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[Basil Ambrose Shrikeweed]

Vienda - The Pendulum Club
The 67th of Roalis 2719 - Approximately half-past the 25th hour

T

He reaches down to check his watch. The watch is gone. Only the deformation of the pocket and the imprint on the waistcoat to serve as a reminder. There is no subtle tick, no surety of precise metal, no anchoring weight. He is lost without it, unmoored. It is intolerable. He will have to tolerate it. The watch is, was - it has probably been scrapped by now, melted down or cannibalized for parts - a custom job, carefully and precisely made. Surrendering it has been like cutting off his own hand, and yet he had done it. Better to lose a hand than to lose a life.

Barely.

Tomorrow he will go to the clockmaker’s. Tomorrow he will talk with Ixbridge in his brass-bright, soft-ticking workshop. They will sit in the old chairs, worn by time and stained with virtuous cog grease, drinking well-made tea out of ill-made cups. No, not ill made. Purposefully cheap. They often break. The man has too many careless clients, too many temperamental machines. It will be warm, comforting. Will he have the old watch remade? It could be done, he has no doubt. Ixbridge will have kept the design. Perhaps. No, let the old watch go, let it pass out of his memory, and take the night he was robbed along with it. He will commission a new watch, another custom job. He closes his eyes, imagines gear-teeth and enamel dials, springs like snail shells.

“Shrike, are you planning on sitting there the whole night looking like you have a monumental headache, or are you going to play?” He does have a headache, has had it for days. It ebbs and flows, but it never departs. He blinks three times, resets his vision. The too-handsome face of Wainscoting, with its cultivated sneer and perfectly arched brow stares at him. “The play is, as it has been for the last 3 minutes, yours” Another trio of blinks and looks at the cards in his hand, looks at the trick forming upon the worn green baize table. He cannot read the face of his partner, not with that absurd smirk, and their two rivals are equal mysteries. Whist is not his game. He can count the cards well enough. Better than most in truth. Any number of victories at banking games can attest to this. No, it is the personal factor that always seems to trip him up. It is a failing of his. It will need correcting.

The game is still early. He has too many cards, too many options; all of them bad. He tries to read the faces around him. The angle and the cards obscure them. There is little enough to see in any event. Wainscotting is not helping matters. That would be cheating, an insult to the cards, and Wainscoting would never stoop to such barbarism. Does he have anything upon which to act, some play that will set him up well for the rest of the game? It is too early to tell. The trick on the table gives hi, no clues. He will have to follow suit, but his cards are middling. He blinks again. It would be a tell, were he not so overly prone to it. Is that another way to hide his motives? Behind the nervous ticks? Possible. It is worth investigating.

The seven of moons. It is the least poor option he has. It will have to do. He lays it upon the table and leans back in his chair.

“Well, that took entirely too long.” Wainscoting continues with his most cultivated and most truculent sneer. “The new posting is really taking it out of you, isn’t it.” Oh well done Wainscoting. Shrikeweed suppresses a smile, suppresses a laugh. He could not have asked for a better line, a better opening. He might even consider letting Wainscoting win at their next game of snooker. Might. Well, probably not. It would be an insult to the table.

“It is,” he says, tucking in his hand to shield his cards from any prying eyes, “rather a complex matter. The man’s current staff seems to have nearly vanished and left in their wake either a chaos of papers, or else a desert.” Reassembling the last months of the Incumbent’s career has not been easy, and he is by turns either furious or filled with a strange sort of delight. Puzzling together a coherent image of Incumbent’s actions, making sense of official incompetence, well, that has been rewarding. The headaches have even lessened. They never really go away. The would be smoother if the Incumbent could provide more information. The man cannot. He seems as confused and incomplete as his paperwork. The gaps need filling. What better place to begin the work than here, at the man’s club? The fact that it was his own made matters all the easier.

The salon is not his usual haunt. Too many people, too much noise. The library, the upstairs billiard room, and the coffee room, those are his usual haunts. Better for thinking, and better for gathering the kind of information he has needed up till now. He has had no desire, no need, to drift into one of the political cabals or another. It would not have been proper, not have been sound. A civil servant should not, cannot take sides, however much he might wish to. But now? He is still a civil servant, but he serves one man. Can he afford to widen his scope? He will have to, there is no other option.

“I cannot say I quite grasp the man, but then it seems neither does he. We are feeling our way together, piecing blindly a picture of his thinking before his affliction.” What is the man’s affliction? Unknown. A stroke fits the bill, at least on the surface, but there are other, deeper disturbances that he cannot quite name. That is a matter for another time, another place. “Still, I wish I had a better understanding of the man. Did you ever dine extensively with him? Share a confidence of a cigar?” Does the Incumbent even smoke? He is not sure. He never enters that foetid den. Tobacco is not his vice. He has plenty of others.

