Chapter 19

MARCH 22ND

G riffin heard the knock on the door from the sofa at about three in the afternoon. No position he'd tried was quite working, but he also didn't want to move. The knock was almost certainly Charlus, unless someone had picked up his particular pattern. Griffin was glad he'd packed a pair of loose trousers. With that and smoking jacket and a collarless shirt, he was presentable enough if it wasn't Charlus. "Come in."

The door opened carefully, and then Charlus peered around the door before coming all the way in. "Sir." He had a basket in his hand. "Need me to fetch anything right off?"

Griffin shook his head. "Not at the moment. Come in, put the kettle on, sit." Charlus took the hint, and set the basket on the low table by the sofa. First he shrugged out of his coat and hung up his hat, then put the kettle on to boil. That was a particular need met, at least. Griffin had been wanting tea for an hour, and hadn't quite managed to motivate himself to make it happen. And unlike his office or his own kitchen at home, the kettle wasn't handy unless he was standing.

From there, Charlus came over and began unpacking the basket he'd brought. "Morning and evening papers. Your mail. Captain Orland insisted I bring these along to you with her compliments." He set a small cardboard box down. "And a number of notes to discuss. There are also several meals from your housekeeper, from your kitchen."

"Ah, bless." That was a fairly comprehensive haul. "If you'd put the meals in the keep-cold box, please." He hesitated, then added, trusting that it wouldn't foul things, "And if you'd do me a favour and bring the potion case from my bedside table. The one that's carved wood, long and narrow, has the paler wood inlay on it."

Charlus raised an eyebrow at it. But he didn't say anything until he'd done those things, going last into Griffin's bedroom at the end of the hall and bringing it back, setting it where Griffin could reach it.

He ought to sit up properly, but having his legs up felt better, and changing anything seemed like a bad idea. Instead, he twisted - gently, he'd been reminded of what the alternative felt like that morning - and opened the case. It was also of Seth's making, beautifully designed both to securely hold a selection of potion vials and have space for three pill cases.

There was one for morning, one for night, and the third for when he needed something specific. He considered, drawing out the next to last of the vials - the others were stoppered and empty - and then drained it quickly, before he took out two of the pills. "If you'd put it back, when you get a moment, please?" He slipped the empty stoppered vial into place and closed the lid.

Charlus still didn't comment, but Griffin had been deliberately obvious about it, making a benefit out of the fact he couldn't bring himself to move. Hopefully, the potion would ease a bit of the aching, and the pill would manage some of the tension of overwork that was running through his forearms still. The routine daily ones were to help keep some of the symptoms easier to manage, sorted out through some trial and error and now made up by his apothecary to be easiest to take and have handy wherever he was.

The kettle was making the little hopeful noise it made before it started singing properly. Charlus had heard it, too. He went to stand and wait there while it fully came to a boil, setting up the teapot and mugs on a tray. Griffin leaned over and pulled the box from Antimony over with one finger, then nudged it open. "Ah, bliss. You have to try these. They're from one of my favourite bakeries, and Antimony knows it."

"Sir?" Charlus paused for a moment, as the kettle sang properly, and he poured boiling water into the teapot, then brought the whole thing over.

"Welsh cakes. Not quite like Mum makes, but handier, and they do a range of flavours. Not at all traditional, but there's a combination of spices and some orange peel." He didn't bother giving the Welsh, Charlus wouldn't know it. "And oh, she put in a couple of currant, that's the most traditional." Then he looked up. "What brought that on, that she sent them along?"

Charlus snorted quietly, pulling up the other easy chair to the other side of the table. "I might have looked a trifle worried this morning. She caught me checking things in your office and told me to wait until she came back." Then he cleared his throat. "I would like to calibrate my worry, please."

"Did she ask you to let her know when you had more information, then?" Charlus flushed, and Griffin lifted his hand. "I'm not upset with you. Or her. Give me a minute, though. Well. A minute and a bit of cake."

The cake was, actually, quite restorative, more than he'd expected. Something about the sweet and the tart and the spice hit exactly the right spot. He took his time eating it, licking the last of the caster sugar that had dusted it off his index finger. Charlus was eating his own, his eyes widening. "Told you," Griffin said. "I'll give you the address. It's a bit out of my usual route."

"Sir." That was approving. "Glad to go fetch more for you, then, as relevant. And for me."

Griffin chuckled. "Another proper convert. Antimony will be pleased." He shifted a bit to adjust how he was leaning against the arm of the sofa. "To answer your worries, I'll be back to normal in a day or maybe three. Not good for much - magically or otherwise - today, but people are always telling me I ought to take a day off, and I didn't on Saturday or Sunday."

Charlus looked unconvinced. And to be entirely fair, Griffin had sliced the truth on that set of comments a little fine for his own liking. He took a breath, then added. "Right now, a lot of me aches or is otherwise complaining, but it's not a sign of new harm or anything. I overdid it yesterday. I should apparently not have trusted our landlady's nephew to be reliable as a carter in both directions."

