather, and it showed, but the mud had been cleaned from the wheels at some point in the last mile. The pageantry was deliberate. It always was.
An attendant opened the door and unfolded the step. A figure emerged in robes trimmed with gold filigree, a crosier of ancient wood finding the cobblestones with the steady certainty of ecclesiastical authority.
Prelate Lydia Vaziri stood in the courtyard of House de Vaillant and surveyed the facade. Lambert had to wonder what she was taking in.
Below, he watched as household staff assembled along the entrance hall in two lines. Cedric had managed this from the skeleton staff, aided by subtle threats of discipline and bad food from Elariana and Ursula in turn. Where Elariana’s disciplinary overture failed, Ursula’s promise of hunger motivated.
Lambert held station from the balcony: present but removed. Laila descended to receive the advance party with her most gracious hospitality. A man stepped forward from the retinue to make introductions: tall, dark-haired, composed in a way that didn’t match the junior officials flanking him. Lambert didn’t recognise him. He didn’t recognise any of them.
No senior clergy. No Legates, no Monsignors, not even a ranking theologian. The most powerful woman in the Church had crossed a country in winter and brought no one of consequence to introduce her.
Perhaps your claim is not as solid as you think. Or perhaps your voyage here was too expedient. Impatience had cost Lydia something in that decision.
Lambert did not follow the procession. He knew this house better than any herald, and the side passage behind the gallery connected to the audience chamber’s eastern door. He took it at a pace that was not quite hurried, and arrived before them.
Maximilian was already in position upon the ducal seat. Laila took up station to his right, and the space to his left remained empty. It was where Lambert might have stood if he were still Chaplain. He resigned himself to hover near the back of the hall near Wylan. Brothers in arms, I suppose.
The great doors opened. Cold air entered first, carrying the scent of frost, horses, and incense. Then a pontifical herald struck the floor once with his staff.
“Her Beatitude, Prelate Lydia Vaziri, Acting Shepherd of the Faithful, Voice of the Pontifarchy in the Absence of the Pontifical Seat.”
The title was longer than it had been the last time Vaziri visited. The Pontifex’s death had added three clauses and a great deal of implied authority.
Attendants entered in pairs, their footsteps marking time in the high-ceilinged hall. They fanned out along the walls with the considered geometry of grand occasions.
Finally, Vaziri herself entered.
She was smaller than Lambert remembered. Or perhaps memory had been inflated by context: the last time she had been in this house, he had been House Chaplain of the Inquisition, and she a visiting dignitary in no official capacity.
Her dark robes absorbed the glowing light. Her gaze swept the hall and took account of the line-up across from her.
Lambert catalogued her in return. Speaking first, before the Duke. The smallest measure of deference offered.
She means to show she has the upper hand. Whether she knew what had happened to them when she left Auriliene was moot. It was clear she knew now.
“Prelate Vaziri.” Maximilian’s voice held careful warmth. “Your presence honours this house.”
“Your Grace.” Vaziri’s smile was precise. She inclined her head a second time; fractionally deeper than the first. “These are difficult days for the reasonable. I thought it right to visit what family I have left.”
Family. Lambert watched the word land. It was doing a great deal of work.
Maximilian held her gaze for a moment. Then, a deliberate loosening of posture as the Duke set down a tool no longer needed.
“Then let us not stand on titles,” he said. “If you are here as family, address me as Maximilian. Or Lord de Vaillant, if you prefer. But not Your Grace. Not today.”
It was generous. It was also a challenge. You claimed intimacy. Now live in it.
Vaziri’s expression softened. “Very well, Maximilian. And you may call me Mother Vaziri, as the reasonable do.”
Mother. Lambert grimaced. It didn’t matter whether Laila or Lydia; the name felt wrong either way.
Maximilian removed his signet ring and set it down upon a stand beside the chair, then turned to watch Vaziri expectantly.
A moment later, Vaziri removed her own ring and passed it to the officiant beside her.
