Hardly a Man of My Word

[Tom Cooke]

The Stacks • Brunnhold

Somewhere Around the 5th of Bethas, 2720

Cerise,

Let me know if you can’t read this. My handwriting isn’t what it used to be.

First of all:

The Crocus’ Stem Rm 314 – 1783 Dzoya, West Cinnamon Hill – Thul Ka

The end of Bethas has me in Serkaih, in a little town called Dkanat. I don't know about post, there.

What you’ve got in the package is Tsadi pezre Awameh in three volumes, and the old one where the title chipped off is Iwayi by Adopu. Of ada’na Tsadi’s I suspect you’d like “Dzih’axew” or “Silent Flight” in Estuan. It’s in the second volume. What do I know? My favorite is (has always been) the first one I clapped eyes on: “Liminal.” Iwayi is trickier because of what Mugrobi call “the back side of the tongue”. Nothing he writes is technically true, except it might be true in some way or another.

Enough of that. I’m sending them because of what you said about Mircalla. They didn’t make her what she is and nobody made imbali lie. I don’t know what I believe, but I don’t believe any man is more likely to lie than any other by his born nature. Adopu did not write the truth because nobody expected him to. Tsadi writes what is in her heart and not everybody thanks her for it. Some of it is kind of scandalous.

I said I was done rambling about my poetry and I am. I would like them back but - Hulali floats, and he drowns. (I would like Adopu back, sometime.)

I went to a few bookshops in Deventry and Bodecca and Two Falls too. I didn’t have much luck in Bodecca, being honest. Mostly plant books.

Deventry found me the old water-stained thing I stuck in the package with the rest. The name of it (as you can see from that hell of a cover) is When the Wicked Lay Still in Vita.

I can’t find a single copy of Mircalla though. Do you know of any places around here a man can empty his pockets for the unrestful dead?

Let me know how tryouts go,
Your father

He’d thought to dictate it to a clerk; he ought to’ve, being honest. He had worked not much at all at his handwriting this past year, though his grasp of where to put a comma and a period and an apostrophe was that of any man who read as much as he did now. But he had thought – either would be unfamiliar to her, and while he might have hidden behind the excuse of dictation with his shaky hands, he found he didn’t much like the idea of a strange Brunnhold clerk knowing where he was staying in Thul Ka.

That was how it had started, anyway.

He’d thought to send her the address, and the address alone; that was when his hand had started cramping, anyway. But somehow the sight of her name and a jumble of numbers and words, and the stretch of the blank page, had seemed worse than no note at all.

He should’ve at least, he thought, explained the books. It was his only copy of Adopu, after all, even if he had Tsadi to spare, though he found, the more he wrote, the less he expected it back.

And then, somehow –

He had to explain the book he’d got in Two Falls, so she didn’t think he was some kind of mung. She probably already thought he was some kind of mung, but that was nothing new; his lass had, too, for all she had teased him about how he didn’t read. He supposed Cerise knew her father read, but –

When he looked down at the page, it’d unfurled into a small monstrosity. He’d dictated letters this long to Rosmilda, for some official or other, who’d dutifully rearranged his words and taken out this or that flustered obscenity on the fly. To Ezre and Drezda, he’d written only sparingly, and to Aremu – he hadn’t wanted Aremu to see his hand, though the imbala was half of the reason he had tried so hard with his grammar to begin with.

Now, as he sat with the thick, rich watermarked paper, thinking of this mockery all trussed up in Anatole’s finest, he asked himself what the hell he was doing. He’d wasted at least three sheets with spelling errors – there was a dictionary at his elbow – and there was more than enough ink staining his fingertips.

And somehow, he was tucking it into the envelope and sealing it; somehow, he was stamping it.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

Upper-Form Girls' Dormitory, Brunnhold University
Bethas 8(ish), 2720

Dearest and Most Honorable Father,

We still live in the same house, despite appearances to the contrary; you'll get your books back. Unless you want me to send them to Mugroba, which I could do as well. Just let me know.

These might take me a while to read. But I will try to finish them before the team has any matches against Thul'Amat. Then I can tell you how scandalized I am by the Tsadi. I don't read a lot of poetry, but I suppose I can read this since you gave it to me.

I'm not sure where you can find a copy of Mircalla; my copy is Mama's, and the one I got for the Golden Rose was a lucky find. I assume Mama got it in Florne. But there is a rare book shop in the Stacks, A. Borna's--you could try looking there, if you haven't yet. At least if you read this before you leave; if you don't, good luck I suppose.

I will let you know about tryouts, and any matches. Unless you have gone somewhere else by then; in that case, I would need a new address.

Sincerely,
Your Daughter (The Elder One)

P.S. - If you can't find a copy of Mircalla before you leave, I can give you mine. But I would want it back. It doesn't have the illustrations.

