It was a conversational leap, but Aunt Arianne took it with her usual aplomb.
“Oh, when Felix knew me I was in the throes of a serious romance with one of his cousins, the younger son of the Dacian Proconsul.” She settled her hat back on her head, lips curving. “At least I thought I was, until his marriage was arranged, and he tried to…tidy me away, so to speak.”
“Tidy…?” Eluned didn’t know what to say.
“A neat demonstration of what Nabah was trying to ask earlier today. There are many different lands, all with their own gods, and their own laws, and their own definition of right behaviour. Rome has come a long way since the example of Lucretia, but there is a notion of…injury and false promise that I could have used to cause trouble with the very influential friend who had recommended me to the Proconsul. I didn’t understand that I posed a threat to arrangements, any more than I had recognised in the first place that in the Republic I’m someone to have affairs with, not the kind of person you marry. At least to people bound up in notions of tradition and respectability.”
She shot Eluned a faintly amused glance, then lowered her veil. “Mortifying at the time, of course, but something I look back on as a narrow escape. I hope I can claim to have become a better judge of character.”
After confirming arrangements for when they should meet for the return trip, Aunt Arianne left, and Eluned looked out at the shadow of a forest, and wondered if she’d ever had a real conversation with her aunt before. And whether she’d dare to ask her any more questions.
EIGHTEEN
Eluned’s tendency to drastically change the subject whenever her drawing came under discussion was a thing Rian would need to revisit. For the moment, her concentration was needed for an uninterrupted progress through a crowd where every third person was keen to strike up a conversation, or at least stop and stare. Becoming a personage of note was truly a double-edged sword.
The advantageous blade was the entirely too handsome young man who appeared to guide her to a maple-panelled elevator in the new school building, whisking her directly to a plush little foyer on the third floor, and then into a most sumptuous example of a principal’s office, with a formidable sweep of desk set before a wall of windows overlooking the clock tower and central garden.
The owner of all this wood panelling and fine-cut glass was drooping rather before the view, perhaps because the streaming crowds seemed to be mostly made up of curious locals, with only a small number genuinely interested in having their children attend.
“My lord,” murmured Rian’s escort, as he accepted her hat.
“Dama Seaforth!” Lord Fennington said, springing from a high-backed revolving chair with a gust of energy. “Oh, how nice of you to come! Let me take you through to the Inner Sanctum, don’t mind the capitals. This room is all very well for a fine dose of pomp and awe, but that leaves very little room for comfort.”
“An impressive outlook, though,” Rian said, rather taken by the tiny pair of pompoms above the hem of his tunic, like a little tail. They were the same colour as the main cloth, and easily overlooked until the man was walking away from you. Her instinct was to distrust purposeful ridiculousness, but in Folly Fennington it felt genuine, a celebration.
Her less than reliable new sense for the emotions of others worked best when she touched a person, but she didn’t engineer contact immediately, simply gauging the man as she normally would as he exclaimed over one of her father’s farmhand series, and then fussed over settling her into a comfortable chair.
The blond man who seemed to be his personal assistant made a timely arrival with a silver trolley laden with bottles, and stood by to hand over tongs and glasses at critical moments while his lord prepared their Towering Follies.
“I was terribly complimented, of course, when Lady Prentegast named this for me, though always, always there lurks at the back of the mind a little bit of writhing embarrassment. Is it pretentious to serve a drink named after yourself? And what if people don’t like the taste? It’s a little sweet for some.”
He turned, holding out a more than generous glass of splendid sunset gradient, adding: “Gin, a dry white wine, grenadine, maraschino liqueur, and one single caper to finish it off. Do drink up, and tell me what you think of my little school.”
“I think it’s not very little,” Rian said dryly, glad she’d managed to find an opportunity to eat during his speech. “And that it would be an adventure to attend. I do, however, have a nephew with a positive horror of even the smallest animal, and a niece who considers organised sport an interruption to her studies. How would they fit in at Tangleways?”
“Niblings!” Lord Fennington beamed. “I have four nephews myself. A delight, all of them, though still at the dandling stage. As to yours, there must, of course, be a certain flexibility to our programs. The idea is to guide our students to find their best, not crush them against their limits.”
“A lad who cannot handle an animal can still learn about them, and assist in tasks that do not require direct contact. A lass who finds sports a bore might have her interest sparked by exploring the history, or even the physics involved. Or perhaps just be exposed to a sufficient variety of games to find one she likes. The point is to develop systems and methodologies, to not leave children stranded as they too often are, even in these modern times, with a hapless village teacher of no qualifications reading lists out of random books.”
Taking the bit between his teeth, Fennington spoke passionately and at length, while Rian obligingly sipped her very strong cocktail and wondered if she should pretend to be tipsy.
“But I mustn’t maunder on,” he said, once most of her drink had been safely swallowed, though to be fair he’d tossed off all of his own, and was working on a second. “Nor, never fear, will I pester you with silly questions about foreseeings. I’m sure you’ve had your fill of them! But, as has no doubt been transparently, simply transparently clear, I did want to have a little gossip. Do forgive my blatant lubrication.”
“Time for the caper?” Rian asked.
“Ha! Yes! The pickle, the sting, the little kernel of sour that cuts through all the sugar. Dear Prentegast was being too, too pointed with her recipe.”
“I’m not likely to forget your business ventures are almost invariably profitable, Lord Fennington, whatever your enthusiasms.”
“Call me Folly, do. I can tell we’re going to be friends.”
“My friends call me Rian,” she replied, surprising herself because she had been keeping a certain mental distance with the subjects of her investigations. But she did like Folly Fennington.
“Then I shall be honoured to do so,” he said. “Rian, I want to ask you about Comfrey Makepeace.”
Unexpected. “Not my favourite topic,” Rian said. She was not entirely certain of the limits Makepeace had placed on her, and wondered idly if she would be choked off mid-sentence if she tried to tell what she had been forbidden.
“Quite understandable, my dear. Do, do squash me thoroughly if I rouse painful memories. I will deserve it entirely, I assure you.”
“What do you know about Makepeace?” she asked. “I hadn’t even heard of him before I encountered him at Sheerside.”
“Exactly! I hadn’t heard of him. Do you know what an achievement that is? I am a snoop, a busybody, a chinwag, an inveterate pryer, and a natterer of monumental proportions. Now, if he were, perhaps, an obscure little vampire, recently blooded, or never stirring from some dreary backwater… But instead it is apparent the man is the Suleviae’s personal agent, on terms of complete intimacy with the royal family, and has been since the early days of the Gwyn Lynns’ ascendency, being one of Prytennia’s more senior vampires. In addition! In addition he is the Keeper of the Deep Grove, the most important of the groves in the whole of the country, which, as I understand it, means this vampire must give his allegiance to Cernunnos! Yet until his most unfortunate attack on you, Rian, I’d never even heard his name.”