Blood Rose Rebellion

by Rosalyn Eves

  I twitched away. I did not want those hands touching me.

  “Your grandmother tells me you are heading to Buda-Pest soon. I think this is an excellent plan. Enjoy society life, as a young lady should. Forget about the Binding, for your own sake.”

  When I said nothing, he left, the door shuddering against the frame. I curled under my bedclothes, my heart racing. Between them, Herr Steinberg and Lady Berri presented me with impossible choices. I might choose to be safe, continuing to live the same circumscribed life I’d always known and abandoning any hope of magic and a real place in society. Or I might answer the yearning call of my shadow self for a bigger life, a life that meant something. I might break the Binding and upend my entire world. But to do so, I would risk everything that mattered to me: my family, my friends, Luminate society itself.

  The stork’s shadow crossed me like a bad omen. On horseback, I watched the bird land in its enormous messy nest—imposing, ungainly, and magnificent all at once—and tried to shake the sense of being watched.

  Now that we were back at Eszterháza, I felt eyes on me everywhere: Herr Steinberg, finding an excuse to call on Grandmama and ensure I was where I was meant to be. Lady Berri, trundling through the rooms of Eszterháza and appearing at unexpected times in unexpected places, trying to catch me alone (Noémi had come across her more than once in the stillroom). Grandmama and Noémi, both worrying I was not fully healed. Only Mátyás did not watch me, and I could not decide if I was affronted or relieved by his disinterest. In response, I escaped the palace as often as I could.

  Before me, the road curled away like a question. I glanced at the village behind me, barely visible at the edges of the green fields. No one appeared to notice. In the windless afternoon, even the shadows stayed put, wilted by the heat.

  I nudged Cukor off the road. Incuriously, he stepped across the field, and within moments I’d reached my destination.

  The Romani camp.

  Only circles of stone and ash marked where they had been. I dismounted, letting Cukor graze on the grass that had already sprung up beneath the former tent sites.

  We were departing for Buda-Pest in the morning, but I could not leave Eszterháza without seeking out my last connection, however faint, to Gábor. The city promised so much: museums and plays and operas and society, university classes for Mátyás, medical training for Noémi. But the city threatened as well. Reading between the lines of Mama’s latest letter, I surmised she wished me to acquire social polish there—better still, a husband to take me off her hands. Lady Berri would expect an answer to her demand. And Herr Steinberg would follow me to the city, his presence its own kind of menace.

  For the moment, I answered them all with silence—a mute refusal to cooperate. But silence would only work as a delaying tactic for so long.

  I pushed such unpleasant thoughts from my mind as I wandered through the campsite, imagining here was where I first met Izidóra and here I first saw Gábor. And there he kissed me—an angry, derisive kiss that had made me hate him until, unexpectedly, I hadn’t.

  Heat beyond the sultry warmth of the afternoon flooded through me.

  And there. There I had broken Noémi’s spell with an ability I didn’t understand. Selfish, Herr Steinberg had named me. Maybe he was right.

  I turned back toward my horse. There was nothing for me here save aching memories. I should not have come.

  “Anna.”

  The voice from beneath the clump of alders behind me was so unexpected I let out an unladylike screech, then clapped my hand to my mouth in mortification. I whirled around, my heart thumping. Hoping, hoping…

  I was not wrong. Gábor stood in the shadows of the trees, watching me. Strangely, I did not mind the weight of his eyes.

  “You left,” I said stupidly.

  He crossed the campsite toward me. “I helped my sisters to Buda-Pest, where they will stay for the winter. And then I came back.”

  For me? I wanted to ask, but swallowed the words. My entire body was a lit fuse. Whatever this knot of feeling in my chest was, I could not tangle it further by inviting confidences I was not ready to hear. He was Romani, and whatever I was, I was not that. And I could not bear another Freddy: another set of intentions and veiled promises and heated feelings and disappointment.

  “I had business with your cousin,” he said, and I was doubly glad I had not asked.

  He studied my face a moment, his eyes lingering on my mouth a heartbeat longer than strictly proper. “Are you well? You look flushed.”

