There Antuniet thought she could see her art at work. By the time the last of the rings had been distributed, Albori’s habitual wheezing seemed to have quieted somewhat. She saw him glancing constantly at the stone. Once he looked in her direction with an air of wonder. Antuniet suddenly had visions of being besieged for charms against fever and gout.
When the pastries had been consumed, the guests were released at last. Strains of music and laughter from the assembly hall showed that the dancing was well begun. The thought of pushing through that crush in search of Jeanne was daunting, so she found the narrow stair to the upper galleries and climbed for a good vantage. No one went there unless seeking privacy; it was a quiet place from which to watch.
She leaned on the rail and looked down across the crowd. The figures of the dancers swirled beneath her gaze like eddies on the river. There, at the side, the nodding feathers on Jeanne’s turban were a beacon above the sea of heads. She stood in animated conversation with Count Chanturi and a slender young woman in a pale blue gown. How she sparkled in such a gathering!
Antuniet had almost forgotten what it was to see Jeanne in company. Their own time together was quieter. Even the moments of passion seemed filled with intensity rather than laughter. She had never been able to play the games of flirtation and light gaiety that Jeanne so enjoyed. It always felt false. Yet she couldn’t help but envy the animation that lit Jeanne’s face now as she leaned toward the young woman and said something that made them both laugh. Antuniet absently stroked the pendant at her breast. She no longer had doubts. Not in that way. But at what cost? By what right should she expect Jeanne to give up this life she so enjoyed? She could do her best; but if her best were not enough? As she watched, a tightness rose in her throat. Perhaps it was time to accept that as well. She turned away from the rail to find the stair down to the floor.
Jeanne turned at her approach and crossed the space in a few quick strides to join her. “Have they released you at last?”
“Yes,” she said, looking past to where Chanturi and the girl still stood in conversation. Jeanne turned her head to follow her gaze. “She’s very pretty,” Antuniet offered in as even a tone as she could manage.
“Mmm,” Jeanne answered, as if she didn’t trust herself to say more.
The words Antuniet meant to use congealed in her throat. How did one…“Non in solo pane,” she said at last.
A curious glance. “Not by bread alone?”
“Jeanne,” she blurted, before she could lose courage, “I can be your bread and water, but I can’t be your cake and champagne. It isn’t fair of me to ask you to give up champagne. I would…understand if sometimes you wanted more.”
Jeanne’s mouth parted in surprise. “Toneke, that’s a generous offer. Are you certain?”
“No, I’m not certain!” The words burned on her tongue and she kept her eyes on the floor for fear of not being able to get them all out. “I’m terrified. I’m terrified I might lose you to someone more charming, more beautiful than I could ever be. But I’m also terrified that I’ll lose you by holding you too tightly. I don’t make you laugh the way she did. I can’t flirt and I can’t dance. And the parties you enjoy so much only leave me tired and lonely. I can see where it will end. What you feel for me will shrivel up into regret and obligation.”
She felt the touch of a kidskin glove under her chin and Jeanne’s fingers warm through it, drawing her face up so that she couldn’t avoid her eyes. “Toneke, no one can see the future, but have more faith in me than that.” Jeanne’s eyes searched hers, looking for that faith. “Do you trust me?”
“I trust you,” Antuniet said, “but I want you to be happy.”
“I am happy. I am more happy than I deserve to be. And it wasn’t what you thought.” She nodded out across the floor toward the blue-gowned girl. “Iustin’s nothing but a musician Chanturi wants me to help launch. He thinks I should turn my talents to a better use than opera parties.” With a lightness that Antuniet saw through, she added, “It seems my days planning opera parties may have come to an end. I have finally succeeded in moving beyond mere eccentricity to outright scandal. I’m finding it strangely liberating.”
Antuniet felt Jeanne’s fingers entwine in her own and her hand was raised up to be kissed, there in the grand assembly room before everyone. “And now I would like to take advantage of my newfound freedom. I refuse to believe that you can’t dance. Will you dance with me now?”
