Hope and the Patient Man Read online

  “Oh, please do call me Rosie,” she said earnestly.

  “Well,” said Gizmo, not taking up the invitation, “what… that is to say, had you thought about what it is you propose to do for us?”

  “Well,” she said, doubt in her eyes, “I could… assist? With things?”

  A silence ensued.

  “Let me explain the setup here,” said Hope. “Over on this side, in the manufactory, we have Mister Gizmo, who’s in charge. Mister Wheel is the senior planner, as I said, and his department figures out how to make the things we come up with. Mister Lathe is the production foreman, and his people put those plans into action to produce prototypes and report on any problems, and we solve those, and eventually we know just how to set up a manufactory to make whatever it is, so we send out our setup team, and they do that. Mister Grease is the maintenance foreman and keeps everything running, and Mister Wheel doubles up running the stores where we bring in parts and raw materials and ship out prototypes for testing. Over the other side, it’s me and Dignified, and Bucket to look after the practicalities, because frankly when we’re working we tend not to notice that it’s dark outside and we’re hungry.

  “There’s fierce competition among the gnomes to get in to work in the manufactory. It’s very prestigious. We never have to look for anyone to fill a vacancy; not many people leave, and we have a waiting list of highly qualified gnomes who want to work here. How’s your Dwarvish, by the way?”

  “I believe it’s adequate for most purposes,” said Industry, in that language. Hope glanced at Gizmo, who nodded, confirming her sense that the tall woman’s accent was passable. Hope’s own grasp of Dwarvish as spoken by gnomes had deepened considerably in the several seasons that she’d been working at the manufactory, and she doubted that many other humans spoke it nearly as well.

  “And how much do you know about gnome culture?”

  “Oh, ah, only what everyone knows, I suppose. Or everyone who’s interested in technology, anyway.”

  “Then you know that only male gnomes work with ‘hard’ materials?”

  “Well, I had heard that, but I thought…”

  “I get a pass because I’m an energy mage, and that’s, apparently, women’s work, but if you want to work with machinery there’s no cultural precedent for it. Now, I know that to us, brought up in the elven tradition in which gender isn’t a factor for who can do what job, that seems strange, but we’re talking about an equally long-standing and equally powerful tradition that can’t just be set aside overnight. Even if there was an open position here, and even if it wasn’t already promised to a gnome, who has more background for it.”

  “But couldn’t I work with you? Over in the lab?”

  Hope sighed, and fiddled with her headache amulets, which seemed to have stopped working.

  “You’ve met Dignified.”

  “Yes. He seemed nice.”

  Hope blinked for a second at this description, but pressed on. “How much of his explanation did you follow?”

  “Well, quite a bit. At first. I mean… some.”

  “The work is very demanding,” said Hope. “It’s not a normal workday. Dignified doesn’t sleep much, and I fit in with him as best I can.”

  “I’m not afraid of hard work,” said Industry, squaring her shoulders. “My family have all worked hard to get where we are. We didn’t just inherit our money, you know. Well, I did,” she admitted, “or not inherit exactly, since my parents are still very much alive, but I did get it from them. Initially. But I can work hard too! I’ve built up my capital, and I’ve educated myself…”

  “What do your parents work at?” asked Gizmo.

  “They own manufactories,” said Industry. “They won’t let me work in them,” she added, before Hope could open her mouth. “They want me to stay on the financial side, which I’m good at, but I want to invent things.” She almost wailed the last part of the sentence.

  “I’ll talk to Dignified about it,” said Hope. “That’s all I can promise. All right?” She believed she knew what the outcome of that would be. Dignified didn’t take well to change, as a general thing.

  Hope ushered the young woman out, accepting her card and promising to send a message as soon as a decision was made. She debated not even asking Dignified at all, just writing a “no, thank you” letter, but her basic honesty overcame her.

  She re-entered the lab and went in search of her boss.

