Eagles and Swans
Chapter 16: Clear as Glass
Come Thursday morning, Ruthenia scrambled out of the bathing room and down the stairs in a chorus of creaks, laundry under arm, towel over shoulder. Throwing her burden into the laundry basket, she picked up the lone cinnamon bun from the basket on the dining table and flung the door open, munching on the confection. That was all that she had the time for this morning.
Out on her patio, she leapt into her umbrella and crossed her legs, watching as Beacon Way and its string of houses shrank from view. Under her, the ploughs were hard at work, engines chugging, great billows of steam blowing past.
The city proper emerged at the end of hut-speckled farmland, and with it the first scattering of fliers, hurrying about their business. The traffic thickened, the city's approach portended by the roar of noise. She peered over the edge of the umbrella as Helika Plaza slipped into view from beyond a flock of buildings. Laid down in the heart of the historic city's ground half, it was a square patchwork of milling pedestrians, enclosed on three sides by rows of shops, among them some of the oldest and best eateries in the country. It was here, in the cafe known as the Liminal, that the famous Astran toast had first been perfected.
From above, Ruthenia searched for an opening, tumbling through birds and equines to land. In a practised swing, she leapt from her umbrella and snatched its crook, snapping it shut above her head. The aroma of toast wafted through the crowds as she swung it under her arm.
From here, she caught sight of a granite wing over the heads of the crowd and began towards it, elbowing haughty pedestrians aside. She heard the whinnies and flutters of equines and birds in her periphery, and was brushed by wingtips.
Ruthenia squinted about for the Arcane Prince, almost tripping when she arrived at the central monument. The head of a thousand-year-old granite swan stared down at her, its huge head bowing towards the pool with a jet of water spurting out into the dish below.
She was beginning to ponder the likelihood of it being a religious sculpture, when a burst of exclamations intruded on her awareness. “Oh, it really is him!” cried a pedestrian, and another, a child, answered, “Whoa, he's a real person!”
Even as she turned, a trail of pedestrians surged apart in a spate of shock. From their midst burst the quarry of her search, with his equine in tow and a frown furrowing his brow. He was dressed for the outing in a white shirt, a black waistcoat, and hair tied loosely in a ribbon. “Ruthenia, we should go,” he muttered. “Lantern District.” At a white burst of light, his horse whinnied and bucked, only just kept from bolting by a scrub of his neck. “Benedice, easy. Who brings a camera to the Square?”
They hastened away through gaping onlookers, bowling pedestrians to the sides. Once they had strong-armed their ways through the wall of humans and birds onto an empty pavement, Aleigh leapt onto Benedice’s stirrup and flicked the reins. Ruthenia unhooked her umbrella from her elbow and unexpectedly managed to suspend it in seconds, leaping on and lurching into the sky to chase her guide.
Their flight veered northwest, towards the characteristic “Hourglasses” of the Lantern District—paired conical terraces of units that met at the tips in the middle. Aleigh was flying much faster than Ruthenia ever did. Yanking on the Threads, she accelerated just to stay on his tail. Fields and houses blurred to streaks and the wind began to dry her eyes, but she closed them and laughed with exhilaration.
The fields ended, and the roar of Swan’s Cross Station loudened: the chug of steam carriages rumbling down the tracks, the hum and hiss of soot-black chimneys. Slowing to a manoeuvrable pace, they swooped between the first pair of hourglasses. “Here,” called her companion, as Benedice glided low and made a braking loop around the lower terrace, coming to land on a boardwalk that was also the roof of a shop.
Ruthenia braked too late, and swerved past the block, around the next one, and then back to the pathway. She came in too low, and her feet skidded across the ground in a stumbling run that ended in her colliding with a weight-bearing pillar.
“You're eager to arrive,” Aleigh said, offering her an arm for assistance that she ignored.
“You were the one flying like a maniac,” she answered. On balconies and platforms above and below, the heads of passers-by and shopkeepers poked out to stare, some waving or pointing at the Arcane Prince.
“We should find Rae Threaders,” he snapped, already marching off.
She scrambled after him. “I don't know why this surprises me.”
“It surprises me every day.”
