Agent of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

***

  The dinnertime crowd didn’t exactly freeze in their tracks when Telaine entered the tavern, but there was a decided hush as she walked to the bar. The place was only about half full, not what she’d expected, but she guessed the men and women who worked at the quarry and the sawmill wouldn’t walk back into town every day for their dinner. These must be local shop owners and employees.

  Miss Handly met her at the bar and said, before Telaine could speak, “There’s mutton and there’s bean soup. Mutton’s better.”

  “I’ll have that, and some of whatever beer you have on tap,” she said. Was it her imagination, or had someone sucked in a breath? “Can I sit over here?”

  “Sit where you like,” Miss Handly said with a shrug. Telaine pulled out a chair at an empty table in the middle of a cluster of other diners. None of them tried to meet her eyes. Telaine sat back and waited for her food. And an opening.

  It came almost immediately in the form of a young woman, maybe sixteen or seventeen, who unluckily caught Telaine’s eye. Before she could look away, Telaine said cheerfully, “I’m Lainie Bricker. I’m new in town. You probably know my aunt, Mistress Weaver? What’s your name?”

  Bowled over by the torrent of words, the young woman said, “Glenda…Brewster.”

  “Good to know you, Miss Brewster. Where do you work?”

  “I’m—”

  “She works in my store,” said the older woman seated with her. Her face was narrow, her tone was icy. Telaine ignored it.

  “Really? Which store?”

  “I’m the dressmaker.”

  “Oh! I’ve seen your shop. It’s beautiful! And I love the dresses you have displayed.” Telaine wasn’t exaggerating much. They weren’t outstanding, but she’d been surprised at how fashionable the clothing was. Even so, she would have said the same even if the clothing had looked like it was made for cats. Ugly cats. Vanity. No better way to reach a woman’s heart.

  “You do?” The woman was startled. “But you’re from the city!”

  “I don’t see what that has to do with whether your clothes are nice or not. You have excellent taste.” Telaine kept her tone confiding and faintly impressed, though she could tell it wouldn’t take much to change this woman’s attitude.

  A faltering smile spread over the woman’s face, though the furrow to her brow said she was still expecting trickery. “Why…thank you,” she said, and added, “My name is Mistress Adderly.”

  The other diners watched this interchange in silent fascination. “It’s good to know you, Mistress Adderly. I wish I didn’t spend so much time in these old rags,” Telaine said, gesturing down at herself. “My work is too hard on dresses.”

  “What work’s that?” Now Mistress Adderly had forgotten her coldness in favor of curiosity.

  Ah, I love a straight line. “Didn’t Aunt tell you all? I’m a Deviser. Mostly repairs, but sometimes I build things.”

  “A Deviser!” Mistress Adderly’s eyes gleamed. A man at a nearby table kicked the leg of her chair. She ignored him. “Miss Bricker, happen you can help me? My sewing Device’s been going off, these few weeks. It skips stitches and stops in the middle of a seam. Been using the old manual one, but it’s tiresome and I’d love the other fixed.”

  “Why, I’d be happy to take a look at it, Mistress Adderly,” Telaine said. She was having trouble ignoring the reactions of the rest of the diners, who were distressed that the seamstress might have anything to do with her. “May—can I come by later this afternoon? If I can’t fix it happen I could at least tell you if it’s fixable at all.” Did I use “happen” in a sentence? Correctly?

  “That would be most good of you, Miss.” Mistress Adderly kicked the chair of the man next to her, but missed and hit his leg. He swallowed a yelp.

  Miss Handly swooped down at that moment with Telaine’s food: a mutton chop, the inevitable root vegetables, and a mug of beer. Fortunately, she’d included a knife to go with the fork. Telaine was all in favor of blending in, but she didn’t think her reputation would be enhanced by having mutton grease all down her front.

  She took a long drink of her beer, which tasted better than any she’d had before—maybe that was the added spice of playing a new role—and applied herself to her food, ignoring the whispered conversations that sprung up around her. If she was any judge of character, they were all about her.

