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 Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 2:11 pm
 OLD MAN ISAMBARDWherein Claune pays Nicholas's father a visit
Nicholas set the spoon and the bottle of laudanum on the bedside table. Then, after a brief hesitation, he opened the table's drawer and put them in there instead. Claune waited until after the Grimm had gotten settled in the covers to climb onto his shoulder. He slid himself under the neck of Nicholas's shirt and drew it up to his chin like a blanket.
Nicholas sighed, staring up at the ceiling. "I wish I could apologize on my father's behalf," he said. "If I could have spared you—"
"I think I pricked my finger," Claune interrupted.
A pause. "While you were sewing? May I have a look?"
Claune pulled himself back upright and held his index finger before his Grimm's face. Nicholas peered at it carefully. "I don't see anything. Would you like me to light a candle and fetch my glasses?"
"No," the Plague said. "It doesn't hurt badly."
"Well," Nicholas said, "let me know if it's still bothering you in the morning. You did a fine job juggling despite it."
Claune nestled back into Nicholas shirt, turned away toward the pillow, and regarded his fingertip. Then he brought it to his mouth and gave it a gentle kiss. The kiss didn't make it feel any better—because, of course, Claune had never pricked it to begin with.
Goodnight, Claune, Claune thought.
"Goodnight, Claune," said Nicholas, right on cue.
The Plague waited until he had fallen asleep to climb out of bed and squeeze through the crack beneath the door.
Outside, frost settled on the ground. A gibbous moon rose pale behind the trees, and an icy winter silence muffled the world—a silence that was almost itself a sound, a faint crystalline ringing, as though someone were tapping on the chalky high-octave keys of a harpsichord in the firmament. Every breath sent up a plume. The house eased, creaking, into the cold.
Inside the marmalade cat sat in the center of the hallway, directly in Claune's path.
"I shall pinch you on the nose," he told it.
"Mraow," the cat said.
Claune narrowed his eyes. "Very well," he said, and produced the smelly little package of herring he had stuffed down his clothes, unwrapped it gingerly with the tips of his fingers, and tossed it down before the cat like a gauntlet.
The cat hunched forward and began eating. Its purring was thunderous.
"That herring wasn't for you," Claune felt compelled to say to it, because it looked, he thought, undeservedly smug. "I was going to hide it in Isambard's room."
"Mraow-ow," the cat said, licking its whiskers. It lifted one paw and patted at Claune from the side.
Claune recoiled. "I am wasted on you," he declared, and vanished beneath a cabinet.
Every building had its secret paths. Claune knew the ones in Trisica and the Council headquarters well, and it didn't take him long to find his way to Isambard's bedchamber, following that scent through the walls like a thread in the minotaur's labyrinth. He popped out through a mouse-hole and snuck across the room, holding tightly to his bells to silence them. Isambard was sleeping.
The Plague wasn't sure why he'd come. The intent to do mischief had been an excuse, a way to convince himself he had a reason to be here, and easily discarded. It wouldn't have been funny at all to leave a smelly piece of herring with Isambard, who was old, dying, and, Claune realized, very lonely.
He climbed up on to Isambard's bedside table and looked at him. Like many elderly people, he had a wrinkly channel extending from either side of his eyes which was full of moisture. It made him seem as if he were crying in his sleep. Claune found a handkerchief, crept across Isambard's pillow, carefully lifted up the wrinkle, and dabbed away the crusty tears.
He remembered when he had first become an excito, and the way Nicholas had looked at him. He remembered pushing the jar off the table and breaking it because he would have rather had Nicholas become upset with him than endure another minute of his Grimm's careful, weary calmness. At least if someone was yelling at you, it meant they were paying attention; that they had some ounce of feeling for you—
Isambard made an incoherent noise in his sleep.
And Claune remembered how angry Isambard had been at the dinner table. But of course he hadn't been angry at all; he had been hoping to make Nicholas that way, because it was the only proof he thought he might find that his son still loved him without having to admit to the same. Isambard didn't want anyone else to know that he came from mud too, when all was said and done.
