by Sarah Ash
Ruaud was feeling increasingly uneasy. He foresaw an uncertain future, in which he would have to go everywhere accompanied by bodyguards.
“Enguerrand will come of age soon, but he’s still impressionable and, dear me, so unworldly. He’ll look to you for advice, and Aliénor will resent that. If she had her way, she’d be Queen Regent until he’s twenty-one, and that would be a disaster for Francia.”
“A disaster, sire?”
“Imagine Allegondan Rosecoeur fanatics infiltrating the court. The nobles would take sides, Raimon de Provença would try to seize the throne, and the whole country would disintegrate into civil war.” Gobain gripped Ruaud’s hand, pressing it between his own. “Promise me on your life that you won’t let that happen,” he said in a voice hoarse with desperation.
Ruaud felt the viselike grip of the king’s fingers burning into his own. He saw the pearls of sweat on the king’s forehead and read the bitter knowledge of his own imminent death in his eyes.
“Even if it means opposing the queen and my own commander-in-chief?”
“Swear, Lanvaux. Swear on whichever saint you hold most dear.”
Ruaud went down on one knee and, bringing out the gold chain he wore about his neck, he clasped the little icon of the saint that rested close to his heart. “I swear on my duty to the Blessed Sergius,” he said quietly.
Gobain closed his eyes and let out a long, halting sigh.
“We will all pray for you, sire.”
“Hah! Don’t waste your breath.” The king was regarding him, his bloodshot eyes dark with cynicism. “Nothing short of a miracle would save me now. And I don’t believe in miracles.”
CHAPTER 24
Gauzia was taking tea with Dame Elmire in the salon when Celestine arrived for her lesson with the Maistre. To Celestine’s surprise, Gauzia rose and embraced her, kissing her on both cheeks, as if they were the closest of friends.
“Is there no rehearsal this afternoon?” Celestine asked, a little overwhelmed by the warmth of Gauzia’s greeting.
“We finished early so that the scene painters could finish the sets. Only two days till the first performance!” Gauzia let out a little squeal of excitement. “You’ll be there, won’t you, Celestine?”
“I will?” Celestine said warily.
“You’ll be sitting with me, my dear,” said Dame Elmire, pouring her some tea. “In a box!”
Celestine had never been to the theater, let alone an opera, and had no idea what a box might be. Rather than inquire and expose her ignorance in front of Gauzia, she asked, “Where’s the Maistre?”
“Oh, he had to stay behind to rehearse with Aurélie.”
So he had forgotten that he had arranged her lesson for four this afternoon. “Who is Aurélie?”
“If you weren’t living in your own little dreamworld most of the time, you’d know!” Gauzia exclaimed. “She’s the talk of the city: Aurélie Carnelian, the diva from Bel’Esstar. She’s playing the lead role, Balkaris.”
Celestine tried to make sense of this information.
“Why don’t you tell Celestine the story of the opera?” suggested Dame Elmire gently.
Gauzia raised her eyes heavenward. “It’s called Balkaris, Queen of Khendye. I play a slave girl who’s really the daughter of the Arkhan Sulaimon, but she’s pretending to be a slave so that she can stay close to her brother, who’s the queen’s secret lover…”
Celestine set down her teacup. “And this is all the Maistre’s work?” Gauzia’s talk of slaves and lovers seemed a world away from the ascetic purity of his sacred music.
“Of course not, silly! A playwright wrote the libretto.”
“Libretto?”
Gauzia threw up her hands in a theatrical gesture of despair as Celestine stared at her uncomprehendingly. “Just wait till you see the performance. Then you’ll understand.”
“So,” said Celestine, choosing her words with care, “Aurélie Carnelian. Tell me more about her.”
“She’s a fine dramatic soprano,” said Dame Elmire. “And she turns all the men’s heads; they’re absolutely besotted with her! She trained at the Conservatoire in Bel’Esstar, but every time I see her fiery dark eyes, I suspect that she has Smarnan blood in her veins. Henri must have had her in mind when he began work on Balkaris; she was born to play the part.”