  Chapter Six

  The highly waxed floor of the dressmaker’s back room made it easy for Telaine to slide beneath the sewing Device, though the place was crowded enough with bolts of fabric that there wasn’t a lot of room for sliding. “It’ll be easy to fix, Mistress Adderly,” she said. She held the motive force, a long, flexible strip of brass, by one end and let it dangle. “This just needs to be imbued. The skipping and stopping is because it’s giving off pulses of source.”

  “That sounds most magical,” said Mistress Adderly with a weak laugh.

  “Well, it is magical, but it’s not too hard to fix.” Telaine inhaled shallowly. No nearby source, unfortunately. “I have to take this with me to find a place where I can imbue it, but I’ll be back right soon.”

  They’ve got me talking like them, she thought as she walked down the street, sniffing discreetly. But how lucky to find someone who needs my services so quickly. And I’ve managed to turn one person’s attitude around. The real question was how quickly this news would reach the Baron. He was unmarried and unlikely to have any contact with a dressmaker. Still, it was better than nothing. And Devisery was something she loved.

  She picked up a scent near the gazebo and followed it to the rear of the forge. She was peripherally aware of Garrett watching her as she went around the building and up a slight rise to find a strong source nestled at the base of a pine tree. She sat down next to it, held the length of brass between her thumb and index finger, and pulled a long thin strand from the source and wound it around the strip as if winding thread onto a spool. The metal piece began to glow emerald green, then paled to a white-green blaze.

  “What are you doing?” asked Garrett. He stood a few feet from her, his eyes fixed on the glowing metal.

  “Re-imbuing this for Mistress Adderly’s sewing Device.”

  Garrett shook his head. “Heard you were a Deviser, but didn’t hardly credit it until now. Never in all my life seen something like that.”

  Telaine stood, dangling the glowing metal between her fingers and thumb. “It amazes me too, and I’ve been doing it for seven years. You want to hold it?”

  Garrett stepped back. “It doesn’t hurt?”

  “I’m holding it, right? Go ahead.”

  Garrett took the fully imbued metal from her hand, fumbled and nearly dropped it. “Sorry,” he said, sounding nervous.

  “You can’t hurt it. See, it doesn’t even feel like anything special.”

  “How does it work?” He held the brass strip by his fingertips, mesmerized by the green glow.

  Telaine wound another thin strand around her fingers and tangled it into a cat’s cradle of source. “You know how there are a lot of lines of power running through Tremontane? They don’t just bind our families together. Where they cross, they make a bulge Devisers can sense. The thicker the line, the larger and more potent the bulge. This one must be at the crossing of two bigger than average lines to be this powerful.” She shook the threads off her fingers and let the source reabsorb them.

  “What does it look like?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody can see source any more than we can see the lines of power. I know how to find it because I can smell it. To me it’s sweet, like lilac and mint. And I can feel it in my hands when I start to draw on it, like pulling fibers from a puff of wool.” It was a comparison she’d never thought to make before watching Aunt Weaver’s apprentices spin their fluffy gray wads into thread.

  “Must be amazing, being a Deviser.”

  “I love how I feel when I’m working with source. But it’s also humbling, touching the power that binds us all together.” She held
out her hand and received the imbued brass from him. “Now I put this back and tighten up the fittings, and Mistress Adderly gets her favorite Device back.”

  Garrett shook his head. “Never in all my days. Not that there’ve been all that many of them,” he said with a smile. It flashed across his face so quickly she almost missed it. Another person who didn’t smile all that often, though in his case it didn’t seem to be because of a permanently sour nature.

  “I hope you don’t mind if I come back here sometimes,” Telaine said. “That’s a good strong source.”

  “Certain sure. I’ve thick curtains,” he said, with that flash of a smile.

  “You live here?” Telaine asked, looking up at the two-story building.

  “Close to the forge,” he said. He wiped his hands on his leather apron. “Be seeing you.”

  “You too.”

  She waved and went back to Mistress Adderly’s store, where she had the Device running in half an hour. Mistress Adderly clapped her hands together and beamed at Telaine.

  “Miss Bricker, I’m most grateful for your help.” She gave Telaine a few coins and clasped her hand. “Happen you’re not what they say you are.”

