Faces, Old and New
When Brandon came into the hallway, Plum was already 30 feet ahead, stomping like a thunderstorm back towards the west wing of the Keep. He hurried to catch up to her, and she glanced back at the sound of his footsteps. She slowed as Brandon half-walked, half-jogged up next to her.
“Where are you going?” Brandon asked her softly.
“To my chambers,” she replied, her eyes not meeting his. “My head is pounding.”
Brandon felt his mouth quirk into a not-quite frown. The deep-set furrow in Plum’s brow was still there, and she was carrying her shoulders with a tension that Brandon had never seen from her.
“Plum-” Brandon began, but Plum cut him off.
“Darling, if you say one more word to me about what you assume I am feeling, I will root you in place with vines and leave you to your struggle.”
“‘Tis not-”
“I mean it.”
“I know but-”
“Adelaide.”
“Do not call me that here, and I just-”
Plum made to draw her wand, but Brandon threw his hands in the air.
“I just want you to know I am here to listen if you need to talk!” His lips stumbled over the words as he got them out as fast as he could.
Plum sighed and pulled her hand away from the wand at her hip. “I know, love,” she said, still unable to meet Brandon’s eyes. “I… I am sorry. I… have a lot to think about.”
Brandon lowered his own hands. “I know. You are not the only one. We can do this together, you know.”
Plum smiled at him, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Perhaps,” she said softly. She reached out and squeezed his hand, and in spite of the topic of conversation, Brandon felt his heart skip a beat.
“Regardless,” Plum continued after a moment. “I am still going to my room. ‘Twasn’t a lie about the headache.”
“Can I get you aught else?”
Plum smiled again, and this time it did reach her eyes. “You are very sweet, love. ‘Tis alright. Wake me for supper?”
Brandon nodded, and Plum squeezed his hand again. She turned and made a chirping noise, and Meeks suddenly materialized from where he must have been hiding just around the corner. Brandon watched the two of them head off towards her bedchambers, and let his shoulders relax a fraction. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, and headed off towards his mother’s solar. He needed to have a word with the Duchess-Archmagician of the Vermillion Keep.
Brandon stalked through the corridors like a lion on the hunt. His mother’s solar was in the north wing of the Keep, and Brandon knew the way with hardly a thought. His footsteps echoed softly against the marble walls and floors, the vines and glowlamps and scattered tapestries doing little to mask the noise.
As he approached the north wing, Brandon noticed a shift. Since entering the servant’s corridors in the east wing, Brandon’s nostrils had been filled with the smell of tobacco smoke and burning oil lamps. As he approached the center of the Keep and the north wing, that smell dissipated, and was replaced by the smells of incense and flower petals.
The walls changed, too. Brandon had walked this path countless times before, but the overwhelming presence of flowers and plant life clinging to the walls had always stood out to him. Scarcely an inch of the marble walls and garnet inlays was visible along the walls of this section of the Keep, hidden by tapestries and vines and flower petals. Censers of incense burned at regular intervals along the walls, and glowlamps filled the hall with their familiar light. Brandon had always felt out of place in this part of the Keep.
Before long, Brandon found himself at the door to his mother’s solar. He pushed the door open and crossed the ornate, marble-and-cinnabar floor to Philodora’s study, where he knew she would be. Sure enough, she was sitting at her broad, dark wooden desk, piles of papers strewn in front of her. Philodora’s wand, a tapering rod of cinnabar and redwood, was in her hand, and as she gestured with it, several leaves of paper were being filled in at once, the ink spontaneously appearing on the pages. Duchess-Archmagician Philodora Vermillion hardly glanced up as her only child entered her study. Her familiar, a golden eagle named Regia, was resting on a perch near the window, her beak tucked into the feathers at her chest.
“Brandon,” she said flatly. Brandon winced internally at the name. “Is aught the matter?”
“Yes, mother,” Brandon replied. “May I sit?” Philodora gestured for him to sit at the chair across her desk, and he sat at the edge of the chair, leaning forward.
Philodora lowered her wand and looked across the broad desk at Brandon, one eyebrow raised. Her greying blonde hair was equally as frizzy as Brandon’s, giving him some solace in his endless quest to tame his own. He’d always found it surreal to look into her eyes that were nearly identical to his, although half-hidden by a pair of half-moon spectacles. Brandon noticed the openly worn makeup, and the shape of her face, so similar to his and yet so much more feminine, and felt a pang of envy.
“What seems to be the issue, Brandon?” Philodora asked, a touch of concern in her voice.