The Plague climbed over the pillow and lifted the handkerchief toward his other temple. Isambard made another noise, shifted restlessly, and cracked open his eyes. His pupils quested about and took a moment to focus on Claune. "You," he whispered, with a querulous note of doubt. A strong medicinal odor rode on his breath.
"I am not here," Claune assured him. He resumed cleaning away the tears.
Isambard continued to stare, trying to decide whether or not he believed it.
Nicholas had been too preoccupied to tune Claune over the past few days, but the Plague had conserved his energy. There was enough left for a lullaby. So he sang, sweetly and quietly:
"No burglars steal within to creep
Through your lonely slumber deep—
Your fears are all your own to keep,
And now it's time to go to sleep."
Isambard's eyes began to sag closed. Claune folded up the handkerchief and sat down on his pillow.
"Good-night, you old man Isambard!
Your dreams are safely under guard
Your heart is locked, your thoughts are barred,
The gate beyond is strong and hard.
"Oh, the bolt is steel, the ramparts steep;
The moat below makes armies weep—
The night is still, and silver-starred—
And now it's time to go to sleep."
Isambard emitted a faint snore, and the Plague stood up to go. He was hastened on his way by the sound of soft footsteps approaching up the hallway. Cassandra? One of the servants? He concealed himself within the mouse-hole and waited. A moment later Nicholas entered, wearing an unfamiliar coat that hung on him oddly; the right sleeve hadn't been pinned up or tied. He stood motionless in the doorway. He had the absent, drowsy look on his face and slightly glassy eyes that he always possessed if he happened to wake up after taking laudanum, which was rare.
"Claune?" he asked softly. He waited a second longer, and then shook his head. He went to a chair, put his hand on the back, and stood there with his shoulders bowed. Eventually he pulled the chair over to Isambard's bed and sat.
Claune waited to see if anything would happen. Isambard didn't wake, and Nicholas didn't wake him. The roof creaked. Dust trickled down behind the walls.
The Plague took hold of his bells and snuck away. Once the house had stopped settling there was barely any sound at all, and it was nearly silent enough to hear the high ringing of the winter sky.
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Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 12:59 pm
IN A NAMEWherein Claune learns the true origin of the name Nicholas gave him
Sarah bent over to dust the baseboard.
"Ptthhbt," said Claune.
She straightened, put her fist on her waist, paused, and then bustled over to dust a table. She bent over again.
"ThHHBBT," Claune said. He had been following her around the house for the past fifteen minutes, varying his fart noises in pitch and timbre. Like snowflakes, no two were exactly alike.
Finally Sarah turned and looked at him. "Oooh," she said, "you little devil."
Claune jumped theatrically and fled behind a table leg. She bent to look around it. "Thbt," he said.
"Do you know how many boys I've raised? Eh?" She brandished her feather duster at him. "Five! Five boys! I've changed diapers worse than you. You can make noises at me all you like, you wee fiend, and I won't bat an eyelash. Now shoo! Run along! Go bother someone else!"
The feathers quivered hugely before him. Claune wailed in horror (mostly feigned) and scrambled along the baseboard until he found a large enough crack to escape through. Then he sat in the dark, trying to think of something else to do. He was fine as long as he kept busy. Before discovering Sarah, he had perched on the shed's ceiling beams and recited obscene limericks at Richard until the gardener had turned so red-faced and clumsy whittling down the slats of a trellis Claune had begun to suspect he might accidentally cut himself, which would have made his efforts considerably less amusing.
But when he stopped even for a moment, he began to think—and the only thing he could think about was that Nicholas had left him behind.
***
He knew something was wrong when his Grimm, walking along the path to Eliza's house, began to slow down and then stopped, gazing ahead through the trees.
"Well?" Claune asked impatiently.
"I somehow managed to forget that there's a bridge up ahead."
Claune stopped swinging his feet against the Grimm's shoulder.
"The stream isn't especially wide," Nicholas added.
