Better Angels
Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2012 3:40 pm
At Pestle’s, two serving-women are gossiping as they wait in line. Anna always keeps half an ear cocked toward such things. You never know when idle chatter might prove useful later on -- at society parties, in the thick of a Merchant’s Guild meeting, while trying to charm a lordling out of his fortune.
The women work their way through the scandals from the Campbells’ last ball, most of which Anna’s heard weeks before. Yet, when they reach the counter, the older woman asks Pestle for icecap and -- in hushed, almost comically secretive tones -- bloodthistle.
“Lord Bernard’s still ailing, is he?” asks her companion.
“He’s barely gotten out of bed since the spring,” says the first. She glances around to see who might be eavesdropping, but by the time she turns her head, Annalea has her nose in the jar of peppermint sticks. No one else pays them any mind. “The thistle’s a terrible thing,” she says, righteous as the Archbishop, “but it eases the pain.”
“That poor family. It’s almost as though they’re cursed.”
They move on to other topics, while Annalea tallies up all the Lords Bernard she can recall in Stormwind. She comes up with five, and another three whose names are variations thereof, but only one noble house whose servants wear red-and-gold livery like the woman in line ahead of her.
House Fairfax.
Not my business, not my business, not my business.
She thinks it all the way home, all the way up the steps to her apartment. She chants it aloud as she clears off her worktable, displacing poisons and salves alike to smooth out the obituaries and clippings she’d saved months ago. She says it as she pulls out a book of ailments, to see what might call for icecap and bloodthistle as treatments.
The obituaries have aged and yellowed, become brittle like fall leaves before the snows come. Annalea knows why she kept them, and yet again she doesn’t, rational thought warring with some foolish inkling, some foolish notion in the back of her damned foolish head. She rereads them, her brow furrowing.
Addam Fairfax, killed in a fall from his horse while hunting.
Not six months on, his wife Abigail (of the Windham Street Davenports) and his young sons, killed in a fire that burned hot and fast and left little enough behind. They say the wife did it, that Abigail started the blaze herself, unable to contain her grief any longer.
But Annalea had stood in the ruins, had let the ash swirl around her ankles and mar the hem of her dress. Whatever the fire had been meant to destroy, it couldn’t burn away the velvety feel of its creator’s magic. The Firebug had done it, same as she’d destroyed the rooming house where Kyraine had been staying.
The question was, why? What dealings would the eldest Fairfax have had with the Lotus Crew’s goon squad? What secrets survived him that they’d felt the need to murder his wife and sons? She can’t figure it, can’t square it in her mind without knowing more.
It shouldn’t matter, anyway; the Riders are done asserting their claim on Old Town, and whatever tangles a bunch of nobs get themselves bound up in is none of her concern.
Perhaps Bernard is simply sick. It happens sometimes, even to men only a few years her senior. If the family did have ties to the Angel and his flower-selling crew, wouldn’t Bernard be easing his pain with Lotus rather than bloodthistle? Wouldn’t that make sense?
She should let it go. She’s been to this brink before, and wisely backed away. She’d gone so far as to set up a meeting with Danyll, the youngest of the brothers. Tarquin had offered to go with her. But Danyll had sent a note needing to cancel -- needing to reschedule, if she was being accurate -- and she’d said no, nevermind, it wasn’t important.
Maybe it’s curiosity; maybe it’s some kind of cruel desire to be a witness to misery (she’d certainly have the right); maybe it’s the need to show him, Look. I survived. I survived, and because I’m not like you, I will help you.
But why? Why, when it’s better left alone? When there’s no business angle to it, and nothing at all she stands to gain personally. She sinks into the chair and stares at the obituaries, at the book of remedies and ailments, out the window towards Elwynn and the Fairfax estates. She turns the questions over in her mind, seeking answers that refuse to come.
The women work their way through the scandals from the Campbells’ last ball, most of which Anna’s heard weeks before. Yet, when they reach the counter, the older woman asks Pestle for icecap and -- in hushed, almost comically secretive tones -- bloodthistle.
“Lord Bernard’s still ailing, is he?” asks her companion.
“He’s barely gotten out of bed since the spring,” says the first. She glances around to see who might be eavesdropping, but by the time she turns her head, Annalea has her nose in the jar of peppermint sticks. No one else pays them any mind. “The thistle’s a terrible thing,” she says, righteous as the Archbishop, “but it eases the pain.”
“That poor family. It’s almost as though they’re cursed.”
They move on to other topics, while Annalea tallies up all the Lords Bernard she can recall in Stormwind. She comes up with five, and another three whose names are variations thereof, but only one noble house whose servants wear red-and-gold livery like the woman in line ahead of her.
House Fairfax.
Not my business, not my business, not my business.
She thinks it all the way home, all the way up the steps to her apartment. She chants it aloud as she clears off her worktable, displacing poisons and salves alike to smooth out the obituaries and clippings she’d saved months ago. She says it as she pulls out a book of ailments, to see what might call for icecap and bloodthistle as treatments.
The obituaries have aged and yellowed, become brittle like fall leaves before the snows come. Annalea knows why she kept them, and yet again she doesn’t, rational thought warring with some foolish inkling, some foolish notion in the back of her damned foolish head. She rereads them, her brow furrowing.
Addam Fairfax, killed in a fall from his horse while hunting.
Not six months on, his wife Abigail (of the Windham Street Davenports) and his young sons, killed in a fire that burned hot and fast and left little enough behind. They say the wife did it, that Abigail started the blaze herself, unable to contain her grief any longer.
But Annalea had stood in the ruins, had let the ash swirl around her ankles and mar the hem of her dress. Whatever the fire had been meant to destroy, it couldn’t burn away the velvety feel of its creator’s magic. The Firebug had done it, same as she’d destroyed the rooming house where Kyraine had been staying.
The question was, why? What dealings would the eldest Fairfax have had with the Lotus Crew’s goon squad? What secrets survived him that they’d felt the need to murder his wife and sons? She can’t figure it, can’t square it in her mind without knowing more.
It shouldn’t matter, anyway; the Riders are done asserting their claim on Old Town, and whatever tangles a bunch of nobs get themselves bound up in is none of her concern.
Perhaps Bernard is simply sick. It happens sometimes, even to men only a few years her senior. If the family did have ties to the Angel and his flower-selling crew, wouldn’t Bernard be easing his pain with Lotus rather than bloodthistle? Wouldn’t that make sense?
She should let it go. She’s been to this brink before, and wisely backed away. She’d gone so far as to set up a meeting with Danyll, the youngest of the brothers. Tarquin had offered to go with her. But Danyll had sent a note needing to cancel -- needing to reschedule, if she was being accurate -- and she’d said no, nevermind, it wasn’t important.
Maybe it’s curiosity; maybe it’s some kind of cruel desire to be a witness to misery (she’d certainly have the right); maybe it’s the need to show him, Look. I survived. I survived, and because I’m not like you, I will help you.
But why? Why, when it’s better left alone? When there’s no business angle to it, and nothing at all she stands to gain personally. She sinks into the chair and stares at the obituaries, at the book of remedies and ailments, out the window towards Elwynn and the Fairfax estates. She turns the questions over in her mind, seeking answers that refuse to come.