Juliana Leffoy de Marigny (standingwave) wrote in lightning_war, @ 2008-12-16 12:32:00 |
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Current mood: | relieved |
Thursday morning, 17 September 1942, in the arithmancy classroom at the Royal Academy of Wizardry...
Juliana Leffoy de Marigny stood in the doorway of the Arithmancy classroom and watched her former teacher going over his notes. She was determined not to speak until she had mastered her emotions. She had thought him dead for two years. It didn’t matter what else she might have thought or felt or come to feel; what mattered most was that he lived and breathed. Just sitting there, unaware of her presence, his dark head bent over his work, same as ever—he was, perhaps, the most beautiful thing that she had ever seen in her life. Liane took a deep breath and started to speak, but she never managed to get the first word out, because Hypatia Scalara interrupted her.
“Are you going to stand there all day?” The scowling professor turned and addressed the man she’d been watching. “Rosenthal, Miss Leffoy is here.”
Liane flinched, and frowned at her; she’d completely lost the sentence she’d finally managed to form. Michel Rosenthal looked up at her and smiled, and Liane thought her heart was going to burst for a moment; she was glad she’d remembered not to wear mascara.
“Liane, you’re here, good! There are some parts of your thesis I’d like to go over in more detail. I think they have some interesting applications that would be useful for the war effort.”
Liane ran right into the room, then stopped just short of the table where he had everything laid out. Scalara was still watching her. She composed herself, gathered her skirts and sat down demurely at the table next to him. “Monsieur Malaspina said he thought it might be classified,” she said in Breizh, although there were a dozen other things she wanted to say; she could not stop glancing at Scalara, even though she wanted to look at Michel.
“Yes,” Michel said in the same language. “So you are aware of them. That’s good. I’d rather be behind official wards before we go into detail, but have you done any other work in that area?”
“Not that I’ve written down,” Liane said, and if she hadn’t been so delighted to see him, she would have died of the irony. She’d imagined a hundred different things she’d say to him when they met again, but this was perfect, right back to work, just like always.
Michel frowned thoughtfully. “I think we need to bring you in to the Ministry,” he said, “if for no other reason than to get you to finish your research. Would you have any objections to not finishing school until after the war ends?” he asked her, smiling wickedly.
Would she have any objections? Liane’s eyes boggled; she had forgotten what a tease he could be. “None whatsoever,” she said with a sigh of relief. “I…could stay in the townhouse with Uncle Yvon, like I said in my letter yesterday evening? I can hardly commute from Tintagel.” At the thought of that, she laughed. Lady Dracaena would not like it, but she couldn’t stay at the Manor, she didn’t belong, and she didn’t want to stay here.
Scalara looked up sharply. “I don’t speak whatever that is, but it doesn’t sound like you’re discussing arithmancy,” she muttered.
“Actually we are,” Michel said in English. “Or at least the applications of arithmancy to the war effort.”
Scalara shrugged. She didn’t care. The girl hadn’t even signed up for her class. It just looked bad, all this frivolous chit-chat. She wouldn’t have suspected Rosenthal of being the sort to seduce a student, but she supposed it must have been hard to resist a girl so openly smitten with him.
Liane reached into her bag and unfolded the piece of her dress pattern she’d drawn the new gating diagrams on the back of while Bella was putting the dress together. They were hastily pencilled in, the equations thrown almost randomly around them, but she knew he’d make sense of them easily.
“Oh, yes, this is interesting,” Michel said. “I saw hints of this in your thesis, but this is really promising. Look, if you consider this factor…” He grabbed a pencil and started scribbling equations. “See?”
Liane’s eyes lit up as she watched him. “Yes. You understand.” It was such a relief. She glanced again at Scalara, and then decided she would ignore her. “I would have finished at Ker-Ys, except I became ill that winter and had to go home.”
Michel looked up at her, concerned. “I’m sorry to hear that. I know how much you loved school.”
“When you were there,” said Liane. “Not…after.”
Michel frowned. He knew Séverine had all but abandoned her work at Ker-Ys to work with his brother, but hadn’t Giraud Callebaut and Gabriel de Valois been able to help her at all? “So you learned all this on your own? That’s amazing!”
Liane flushed with pride, and then glanced down. “It’s…tangential to something else we worked on. Only on a larger scale. I have learnt to make cruel things, too, I’m afraid. Those aversive harmonics, they’re very disruptive. I used this to great effect once.”
Michel’s eyebrows went up. She could only be speaking of the work they’d done on the Halász letters, and he’d never told anyone here in Britannia about them. “Oh? That’s probably something else we should not discuss outside wards. In fact, I think you should come with me when I go back tomorrow, because this is definitely something we need to know about.”
Liane wanted to hug him, but she settled for slipping her hand into his under the table, just for a moment; all she wanted was to feel his flesh, warm and alive and real. “Thank God, you’re alive,” she said. “I really did believe the last words we ever spoke to each other would be about Saint-Germain.”