A minute’s walking round the rooftop in the blazing sun took them in front of the facade of a glassy store that glittered like a large diamond in the side of the block. The inside scintillated, like a jewel box, or Talia's clock, glassy and bright, and utterly empty. Glowing spheres hung in the air with no visible filaments inside. Empty jars stood behind empty bulbs, entire displays lined with such receptacles of every conceivable size, some with metal rods inside, kinked on both ends. over the door, in letters hammered into bronze, was the shop name: Rae Threaders.
Aleigh held the door for her as they entered. Leaving the heat behind and entering the glittering, woody interior, she took to gaping at the vessels around them. Her companion had already arrived at the counter by the time she managed to pull her eyes away. From here she heard the muffled sounds of milling or planing, a whir of machinery out of sight.
“Good afternoon, Nira,” Aleigh called out. “How goes business this morning?”
Behind the polished countertop, a girl, barely twelve, dark-skinned—darker than Ruthenia—and lanky with black locks, beamed up at her visitor. “It's been good, Your Highness,” she answered with a nod.
“Is Mister Rae here to receive us?” he asked.
Nira nodded and knocked thrice on the door behind her. “Pa!” she shouted through it.
“Yes, dear, tell them I won't be a minute,” answered a low voice through the crack.
“Can't you come faster? It's the prince!”
“Which one?”
Nira cast a glance back, then shouted, “The Arcane King's brother! And there's a lady with him, with nice red hair.”
Ruthenia felt herself flush. “My hair is completely unremarkable!” she retorted.
At last, the door creaked open, and a tall man emerged from the backroom, with the same dark skin and bright eyes as his daughter. To the Arcane Prince he made a bow with both hands clasped. “Good morning to you, Your Highness—what a surprise to see you today.” Then his gaze came to rest upon Ruthenia. “And to you, miss. Pleasure to meet you!”
“Mister Rae, good morning. Miss Cendina is the one seeking your service; I am only here to introduce you,” Aleigh said. “She is working with an establishment of great repute, the Calied Company.”
She squinted. How does he know that?
Now Mr Rae turned to her and said, “A representative of the Calied Company! What an honour, Miss Cendina, well met.”
“Thank you, and just Ruthenia is fine,” she said.
“So, Ruthenia, how can I help you today?”
“My boss is looking to get some spooled Thread, presumably for one of his upcoming inventions.”
He nodded with an easy smile. "Certainly! What length of Thread would you like?"
“How about as much as you can fit on your biggest spool?” Ruthenia said, gesturing out an arbitrarily large length with her hands. “I have no clue how much he wants, but you should give me as much as you can because he can probably use it.”
“We do make spools of up to thirty feet. Would you like that much?”
Ruthenia hadn't any clue what difference it made, whether Thread was ten feet long or thirty. “Thirty sounds good.”
“Oh, could I prepare the Thread? Please?” exclaimed Nira then, whirling to face her father.
With a full-throated laugh, Mr. Rae nodded. “Of course,” he answered, ruffling her hair. “As long as you don't drop it.”
“I won't!”
In a whirl of black hair, the girl pushed the back door open and slipped away.
“The Thread takes about half an hour to be prepared to the length you have requested,” Mr Rae resumed, “Would you like to return in half an hour, or wait here?”
“I’ll hardly take fifteen minutes!” shouted Nira from the room.
Ruthenia laughed. “We can wait,” she said. When Mr. Rae pointed them to the wood-beamed bench amongst the cabinets, she strolled over, gaze captured again by the enormous catalogue of jars in the room. As she sat, she began to understand that the jars with rods must already contain spooled Thread: their lids were sealed with wax.
Aleigh followed her to the bench, but did not sit until she patted the seat beside her, and even then seemed a little indignant. Ruthenia listened idly to the soft clatter of machinery in the backroom behind the counter, and to the click of the door as the father followed his daughter inside.
“This place feels way too fancy,” she said. “Imagine if I tripped and fell and knocked a couple of jars from the shelves.”
“I hope you are not so clumsy as to do that,” he answered.
“Oh, come on. As if the cost of the damages wouldn't be trivial to you.”
He frowned. “The cost would be far more than monetary.”
Ruthenia sighed. “Fair, fair. I appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to help me out.”
At last, he turned to meet her eye. “It is no trouble. I was unoccupied this morning.”
“What would you be doing if you weren't here?”
“Studying, riding across the palace complex, or reading.”
“That’s…so…boring.”
“Why, thank you, Ruthenia.”
“Don't you get to do whatever you like whenever you like?”
