Elena was thankful that everyone was done eating, and she slipped away from the table as soon as she could.
***
Elena had thought that the workshop was beautiful when she’d first seen it, lit by natural light and all wood and marble. It was even more breathtaking now, peaceful, silent, and still. Whether it was tasks, chores, or the mysterious goings on that kept the other garzoni busy away, Elena was so grateful to be alone that she could cry.
“No Faberi in Florenzia means less competition,” Ele said quietly behind her, “once we get there we-”
Elena held up a hand with a pleading look, and Ele fell silent immediately. She would have to thank him for that later on, but for right now, there was silence, and peace. Elena sat at her workstation, empty of any materials, and simply took deep breaths and enjoyed the workshop. After a few minutes she got restless and began pacing.
“New project? Something take your mind off it?” Ele ventured.
“What did you have in mind?” Elena smiled.
Ele pointed towards Frederica’s workstation. “She wears those tools down at a steady rate, then she just throws them out. How much do you want to bet we could build something to keep them in better shape for longer?”
“We’d need to find out how she wears them away,” Elena mused aloud, walking over to the workstation.
“She said she’d worn the other set out already, didn’t she? She hasn’t thrown them away.”
Elena was grateful for the distraction. She grabbed a paper and piece of charcoal from Mella’s desk, making a mental note to pay her fellow garzona back for the supplies, then sat at Frederica’s desk and started poring over the old tools.
How would I use my knives, if I were a Caelator? Where would the wear occur?
Just as Ele had said, the tools were all worn in certain areas, places in the wood where Frederica’s fingers had gripped tighter, or areas of the blades that had been dulled away in specific patterns. The buzzing had already started in Elena’s temples, and she made notes on the paper with charcoal, occasionally stopping to scribble a rough sketch, turning the tool over in her hands to get a better feel for it. Ele stood beside her, occasionally making comments about things she had missed. The two worked quietly for a long time, and Elena was so absorbed in her work that she didn’t even notice anyone come in.
“Frederica is going to use that knife on you if she knows you’ve been messing with it,” Niccolo said from a few feet away. Elena was so startled she almost dropped the knife, and she gave him a look of terror.
“Christus, calm down flighty little bird, he was just joking!” Nicci reassured her.
“She would’ve figured it out eventually,” Niccolo chuckled as he sat at his own workstation, pulling a few arrows from a pile.
“You just startled me, that’s all,” Elena said defensively, “I was working on an idea I had, to keep her tools from wearing down so fast. I’m supposed to be providing her with materials, aren’t I?”
“Most provisional garzoni just buy new tools, they don’t exactly go so far as changing existing ones,” Niccolo gave her a critical glance, “although I suppose that’s what you do, isn’t it? Hey there, hey!” he said as Elena turned back to the paper angrily, “that’s nothing to be ashamed of!”
“Oh of course not,” Elena said bitterly, “it’s just that no Faberi get famous is all. There are no Faberi legends, no Faberi masters.”
“That’s what makes them the best of the Storm,” Niccolo said conspiratorially. Elena gave him a blank look.
“Show her the arrow thing, we both know you’re dying to,” Nicci sighed. Niccolo grinned and slipped an arrow from a quiver that hung from his desk, crossing the distance so that Elena could see it. The arrow was beautiful, a work of art. Made of cherrywood, it gleamed with a wicked red light, and carvings worked along its shaft caught the eye and twisted it along it’s length.
“Take a look at this arrow. It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Niccolo said. Elena nodded wordlessly. “The way I see it, the world is divided into two types of things: the flash and the work. One catches the eye, gets the attention, and to the unobservant it’s the more important. The other? It does all the heavy lifting. In a pinch, I’ll take the worker over the flashy any day.”
“It’s a beautiful arrow, but it won’t fly straight will it?” Elena had been examining the arrow carefully during his speech, “the wood is the wrong type, and the designs will throw off the balance.”
“That’s right!” Niccolo said, surprised.
