Chapter nine

Kinspit

 

John hurried back home, he was in a foul mood. A day with the mage agora was a trying enough thing, and he knew that it was only the first of many days. How could he wake them up to the real peril that they faced? Just by plugging away and hoping for the best, he knew, but it was heavy work and no-one else had the authority to do it.

He had got no further than taking off his boots when Hardacre came up to him. They shared a brief discussion of the day’s activities and then John noticed something that filled him with a cold dread. Hardacre had his best dress suit on. What was going on? Was there some event that he’d missed? Was he inappropriately attired, again?

‘Why are you dressed up, Laurence?’ he asked, caution mixing with apprehension.

‘For the formal introductions, sir – why else?’

The penny dropped. The subsidiary valet was starting today. That wasn’t so bad – he’d never had any intention of dressing up for that.

‘Of course’ he said, ‘I’ll be delighted to meet him’

Hardacre said nothing more, but ushered his master into the study. In the middle of the room standing straight backed and austere was a tall, middle-aged woman, dressed in an immaculate blue dress suit. John frowned and scanned the room. He turned back to Hardacre.

‘This is Bentley, sir. She will be standing in for me when I’m indisposed. You’ll find her references on the table...’

‘I am delighted to meet you, sir’ said Bentley stepping forward, only a trace of a polite smile showing in her face. She did not offer to shake his hand, but this was deference, not impoliteness.

John picked up the references and stood there dumbstruck for a second. In a sort of panic he gestured to Hardacre to go outside with him. Hardacre obeyed with obvious reluctance. They stood in the hall.

‘This is an odd thing to have done, isn’t it, Laurence?’

‘Sir?’

‘A woman as a valet – isn’t that ...umm... inappropriate?’

‘I’m not sure what you mean, sir. If it is delicate matters of gender that concern you then I would have thought, given your nature, that a female servant would be entirely appropriate’

John bridled at this, but he wasn’t sure why. It was hard to fault the logic, but he still couldn’t help but feel that he was being teased.

‘That’s got nothing to do with it, Laurence. Doesn’t conventional etiquette require my man servant to be, well... a man?’

Hardacre coughed. It was a very small cough that might, coming from a man more prone to levity, have been covering up a derisory laugh.

‘So, your main concern is one of etiquette sir, is it? In this household?’

All John could do was to start a swift retreat.

‘What about what others might say?’

‘The exact details of our domestic arrangements are no one else’s business but our own, sir. I will note her down in all official documents as a kitchen maid. I think that will be satisfactory’

John had a flash of bafflement.

‘People might think I’ve installed a mistress...’

Hardacre raised his eyebrows as far as they would go, given design constraints.  

‘No, sir, they won’t. I can guarantee that’

‘Well...umm’ said John, floundering.

‘Her references are excellent. Most recently she was personal servant to Horace Buxton...’

John was jolted back on to an even keel.

‘Horace? Really, oh...,’  John knew Horace Buxton well. They had met a long time ago when Buxton had been a tutor in Eth City. His had been a sad life, always on the periphery of the Hybitor and then struck down with a host of chronic ailments at a comparatively young age. He had spent the last decade confined to his estates.

A not unwelcome suspicion flapped into John’s mind.

‘She’s a witch, isn’t she? Horace only ever has witches in his household...’

Hardacre nodded. He looked unperturbed.

‘It was necessary to find someone who was entirely secure, very capable and able to substitute for me as fully as possible. There were not that many suitable candidates, sir, and, of course, they were all witches’

John sighed loudly and gave in. If Laurence said it was all satisfactory then he would have to accept it. Anyway, he was fully aware that he had been foolish.

‘All very good then, Laurence.  Apologies for my behaviour. You’ve clearly made an excellent choice’

‘Thank you, and perhaps now you can go and talk to her... she will need some evidence that you can actually speak, sir’

 

***

Kath missed Potentilla and Dom. They had been gone several days now, packed up in a merchant boat bound for Gorodnikov. They had both seemed shattered and adrift, so they were sent to Castanus, Dom’s gods-father. He’d know what to do with them.

One small part of Kath, though, was secretly relieved to see them go, as it was obvious to her that their love affair, or whatever it was, was doomed on multiple levels. Beyond everything else, it was clear that Potentilla was besotted and Dom was not. Kath was no expert on sapient hearts but she knew that unbalanced relationships seldom work; and she knew all about semi-requited affection. The worrying thing, though, from a human perspective was how long it might take for the whole thing to play out. Better to let it happen an ocean away.

She herself though had stayed. Where better to look for clues to Viola’s whereabouts than Kinspit? Also, it was clear that Viola had some strange traits – she got messages from goddesses in her dreams, she could open secret places that no-one else could, and she could pass through portals that only immortals were permitted through. What, and who, was she? Again , if anyone knew it would be here, and Kath had a clear idea who she might ask first, but she was all too aware that she would have to do it without anyone else finding out.

With a bit of help from John she had obtained a University library card with the highest possible access level. She knew, at least, that it would allow her to get wherever she wanted to go. She spent hours browsing the cavernous library storerooms, which were spread out either side of the long central staircase. 

First, she wanted to look up some other things; anything that might shed light on the history of the eastern empire, and so on Viola’s ancestors. That was how she came across Kalappos’s Skiophographia, an Archaic Eleven text, in one-hundred-and-fifty-three thick folio volumes, describing the history of the elves in Skiophos. It was on level eighteen, along with numerous derived works. It had been translated into Visneorian as the Historia Occidentalis, in only seventy-one, now quarto, volumes; and that in turn, had been translated and abridged into the ten-volume work known to humans as the History of the Westerly Elves.

Kath spent some time comparing the versions, but it would take a lifetime to do it properly. She still smelt a rat, though. Why were there three versions of this classic text? And why was each so significantly longer than its neighbour. In particular how could the Visneorian version be half the size of the Archaic Elven one? What had been missed out between the two versions? She needed to find someone who might have read both versions; someone who had been around a very long time.  She knew no mage scholars in Kinspit, as no-one here appeared to study Dwarven Magic, but nonetheless she had someone in mind.  She try to find the naga at the bottom of the library; the one that Hardacre had talked to. She would be exceptionally dangerous to visit, but she would undoubtedly know the answers to her questions. She just had to find a way to get in to see her.