The Soul Mirror

by Carol Berg

  The vial of Lianelle’s potion waited in my pocket, as always nowadays. I would be watching whatever occurred tonight, Antonia’s will or no.

  As for any scientific investigator, my moment of insight had woven threads and mysteries into a comprehensible pattern. In friendship for my mother, Cecile had started up her own investigation of my father’s disappearance. Somehow she’d obtained the page of diagrams from the conspirator Orviene, perhaps linking the plotters to Gautier and Mondragon magic. But she didn’t know what she had. Lianelle’s death had spurred her to action again, and she had written to her “scholar friend” that she might pursue the mystery at Seravain—a risk of exposure that threatened Antonia’s connivance with the Aspirant. Cecile had knocked the conspirators off balance, and Antonia had reacted with murder. The Aspirant must be furious with Antonia.

  The pattern of Eugenie’s seduction into the infamous plot came clear as well. The queen, in the throes of grief and helpless anger at her infant son’s mortal illness, had turned to sorcery for answers, a first wedge between her and her husband. Had Antonia purposely made the child ill? Murdered him? Certainly plausible. After two more miscarriages, Eugenie would have been in despair, dependent on her foster mother, and entangled in depraved sorcery. When the time was right, she had delivered a child, only the infant was a girl, Catalin Jolie. And the babe had died that same hour—murdered, perhaps, because in Sabria a female heir must make a strong marriage to hold her rights, which was not at all Antonia’s plan.

  Thus was Eugenie left yearning to comfort her children as they traveled the desolation beyond the Veil. I was not yet ready to admit the possibility of raising souls from the dead. But the skills that had created the image of Edmond de Roble might be bent to any number of purposes.

  Whatever the actual course of events, whatever the bargains made, the chain that bound Eugenie and Dante had been well forged. The queen’s fragile shell housed a fierce will, and as long as that bond remained intact, the conspirators’ plot could proceed. No wonder Antonia would be furious at the thought of me, of all people, slipping in between her and Eugenie in a most intimate way.

  Which left me with the remaining mystery, as yet unsolved from four years previous. What end did these sorcerers pursue in the shelter of Antonia’s obsession? What was the Mondragon rite supposed to accomplish? Duplais did not yet know.

  But the Royal Accuser, relentless and ever patient, was still searching, and he wished me to do the same. Throw them off balance. Force them into mistakes. This was a siege, not a single battle. Once a healthy boy child was brought to birth, Philippe and Eugenie would surely die. And though Antonia intended to be her grandson’s regent, I doubted such was the Aspirant’s plan. His object was all to do with magic . . . magic not seen in ages of the world. Mondragon magic.

  CHAPTER 24

  21 OCET, EVENING

  Queen Eugenie’s mind was elsewhere as she dressed for her supper party. I would help her with one garment, only to find her off in another room when I returned with the next. No sooner did I finish linking her bracelets than she was off in the wardrobe room, peering into a lacquered basket. I had to fetch her back to her dressing table so that I could tidy her hair. Her spirit trembled like that of a child on birthday eve.

  She said little and made no mention at all of my goodfather’s coming visit. The afternoon’s events, too, were quickly dismissed. When Jacard could not be found to defend himself against Dante’s charges, she had no choice but to render the verdict her First Counselor demanded.

  Even if I’d had some idea of appealing Antonia’s choice for my future, the dowager bounced in and out of the room as if afraid Eugenie might disappear. It was a relief when they left.

  Before leaving the bedchamber, I addressed a lingering worry, grown more urgent since my talk with Roussel. Over the next hour I opened each bottle, jar, and packet in Eugenie’s medicine box while wearing Lianelle’s wardstone ring. Black if poison is within arm’s reach, she had written, and blue if you’re in danger from spellwork.

  The wardstone remained silver. Either the ring did not work or the medicine box contained nothing untoward. Reason suggested the former; faith insisted the latter.

  I removed the bottom tray from the wooden box. Nothing in the shallow space underneath had moved in the tenday since my last view. Nonetheless, I tested each of these items as well.

