by Carol Berg
“My master says he’s chosen a venue less likely for interrupting,” said Heurot cheerfully, as we bypassed the turning to Duplais’ office chamber.
I was skeptical. Even more so when the young manservant led me down and down into a gloomy bricked passage that must penetrate Merona’s bedrock. Certainly it was a season removed from the autumnal warmth upstairs. I wished I’d brought a shawl.
“Here, damoselle.” Heurot indicated an open doorway, snapped an inexpert bow, and hurried back the way we’d come.
I had the impression of a spacious room, but in truth I could make out nothing but two chairs drawn close to a well-grimed hearth. A small fire snapped in the grate, creating a modest circle of light and warmth. The room’s most noticeable feature was an enveloping quiet. For the first time since riding into Merona, I could hear myself think.
“Divine grace, damoselle.” Duplais stepped out of the shadows behind the high-backed chair. Exposing his marked left hand, he sketched a bow. “Please sit,” he said, indicating the chair opposite his.
I exposed my Cazar mark and sat.
Duplais remained standing. “Are you well, damoselle? Settling in? Our journey was not too taxing?”
Had he lost his mind? “I’m well recovered, sonjeur, and becoming familiar with my duties.”
That seemed to satisfy his scheduled allotment of banter. He picked up a few folded papers from a shelf above the hearth, passed them to me, and retreated behind his own tall chair, where the firelight could not reach his face. Only his slender hands remained visible, resting on the back of the chair, left hand marked, the right pitted with small angry scars.
I glanced at the papers. Letters, addressed to me. Seals broken.
Heat, nothing to do with the fire, suffused my cheeks.
“The king insists,” he said, before I could speak. “I take no pleasure from it. Take the time to read, if you like.”
To wait and read the brief missives later would demonstrate more self-command, but I could not bear the thought that this man knew more of my business than I did. So I read.
A letter from the temple minor in Seravain stated simply that the verger of the Seravain deadhouse had issued a death warrant for Lianelle de Vernase ney Cazar, age seventeen years, dead by calamitous incident. The warrant would be forwarded to the temple major at Tigano, at which time the family of the deceased could apply to Tigano’s verger for a sanctified tessila.
“I have taken the liberty of notifying the verger at Seravain to forward your sister’s warrant to Verger Rinaldo at our temple minor here instead,” said Duplais.
I did not thank him.
The second letter, somewhat longer, was from Bernard, scribed with his usual careful lettering and direct prose.
HORRID TO IMAGINE BERNARD AND Melusina beset by men like those who’d accosted Duplais and me in the wood. The stolen oddments were all from Lianelle’s room—trinkets from her childhood, things she had tried to work spells on before she went to Seravain. Nothing of value. Nothing I wanted to keep. She had given me the shell-backed looking glass years ago, but I had returned it, as the glass was poor quality. Using it left me dizzy. The packet, however . . .
“So they found what our masked bandits were seeking in your luggage.” Duplais echoed my thoughts so clearly, it was startling. “I suppose you’ve no idea what these oddments might be, or the letters or the packet from your sister. A book, possibly?”
Though I would rather yield nothing to the hateful man, I would cooperate. I was determined to learn what he knew of Lianelle’s death, and I needed his approval to visit Ambrose.
“The only letters left in the drawer were my father’s correspondence with Germond de Vouger, a gifted man of science. They’re valuable to those who treasure the power of intellect and scientific advancement. Perhaps they think to sell them.”
“I know of de Vouger. A physicist and astronomer. He was a friend of your father’s?”
“Not a friend, not in the personal sense. I don’t know that they ever met. But they corresponded for many years about the role of science in society and the imperative to stretch the boundaries of exploration, both in the world and in the mind. And about de Vouger’s own discoveries, naturally. Nothing treasonous, you can be sure.”
Duplais tucked that away without expression. “And the packet?”
“My sister hoped to sit for her adept’s examinations this winter and feared she wouldn’t be allowed to study what she needed. The librarian despised her. So from time to time she sent books home to read on holidays. How could I know which one? What could be so important about her books?”