“It’s the problem of form versus function, that’s what you’re saying isn’t it?” Elena looked up at Niccolo, only a few inches away. He still smelled like leather and violets, and she was surprised again at how good the two scents went together. “You’re saying that it’s okay to not be a flashy Stormtouched like a Machinator?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Niccolo nodded with satisfaction.
“Your arrow metaphor is a little weak though. Sure the arrow is flashy, but it doesn’t say anything about the other side, the ‘worker’ who gets annoyed.”
“I wouldn’t say my metaphor is that weak,” Niccolo grinned, and the twinkle in his eye made Elena blush for some reason, “people pay attention to the flash, when it’s really the subtle and hard worker they should be worried about.”
“I...don’t think I get it,” Elena admitted.
“She won’t get it unless you spell it out for her,” Ele sighed, “Elena, very carefully look at your leg.”
Elena glanced downward and paled. Casually yet carefully, Niccolo was holding a very sharp small knife gently against her thigh.
“How long has that been there?” she gasped, and Niccolo laughed to himself as he sheathed the knife and stepped away, twirling the arrow between his fingers.
“I’m telling you, Elena. Let everyone else focus on the flash and bang of Caelators and Artifexes. It’s the Faberi I’ve got my eye on.”
“Somehow I don’t think Elena would mind your eye on her,” Ele said under his breath, and Elena turned back to the paper, blushing bright crimson.
***
Considering she had been doing nothing but laying in bed for the past hour, Elena’s heart was racing far too fast. Leanarda had said the garzoni would try to sabotage her “before lunch”, and she was going to be here when they showed up. Her foot tapped impatiently on the coverlet, and Elena fidgeted, wishing she had brought something to read from the studio’s library.
She was eying the door for the thousandth when Ele stepped through it, and she almost screamed with surprise.
“There’s no one coming. No one headed in this direction,” he reported, “and the garzoni are starting to leave the studio to go get lunch.”
“I wonder if the saboteur is just waiting to see me leave?” Elena pondered aloud.
“Or maybe they’ve already stowed it away...” Ele trailed off as their gazes met, and Elena hurled into action. There weren’t many places to check: under her bed, in her water closet, under the pillow...
Something cold beneath the pillow sloshed around as soon as her fingers touched it.
“I was laying on it,” Elena breathed, pulling the waterskin from beneath it. “I was laying on it and didn’t even know. Ah deum, Ele if they had come in here and I was laying on it they wouldn’t believe I was innocent, not for a second.”
“They also won’t believe you’re innocent if you’re holding the evidence,” Ele said, eying the waterskin. Elena ran to the water closet and uncorked the skin, dumped its contents into the bowl. The wine was so strong that just the smell of it made her eyes water, and it took a few flushes to wash the scent away. The bowl for washing her hands allowed her to wash the skin itself, and soon the scent of alcohol was gone from the water closet completely.
“What do I do with the waterskin?”
“Window?”
“And have them see it land in the courtyard below? Besides, I don’t want the saboteur to know I have it. It’s
mine now.” Elena glanced around the room, her temples buzzed, and she suddenly noticed more about the wineskin than she had before. It was watertight of course, but made of some treated cloth, and sewn together with thread. She brought it to her mouth without thinking, biting at the knot with her canine teeth. As soon as one edge of the seam came out she pulled it apart easily, smoothing it until it was nothing but a piece of waterproof fabric. She folded it and placed it on the floor beneath her shoes.
“You know, that really does make a good mat-” Ele began, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. Without waiting for an answer Pietro entered, standing tall and looking around the room.
“Miss Elena, I’m afraid I must search your room,” he said, “we’ve had a report that you are in possession of something you shouldn’t be.”
“If you think you have to, of course,” Elena gestured around her. Pietro’s gaze had gone right past the re-purposed wineskin and he hadn’t recognized it for what it was. The marble boy went straight to the bed and began searching it, moving swiftly but not disrupting anything.
Now that she was not longer terrified, Elena had time to get angry.
“Who was it who reported I had something to hide?” she asked.