The waltz had been playing for some time when they joined the dancers. There was space only for a dozen turns across the floor—barely time for a few whispers to begin before the music faded and they were left gazing into each other’s eyes. Suddenly, Jeanne pulled her by the hand out past the curious watchers into the gallery beyond until they came to a niche by the stairs where a measure of privacy could be achieved. Jeanne took both her hands and held them up against her breast. “Toneke…Antuniet, come live with me.”
“What?” she said, too startled to be more articulate.
“Live with me,” Jeanne repeated earnestly. “Share my house. Let me see your face across the breakfast table every morning. Let me give you this certainty: that whatever may happen out here—” she waved her hand to encompass the assembly beyond “—I will never come home to anyone but you.”
“Are you certain?” Antuniet could see all the difficulties. The workshop on Trez Cherfis was nothing to take comfort in, but it had been her refuge for over a year. Almost a home. To be instead a guest in another’s house, even in Jeanne’s… And if there had been gossip before, what would they bring on themselves now?
“I have never been more certain of anything in my life.”
* * *
It wasn’t as simple to leave Trez Cherfis as it had been to arrive. When Monterrez had first hired the building for her, she had brought little more than the clothes on her back and the worn satchel containing her one treasure. Now there was all the remaining equipment and supplies to deliver to the palace grounds. Even having taken her best gowns to Jeanne’s house long since, she would need to borrow a valise for the rest of her wardrobe. And there was the staff. The two men who had shared the duties of guard took the news in good part, but Mefro Feldin bristled when told that her services were no longer required.
“But it’s not as if I could keep you on,” Antuniet said, attempting to soften the dismissal. “Mesnera de Cherdillac has her own housekeeper.” No need to mention that even if the post were vacant and had Feldin not succeeded in offending everyone, she was far from being suitable for a vicomtesse’s household.
“So this place isn’t good enough for you now you have a royal appointment?” Feldin said acidly, as if even the veneer of deference had peeled away. “You may turn your back on what you’ve done here, but I won’t forget. It’s a hard time of year to be looking for a position.”
The hint of threat was unmistakable, but Antuniet wanted only to be done with the matter. “I’ll ask Maisetra Sovitre to give you two months’ wages to see you through. And a character, if you need one.” Though what sort of character it would be she didn’t care to promise. And whatever it was that Margerit offered her, it failed to induce her to remain until the place was emptied.
Antuniet paused in the doorway to look back at the bare rooms before locking the door for the last time. So much had happened within these walls. The final task had been to clear out the little charms and mysteries she had laid on all the windows and doors—more comfort than protection in these last months. She pulled the door shut and removed the key. Behind her, Jeanne sat waiting in the hired fiacre. “Shall we go home?” she asked as Antuniet climbed inside.
It was a dizzy, disorienting feeling to come home to a place one had known as a stranger. Antuniet had expected…she wasn’t sure what she had expected. Not this. Not the ease of slipping on a well-tailored glove. Tomric greeted her at the door with the same distant affection he showed to Jeanne. Marien bustled into the room after her to set her few things to rights. The ma
id laid out her dinner clothes with a vague but unmistakable hint that she was grateful her mistress was settling down at last. Did Jeanne know how lucky she was to be surrounded by such loyalty? Of course she did. No doubt her present security was the product of long years of careful attention.
Antuniet wandered aimlessly around the room, running her fingers over the polished mahogany of the dresser, peeking out between the curtains at the view of the yard behind. This room was the match to Jeanne’s bedroom, connecting through the small dressing room. Who had used it last? She knew that Jeanne had never installed any of her passing flirtations in this house. The furnishings followed the fashion of the previous generation and had a hint of a masculine air. She tried to remember what she’d heard of Jeanne’s marriage. Had they lived together here? Or had she only inherited the house after his death? It didn’t matter. Evidently the room was to be hers now. She was still staring out the window when she heard Jeanne’s footsteps behind her and felt her arms encircle her waist.
