Chapter 13

MARCH 18TH

O f course, what Griffin hadn't explained about his training was that a great deal of it had to do with observing people. It was at the heart of handling the human aspects of the Courts and their work, for one thing. For all he found Annice difficult to read, he could tell that she was feeling unsure how to explain things to both of them, how to measure it out. Since there was, in fact, a simple solution to that particular problem, he would take it. And likely come back to the cottage to find all their working notes fully indexed, summarised, and in order, which wouldn't hurt anything.

Now Griffin leaned back and said, "Before I ask more questions about the jet, can I ask a bit about your background, your family - in terms of your training? It might help me explain better." One of things that had been puzzling him was that. She spoke well, with less of the local dialect than a lot of people around. Not that he was foolish enough to object. People spoke how they spoke. He was the visitor, he certainly didn't get to object.

"Mam was Grandad's daughter. Grew up in this house. I have what was her bedroom." Annice gestured upstairs with her chin, then flushed, as if talking about anything that personal was exposing something tender. Which, well, talking about her bedroom and her family both probably were. "Mam trained up as a schoolteacher, before I was born. Learned to speak proper. There were new laws about education, about primary education being required for everyone. None of us went to the Five Schools, Grandad had apprenticed. But Mam had no interest in the carving, not in the making it - she hated the way it made her hands feel, the dust?"

Griffin nodded, hopefully in an encouraging way. "And your father?"

"He went to Alethorpe. Came up here as an apothecary, fell in love with the carving. Grandad took a liking to him. They'd been talking in the pub, that's the story they told, and Grandad brought him home, gave him a place to sleep, and he just - stayed. And he and Mam were grand together." She'd wished for that sort of romantic story herself, but no one was going to bring a man home from the pub for her, now, were they?

"I'm, um." Griffin had a sense of the gaping hole in this household. "I'm sorry for their losses. May I ask when?"

Annice pulled back, her eyes wide and startled. Griffin held up a hand. "Pardon. Just. It's obvious you love them, but in a way where you haven't been able to tell them directly for a bit. One of the things I learned in my training."

"Odd sort of training." She said it as a murmur, but loud enough he could hear it. "Da got called up, the end of the War. And he didn't come home. Mam - six months after we got the notice. She just wasted away. If he'd made it another couple of months, it'd have all been different. And then it was Grandad and Nan and I, until a year ago, and just me and Grandad until last November."

"I am sorry." Griffin swallowed. He still had both parents, he had a sister and nieces and a nephew. If he wanted a bustling, noisy, friendly home, he could go visit, whenever he liked. And Annice had lost all of that, drawn out over time. "And especially about your father. That was the worst of it, for me, knowing the people who didn't come home, and for all sorts of stupid, badly chosen reasons they didn't have any say in."

He saw the flicker in her face, something complicated, and again something he didn't know how to interpret. Normally, he kept that particular unpopular opinion to himself, unless he was around other veterans. And mostly the ones who'd been hurt down to the bone, in their own ways. Seth and Golshan, a few of the others he'd met through their mutual support groups. But Annice deserved to know it was a tragedy and a shame, and that if people had managed the War better, her father might not be dead. Or her mother.

Annice twisted away, to pour herself more tea, one of the reliable markers of someone who needed a little space. She was brave enough, though, to ask a question, and he wasn't entirely surprised by what it was. "You, um. Served?" Then she flushed again.

"I did. It's how I was hurt." He didn't want to go into it, not right now. He was sure something would show that would unsettle her more. "Not as visible as some men, except the chair is, of course." He took a breath, considering his words. "I spend a fair bit of my free time, such as it is, with men who were hurt worse. I was lucky, I could come home, I can do a job I love and am good at. Far too many didn't get that."

She cupped her hands around her teacup, frozen in place for a moment, then she just nodded. Then it was as if something had unlocked for her but it came out of her slowly. Griffin held himself quiet, not wanting to startle her out of the moment. "I told you it's unlucky for women to carve jet. But Grandad taught me. Is there really no one else who can even look at it?"

"Not that I know about," Griffin said. "That's the trick of it. And I'm very confused about why we don't have better records, or more people who can work it. A single point of failure is absolutely no good for a supply chain." The phrasing of it made her chin come up. Griffin half-smiled. "My dad started as a shop-keeper. It teaches you a lot about where things come from, and how far in advance you need to plan to have them available."

"Oh." Annice looked up again, meeting his eyes briefly. "You, um. Shop-keeper? And you didn't go to Dunwich if you went somewhere?"

"I am, as I said when we first met, very good at what I do. And by the time I was actually born, Dad had a small department store, then a bigger one. Now he's sold it off and retired. And some of my mother's people had gone to Schola. They could help me prepare for the exams. I enjoy reading, so it was mostly pointing me at the right things to read and letting me alone to do it."

