The boy had the large black eyes of Lady Thalia and the Young Master, but none of her sparkle or his arrogance. His expression was soft and sad. The picture wasn’t particularly well executed – the clothing was flat and the boy’s hands were all wrong. But the artist had captured some deep sorrow in the child.
‘Father won’t let this one be displayed,’ Jenner continued, a strange note to his voice. ‘It would have been destroyed years ago were it not the only picture we have which was painted by Cadmus himself.’
‘So who is he?’
Abi was hooked by this secret that she’d never encountered in all her reading about Kyneston and the Jardines. And another, shameful part of her was thrilled that Jenner wanted to share with her this story that plainly meant so much to him.
‘He’s me. He’s the only other rotten fruit on the family tree. The only one in our great and glorious history with no Skill – until I came along.’
And what did you say to that? Abi’s mind raced for an answer, but found none. She didn’t do people, dammit. She did books. A world of difference.
She cast her mind back to the day they had arrived at Kyneston, Daisy opening her big gob and asking why the Young Master had let them through the gate and not Jenner. His easy, gallant response about his lack of Skill. How many years had he been practising those lines until he could say them like that? As if they meant nothing at all, when clearly his life was poisoned at its roots by this awful, inexplicable lack.
‘Take a close look,’ Jenner urged.
There were numerous objects displayed around the boy. An empty birdcage with the door shut. A tulip in its prime, upright in a vase but drab and grey, as if a week dead. A sheet ruled with musical staves but without notes. A violin with no strings. Abi peered at the word written at the top of the blank musical score. The non-existent work was titled in Latin: Cassus.
‘It means “hollow”,’ Jenner said. ‘“Empty”. Alternatively: “useless”, or “deficient”. Which is to say, without Skill. All that’ – he gestured at the flower, the birdcage – ‘that’s what my world looks like, to them.’
Abi still couldn’t think of anything to say. Something careful.
‘If he should have inherited Kyneston after Cadmus, then he must be . . . Cadmus’s eldest son?’
She was rewarded with the ghost of a smile from Jenner.
‘I knew you’d get it, Abigail. He’s Cadmus’s son by his first wife. His name was Sosigenes Parva, but you won’t find it in any history book.’
So-si-je-knees? Even by Equal standards, the name was a mouthful.
‘Doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue, does it?’ she said, then flushed at her own presumption. But Jenner laughed, brightening a little.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’d be the first to agree. It’s a name that if my father had his way, would never be heard again. As it is, after Cadmus’s journals were lost in the Orpen fire, this little picture is the only evidence we have that Sosigenes ever lived.’
Abi knew about the great fire of Orpen. It had happened before she was born, but she’d seen shaky footage captured from a helicopter flying beyond the estate wall.
Orpen Mote had been the Parva seat, where Lady Thalia Jardine and her sister Euterpe were born and raised. It had burned to the ground in a single night. The two sisters had been absent, but Lord and Lady Parva and their entire household had died as they slept. The shock of discovering her parents’ death had plunged Euterpe into the coma in which she still lay.
But more than a house and its inhabitants had been lost. The Parvas’ reputation as scholars had continued down the centuries, and Orpen Mote had held the most important collection of books about Skill known to exist anywhere in the world. That had included Cadmus’s personal library. All destroyed in the blaze.
But Abi had never heard of any journals kept by the Pure-in-Heart. What documents those would be! How cruel to learn of their existence and their destruction in the self-same instant.
Jenner was busying himself with the boxes on the table. He pulled one across and flipped back the lid. Inside was thick foam, cut to accommodate the small painting perfectly. He kept his eyes down as he talked.
‘No one ever imagined there would be another Skilless child. Cadmus was so powerful, you see, that the family decided that Sosigenes’ mother was to blame for her son’s condition. She died in childbirth, so it was easy to conclude that she was weak. In fact, “Sosigenes” means “born safely”, so maybe the birth had been traumatic for him, too. It’s a tidy explanation.’
‘Might that be true?’ Abi said, unsure whether or not this was dangerous territory, but too curious not to ask. ‘And could a difficult birth be the answer for you, too?’
Jenner smiled again, but still didn’t look at her.