“Do you like it? I don’t know that you’ll get much use of the bed but I wanted you to have your own room. I didn’t make any changes yet. I wanted you to make it over for yourself.”
It was the purest luxury: to lean back into those arms and breathe in the scent of spice and roses that always followed Jeanne. Yes, it could be home perhaps, in time.
They made love that night, not with the hungry fervor of their earliest encounters, but in a long, slow exploration, as if time no longer had any meaning.
There was so much and yet so little to do. When it came to the work itself, Antuniet felt at a loss, like a runner who has finished his race and stares blankly around. She moved from task to task, idly organizing the notes and lists that had accumulated during the last few months and trying to remember the projects she had set aside for the commission. The furnace in the palace workshop had sat cold for two weeks now while the old quarters on Trez Cherfis were cleared out. Anna was still unpacking the crates and baskets to combine the contents of the two buildings.
“Have you found the double alembic yet?” Antuniet asked, seeing the last of the glass vessels set carefully into their stands.
“No, Maisetra,” she answered. “And not the brass-bound box you asked me to watch for either.”
Antuniet frowned and began circling the room, reviewing the contents of every shelf and cupboard. The alembic might simply have been broken and discarded in the confusion of the move, but the other was more worrisome. The small box had little real value. The stones it held had no special enhancements but they were her first experiments in the layered cibation. No doubt they would turn up eventually. She thought she’d last seen them in the upper chamber on Trez Cherfis; perhaps they’d been packed with her personal things by mistake. She was crouching to poke through odds and ends thrust into a cubbyhole that was meant to store kindling, when the door opened and Anna’s hurried, “Welcome, Mesnera!” claimed her attention.
“I fear you’ve caught us still in disarray,” she said, climbing to her feet as Princess Annek entered with the usual crowd of attendants. In truth, the greater part of the chaos had been tamed but the room held neither a presentable tidiness nor the forgivable clutter of work underway. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“I was curious to see what you plan next,” Annek said as she looked about the room.
“Whatever you command, of course,” Antuniet said. “Anna, fetch a seat for Her Grace if she wishes.”
“We don’t mean to stay.” A wave of the hand cut short Anna’s scramble. “I was only curious to know how matters stand. In time, I have a few ideas to discuss with you. But for now, I think perhaps I should like to see where your own vision takes you.” She hesitated; one might almost think she was embarrassed. “You have a remarkable talent. I am sorry I was not able to reward you as you desired.”
She seemed sincere enough, though it was also true that nothing had prevented her but her own choice. Antuniet nodded in acknowledgment but moved to a new topic. “Will Baron Razik continue to assist with the work?” They had seen nothing of Efriturik since before the New Year’s court.
Annek’s response began stiffly. “It’s time for my son to move on to other responsibilities. I think perhaps I shall allow him to take up a commission.” But then her voice warmed. “He’s grown steadier under your watch. I confess I lent him in answer to Maisetra Sovitre’s request as much to keep him busy and out of trouble as to have another set of eyes on your work.”
Well, there was no surprise in that.
“It’s changed him for the better. I hadn’t thought to have that to thank you for. I’ve been thinking…” But whatever her thought had been, she chose not to complete it.
“He’s no scholar,” Antuniet said bluntly. “But he has a flair for the work and I could always rely on him.” It was true and she’d miss his presence. At the first, she’d thought him no different from the usual run of young noblemen, and she had little patience for that sort. But he’d become part of the close-knit crew that had brought their ship to harbor at last. “I think you can give me little credit if he’s matured,” she said. “Young men are best when given an occupation they value. A cavalry commission will suit him better than alchemy, I suspect.”
“Perhaps,” Annek agreed. But Antuniet felt the weight of her measuring gaze until at last she signaled to her retinue and they wheeled and left like a flock of pigeons.
