jot the number down, and back to the wheel. That made it easy to miss a number.
He’d trained Bethany Frost and her brother, but she’d been the one to suggest the substitution of notes for clicking wheels. The Prince had recalled thinking of how he first thought the thaumagraph might amount to nothing more than a remotely played pianoforte, so had little trouble redesigning along the lines suggested by Bethany and his wife. Bethany had mastered the new model quickly, and ended up teaching Owen how to work it.
He’d found something soothing in how her messages had sounded. Words encoded as numbers produced discordant music, but she managed a rhythm to the notes which made her messages easy to listen to. There had been times when she was in Temperance and he was in the Prince’s laboratory where they abandoned the codes and just spelled words out using a simple five by five grid to relate numbers to letters. To practice they chatted about everyday things, silly things, and he often found himself smiling or laughing aloud, even if a story might take a tortuously long time to unfold or ghost messages interfered.
There had been nothing improper in their chats. Either or both would mention his wife freely. They discussed his family, including Becca, who had become part of his household. Bethany would mention times she’d seen Catherine in Temperance-always at a distance and always polite. The discussions tended largely to be matter of fact, but he found it easy to imagine her listening, smiling, her eyes twinkling. He even took to writing out some messages in his journal in code, so he could send them quickly, and they reduced certain phrases, like common greetings, to abbreviations that only they could decipher.
Catherine really had been doing her best through the winter. She’d stopped nagging him and accepted that he could say little or nothing about his work for the Prince. She devoted herself to caring for Miranda and Becca. She often took them into Temperance-especially when he was traveling for the Prince-and they all sat together in the Cathedral for weekly services.
She had become the wife he remembered, save in sharing the marital bed. Granted, in the winter, when winds howled and the house became very cold, there was little reason to stop Miranda and Becca from joining them in bed. But even when they had time alone, Catherine appeared fatigued. Owen attributed it to her putting out a tremendous effort to make Mystria her home. She always seemed happier after a trip to Temperance. She loved city life and her being forced to choose between it and her husband was exhausting her.
Sex had trickled to nothingness as the winter moved into spring. That wasn’t much of a surprise. Their physical relations had always waned as sailing season approached. Even though she remained pleasant and didn’t even hint at traveling to Norisle, he suspected past resentment lurked in her heart. Becca’s addition to the household obviated the need for another child immediately, but he and Catherine played the game with well-wishing busybodies, claiming they were working on increasing their family one way or another. The lack of lovemaking he could accept as the price of a peaceful home.
Owen shivered, then glanced at Hodge. “Does Miss Felicity know you are intending to ask her to marry?”
Hodge stirred a pot in which he was melting snow. “Well, sir, I’m not sure that she does. Being the winter and all, and half of that spent in Plentiful helping them rebuild, I didn’t get to see her much. But Mr. Caleb tells me that, according to his sister, Felicity’s not being courted at the moment. I might imagine one of the Fifth might take a shine to her, so I will not lament our returning direct to Temperance. I was hoping, in fact, we might run across a deer or tanner or something I could shoot and bring her a bit of, you know, to show I can be a provider. Do you think that plan will work?”
“It has things to recommend it.” Owen stopped himself from chuckling. “Of course, you might ask Caleb to ask his sister what Miss Felicity likes, and you could obtain a sample thereof to catch her eye.”
Hodge took the pot off the fire and stirred in some tea leaves. “Now there I was knowing you would know what to do. Was that how you won your Catherine’s heart?”
Owen hesitated. At one time he would have answered in the affirmative, but from time to time he’d been given to ask himself why she had married him. That caused him to recall, with a certain amount of embarrassment, that she had actually come after him. It wasn’t a question of his winning her heart, but that she let him believe he had won it.
“Different circumstances, I think, Hodge, but you can’t go wrong there. Women like a provider, but they also like to know a man is thinking of them even when they aren’t there.”
The smaller man nodded. “Wish I hadn’t gone back so soon from the ruin. Ever since the Gazette printed that story about the dire wolves, and General Rathfield decided to make his wolfskin into a pelisse, well, they’ve been all the rage. If I had a skin or two, no question she’d be mine.”
“You’re welcome to the ones I have in the attic.” Owen smiled easily. The Shedashee had cleaned and preserved the wolfskins and had sent them east. Owen had stored them in the attic, figuring to sell them in the spring. “I have five of them, and no real use for them.”
“No, sir, I didn’t shoot it, I don’t want it. Not that I don’t mind the offer.” Hodge strained tea from the pot into two battered tin mugs, then handed one to Owen. “And I’d not be liking to see any of them wolves on our trip back. If it were to happen, though…”
“I’ll give you first shot.”
“Obliged, sir.” Hodge raised his cup in a salute. “It does surprise me though that your wife hasn’t had them skins made into a coat. It would make her the belle of society in Temperance.”
“That’s why she doesn’t do it, Hodge.” Owen blew on his tea. “She won’t ever let herself show up the Princess. Since the Prince has not made his wife a coat of wolf-pelts, Catherine won’t ask me to make her one.”
“That the same reason she hasn’t told you to make a pelisse like General Rathfield?”
“That sort of short cloak looks good with a uniform, Hodge, not over Church clothes.” Owen sipped tea, then sighed. “The General does cut a dashing figure, doesn’t he?”
“I think, sir, some will say that, but few will have been at Anvil Lake.”
Owen laughed.
“What, sir?”
“Hodge, at Anvil Lake, you were serving Her Majesty.”
“As were you, sir.”
“And that’s why I laugh.” Owen opened his arms. “Look at us. It’s been four years. We’re wearing homespun and skins. We’re both counting ourselves as Mystrians, and judging men from Norisle by the same standards Mystrians would.”
Hodge smiled. “I’m thinking of marrying a nice Mystrian girl.”
“Right. What happened to us, Hodge?”
The smaller’s face scrunched up a bit, then he nodded once, curtly. “I think, sir, that when we were from Norisle, we spent a lot of time being told what to do by men who thought they knew best what that was. Out here, we’re asked to do the best we can, doing the things that are best for Mystria. That kind of freedom, sir, is something one can come to enjoy. And I don’t see any reason here and now or hereafter, to be going back to the other way of life.”
Chapter Forty-seven
5 April 1768 Temperance Temperance Bay, Mystria
Prince Vlad leaned forward over the map table in his laboratory, supporting himself on his arms. A million things banged around in his head. He should have been rejoicing. He had a second wooly rhinoceros in his pen, a totally new species of creature scattered over a long table, numerous jars, and a drying rack, and his surveying efforts were proving wildly successful.
The problem is that all of those things point to our being on the brink of a devastating war.
Count von Metternin and Gisella stood on either side of the table. A map of the northeastern region of Mystria covered the table. Plentiful appeared a third of the way in from Temperance, and Happy Valley a third further west- southwest. Rivers and lakes had been drawn in blue ink, and ghost rivers in green. The surveys covering them had been by no means comprehensive, so some appeared as shattered wheels with no rim and broken spokes radiating out for short distances.
