Valour and Vanity

by Mary Robinette Kowal

  The tenor of the conversation was so familiar to Jane. It put her in mind of when Vincent had been working for the Crown and unable to tell her. If Signor Sanuto were being open with them, if he had been engaged in work that he could not discuss, then Vincent, of all people, should understand those difficulties. Her husband’s continued anger must rise from the shock, the injured pride that he had been taken in so completely, compounded by the fact that the blow to his head had nearly taken away his ability to do that which he valued most.

  Jane stood slowly and smoothed the folds of her dress. It came to her that it was no wonder Signor Sanuto had been so free and easy with his wife’s wardrobe when they first arrived, since he had been the instrument for losing theirs. “Does your wife know?”

  He shook his head, looking deeply penitent. “I beg that you not tell her when she arrives. She would not understand.”

  “I did. When I was in her position.”

  Vincent’s head came up at that, but their host was focused on Jane and did not see his surprise, nor the understanding that began to soften his features. Signor Sanuto shook his head. “You are a remarkable woman, Lady Vincent. I hope you understand that not all women are so … steady in their thoughts.”

  Jane recalled her own mother, whose feverish nerves had been her constant companion. “Truly? None of the women in the cabin were overcome during the attack, save one who might be excused by her youth. If you trust your wife in other matters, then you might consider if you can trust her with this.”

  “I wish … I truly wish that I could. It is no comfortable thing to keep secrets from those one holds in regard.”

  “I am well aware of this.” Vincent wiped his face with his hand. “Our friend Lord Byron has returned. We shall remove to his apartments tomorrow.”

  “Oh.” The signore’s shoulders fell. “I should—yes, of course you will want to stay with him.”

  They took their leave with careful civility—Jane more civil than Vincent—and retreated to their rooms, where Vincent closed the door carefully behind them. He folded the promissory note and tucked it into his coat pocket.

  Then Vincent took Jane’s hand, very gently, and raised it. Without taking his gaze from her face, he slipped her wedding ring back on her finger. Tears filled Jane’s eyes at the tangible reminder of how fortunate she was. Vincent rubbed his thumb over the ring, smiling. “That is better.”

  “Very much so.” Jane took a breath to relieve some of the tension that continued to build within her. “I wonder at him, taking the trouble to recover it. And when—and why? There is so much I do not understand.”

  “I am confounded as well.” Vincent lowered her hand and proceeded to pace the length of the room. He scrubbed his face with his hands as he walked. “You want to stay here.”

  Wondering how he could tell, Jane undid the buttons on her blue walking dress. Each button on the dress reminded her that it was new and that she had possession of the dress solely because her other clothes had been taken in the supposed pirate attack. “I am not certain.”

  “But he lied to us.”

  “Not when we asked him directly.”

  Vincent bent his head, and his pace slowed somewhat. “True.”

  “And you should know what it is to hold a secret that you cannot share, even if you should wish to do so.”

  He nodded. “I dislike it.”

  “As did I. It is discomfiting to know that one has been deceived, even if there were no other harm. But…” Jane removed her walking dress and laid it over the back of the chair. “But … he has certainly sought to make amends.”

  “I suppose he has.” Vincent dropped into a chair and ran his hands through his hair. “Aside from hitting me upon the head—”

  “—I am certain that was not him.”

  “Aside from causing me to be hit upon the head, he has been a gracious host. I will grant that.”

  “But…?”

  “I cannot help but wonder … Staging a pirate attack. What could have been so valuable?”

  “I cannot hazard a guess. For myself, I am satisfied enough to know that he did not try to dissemble when we inquired, though the temptation must have been strong. That he stopped our funds from being deposited in his account and returned the note speaks well of him, too.” Jane came to sit on the arm of Vincent’s chair, dropping a kiss upon his forehead. “I think this does not sit easy with him, either.”

  “No. It does not look to.” Vincent stretched his long legs out in front of him and leaned his head back against his chair with a groan. “Why can nothing be simple?”

  “Allow me to offer one exceedingly simple reason to not remove to Lord Byron’s.”

  He raised his eyebrows in question.

  Jane placed a hand to her bosom and sighed over-dramatically. “I fear for my virtue.”

  It brought a laugh, short-lived though it was. That slight ease in tension gave her a measure of confidence that his anger would pass. One thing remained for Jane to puzzle over: Was it possible that Signor Sanuto wished them to remain because he had some need for their glamour in his endeavours?

  * * *

  By mutual agreement, the next morning Jane carried the message to their host that they would remain if he would still have them.

  He sat upon the balcony taking his morning coffee. His shoulders sagged in relief. “I am glad. So very glad. I have grown to have a great regard for you and your husband.”

  “You have been very kind to us”

  He winced and turned away. “Say rather that I have done you harm and am trying to make amends. It is little enough to invite you to stay in our home.”

  “And to help us with the glassmakers? The trouble there had nothing to do with you.”

  “I suppose not. Coffee?” He lifted the pot and offered it to her. When Jane nodded her acceptance, he poured. “Is your work going well?”

