Chapter 1255: A Courtesy

The lecture let out into the main corridor, where the Magicians’ branch and the Martial branch crossed. Students streamed past the stone pillars on both sides. Selphine and Aurelian had another hall that hour, so Elara came out alone, with eleven minutes before her next class and a seat she meant to get early.

"Lady Elowyn."

He stood out of the crowd, one shoulder near the third pillar, with a slate case under his arm. It had the Magicians’ Block mark on it, the same as hers. Pale ash-brown hair brushed back, gray-green eyes, a uniform pressed so sharp she could see the work in it. Different halls, same Block. She had read his name on the roll once and hadn’t thought about it since.

"Lord Gervase." She gave him the nod a marquis’s son was owed. "I didn’t know your lectures were on this side."

"They aren’t, as a rule." He smiled, small and polite. "I’ve been hoping to catch you between halls for a day or two. It seemed kinder than sending a note."

"That’s thoughtful." It wasn’t an answer, and she knew it. Just then, as she stepped aside to pass him, he moved with her, half a pace, no more. "I’m sorry, I have a lecture across the-"

"Two minutes."

The pillar was suddenly at her other shoulder. He wasn’t touching her sleeve, and he wasn’t looking at it either.

"Then we may walk," Elara said. "It’s a long corridor."

"I’d rather not say it in a corridor." His voice had dropped and gone soft, the way people talk at a sickbed. "It’s about your retainer, Reilan. And what happened in the yard."

Elara took a moment too long to answer. "I see."

She felt the corridor change before she looked. The crowd around the pillar had thinned by a hand’s width, then another. Two second-years stopped at the next pillar to compare timetables they had clearly memorized, and a boy by the notice board had started reading the same notice for the third time.

If he had raised his voice, she could have walked away from a scene. He had given her nothing to walk away from. A marquis’s son asked quietly for two minutes, and if she left, she would be the one everyone remembered.

’He chose quiet.’

And Cedric’s name was already out, said once in a corridor full of listeners.

"Two minutes," she said. "I am sure you do not mind my caution?"

"Ahaha... I do not."

"Then we can move."

"Thank you, Lady Elowyn." He pointed toward the window bay past the pillars with a flat hand, not close enough to touch her.

She went. Behind them the corridor picked its noise back up, a little louder than before.

The window bay was a shallow alcove with a deep sill, looking down on the inner courtyard. Out here the noise of the corridor dropped to a hum. Gervase stopped an arm’s length away and leaned back against the glass, leaving her the open side. Elara noticed that, and noticed that he had chosen the spot.

"First, a smaller thing," he said. "Did Lady Sabine Ormont’s invitation reach you?"

Of all the openings she had braced for, that wasn’t one. "It did."

"Good. I wondered. Sabine can be careless about who carries her letters." He said it lightly, almost to himself. "I took the liberty of putting your name to her. An evening among the territorial houses seemed like it might suit a house new to the capital. They’re a more honest crowd than the Rotunda."

He wasn’t hiding it. The note had carried his name in its first line, and now he said it again, pleasantly, in case she had missed it.

"I did get it," Elara said. "I haven’t answered yet."

"No, I imagined not. These things take thought." He turned the slate case a quarter turn under his arm. "Then in that case, perhaps-"

"Lord Gervase."

He stopped.

"I’m sorry. That felt sudden." She kept her voice low. "We were talking about Reilan, and now it’s an invitation. It feels a bit forced, honestly. I think you can see that."

For a moment he said nothing. The smile stayed in place, but one finger curled against the slate case and then straightened again.

"Hm," he said.

"I’m not offended." It was true, mostly. "I’d just like to know what we’re actually talking about."

"That’s fair." He let out a short breath through his nose. "I thought one kindness might make the other easier to hear."

"It doesn’t."

"No." He looked down at the courtyard, then back at her. "I should have started with the yard."

A group of first-years went past the mouth of the bay, slowing at the sight of the two of them and then, a few steps on, not slowing. Gervase waited until they were gone.

