But Tio replied, “That odd duck? Whatever do you see in her?”
Jeanne returned, with the slightest touch of asperity, “My friends are quite a flock of odd ducks, as you well know. But if that bothers you, I’m sure I can find other guests for my little plans at floodtide.”
“Oh, Jeanne, you wouldn’t! Very well, invite the Chazillen. But I’ll feel as if I’d brought my mother-in-law along.”
It was no gamble at all to expect that Antuniet would be home, but she might be working, even on the last day of carnival. That question was answered when the door opened almost as soon as she knocked, but Jeanne saw with dismay that Antuniet had on the brown walking dress and was throwing her traveling cloak over it. “Oh dear, were you going out?”
“No. That is…I thought you’d asked me—” Antuniet hesitated in embarrassed confusion.
“Of course. Why else am I here?” Jeanne said. “But you never gave me an answer, so I thought I’d need to carry you off by force. Why the change of mind?”
“I…I don’t know,” she stammered.
Waiting at the door with coat in hand and she doesn’t know? Perhaps, after all…“Well, never mind. Come join us. They’ve raised a pavilion in the parade ground out past the Tupendor, with dancing and entertainments of all sorts. We’ll find you something worth renouncing for Lent.”
There would be private balls later, of course, but they wouldn’t have the excitement and abandon of the public festivities, where even respectable ladies might venture under the shelter of pretended anonymity and whatever degree of chaperonage their condition and status might require.
The road was choked, as all manner of carriages and hired hacks disgorged their passengers and another stream of traffic flowed up from the little wharf on the Rotein where the rivermen plied their trade. Those without even a teneir to come by boat straggled along on foot. The field was lined with market booths and groups of entertainers competing for attention and coins. In the center, a vast canvas hall, lit precariously with torches and warmed by small stoves, provided the opportunity to dance under shelter and jostle for the tables set up around the edges.
Iaklin was too shy to dance at first and Antuniet never danced, so Jeanne accepted Tionez’s gallant bow of invitation and let the faux-chevalier draw her out into a country jig. The floor was not so crowded as it would be later and there was less chance of needing to fend off drunken invitations. That was all part of the daring: throwing off the chains of convention behind cover of a mask and the license of the festival. It was unwise of Tionez and her friend to have come without any male company at all, but who was she to judge? They were both married women, so their reputations could only be marred by acts, not by mere rumors, and that was a matter between them and their husbands.
They returned to the table that Antuniet had secured, flushed and laughing at the exertion. A parade of hawkers offered trays of food, and Jeanne sent a boy off to fetch a bottle of champagne. Thus fortified, Iaklin found the courage to take the floor and was led away. The crowd was increasing, growing noisy and boisterous, and there was little chance for conversation as the dancers swirled past, but Antuniet seemed content just to watch.
Jeanne leaned close to be heard over the din. “So, Toneke, have you chosen your vice for the day?”
“Isn’t it daring enough that I’m here? I’ve never been to a public carnival before,” she said with a trace of wistfulness. “Mother never would have allowed that risk to the family honor. Not even with an armin at my back and Estefen at my side—if he could have been bothered. The family honor!” she added more bitterly.
Impulsively, Jeanne took her hand. “Would you like to dance?” Antuniet was startled and shook her head. But her expression as she looked down was more bashful than affronted.
In another moment, Jeanne thought, she must choose between pressing forward or letting go. She leaned closer again just as Tionez returned, loudly intoning, “It’s become such a crush in here. Shall we go out to see the entertainments?”
With the weather cold but dry, the field had turned to a market fair as well. They wandered between the stages where guilds were presenting scenes from the Passion as well as the usual Lives of their patrons. Unlike the more staid mystery guilds of the well-born, these were less ritual and more entertainment, filled equally with pious verses and coarse humor. Every empty space between the booths also had its juggler or hurdy-gurdy player competing for the generosity of the merry crowd. With all the masks and inventive costumes, there were times when the distinction between spectator and performer was erased entirely.
