Daughter of Mystery (37 page)

Margerit shook her head. She had never really doubted, but it helped to hear the matter laid out so plainly. “How did the baron come to be my godfather?”

“That I don’t know,” she answered briskly again. “He’s some sort of very distant cousin but that wouldn’t have mattered. I think the connection was through an old school friend. Your parents were living in Rotenek then.”

Margerit was startled. “I never knew that!”

“Your father wanted a physician in attendance; there was a man there who was highly recommended. That was a quarrel between them but he insisted. When they brought you home to Chalanz, I don’t think the matter of godparents was ever discussed. Not until those last days when the fever came through and—well, until those last days. Your mother was so insistent that we contact the baron and remind him of his obligations. For the rest, you know as much as I. Now wash your face and let’s go back. They’ll be talking about something else entirely by now and it will all have been forgotten.”

Perhaps no one had believed it. Perhaps no one thought it mattered. But for Margerit the light holiday mood of flood-tide had faded and she found herself looking forward to the return to Rotenek as eagerly as most had anticipated the exodus.

* * *

Rotenek after flood-tide felt not so much empty as thin. In spite of all, the streets still bustled. The university district was near unchanged and the river traffic was busier than ever and more noticed as the activities of the household spilled out into the gardens. There had been a hasty clean up of what the floods had deposited and the new plantings were not intended to be seen to full advantage until late summer. Margerit thought longingly of the baron’s gardens—her gardens—in Chalanz. She would miss their best flowering.

Without the overlay of salons and balls and visiting, it felt easier to breathe. True summer, she knew, would be far less pleasant in the city but by then the term would be finished and the household would make its delayed departure. Aunt Bertrut looked forward to that, she knew. The Pertineks rattled around now with nothing much to do. There was a limit to how many carriage rides into the countryside one could enjoy, how many lazy boating excursions one could take up the now-placid waters and how often one could make excuses to visit the few families still in residence. Margerit felt a twinge or two of guilt for holding everyone hostage to the university’s calendar. But none of them would be there at all except for her. It was the bargain they had taken up.

The guild had entered into a half-life. The noble members had mostly scattered to the countryside but Hennis, uncharacteristically impatient with the turn of the season, had parceled out tasks before his own departure. Margerit took the largest part: to create the scaffold of their
castellum
and somehow test its structure even as others crafted the individual stones that would fit together to build it.

It wasn’t until the presence of the guild faded somewhat that Margerit realized how much she’d missed the close partnership she and Barbara had forged over their books and debates. She hadn’t seen how far Barbara had stepped back until her days were emptier. Now that partnership returned, filling the library once again with the joy of search and discovery. And then, at last, lectures were at an end, the household was packed up and sent ahead, the last agonizing over which books to take and which to leave was past and Rotenek was left behind.

Chapter Forty-Six

Barbara

Barbara remembered the sense of relief she had felt on returning to Rotenek the previous autumn. The familiarity of old haunts and old habits had given a false promise of simplicity, even in the midst of the tangled rhythms of the city. But Margerit’s household was not the baron’s and there would never again be a return to knowing her place in the world that precisely. Now the sight of Chalanz brought a more reasoned relief, the more appreciated for knowing it would end.

The household that returned to Chalanz was not the one that had left it either. More than half a year of being mistress in her own house—and despite her nominal position, Maisetra Pertinek had been too clever to dispute that—had changed Margerit enormously from the girl she’d known in those chaotic weeks around the baron’s death. Maisetra Pertinek returned changed as well, Barbara reflected, leaving as an old maid, barely better than a paid companion, and returning with a well-born husband in tow. There was little time to speculate what Margerit’s uncle would make of the changes. No sooner had the weary travelers been welcomed at the doors on Fonten Street than Margerit was presented with a small envelope whose contents caused her to venture a very mild oath as she crumpled the sheet in her hand.

“He expects! Expects—not requests or invites—my presence at dinner this evening. I’ll barely have time to wash the dust off. What’s so important it can’t wait a day or two?”

