as a Doctor, he would be able to open a school that would revolutionize the way a generation of scholars would think about natural philosophy. When he died, they might erect a statue of him beside natty old Rastin here in Governors’ Square. Not that he had mentioned that last ambition to anyone, even Joshua.
Despite the general air of expectation in the square, the doors remained stubbornly closed and barred. A few daring students attempted to rush them, but they had been built to withstand the dangers of a more volatile age. The aged oak and thumb-thick iron hasps would take more than a few students drunk on outrage to force open.
The meeting had been going on for hours, according to the latest rumors. They should have finished by now. Was the board actually voting? Rafe felt jittery, his throat full of fire or bile, his skin vibrating with the desire to do something, not just wait here like sheep in a defile. Was there another way out of the hall? Could those cowards be attempting an escape through the delivery entrance? Rafe elbowed his way back toward old Rastin, simultaneously pleased and worried that the crowd had grown so thick so quickly. Some kind of band blocked the most direct path to where he had left Micah and Kaab. The sound of pipe and tambour had never so offended him—what was this, a festival or a protest? If they didn’t take themselves seriously, how could they expect the board to?
He was composing a few choice paragraphs on the subject when he reached the southern edge of the square. Here the crowd had thinned enough to finally let him beat his way back to Rastin’s shitstained shoulders. He shuddered to think of what he would tell Cousin Reuben if he managed to lose the boy. Micah did not do well in crowds. But, Rafe reasoned, he was with Kaab, who—for all that she was a woman and a foreigner new to the city—seemed like the sort who could keep her head at anything short of a chopping block.
A towheaded man, half a hand taller than most of those around him, composed as though by an artist of lean and elegant lines, rested against the retaining wall and looked nervously at the students still pouring in through the side streets and alleyways. Their eyes met and locked. The jittery feeling that had propelled Rafe away from his vigil by the entrance returned. Only now, that vague static seemed to align and gather force and move his feet and tongue as though of their own accord, so that he heard himself saying: “You look lost. Are you?”
The towheaded man looked down at him, and shook his head with a twisted half-smile that revealed a deep dimple in his left cheek.
“Am I so out of place, then?”
A voice as graceful as his carriage. Rafe did not like aristocratic men. He did not like men who towered over him. If they had to be fair, he preferred a bit of dirt to darken the blond. Rafe felt somewhat breathless.
“Oh, not at all,” Rafe drawled. “You blend in like a vulture among crows. What are you looking for?”
The man raised his eyebrows. His eyes were blue as the poet’s cornflowers. They crinkled in the corners, as though they were used to smiling. “I was hoping to hire a chair. I don’t suppose it’s possible in this mess.”
“You’d have to walk the few turns to Chambers Street. Hire a chair, you say?” A terrible suspicion clawed its way through Rafe’s consciousness. “Why, you’re not here by chance at all! Are you one of their lackeys, attempting to help those dogs escape without facing the victims of their actions?”
The man did smile at this, with infuriating kindness. “You make it sound very dramatic. I was given to understand they were just reviewing a proposed change to the bylaws. Mundane stuff.”
“The free pursuit of knowledge could never be mundane, and only someone whose livelihood depends on those spoiled wretches on the Hill could say such a thing!”
The lackey blinked. “Spoiled wretches on the Hill, you say?”
“What do they know of the intellectual life? Of dedication to knowledge? Why, hardly any of them even so much as take classes here.”
“That doesn’t preclude their having some knowledge of your activities, does it? They could read monographs and attend lectures. They could carry on correspondence. They could even, in a modest way, of course, contribute their own findings! Knowledge, surely, does not limit itself to one’s physical presence in the pubs and chocolate houses on Chambers Street.” He paused artfully, looked down, and seemed to notice for the first time a—quite small!—stain on Rafe’s cravat. He rubbed it between thumb and forefinger. “Though no doubt you claim an extensive familiarity with those institutions of higher learning. At the very least.”
Rafe felt dizzy. The lackey smelled of a light perfume: apricots and some darker spice—cloves or myrrh. His fingers were long and blunt at the ends, the nails meticulously clipped but not manicured. Blue ink lingered in the soft folds beneath the second and third joint of his index finger.
Rafe took a step forward. They stood only a hand apart, now. “Just whose man are you?” His voice trembled.
Those fingers reached out again. They brushed back a long, dark curl, which had fallen slantwise across Rafe’s face. The man’s expression was unreadable, but the lips smiled. Rafe felt a sigh come through him like a summer storm.
“I am in the service of the Tremontaine family,” he said, quite softly.
Rafe knew. As he had known he would be a scholar from the moment he first listened to de Bertel’s lectures on the ascendance of man. As he had known he would follow evidentiary science when he had first read of the observations that proved the curvature of the earth.
This man, as beautiful as heartbreak, was the Duke Tremontaine himself. One of the most meddlesome members of the Board of Governors.
Rafe wiped his hands on his pants. “Oh, hell’s bells,” he said. “Get the devil away from here before they hang you.”
The cornflower eyes snapped up to scan the crowd behind Rafe again. “But you won’t?”
“My name is Rafe Fenton, and I disagree with you in all the ways that matter. I expect you’ll be hearing my name more often, if you insist on dictating the path of our intellectual pursuits. Because I will oppose you with everything I have in me. But I do not,” Rafe wiped his hands again, “approve of physical violence. So get out before you meet someone who does.” His voice rasped. It was hard to hear over the running beat of his heart.
“Thank you, Rafe,” said the duke. “I honor your passion and commitment. And I hope you’ll see that we share the same goal, in the end.”
Rafe felt bleak, looking up at that earnest face that honestly believed what it was telling him. He was sure the conservative deans and department chairs, so eager to squash the new philosophies, had presented their terms in quite the flattering light.
“Go,” Rafe said. “Redrun Alley will take you straight to Chambers Street. I don’t know if anyone else might recognize you, but keep your head down just in case.”
He turned to walk away, but the duke reached out and caught him by the shoulder. The fissure spreading through his middle split wider. He could have cried.
“Perhaps you might be persuaded to see the other side of the argument? By the time we meet again?” said the Duke Tremontaine.
“The sun is more likely to rise in the north than anyone succeed in persuading me of that. I doubt we shall see each other again, dearest Tremontaine.”
An endearment wielded as an insult cuts sharpest of all. Rafe had made himself an expert in the technique. And yet, with this man, even sarcasm seemed to have turned on him. He felt sick.
The duke winced. “I suppose not. I . . .” He shook his head. “Goodbye, Rafe.”
Rafe stared as the tall man threaded his way carefully through the crowd. He could follow his progress longer than he should have been able to: a head as bright as a new-minted coin—and a mind, and a heart.
• • •
Rafe had been gone for nearly half an hour before Kaab decided to look for him. The girl, Micah (she had asked her directly and Micah