The Mystic Marriage

by Jones, Heather Rose

  * * *

  Jeanne carefully hid her disappointment when the parlor at Tiporsel held only two women of her own age: Margerit’s aunt and someone she didn’t recognize at all. That meant that somewhat more formal introductions were called for.

  Bertrut Pertinek rose promptly as she entered. “Vicomtesse, we’re honored. May I present my friend, Maisetra Lufise Chafil? Lufise, the Vicomtesse de Cherdillac.”

  Jeanne nodded to acknowledge the greeting but with a brief evaluation of Maisetra Chafil’s origins, she declined to make the woman free of her Christian name. And as she had clearly interrupted the tête-à-tête of old friends, she also declined to sit and exchange pleasantries. “I was hoping to find Baroness Saveze at home.”

  There was a brief hesitation. “I believe she’s in the library.”

  Jeanne overlooked the absence of an invitation and found her own way through.

  “Barbara, ma chère, I do believe that woman disapproves of me!”

  Barbara rose from the table, not needing to ask whom she meant, and allowed a light kiss on the cheek. “Don’t take it to heart. She doesn’t entirely approve of me either. But we rub along together, so be kind to me and don’t tease her.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Jeanne wandered over to the windows overlooking the river. A light drizzle was starting.

  “So what are you here for today?” Barbara asked, sitting once more at the book-strewn table.

  “Is it impossible that I might have come for a visit?”

  Barbara shook her head. “I know you. You visit people in the way a gardener visits flower beds. Now it can’t be to stir up mischief, because there’s no mischief here to be stirred. But you always have a purpose.”

  “Perhaps I’m merely bored. Nobody seems to have any need for me at the moment. You know how restless I get when I have no projects. Did you know that Antuniet Chazillen is back?” She said it as casually as if she were remarking on the impending rain, and watched for Barbara’s reaction. There was, perhaps, a slight tightening of the mouth. That was all. Barbara was still good with masks.

  “Yes, I’d heard.”

  Jeanne sat in the second chair at the table and leaned forward to peer at one of the open books. “I don’t suppose you could tell me where she’s settled in. We met by chance when she first arrived, but she hadn’t a direction yet at the time.”

  Barbara smiled, as if at the salute of a fencing match. “And why would you think I could tell you that?”

  “I know you,” Jeanne echoed. “You’ve never been certain she had no part in Estefen’s little plot against Margerit. You were certainly relieved when she left town after the execution. And you’ve never really given up playing the bodyguard. I remember back when you were Marziel’s armin: you always knew exactly where his enemies were, waking or sleeping. There’s still enough of the armin in you that you’d want to know where Antuniet is.”

  Barbara nodded as if to acknowledge the touch. “And why would you want to know? You were never a close friend of hers that I recall.”

  “But she has so few friends now,” Jeanne replied with a little shrug. “I seem to have risen to the top of the list.” She met Barbara’s skeptical stare with her best imitation of a bland and innocent look, feeling oddly disinclined to admit to her interest.

  “Oh, very well,” Barbara said at last and scribbled out a few instructions. “Would you like to borrow a carriage?”

  It was tempting, but— “No, I think the sight of your crest might hurt my welcome.”

  * * *

  Jeanne glanced down at the directions one more time to be sure the driver hadn’t erred. Trez Cherfis. Even the name reeked of trade and grubby warehouses, harking back to a time when breweries on the south bank rolled barrels down to waiting barges on the river. She might have declined Barbara’s offer of a carriage, but both the drizzle and the neighborhood made some sort of transport essential. Eccentricity might excuse traveling on foot north of the river, but safety was another matter entirely. In such a neighborhood as this, propriety demanded the company of a maid as well, though she begrudged the time spent to return home for Marien. When they found the street, she asked the driver of the fiacre to wait until he saw her enter, then went to knock on the door indicated in Barbara’s description. Several voices could be heard indistinctly from within, too muffled to follow the words, but the tune of the conversation could be guessed: an order to answer the knock; an excuse; a third voice offering; a sharp refusal; then quick, impatient footsteps. When the door finally opened, Antuniet stared at her in surprise.