  The bundle of cinnamon sticks passed muster, as did a flat tin of pastilles, so hard they must have been compounded before the Blood Wars. Several empty paper packets crumbled to scraps in my hand. All that remained was a gray silk pouch, fastened by a bronze clip.

  Stars of Heaven . . . since my first tour of the medicine box, I’d seen another identical to it. Pulled from the hidden drawer in Lady Cecile’s armoire, now tucked into my own, the other pouch held the torn paper containing the vitet diagrams.

  With fumbling haste, I unfastened the clip and emptied the bag. A small circlet of copper dropped into my hand. Too large for a ring, too small for a bracelet, the circlet was intricately worked in the shape of a long-jawed beast and a wing-swept bird, clashing snout to beak. Garnets had been inlaid for eyes. It prompted no nerve-grating disturbance, as the barbed bracelet had done. The wardstone testified that any enchantment connected with the circlet was benign, as it remained a cool silver.

  The idea teased at me that Cecile had shown me its hiding place apurpose, as if she had known I might one day hold her other evidence and make the connection. As if she had known she might not be here to show me. That last night when she gave me the book, her complexion had been gray and drawn—ill. Or frightened.

  I returned circlet and bag and everything else to the box, just as it had been. I would get Eugenie to tell me what it was.

  BY THE TIME I RETURNED to my own room, it was far too late to visit Simon de Bois. He would already have left his office for his wife’s house in a village outside Merona—much too far to go in three hours. At eleventh hour I needed to be in place in Eugenie’s bedchamber to spy on her prayers. I wrote a quick message, begging Simon to find some way to stop the impending betrothal, or at least delay it until the king returned to Merona. Ella promised to see the message delivered right away.

  I dared not lie on the bed, lest my restless nights take their toll. Without urgent occupation, waking brought nothing but vile imaginings. In the secret hours of girlhood I had dreamt of my virgin night . . . of handsome Edmond de Roble’s hands gently unlacing my chemise. To think it might be Derwin of Gurmeddion instead, licking his crusted lips . . .

  To keep from vomiting, I yanked open my window and curled up in the seat, trying to let my mind go fallow, but the mindstorm broke upon me like a storm sea on the Caurean shore. Like great rivers that emptied in a common sea, anger, disappointment, irritation, and envy, wordless and violent, mingled in the storm surge. Were a god to judge the world this hour, surely he would see it colored in blood.

  A stormy night in the aether. As a slow eddy in a sheltered cove, so did my friend’s voice break the torrent of emotions.

  Indeed so, I said, allowing his quiet to draw me from chaos like a proffered hand. I’m afraid it’s my own voice disturbs your studies tonight.

  I’m likely a contributor as well. My work does not go well of late. Answers elude me. I don’t like that.

  And I’m to be betrothed to a man not of my choosing. I had to restrain myself from telling him everything. I, who had never been able to initiate a conversation unless I had known someone five years, who could not ask a question of a stranger without analyzing it ten ways.

  Nonconsensual marriage is barbarism.

  Certainly this one would be. In ancient times Cazar women wore their zahkris to bed. I might have to adopt such a custom.

  I hope the man is civil, at the least.

  Not civil, I said. Nor civilized. Grotesque and vile are the best that can be said of him. You’ve rescued me from heaving up my dinner at the imagining.

  Then you must not cooperate. Women
know how to manage these things, do they not?

  I fear nothing can be done.

  There is always something to be done. He is noble born?

  A very minor lord.

  He paused for a moment. Can you go out on your own . . . into the city at night . . . without being followed?

  Did we meet in the flesh, I would never answer such a question. Yes. My guardian’s house is not so secure as he might think.

  Good. If you like . . . I know a woman in the temple district, a broker of sorts. Not a nice woman, but knowledgeable about people—scandals, illegal dealings, loyalties—and absolutely true to her word. She owes me a favor. I could arrange for you to meet her, swearing her to keep your business secret, even from me. Impressions filled me: an odd mingling of trust, wariness, and warmth, and a certain ruthless edginess with regard to the scandal broker. If there was naught to be done—and perhaps there’s not—but if so, she could tell you. I swear on this gift, I would not use the opportunity to pry into your business.

