Some mornings announce themselves with sun-trumpets; this one arrived wielding a snare-drum.
Out in the street a brass band of newsboys clanged cymbals and hollered the headline of the hour:
DUCHESS INVENTS DRINK OF THE DECADE—RARE CHAP POLISHES SPOONS IN GRATITUDE!
I—a certain spoon-polishing rarity—sat on the wrought-iron balcony of Aunt Effie's guest wing and tried to enjoy the view. It was a magnificent view, too: terracotta roofs, dirigible moorings, the distant glitter of the River Argent. Yet every breeze delivered another newspaper, and every newspaper clanged against the railings like a tin pot on a dog's tail.
Mabel rolled to the table with the solicitous whirr of a well-oiled governess. From her mahogany torso extended a silver arm terminating in a demitasse no larger than a thimble. Vapour curled from its brim.
"Espresso, sir," she said. "This batch fortified with righteous fury and a trace of cinnamon."
I downed the thimble. Lightning cracked politely behind my eyes, and I felt, for a brief glorious second, capable of lifting the entire mansion by its foundations and giving it a shake.
"Better?" Mabel asked.
"Marginally," I replied, unfolding the Gearhart Gazette. The front page showed Effie in ermine and laurels, brandishing my kettle above a caption that credited her "relentless vision." My own contribution merited a footnote between the adverts for denture grease and anti-hysteria salts.
Steam rattled from my ears—a useful by-product, but unlikely to power a revolt. I needed leverage, and leverage requires knowledge.
"Mabel," I said slowly, "am I right in recalling some clause that frees a man from guardianship if he earns a professional licence?"
The valet's ocular lenses brightened. "Guardianship Statute twenty-two, subsection Cogitandi," she confirmed. A hatch in her shoulder snapped open, projecting a pale blue hololith of densely printed law across the tablecloth.
A ward who obtains a Gentle-Crafter Licence thereby attains fiscal majority and full patent authority, superseding all prior custodial claims.
I traced the glowing paragraph with a trembling finger. Operation Freedom Cravat—conceived, named, and possibly achievable.
"How does one acquire said licence?" I asked.
"Pass the Guild's Diversification Sitting," Mabel answered, "the next of which—" She flicked a chronometer. "—occurs six weeks hence."
"Six," I echoed, feeling the espresso retreat in alarm. "Weeks?"
"An unusually breathable preparation period," she said soothingly. "Previous male candidates were allotted twenty-four hours and a lucky penny."
I stood, heart pounding harder than the press room's linotypes. "Then we begin at once."
I began, alas, at the wrong door.
The Gearhart private library occupied an entire wing, its stained-glass windows depicting heroic women besting monsters and parliamentary committees with equal aplomb. Two brass owls perched on pedestals flanking the entrance. Each owl bore a mortarboard, a pince-nez, and the condescending tranquillity of a lifelong examiner.
"Requesting access to advanced engineering texts," I announced.
The left owl hooted. "Male-safe curriculum ends at cutlery-level schematics. Please enjoy our Delights of Doily Maintenance section."
"I need rune calculus, thermodynamic scrolls—"
The right owl extended a padded blindfold. "For your safety, sir."
Before I could protest, metal wings enveloped my head in darkness. I stumbled, collided with a shelf, and dislodged a rain of pamphlets titled Aunt Agatha's Handy Hints for Harmless Household Handymen.
The blindfold vanished as abruptly as it had come; the owls returned to statuesque indifference. Seething, I gathered the pamphlets—thin armour against ignorance—and retreated to the corridor.
A soft cough drew my attention to a figure half-hidden behind a tower of books. She was tall, reed-slender, spectacles balanced precariously on her nose, and dressed in the ink-smudged robe of an itinerant scholar. A single chestnut curl had escaped her otherwise disciplined bun.
"I believe," she said, words feather-light, "you were seeking Introduction to Complex Rune Topography?"
I nodded, wary. "Among other things."
Her lips curved into a conspiratorial crescent. From the depths of her satchel she produced not one but three leather-bound volumes, plus a stack of annotated diagrams that glowed faintly—freshly inscribed runes.
"Claribel Quill," she introduced herself, offering a gloved hand. "Arch-Runesmith, occasional mule for forbidden knowledge."
