The Master of Heathcrest Hall (26 page)

By the time they reached the dining room, the others were already seated. Rafferdy helped Lord Baydon into his place, then took his own.

“I warn you, supper is bound to be very poor tonight,” Lady Marsdel said as the first plates were brought. “I have directed my cook several times of late to produce better fare, but she has made no efforts in this regard.”

“I imagine it is not for lack of effort,” Mrs. Baydon said. “My own cook complains there is nothing good to be had in the city anymore. Is it not the same for you, Lady Quent?”

Mrs. Quent nodded. “The other day when I was out, I noted that the selection in the shops was very scant but that there was a surplus of people trying to purchase it.”

Rafferdy could not help a smile. He doubted any other lord’s wife would go to a shop to observe things directly for herself. Only Mrs. Quent.

“It is little hardship for us, but I worry about those who are poorer,” she continued, “and if they will be able to buy enough to eat.”

Mr. Baydon gave a snort. “Well, if not, then you can blame it on the hooligans in the Outlands. I’m sure they are waylaying all carts and wagons that are bound for Invarel and making off with the goods; for God knows they are too dull and lazy to grow anything fit for proper people to eat in Torland. Yet I wonder that the Crown’s soldiers allow it.”

“Perhaps they have other matters to concern themselves with,” Rafferdy said.

“Well, I am sure some effort might be made to improve the situation,” Lady Marsdel declaimed. “I would dismiss my cook if I thought there was a chance I wouldn’t end up with someone even more dreadful. But that is hardly likely, for the best servants have all been taken away by the households that have left the city due to the troubles.”

She took a spoonful of her soup, then waved a napkin at her bowl so that a servant hurried forward and whisked it away.

“I tell you,” Lady Marsdel went on, “I have become greatly wearied by all this awful business. If it would confine itself to the West Country, I would care nothing about it, but when it causes us such misery here in the city, then it has become too much indeed.”

“Hear! Hear!” Mr. Baydon said, then tucked into his own soup, seeming to have no concerns for its quality.

In fact, everything set before them seemed to Rafferdy to be quite good, though he supposed the variety was less than would have been found upon Lady Marsdel’s table in the past. There were few exotic items or rare delicacies, but what was there was anything but poor. The soup was flavorful with fresh herbs, and the beef so tender it melted on the tongue. Rafferdy took a sip of his wine and found it to be an excellent vintage. If this was misery,
he knew there were a great many people in the nation who would gladly wish themselves miserable.

Yet, as he set down his glass, he could only think that the present state of affairs in the nation had indeed weighed upon Lady Marsdel. Rafferdy had never before thought of her ladyship as in any way old. Mature and stately, yes; but she was far too vigorous and forceful a woman to be described by a word that implied frailty and weakness.

Only tonight her shoulders looked thin and curled inside the stiff shoulders of her russet dress, and the shadows in the dining room—more numerous than usual, for the number of candles was less—accentuated the sharpness of her cheeks and the thin bones of her hands. It might be ridiculous to think of a woman in a grand house dining on beef and wine to be miserable. Yet was not misery a relative state? It represented the difference between what one felt one
should
have and what one
did
. And that gap had grown for everyone in Altania over the course of these last months—the high as well as the low.

Rafferdy set down his wineglass. “I wonder,” he said, “if the best goods and the best servants are to be found in the east, perhaps you should consider leaving the city and removing yourself to your manor at Farland Park. I imagine you would find the society of more families there—and so have a better chance of luring away a good cook.”

He spoke these words lightly, but Lady Marsdel’s reply was the opposite. “My father fought against Bandley Morden’s soldiers,” she said, letting her fork fall loudly against her plate. “Lord Marsdel’s father did as well. They did not put up with this Morden mischief then, and I will not do so now. We will stand our ground, as all true patriots of Altania must!”

She spoke these words with force—though Rafferdy could not help noticing how her hand trembled as she took up her fork again. All the same, it was a pronouncement that could not be argued with. Rafferdy picked up his own fork, and they all resumed eating their supper with much grimness, as if it were their duty to their nation.

Once this was concluded, they returned to the vastness of the parlor. Lady Marsdel seemed to have no wish for conversation, and she asked Mrs. Baydon if she would play some more on the pianoforte. Both Mr. and Mrs. Baydon appeared pained at this suggestion, but after the display at the supper table, no one seemed to think it wise to deny her ladyship’s wishes.

“You must consider it your obligation as a patriot,” Rafferdy murmured in Mrs. Baydon’s ear as he pulled out the bench for her.

She gave him a wan smile. “I suppose I must, at that.”

Mrs. Baydon made a game attempt to play—and Mr. Baydon made a similar effort to conceal his criticisms behind his broadsheet. Lady Marsdel seemed intent upon listening to the music, while her brother dozed in a chair beside her. So it was that Rafferdy at last had an opportunity to speak to Mrs. Quent. The two of them sat on a sofa some distance away, and if they leaned their heads together, and spoke in low tones, no one might hear their voices over the music.

“It seems so long since we have seen one another,” Mrs. Quent said first, apparently as eager to have a conversation as he was.

“Much too long, I would say, and for that I can only blame myself.”

“I am sure your work at Assembly is far more important than coming to call at Durrow Street.”

He shook his head solemnly. “On the contrary, nothing could be more important than calling on you, and your husband and sisters. Yet it is often the case that matters less important but more pressing distract us from the things that press less upon us but are far more important.”

“If that is the case, then perhaps I should harry you more to come to visit us, so that you give the matter the proper urgency,” she said, smiling.

Rafferdy laughed for what seemed the first time in days, though he kept the sound of it low. “I wish that you would.”