  His promise blazed sincerity and truth. Yet I hesitated. We had agreed this friendship would remain beyond our separate lives. The nature of this unique connection, its possibilities unknown and unexplored, left me reluctant to move too quickly. Once we knew more of each other, we could never go back to this. There might be no one else in the world.

  Forget I spoke of it, he said quietly, not waiting for me to voice my rejection. I’m not so forthcoming, either, as you’ve noticed.

  I thank you more than I can say, and if I can come up with no other resource . . . perhaps. I’m hoping some solution will present itself.

  But my appreciation renewed his urgency. I study intricate and disagreeable problems. Perhaps I am just dim-witted, but you can be sure no solutions ever present themselves to me. Think on my offer. Tonight and the next tenday, I’ll have the broker send a runner to the temple major at middle-night. Wear a white ribbon in your hair. When the runner asks who sent you, say “the son of Salvator.” To prison such a gift as yours with an unworthy partner . . . it would be abomination.

  Though not one whit of my situation had changed for the better, his vehemence improved my mood. I appreciate your good favor. Even before coming of age I decided to remain unattached. Certainly no one of substance would have me now. I am plain, dull, poor, prefer books to ladylike amusements. And I’ve certainly no family connection likely to lure a desirable suitor. For now I am happy to have a friend with whom I can talk.

  Good. This is a pleasure . . . a great pleasure . . . for me, as well.

  We spoke for a while of mathematics, finding neither of us enjoyed mathematical rigors for themselves, but only for the language they provided for nature’s wonders. But in books we found a wealth of common ground. He had treasured them from early on, as I had.

  My family did not value learning, he said, when I made reference to books on my shelf at home. This statement settled in our ramblings as might a thick gray wall in the garden maze. Family was a topic we would not touch. But there were many, many more that we could . . . and did.

  Divine grace, I said, when the bells reminded me of spying yet to be done. May your studies progress well and let you sleep tonight.

  The temple major steps at middle-night, he said. A white ribbon. Do not squander your gifts.

  Some half an hour after we bade good night, a persistent hammering called me to my door. I pulled it open to find a relieved footman massaging his sore knuckle. “Sorry,” I said, gathering my shawl about my gown. “I was dozing.”

  “You’re wanted in the queen’s bedchamber, damoselle.”

  “Certainly.” Perhaps Eugenie’s prayers weren’t so secret after all.

  AN HOUR SERVING TEA AND brushing Eugenie’s hair, and I was back to my room again. The queen had been quiet and unreceptive to conversation, offering no explanation for Antonia’s desertion or my summoning. Her air of disappointment might simply have been a reflection of my suspicions; I had thought prayers might be a code word for some magic working. Indeed Eugenie made no prayers save those I had noted before—a kiss of her fingers and a lingering touch on the many tessilae on her altar.

  Wide-awake now, I watched the scattered lights of Merona winking in the night. Which lamp or candle was his? He was out there somewhere, my friend of the mind. A teacher, he’d said. Duplais might name himself a teacher after all his years in Seravain’s library. I imagined my friend to be a serious, scholarly man like Duplais, though my sensibilities placed him closer to my own years. Certainly he was not some balding elder, but a fair and fine-looking fellow with frayed cuffs and ink-stained fingers, studying by candlelight at the Collegia Physica, perhaps, or more likely the Collegia Biologica. He had been going out to study night-blooming plants, after all, an area of interest that seemed unlikely for Duplais. Of course he valued my friendship, alone with this gift that no one in the world shared, that no one would believe and many would call madness or daemon-touched. How fortunate I was that he’d been there to guide me through the terrors of beginning. Unless it was all a lie.

  No, I could as soon believe this court life a lie. Our friendship had skipped the fripperies and formalities of society, the layers of family and manners and rank that conspired to hide the true person. This had not begun in artifice, but deep in our centers . . . my fear . . . his solitude . . .

