Chapter 34

APRIL 3RD

A nnice woke the next morning, again uncertain where she was. Her head, it turned out, was on Griffin's shoulder. He had pulled a blanket over her, but he was under the sheets himself. She carefully moved, considering her options. Making breakfast seemed the most sensible thing once she washed up. And seeing what Griffin said, when he was properly awake.

He slept quite a long time, actually. More than long enough for her to wash. She made a cup of tea, rummaging for a book from the shelves by the door, which seemed to be his more general reading. She'd curled up on the sofa and read into the second chapter when she heard sounds from the bathing room. A couple of minutes later, he wheeled himself into the main room and caught sight of her. "Not a figment of my dreams, then." He followed it promptly by adding, "I hope you were comfortable and that I didn't do anything you didn't want."

"I slept very well. Don't remember a thing until I woke up. I'm, um, sorry I fell asleep on you?"

Griffin wriggled a hand. "I enjoyed it." It was a simple statement. It was him saying it, so she knew it was true. "Will you stay?"

"Stay now? Stay, um, longer?" Annice wanted him to be clear, because what she wanted was actually rather foggy. Other than that she wanted more of what last night had been, whatever that was.

"Both. Either. Whatever you'll accept. You can have the bedroom upstairs, if you like. Just." Now he looked very much like a plaintive dog. Or like Grandad had, when he wanted something and couldn't quite admit it.

Annice stood, her hands on her hips, considering him. "It's very hard to resist you when you look like that. So you know. Don't take too much advantage of it." Then she let out a breath, slowly, thinking through her options. "I'm thinking I make you breakfast, and then I go and pack up my things and bring them here. If I change my mind, you can get me a room again, right?"

She wasn't ready to commit to anything. Certainly not to promising to share his bed, not yet. Not in the more euphemistic sense. She knew that when she did that, she'd be saying yes to everything else. Or she'd already have said yes. But she could, maybe, try on what it would feel like. Surely the bubble of it would pop and dissolve in a few more days.

"Right." Now Griffin was lit up like a lamp again. "A quiet day today? Make free with my books. I see you have. Or the kitchen, or anything else you need. I thought we might go out for lunch, have supper here, and be ready for tomorrow."

That was, in fact, what they did. Oh, he made sure there was time to curl up together, for kissing and cuddling, but they didn't go any further with it than they'd done the night before. Except, this time, she had a nightgown on, and she was under the covers, and she stayed there. When his alarm went off the next morning, he reached over to turn it off, then immediately nuzzled at the back of her head. "I could get used to this."

She snorted, and went upstairs to go wash, while he did the same downstairs. The thing of it was, she could too. He'd made it so easy to fit into his life in a way she didn't even know how to ask about. Surely that wasn't just for her, the way Griffin did that. Only it felt like it was, like every little detail was a particular choice he was making, with her comfort and happiness in mind.

They left entirely on time by his standards, depositing their coats and bags in his office before continuing down to the courtroom. There were already two women waiting, one in a Guard uniform, one in a black jacket, skirt, and white blouse with a touch of green at the collar. Both were perhaps in their fifties, two decades older than Annice. But it was hard to tell, especially with the second woman, who had light brown skin and black hair that had a few silver strands.

Griffin beamed at them, though to be fair, he'd been beaming pretty continuously all day so far. "Mason, I was hoping you'd be free. And Antimony." He then gestured with one hand as he came to a stop. "This is Penelope Elizabeth Mason. Penelope as a title, of course. And Captain Antimony Orland, one of the Guard who works most closely with inheritance matters. This is Mistress Annice Matthewman, our current expert in jet." She noticed, yet again, how he made sure to give her the title.

Both women nodded, and the Penelope said, amused, "You needn't be formal with us. I'm Mason in general conversation. And Antimony, for some reason, does not actually hate her first name." It appeared to be some sort of old joke, because the other woman, the Guard, just chuckled.

Annice had never actually been in the same room as one of the Penelopes. All she knew about them was what turned up in the Trellech paper, or in gossip, how they knew all sorts of magical things, and investigated some of them. And there was sometimes nastier gossip, how they were more women than men, and how they got above themselves, sticking their noses in many corners and not minding their place. This woman showed no signs of that sort of rudeness, and Annice didn't exactly have room to throw stones about doing things women didn't usually.

"Annice, then. May I ask what you're doing?" Annice folded her hands in front of her, wanting to fidget and not sure how to avoid it.

