Flight Into Darkness (47 page)

“Not so fast, young lady. Where did you learn to sing like that?”

“Lutèce.” That, at least, wasn't a lie. “I sang in a church choir.”

“Come with me.” Grebin began to pull her along the passageway, the bucket clanking noisily as she hurried to keep up with him.

He opened the door to a rehearsal room. “Put that bucket down,” he ordered, “and show me what you can do.”

When Celestine finished singing, she saw Grebin push back his wig to scratch his shiny forehead. His face was screwed up into such a comically perplexed expression that it almost made her want to burst out laughing. She felt charged with excitement, as light-headed as if she had been sipping wine.

“So you have a voice, Maela Cassard. But you've never sung in opera?”

She shook her head. That was true; her career as an agent of
Ruaud de Lanvaux had taken her into many embassy drawing rooms and concert halls, but always as a recitalist. It would have been impossible to combine the world of the opera house with the Commanderie's strict tenets.

“And you'd never heard
Rusalka's Kiss
until you came here?”

“I don't know the words. But I learned the aria listening to the rehearsals.”

“A quick study too.” He seized a book that had been left open on the music stand and thrust it into her hands. “This will be our next production. A romantic comedy,
A Spring Elopement,
another favorite of the Grand Duchess.”

Celestine tried to hide an involuntary shiver. Gauzia had made her name in the very same work, in the role of Lise, the scheming soubrette. She looked down at the score and saw that Grebin had opened it at the first appearance of the heroine, Mariella.

“Read this.”

Sight-read the aria? Celestine felt her stomach begin to flutter with nerves. The delicate pattern of black notes seemed to blur, one into another. She was being tested. If she failed to impress Grebin, she might as well give up.

Grebin struck her starting note on the keyboard and stood back, waiting.

Celestine reminded herself of Dame Elmire's advice and drew in a calming slow breath, exhaling before attacking the first phrase. The aria was lighthearted, like Mariella herself, a froth of high trills and runs. It was unlike the art songs Celestine was accustomed to singing. Yet, after ten bars or so, she began to enjoy herself. As she turned the page, she heard the accompaniment supporting her and, glancing up, saw that a gaunt, grey-haired repetiteur had slipped onto the fortepiano stool and was playing along with her. This was turning into a performance—and she knew that she must not lose concentration for even half a beat or she would fall behind and disgrace herself.

The final run of the aria rose dizzily high; she braced herself, knowing that if she failed to reach and hold that top note, she would fail the audition.

As she let her voice float upward, she felt the Faie helping her, filling her lungs with air, brightening the tone until she reached the top. The note bloomed, then sparkled like a flower of crystal. Celestine looked up to see startled faces staring at her; people had crowded in at the open doorway. After a few seconds, someone began to applaud.

“Bravo!” another cried. Grebin's ill-fitting wig had slipped over one eyebrow; he tugged it off and stuffed in his pocket.

“We must talk, Demoiselle Cassard,” he said, steering her out of the practice room through the curious throng, toward his office.

“So you learned to sing like that in a church choir?” It was more an accusation than a question.

“I was a pupil of Elmire Sorel in Francia,” Celestine said demurely.

“Elmire Sorel?” Grebin was looking at her with new respect. “I heard her sing here at the Imperial Theater years ago; such a wonderful voice, such fire and passion…” And then the moment of nostalgia passed and he was once again his brusque, businesslike self, leaning forward across his desk to stare at her suspiciously. “Something doesn't add up here. A young woman with a talent like yours reduced to sweeping floors?”

“I told you, I've never sung in opera. I sang in a—”

“Church choir.” He finished her sentence. “My dear demoiselle, you are hiding something—but what right do I have to pry into your personal affairs? Perhaps you caught a young priest's eye and had to flee a scandal… Whatever the reason, I'd like to offer you a contract with the Imperial Theater.”

Celestine's heart began to beat faster.
Is my luck turning at last?