“Books are valuable and fragile. They can be damaged by shuffling around the countryside. Or lost. Or passed on to a villain who should not have them—a soul-eating villain who recruits his own daughters into his dangerous games.”
Duplais’ distaste for despicable parents might recommend him if I didn’t suspect him and his mage of harming my mother for their own purposes. Had his dogged pursuit of the king’s enemies become a campaign for his own private gain? A failed sorcerer, a king’s cousin of incisive logic and intelligence reduced to assigning apartments for ladies-in-waiting, might be willing to use anything, even this rogue Dante, to gain access to my father’s secrets.
“What information might be of such desperate interest to my father?” I said, acutely aware of Lady Cecile’s book in my pocket. “Or to his rivals, if your theories about those highwaymen at Vradeu’s Crossing are correct?”
“That’s certainly the question, is it not?” he said. “What were these other articles the brigands took from Montclaire?”
“I discarded many items of little or no value before we left. As you well know, I refused to leave any of my family’s personal belongings for the new Conte Ruggiere.”
I was as curious as Duplais. Was it the specific artifacts Lianelle had made from the books that they hunted . . . or was it anything she had touched?
Duplais’ scrutiny did not waver. “Damoselle, that night we met outside the Rotunda, you seemed frightened. Have you been threatened in some way? Accosted here in the palace?”
“Certainly not. I was merely late for an appointment. It was my first day here.” I would share facts, not foolish megrims.
“Did you meet anyone in the Rotunda?”
“I glimpsed a man adjusting the lamps near the pendulum. I assumed him a watchman or servant.”
“Lamps? Do you think me an idiot who has no idea what goes on inside the Rotunda? ” His fingers gripped the chair back as if ready to throw it at me. “What are you doing here, damoselle? Are you waiting for someone to contact you?”
“I am in Merona by His Majesty’s command. You yourself brought the summons.”
“We know there’s more!” he snapped. “Are you dealing with someone inside the palace? Are you a player or a pawn?” We? The room was suddenly sweltering. Sweat beaded my neck. Was his mage partner here?
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. I neither expected nor wished to come to Merona. Did my jailer give me leave, I’d walk home this very night.”
Surely some revelation lay just beyond his words, if I could but nudge his fraying patience a bit further.
“Perhaps you could be more specific,” I said. “Or is this a determination to punish my father’s kin because you’re too incompetent to catch him? You’ve destroyed my mother. You’ve imprisoned my young brother in a place reserved for murderers and traitors. And for what?”
“For sorcery!” he blurted. “Don’t play the ingenue with me! You devoured every word spoken at your father’s trial. This is all about sorcery.”
“What could I know of sorcery, Sonjeur de Duplais? I’ve no schooling in it. It’s likely some few magical workings are natural phenomena that scientific academicians do not yet grasp. But the bulk of them are no more than hypocrisy and lies—illusions of light or mechanics portrayed as the supernatural by deceivers like you to enthrall the gullible.”
“Co
nfound it, damoselle. Your father is not a stupid man, so his favored child could not be so. Your father’s associates pursue magic of a kind we’ve not seen in ages of the world, sorcery that corrupts the laws of nature. Do you think you can play with it? Tease with it? Sell it to the highest bidder?”
“I cannot help you, sonjeur,” I said, holding tight reins on my rising excitement. “I’ve neither seen my father nor communicated with him in five years. Perhaps if you told me—”
“Be very careful with these games, damoselle.” He bit off each word, fury quenched so thoroughly, one would think he’d donned plate armor. “You do not behave as the innocent you claim to be. Others see this as well as I do. I’ve a powerful friend who can protect you, do you but ask.”
Against all intent, the septic anger festering in my belly erupted. “You can be sure this is no game to me, Sonjeur de Duplais. Yet your powerful friend would be the last I’d choose to aid me. I’m not sure who to fear more—those who perpetrate these crimes or those who prosecute them. Somewhere the differences between the two parties have blurred. My mother is mad and my sister dead, and neither you nor your vile mage has told me why, though I believe you know very well.”
