A Little Knowledge (39 page)

“At least, not in Exilium,” Max said, and Iris bristled but said nothing.

“I should think he took whatever he wanted, or used them for whatever purpose he had in mind, and if they survived, well, it would be mere speculation.”

“Speculate.”

“I imagine they would have starved to death. I’ve heard tell of such things. Once the Fae lose interest in a mortal that’s trapped in Exilium, it’s very easy for them to forget about them altogether. The nature of the place is such that if they have no interest in an individual, they will never see them.”

“I know how Exilium works.”

“Quite. That’s all I know. Now I know you have no interest in a deal, but what if I could help with another investigation of yours? Would it make your report to my Patroon more favourable?”

Max called the Aquae Sulis Reticulata-Iris family tree to mind. George was the firstborn. No leverage there for the Second Sons. But perhaps he knew something that could bear fruit later on.

“What do you know of the Second Sons?”

Iris brightened. “I’ve had dealings with them.”

“But you’re the firstborn in your branch of the family.”

“My younger brother fell in with them some years ago. He was bereaved and wasn’t coping very well, truth be told. They approached him when he was at a low ebb and convinced him that joining them would be very beneficial for him.”

“And was it?”

Iris snorted. “Hardly. They encouraged him to take dreadful risks, drink far too much, and do the bidding of the ringleader. Nasty piece of work.”

“When a man who’s kidnapped over fifty innocents and led them to their deaths says that, ‘nasty’ may be an understatement.”

Iris stared at him. “I did not choose to do that, sir.”

“Did this ‘nasty piece of work’ make your brother commit any crimes?”

“No, but only because I intervened and pulled Vincent out when I found out what was happening. He was too weak and lost in grief to realise he was being groomed to be nothing more than Bertrand Viola’s bully boy.”

The ability to feel a sense of triumph had been taken from Max a long time ago, but not the ability to feel an easing of the tension as another, critical piece of the puzzle fell into place.

“Now, I’ve been very generous with my information; I trust you will be generous when you present to my Patroon.”

“I don’t know what gave you that idea, Mr Iris,” Max said, gathering up the photos and putting them back into the file. “I’ll present the facts, as I always do.”

Iris laughed, though it was less convincing this time. “You would be excellent at poker, sir. But no matter, I have every faith in my Patroon. He understands the pressure we are put under.”

“Yes,” Max said, tucking the file under his arm and standing up. “He’ll have learnt it from being put under pressure by the Sorcerers to punish criminals such as yourself as harshly as possible.” He pushed the door handle into the wall. “I’ll be back for you soon, Mr Iris.”

Cathy didn’t open her eyes when she first heard the knocking.

“Go away.”

There was a pause, and the sound of a hushed conversation, then more knocking.

Cathy groaned. She was at the Tower, now she remembered, and had somehow thought it was a good idea to lie down, fully dressed, and fall asleep in her corset.

“Give me a minute,” Cathy called, sitting up. In the small hours of the morning, raw from a prolonged and tearful goodbye, she’d been too exhausted to even contemplate going home. She wanted to be alone, to think things through. From every angle, it had looked hopeless. Both Margritte and Natasha were gone now, leaving only Charlotte as her trusted ally, and she was falling apart.

Tom had been right. Will had been stalling the Ladies’ Court. She didn’t want to go back home and tell him what had happened and be angry with him and devastated by Natasha and Margritte’s exile at the same time. It was simply too much. So she’d sent a note, flopped into one of the many guest rooms set aside for travelling dignitaries, and slept poorly. Now all she was left with was the desire to free Charlotte from Bertrand, Charlotte’s daughter from the marriage to Nathaniel, and herself from this corset.

“Don’t give up,” Natasha had whispered in her ear. “Withdraw and reconsider, but don’t let them destroy you.”

“They haven’t,” she said to herself, trying to pat her hair into some sort of order. “It’ll take more than this.” Cathy tried to smooth the wrinkles from her gown but soon realised the futility of trying to make herself look anything but a woman who’d cried for hours and then got a couple of hours sleep. “Come in.”

A page opened the door. “Your Grace, there’s a visitor for you, and she says it’s urgent.”

