Page 54 of Brave Truth

“Oh, yes. Mind, I continue to like watching you. Even more now.” Matty flushed slightly, and Claudio wouldn’t press him about that.

After a moment, Matty went on. “It’s been rare I’ve been able to be comfortable with doing things. Leisurely. A lot of groping and up against a wall or bracing someone over a table, somewhere quick and private enough. No time to linger. That was dangerous. A bit of oil, nothing like what you made up. We’ll have to try the others, too. Proper testing.” Claudio snorted at that, because yes, they would.

Matty continued, softer now. “Nothing I could really trust. Let myself go. Always had to keep an eye out.” There was a little sour note in his voice. “But we’re private here, and— well. We’ve talked about the rest of it. Not much at all for a decade, and well.” He shrugged. “Not much of anything for a decade that wasn’t the war and after.”

Claudio nodded, then he said slowly, going back to the earlier topic of the similarity to Orion. “Mother noticed you at the Midsummer Faire. Well, first she thought you were Orion at a distance. When she came by. And then she realised you weren’t. I said you were a friend, you were chairing the Materia committee, all entirely ordinary. And it’s not like the pavilion wasn’t full up most of the afternoon.”

“I keep thinking back to how good that was. Your particular friends. People I like, just I only barely know a tiny bit about them yet. But also all the other people.” It had been a pleasant range of people Orion knew, that Claudio knew, that Hypatia knew, from their years at school and their various professional contacts, all amiable and cheerful and largely undemanding. “I’d— I hadn’t known I could have that.” Matty’s voice came out small there, and Claudio immediately reached out a hand, feeling Matty’s fingers in his a moment later.

“That feels fair, at least. You teach me all sorts of things we can do in bed and with walls and whatever other furniture appeals?” He made it a little teasing at the end, and Matty smiled, shy again. “And we can introduce you to people who’ll be pleasant to be around. Between the four of us, we know rather a lot of people. So you gesture vaguely at which sets you’re interested in and we’ll figure something out.” Claudio added after a moment. “And Duncan knows an entirely different set, but I’ll admit that mostly they want to talk about motors and aeroplanes and such.”

It got a proper laugh out of Matty, and Claudio filed that away. Whatever Matty had done earlier, some of it had been good, but some of it had left cracks and sore spots. Not a conversation for today, not more than this, that would be a difficult bit to untangle. If and when Matty was ready for it, they could pick it up again. Then Matty stood. “Let me tidy? Do you know how to dry dishes, with all your other skills? And then we can go back to bed.”

“Charm, dry dishtowel, or some other method?” Claudio asked. “Full Penelope. I probably know six ways to manage it, though usually it’s alchemy spills, not breakfast dishes.”

Matty laughed, and then they were there, shoulder to shoulder, tending to the small domestic needs before the more lusty ones.

Chapter 36

Thursday, July 13th, mid-afternoon

“Sorry for—” Claudio waved his hand, glancing around the Schola village square. “The disruption in your schedule. But I wanted to catch you before you went home tonight. Mind a walk up to the cottages? I want somewhere private, if there’s somewhere else you’d prefer.” Doing it here, near Tiberius’s apprenticeship made finding a quiet spot a little easier.

It wasn’t terribly busy, given that it was summer, but there were still plenty of people around. He was nervous about this in a dozen ways. He’d wanted to tell Tiberius when there wasn’t a rush, the sudden pressure. And then Orion and Gabe had written last night, and there wasn’t time for anything else.

Tiberius nodded, looking unsettled, before putting his hands behind his back. It made the tension settle in his shoulders. “Sure.” He coughed as if something had caught in his throat. “It’s not a problem. Something important?”

Claudio had to remember to play this as smoothly as he could. There wasn’t any good making more of a fuss than was absolutely necessary. He nodded, rather than trying to make words come out right, setting off on the road up towards the cottages. Once they were moving, it was easier to ask about the ordinary things. What Tiberius had been working on this week. Normally they’d have caught up last night, but since he’d been out in the field, they hadn’t had the chance.

Agates, apparently, were the answer. It was easy to ask questions about that, about what made them more challenging to cut and carve for talismans. Tiberius was comfortable talking about it. Agates were cheap enough for practice, but also built the skills he needed and wanted for the next set of things to learn. He’d been sketching out a design for carving. That was new to him.

No one in their family had ever particularly encouraged art. Not Father, not Mother. Minerva’s fondness for music was all right. She was a woman, and besides, it sometimes went well with Incantation. Art for the sake of art, carving for the sake of beauty, that wasn’t something Claudio could have dreamed of doing. Not that he was much of an artist, beyond the basics needed for field sketches.

That topic carried them along out of the village, up the path, and west toward the cottages. The school used them with the first years before they were placed into their Houses. And then for projects, when a little space was a good idea. Claudio had fond memories of several Friday nights spent in one cottage or another, letting off high spirits and not feeling so penned in. Once they were there, Claudio gestured at one of the benches by the long table nearest them. “Might want to sit?”

Tiberius sat. Claudio settled on the bench on the other side, hands under the table. “Look. There’s some gossip, and I wanted you to hear from me what it’s about, and what the truth of it is. Gabe and Orion passed it on from the meeting last night.”

“Is it gossip Grandmother knows?” That was Tiberius’s first question, the sensible one. His son was just as clever as needed.

“Oh, yes.” Claudio took a breath before just going on. “Um. There’s no good place to start this.” He knew he sounded uncertain. His Incantation training would have made it clear. He was uncertain. More than he had been in any other conversation in his life, maybe. “All right. Three parts. The gossip is about me, and about whether I’ve been seeing someone. Then the, shall we say, social implications of that someone. Finally, Mother’s reaction to it.”

“Three parts.” Tiberius echoed it. “Wait. Are you seeing someone?”

Claudio nodded slowly, then felt his mouth twitch. He really felt guilty that he hadn’t talked about it yet. He hadn’t wanted to hide it, but he hadn’t known what words made sense. “Yes. We’d not wanted to be public about it yet for several reasons.” He looked off into the distance, back toward Schola. “It’s still new, for one thing. There’s the Challenge. And there’s another piece.”

Tiberius folded his own hands on the table and just waited. When the silence kept going, he said pointedly, “If you drag it out, it’s just going to take longer to say.”

For a moment, it sounded entirely like Orion. Or maybe Cammie. Some mix of them both. Tiberius had a directness to him he certainly hadn’t got from Claudio or Mother or Electra. He didn’t let it out often, certainly not with most people. But here and now, he was, and that made Claudio hope this would not foul everything up forever.

Claudio managed a smile, but he was sure it was shaky. “I don’t know what you’re going to think of it. And that matters to me.” He held up fingers, then let his hand rest on the top of the table. “I’m going out to talk to your mother and sister tomorrow. Tonight involves a certain amount of strategy over supper.”

“Strategy?” Just the one word. Tiberius didn’t press further.

No way out but through. Claudio just went for it, like diving into the water. “The complication is that I’ve been seeing a man. Someone who works at the Ministry. Would you like to know more about him? Or shall I talk about how the gossip came out?” He heard his voice go crisp and tight at the end, and hated that, what Tiberius might assume from it.

In the end, all his son said was, “Both, please. I don’t think I know what I’d like to know yet.” That was its own bravery, and Claudio made a mental note to approve of it later. If they made it through this conversation still able to talk about that sort of thing.

Claudio managed a nod, but he was fumbling inside his head for what to say next. He’d rehearsed this in his head, as much as he could, but there’d only been a little time for that.