He shook his head a wee bit, looked exhausted for a heartbeat. “That would be a very long discourse,” he said.
She shrugged. “I am in no hurry, the worst that will happen is that I miss the players today.”
“I will tell you more if you agree to help.”
“You’ve got it backwards, sir. I will agree to help you after you tell me more. For instance, how does your romping around through space and time bring magic back? What exactly is it you be doing?”
He grimaced briefly. “I cannot tell you all that yet,” he said. “If you work with us, and it is a fruitful relationship, then I can reveal more.”
She frowned at him. “Do you perceive yourself to be doing me a favor? What do I care what happens to magic a thousand years from now? I’ll be dead and gone. I’ll help you now only if you make yourself interesting to me, and prithee pardon me but you are failing mightily to accomplish that.”
“I swear in God’s own name that I will tell you more just as soon as I can.”
“Will you?” She gave him the friendliest of smiles. “That’s lovely. Let me know when you’re capable of doing so and we can continue this discussion. God ye good day, sir.”
And off she sallied into the Globe, reaching into her pocket for a penny.
There’s many better a thing I can think to do with a penny. But at least the two have met, and under circumstances that make Tristan’s situation here plain to him.
Tristan, so unlike his usual stoic self, seemed dismayed as he watched her flounce off into the theatre yard to join the other groundlings.
“It’s nothing worse than anything I’ve said to you, lad,” I said, with a comforting hand on his shoulder because I do so like the curves on him.
“I must get home,” he said. “If you will not help me directly, I must get back to my time. ’Tis difficult there now. They need me.”
“You look like you could use some relaxing, Tristan Lyons,” I said with a smile, and put my hand on his arm. The gates closed to the theatre and the trumpet sounded within. “Come back to the Tearsheet.” I smiled invitingly.
He moved away from me, but I noticed it was in the direction of the Tearsheet he was walking anyhow. “That’s right,” I said, purring. “That’s the way you want to be going.” I walked past him toward the tavern. I heard a little irritated sigh as he followed me. “What’s making it so very hard back home?” I asked in a sympathetic voice, looking over my shoulder.
“There’s a new man where I work,” he said in clipped syllables. “We have different . . . methods. He is more forceful, and I am more strategic.”
“I like forceful,” I said, smiling. “I pray you, do tell him he’s welcome any time.” Tristan made the briefest expression of dismay, and kept walking.
We got back to the brewery and marched right up to my closet, as always. By now our established method was that we stood in the room together, he in Ned Alleyn’s stolen costumes, and I Sent him away and then just folded up the clothes and locked them in the chest. But he really did seem so distressed, and I love the scent of a man under pressure. Playful I decided to be, and so I said, “Tell me everything in detail, or I won’t be Sending you home at all.”
The look of shock on his face was so fetching, I couldn’t keep myself from laughing.
“I’m codding you, Tristan Lyons—what would I gain by keeping you here when you won’t even kiss me? You’d scare all my customers away and I’d die of starvation, so I would.”
’Twas both relieved and annoyed he looked, briefly, then said, “I don’t believe that. You do not make your living as a bawd, as much as you want it to seem so.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “Do you know that, or is it guessing you are?”
“Common sense. If a witch can evade torture, as you mentioned, she can evade poverty and degradation. The harlotry is a cover. For what, I wonder?”
I leaned in closer to him. “I’ll tell you my secrets if you tell me yours,” said I, and gave him the sweetest smile in my broad collection.
His eyes narrowed a touch and he looked sideways at me. “I’m not an idiot. Make me that offer without the smile and I’ll consider it.”
“What if I keep the smile but drop the offer?” I said. “Is it a smile I get from you in exchange? Perhaps a little something more?”
“We are in league together,” he said, holding up his hand as if I were the devil and he a priest. “I cannot do that with a colleague.”
“Delighted I am to hear we’re colleagues!” I said. “Pray tell me what scheme it is, in which it’s colleagues we are? And don’t be saying classified because if we’re in league, then we should be pooling our secrets, not keeping them from each other. It’s a waste of your time to be asking me for help if you’re not willing to take me into your confidences.”
He sat a moment considering, then nodded grimly. “I understand your position, yours and Rose’s. And it is reasonable. Send me home and I shall talk of this with my brethren in my era. I must not act without their knowledge.”
“That’s grand, but do not come back here unless you are prepared to tell me everything.”
“So be it.”
And off I Sent him, once again, and now there’s naught to that but seek out other Strands where he might be carrying on in like manner. Meanwhile I’ve naught else to report to Your Grace, so once again it’s off I go to meet my sweetheart.
Whether I be near or far, may I hear only good things of you, My Lady! Yours ever, Gráinne in London
Diachronicle
DAYS 380–389 (AUGUST, YEAR 1)
In which we meet the Fuggers
ANOTHER VENTURE TO 1640 CAMBRIDGE resulted in another failure. This was duly boiled down into a series of bullet points by Les Holgate, and transmitted to Frink in Washington. I’d been doing my best to avoid the man. That said, it was unavoidable but to interact with him. My academic career had left me in possession of a certain toolkit. As the saying goes, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Reader, I learned his language. I hoped that mirroring and echoing some of his speech patterns, or (those being non-intuitive) at least inserting some of his vocabulary into my conversation with him, might put him at his ease and allow him to relax enough to behave as a human being might, should he wish to emulate one. What follows is an approximation of my first attempt at such a discourse.
LH: As I anticipated, this last insertion to the 1640 DTAP was yet another confirmed failure.
MS: It was a tactical failure in that it failed to accomplish the primary stated goal, however, it was strategically useful in that it enabled Blue Team Leader to break trail on formation of an alliance with a potential Asset in that DTAP.