Interpreting the Messages “Interesting,” Thomas said, sounding almost genuinely intrigued, looking down at the severed head on his desk as though it were indeed nothing more than a harmless, if unusual, curio, like some of the things which had come from the fashion in the nineteen seventies for exploiting tiny loopholes in the possession laws. “It seems a certain man and his wife will make it to Ottowa after all.”
George Carey pressed his hand over his mouth for a moment, both at the dead…well, ‘dead man’ was not strictly accurate, was it…portion of a dead man and at his father’s utterly, unnaturally calm reaction to it. He knew, of course, that Father was formidable, and likely thinking a great deal more than he was showing on his face, but…George had seen his fair share of bodies, he'd been around when the family broke, but he had also been rather severe with some of his own descendants about that curio fad. He preferred to think of himself as a modern, forward-thinking wizard, a man of the world who did not go about inviting trouble to his doorway. His father came from another time, closer chronologically to George’s own than it was to anyone else’s except the tiny number of members of Thomas’ own generation who still lived, but which was in all other respects faded from the world. To Thomas, perhaps being sent someone’s head with a note demanding that the sender be left alone was merely ‘interesting,’ but George found it disturbing.
“The – young man does seem able to send a message clearly,” George said neutrally.
“Indeed so,” Father said, still too mildly, sounding almost more like Uncle Anthony than himself. Father had never been the sort to favor an oblique message, either; they could both do it, of course, but it was his father’s twin who usually smiled, and was very polite, and had yet somehow managed to set up a successful branch of the family. Of course the world had been different then, too, when they were all young and the family broke, and standing political situations at the time and attitudes toward the Careys had no doubt helped, but Edwin and his brothers had made the same try at the same time and produced nothing but a series of disasters in Georgia, the latest of which was this…display. The Georgians would have to draw lots to decide who got the pleasure of cutting his heart out of his chest if they knew he thought of it so, if the girl gave them the time, but he blamed them for this remarkably unsubtle threat. Gwenhwyfar had been theirs, and his father’s remark about Ottowa indicated that her husband had almost certainly been the other person involved in the end of some hired wand’s very bad day.
George waited for a moment, but his father did not seem inclined to say more at the moment, so he spoke again. “What do you plan to do?” he asked, and Thomas looked surprised, almost annoyed, by his presumption. “If I may ask,” he added blandly. “Have you considered the Canadian authorities? They’d no doubt be glad to remove the problem for us.”
Thomas shook his head. “No. Then, either his friends would kill him quietly, as a favor, and care for her as a widow, or else he would end up safely ensconced in a prison, with his friends caring for her anyway. Besides, I’d wager that I could find no proof. Aurors are loyal to their own, generally, particularly these days, and I haven’t trusted one to stay bought since that…unpleasantness with Antonius, during the breaking.” The faint, grim smile which touched his father’s lips made George think, somehow, that the Auror who had not stayed bought back then had not enjoyed the reward he received for his lack of faith. “No,” he said. “We'd have an interesting time explaining the why of it in any case. At the moment, I plan to do nothing.” Thomas abruptly changed the subject, surprising George. “What do you think of the rumours about Morgaine being there when the one she lost was married?”
George blinked, startled, but then answered honestly. “I doubt them.”
“There have been multiple tales,” Thomas said casually, but George shook his head just the same.
“I don’t doubt that someone who appeared to be her was present,” he said, “but if I had a guess as to who it was, I would think Meredith, or the young Richard’s wife. Perhaps Cathryn, but more likely one of the other two. If you had the girl killed, any of them could benefit from it.” He frowned slightly, then added, “Of course, it occurs to me that young Edmond could as well. It never seemed likely that he would wish to deal with the problems she will present when he tries to take power. I just never would have expected him to have tried it so soon.” Or so bizarrely, though admittedly, it would have been a near-perfect crime, at least from Edmond’s point of view. His hands would be clean, and Morgaine would be dead, and it would all seem to be her own doing. But if the boy was thinking that way, then they had very serious problems, so George hoped he wasn’t.
His father seemed to consider these propositions, and then suddenly gave George one of his rare smiles, along with a faint nod of approval. Despite himself, George appreciated it. He could, though many would have no doubt questioned his sanity had he spoken of it, remember Thomas being an affectionate father, when he was a child - one of the things he sometimes felt pity for his half-brother about was how old their father had been when Harry was born; there had been precious little affection left in Thomas Carey by that point - but that had been long ago, before the breaking. The only person he had seen his father be anything like affectionate with since the aftershocks of that died down were Thomas' own siblings and their spouses, and then it generally wasn't much. “That’s what I thought, too,” he said. “It’s too well known how much the girl hates mudbloods to seem too plausible to me, and she was quick enough to agree to – the other girl’s disownment.” Unemotional enough about it, too; the girl could have been Alasdair, before he went completely mad, for all the interest she’d even seemed to show in the issue. Her sister was not worthy, and so she was no longer Morgaine’s sister. Simple. Straightforward. Very Georgian. “My money is on Meredith; I shall have to think of something to remind her of her place.” He looked at his desk again, this time in annoyance and perhaps a bit of disgust. “First, though, I must – “ he snapped his fingers, and an elf appeared – “dispose of this.” He looked at his heir. “You may go, George.”
And so George, as obedient as though he were still a schoolboy, went, feeling troubled but at the same time certain that his father would come up with a satisfactory way to resolve events. Thomas knew that George’s opinion was that they had best leave the young people alone so long as they were left alone; there were other options, certainly, and his father would contemplate them all, he supposed, before making a decision. The rest of them would do as they always did, wait and obey, and wonder what was going to happen next. It was the way things had been for more than a century, ever since the family stabilized. It was perhaps not the best way, but neither did he think it was the worst. It would do, anyway, as it had done for so long.