[moralhazard]

Evening, Roalis 67, 2719
Salon, The Pendulum Club

G
enevria walked slowly through the halls of the Pendulum Club. Once, with a secret little smile, her eyes lingered on a room to the side; mostly, she followed the slim straight back of the young attendant leading her along.

“Mr. Gallagher is inside, Mrs. Trevisani,” the attendant bowed; he swallowed, visibly, adam’s apple bobbing against his long throat.

Mrs. Trevisani smiled gently at him, sideways, her gaze flicking over the young man. “Thank you,” she murmured. “Mr…. Francoise, was it?”

“Yes, madam,” The young man straightened up; a lock of well-greased hair tumbled down over his forehead. He blinked, as if to clear if from his vision.

Mrs. Trevisani smiled a little wider, and whisked gently past poor young Mr. Francoise into the salon. Her sapphire blue dress whisked softly over the ground; it was cut to just barely skim the floor, and when she stood – if she was either not careful, or else very deliberate, it revealed the faintest bit of a pointed silver shoe, just the point of the toe. It was a narrow shape, suitable for a quiet evening rather than a ball, tucked – here and there – to make the most of her silhouette – without, naturally, looking in the least like it was meant to do so.

It was easy enough to spot Percival Gallagher across the narrow room. He was playing whist; with his head bent forward, Genevria noticed, amused, the thinning spot on the back of his crown was visible. She made a note of it; she mentally revised how appropriate it would be to be seen in public with him again, any time soon. He had been, she thought, no more than – what – three years ahead of her at Brunnhold? He’d had such marvelous, thick hair then, although it’d never been enough to offset his narrow pinched features.

Nor, Genervia thought, gliding forward through the room, the fact that he was, rather simply, as dumb as a post.

Genevria emerged through the cloud of smoke, and stopped just shy of the table. She waited, there; she smiled, faintly.

Percival looked up to play his hand; his gaze stopped on her, and a wide smile plastered itself across her face. “Mrs. Trevisani,” he said, brightly. He glanced down at the table, set down a ten of moons as if without thinking of it, and nodded to the other gentlemen at the table. “Just a moment, chaps,” he said, rising with a bow for the table, and another for Genevria.

“Dine extensively with Incumbent Vauquelin?” Wainscoting had been mid-sentence when she approached; Genevria had always felt he had the carefully cultivated expressions of a man who spent a good deal of time admiring himself in the mirror. It would have been attractive, was it not quite so obvious. He glanced up at Percival, and then over his shoulder.

“Mrs. Trevisani,” he murmured; he rose and bowed as well.

Dunderton-Hughling, Gallagher’s partner, rose from across the table, bowing as well. “Mrs. Trevisani,” he murmured; he sat once more.

“Please, gentlemen,” Genevria said, smiling. She came a little closer. Percival had reached her, by then; he hovered, awkwardly at her shoulder, and followed her with a shuffling little step. “I would hate to have disrupted your game.” She bowed, delicately, a little fold at the waist, that did not crease the silk of her dress. She smiled lightly at Percival, and waited.

Percival jerked faintly to attention. “May I fetch you a drink?” He asked, with another bow.

“How kind,” Genevria smiled a little wider.

“Uh,” Percival hesitated. “Would you care for a gin fizz, Genevria?”

Genevria blinked at him, once; her eyebrows lifted, ever so slightly – not, naturally, high enough to produce the appearance of unsightly wrinkles on her forehead.

“Champagne,” Percival said after a moment, swallowing. “I’ll – perhaps a champagne cocktail.”

“We were just talking about Incumbent Vauquelin,” Wainscoting said with an amused smile, slightly cruel, once his eyes wandered back from Percival’s back. He raised his eyebrows at Genevria, as if inviting her to share the joke; she smiled back, warmly, and gave no particular sign of whether she had or not. It was a clumsy woman who joked at the expense of her escort the moment his back was turned; she could only lower herself in so doing. Better, Genevria knew, to remain mysterious about the affair.

“Incumbent Vauquelin?” Genevria asked. “I haven't heard that name in a while.”

“Please,” Wainscoting murmured. He glanced around, and bowed, fetching a chair for her. “Ah, Shrikeweed’s taken a posting with the man.” He grinned. ”One has to discuss something, between hands, after all."

“Mr. Shrikeweed,” Genevria smiled. She sat; there was not a single crease in the delicate fabric of her dress. “I believe we have been introduced, once. How lovely to see you again.” Her gaze lingered on his face; she smiled, just a little wider.