  “Do invite me in,” Jeanne said when the moment had stretched out to an awkward length. “It’s miserably wet out here.”

  “Of course, Mesnera de Cherdillac,” Antuniet answered. “I hadn’t been expecting guests.”

  “Tcha, if you don’t start calling me Jeanne I’ll think you don’t care for me!”

  The polite mask held, but she replied, “Jeanne, then, since you will.”

  Jeanne looked around as she untied her bonnet strings and unbuttoned her pelisse, handing them off to Marien when it was clear that no one else would step forward to relieve her of them. The place might have been a cookshop or the stillroom of some great estate. Through the open door to the next room she could see pots and vessels of all shapes, half unpacked from crates. In one corner, well protected from accidental jostling, stood a glass alembic, nestled on its trivet like a jeweled ornament on a mantelpiece. A standing furnace warmed the room pleasantly despite the stone floor, and from somewhere out of sight came a rhythmic pounding. Down a corridor there was the clatter of something heavy being moved and a man’s muffled cursing. “So you found a patron,” Jeanne concluded.

  Antuniet didn’t bother to confirm the obvious, asking instead, “How did you find me?”

  “Oh, you know how it is in Rotenek: one always knows someone who knows something. And I owed you a visit—two, in fact. You’ve gotten busy quickly. How is the work going?”

  The pounding from the next room had stilled, and a young woman wearing a heavy leather apron over work clothes peered curiously through the doorway, inquiring, “Maisetra?”

  “What luminous eyes,” Jeanne exclaimed. “I could quite drown in those dark pools!” She quirked an eyebrow questioningly at Antuniet.

  Antuniet sighed and motioned the girl to come forward. “Jeanne, this is Anna Monterrez, my apprentice. Anna, the Vicomtesse de Cherdillac.”

  The girl stared at her in open wonder and dipped a deep curtsey.

  Jeanne reached out to clasp the girl’s hand briefly, then tilted her chin up with the touch of a finger when she looked down with a blush. “Charming! An apprentice, now why did I never think of that?”

  “Jeanne!” Antuniet said warningly. Then to the girl, “Anna, go back and finish the grinding. It’s not done until it all goes through the finest sieve.”

  Jeanne watched in amusement as the girl scurried away and closed the door behind her. “Jealous?”

  “Leave her alone,” Antuniet said coldly. “She’s under my protection and her father is my patron. And she’s only fourteen,” she added as an afterthought.

  Jeanne pouted. She’d seemed older. “A bargain: show me your work and I’ll let your little apprentice alone.”

  “No! This isn’t a game!” The cool mask slipped a little. “Jeanne, I appreciate your friendship, but I need his patronage. If you won’t behave yourself, you aren’t welcome here. If I expose her reputation to the slightest whiff of scandal—”

  I’ve done it again. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You know how I am. An imp of mischief takes the reins and I’m off. I swear, I’ll treat her as if she were my own daughter.” She searched Antuniet’s face to see if she believed her. Antuniet only shrugged. “But please, do tell me about your work. It’s started to pour outside and who knows how long it will take for me to find another carriage.”

  “I could have Iakup fetch you one,” Antuniet offered.

  “Not yet. Pl
ease?”

  There wasn’t even a shrug this time as Antuniet turned to open the door to the back workroom. Behind them, Marien settled onto a chair by the door, a picture of patience.

  * * *

  Jeanne found herself hanging on Antuniet’s every word. Not for the explanations themselves. The basic theories she knew already and the rest went far over her head. It was for the fire that lit Antuniet from within when she described the experiments, the initial successes, the maddening failures, the slow teasing apart of myth and fact. There were gaps, holes. Somehow the exact nature of her Great Work was never mentioned. The quest for perfection, for purity—it was all in abstracts despite the grimy reality of her labors. And why had she left Prague when the work had been going so well? What had happened in Heidelberg that had left a shadow anyone could see? And this marvelous book that lay behind all her hopes, how had it come into her hands to make the work possible? That, at least, was a safe question.

