The Mystic Marriage (31 page)

“Then a well-born man with property but no title—he wouldn’t attend?”

“Not these. The common sessions, perhaps.” Ah, now light dawned. “Your last employer,” she asked. “Who was he?”

Reluctantly, he gave a name. The family name was familiar, but not the man. “No, I don’t think you need fear meeting him here. Not unless there were some matter that touched directly on his lands or family.” Now she was curious. Whatever that bad business had been, did it still follow him here? But he offered no further clues and she let the matter lie.

The morning’s session was nothing to the point of why she had come but she wanted the lay of the land, as if she were still an armin scouting out a new venue for her charge. At the midday break, as the others spilled out into the Plaiz to find refreshment in the cafés, Barbara saw her chance for a quiet word with Princess Elisebet. In Aukust’s day, Elisebet had often been his representative to the sessions. Perhaps she continued attending out of genuine interest, or perhaps only for the appearance of interest.
If I were her
, Barbara reflected,
I’d want to make it clear that my concerns in government went beyond the needs of the moment.
But Elisebet’s strategies were rarely that long-sighted, so perhaps the interest was genuine.

Barbara’s report was short and to the point but Elisebet’s questions kept her long past the interval, when she could have made other use of the time. As she returned to her seat, resigning herself to a grumbling stomach, a footman intercepted her with the information that Her Grace wished a quiet word.

Annek was sitting at a small table back behind the dais, taking advantage of the time to deal with a stack of petitions that sat at her elbow. She paused with pen in hand as Barbara approached. “My cousin seemed to have a great interest in what you came to say,” Annek began. “I was hoping you planned to share your opinions more openly.”

“That was nothing to do with the debates,” Barbara replied. “A personal matter.” And then, because there was no reason to conceal it and every reason to avoid the appearance of doing so, she added, “I was conducting a bit of investigation for her. It seems there are rumors that Chustin’s tutor is a secret republican.”

“And is he?” Annek asked with an amused look.

“Not secret, no,” Barbara said. “But neither is he a zealot. He seems harmless enough.”

“I can’t believe that was the only thing that brought you to the Assembly Hall today.” Annek had no need to demand answers directly.

“It seems I have opinions on Mesner Chormuin’s bill.”

“Ah, I was hoping that was the case. May I ask in which direction those opinions lie?”

It took no special knowledge to guess where Annek stood. Her father’s long reign had left a waiting tide of modern ideas. Though Aukust himself had been forward-looking, he’d lacked the energy to help see them through and Elisebet had always favored the conservatives.

“I support it,” Barbara said quietly and without elaboration.

Annek nodded. “I’ll see that you have a chance to be heard.” She had no direct power to dictate the proceedings beyond the voice given by her own minor title-lands, but unlike Elisebet she had the knack of quietly guiding others to want the same things she desired.

The afternoon passed without that chance. No matter. Three days’ debate was scheduled and halfway into the next morning’s session Count Amituz, no doubt at Annek’s prompting, brought his arguments around to the suggestion that it would be well to hear the opinions of those who had acted under the laws they proposed to abolish. As if by cue, Lord Marzim rose to say, “I believe Baroness Saveze would be worth hearing on this matter.”

Barbara rose when recognized, her heart suddenly pounding. A moment’s reflection on the last occasion she’d spoken formally in this chamber returned a sense of calm. She wasn’t fighting for her own life or for Margerit’s this time. The worst that could happen would be to stumble and look foolish. She sifted through the histories and arguments she’d assembled in the past days and found the place where her thoughts wove into the debate as it stood. She was acutely aware of how she stood out among the throng, both for her youth and her sex. But that had been the case too many times in her life to be daunting. She took a deep breath and began.

It was, at the last, harder to find a place to end than to begin. The words poured out in an easy stream, as if she were arguing philosophy with Margerit back home in the library. From the corner of her eye she saw nods, frowns, whispered exchanges, but she kept her eyes on Annek to focus and saw there only approval and gratitude. It felt as if she’d been speaking for hours, but when she looked at the clock as she sat down, a bare fifteen minutes had passed.

