by Carol Berg
“I don’t understand. I can walk straight through the inner courtyards to the west wing. If it rains, I can detour through the Rotunda. It will take me half the time.”
“Please, you’ll not want to do that, damoselle.” Ella’s freckles pulsed on her pale cheeks. Green chevrons gleamed from beside her eyes. “It’s already raining, and”—the words gushed from her in a torrent—“the Rotunda’s a dreadful place. Haunted.”
The palace tower bells had just rung seventh hour in the evening watch, and I was more than ready to set out for my evening tutorial. Surely in the privacy of her own chambers, Lady Cecile would speak more freely. I had a thousand questions, but before all, I wanted to hear what she knew of my mother’s illness. And surely the ducessa could advise how I might get permission to visit Ambrose.
I latched my writing case and took the mantle Ella held waiting. “I’m sure that if a ghost wished to haunt Castelle Escalon, it would prefer the dungeons in the old keep to the drafty Rotunda. My sister and brother and I played ball or echo games there when we would visit Merona. Not a single phantasm ever showed up to frighten us away.”
People who could slaughter a seventeen-year-old girl with impunity or break a woman’s mind, hiding their misdeeds behind a cloak of magical mystery, terrified me more than spectral gossip. The afternoon’s mundane tutorials had given me time to consider the disconcerting sights in the city. Likely everything I’d seen could be reasonably explained: the floating lights by some gaseous emissions, the oddly falling objects by optical illusion. And every waterfront city had problems with rats. Duplais might think it useful to frighten me.
Ella stacked my supper cups and plates and wiped the table. “The haunting’s only been since the Grand Exposition,” she said, not at all mollified. “A gentleman fell ill that night and died in the Rotunda. Some say his ghost lingers, as he left unfinished business behind. Others say it’s the dark mage who cursed the place that night—and mayhap the whole city as well.” The girl’s voice and spirit shrank. “He raises the dead, you know, for the queen, so she might comfort her poor mites as they travel Ixtador. But the Temple folk are too scared of him to look into it. None goes into the Rotunda twice and never, never at sunset. Don’t do it, miss.”
My heart seized. Not from the fancies of ghosts or hauntings. Nor from the vile chicanery of deadraising, though it was despicable that anyone should exploit Queen Eugenie’s tragic history—four children dead in infancy. Rather it was the memory of an act of indisputable human evil. Edmond de Roble, a gentle-spoken young lord, the fairest gentleman I had ever seen, had not fallen ill on the night of the Grand Exposition of Science and Magic. He had been cruelly murdered.
“I don’t believe in ghosts or deadraising,” I said, breathless with the hurt. “The Pantokrator has created the Veil to divide the demesnes of death and life.”
I dismissed Ella and hurried off in search of answers, though some questions could never in the world be resolved.
I had met Edmond de Roble only once, a few months before Papa’s disappearance. But I had noticed a singular, pleasurable . . . warmth . . . deep in my stomach whenever I thought of him, and decided that if Papa would not allow me to remain an independent woman as I wished, Edmond would be a fair compromise. Papa had held the young lord in great regard, or so I had believed.
I could scarce recall Edmond’s true visage anymore. It was Duplais’ description of the young man’s mortal torment, recounted at Papa’s trial, that would be forever etched on my spirit. Evidence said that my father, whom I had believed the strongest, wisest, most honorable man in the world, had systematically lacerated Edmond’s flesh, drained his blood, and ordered his body deposited like offal on the floor of the Rotunda. What daemon had come ravening from Dimios’s frozen demesne and eaten my father’s soul?
I emerged from the ground floor of the palace into an expansive puzzle of open plazas and gardens. My path to the middle section of the west wing, where Lady Cecile resided, must cross the vast open space, now awash with autumn rain. Or I could detour slightly to my right through a vaulted arcade and into the ancient gray-domed structure that intruded on the newer palace like a troll’s barrow pushed from under the earth.
The bells rang the quarter hour. Rain sluiced down the walls and drainpipes. Dreadful memories were not ghosts, nor were shame or grief or an anger that scalded my blood. I set out for the Rotunda.
