Margerit seemed to take the admonition to heart and the story came tumbling out. Not quite everything, but her ambitions, the baron’s legacy, the university, the guild, the mystery and finally the flight from Rotenek. The abbess heard it all to the end with no comment but when Margerit had finally come to the morning’s events and their possible meaning she said, “Pride is not only a sin, it’s a hindrance to wisdom.”
Margerit flushed deeply. “I…I hadn’t thought of it as pride.”
“You have a gift. And you have a desire to use it for the good of others; that weighs in the balance. But your pride in that gift led you to think that only you knew what that good was. If I were giving penances, I would suggest that you pray in the ordinary way for humility.” And then she laughed a little. “But I’m afraid I’m going to undo all the good that would do. When I suggested you should have told me you were a vidator it was for selfish reasons. We have a great many visitors who come to us seeking the benefit of mysteries and only a few sisters who have the gift of crafting new ones. If you like, I think we can find more interesting work for you to do here than as a copyist.”
* * *
As Margerit was still shaken, she was sent off to bed for the rest of the day. Barbara claimed the right to watch over her. Her more immediate purpose, though, was to parse the strange visions and try to divine their meaning.
“I think we may have hope,” Barbara said after Margerit told over what she remembered for the third time. The details were beginning to fade, like a dream after waking. “If they arrived safely, we should hear of it from travelers by the end of the year. If not…” If not, there might be no certain news ever. She continued, “We should lay plans for our return that cover both possibilities.”
And that was the sticking point when they looked to the future: they could see no clear and certain path. Barbara laid out the matter in law. “Although the charge is treason, it will be brought against you in the ordinary courts. The royal court wouldn’t come into matters until a judgment is made. It would be different if you were of noble birth—then you’d have the right to appeal directly to the prince’s justice.”
It shouldn’t matter, of course. The law was the law and truth was truth, but yet it could make a great difference.
“The most important thing is that we manage to make the charges against Estefen and Lutoz before their charges are laid against us.”
“But hasn’t that already been done?” Margerit asked.
“No, the charges are raised but not laid. Treason can’t be laid in absentia, otherwise we might stand convicted already. Between two parties, the first charge laid, not the first raised, takes precedence. Just as charges in the royal court take precedence over the common court. So if we can accuse Estefen and Lutoz in Prince Aukust’s presence before anyone knows we’ve entered the city, then that charge must be settled first. If we can’t, then we need to prove innocence, and that might be difficult. We don’t know how much they know about that invasion text and we don’t know whether it caused any harm. We need a plan for each of those.”
Margerit looked properly dismayed at the task before them. “And if we bring the charges first, then what? How do we prove it?”
Barbara sighed. “I don’t have an answer for that yet either. Did you have nothing written in Lutoz’s hand?”
“No. There were some notes he gave me at the first but I remember he took them back. The rest was only talking.”
“If all else fails…” Barbara had thought to keep the idea to herself, but there had been too much of that. “If all else fails and if it is confirmed—” She felt shy to say it, of a sudden. “If it is confirmed that my father was a nobleman, then I could challenge Estefen. Judicial duels aren’t at all the thing these days, but they’re still allowed by law.” When Margerit brightened at that, she cut her short. “I might not win, you know. Estefen isn’t entirely unfamiliar with a sword. There are ifs upon ifs.” Barbara hesitated. “Or we could stay here. It would be the safer choice.”
“Stay?”
“Take vows. Spend the rest of our lives within these walls.” It was selfish that she hoped Margerit wouldn’t consider it. It wasn’t the life either of them were meant for, but it would be life, not the risk of death.
“And we could be together?” Margerit asked.
But Barbara could see she already knew the answer to that. Not together in the way they hoped for.
Margerit shook her head. “We’ll find a way.”
* * *
Barbara tried not to count the days as they passed. So many of their plans required waiting. On that point she agreed absolutely with LeFevre’s instructions. The uncertainty of her status was not the only reason to postpone their return to Rotenek until Margerit came of age. If Margerit were charged while still under the care of guardians, it would be those guardians who would answer for her. That could be disaster. And there was no telling what charges she herself might encounter while she was still unfree. LeFevre had foreseen those difficulties. He hadn’t needed to know exactly what they might face to know that it was better faced when they were both free to act on their own. No, they had time yet to plan and wait before anything could be done.
The convent’s records had yielded up as much information concerning the elusive Lissa as ink could tell. Elisebet Fulpi had finished her studies in the year of Our Lord 1786. There had been at least three other girls named Elisebet who had finished that year, and four more in the years before and after. One surname, Barbara recognized and could eliminate. One had no surname at all—she was recorded only as “Elisebet, daughter of the miller at Vezemul.” She too could be discounted. But of the five that remained, there was nothing to choose between and no clue which might have been the bosom-friend of the Fulpi. It would have been a name—only a name. But even that small treasure was still denied her.