“There now. Absolved of our offices for a fleeting while, dear nephew.”
Maximilian nodded and snapped his fingers for one of the servants, who obliged Vaziri with a chair of her own. That itself was an honour in the ducal chamber. But this is family.
Maximilian and Vaziri were the only people feigning relaxation.
Except perhaps the tall officiant behind her. Lambert noted that he had been at ease from the very start. Clearly nothing about this bothers you.
“As we are speaking as family,” Maximilian said, “I trust you will not object to my brothers’ presence.” His voice was easy. The question was not.
“Since we are not discussing matters of the Church, I would appreciate their fraternity and counsel.”
Lambert watched Vaziri give a very careful nod.
He frowned, but only for a moment, as Wylan was already moving and pulling him gently along. One sharp look from Laila was enough to draw him out of his reverie.
Vaziri regarded Lambert for the first time since entering the hall. Her gaze held his for a moment longer than it needed to.
With the pleasantries ended, the family reunion began.
“Then I will ask for candour not permitted us otherwise,” Vaziri said. She folded her hands in her lap. “The Pontifex’s death has accelerated matters already in motion. The conclave of Prelates will convene within the fortnight. You are no doubt aware of my candidacy.”
“We are,” Maximilian said.
“It has come to my attention that a Tribunal matter will be referred to whoever ascends to the Pontifarchy. A rather curious claim regarding dragon cultists.” She paused. “I wonder if you, dear nephew, have opinions on orthodoxy?”
Tense climate, coded aggression, implicit threats. It was certainly a family reunion.
“You’re asking my opinions on the Tribunal matter?” Maximilian said. “I’m afraid I cannot presume the mind of the new Pontifarchy.”
“I did not ask His Grace, Duke of Pharelle, to comment on canon lore. That would be improper.” Vaziri demurred. “I asked my great-nephew, Maximilian de Vaillant, a philosophical question on the nature of truth.”
Without missing a beat, Maximilian smiled and spread his arms wide.
“Then you have me at a disadvantage, Mother. I am far from the best scholar in my family. On such airy matters I would defer to either of my brothers. Fortunately, they have joined us. Brothers, what say you—”
Vaziri’s wave of the hand was all that was needed to cut them off.
“You are right. We do not want to dwell on the past. I would rather speak of the future.”
Laila spoke. “The future of the Church, or the future of this family?”
“Madame de Vaillant, perhaps we can pretend they are not separate questions. I am speaking about whether my family will support my ascension.”
“Given recent events, don’t you think there might be a conflict of interest?”
“A conflict? No. Mutual benefit, certainly.”
Vaziri inclined her head. “Espérant.”
Espérant stepped forward. Lambert gave him his full attention.
“If I may,” Espérant said. His voice was steady and unhurried. “On Mother Vaziri’s behalf, I have been in correspondence with the noble houses of this region. The response has been substantial. Nearly all the major houses have pledged support for her candidacy.”
He paused.
“Of greatest interest to your family, I suspect, is the support of House d’Aubigne.”
Lambert felt the room shift without anyone moving. He did not look at Laila. He did not need to.
“That is notable,” he said. “The Countess is, of course, the subject of charges currently awaiting Pontifical resolution. One might wonder how a house under active accusation finds itself so confidently aligned with a Pontifical candidate.”
Espérant’s expression remained pleasant. “What is notable is the breadth of alignment across the major houses. Historically, this level of unanimity is rare.”
He had answered without answering.
Vaziri took back the conversation. “For too long, the Church has been guided by a stern hand. I believe the time has come for a gentler touch. Education. Pastoral care. Rather than policing.”
She let the word policing sit.
Lambert absorbed it. His Inquisition, described gently as something the Church had outgrown. He kept his hands still.
“Mother Vaziri,” he said, “that is a generous vision. I wonder, though, about the practical mechanisms. The tribunal system remains active. The cases before it are unresolved.”