“I’m afraid I can’t share that information, Elena,” Pietro said absently as he continued searching the room, “I don’t want to start fights between the garzoni here, I just want to make sure no student is taking advantage of Master De Luca. And it’s quite clear to me that you are doing no such thing.” Elena’s room was small, and Pietro had finished his search. “I believe I owe you an apology, Miss Elena. I will be having words with the garzoni who reported you.”
Elena stood in the middle of the room for long minutes after Pietro left, clenching and unclenching her hands.
“What are we going to do about this, Elena?” Ele asked quietly, the anger she felt apparent in the edge in his voice.
Elena scowled as she answered. “Someone wants us out of this studio. I think it’s time to take your paranoia seriously.”
Chapter XVI
Pancakes and Sharpness
“Little garzona, you is cleaning all of this!” Cook’s words would’ve been angry, had he not been laughing so hard that tears streamed down his face.
“It’s not nearly as funny as you all seem to think it is,” Elena gave a severe look to the entire assembled group: Ele grinning, both cooks laughing outright, and even the typically stoic Rhetorguards Eric and Rolf breaking into chuckles. Only the silent Rhetor, Garnet, didn’t seem to get into the spirit of things, kneading bread with the same steady unbreaking pattern he had adopted every morning for the past week.
“Really, Elena, I don’t see what the difficulty is, just tilt the pan when they’re ready, give sudden lift, and the pancake will just flip,” Ele demonstrated the motion with empty hands.
“Oh easy for you to say Ele! You’d be singing a different tune if you could actually do any of the work!”
“Emerald, you help little garzona,” Cook wiped a tear from his eye and took the bread paddle from the corner, preparing to take the morning’s bread from the oven, “Her arm waving is funny, but my kitchen is covered in cake-pan.”
“It’s not covered in pancakes!” Elena protested, glancing away from the pan to look around the kitchen, “there’s just a few on the floor over there. And some batter on the wall. And on the table behind me.”
“And I’ve already cleaned up the one that landed on me,” Rolf noted.
“One never landed on you! Just because I want to try something new, everyone gangs up on me, see if I bother again,” Elena grumbled, but she smiled at the twitch in the corner of Rolf’s straight face. Emerald slipped one arm around her, holding Elena’s hands in hers as the pancake began to bubble in the pan.
With a smooth motion that resembled the one Ele had demonstrated, Emerald helped her flip the pancake, where it landed perfectly in the center of the pan again.
“Thank you, Emerald,” Elena said meekly, “even though I was totally going to figure it out on my the very next time.” The woman’s shoulders shook with a silent motion that Ele had taken to calling ‘Emerald giggling.’
“She mean ‘very next time’ or ‘very next time Emerald help’?” Cook asked in a stage whisper, earning a guffaw from Rolf and another silent giggle from Emerald. Elena stuck her tongue out in answer. “Here little garzona, you take breads to garzoni, Emerald take cake-pans, Jakob you take sugar and honey.” Cook pointed from his many helpers to the large platters he had arranged as they spoke. The breakfast rolls were still steaming, and Elena’s stomach growled.
“Little garzona, she try to make me feel guilty,” Cook sighed dramatically to the room at large, “her stomach it pleads, ‘may I eat before I clean my cake-pan mess’? It does not know I am cold-hearted cook. It cannot sway me.”
“I can’t control what my stomach is saying!” Elena protested, taking the offered platter of rolls.
“She knows you will not make her clean mess,” the fat cook Jakob broke his customary silence to remark, “all of us, we know, but you must make play to audience who is not there.”
“World is my audience,” Cook said with exaggerated dignity, “and only I clean cake-pan mess for today because is big day for our little garzona. She finishes project today.”
“Thank you, Cook,” Elena smiled as she pushed the kitchen door open with her backside, tray held carefully in her hands, “you’re wonderful.”
“Am wonderful,” Cook agreed as the trio plus Ele and Rolf left the kitchen, “most wonderful man in studio I think.”
