For No Miser’s Sake

By Kuliundheft

Part XII

After seeing Brian out, Vincent returned to his chair with a sigh; sitting back eased the steady ache that developed in his shoulder by the end of the day.

“How was your visit with Peter?” he asked.

“Fine, fine,” Father answered. “I even saw Susan for a few minutes. She sends her love, by the way. They were both appalled by what had happened here this week.”

Vincent leaned his head back and let his eyes drift shut, contented with the soothing quiet of the late hour. “I understand that’s the common response.”

“You were right, though, about Brian. He’s not the man we took him for in the beginning.”

“He was lost when he came to us,” Vincent observed. “But like so many others, this world you’ve created is helping him to find his way again.”

“Now we both know the rest of us have done little but watch. You’ve done all the helping.”

Vincent smiled and spoke loftily, “Am I not a part of this world you’ve created, Father?”

Father harrumphed his son’s blatant abuse of semantics, but said nothing. Silence settled between them, comfortable and unhurried. After a span of long moments, he shifted in his chair and spoke with more gravity than their conversation seemed to warrant. “But Brian did have one good point, earlier.”

Vincent raised his head.

“Our people do respect you. They do listen to you.”

“Sometimes,” Vincent conceded.

Father snorted. “Sometimes. You know, modesty taken too far begins to sound false.”

Vincent took to the verbal sparring easily, almost lazily. “There is nothing false in the word. There are times when I’m heard and heeded, there are times when I’m not. So, sometimes.”

“Perhaps that should change.”

The serious shift in Father’s tone caught Vincent’s attention, and he looked more sharply at the patriarch.

Father met his gaze in earnest. “Why haven’t you put your name in for Edward’s position on the Council?”

Vincent relaxed his head back against the chair, his eyes hovering somewhere between closed and open; the question was hardly worth answering. “Pascal and William are both excellent choices. It’ll be a difficult vote for all of us. There’s no want for suited candidates.”

“We should have a choice of all of the best-suited candidates.” Father sat forward. “Vincent, this week you have shown clearer judgment and a greater dedication to the ideals upon which we try to build our lives than anyone else. Yours was the only voice raised in defense of the man that attacked you, that stabbed Mouse. We would have sent him and his daughters to their deaths. I can’t lie and say that that isn’t what our decision would have meant. You saved them from the topsiders. But you saved them from us, as well.”

“One incident is hardly a foundation for a place on the Council, Father.”

“This is hardly the first time you’ve forced us to see what we would prefer to ignore.”

“It’s certainly the most dramatic.”

Father was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Vincent, I’d like to put your name in.”

Vincent raised his head again to meet his father’s gaze. “The vote is hardly a week away. What good would it do? It would only confuse things.”

“I’ve thought about it before,” Father said. “But I worried how it would look. I know I haven’t always been…impartial when it comes to you.”

Vincent made a face at the understatement, but said nothing.

“I worried that I would be seen as pitting my son against Edward’s. Now, after the events of these last few days, it cannot be denied that you have both the judgment necessary, and the trust of our people, to serve on the Council.”

“Perhaps there will be a time when I take a position on the Council, but this is not it. I’m a young man, Father; the Council doesn’t need my voice now. Do not suggest it.”

“Actually, it was Winslow who suggested it, earlier today.”

“Winslow and Pascal have been close friends since we were all children. You can’t ask him to put my name in opposition to Pascal’s.”

Father nodded. “That’s why I thought it best that I was the one to do it, after all.”

“It’s not our way to play these games. If Winslow feels strongly enough, then he must be the one to put my name in. As he doesn’t, we can conclude that the nomination would be worthless, perhaps even detrimental. No, Father, you mustn’t.”

Father conceded with a sigh. Vincent put his head back again and listened to the messages on the pipes, the old clock in the corner, distant voices and footsteps, the steady rhythm of life Below. It was only when Father shook him awake that he realized he had slipped beyond peaceful thoughts at all. The pipes and the corridors were silent. Vincent stood and bid his father goodnight.