  I fluttered my handkerchief at my face. “It’s this heat.”

  “I heard you were ill.”

  “A temporary indisposition. I am much better now, thank you.” I could not mention Sárvár, after his warning. I could not bear seeing the concern in his eyes fade to anger, or worse, repulsion.

  “I should not keep you,” he said. “You have illustrious visitors at the palace, I hear.”

  I waved my hand. “They don’t matter.”

  “The German herr asks about you in the csárda. And Mátyás says the English lady has been hounding you. If she is bothering you, perhaps I can help.”

  An involuntary laugh escaped me. “You cannot help with this.”

  His lips tightened. “I may be Romani, but I am not helpless.”

  “I did not mean that! Only this…this is Luminate business.”

  “What does she want?”

  It would be easier to hide truths from him if I cared nothing for him, if the sharp line of his cheek did not distract my thoughts, if my body did not already impel me toward him.

  I did not want to lie to Gábor. I said nothing. I balled my hands into fists and did not move.

  “You don’t trust me.” His words were steady, unsurprised, only the faintest tinge of sadness in them to tear at my heart.

  “I do trust you.”

  Gábor stalked forward, stopping so close to me I could feel the warmth from his body. So close his breath stirred the hair around my face. “Then tell me.”

  When I didn’t answer, he put both hands on my shoulders. My skin, even under the fabric of my dress, prickled at his touch.

  “Anna.” My stomach fluttered at the intensity in his voice, the intimacy of my bare name. “Tell me this: what has the English lady asked of you? And why will you not tell me? Is it something to do with Sárvár?”

  “No.” It wasn’t a lie: the spell at Sárvár was already broken. Lady Berri had no interest in it.

  He stared at me but did not release me. “A great English lady, a member of your Luminate Circle, comes to visit you—a girl without magic, who cannot learn spells but who can break them….” He trailed off, horrified. “The Binding.”

  “I have not agreed to anything,” I said, beginning to feel angry. Why was everyone so determined to choose my path for me? I could not see there was much to choose between what Lady Berri offered and what Herr Steinberg did. Herr Steinberg would see me live out the same dull, restricted life I had always lived at the fringes of society. Lady Berri offered change, excitement, a chance to do something that mattered. But what of the costs? How would my world look in the aftermath of the Binding breaking? The American colonists had ushered in a vigorous democracy on the heels of a revolution, but there was no guarantee the same would happen here. What if breaking the Binding only led to bloodshed—or something worse than the Circle rising to power?

  “What has she offered you?”

  I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “I didn’t say she’d offered me anything.”

  “I know a deal when I see one, and this scheme reeks of it. What has she promised you?”

  My cheeks flamed. I pulled a cloak of anger over my embarrassment and jerked away. “Whatever she offers is my business alone. You and I have no promise—no deal, as you put it—that gives you any right to question me.”

  A veil shuttered down over Gábor’s face. “If you trust her more than you trust me, then you’re right. We have nothing left to say to each other
. My apologies for disturbing you.” He turned away.

  My heart clenched tight. “Wait. Please. I didn’t come here to fight with you. I haven’t said yes to her.”

  He paused, listening, but did not turn back.

  “Please,” I said again. “I am going to Buda-Pest tomorrow. You say your family is there. Will I see you there?”

  “And how should I see you, Miss Arden?” The distance was back between us in my formal name, in the stiff way he held himself, his arms crossed across his chest, in the bitter tang of his voice. “Shall I come calling at your grandmama’s house? Ask you to dance at some fine Luminate party?”

  Angry tears stung my eyes. “You need not mock me. I am not the one using our differences as a weapon. I don’t care that you are Romani.”

  The stiffness evaporated from his shoulders. He turned back and crossed the space dividing us. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.” He reached out one lean hand and brushed my cheek. “Please, trust me. Do not do what this woman asks.”

  My skin came alive beneath his touch. “Very well,” I said, not agreeing precisely but buying myself time. I did not want him to leave. “Will you go back to your family?”

  “I am not currently welcome, not after what happened.”

