Griffin beamed at them, though to be fair, he’d been beaming pretty continuously all day so far. “Mason, I was hoping you’d be free. And Antimony.” He then gestured with one hand as he came to a stop. “This is Penelope Elizabeth Mason. Penelope as a title, of course. And Captain Antimony Orland, one of the Guard who works most closely with inheritance matters. This is Mistress Annice Matthewman, our current expert in jet.” She noticed, yet again, how he made sure to give her the title.
Both women nodded, and the Penelope said, amused, “You needn’t be formal with us. I’m Mason in general conversation. And Antimony, for some reason, does not actually hate her first name.” It appeared to be some sort of old joke, because the other woman, the Guard, just chuckled.
Annice had never actually been in the same room as one of the Penelopes. All she knew about them was what turned up in the Trellech paper, or in gossip, how they knew all sorts of magical things, and investigated some of them. And there was sometimes nastier gossip, how they were more women than men, and how they got above themselves, sticking their noses in many corners and not minding their place. This woman showed no signs of that sort of rudeness, and Annice didn’t exactly have room to throw stones about doing things women didn’t usually.
“Annice, then. May I ask what you’re doing?” Annice folded her hands in front of her, wanting to fidget and not sure how to avoid it.
“Secret and arcane magics.” Mason laughed as she finished, as if she couldn’t keep her face straight longer. “I’ve samples of jet from several locations, and I’m going to do a bit of fiddly ritual work, and then see about identifying what’s set in the room. And then I’m likely going to have some questions for you. All Penelopes have a working knowledge of gemstones and such, but there are nuances here I don’t know. Yet.” Then she waved a hand. “All three of you, over there, don’t move out of the area I marked off.” The space was roughly a square, made by removing one table in the court and drawing out a circle with chalk.
Griffin rolled over it - apparently it was a marking, not a boundary - and Antimony followed him, leaving Annice to come last. Once Annice was seated, Mason turned away, and opened up a case, setting to work doing things that involved slight movements and muttered charms. Nothing Annice could actually hear.
No one said anything for a couple of minutes. Then Griffin reached out and took Annice’s hand. He tilted his head, as if considering, then stayed quiet, apparently so as not to interfere with Mason’s concentration. Antimony, the Captain, glanced at them before her mouth twitched, and she half-closed her eyes. Annice glanced at her watch a couple of times. It was nearly forty minutes before Mason spoke more clearly. “All right. I have some information. Annice, would you come have a look?”
Griffin squeezed her hand once before he let it go, and Annice got up, going over to where Mason was standing. She had a small case made of wood, with different compartments in it. There were four different pieces there, and Annice immediately spotted that the one on the right was horn. “Yes’m?”
“So, three kinds of jet here. And what we have in the settings are mostly - but not entirely - Spanish jet. I tested against a piece of Whitby jet, a piece from Asturias, and that one, there, is from France. Bless having friends with well-documented jewellery collections. Now. What I didn’t have time to study up on is why that’s a problem.”
“French is poor quality,” Annice said immediately. “And a lot of the Spanish is. But the problem with the Spanish - at least in this case - is that it’s softer. More coal-like, is the way it’s put in Whitby, but we’re people who work the stone, not people who know the proper science. Or the proper magic behind the differences.”
“Ah, that gives me some ideas for some further testing. All right, that means that a setting designed for the one would not work as reliably for the other. I think we can posit that much right now.” Mason tapped her fingers on the table. “Does that also mean it breaks down more?”
“Softness would imply that, since we’re not precisely looking for flexibility in use here.” Griffin’s voice came up from behind them, and Annice turned around. He’d wheeled himself over. “You said most of the jet here, not all of it?”
“The actual lines of inlay, the parts that are small beads of jet, all lined up, most of those seem to be Whitby. But they’re tiny pieces, just shaped enough to fit in the channels, right? And they’re not doing as much of the heavy lifting, magically speaking.”
Griffin nodded, and Annice echoed it, adding, “The bigger pieces are the ones at the connections. The crossroads, that’s how I was thinking of them.”
“So if you could replace those pieces - four, at least, ideally all eight - you ought to be able to keep things going until you can reset the whole thing in a couple of years.” Mason said. “Or at least that’s a working theory. And you could swap out one at a time to keep all the extant connections running.”
Annice blinked at her. “How do you know all of that?” It came out sharper than Annice meant, but the other woman just laughed.
“I’m a Penelope. We know many things. But I don’t have the skill to work the stone like that, nor the time in my schedule to do it. I’m an artist in two dimensions, not three. That’s where you come in. And I expect you’ll figure out several other things along the way, and I’d love to talk to you about it as you work.”
“If you’re ever free for supper, Mason, we could have you round.” Griffin said it easily, like it was an ordinary thing to say. “As long as Annice is handy, anyway.”
Mason raised an eyebrow at something in that, but she nodded amiably, then she started packing up her box. “Speaking of, I have three places to be today. Keep me informed, would you? And Antimony...”
The Guardswoman laughed. “Tomorrow, yes. Tea, your office, first thing.” She stepped back to let Mason out, waiting for the door to close behind her, before she turned to face Griffin more solidly. “Now, do you want the gossip?”
“Please, yes.” Griffin let out a sigh. “First, though. Annice, that made sense to you? Do you have things you want to look at here?”
Annice’s mind was spinning. “Is that what we’re doing? Swapping out the crossroad stones?” She’d wondered about it, since she’d seen the layout, and she’d talked a little about that kind of setting with Niobe, but not in any detail yet.
“Can you take the measurements for it? Do you need a hand? Antimony can help. Or I can, though the positioning’s a little more...” Griffin let his voice trail off.
Annice considered. “I’ll need someone in a bit, but let me start with detailed measurements in situ.” She pulled her bag around, setting it on the table, and rummaging in it for her tools. Besides, Antimony had said something about gossip, and Annice wanted to hear what that meant. Once she had her measuring tools out, she set to work on the piece nearest where they were standing.
Antimony pulled a chair around to sit in, and Griffin had angled himself so he could see where Annice was, as well as talk to Antimony. Antimony set in, immediately, with “Well, first, at least three people mentioned they’d seen you out and about this weekend. In company. Before I got my tea this morning.”
“You were on duty from what, six?” Griffin said, amused. “And yes. Theatre on Saturday, supper before, lunch yesterday, and a bit of walking through going other places. Who told you?”
It got him a list of names and then a mention of a couple of others, before Antimony said, “And I gather Nestor was looking sour, so good work there.”
Griffin grunted. “Different problem, that. What did I miss while I was gone?” That turned into a murmur of commentary. It seemed a well organised discussion, and when Annice turned around to swap out tools, Antimony apparently had a set of notes out. Most of it didn’t make sense to Annice, she didn’t have any context to attach it to. But there’d apparently been a big blowup with one case. There was something going on with a posh family, and a lot of gossip about whether the Guard was investigating someone else. Griffin didn’t seem surprised by it, or upset, so Annice kept her focus on her work.
The conversation kept up for a bit, before some of it caught her attention again. She’d measured all the individual pieces in their settings, but she wanted more information about how they related to each other in the space. Griffin said, more clearly, “What I want to do is prove I’m up to the task.”
Her chin came up, and she stood, resting her hands on the desk. Griffin looked at her, meeting her eyes, then said, “We were talking about proving I’m as ritually competent as anyone.”