Maisetra Pertinek seemed to be swallowing a similar reaction as she ventured, “He hasn’t seen you in months, after all. I’m sure he wants to hear all the news.”

Margerit eyed her skeptically. “He wants me to remember that I’m under his orders.” Barbara hoped it was only the wear of the journey that provoked her rebellious impulse.

Mesner Pertinek, perhaps hoping the same, offered an uncharacteristic, if mild, rebuke. “As you are. It might be well to remember it. But if you want a brief respite,” he continued, “I think we might stand by a point of etiquette.”

And so it was that Barbara found herself employed as messenger, carrying a formal invitation card to Chaturik Square, along with the words of an intricate and apologetic explanation.

Maistir Fulpi was put in no good mood by the identity of the messenger and her decision to follow city customs and direct her errand to the front entrance. He held the small card up before her, as if it were something unsavory, asking, “What is this? ‘Mesner and Maisetra Pertinek request the company of Maistir and Maisetra Fulpi at dinner on the morrow by the gracious hospitality of Maisetra Sovitre.’ What is she playing at?”

Barbara repeated her carefully rehearsed lines. “Maisetra Pertinek was certain it was a mere oversight—the matter being so complicated. But she knew you could not have meant to entertain Maisetra Sovitre without her presence. And of course she could not be expected to come without the company of Mesner Pertinek,” she placed just the slightest of emphasis on his title, “but of course it is for him to offer the first invitation. And not keeping lodgings of his own, he has accepted Maisetra Sovitre’s generous offer to use her house to entertain you.” It was convoluted, absurd and totally unassailable. For all that they had rubbed elbows for weeks as fellow guests in Rotenek, any visits between the two men must be initiated on the side of higher rank. And Margerit could pretend to complete innocence in the skirmish.

When presented with the matter in that light, Maistir Fulpi scribbled his response on the card and handed it back with ill grace. Barbara felt no pity for him. If he followed the rules, he could play his new brother-in-law into no small profit of prestige among his circle here. No matter that a minor Pertinek cousin meant nothing much in Rotenek. The boundaries were harder to cross here in the provinces and the tie was worth a minor retreat.

Though born out of pique, that first family dinner seemed to have set a tone for the summer, and an agreement that all could be content with. Barbara was amused to learn the details of the negotiations as they came back to the kitchen with the empty dishes. Maistir Fulpi would not argue over Margerit’s maintenance of her separate household—well, that was hardly a concession. To arrange otherwise would be impossible at this point. He had approved of her lack of haste regarding offers of marriage. When the time came to move these things further along, he would be to hand to see them done properly. That, again, was hardly a concession on Margerit’s part. But she was expected to take on the full round of dinners and parties and visiting that Chalanz society offered for the summer. Barbara knew she had hoped to enjoy more of a holiday. After all, Maisetra Pertinek had her own circle here, not needing the excuse of escorting Margerit in order to find her own welcome. But Maistir Fulpi was adamant. Margerit was not to give the impression that one season in Rotenek had made her too proud to mix with her old friends back home. Well, a few dinners and such were more than manageable. After all, Barbara added to herself, there were no lectures to accommodate. And it would be good if Margerit herself planned an entertainment. Yes, that was agreed. Perhaps at the end of summer as she had last year. And with the Pertineks in residence there was more scope for smaller invitations. That, she would leave to the aunt. LeFevre was to give Maistir Fulpi a full accounting. Naturally—he would be traveling through in a month or so. It was his habit to visit all the properties over the summer. Not the foreign ones, of course, although those had mostly been sold off by now.

There were a few more minor matters and Barbara suspected that some of the details had been left behind as uninteresting. All in all, Fulpi’s requirements were harmless—and likely would have been so even without having been thrown off balance from the start. But he was still the most likely hazard to Margerit’s ambitions and Barbara made a note to compare the kitchen version of his visit with Margerit’s own.

