The Mystic Marriage

by Jones, Heather Rose

  Elisebet blinked a moment at the change in topic, then answered, “Indeed. Perhaps you would care to walk with me before the noon sun drives off the perfume.”

  As they entered the low-hedged pathways, she waved her ladies back out of hearing before asking, “What is this, Saveze? I knew you must have some special purpose in coming.”

  Barbara pulled out the packet but kept it in hand until she’d said her piece. “That Austrian, Mesner Kreiser, came to me in secret and asked me to bring you this.” It was easy enough to color her words with anger. “I cannot like this. I don’t know what you may have told Kreiser about me, but he is badly mistaken if he thinks I will work against Her Grace. And you are badly mistaken if you think what he sends is an offer of friendship. Whatever this may contain—” She held up the sealed packet. “—its intent is to serve his master and not you or Aukustin.”

  Elisebet held out her hand imperiously. “And what would you know of matters of state?”

  “Mesnera, I know that you have no business meddling in those matters of state on your own behalf,” Barbara said, even as she handed the letter over. She moderated her tone from anger to urgency. “I spent years standing at my father’s back when he was the second greatest power in Rotenek after Prince Aukust, God rest his soul. I think I know something of how the game is played. It’s one matter for me to help watch over Aukustin—that falls under my service to your house—but this smells of intrigues I want no part of. If that message is what I suspect, I beg you to leave me out of it.”

  She flinched as Elisebet clutched at her arm in a mercurial change of mood from arrogance to desperation. “How can you abandon us now? You don’t know what I face—what peril my son is in. Even here Aukustin isn’t safe from that…that foreigner’s malice.”

  This was more than her usual distrust. Barbara asked, “What happened?”

  Elisebet looked around in the frightened, furtive way that came over her more and more. “Friedrich. He came here.”

  “Is that such a matter for concern?” Barbara asked when no immediate details followed. “He has as much right to spend his time at Fallorek as you.”

  “He came with a gift for Aukustin. A spirited horse, trained by his own hand, he said. What boy could resist? And then, after he’d left, we learned the truth. Trained by his own hand indeed! The beast was vicious, unmanageable. I was forced to have it destroyed. Even here we are not safe.”

  Barbara listened with barely concealed horror. No wonder Chustin has fallen under a black mood! To be given such a gift and have it snatched away so brutally… She dismissed instantly the thought that the accusation was true. But something had set the horse off. Her mind skipped back to the hunt at Feniz. Someone’s been playing tricks with horses before, someone close to him who wouldn’t be questioned. Who could it be? Might the same man have been behind both accidents? A servant who’d been corrupted? Or…

  “Yes,” Elisebet hissed, mistaking the thoughts behind her silence and frown. “You see what I have to fear? Can you blame me for seeking friends where I can find them?”

  “Friends, yes. But Kreiser is no friend to you.” She returned to her pleading tone. “Barely half a year ago he was courting Efriturik and making overtures to Annek on his master’s behalf. If he is making the same offers now to you, never forget that you were second choice. If Her Grace smiled his way, you’d be left behind in a heartbeat. Think on that before you return him any answer that could be a weapon against you.”

  That hit home. But Elisebet slid her thumb under the edge of the packet and cracked the seal, then unfolded the letter and scanned it quickly. Barbara tried to read the contents in her expression. Whatever it held was neither startling enough nor pleasing enough to cause Elisebet to betray her thoughts. She folded it again and looked up. “I thank you for your service. You may go.”

  Barbara hesitated only a moment before bowing in acknowledgment and turning away.

  What did I expect? That she would share her plans with me after all I’d said? There was relief, in truth, that there would be no tale to carry back to Annek. She had kept faith with all sides and that could be the end of it. And perhaps now there would be no further imperious demands or desperate pleas.

  * * *

  Annek listened to her scant report with interest but little concern, as if she’d already put the matter behind her. “And she said nothing else?”

