Of Noble Family by Mary Robinette Kowal
For my brother
Dr. Stephen K. Harrison
aka Apeface
Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody not greatly in fault themselves to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest.
—JANE AUSTEN, Mansfield Park
One
Cherubs and Monsters
The presence of an infant in any gathering offers all the substance for conversation one might require. In some instances, the child’s behaviour might occasion a desire to leave the room, but it will still provide something to discuss, even if it is only the infant’s volume of squalling. In other circumstances, the conversation might turn to which parent the child most resembles.
In the case of Jane’s new nephew, their current visitor, Herr Scholes, appeared content to make faces at the infant upon his knee. The celebrated glamourist widened his eyes, rounded his mouth into a circle, and made the most ridiculous noise. The whole of his expression was at odds with his reputation as one of the great glamourists of the ages.
Young Tom giggled in response and waved his plump fists. Even under a lace cap, the richness of the infant’s red curls was apparent.
“Oh, what a Rotschopf you are. Like one of Rubens’s Cherubinen, eh?”
At that, Tom’s gaze drifted from the elderly glamourist’s face, as if he were watching something that attracted him. Every infant Jane had known stared as Tom did, seeming to fix upon random patterns in the air. Yet, if one switched one’s vision to the ether, the object of the infant’s fascination would be clear. Loose strands of natural glamour floated in front of Tom.
Jane glanced across the room to where her husband, Sir David Vincent, sat by the window, with a faint smile warming his features as he watched Herr Scholes play with their nephew. During the four months they had been in residence in Vienna, Vincent had taken the opportunity to refresh his acquaintance with his old mentor, Herr Scholes. Their time in the city had led to a softening in Vincent, who seemed to have shed layers of disquiet. His blue coat of superfine hung to advantage on his broad shoulders. Once the strong line of Vincent’s jaw had seemed incapable of anything more than disdain. Now, he was captivated with Tom to the point of offering to watch the boy while Jane’s sister and her husband made calls. Truly, Jane thought that Vincent might even be pleased that Tom’s nanny had been taken with an ague.
“There.” Vincent sat forward as Tom snatched at the empty air in front of Herr Scholes. “He is reaching for the glamour.”
“Love, he simply has not yet learned to distinguish between the corporeal world and the ether.”
“But he is forward for his age, is he not? To reach at only two months?”
Jane laughed at her husband. “Melody was reaching for glamour threads at least this young. Likely sooner, though it is hard to tell before they begin to acquire some coordination.”
Herr Scholes wrinkled his nose at the little boy. “Lady Vincent, would you be so kind as to indulge us both with a little glamour? My hands are rather full.”
“Of course.”
When Jane had first met Herr Scholes, she had been too intimidated by his reputation to perform glamour in front of him without a great deal of persuasion. But he had been so generous with his attention that Jane soon lost her fear. Seeing him make faces at Melody’s baby only endeared him to her further.
She let her gaze shift to view the ether and pulled forth a fold of glamour, twisting the ray of light into a simple red ball, which she bounced between her hands. It took so little effort that her heart barely sped at all. Tom’s gaze followed the arc of the ball with lively curiosity. Jane bent the strands that created the illusory ball so that it came closer to the infant. He snatched at it as it swung by, frowning as his hand passed through it.
“Very good, my little man.” Herr Scholes nodded with mock seriousness. “Now. Will you keep the ball moving, but alter the threads so that it is not in the visible spectrum? Let us see if he reaches for it then.”
“Give me but a moment…” Jane let her own vision shift from the corporeal world into the second sight of the ether and loosened the strings of light that made up the red ball. She let them slacken into nether-red, the area of the spectrum below visible sight. In her own second sight, the strands of glamour glowed. They stretched out of the ether, wrapped around her hand and twisted into the shape of a ball. Her view of the corporeal world was little more than a dim, grey perception of the room.
Still, she could see Tom clearly enough to know that he, too, watched a ball that was no longer visible to normal sight.
“Ha!” Vincent clapped his hand upon his knee. “Surely this is exceptional.”