“Most definitely not.” He glanced out the shop display, at the balcony railing. “Outside of classes, all my appointments are registered and reviewed a day in advance.”
“Really? No secret parties? No sneaking off after midnight?”
Aleigh eyed her oddly. “No. Even if I enjoyed the prospect of those things, which I do not, my brother would never approve.”
Ruthenia grimaced. “You mean to say he knows you’re here right now?”
“He does,” he replied. “I referred to it as a ‘business negotiation’ at Rae Threader's.”
“Well, this is just ridiculous.”
Aleigh shrugged. “Aligon has warned me amply of the exorbitant ransoms that criminals could post if they were to abduct me,” he replied. “But I'm sure my brother would sooner let me die than cough up a ransom. If he really did fear for my life, then he'd never let me leave the palace without a detail of bodyguards.” He smiled bitterly. “Instead, I surmise that these reviews are simple a tool of control. Because he's addicted to it. Control over the lives of others.”
“Eugh. And I thought he was disingenuous to the public.”
He nodded. “Makes a good Arcane King, don't you think?”
“It's almost as if being a conniving bastard is part of the job description.” She paused. “Are you actually allowed to say these things about him?”
Aleigh shook his head. “He doesn't care about my opinion. The greatest peril of holding these views is the press getting wind of them. But I trust you.”
Ruthenia sighed pointedly. “You know, when I was younger...living on the street...I used to take the news back to my gang and read them the headlines. Aligon was always so pompous. Took up so much space on the pages. Selling all these grand ideas to his people. I didn't realise he had a brother for months.”
“Some days, I wonder if even he remembers,” Aleigh muttered, then paused. “Ruthenia, I'm sorry for mocking your essay, the other week.”
Ruthenia snorted. “Nah, I deserved it. But apology accepted.”
From there, the conversation meandered comfortably on, into the subject of her typical day, which she could only relate with boredom, but somehow the chatter kept going until they were interrupted by the backroom door opening again.
“Excuse me, Mister Luzerno? And Ruthenia!” Nira’s voice brought both gazes in synchrony. “Your Thread is all ready for collection!”
Springing to her feet with a grin, Ruthenia untangled the strings of her money pouch from her belt and dashed to the counter, dumping all thirty argents on the countertop. While Nira scrambled to catch rolling coins, she thanked her profusely, as well as Mr. Rae as his head poked out from behind the door.
With both hands she picked up the lumpy package that he placed on the countertop, feeling the softness of more paper layers beneath the wrapping.
“See you again soon!” called Nira once she had finished counting the coins. “Please come back. I really like you!”
“If the boss needs more spooled Thread, I'll be here in a heartbeat!” Ruthenia laughed as they exited the shop amid a chorus of goodbyes. Aleigh was already waiting outside, untying Benedice from the baluster. Out on the deck outside, she stopped beside him, regarding the scenery, and inhaling the smoky aroma of incense from the tiers below.
“Thanks for your time,” Ruthenia said, sliding the bulbous package into her bag, which was only just large enough to envelope it. “Tanio hasn’t told me what he wants it for, but I’m sure you’ll hear about it soon.”
“I am glad to have been of assistance,” he replied with a small bow of his head.
“Do you want to get a drink somewhere?”
He looked oddly at her. “I wish I could, but I have a council meeting in fifteen minutes.”
“Oh. Of course you do. Well, safe flying!”
He mounted Benedice in the shade and spurred the equine with his heel. Then, kicking off the edge of the boardwalk, the beast launched into the air beyond the deck, wings unfurling on both sides.
Ruthenia stood in the shelter while he left, allowing the breeze to cool her for a minute or five.
*
Tanio was quite pleased to discover the enormous jar of spooled Thread sitting on the dining table. “You actually found it, you treasure!” he exclaimed, giving Ruthenia a hearty pat on the back.
Dinner was a disappointment by every measure. Tanio had apparently not bothered beyond popping a fish into the oven and drizzling the resulting burnt heap with oyster sauce. She spent the evening spitting bones onto the table and choking on the ones she did not manage to detect.
But her boss was not there for her to skewer with critiques; in fact, he was nowhere to be found for the entire evening following his brief greeting, not even when she had taken her shower.
Returning to the shed, Ruthenia observed, through her own window, that the man’s study window was once again the lone light across the bridge. That light did not go out even when she returned to her own hammock.