The Master of Heathcrest Hall

by Galen Beckett

  Ivy sat up a little more in bed. What did Dr. Lawrent mean? She had always supposed it was simply due to luck that her mother finally had another child of her own. But what if there was a reason for it, a cause? Ivy thought of the little hawthorn and chestnut trees in the garden. Her father had planted the seeds after gleaning them from the edges of the Wyrdwood, but they had not sprouted and grown—not until Ivy came to the house. Perhaps her presence here had influenced another sort of seed to take root and grow as well, and Rose and Lily were the result.

  But if that was so, then why had Ivy herself not been able to nurture the life that had been growing within her?

  “So you see, you have no cause to abandon hope,” Dr. Lawrent went on. “Occurrences such as this are actually quite common. And in this particular case, I suppose it was even to be ex—”

  Abruptly he shook his head and looked away. Ivy wished he had not curtailed his speech. His words had enflamed the inquisitive spark that was a constant part of her being. Even now, when her heart felt broken, her mind continued along its usual course of curiosity.

  “What were you going to say, Dr. Lawrent? Does it have something to do with your research?”

  He looked back at her, his gray eyes startled. “I can’t imagine you want to discuss my research right now, Lady Quent.”

  On the contrary, she had been confined to her bed all day, with nothing to do for endless hours but contemplate what she had lost. Right then, she wished for any sort of distraction.

  “Please, I would very much like to know,” she said earnestly. “You said nature continues to try when it does not at first find success. Does that relate to your work at the university? I can see how it might affect the manner in which traits are passed from a creature to its offspring.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Sir Quent informed me that you possessed a scientific mind, and I see that he was right. That is an astute observation, Lady Quent. Yes, the persistence of nature indeed plays a part—though not so much in the manner in which these traits are inherited by offspring, but rather with the overall effect they can have over time.”

  Now that Dr. Lawrent was speaking of his work, his worries about disturbing her seemed to ease, and he went on with greater enthusiasm. While the exact mechanisms by which certain characteristics were passed from one generation to the next were not understood, he explained, what was known was the particulate properties of such traits, and how a characteristic could be passed from one parent wholly, and without dilution.

  “For example, a white cat and a black cat do not necessarily produce gray kittens,” he said. “Rather, their offspring may be entirely black or entirely white themselves.”

  As if sensing the topic of conversation, Miss Mew padded into the room. Evidently, Mrs. Seenly had not latched the door, and the little tortoiseshell cat had pushed it open with her nose. She hopped up onto the windowsill to look outside.

  “That’s all very interesting,” Ivy said, and meant it, “but I’m not certain I see what that has to do with the persistence of nature.”

  “Why, it has everything to do with it! Because of the particulate nature of inheritance, a unique characteristic which arises by chance in a parent may be passed to its offspring. Thus, over time, a number of variants can accumulate in a population. And naturalists have observed, those species which display the most variation in form and shape are also those which are best able to survive disruption in the environment in which they live.”

  Ivy began to think she understood. “It’s like drawing cards from a deck. The more cards you are able to draw, the better chance you have of finding one to help you win the current hand.”

  “Precisely! With a wide variety of types, it is more likely that—if some tragedy befalls, or the world about them changes—there will be at least some individuals able to survive under the new conditions. So, through this inherited variability, a species’ chances of enduring are improved.”

  This idea was fascinating, but Ivy felt she was still missing something. “Yet why do such important variations arise in the first place? If they arise by chance, it seems they are as likely to have a negative effect upon the creature who gains them, or no effect at all. After all, it is just as probable that I will draw a card that doesn’t help my hand a bit.”

  “Your mind is quick to seize upon the heart of a matter, Lady Quent,” he said with an approving nod. “A variation that curtails a creature’s ability to thrive and reach maturity has little chance of being passed on to its offspring. However, those variations that confer neither harm nor benefit can easily linger within a population. And if circumstances were to suddenly change”—he gave a shrug and smiled—“well, you never know when that card you had tucked in the corner of your hand suddenly trumps all others.”

  Ivy felt a familiar, pleasant humming as her mind worked through these ideas. It was a curious but compelling notion that a creature might have heretofore unobserved features or abilities that remained hidden as they were passed from generation to generation, awaiting only the right event that would allow them to manifest themselves in some efficacious way.

  By the window, Miss Mew began to lick at a paw, and at the same time another thought occurred to Ivy.

  “What of those traits which can only be passed to some offspring?” she said. “Or more particularly, those traits that can only be passed to a male or female? I read once that tortoiseshell cats, like Miss Mew, are all girls.”

  Dr. Lawrent smiled at the little cat, who had turned her head at the sound of her name. “Another interesting question, Lady Quent. As I said, the mechanism by which traits are inherited is particulate, and it seems that some of these particles can be passed only to female offspring, while others go only to males. But as for the reason … I fear I do not know. Perhaps my research will someday give us a better understanding.”

  Ivy nodded, watching as Miss Mew resumed licking her paw, only it was not the color of cats that she was thinking of. Rather, it was magick. Only men could be magicians. And like Mr. Rafferdy, they were all of them thought to be descendants of one of the seven Old Houses.