"Is Eliza an invalid?" Claune inquired shrilly. "Can she walk? What is keeping her from coming to us?"
"Well, she hasn't received word that we've arrived."
"Richard?" the Plague suggested.
Nicholas looked vaguely self-conscious. "I was hoping to—"
Surprise her, Claune finished. Something twisted inside him. "Ah, I see. In that case I shall go back to the house, alone, and await your return. Surely you would have a better time without me anyway—"
"Would you?" Nicholas asked, a note of hopeful surprise in his voice. "That's very understanding."
Claune froze. This was not the reaction he had been aiming for. "Yes," he said stiffly, after a pause. He climbed down to Nicholas's hand, and Nicholas put him on the ground. He tried to quell the rising tides of panic. He was leaving Nicholas, not the other way around; he did this all the time; and his Grimm was most certainly coming back.
But what if? What if Nicholas didn't come back, and Claune couldn't cross the stream to go looking for him? What would he do then? He gathered up the bells on the end of his hat and held them. "Off I go," he said.
"I'll be back in no time at all," Nicholas assured him, and then they both went their separate ways; and while walking neither of them looked back over their shoulder, for their own different reasons.
***
Now Claune sat in the dark and tried to think of something to do. What? What should he do? Finally it occurred to him that there was one room he hadn't explored yet: the parlor, now serving as Cassandra's bedroom; she had moved into it some time ago, he was told, to improve Isambard's rest. Nicholas had rather firmly instructed him not to go in there. He stood up and dusted himself off.
The parlor had a southerly window and was filled with light. Claune walked across an armoire. It was covered in odds and ends: dried flowers, a stuffed bluebird, bits of lace, small glass vials of scented oil, a tarnished circular mirror on a stand. He stood on his toes and made a face at himself. It looked somewhat frightening. He clasped his hands against his cheek and simpered. Better. The mirror faced the window, and he could see the reflection of the woods behind him. He wondered what Nicholas was doing at this very moment with Eliza. I'll be back in to time at all—that hadn't been quite true, had it?
"You came from a violin, didn't you?"
Claune whirled around. He hadn't known Cassandra was in the room with him. She sat in a chair in the corner, wrapped in a blanket nearly the same shade of white as the walls, and hadn't moved or made a sound until now. She rose, taking the blanket with her. "I'm sorry," she said. "Is that an offensive thing to ask a Plague?"
"Perhaps if the Plague originated from a chamber pot," Claune replied. He grimaced tragically. "Or someone's underthings."
Cassandra arranged herself and her blanket on the armoire's stool. She rested her elbow nearby, put her chin on the palm of her hand with her knuckles pressed up against her lips, and regarded him steadily.
One of the feathers in the bluebird's tail was loose. Claune turned around to fix it. "I was once Nicholas's violin, if that is what you really wish to ask," he said. "He purchased me in Ardenth."
When he looked at her again, there were tears shining in her eyes.
"Oh, my," he exclaimed. "You're leaking! Quickly—" He scrambled all about the armoire until he found a thimble, which he then held aloft beneath her face like a bucket beneath a dripping thatch. He danced to and fro. When the first glittering tear fell, he swiftly lunged forward and caught it.
"I have wondered since he left," she said to herself, "whether Nicholas truly did enjoy playing, all those years—" She dabbed at her tears with the edge of her blanket. "Excuse me."
"You are excused," Claune said.
"You're a dear," she told him absently.
He frowned. Silence prevailed, and eventually he found his gaze drifting back to the window.
"Nicholas and Eliza," Cassandra sighed. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if they decided to get married after all? But it's too late for that."
"Is it?" Claune asked, wary.
"I don't think either of them would see the point, now that Eliza's past childbearing age. She's even less of a romantic than Nicholas, if you can imagine, and he has you now."
The Plague realized he was clutching the thimble to his chest. He set it down. "I'm not a child," he said.