Brandon steepled his fingers and leaned forward. “How do you feel about how we treat our servants?” he asked suddenly.
Philodora’s eyebrow, already raised, shot up even further. “How do you mean?”
Brandon shrugged, suddenly sheepish. “Do you suppose we treat them kindly?”
“Well, yes,” she replied, bewildered. “Of course. House Claret beats theirs.”
Why does everyone bring that up? Brandon thought, irritated. “‘Tis not the point. I met with Mister Archibald today-”
“The butler?” his mother interrupted. “Why?”
“‘Twas happenstance,” Brandon lied, and was internally shocked at how easily it came. “‘Tis also not the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
“The man must have at least 80 winters and is missing a leg, and yet he was scrubbing at the floors!” Regia stirred at her perch as Brandon’s voice raised.
“‘Tis a butler’s job to keep the house clean, yes?”
“Well, yes, I suppose,” Brandon floundered for a moment. “But why must we employ servants for that? Could we not simply cast the dirt away?”
“Of course we could,” Philodora replied.
“Then why do we not?” Brandon’s cheeks were hot with anger.
Philodora regarded him for a moment. “Sit,” she commanded.
Brandon obliged, having not even realized he had stood. He closed his eyes and took a breath to steady himself. When he opened his eyes, Philodora was still regarding him strangely.
“Do you know,” she began. “where our wealth comes from?”
“Of course,” Brandon replied, irritated at the seeming non-sequitur. “From our fields and orchards.”
Philodora nodded. “Indeed. Our peasants plow our fields and plant our seeds, and our magicians cast the spells that grow the wheat and fruits. Then, the peasants harvest aught that’s grown and we claim the excess. That excess feeds nearly every mouth in all the Houses, and the wealth it has brought us built this Keep. We sell it back to the peasants and to the other Houses, and the peasants earn their keep and enough food that none are kept wanting. ‘Tis hard work, I am told, but honest.”
“What does this have to do with our servants?” Brandon asked, still irritated.
“I am getting there, child,” Philodora replied. “What happens to a peasant who cannot work?”
“They are supported by their families, I assume.”
“Often, yes. Especially as they age. But what of those who do not have families, such as Mister Archibald? What of those who are ill-suited to manual labour, or simply do not wish to work in the fields? What of those peasants?
“I shall tell you: they are our servants. We employ those peasants so that they still can earn their keep.” Her lip twisted at the play on words. “Although these days, the Houses have such a broad need for servants that we take any who wish.”
“So, what, they must work for us to earn their worth to you?” Brandon asked, incredulous.
“Yes,” Philodora answered. “If no one works, no one eats.” She took her glasses off of her face and began cleaning them with a cloth that she produced from a drawer in her desk.
“I am not suggesting that no one works, mother. But why must they work to earn their lives?”
“They mustn’t,” Philodora waved her hand dismissively. “If they do not like it, they can grow their own food, the way they did before the Magisterium.”
“‘Tis still more work than must be done when we could feed them all easily.”
“And if we let them not work, they would not work.”
“So they only work because we force them to?”
“Yes.”
“So we are exploiting them.”
“If you want to view it that way.” Philodora held her glasses up to the light to make sure they were clean before gently placing them back on her face. “If we did as you suggest, and simply gave away our wealth to the masses, where would that leave us?”
“It would leave us with having done the right thing.”
“Would it? What happens when the flow of food from our fields stops? What happens when House Citrine’s factories stop churning? What happens when the entire structure of our society collapses because nobody wants to work to make it happen?”
“‘Tis a convenient excuse when we are not the ones who suffer.”
“Excuse?” Philodora scoffed. “Being realistic is not an excuse, Brandon. Someone has to be on top. Be grateful ‘tis us.”
Her fingers found her wand again and she began writing in her numerous sheafs of paper.
“I have much to do,” she said by way of a dismissal, a wave of her hand giving Brandon the signal to leave. “And cut your hair. You look as though you’ve a taste for men.”
Brandon felt a surge of anger rush to his face, both at the accusation and at the implication that he should be ashamed were that even the case. He stood abruptly, his chair squeaking against the marble floor. Regia kak-kak-kak’d from her perch and fluttered her wings as Brandon turned and stormed out of the room, even angrier than before.
He flew to his room like a bat out of hell. He slammed the door behind him and leaned against it, sinking down to the floor. Safe in the sanctuary of her room, Adelaide knocked the back of her head against her door a few times in frustration. She sighed and wrapped her head in her arms, bringing her legs up close to her chest. Even in the deepest depths of her despair, she had never felt so helpless. She found her thoughts drifting to the small blade that she kept in the drawer next to her bed.