“So the Maistre has worked with her before?” Celestine heard herself asking even though she was not sure she wanted to know the answer.
The clock in the hall whirred and struck four.
“My dear, I fear you’ve had a wasted journey. I apologize on behalf of my nephew. Would you like me to give you some vocal coaching instead?”
Celestine tried to hide her anguish. “Thank you, that’s so kind…but I must hurry if I’m to be in time for vespers.”
Wearing another of Dame Elmire’s altered stage costumes, Celestine followed the retired diva into her box.
“Ah yes, such a beautiful shade of sea blue; that was Dahut’s gown from The Bells of Ys.” As Dame Elmire had lifted out the delicate silken folds of the dress from the trunk, she began to hum an unfamiliar melody, full of leaps and strange intervals. “But oh, what a difficult role to sing! The composer wrote the most complex and challenging music and it went right over the audience’s heads. The opera closed after only five performances! I hope Henri will fare better with Balkaris.”
Celestine perched on the edge of her velvet seat, gazing down at the audience. The players in the orchestra took their seats and began to tune their instruments. Where was the Maistre?
A little ripple of applause broke out in the stalls below. “There he is,” remarked Dame Elmire, pointing with her black ostrich-feather fan. Celestine craned so far forward to see him that Dame Elmire tapped her sharply on the shoulder with the fan, whispering, “Careful, my dear, you don’t want to fall on the unsuspecting souls beneath.”
Three loud knocks resonated throughout the house. The audience’s chatter slowly subsided as the Maistre raised his hands to give the first beat.
“The overture,” Celestine breathed. She had not heard so many instruments playing together before: The sweetness of the violins and flutes was so exquisite that it made her want to cry. Or was she so moved because they were playing the Maistre’s music? For now the tantalizing fragments of melody she had heard issuing from behind his locked door over the past months began to make sense.
Yet she was unprepared for what followed. The velvet curtains were drawn back, revealing many singers, dressed in vibrant colors, bright as a flock of summer butterflies. When they drew breath and began to sing, Celestine felt as if she might faint from the intensity of the sound. She had never imagined that men’s and women’s voices blended together could provoke such a powerful reaction in her.
I want to be a part of this.
The chorus were kneeling now, hands raised in supplication, all facing in the same direction. She heard the yearning anticipation in the music, the implication that someone important was about to appear. And the rest of the audience sensed it too, beginning to clap and shout as a tall woman entered, a diadem glittering in her black hair.
“Aurélie Carnelian,” Celestine whispered. The audience fell silent as the diva opened her crimson-painted lips and began to sing. Her voice combined a sensuous beauty of tone with extraordinary power. Celestine felt as if her hair had risen up on her scalp, windblown by the sheer force of the diva’s singing. When the aria was over, there was a little silence as if everyone present had quietly exhaled, and Celestine found that she was gripping the front rail of the box.
Then the cheers began, filling the silence. It was only as the diva acknowledged her admirers that Celestine noticed Gauzia, standing behind, carrying a palm fan. Her costume was shockingly revealing; loose pantaloons and a low-cut bodice of amber and purple silks.
“It’s disgraceful,” exclaimed Dame Elmire beside her.
“No wonder the nuns were against the plan,” agreed Celestine. And then she realiz
ed that the Maistre must have seen Gauzia like this during the rehearsals. Had Gauzia no shame?
“Stopping the flow of the drama to kiss her hands to her admirers—so unprofessional,” continued Dame Elmire with a sniff of disdain. “These young divas today are quite shameless.”
The curtain slowly fell as Balkaris plunged the dagger into her heart and fell back on the tomb of her lover. The last hushed, somber chords died away and the Maistre laid down his baton. Suddenly the house broke out into cheers and when the curtain rose again, there stood the whole cast, bowing to acknowledge the applause.
Celestine clapped until her palms were sore. Roses were flung onto the stage, and one of Balkaris’s page boys darted around the stage, gathering them up to present to his mistress, who smiled and blew kisses to her admirers.
