Daughter of Mystery (44 page)

* * *

It was easy to fall into the pattern of the days: morning services, a bit of bread and watered wine to sustain one, then laboring among the inkpots until the dinner hour. More services, a bit of time for themselves, more work, another common meal, then services and bed. Margerit was almost grateful that there was little time to think and fret. Barbara, as usual, could not be still. Usually she would be up before the morning bells to find an empty place to run her sword drills with skirts hiked up and a wooden rod for a blade. And in the free afternoons she buried herself among old registers and correspondence in search of the mysterious Lissa.

“Maisetra, what years was your mother here?” she asked at the start of her quest.

“I’m not sure exactly. I was born in ninety-eight so perhaps several years before that.” She searched her memory for mentions of her mother’s girlhood. “Oh, but Aunt Bertrut said—” She had listened only halfway to her aunt’s story that day during flood-tide. “She said my mother had a difficult time, that she miscarried several times before me. So it would be some years before that, but I don’t know…”

“Then perhaps I should start in ninety-five and work backward,” Barbara mused. “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time for that!”

When Margerit asked her meaning, she heard for the first time of the hunt through the baptisms at the cathedral. “But why didn’t you ask my help?” she protested.

Barbara looked uncomfortable. “It was a…a personal matter. I wanted—oh, it doesn’t matter now. It just seemed necessary to do it myself.”

“Would you still prefer that?” Margerit asked hesitantly. She could understand, just a little, what Barbara was trying to say.

“Do you mind?” Barbara countered.

“Barbara, you
can
ask me for help, if you want it. You don’t need to be strong all the time.”

“But I do,” she answered with a sad smile.

There was such loneliness in those three words. Margerit seized her hand and held it to her heart. “No! Barbara, promise me something: no more secrets, no more silences. Promise me!” And before Barbara had a chance to answer she added, “And don’t you dare say, ‘Yes, Maisetra’ to me this time.”

Barbara hesitated long enough that Margerit knew the answer would be the truth. “I promise to try.”

* * *

The regular daily services might have been a chore to some guests but Margerit found them inspiring. Someone with true vision had developed their rites, both the ordinary daily worship and the special mysteries. To a
vidator
, the chapel became a symphony of
visitationis
, now quiet and peaceful, now like a blare of trumpets, now a swelling river of strings. Even the pure worship of God resonated in her senses. What made the difference? From Sister Petrunel’s indifference to the idea of petitionary mysteries, Margerit had thought the whole order leaned only to devotion, but she was realizing that had been a personal stance. Indeed, the steady flow of pilgrims to the convent came not so much for simple prayer and a touch of the relics as for the benefit of the library of mysteries developed and gathered over the years, selected and adapted for their particular needs. Every few days another party of travelers appeared in the guesthouse to spend their days praying and, if they were so favored, to be taken in hand by the sisters who sorted through their needs and desires for the appropriate ceremony. Margerit longed to watch them with a student’s eye, but the rule was for privacy.

She felt oddly shy about repeating her own mystery in such a place where she knew it would be noted and remarked on, though once or twice on those rare occasions she found the chapel empty, she had ventured it. And as October passed away she began to think that the ceremony must either have done its work or its time had passed. The first dustings of snow were lightening the lower slopes of the mountains and soon the passes would be closed. And how would she know if it worked? She thought of the charm that had been infused into the seal on LeFevre’s letter. Was it possible to design a mystery that would communicate its eventual success or failure to the celebrants?

* * *

The Feast of All Saints, Margerit thought wistfully, would have been the ideal setting to celebrate their
castellum
. Best to petition a saint when there was a door opened in some way: a feast day, a dedicated chapel, a relic. But for a fabric woven of so many different strands, All Saints was surely the perfect time.

The services provided her the usual luminous glow of sensation—not the riot of colors of a true mystery, but more like the sun fighting its way through a mist. She thought at first she had nodded in sleep when a shadow crossed her attention. She jerked upright, aware of a sound: a rumbling like cartwheels on cobblestones or the buzzing of a swarm of bees. Another shadow slipped past the corner of her eyes—a sleek shape that seemed to move on four legs. It frightened her. Her visions had always seemed external. She could have traced the exact places and shapes in the air where they flowed past. But these…these
phasmas
seemed to move inside her own head. The air crackled like the snapping of dry twigs.

And then the chapel faded away and the shapes rose before her. A wall of stone, a spotted pelt, shining figures standing like the glass windows in the cathedral.

The turris,
she thought wildly.
He’s building the tower and they are come.
Had her workings prepared the saints against his petitions? She couldn’t think of the right words over the roaring in her ears, but could only whisper over and over, “Hear not the words of he who wishes ill! Blessed Virgin, hear not the words of he who wishes ill! Sweet Jesus hear him not! Saint Mauriz, hear him not! Saint Challun, hear him not!” and on through the litany of all the saints invoked in the
castellum
. And she saw the Virgin cast her blue mantle over the thorn bush and the leopard was embraced by the Lamb and all went silent and dark.

Chapter Fifty-Four

Barbara

Barbara had watched the reflections of visions in Margerit’s face often enough to know instantly that this time was different. And when the urgent muttered litany ended with a small cry, she caught Margerit’s limp form before it could crumple to the floor. With no interruption in the service, one of the sisters stepped in to help carry her through the cloister to a quiet room where they laid her on a low cot.

“She’s only swooned, I think,” the nun said and left to summon other help.

Barbara bent over her, chafing her hands and stroking her face and calling her name. She heard someone enter the chamber but didn’t turn. Margerit’s eyes were fluttering a little, though when she opened them she stared as if the visions still danced before her.

“Margerit, what happened?”

She was answered uncertainly. “He did it…the tower…the leopard…and Mauriz with his sword. But then he sheathed it…and the Virgin covered them but I don’t know what it means. They’ve come…but are they safe?” Barbara felt her hands grasped tightly. “Did it work? Are they safe?” Margerit’s eyes saw the world again and were fixed on her beseechingly.

“I don’t know. We won’t know until there’s news.”

There was a small cough behind her and Barbara rose to see the abbess waiting as one of the other sisters placed a small stool for her at Margerit’s bedside.

“She isn’t raving,” Barbara hastened to assure her. “There’s more sense in her words than you may think.”

The woman nodded and took Margerit’s hand in turn. “My child, do you often see visions like this?”

“Not…not like this,” Margerit said hesitantly as she struggled to sit. “Just the…the ordinary ones. In the mysteries, when the saints are hearkening.”

Barbara saw the abbess conceal a small bemused smile as she repeated, “Just the ordinary ones.” After a moment’s pause she said, “You should have told me.”

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.