  “I—thanks for that, Mistress Adderly,” Telaine said, bewildered. Not what they say? She wished she dared ask what it was people were saying about her. That she was an upstart city girl? That she’d pushed her way into Mistress Weaver’s life without permission? That she was a troublemaker? She packed up her tools and went back to Aunt Weaver’s, musing on how strange this town was.

  She decided she’d had enough interacting with the natives for one day and was going to do something for herself. Halfway up the stairs she cursed, remembering the laundry. She fetched the shirt, trotted back down and cursed again, remembering the honey. “Aunt Weaver,” she said over the noise of the loom, “is there someone I can get to wash my shirt, or should I do it myself?” Please say there’s a laundress in town.

  “Mistress Richardson takes in laundry,” the woman replied. “Hers is the house next to the forge, on the north side.”

  “Thank you. I’m off to get that honey now.” Though it probably wouldn’t be a figgin. She made sure she had her money with her and set off for the laundress’s house.

  Mistress Richardson’s home was bigger than Aunt Weaver’s, with a second story that extended the full width of the house. Telaine rapped on the door frame and called out, “Hello?”

  A small child—Telaine wasn’t good with ages younger than her twelve-year-old cousin Jessamy, but she guessed four or five—came to the door. “Ma’s busy,” she said. She had a cloth doll which she dragged by one arm.

  “I’m here to see if she’ll do some laundry for me,” Telaine said.

  The girl looked at her without comprehension. “Ma!” she called out. That lovely lilt again, “mawr.”

  A woman with red hair and a careworn expression came to the door. “Yes?” she said in a neutral tone.

  “My aunt said you do washing?” Telaine asked politely.

  “Yes?”

  “Um…I have this shirt…it…” Telaine stumbled to a halt. It was like talking to an unfriendly red-headed wall.

  “Your name on it?”

  “My name? No. Should it be?”

  The woman curled her lip. “If you want to see it again. Wash all goes in together.”

  Telaine defaulted to helplessness. “I’m sorry if I seem foolish, but how do I mark it?”

  “Sew it in,” the woman said.

  Telaine’s heart sank. She’d always been terrible at needlepoint. The woman seemed to sense her despair, and her unfriendliness faded slightly. “I can do it for you,” she said. She took the shirt from Telaine’s hands. “Your name Bricker?”

  “Lainie Bricker.”

  “Bricker’s good enough. I’ll have it for you tomorrow.”

  “Thanks so much. I’m grateful to you.”

  The woman held out her hand. “Rather have coin than grateful.” Telaine took out a few coins, held them out to Mistress Richardson, uncertain of how much to pay. The woman took one and tucked it away in a belt purse, then went back into the house without a farewell. Telaine pocketed the rest of her coins. If the laundress could clean her shirt so Telaine didn’t have to, she was welcome to whatever payment she wanted.

  At the general store, Telaine decided she was tired of making friends, and simply approached the shopkeeper with “Mistress Weaver needs some honey.”

  The man nodded and said, “What size?”

  Figgin, my eye. “What sizes are there? I don’t remember what she said, but I’ll know it when I hear it.”

  “There’s double-dram, pint, figgin, bottle, and jug.”

  Telaine blinked at him. “Figgin, then,” she said.

  “One minute,” the man said, and disappeared into the back room. Telaine leaned against the counter of knotty pine and kicked her heel against the counter. She’d never seen any store that carried such a wide variety of goods—copper-bottomed pots and pans, bins of spices, a barrel full of nails with a silvery steel scoop standing upright in it, a child’s rocking horse with a mane of real horsehair. Dust floated through the air, visible when it passed through the light coming through the windows. The place smelled of flour and cinnamon.

  “You’re Agatha Weaver’s niece, aren’t you?” A woman dressed in a cotton gown printed with blue roses approached from the far side of the store. “How’re you settling in?” The woman’s smile looked pleasant enough, but her eyes had a nasty gleam to them.

  “Lainie Bricker,” Telaine said, offering her hand. The woman ignored it.

  “Agatha ain’t said much about you,” she said. “You had some… trouble in the city?”