  Bucket directed her to the imaging corner, where he was fiddling with a plate.

  “Dignified,” she said, “do you remember that woman who was here earlier?” With Dignified, it was as well to check.

  “Rosie,” he said, startling her so much she caught herself against a nearby workbench to keep herself from falling. Not only had he remembered a person, but he’d remembered her name. Her byname. She eased onto a stool.

  “That’s right. She says she wants to work with us.”

  “Good,” he said. “I liked her.” He turned back to his work, and after a moment or two in which she stared at the back of his neck (he needed a haircut, and she made a note to herself to tell Bucket), she stood up and left the lab.

  Apparently they had a colleague. How vexing.

  Chapter Three: Amiable's Offer

  Hope was still in the cab on the way home when her farspeaker began to click. She took it out of her bag and spoke her name into it.

  “Ah, Hope,” said the kindly voice of Master-Mage Amiable, head of the magic school at the University of Illene. “Am I interrupting work?”

  “No, just in a cab on the way home.”

  “Nothing wrong, I hope?” It was the middle of the afternoon, not the usual time for homegoing.

  “Had a little fall. No permanent damage, but I’m supposed to rest,” she said.

  “Oh, dear. Well, I’d meant to ask you if you could meet me after work, but if you’re not well…”

  “Meetings are fine,” she said. “Just no real work. I can divert the cab and come now, if you like.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course.” She put her head out the window and called up to the cab driver. She would usually have amplified her voice with magic, but, obedient to the healer’s instructions, she shouted instead. “Change of plan. Head for the University Magic School.”

  The cabbie nodded, and turned her horse at the next intersection.

  “What’s it about, Master-Mage?” asked Hope.

  “I’ll tell you when you get here,” he said.

  “All right. See you very soon.”

  The memories flooded in as she entered the Master-Mage’s book-lined office, scene of both triumph and disaster for her. He had called her there to tell her that the Realmgold had asked for her to work with Dignified, but before that she had been disciplined there for cursing her unfaithful lover with impotence in a rage-filled moment. Her own… problems with physical desire stemmed from that unfortunate incident, complicating what might otherwise be a very satisfactory relationship with Patient.

  Not only the Master-Mage, but a dignified older woman also wearing the broad wrist-cuff of a High Mage sat behind her old teacher’s desk. Amiable introduced his colleague as Honesty of Heatherbrook, a name Hope recognised immediately. “The chair of the Council of Mages,” she said.

  “That’s right,” said Honesty, with a professional smile, and pressed palms with Hope.

  “Take a seat,” said the Master-Mage. “Are you sure you’re all right? You have a nasty bruise.”

  “Yes, the healer’s taken care of it,” she said. “Nothing to worry about, I just have to take it quietly for a couple of days. What was it you wanted to see me about?”

  “Well,” he said, “I’ve been watching your career with interest.”

  He proceeded to give an outline of everything she’d accomplished, which was, of course, not news to her, nor, by her expression, to High Mage Honesty. Years of lecturing and writing academic papers had made Amiable, for all his excellent qualities, long-winde
d. She waited as patiently as she could, given her headache, for him to get to the point.

  “And so,” Honesty finally interrupted, “we would like to talk to you about your advancement to Senior Mage.”

  Hope, who had been mentally drifting, snapped into focus. “What?” she said. “I mean, um, thank you?” Meanwhile, excitement was rising in her belly, and mentally she was repeating: yes yes yes yes yes. That would show Mother.

  “It is unusual,” went on the High Mage, “to advance one so young.”

  Hope nodded and tried a shy smile, while forcibly restraining her feet from dancing.

  “However, given the excellence of your results, and the value to the magical community of the techniques you are involved in pioneering, we feel — that is, the Council feels — that we would be prepared to consider an application, provided that you undertake to convey to those who are interested the methods you are using.”

  “Convey…?”

  “We thought a lecture series,” said the Master-Mage. “Not a regular class, something open to students, professors and graduates alike. And a book.”