  “You’ve been banished?” Shock lined my veins with ice.

  “Do not judge the elders. Their job is to keep the family safe. They did what they deemed right—as I did.” He shrugged, but I could see how his shoulders hunched, as if to ward off a blow. “In time, I may be allowed back.”

  “But how shall you live?”

  “I shall look for work. A clerical position in a small firm, if I am very lucky.”

  A possibility bubbled up inside me. “I have a better idea.” I grabbed his hand. “Come with me.”

  If Grandmama was surprised by my abrupt appearance in the parlor with Gábor in tow, the only sign she made was a small sigh.

  “What is it, Anna?”

  “I’ve found a secretary for you,” I said.

  “A…but…Anna, I’m not in need of a secretary.”

  Gábor shifted from one foot to the other, tucking his hands behind him. “Truly, Miss Arden, this is very kind of you, but if your grandmother has no need of my services, I should go.”

  Lady Berri set down her cup of tea, her small eyes dancing with interest.

  “Wait,” I said, borrowing Mama’s imperious tone. It worked. He stopped shifting. “Grandmama, Mr. Kovács is highly intelligent and well educated. He can write letters for you, tally bills, secure a carriage—anything you’d like.”

  “He’s Gypsy,” János observed, shaking his head. “He’s as like to steal from you as serve you.”

  “Romani,” I said. “And he won’t.”

  “A Gypsy!” Grandmama said, dropping her embroidery. “Anna, really, I couldn’t.”

  “That’s unfair, János bácsi,” Mátyás said, speaking for the first time. He uncurled himself from the sofa and crossed the room to shake Gábor’s hand. “Hallo, Gábor.” He looked back at Grandmama. “I know him. He’s a good man. Honest too. I trust him.”

  I beamed at Mátyás, who colored faintly. I turned to Grandmama. “His being Romani is precisely the point. He’s capable, but who would hire him? He only needs a chance, a good recommendation that might open other doors.”

  Lady Berri said, “I’ve found that a good secretary is almost indispensable.”

  I could have kissed her.

  Grandmama sighed again, a luxurious release of air. She picked up her embroidery. “Very well, Anna. Only do not let me regret this.”

  I crossed the room to kiss her cheek. “You won’t, Grandmama. I promise.”

  Her voice was very dry when she answered me. “I already do.”

  Buda-Pest, late September 1847

  On my eighth circuit of the room, Grandmama set down her reading spectacles and rubbed her temples. “Anna, szívem, must you prowl like some caged beast? Have you nothing better to do?”

  I stilled obediently, dropping into a chair near the window overlooking a broad thoroughfare in the Pest belváros. From this vantage point, buildings blocked my view of the Buda hills, on the other side of the Duna River dividing the twin cities. But restlessness still crawled through my body, and I tapped an imperceptible rhythm against my skirts. Lady Berri had called again that morning, and I had no answer to give her. For the first time in my life, I knew a lurking sympathy for Hamlet, whom I had once denounced to a governess as a waffling, pudding-hearted excuse for a man. I was not normally indecisive, but I could not make my decision about the Binding lightly. Too many lives were bound up in it.

  Still, I must decide someday. And soon, before my prowling wore holes in Grandmama’s carpets.

  “You can come with me to the hospital,” Noémi offered, winding up her embroidery thread and stowing it neatly in the basket near her chair. “We can always use more hands.”

  “Another time, perhaps.” Most days, Noémi shadowed a nurse-midwife at the hospital, but I did not think I would feel any less restive in the square building on Rókus Street, with its narrow hallways and stench of chlorinated limewater.

  Mátyás popped his head into Grandmama’s salon. “I’m on my way out. Can I be of service while I’m gone, Irína néni?”

  Grandmama replaced her glasses. “Yes. Take Anna with you.”

  Anything was better than staying in Grandmama’s salon, fretting over a decision that could unmake my world’s magic. I ran upstairs to my room for a light wrap and my reticule. When I reached the mouth of the courtyard, Mátyás waited for me with Gábor.