Annice blinked again. "Not like that round here." She said, finally. "Though Mam liked a book, and Grandad read the papers all through, every day of his life he could."

Griffin nodded. "Books are grand. Not the same thing as doing something, but - oh, well. Here's an example. I read books, before we came up here, about the history of jet, as a magical stone. Everything from them being in grave goods, to being used for talismanic purposes. Apotropaic, if you want the formal term for a lot of it, keeping evil away."

"There's a word for that? A whole word?"

Griffin let himself smile a little. "There is. A lot of what I do is about the words, but the things exist. Evil, bad luck, whatever we want to call it, it's out there in the world. I think people from the beginning of time, from the first people, wanted the same things we want. A bit of good luck, for the evil luck to go somewhere else, protection from the cruelties of the world. And also hope things might be a bit better." He let himself gesture. "We're just coming to the Equinox now, there's more sun. That's a bit more hope, in some ways of thinking."

She froze again, and Griffin cursed himself for that lack of control. "Pardon. I do get going."

There was a tiny gesture, more or less a shrug. "Do you know anything about talismans, then? I mean, pieces for that sort of whatever?"

"Some. I'm not an expert in them, but they come up in the Courts fairly often. I know the basics." He thought about asking if she had some specific reason, but better to keep it more firmly in a professional mode.

"Oh. I came across..." Her voice cut off suddenly, then she cleared her throat. "I honestly don't know if I can help. I don't know any of the, I don't know. Complicated magical bits."

"Do you use magic at all for the carving you do?" Griffin kept his voice even.

Annice looked at him, without blinking, for a long moment. "The one you bought, the rose. That's one of mine. Magic makes it easier to do the delicate bits. Shape the petals so they won't shatter. Jet's fragile, oddly fragile. And some things like lines for the carving, that won't stay once you release the charm, Grandad taught me those. Some things to make cleaning up and managing the workshop better."

"You made that?" Griffin let himself smile warmly. He hadn't been at all sure. He wasn't trained in art, but he'd thought there was something particular about that, the way she'd handled the piece. "My mother will like it all the more for that, then. She enjoys knowing the history of a thing, where it came from, who made it. And it's lovely. A proper rose, both delicate and persistent."

Annice ducked her chin and looked away. "If you say so."

Griffin repressed his desire to talk over it, to fill the silence. Instead, he took a couple of steadying breaths. "Look, perhaps I might let you get back to your afternoon now. Would you think about something, though? We'd be glad to bring someone to consult in Trellech, even if that's looking at the stones, figuring out what our next steps might include. We'd pay for your time, of course, and also your expenses. The Ministry preferred inn isn't luxurious, but it's clean and comfortable. With the portals here, you might only need to be gone overnight."

That was too much. He could see it immediately. He went on. "Now I'll get out of your hair. If you could let me out and get the gate. Or I can ask Charlus to come back."

"No. That." She stood, her hand twisting in the fold of her apron for a moment. "Some time to think, thank you. I'll send a note. If you'll be - um." Suddenly she shifted, peering at him. "You're not going back?"

"Not just yet. I might still learn something useful. And I brought reference material with me. I can read that as easily here as at home. Pop into a couple of the other jet shops, ask questions in general. I've only been responsible for the inheritance courts for about five years. And senior for only a year. Before that, it was other things, so while I know the more recent material, I haven't read through all the archives yet." Now he was blithering on. That wasn't likely to help. But it seemed to have settled her, to know he would not disappear through the portal in a puff of magic.

"Oh. A day or two, then. Probably." Annice took a couple of steps, and then went on more deliberately ahead of him to get the door. Griffin took a moment to put the desk back where it folded away, along one side of the chair, and followed her out. He remembered at the last minute - when she was getting the gate - that there was one other detail.

"Are you sure you don't need to wait for Charlus?" Annice asked it a bit nervously.

"Oh, I can manage. Here, though, I can't forget this." If he had, he would have had to push himself back up the hill and call plaintively from outside her door to pay her. That didn't appeal at all for about six reasons, especially the part that had him imitating a lost kitten. "Your hand?" He pulled out the coins from his inner jacket pocket, dropping them neatly in her palm. "Thank you for your time."

Then he pushed himself along, out to the street. When he glanced back, she was standing at the gate. Her thumb was running over them in the practised gesture of someone who relied on coin in hand for their living, and could count them by touch and weight as easy as sight. Then Griffin had to keep moving or it would be even more awkward. He was moving down the hill, focusing on making sure he didn't end up going too fast for comfort.