Celestine felt as if she were still floating on clouds of the Maistre’s sublime music, every phrase infused with his feelings, such sadness and such desperate longing.
“But what are they really applauding?” Dame Elmire asked pointedly. “Henri’s music, which was divine, or Aurélie Carnelian’s performance?”
At last, Aurélie, her arms overflowing with crimson roses, held out her hand to the orchestra, beckoning the Maistre to join her on the stage.
Celestine leaned far forward, applauding fervently as he bowed, making the orchestral players stand to receive their share of the recognition. He turned in her direction and gave her a little secret smile, the luster flames glinting in the lenses of his spectacles. Then he turned back to Aurélie and, to the enthusiastic shouts of her supporters, raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.
Celestine stared, her hands frozen in midclap. She saw the look that passed between them. It was an intimate look. It was a look shared between two people who had known each other a long time.
The applause continued around her but now it was as the distant patter of falling rain. She could do nothing but stare at them, Aurélie and her beloved Maistre, still hand in hand, bowing and smiling.
All this time I’ve been jealous of Gauzia, and I never even suspected there might be someone else.
After the performance, Dame Elmire insisted on dragging Celestine backstage. Bemused, Celestine followed her through the shadowy press of people: perspiring singers wandering around still in their stage makeup, and stagehands shifting the large scenery flats so that at one moment they found themselves passing through a shifting forest of painted trees. She feared that Dame Elmire might be knocked over, but the old lady navigated all the hazards with the practiced skill of an old performer. Every singer they passed greeted her warmly; she seemed to know every member of the cast by name.
A clamor of excited voices came from a dressing room whose door was ajar; inside, Celestine glimpsed Aurélie sitting in front of a candlelit mirror, wiping the rouge from her cheeks. Others had crowded into the little room, and she heard the heady sound of laughter bubbling up, mingled with the clinking of glasses. The little room was filled with vases of lilies and their strong scent wafted out, perfuming the passageway.
“I think we have a success on our hands!”
“Don’t rejoice too soon, Petitfils, we haven’t read what the critics have to say yet!”
Dame Elmire plunged into the throng of flamboyantly dressed artists. Celestine hovered outside, feeling superfluous.
“Dame Elmire,” she heard a man cry out welcomingly. “Drink a toast with us to the success of your nephew’s opera!”
“To Balkaris,” Dame Elmire said, raising her glass.
“And to our divine Aurélie,” added a man’s voice—a voice Celestine knew so well that her heart began to pound. As the others repeated the toast, she saw his reflection in the mirror, saw him raising Aurélie’s hand to his lips again…and saw her caress his cheek, her slender fingers catching a stray lock of his honey-gold hair to pull his face down to hers. The gesture was so intimate, so revealing, that Celestine felt a pain as sharp as if Balkaris’s cold steel had pierced her breast.
“Well, shall we go, my dear?”
Celestine started. How long had she been standing there, oblivious to everyone else around her?
“The carriage is waiting for us.” Dame Elmire’s cheeks were flushed from sparkling wine and the press of singers and admirers.
“Can’t I stay for the party?” complained a familiar voice.
“You’re too young, Gauzia,” scolded Dame Elmire. “There’ll be tobacco smoke, wine, and celebrating into the small hours. Ruin for a singer’s throat! If you want to keep your voice and your part in this opera, you’ll drink nothing but water.”
“But the others—” began Gauzia as Dame Elmire hurried them along the narrow passageway to the stage door.
“I have a duty as your chaperone to ensure that you’re home before midnight and in bed! Don’t forget that you have to perform the whole opera again tomorrow, and the next night, and the next…”
Celestine wandered after them, hearing their bickering as if from a great distance away. He had not even noticed that she was there. But why would he, when the divine Aurélie was gazing at him with such blatant adoration?
“What did you think of my performance?” Gauzia demanded, once they were in the carriage.
Celestine looked at her blankly.
“My performance,” repeated Gauzia, as if she were deaf.
“Oh! You were very good,” Celestine said, trying to blank the image of the Maistre and Aurélie from her mind.