The next day, Vincent had just released his afternoon history class when Brooke scurried in.

“Hi, Vincent. Joan sent for you,” she informed him breathlessly before rushing right back out to join some of her friends.

With a slight shake of his head at his messenger, Vincent set about tidying books and papers before leaving his chamber for the sewing chamber. As was the usual way of things in the daytime, he found the women there chattering as loudly and quickly as the sewing machines themselves. A little distance from the machines, a cluster of women sat in padded chairs, mending and knitting by hand and swapping stories about their lives Above. Everyone spared Vincent a happy greeting as he stepped in.

 The room itself was strewn with half-finished projects, old department store mannequins, and boxes of donated and scavenged cloth. An organized chaos, Joan always assured anyone who so much as raised an eyebrow, and the system seemed to work, so there was no sense in arguing with her.

“Vincent, my boy, come in, come in. Here, Maria, fetch the shirts Sebastian brought down. There, under that table. Rosie, bring the mirror over here. Yes, the big one. Jenny, help Rosie, would you. Now, Vincent, here we are. I think these should fit you.” Joan appeared to say all of this in one breath as she guided him to a relatively clear corner of the chamber. She took several thermal shirts from the cardboard box Maria had dragged over and held them up one by one at Vincent’s shoulders. “Yes, very good. You try these on, dear, and let me know if they need any altering.”

Few items that Joan had eyeballed ever needed alteration, but he agreed that he would, nonetheless. Jennifer and Rosaline had wrestled the mirror across the chaotic floor by then, and Joan picked up a shirt by the shoulders to hold in front of Vincent so he could imagine it on. She had been doing this to him since he was a boy, and he was well skilled at examining the garments and commenting on the work that had gone into them without really looking above his own neckline; there was simply no point in pretending that the right clothes could make any difference there.

“Now, here, one shirt for you. Used to be curtains. Such a lovely shade of blue, don’t you think? Good, sturdy fabric. Here, we’ve done the cuffs like you like, see? We got this flannel in, as well, good and warm. I know you don’t go for plaid, but this one will do as a good undershirt, don’t you think? Now, this one we’re still piecing together, but it’ll be just lovely, you’ll see.”

Vincent tried to use her brief pause to assure her that even with what he’d lost the week before, he was nowhere near desperate for clothes, and what she’d already handed him would be plenty, but Joan tossed aside the ivory scrap half-finished shirt and picked up something large and black that he’d taken for a donated blanket or bolt of fabric. Once she found the shoulders and held it up, he saw that it was instead a cloak.

“There, now. Father said you’d ruined yours, only you didn’t like to tell dear, old Joan. Silly boy. I haven’t had to scold you about keeping your clothes clean and mended since you were this high.” She gestured to about her own shoulder height. “Accidents happen, my boy. And you without your cloak, in February, no less! Now, let’s see, turn here. Yes, mind the arm. Don’t let old Joanie jar it, bless.”

She wrapped the cloak around his shoulders and reached up on tiptoes to pull the hood forward. Once he’d found the sleeves, she turned him, and for a moment, he came face to face with his reflection in the mirror. He dropped his gaze down to the black leather and wool. The cloak was heavy and felt durable under his fingers. The sleeves were an improvement he hadn’t thought to ask for, but he could see that they would improve his mobility.

He had started to remark on this when Michael appeared in the doorway. He spotted Vincent and picked his way over. “Hi, Vincent. Council wants you in Father’s chamber.”

Something about the suddenness of that unsettled Vincent slightly. “Thank you, Michael. I’ll be there once I’m finished here.”

“Oh, you’re as good as finished here now, my boy. Michael here can take your things back to your chamber. Can’t do with keeping the Council waiting. Here, give me that cloak. There you go. Go on now.”

Vincent started to protest, but Michael let the cloak be draped over his outstretched arms. “I don’t mind,” the boy said.

