Chapter 5

MARCH 3RD IN TRELLECH

"S ir?" There was a knock on the door, the particular two then three that meant it was Charlus, even if the door muffled his voice.

Griffin called out, "Come in, please." He considered his options for this conversation for the fifth time today.

His office was not the location he'd prefer for what would be, of necessity, a somewhat more personal discussion. But he had work he needed to do that evening, and he was not up to going home and back. Also, it was raining, and he decidedly wasn't up for dealing with the way the wheels kicked up mud if he so much as looked at a puddle wrong. Whatever else happened today, Griffin did not much want to add changing his trousers twice to his list of tasks.

Charlus came in, looking decidedly windblown, which made the decision even easier. He'd have come back from Portal Square, so about twenty minutes walk. Griffin appreciated his gift for managing not to get soaked. It wasn't the easiest charm set to learn, even if it came in very handy in the average month in Albion.

"Put the kettle on, please. It's still brisk out there, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir. But I was hoping to make it back while you were still in the office, so you could have all the information you needed." Charlus took a moment to take off his hat and hang up his bag on the hook by the door.

"Oh, I'm here for a bit. We're going to look at the courtrooms tonight and see what else we want to consider. Take advantage of the new moon alignments. But I'm glad you came back. A little more time to marshal my arguments never hurts."

Charlus snorted. "Sir." He settled down after he turned the kettle on to boil, letting out a long breath. "The warding?"

"The warding." Griffin agreed with that, and brought it up with a gesture, feeling it settle into place. Charlus let out a longer sigh. That was curious information indeed. Now Griffin waited. When he'd been training as a solicitor, that had been a big part of it. He'd learned how to give someone space for something they were finding challenging. It made it easier to get at what they needed and at the truth, both. Then, he'd had to keep an eye on the clock, and here he didn't have to, other than being ready in two hours for the evening's work.

Finally, Charlus looked up. "Someone wants to prove that you can't do this, sir."

Griffin's mouth quirked up. "More than one someone, yes." He considered. "At least two, it might be four or five. I don't have a good angle on some information that would help. What makes you say that?"

"It's not a town terribly conducive to a wheelchair, sir. I think you can make it work. I'll get to that in a second, from what you told me, but I have a few questions. But the whole thing's built into the side of two cliffs. There are those steps up to the Abbey, cliff faces on the side streets. And near every hotel or lodging house I checked has stairs."

"But not every." Griffin had caught that, and it got him a lopsided smile from Charlus. "Do you want a bit more of the explanation than I've given you, then? I'm sorry to bring you into it like this, mind."

When Charlus had apprenticed with him last year, it had been all about what Griffin could teach. Griffin had gone to school with Charlus's aunt, and she had agitated for the apprenticeship. Certainly, Griffin had come out well from the agreement - the money didn't hurt, though he wasn't dependent on it. He found Charlus was attentive to detail, responsive, quick to pick up techniques, and in every other way a model apprentice. He was patient with the forms and formalities, some of which were ridiculous, and he was developing the necessary knack for when to go around those forms.

But Griffin had not then or since particularly explained why he used the chair. He'd left it at explaining it was an injury during the War, which was true enough. He'd only explained the parts that applied to their work. Charlus was never to touch or push his chair unless requested. It was, in fact, a help for someone else to get the door, all of that. Charlus hadn't asked, which was probably his good manners, and Griffin hadn't offered. It was an awkward sort of conversation, but now it was necessary. And to his credit, Charlus had been exemplary in keeping to what Griffin had asked, in the chair as with everything else.

Now Charlus nodded. "Whatever you feel you wish to tell me, sir." Just then, the kettle sang, so there were a few moments of fussing with that and the teapot to let Griffin decide how to begin, where to begin.

Once Charlus was seated again, Griffin swallowed. "Long story short, partway through my service in the Great War, I was assigned to a mining company. Someone saw the Monmouthshire address, I suspect, and assumed I knew mining. I was an officer. I knew enough about how to manage a project, of course."

"You'd been well through your apprenticeship then, sir," Charlus said, pausing to do the maths.

"That too. I'd been named as one of the three potential Heirs before the War, but of course that didn't matter to my orders. They were mining deep tunnels to get under the enemy. Near Messines, in France. That part went well enough, or at least as well and as badly as that sort of thing ever does. I wasn't entirely comfortable with it, the impact on the land and the land magic, and all that, but I couldn't actually speak up about it. I just kept my head down, took care of my men as best I could."

Griffin stopped, as he always had to when he talked about this. "When the explosion happened, I remember it. There was fire shooting up terribly far into the sky. But it was the earth shaking that I remember most. And then I don't remember much for a fortnight. By that point, I was back at the Temple of Healing, and had been for at least a week. I'd been lucid on and off, apparently, but keeping confidences even then."