Tionez was playing her disguise to the hilt, a picture of swaggering bravado with a lady on each arm. Jeanne tried to soften the pointed exclusion by reaching for Antuniet’s hand, but it was elusive. Jeanne watched closely for signs of discontent. For now, Antuniet seemed pleased enough just to be at her side. They watched an unintentionally hilarious performance of Peter’s denial at cock-crow by the poulterer’s guild, then bought a cone of roasted chestnuts and pretended to admire a display of gaudy jewelry that would have been too vulgar to take notice of on any other day.
“Oh look!” Iaklin exclaimed suddenly, tugging them toward a gap in the crowd. “Gypsy dancers!”
Tionez used her height to advantage as they worked their way through to the front. “It’s just some girls from the opera company,” she said quellingly. “I recognize the costumes from La Turca last year.”
Tio was right. The dance was only bits of the choreographed figures from the opera, though the music accompanying them from a mandola was more raw and fiery. First one, then another would embellish the steps with a venture toward the crowd to flirt with the spectators. The musician had caught a few coins in a hat at his feet but the dancers seemed to have joined for their own amusement. As the shortest of them spun around, Jeanne recognized the shawl tied around her hips—far more tastefully elegant than the rest of the ensemble—and recognized those hips as well. Luzild caught her glance at the same moment and detached herself from the others. She twirled and clapped before Tionez, playing up to the masquerade, then came to a stop facing their group. Jeanne noted with a touch of trepidation that the woman was well into her cups. It hadn’t shown in her steps, but there was a mischievous gleam in her eye as it caught her own. Luzild reached out to seize her hand and turn it upward, asking in a thick stage accent, “Would the fine lady like her palm read? I see the past; I see the future.”
No harm in playing along. “What do you see? Give me a good fortune and I’ll see you rewarded.”
She made a show of examining the lines. “Ah, Mesnera, I see a mysterious stranger who longs for your gaze. Who pines for your touch. Does that fortune please you? Will you reward me with fine gifts—” She smoothed her hands possessively over the shawl tied about her waist. “—or perhaps with a kiss?” She leaned up against her familiarly.
Jeanne laughed and looked around at her party for advice. But a stricken look on Antuniet’s face drove all frivolity out of her mind. She was staring past her at nothing, as if lost in thought, or as if she had seen someone in the crowd. “Toneke, what’s wrong?”
She shook herself and said, “I think I should go home.”
Jeanne drew her a few steps away from the others. “Are you ill?” In sudden concern she looked in the direction Antuniet had been staring. “Did you see someone? Are you in danger again?”
“No, no. It’s…I just…I should go.”
“Tionez can send for her carriage. It’ll only be a short while.”
Antuniet shook her head again. “No need; I can go by boat. I’ll only have a few blocks to walk at the end. I don’t want to interfere with your entertainments.”
She pulled free and slipped into the crowd before there could be further objection. Jeanne started after her but Tio come up beside her. “I told you it was a mistake to invite her,” she said sourly. “Now shall we go back and dance some more?”
Jeanne bit back a sharp reply. Tio was too good a friend to offend lig
htly. She looked around at the growing boisterousness of the crowd and said, “I think Antuniet has the right of it. We’ve had our amusement, now it’s time to go home. In another hour we’ll likely be subject to some very rude offers and while you might consider it good fun, I doubt Maisetra Silpirt would enjoy it quite as much.” Indeed, Iaklin had been looking more and more as if she regretted her adventure. No doubt she hoped that any acquaintances who might have seen her here would forget the matter by the time her husband returned. “There’ll be plenty of dancing at the palace ball tonight. Though not with you,” she finished with mock despair, clutching Tio’s hand to her bosom. It was the touch needed to bring her around and back to good humor.
