Stargazy Pie

by Victoria Goddard

  He looked a bit gratified at the address, and dashed off his cap to make a sort of bow (complete with heel-click, I was half-embarrassed to see). “Mr. Greenwing.”

  He paused. Violet was looking mystified but polite. I wondered what he wanted, but also knew he did not respond well to prodding—he’d been an old soldier before the Fall, and in the Interim had been muddled a bit by the magic, and now tended to wildly elliptical pronouncements. His friend Garsom treated him as something like a prophet, calling out ‘Hear ye! Hear ye!’ whenever Pinger had something to say.

  “Mr. Greenwing,” Pinger said again, and sighed heavily. He looked up at the sky, scratched his nose, looked at Violet with an intense and somewhat accusatory stare, scratched his ear—his tics always made me start to feel horribly itchy—and finally he said, “Justice Talgarth was asking about you.”

  “Really? He’s not back yet, I thought? Who—whom was he asking?”

  “The Old Gods,” Pinger said ominously, not quite spoiling the effect by tapping his nose meaningfully.

  “What a strange man,” Violet murmured as he trundled back across to where Garsom was carefully piling things next to the fountain. I tipped my head back at a waft of fresh air, seeing that the earlier sun had clouded over again. Mrs. Landry cut across the far corner of the square, frowning at the two men and then waving at us before heading towards the hotel. “Does everyone know you in town?”

  I opened the door to Elderflower Books for her. “What do you mean?”

  “Just that everyone seems to know you by name.”

  Mr. Dart looked up from where he was sitting at the table, examining his stone arm. “Oh, everyone knows our Mr. Greenwing. His family affairs were the most exciting thing to happen in Ragnor Bella before this confounded stargazy pie.”

  “And no doubt they’ll continue to excite comment long after,” I said, trying not to sound sour or depressed at the thought, depositing coffee and bakery treasures on the table before him. “Pinger wanted to tell me that Justice Talgarth was asking the Old Gods after me. Because of course that’s just want I wanted to hear.”

  “Not much we can do if the Justice is part of that cult.”

  “You don’t reckon—” I began, and then stopped. Mrs. Etaris had come out of the back with her hands full of mugs. She looked, as ever, proper: upright carriage, perfectly unexceptionable gown with reasonable corseting, her ginger-mouse hair done up in the soft twists appropriate to a middle-aged matron. But there was something in the set of her chin and the glint in her eyes that made me wonder, suddenly, why she’d hired me.

  “Please do sit down, Miss Redshank. Will you fetch the cream and sugar, Mr. Greenwing?”

  “Yes,” I said, and while fetching these and a stack of side plates (the back room was well stocked against visitors to tea and Embroidery Circle meetings) tried to recapture what I had begun to say. When I came out again I took a bun to nibble.

  “You were about to say something?” Mr. Dart said while I tried not to scarf the bun down. It had suddenly occurred to me that apart from half a piece of gingerbread I hadn’t eaten since breakfast—no wonder I’d been feeling dizzy. My throat felt unaccountably sore. Getting sick again was just what I needed.

  “I don’t know … I think I’ve lost it. Go ahead.”

  “Six households bought herring,” Mrs. Etaris said. “The Baron, the Talgarths, Dominus Gleason, Mr. Shipston, and Mrs. Landry.” I watched her tick them off on her fingers, and recalled the Honourable Rag doing the same while he lied to us. Mr. Dart and I used to tease him for his easy tells—did he remember that?

  “I believe we can disregard my sister. I know she has no extra person in her house besides Miss Featherhaugh, and given Mr. Landry’s staunch belief in all things conventional, I think we can absolve him of trucking in magic. Mr. Shipston, as we have seen, most certainly does truck in magic. However, since he is afraid the Knockermen are after his sister, I doubt he has done anything more than try to lie low.”

  “And have his house burn down,” I said, sneezing reflexively.

  “I think we may have to leave that to the Chief Constable to investigate,” Mrs. Etaris said, with an expression suggesting that what the Chief Constable investigated was largely determined by her. I looked inquiringly; she added, “My husband is not likely to, ah, press too hard if his investigations should point towards our town’s leading citizens.”

  Violet stirred. “I have reason to believe someone—and I think it must have been either Mr. Shipston or Dominus Gleason—both of them previously Magister, is that not so?—is in frequent contact with some rather unsavoury people in Ghilousette. That was what brought me to Ragnor Bella in the first place.”