[Basil Ambrose Shrikeweed]

Vienda - The Pendulum Club
The 67th of Roalis 2719 - Approximately half-past the 25th hour

H

e should rise, it is the done thing. Yet he resists it. Why?. Somehow it seems discourteous, to the the elegant woman, to the mood of the evening, to the game, to the cards. Rising will cement the other’s status as both lofty and removed, as though she does not belong in this place. She does not, at least not by tradition. This is not her place, and yet she is often here. A tolerated incongruity. To rise is to call attention to such things. An insult disguised as gallantry. He has neither time nor stomach for gallantry. Let the others make fools of themselves. Instead, he meets the lady’s gaze, his own dull colorlessness confronting a far more brilliant display. He nods in welcome. That is the proper gesture, the gesture of equals.

He is not her equal. From what he knows, and that is little enough, she could buy and sell him ten times over and barely miss a tally. He is not a rich man, has no desire to be so, but he is comfortable. Ten such as he would form a tidy estate, but that wealth would still be a plaything to this woman. She knows deference, distance, and devotion, expects it, perhaps even requires it. He will give none. This is his place, as sure as Chancery, his rooms in Lesser Larch Street, or, yes, even Stainthorpe Hall. He is not here to play the delicate little games of status that so amuse the society set. He is here to play whist, to play snooker, and to try and convince himself that he is more than the sum of his professional habits. In that he has only indifferent success.

At least he has more self-possession than Gallagher. Gallagher. Gallantry. It fits, in assonance and in meter. It makes him think less of the man. Not that he has ever thought much of him at all. A nothing. Still, it takes four to play whist. Will Genevria take over?

Genevria. Gin. Gallagher’s feeble attempt at a joke? An accidental association? No matter. She dismisses it, and Gallagher, the obedient fool, goes off to do her bidding. That is quite a skill, and one he lacks. He is unsure if it is worth cultivating. It is worth studying.

Genevria. He has exchanged perhaps seventeen words with the woman. He is not in her orbit. She is not in his. There can be no pleasure in her meeting him again. Another meaningless civility. Still, at least this is one that can be shared among equals.

“And it is good to see you again, and looking in such good health.” And she does look to be in good health. A fine flash of teeth, luxuriant hair, translucent skin. She moves well, at once stately and effortless. It all sits ill with him. He has never liked this woman. Why? At first it seemed it might be on account of her incongruity. But there are often guests about the club, ladies and gentlemen, and none of them have ever set his teeth on edge like this Genevria. She is too polished, too practiced, too predatory. No, that is not quite it either, but it is nearer the mark. He will have to consider it. Later, always later. He tucks the questions away in the cabinets of his mind. There are other matters that are far more pressing.

Wainscotting has given him a natural open; he would be a fool not to seize the opportunity.

“And do you know the Incumbent madame? Vauquelin I mean? I have only been with him since the start of the year. And I admit that I am having some small trouble in putting his affairs in order." Order? They are a shambles, a disgrace, and there are too many gaps. Gaps he needs to fill. The papers are gone, gone or never written. That avenue seems closed. If he cannot have the papers, then he will have to have the man. A pale substitute in flesh and blood. Papers are so much for revealing. "An interesting man, and something of a mystery.” Both to Shrikeweed and to himself. The Incumbent still seems vague in his memory, though sharp enough in his thoughts. “I only spoke to him on a bare handful of occasions.” Four rose in his memory. Once at a game of whist rather like this. The conversation has stuck religiously to cards. Then again when they found themselves seated at the same table during the annual readout of the Proceeding of the Pendulum. The last two times had been in the member’s dining room. One was a civil exchange of meaningless niceties. The last was caused by a waiter who spilled wine over the both of them during a dinner concert. It is not nearly enough to produce a picture of the man. It does not help that the bare outlines he might have constructed before did not match with the man he now staffed every day.

He counts of the beats of his heart. It is nearly as good as a watch. Six minutes since Gallagher left, and no sign of his return. Just as well. That left an open seat. “Please, take up that hand if you so desire. Gallagher seems to have become confused as to the location of the bar, and we must have four to carry on.” Wainscotting nodded, and made noises of agreement. He was never one to turn down the company of an elegant woman. And Shrikeweed was never one to turn down a source of information. “If you do know him, I would be obliged for any insight you might offer. I understand he has become something of a changed man.”

[moralhazard]

Evening, Roalis 67, 2719
Salon, The Pendulum Club

W
ainscoting was still standing; he had fetched Genevria her chair, and then gone back to his own; one hand rested lightly on the back. He was not so crass as to slouch, but he did not seem quite ready to sit once more. Dunderton-Hughling had risen, promptly, bowed, and sat once more. Gallagher, naturally, had risen, come over, and promptly gone to fetch Genevria a drink, though she would have expected nothing less from the man.

Shrikeweed had nodded.