  Similarly, only women were ever witches, and it was a thing that seemed to run mother to daughter. The woman who bore Ivy—Merriel Addysen—was a descendant of Rowan Addysen, as were Halley Samonds and the first Mrs. Quent. And all of them had been witches. Did that mean magick and witchcraft were simply types of traits, like the color of fur? And if so, when and how had these traits arisen?

  Before she could think of how to frame such a question, Dr. Lawrent rose from the chair. “We can speak again later, Lady Quent. For now, you should try to get some more rest.”

  The afternoon light that filtered into the room had turned a deeper gold. The long day was at last drawing on. And now that their scientific discussion had come to an end, Ivy found her spirits dimming in kind.

  “Dr. Lawrent.”

  He paused by the door, his hand on the eagle-clawed knob.

  Rather than look at him, she turned her head to gaze out the window at the waving branches of the ash tree. “It was a boy, was it not?”

  The breath he drew was audible. “It was exceedingly small, Lady Quent. There had not been much time for it to form properly.”

  “But it was a boy,” she said, now turning her head to look at him.

  For a long moment he was motionless, then he nodded.

  “I believe you are aware that I am a great-granddaughter of Rowan Addysen,” she said.

  “Yes, so Sir Quent told me. Though I confess, I would only have had to look at you, and to be told your origins are from County Westmorain, to know it for a fact. The first Mrs. Quent shared a similar heritage, and your features have much in common with hers.”

  So Ivy had been told. “You must have known her,” she said.

  He responded slowly, as if taking care in his answer. “Yes, I did. I saw her on several occasions when visiting Heathcrest Hall.”

  “And she was very much like me?”

 
Now he gave a soft laugh. “Like you? No, not at all. She had green eyes and fair hair, as you do, Lady Quent. But she was taller. And while you have a calm and serious intellect, I would say Gennivel’s proclivities lay more in the direction of parties and dances and other such amusements. This is not to say she was frivolous, for she was also very accomplished in artistic endeavors, such as painting and music.”

  “So I was not like her after all,” Ivy breathed, more to herself.

  Dr. Lawrent gave her a solemn look over the wire rims of his spectacles. “If you have ever thought Sir Quent married you because you reminded him of her, then I think you are mistaken. Rather, it was only when he met you that I think he was finally able to cease dwelling upon the past.”

  Ivy appreciated these words. It was reassuring to know that she was in fact different from the first Mrs. Quent. Yet there was still one characteristic that Ivy and Gennivel had in common—one which all witches shared. But how much did Dr. Lawrent know about that?

  “I’ve heard it said in the county that there aren’t many sons in the Addysen line,” Ivy said.

  He nodded. “I am given to understand there have only ever been a few male children born into that family. And they are often—”

  He cut his words short, but Ivy knew what he meant. They were often similar to Mr. Samonds, the farrier in Cairnbridge. And while he was kind and handsome, he was not likely ever to marry or have a child himself. A pretty lady would never strike his affections that way.

  “That is,” the doctor went on after clearing his throat, “there seems to be a strong proclivity for women of that particular lineage to bear daughters rather than sons.”

  Ivy suffered a deep ache—though it was not the spasms returning. “Thank you, Doctor,” she said quietly.

  “Of course, Lady Quent. Please let me know if you have any need of me.” Then he turned and left the room, shutting the door behind him.

  Alone, Ivy leaned back against the pillows and watched the shadows of the branches weave upon the far wall. But if there was any meaning in the pattern made by the branches, it was beyond her understanding.

  NOW WAS HIS MOMENT. Rafferdy gave his wig a quick tug to make certain it was set firmly upon his head. Then, before anyone else could claim the floor, he rose from his seat on one of the frontmost benches.

  The High Speaker’s gavel came down with a loud clatter. “The Hall recognizes Lord Rafferdy!”

  Now that the floor was his, Rafferdy moved to take it as if he were in no great hurry, strolling to the front of the Hall of Magnates. Once there, he took the time to flick a wrinkle from his elegant robe of black crepe, plucked a stray thread from the sleeve, then proceeded to make a thorough examination of the state of his fingernails.

  Sighs and mutters of impatience ran around the benches, but still Rafferdy kept his attention fixed on his fingernails. The Hall was hot and stifling, for the lumenal had been exceedingly long—more than twenty-five hours at that point, and it was not over yet. Anticipating this, Rafferdy had dressed very lightly beneath his robe, and he had directed his man to sprinkle a large quantity of powder inside his wig to prevent any rivulets of perspiration that might otherwise trickle down his brow. As a result, while many of the lords were boiling in their robes and dabbing at red faces with damp handkerchiefs, Rafferdy at the least appeared cool.

  He waited for the sounds in the Hall to rise into a cacophony of cane thumping and calls of Get on with it, sir! All at once, as if suddenly recalling where he stood, Rafferdy looked up.

  “Gentlemen, it has been proposed and seconded that we begin debate upon the Act of Due Loyalty and Proper Regard for Our Glorious Nation of Altania.”