Michel blinked, and clasped her hand tightly just for a moment before he let go. He remembered being short-tempered with his students, but his last few days in Armorica were a blur of desperate calculation and worry, trying to bargain with numbers that wouldn’t be changed. “I am sorry about that,” he said, rubbing his forehead as he tried to remember. “I was a bit distracted. I couldn’t say anything then, you understand.”
“I know,” Liane said softly, and then, with a shy look, crossed out one of the symbols he’d written and wrote in another. “Sorry.” She moved her chair closer to his so that they could both work on the paper together.
Michel looked at what she’d done and frowned in concentration. “But that’s…I see, yes. You’d left out—well, I won’t write it in either.” He smiled then, shaking his head a little. “You know, you’ve left out just enough that someone who didn’t know better would make some serious mistakes if they tried to use it. My brother would be impressed.” He turned to her and grinned. Liane looked up at him, smiling. It was almost the same piercingly sweet expression she had had as a child, but there was weariness and sorrow in it now.
Scalara looked up and stared at them. The girl was looking up at Rosenthal with an expression that she could not read—she was never able to read faces—but she knew that there was something being communicated, the way they looked into each other’s eyes, and she noted with displeasure that Rosenthal and the girl were sitting right next to each other, their chairs pushed together. She cleared her throat. “Rosenthal,” she said, “you’re a little old to have to be told to keep twelve inches’ distance between yourself and the girls, but if I have to get out my ruler I will.”
Liane glared right back at her. This was the final indignity; she was never going to be a child again. “I’m leaving school in the morning, Magistra, so don’t bother yourself about anything on my account,” she said, and removed her tie, which she tossed across the table in Scalara’s general direction, then unbuttoned the top of her blouse so she could breathe more easily. She was going to the Ministry, to work on the war, she was beyond all this, and she and Michel should have been left alone to work in peace!
Michel looked up, startled both by the sharp words and Liane’s violent reaction to them. He’d almost forgotten that Scalara was there. “This is really interesting. It’s…” He really wanted to explain just how fascinating Liane’s work was, but he knew it needed to be classified as soon as possible, and Scalara had no clearance; she was half a mystic, and absolutely useless at anything close to applied work. “Well, it’s going to be very important to the war effort.”
“I hope so,” said Liane, and glanced at it again. The last time she had used it, it had stopped an invasion. It would be used again, and it would kill innocent people; but so did bombs, and lightning rains, and something had to put an end to them. She wanted to hate war—she did hate it—but there were worse things.
“Definitely,” Michel said reassuringly. “Have you given any thought to how to counter something like this? That’s equally important, you know.”
Liane smiled at him, and nodded. “Later,” she said, glancing back at Scalara, who was watching them, thin-lipped. Why did people always say things like that about the two of them? Aelia and Bella had all but convinced her that she really had been in love with him, but now that he was sitting next to her, really, nothing had changed at all. Or rather, things had gone back to the way they were before everything changed; it was as though they had never quarrelled at all. He had never wanted to take advantage of her in any way, and because of that she trusted him completely. “The most elegant defence is the simplest,” she said with a shrug, and looked up at him.
Michel smiled delightedly. He’d almost forgotten how quick she was, and how much she shared his appreciation for the beauty of mathematics. “Yes, of course. That’s true in all areas of arithmancy.”
“It is, but it’s also enough to get you there halfway without the rest of the proof,” Liane said in a teasing little voice.
Scalara rolled her eyes at them and went back to her own work on the chalkboard. She couldn’t understand a word they said, but the intent was very clear. Did they have to make love in her classroom?
“Oh?” Michel said, and turned back to her paper. “Yes, I see. If you run a transform on this value, that would form the basis of the counter-equation.” He looked up at her and smiled.
Liane nodded enthusiastically. A couple of hairpins fell from the back of her head, and Scalara winced at the tinny noise they made hitting the floor. So did Liane, but then she shrugged.
Michel grinned, remembering what he’d told Lavinia about the correlation between Liane’s hair ribbons and the difficulty of a problem.
“What are you smiling like that about?” Liane asked, quirking her head to one side. “I’d almost think you had been worried about me, too.”
“Oh, just that, based on statistical evidence, I suspect you’re going to lose another…” Michel tilted his head, considering, “five hairpins before we’re done. Assuming a one-to-one correlation between hairpins and ribbons, of course.”
Liane burst out laughing, her composure undone by nerves and stress, and promptly lost another two. When she could breathe again, she said, “You know, I never found them all.”
Scalara erased her work—she’d remember it easily, not that they’d understand it anyway—and glared at them. “Since Miss Leffoy is not a student here any more, I think I will leave the two of you to discuss this in private, but kindly remember that Miss Kyteler will be here in the next few minutes or so,” she said frostily, walking out of the classroom.
Michel watched her, frowning. “She’s not suited to being a teacher. I’m not sure what she’s suited to—she’s skilled, but she lacks creativity.”
Liane looked up at him speculatively. “She’s one of those people who makes books of correspondences, you know, when she isn’t writing pseudo-religious twaddle. Which is useful. But boring.” She shrugged. “But when interesting people make books of correspondences, they turn into Aleister Crowley, and I think we all know how that works out.”