  “Some articles,” said Honesty. “And then a book. I edit Magical Research.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Hope. “And I will start that article soon, I promise.”

  “Article series,” said Honesty. “You can use most of the same material in the articles and the lectures, and do them in either order. Some people write the articles, then do the lectures and hold interactive seminars, and having developed and refined their ideas turn them into a book.”

  Hope pulled her lips between her teeth and bit down on them gently, as an aid to thought.

  “I’m not really very good at teaching,” she said, remembering a classroom session she had taken a turn at leading. Nobody had even listened to her.

  “It’s never stopped anyone else,” muttered Honesty.

  “Really, Mage Hope,” said the Master-Mage, “we would like to disseminate this knowledge more widely.” Since he was excused by protocol from using her title, the fact that he did so had to mean something, probably that he was reminding her of her responsibilities. “I’m starting a new Research Institute, did you know?”

  “I didn’t,” she admitted.

  “Incorporating the library of recovered Elvish texts which your youthful discovery made possible,” he smiled. He was referring to her semi-accidental uncovering of invisible writing on some old Elvish books, recording spells that the old Empire elves didn’t want their human slaves to know about. It had won her a scholarship. “It turns out that among the newly freed gnomes are a number who have preserved ancient knowledge of lifemagic, in a completely separate tradition from our own. They also have some very interesting things to tell us about matter magic and making new materials. And the beastheads, those people from the northeast, their oral tradition also records very old spells going back to the Empire, ones that we’ve lost, or perhaps never had. We’re going to put it all together and see what sense we can make of it, but your colleague’s mathematical approach is just the kind of thing we need to make it a proper study, not a patchwork of bits and pieces.”

  “Well, we’ve made limited progress in applying it to lifemagic and mindmagic,” she protested. “It’s mostly the energy applications we’ve been working with…”

  “Now, now, you took the design of my brain research machine and brought it back a quarter of the size and twice as good,” he said, his eyes sparkling in their wrinkled sockets. “No false modesty, please. And besides, I know you’re not a full mage in lifemagic and mindmagic.” Hope frowned. The reason she had never progressed beyond Mage-Minor in those disciplines was that Amiable had forbidden her from doing so after she cursed her lover. She had very nearly been expelled. He went on, “We need to get these methods in the hands of people who are full lifemages and mindmages, so they can start to make the progress you’re making. I’ve agreed with the Realmgold, in fact, that we will take you into the Institute, if you’re willing, though of course you’ll still be available to the Clever Man’s Works as a consultant.”

  “Please do think about it very seriously,” said Honesty.

  “I’ll… I’ll do that. Thank you,” said Hope. “Excuse me, my head has been hurting on and off, and I can’t concentrate for long. I’ll have to go now, but I’ll let you know my decision by the end of the shift-round.”

  “Please do,” said Honesty. The two older mages rose and saw her out, the Master-Mage insisting on working a small headache relief spell before she went. She found another cab and headed home. As soon as she was in the cab and didn’t have to push herself, her energy drained out of her like a broken pot.

  Briar hummed cheerfully as she entered the flat she shared with Hope. She dropped her lawyer’s satchel by the door and began to replace the wilted flowers in the vase she kept in the middle of the table with those she had bought on the way home. She danced a couple of steps. The partners had called her in yet again to congratulate her on the work she was doing, and she felt like a box of light.

  Still humming, she barely heard a croaking noise from elsewhere in the flat. It sounded like her name being pronounced by a distant raven.

  She crossed to Hope’s bedroom door and peered in. “Hope? Are you there?” she said.

  A body stirred in the bed, and Briar entered, to find her flatmate lying with a damp cloth over her forehead.

  “Darling, what happened?” asked Briar, hurrying to her bedside.

  “Curse backlash,” said Hope faintly. “Then fell and hit my head.”

  “Oh, no!” said Briar. “When was this?”