Charlus didn't seem sure how to take this, but after a moment offered a comment, trusting it would be all right. "You kept to your training, then, sir. The training here."

"Exactly." Griffin rewarded that with a smile. Charlus had certainly earned it. "The rest of my recovery was slow and complex. Long story short, as I mentioned when you began, I have some issues with balance and with weakness in my legs. We're not entirely sure why, still, just that it's been stable for years. The chair lets me do more, far more reliably. And most of the time, my life is arranged so that it's not a bother. You've seen my flat."

"Everything you need on the ground floor, sir. Even if you have a spare room upstairs, as well." Charlus hesitated.

"Go on, ask your question. It's not something I bring up often. You might as well." Griffin didn't much like talking about it - it was somewhere between awkward and just plain boring at this point. But Charlus would, Griffin hoped, not be awful about it. The precedent so far certainly seemed encouraging on that point.

"Pardon, sir. I was wondering if, um. If it's painful?" The young man's voice cracked a little.

"Not terribly often. Some aches, and such, especially when the weather's foul or changing. But less, on average, than my mother, and she blames that on age. Mostly, it's tedious, when it's a bother. Shops and such. The housekeeper who sees to me is a treasure, thankfully, she knows how things work for me. Or days like this, when the wet makes everything even worse. I'm right at the best height to get a puddle across my chest if someone doesn't watch where they're driving."

It visibly wasn't something Charlus had put together, and he snorted at the image before looking abashed. "It isn't funny at all, sir, just..."

"It's a hilarious image, and remember, I told you we'd have truth here, as much as we can." Humans could not, in fact, bear unending truth, but that was a challenge for people to aspire to live up to. Certainly Griffin aspired to it. "Anyway. I manage well enough when I visit my parents up north. Or a little travel, but that's mostly been London for the theatre, and with a friend."

Griffin considered that this was probably as good a time to mention the rest of it. There were all the political considerations and Charlus was about to see more of those. "But it took a while to make sure that whatever it was that was causing the problem would not get worse. I spent some time in the Temple of Healing, then at a care home that specialises in magical injury. And in helping people figure out the next thing they're going to do." He shrugged. "And eventually I came back here. I was lucky enough to meet someone who makes a much better wheelchair than I started with."

"Huh. There are - I mean, I've seen there are different kinds." Charlus asked it a little uncertainly. "And you said yours was better on hills than some."

"It is. Magic's a great help, actually. The man who made it has a good friend - chosen brother, friend since Schola, all that - who's paralysed. Seth mostly makes furniture, but he got into wheelchairs as a sideline, ones that suit someone." Griffin considered. "You had Professor Wain at Schola. Her brother."

Charlus took a moment to chew on that. "How does the magic help, then? Do you mind my asking?" That was a good sign, that he was curious about that. Griffin had hoped this was how he'd take it, rather than asking about what Griffin couldn't do.

"If you'd like, I'll arrange a chance for you to ask Seth and Ponyard - that's the engineer he works with - when they're in town. Magic makes it more comfortable and helps stabilise it, it helps reduce the amount of maintenance I have to do. And it gives me more tools than sheer mechanics for turning and braking and all that. Or a little more leverage, going up a steeper hill. I don't exactly enjoy going down those, either, but I'm not at risk of rushing down or tipping over the same way I would without the magic. Out in public, somewhere like Whitby, there are limits to that, of course. Can't push the bounds of the Pact and do something that could only happen with magic."

Of all the oaths that ran his life, that was one of the most basic. Only, living in Trellech, where everyone was magical and had made the Pact, it was also one of the easiest to manage. Travel would change all of that, and it had been years since he'd had to consider that for more than a day or two at a time.

"And that's why you asked if I'd come up with you. Right, sir, I think I understand better with what you told me before." Charlus paused to pour the tea from pot to cup, then handed Griffin his. "Some hills are very steep, but there are people who go there to take the sea air, and I saw several people using chairs - the older kind, the basket chairs someone has to push."

"That's not a bad sign. I suppose there are cobblestones." Not Griffin's favourite, and there were entire streets in Trellech that he avoided unless he was in the mood to bump up and down. The cushioning charms only went so far, and there was always a stone every so often that was particularly difficult.

"There are." Charlus looked down at his notes. "The main inn won't do. The hallways are tight, the whole thing's cramped, and there are no ground floor rooms at all."

"I can get myself upstairs with canes or crutches, if needed, but it's having somewhere to leave the chair that's a problem, yes. But you said there was something that might work," Griffin said.