"When one reaches a certain age—" Cassandra said, paused, and tried again, "The passage of time is a strange thing, you know. I often feel that instead of getting older I'm standing in the same place while the world gets younger around me. Sometimes I remember my year of birth and I think—sixty-one? It doesn't seem possible. Where has the time gone? Even Nicholas is still just a boy to me; so don't be offended, darling, if I slip up from time to time."
Claune hadn't meant it that way. I am not a human, he had meant—when I grow I will not be something Nicholas will care for—but Cassandra's eyes were distant, and these were not thoughts he wanted to voice aloud.
"Oh," she said. "You'll be wanting to see the book, won't you?" When Claune just looked at her oddly askance she added, "The one with the story Nicholas took your name from. Surely he's told you about it?"
Do you like it? Don't you want to know what it means?
No, Claune had said, by which he'd meant, rather desperately, yes.
"Well, perhaps he was embarrassed," Cassandra said, drifting over to a bookcase. She began sorting through their worn spines. "I gave most of them away, but Nicholas liked this one so much I couldn't bear to part with it… not this story in particular, but the collection… here it is. Would you like me to read it to you?"
"Yes, please," Claune replied, for he didn't like the thought of Cassandra watching him while he read the story himself. He turned the thimble upside down and sat on it.
"A very long time ago, in a little Vossanian village, there lived a fool named Claune," Cassandra began, holding the book up close to her face as she made her way back to the stool.
The story was not long. Book Claune, Claune gathered, was a type of motley-wearing village idiot (there were helpful illustrations). He drank a great deal and people threw mud at him. Eventually a war broke out, and a company of enemy soldiers began heading in the town's direction. Book Claune tried to warn the mayor, then the blacksmith, then the midwife, but no one listened to him, for they didn't believe the words of a fool. It was midsummer's day. While the people of the town feasted and made flower garlands, Book Claune sat by the well and cried.
Eventually, night fell. As was the tradition in this little Vossanian village, the men built a great bonfire in the middle of the square and the women and children danced around it. They shouted with delight as they whirled in circles hand in hand. Watching them, Book Claune had an idea. He pretended to be alarmed by the fire and noise and fled from the village square. Children laughed and threw handfuls of soot at him as he went. He ran down the hill, across the field, and through the woods, falling often in his haste. His clothes became dirty and tattered. His arms got scrapes on them from the brambles, and his sooty face was streaked with tears.
Lo and behold, the enemy general came riding with his soldiers behind him and reined up his stamping horse. "What has happened here?" he demanded.
Book Claune wept and pointed a trembling finger back toward the village, from which came a great tumult of women and children screaming. The roaring bonfire cast the flickering red light of flames across the hill.
The general, who was unfamiliar with Vossanian traditions, said to his men: "Look—some other company of soldiers has already reached the town and begun burning it. Do you see the soot on this idiot's face? His terror? He barely escaped a certain death. We will skip it, and move on to the next."
"What about him?" a soldier asked.
"Leave him alone," the general replied. "He is a fool, and of no use to anyone."
Thus the soldiers rode on and left the little village behind unharmed. It didn't occur to them to wonder whether they had been led astray. When Book Claune returned the next morning miserable and dirty, the people laughed at him—and they would never find out that he had saved all their lives.
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Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 1:01 pm
GOODBYE, FAREWELLWherein Nicholas and Claune depart for home
"Goodbye, Claune," Eliza said, leaned down, stuck out her hand, and shook his between her thumb and forefinger. He pinched her. "Strong grip!" she exclaimed.
He scowled. She was nothing like the person he had constructed from months of reading her letters to Nicholas; she stomped about the house with her dress hauled up around her ankles and had a deafeningly loud, fluctuating laugh, rather like the cry of some peculiar seabird, which tended to take everyone else by surprise. Even Nicholas, the most physically unflappable person Claune knew, was prone to startling at her outbursts. The Plague had decided long ago that he wasn't going to like her—otherwise, he thought, he might have considered it.
"You'll come back to visit us soon, won't you?" she went on, turning to Nicholas.