“My vile—You speak of Dante.” Wariness clipped his tongue.
“I came here willing tonight, because your public posturing ensured I cannot leave the palace without your permission. So, perhaps your powerful friend can help me with this: I have not been allowed to see my brother in four years. I have appealed to every authority I know, from my goodfather to his lowliest secretary, but have received naught but vague referrals to other faceless names. I doubt half my letters reach my brother’s hand. Even if they did, I cannot tell him of our sister’s death on paper. I must speak to him. You serve no justice to forbid it.”
He considered this for a moment. “Perhaps we could exchange favors.”
This despicable offer left me speechless. Before I could recover my wits, the cheerful manservant popped through the door. “Sonjeur, it’s time.”
“We’ll continue this another day, damoselle,” said Duplais with a curt bow. “Meanwhile, I’d advise you to have a care with accusations. Court politics will ever overtake justice. As for Master Dante . . . he is no ally of mine. As I tell Heurot, here, and anyone else who might listen: Keep as far from him as your duties allow. Divine grace.”
I neither reflected the blessing nor gave him any more words to twist.
CHAPTER 10
17 OCET, EVENING
“Your master is a cold man,” I snapped to Heurot as we ascended the endless stair. “I wonder he allows you to smile.”
“He’s ever been kind and considerate to me, damoselle. Still does mostly for himself, though he raised my pay when he hired me on to work for him alone. And I’ve never known another gentleman to help his man with an education. He’s determined I’ll be a fit secretary for him someday.”
“He intends us all to be useful to his schemes.” Of course he would want me to stay away from Dante, so I could not learn what wickedness they planned.
“Respectfully, damoselle, I believe you’ve misunderstood him.” Heurot frowned and shook his head as if I’d slandered his mother. “I only dare speak out so bold because a certain person tells me you’re a kind mistress who appreciates honest talk, and I’m certain my master would never wish to offend a gentle lady.”
“I doubt he notices whether I am a woman or not.”
“Likely that’s your misunderstanding of him, damoselle. Confidentially, he’s not at all easy with ladies, being dreadful . . . inexperienced . . . in that line. And then it haps the first lady he came sweet on turned out to be the traitor’s handmaid what was condemned to die and then escaped the Spindle Prison. That set him back, it did.”
Duplais had loved Maura ney Billard? I could scarce believe it! Lovely, good-hearted Maura. My father had once saved her life, then callously manipulated her into complicity in treason. Duplais, as the Principal Accuser, had laid out the case against her and signed the king’s judgment condemning her to death. Never once had he wavered or shown any hint of withholding. True, the lady had miraculously escaped from prison. But Duplais remained here, pursuing my father. Either he was the coldest lover ever to walk the earth or the most deceitful or . . . I wasn’t sure what. The man confounded me.
As Heurot and I slogged up the long stair, reason cooled my fury. Duplais believed the mysterious bandits had found what they searched for at Montclaire. A book, certainly, and perhaps some of my sister’s things. Every one of the items mentioned had been Lianelle’s, save de Vouger’s letters. Why the thieves would take those letters was a mystery.
My sister claimed she had been working sorcery entirely different from what the Camarilla taught, Gautieri magic she called it, derived from the Seravain books. I squeezed Lady Cecile’s book, weighing like an anvil in my pocket. Collegia Magica de Gautieri. Was magical authority the problem? Lianelle had told me how protective the Camarilla felt about their rites and formulas. Yet why would the Royal Accuser in the matter of Michel de Vernase care about Camarilla infighting? Unless even a failed sorcerer could be a partisan in such a battle. Unless the conflict was not petty infighting.
The Blood Wars, begun in clan warfare among sorcerers, had brought Sabria to the brink of ruin: half our people dead, cities and villages burned to ash, scholars and teachers executed, entire families—many of them blood families, but also other noble families who had founded and built Sabria—entirely wiped out. Now Duplais’ Mage Dante, who had made himself indispensable to the Queen of Sabria, had reportedly destroyed the Bastionne Camarilla. . . .