The remaining speeches that day gave no sign whether any heed had been taken of her remarks. But when the summaries came the next afternoon, Lord Chormuin included the best of her arguments among his own, with a look and a nod to acknowledge them, and in the end the vote went his way, not easily but solidly. It was only the beginning, of course. The clerks would spend months drafting up the proper language; then would come the private negotiations to change a word here, a clause there. The commons would have their chance at amending it. The final approval might not come for another year when the approaching close of the sessions once more brought pressure to bear. That, too, she remembered from her years shadowing the baron.

As she followed the others out into the Plaiz to wait while carriages were summoned and sorted out, she accepted a quiet word of congratulations from Lord Marzim and nods of acknowledgment from several others as they passed. But when the crowd had dispersed, the stout figure of Baron Mazuk approached her, demanding a word in a more querulous tone. From the corner of her eye she saw Tavit taking a watchful stance and looking around.
Softly,
she thought,
this is all part of the game.
She remembered it well from the old baron’s time. Mazuk was clearly looking for a quarrel—why, she had yet to determine.

“I would have expected better from you, Saveze,” he said, “but you seem to make a habit of neglecting responsibilities until it suits you. Your father certainly knew the value of challenge and response in keeping the law.”

Was this only about her belated interest in the session debates? “My father,” she answered quietly, “had the wherewithal to buy the steel to make his case. That alone made his arguments strangely persuasive. But it didn’t always make them just. And I’m not my father.”

“No, you aren’t.” He snorted. “Just? If you were accused, would you leave your fate in the hands of some
burfroi
magistrate?”

“When I was accused, I had far more confidence leaving my fate to the law than to the arena.” Technically, she had been accuser, not accused, but it didn’t change the argument. “If the evidence were clear and the law were fair and I knew he wouldn’t act from fear or favor, then yes, even to an ordinary magistrate. We live in a modern world now. Leave the duels for ancient stories.”

“And what else do you plan to do away with in the name of your modern world? Swearing on relics? The truth-finding mysteries?”

Neither of those had fallen under Chormuin’s bill, but it was a fair question.

“The
mysteria veridica
are a more difficult matter,” Barbara said. “They have a valuable place in the hands of a skilled and talented practitioner, but can every judge distinguish that from a charlatan?”

“Like that Sovitre woman?”

His question came so quickly on the heels of her own words that Barbara couldn’t guess which of the two labels he’d meant. Was he merely being dismissive or openly insulting? She knew she’d bristled because she saw the reflection of it in Mazuk’s armin. She gripped tightly to her rising temper. Into the heavy stillness that had fallen between them, she heard Tavit’s voice at her back, speaking lightly as if an idle question for her ears alone. “Perhaps I’ve misunderstood, Mesnera. The bill, it was only to ban duels of law, not those of honor, yes?”

Barbara’s eyes narrowed and she stared down the baron, while answering in the same casual tone, “You understood correctly.”

Mazuk’s face turned red and he glanced at his own armin who shook his head almost imperceptibly. Armins had their own code, as Barbara knew well, and they hated to shed each other’s blood for mere spite or clumsy words. He would be bound to answer any insult raised against his employer, but he had more leeway if it were Mazuk who gave the insult, and that sign had told the baron he might have to defend his own ground. Mazuk cleared his throat. “Ah, yes, in the hands of a skilled practitioner like Her Grace’s thaumaturgist, we can agree, I think, on the value.”

“As you say,” Barbara said icily and turned away before her own temper broke through. She felt, rather than saw, Tavit at her back as she spotted her carriage and headed for it briskly.

But as the door was opened and the step lowered for her she turned to him, saying, “Thank you, that was deftly done.” And then, almost as an afterthought, “Remind me on Friday to take you to see LeFevre to have your contract drawn up.”

* * *

It would have been wrong to characterize her first participation in the sessions as a triumph but neither had it been a disaster. Margerit teased later, “Do you plan to make a career of politics now?”