“I will,” she promised, and then her expression became serious. “But I would never wish to take you from your work at Assembly. In times such as these, I am sure it cannot be more vital.”

“Nor would I want to distract your husband in any way, for his work is even more so. I have heard he has been nominated for the post of lord inquirer, and that he will soon come before the Hall of Magnates to testify ahead of his confirmation.”

“I do hope you will not be too hard on him in your questioning, Mr. Rafferdy.” She spoke this as a jest, though he thought he saw a hint of real worry in her expression. Nor could he say that such a reaction was entirely unfounded.

“I fear that Sir Quent must expect that some will indeed attempt to make the interview difficult for him, due to the nature of the post itself.”

Now the concern was open upon her face. “He knows this. There are those in the government who do not see the work the inquirers do with the Wyrdwood in a favorable light.”

Rafferdy could only be astonished by these words, for her understanding of matters was clearly deeper than he had thought. But now that he considered it, why shouldn’t it be so? Given the work her husband had done for years, as well as her own nature, it was likely she knew far more about the matter of the Wyrdwood than Rafferdy did himself.

Yet there were things he knew that she could not. He hesitated for only a moment, then dismissed any uncertainty. There was no one in all of Altania he could trust more than Mrs. Quent.

“You are right,” he said. “There are those in the government, within the very Hall in which I sit, who seek to do all they can to disrupt the work of the Inquiry—or even to undo it. But know also that there are others who do not intend to make this an easy task for them.”

Her green eyes grew wide, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “What do you mean?”

“I have joined another arcane order,” he said, whispering himself. “It is a small order, only nine in number, but our purpose is to prevent any law that might cause harm to the Wyrdwood from making its way through Assembly. Just recently, we were able to thwart an effort to pass an act calling for those stands of Old Trees nearest Invarel to be reduced in size.”

Her voice quavered with what might have been dread or excitement, or perhaps both. “Then you performed a great good for the country, and surely prevented more Risings—and so more reprisals against the Wyrdwood. But I can only admit that I am astonished by this news. Isn’t it more perilous than ever to belong to an arcane order, Mr. Rafferdy? All have been forbidden, save the one sanctioned by the Gray Conclave. I fear that you place yourself in grave danger with your actions.”

Rather than any sort of alarm, her words filled him with a powerful satisfaction; and if he sat up straighter, and thrust his chest out a bit, it was not something he could help.

“There is danger in it, I concede. All the same, it must be done. There are those in the very order you mentioned—the one sponsored by the state—who seek to cause some of the smaller stands of Old Trees to rise up, so that people will then call for the destruction of all of them. Yet you and I know that must never happen. We have seen the way the Old Trees have the ability to fight against
them
.”

He cast his eyes upward for a moment, as if they were outside and the red planet glowed in the sky above.

“The Ashen,” she murmured, almost without sound. “These men who seek to harm the Wyrdwood … they are aligned with them somehow?”

“How can they not be?”

Before she could respond, it impinged upon him that the parlor had grown suddenly quiet. Mrs. Baydon had ceased her playing. Even as Rafferdy realized what this portended, there came a sharp
snap
that could only be the sound of Lady Marsdel’s fan closing.

“Lord Rafferdy and Lady Quent, I observe that you are being very selfish in your conversation,” her ladyship called out, and if her voice had sounded weary before, it in no way lacked force now. “Either attend to Mrs. Baydon’s playing in a courteous fashion like we all are doing—or, if what you are saying is of such grave importance that it cannot wait, then do share your thoughts with the room.”

There was no more opportunity for words, but the look he and Mrs. Quent exchanged was enough. She gave a small nod, her green eyes shining; and for his part, Rafferdy could not help being exceedingly pleased.

Together, they turned their attention to Mrs. Baydon.

D
ARKNESS PROWLED at the door of the library, kept at bay by the light of the several candles Ivy had lit. They were burning low now; it was past time to retire upstairs. All the same, she did not rise from her chair. It was not as if Mr. Quent was waiting for her, as he was once again late with his work at the Citadel.

Besides, she was nearly finished with the book.

Ivy turned another page of
The Towers of Ardaunto
, reading as quickly as she could by the dim gold light. She had not had time to finish the story on her return from the bookshop near Greenly Circle, for it had been difficult to read as the cabriolet jostled along the streets of the Old City. Even if she could have, there still wouldn’t have been time, for there were more pages remaining than she had thought there would be. Whoever had excised the pages from the copy left on the doorstep (and who could it have been but the man in the black mask?), he had removed a number of them.

Once back at the house on Durrow Street, there had been no time to read more of the book, for she had found an invitation from Lady Marsdel waiting for her in the parlor. Evidently Mr. Rafferdy had written a note to her ladyship as well as to Ivy, and here was the result.

In the note, Lady Marsdel invited Ivy to dine at her abode that
evening. She also urged Ivy to bring Mr. Quent and her sisters with her. But as it turned out, only a little while before, Lily and Rose had received an invitation to a dance at one of the few households that they were acquainted with and which remained in the city, and they had accepted.

Though her sisters leaned toward breaking the engagement, for the affair had been very suddenly and hastily arranged, Ivy told them they should never break a promise, even one just made. Besides, they would no doubt have much enjoyment at a dance.

“I’m sure Rose might, but I shan’t,” Lily said. “I only accepted the invitation for
her
sake.”

Rose looked up from petting Miss Mew, who was curled up on the sofa beside her. “But I don’t like to dance at all! You know that, Lily. I only said I would go because you were going. I’m sure I won’t be able to move if someone asks me to be his partner. So you
must
dance, for both of us.”