Pascale Auber & the Ruritanian Riddle

LX Morning Again

I woke up earlier than usual. I groaned in the trembling morning light, plumped my pillow, and resolved to fall asleep again. I was still in disgrace, after all, and thus not required to report in to the office. Lying late in bed would suit my circumstances as well as my mood. Alas, my self-indulgent state of melancholic stupor did not last long; there was a knock on my bedroom door, followed immediately by an anxious voice:

"Pascale?"

It was clearly my younger brother, Baudoin. I felt an instant twinge of irritation- I wanted to continue to wallow, and besides, Blaise should have been more than capable of getting one young boy dressed and off to school. I struggled with the bedclothes until I could sit up. Holding my head in my hands, I croaked out a reply.

"Go 'way, Baud."

There was a moment of silence before he replied, his voice tremulous, "But I thought you wanted me to go to school?"

I rubbed my eyes with the tips of my fingers. "I do."

"Which train do I take?"

"Blaise can help you. Have him walk you to the station."

Again, there was a moment of silence before Baud responded. "He's, um, not here. Does that mean I can stay home?"

"It certainly does not! It's your very first full day there, Baud! I can hardly let you play truant!"

I hauled myself out of bed, pulled off my nightgown, and began to throw on underthings - stockings, chemise, bloomers, and a corset that buttoned in the front, all made of delicate, undyed fabric.

"Must I go?" Baud whined on the other side of the door. "Or," his voice brightened, "Could you give me money to take a steam cab again? I bet all the boys were impressed yesterday when -"

"Never mind that," I said, pulling on my boots and giving the clockwork bootlacer a quick wind. "Now, did Blaise say anything before he left?"

"I didn't see him at all."

As my boots laced themselves, I pulled on a ruffled petticoat and a practical, white linen shirtwaist. It would not do for Baud to be late on his first day, even if Blaise had left unexpectedly early.

"Blaise has no early classes, so why would he -" I said, then stopped short. 

He couldn't possibly have been out all night, could he? My irritation increased as I lowered a robin's egg  blue skirt over my head and fastened it at my waist. My boots buttoned, I placed the bootlacer in my desk drawer, pulled on the jacket that matched the skirt, and began furiously brushing my hair as I opened the door.

"Baud!" I immediately protested . My baby brother was not, in fact, ready to leave the house, but was instead swimming in a too-large nightshirt, no doubt borrowed from the absent Blaise. Baudoin's eyes looked like two chocolate-coloured pools overhung by furrowed brows. "Get dressed, now!"

Apparently, Baudoin had learned something at his previous boarding school - how to dress in record time. It did not, however, teach him to properly wash his face, though he protested loudly that he was too old to have his sister assist him with his ablutions. Nevertheless, we made it on to the subsurface railway early enough that I estimated my brother would be only five minutes late. Rather than let him ride alone - my trust did not extend that far - I accompanied him on the train. After all, it wasn't as though I had anywhere I needed to be.

~*~

Baud took the aisle seat and I sat at the window. I leaned as close to the glass as my hat permitted, close enough that I could feel the layer of cool air on the inside surface of the glass. I looked out into the tunnel's seemingly unbroken darkness, trying to look past my own reflection into the endless blackness of feigned infinity. My brother chattered aloud about the boys he had met yesterday at school and which penny dreadfuls were the current craze among the under-twelve set. I murmured comments at the appropriate breaks, but my thoughts were not on Baudoin's problems.

I was in disgrace, but I had not been fired, so I supposed that landed as much on the credit side of the ledger as it did the debit side. The question still remained, however, as to how I would get back into my superior's good graces. I had passed a very delightful afternoon with Theo von Hentzau, who was, after all, an important contact, but that alone was insufficient. I wracked my brain as Baud prattled, trying to lay out what I knew, logically.

The bombing at both the Baratarian Embassy and the Steamworks seemed designed to implicate the Kingdom of Ruritania - the roses and the 'Viva Ruritania' note left at the scene made this clear. That said, the King of Ruritania was explicitly in alliance with our own country. There was no reason for him to be bombing our capital. So far as I could see, there were two options; that someone was trying to drive a wedge between our own nation and Ruritania - or that someone was trying to demonstrate that the King of Ruritania had no control over his countrymen and therefore should be removed from his position.

I considered the first option; any country in Europe might have reason to destabilize an alliance. There were also those who would be happy to destabilize any monarchical government, chief among them some of my comrades from the WPA. In the deepest recesses of my heart I wanted to believe Gabriel Dantès when he said he thought his political goals could be reached without bloodshed, but that did not mean every anarchist felt the same way. Nobody had been killed in either explosion, but that was pure happenstance; the men at Morton's would be incapacitated by their injuries for months. Gabriel Dantès might speak eloquently about non-violence - but Dantès had also studied the right sort of chemistry to know his way around a bomb.

Thoughts of chemistry led me to the second option - the internal politics of Ruritania. Hentzau had admitted his knowledge of explosives to my face; he might easily hold a grudge against the legitimate members of his family. This idea made me feel a little sick; I did not like to think that Theo von Hentzau was capable of cold-blooded murder any more than I liked thinking Dantès capable of it. Still, the exigencies of Theo's position might have driven him to desperation, and perhaps he supported the Archduke against the King. Considering persons who were believed to be allied with the Archduke rather than the King, there was, of course, Dr. Simpelstur. I had fewer compunctions considering him; he was a thief and a criminal disguised as a mild-mannered man of science.

By the time Baudoin and I alighted from the train, the only conclusion I had reached was that I had insufficient information. Nothing I knew was good enough to get me back in boss's good graces.