Michel nodded. “She’d probably be best pleased to have a small room to herself in a hidden corner of the Ministry, free to do whatever useful but boring research she wanted, and if it weren’t for the war I’d take her place in an instant. But I just don’t have the time.”
“I know,” Liane said, in a soft, soothing voice. “I’m sorry about it. I could do a better job than her too, but you need me in Londinium and that’s where I want to be.” She sighed. “There’s tonight, though. Can I do anything to help you tonight?”
“That would be a great idea!” Michel’s face lit up with excitement. “I’ve planned on starting with basic warding and encryption, but I also want to go over how to keep other people from even knowing you’ve got something secret in the first place. We could set something up where one of us is a distraction and the other actually has the message. There are all sorts of ways to pass information without being noticed—but I suppose you know some of this already…” He trailed off, worried that this might be a sore subject.
“That would be great!” said Liane, and then sighed. “Are you all right?”
“Oh, no, I’m fine,” Michel said quickly. “Actually, I was worried about you. My brother has…more practical experience in this area than I do, and I know it bothers him sometimes.”
Liane shook her head, and reached out to touch his face, because his hair was in his eyes again. “I just want to make absolutely sure that when you hear the terrible things some people say about me, you’ll come to me first. I’ll tell you the truth, and if the answer’s one I know you’ll hate, I’ll try to explain. I…care so much about you, and about your opinion. That’s really it.”
“All right,” Michel said, oddly touched that his opinion mattered so much to her. “I promise—anything anyone tells me, I’ll ask you about. Remember, pattern analysis is a large part of what I do. I’m not likely to believe just anything people say without some really compelling evidence to back it up.”
“I know,” said Liane, and smiled. “I’d love to do that. For the seminar. I’ll be sure to be really distracting. Your lovely assistant and all. You know I can do it.”
“I’m sure you can,” Michel said, smiling. “What did you have in mind?”
“You’re the boss, you want me to misdirect, you just tell me how,” said Liane, grinning. “That’s better, you’re smiling again.”
“I don’t think we’ll need anything too outrageous,” Michel said. “These are just students, not trained observers. If I tell them you are going to help me pass a secret message to someone, they’ll almost certainly watch you no matter what you do. All you have to do is keep their attention away from me. Now tell me about Miss Kyteler.”
Liane nodded. “Oh, Addie. You’ll like her,” she told Michel, still speaking French to him. “She’s like Giraud, unworldly, but she’s kind like him too; she’s a prefect here.” She leaned back in her chair, almost against his arm. “I don’t know her well, but my friend Endymion is her brother-in-law.”
“I’ve heard good things about her from Lavinia,” Michel said, nodding and turning to face her. “I’m looking forward to seeing her thesis. Lavinia wants me to be her guild-master. She’s planning on being yours,” he added. He’d nearly forgotten about it, caught up as he was in seeing what she’d done.
“Lavinia?” Liane raised an eyebrow. “People at the Manor often mentioned her, who is she? And I don’t care, as long as I can work with you, but why not you?”
“She’s the head of my department at the War Bureau,” Michel said, and shrugged. “She thinks people would assume I’d be biased, given that you were my student.”
“Oh,” Liane said softly. Given that the rumours about her persisted even here, perhaps that was a good idea. “So. I suppose we are colleagues now. But do you want me to call you Professor in front of everyone else here?”
Michel blinked. “I hadn’t thought of that. Of course you can call me Michel.” He had always known that she would truly be a friend to him once she had grown into her mind. And that had happened; it had started with the Halász letters, but now she was nearly grown and had seen a lot more of the world; he was pleased with the prospect of getting to know her again.
“Michel,” Liane repeated, and glanced back down at their work, smiling fondly. “Just like your letters said. Well. I look forward to a long collaboration. But a short war, I hope.”
“Yes,” Michel said softly. “I hope so, too.” The war was terrible and illogical and monstrous; he wanted it to end as soon as possible. Once it was over they could get back to their real research: new theories, new possibilities, things that would make the world better, not worse.
Liane looked back up at him. Still the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life, she thought, then shook her head, because they were both overworked and tired and covered, she was sure, in hidden scars, but it just seemed to make him more beautiful, and she wondered if he felt the same at all. “My God, I forgot what it’s like. To be happy.”
Michel winced; she’d managed to do the best work of her life in the last two years, and she’d been in misery? “I’m sorry,” he said, not sure what else to say. He had no idea what had happened, and he wasn’t sure how to ask or even if he should. He’d left her there, after all.
Liane smiled at him. “It’s fine,” she said, “it’s all fine, now.” Now that they were working together again, and would continue to, she felt very nearly invincible.
Michel smiled reassuringly. “That’s good.”
“You know me, I get through everything,” Liane replied, and startled when she heard a knock on the door. “That’ll be Addie. We’ll have to speak English; thank goodness Scalara is gone.”
“Oh, yes,” Michel said, sitting up straight. “I’d nearly lost track of time. We’ll have to put this away and look at it later.”
Liane laughed. “I suppose we will,” she said, and folded it up, and tucked it back into her bag, then ran across the room to let the other girl in.
michelrosenthal, sabedoria (Hypatia Scalara) and standingwave