Vincent thanked him again, and Joan, and made his way to Father’s chamber, uneasy about what he would find. They didn’t leave him wondering for long.

“Ah, Vincent, good,” Father said, waving his son to approach the table as soon as he appeared. “We thought you should be the first to know: Winslow has put your name in for the Council position, and it’s carried with a unanimous vote. He’ll make the formal announcement this evening at supper.”

“Father, we discussed this—”

“Yes, and you conceded that if Winslow felt strongly enough to make the nomination himself, then it would be worthwhile.”

“That’s not exactly what I—”

“Lad, if you’re voted in, will you take the position?” Edward asked.

“Of course.”

“Then what’s there to argue? Council’s all decided. It’s a good notion. Let it rest.”

“What happened a few days ago will confuse the vote,” Vincent answered. “Putting my name in now will put undue focus on a single incident that shouldn’t bear on this decision.”

“You saved three lives,” Mary said. “How can we ignore that?”

“And Pascal and William have served our community faithfully for years. Please understand, I’m deeply honored by the motion, but one dramatic moment should not take our attention away from their long service.”

“And what about your service?” Winslow countered.

“Yes,” said Mary. “When have you ever been less devoted to us than either William or Pascal?”

“I’ve never carried the responsibility either of them carry.”

The Councilors answered with sounds of general disagreement, but it was Edward who spoke.

“Lad, for as flawless as your logic is usually, you’re acting a right prat now. Take the bleeding nomination with a bit of grace, and leave the decision to everyone else.”

“It’s decided, then,” Father said before Vincent could answer. “Thank you, Vincent. That’ll be all.”

He met Father’s gaze with clear displeasure, but kept his objections silent. He left without another word.

The announcement made supper awkward. No one contested the nomination, but it raised a few eyebrows, and William could be heard grumbling about the wisdom of last minute decisions. Even so, the news was generally taken as a positive, but Vincent didn’t linger overlong to listen to speculation.

He walked rounds of some of the outer tunnels to work out his sudden restlessness, but he only felt the city weighing down more heavily over his head as he moved beneath it, and he retreated to Father’s chamber to read to the children. Afterward, he and Father tried to speak naturally over a game of chess, with mixed results for the first little while. But after the game, Vincent begged off a second and returned to his chamber with thoughts of putting his thoughts down in his journal. He found his new clothes folded on his bed. He put the shirts away before picking up the cloak to put it where the old one had always belonged, tossed over the back of the nearest chair. He hesitated, considering the dark swath of fabric.

Barring the night he had gone with Jacqueline, Vincent had felt no deep drive to go Above since he’d lost his hold and discovered exactly what horrors his hands could reap from the rich soil of a man’s flesh and blood. He had hoped that walking in the light of his home, under the eyes of his family, would keep that savage part of him tamed. To stand upright and speak like a civilized man, to hold a pen or a chess piece or a book in clawed hands, to teach and reason and plan—he had clung to these things, no matter how the confines chafed.

And now, suddenly, with a cloak in hand, he felt a familiar, overwhelming restlessness. The first realization of just how deeply he longed to walk Above shuddered through him. He hesitated. He dithered. But the cloak felt good between his fingers, heavy and warm. Durable and solid. His pass to the openness of the world.

His feet had already made the decision; he stepped out of his chamber even while he weighed and wondered. He would be leashed still by his injuries, unable to roam or climb as he pleased, but reports of a new snowfall drew him up to the park to smell the sharpness of the air and feel the aimlessness of an unhindered breeze.

He passed through the pipe chamber. Pascal and Edward looked at the cloak, now around his shoulders, and clearly understood his intent. Pascal offered a quiet, “Be careful,” and Edward only snorted into his clay mug. Vincent heard the message tapped out to Father as he left.