I remembered the dim, cavernous Rotunda as a refuge in summer heat, its thick walls retaining the night’s coolness until late afternoon. Indeed, when I tugged open the heavy door, a chilly flood set me shivering. Foolish, Ella’s talk of ghosts and deadraising. The dark mage . . . this Dante again, Duplais’ comrade—the only one of the queen’s consilium not executed as my father’s conspirator.
My slippers echoed lightly as I hurried through the deserted foyer, between the circled ranks of columns supporting the crowning dome, and into the vast open space. A feathery touch brushed my cheek. I blinked, just as a thread of purple light caught my eye high in the dome.
My heart, ignoring reason, rattled in my breast. Silly girl.
I peered into the gloom. King Philippe had suspended a great pendulum from the peak of the dome for the Grand Exposition. And though my brother’s remarks were sauced with spite, Ambrose had confessed it a wonder, its path scribing the very circle the theories of the earth’s rotation predicted. Perhaps the purple light was some part of the pendulum structure.
I moved on more slowly, eyes drawn upward. Another soft brush on my forehead. Another on my hand. No sooner did I give in and blink than rose and green threads floated beside three purple ones. I stopped again. The soft rhythm of my slippers seemed to continue, a tap embedded in a sigh of moving air.
Near the center of the Rotunda, a vertical gray wire stretched into the dark heights, a ball of dulled gold suspended from it. The unmoving pendulum.
The muted taps soon sounded more like the chink of metal on firm-seated metal, hammer on chisel. A tide of cold air flowed from across the chamber. I blinked a’purpose, and the threads of light—hundreds of them now—drifted downward from the dome like falling leaves, coalescing in the air near the stilled pendulum. Soon I could see them even without blinking, settling themselves into some pattern. The sight reminded me of a game played with a beam of light in a dark room . . . where a reverse image was formed by light thrown through the design cut into a paper.
But neither will nor diversion could obscure my horror at the crime that had happened here.
The threads shaped an upraised hand. The shadings of pale flesh streaked with scarlet must surely be the odd light, illuminating one of the mosaic figures in the dome. Yet the hand seemed too large, too close, too real. Not far from the hand, mottled gray threads wove themselves into wide diagonal swaths, shaded folds, and then glimmers of scarlet joined and pooled across the gray. And even as I named the red stains blood on fabric, more flesh took shape above the gray garment . . . a chin . . . a cheek. . . .
Father Creator, send thy angels!
A well-proportioned mouth, the straight nose, wide-set eyes, closed in repose, bruised and abraded flesh, blood everywhere. Edmond. The very image that had occupied my mind since leaving my bedchamber.
As if fed by my grief and outrage, the image rapidly reached its completion. No sacred mosaic, the figure took on bulk as well as dimension—a young man bound, hands over head, as if he dangled from the king’s pendulum. Yet still the atrocity was not done, for the light-sculpted figure began to writhe, and soon the lacerated face was ridged and seamed with agony. The pale lips stretched, and a whisper in my ear resolved into a faint keening as of a wounded animal. The eyes flicked open, black and wholly empty.
Pain crushed my heart and ribs, near blinding me with heated colors that smeared and melted into blazing scarlet.
“Stop this!” I could not have named the target of my outrage.
The image shattered. In a frenzied explosion, the thready lights sprayed across the vastness
of the dark before collecting like fireflies around a human-sized silhouette not five metres away from me. The cloaked figure twisted in my direction so fast, the face was but a pale blur streaked with black. But I could not miss the white staff in his grip.
Get away. Get away. Get away. Throttling a whimper, I raced across the chamber toward the golden pool of lamplight that marked the far doors. Under the colonnade. Through the vestibule.
I stretched my hand toward the door, only to have the bronze slab fly open before I’d touched it. Gray evening outlined a figure in the doorway. I yelped like a dog who’d been stepped on.
“Hold! Hold, damoselle!” He grabbed my flailing hands.
“Let me go!” I thrashed and struggled to get loose, straining to see through watering eyes.
“What’s happened here?” He held firm. His hands were warm and solid, his form slender and of modest height. Not monstrous. “Damoselle Anne?”
Only as I forced myself still did I recognize him.
