“Perhaps he squandered his inheritance,” suggested Tristan. “Can you cause that to have happened?”
I shook my head. “That would be the act of a man of a different character altogether, and so ’twould require too many other changes. It needs must be a simple thing, one specific event. Perhaps he was never born, or died in childhood.”
“That’s a bit extreme,” said Tristan, who I wouldn’t have taken for the sentimental type. “Plus he has offspring down the line who are important enough to look up in the encyclopedia.”
“In the what?”
“He has important descendants who are not born yet. We cannot change the future that much; we must keep him alive.” He thought a moment. “He could put his money into the Boston Council but the ships could all be lost at sea.”
“We do not exactly do weather magic,” I said, “save in fairy tales. It does not really work that way. ’Tis more specific than just raising a storm to blow a ship off course. More scientific it is, if you understand that concept.”
“I’m familiar with it,” he said.
“But let me look into it,” I offered, and from behind the chest I pulled out my áireamhán and held it out before me, to meditate upon it.
“You’re going to look into it with a broom?” asked Tristan.
“It’s not a broom,” I said, although I realized I did not know the word in English as I’ve never the cause to utter it. His confusion was understandable. To him it would look like a bundle of branching twigs, bound fast in such-same manner as a sweep-broom. And indeed haven’t I heard tell of witches who sweep the floor with their áireamhán as a way to allay the suspicions of priests and busybodies?
“It’s a . . . measuring-counter-helper,” I explained. “It’s a strange look you have on your face there, Tristan Lyons. Why would that be?”
“What do you use it for exactly?” he asked, in a tone and with just the expression of an excited child first getting to touch a salamander. Wanted to snatch it from me, I think he did, but he restrained himself.
“It helps me to reckon the odds and the complications of all these undertakings. Without it, I could never have Wended my way to this Strand to assist you. You cannot play such games as you be playing without risk of very serious consequences; this assists me in knowing how those might come out.”
Carefully controlling his breathing, he was. “Do you know what a quipu is?” he demanded. I shook my head. “How about a számológép?”
“What are you talking about?”
“We have—our witch has—something like that broom of yours, but made of different material. Flexible rather than stiff. But with the same branching, many-stranded structure. She employs it the way you have just now described employing yours. To calculate the possible consequences of her magic. How does it work?”
“What an idiot question,” I said. “How does writing work? Can you tell me how it is I scratch thrice-ten marks on a piece of vellum and you can look at it and learn every piece of knowledge in the world?”
“Actually, in my time, we can explain how that happens,” said Tristan.
“Well then, you tell me how my áireamhán works,” I suggested. “Because I’ve not the faintest idea, I just know it does.”
So that’s the sort of talk we were having on that Strand, Your Majesty. I did some readings on the áireamhán and from them we concluded that there was no wisdom in trying to sink the ship that takes Sir Edward’s silver across, as the first mate eventually has some offspring who has some other offspring ad nauseam, and one of them eventually writes a book about a fish, that Tristan says is important. And we determined likewise that there be lomadh danger in trying to destroy the factory, as likely the local American tribe would be blamed for it by the Puritans in the nearby village, who would then attack the American tribe, who would then burn down the whole village, and that imperils a school to be built whose existence must not be blotted out. All in all, it seemed to me, his likeliest course of action was for him to stay the course, try two or three more times to sway Sir Edward, and then go back to check again.
So, not to be putting too much emphasis upon it, we went as ever to the Bell Tavern, and he chatted up Sir Edward and the German, and back we came to the brewery (I do so love that swordfight, and on certain Strands, Tristan is a marvel! Although in fairness, he now knows Herbert’s style very well; poor Herbert has no idea what he is getting into, and moreover seems increasingly distracted by the queer feeling that this has all happened to him before.). Then I Sent him direct to 1640 in America, for the economy of time, by checking for himself if the change had been made. I don’t know if he’ll Home to his own time or back to me, but in either case, it’s here he’ll return on some other Strand, and I shall keep working on him to learn something. His talk of the loss of magic is distressing to me, although it will happen long enough from now that it shall have no bearing on Your Grace’s plans.
Little to report in other news as I just wrote you so recently. At the Globe they brought back Will’s comedy As You Like It, which I went to see, although it irks me to see him nicking Your Grace’s own story, for Rosalind is a thinly disguised Grace O’Malley (as they call you here) and doesn’t all of London know it? A grand enough play it is, but only one line of true beauty in it: “Whoever loved who loved not at first sight?” And isn’t that a line he stole from Kit Marlowe and furthermore didn’t Kit write that line about meeting me! My poor dead Kit. That poxy arse Will Shakespeare. He’s even the effrontery to speak obliquely of my sweetheart’s demise, for when Will Kempe as the fool Touchstone refers to “a great reckoning in a little room,” don’t we all know he means Kit being murdered in that pub brawl?
Having finished my message to you, I’m off to dispel my melancholy with my paramour. If I told you who ’twas, you would not believe me, is how discreet I’m being.
Whether I be near or far, may I hear only good things of you, My Lady Gráinne! Yours ever, Gráinne in London
Journal Entry of
Rebecca East-Oda
AUGUST 1
Temperature 90F, extremely muggy. Barometer falling, hopefully rain to come.