P.P.S. - I can read your handwriting just fine; you should see some of my classmates'. We have to read each others' papers, you know.

Cerise didn't quite know what to do with the poetry. He'd said he would give it to her, and he'd said he would give her the address as well. She had sort of thought both of those things were lies; the address more than the books. And here he had sent her not just one, but several volumes. One of them, it looked like, he had just picked up and included. She wondered what had made him think of her when he saw it.

His handwriting was, actually, atrocious. But he had written to her, and she somehow couldn't find it in her to be cruel about it. Her own was careful and lightly flourished; she had been told it was surprising, the way she wrote. She wondered if that was lost too; she couldn't think when she had last written him a letter. She relied on Ellie to reassure Diana that they were both still alive. Ellie, and any letters from the school. Nothing like a new scandal to say "here I am!".

Cerise looked again at the poetry while her letter dried on her desk. She picked up one of the volumes by Tsadi pezre Awameh. She didn't open it, just ran her fingers over the cover, tucking the letter that accompanied them all inside. She crawled into her bed, intending to start the book. Instead she picked up the letter and read it for what was, in honesty, the fourth time, rolled onto her side. Such strange, unfamiliar handwriting. Alone in her room, she smiled it at. Then her face crumbled just a little; she couldn't have said why.

[Tom Cooke]

The Pendulum • The Stacks

Somewhere Around the 10th of Bethas, 2720

M
ama, he read, and thought of the hazy face the corner of his eye, and the hazy waterfall of dark curls, and dark arced brows, and the strange sense of familiarity he couldn’t shake.

He’d been tired when the hotel had notified him the letter had been delivered; he’d brought the envelope up, and up, and up, round the swinging pendulum, and when he had sat in his suite with its small empty side room he had taken a moment to open it with a shaking hand.

The handwriting he hadn’t expected. The address had set him to laughing out loud, with such a force it hurt. He’d sunk onto his bed, laid there on his back and held it up so the phosphor light shivered through it and caught glistening on the red ink. He hadn’t been sure what to think; all of him ached, and he was sleepy, and he’d almost forgotten who it was had written him, until he had seen the word Mama.

And still, somehow, he hadn’t heard the Circle’s reprimand. He’d gotten to the end of the letter and smiled faintly, because he knew his hand-writing must’ve been flooding horrific.

He’d started drafting the letter that night, with the glasses still chafing his nose. He’d had a glass, and then he could see the lamplight glowing through the Nassalan’s label, and then he had been searching through the cupboard for the handle of Hullwen. There was no need to think, only to drift. When he woke up later that night, with the moonlight streaming through the drapes, his eyes stung and some of the ink on the page had smeared.

He scrapped that one rightaway, and he wasn’t sure if he ought to write another one. The next evening he started over, and wrote most of the things he’d written the first time (with better spelling).

Most Resplendent and Coruscating Daughter,

I don’t know that. You could be living in a mansion in the Isles in a few years with the concords you’re going to make from dueling. Top of the spice rack.

I leave on the 16th of Bethas, which means I’ve time to search this rare book-dealer you’re recommending. I’ve spent the last two days packed like canned tuna with sweating politicians and cigar smoke or else eating bland fish or else letting seventh years follow me around on campus. Tomorrow and ten I plan to breathe the fresh air and take a look around.

If I don’t find it I’d like to take you up on that offer. If I do, I could still stop by at any rate before I leave. Or we could have tea again, or I could show you that bookshop in Deventry.

Sincerely,
Your father (the elderly one)

[Cerise Vauquelin]

Upper-Form Girls' Dormitory, Brunnhold University
Bethas 11 (or so), 2720

"Coruscating" was one she'd had to look up in the dictionary (not that she'd ever tell him that.) Cerise read the opening paragraph over and over, as if the words would have changed around in between readings.

She considered the timing, and if it would be worth it to write back. It was already after the tenth, and he was leaving on the sixteenth. There probably wasn't enough time. Not worth it to even consider doing so. Cerise put the letter down and resolved not to reply.

Some hours after that, she had fed Sish and sat down at her desk to begin her homework. The letter was still where she had left it; she picked it up, intending to move it out of the way. Instead of her report on the historical importance of the wool trade in the 25th century, she pictured up another sheet of letter paper and sat down to write.

My Dearest Father, to Whom I Owe the Very Gift of My Life Itself,

That may be true, but I think I'm insulted you think it will take me a few years to finish these. I said that I don't read much poetry, not that I cannot read at all.

I am available on the evening of the 14th, or earlier with a convincing and compelling note from a responsible adult (hint hint). I don't know that I have been to the bookshop in Deventry; as those are rather broad directions, it would be best if we went together. If you can tear yourself away from your great work shaping and inspiring the young minds of this country, that is.