  Antuniet looked embarrassed. “It’s only a foolish game I play in bookshops.”

  Now there was a curious image: Antuniet playing foolish games. “Tell me.”

  Antuniet turned away and began setting tools in order on the workbench as she answered. “My old nurse…you know those silly fortune-telling mysteries that girls play at floodtide? The ones for predicting your true love or your future husband?”

  “Mmm-hmm?” Jeanne encouraged. It had been a long time since she’d been young enough and silly enough to take anything of the sort seriously.

  “My old nurse knew one that—well, let’s say that it worked better than a lucky guess. You brought everyone together in a circle around the fire and wrote everyone’s name on a slip of paper. There was a great deal of fuss with symbols and herbs, wax from the altar and water from a sacred well. Not all of it seemed to matter. But you folded it up in a billet and threw the contents in the fire and if that person’s true love were present, the sparks and smoke would pick him out.”

  “And your true love was a book?” Jeanne asked.

  Antuniet laughed despite herself. When she laughed she became another person entirely. “Close enough I suppose! I changed it around a bit. I see visions you know—nothing like Maisetra Sovitre does, but enough to know what works and what doesn’t—and I changed it into a charm to find the object in a room that you will find most useful.”

  Jeanne had almost stopped listening to the words. She’d never seen Antuniet so animated before; had she simply never looked?

  And then, as if Antuniet realized it herself, her face shut down once more to that cool, sardonic mask.

  “Can I see the book?” Jeanne asked.

  Antuniet shook her head. “It’s in a safe place. Maybe some other time.”

  And then the moment had passed. Iakup was called up out of the cellar, where he’d been stacking crates and sacks, to brave the storm and hail a fiacre for the mesnera as Marien helped her into her pelisse and bonnet once more. “May I come again?” Jeanne asked at the door.

  “I can’t match your hospitality, I’m afraid,” Antuniet said, which was neither yes nor no.

  “Next week sometime,” Jeanne said. “Expect me.”

  Jeanne rested her hand briefly on Antuniet’s shoulder, disappointed when she turned away with no further word.

  Chapter Eight

  Barbara

  As she stepped out into the narrow courtyard where the groom was waiting with the horses, Barbara glanced up at the thin afternoon sun. Enough hours of light to get to Urmai and back and enough in between to examine the books Chasteld was said to have on offer if there were no delays. But with Chasteld there was no guarantee. Perhaps it would be better to take the town-chaise instead, despite the delay. No, Bertrut would have taken it already. On a better day she might have considered hailing a riverman to row her downstream. Chasteld’s place had its own frontage and dock on the river. But though the trip down would be swift, it would be slower coming back when there was more chance of rain. Her errand scarcely warranted the trouble of a coach and four, and she preferred to ride in any case.

  If Eskamer’s information were accurate she might return with a delightful surprise. The pawnshop owner was better known for less savory merchandise, but he had a talent for finding unusual books, and Margerit had been searching everywhere for more of Tanfrit’s writings. Her work survived in bare scraps and quoted correspondence, for the most part—bare glimpses of what a female philosopher might have accomplished in the time of Gaudericus. In Tanfrit, Margerit saw a reflection of what her own life might have been like in an earlier age.

  As she paused to draw on her gloves, Barbara saw a woman entering hesitantly through the arched gateway to the street. With the reflexes of her former profession, she drew a few quick judgments. The visitor’s dress was good, but scarcely fashionable. Provincial—dowdy, even. Yet she wore it with the air of having put on her best. One of Margerit’s country cousins? No, not on foot and unannounced. An older woman, or well into middle age at least. Freshly come to town and not yet aware that it wasn’t at all the thing to go visiting on foot. An old acquaintance of Bertrut’s, most likely. A guest of some friend in the city taking the opportunity to renew ties.

  She smiled politely at the woman as she swung into the saddle and touched her hat in the masculine habit she fell into when wearing riding clothes. “I’m afraid you’ll find Maisetra Pertinek away from home. But leave your card with the footman and she’ll know you called.”

