“An unexpected journey. I’d rather it not be known that I’m in town. If I went to Tiporsel House they’d make a fuss and there would be no concealing my presence. I’d rather slip in and out quietly. Besides which, I need some information that I hope you can provide.”
“Bien sûr!” Jeanne said quickly. “And I hope you’ll take some dinner. Will you need a place to sleep?”
Barbara shook her head. “We’ll be on the road again before dark, but dinner would be lovely if you can scrape a meal together. Though I don’t doubt Tavit might be glad of a chance to close his eyes for a bit while we talk business.” She glanced over at the lean young man and he nodded in confirmation.
Tomric was set about making the arrangements, then Jeanne pulled Barbara down onto the settee and demanded, “Now what is this mysterious errand of yours? And in such outlandish clothes! What can I do for you?”
Barbara settled herself and leaned forward earnestly. “I’m serious about the secrecy. Promise me you won’t tell anyone I’ve been in town.”
“Well, there’s no one to gossip with,” Jeanne protested. “No one who’s anyone is still here.”
“Not even my cousin. And that goes for the servants as well.” She laughed. “I had to let Tomric know who I was or he’d never have let me through the door!”
“Yes, of course, since you ask,” Jeanne assured her. “As long as you tell me what this is all about.” She saw no reason to deny the likelihood of speaking to Antuniet.
Barbara shook her head. “Maybe later—much later—when the matter’s past. I’m still not certain what the end will be. Now, have you heard anything of where the court is spending its time at the moment? The two princesses in particular? I know Annek’s always on the move during summer and I don’t want to waste my time chasing a cold trail.”
Jeanne thought back to the bits of gossip that were floating around. She might be nearly a hermit but she wasn’t deaf. “Elisebet is off ensconced at Fallorek for the whole summer, as always. But the main court…they were at Suniz a week ago. Ah! Now I remember Charluz said she was off to take the waters at Akolbin because everyone would be there after the end of the month. And for her, ‘everyone’ would be the court. So you’re racing about the countryside carrying secret messages?”
Again a shake of the head. “Don’t tease me over it; my lips are sealed. I promise you’ll hear the whole story when it’s done. And I’m grateful for the hospitality. And the discretion.” Barbara caught up her hand and kissed it chastely in thanks.
When the hasty early supper was set out in the breakfast room, Jeanne stayed behind, trying to pry out hints and clues. “When I first saw you I was going to ask if you were running away from a lovers’ spat.” She smiled to make it clear how unlikely she considered the possibility.
“Far from it,” Barbara said. And then, in an uncharacteristically arch tone, “Though I might ask you the same thing.”
The question startled her and her instinct was to dissemble. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“No? I think you do. Is there anything I should know about you and my cousin?”
So. It scarcely took someone of Barbara’s perceptiveness to ask, but the officious edge in her voice prompted a teasing evasion. “Not at the moment,” she replied. “Though I have hopes of changing that.”
Barbara’s response was in the same bantering tone. “I almost think that I should ask whether your intentions are honorable.” But there was a harder edge underneath.
Jeanne said evenly, “I’ll repeat what you once said to me, ma chère: it’s none of your affair. And don’t think to play the paterfamilias and bully me. I don’t recall that Antuniet has placed herself under your protection.” She was gratified to see Barbara color slightly. “Never fear, I have only the best of intentions with regard to your cousin. You know well enough that I don’t need to pursue the unwilling.” The color deepened and she was able to move their talk on to less fragile matters.
And then, as quietly as she had appeared, Barbara was gone again before dusk could make an invitation to stay more appealing.
* * *
With the sweltering heat broken for a while, there were two more cycles of cibation before the topazes had achieved an acceptable size—those that had survived the ferment without cracking or losing their purity. “That will do for now,” Antuniet concluded when the polished stones had been examined minutely under a glass. “We may simply need to accept that more than half won’t survive the furnace.”