"Oh, I expect so," he said, hauling the strap of one of his bags up over his head. "The tutoring's been going well, however, and I'm always reluctant to leave my work behind. Would you ever consider coming to Gadu?"
No, Claune urged, a bit desperately.
"I suppose so," she said cheerfully. "I wouldn't mind getting out to see the world."
"There's certainly more to it than Mildell. Well, I think—"
"All five shirts?" Claune asked. "Comb? Underthings? Laud—"
"Yes, I'm quite sure I have everything," Nicholas said hurriedly.
Eliza thumped him on the back. "It was good seeing you, old fellow. Well, most of you. What did you ever do with that arm, by the way?"
"It's languishing in the belly of a shark somewhere, I imagine," he said.
"Or there's some mermaid out there thinking you've offered her your hand in marriage," Eliza said, with the air of a person who's been holding their bad punchline in reserve for far too long, and laughed. Claune jumped.
"Good God," Nicholas said. He began trundling toward the door under the weight of all his bags. Claune, knowing an exit when he saw one, seized the swinging hem of his coat and climbed up to his shoulder. "You've just reminded me why I need to leave."
"Try as you might," Eliza said, leaning against the doorframe, "you'll never rid yourself of my jokes."
"They're like venereal infections," Nicholas agreed, "popping up where you least want them." A faintly mortified pause. "Oh, hello, Mother. Yes, we're off—Eliza's brought word that the carriage is waiting at the end of the lane."
Claune squashed himself down against his Grimm's shoulder and there endured Cassandra's embrace. "Goodbye, Nicholas," she said. To Claune: "Goodbye, dear. You've been awfully good for him. Nicholas, do you have your—"
"Yes," Nicholas replied patiently, as Eliza grinned.
"Catch lots of moths," she said. "Remember to tell me all about them, whether I want you to or not."
"Oh, I'm certain I shall," he said, nodded to Cassandra, and stepped out into the frosty morning light. His steps were buoyant even under the weight of his luggage.
"You seem pleased," Claune observed, with faint suspicion. He'd expected Nicholas to be more reluctant about leaving, particularly after enjoying Eliza's company so greatly. At the very least he had expected the farewells to drag on longer.
"Shouldn't I be?"
"You're leaving home," the Plague pointed out. Unsubtly (because Nicholas so often seemed to require it) he added, "And Eliza."
"I've gone nearly two decades without seeing her; I daresay I can endure whatever amount of time fate puts between us this time. You didn't—" Nicholas stopped walking so abruptly the weight of his bags swung around and thumped against his legs. "You didn't think we were going to become involved, did you?"
"No," Claune said, and looked over his shoulder at the house, which was lit warmly from within, Cassandra and Eliza still standing watch at the door. But.
"I assure you," Nicholas said, resuming his journey down the lane, "I'm perfectly aware of what would happen if I attempted to court someone, with you around; the thought fills me with such awe and terror that I've sworn off a married life for the rest of my days."
The Plague tensed.
"And I much prefer it that way, so it's fortunate I have a good excuse," he went on. "Whatever did I do before you came along? I can scarcely remember."
"Neither can I," Claune replied drolly, but it was as though his Grimm's words had struck a match inside him. He savored the unexpected flare of warmth. Nicholas was walking away from his family, his childhood, the woman he might have once married to return to his life in Gadu with Claune—and it was where he most wanted to be.
The carriage home awaited them at the end of the lane.
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Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 1:05 pm
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Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 1:06 pm
  
A CRY IN THE DARK
Wherein Claune meets Caduceus and "saves" him from a rat
WINTER 1413-14
- complete - 
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Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 1:15 pm
TALL, WAS HE, AND FAIR
Wherein Claune encounters Caduceus a second time, and the two strike up a grudging friendship
WINTER 1413-14
- incomplete -
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Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 1:16 pm
A TUNE ON THE WIND
Wherein Claune disrupts Terrowin's work and meets his Plague, Tiffan
WINTER 1413-14
- incomplete -
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