Page 8 of Claiming the Tower (Council Mysteries #1)

“ I s competence too much to ask for? Apparently.” Hereswith had barely refrained from losing her temper while still in earshot of anyone else from the meeting that had just finished.

Also, her office was naturally thoroughly charmed for privacy.

Marcus leaned against the door as she tossed the portfolio with her notes onto her desk.

It was not a large office. She was no longer junior in this arm of the Ministry, but becoming senior would take another twenty years, at the very least. Those in power tended to want to cling to it.

It was one key principle of diplomatic work.

Acknowledge the reality, even when it infuriated.

She took a breath, wanting to be done with the day, and she couldn’t.

Another two hours, and then she could retreat to the Field, and someone who would at least be sensible.

That was unfair to Marcus. He had been sensible in the meeting.

He had backed up her statements several times, making sure they were acknowledged.

“Sorry.” She said it to him with feeling.

“Just. Good grief. Any woman of forty-some years with a marriageable daughter could organise a campaign better than this war is apparently being run.”

Within the last week, several pieces had appeared in the London paper about the atrocious state of the most basic needs of those on campaign in Crimea.

Well, the British Army. The French were apparently vastly better provisioned.

The letters had caused a good bit of uproar, not only for the content but for the fact they appeared in the papers at all.

On the third, there’d been a fairly sensible letter about it, noting that all wars apparently had these issues, but that this time, the news came back more quickly.

The unnamed author— she could probably find out who if she exerted herself a little— had gone on to point out that what was appearing in the London papers would not be news to Russia, their opponents.

The distances involved ensured that. The Czar would hear within three or four days what took twelve or more to make it back to England.

Marcus nodded. “You are right, of course. But being right is not,” his shoulder twitched, “an actual solution. May I sit?”

“Please. Tea?” He nodded, and Hereswith went to put the kettle on, then preparing the pot.

It was one more way they were surprisingly compatible.

In fact, he’d given her the Ceylon tea in the current canister.

It gave her a little more time to gather herself.

Marcus agreed with her. He should not be a target for her frustration. There were far better ones.

When she came back with the teapot and cups on a tray, he’d taken his usual chair on the other side of her desk. He waited for her to sit down before he spoke. “You know we’re going to be asked what we can arrange. And what we can explain and arrange, in particular.”

“There is that problem.” Hereswith ticked off on her fingers.

“We cannot produce Healers on no notice, much less Healers willing to traipse across the width of Europe. More to the point, Healers need food and shelter and people who can lend vitality. And apparently there’s none of that on offer.

We are being shown up by the French. You would think a certain amount of national pride would apply here even if common sense didn’t. ”

The French apparently had a well-established system of communal ovens, shared food rations, people to cook them, and the same sort of thing when it came to care for the sick and injured.

The British Army apparently just handed soldiers individual rations and expected them to work out the cooking.

That seemed like a flawed idea on dozens of levels.

Hereswith herself was not a skilled cook— she would not interfere with the household staff like that— but she had the rudiments of it.

Cooking over an open fire, wherever camp had been made, and in all weathers, was an entirely different sort of problem.

Marcus nodded. “And it’s not as if we can readily provide most of the materia that might help.

For one thing, there’s absolutely no assurance it might get to the right place, given what was in the paper and what little they admitted to just now.

” There were, in fact, potions and tinctures that could go a long way toward purifying water or identifying food that was no longer remotely safe to eat.

But they needed a touch of magic to use them and to get to the right place.

Even if they could manage the former, the current arrangements gave no hope of the latter.

“Nor that anyone would listen to us about what might work. Government observers, or whatever bureaucratic nonsense might apply.” Hereswith let out a long sigh, then reached to pour the tea, deftly, but with none of the flourishes she’d use if pouring for company.

He glanced at her. “No sugar for you?”

“I have plans to meet a friend, and will make my supper out of that.” Hereswith had not particularly talked about Bess with Marcus. They’d been in opposite directions for much of the last few weeks, one of them in London while the other was in Trellech and vice versa.

“A friend?” Marcus flicked a finger. “An actual friend?”

“You have William. Who, admittedly, is a number of other nouns besides friend. I know you occasionally have supper with others. Beyond the ordinary sort of thing we both do, people from school.” Hereswith could not deny that he had some right to tease.

“House club, in this case, but enough older we weren’t at school together. ”

Marcus set down his teacup and peered at her. “It’s just usually you’re eager to get home when you can. It makes me curious. And nosy.”

“Someone in constrained circumstances. And you know what I think about that.” She and Marcus had a regular habit of going around about it, how particular expectations hemmed in, but also could produce unusually creative solutions.

“We started chatting a few weeks ago. More than a few. She can only get free Tuesdays.” Hereswith shrugged.

“I enjoy being a steady moment of something pleasant, it turns out.”

“Well. You could certainly use a friend or three. How are your brothers, to ask about the other direction?”

Hereswith wrinkled her nose. “Mostly busy enough with their own pursuits they haven’t bothered me.