“Duplais!” I craned my neck, looking back into the depths of the Rotunda. Retreating footsteps echoed through the emptiness.
“Have you seen something here? Tell me.” Insistent. Concerned.
I stumbled over words, unable to explain, not sure I should report such mad visions. “Nothing,” I blurted at last. “A servant . . . someone . . . startled me. That’s all.”
“Naturally.” His manner reverted to his usual brittle chill. “What brings you to the Rotunda on your first evening at court, damoselle? The queen’s household does not encompass this place.”
“Let me go. I’m late.” That was all I could say without my voice quavering. Stupid to be so wrecked by a few lights, a lurker, and a vivid, morbid imagination.
I wrenched my hands free and fled. Duplais’ gaze burned my back until I was inside the west wing, traversing a portrait gallery under the watchful eyes of Sabria’s last twenty monarchs. Answer me this, householder, I thought. If the queen’s household does not include the Rotunda, then what business do you have there? Meeting the mage with the white staff, I’d wager.
The bells struck the half hour as I turned into a modest passage painted the color of claret and halted before the second door. As I raised my hand to knock, the door opened.
A gentleman reared backward in surprise at seeing me so near with a raised fist—and surely a grim and violent aspect.
“Oh!” I said stupidly, straining to see that the birds carved on the lintel were indeed peacocks. “These are the Ducessa de Blasencourt’s rooms?”
“I d-doubt I should speak truly, d-damoselle. You’ve no intent t-to harm her?” His square-jawed face wore a severe expression, blunted by the trace of a stutter and belied by a spark in his eyes. Close-trimmed, white-threaded dark curls framed a strong, symmetrical visage, adorned by a meticulously groomed mustache. A pleasant, intelligent face. Mature, nearer fifty than thirty.
“No. Certainly not. I was summoned.” My heart’s thuttering slowed. He was a large man, both tall and broad. Trim, fit, but substantial.
“Then b-be of good cheer. You have arrived,” he said quietly, dropping his eyes. He bowed modestly and stepped aside to allow me through. “Ah, here is noble Slanie to c-carry you onward. Angels’ peace, damoselle.”
Cheeks afire, I dipped a knee, already marshaling my questions. A serving girl in a frilled bonnet showed me into a cluttered sitting room. Books and teacups sat atop tables and shelves, alongside fans, beadwork, painted clay pots, and other artifacts from the ducessa’s travels.
Lady Cecile rose in welcome, not for me, it appeared, but for a large woman wielding a cane, who marched in behind me like an invading legion. “Make yourself comfortable, Eleanor,” she said. “Anne, don’t hang back. Come in and join us.”
The serving girl vanished. Ensconced on the couches were the fair-haired Belinda and a tiny red-haired marquesa, who had lectured us for an hour that afternoon about petticoats.
I could have chewed the carpet.
“Eleanor, Patrice, this is Anne de Vernase,” said Lady Cecile. “And you know dear Belinda.”
“Divine grace, my ladies,” I croaked. My curtsy would have been better made by a bricklayer.
The ladies vouched me voiceless nods, while Belinda offered a smile that could have outshone a lighthouse. As if I could not feel her shrink away.
The four of them settled into a discussion of Hematian marriage protocols, including the necessity for a prospective bride to pen elaborate descriptions of her family, her childhood, and her education for each member of her betrothed’s family in the Hematian language. Belinda near fainted at the prospect. “I’ll never manage it!” she said.
“Perhaps I could be of some help,” I said, having spent the tedious hour reclaiming my equanimity.
The ladies stared, a bit shocked, as if they’d forgotten I had a voice and weren’t sure I should have one.
“I’ve studied Hematian and, though my pronunciation is merely passable, I’m quite proficient with the written language.” No sympathy or interest in Belinda’s betrothal prompted my offer. I merely craved some halfway intelligent occupation. All the better if it quieted their endless nattering.
“I understood you grew up in the country, damoselle.” The red-haired marquesa, Lady Patrice, was sharp-tongued and trim of figure at an age no less than seventy. From her sour expression, one might have thought the country a sewer or a mine shaft, where such things as lessons were unknown.