"Secret and arcane magics." Mason laughed as she finished, as if she couldn't keep her face straight longer. "I've samples of jet from several locations, and I'm going to do a bit of fiddly ritual work, and then see about identifying what's set in the room. And then I'm likely going to have some questions for you. All Penelopes have a working knowledge of gemstones and such, but there are nuances here I don't know. Yet." Then she waved a hand. "All three of you, over there, don't move out of the area I marked off." The space was roughly a square, made by removing one table in the court and drawing out a circle with chalk.

Griffin rolled over it - apparently it was a marking, not a boundary - and Antimony followed him, leaving Annice to come last. Once Annice was seated, Mason turned away, and opened up a case, setting to work doing things that involved slight movements and muttered charms. Nothing Annice could actually hear.

No one said anything for a couple of minutes. Then Griffin reached out and took Annice's hand. He tilted his head, as if considering, then stayed quiet, apparently so as not to interfere with Mason's concentration. Antimony, the Captain, glanced at them before her mouth twitched, and she half-closed her eyes. Annice glanced at her watch a couple of times. It was nearly forty minutes before Mason spoke more clearly. "All right. I have some information. Annice, would you come have a look?"

Griffin squeezed her hand once before he let it go, and Annice got up, going over to where Mason was standing. She had a small case made of wood, with different compartments in it. There were four different pieces there, and Annice immediately spotted that the one on the right was horn. "Yes'm?"

"So, three kinds of jet here. And what we have in the settings are mostly - but not entirely - Spanish jet. I tested against a piece of Whitby jet, a piece from Asturias, and that one, there, is from France. Bless having friends with well-documented jewellery collections. Now. What I didn't have time to study up on is why that's a problem."

"French is poor quality," Annice said immediately. "And a lot of the Spanish is. But the problem with the Spanish - at least in this case - is that it's softer. More coal-like, is the way it's put in Whitby, but we're people who work the stone, not people who know the proper science. Or the proper magic behind the differences."

"Ah, that gives me some ideas for some further testing. All right, that means that a setting designed for the one would not work as reliably for the other. I think we can posit that much right now." Mason tapped her fingers on the table. "Does that also mean it breaks down more?"

"Softness would imply that, since we're not precisely looking for flexibility in use here." Griffin's voice came up from behind them, and Annice turned around. He'd wheeled himself over. "You said most of the jet here, not all of it?"

"The actual lines of inlay, the parts that are small beads of jet, all lined up, most of those seem to be Whitby. But they're tiny pieces, just shaped enough to fit in the channels, right? And they're not doing as much of the heavy lifting, magically speaking."

Griffin nodded, and Annice echoed it, adding, "The bigger pieces are the ones at the connections. The crossroads, that's how I was thinking of them."

"So if you could replace those pieces - four, at least, ideally all eight - you ought to be able to keep things going until you can reset the whole thing in a couple of years." Mason said. "Or at least that's a working theory. And you could swap out one at a time to keep all the extant connections running."

Annice blinked at her. "How do you know all of that?" It came out sharper than Annice meant, but the other woman just laughed.

"I'm a Penelope. We know many things. But I don't have the skill to work the stone like that, nor the time in my schedule to do it. I'm an artist in two dimensions, not three. That's where you come in. And I expect you'll figure out several other things along the way, and I'd love to talk to you about it as you work."

"If you're ever free for supper, Mason, we could have you round." Griffin said it easily, like it was an ordinary thing to say. "As long as Annice is handy, anyway."

Mason raised an eyebrow at something in that, but she nodded amiably, then she started packing up her box. "Speaking of, I have three places to be today. Keep me informed, would you? And Antimony..."

The Guardswoman laughed. "Tomorrow, yes. Tea, your office, first thing." She stepped back to let Mason out, waiting for the door to close behind her, before she turned to face Griffin more solidly. "Now, do you want the gossip?"

"Please, yes." Griffin let out a sigh. "First, though. Annice, that made sense to you? Do you have things you want to look at here?"

Annice's mind was spinning. "Is that what we're doing? Swapping out the crossroad stones?" She'd wondered about it, since she'd seen the layout, and she'd talked a little about that kind of setting with Niobe, but not in any detail yet.

"Can you take the measurements for it? Do you need a hand? Antimony can help. Or I can, though the positioning's a little more..." Griffin let his voice trail off.

Annice considered. "I'll need someone in a bit, but let me start with detailed measurements in situ." She pulled her bag around, setting it on the table, and rummaging in it for her tools. Besides, Antimony had said something about gossip, and Annice wanted to hear what that meant. Once she had her measuring tools out, she set to work on the piece nearest where they were standing.

