She sorted through the top layer of papers–letters to her agent in the capital, blotted accounts, guarded letters to Belvis herself, and the palatine’s equally guarded replies–and finally found the sheet she wanted. It was not her own, but from her agent: an accounting of the money already spent and a request for more, along with its proposed uses. Most of it would go to the half dozen astrologers who were at the heart of her plan; the rest would go to the printers who sold the broadsheets that promoted Belvis’s cause and to the dozen or more minor clerks and copyists who carried out her agent’s business at court and in the tangles of the city bureaucracy. She looked at the total again, grimacing, but copied the number onto a slip of paper, and closed the box again, pressing hard on the lid to make sure the lock caught.
“Maseigne?” The man who peered around the edge of the door tipped his head to one side like one of the fat gargoyles that infested the manor’s upper stories. “I hope everything’s all right–she, that so‑called magist, is hardly a cultured person. Hardly someone one would choose to handle such a delicate business…” He saw the landame’s eyebrows lift at that, and added, “If one had had other options, of course. I thank my stars I’ve been able to offer some assistance there.”
“And I’m grateful,” the landame said, with only the slightest hesitation. She placed the box back into the cabinet, set the estate’s charter back against it, then closed the double door and relocked it.
The man straightened his head. He had discarded his usual robe for the duration of the magist’s visit, wore a slightly out‑of‑fashion suit, his linen fussily gathered at neck and sleeves, cravat fastened in a style too young for his sixty years. “I take it all went well, maseigne? She had no suspicions?”
“I don’t think so.” The landame shook her head, her lip curling. “No, I’m sure not. All she wanted was the money.”
The old man nodded, his ready smile answering her contempt. “Good. Excellent, maseigne, and I understand she’s leaving tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Better still,” the man said, and rubbed his hands together. “And she said nothing? No mention of the clocks, or the–well, of your investments?”
The things she had sold to finance his work, he meant, and she knew it perfectly well. A faint frown crossed her brow, but she said only, “No, nothing. As I said.”
“Of course, maseigne, forgive my concern. But things are delicately balanced just now, and I wouldn’t want to take any unnecessary chances–”
“No,” the landame said firmly. “No more do I. But she said nothing.” Fleetingly, she remembered the way the other woman had looked around the outer room, the way her eyes had run over the silver and the wax candles and the blown glass, but shook the memory away. The magist had seen only the proper signs of wealth and standing; there was nothing to make her suspicious.
“Even about the clocks?” the man continued. He saw the landame’s frown deepen to a scowl, and spread his hands, ducking his head in apology. “Forgive me, maseigne, but she is a magist, and that is the one thing that might rouse her suspicions. And we cannot afford that, not yet.”
“She said nothing,” the landame said, again. “And I didn’t see any indication that she’d noticed anything.” In spite of herself, her eyes strayed to the empty spot on the shelf, imperfectly filled by a statue of a young man with a bunch of grapes, where her own case‑clock had once stood. “My people aren’t exactly pleased by that, you know. The clock in Anedelle is too far away, they tell me, they can barely hear the chime unless the wind’s in the right quarter–”
The man held up his hand, and the landame checked herself. “Maseigne, I know. But it is necessary, I give you my word on it. To have clocks in the house now would–well, it would offer too many chances of revealing our plans ahead of time, and that would never do.”
The landame sighed. She was no magist, knew no more of those arts than most people–less, if the truth were told; her education had been neglected, and in her less proud moments, she admitted it. If he said he couldn’t work while there were clocks in the house, well, she would have to rely on him. “Very well,” she said, but the man heard the doubt in her voice.
“Maseigne, what can I do to convince you? I only want what you want, the accession of a proper queen to the throne of Chenedolle, and an end to the erosion of noble privilege. And I assure you, if the clocks–and very fine clocks they were, too, which is part of the problem–if they had stayed in the manor, our plan would be betrayed as soon as I begin the first operations. They cannot remain–and none can be brought back into the household, not by anyone, maseigne. Otherwise, I cannot offer you my services.”
His tone was as deferential as always, eager, even, but the landame heard the veiled threat beneath his fawning. “Very well, I said. There will be no clocks in the house.”
“Thank you, maseigne, I knew you would understand.” The man bowed deeply, folding his hands in front of him as though he still wore his magist’s robes. “I think, then, that I can promise you every success.”
“I trust so,” the landame said, grimly.
“I assure you, maseigne,” the man answered. “The time is propitious. I cannot fail.”
1
it was, they all agreed later, a fair measure of Rathe’s luck that he was the one on duty when the butcher came to report his missing apprentice. It was past noon, a hot day, toward the middle of the Sedeion and the start of the Gargoyle Moon, and the winter‑sun was just rising, throwing its second, paler shadows across the well‑scrubbed floor of Point of Hopes. Rathe stared moodily at the patterns thrown by the barred windows, and debated adding another handful of herbs to the stove. The fire was banked to the minimum necessary to warm the pointsmen’s food, but the heat rolled out from it in waves, bringing with it the scent of a hundred boiled dinners. Jans Ranazy, the other pointsman officially on this watch, had decided to pay for a meal at the nearest tavern rather than stand the heat another minute, and Rathe could hardly blame him. He wrinkled his nose as a particularly fragrant wave struck him–the sharp sweet scent of starfire warring with the dank smell of cabbages–but decided that anything more would only make it worse.