Page 15 of Brave Truth

“Thank you.” It seemed the first necessary thing to say.

Warren, curiously, didn’t brush it off. He sat there, having eaten the roll, looking outwardly relaxed, as if he came to this pub three times a week and knew all the regulars. He didn’t, because Matthew would have seen him, York would have greeted him differently. There were a dozen things that made Matthew sure that wasn’t true. Now his brain was working a bit. Instead, Warren said carefully. “If we don’t take care of each other, who will?”

That answer did not help anything at all. Matthew swallowed hard, then said, carefully, “You were a Captain, in the war, weren’t you?” That had startled him. He’d looked up the details a couple of weeks back, finally. He’d been surprised Warren didn’t have a higher rank, for half a dozen reasons, starting with the competence visible from a distance. Matthew had never attracted the sort of attention to rise above Lieutenant.

“Captain.” Warren tilted his head. “I’m curious why you ask.”

“You—” Oh, this was going to be humiliating. “I was thinking you knew how to take care of your people. Not everyone does.” Then Matthew focused on his beer, though he didn’t want to drink too much. It would be even worse if he were sick all over the table.

There was a silence, then Warren’s voice was very quiet. “Do my best. Did.” There was a tiny hesitation, as if he were deciding what to say. “I ended up in research work. Not direct fighting. They don’t like to promote beyond Captain. And I went to the wrong school to get a promotion into the upper levels of the general intelligence service. All public school boys, Oxford and Cambridge.” Something in his tone made it clear he was familiar with the type, used to dealing with them. Then, carefully, “I’ve looked up your background. You needn’t feel you have to share.”

That, though, was a startling enough statement that Matthew looked up sharply, then his head regretted the sudden movement and shift of focus. “You looked me up?”

“Dreadful habit of the Penelopes, we’re irrepressibly nosy. I try to have manners. I just looked at the public files, nothing else. I think doing more is rude, unless there’s a specific call for it.” Then, almost conspiratorially, “Also, I like the puzzle of figuring some of it out for myself.”

Matthew did not know what to do with that last part, but the earlier bit gave him something to say. “What do you know, then?”

“Schola, of course, Boar House, Four years behind me. Quite a good bohort player. I remember watching you. I’d come back and visit Isembard and Thesan when I could. I saw your last two matches, actually. I’d have liked to play against you. Clever play, not just strong.” Matthew felt that was a particular sort of compliment. “And then an apprenticeship in the Ministry, some work in the Courts, but you chose to focus elsewhere. Logistics posting during the War, and I gathered from what I could access that you handled things well there. Two notes in your records. And then Germany.” Here his voice got careful. “Close enough to something awful.”

Matthew nodded jerkily.

“If you let me know what snuck up on you today, I can keep it off you in future meetings.” That was just said, right out, when Warren did not need to make that sort of offer. “I was there in the second half of 1945. Different sorts of awful, probably, but enough to have an idea of the range.” He didn’t say it lightly, exactly, but as if he were deliberately skimming just above the surface, not wanting to linger on any of it.

Matthew sucked in a breath. “The Bavarian plants. The gentian. The edelweiss. I didn’t expect...” But he could smell them, the way the scent had been around. It curled through the middle of bombed out buildings and Army guards and trucks, and the constant tension of the public court spaces and the prison. “Stupid, really.”

“More common than people admit.” Warren’s voice was firm now. “Just the Bavarian plants, or is there anything else like that?”

Matthew shrugged. “Plants are the easy ones to name.” The rest of it didn’t have patterns he’d been able to figure out reliably. A tone of voice, sometime, the way a sound echoed in a larger room, the patterns of a form or a set of notes. People speaking in multiple languages all at once, the way they had different rhythms. It wasn’t the same thing all the time. Sometimes everything was fine. Some days it wasn’t.

“Glad to help, then. And it’s no bother.” Warren shrugged. “The cider’s excellent. I remembered that from when I was last here.”