Images of objects falling from the ruin much more slowly than physics prescribed slowed my steps. Sorcery that corrupts the laws of nature.
Somehow Lianelle’s encrypted books were linked to my father and blood transference and the plot to bring down King Philippe. The marauders’ Norgand ringleader had used a mask like that described at Papa’s trial. It was all part of the same mystery.
“I do appreciate your honesty, Heurot,” I said. “I’ll not betray your confidence. And I’m glad to hear Sonjeur de Duplais treats you better than his friend the mage treats his poor servant.”
“Oh, damoselle, if you thought . . .” Pausing at the last bend of the narrow stair, Heurot shook his head and lowered his voice. “My master is no friend with that one. Sonjeur de Duplais was employed by Master Dante when they both first come here, but the mage near burnt him to ash in displeasure at his work, and near broke my master’s neck on that barge what burned. That’s the day my master’s hand got burnt by the devil’s firework. Some say the dark mage was trying to cripple my master or kill him by leaving him to burn. And everyone knows there’s more ill feeling between them than that.”
His witnessing shook me a bit. Those ugly pocked scars on Duplais’ right hand were visible evidence. But with only the good-hearted Heurot to support it, I was not yet ready to yield Duplais’ benevolence.
When we reached the east-wing stair, the youth halted and bowed. “Heed his warning, damoselle. My master is the wisest man in Merona, and sure there’s naught he fears in the world more than the dark mage.”
THE MEETING WITH DUPLAIS LEFT me no time to read Cecile’s book before the court presentation. Though it was easy to say which activity I’d prefer, I knew better than to risk Lady Antonia’s wrath by skipping the formalities.
The queen sat amid her ladies and gentlemen. Bless all bright spirits, the mage was not present. But Duplais was there in a discreet corner, sober and proper, journal in hand. And the physician Roussel, his aspect pleasant as always, stood to one side, observing the fanfare. Hundreds of people lined the Presence Chamber, despite the lack of fireworks or exotic splendors. Tonight was an exhibition, not of science or magic but of politics, influence, and rank.
“Belinda de Mercier, daughter of Gerard de Mercier Conte Fermin and Beatrice de Marquay y Mercier-Fermin . . .”
One by one they announced our names. Eac
h young woman strolled the length of the Presence Chamber, escorted by a gentleman of the household, and made formal obeisance to Eugenie. Each was applauded and cheered as the queen handed her a white rose, and the young lady took her place at the queen’s side. My lack of rank placed me last.
“Anne ney Cazar, daughter of Madeleine de Cazar.” At court, I was the child only of my mother. Perhaps I should adopt the Cazar name as Lianelle had.
A moment’s resounding silence greeted the announcement. An immensely tall, slim man in a slashed doublet and tight breeches of peach-colored satin stepped to my side. Resplendent, perhaps a bit overresplendent, in pearl-studded gold embroidery and trailing lace, he swept a bow and took my hand, holding it raised in front of us as if my fingers were fragile and precious.
A tide of whispers swelled behind us. The carpet seemed to stretch a thousand kilometres. Skin blazing, I clenched my jaw and fixed my eyes on the gilt-edged painting of the Pantokrator looming over the queen’s head. After the turmoil of the past hour, a meaningless ceremony before people I detested should not faze me, yet my hand shook like a coward’s knees.
“You mustn’t mind them.” My escort’s gaze remained forward, his expression the vague and meaningless hauteur of an experienced courtier. But his eyebrows flicked upward several times, and his head tilted ever so slightly my way. “Think of them as a flock of geese. I always do. Just attend your steps as you leave the hall, lest you foul your most charming slippers.”
The fiery bands constricting my chest loosed just a bit. “Thank you,” I murmured, without moving my lips. Never in my life had I been so grateful for a word.
His hand, encased in ridiculously long-fingered peach satin gloves, squeezed my fingers.
When we reached the end of the carpet before the throne, I dropped my eyes and curtsied deeply. My escort raised me. Without releasing my hand, he swiveled on his heeled boots and swept an elegant bow. “A pleasure, Damoselle de Vernase.”