  “Night before last. Where were you yesterday?”

  “Gnome Advancement League meeting with Bucket. Remember?” Hope shook her head, and winced.

  “Is there anything I can do? Can I get you anything?” said Briar.

  “Glass of water would be wonderful. Don’t turn on the light.” Briar’s hand had gone automatically towards the bedside lamp.

  “Sorry. Back in a moment.”

  When she returned, she noticed the book beside the bed. “You’re reading Mistress Audacity?” she said, surprised and amused.

  It was hard to tell, in the darkened bedroom, but she thought her friend turned her head away in embarrassment. “All I can manage, the way I feel. Thanks,” she said, taking the water and sipping.

  “About time you expanded your reading beyond technical reports. Have you seen a healer?”

  “Yes, Patient took me to the healing house down in Gulfport. How’s the bruise look?”

  “Terrible,” said Briar, with her usual frankness. “Like someone took a club to you. Shouldn’t you see someone here?”

  “I suppose,” said her friend with a sigh. “I haven’t felt up to it, though. And what energy I did have I’ve used up on…” She trailed off.

  “On what?”

  “Oh, a woman wants to work for us at the lab. Rich girl. One of the investors. You remember the one with the glasses and the little round hat, asked that question about power loss?”

  “I don’t remember the question, but I think I remember the woman. Late twenties, mad hair?”

  “That’s her. Her granny was an inventor, and she wants to follow in the grand-maternal tradition. Dignified likes her, oddly enough, so I have to write to her and say yes, much against my better judgement.”

  “Dignified likes her? I didn’t know he liked people. No, that’s harsh, I’m sorry.” Briar felt ashamed of herself. She pitied the skinny inventor for his lack of social skills, but he was a harmless little man, good-hearted. Hope had told her that he refused to invent weapons because his uncle, a revolutionary in the much-resented reign of the previous Realmgold, had killed himself and Dignified’s father with poorly-judged explosives.

  “He likes people, he just doesn’t know how to talk to them,” said Hope. “And then the Master-Mage wanted to see me.”

  “What for?”

  “Oh, the Council of Mages want me to teach Dignified
’s mathematical methods, and write them up in a book.”

  “Sounds… time-consuming.”

  “Yes. The worm on the hook is that they’ll make me a Senior Mage. Or consider it, anyway. I suppose I’ll have to go through the whole you-cursed-your-lover, why-should-we-trust-you thing again.”

  “Senior Mage at your age? That’s outstanding, Hope!” Briar glowed with pride in her friend.

  “It is. It’s amazing. I just wish I felt well enough to appreciate it properly.”

  “You could be Master-Mage when we’re old together.”

  “No I couldn’t. I’m no good at teaching.”

  “Hope, you’re the most intelligent person I know. Well, except Dignified. You’re the most intelligent person I know who’s capable of an everyday conversation. Teaching is a skill. You can learn it, if anyone can.” Briar leaned forward, giving Hope her most earnest courtroom delivery.

  “I suppose. It’s a bit hard to be enthusiastic when my head feels like this.”

  “Amulets not working?”

  “Not very well, no.”

  Briar frowned. She didn’t put her hands on her hips, but it was a close thing.

  “Hope at Merrybourne,” she said, “you are going to put on some clothes, and we are going down the street to the healer. Now.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Hope, and hauled herself out of bed. The lack of argument confirmed, for Briar, that she was not herself at all.

  “So… night before last?” Briar said, as they descended the stairs from their upstairs flat. “This happened on your big night out with Patient?”

  Hope sighed. “Yes, and he’s upset because when he tried to catch me his leg gave way. Never mind that he took excellent care of me the whole rest of the night. He even drove us back here on the airhorse.”

  “He drove the airhorse? He hates that thing.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t let him get away,” said Briar. “You should oathbind that man at the earliest opportunity.”

  “I’d oathbind him tomorrow if it wasn’t for this curse,” said Hope.