Light in the Darkness

by CJ Brightley

  “That sounds like Faithful,” Hope admitted.

  Lily poured the tea and brought it over. Patient held it in between sips, because Hope’s hands still shook.

  “Despite Patient’s lack of experience,” Lily went on in a matter-of-fact tone, “he genuinely cares for you, and is well attuned to you. With some practice, some basic knowledge, and good communication, he’ll be an excellent lover.” Patient blushed ferociously, which caused Hope’s lips to curl just a little, and her eyes to regain some sparkle. “Your reaction to him, when disinhibited, is entirely what I expected.”

  “Why was I able to go so far?” she asked. “And then, why no further?”

  “You’re undoing the curse from the inside,” said Lily. “Your condition for Faithful undoing the curse you put on him, if I recall, concerned the presence of a committed relationship. That is what you are building, though it’s still in its early stages. Do you trust Patient?”

  “Completely,” said Hope, with no hesitation.

  “Good. Trust, communication, respect, commitment… you’re well equipped for a life together.”

  Patient’s stomach pulsed with a sudden warmth. He’d barely dared to hope. All this time, he had just been waiting to wake up from the dream and find that he had been deluding himself about the possibility of a life with Hope, and now someone who made her living out of working with couples was saying that could be real.

  “What do we need to do next?” he asked.

  “Well,” said Lily seriously, “I suggest more kissing.”

  He couldn’t help his grin at that, though he sobered as he thought of the seizure. “How do we keep from triggering her oathconflict?”

  “Keep it light. Try staying in a normal state of consciousness, though you can go into trance if necessary.”

  “I’m not supposed to cast at the moment because of my head injury,” said Hope.

  “You can go into trance without casting, but I’ll give you an amulet,” said Lily, fishing in a drawer. “Don’t you use it, though, Mister Patient. It’s your job to keep things from escalating too quickly, and disinhibition is contraindicated. Don’t drink any alcohol, either.”

  He nodded.

  “I assume you’re spending the night together tonight?”

  They blushed, and nodded.

  “Don’t get too ambitious,” she warned. “Kissing only, all right? And light. Patient, I’m trusting you to protect her.”

  He nodded, firming his jaw.

  “Pity,” muttered Hope. He gave her a quelling look.

  “I’m very pleased with the progress we’ve made,” said Lily, rising to see them to the door. Patient heaved himself up and retrieved his cane, then offered Hope his arm. “Come back next week,” said the mindhealer, “at the same time, and we’ll talk about further steps.”

  They walked, hand in hand, to the stop for the horse bus, looked at each other, and broke up laughing. Hope swung their joined hands, and Patient’s heart lightened.

  9

  Rosie's Parents

  Rosie had been taking care to leave home, and return, at times when she wouldn’t encounter her parents. On Fourday, though, she overslept, and they had not yet left the house when she went down. She tried to walk quietly, but the steel-toed boots Bucket had got for her weren’t conducive to quiet walking. Hope had some kind of spell on hers, Rosie thought; they always seemed to be silent.

  Sure enough, despite her best efforts her mother put her head out of the drawing room, glared, and beckoned. She didn’t dare disobey, but clumped into the room, with its formal, upright furniture in the best of taste. Like Mother.

  Her mother was standing beside her father’s chair with one elegant hand on the back, a position they adopted when there were Serious Words to be said. Even on the rest day, she dressed flawlessly in a shirt and trousers that were almost, but by an occasional tuck and cut weren’t quite, a Victory suit. Not that Victory suits were ever made with a subtle floral pattern. Her well-polished mother-of-pearl eyeglass frames flashed, and she wore just enough tasteful jewellery to indicate that she could have worn more, had she cared to, but chose not to be vulgar.

  Mother had, as always, ensured that Father was equally well dressed, in a dove-grey shirt and charcoal trousers. His fine, aristocratic features reminded Rosie of their ancestor, the Localgold of Rosewall, whose portrait hung prominently in the hall, except that the old Localgold’s portrait was smiling.