"You were thinking of going up to the Abbey, sir." Charlus blinked, his eyes widening. "What happened?"

"The man got me there quickly enough, but he didn't come back. Eventually, when that was clear, I made my way down the steps. I was sitting on one of them, maybe a third of the way down, not quite half, when Annice came up in the other direction. She was going to leave flowers in the cemetery."

Charlus considered that, falling silent for several minutes. "You didn't write to me."

"I didn't. I thought about it while I was sitting there. But I knew you'd be busy, and so would the other people I might write. And I was working myself up to keep going. Annice talked with me a little and then walked down with me. And went out and got fish and chips. There's a place she favours with good reason. Comparative to the cakes, here, in its own class."

"Huh." Charlus coughed. "You let her help, sir?"

Ah, that was the rub of it. He'd only recently told Charlus much of that, of course, and here he was, letting Annice help on a week's acquaintanceship. Three conversations, and while three might be a number of power and magic, that was not many at all when it came to knowing someone. It ought to be seven, at least, really. More than that. Griffin was about to say something. Then he felt that fleeting tug of where the truth lay. "I don't understand her, but I trust her. Odd, I know. I do also trust you, but you weren't here. And you should have time with your family."

And it was easier to trust Annice, in some ways. He didn't have obligations to Annice, ongoing professional connections, beyond the project of the moment. It made it easier to be vulnerable than with Charlus, with all the ties of apprenticeship. And decades in the future of professional collaboration, too.

Charlus considered. "May I ask a personal question, please?"

There were a number that might come from this conversation. "Go ahead and ask. I might not answer, but you've earned a fair number of answers now."

"You've lived on your own since the War?" Ah. That would be delicate in multiple directions, then.

Griffin nodded. "Split another cake in half? I should eat something more solid, too, in a bit. I did have lunch. The sandwiches were handy." Then he considered his answer. "By the time I was back in the Courts, my father was thinking about retiring. It took him several more years, but the house I grew up in was stairs all over. Mum found me my flat, and we refitted it a bit to make it work better for me. As to the more personal..." He shrugged. "I walked out with someone before the War. She married while I was gone. There's no harm in that. I hope she's happy." She had not loved Trellech, particularly, and that might have broken them apart anyway. "And since, there's been work, and I haven't..."

He paused, because he certainly hadn't talked about this with almost anyone. "I won't live with pity or someone who thinks they're doing a selfless, noble thing by being my nursemaid. That's a way to poison whatever love we might have had to start, and quickly. More than that, I work all the time, I haven't met anyone who might suit. Also, working all the time is in fact bad for romance, unless it's with someone you work with, and I have more sense. Let that be a caution to you."

Charlus listened attentively, and Griffin was glad for that skill. He knew Charlus would be analysing this, what he'd heard, but also that he'd remember it. "You're usually very self-sufficient." Then his voice caught, as if he'd put two different things together suddenly.

"That would be the gossip, then?" Griffin asked, as gently as he could manage. He broke one of the cakes in half and nudged the other half over to Charlus.

Again, Charlus flushed. Not much, but it was enough of a tell that they should talk about it sometime. Normally, Charlus had quite good control, but this was more personal, something that more directly involved him. "Several pieces of it. Um, sir, I assume you're aware that Nestor Aplin doesn't care for you at all. You said, last time we discussed him, you hadn't heard anything new. Some of this might be?"

"Oh, yes," Griffin said. "Though I gather from you saying so that I have been reasonably adept at hiding that the feeling is mutual so far."

It made Charlus chuckle softly. "One of my aunts is married to one of his cousins. She doesn't like him much, and we got to talking. He's been talking against you. Not in the Halls of Justice, but in other places. She didn't know about - or understand - that you're in consideration for the same thing."

"Still. And that decidedly annoys Nestor. Harriet's more even-tempered about it. She thinks it ought to be her, most of the time, but she wouldn't take it personally if Lamont picked me. Or Nestor, for that matter." Griffin considered. "Nestor has thought I should give up on it since before I came back. Before he was put in as the third candidate after Horace died in 1919. I do miss Horace." Griffin sighed a little with it. "What sort of nastiness? I'd rather know the truth."

Charlus did know, enough that he echoed the last three words, a fraction of a beat behind Griffin. "I couldn't get all the details out of my aunt, but it sounded unreasonably nasty. Undermining you, professionally, several ways round. That you're not fit for duty, that you've been letting things slip," Charlus considered. "That you should have fixed the problems years earlier."

