Margerit thought a moment. “Not much—not like at parties, where the old folks go on and on. We talked about the succession at the beginning, of course, when we were choosing a mystery to work on. It was one of the thoughts, that the land would be unsettled and vulnerable and that our castellum could help keep it safe for whomever was chosen.”
“Did you know,” Barbara ventured, “that most—almost all—of the guild members lean to Princess Elisebet’s side?”
Margerit shrugged. “What of it?”
The ground was growing tricky. “I’ve been wondering whether the guild’s work might be meant to her benefit in some way.”
“It’s meant for the benefit of all the land; why shouldn’t it benefit her as well?” Margerit seemed genuinely confused.
“It seems odd that people so strongly partisan would put this effort, at this time, into what did not raise the chances of their favorite over others.”
“You’ve seen the mystery,” Margerit protested. “You helped write it! Is there anything of favoritism in it?” An edge of annoyance was emerging in her voice.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen the full ceremony—not with the saints all filled in.” Her further suspicions weren’t strong enough to stand on their own.
“But I have. Barbara, I wish we could be working on it together, like we did this summer. Then you’d see.”
Does she think I’m jealous? Barbara wondered. And of course she was. But that had nothing to do with it. “Just be careful. There’s something at work here. If it turns out to be dangerous…” If it were dangerous it would fall within her hands and then Margerit would have to listen. But it was too soon to point that out.
* * *
The pattern of the loyalties had emerged as she traced connections back and forth from the south bank to the north bank of the Rotein. Another thing emerged during that search. Her old shadows were back. The same men—some of them—who had dogged her errands the previous year were appearing in view with disturbing frequency. Others were strangers but met too often for chance, even given paths of habit. She’d grown sloppy in those paths of habit. That would change again.
What had brought them back? The last time the question had teased at her, she’d spun an elaborate fantasy around her father’s supposed title and estates and the trading of debts for influence. That explanation had been abandoned as implausible. But now the shadows were back and tangled up in questions of the succession debate. And this time those questions crossed Margerit’s path. If she were right…
It wasn’t a question she could share with Margerit. And Marken—well, he’d been told what to watch for, but he had no curiosity about the larger doings of his employers. She thought briefly of taking Mesner Pertinek into her confidence but he was still too newly come to the household for her to trust entirely. She would drop him a word or two. In the end, the habit of a lifetime took her to LeFevre’s door.
“And you think these are the same men as last winter?” he asked when the bare facts had been laid before him.
“Some of them are the very same men, the others have the same feel. I never told you—I learned they were in Langal’s employ.”
“Ah.”
From his expression she knew the comment was on her discovery and not on the man’s identity. He would give her no confirmation of her other guesses. She didn’t bother to rehearse them.
“But now,” she continued, “I don’t know whether I’m the target or Maisetra Sovitre is. There’s something odd happening around the guild. I don’t know how to protect her if I don’t know what it is.”
He watched her closely, as if waiting to be certain she’d finished. “And what would you like me to do?”
What had she wanted? What had she expected? “I don’t know. I…I needed to tell someone.”
“You could protect her by removing her from the guild,” he said mildly.
Barbara threw up her hands. “And how am I supposed to do that? This work means everything to her. I don’t think even Maisetra Pertinek would be able to forbid her and have her obey.”
“Maistir Fulpi could. He would be quite capable of dragging her back to Chalanz willy-nilly if he were given good reason.”
Barbara envisioned the scene. “She’d never forgive me,” she said, shaking her head slowly.
“Then you may need to decide which is more important to you: her forgiveness or her safety.” He waved a hand as if dismissing the question. “I don’t say I think it would come to that. But Barbara—” His voice became quietly intense and she marked his words carefully. “If you ever find yourself in desperate straits—you or Margerit or the both of you—take sanctuary at Saint Orisul’s.”
“That’s five days journey away!”
“And well away from Rotenek if it comes to that. If you’re at Saint Orisul’s, I’ll know where to find you.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Margerit
It had been raining steadily for a week. Not enough to leave small lakes in the low spots of the plaiz but a steady drizzle that quenched spirits as if they were candles. Margerit had been damp more often than dry for days. Every time she returned to the house, Aunt Bertrut fussed and warned against taking cold. There was no help for it. They were spending long hours in the chapel working through the task of stitching the local patrons into the castellum and she couldn’t be spared. The other vidators could tell whether a particular draft had succeeded or failed but only she could see the shape of how it failed or how it had almost succeeded. As yet, the guild work had not displaced the time she spent on lectures, but she could see a time when it might.
“Go upstairs and get those things off immediately,” Aunt Bertrut ordered, heading her off when she would have taken her satchel to the library. “Leave that here, someone will see to it. I told Maitelen to keep the fire up in your room. I knew you’d be coming in all wet again. You look like you drove across town with the carriage open.”
