It is official. Martha is dragging her feet. On Tuesday, I show up bright and early to her office. The doctor has cleared me to go back to work, and I am itching to do something.
But Martha just tells me that she has more paperwork to file before I can start as Edgar’s clerk, she is waiting for some kind of security personnel to clear me, and she will get it all done as soon as possible. Which is bureaucrat-speak for “I couldn’t give less of a damn right now.” Then she asks me to help Nigel with deliveries.
Begrudgingly, I do as I am told. At least it is something to take my mind off of worrying. As if nothing last week ever happened, I return to running files around the palace. Most of my deliveries today, like every day, are for King Edwinn III, but I do have one delivery of church paperwork to Prince Edgar. When he sees that I am the runner, he raises an eyebrow.
“I assume you haven’t been cleared yet?” he inquires.
“No, Your Highness,” I reply, not meeting his gaze.
“Hmph.” He returns to his work. “Well, you can tell Martha the Productivity-Ruiner that I am very unhappy with her.”
I see that you are very proud of that joke, Your Highness, I want to say.
“Yes, Your Highness,” I say instead.
I pass on the message, but predictably, Martha does not react nor care. “You can tell His Highness that, with you being the youngest and most inexperienced clerk in the department, I am required to fill out additional evaluation forms and background checks. Unless His Highness would rather hire an unvetted child to handle his most sensitive information.”
The characterization of me as “an unvetted child” stings a little, but I hide my grimace as I take notes. “I will let him know, ma’am,” I tell her, and make plans to swing by Edgar’s office on my next break between deliveries.
“Yes, actually, I would rather have an unvetted child,” Edgar retorts, as soon as I convey Martha’s message. “You can tell her that I don’t know what sort of poison they’re putting in the water that makes every single person in the records department fucking hate me— but I want someone as fresh and unsullied as possible, and that’s you, at least for now. I’m this close—” he pinches his fingers together “—to going out to the slums and grabbing the first illiterate beggar I see, because apparently they can’t even teach you people to fucking read without pumping you full of treason first.”
I bring this message back to Martha. “Why don’t we set up a conference?” I suggest mildly. “Your schedule is open at three o’clock this afternoon, and so is Prince Edgar’s.”
“No,” Martha snaps. “I am not speaking to him. You can tell him that my authority comes from His and Her Majesties, and that my decision is final.”
When I present the same offer of a conference to Edgar, he just laughs. “Why, so I can spring across the table and wring that hag’s neck? Tell her that I need a clerk now. There is no possible way it is more efficient having you run back and forth to get things notarized by Hatfield, when you can just do it yourself.”
“Tell him that his lack of a clerk is entirely self-inflicted,” Martha replies. “Pym’s conduct was vastly inappropriate, subject to disciplinary sanctions, certainly. But the decision to arrest him was not mine, and can be reversed whenever His Highness pleases.”
“Tell her that this doesn’t make any fucking sense, because she signed off on Pym’s arrest warrant.”
“Tell him that I am not a lawmaking body. I have as much power to prevent an arrest as the palace minstrel. Just because I opened the door for his guards does not mean I approve of their supervisor’s orders.”
“Tell her that she’s full of shit. She holds more power in this country than any of us princes combined, and she knows it.”
“Tell him that he’s being impudent. I do not hold any power that is not granted by the crown, and he knows it.”
“Tell her that she’s a bitch.”
“Tell him that he’s a child.”
“Martha,” I cut in. “It’s almost eight o’clock. I’ve been running back and forth between your offices, between other deliveries to boot, literally all day…can we table this for tomorrow?”
Throughout the day, I have observed Martha growing increasingly more disheveled. By now, her normally pristine gray bun is looking rather frayed, and she has developed a distinctive twitch in her left eyelid that is making me a little worried for her health. Her desk is cluttered with even more papers than usual. At first I wondered if she was pulling them from Pym’s old office, but the plywood board is still securely fastened over the door and does not seem to have been disturbed, so these must be unrelated.
She starts to mutter something related to not letting that entitled brat of a prince get the last word, but peters off as she glances over to the clock and realizes that I am right. All of the other senior clerks have gone home. It is not uncommon for Martha to stay late, but this is excessive even by her standards.
“I…I am sorry, Miss Odric. I didn’t notice the time. Let me just finish this one thing, and I shall call my carriage…”
“I’ll walk you out,” I offer, and she nods.
It is raining again, so I hold the umbrella over her while we wait for her carriage to arrive. Earlier, I suggested waiting inside until we saw it approach, but Martha insisted that the fresh air was good to clear the mind. It seems she is taking her own advice to heart, as she takes several long, deep breaths with her eyes closed.
At one point, she says abruptly, “I am trying to protect you, believe it or not.”
She does not turn to look at me. I can’t bring myself to look at her. “I understand,” I reply softly.
“So was Mr. Pym,” she adds. “At least, as far as I can tell. Perhaps he had other, concurrent motives, though I have every reason to believe that protecting you was one of them. Edgar may be your father, but he is not your ally, Eloise. I am asking—no, I am pleading with you to reconsider.”
He isn’t my father or my ally. He is my source of answers. He is the man who will have me and Mom executed if I do not stop him. The only way to disarm this trap is to get close enough to touch it.
“If you are trying to protect me,” I say, “can’t you just tell me what is going on? What is Edgar looking for? Why must it be destroyed?”
“I…I can’t say.” She exhales, long and slow. “If I could tell you, would you reconsider?”
“That depends on what you would say.”
“Then why does this position matter so much? You said it yourself—you want to distance yourself from Edgar. I have scoured your background, and you have no ties to any interested parties besides yourself and your mother. Yet you are so insistent upon driving towards your own destruction. I don’t understand. Help me understand.”
I am silent for a long time. Down the road, the palace gates squeak open, and a single, small carriage approaches.
“Maybe I am just curious,” I say. “I never met my father. I just want to know what he is like, and make some money while doing it.”
Martha sighs. “Curiosity killed the cat,” she mutters under her breath.
She is not one for clichés and idioms, but she has to know the other half of this one. I cannot resist the urge to complete it. “And satisfaction brought it back,” I finish, with a dry, melancholy smile. But in the ensuing silence, it is impossible to hold the smile for more than a second.
The carriage pulls up. She gets in without a single word. “I’m sorry, Martha,” I call out. “And thank you. For everything.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she says coldly. Then she is gone into the night, and I am left alone in the cold and the rain.