Barbara shook her head. “Not even if Annek and Christ himself begged me. There are few topics where the old men are likely to listen to my opinions.” They were lying entwined just before sleep in that time when the day’s thoughts were most easily shared.

“Have you read any more of the letters?” Margerit asked.

“A few more. It’s slow going. It’s so hard to make them fit into what I thought I knew. It’s as if these people are strangers to me. But they are,” she added. “I never knew my mother outside the stories the baron told. And those were few enough. And now? I still only see her reflected in his words. It’s strange to think that these are the people closest to me.”

Margerit moved against her softly.

“Except for you, of course,” Barbara added quickly and bent to kiss her.

“But you do have relatives,” Margerit pointed out. “There’s your mother’s sister. Do you see her in a new light now too?”

“I don’t know. She doesn’t figure much in the baron’s letters. Only a mention here and there of ‘your sister.’”

“She could tell you more herself. Would you consider—”

“Perhaps,” Barbara said. “When I’m ready.” She didn’t mean to be quelling but she wasn’t ready yet to ask those questions…or have them answered.

“And then there’s Antuniet,” Margerit said with an air of broaching a new subject.

“Yes. Antuniet.”

“She is your cousin, after all. I thought I might—” Margerit hesitated. “I thought about inviting her to join us for floodtide, if you didn’t mind. She hasn’t anywhere else to go.”

“Did Jeanne suggest it?”

“No. That is, I don’t think so. You know, I’m not entirely sure. She has a way of slipping her plans into your own before you even notice! But there almost seems to be a coolness between them at the moment.”

“That one’s a strange friendship,” Barbara said. “Yes, invite Antuniet if you wish. If she’ll come.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Antuniet

The gates of Rotenek were but a few hours behind when Antuniet began to regret accepting Margerit’s invitation. The work could wait. Little enough would get done over the summer that a few weeks of idleness would make no difference. And a floodtide invitation was not a gesture to be brushed aside lightly, whether inspired by friendship or patronage. But the journey out to Chalanz in one of two coaches stuffed full of Jeanne’s friends was no pleasant holiday.

Jeanne still blew hot and cold: now attentive and solicitous, now chatting merrily about nothing. Just when she most seemed the Jeanne of those intimate lunches in the workshop, she would turn away with a jest. Sometimes Jeanne seemed to forget her very presence, but other times that mortifying scene with the dancer at Carnival came back and she was glad of the inattention. It was hard to believe that one woman could hold in her head the depths Antuniet knew were there and the empty insincerity now on display. And why did it bother her so much? Jeanne was Jeanne, as she had always been. The endless stream of empty gossip droned on.

What could have been a three-day journey with only a little care stretched into four when they reached Sain-Petir and found the river topping the bridge just enough to spook the horses. It was decided to go up to Pont Estan, where the crossing was safer. Their hostesses had gone ahead, setting out when the first signs of the rising Rotein were seen, not waiting for the official end of the season. With luck they had outpaced the waters and crossed before the bridge was flooded, though Antuniet couldn’t imagine Barbara letting a bit of water stop her.

On the final day of the journey, she took refuge in the third coach with Akezze and the trio of musicians hired out from Rotenek for the dancing. It was that or go mad. Even the wagon with the luggage would have been an improvement. Jeanne’s friend Tionez had a knack for finding the most tender spots on which to sharpen her tongue. It hardly mattered whether the wounds were intended or not. And Tio’s friend Iaklin giggled at every supposed witticism. Why Iaklin Silpirt had come at all was a mystery, unless it were simply to make up the required numbers. Tionez must have dragged her along, for Jeanne had more sense than to bring such an innocent into this fold. No, Akezze was a far more congenial companion, for she spent most of the trip with her eyes closed and a handkerchief pressed closely to her mouth. Conversation was entirely out of the question.

The musicians ignored both of them and kept up a low murmur barely audible above the noise of the road. They were another of Jeanne’s conceits: bringing only women to entertain at their May Day revels. Antuniet sometimes watched them sidelong and wondered whether Jeanne had enjoyed more than just their music. She jerked her thoughts away. Jeanne’s amusements were none of her affair.