It had been a deep nod, polite and proper. Genevria was not offended, naturally; there was no call to be. She would not have been offended, in truth, even in Shrikeweed had not acknowledged her existence. There was little to be gained by it, nor even by a pretense of offense; a display of noticing Shrikeweed’s indifference would have lowered her far more than the indifference itself.

Genevria’s smile widened the faintest fraction at Shrikeweed’s compliment; she settled herself in at neither unduly pleased, nor too complacent. She found the questions much more interesting; she blinked at Shrikeweed, softly, and raised her eyebrows ever so slightly at the mention of small trouble putting the man’s affairs in order. Interesting, Shrikeweed called him; a mystery. Genevria did not allow herself a small, secret smile. No, she thought, there was not much mystery about Vauquelin, not before and not now. Perhaps to a man like Shrikeweed.

“Oh, of course,” Genevria said, pleasantly. “We’ve met on a number of occasions. I’m quite fond of his wife; Diana is such a dear. I can only imagine how this last year must have been for her.” Genevria shivered, just the faintest quiver of movement in her shoulders. Poor Diana indeed, Genevria thought, thoroughly amused. Not for Vauquelin’s tastes; she was scarcely the only wife with a husband so… affected. No, rather, Diana seemed quite fond of her husband, the poor thing; Genevria had never heard the faintest hint of impropriety, and she was always quite attentive in all the appropriate ways. Naturally, Genevria had behaved the same way, back during the long years of her own marriage, but she had the oddest sense that Diana’s feelings were – well – genuine. It was difficult to imagine.

“A lovely woman,” Wainscoting agreed with a faint, uninterested shrug; his gaze was on Genevria. He had taken his seat again, finally.

“Stress can be so… difficult,” Genevria murmured, neutrally.

Shrikeweed’s offer to take over Gallagher’s hand was unexpected; Genevria’s eyebrows rose again, very faintly. “I do feel rather terribly for interrupting your game,” she said. "I should be glad to join you - only until Percival returns, naturally." She rose, elegantly, and crossed to the table, taking Gallagher’s cards and studying them. She smiled at the other three from across the table, glancing down at Percival’s last play. Yes, she thought; dumb as a post. Poor Dunderton-Hughling, but quite fortunate for Shrikeweed and Wainscoting.

Genevria turned her attention to Wainscoting with a pleasant smile; he was studying his cards with a faint, sharp grin, clearly ready to capitalize on Gallagher’s mistake. She glanced across the table at Shrikeweed once more.

“I’ve only met Incumbent Vauquelin once or twice since he… rejoined society,” Genevria said, delicately. She smiled at Shrikeweed. “I’m sure his absence must have created quite a challenge. Incumbents always seem to be so very busy.”

[Basil Ambrose Shrikeweed]

Vienda - The Pendulum Club
The 67th of Roalis 2719 - Approximately a quarter till the 26th hour

T

he man as he is does not interest him. Not today. He knows that man, or thinks he does. No, the man who interests him is the one who came before. The ‘him’, not the ‘I’. The Incumbent still lapses into that construction. Not as absently as before. No, when he does, it is to mark the difference, to separate the past from the present. A shift of a man in the shift of person. It is neat, simple, and it no longer is so jarring. And yet.

And yet he still does not know the prior man. The man who no longer exists. He knows enough to know he would not like him, not respect him. It is that man he needs to know. Here, at least, he has some small chance to learn of the man, or at least how others saw him. This Genevria is perceptive, informed, connected. She would have to be to float as natural as a leaf on the breeze in this place. She knows the man who was, the man who was there at the start of The Gioran Matter.

He has tried to drop the Gioran Matter. Tries and fails each time. The memos are piling up in his confidential safe, in the office of his attorney, and in the safe back in Chancery. Dead ends, mostly. False starts and frayed threads. The pieces are there, he feels it, senses it in the lacunae in documents, in schedules that do not make sense. The meaning eludes him. The Matter is unresolved. He will have to know the players. He can name only one. Suspects others, but has no proof. Not yet. Perhaps never. There are other lines of inquiry. He is not used to them. His mind is gears and paper and ink. These have taken him only so far. Friends, family, public opinion, these are what he needs now. The pieces that might frame the gaps.