Chapter Twenty
Barbara
It was still too early in the year to be walking in the palace gardens for pleasure. The paths were caked with dead leaves and hidden clumps of ice in the shadows of the hedges. The gardeners wouldn’t yet consider it worth their time to begin cleaning, but there were shovels at work here and there, setting out new trees or repairing the lay of the drainage. It was an ideal place to meet for a private conversation, if one had sufficient excuse to be there at all. Princess Elisebet needed no excuse, but Barbara had chosen to use the lightly-peopled walkways to exercise her favorite bay mare without the trouble of riding out past the city gates. The princess had done her an awkward compliment to single her out again for mysterious private errands.
Nothing had ever been asked that wouldn’t bear the light of day. Yet it said much about how far Elisebet’s star had fallen that a woman who once had scores of partisans hanging on her every word would turn so often to someone outside her own household for assistance. Of the coterie that had surrounded her when Prince Aukust was alive, only Mesnera Sain-Mazzi, her chief waiting woman, remained close. And though half of Elisebet’s fears had turned out to be groundless, there had been too many odd events happening around young Chustin. If they had concerned anyone else, they could have been called coincidences. But Aukustin Atilliet might still someday be Prince of Alpennia. And for that reason, if no other, Elisebet could command her assistance.
Barbara had seen Elisebet walking along a side path with one of her ladies, but she cantered past twice more before dropping the horse to a walk and approaching as if by chance. She dismounted for a salute worthy of a dowager princess and fell in with her, leading her mount, to share pleasantries as the attendant fell behind.
“It looked to rain or worse; I didn’t know if you would come,” Elisebet said.
Barbara squinted at the sky. It might yet rain. “I’m not likely to wash away. I would have been riding out in the afternoon, in any case. I still keep up my sword practice, you know, and that was my excuse for coming out alone without a groom. Your note was quite insistent on that. Is Aukustin well?”
“He suffers from a slight chill in the lungs. The physician says there’s no serious concern, though Maistir Escamund thinks a pernicious spirit has taken hold and must be banished. But that isn’t why I asked you here,” she added hurriedly, as if fearing that the mention of consulting a thaumaturgist would bring Margerit into the conversation. Elisebet chose to overlook that connection, though it was Margerit’s service to Annek that made it awkward. Barbara had long since deflected any other suspicions in that line and Elisebet was not one to look beyond the obvious.
“How may I serve you?” Barbara asked. It could take Elisebet long to come to the point without prompting.
Elisebet looked back over her shoulder. Her lady was still well beyond earshot, so the gesture only served to emphasize a surreptitious purpose to their meeting. “It concerns my son’s tutor.”
Barbara searched through her memory for a name. It had been mentioned somewhere and she rather enjoyed her reputation for recalling names and faces. “Maistir Chautovil? What of him?”
“What have you heard?”
“Nothing at all,” Barbara returned blandly. “As far as I know he’s one of hundreds of adequate young scholars hoping to earn their bread now that their studies are done. A bit young, I would have thought, for a position of such importance.”
“The last man was…I thought a younger tutor might be more sympathetic, might catch Aukustin’s interest more easily.”
Barbara guessed at part of what lay under the choice: not a pompous old schoolmaster, but a more dashing figure who might compete with Chustin’s cousin for his admiration.
As if picking up her line of thought, Elisebet continued, “Too interesting, perhaps. Sain-Mazzi has heard it whispered that he has republican sympathies.”
Barbara laughed. “Every burfroi with a bit of education comes to contemplate the Equality of Man. He could scarcely be a revolutionary if he took service in your household. Is it anything but rumor?”
She hesitated. “Aukustin has been…repeating things. Asking some odd questions.”
“If it bothers you, turn him off. I’m sure you could find a reason.”
Elisebet protested, “But he’s an excellent tutor! And Aukustin is very fond of him. I only want to be sure—”
“How may I serve you?” Barbara repeated.
“You were a student at the university some years ago.”
“After a fashion.”
“But you know the district. You must know the people. If you could ask…find out who his friends were, what he was known to think?”
It was, in a way, the sort of snooping that had been part of her duties as the baron’s armin. “Didn’t you ask questions before hiring him?”
Elisebet shrugged. “He came with references from…well, from reputable people. But now I wonder if…Might someone have thought to cause trouble through my son?”