Celestine lay awake on her narrow convent bed, unable to sleep. The glorious music she had heard that evening kept playing and replaying in her head, tormenting and delighting her in equal measure. And dominating every phrase, every note, was the vision of crimson-gowned Aurélie, her voice darkly thrilling as Queen Balkaris prepared to kill herself rather than go on living without her lover.
“How can I bear the cruel light of day, knowing that your eyes are closed for all eternity?”
The Maistre must have been betrayed in love to be able to portray feelings of such bitter intensity in the music he had written for Balkaris. And yet the way he had looked at Aurélie as he took her hand between his own, pressing it to his lips…and the way she had let her fingers drift so sensuously across his cheek, had revealed a deep intimacy between them.
There’s much more to their relationship than composer and artist. Lovers, a voice whispered in her mind. They’re lovers. The thought was so agonizing that she felt as if a cruel hand had closed around her heart.
I must seem like a mere child to him, an innocent, inexperienced schoolgirl.
The dawn bell woke Celestine to a grey morning that only enhanced the dull sense of despair that returned the instant she opened her eyes. She lay inert, staring at the image of Saint Azilia on the far wall. How long had she been duping herself? Henri de Joyeuse was a kind and generous-hearted man…but he was kind to everyone he met, and she had been naïve enough to believe that in her case it meant so much more.
I will not give up on him!
She was sure that she had not consciously reached for the book…but suddenly she was sitting up in bed, holding it in both hands, gazing at the image of the Blessed Azilia.
“Help me, Faie.”
The image of the saint began to dissolve before her eyes and in a swirl of soft radiance, the Faie rose up from the book.
“Why have you waited so long?” Eyes as translucent as the morning’s cloudy light gazed down into hers. “Do you wish me to reveal the secrets of your father’s grimoire to you?”
“Is there a glamour that will make the Maistre fall in love with me?” There! She had said it aloud; she had admitted how desperate she was.
“What do you mean by ‘love’?” The Faie’s crystal-bright gaze was blank. It was an aethyr spirit; how could it understand the complexities of a mortal heart? Celestine struggled to think of a means to express her wish in a way the Faie could understand.
“Love means…to dream of another person all the time. To want to be wit
h them. To want to be in their thoughts constantly—” She broke off. What was she saying? Was this really love? It sounded more like obsession.
“To alter the heart and mind of another mortal is beyond my power. I can only gift you, Celestine.”
“Only me?” Was there some way the Faie could make her irresistible to men? Or would that just attract hateful and boorish predators, like the Tielen count?
“In the grimoire, there are recipes for alchymical compounds that you can concoct to subdue your enemies, but no love potions.”
“Narcotics? Poisons?” Celestine was not sure that she was ready to be trusted with such dangerous knowledge.
“There are recipes for spells that will draw the truth from an unwilling tongue.” The Faie was no longer hovering in front of her, it had floated to her side, its long crystalline strands of hair falling like a shimmering veil over its pale, androgynous body. The book opened and the pages began to flip over, as if turned by an invisible hand. Celestine caught tantalizing glimpses of engravings and dark-inked pictures in the margins: herbs, strange fruit, and rare plants. “But you must remember that not a single spell contained within these pages can be cast without cost to you. How much of your precious life essence can you afford to expend on so trivial a matter?”
As if from very far away, Celestine heard the distant, insistent ringing of the chapel bell. “Oh no. I’m late!”
The Faie swirled about her and she felt its breath, like a soft breeze from another world, stirring her hair as it stared deep into her eyes. Iridescent shadows flitted across her vision, dazzling her.
The door opened and Angelique came in. “Still in bed, Celestine?” Celestine blinked. The Faie had vanished and she was clutching the Lives of the Holy Saints.
“Late night at the opera?” Angelique began to brush her hair for her, deftly winding and pinning it into a knot on the back of her head.
“Oh, Angelique, it was amazing—”
“You can tell me all about it later. We’ll have to sneak onto the back row of the choir stalls and hope that Mère Apolline doesn’t notice.”