“Wasteful,” Lynsey agreed. “Though it seems to me that the role is more than opening a gate.”
“True enough. Controlling access, which seems to be a large issue, even within the neighbourhood. I’ve arranged for a noticeboard to be put up by the outer doors so I can post days the doors will be opened, and I was thinking of putting regular notices in newspapers, if only to stem the flood of letters. I received five yesterday and seven this morning asking whether I would permit joining ceremonies, along with a remarkable lecture from the Wise of Chalk Grove telling me I should not let people in, and to expect a deputation of the Wise. This is not at all what I thought to be doing.”
“You’ve the freedom to travel, though?” Evelyn asked. “More so than with Lord Msrah?”
“There doesn’t seem to be any bar against it. Though I expect to be relatively settled for the next few years.” She smiled at Lynsey with a casual civility that would allow no hint of her deep interest. “You live in London? Evelyn mentioned that you’re a member of the United Albion League. You believe there’s a Dragon of the North?”
Lynsey lifted a hand dismissively. “The dragons are beside the point. It’s Arawn who grants access to Annwn, and his Hunt has repeatedly been witnessed over the border. We do not know what limits his territorial allegiance, or what will happen if we simply choose to join Alba and Prytennia under the name of Albion.”
“But the Suleviae are confined to the dragonates. They won’t be able to defend the north.”
“Prytennia’s airships have no such restrictions. Nor do the Nomarches, or, for that matter, the army. It would not be so secure as Prytennia under Sulis, but why not at least try it to see if it gains us territorial allegiance? Under a method less desperately divisive than the requirements of this ridiculous Protectorate.”
Evelyn chuckled. “You don’t think Prince Gustav will win himself a permanent nest?”
“That vote only passed thanks to certain absences, and much stirring up of fear of Rome. It’s already foundering. There’s no way enough Albans will make personal sacrifices to the Aesir.”
Lynsey glanced apologetically at her brother, who shrugged and said: “I don’t recommend underestimating Prince Gustav. Yes, on current numbers the term of the Protectorate won’t be extended, but a vote for a united Albion is even less likely. And Prytennians so associate their borders with the dragonates that they’re positively superstitious about reaching beyond them.”
“They also started with one dragonate and now have three,” Lynsey pointed out.
“The Suleviae won’t push for territory they can’t defend,” Evelyn said. He paused, then added blandly: “Though a few more years of Prince Gustav turning up on their doorstep every five minutes might change that.”
Lyle, briefly abandoning correct behaviour, pretended to throw a seedcake at him, and Evelyn ducked and laughed.
Lynsey, watching them with fond tolerance, said: “The position isn’t as clear as you might think. But we mustn’t bore Arianne rehashing old debates when we came to offer our help.”
Rian, who had been trying to fit an effort to unite Albion with a plot revolving around fulgite, seized the convenient opening.
“My goals in the short term revolve around clothes and transportation,” she said. “It sounds as if purchasing a hummingbird is a fraught investment, thanks to the fulgite scarcity.”
“You’d do better using taxicabs,” Evelyn agreed. “Though given the prices this last couple of years, perhaps the best sense is buying a hummingbird and then hiring a well-armed chauffeur. Or two. At this rate, by the end of the year horse-drawn will outnumber fulquus-powered once again—just when the streets were starting to be manageably clean.”
During the light debate that followed, ranging from whether Rome was deliberately creating a fulgite scarcity, to the vexed question of where the Republic was mining it in the first place, Rian could discover no glance or intonation or vampirically-sensed emotion that suggested that fulgite held particular significance to any of her guests. She tried a different tack, mentioning how Griff’s disappointment at not seeing Sheerside had been suitably mitigated by Forest House, and then asking Lynsey if she’d been to Sheerside.
“Oh yes. It’s Evelyn’s great joy to haul unsuspecting newcomers about the place, and point out where people were murdered or fought duels, move on to ghost stories, and then lose his victim in one of the oldest sections.”
“Only you, Lynsey,” Evelyn said. “And it wasn’t deliberate. Well, not completely.”
“We first visited when I was sixteen and Lynsey twelve,” Lyle explained. “We took her into the Underhouse.” He grimaced. “She found her way to Lord Msrah’s private rooms, of course. Fortunately her blood is not right for him.”
“Lynsey is a great favourite of Lord Msrah,” Evelyn said, ignoring the note of genuine relief in Lyle’s voice. “He taught her to fence.”
“My first lessons, at any rate, and I continued learning back home. I still haven’t defeated him, but he no longer holds back quite so much.”
“Fencing.” Rian liked the idea on multiple levels. “Do you have a recommendation for a tutor, Lynsey? I’ve found myself thinking of self-defence lately.”
“I can introduce you to my London class,” Lynsey said. “I’ve taken a position out of the city, but the new instructor is excellent.”
Rian asked where Lynsey would be working, only to have Evelyn interrupt.
“You’ve never agreed to involve yourself in Folly’s latest extravagance?” he asked. “I thought you were joking.”
“The principle of the idea seems sound to me. Besides, the pay will be very good.”
“Folly? Lord Fennington?” Rian suppressed any hint of heightened interest. Dyfed Fennington was perhaps the richest person in Prytennia, infamously eccentric, but with many connections to industry. Just the sort of person who might fund an investigation into haunted fulgite—or perhaps be behind the initial invention. “You’re teaching him fencing?”
“He’s starting a school,” Evelyn said, shaking his head in amused contempt. “Not content with his other toys, he wants some children to play with.”
“Lord Fennington is converting the Tangleways Estate,” Lynsey explained. “He believes that Prytennia’s current system of schooling is limited and arbitrary, and he wishes to chart a better path.”
“Fencing and horse riding as part of a national curriculum.”
“Physical education.” Lynsey was unperturbed by Evelyn’s mockery. “Sport, art, music, the sciences, literature, domestic and mechanical crafts. A framework of minimum standards and paths to excellence to be rolled out to all the village schools.”
The mention of village schools roused unhappy memories for Rian, but she simply asked: “Would you recommend it, this school-to-be? Or will it be all excess and a waste of time?”
“You’re thinking about it for your three? The teachers I’ve met so far are very good. The workload will be demanding, and I would expect some very annoyed parents when it becomes clear that mere attendance is not a guarantee of success. But if Lord Fennington manages to attract sufficient students for the first few years, they will gain a great deal.”
“Charged an exorbitant price to be test subjects in Folly’s latest passion.”
“I thought you liked Lord Fennington,” Lyle said.
“I do,” Evelyn replied. “Who doesn’t? But he flits from interest to interest like a butterfly. What happens in a year or two when he discovers a new passion?”