Adelaide clenched her fists tight enough that it made her bones ache and shook her head. She abruptly sprung to her feet, nearly toppling over as she stood far too quickly.
There must be something to be done, she thought desperately. Something I can do. She pulled a small, leatherbound notebook out of her desk drawer and began writing. She’d had the beginnings of an idea.
“Let me help you with that, grandmother,” Brandon said, his hands already clasped around the bucket of soapy water. Greta, the old woman who had described the magicians of the Keep as a “bunch of ungrateful spellshites,” acquiesced to him, though her eyebrow remained slightly raised in suspicion.
“What fer?” she asked tartly.
“I wish to help,” Brandon replied, already dunking a few dirty garments into the bucket for cleaning.
“Help?” Greta scoffed. “Ye’ve never helped before.”
“I have had a change of heart,” Brandon supplied as an answer. “I wish to help,” he said again.
“Well I s’pose I can’t complain fer that,” Greta said. “This pile needs t’ be cleaned and hung up to dry, y’hear?” Brandon nodded, and Greta tottered away, mumbling something about collecting dirty laundry. Brandon scrubbed the clothes against the washboard and let his thoughts wander.
Two days had passed since Laszlo had taken him and Plum to meet the servants and Brandon had confronted his mother. For two days, Brandon had been hard at work helping out the servants wherever he could, usually by taking some of their work. Two days, and Brandon had hardly seen Plum at all. She’d been holed up in her room for most of that time. She’d barely even left to get food, but at least she was at least eating the trays of food that Brandon left at her door.
Brandon was worried nearly to the point of making himself sick. In the 22 years they’d known each other, Brandon had only once gone two days without seeing Plum, and it was when he had gone on a trip to meet the heir to House Citrine when he was 11. Her self-imposed isolation was causing Brandon no end of worry.
“Why do you not use a spell, Prince-Adept?” came a voice from the door to the laundry room. Brandon shook himself from his anxious spiraling and looked towards the mustachioed silhouette of the butler, Archibald, leaning heavily on his cane.
“Mister Archibald!” Brandon flushed and sprang to his feet. “I- well-”
“There’s no need to stand for an old servant like me, Prince-Adept.” Archibald’s voice was calm and soothing, and Brandon let some of the tension release from his shoulders. “All I mean to say is that a spell would make this work much easier, and the work would still be done,” Archibald continued.
“I- Well- Perhaps,” Brandon stammered out the words, unsure if or how to explain to Archibald that he was far from sure in his own magical capabilities. “But I-”
“No matter,” Archibald came to his rescue with a shake of his head. “So long as the work gets done, I am not one to complain. Besides, I am not a magician, and perhaps I am simply overlooking a fact of the art.”
Archibald limped to a chair in the corner of the room and sat heavily on it. He sighed deeply, leaned his cane against the wall, and crossed his legs.
“I suppose the larger question…” he said, suddenly much more seriously. “…is why you are doing this at all.”
“I wish to help,” was all Brandon could say.
“Indeed?” Archibald replied with a raised eyebrow. “Well, once again, I am not one to complain. Though, in the future, you could come straight to me instead of simply finding a servant to relieve. If you truly wish to help, I can direct you to where help is needed the most.”
Brandon nodded meekly. Even though he was technically Archibald’s superior in every way but age, Brandon felt intimidated by the butler’s presence. In another life, the man would have made a powerful nobleman.
Archibald stood and clapped a hand on Brandon’s shoulder. Were Brandon a different noble, or Archibald a different servant, the physical contact would have been deeply offensive.
“I thank you, Prince-Adept,” he said, his dark eyes locked on Brandon’s. “Truly. Few of the magicians seem to regard us as anything more than a pair of hands to work.”
Archibald took a step back and gave Brandon a deep and genuine bow. “I must take my leave. There is much to be done.” And with that, he left the laundry room, leaving Brandon once again alone with his thoughts.
By the evening of the third day since Laszlo’s little lessons, Adelaide was exhausted. She’d spent most of her free time helping the servants wherever she could, whether that meant doing laundry in the basement or chopping vegetables in the kitchens or scrubbing the floors of the upper chambers. Her body ached all over in a way she hadn’t felt in years.
And still, no Plum.