"Then the yard," he said. "I think it can still be answered. Properly."

"Kaireth Vaulden." He said the name without any weight on it. "I understand he’s the one who spoke. Of the versions going around, it’s the name most people agree on."

It was the name Cedric had given her yesterday, and she took nothing from Gervase having it. A name that had gone around the Martial sector for two days would reach a magician sooner or later.

"Go on."

"His house is a borderland one. Old, proud, not rich in friends. I have some acquaintance with the people around him. What I have in mind is a formal apology. To you, with witnesses, said the way it should have been said at the time. Not a note. Something people can point to and say it happened."

"To me," Elara said.

"To you. Right now the yard is being told as a fight, Lady Elowyn. Your retainer drew on a man, and nobody can say why he stopped. That’s an awkward story to leave lying about, and it’s the one that will stick, because it’s the only one with a sword in it." He glanced down at the courtyard. "A proper apology changes what it’s about. It becomes a man who said something he shouldn’t have and was made to take it back, and a retainer who-"

He stopped and smoothed it over. "Who was provoked, and is seen to have been."

"Has he agreed?"

"Not yet." He said it without hesitation, like a man who wouldn’t lie about something small. "I’ve only had since yesterday, and I wouldn’t insult you by calling it arranged. I can ask. I believe he’d say yes. He’s had a couple of days to hear himself, and I’m told that helps."

"You’d ask him."

"Through people who know him. Yes."

Elara looked past him at the courtyard, where a girl was dragging a satchel across the stones and a boy was laughing at her for it. She went over the offer, looking for the place it would slip. A witnessed apology would do for Cedric what no chalk line and no slate entry could. It would put the story back on the word it began with, and it would save him a month of being asked.

She looked for what was wrong with it and, for the moment, found nothing.

It would help Cedric. She couldn’t pretend otherwise, and she found she didn’t want to try.

But she could see where it led. An apology arranged by a Warenne, spoken to Elowyn Caerlin in front of the Block. By the end of the week the story would be told with his name in it, and in the telling she would be the lady he had stepped in for. Salon beggar. Yesterday she had asked what she was supposed to have borrowed. Here it was, held out to her with good manners.

There was one more thing, further back. Cedric had blamed this man’s timing for the verification. She had no proof he was right and none that he was wrong, and she kept both facts behind her teeth.

"It’s a generous idea," she said. "I mean that." Then, more carefully: "It’s just- the word they used. Do you know what it means, in the capital?"

"I do."

"It’s about borrowing. Standing you haven’t earned, someone else’s chair at someone else’s table." She was looking at the courtyard again. "And the answer would come from you. I’d be borrowing from you to answer a word for borrowing. That’s all. It’s an odd thing to put my name to."

Gervase was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, it was softly, as it had been in the corridor.

"It wouldn’t be borrowing. A person who vouches for a lady isn’t lending her anything, Lady Elowyn. He’s saying what’s already true, in front of people who needed to hear it." He turned a little toward her. "No one will call you that again. Not where I can hear it, and not where I can’t, once it’s known I’ve stood beside you. I’ll see to it."

He meant it. That was the difficulty. He wasn’t making a bargain, only describing how he thought the world should work, kindly, and leaving her no room in it to say no. Refusing meant leaving the word out in the corridors with Cedric’s name beside it.

"Thank you," Elara said. "For thinking of it." She held his eyes. "But it isn’t only mine to answer. Reilan’s name is on that yard as much as mine. I’d want to speak to him first."

"Of course. Please do." If it bothered him, it showed only in one finger on the slate case, and then not even there.

"I’ll let you know."

"Good." He pushed off the glass, easy, and tucked the case straight under his arm. "And Sabine’s note, whenever you have a moment for it. No hurry on that. She doesn’t close a list early."

He inclined his head and went back toward the corridor. Elara stayed a moment by the window. The invitation was still unanswered.