  Rosie herself had dressed for the lab, rest day or no, in greenish canvas trousers and a beige shirt with acid stains on the left sleeve (Dignified had been showing her some printmaking techniques, and some acid had been overset). She had confined her rebellious hair, as well as she could manage, in a clip improvised out of a pipe guide. She turned her head so as to hide it.

  “Industry,” said her mother, “sit down.”

  Nobody spoke back to Mother when she used that tone. Rosie perched on the edge of one of the chairs.

  “Where have you been going?” asked her father.

  “I have a job.” Rosie did her best to steer her tone between nervous and defiant without touching either, and, she suspected, hit both.

  “You don’t need a job,” said Mother.

  “Doesn’t mean I don’t want one.” That definitely struck on the defiant side.

  “What kind of a job?” asked Father. “Not a very clean one, by all appearances.”

  Rosie lifted her chin. It was not one of her best features, that chin; too large, but then most of her features were. She protruded it regardless.

  “I’m working for the Realmgold.”

  “Doing what?” said her mother. They always took these interrogations strictly in turn.

  “Assisting her clever man.”

  “The one that came up with the farspeakers, and those airhorse things you invested in?” said her father. In point of fact, Dignified had not invented the airhorse; that had been the gnomes. He had invented an entirely new kind of wheel for it, true, but not the actual airhorse. Rosie decided that wasn’t important to say, and also discarded a remark about the excellent rate of return the airhorses were already bringing, by which time her mother was speaking again.

  “Not this inventing nonsense again.”

  “I’d like to point out once again,” said Rosie, her voice as steady as she could make it, “that if Great-Grandmother hadn’t invented pressure weapons…”

  “Yes, yes,” said her father. “But we want better things for you.”

  “Better than enjoying what I do? Better than creating new things of value, instead of just moving money around in a clever way?”

  “Moving money around in a clever way, as you put it, is something you do very well,” said her mother. “And you used to enjoy it, too.”

  “I used to enjoy sweetcakes and calliver juice,” said Rosie, referring to her favourite childhood snack.

  Her father made a sideways hand gesture that dismissed the comparison. “And now the height of your ambition is tinkering with… gears, and pulleys?”

  “I’ve already invented an adding machine,” said Rosie. “The Realmgold wants the whole first production run, but I’ll see if I can get you a prototype.”

  “The Realmgold wants it?” said her mother, doubt entering her voice for the first time.

  “Yes,” said Rosie, stretching the truth only marginally. After all, the factor spoke for the Realmgold, didn’t he? “And I will earn a license fee for every unit.”

  “How much?” asked her mother, surprised enough that she broke the alternation with her oathmate.

  “Standard is one-thirty-second. Likely comes to thirty-two pillars or more in the first year.”

  “That’s not much,” said Father, though it was more than a good many members of the Silver class earned. Their family were technically Silvers, though rather at the upper end.

  “That’s just the first year, and just the license fee from that one invention. I’m getting wages as well, a pillar a shift-cycle.”
/>   “You settled for that?”

  “It’s the standard, Mother. Besides, I don’t care too much about the money, as long as it’s enough to live on.”

  “You live here,” said her father.

  “For now,” said Rosie. That silenced them both, albeit briefly.

  “Industry,” said her mother, “we’re concerned about you. You know that.”

  She nodded and blinked. Where had she got that? Oh, from Dignified. Before she could decide whether that worried her, her father said, “We want you to fulfil your true potential.”

  “And I believe,” she said, “this is the way to do so.”

  “Well,” said her mother, “you are a grown woman.”

  Rosie ignored her uncertain tone and said, “Thank you, Mother. Really, I do appreciate your concern.” The necessary social fiction slipped easily from her lips. “But please, give me some time to do this.”

  “What about your investments?”