“I have never met the Incumbent’s wife. Family matters rarely inform our business. And there is so much of it. The Change eats up so much of our time. And then there are the other matters. Committees on taxation, on internal financial business, committees to address the fallout from the whole mess with Gior last year.” He keeps his face placid, looking instead at his cards, avoiding the gaze of the elegant lady. All prim and dignified and quite artificial. A beautiful mask. But then again, everyone wears masks. It is necessary. It is inevitable. Masks are put on and taken off every day. His own he drops when at home. His own he changes when entering new spaces. The mask he wears at The Pendulum is not the mask he wears in Stainthorpe Hall. he has a collection of masks. Everyone does. Some more than others. And who are you, he thinks, when you are at home? When you remove your public faces? He has never been interested in elegant ladies. At least not for the usual reasons. He is interested in this one, for reasons of his own.
“I am glad to hear he has some pleasant company at home. Though you are quite right that his affliction must be as hard on her, perhaps harder in some respects, than it has been on the Incumbent. And is he much changed? It seems it is so. For the better, or the worse? I would be most interested in your assessment. Having known him before.”

The play of cards moves about the table. It passes from one hand to another. It returns to him. This time he has some sense of play. His mind is elsewhere occupied. The clouds of his thought no longer hinder his play. He is playing a quite different game.

“The play, madame,” he says, still placid, still restrained, “is to you.”

[moralhazard]

Evening, Roalis 67, 2719
Salon, The Pendulum Club

Genevria studied the cards in her hands. She did not actually frown, of course, but she managed to give the impression of having done so, without any of the potential for wrinkles. In her experience, no matter how skilled a sorcerer they might be or how accomplished in other arts, no man thought a woman capable of concentrating on two things at once. Likely, Genevria had thought more than once, because they themselves were not.

“The Change,” Wainscotting said with a grimace. “No offense meant, Shrikeweed, old sport, but you’d think the Symvolio had never shifted seats before, with how everyone goes on about it. The Mugrobi are perfectly capable; all this fuss in the financial markets is overblown.”

Dunderton-Hughling was busy with his cigar; he clipped the end off, and lit it, puffing on the edge of his cigar holding to draw the glow in the end of it. Heady, sweet smoke drifted out to fill the air, mingling with the smell of many cigars already smoked, and a considerable amount of alcohol.

“I love the smell of cigars,” Genevria said, looking across the table at him. “So... masculine, isn’t it?” She smiled.

“Quite,” Dunderton-Hughling mumbled around his cigar holder.

Much changed, Shrikeweed asked, and for the better or the worse.

Genevria studied the cards, and settled one on the table.

Dunderton-Hughling raised his eyebrows; there was the faintest grin on his face, quietly stifled.

“You do know how the game is played, don’t you Mrs. Trevisani?” Wainscoting asked.

“I hope so,” Genevria said with a smile. It did not surprise her in the least that Wainscoting did not see the potential of the play; perhaps what surprised her more was that Dunderton-Hughling did.

She turned her attention back to Shrikeweed, visibly. “I’m not entirely sure I know what you mean,” Genevria said with a little smile, returning the play back to him in more ways than one. “I’m sure one learns so much more of a man like Vauquelin in his work. Or - do you mean - his field? It was rather well-organized before.” Naturally, Shrikeweed would be familiar with the current state of it; it was hard to go anywhere near the man without feeling the dreadful porven. Genevria quite wondered what he would say; she did not think he would give up so easily, and that meant he would need to give her something - something tangible - to compare with.

Genevria’s own field maintained precisely the correct degree of a socially acceptable caprise, deeper at the moment of introduction and then delicately pulled back, so that one was more aware of the contact than anything. She held her field neat and controlled over all, the perceptive mona knit together, with a faint hint of the brightness of living just at the edge.

[Basil Ambrose Shrikeweed]

Vienda- The Pendulum Club
The 67th of Roalis 2719 - Approximately 3 minutes the 26th hour

"Y

ou mistake,” he says, staring into the face of his friend, “the regular for the simple. Ten years is ten-thousand eternities in politics. More than enough time for private interests to develop, to take root, to distort the pavement of the old road to a peaceful Change.” Tendrils, roots, labyrinths on labyrinths of plots and petty scheming, some he sees on the surface, some tower like trees. Others range through the dark earth, the mycelium of some vast fungus, appearing only in due season to fruit, to send out spores, and then to vanish again. The mushrooms of conspiracy.

“There are all manner of details to arrange. Interests to balance one against another. Feathers to try and not over-ruffle. And the affairs of nations do not calmly obey an orderly ten-year cycle. The ebb and flow according to rules of their own making.”

The cards in his hand still tell him nothing. He is no wick cartomancer, he can find no deep meaning in the suits and figures, no secrets in the play of ticks and the sounds of shuffling. The cards are mute things, mere toys of ink and paper. His own divinations take a rather different form. Lines of cause and effect, pools of information. Newspaper articles, public notices, his own observations. The ritual of coffee, the other rituals of magic, they speed his thoughts, aid in the pruning of spurious branches. He cannot see the future, the future does not yet exist. Yet it arises from the past. And the past he can see, can see its shape, its patterns. On occasion it is enough to form a plan for what might come, to foresee probable futures. Foresee but not forestall. His pictures of the past, the present, are incomplete.