  Jane accepted the cup he handed her. “Indeed. We have been quite successful. So you see, you have that accomplishment to claim some part in.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “It is good of you. But I can hardly claim an accomplishment when I have not the smallest understanding of what you are attempting.”

  A Verre Obscurci might well help him with the troubles that he had hinted at the night prior. It had certainly been essential for them. Jane smoothed her skirts. “Perhaps we can show you someday. For now, though, Vincent is very private when we are working on a new project.”

  “He does seem so, yes.”

  “Please do not take his upset too much to heart. He will soften once he has some distance and time for consideration. It is the shock, I think, more than anything.”

  “Of course. Still, I am glad that you have had some success, and will, as you suggest, count that as a small victory of my own.” He hesitated and then set his cup down. “Your husband is a very skilled glamourist, is he not?”

  “Though I am biased, he is the best I have ever seen.”

  He nodded as though he had expected that answer, but kept his gaze fixed on his cup. “You say nothing of your own skills, which are not inconsiderable, I believe.”

  Jane blushed and looked toward the canal. She had a recognition of her own talents, and though she understood that she was, in fact, quite good, she was not accustomed to acknowledging it. “You are too kind.”

  “Merely practical. Lady Vincent, though I have no right … I should like to consult with you on a matter.”

  She held very still, wishing that Vincent were present.

  Signor Sanuto turned the cup in the saucer as if he could read his fortune in the coffee grounds. “Is there any chance that … Would you help me pick a present for my daughter’s birthday?”

  “Certainly. I should be very glad to.” And yet Jane was absolutely certain that Signor Sanuto had been about to ask her a very different question, one which involved glamour and pirates.

  Nine

  A Strain of Friendship

  The easy friendship that had
begun to develop between the Vincents and Signor Sanuto was strained by his disclosures, but this was to be expected. They continued to stay with Signor Sanuto. Several times it seemed as if he were on the cusp of saying something about his cause that then turned to a different topic.

  In truth, though, they did not see much of their host the next week, as they were occupied at the glass factory in the evenings, which was when he was at home from the bank. When they were not engaged at the glass factory, they called on Lord Byron.

  Jane found Byron to be as mercurial as his reputation had promised, and also as brilliant. As much as she was uncomfortable in the house he occupied, Jane found the conversation stimulating. Their topics ranged from politics to poetry to music to glamour and all the ways in which they intersected.

  They were not expected to be at the glass factory on the last evening that the poet was in Venice, so they spent it with him. A conversation on the topic of inspiration led by leaps to the role of muses, and then to the theft of fire and to Prometheus.

  As if to exhibit the effect of inspiration, Vincent leapt up and pulled handfuls of glamour around himself. The form of Prometheus coalesced around him, with deft strokes that showed no sign of his injury. Jane, seeing what he was about, also rose and cloaked herself in a Sphère Obscurcie to weave eagles, which swooped down to pluck the liver from his side.

  Compared to the necessary precision of the work that they had been doing with the glass, it was a pure joy to work so unfettered. Her breath quickened as the eagle soared aloft, but it was no strain to hold the threads. Jane took a breath and made the eagle dive again—no easy task—and was rewarded as Vincent answered her efforts by opening the hand of his creation and having fire appear within it.

  They held the spontaneous tableau vivant for a span of some moments, Jane’s heart beating quickly with excitement as much as from the effects of glamour. In silent accord, they released their threads at the same moment and reappeared out of the dissolving glamour.

  Those few assembled guests applauded, calling out approbation for particular elements. Then Lord Byron sat forward in his chair, pushing aside the young woman draped over him, his eyes intent upon Vincent.

  Many are Glamourists without acclaim.

  Yet what is Glamour but to create

  From naught but illusory light; and aim

  At an ephemeral life beyond our fate,

  And be the new Prometheus to attain,

  The noble fire from Heaven, and then, too late,

  Finding the pleasure given repaid with pain,

  And vultures to the heart of the bestower,

  Who, having lavished his high gift in vain,

  Lies to his lone rock by the sea-shore?

  So be it: we can bear. —But thus all know

  Who chance to behold an o’ermastering glamour

  One noble stroke with a whole life may glow,

  Or deify the ether till it shine

  With beauty so surpassing all below,

  That they who kneel to Idols so divine

  Break no commandment, for high Heaven is there

  Transfused, transfigurated: and the line

  Of Glamour, which peoples but the air

  With Thought and Beings of our thought reflected,

  Can do no more: let the glamourist share

  The palm, he shares the peril, and dejected

  Faints o’er the labour unapproved—Alas!

  Despair and Genius are too oft connected.

  The room fell silent. Jane put a hand to her chest, overwhelmed by the remorse that his poem conjured. As much as anything else, she felt desire—a desire to create a work that could move the observer as much as his words had inspired her. It was perhaps only the repetition of the work with the glass, but in that moment, she felt that their experiments were mere irrelevant technique.

  “I should probably write that down.” Lord Byron laughed and picked up his glass of champagne. He drank it all, and turned to the young woman who had been draped over him, giving in to a more immediate impulse.

  Jane recalled that evening when their next appointed time to work with Signor Querini arrived. Though the work with the glass was tedious, their control over the effect improved with each effort and they could more accurately predict the size of the finished glamour.