Antimony pulled a chair around to sit in, and Griffin had angled himself so he could see where Annice was, as well as talk to Antimony. Antimony set in, immediately, with "Well, first, at least three people mentioned they'd seen you out and about this weekend. In company. Before I got my tea this morning."

"You were on duty from what, six?" Griffin said, amused. "And yes. Theatre on Saturday, supper before, lunch yesterday, and a bit of walking through going other places. Who told you?"

It got him a list of names and then a mention of a couple of others, before Antimony said, "And I gather Nestor was looking sour, so good work there."

Griffin grunted. "Different problem, that. What did I miss while I was gone?" That turned into a murmur of commentary. It seemed a well organised discussion, and when Annice turned around to swap out tools, Antimony apparently had a set of notes out. Most of it didn't make sense to Annice, she didn't have any context to attach it to. But there'd apparently been a big blowup with one case. There was something going on with a posh family, and a lot of gossip about whether the Guard was investigating someone else. Griffin didn't seem surprised by it, or upset, so Annice kept her focus on her work.

The conversation kept up for a bit, before some of it caught her attention again. She'd measured all the individual pieces in their settings, but she wanted more information about how they related to each other in the space. Griffin said, more clearly, "What I want to do is prove I'm up to the task."

Her chin came up, and she stood, resting her hands on the desk. Griffin looked at her, meeting her eyes, then said, "We were talking about proving I'm as ritually competent as anyone."

"Even though I know you are. Sensible people do." Antimony said, soothingly.

Annice had apparently learned a few things in just a handful of days. There was a thought tickling at the back of her mind, a combination of what they'd been talking about on and off, and about something Niobe had mentioned in passing. Then Annice pulled it together, holding up her hand to show she had something now.

Griffin immediately nodded at her. "Please?"

"Niobe said something, and you were talking yesterday." Annice stopped. "This is coming out badly."

"Antimony's a friend. And I'm listening. Or we could make Antimony go stand in the hall for a few minutes." Griffin offered the second, apparently entirely serious, and it made Annice wince.

"No. Just, I don't have the right words. Let me try." Annice thought about what she felt from Griffin, how he had been making space for her all along. "You've been so thoughtful, making space for me. Checking that things were comfortable, when you knew everything was new and different and I didn't know what to expect or plan for. And we talked about what you liked about the Abbey, the way the space was made for what it did."

Annice grimaced. This wasn't coming out right, then she just let the words come as she could get them out. "This is a courtroom, right? That's one kind of space, but are there others here? For people waiting, or I don't know, conversations that aren't in the courtroom? Besides offices? Or is it all courtrooms and - fancy? What happens if someone from Whitby, or a tiny village, never been to Trellech, never done much with the Guard, is being questioned or helping with something? Or someone who's upset, like you mentioned with inheritance cases."

"That is an excellent question. We have some meeting rooms, but they're not set up to support anything magically, other than privacy." Griffin said, and his hand shifted his chair for just a second, the way she'd seen him do a few times when someone else might pace. He didn't move much, just rocked back and forth, almost in place. "There's a room we could repurpose. Witnesses in complex cases, space when there's a tough decision in the offing, that sort of thing, yes?"

Annice nodded, bobbing her head several times.

"The Guard has a room or two like that for questioning, but that's a different purpose. You could use one here. We've had more than enough cases where it would have been a help. Or a kindness. Both." Antimony nodded, more direct. "It's an excellent idea. And it's a good scope, to prove yourself. You'd need layers of talisman work, though."

Griffin's smile came back, like he'd stopped concentrating as hard on everything in his head. "Good thing I've got reason to stop by Niobe's regularly at the moment. The materia might be a trick, but we could probably work with secondary stones, if we can't get the primaries. It's the combination of effects. And I'll need to consult a couple of other people on the design work. Not my area of particular expertise."

"It's barely anyone's area of specialty," Antimony pointed out. "Should I put the word around to a couple of people that you have an idea, please make time in their diaries for you in the next week?"

"If you would." Then Griffin looked up at Annice, smiling warmly. "That's an excellent thought, and I'm going to be very busy sorting some of it out for a bit. Can we help with your measurements now, before we lose ourselves in that?"

Annice nodded. "Please. This one over here, I'd like to get some distance, and that involves two people to hold the measures, and one to look at them." That process took them a bit, especially finding angles that worked with the fixed furniture. Then it was time to break for lunch. Annice went off to Niobe's for the afternoon. She had several dozen questions about the process of selecting and setting stones for this kind of work, relevant to both herself and Griffin.