Jeanne took one of the rejected gems and held it up to the window. A dark thread wound along one side like a worm in a crystal apple and the light flashed on cracks within the heart radiating from that flaw. “And what do you do with these?”
Antuniet took it from her and swept it into an empty crucible along with the other flawed stones. “It may be possible to redissolve the materials and use them again. I haven’t experimented much with that yet. DeBoodt seems to think that some materials can be cycled through the twelve gates many times becoming purer and stronger each time. But some, he says, become fixed and can’t be redeemed if the work goes awry.” She set the crucible aside and gathered the perfect stones more carefully into a folded envelope marked with the date and process.
“And next?” Jeanne asked.
“Next I’d like to try the alternate method of multiplication that includes the marriage of the spirit of the new layer to the matter of the core,” Antuniet mused, leafing through her notes, “but that requires pairing of each of the roles. I suppose we could use one of the simpler formulas, but it limits us badly. Better to find a fourth to assist us, especially if we could find a double for the virgo role.”
Jeanne gave a short laugh. “Among my friends? Don’t be absurd!” She regretted the jest immediately when she saw Antuniet turn pale. But to apologize would only make the matter worse.
“Maisetra?” Anna said tentatively. “Perhaps my sister…”
“Ah, yes,” Antuniet said, happy to turn the conversation aside. “You have several, as I recall. Your younger sister?”
“I don’t think she would have the patience to learn the lines. I thought perhaps Iudiz?”
“Would she be willing, do you think? Would your father approve? Or is one alchemist in the family enough?”
“I’ll ask them,” Anna said. And then she put a hand to her mouth to cover a laugh. “But we’d need to work quickly; she’s getting married next month!”
Jeanne lingered a while after Anna left for the day, watching Antuniet sort through her notes and papers. The matter had been touched on and she could no longer contain the urge to know. “Antuniet? May I ask…” She hesitated, and Antuniet raised her head, sensing more than an idle question. “May I ask who…how…”
Understanding dawned. “How I lost my virtue?” Antuniet’s voice was suddenly tired. She looked back down at her papers and for a moment Jeanne thought she wouldn’t answer. Then she stiffened and looked up defiantly. “There was a man. In Heidelberg. A boy, really. It was a game to him: to try to seduce me. And then…I needed to leave the city quickly…in secret. He could get me out. It was the only coin I had to bargain with.”
Jeanne gave a silent sigh of relief. She’d feared much worse. “And then—”
“And then it was over.”
How deeply had it marked her? It was easy to forget how young she’d been when she fled Alpennia—how young and how sheltered. “Antuniet, did your mother talk—”
“My mother,” Antuniet interrupted with a curl to her lip, “talked to me about the importance of making a good match. If she had any concern about what would happen in my marriage bed it was only that it produce children. But that doesn’t mean I was completely ignorant.”
“It can be pleasant, you know,” Jeanne said softly. “Whether with a man or a woman.”
“Oh, no doubt! Else why would so many pursue it so eagerly!” But then she looked abashed, as if recalling how pointed her words might seem.
> “And now you see yourself as damaged goods.”
“Aren’t I? Isn’t that why you considered me fair game?”
It was the same bitterness as that dreadful night, but worn thin and pale. And it was such a complicated question to answer. “No,” Jeanne said simply. This was treacherous ground. “I knew my heart long before I knew your history. I knew it that night at New Year’s when you came to me for help. When you woke screaming from your past terrors and I knew that I would give anything…anything to be able to stand between you and your shadows.”
Antuniet was staring at her and the bitterness faded to something duller. “Then it was the ring. I’d wondered about that.”
“The ring?” Jeanne asked, bewildered.