And if the convent’s school records were little help in tracking the identity of one former pupil, the comings and goings of the sisters themselves were even less. Teaching at Saint Orisul’s was the provenance of the older nuns come home from more strenuous labors and seasoned at their work. Those who had taught twenty years before were nearly all gone. The postulants and novices kept apart from the secular students and then were sent out to teach at the daughter houses. In between, the nuns might come and go, but took little note of individual schoolgirls. Sister Anna had served up no more memories despite gentle coaxing. And yet Barbara couldn’t let it be. The search had become a secret point of honor for her: to return to Rotenek sure in her own identity.
* * *
Her birthday came and went. She marked it only because Margerit did, asking whether it changed their bond.
“The terms of the will hold until we’re both of age,” Barbara answered. “Nothing changes until February is spent. If you were the elder…but you have no legal power to free me yet. I could have seen fifty years and it wouldn’t matter.”
But one thing did matter, she thought. Whatever debt she might have owed in her father’s name was now canceled. And whatever inheritance she might have had claims on was lost forever.
* * *
The gardens mostly lay under a thin blanket of snow now, but the stone pathways between the sleeping beds were a precious private space during the afternoon’s break. Barbara had come to suspect that one of the local women who came to deliver eggs and gossip was in Estefen’s pay. Certainly they had made no secret of their identities, and with the Saveze estate a mere hour’s ride from the gate it was impossible that he wouldn’t know they were there. So they saved the discussions of their plans for days when the weather was fine enough to walk out and they could see who might be eavesdropping.
On a day just after the turning of the year, when taking advantage of that private walk, they were approached on the pathways by one of the sisters that Barbara didn’t recognize. Even in the dead of winter there were always comings and goings, so that was no great surprise. The nun looked from her face to Margerit’s and sett
led on the latter, greeting her warmly. “Yes, it must be you—you do have the look of your mother! I wondered, when they told me the name of my new assistant. I’m Sister Marzina and I’ll be overseeing the visitors’ mysteries for the coming year. Mother Teres told me I would have some unusual help.”
“You knew my mother?” Margerit asked, passing over the remainder of the introduction.
“Not when she was a student—I was too young for us to have noticed each other and we had very different studies in any case. It was when she came back later. I was in special training, because of my visions. No school teaching for me! She was my first real challenge in writing new mysteries. So you might say I was one of your midwives!”
Barbara’s heart had leapt at the thought of finally finding someone with clear memories of those days but it sank again. A dozen years after leaving school, when Elisebet Fulpi had returned as Maisetra Sovitre, desperate for a child, her own mother would have long since been wed to her debt-ridden nobleman. There was no use in asking.
But Sister Marzina’s gaze had been drawn to her curiously, as if there were a memory there to tease out. “And you…?” she began.
Barbara shook her head. “I believe my mother may have been a student here as well, but that would have been earlier, when Maisetra Fulpi was in school. She might have been called Lissa by some.”
A look of surprised delight came over the nun’s face. “But of course—the friend! How could I not remember, when she gave me the pattern I needed to build the mystery!” The story tumbled out even more jumbled than her introduction. “I was casting about for a model—it was a hard problem and the first tries brought no response. And then your mother came with Maisetra Sovitre one day. She wasn’t staying at the convent—I think she had friends in the neighborhood. And I could see that she was newly with child. It was part of my visio, you see, to know that. I don’t think even she knew yet. And it came to me at once—the pattern that is—with two close friends, one bearing and one hoping to bear. Sister Chazerin who was in charge of the mysteries then, she thought it might be presumptuous to build the work around the Virgin and Saint Elizabeth, but what could be more natural? Especially with the chance to celebrate it on the Feast of the Annunciation? The Reverend Mother approved and when we celebrated it I knew it had been the right choice. And…well, here you are! I knew the two of you would be bound together in some way—how could you not be?”
Barbara could see that Margerit was reeling as badly as she herself was. Were we truly destined for each other from birth? One question remained unanswered. “Please,” she asked, with heart pounding. “What was my mother’s name?”
* * *
Elisebet Arpik, Countess Turinz, once Lissa Anzeld. Barbara rolled the names over her tongue again. It had taken some explaining for Sister Marzina to understand why the question needed to be asked. Elisebet Anzeld, wed to Efrans Arpik for the sake of that title. Eventually Sister Marzina had bustled Margerit off to discuss thaumaturgy and practice and she had stayed behind in the garden, though the light was growing thin and cold. She needed to ponder this alone. Oh, she would share her thoughts with Margerit later—no more secrets, she promised.
The count and countess of Turinz. No, that meant nothing. The title was truly extinguished now. Elisebet and Efrans Arpik. Mother and father. She felt nothing at the thought. All these years—all the searching and wondering—and now she felt nothing. Barbara Arpik—it was a stranger’s name. Not hers. She wanted to weep with frustration. It was supposed to have mattered. She was supposed to feel that she had come home at last. This was supposed to be her triumphant return: a free woman with a name of her own. And…nothing.
At the close of the day, Margerit was still lifted on the tide of Sister Marzina’s enthusiasm. Barbara recalled that dismayed question after the mysteries in Mintun when she’d asked if her visions marked her for a religious life. Perhaps now it didn’t seem so limiting. Here was scope for her talents and teachers who would know how to channel them. If things went badly in Rotenek, might it still be an option? She had suggested it once before but she was too selfish to urge Margerit to consider it again while there was still hope.