She still hadn’t left her chambers, as far as Adelaide could tell. She was eating the food Adelaide left for her, which at least let her know she was still alive. But Adelaide’s worry had only grown, to the point that it had developed into a constant, gnawing pain at the center of her chest. She’d spent most of the afternoon today trying to figure out how to assuage her anxiety. She could just go in and check on her, at least, but what if that made her upset? She clearly wanted her alone time. Would she be angry with Adelaide if she went in without permission?
In the end, Adelaide had decided to simply go in and check on her anyway. She and Plum had known each other for decades and were closer to each other than anyone else in the world. She’d get over it.
And yet, Adelaide was still fretting over it. She was in her chambers, and had spent the last ten minutes trying to psych herself up to just walk down the hall and do it already. If Plum were upset at all, she’d forgive her. Plum trusted her enough to take her intentions at their best, right?
After another five minutes, Adelaide worked up the courage to go check on Plum. She stood, took a deep breath, and opened the door. She turned towards Plum’s chamber and did a double take at the person standing at her door.
Adelaide’s cousin, Willam Carnation, stood in the doorway, his hand raised as if to knock. His pale brown hair was tucked into a neat ponytail, and his fair skin was as unblemished as ever. A grey-brown, furry-tailed squirrel chattered at his feet—his familiar, Julien. Willam’s eyes, ruddy-brown, lit up as he saw Brandon down the hall.
“Brandon!” Willam exclaimed, beaming.
“Willy!” Brandon replied, still overcome with shock. “I’d no notion you were visiting us.”
“I’ve only just arrived! I thought that I would greet you and Miss Plum straight away.”
“Indeed. How is the Magisterium training treating you? You departed the Keep, what, nigh 3 years ago?”
Willam groaned and rolled his eyes. “Nearly four. And ‘tis nothing like I thought. I’d expected to be twice the magician as Miss Plum by now, but they have yet to even let me into the libraries! And they refuse to even consider my theories.”
“Yes, well,” Brandon replied. “The Magisterium is ill-renowned for welcoming new ideas. I am sure they have their myriad reasons for not hearing out an Adept with ideas somehow both radical and tedious about mana draw.”
Willam laughed, a high, clear sound like the peal of a crystal bell. “True enough. Regardless, is Miss Plum in? I should dearly love to catch up with her.”
“I…” Brandon hesitated. “…do not believe so. Have you seen your father? I am sure the Lord Chancellor would dearly love to see his son.”
Willam waved a hand dismissively. “I shall see Father eventually,” he said bitterly. “He can wait.”
“I take it he is still not over your tryst with Olivier, then?”
“Ha! Hardly,” Willam scoffed. “I doubt he shall ever be.” His eyes fell, and Brandon felt a pang of sympathy. He put a comforting hand on the younger man’s shoulder.
“What about your sister? You should see her at least. Ellie missed you at her seventh birthday party.”
Willam’s eyes lit back up. “Yes, I shall go see her. She was so small when last I was here…” He trailed off for a moment before shaking himself back to clarity. “‘Tis good to see you well, Brandon. Tell Miss Plum I am here when you next see her?” he finished with a nod towards her door.
“Likewise, Willy. And of course, I shall pass on the message.”
Willam beamed and hurried off down the corridor. He had never been one to sit still for long.
Brandon took a deep breath and turned back to Plum’s door. He stood for a moment, staring blankly at the door. He hadn’t lost his courage, exactly, he just still didn’t know what to say when he opened the door. He took another breath and knocked once, twice, thrice. There was no answer. He knocked again. Still no answer. Frustrated, Brandon pulled the key ring off of his sash and fiddled with the keys until he found the one for Plum’s room. If she wasn’t going to answer, he’d make himself known. He shimmied the key into the lock, turned the handle and pushed the door open.
Plum’s room was dark and gloomy. The glowlamps were shuttered and the curtains drawn, so it took a few moments for Adelaide’s eyes to adjust to the darkness. She first noticed Meeks, curled up at the foot of the bed, who lifted his head and softly mrrp’d as she entered the room. Then she saw Plum’s head, laid on her pillows, her eyes fluttering open at the noise and the light spilling into her room. Then Adelaide noticed the third person in the room.
Next to Plum, equally groggy as she shook herself awake, was the servant girl with long blonde tresses that Plum had made eyes at just a few days prior. Adelaide averted her eyes as she noticed neither were wearing clothes under their blankets. She felt the heat rush to her cheeks, whether from embarrassment or anger she wasn’t sure. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing more than a squeak came out. She raised her hand, clenched a fist, and felt tears stinging in her eyes as she turned, left the room, and slammed the door behind her.
Cambria's Corner 
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