“Your voice is a joy to listen to. But as you have no theatrical training, I can't put you directly into a leading role. So I'm proposing that you join the chorus as a soprano, and I'll review your progress after a month. Does that sound acceptable?”

“What would the salary be?”

“Comfortable enough for you to buy some clothes more suited to your new situation,” Grebin said, looking disapprovingly at her worn dress.

Celestine found lodgings in a little boardinghouse four streets away from the theater. The furnishings were shabby and the pinch-faced landlady insisted that she pay a month's rent in advance, leaving no money for the new clothes Grebin had so pointedly suggested. Yet the room, tucked under the snow-laden eaves, was snug; the rising warmth from the woodstove on the floor below was a luxury. And the landlady's three cats took an instant liking to her, running out to greet her whenever she returned home.

Grebin set her to understudy the role of Mariella. The celebrated
soprano, Anna Krylova, was suffering from a heavy cold, he told her, so she must be prepared to take her place.

And indeed, when Celestine arrived at the Imperial Theater on the day rehearsals were due to begin, Grebin rushed up to her in a panic. “La Krylova's taken to her bed,” he said, “and the physicians say that her lungs are inflamed. It's serious. She won't be able to sing for weeks. You'll have to take her place. Don't let me down, Maela.”

“That voice!” a woman cried out from the wings. “I know that voice!”

Celestine half turned to see a familiar face staring at her from the wings. Exquisitely painted to bring out the liquid green of her bold hazel eyes and the fullness of her lips, her auburn hair artfully curled and arranged, there stood Gauzia de Saint-Désirat.

She mustn't recognize me!
Hearing her entry from the repetiteur at the fortepiano, Celestine picked up her cue only to stop again as Gauzia stalked onto the stage, grandly holding up one gloved hand to halt the music.

Celestine stood, eyes lowered, as Gauzia walked around her, hearing the swish of her ermine-trimmed cloak over the boards.

“What's your name?”

Celestine raised her head. “Maela Cassard,” she said quietly. Grebin came hurrying out onto the stage.

“Is there a problem, Diva?” he asked anxiously, glancing from one to the other. All around the theater, Celestine realized that everyone from the lowliest stagehand to the most senior chorus member had stopped what they were doing, sensing a storm crackling in the air.

“Ma-e-la Ca-ssard,” Gauzia repeated, overemphasizing each syllable. Celestine forced herself to maintain her self-composure—yet the sudden appearance of her onetime fellow student and rival had reawakened a host of painful memories.

“Anna Krylova is suffering from a severe inflammation of the lungs,” Grebin began to explain. “Maela has been understudying the role of Mariella and she'll be taking Krylova's place.”

“I see.” Gauzia stopped suddenly in front of Celestine and stared boldly into her face. “Hair can be dyed and skin darkened with walnut juice. But I know of no way to change eyes from blue to brown.” She shrugged. “It must be coincidence.”

“We'll break for a quarter of an hour,” announced the conductor to the soloists assembled in the rehearsal room. “Thank you, Diva, that
was truly delightful.” Everyone broke into applause; Celestine joined in as Gauzia smiled graciously at her admirers. Yet the instant the conductor had left the room, the smile vanished and she turned on Celestine.

“Manager Grebin tells me that you studied with Dame Elmire in Lutèce.” Gauzia's penetrating stare. “
I
studied with Elmire Sorel for several years, and yet I never once saw you among her pupils. I think I would have remembered a voice as distinctive as yours…”

“I believe I may be two or three years your senior, Diva,” said Celestine.
She's trying to trick me. Has she guessed? She's trying to make me give myself away.

“And you never sang in opera in Lutèce?”

“I sang in a church choir.”

“Oh,
really?
So you won't have heard the news?”

“What news?” Celestine said warily.

“About the murder.”

Celestine shook her head.