  “Only the matter of Efriturik’s gift,” Barbara said, thinking it would be old news, but Annek lifted one black eyebrow in question, and that story, too, came out. “It isn’t only Princess Elisebet’s fancies,” Barbara added. “Someone is playing dangerous tricks around Aukustin and leaving a trail that leads to your son.” It would be insulting to add her own certainty that Efriturik himself was innocent.

  “I said once before that I valued your sharp eyes,” Annek said. “Use them for me. Discover who’s behind this mischief if you can. Oh, not this moment,” she added with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I won’t keep you from home any longer. If Efriturik must be present to be blamed, then there should be no danger for the rest of the summer. But when we all return to Rotenek, the chance may come again. Look for someone who would gain if both Elisebet’s son and mine came to harm.” She rose in dismissal, adding, “I feel some mark of gratitude is called for, seeing that you’ve ridden from one end of Alpennia to the other in my service. Is there anything you’d care to ask for?”

  Barbara evaluated the nature of the offer and grinned as she found an answer that suited its size. “Could your thanks extend as far as a courier’s commission? The posting inns are strangely hesitant to hire their best horses out to an ordinary traveler. I’d rather keep to my disguise for the journey back, and your name could save me from the worst of the boneshakers!”

  If anything, a royal commission made them more invisible on the return journey than they had been when masquerading as common men. No one looked beyond that seal and Annek’s looping signature and, as hoped, the mounts they were offered were as fine as those in the princess’s own stables.

  They took a more southerly route, crossing the Rotein by ferry at Falinz, then heading east along the road skirting the hills. On the second day after, Barbara found herself staring at a worn milestone where the road branched, trying to think why the eroded name of Villa Rabani should be familiar. Rapenfil. One of the baron’s letters, scant years after he came into the title, when his star was rising and Arpik’s was beginning to fall. She brought those pages to mind. Every word was still burned in her memory.

  I saw you at Pergint’s ball last night and could no longer keep my silence. You have been too long absent from society and there have been rumors I feared to believe. Do not assure me that you are happy; your eyes betray you. But can you tell me you are content?

  His words had been tender then, without the frantic passion of the earlier letters, but soon turned hard again. I read what you do not write. You tell me “be careful” and I hear “I am afraid.” Never forget that I will stand your friend to the ends of the earth. Your concern for your family’s good name is misplaced. Arpik can do little harm worse than they’ve already suffered by tying their hopes to his promises. Even those promises mean nothing if you give him no sons. But on that I’ll say no more. I know well enough where that fault lies. Be careful. And, as always, burn these letters.

  But she hadn’t. Had their correspondence truly remained secret all those years? Or had Arpik never cared for anything beyond her dowry? In the end, even her dowry had had its limits. Is it true? The city is abuzz with word that your father’s house was seized in payment of your husband’s debts. I hadn’t thought Arpik was gone so deep or that your father would be so foolish as to pledge his own property as collateral. Arpik will never recover now; the illusion is broken and his creditors will smell blood. They say your family has left Rotenek for Rapenfil. You would do well to follow them.

  But that wasn’t the only place she had seen the village’s name. It had been on the card he
r mother’s sister had left for her, on the line below Henirez Chamering.

  “Mesnera?” Tavit’s voice broke into her reverie. “Do we change our route?”

  “Yes,” Barbara said in sudden decision. “I have a visit to make. An aunt. Cousins, perhaps.” She smiled at him ruefully. “I only hope we find them at home.”

  Once again she changed her appearance from male disguise to more feminine eccentricity. Maisetra Chamering had seen her riding clothes before. This way there would be no need for awkward explanations and they were far enough from the court that secrecy was no longer urgent.

  Finding the farm proved easier than she feared. The name of Chamering was well known in these parts. “Just continue on down the road through the village,” a carter offered when she asked the direction. “On past the mill and then left after that up toward the old abbey.”