  The attempts to create other patterns proved less effective because there was little time before the glass had cooled too much to take the pattern of glamour, but, even so, the results interested Jane. They produced one glass which, in sunlight, displayed a partially sketched tulip floating above it. If they could master this technique, then perhaps some day glamours like the lion at Trieste could be recorded in their entirety instead of fading away with the passage of time.

  * * *

  After finishing one evening at the glass factory, they arrived at Ca’ Sanuto so late that all the windows were already dark. They had been unable to return with the glass from their previous session until it had finished tempering, so in the morning Jane turned her attention to the spheres from earlier efforts. On their days off, she and Vincent had been attempting to write an account of their discoveries about working with glass. Jane’s eyes were crossing with the difficulty of expressing in words the concepts involved in the glamour they had been working. She cleaned her quill, thinking about how to explain the relationship between the entry point of the glamour in the glass and the shape that resulted.

  Vincent put his hands on her shoulders and leaned down to kiss her on the neck. “We have been at this for nearly two hours, Muse.”

  “Is that why my back is stiff?”

  “Likely so.” He picked up her quill and applied his penknife to its tip. “May I tempt you away? A walk might do us both good.”

  Jane nodded and cast sand over the page to blot the ink. “Likely so. I feel as though my brain were pudding.”

  “Pudding. Hm … What sort of pudding? Plum?”

  “Suet, I think.” Jane pushed her chair back and stood, stretching until the straps of her short stays dug into her shoulders.

  “Salty. I would not have expected that of you.” Vincent squinted at the pen and tried the tip with his thumb.

  “I shall blame any saltiness in my language on you.”

  He laughed and closed his penknife. With a sidelong glance at Jane, he set the pen and knife down upon the table. She was fairly certain that they were done writing for the day. “I have my doubts about your salty language. Will you demonstrate?”

  Jane blushed; then her colour heightened with annoyance that she was blushing at all. This was her husband, after all. She cleared her throat. “You have said nothing of whether you like your pudding with … gravy?” Her skin fairly burned, but she could not restrain a giggle.

  Vincent chuckled with delight and picked her up, spinning her. “That is not salty.”

  “It is!” Jane squeezed his side with her fingers.

  Twisting away, her ticklish husband yelped with sudden laughter and almost dropped her in his hurry to set her down. “No, truly. It is not.”

  “It is.” Her fingers sought his sides again.

  Vincent folded in half, twisting away from her, with his arms tight to his ribs. She found ways past his defences, and he fled across the room in breathless mirth. The corners of his eyes bent in tight wrinkles of amusement as he snorted in response to her efforts.

  Something in the distance crashed, with the sound of wood splintering. Startled at the noise, Jane stopped her pursuit. Vincent stepped away from her, frowning. “Was that in the palazzo?”

  “I am uncertain.” Jane tilted her head, listening for further disturbances.

  A man shouted, clearly inside the palazzo. Heavy footfalls, of more than one person, echoed off the marble below. Vincent held out his hand to Jane. “Will you wait here, Muse?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “There are days when I wish you were not as stubborn as I am.”

  “Then your wish is granted every day, becaus
e no one could be as stubborn as you.”

  He snorted as she followed him to the door of their apartments. Still, Jane stayed back when he cracked the door to peer out. The shouting continued, but now some words were clear. “Search,” and “escape,” and—most chilling—“Sanuto.”

  Vincent’s breath hissed out of him. “Whatever business he was caught up with has found him.”

  “Or not. It sounds as though they are searching.”

  Nodding, Vincent put his eye to the door again. His face had the same worried frown that she felt on her own. “At least one man is in a policeman’s uniform.”

  Jane waited until he pulled back from the door and eased it closed. “What should we do?”

  “I do not know. We know things, told to us in confidence, that we should not, and yet…” Vincent knotted his hand in his hair before continuing. “If they are here, it seems to me that he is probably not at the bank. Perhaps he got word of the search and has fled?”

  “Or is unaware, and about to walk into … whatever this is.”

  Outside, the noises of the search continued. At least four men called to each other as they went through the palazzo. It would only be a matter of minutes before they reached Jane and Vincent’s apartments. Jane turned to look at the cabinet where they had stored the Verres Obscurcis, wrapped in velvet.

  Vincent gazed at the same cabinet, as if he had a similar thought. They could use them to hide upon the balcony. The day was sunny enough that the glamour caught in glass would make them invisible.

  Jane took a step away from the door. The events reminded her so much of being in Binché that the urge to hide became very strong. She crossed the room and pulled open the drawer in which they kept the Sphères.

  It was empty.

  “Vincent!”

  He crossed far enough to see the empty drawer. Whites showed all the way around his eyes. He cursed softly, turning away.

  The footsteps in the hall approached their door. Vincent set his shoulders, walked to the door, and pulled it open. “Good afternoon. May I help you?”

  The man in the hall wore a policeman’s uniform. His long black coat flared around white trousers as he spun. He took a step back in surprise at Vincent’s appearance. With a rattle, he drew his sabre and pointed it at Vincent. The polizia called over his shoulder in Italian. “I have them.”