Sincerely,
Your First-Born Child (Cerise, remember?)

She hadn't mentioned to either Eleanor or Diana that she'd seen him at the beginning of the month. She had accordingly not mentioned either the poetry, or that she had the address of his hotel in Thul Ka. Some part of her felt strange about it, and almost protective. Of what? They had one partially pleasant afternoon. That didn't make up for years of constant arguments, abject silence, or anything else. Cerise looked at the letter in her hands and very nearly balled it up and threw it away before it had even dried. It remained un-crumbled, but she set it down. She began her homework.

An hour later, she folded it up neatly and sent it out.

[Tom Cooke]

The Pendulum • The Stacks

Somewhere Around the 12th of Bethas, 2720

Cerise, Who Has Transcended My Mere Flesh + Blood Many Times Over,

Again, what the hell do I know?

I plan to escape the clutches of the convention at least some next week. The first ten days are the worst and then it calms down but you probably know that. Some of the older pigeons are already back in Vienda. At any rate that’s enough time – I can carve out a hunk of the four and more.

The book shop’s open late and I don’t want to drag you away from your studies. You need those to make the team as I understand it. Besides: next time you meet a responsible adult I’d like to be introduced.

Suspect you’d rather me not escort you from your dorm. Where do you want to meet and at what time?

With warm regard,
That kenser’s erse (yes – that one)

PS I promise I won’t wear a dinner tux. Shudder shudder.

PPS I think I left a book-mark in Adopu. It has a bad drawing of a moa on it. I don’t need that back.

T
here was no accounting for the twinge of irritation he’d felt at the not-request. It wasn’t that it would’ve been hard to do it; it wouldn’t’ve. But something had soured in him at the thought – it felt like something a godsdamned boch would do, and he wasn’t a boch; he wasn’t her father, but he wasn’t a boch – and he’d frowned down at the letter and mouthed, Hardly, lass.

It’d taken him the rest of the night to figure why it troubled him.

She was a golly, flood it. Oes, he’d made enough mistakes as a lad, but what of it? What choice had he had? What choice did any of his kind?

He’d half-done it – there was a crumpled letter in the wastebin. I’ll write you the note, he’d written, jerking his pen on the period; you can ruin your chances to get on the flooding team if you like.

It’d been later that evening that he’d come to the blank page again, two shots in and with a softer eye. He’d managed to compose a better address, at any rate. He’d smiled by the finish of it, then hesitated; he’d thought to crumple it, too, and then send her a note two days later, explaining why he’d been called back to Vienda early. He’d scowled long and hard at the page, feeling another line underfoot.

Then he’d tucked it into the envelope and sent it off.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

Upper-Form Girls' Dormitory, Brunnhold University
Bethas 13, 2720

Dearest Father, Whose Generative Force Brought Me into Being, Such That I Might Write This Letter to You,

Saw through my clever scheme! Curses and blast. I suppose I will have to go to Pre-Modern Galdori History after all.

I do not know that it is the done thing to have one's father escort them from their dormitory, this is quite true. As a great devotee of social convention, let us make it easy on both of us. There is a small park between Ameter and Deventry; I could be there by half past twenty-one. You could feed the ducks if you arrive earlier than I do; I hear this is popular with the aged.

And if you don't wear the dinner tuxedo, I will look very out of place in my evening gown, which would be very embarrassing. So I suppose I won't wear that either.

Yours truly,
Cerise (With the Hair) & Sish, Destroyer of Hours

The hardest part had, of course, been writing the opening, as it had become something of a point of pride. For a great while Cerise deliberated how best to close the letter, once she had written all that went in between. "Sincerely" didn't seem quite enough anymore; she almost wrote something else simpler still, and veered away at the last moment. That would have been a fair foolish thing to write.

"Sish, what am I doing?" The miraan did not dignify her with a response; she didn't know why she had expected anything less. She opened the Adopu and found the bookmark. A smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth. She closed the book with the bookmark still inside.

Similarly, she didn't know why she had responded to these letters the way she had. The first one had been fine, of course. She hadn't expected him to take her up on the offer to lend him her copy of Mircalla. But if anyone could have Mama's book, she supposed he was allowed it. She had been quite sincere in asking for it back; the copy was worn, but she had lovingly repaired it over and over. Cerise would be damned if she'd let him spirit it off to Mugroba or who knew where else after that. Because he certainly wasn't coming home.

It all felt very strange. What, though, was the harm in going to a bookstore with her own father? She couldn't quite put her finger on why it made her skin itch and her eyes bright. Because she couldn't place it, it irritated her, and that irritation made it all feel like some kind of cosmic challenge. She never had known when to back down from a fight.