“Who?”

“Your mother,” said her mother, pushing past the page. “You may leave now,” she said to the man, who bowed and left without even a glance at Cathy. “They’ve been keeping me waiting for over half an hour. Good grief, Catherine, you look absolutely dreadful.”

“Thanks. What do you want?”

“I need you to sign my request for the Oak. As it’s such short notice I need to have a second signatory of significant rank and I can’t get hold of the Patroon because he is a useless man with an excess of ears and little between them.”

Cathy smirked at the description, then blinked at the scroll thrust beneath her nose. “I haven’t even had a cup of tea yet.”

“Well, call for breakfast, we have a lot to do.”

Cathy pushed the scroll away. “This is really not the best time.”

“Elizabeth is to be married tomorrow, Catherine. It is the only time. I need you to put your rank to good use and help me to make all the arrangements today.”

“Wait, what? Tomorrow? That’s insane.”

“No, it isn’t. They met yesterday, the contract was signed last night, and this is going to happen the way I say it is or the entirety of this family will come to know the true extent of my wrath and believe me, Catherine, you have only seen a sliver of it before now.”

“Is this what Elizabeth wants?”

“Yes. She’s overjoyed. She’s with the dressmaker now, having a fabulous time making the most unreasonable demands and making as many of the servants cry as she can. Now, are you going to call for breakfast or must I do absolutely everything today?”

“I’ve got other plans for today.”

“They’re cancelled. I’ve already told William. You’ll have to deal with his sulking tomorrow, he isn’t best pleased that you’ll be with me tonight. It’s the only way we are going to have a chance of getting everything ready.”

“Who did you bully before
my
wedding?”

“I had more time to arrange that one, despite the Irises changing the date.”

“Time enough to keep me drugged and locked up and—”

Her mother took off her hat and for a moment Cathy wondered if she was going to beat her with it. “Catherine. I have no regrets about that whatsoever. Look at all you have now. You’re Duchess, you have more power and wealth than, frankly, you deserve, and all because I had the good sense to make sure you made it to the Oak without any more silliness. Please sign this and give it your seal!”

“Go find someone else to do your dirty work,” Cathy said, batting the scroll away when it was thrust towards her again.

Her mother looked like she was going to cry, just for the briefest moment, but then schooled her face to hide it swiftly enough. She looked up at the ceiling, down at the flagstones, across to the window, as if the solution were a thimble to be found somewhere nearby.

“Is this room private?”

“What?”

“Could we be overheard here?”

Cathy shrugged. “I’ve never been in this room before now. The best place to talk is in the gardens, if you’re worried about that.”

“I want to talk to you there.”

“Can’t I at least have a cup of—”

“No. It has to be now. If I wait I may lose the courage to tell you what I must and that would never do.”

Cathy stood, tried her best to ignore her aching ribs, and led her mother out of the Tower, eliciting many curious glances along the way. As they passed the door to the kitchens she spotted a man carrying a tray of pastries and called him over so she could take a couple of them. She ate one on the way into the garden and was glad when her mother declined the other one.

Once they were among the greenery, her mother led Cathy to the point farthest away from the Tower and most shaded by ornamental trees. Cathy didn’t mind too much, seeing as it gave her the chance to eat the second pastry, but she could have murdered a coffee to go with it.

Her mother clutched her hat, a dramatic wide-brimmed affair in black and red to match her dress, over her stomach. She bit her lip and fiddled with the edge of the straw brim, looking more nervous than Cathy had ever seen her.

Cathy folded her arms, trying to be patient, even though she felt like crap and had more important things to do than—

“I’m leaving your father.”

Cathy blinked.

“Once Elizabeth is married. I’m leaving him then, when I know all my children are in good places and what I do can’t harm them.”

“Bloody hell,” Cathy said. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“There’s more.” Mother looked up again, down again, her fingers pulling a strand of straw from its place. “I’m leaving him to be with my lover. My former lover. The one I loved before I had to marry that man.”

Cathy felt as if she’d slipped into another Nether whilst she’d slept. A lover? What was more surprising, that her mother had one or that she was even capable of love? “Oh. Okay. Who’s he?”