Now that presented a different puzzle: whether he was referencing the cider specifically, the way people in the know about this place did. Or whether, as might be equally likely, he just liked cider. Matthew certainly couldn’t figure out how to ask. He sat there for a moment, then there was a movement, just at the edge of his attention. Warren was immediately at attention, not with formality, but like a cat who’d spotted something that might need to be pounced upon.

Then there was a voice, a comfortable sound. “Matthew, just wanted to say hello.” That was someone Treeve had introduced him to a couple of weeks ago. Warren obviously evaluated the situation, sticking around for a minute or three of conversation, then made his excuses.

“I might have a question for you in a day or two, something about my other work. Mind if I stop by?” Warren made it sound ordinary, and that certainly wasn’t. Matthew shook his head. Right now, his wits were spinning. He’d rather try to manage an ordinary conversation with what was his name, Horace. He could do that as he was now, rather than all the unexpected things Warren kept doing.

Warren took his leave, stopping by the bar for a quick word with York before passing over a couple of coins, certainly enough to cover the meal so far. Then he slipped out between a couple of sets of people coming in, disappearing out the door with no hint of trouble.

Chapter 11

Thursday, March 9th

Claudio made his way along the twists of the Ministry Quarter with a certain amount of wariness. Lawson’s office was in the building up on the right. Wednesday had persisted in producing minor emergencies, though at least in sequence rather than all at once. He’d been in London, Yorkshire, and Devon before he’d finally got home at nearly midnight last night. He’d missed supper with Tiberius, the one night they could be certain Mother would be occupied. He’d hated that, though his son had said he understood.

Today, Claudio had spent six hours locked in a room with three other Penelopes trying to untangle a particular ritual working that had gone awry in entirely unbelievable ways. They’d at least got it stable enough that all of them could take a break and come back to it fresh tomorrow. He’d immediately wanted to check on Lawson. And needed to, because if he didn’t, the Tuesday meeting was going to be awkward, maybe in a way impossible to solve. None of the other Penelopes wanted to take it on. Lawson giving it up would be a mark against him. It wasn’t Lawson’s fault, so that wasn’t an option.

The man had worried him on Tuesday. Claudio had only melted away when it was clear that the man who’d come up while they were in the pub had visibly known Lawson much better. Called him by his first name, for one thing. Asking to stick around would have made it awkward. York, the publican, had been keeping an eye out, too, and he’d made it quietly clear Lawson was a regular. Lawson had been among friends, and Claudio hadn’t been needed. So he’d gone without a fuss.

Most people wouldn’t have stepped in, or not like that. Near enough every single man and woman in Britain, as well as Albion, and no fair percent of the children would have left, kindly, but not extended themselves. No one knew how to deal with those places where the mind froze and the heart cracked, and everything went dim and dark and hopeless.

But Claudio couldn’t. He remembered what it had been like, the day that Orion had checked on him, had given him that stone. How Orion had just been present and there, back when Claudio was fifteen in the aftermath of someone trying to abduct him. That was when he counted their friendship from, the hand there, unwavering. A door had opened, and that one had never closed.

He’d made the same offer many times since, though none of them had ended in a closer friendship. Up in Scotland, in the first years of the war, he’d watched three of his colleagues smack into something that shattered their psyches. He’d been the only one to hear the sounds through un-insulated and insufficiently charmed walls, and go to bring a mug of hot weak tea, and just sit. Two of them had been invalided out. The third had come back, and it had continued to be painfully awkward. He didn’t regret turning up and being there, though.

Now, here he was again, knowing that he needed to make what had happened acceptable. That he didn’t think less of Lawson for seeing the cracks and the scars of whatever it was he’d been dealing with. He had to make it normal. Well, as normal as he could manage.

He glanced down at his hands and realised they were splattered with a rainbow of colours. He’d had gloves on for some of the work and taken his jacket off, but the splatters had dusted his cuffs, blues and greens and purples and reds. No matter. He didn’t have time to run home and change, though he’d swap shirts in his office before his four o’clock meeting.