“Matters currently in progress will be resolved with the care and attention they deserve. I would not presume to prejudge any outcome.”
Nothing given. Nothing taken.
Laila spoke. “House de Vaillant remains committed to the principles the Church upholds. We would welcome the opportunity to demonstrate that to the next Pontifex, whoever that may be.”
Vaziri’s smile did not change. “I appreciate your candour, Madame de Vaillant. It is refreshing. And I note it.”
Noted. Not accepted. Not refused. Filed.
The audience was drawing to a close when Maximilian spoke again. He had been quiet through the political fencing, and Lambert had assumed it was discipline until he looked at his brother’s face and recognised patience wearing through.
“It occurs to me,” Maximilian said, “that we have not once discussed family. You are, after all, Seraphina’s sister.”
“Distance is sometimes a kindness, Maximilian. Families are complicated things.”
“They are. I wonder why you and Seraphina grew apart.”
“My sister and I are like night and day,” Vaziri said, with an elegance that cost her nothing.
Are.
Lambert’s attention sharpened. He kept his expression still and did not look at Laila, and Laila did not look at him, and the mutual not-looking said everything it needed to.
Maximilian, who did not know what his siblings knew about their grandmother, let the moment pass as familial sentiment.
The audience concluded with the efficiency of encounters that have accomplished everything they needed to without accomplishing anything visible. Vaziri expressed her hope that the family would find peace in difficult times. Maximilian expressed gratitude for her visit. Rings were returned. Offices resumed.
Vaziri rose. The crosier found her hand. Her retinue reformed around her like a tide returning.
Wylan had counted the ceiling tiles twice. Forty-seven in the main vault, twelve in the alcove, and one that was cracked in a way that suggested Divina’s cleaning device had been more enthusiastic than advertised.
He had also counted the attendants (eight, plus the herald, plus Espérant), the number of times Maximilian’s right hand had flexed against the arm of the ducal chair (eleven), and the flagstones between his own seat and the nearest exit (fourteen). He had briefly entertained himself calculating the volume of the audience chamber in cubic metres before deciding the ceiling height was too irregular to estimate without instruments.
The political conversation washed over him like weather. He caught words: candidacy, alignment, pastoral care; and let them go again. Lambert and Laila and Maximilian spoke in a language Wylan understood but could not bring himself to care about today. Whenever he looked at Max he couldn’t help but think of Percival. And the language of implication, of things meant between words, exhausted him.
Alchemy, at least, had the decency to be direct in its exothermic reactions.
Then Espérant stepped forward, and Wylan’s attention found something worth holding.
Not the words, but the way he spoke with steady authority, offering no deference to house or Church.
Lambert stood like that sometimes, but Wylan had attended enough dreary courtships to recognise how political attachés stood. Rather like Calderon, in fact: slightly forward, slightly eager. This man stood like he was waiting for something other than his turn to speak.
Wylan watched him through the rest of the audience. Not continuously, allowing his gaze to drift to ceiling tiles and cracked flagstone, but returning each time to follow the stray gaze from Espérant.
It’s the same place, he realised. He’s trying not to stare in a particular direction.
The first time, he thought it was coincidence. Espérant’s gaze drifted left, toward the corridor that connected the audience hall to the east wing. The corridor passed the library, the armoury, and then turned toward the rear of the estate. Toward the workshop.
The second time, Wylan adjusted his chair to track the angle more precisely and with less direct attention.
The third time, Wylan stopped counting ceiling tiles.
He ran the geometry. Three glances, three slightly different positions as Espérant shifted during the audience, and all three converged on the same line of sight. The laboratory wing. Not the library. Not the armoury. The workshop.
Why does a political attaché care where I make things?
Finally, by some signal Wylan had clearly missed, the proceedings came to an end, and the procession filed out as loudly as it came.
He noticed Espérant pause beside the tall window, his head craning toward the workshop, even from a different part of the house.
Wylan watched Espérant leave, and then he went to find Lambert.
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