As they slipped under the bedclothes that night, enjoying what privacy half the length of the room might provide, Margerit joked, “And how was your day, Mesnera Arpik?”
Barbara winced. Once, she would have simply endured but now her promise bound her: no more silence, no more secrets. “Margerit,” she said softly, trying to keep the stiff and brittle edge from her voice. “Please don’t tease me about it. It’s still a tender wound.” And she poured out her thoughts haltingly: the paths her mind had taken since that revelation. It was like learning a new footwork pattern, this matter of sharing her heart. For now it was labored and deliberate, but she could see a time when it could become comfortable and familiar. “It makes no sense,” she concluded. “I always thought…there must have been some reason why I wasn’t to know. But at least my worst fears were pointless.”
“What did you fear?” Margerit asked.
“That there was something worse than the debt staining my name. That my father had done something that left such a taint—what else could have required erasure of his name?—such a taint that it would come between us.”
The response was immediate. “Nothing can come between us!”
“Margerit, have you thought—have you considered what we will be to each other when this matter of treason is settled? When I no longer have the excuse of serving as your armin to be at your side?” They’d never touched on that question out loud. She hadn’t dared to, while so much was still unknown. And Margerit? Margerit didn’t seem to realize there was a question to be asked.
“I thought…” The shift from confidence to doubt was visible in her face. “No, I hadn’t thought. But you could continue—”
“—as your employee?” Barbara finished.
“Oh.” There was a long silence. And then, hesitantly, “What do you want?”
What did she want? She’d only ever defined her hopes in the space marked out by her fears. “I want to be a part of your life—the most important part of your life. I don’t want anyone to have the right to come between us.”
“Who would—?”
“The man you marry.” There. She’d said it.
“Silly. I have no intention of marrying anyone. I never wanted to and now I won’t need to.”
“I don’t want you to sacrifice—”
“No.” Margerit laid a finger across her lips to stop the thought. “Let me decide what I want to sacrifice.”
“Your reputation? Your good name? Your status in society? There’s no place for what we are, not one the world will recognize.”
“What about your friend the vicomtesse?” Margerit asked.
Barbara sighed. “Jeanne is different. She married, after all, so she has the license the world grants to a widow and the status of her title, however little it means in the ordinary way of things. And me? When I was with Jeanne, I was nobody—less even than the opera singers and artists she dallies with. Nobody cared what I did. I’m still nobody, for anything that matters. But you have a great deal to lose. A fortune can’t buy everything. As I told you before, it isn’t simple at all. But we can find a way, if that’s what you want.”
Margerit snuggled more closely into her arms. “Do you need to ask? Promise me you’ll always be at my side. Promise me we’ll always share one heart and one life and we’ll find a way.”
Barbara bent and kissed her. “I promise.”
* * *
With the certainty of her birth, Barbara could trace the branching pathways of their return to the city more clearly. “The most important part is to get to Rotenek before Estefen can get word that we’ve left the convent. And then we need to go secretly to LeFevre—he’ll be able to tell us all that’s happened in our absence and what evidence we need to be able to counter. Our best hope would be if no copy of the invasion tower came into the court’s hands
. Then we only have words to answer to.”
“Why LeFevre?” Margerit asked. “Why not simply go home?”
“A whole household can’t keep a secret, no matter how loyal they may be. And once you’re in residence again, the protection of Mesner Pertinek’s hearth-right is ended.”
“And then we wait for a chance to find Estefen and Hennis Lutoz in audience with the prince,” Margerit finished. “How likely is that to happen without some contrivance?”
“It needn’t be the prince himself. That would be best, but Princess Elisebet would do as well—as long as there are witnesses enough to uphold the law. Or if the council has officially named and installed an heir, he would do as well.”
The plans were as well-made as they could be in ignorance. Sister Marzina had brought one other piece of good news beyond her memories of the past: the Austrian party had arrived safely in Rotenek in the middle of the Advent season. She knew and cared no more than that, but the pomp at their arrival had been impossible to miss.
* * *
With no more questions for the convent’s archives to answer and her zeal having left the records in better order than the nuns had seen in many a year, Barbara cast about for another way to fulfill her obligations. Later in the year she might have worn away her restless impatience with outdoor work. Instead she drifted from task to task, lost in her own thoughts half the time. She found herself among those sharing watch at Sister Anna’s bedside. The old woman slept most of the time now but when she roused there were sometimes lucid moments. Barbara vacillated between considering it her penance for pestering her for memories and hoping that there might be one more crumb dropped for her before the end.
So it was, on the eve of Ash Wednesday, that she found herself alone in the infirmary to free the watching sisters for their devotions. As the night wore on, Sister Anna’s breathing had become more ragged, signaling wakefulness. Barbara moved to prop her up more firmly against the pillows and trickled a few drops of wine in the corner of her mouth to see if she would swallow. She thought briefly of sending to the chapel, but what was the need? The woman had received last rites. There was nothing more to be done on this side of the grave except to make her as comfortable as possible. There was little chance that she would return enough to answer questions now. Tonight there was only the penance.
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