* * *

With barely a day or two to get settled, they plunged into the designing of mysteries. Margerit laid claim to LeFevre’s office, leaving the library free for sprawling piles of books, each fluttering with ribbons marking passages to be reviewed and referred to. LeFevre’s desk was pushed aside and a long table was brought in from the ballroom. Page by page, the skeleton of the
castellum
took shape down its center, weighted in place by decorative oddments borrowed from here and there around the house. Piles of scribbled notes and comments branched out at intervals as key points were examined and planned.

“I just don’t see how you can do it,” Barbara marveled, looking over the shaping chaos. “You don’t have the prayers, you don’t know the apparatus. You don’t even know which saint is going to be petitioned here.” She pointed to a section of the plan that was bare of details.

“But I know the…the shape of what it needs to look like. I know what needs to happen during that piece. We’ll try a few alternatives until we find someone who fits that shape. It’s—” She gestured widely, taking in the entire length of the table. “It’s like planning a garden. You lay out the walkways and the beds. You know that
here
is where your stream is flowing, so you can direct it
there
or
there
. And you have a copse over
here
so you could work around it or remove it but you couldn’t move it
here
. And maybe you don’t know exactly which flowers you’re going to plant yet, but you know what color they should be and how tall and that
these
ones should bloom before
those
.”

Margerit stood in trance, staring out as if she could see that garden blooming. Barbara felt a shiver of excitement. She might not be able to see that vision in detail, but she could see it reflected in Margerit’s face. She loved helping create it for her. Margerit shook her head, as if to disperse the imagined structures. “Or if not a garden, it’s like I’m a painter and I
know
what the image will look like but I have to figure out which brush and paint to use.”

Barbara laughed. “I like the garden better. It allows for the part of divine interference in the plan. But speaking of gardens, you promised your aunt you’d walk out in the park with her this afternoon.” She started moving along the table, replacing the weights that kept the notes in order. “You really should take advantage of the beautiful weather more. Fresh air is good for you and you spend so much time in here.”

“Oh Barbara, not you too!”

Barbara turned at the waspish tone in her voice.

“Everyone in the world is always telling me what I should do. I’ll keep my promise to Aunt Bertrut, but please don’t badger me about it.”

Barbara stiffened and inclined in a slight bow. “Forgive me Maisetra.”

“And please don’t spoil our time with that ‘yes, Maisetra’ nonsense. But leave the nagging to my aunt.”

* * *

For Barbara, Axian Park would always be associated with that unlucky boy’s death, but there had been pleasant times as well: long restless walks in the days before Margerit had left her uncle’s house, when it was a welcome chance for her to be alone. Now the opposite was true. At home, Margerit could shut the world away, but here in public anyone with the proper introduction could approach her. And in a close community like Chalanz, that meant almost everyone.

True to form, they hadn’t been walking more than a hundred yards before chance-that-was-no-chance brought another party’s steps alongside hers. There was a show of making up to the aunt, of course—greetings and a mention of the doings of mutual friends. But then matters turned in the usual direction.

“Maisetra Sovitre, I swear the roses have left their stems to bloom in your cheeks. Are you enjoying the gardens?”

“I was enjoying the walk,” Margerit answered. “I have roses enough at home.”

She never quite warned them off—that would earn a scolding later from Maisetra Pertinek. But her answers were always calculated to throw her petitioners off balance. The young men of Chalanz were brasher than those of the city, no doubt sensing that they would have little time to make their case. It amused Barbara to watch them assail the fortress and find no chink. She’d lost the fear that some provincial gallant would turn Margerit’s head from the delights of Rotenek.

He made another essay. “I’ll be riding tomorrow if the day is fine. Perhaps you might ride with me?”

“I don’t ride,” came the reply.

“Ah.” He stumbled a bit, trying to keep up with Margerit’s brisk pace while still facing her. “Perhaps a carriage ride?”

She seemed to be considering the matter. “Perhaps I might take a carriage ride tomorrow. What a pity that you can’t join me.”