  My heart stuttered. Despite my maneuverings, I had seen Gábor only in tiny slivers of time during our weeks in the city: enough to sting with longing, but never enough to satisfy. If Lady Berri was right and breaking the Binding would make magic accessible to everyone, it would undermine the very class structure that supported my family. No doubt Mama would object to that—but if it erased the gulf between Gábor and me, I could only welcome it. I added a small weight to the invisible scale in my head. One more reason to break the Binding.

  We emerged through the gates into sharp-bright sunlight. A fine layer of silt scoured down the street before the small baroque palace Grandmama had rented for the season, blowing in from the plains beyond Pest. Only a little larger than a town house, with walls marching against its neighbors, the palace sounds grander than it was. I coughed and held my handkerchief over my mouth and nose. We walked past the fine shops on Váci Street, before veering off onto a narrow side road, our heads lowered and eyes squinted shut against the dust.

  “Are you well, Miss Anna?” Gábor asked me. “That is, you do not look like you feel ill—you look very well. I meant, do you feel well? In spirit?”

  It was not like Gábor to be tongue-tied. I smiled. “Yes. Thank you.”

  Mátyás squinted at me. “I think Anna looks quite ill. Positively dreadful.”

  I nearly stopped, to try to see my reflection in a window (I had not paused to look at myself before I left), when Mátyás burst out laughing.

  “You are dreadful,” I told him, and he only laughed harder. I turned to find Gábor watching me, a curious expression on his face. “And you, Mr. Kovács?” His full name was stiff on my tongue. “Is my grandmother treating you well?”

  “The work is not difficult. It gives me time to study.”

  “And your family?”

  “I have not seen them.”

  Something about his clipped words indicated he would not welcome further questions. We fell into an awkward silence, which Mátyás tried to fill with a series of increasingly terrible jokes.

  At last we reached a small building, four arched windows beneath a sign reading CAFÉ PILVAX. Despite outward appearances, the café was long and airy, scattered tables set up beneath a series of brick archways. All sorts of people crowded inside, despite—or perhaps because of—the winds: Luminate women in their fine lawn dresses, noblemen in their top hats and
embroidered dolmans, a soldier or two with their high shako hats and red feather plumes, students, workers, even a dog lying placidly on the parquet floor.

  Mátyás found us room at several small tables shoved together. Somehow, I was not surprised to see William there, engaged in heated debate with a curly-haired young man with a luxurious dark mustache. I ordered coffee in the Hungarian style, sweetened with milk and honey, and listened to the young men around me, mostly students, debate everything from natural history to politics to Jókai Mór’s newest play. Though the conversations were mostly Hungarian, I picked up enough to follow, and what I did not understand, Mátyás or Gábor translated.

  One of the students asked a waitress for “the tongue of the dog.”

  I turned startled eyes on Gábor. “Surely they don’t eat dog’s tongue here!”

  He laughed. “No. Wait and see.”

  Within moments the waitress returned with a long paper, and the student set to scribbling furiously. The curly-haired man who had been arguing with William broke off to peer over his shoulder.

  I grinned. This place—everything about it, from the cozy brick walls to the students’ energy—was delightful.

  The curly-haired man clapped the writer on the shoulder. “Bravo! Well done, lad.”

  I leaned toward Mátyás. “Who is that?”

  He whispered back, “Petőfi Sándor. They say he may be the greatest poet of our generation. I read you some of his poetry while you convalesced.”

  William, deprived of his sparring partner, looked around the café. His eyes lit on me. “Miss Anna Arden!” he cried, leaning across the table toward me. “Mátyás told me of your excellent work at Sárvár! Have you come to join our cause?”

  Gábor stiffened beside me, but when I risked a glance at him, he did not look surprised. Mátyás must have told him what happened.

  I shook my head gently. “I’ve made no decisions.”

  William accepted my rebuff affably enough, and he and the poet fell back into a friendly argument as to the most compelling reasons to break from Austria. The poet said, “The Hapsburgs dictate our laws, our schools, who our spell-binders might be, even our wars. They’ve deprived us of all our natural rights.”