  Mrs. Etaris looked judicious again. “Dominus Gleason certainly was once Magister Gleason, but I don’t believe Mr. Shipston ever taught in a university—he claims to have been an alchemist and then a physicker in Newbury, and his appropriate title would therefore have been Learned. But of course it would be improper now to call them by anything other than their desired titles. How someone introduces himself—or herself—is the final consideration, Miss Redshank.”

  Violet quirked her mouth. “Yes, I see. Thank you, Mrs. Etaris.”

  “Now, Dominus Gleason might well have been deliberately misleading us. However, since we have no proof of such—”

  “Besides how creepy he is,” put in Mr. Dart, casting me another worried glance. “I’m not asking him about my arm. Lady knows what he’d suggest I do about it.”

  “Mm. Fortunately or unfortunately, we cannot assume that means he is guilty, Mr. Dart. Let us go forward under the assumption that Dominus Gleason told us the truth, and that he himself has nothing to do with the Knockermen or Miss Redshank’s cousin. Or Mr. Dart’s arm.”

  Mr. Dart did not seem to think that a foregone conclusion; neither did I, but then again both of us had been away, and Mrs. Etaris presumably knew Dominus Gleason better than we did. I tried to think. “That leaves, then, Baron Ragnor and the Talgarths.”

  “The Honourable Rag was definitely lying about something,” Mr. Dart said, “but I’m not sure if it was anything more than that he was gambling at the Green Dragon and didn’t want to say so directly.”

  “Would his father be so concerned about what he fed a cat?” Violet asked doubtfully. “It seems very odd.”

  “Our beloved baron is decidedly odd,” I said, remembering some particularly eccentric occasions at the Manor. “But he is also vehemently against magic—or he was.”

  Mr. Dart and Mrs. Etaris both shook their heads. Mr. Dart said, “If anything, it’s worse than ever. But then again, we did see the Honourable Rag—Master Roald, that is,” he corrected hastily, “out-and-about.”

  “With a werelight,” I mentioned.

  “Mmm, yes, that’s true. But the Honourable Rag doesn’t—or didn’t, anyway—hate magic to that extent.”

  “He doesn’t hate anything to any extent.”

  “That’s true.” I frowned at the table. “He did go to Tara …”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s gone to the bad, Mr. Greenwing.”

  Violet snorted. I smiled reluctantly. I wanted to say that the Honourable Rag could easily have fallen afoul of bad company while at Tara, as the university was on one horn of the headland comprising the city of Orio, but before I could formulate a way to say so that did not break confidences from before we went to university, Mrs. Etaris knocked her hand on the table.

  I started, and looked guiltily at her. She smiled. “While this gossip is no doubt entertaining to you both, I believe it is more important that we determine what we can of Miss Redshank’s cousin. Since we began our enquiries about the pie so openly, those who are responsible may well be alerted. We must make haste before any changes occur.”

  We nodded. I drank some coffee too quickly, coughed, and then said: “What about the Talgarths?”

  Mrs. Etaris sighed. “Yes. What about the Talgarths? We have not been able to make any enquiries of
them. They do not, so far as I know, have any connection whatsoever with Ghilousette.”

  “They’re known for keeping pre-Fall standards in their house,” Mr. Dart said. “Lights, hot water, cold boxes, everything. Always think it must cost them Dame Talgarth’s fortune to keep it all running.”

  “They’re definitely using magic, and at the least hosting a wizard. Who may very well be Domina Ringley’s attendant.”

  “The one who was running after her through the market this morning?” Violet asked.

  I nodded. “They’re doing something secretive, to build a moat around their house.”

  “That was because they kept getting flooded,” Mr. Dart protested. “They mightn’t have been doing anything nefarious.”

  “They were creeping around at midnight.”

  “So were we,” he said, and we both laughed. “Nevertheless, we weren’t intending to be there—it was quite by accident, Mrs. Etaris, I assure you.”

  “I am entirely reassured.”

  “They couldn’t have been out by chance,” I said. “They had a werelight and a servant with them. And they mentioned the cultists. And a harvest.”