“No, Aunt,” she sighed. “It’s only that there’s no way to get from the guildhall to the carriages except across the yard and of course it poured for the two minutes that took.”
“And you couldn’t take a parasol?”
Margerit didn’t try to answer. She hated the bother of carrying too many things. The satchel kept the books and papers dry—that was the important thing. “Where shall it be this evening?” Aunt Bertrut had insisted she be back in plenty of time, but Margerit hadn’t bothered to take note of the details. She stripped off her soaked gloves and tossed them on the side table with the book satchel.
“It’s just a small musical supper at Mesnera Arulik’s. Let me see your hands.”
Margerit held them out, knowing what was coming. Gloves might hide the ink stains but one couldn’t wear gloves every moment of the day and even lemon juice failed to fade the marks entirely.
But Bertrut only sighed and continued where she’d left off. “You wanted a quiet week. I think there’s some new Italian soprano she’s showing off. There’s no dancing so wear something warm.”
The instructions were hardly necessary. Her maid would have chosen the dress already with far more care than she would have taken herself. Maitelen might have started out as a country girl, but from the start she’d determined to live up to the expectations of the lady’s maid to an heiress. She’d made friends and gathered advice in all the neighboring households with the determination of an invading general. After only a few false starts, Margerit had stopped worrying over whether she’d be turned out properly. Tonight it was a pale fawn merino with black piping and her heaviest shawl.
The care came to nothing. Margerit was waiting with Aunt Bertrut in the front parlor when Uncle Pertinek entered, dressed not for the evening’s excursion but as if he had just returned home. Barbara followed him in from the entry hall and Margerit saw them exchange an odd look.
“My dear,” he said to Bertrut. “I think it would be best to stay in tonight.”
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Margerit was vexed. For all that she would have preferred to stay home, it seemed a silly reason to withdraw at the last minute. “No one cares what I think about politics. Won’t it look just as odd to stay as to go?”
Aunt Bertrut looked back and forth between the two of them. “Your uncle knows best in these matters. We can always say you’ve caught a small chill—that’s easy to believe. We’re only thinking of your good name.” More cheerfully, she added, “I’m disappointed too, but we can have a cozy dinner at home instead.”
It wasn’t disappointment but the sense of being driven in harness. Now go; now stop. She frowned. “I’ll take supper in the library, if you don’t mind.”
She expected Barbara to join her there after they’d both changed to more domestic clothing. The supper tray came with soup and cold meat and whatever else the cook could manage on short notice, but without Barbara. It was taken away an hour later and still no Barbara. How dare she use Uncle Pertinek to control which parties I might and might not attend? She found herself reading the same passage for the third time and shut the book. Where was she? Barbara couldn’t have had other plans for the evening—not when she’d been expecting to escort them to the concert. One of the lamps guttered and she got up to trim the wick. She put a hand on the bell pull then turned away again. That wasn’t how she wanted it to be. A cold finger ran down her spine. When Aunt Bertrut had painted her picture of sitting alone with her books and writings, it hadn’t touched her because in her mind Barbara was there at her side.
She snuffed the lamps, taking a candle to light her way to bed.
* * *
The morning dawned clear and dry. Her mood felt washed clean with the streets. There were no lectures today and she’d told Hennis she could work until midday.
With Giseltrut’s help, they finished polishing the turris against plague. Hennis sent the other off to the guildhall to copy out the changes but asked her to stay a moment.
“I’ve been thinking. When we discussed the design of the towers, we decided not to include protection against invasion and foreign armies. We had good reasons at the time, but I’m not so sure now. I was thinking…could you sketch out—not to include necessarily, but just to consider—a tower against foreign invasion?”
Margerit considered the problem. “It shouldn’t be too difficult, but I’ll need to think about the symbols and the best patrons.”
He pulled out a small sheaf of papers. “Here are some ideas. I don’t have the same talent you do, but I think you might find them a useful starting point.”
Margerit took the pages and looked through them with a pleased grin. “This will certainly help. I think—” She shuffled back to the beginning of his notes. “Yes, Ainell for protection against invaders. But why Saint Viz?”
“It’s part of the echoing layer,” Hennis explained, “representing foreign armies as wild beasts attacking.”
Margerit nodded absently, continuing on. “Then the patrons of the major passes and Nikule…to cover the river as entrance? An odd choice.”
“The idea is more for his protection against robbers—to turn away pillaging and those who come seeking what isn’t theirs.”
“Yes, this should work,” Margerit concluded. “I can have a draft for us to try in a couple of days. Do you think the rest of the guild will want to add it?”
He shrugged. “We can only suggest it. But it will help if we have the text prepared.”
* * *
They were so close to being ready. Another week, perhaps. A couple more days if they added the new material. Only a few of the members had been following the whole text; most knew only the parts they’d helped to polish. That would take more time. The fluency of the celebrants made a significant difference in the shape of the fluctus. Though as Ainis noted there was nothing to say that the saints might not respond to a sincere though awkward petition.