"Ah. That's an entirely different political problem. You started with me right as Cleon retired. The rub of it is that he ought to have retired three or four years before he did. Enough time for me to get established again, to have a year working in the inheritance courts in specific, and then take over for him. That didn't happen. And he kept tight hold of his part of things until finally, he had that fall, and eventually agreed that coming into work was too much to do regularly." Griffin hesitated, then added, "It wasn't a physical infirmity, though, as much as a mental one. Memory. He'd forget when he was."

Then Griffin had a horrible thought, and he said it before he could bury it deep. "Now I'm wondering if whatever affected the courtroom, the jet, had to do with that. I don't think so - surely someone else would have noticed. Or worse, had symptoms. Or one of the diagnostics would have caught something."

Charlus was open-mouthed. Then he swallowed. "Should I get another round of testing set in motion?"

"Please, though for right now, can you just check on materia for it and see if we're low on anything? I'll need to write up a proposal for Lamont and for Gloriana and Christopher. One of the architectural specialists, and someone good with odd magic and ritual workings. I might see privately if Cy - Council Member Smythe-Clive is available for a look. He's seen some of our other work." Other people might reasonably ask the Penelopes, but it was complicated since they often had to give evidence in those spaces one way or another.

"You're familiar with him, then?" Charlus came from the sort of family that didn't have a landed title, but had in the past, and would probably marry into one again sooner than later.

"His sister runs the baths at the Temple of Healing, and she arranged for him to help evaluate where my skills were when I was newly back. We've kept up a light correspondence since. You know the sort of thing. I'd copy something out of the legal journals and publications, he'd send back an article from outside Albion that might be relevant. Council Member Landry's also quite skilled at ritual work, but I don't know him nearly as well. And he was after your time at Schola, so that won't work, though I could ask Seth to ask his sister." Griffin waved a hand. "Chains of interconnection. We'll try the shorter one first. And if Cyrus isn't willing, he might know who to suggest."

"I begin to see why you work all the time, sir," Charlus said after a moment. "You're always thinking about the consequences. How one thing leads onward."

"That's the pursuit of truth and justice for you. Even if they're not always the same thing." It was also the infirmity. He always had to think of the possibilities several steps out, to stand a chance of keeping going with what he wanted to get done. But he wasn't going to mention that now. "Anyway, I will work on that as soon as I can, but to be honest, likely tomorrow." He flicked his fingers. "The potion does rather horrid things to my ability to write neatly, and I didn't bring the typewriter. Was there other gossip?"

"A couple of other things. Like there are factions, lines of preference, in the Courts. Which I knew, but perhaps you could lay that out more sometime, sir? Not today, though, if you'd rather not."

Griffin took a breath, considering it, then thought better of it. "It will almost certainly make more sense if we wait. You were going to go back, yes?"

"If you don't need me to stay, sir. I'm glad to, of course." Charlus glanced over at the stairs. "Most of my things are still in my room here."

"No, I'd rather you go work on getting the materia together. And being around the place, seeing who wants to talk to you when I'm not there. Don't tell them any details about how things are going. You can say I've told you not to, if you like. Or you can say I haven't told you all of what I'm working on. Both of which are true, of course."

"Of course," Charlus said, and now he looked amused. Then he hesitated. "May I ask something, sir? A touch more personal, about how you approach the gossip?"

"Please." Griffin rearranged himself.

"Why don't you say something about it? More openly? Mostly, it seems to me you just let them insinuate things."

"Oh, several reasons. First, perhaps most importantly, I'd rather spend my time on other things. But second, it's like arguing with the tides or the moon or the sun rising. I'm not going to change their opinions by arguing. Especially Nestor's, he's also a solicitor. We both know how arguments are crafted. If he brought it out in the open, I could address it. So he won't let me get that advantage. Instead, I'm going to do my best work - like I've been doing all along. And hopefully, that will speak for itself. It gets tiring, mind. Every time I do make a minor slip, the sort everyone human does, I wonder how much more this one will count against me than it would for someone else. But that's a known sort of maths these days. And I'm lucky enough to have excellent support and advice. Antimony, a few of the other Guards, various people in the Courts. You."

Charlus ducked his chin. "Thank you, sir. I suspect I'll be thinking about that part, when it's worth arguing and when it isn't, for some time. Let me go make sure you've got things handy, then, and I'll go off." He took a moment to finish the half cake in front of him, then Griffin could hear him moving around. A couple of minutes of checking in the kitchen later, Charlus said, "You should be good for milk until Thursday. I'll plan to come back then? And there are fresh towels out in the bath, all that."

"You're very thoughtful, thank you. And I'll take it easy tonight. I've a book." More to the point, once he'd had supper, he could reasonably retreat to bed and the book, and not have to move much for a bit. Charlus nodded, and then a minute later, he was making his farewells and out the door again. Griffin let out a long breath, because that could have been a great deal more difficult to deal with. And now he had the evening without any expectation of visitors. He could reasonably retire for the night once he'd had a little more food that wasn't cakes.