"There are a whole set of little courtyards, with homes off them. They're called ghaults, I gather, by the locals. I found one - a former stables - redone as a cottage for rental. One bedroom above and a boxroom, but there's a bedroom on the ground floor. And a sitting room and a small kitchen. I put down a deposit for it, like you suggested, for next week. I've a diagram here, and the measurements you asked for. And it's not booked now, or until the middle of April. Not much call for rentals this time of year, she just needs a day or two to tidy and dust." He rummaged in his notebook and passed a folded sheet over to Griffin.

The whole thing was as Charlus said, and the measurements were neatly added. The sketch wasn't quite to scale, but well, Charlus was a solicitor and working on being a specialist in the judicial magics, not an architect. Griffin wouldn't insult him by asking if the measurements were accurate. The key thing was that there was space in the entry for the chair, and likely also a reasonable angle into the bedroom. There was also the main bath on the ground floor, and Griffin hadn't been sure that would be an option.

"Well spotted. And yes, that will do, if you'd write and confirm? I'll want at least a week, I expect, possibly longer. Call it a fortnight, if she's willing to adjust on a few days' notice, and ask about the possibility of extending." Griffin was considering the options. "Where is it?"

"The east side, sir, which is where the jet shops are, the few that remain. And I checked with the pubs along there. A couple have more amenable spaces, and the inn - it's um, called the White Horse & Griffin, actually - said they'd be glad to make up meals for takeaway, in the circumstances. We'll be right around the corner. That won't be a bother."

Griffin swallowed, suddenly. Then he looked up. "I'm glad you're willing to come with me. It will make things much easier, at least to get started. If I need to be gone longer than a week, we can see about swapping out with someone else. Lucy said she'd be glad to. She just can't get clear next week." Lucy had been his preferred clerk and assistant before Charlus. She was always a delight. But also it would be a bit more of a scandal to have her staying in the same small cottage, by non-magical standards. That was a fuss he didn't need. "Magical cottage or no?"

"No, but I had time to test the hot water and such, and it'd take charms well enough." Charlus glanced at his notes again. "And the portal's not far from there, and fairly level. There are carters and such if you want to hire someone to go further, too. The woman who owns the cottage said she'd put together a list. She mentioned a nephew or something of the kind that does that sort of work."

"Good." It occurred to Griffin then that they hadn't actually talked about Charlus and his observation. That was a key conversation, and frankly, also more interesting than Griffin's physical limits.

He leaned back a little. "I didn't explain why I'm not surprised you think someone wants me to fail. There are people here, in our department, who don't think I'm fit for service."

"And you won't name names, sir." It wasn't a question. That was Charlus confirming that Griffin wouldn't.

"No. No sense in biassing you unduly. If you have a cause for concern, something you think is against our oaths and codes of practice, you should let me know. Or one of the senior staff, whoever you feel you can talk to."

"Mistress Henning, probably." Charlus said. She was an excellent choice, really. She did not approve of problems that impeded the work of the Courts. Charlus nodded. Charlus considered, and then asked, "How are people, erm, a barrier, sir?"

"They can't argue with me continuing as I am. They've tried, Lamont was having none of it. But they think I ought to give up any idea of being Heir, or of taking over the land magic in due course. And of course, not any other sort of promotion either. They grumbled over me becoming Yew Primus, but we didn't have a lot of other choice there. I'm meant to just go along like this for the rest of my life until I retire. And that's not an awful life, but I refuse to be hemmed into it by other people's assumptions."

Charlus opened his mouth, closed it, and then leaned forward a little. "I can't see you taking that sitting down, no, sir." Again, he was venturing a bit of bravery.

Griffin grinned, then started laughing, warm chuckles. "Just so. Fighting them head-on isn't any good, so I have to pick my battles. But if they expect me to fail, and I don't, well. That's a good thing for me, I suspect."

Charlus went quiet for a little, fifteen seconds. Then he said, carefully, not quite making oath on it, but the weight of that was behind his words. "I hope you know, sir, that you've been a grand apprentice master for me, and that I'll do what I can to help you. Now, and in the future."

Griffin inclined his head, because that deserved proper acknowledgement. "I am glad of the former, and you don't owe me anything other than your good work. But I am very pleased to have your support, your attention to detail." He tapped the diagram with his index finger. "And your ideas. Also your humour, when we're in private or with friends and allies, mind."

That got a broader smile from Charlus. Griffin gave him a moment to settle, then said, "If you're able to stick around tonight, I could use your help now, too. Shall we talk through what we have in mind for the evaluation?"

That led them smoothly into the complexities of the magical design, and the different techniques for evaluating the courtroom enchantments. It kept them busy until someone knocked on his door to let them know the courts had all let out for the evening and they could begin.