  It was the sort of direction that would be easy for a stranger to lose, but they followed the road he’d indicated. It was haying season and the fields they passed were strewn with cut rows drying in the sun. In the far distance precariously laden wagons dwarfed those filling them. The scent was sweet on the warm summer breeze, though a hint of coming rain explained the urgency Barbara could see in the fields.

  When the farmstead came at last in view it reminded her of that of Margerit’s cousins in Mintun. Not a neat and tidy house, but well-kept despite its chaos, with bright whitewashed walls and sturdy fences. In the yard, a boy was mending harness at the back of a wagon. He jumped to his feet at their approach and shouted, “Mama! Visitors!” to be answered by a babble of women’s voices from the kitchen beyond.

  The boy darted forward to catch their horses’ bridles, staring in awe. At the horses, that is. Barbara noted with amusement that he paid almost no attention to their riders. The steeds that Annek’s name could command stood out against the cart horses tied at the gate like peacocks among geese. “Is Maisetra Chamering at home?” she asked, gaining his attention at last.

  “She’s coming,” the boy answered confidently. And then, as if to make good on his word, he once again shouted, “Mama!”

  So he was a cousin, Barbara thought, just as Maisetra Chamering came bustling out the door, blinking in the light.

  In Rotenek she had stood clearly out of place, but here it was different. Here she was mistress. She wiped her hands on her apron as she approached, eyeing the visitors critically but with an air of harried welcome. Barbara swept off her hat to let her long braid tumble free for easier recognition. “Forgive me, Maisetra,” she said, “for the unannounced visit. I was passing near and hoped you might be able to spare me an hour or two. I owe you a morning call, after all.” She made no mention of the harsh words she’d spoken the last time they met. There was an apology owed for that.

  The woman’s eyes widened but she made no other sign of surprise. “Mesnera Lumbeirt,” she said with a little curtsey. “Your visit does us honor. I’m afraid you’ve caught me on a busy day. We’ve dinner to make and take out to the fields before I can see you properly entertained.”

  “Please,” Barbara ventured, feeling suddenly awkward. “Would you do me the favor of calling me Barbara? If I may call you aunt?” It was a start on the apology. “I’ve never had anyone to call aunt before.” The woman nodded and they both relaxed. “And I can scarcely expect you to drop everything and sit in the parlor with me, but perhaps I could find a corner of your kitchen out of the way and we can talk while you work.”

  She turned to Tavit to see if he wanted instruction. He gave an amused nod in the boy’s direction and she caught his meaning. “And perhaps my cousin could help my armin with our horses? They’ve had a long road and longer yet to go.”

  “See you finish that harness before we need it!” her aunt called back by way of permission, as they went through the short passage into the bustling kitchen. “He’ll be talking of nothing else for the next week. It isn’t often he gets a chance to handle as fine a piece of horseflesh as those.”

  “I thought he had that look,” Barbara said with a grin. “I was the same way at that age.”

  The other women in the kitchen looked up to stare as they entered and had to be scolded back to work. There were still glances and giggles—more, Barbara realized, aimed at her clothing than her person—until Maisetra Chamering said sharply, “Don’t gawk like a goose. This is my niece, Baroness Saveze, come for a visit. Do you want her to think we’ve no manners?” The hands quickly returned to chopping and mixing but the eyes still followed her.

  In the end, the kitchen corner went unused and Barbara stripped off her coat and rolled up her sleeves to join in, for it seemed the likeliest way to talk easily across the hubbub. “I’ve read the letters,” she said with no preamble.

  “Her letters?”

  “His,” Barbara said, “to her.”

  “Ah, I wondered. And so?”

  “I’m sorry for…for the things I said the last time we met.” Barbara groped for an explanation. “The story I’d heard was…different.”

  “Not so very different, I imagine.”

  “Not in essentials,” Barbara agreed. “But…” She paused. “Perhaps you can tell me what you know.”

  Maisetra Chamering shook her head. “We weren’t close, your mother and I. How could we be? She was ten years the elder and—” She hesitated before plunging on. “So much of it happened when I was too young to be told anything.”