There are pieces. Pieces he can pick up. The Genevria Trevisani holds several. The collection will not be easy.

A hand, passes, then another. The game takes shape. He watches the too-collected woman with her too-careful expressions and too-careful field. Choreographed. Brilliantly done. A dancer who can perform without motion. The game continues. He and she, they play the cards, but they are playing an altogether different game.

“The Incumbent’s field? I can offer only the merest of speculations. My magics lie in a rather different quarter.” With his own too-careful hands, he lays down his hand, takes up the snifter of brandy he has been ignoring, and takes a sharp and pointed sip. “What I can is that his state seems to me to be rather disordered, confused. A field ragged around the edges. Perhaps raw. But that is to be expected, after his affliction.” A lie but a plausible one. Illness alone cannot explain the nature of the man. The past, as they say, is prologue, but he is no longer sure. What he has pieced together of the man, of ‘Him’, cannot produce the man as he is now, cannot produce ‘I’. The discontinuity must have an explanation. He puts down his glass. Turns it. Clockwise, anticlockwise, and clockwise again. At the gesture, Wainscotting’s eyebrows raise, ever so slightly. He of anyone should know what that gesture means. Disorder in Shrikeweed’s mind, uncertainty, doubt, discomfort.

“Vaquelain has always been cagey about what befell him. It is understandable. Still, I keep finding myself at a loss on how to explain some matters of his behavior, his views. Are you familiar with the cause of his malady?” He turns the glass again, this time with more deliberation. An intentional gesture. “And you say you knew him before? Were you a social acquaintance? Or perhaps . . . ?” He lets the question hang in the air. He does not know how to end it. ‘Business connection’ was his thought. He sets it aside, a woman of such obvious standing did not have ‘business’ in the ordinary sense. Still, being a woman of society was a formal occupation. A useless one. And yet he is consulting her, trying to pry information from her. Why? To understand the man? In part. To help the man? Perhaps. That is the lie he tells himself to sooth his thoughts. To resolve an enigma, to fill in the gaps in the past. That is closer. He cannot operate without proper data, and something in his bones tells him that this is a datum of great price.

“Forgive me, madame, but I worry about him, worry that he may be more altered than could be wished. I would not have his past come back to bite him. I believe I am growing rather to like the man.”

[moralhazard]

Evening, Roalis 67, 2719
Salon, The Pendulum Club

G
enevria had watched Shrikeweed staring down Wainscoting; she had listened, too, although she had not looked as if she were doing either. She quite agreed with the little bureaucrat, in fact; there had been plenty to occupy all manner of interested parties, these last ten years. It amused her only that Shrikeweed thought he – of all people – had any role to play in the arranging of details or the balancing of interests. Bureaucrats and politicians had their roles to play, some small and some large. But any such who thought they were in control, even of the tiny corner of paperwork they might have been said to possess, were well embedded in delusions of their own making.

But then, Genevria thought, idly, so was everyone here tonight. All of these men, in the Pendulum Club; they believed themselves the levers of society. Each one thought himself indispensable; each one knew that he, and he alone, was at the center of some crucial thing. Like a great machine, and each of them believing they were at the center – when, really, they were no more than cogs.

Luckily, Genevria had trained herself not to smile at her own thoughts in public. She had rather had to; there was always so much it was not quite appropriate to share. She had a reputation to maintain, after all, and she scarcely wished to let a man like Shrikeweed or Wainscoting know where his weakness lay.

Wainscoting was continuing to make himself rather obvious; Genevria wondered if Shrikeweed was embarrassed.

Genevria nodded intently at the bureaucrat, again as if frowning – just the merest hint of it. He was lying, of course; she was confident he knew it. She wondered if he knew she knew. Such disorder was not common, not even after a rather long illness, not to such an extreme. Mental collapse, perhaps? He had had a rather quick recovery if so, although Genevria supposed it would have explained why he looked so thoroughly aged by the ordeal. Not that Anatole Vauquelin had ever precisely been handsome, but he had not worn his age so visibly before, but rather with the subtle delicacy of a man wielding a tool, rather precisely.

“The cause?” Genevria asked with a curious smile, her eyes on the bureaucrat. At a loss, she thought curiously, on how to explain some matters of his behavior, his views. Perhaps Vauquelin had grown sloppy; she knew him to be a man who – once recovered, such as he had – had entrenched himself back into old habits, old ways. How like a man, Genevria thought, to find comfort in the familiar, even when it must have tiresome by now.

“I know he collapsed outside the opera house, of course,” Genevria said. “Some kind of stroke, I thought.” Dunderton-Hughling played. Yes, Genevria thought, he had understood her quite well.