“We’ll need to find another assistant or two,” Antuniet told Anna after the princess had left. Margerit had been a rock of support but she had her own studies to take up again. And Jeanne—no doubt Jeanne would come any time she asked, but the workshop no longer need be their meeting place. Better to leave Jeanne free for her own pursuits. And there was no need to lean on those few ties now. A royal alchemist would find it far easier to hire assistants and even to find new apprentices than a penniless exile could have hoped for. And with Annek’s open patronage, there was no fear that her studies would be taken for anything darker.
* * *
With the press of the work drawn back and the seal of royal approval, Antuniet found her evenings more and more turned outward. If the rumor of scandal had reduced the claims on Jeanne’s time from the more staid of the matrons, it caused no diminution in invitations from old friends. And there were still those who could forgive much for a chance at the ties Jeanne could provide. “Any tool for the job,” Jeanne said cheerfully when Antuniet questioned her about an invitation from the Marzulins. “I scarcely knew who they were either, but they fit my requirements. It wouldn’t do to try to launch Chanturi’s violinist at the Salle-Chapil under someone like the Penilluks or the Aruliks. No one would pay much attention to the music; it would just be another party. I need a hostess who would be too flattered by the offer to question the choice.”
“Flattered indeed.” Antuniet cast her eyes over the ornate invitation. “I don’t know whether to be grateful or insulted that she’s invited me.”
“Be flattered for yourself,” Jeanne said. “For I never even mentioned your name. It was Maisetra Marzulin who asked if she might aspire to the company of Princess Annek’s alchemist on the thread of our friendship. I’ve shamelessly allowed her to use my name in the invitations. Tio has promised to come as well.”
That might have set her mind against going if it hadn’t meant so much to Jeanne. The concert was to be a small affair, no more than fifty guests, perhaps. The sponsor Jeanne had chosen to approach was a man of middle years who had made his fortune in canal-building and was now setting about the business of seeing that his children would climb a few steps higher in Rotenek society than he had. Of course, it had been his wife whom Jeanne had approached, and she had taken some coaxing, for she was badly daunted by the list of names that were proposed. Antuniet had listened to Jeanne’s tales of the struggle day by day over breakfast.
“I don’t know why she thought they were buying that enormous house out past the north gate if it were only to entertain shopkeeper
s,” Jeanne had complained. “Though I suppose Maistir Marzulin bought it just to show he could. But their place is exactly the size for what I have in mind. Something intimate to set Iustin off at the start. Rumor will whet the appetite. Soon people will be clamoring to hear her play simply to hold it over their friends who haven’t.”
Antuniet looked around as they entered the half-filled room. Not so large as the ballroom at Margerit’s place in Chalanz, but enough that Rotenek standards would consider it vulgar for a townhouse. Much of the crowd might be thought vulgar as well, but that was all part of Jeanne’s plan. Her complex logic had reminded Antuniet why she’d hated her mother’s attempts to teach her how to plan entertainments. Baits and lures, flattery and envy, pride and curiosity. But this was Jeanne’s artistry: to bring people together for a purpose beyond them all and convince each one he had the best of it.
The burfroi crowd had been carefully seeded with more elevated guests—ones with enough reason for their presence to be unremarkable, and lending enough cachet to cast a mantle of success over it all. There was Count Chanturi, of course, over by the pianoforte, speaking with his protégée and with Ion-Pazit, the composer who would accompany her himself. And Chanturi had drawn in Felzin and one of the Salun brothers. Emill Chaluk was well known as a great admirer of Ion-Pazit’s work, and with her one could include her two nephews without seeming too forward. Chaluk was holding forth to them on the intricacies of the composer’s rhythms, to the rapt entertainment of a small crowd. And as promised, Jeanne had delivered the younger set as well. Tio, Elin and Iaklin had accepted, which Maisetra Marzulin had unaccountably considered a great coup, giving rise to outrageous rumors that Princess Elisebet herself might make an unheralded appearance. The rest were nobody Antuniet expected to know.
The Mystic Marriage Page 45