“My family traveled widely when I was twelve and thirteen,” I said. “And my father believed women had quite as fine intelligence as men, thus the same need for education.”
At least two of the four women hissed when I mentioned Papa. Belinda’s great eyes rounded.
“And as Lady Cecile knows, my moth—”
“A most useful refinement, languages.” Lady Cecile snatched away the conversation with practiced larceny. “It would be most kind of you to help Belinda with her letters, Anne. You can set her to work in these evening sessions as we review your own deficiencies. Now, we’ve done for tonight. Divine grace, dear ladies.”
Lady Cecile rose, and though I watched carefully, her fingers did not signal me to stay behind. Yet as she swept me to the door with the others, she held my arm for one moment, her eye on Lady Patrice’s back. When the brisk little marquesa disappeared around a corner, Cecile whispered in my ear, almost spitting. “Do not mention my connection with your mother. Not to anyone. Do you understand?”
“Certainly, Your Grace,” I said, my cheeks heating. “I understand completely.”
So she was no better than the rest.
I departed, seething, having extracted only two scraps of information in the hour’s session. First, that Belinda de Mercier, a young woman who lit a room like a streak of sunlight and possessed an excruciatingly rich father, had an intellect the size of a pea. And second, that my expectation that I would detest this place was entirely correct.
The storm had passed. Mist hung thick in the courtyards and lightning danced in the starless heavens. Unwilling to visit the gloomy Rotunda, I set out through the dark, wet gardens.
As the damp air bathed my overheated face, I brought reason to the experience of the night. What I had seen in the Rotunda was no manifested spirit. Despite its movements and sounds, the body had projected no quality of humanity. Those fathomless eyes could project no personhood, no soul.
More likely I had witnessed a terrible trickery—a manipulation of lenses and prisms by the cloaked mage hiding near the pendulum. A camera obscura, perhaps. And it made sense they would project an image of the man who’d died there. But why would anyone do such a thing? To frighten serving girls and palace guards? Neither the mage nor Duplais could have imagined I would enter the Rotunda this night.
A touch on my sleeve and a glimpse of pale flesh near startled me out of my shoes—until my scrabbling fist caught a clump of wet leaves. The little grotto was choked with oleander. A pale marble statue of a naked javelin thrower hid behi
nd the leathery leaves as if to protect his modesty.
Unfortunately, reason could not repair a good fit of the shakes. I bolted for the nearest door and took the long way through the palace to my bedchamber.
TO FIND MY ROOM DARK Surprised me, as Ella had promised to leave a light. I groped for the bellpull and sat on the bed to wait. The room felt odd and uncomfortable, the inky blackness squirming like the heat shimmer of summer afternoons. By the time Ella tapped on the door, I was trembling, as if thready lights might flood through the doorway and shape another agonized visage.
Ella’s candle illuminated only her round cheeks. “Damoselle?”
I felt ridiculous as Ella lit the lamp on the dressing table with her candle. “I asked to have a lamp burning when I’m out after dark.”
“But I—” She shut her mouth firmly and dipped her knee.
“Tell me what’s wrong, Ella. I don’t want to be unreasonable.”
“Sorry, damoselle. It’s just I came to light the lamp not an hour ago. But I saw the light under the door. As you didn’t say come when I knocked, I figured you’d no need.”
“But that’s imposs—Wait.” I spun around. The emptied letter packet lay on the dressing table exactly where I’d dropped it, but the string . . . One fold gaped, though I had tied the roll of red leather tight, ready to discard. And had I left the ivory case, filled with Lianelle’s mysterious powder, beside or behind my brush? I couldn’t recall. I glanced up quickly, but Ella’s wide-eyed confusion seemed innocent enough.
“That’s all right, then. I’m sure it was only another maidservant come to the wrong room.”
“Aye, damoselle.” Her gray eyes were wide as she dipped her knee and left.
When she had gone, I unlocked the hidden drawer in the armoire. My mother’s jewelry appeared undisturbed and Lianelle’s ring and lockets intact, exactly where I had put them. I debated whether to hide the packet and case in the drawer. But the damage was done. Better to leave them out and pretend I didn’t know someone had been here.