  “That doesn’t seem to lead us towards Ghilousette,” Mrs. Etaris said thoughtfully. “Justice Talgarth’s hobby is breeding perennial sweet peas, and Dame Talgarth’s interests are almost entirely in maintaining her social position by judicious dinner parties.”

  “I thought sweet peas were annuals,” I said, blowing my nose again at the mere thought of the ones we’d run into. “They were my mother’s favourite flower,” I added when they looked at me.

  Violet smiled. “They’re one of my favourites, too.”

  “I believe the Justice has been crossing them with some of the perennial vetches to see if he can’t breed a new species.” Mrs. Etaris took a few sips of coffee. “Miss Redshank, could you tell me a little of your cousin? When was she taken?”

  Violet rubbed her fingers free from crumbs. “Daphne Carlin. She’s, ah, younger than I, but because I had not gone immediately to university after the Entrance Examinations, we were in the same year at university. She’d written to invite me to Newbury on my way home from Morrowlea, but when I arrived at my aunt’s I found she hadn’t arrived. She never did come, so I began my search to find out what had happened.”

  I tried to remind myself I oughtn’t to trust Violet. Somehow I kept forgetting and going back to how things had been before the spring.

  Mr. Dart said, “I can’t imagine how the Talgarths could be keeping someone captive in their house—Dame Talgarth hosts a dinner every week, and a larger party once a month. Never any expense spared. Pity you two aren’t coming. Are you sure you don’t want to, Miss Redshank?”

  “I’m meeting an acquaintance from home tomorrow,” she said, and I thought: You said you ran away from home at fourteen. Who can this be?

  And then I thought: Do I trust what she says now, or what she said in a burning house when no one at all could hear us?

  Violet added, “And I’m surprised at you, Mr. Dart, inviting me to someone else’s house.”

  “Yes, but I already know you can’t go,” he replied, smiling, “so don’t think my manners are as easy as Roald Ragnor’s.”

  “Easy’s one word for it,” Violet murmured.

  “He looked more than a little foxed,” I pointed out. “But it was almost as rude as when Dame Talgarth gave me the cut direct in the bakery yesterday.—Oh!”

  “What is it?”

  “Mrs. Talgarth’s sister. She’s a Scholar, and she’s from Kilromby, and she’s—” I frowned. “No, I’ve lost it again.”

  “Kilromby. She wouldn’t have any connection to Ghilousette, either,” Mr. Dart said.

  I stifled a sneeze. “Kilromby was one of the places Dominus Gleason mentioned as having to do with the Knockermen.”

  “The ones in the Legendarium,” he objected. “It sounded as if the new Knockermen are all to do with Ghilousette.” He frowned. “Mrs. Etaris, do you know anyone who went to Kilromby from Ragnor Bella? We could ask around to see what reputation Domina Ringley has.”

  “I don’t think anyone has gone to Kilromby of late,” Mrs. Etaris said thoughtfully. “Not since the troubles began there; no one has wanted to take ships.”

  Violet said, “My cousin did.”

  Mr. Dart and I were both starting to speak, and we stumbled into quiet. Violet flushed, I think in annoyance that we hadn’t been listening to her. “My cousin went to Kilromby.”

  “The Talgarths,” said Mr. Dart. “But how …”

  “Yes, Mr. Dart?” asked Mrs. Etaris.

  “Surely Justice Talgarth wouldn’t be party to blood magic.”

  “Perhaps he doesn’t know,” Violet said. “Didn’t you say he’d been away?”

  “Alisoun,” I said abruptly.

  “Alisoun?” Violet asked sharply; both Mr. Dart and Mrs. Etaris looked politely baffled.

  “That’s it. I think it was her half day yesterday. Mr. Kim mentioned it.”

  Mr. Dart frowned again. “Mr. Kim—not Fogerty the Fish’s barrow-boy?”

  “Yes, I saw him at Mrs. Jarnem’s sweetshop after work yesterday. He’s courting Alisoun Artquist, who is from Kilromby originally—and who is working for the Talgarths! And it was her half day yesterday.”

  “Are you feeling dizzy again?” Violet asked solicitously. “I don’t see how she could be related.”

  I glared at her. “Don’t you see? She could have brought the pie into town.”

  Mr. Dart shook his head doubtfully. “If Miss Carlin’s there, and if this Alisoun has anything to do with her, and if—how did the Honourable Rag’s ring get into the pie, anyhow?”