  Telaine wished again she dared ask what kind of trouble Aunt Weaver had invented for her. Or maybe she’d been circumspect and kept her explanation vague enough that anything Telaine said wouldn’t contradict her. “I thought Longbourne would be a good place to visit.”

  “It’s a nice town. Guess you wouldn’t know that yet.” The woman scratched the side of her nose. “Staying long?”

  “I’m not sure. As long as I need to, I guess, Mistress…”

  “Rose Garrity,” the woman said. “Agatha treating you okay?”

  “Um…yes?” Mistress Garrity was angling for something, but Telaine had no idea what it was. “She’s been…very welcoming,” she lied.

  “Of course she has,” Mistress Garrity said. “Could’ve been a lot less understanding about your…trouble.”

  “I guess,” Telaine said. Mistress Garrity smiled unpleasantly, as if she’d scored one off Telaine. It was the strangest of all the strange interactions she’d had in Longbourne so far.

  The shopkeeper returned with a round container about the size of her doubled fists. “Afternoon, Rose,” he said. “Six coppers, miss.” Telaine handed over her money, nodded politely to Mistress Garrity, and left the store. So. One more person who believed…what? Something bad, anyway. Maybe she should have just asked. No, she hadn’t liked the look in the woman’s eye, as if she were waiting for Telaine to make a fool of herself, and Telaine had enough trouble without looking like a fool.

  She managed to suppress a laugh at her paranoia over the figgin until after she was halfway up the street. It was smart to be cautious, though, she told herself, nodding at the people she passed and smiling. So Aunt Weaver wasn’t totally trying to humiliate her. Yet she’d definitely said something that had everyone in town suspicious of her. Should she confront the woman, or pretend she had no problems? So far, her pride was winning; she’d not give Aunt Weaver the satisfaction. But it was past time for her to start investigating what “trouble” she was supposed to be escaping.

  Telaine passed through the weaving room with no comment and set the figgin on the kitchen table, then went up to her room. Time for something just for her. She spread a spare handkerchief on the dressing table and disassembled the oil lamp, spilling a few drops of oil despite her care. It was a simple
object that would be less than simple to alter, but the result should be worth the work.

  She had just fitted the lamp glass to the altered base and was contemplating the unnecessary oil when Aunt Weaver said, “Supper’s ready.” She turned away without waiting for a response. Telaine followed her to the kitchen. This time the meal was bean soup, bland but filling. They ate in silence. When Aunt Weaver took her bowl to the sink, she said, “Fiddling with my lamp, are you?”

  “It’ll save you the cost of oil,” Telaine said, sensing a chance to cut her irritated “aunt’s” objections off at the root.

  “Don’t have much use for Devices here,” the woman grumbled, after a tiny pause. “Nobody to maintain ’em, and you won’t be here long.”

  “I can put it back the way it was before I go.” Telaine hadn’t realized she had professional pride until it was challenged.

  “No matter,” Aunt Weaver said. She rinsed her bowl and, after another pause, held her hand out for Telaine’s. Telaine surrendered it, feeling surprise at the woman’s willingness to do any chore for her. Which reminded her of something else.

  “I need to ask a favor,” she said. “I—don’t know how to use the stove.”

  Aunt Weaver gave her a look of disbelief married to disdain. “Don’t know anyone can’t use a wood-burning stove,” she said.

  “Aunt Weaver, there are a lot of things I don’t know how to do,” Telaine said wearily. “Can you at least give me credit for wanting to learn?”

  Aunt Weaver gave her a long, hard look. “Happen I might,” she said. She opened the small drawer below the top of the stove, revealing a narrow, deep cavity dusted with ash. “Start a fire in here,” she said. “You know how to start a fire?”

  “No.”

  Aunt Weaver sighed. “Balled-up newspaper first,” she said, “then twigs. Matches are here. Wait for it to start burning strong, then put in the wood.” She opened a box beside the stove and took out a couple of short, stubby chunks of wood. “That’s about it. Can blow air through here—” she worked a bellows that was a miniature version of the one Garrett had in his forge—“to make it hotter. Pot goes on the top.”