“So shocking that anyone should be murdered in church. But particularly shocking in this case. It was just before the darkness.” Gauzia was obviously relishing telling the tale, lowering her voice to increase the dramatic effect. “The Grand Maistre of the Commanderie was found dying in the Chapel of Saint Meriadec. There was blood
everywhere.
”

Celestine sat, rigid with shock, unable to speak. The Maistre was dead? “That's terrible news,” she said, trying to keep her voice from trembling.
I mustn't cry. Why would Maela Cassard cry over the death of a stranger?

As soon as the rehearsal was over, Celestine put on her hooded cloak and set out through the snow to the Cathedral of Saint Simeon. There she handed to the grey-bearded sacristan the coins she had been saving to pay for her supper, and bought candles.

The monks were chanting vespers, and, as she walked through the gloom of the nave to the side chapel dedicated to Saint Serzhei, their deep voices seemed to her to be singing a threnody for Ruaud. The little chapel was already ablaze with candles, like a lantern in a dark night. She knelt to light her memorial candles and placed them one by one beneath the saint's icon, reciting under her breath the words of the Francian service for the dead.

“Dear Maistre,” she whispered, “I can't believe you're gone. I
can't believe that I'll never see your smile again… or hear your voice.” Tears began to stream down her face as memories came rushing back to her, memories from so long ago of a lost and desperate little child, suddenly swept up in the strong arms of a golden-haired knight and carried away on his charger to a white convent overlooking the sea.

“You were my fairy-tale knight, Maistre. You rescued me, you were my protector and my mentor.” Gauzia's words sickened her.
Found murdered in the chapel… blood everywhere…
“A man in your position makes enemies. But who would strike you down when you were at prayer? Who would do such a cowardly thing?” Smarnan extremists, Tielen secret agents, even the monks of Saint Serzhei's shrine in Azhkendir; there were so many possibilities. “Forgive me, Maistre. I betrayed your trust in me. I didn't listen to your advice. If only I hadn't been so selfish, following my own desires, I could have stayed at your side. And then, maybe I could have saved your life…”

The singing ceased; the service had come to an end. She wiped the tears from her eyes as the candle smoke went wisping upward into the darkness. “But it's too late. Now there's no one left in the Commanderie to protect me. I can never go back to Francia.”

CHAPTER 13

A day ago, wherever Andrei looked, all he could see was water. The sea had rushed in, flooding the whole coastline, sweeping away all traces of the village and the mission.

This morning he looked down on a scene of disorder and devastation. The sea had retreated, leaving chaos in its wake. Fragments of broken boats lay beached among the ruins of the mission chapel. Strewn all along the bay were uprooted trees, the carcasses of animals and, Andrei saw to his sadness, drowned bodies, flung up by the relentless tide to lie like abandoned dolls amid the debris.

He spent a grim morning helping the other men bury the dead. Most were strangers to the villagers; sailors or fishermen caught by the strength of the wave. As dusk was falling, the two priests, Laorans and Blaize, spoke the words of the Sergian funeral service over the mass grave, and the villagers went back up the hill to their encampment.

Andrei lingered behind, sobered and sad. The sole survivor of a devastating storm at sea, he knew how fortunate he was to be still alive.

“I've never seen anything like this in my whole life,” he admitted to Blaize. “Nor do I ever want to see it again.”

“What else is there to do but rebuild?” Blaize said philosophically.

It was difficult to get any rest in such crowded conditions; children whimpered and hungry babies wailed, but eventually sleep overtook Andrei. He woke to see Laorans crouched over the casket he had
helped the priest rescue, carefully examining the contents by the light of the dying fire.

“What's in the box, Abbé?”

Laorans looked up at him, the flames glinting in his spectacle lenses. “Manuscripts. Ancient manuscripts whose contents are so contentious that they cost me my career in the Commanderie.”

Intrigued, Andrei moved to sit down beside him. “What do they say?”

“That the children of Azilis are blessed because of the angel blood that runs in their veins. That we should respect them for their gifts, which were bestowed to benefit mankind, and not persecute them.”