It’s not as if I am likely to marry at my age, and it is also terribly convenient for them both to have me running the house for Papa.

” She hesitated, her fingers hovering an inch or two from the teacup.

“There will be a fuss about that at some point, but I hope not for some years yet.” It was a vast house, far too big for one person and whatever number of staff were required, even before thinking about the cottages on the estate.

Papa had been clear he wanted it to come down to her for the rest of her life.

With precautions to make certain no one hurried that along.

Papa and Mama had not come from the most aggressively expansive of the Great Families, but both of them had known how that particular war was waged from childhood.

It was part of the reason for Papa’s interest in the Anglo-Saxons, how history provided a distillation of the politics and sometimes over-reaching grasp of humanity.

Papa sometimes teased that he should have named Hereswith Emma.

Then she’d have been named for the woman who had gone from being AEthelred’s wife, then Cnut’s, then mother to Edward the Confessor.

But her actual namesake had navigated a series of entirely complex family events before ending up as a nun in Gaul.

Hereswith had very little religious feeling in her, not the way people meant. But she understood the desire to turn toward something larger than herself, in hopes of something better for enough people to matter. She certainly appreciated the desire not to be under a man’s hand or control.

That was also part of Papa’s strategy. If he left Verdant Court to either of her brothers, they would fight endlessly over it.

And for another, they had homes, entirely sufficient for their needs.

There would be money to go with it. And for another, Papa— and Mama, before her death— had given quite some thought to how to make sure Hereswith could make her own choices for her life, in as much as anyone could.

Marcus had let the silence draw out, but then he said, “You do know that if you need a hand with that, I am glad to help. And it’s not as if we don’t both know half those who go before the Courts.”

“Or work for them,” Hereswith agreed. She was quite adept at reading legal documents of all sorts by now, between her own Incantation training and what she’d learned in the course of their work.

Every word mattered, sometimes. “Oh, don’t worry about that.

Papa retains Bryce and Howell for all that sort of work.

” One of the best firms for any kind of property, now in their third generation of sons inheriting the family business.

Unlike some generational lineages, the current set were perhaps the sharpest of the lot.

“I won’t fuss, then.” Marcus snorted. “It’s just that—” He hesitated. “May I speak freely about something I am uncertain about?”

Hereswith raised an eyebrow. “You are rarely uncertain. Please, go ahead.”

“You have seemed less happy than you have been at some times. Not that your work isn’t superb.

It’s the quality of the feeling, not the quality of the work.

Today, for example. A year or two ago, it would not have annoyed you so much.

Even though, yes, there are grounds for a dozen legitimate annoyances that need dealing with. ”

“How do you feel about it?” Hereswith countered, while she thought about his observations.

“Annoyed and frustrated, but not with the edge you have. It is, pardon, about what I expected.” Marcus spread his hands out.

“But not what we deserve to expect. That’s my problem, maybe.

People should have better than that. Especially if we’re sending them off to fight in a war that’s .

..” She twitched her hand. “The reasons for this war are rather more obscure than most. You needn’t repeat them to me.

” Nominally, it came down to questions of religious freedom.

Russia wished to press Orthodoxy further, causing the English and French to align with the Ottomans in opposition.

Given that those three had three other religions in play, it made little sense put like that.

The real argument was far more over territory.

Specifically, a premature scuffle in the making about who would get pieces of the Ottoman Empire if— probably when— it actually fell and shattered.

“I am more irritated, I agree. I’ll keep myself under better control. ”

“It is not your control I am concerned with.” Marcus leaned forward now, reaching to touch her hand lightly.

He didn’t do that often, outside the various hostessing duties and dances they attended.

One reason they worked so well together was that they understood each other’s comfort and boundary markers very well.

“It is right that you’re upset. I should be more upset, really.

But I worry that you have nowhere to take it.

I have William and a few other friends.”

The thing was, he was right. Papa was one person she could talk to, but he was only one.

She half closed her eyes, feeling the weight of his fingers on the back of her hand.

“I’ll think about it. Perhaps feel out if my friend, today, might listen.

It’s all rather tedious, even when it’s also important.

Most people don’t care about any of the nuances. ”

“Do that. Try it. Perhaps she’ll be interested.

Or have some useful idea. Merlin knows we could use a few.

An outside perspective’s sometimes a great help.

” Marcus lifted his fingers. “Besides, I can’t imagine you talking more than once or twice to someone who wasn’t intelligent, with her own skills and talents. You have standards.”

That at least made her smile. “I’m glad someone appreciates them.

” Far too many people had found them uncomfortable.

“All right. Shall we have a go at figuring out how to write a letter that does half a dozen things without appearing to do any of them too loudly?” That task was about getting the right set of people in the same room in a way that might encourage a useful informal conversation or two.

But it was going to be an exceedingly delicate balancing act, because of an unhappy marriage and a bit of political posturing.

And, as often happened, a lady’s hopes for her marriageable daughter being aimed in entirely the wrong direction.