  “They’ll look after themselves for a while, Father,” she said, “and I’ve been training Constant.” Constant was her younger brother. “It takes little enough time to check on them. It’s finding the new ones that’s time-consuming. And now that I’m part of the Clever Man’s Works, I’ll see new opportunities all the time.”

  Her mother nodded. “That does make sense, Early,” she said, using her pet name for her oathmate. He lived up to his actual given name of Punctual so well that he was often at appointments ahead of time.

  He frowned, but nodded after a pause. “But must you go to work today?” he said.

  “It’s not that I must,” said Rosie. “It’s that I want to.”

  “We named you well, at least, Industry,” said her mother. “Though I could wish you wanted to do something that didn’t require you to dress that way. Go on, then.” She didn’t smile.

  Rosie leapt up, thanked her parents, and was out the door before they could say anything else.

  Rosie arrived at work to find Dignified sitting in Bucket’s little kitchen at the back of the lab, talking to a woman. Bucket, serving tea, met her startled gaze over their heads, and made a gesture which Rosie couldn’t interpret. The gnomes had a whole vocabulary of gestures that they used, and she only knew a couple of them.

  “Mistress Rosie,” he said. He had settled on this compromise form of address; the other gnomes mostly didn’t call her anything. “This is Perspicacity Weaver. She’s a political philosopher, and she wants to consult us about a voting system. Mistress Perspicacity, Industry of Rosewall.”

  “Rosie,” said Rosie, pressing palms with the other woman and failing to ignore the fact that she was younger and better-looking. The philosopher wore neat, good-quality clothing that fell short of being a Victory suit mainly because it wasn’t all the same colour, and had her straight black hair pulled into a tidy tail at the back with a velvet band. She peered at Rosie over small, round, wire-framed eyeglasses, in contrast to the giant lenses Rosie peered back through. Rosie sank into a third chair between her and Dignified, and nodded at Bucket when he lifted the teapot inquiringly.

  “Persy,” said the young woman, returning the self-introduction. “Thank you,” she added to Bucket, as he placed a teacup beside her. “I’ve been commissioned by the Realmgolds to move ahead with my ideas, and they suggested I should speak to you about the practicalities.”

  “What exactly are your ideas?” asked Rosie.

  “Well,” said Persy, with the I’m-so-glad-you-asked intonation of an enthusiast, “I think, and the Realmgolds agree, that it’s past time the ordinary people had more of a voice in the government of the realm. With all of the changes now we’re unified with Denning, it’s an ideal time to put an Assembly in place, a group that can represent the people’s interests, debate changes to the law as the legal systems are integrated, and propose new laws that benefit everybody.” She smiled brightly.

  “And how would we get such an assembly?” asked Rosie. “Bucket mentioned voting?”

  “Yes, well. The fairest way for the representatives to be selected is obviously for the people themselves to appoint them, by a vote similar to the way heads of family are chosen. You’re part of the Rosewall family?”

  “Strictly speaking, no,” said Rosie. “We’re too far from the tree to vote for the family head, and don’t have the Gold title any more. But I know how the process works.”

  “Right. Well. In family votes, eligibility for voting and candidacy is by descent from a previous head of family.” Rosie nodded curtly, with the impatience of someone who gets an explanation they have just hinted that they don’t need. “In my scheme, though,” Persy went on, “all permanent residents of the realm are eligible to vote and stand for election.”

  “Excuse me, Mistress,” said Bucket from the background, “all permanent residents?”

  “Yes, Mister Bucket,” smiled Persy, “your people too. The dwarves, as well; at least, obviously not those who live in the dwarfholds, because those are sovereign territory and not under the laws of Koslin, but anyone who is under the law will be entitled to vote. It’s only right.”

  “Interesting,” said Bucket, pulling up a fourth chair to the battered table. “Go on.”

  “Now, there are several ways to proceed from there,” said Persy. “One is to start with the number of representatives you want to have, divide up the population, probably by geography, into that many groups, and have each group elect one representative. That’s what they do in Mertven, in the Hundred Counties.”