Her mother looked up from her hat. “She, Catherine. The one I love most in the worlds is a woman.”

“Okay.” Cathy tried to imagine her father alone, and found it quite easy. There had never been any affection between them.

Her mother gawped at her. “‘Okay’? Is that really all you have to say about it?”

“I’m sorry—you’re right. I mean: Yay! Congratulations?”

“What?”

Cathy reflected the confusion on her mother’s face. “What do you want me to say?”

“Aren’t you…appalled with me? Disgusted?”

“No. Why would I be?” Then Cathy realised what her mother feared. “Oh, Mother, I’m not like that. In Mundanus, I marched in the Manchester Pride when I was a student.” At her mother’s blank expression, she added, “It’s a big parade that celebrates love. I had a friend who—look, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you love her, and that she loves you, right?”

Her mother nodded. At least the urgency of this wedding made sense now.

Then Cathy started to see her own experience of being drugged and forced into marriage in a different light. Now she understood it wasn’t just because of what Society expected; she had merely been an obstacle to her mother’s future happiness.

Wrestling the new insight into place, Cathy felt too many emotions all at once for it to settle into anything comfortable within her. The anger was still there, butting up against a fragile sympathy for a mother who had always been cruel and unloving. Now that there was another reason for her mother’s emotional distance, Cathy felt an empathy she’d never believed possible. But it didn’t change the fact that her mother had treated her like a tree to be hacked down to form a path out of the woods.

Her mother’s bottom lip was trembling. “I’ve never told another soul. I think you’re the only person in the whole of the Nether who would be so good about it.”

“Lucy would probably be cool with it too,” Cathy said with a shrug. “Really, you loving a woman is not a big deal for me. Treating me like crap…not defending me when Father got violent…those are still problems.”

“That’s perfectly reasonable,” her mother said, straightening up. “I’m not going to expect you to treat me differently because of this. It doesn’t excuse me for being an awful mother.”

Cathy struggled to imagine her mother in love, not only with someone she wasn’t supposed to marry, but with a person she wasn’t even supposed to be attracted to. Perhaps that cruelty in her was drawn from the same well as passion and love that couldn’t be expressed.

“I suppose you didn’t want any of it—the marriage, kids…” Cathy’s belief that having a child of her own would be a terrible mistake was getting stronger by the minute.

“I didn’t.” Her mother sighed. “I wasn’t as brave as you, Catherine. And I hated you for that. For showing me what I wasn’t.” She breathed in, blinking rapidly. “But not anymore. I’ve done my time. My lover and I have borne children and done everything as we should for our patrons. We’ve been dutiful to our parents and now it’s
our
time. It’s harder for her; she’s fond of her husband and regrets having to hurt him.”

“While you’re champing at the bit.”

Her mother’s eyes darkened. “You know what he’s like, Catherine, you more than most.”

Cathy nodded, remembering his temper but also the way he’d talked to her in the carriage on the way to her wedding. There was a more thoughtful man there, beneath the rage. He wasn’t going to take being abandoned by his wife well, but she wasn’t going to stand in her mother’s way, either. Her mother had the right to love who she wanted and her father would get over it, eventually. “But how will the two of you survive? Where will you go? Won’t Lord Poppy go mental?”

“We’ve made very careful plans,” her mother said. “The one I love is very resourceful.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me all this before? I wouldn’t have been such a dick about Elizabeth staying and all that.”

Her mother shrugged. “It’s always easy with hindsight. I should have known you would understand. You’ve never fitted in.” She tilted her head. “Are you more like me than I thought?”

“I’m straight,” Cathy said. “It’s just in all the other ways I don’t fit in.” She drew in a deep breath, trying her best to put her own hurts aside. Her mother was trying to escape and regardless of what had passed between them, Cathy felt that helping her was fundamentally the right thing to do. She didn’t want to be the kind of person who’d keep another woman trapped out of spite. “Listen, I’ll help you get the wedding sorted, but you have to tell me the truth: is Elizabeth really happy about it?”

“Catherine, he’s rich and not particularly bright. She knows she’ll have everything she wants and rule the roost, too. She couldn’t be happier.”