“Man with biggest heart? Maybe. Man with smallest brain? Also maybe,” Jakob chuckled as they left.
***
Elena barely stayed in the dining room long enough to wolf down pancakes and bread and the bitter morning drink, but she still wasn’t the first to leave the room. With Master De Luca gone, breakfast had become a hasty affair; the faster the garzoni could get through their morning chores and preparations, the more time they could spend on their projects. Elena was lucky in that she could prepare Frederica’s materials and work on her own project at the same time, so she had a bit of a lead. The workroom would be uncomfortably crowded later in the day, leading some of the garzoni to work in the wide courtyard below, but when she arrived there was only one garzoni there.
“Good morning, Lorenzo,” Elena said as she moved to her workstation and began unpacking the tools she had laid away the day before.
“Hmm?” Lorenzo looked up with his customary open-mouthed stare, as if he had been caught sleeping, “oh, good morning, Elena. You’re here early today.”
“I’m here the same time every day, Lorenzo.”
“Oh, are you? Hm. I’d not noticed.” Lorenzo turned back to the papers on his worktable, biting his lip as if the very act of concentration hurt him.
His expressions probably hurt his chances the most, Elena decided, giving him a sidelong glance as she arranged her tools neatly on the desk in front of her: rags, a small pot of oil, strips of leather, string, and the neat stack of sketches and notes she had drafted up. I can’t imagine Master De Luca keeping someone with that vacant a stare, no matter how the Storm touched him. He would be very pretty if he wasn’t always looking so dumbfounded all the time. Or maybe if his Echo ever spoke up. They can’t BOTH be that stupid. Lor had the same problem Lorenzo had; long, pretty black hair, pouting lips, but a face that looked like he was always in a daze.
It was only because she was watching him out of the corner of her eye that she noticed what he was actually working on. Two discs about the size of her head were laid on the desk in front of them, and working carefully, he lifted one at about eye-level above the other. He let go and watched it carefully, and took a few careful notations. The second disc floated where it was, weightless and gently spinning.
“How are you doing that?” Elena gasped.
“Mm?” Lorenzo looked startled, as if she had just appeared next to him. “Doing
what?”
“Your disc is floating! It’s just sitting there in the air!” Elena pointed as if he hadn’t just put it there.
“Oh yes! Neat, isn’t it?” Lorenzo grinned, “lodestones.”
“Lodestones?”
“The Ancient Greeks and Muslims discovered certain unique properties regarding certain metals and their interactions among themselves,” Lorenzo began explaining so quickly that Elena leaned back, shocked, “pieces of ore or alloy which demonstrate these properties, most commonly iron, attract other pieces of iron and, more importantly for my applications, interact and align with others displaying the same properties. It’s the inherent technology inside of compasses, you see, since these lodestones or magnes always point towards the north star. Of course, you know what that’s done for sailing technology!”
“I...I hadn’t really thought of it,” Elena admitted, shocked at the sudden enthusiasm. It was as if she were talking to a completely different person. How could someone be so passionate about this subject and so apathetic about everything else?
“It revolutionized it!” Lorenzo waved his arms.
“Well, whether technically ‘revolutionary’ or not, it certainly shifted what was possible to accomplish,” Lor broke in. Elena thought it was the first time she had heard the Echo speak. “And things tend to expand from there, don’t they? Sailing becomes leagues easier, if you’ll pardon the pun, and suddenly importing and exporting booms, the economy thrives, and knowledge and information thrives along with it. Little droplets that cause ripples which expand the pond of human endeavor an inch at a time.”
“But they all just stopped there!” Lorenzo resumed the trail of the conversation the instant Lor had finished, oblivious to Elena who had started to grin, “how many more giant booms of economy and knowledge are just waiting for us to figure out the right tool? Magnes aren’t a dead end Elena, not if I have anything to do with it. And these, these are just my latest idea for their use. The interactions between them can counteract gravity. At least...they can a little bit.”
A Student's Dream (Twisted Cogs Book 1) Page 13