"Harold Forsythe," I replied, shaking with gratitude rather than decorum. "Long-suffering nephew and future licence holder—if the owls don't throttle me first."
"Oh, they're harmless," Claribel said. "Merely programmed to deter exploratory males. A workaround exists, but it involves reciting the entirety of Millinery for Mere Men, volume two." She shuddered. "No scholar should endure that."
I glanced at the smuggled books. "You risk a stiff fine."
"Academic ethics trump fines," she said simply, and with a deft movement slid the volumes beneath my arm. "The Diversification Sitting opens in six weeks. Men may sit only once per decade; miss it and you wait ten years."
Six weeks, ten years—time had become a pendulum blade. I clutched the books closer.
"Thank you," I managed.
Claribel adjusted her glasses. "Meet me tomorrow at dawn. I'll bring logarithm tablets and enough chalk to line the moon." With that she melted into the service passage, leaving the faint scent of book glue and rebellion.
Effie received my licence announcement during tea—her preferred arena for casual devastation. Porcelain tinkled; sugar tongs snapped like castanets.
"A licence?" She laughed, light as whipped meringue. "Darling boy, how charmingly ambitious. Do study—keeps the mind from sulking. Just promise Auntie you'll wear these."
She produced a pair of quilted mittens of the sort used to retrieve pies from ovens and dignity from fires. On each was embroidered a daisy and the motto SAFETY FIRST, CHAP SECOND.
"Factory policy," Effie insisted. "No unsupervised digits."
"I shall treasure them," I said, and tucked the mittens into my coat like concealed weapons.
"Splendid. The librarian owls will supervise. Tea at six; don't overstrain the brain—gentlemen's heads are famously decorative."
The conversation, summarised, ran: Permission granted, success doubted. Precisely the galvanising mixture I required.
Night drew its velvet glove across the city. In my guest chamber the gas-lamps guttered low, illuminating battlements of textbooks, reams of Guild regulations, and a timetable drawn on the wallpaper in charcoal.
Claribel's face shimmered into my dressing mirror, projected by a neat little rune she had etched earlier. "Ready?"
"As one can be," I said, tightening the quilted mittens. They squeaked ominously.
Mabel stationed herself at the desk, projector humming. Flash-cards burst across the wall: Differential Steam Pressure, Rune Alignment Avoiding Catastrophic Alliteration, The Three Permitted Bow Angles for Licensed Gentle-Crafters. She deployed a telescopic straw from her chest cavity, connected it to the espresso kettle's bulging pressure bulb, and presented the mouthpiece.
"Continuous infusion protocol," she explained. "Dosage calibrated to maintain consciousness just shy of delirium."
I sipped. The coffee struck like a cavalry charge crossing a tin bridge, rattling every vertebra in passing.
Claribel began. Equations unfurled; metaphors blossomed; the room became a forge of furious intellect. Somewhere around the stroke of two, an owl hooted outside the door—no doubt sniffing out illicit scholarship—but Mabel fired a brief burst of glare from her ocular lamp, and the creature retreated, muttering bylaws to itself.
We pressed on.
At four we broke for three-quarter-time stretching. At five, Claribel quizzed me on five-variable heat sinks; I answered, astonishing both of us. Dawn threatened in pale stripes upon the curtains when Mabel finally closed the projector.
"Chapter one hundred and twelve concluded," she reported. "Probability of cranial combustion: below twenty percent. Acceptable."
My eyes felt pickled, my mind alight, yet a curious exhilaration sang in my chest. This was my pursuit, directed by no guardian, answerable to no proxy. With each theorem mastered, the leash cinched by Effie loosened another link.
I laid a final chart upon the table—a six-week calendar inked with study blocks, mock exams, and mandatory espresso refuelling stops.
Claribel's image hovered above it, smiling through exhaustion. "A formidable schedule, Mr Forsythe."
"Formidable freedom," I corrected.
Mabel clicked her brass fingers approvingly. "And so," she intoned, powering down her lamps to a scholarly glow, "commences Operation Freedom Cravat: a campaign that will either licence a legend—or roast a perfectly decent chap to a crisp."
I raised the espresso straw in salute. "To legends, then."
The first ray of sun pierced the curtains, igniting dust motes like sparks from a grindstone. We turned our faces toward it—scholar, automaton and very determined chap—and opened our books to page one of the rest of my life.