Barbara picked her way through the twists and turns of the explanation. “If I am to be of use, I need all the truth. Who gave him references? And whom do you suspect?”
The story was extracted with difficulty. The Dowager Countess Oriez had presented him for consideration through her daughter, who was one of Elisebet’s ladies. But the connection was more distant: a favor owed, the complexities of patronage back in Helviz. At the end of the trail, Elisebet wasn’t sure who had first mentioned Chautovil’s name; she was suspicious, but suspected no one in particular.
As always before, Barbara came to reluctant agreement. “I’ll see what I can discover. It may take time—weeks, perhaps. Especially if you don’t care for word to get back to him.”
Elisebet clearly wished for speedier news but acquiesced. “Thank you. It’s good to know whom I may rely on in this city.”
It was barely noon when Barbara left the palace grounds. Her usual appointment at Perret’s salle wasn’t for hours, but it made no sense to go home and change clothing twice. She could take potluck at finding someone to spar with.
Seeing Count Peskil’s son arrive as she handed the mare off to Perret’s groom, she called a greeting and claimed the promise of a bout or two if time allowed. “Though I’d rather find someone who can give me a challenge,” she teased. Peskil could be counted on to take it in good part. Not all of the regulars were willing to forget her sex in the fencing salle.
“Mesnera,” Perret called across the busy room at her entrance. “I hadn’t expected you until later!”
Barbara waved away the apology. “It was an impulse to come early. Don’t trouble yourself.”
But Perret beckoned her over and looked toward the far end of the salle, calling out, “Tavit! I have a match for you!”
Barbara saw a head come up: a slightly-built young man—not much older than herself, if that—in a worn broadcloth coat and knee breeches in the archaic mode that suggested he was in service, or had been lately. As he left off the broom he’d been wielding, Barbara looked skeptically at Perret. “A new candidate?”
He answered her unspoken question. “He came to town with nothing in his pocket but an introduction from an old friend of mine, so I’ve been letting him work for his board. His last position was a bad business all around, from what
I’ve heard. The less said about that the better. But I think he might suit you.”
Barbara looked back to the approaching figure. Slight, yes, but wiry. A bit of a dandy in his appearance, despite the clothing. Close-curled black hair in a fashionable crop framing a beardless face. Spanish blood, perhaps, or a touch of Gypsy. The cast of his skin nearly hiding a fading bruise all along one side of his cheek. A brawler? Not if Perret vouched for him. Perhaps only that “bad business,” whatever it had been.
Perret’s only introduction was, “Tavit, perhaps you could give the Mesnera a few passes.”
A narrowing of his eyes betrayed surprise but he made no demur at the request and only went to shed his coat and fetch practice blades for both of them. He fought cautiously, not in disdain of her skills, but as if uncertain whether he was allowed to prevail. She took one match easily, the next with more effort as he took her measure and began to respond. With the edge of her attention she saw Peskil had come over to watch with amusement. When she paused for a moment’s rest, he jeered, “How fair is it to take on someone your own size, Saveze? I thought you said you wanted a challenge!”
Barbara glanced over at Tavit, curious to know how he would take the slight to his ability. He was gaping at her in surprise.
“You…you are Baroness Saveze? I’ve heard of you.”
It was clear that whatever he’d heard had been somewhat embellished. “Indeed,” she said dryly. “Have you heard enough about me to be willing to grant me a serious contest?”
The blades came up again, and this time he worked in earnest and managed a touch before she scored her win. His skills were still raw—like a green colt yet to turn promise into performance—but she saw willingness and respect. He was worth trying further. “As a rule,” she said, “an armin should be more skilled than his employer. But for the sake of my own pride I’m happy to set that requirement aside. Perret suggested you were looking for a position.”
“Yes, Mesnera.”
He sounded wary. Had his last place been that bad? Or was she the source of his hesitation? On impulse she said, “I can’t judge a man by the practice floor. I have an errand in the university district. Would you have time to accompany me?”
The Mystic Marriage Page 22