  The dome of the temple major swept a dark arc from the star-filled sky. Scarce a kilometre distant. If my instincts were true, in less than an hour, a runner would be waiting there for the teacher’s friend with a white ribbon in her hair. And if I did nothing, I might spend the rest of my days not with a quiet scholar who loved books, or even a warrior/diplomat who relished learning, but with an obscene and mindless grotesque. His food-flecked beard would brush my face, his leathery head lie on the pillow next to me. . . . Heaven’s gates, I could still smell the stale wine and sour body.

  Banishing doubt, I downed two drops of Lianelle’s potion—enough to get me out of the palace gates and through the city. A white lace pulled from my spare chemise would suffice for a ribbon. As the smeared colors of the world took on their blue-limned mystery, I threw on a dark cloak and hurried through Castelle Escalon and into the night.

  LITTLE TIME WAS REQUIRED TO have me questioning the wisdom of the excursion. Only a few passersby peopled the streets of Merona—a guardsman here, a hard-breathing laborer hauling a coal barrow there, a gentleman on horseback who, from his wandering path and mumbled singing, had indulged excessively in the pleasures of a Riverside tavern. But I might have been pushing my way through thousands of souls, with their stinks and spittle, their resentments and anxieties. Hungers. Spite. And fear everywhere. Lianelle’s magic left me naked. I could not get this done fast enough.

  The mindstorm receded as I passed the gates of the temple precincts and entered the desolate gardens. The air stank of dust and urine and sour vegetation.

  Visible now, I tied the white lace on my braid and ran up the wide steps. After scouring the portico from one end to the other, I stood next the bronze doors in the wavering torchlight, caution thrown aside. Not a soul moved on the porch or plaza. Weeds torn from the deadness skittered past, joining a thorny pile at the far end of the porch.

  Common sense demanded I retreat. But this opportunity might not come again.

  “Fine lady, has you a kivre for a girl’s not et a bite this day? Or a charm or trinket a body might sell to quiet the gnawish?”

  Though prepared for a sudden appearance, the brassy greeting sent a cold shock across my nerves. She sat in the shadow of a column not twenty steps from me.

  My one hand slipped the zahkri from its sheath. The other clutched a potion vial. Invisibility would serve me better than my fighting skills. “I’ve naught to give,” I said. “I’ve come to meet a friend.”

  Far across the temple plaza, a hobbling, lumpish figure dragged a small wheeled cart. The wheel squeaked in a slow rhythm.

  When I glanced back at the girl, she stood at the edge of a differe
nt column’s shadow. Tall as Ambrose, whip slim, her gleaming skin the hue of walnuts, she must move quickly as a hummingbird. A crimson shawl sagged in large, graceful folds about her arms and shoulders and down one side, caught up at her waist with a silver link belt on the other. The asymmetric garment revealed long, slim legs sheathed in well-worn boots reaching to her thighs. Fassid, surely. Cazars were said to have a trace of Fassid blood, an exotic beauty visible in my mother and Ambrose and entirely lacking in me.

  “Mayhap your friend would have a coin,” she said. “If the friend be a live one. A lady-born wandering the city at night might pretend a friend or seek out ghosts.”

  “You travel alone in the city.”

  She had circled around so the torchlight glared in my face. “Indeed so. But I be customed to it. And not defenseless.”

  “Nor am I defenseless.” I shifted my position as well, backing up to the very column she had deserted, stretching my ears and eyeing the rest of the pooled shadows for any hint of movement. I raised the zahkri.

  Her sidling steps halted. “Mayhap . . .”

  “Feste kistaro ju! ” I said, which meant “Leave me alone unless we have business.” It was my only Fassid phrase. My grandmother had used it to scatter annoying children.

  The girl, perhaps my same age, burst into full-throated laughter. “What a fierce little creature! So, tell, who sends tha?”

  I inhaled deeply. “The son of Salvator.”

  “Very interesting, serious friends have tha,” she said, the torchlight glinting on silver earrings. “One, certain, who thinks of tha highly. Raissina Nialle’s services do not come light. Fortunately for a lady-born having a tight fist and no silver, such a friend has covered thy fee. Though I do not think he comprehends thy full state.”