  I sneezed. “I have no idea. We could ask Mr. Kim what he knows about Alisoun’s situation.”

  Mrs. Etaris nodded. “That’s a fair idea, Mr. Greenwing. Perhaps you could—why, Mrs. Buchance, whatever is the matter?”

  The door had slammed open to reveal Mrs. Buchance, bonnet askew and eyes wide. She started forward to grab my hands as I instinctively rose and reached out to her.

  “Oh, Mr. Greenwing, I’m so glad you aren’t arrested!”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “I beg your pardon?” I said, sinking back against the ladder. “Why should I have been arrested today?”

  “Someone found the carcass of a cow in a bonfire with the bones all silvered, and it’s known you and Mr. Dart were out-and-about last night.”

  “Oh, I say,” said Mr. Dart, sounding very like the Honourable Rag. “We saw the cultists, but were not party to them.”

  “I never thought you would be,” Mrs. Buchance replied. “I am most distressed at the mere rumour, and feelings are running high in town today.”

  “Do sit down, Mrs. Buchance,” Mrs. Etaris said. “Your own feelings appear somewhat high, if I may say so. Will you have coffee?”

  Mrs. Buchance hesitated in the act of taking off her coat, glancing from me to Violet. I tried to compose my whirling thoughts and emotions while I performed the introductions. “Mrs. Buchance, this is Miss Redshank, a friend of mine from Morrowlea here on family business. Miss Redshank, this is Mrs. Buchance, my late stepfather’s second wife.”

  Violet blinked, but stood away from the table that she might perform a curtsey. Mrs. Buchance returned it with bare politeness, and without blinking twice at the name; indeed, Violet looked rather more surprised at hearing her relation to me. I sighed and sneezed and felt miserable despite the coffee and buns.

  “Now then, Mrs. Buchance,” Mrs. Etaris said. “What brings you to my door? Certainly not only that there are wild rumours flying about Mr. Dart and Mr. Greenwing having a bit of youthful fun.”

  Mrs. Buchance smiled wearily. “It’s a good thing you were with Mr. Dart, Mr. Greenwing. No one would suspect him of any ill magic.”

  I tried not to respond, but couldn’t hold it back. “I’ve been back in town three days.”

  “Mr. Greenwing,” Mr. Dart said. “I’m sure she di
dn’t mean—”

  “What?” I said, more angrily than I meant, and flushed, but couldn’t quite stop myself, as all the week’s snubs suddenly crystallized. “What am I supposed to say? I know what people are saying: they have been generously open. I am a traitor’s son, and obviously I am going to betray all confidences anyone places in me. Why bother finding out anything about me? It will no doubt merely accord with what they’ve already decided, which is that I’m a craven ingrate leeching off my stepfather’s wife and destroying the very fabric of society. I’m surprised no one’s suggested presenting Three Years Gone: the Tragicomedy of the Traitor of Loe as the Winterturn festival play, but that’s probably only because it hasn’t made it here from Ronderell yet.”

  There was silence. Then Mr. Dart said, “Your father wasn’t a traitor.”

  “You try telling people that; they might listen to you.”

  He swallowed and sat back, and I felt savagely satisfied. I turned to Mrs. Etaris. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Etaris. I am grateful for your offer of a job, but I don’t see how this can possibly work out for you. My uncle hates me, the Baron will … agree with the Talgarths, and your husband is beholden to them for his position. You spent the better half of this morning dealing with people asking about me. Dame Talgarth is going to boycott you. All the gentry will, except perhaps Master Dart and Sir Hamish, and I don’t know about them when the rest of the town is against it. Lady knows about everyone else, but I can’t see it being a good idea to stay.”

  Mrs. Etaris didn’t say anything. I turned to Mrs. Buchance, who was sitting with her hands wrapped around her coffee-cup, her eyes filling with tears. I tried to sound mature rather than plaintive. “I can’t stay here if all I’m doing is destroying everyone else’s reputation. Mine is … what it is, but if I’m not here people will forget your connection to me, Mrs. Buchance. My sisters will be far better off if they’re not considered relations to me. It’s not as if I have anything to offer them.” I shook my head as she seemed about to say something. “I will come back for the Winterturn Assizes, so Mr. Buchance’s will can be read, and once it has been I can leave you to it.”