  Rafferdy pitched his voice in a lower range than was natural for him, keeping his shoulders back and the muscles of his midsection taut. As a result, his voice sounded relaxed and unstrained, yet it carried easily throughout the Hall. It was a trick his friend Eldyn Garritt had showed him the last time they met at tavern, after Rafferdy mentioned that his voice had been getting hoarse from speaking loud enough to be heard at Assembly.

  How Garritt himself had come to learn this trick, and why a clerk might have any need to project his voice, were questions that had only occurred to Rafferdy after the fact. Then again, he had gotten the impression from the fashionable coat Garritt wore that he was no longer working as a scrivener and had found other, more lucrative, business. Rafferdy would be sure to ask him about it when they next met, and to thank him for the advice.

  Now, as he spoke, the noise in the Hall subsided, and magnates leaned forward on the benches. As Rafferdy had discovered, if you made men wait to hear you speak, they were more likely to listen when you finally did.

  “It occurs to me,” he went on, “that there is no one better suited to tell us more about this act than the one who proposed we debate it. To that end, Lord Davarry, perhaps you would enlighten us regarding the particular benefits that would arise from this proposal were it made law.”

  The subject of this address was just retaking his seat, having been as slow to depart the floor as Rafferdy was to take it. So addressed, Davarry had a right to speak on the issue, and he appeared more than eager to make his appeal on someone else’s time rather than his own. He rose at once from his seat among the other members of the Magisters party.

  “Opening the matter for debate was merely a formality required by the protocols of the Hall, Lord Rafferdy. I should hardly think it requires any debate at all.”

  Lord Davarry was neither very tall nor very handsome, two features which cast him in stark contrast to the prior leader of the Magisters. All the same, his blue eyes reflected a keen intelligence that Rafferdy had witnessed in effect more than once on the floor of the Hall of Magnates. An altercation with Lord Davarry was not something to be engaged in lightly.

  And Rafferdy was about to provoke one.

  “Yet to cast our votes in good conscience, we must hear both the arguments for and against an act.” Rafferdy spoke in a tone that implied this was the most obvious thing.

  “Of course,” Davarry agreed, even as he made a slight motion with a gloved hand as if to cast the idea aside. “In this case, though, I believe no rational mind could possibly conceive of an argument against the act. That it should be considered a crime for anyone to make public speeches, or authorize words to be printed, that cast our nation in an ill light, and thus undermine the authority of our government, is self-evident.”

  “It is?” Rafferdy said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Indeed,” Davarry went on indulgently. “As I am sure all present are aware, our nation is beset by enemies all around. They seek constantly to find a chink in our walls, to discover a way to attack us from within, and there are no better weapons they can use to this end than words. A bullet can fell a man, but words might accomplish something far worse. That is, they might arouse his sympathies and turn his mind to traitorous thoughts. You might as well pick up a gun and go fight for those rebels in Torland, who seek to make a beachhead upon our shores for Huntley Morden, as make public criticisms of Altania’s government or sovereign Crown.”

  Rafferdy affected a confounded look. “Forgive me, Lord Davarry, but I have become confused. You see, I thought it has long been the purpose of the Hall of Magnates to offer public criticisms of the Crown. And as for not criticizing the remainder of the government—gentlemen, I remind you that we are the government. And I do not think I should be hauled off to the prisons below Barrowgate for observing how crookedly other lords might wear their wigs or noting how foolishly they bet their money while gambling with dice among the back benches. Rather, I consider insulting my fellow magnates to be a God-granted right, and one that cannot be revoked.”

  Laughter erupted around the Hall, along with several calls of Hear! Hear! Lord Davarry frowned, perhaps rethinking his eagerness to engage in debate on someone else’s time.

  “Besides,” Rafferdy went on as the laughter died down but before Davarry could have a chance to go on the
offensive himself, “isn’t this matter already addressed in the Rules of Citizenship?”

  Rafferdy gestured toward the sheet of paper posted on the wall behind him, which provided exhaustive direction for the correct behavior of proper citizens of the country. It was the same notice posted in every public shop and tavern and market square in the city. Indeed, so abundant were the printed notices throughout Invarel that people had begun to take them for use as kindling to start fires and to paste upon their walls to stop drafts—two habits which had recently been addressed by Rule Forty-Six: No one shall make use of these printed Rules for any purpose other than posting in public for the education of the people.

  “I believe the Rules already clearly state that it is prohibited to speak about the Crown in an unfavorable manner,” Rafferdy continued.

  “Yes, that’s so,” Davarry replied slowly, as if reluctant to offer any sort of agreement. “Yet as I am sure all present know, the Rules of Citizenship are maintained by the Gray Conclave, under the authority of the Crown itself. And while the Crown may issue rules to clarify the enforcement of the laws of the nation, it cannot enact laws itself. That is a right reserved solely for Assembly under the Great Charter.”

  “For which we all thank our forebears for their wisdom,” Rafferdy interjected. “But if the Gray Conclave already has the power to regulate the speaking habits of the public in an effort to enforce our existing laws, then what need have we of new laws? It seems a dreadful waste of paper, which I do not need to tell you is getting scarce and expensive these days.”

  Davarry’s expression darkened, and in his narrowed eyes Rafferdy noted the first glimmerings of contempt.