  Barbara could tell there was more behind that. We weren’t close. “She was ten years the elder and beautiful,” she suggested.

  Her aunt winced, but the remark seemed to free her from her reticence. “Lissa was the golden one. The beautiful one. She was the one sent to school at Saint Orisul’s while I made do with a governess at home. And talented: she could sing and dance and make pretty speeches. Well, maybe I would have too if I’d been given the chance, but she was so far ahead. Our parents had decided she would make a brilliant match and I would be lifted on her tide. Maybe it wasn’t fair that they staked everything on her dowry, but, you see, once she had married her nobleman, then he would see me well-launched in my turn. That was how it was supposed to work.”

  “Only she fell in love with Marziel Lumbeirt.”

  “Perhaps she did, I don’t know.” She turned away to check something in the ovens and run a critical eye over the progress of the work before returning. “He was only one of the names I heard. I remember there were arguments and shouting behind closed doors. But I was only a child; no one told me anything. I know there was a great scandal. And then in the end she married Arpik after all. And you know the rest. I didn’t know about…about Lumbeirt and you. Not until that story drifted out this way a year ago.”

  That can’t be all! You’re the only one who can tell me…“So she married Arpik after all,” she prompted. “And then…?”

  Maisetra Chamering shrugged as she piled warm loaves into a basket and covered them with a cloth. “And then he swept her off to his estate after that first season and we didn’t see her for years. But you have to remember, the wars had started and everything was in an uproar. At first we thought he kept her away from Rotenek out of caution. We expected at any time to hear she would be presenting him with an heir. It was only later we knew he simply wanted her out of the way. It wouldn’t have suited him to have a wife close at hand questioning his comings and goings. And then Arpik’s house of cards came tumbling down and took us with it. I should have been brought out that year,” she added, without any discernable bitterness. “We moved back here. What else could we do? I never did have my season. I was the nearest thing to on the shelf when Chamering offered for me.” She turned and said fiercely, as if to convince herself, “He’s a good man. And he’s never been anything but kind to me, despite never getting a penny from it. And when my parents died he saw them properly buried with a stone and everything when they would have had a pauper’s grave else. And we have five fine sons.”

  Barbara could think of nothing to do but nod. Whatever Ma
isetra Chamering claimed, it must have stung. Her elder sister married to a Count and she with a man who barely rose to the level of a gentleman farmer.

  “But I never had a daughter,” she added wistfully. “Do you know? At the end, when I heard of Lissa’s trouble and Chamering let me travel to Rotenek to see her, I asked if she would let me take you to raise as my own. All she gave me was that casket of letters. And then later, when we heard she had died of a fever in…in that place, there was no mention of you. I thought you must have died as well. I always regretted that I hadn’t begged harder for you.”

  Barbara looked around at the fields and wagons and cast her mind back across the years. What would that world have been like? So quiet and ordinary. And despite all she had suffered through, in that world her feet would never have been set on the path that led to Margerit or to the barony. She reached out and touched her aunt’s hand. “What’s past is past. Regret nothing,” she urged. “I wouldn’t choose to have had any life but the one I’ve known.”

  The dinner was packed and loaded at last and her young cousin had completed the harness repairs despite distractions. In the time she’d spent inside talking, the horses had not merely been fed and watered but groomed as if for parade. He was hanging on Tavit’s every word as they discussed the finer points of the beasts. Seeing no signs that her armin wanted rescue, she told the boy, “I’d like to ride in the wagon with your mother. Perhaps you’d be willing to bring my horse along?”

  At an admonition from his mother—“Say thank you to the baroness, Brandel”—he was up in the saddle and it was clear that his skill was as deep as his interest.

  “Brandel?” Barbara asked curiously as she settled next to her aunt on the wagon seat.

  “We christened him Eskambrend,” she replied somewhat ruefully, “but he’s never quite grown into it.”