The Sixteenth of Ophus 2719, Thirty-Six Minutes past the Eighteenth Hour to Eleven Minutes passed the Nineteenth Hour
Smike’s End. Home.
Snatches of conversation flit by, like flakes in the frosty air. It is not snowing, not yet. There are flakes all the same. Cold shards of words. ‘He had an apartment in Smike’s End where I lived for many years, where he would visit me.’ The Weaver’s words. Words that told him more than perhaps she would care to think. Home streets, where, if he chose, he could snatch rumors from the empty air. Before there had been little need. Now, it seems he always goes out with a net to catch the latest curious news.
Do you know where I live, Incumbent? A question he has never bothered to ask. It seems significant now. Significant since meeting the Weaver. Do you know I live but a stone’s throw from where you kept your mistress? That we must have passed each other in the streets half a hundred times and never known it? Does it matter?
More snatches of conversation. This time the voice is Bailey’s. ‘I’ve heard old lovers talk sir, any number of times, but this tone’s all wrong. Not amourous. Not bitter. Kind sir, but not passionate. Avuncular’s nearer the mark.’ He turns that over and over, parsing, measuring, arriving nowhere. Was she ever your lover, sir? Or have we gotten this all wrong? It would not be the first time, and it will not be the last. ‘He’ and ‘I’, Anatole and Tom. Was she ‘his’ mistress and not ‘yours’? The though makes no sense. It makes all the sense in the world.
“Hmm?” The Incumbent has said something, drawing him from his thoughts, and back to the winter streets and the chill evening air. The words are chill enough on their own. “You chose them.” It seems unlike the man he knows to have done such a thing. To be drawn in, to be fooled, and then to not know how to escape, that fit all too well with the Incumbent, with Tom. “I cannot quite credit it, well, not to the man you are now. Still, you are much changed.” For the better. A dangerous thought, and yet he cannot shake it. “And what views did they extend to you? So many of them are Reformists. New Men.” Men more like himself than those of old family and older names. “Your own name is noble and antique. I can find any number of Vauquelins in the archives. Perhaps not always among the great, but always there. Or was it their sense of purpose? Their zeal and facility for productive action?” That, at least, he could admire, even as his own politics departed from theirs. “Certainly their star seems to be ascendant in the councils of the nation. And what Incumbent does not wish for powerful friends?”
Such friends are useful to his own ends. At least for a time. They wish to use him? All very well and good. He shall use them in return. Use them up and cast them aside, at least if he can manage it. Careful. It will be all too easy to fall into their circle, to forget their means and admire their practical application. Neither means nor ends are sound. He will have to watch himself. He will need others to watch him. At least he does not harbor the Reformists contempt for the lower orders. They are necessary, useful. To deny use is to squander opportunity. To disdain them is to invite revolution. That cannot be allowed.
“I am fond of carrots sir. And therein lies the danger. I do not think myself wholly immune to their blandishments. Influence is useful sir. Influence, not notoriety.” That would be poison. Anathema. “I prefer to remain a cog in the great machine. Useful and anonymous. I will try and hold to that sir. I fear it may be all I have.”
Streets pass them by, one after the other. Narrow lanes and little byways. Uncrowded at this time of day. These are streets he knows, of which he is fond. In these narrow places the city is itself. Little shops and half-hidden courts, markets with little wide fame. Markets where the best of produce, of books, and of wine can be had. Places where debates are held in arcades and unremarkable squares. Even Crosstown, for all its fame, is much fallen off. The pulse and power of the city centered now on Ro Hill and its fine houses and royal ministries. He has little influence in such places, or among the councils of the royal retainers and their social lives.
Perhaps tonight all that will begin to change. It does not suit him. He is a man of the Clockhouse, of Crosstown and Smike’s End. The Palace and its ilk should not concern him. The diarchs are not of his kind. There is something in them and their court that, even after centuries, still seems alien to the city he knows. The city he loves.
Dasiphora Street and the crowd all about them. Evening ladies and gentlemen about their business. Early diners off to the theater and the opera. Off to dinner parties where they know the food will be execrable. Uncountable parties. His own will be one. The Pendulum offers decent enough food. He is not sure he can stomach it. “Thick with people here tonight.” Thick with cabs in equal measure. He holds up a hand, fingers crooked in a summoning gesture. He may despise carriages and cabs; that does not mean he does not know the proper signs to draw them close. A clattering of wheels and one, a hackney cab, moa-drawn, swift and light, draws close. “That at least should get you home in time to dress for dinner.” Dinner dress. Another abomination of the New Men. He may be of their ilk, but he is not of their kind. Shrikeweed and Ganisborough, his mother’s name, are old among the Clockhouse set. Lineages as old as Vauquelin, if less noble. Custom runs deep with them. Custom does not demand uniformity of dress at dinner. An abomination. Well, it is but one of many. “ Gods I loathe these truly formal occasions with attire so controlled.” He gives the Incumbent his usual sly smile. “Still, the time and place demand it. And who are we to cross such demands?”