She was still counting through the calendar in her mind when the footman who relieved her of her coat mentioned that Barbara would like to speak to her in the library, if that were convenient. She glanced questioningly at Marken, but he only shrugged as he left for whatever occupied his off-duty hours.
Barbara had a restless look as if she’d been waiting impatiently for some time. “Maisetra, I need to talk to—” She stopped and said bluntly. “You need to stay away from the guildhall and the guild for a while.”
The words didn’t even make sense. And why the formality here? Where they always left such things behind? “What do you mean?”
“I’ve learned—” Again the hesitation. “I’ve been following Lutoz and Perfrit and some of the others. They’ve been meeting with Estefen. Regularly. And when they meet, they talk about two things: the guild and the succession.”
Margerit still didn’t follow her. “Everyone’s talking about the succession.”
“I wish I could trust it was only that but I fear something deeper is at work. And I don’t know if the trap is aimed at you or if you’re only meant to be spattered with someone else’s mud. But you need to stay well away from the guild until matters are more settled.”
Margerit’s mind went back to the heady successes of the morning’s work. Barbara wanted to take that away? When they were so close to finishing? And for fears that she couldn’t even put a name to? A hot anger rose in her.
Barbara continued, “Margerit, this isn’t forever. But for now you must—”
“No! Don’t say ‘must’ to me!” In her own ears her voice rang icy and brittle. “You are neither my guardian nor my governess. You forget your place!”
As soon as the words left her, she wished them unsaid. But the strength of Barbara’s reaction shocked her. Her face went as white as bone. Then, after long seconds of deep silence, she sank smoothly to one knee and bowed her head. Margerit’s first impulse was to laugh at the absurd melodrama of the scene; the second was to beg her pardon. But then the anger returned and she turned away without speaking and left the room, pushing past Aunt Bertrut who had come to investigate the shouting.
Chapter Fifty
Barbara
The tapping sound of Margerit’s shoes echoing down the hall filled her ears, drowning out the sound of Maisetra Bertrut approaching, saying, “What under heaven?”
Barbara rose and walked past her, stumbling half-blindly down the back stairs and out into the gardens. Her only recognizable thought was to find a place to be alone. She came at last to the marble bench tucked away down near the river’s edge. It had been her refuge many times before. She sat down crosswise, tucking her knees up to her chest and hugging them tightly to keep the pain from bursting out. Periodically her mind darted forth to examine the nature of that pain and then retreated into numbness again.
Several hours must have passed because, when the sound of voices intruded, she roused enough to notice that the sun was low and she should be feeling chilled. She looked up at the two approaching servants. They must have been sent to find her but she wasn’t ready yet for human contact. She snarled an oath in their direction and they retreated.
Time passed and another figure neared. Without looking up, Barbara recognized the footsteps as LeFevre and so she ignored him, hoping he too would go away again. Instead he sat down next to her, allowing long minutes of silence to stretch between them. When at last he spoke, he said, “Only love can hurt so badly.”
&nb
sp; Barbara raised her head with a wild and wary look.
“Did you think I hadn’t noticed?” he asked.
“Does she—?” Barbara looked back over her shoulder toward the house.
He shook his head. “The two of you stand too closely to be able to see each other’s hearts.” LeFevre sighed heavily. “It wouldn’t do any good to tell you that this storm will pass. In time things will be better.”
“Better?” Barbara said bitterly. It was tempting to say that death would be better than this but even in the depths of her black mood she didn’t believe it. And armins who started talking that way about death tended to come to bad ends. Her eyes bored into LeFevre’s face, trying to see the things he would not—could not—tell her. He’d been keeping the baron’s secrets since before she was born. He would say so much and no more.
A more immediate thought came to her. “What are you doing here?” She nodded indicating the garden rather than the house itself.
He shrugged and made a dismissive gesture. “I came by with some papers. They sent me out to find you because…well, because Margerit refused to speak about what passed between you two and no one knew what to do and because they thought you would be unlikely to kill me.”
That, at least, cracked a smile out of her as it had been meant to.
“All will be well in time,” he repeated. “In less than half a year the terms of the baron’s will will be complete. Many things will be easier then. For now, just do your best to keep her safe.”
“And if she won’t let me?” Barbara uncoiled herself abruptly from the bench and stood.
“Oho! So that was the quarrel?”
“No!” And then, “Yes, that was the quarrel, but not—”
“Not the reason you’ve been hiding out here for hours.”
Barbara bristled at the word “hiding” but didn’t contradict him. She took a deep breath and tried to find that place inside where she was a professional and nothing more. The air was full of damp rising from the river and she could taste the coming change in the seasons. “I do my best, but she doesn’t make it easy.”
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