Wainscoting was frowning; he placed a card down as well, glancing at Dunderton-Hughling.

Genevria smiled. She glanced down at her cards, rather intently; with a careful, deliberate motion – just the faintest degree of hesitation – she put another card down. Wainscoting relaxed, with just the faintest edge of a smile.

“I know him socially, naturally," Genevria said with a smile. "I'm sure it doesn't seem like it to you men, but we women know just how important such matters can be, and how revealing."

"It seems to me that a man must become keenly aware of his own mortality, following such a terrible illness,” Genevria said, looking up at Shrikeweed once more. “I’m given to understand Vauquelin was always rather a bold man, politically. Perhaps becoming more conservative is not such a surprise, in the wake of this sort of event. He always did prefer more classic suits.”

[Basil Ambrose Shrikeweed]

Vienda - The Pendulum Club
The 67th of Roalis 2719 - Approximately 14 minutes the 26th hour

T

He returns her practiced smile with one of his own. Cold and humorless, a slash across his face with no merriment in the eyes. Socially. She knows the Incumbent socially. A consideration, a point of data to be filed away and checked on later. What sort of social acquaintance? Casual, intimate, old family friend? He will not ask. Not now. He does not wish to show his cards. He has already shown enough, enough to set the woman’s mind to working. Of course, she has revealed much as well. Her high opinion of her own powers for a start.

He thinks highly of his own. A vanity. A weakness. Not an uncommon one in this place. All around are men of substance and stature. Lawyers, magistrates, politicos, physicians, men of business. Men who value their person and position. Men who think themselves indispensable. No man is indispensable. Not even Shrikeweed. A man’s function may matter, his obligations and position may matter, but the man himself does not. Should he, or any other, be cast aside, then another would take up the work. It is the work that matters, the duties and necessities. One man does not matter.

And this Genevria with her high opinion and practices security? She matters as little as all the rest of them. She has per part to play, of course. What part is that? Unknown. Unknowable? No. A part worth discovering.

Does she think, he considers, still staring half at his cards and half at the woman’s composed mask of a face, that only women understand the importance of social intercourse? If she does then she is a fool. This place exists for just such arrangements. In the Pendulum men of connections, position, men of a certain sort sit sharing secrets personal and professional over brandy and cigars. They complain of their finances, their business, their wives and sweethearts. They make allies and they make enemies. And he watches, observes, tabulates, and makes allies and enemies of his own.

“It is true,” he lies, playing his own card, playing it well and taking the trick, “that many men do seem to struggle with maintaining a complete social life. Dedicated to their work and the pursuit of status.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk, Shrike.” Wainscotting laughs. It is a genuine sound, amused, engaging. The laugh of a man who had no trouble at all in his social life. His dance card was always full. “You spend your time at your work, lurking about in coffee houses, or tending to your orchids.” Wainscotting gives an indulgent smile. “My friend here, Madame, is not the most sociable of men.”

“Sociable enough,” he shoots back with an amused smirk, “to be a member of this club and to play cards with the likes of you.”[/color]

“True, true. And it is a most congenial environment.” And somehow less congenial than it had been before. He comes less often now, keeps mostly to himself. Watching. Listening. Cabals and cliques have grown more prominent. Politics, always a keen interest here, has become more a whispered matter, kept close to the vest. Like a hand in poker. He had tried to stay aloof. His position, his ethics, required it. A civil servant’s purpose is to carry out the policies of the government. Policies that were often wrong-headed.

And now? He is still a civil servant, but he has become transformed. He belongs to a man now, not the service. He will have to listen with fresh ears, watch with clearer eyes. It is necessary. It is sound. It is likewise sound to maintain caution around this elegant woman. An elegant woman who is more, and less, than she seems. Of this he is sure. He doubts surety.

He has known women like her before; women who consider the social realm their special province. He has never understood them. He despises them. Just as he despises the men who let themselves be led about by such women. Men who cannot see past a pretty profile fine deportment. Where is the sense in that? If he is to dance to anyone’s tune, man or woman, let it be on their own merits, their own habits of mind and reason. Those may sway him. He has no time, to desire, to be distracted by frivolous women.

She is not frivolous. She is arrogant. That at least he can respect.

He cannot respect this Dunderton-Hughling. The man was gaping like a fish, transfixed like a snake in a charmer’s basket. A silly little man led about by his nose, and perhaps by other parts. A useless distraction, one he does not understand. He need not understand it, only be aware of it in other men. Still, Genevria is skilled at it. Places her smiles and looks just so, modulates her voice in ways he has been informed are attractive. Another point to be filed away.

And now another point. One of greater interest, of greater utility.