At the threshold, he tripped the latch, and the bitterness of the night flooded the tunnel. He passed into it, through it to the park. The frigidity had chased even the heartier souls to their homes; Vincent had the place to himself, and that suited his mood perfectly well. With bold, unhurried steps, he crossed the open expanses of snow, finding satisfaction in the icy crunch under each foot. He looked to the sky and found the perfect black of a high, shrouding cloud cover. No moon, then. Ah, well. There were no people to glimpse, no events to watch, so he shifted in among a stand of conifers, their boughs heavy with great blots of snow, but his aimless stroll among the trees shifted to a circuitous pacing as his thoughts rose in pitch.

His life was Below. The eyes that could stand his visage were by and large Below. His books and keepsakes were in a stone chamber far beneath his feet. What was this driving need for the world Above, when he could never be more than a ghost in the night? Father begged him not to take the risk, and Vincent had no satisfactory explanation for his need, except perhaps his refusal to be bound and chained by the fear of a world that did not even know of his existence.

But he now had the blood of two men on his hands. He knew that he had had no choice with Sharpe, that everything he held most dear would have been torn apart, drowned in terror and blood, left in bitter shards  of what once had been, if he hadn’t done what was necessary. That decision had been made as a man, not the hungering predator clamoring for escape; it made the memory of the act no less nauseating, but he had reason to shield him from some of the gnawing shame and disgust the other murder left in him. There had been no primal hunger to be sated, no submission to those most bestial desires.

And yet there had been the hunt, earlier that night. Sharpe’s thugs, all armed and dangerous in the dark. Vincent had no learned skill at stalking and subduing quarry, but his body and his mind slid into the task with easy precision. The ability to predict and outmaneuver his opponent made him formidable in chess, but it all stemmed from an instinct he felt in the deepest reaches of his heart and yet could neither name nor explain. And the very strength and speed that made him so well suited to labor in the tunnels lay coiled in his every muscle, ready and eager for conflict. He was not made for the company and civility of the rest of the world, so many people whose bones snapped so easily, whose flesh tore so cleanly, who ran so slowly and struck so weakly.

And yet…and yet, even as those dark thoughts welled in him, he rebelled against them, recoiled from the gory, predatory delight of them. There were so many people that he loved dearly, who lived Below and gave him everything, even love and acceptance, and so many who lived Above, those who had gone topside to make their lives and those who gave so generously to the tunnel community. So many had opened their hearts to him, but it wasn’t simple gratitude that he felt in return. He shuddered to imagine a solitary life, without the joy of the children, the warmth of his brothers and sisters, the incorruptible adoration of a father. He felt driven to protect them, to serve them, to give of his love for them.

And yet…he spun on his heal at another and yet, grunting under the weight of so many layers of truth and conjecture. And yet he craved the world Above, to move and climb in endless open spaces, to breathe air so recently touched by trees and grass. Photophilic, Edward had called him, a moth to flame. Yes, the light drew him. The sounds of music and gatherings and joy were siren song to him. He felt the darkness in him, even as he peered into the light, searching for…searching for something, like he’d find some piece of daylight, some note of careless laughter, to secret away into himself and carry always, a balm against that gnawing emptiness in him.

And yet…yes, still, and yet again, there was the silence and solitude he sought, when words and ideas built up tight and hard in his chest, making his breaths shallow and his thoughts frantic. There was the rush of his nameless river, wild and uncaring, the only sound louder than the animal howl of emotion inside of him. He separated himself from light, melded seamlessly into the welcoming shroud of the most primordial caverns, a thousand thousand tons of rock between him and the nearest human touch. He descended and wondered if this was the time he would lose himself in the black, that he would simply fade into the stones and the water and forget to be a man again.

And this, all of this, was what the Council would nominate into its ranks? This torrent of contradiction, this fickle amalgamation of man and…and not? It couldn’t be allowed. It mustn’t be allowed.

His thoughts settled down to this single decision long enough for the ache in his shoulder and his arm to penetrate, and cold weariness flooded his awareness. He turned back to the tunnel entrance, leaving his syphoned energy behind to the trees and the wind.

For No Miser's Sake, Part 13