“I would have thought, yesterday, that I was speaking of love.”
“Ah. Then did something occur today of an educational nature?”
He smiled, not happily.
“I see it did,” said Prudence. “Go on.”
“It was after she embraced Will Stockton.”
“Oh, how like a man!” The ancient cry came out without thinking, and it did not sound pleased. Then: “Forgive me, my dear, please continue.”
“But it wasn’t that. It was when the sergeant and I returned and saw you comforting her, and she stood up with such a vain grasp at dignity, and she’d been weeping like a five-year-old, without any thought for her appearance. …”
He trailed off. Prudence said, “Yes?”
“And her face was like a gargoyle on a column in Saint Tom’s.” The unhappy smile came back. “Oh, she was trying so hard. She was an inch away from breaking down completely.”
“I could feel it, when I held her.”
“And I suddenly thought,” he said quietly, “that if I could not comfort her, life would not be worth living.” Prudence was struck dumb, at least for a moment. “I am very impressed,” she said finally, “with this news.”
“I thought you might be.” His habitual tinge of irony had crept back.
“This changes everything.”
“It does for me, but I don’t see how it does for you.”
“Obviously the wedding must take place. And obviously this hood will have to go. We cannot allow halfmeasures.”
“I’m glad you see it this way.”
Prudence thought with a concentration that was visible. “You know what alternative this leaves us with,” she said. “The witches. A surgical coven.”
“Yes, and as soon as possible, so she’ll have time to heal before the ceremony.”
‘The arrangements would have to be on a par with strategy for a declared war. If word got out that I was using witches—”
Prudence smiled. “Remember the motto of my natal family, Adrian. Prudence, valor, and discretion.”
He crossed the room, sat down beside her on the sofa, and linked his arm with hers. “I want you to stay by her, Prudence. I have reason to believe life is going to become very complicated around here.”
“Haven’t we just agreed on that?”
“More complicated even than arranging for a secret surgical coven.”
“Good heavens.” She turned wide eyes to Adrian. “The mind stops short, as though at a blind corridor. What can you possibly be planning?”
He chuckled. She said thoughtfully, “Perhaps we should have asked my younger sisters along as ladies-in-waiting.”
“Well, I enjoy Discretion’s company, but your middle sister should be avoided, I think.”
“Valor’s often uninvited, but she shows up anyway. What a summer season this will be!”
“Umm.” The thought did not seem to excite him the way it did Prudence. “But you’ll watch over Iolanthe, when I can’t be there? You’ll stay close to her, you’ll be her friend?”
“I will.”
He turned her hand over and kissed it.
Much later, after she had spent some hours crying, Iolanthe rose from bed in her darkened room and made her way to the door. She had never slept in any bed but the one in her own room in her father’s house, with all the familiar decorations she had placed herself, over the years; she still thought of that as “her” room, and this other place as some temporary land. She had never been so surrounded by strangers. She had never felt hatred directed at her, as it had been at the gemfarm if the whispered bits and pieces she overheard were true. She had never been ugly before. Or almost died before. Or had so much responsibility before.
Or choices to make. They had all used to have been made for her.
No one had ever used the word “homesickness” to her, and she did not connect her new proclivity for tears with her situation. No, it must be that there was something wrong with her, some flaw that made her even more useless a vessel than she had been brought up to believe.
There was still, however, duty. She moved through the dark sitting room to the front door and opened it.
Two of Will Stockton’s men stood there. They turned to her in mild surprise.
“Strife, isn’t it?” she asked the one on the left.
“Yes, my lady,” he said, blinking. She had never addressed them before.
“Will you take a private message for me, when your shift is over? I would be most grateful.”
“Of course, my lady.” He looked toward his companion in bewilderment.
Say it, the voice in her head ordered. But once spoken, all choice ended.
So much the better.
“Please tell Hartley Quince that I want to speak to him. As soon as possible.”
He nodded and she closed the door, returning inside. She leaned against the wall, breathless, as though she’d been running.
No one ever told her how bad it felt to do the right thing.
SECTION
TWO
:
R.S. Kestrel
Chapter 11
Ask the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo. And in forming your question you must abandon your subjective preoccupation with yourself Otherwise you impose yourself on the object instead of learning from it Poetry will rise of itself when you and the object have become one—when you have plunged deep enough into it to perceive the shape of the concealed treasure there. Your words may seem well-phrased to you, but if the object and yourself remain separate, then your poetry is not true poetry but merely your subjective mimicry.
BASHO
You have read the ancient poets who sought tarethi, although not under that name. We say that we will teach you tarethi here, but that is just a manner of speaking for those who do not understand. Tarethi is a way of life, a habit of being. Never forget that the gathering of tarethi is essentially selfish… .
Imagine that you are lying in your bed on a rainy spring night. Outside the rain is falling, the wind is cool and damp, tree branches move; every blade of grass and piece of earth and nesting bird feels the weather and responds to it. Humans only