  The woman stared at her in confusion and began, “Thank you, but I—” The sound of hooves on the cobbles masked what she might have added as the groom fell in behind. Whatever the woman wanted, someone would see to it.

  In the end, the errand was for nothing. Chasteld had been away from home and no one could say if he’d be back before dark. They had no instructions about any books. She’d do better to let Eskamer handle the matter. But it wouldn’t be the same as if she’d brought them home in triumph herself.

  Barbara had forgotten about the stranger entirely by the time she returned to Tiporsel, so she stared at the card with curiosity and confusion where it lay on the sideboard beside yet another thick letter from Margerit’s cousin Iulien. Maisetra Heniriz Chamering. It was no one she recognized. Perhaps one of her tenants from Saveze? No, at least the name would have been familiar in that case and there wouldn’t have been such formality. Well, either she would call again or she wouldn’t.

  * * *

  In the baron’s day, the invitations that went out from Tiporsel House were first of all about power and only clothed in the garments of art and pleasure. In the first years of Margerit’s residence, there had been no invitations sent out at all except for the most intimate of informal dinners. An unmarried woman of no great name had no standing to host balls and soirées. Now, under the name of Saveze, the invitations were flowing again and Margerit delighted in using their combined influence to wield her own sort of power. Balls she had little use for, but music was another matter. And through a chance meeting in the university district came the opportunity to play hostess for a different sort of performance.

  Barbara’s first impression of Miss Collfield had placed her in that species of mad Englishwomen who went traipsing across the face of Europe in pursuit of adventure and art, accompanied only by one stoic and inarticulate servant. She had fit the mold from the soles of her laced boots to the brim of the weather-beaten straw bonnet that topped her severely drawn-back hair. But that mistaken impression had been corrected in the course of a dinner and a long evening’s conversation.

  Margerit had come across Frances Collfield in the midst of an argument with the porter of the university’s library. The argument had, at that point, not yet touched on the fruitlessness of Miss Collfield’s request to view the collections but rather was stalled on the man’s inability to comprehend the flavor of French learned in English schoolrooms. Margerit intervened and her patience in disentangling the matter had been rewarded by the story of the visitor’s travels and detail
s of her botanical research, and that was what had led to the dinner invitation. Traipsing across the face of Europe was, indeed, what had browned Miss Collfield’s face and given her movements a loose-limbed, purposeful stride that set her out of place on the city cobbles. But it wasn’t the usual quest for picturesque vistas or moldering ruins that drew her.

  “Lichens,” she explained, as if discussing the ornaments on a new gown. “And the occasional moss, but primarily lichens.” The stoic and inarticulate servant, in addition to carrying the usual sketchpads and painting supplies, was burdened with several voluminous pressbooks of samples, carefully annotated as to location, elevation and substrate. “I have a theory regarding the distribution of the Lecanorae,” she continued. “I don’t care to map the entire mountain range on my own and I’m told your university has an excellent geologic atlas by Leunerd. Is there no way at all to see it except with the escort of some man? I suppose I should have written ahead and brought letters of introduction, but I never plan my travels more than a few weeks at a time. If it weren’t for your kind invitation I wouldn’t even know where I’d lay my head tonight.”

  “But of course you must be my guest as long as you like,” Margerit urged. “I think I can convince one of the dozzures to sponsor you.”

  “You shouldn’t need to beg!” Barbara objected. A thought came to her, complicated but far more satisfying. “Margerit, why don’t we host a public lecture for Miss Collfield’s studies and invite Princess Annek as our honored guest.” She saw Margerit grin as she caught her meaning. If the ploy were successful, it was certain that some means would be found to bend the university’s rules.

  * * *

  “Public” was a relative matter, of course, but Margerit had insisted on letting the women of the Poor-Scholars house know that they were as welcome as the regular university students. More important to the success of their plan was that portion of high society that had either the interest or the ambition to attend. And since Annek had deigned to come, it seemed the choice of the Salle-Chapil as a venue hadn’t been overambitious after all.