“The carnelian. I never meant you to wear it. I only wanted you to keep it safe for me. And then when I saw it on your hand and you—”
Ah, yes, that ring. But it hadn’t been the ring that had brought her down here time and again all through last fall, though she hadn’t yet put a name to what drew her. Jeanne reached out to touch Antuniet lightly on the wrist to stop the flood of words. “Antuniet, you are a ruby in the mud of this world. You are brave and brilliant and your passion blazes like the summer sun. Do you truly think that no one is capable of loving you unless compelled by sorcery?”
The silence was its own answer. Jeanne longed to wash away that silent misery with a flood of kisses, but it was too soon. A clumsy move would undo all her careful work. Patience was the key. And when patience was hard, she recalled that when they’d sat around the May Day fire, it had been Antuniet’s billet that had sought her out, not the other way around. That was hope enough to wait on and they still had half the summer in front of them.
She had loved and lost before. This time would be different.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Barbara
One benefit of the court’s peripatetic habits was that two more strangers arriving at the posting inn late one evening were little remarked upon. The mineral springs had made Akolbin popular since ancient times, but few who came for the waters would stay at so unfashionable an establishment as the Cartwheel. Barbara was confident there was no chance she’d be recognized.
She and Tavit had been traveling long enough to have fallen into easy habits after one initial quarrel. Tavit had been scandalized to find her taking charge of the horses and haggling with the hostlers over hire fees and the quality of the nags foisted on them. Barbara had emphatically pointed out that her disguise placed her only half a step above the tale his own clothes told. “It would be odd enough to remark if I let you serve me in all things. And remark is what I don’t want. You can deal with the innkeeper and order us a meal.”
There had been far less argument about sharing a room, however awkward it made the arrangements. Even if separate rooms would not have caused even more remark, Tavit considered his duties to extend to adding his sleeping body as an extra bar across the door. Within the first few days, an elaborate dance to maintain privacy had become second nature. And so, on the morning after their arrival, Barbara had leisure to make herself presentable while Tavit went off to the manor that had the honor of hosting the princess and her entourage to deliver a brief message requesting an audience.
Two hours later, that message had procured discreet entrance under the shepherding of one of Annek’s pages. Such a casual meeting would have been far harder to secure during the season in Rotenek, but Barbara relied on the more relaxed manners of summer and the knowledge that Annek’s purpose in traveling was to make herself more approachable.
“And what mysterious errand brings you so far from home and in disguise?” Annek asked her, her expression wavering between amusement and concern.
Barbara laid both the sealed letter and the whole history before her, starting from Kreiser’s unexpected visit and tracing back as early as Aukustin’s peril during the hunt at Feniz to explain her part in it. Much of it Annek had already heard.
“It’s one thing to help watch over Aukustin’s safety,” Barbara said in conclusion. “But this…this steps across the line to disloyalty. I want no part of it. So I came to you.”
“Indeed,” Annek said. After a long moment of contemplation, with her fingers tented before her mouth, she added, “Thank you.”
Barbara expected to be dismissed, but she knew the waiting game of old and stood patiently, watching the edges of thoughts flit across Annek’s face.
“And what do you think?” Annek said at last.
Barbara concealed the surprise she felt at being consulted. “I think that the dowager princess had no intent to make this connection. I have heard nothing in my dealings with her that suggested she was looking outside Alpennia for friends. The whole of her game has been to paint you and your son as foreigners. But if this alliance were offered to her? I don’t know that she would have the wisdom to refuse.”
“Wisdom? Do you think a foreign alliance would be an unwise choice for Alpennia?”
Barbara thought carefully. Was this a test or was she genuinely seeking advice? “Not a poor choice in general. At the New Year’s court I overheard what you told Kreiser about your son’s future. If Baron Razik is to be Alpennia’s next prince he will need a local alliance, not a foreign one. Now Aukustin, if he were chosen instead? Then an outward tie could do much to strengthen our position as long as it were offered in good faith. But this? Aukustin doesn’t stand high enough to attract an emperor’s daughter on his own. This could only be a maneuver to ensure his success and thus to place him under obligations that would be difficult to resist.”
