He chuckled. “And so it is. Might I have a few minutes of your time? If the office is not conducive to collegial discussion,” he added, daring another glance at Lucille, “might I suggest an early lunch?”
Finch could almost feel the glacial chill in the air, and hesitated. She was saved from the necessity of making a reply by the opening of another door—the door to the only room which was grand enough, and large enough, to accommodate persons of note.
Jarven entered the outer office. “Hectore,” he said, smiling broadly. “What an unexpected surprise. You find me in search of my tea, I’m afraid.”
“And I have no intention of interrupting such important business,” was the equally jovial reply. “I am not here to trouble your day with my minor complaints.”
“I have been poring over the last missive you sent, and I quibble with the use of the word minor. Lucille?”
Lucille turned to Finch. “Tea,” she said quietly.
* * *
Lunch, which would have been a welcome escape, was set aside in favor of tea in the confines of Jarven’s very secure office. Finch was not surprised; she was longer than usual at assembling Jarven’s tea because Lucille had a few pointed words to say about Hectore, none of them particularly flattering.
“Don’t be taken in by his friendly face,” she said, choosing between five different varieties of jam. “And don’t be taken in by his demeanor, either. Given half a chance, he’ll rob you blind and leave you thanking him for it when he goes.”
“The same has been said—many times—of Jarven, Lucille.”
Lucille glared, but didn’t argue. She adored Jarven. She was not, however, blind to his faults—if the ability to rob someone blind and leave them grateful for the theft was a fault, in a man who oversaw the Terafin concerns in the Merchant Authority. “What does he want, anyway?”
“I honestly have no idea. Did he not say?”
“No.” And clearly, from the thin line of her lips, she’d asked. But there was only so much she could demand from Patris Araven. “Take the ivory set,” she added, as Finch began to set cups and saucers down. “Don’t use those.”
Given Lucille’s mood, Finch didn’t argue. She put away the cups normally used for tea, and selected the cups used in less friendly negotiations in which impressing the opponent in every conceivable way was considered a minor advantage. Hectore was not the type of man who would be impressed by cups, in Finch’s opinion; Lucille, however, was in a bear of a mood, and in such a case, minor compromises were to be offered wherever possible.
Lucille selected the food that would arrive with the tea, her lips thinning as she did. By the end of the preparation, the entire thing had the look and feel of a last meal—a meal offered to someone who was headed directly to his or her own execution. Finch lifted the heavy tray and Lucille preceded her into the wide and silent exterior of the office she ruled. She walked directly to Jarven’s closed doors, opened one, and stepped back to allow Finch to pass her.
* * *
“Finch,” Jarven said, smiling broadly. “Just the young lady we were hoping to see.” He was seated behind his desk—squarely behind it. When he took tea with Finch, as he often did in the afternoons, he tended to sit to one side of the bastion, nearer to where she pulled up a chair.
There were no chairs pulled up at the side of the desk; they were arrayed in front of it, in clear—if mostly empty—positions of supplication. Hectore occupied one; his servant stood at the back of the room, near the doors Lucille had opened. She remained for a long moment, her expression grim; she glared at Jarven, glared at the back of Hectore’s head, and pursed her lips at Finch as if she wanted to say more.
She probably did. When she had warnings to offer, she relied on repetition. No one, she once said, hits a nail with a hammer once. This nail, however, carried the tea set into Jarven’s office, and a modicum of dignity was required. Finch didn’t greet this with the expected relief; if Lucille was overly cautious, her instincts were seldom completely wrong.
Hectore rose as Finch approached the tea table which was seldom used; in general, Jarven allowed the tray to occupy some portion of his pristine desktop. Today, however, he would not.
“Patris Araven was telling me,” Jarven said, “that he hoped