“Outside the opera house?” He raises an eyebrow as Genevria tells her slip of a story. The opera house. Curious. Still, one might be laid low at any moment. It was an unfortunate side-effect of existing. “That must have been quite a scene. Still, I imagine help was able to reach him swiftly. There are always so many people at the opera.” And the Incumbent is fond of opera. That fact kept coming up in his research. The opera. If the Incumbent had a usual box, a box he might share with his usual allies and favored enemies. Worth investigating. Worth trying to worm his way in. “I hope, at least, he enjoyed the performance beforehand.”

Hands pass, and meaningless words. He plays another card, respectable, but not conclusive. “I would perhaps say that the Incumbent is more cautious that properly conservative. If by that you mean the faction. Still, I suppose a marked decrease in, as you say, boldness is not wholly unexpected.” ‘He’ was the bold one, ‘I’ has become cautious, even thoughtful. One man so unlike himself. “And in these trying times, perhaps boldness is less a virtue than it might seem.”

[moralhazard]

Evening, Roalis 67, 2719
Salon, The Pendulum Club

G
enevria wondered, amused, at the distinction that so many men made between one’s work life and one’s social life. In Vienda, she thought, examining her cards from beneath lightly lowered lashes, there was little enough difference between the two. Did this Shrikeweed fail to understand that? She would have thought it easy enough for any member of the Pendulum Club to realize, and she hardly thought him the sort of man to have been ushered into a membership on his father’s name.

Or – Genevria glanced up, briefly, using the studying of the cards as a pretext, so that she could just see the man at the edges of her gaze – was he playing the straw man? However deliberately, for whatever purpose. It was an interesting consideration; it was, frankly, the most interesting thing she had noted about him thus far. She kept it in mind, marked it quietly away somewhere, and smiled politely between the two men as they bantered idly.

Genevria’s eyes went faintly wide when Shrikeweed said that he hoped the Incumbent had enjoyed the performance before his collapsed.

Wainscoting laughed, a little cruelly, and took a long slug of his drink. “Shrikeweed, you scoundrel! I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Genevria did not, in fact, think that Shrikeweed had meant it as a joke, which only made the comment all the more interesting. The play of cards went around once more; Genevria set her card down. Dunderton-Hughling was doing an increasingly poor job hiding his pleasure at the turn of play; Wainscoting was frowning into his drink, and growing steadily more conservative.

“Cautious,” Genevria repeated with faintly wide eyes. She had not meant to say it aloud; she did not betray the slip with a grimace or a flinch or anything else which might give her away, but smiled through it instead. “Yes, I think that is rather a good way of phrasing it.”

Cautious, Genevria thought. She thought of Anatole at the Fassoulet Townhouse, cheerfully giving her his regards, and bringing his little bird to the Pendulum scarcely a week later. No; these were not the actions of a cautious man. What kind of an illness led a man to take bold risks in his personal life, and find a new sort of caution in his professional one? Anatole, at least, had drawn something of a line between them – at least, Genevria thought, amused, his personal one.

“It certainly is a mystery,” Genevria said with a little smile, her gaze flicking up to Shrikeweed. “An illness which leaves a man like and unlike himself; it sounds like something out of some sort of… novel,” her shoulders shivered, faintly.

Percival was bobbing through the crowd, his face red, with a faint sheen of sweat on his brow.

Genevria glanced up at him, grateful not to meet his eyes, and played her last card with a smile.

“That’s the hand,” Dunderton-Hughling said with a bright grin. “Well played, madam.”

Genevria smiled. “Beginner’s luck, I’m sure.” She rose, elegantly, her skirt as unwrinkled as it had been when she sat down.

“Your drink, Genevria,” Percival said, faintly breathless. He bowed, handing over a bobbing fizzy drink, pale orange with a twist of orange through it.

“Thank you,” Genevria said with a smile, taking the drink in one elegant hand. “There’s a string quartet below I’ve heard rather good things about,” she let her voice trail off, her eyebrows lifting.

“Of course,” Percival turned to the table. “Sorry, chaps, I’ve – uh – duty calls,” he grinned, and bowed.

Wainscoting had not bothered to hide his smirk; Dunderton-Hughling was still studying the cards. Genevria smiled at them, and Shrikeweed as well.

“Do give the Incumbent my best, Mr. Shrikeweed,” Genevria said, casually. “Let him know I'm thinking of him and his little bird both.” She bowed, lightly, without disturbing the cocktail in the least; there was a clatter of chairs as Wainscoting and Dunderton-Hughling rose as well, and bowed in response.

With that, Genevria turned and sauntered off, one hand resting delicately on Gallagher’s arm. Downstairs lay stringed instruments, and the promise of much more interesting gossip; but she did not intend to forget Incumbent Vauquelin’s strange little assistant, and the promise of the secrets he might be enticed to uncover.