  “But that isn’t your idea,” said Rosie, reading her tone.

  “But that isn’t my idea. That’s because in Mertven it leads to intense localism, and some candidates spend all their time diverting everyone’s resources just to benefit their local area. Also, it means that some candidates get a large number of votes but aren’t elected, because someone in their district got a larger number, while others with fewer votes get elected because they had several opponents, each of whom individually was less popular than they, but who collectively got more votes. Or a district can have low voter turnout because nobody really cares about any of the candidates, but one is still elected. That doesn’t seem right.”

  “So what’s your approach?” asked Bucket.

  “My approach is to say that everyone who achieves a certain number of votes is elected to the Assembly, and that anyone from anywhere can vote for anyone from anywhere. It’s true that many people will still be elected by local followings, of course — by people who know them — but it won’t necessarily be that way for everyone. If you like a candidate’s ideas, it doesn’t matter if she lives on the other side of the realm, you can vote for her.”

  “How many votes?” asked Rosie.

  “I’m still working on the exact numbers. We don’t want too many people in the Assembly, but at the same time, we don’t want to set the number of votes required too high. I’m thinking somewhere in the region of 65,000.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “Yes, but achievable. If everyone in the realm voted (and they won’t), and the votes were evenly spread between candidates (which they won’t be), that would give us 300 Assembly members, approximately. That’s too big, of course, but as I say, it’s a theoretical maximum which won’t be achieved.”

  “So what happens if someone gets 130,000 votes?” asked Bucket. “Do they get two places?”

  Persy laughed. “Not exactly,” she said, “but in a way, yes. I’ve provided in my scheme for allowing candidates to say, ahead of time, who they are allied with, and to pass their excess votes on to those other candidates. So let’s say you were standing, Mister Bucket, and you also wanted, um, Rosie to be elected. You’d make it known that any extra votes you didn’t need would go to her, and she would probably do the same for you, so if you got, let’s say, 98,000 votes and she got 32,000, you could give some of yours to her and you’d both be elected.”

  “And then she’d owe me a favour?” said Bucket.

  “Well, yes. She would. So she
might well support the measures you proposed.”

  “What if she didn’t, though?”

  “Then I imagine you wouldn’t give her your extra votes next time, and she’d have to find her own.”

  “Next time? That raises a question,” said Rosie. “How often do you propose having these votes?”

  “Every four years,” said Persy. “It seems long enough without being too long.” Rosie and Bucket nodded.

  “So what do you need us for?” asked Rosie. “Seems like you have it all worked out.”

  “I’m told you make counting machines,” said the philosopher. “We’ll need some to tally the votes, including the rollovers from one candidate to another. Ideally, in such a way that we can tell who has already voted and prevent them from voting again. Can you do that?”

  “Probably,” said Dignified, speaking for the first time. He stared into the infinite distances where his ideas came from.

  “If he says probably, then probably,” said Rosie. “But wouldn’t that mean that people could tell who voted for whom? What if a candidate was really controversial, and their opponents got hold of the list of the people who supported them and, I don’t know, beat them up or intimidated them?”

  “Yes, it would have to be one-way,” said Persy. “You’d need to be able to answer the question, ‘Did this person who’s voting already vote?’ But you would need to not be able to answer the question ‘What is the list of everyone who voted for this person?’ Do you think you can do that?” She fixed bright eyes on Dignified from behind her little glasses.

  “Depends on the design,” said Dignified, in the voice he used when he was only partially in the room.

  “Why don’t you write down a list for us of everything this system has to do,” said Rosie, “and we’ll go through it?”

  “Already did,” said the philosopher, producing several neatly written sheets from a small document case. “The Realmgolds told me you’d want that.”

  “Good. And your card…? Ah, yes. You’re one of the Realmgold’s creatives too?”