oneman_onevote | AU: Terre D'Intrigue - We Need To Talk About Matthieu

The apprentice that presents a letter at Brix nó Balm de Marsilikos' house is still young enough to be properly called a child, but bears the direct gaze and assured air of one who knows he is meant to stay with House Mandrake.

He waits with creditable calm and quiet for one who knows his vaguely-intimidating teacher is actually waiting just across the street in a carriage, and might arch an eyebrow in no uncertain terms if he takes too long.

(Havelock nó Mandrake's ways are sometimes strange, but it would be unthinkable to question him.)

The letter - when it reaches Brix - is sealed tight, and inside reads simply,

Brix, I need to talk to you.

-Havelock

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"I wish I had better news to bring," he says, with a nod.

"I am glad you brought it, though."

She sighs.

"Did you say you had questions for me, as well?"

He shrugs.

"Only if you knew any of Matthieu's recent patrons yourself."

He didn't want to come straight out with that particular request until she knew the situation.

"Visitors to Gentian rarely visit Mandrake as well, yourself excepted, so I am less likely to recognise any."

On the plus side, though, he is more likely to be able to speak to such patrons without being obviously one of Matthieu's friends.

". . . It's possible," she says slowly.

"I hate to cast suspicion on my own patrons, but there are too many coincidences for my liking."

"Oh?"

Please tell him you haven't had similar experience, Brix.

Brix breathes in, breathes out, and meets Havelock's eyes.

"I know I can count on your discretion."

"Always."

...Yes, he shared his worries over Matthieu with her.

But she is the only person he goes to. He does not trust easily.

A nod.

"Matthieu and I met a Siovalese lord at Matthieu's debut as courtesan -- Lord Jonathan Grue de Agen. We had a pleasant enough assignation recently, he and I, but I thought perhaps I did not quite cater to his tastes. He was most intrigued by Matthieu."

Havelock nods - then frowns inwardly as soon he thinks back.

"At Matthieu's debut? You both spoke to him?"

It is not usually his custom to attend every party there is in the Night Court, but he went to that one for Matthieu - and accordingly, kept a casual watch on his friends.

(Again: Mandrake House, everyone.)

And there was a man he saw with each of them, he thinks.

"Could you describe him briefly?"

"Ineffably beautiful."

"Very blue eyes? Held himself towards you both like one of my house?"

...Yes.

Her eyebrows go up.

"You saw him. Is that how he seemed to you?"

"I saw someone as striking as you say with both of you at different times. And I know how we look at others."

Many of his trainee apprentices and adepts have not yet honed down the predatory body language that develops once they learn what they want.

It gives him a little more of a comparison to someone untrained who nevertheless shares certain proclivities.

Now she frowns.

"That is interesting," she murmurs. "Our assignation was . . . plain, shall we say, but I did wonder if he might not have some sharper desires he was hiding."

Havelock frowns.

"Then why bring them out with Matthieu, if he was the one?"

It's not as if Brix is entirely averse to some of Mandrake's traditional tastes, as Havelock has cause to know.

Still, Matthieu did stress that his vision had been invoked, or at least involved...

"How much did he know about you both before approaching? Did he approach one of you first?"

"He's not familiar with the Night Court -- and even less familiar, I'd wager, with what an independent Servant might offer. He may have thought he could not indulge those desires with me. But at Gentian of all places . . ."

It would have been simple enough for him to discover which of the Houses would suit him, if that had been what he wanted. Valerian and Mandrake do have their share of infamy, after all.

"I approached him, at the celebration -- I noticed him watching me and Matthieu." She closes her eyes, not quite wincing. "I introduced him to Matthieu myself."

Havelock reaches out to touch her hand lightly, almost without thinking.

"You are not Mandrake-trained. Nor Valerian."

He tilts his head a little, considering. "I wonder if he knew that Matthieu was, for some of his childhood."

It still doesn't explain why he chose a new Gentian courtesan rather than an actual adept of Valerian.

Brix exhales, catching his hand and squeezing it gently in thanks.

"I would rather not leap to the conclusion that Lord Grue de Agen is the man who mistreated Matthieu," she adds. "Not just yet. I confess it looks likely, though."

He nods, and squeezes her hand in return.

"That is sensible," says Havelock, current reigning champion of leaping to conclusions. "We should continue to look at others as well."

He runs over his exchanges with Matthieu once more in his mind.

"Particularly if any of them knew about his capacity for vision. He must have brought it up to me for a reason."

"Indeed."

She closes her eyes again, thinking.

"Grue de Agen knows about Matthieu's gift. Both from me and from others, I believe. Finding who else might know . . ."

Another point against this man.

Still.

"Is it widely known, do you think?"

"It is . . . not a secret. His patrons might not speak about their assignations in detail, but it would be too much to expect that no one would talk about a true visionary in the City of Elua."

Too much to hope for, perhaps.

"True. I will try to speak to Grue de Agen, if it can be done circumspectly, then."

At the very least, they can eliminate him as a suspect.

She cocks her head.

"Perhaps I should recommend you to him."

Havelock raises his eyebrows.

"If his tastes are as I read them, I do not think we would get on."

And if he turns out to have been the man to cause Matthieu uncertainty? Definitely not.

Still, he considers the notion.

"It would give me an excuse to speak with him," he says. "Would he consider Mandrake at all?"