Annek nodded. “That was my thought as well. But you observe the court so sharply that I was curious whether you had come to the same conclusion. I knew several of this man’s goals—” She held up the sealed letter. “—but I will be glad to know the rest. Now tell me, Saveze,” she asked in a different tone, “why bring me this news in disguise? One might almost think you, too, had some deeper game in mind.”
“It occurred to me,” Barbara said carefully, “that if it were your thought to see the charade through, it would be better if no one could tell Elisebet I had come here first.”
“To see the charade through,” Annek repeated. “You mean to set a trap for my cousin?”
“Not a trap, no. But perhaps a chance to clear herself of suspicion? From what I know of her and from what Kreiser told me, I don’t think she expects this offer. Wouldn’t it be well to know what her reaction would be?”
Annek picked up the packet of papers before her and turned it over in her hands. “It would help if we knew the details of his offer.”
“I made no attempt to inspect them,” Barbara said. “Maisetra Sovitre says there are mysteries that can reveal tampering. She examined them briefly before I left but could find no outward signs.”
The packet was sealed and tied up with just the sort of archaic binding that might easily conceal the apparatus of a small mystery. Annek examined it carefully. “There are ways to reveal the contents that don’t involve disturbing the seal.” She set the letters aside. “Do you need to return to Saveze immediately?”
“I am at your command,” Barbara reassured her, setting aside her impatience to be home. “I’m staying at the Cartwheel by the eastern edge of town.”
“Then remain there. I’ll have word for you in a few days.”
Barbara fidgeted while Annek deliberated. It would be a hard decision for her. A chance to clear herself, she had said. But it was true that it was more in the way of a trap.
Two days later, when Annek sent for her again and charged her with the mission she thought would come, she asked one favor. “It galls me to let Elisebet think I would work against you. Would it disturb your plans if I counseled her against what I believe this message contains?”
There was a glint of amusement in Annek’s hooded eyes. “Would you like to know what it contains?”
“Better I shouldn’t know in my guise as courier. But it’s easy enough to guess, a
nd that guess is something she should be warned against. I—” Was it too presumptuous to say? “I would like to see you reconciled with your cousin. If there’s anything I can do to help bring that about…”
Annek’s eyes narrowed and Barbara thought she had indeed stepped too far across the line. “Saveze, if anyone could reconcile my cousin to me, my gratitude would have few limits. But I doubt that you are capable of that task.”
“Then, if you prefer, let me do this for the sake of my own good name.”
“Yes,” Annek said slowly. “Yes, I think that would be exactly the flavor this needs. And then return and tell me what she says. I will be curious to know if she takes the advice of one she seems to trust above her closer confidants.”
Elisebet might be harder to approach for a private audience, ensconced as she was at the Atilliet summer manor of Fallorek, but in recompense there was less need of secrecy. It took only a change of coat and unpinning her tawny hair to hang free to turn disguise into ordinary eccentricity.
Elisebet received her in the morning parlor, where they worked through the rituals of hospitality.
“I hope I find you in good health,” Barbara offered, “and that Aukustin is the same.” Her son was always a safe topic between them.
“His health has been indifferent of late. A touch of melancholy.”
Barbara discounted that. Elisebet took Chustin’s every frown and sniffle as a sign of impending disaster. “I believe that boys his age are often moody. There must be a great deal to entertain him here after the confines of the palace in Rotenek.” Where he’s scarcely allowed to step out of doors without being surrounded by tutors and attendants.
The pleasantries took some time to accomplish but at last Barbara ventured, “Several weeks ago in Saveze I was approached with a message.” She reached inside her coat just enough to allow a glimpse of the sealed packet.
At once Elisebet was all attention. Barbara scanned her face for any sign of foreknowledge or anticipation but there was only sharp curiosity. With deliberate casualness, she continued, “I understand the rose garden here at Fallorek is a wonder to behold.”
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