The Afternoon of the 23rd Day of Yaris, 2719
He would make the boy want, make him learn. There was a latent fire in his eyes, a hunger. Best to feed that. It would need to be fed carefully, lest it consume them both. Small steps were required. One bite at a time.
“Yes,” he said, looking at the side of his own left hand, the side so often stained in ink or covered in chalk, “writing in Estuan in the normal fashion is difficult for those such as us. I learned some tricks when I was young, to prevent me from smearing all my work. I can pass those on, if you would like.” For his own work, his private notes, and even the equations and parses upon his blackboards, he wrote backward, right to left, forming each character in its own mirror image. It was easier than cramping his hand. On occasion it crept into his public writings, forming the odd inverted letter. Sometimes people even laughed. Mockery was common enough. He’d grown accustomed to it. That was not to say he enjoyed it.
And there was some mockery in the boy’s words and expressions. A certain degree of mockery was required in servants, necessary, but there was something bordering on contempt in the mood and words of Little Boy Blue. Umberto could hold the servant in contempt of course. Privilege of his status. Perfectly acceptable. He had not the slightest desire to do so. He’d never been sure how to go about it.
“Ah, yes, the segregation of sexes into their own rooms. Curious practice.” In his mother’s household, at home, in Florne, such things were not done. It would have been strange, impractical, unnatural. “Back home, In Florne, we did have several sitting rooms in the house, but they were for public or private affairs, and in quite different parts of the house. Having two up in front still strikes me as strange. No real way of having a private room.” Well, not on the first floor at any rate. “I suppose if I ever entertain formally, I will have to keep that in mind. I am not well versed in protocol. We had rather an unconventional household, I am led to understand. On holidays, for example, the staff dined with us. The cook, the maids, the steward, our wick factotum.” And where was Cannio now? He’d vanished on some mysterious errand several days ago, slipping down-river with the Citation Needed. Umberto had not asked where he was going, but he gone in the dark of the night with one of the sturdier strong boxes. He had gone armed.
“And speaking on the wick factotum, I assume he’ll be back at some point in the next few weeks.” He hoped so at any rate. Cannio was always a welcome, if taciturn, presence. “Big man, black hair, thick Flornese accent, answers to the name of Cannio. He has the run of the house, so no worries if he shows up in the middle of night pretending to be drunk and looking mysterious. That’s just his way.” Umberto cocked a smile at the boy. “We all have our eccentricities. We were raised to celebrate them.”
Up the stairs now, thirteen in total. They creaked under their feet. A most satisfying sound. A moment of pause, and then Umberto opened a door. The sanctum sanctorum. The work room, the heart of his research. The look on the boy’s face was priceless. If he could distill it and put it into a bottle, he could sell the wonder and confusion for a great price. The latest in euphoric. He coked his head at the boy, regarded him like a specimen under one his father’s magnifying lenses. There were too few limbs and a notable lack of an exoskeleton, so that was one difference. The other difference was that no beetle, moth, or hymenoptera of his acquaintance was quite so expressive. He had known a sarcastic wasp and a supercilious beetle, but they were nothing in comparison. If it were possible to measure the harmonic changes in field structure then an incantation could be created to . . . No, it was no good.The speculation was pointless. The boy was passive. No field. That was a bit of a pisser. It was a good expression though , proper. So, there is some life in you yet, some remembered passion for knowledge. Good. That was another thing to cultivate.
At least Fionn, had given him an opportunity.
“I am very much afraid that it would be against orthodox practice, established morality, and even good sense to teach you Monite.” The usual loopy sparkle that formed when he was defying convention sparked in his eyes. He gave the boy a conspiratorial wink, the flood of delight swept him along in the flow. “So I shall not in any circumstance teach you proper stroke order for the glyphs, like so.” On one of the boards he carefully drew the character sequence that was generally believed to mean ‘unfolding’. It was one of simpler base glyphs, a good place to begin. He tossed the chalk to the boy, and gestured to the board. “Nor shall I drill you daily on your vocabulary or instruct you in semantic annotation.” Damnit Umberto. The boy does not respond to inversion, to circumlocution. He was not used to having to be so direct. It seemed unnatural, unpleasant. “Well, that would be the orthodox approach. I don’t carry water for the soulless minions of orthodoxy.”
Carrying water. That reminded him. “Well Fionn, I have your first official task. Go put the kettle on. We have work to do.”