The Mystic Marriage (39 page)

“It occurred to me,” Barbara said carefully, “that if it were your thought to see the charade through, it would be better if no one could tell Elisebet I had come here first.”

“To see the charade through,” Annek repeated. “You mean to set a trap for my cousin?”

“Not a trap, no. But perhaps a chance to clear herself of suspicion? From what I know of her and from what Kreiser told me, I don’t think she expects this offer. Wouldn’t it be well to know what her reaction would be?”

Annek picked up the packet of papers before her and turned it over in her hands. “It would help if we knew the details of his offer.”

“I made no attempt to inspect them,” Barbara said. “Maisetra Sovitre says there are mysteries that can reveal tampering. She examined them briefly before I left but could find no outward signs.”

The packet was sealed and tied up with just the sort of archaic binding that might easily conceal the
apparatus
of a small mystery. Annek examined it carefully. “There are ways to reveal the contents that don’t involve disturbing the seal.” She set the letters aside. “Do you need to return to Saveze immediately?”

“I am at your command,” Barbara reassured her, setting aside her impatience to be home. “I’m staying at the Cartwheel by the eastern edge of town.”

“Then remain there. I’ll have word for you in a few days.”

Barbara fidgeted while Annek deliberated. It would be a hard decision for her.
A chance to clear herself,
she had said. But it was true that it was more in the way of a trap.

Two days later, when Annek sent for her again and charged her with the mission she thought would come, she asked one favor. “It galls me to let Elisebet think I would work against you. Would it disturb your plans if I counseled her against what I believe this message contains?”

There was a glint of amusement in Annek’s hooded eyes. “Would you like to know what it contains?”

“Better I shouldn’t know in my guise as courier. But it’s easy enough to guess, and that guess is something she should be warned against. I—” Was it too presumptuous to say? “I would like to see you reconciled with your cousin. If there’s anything I can do to help bring that about…”

Annek’s eyes narrowed and Barbara thought she had indeed stepped too far across the line. “Saveze, if anyone could reconcile my cousin to me, my gratitude would have few limits. But I doubt that you are capable of that task.”

“Then, if you prefer, let me do this for the sake of my own good name.”

“Yes,” Annek said slowly. “Yes, I think that would be exactly the flavor this needs. And then return and tell me what she says. I will be curious to know if she takes the advice of one she seems to trust above her closer confidants.”

Elisebet might be harder to approach for a private audience, ensconced as she was at the Atilliet summer manor of Fallorek, but in recompense there was less need of secrecy. It took only a change of coat and unpinning her tawny hair to hang free to turn disguise into ordinary eccentricity.

Elisebet received her in the morning parlor, where they worked through the rituals of hospitality.

“I hope I find you in good health,” Barbara offered, “and that Aukustin is the same.” Her son was always a safe topic between them.

“His health has been indifferent of late. A touch of melancholy.”

Barbara discounted that. Elisebet took Chustin’s every frown and sniffle as a sign of impending disaster. “I believe that boys his age are often moody. There must be a great deal to entertain him here after the confines of the palace in Rotenek.”
Where he’s scarcely allowed to step out of doors without being surrounded by tutors and attendants.

The pleasantries took some time to accomplish but at last Barbara ventured, “Several weeks ago in Saveze I was approached with a message.” She reached inside her coat just enough to allow a glimpse of the sealed packet.

At once Elisebet was all attention. Barbara scanned her face for any sign of foreknowledge or anticipation but there was only sharp curiosity. With deliberate casualness, she continued, “I understand the rose garden here at Fallorek is a wonder to behold.”

Elisebet blinked a moment at the change in topic, then answered, “Indeed. Perhaps you would care to walk with me before the noon sun drives off the perfume.”

As they entered the low-hedged pathways, she waved her ladies back out of hearing before asking, “What is this, Saveze? I knew you must have some special purpose in coming.”

Barbara pulled out the packet but kept it in hand until she’d said her piece. “That Austrian, Mesner Kreiser, came to me in secret and asked me to bring you this.” It was easy enough to color her words with anger. “I cannot like this. I don’t know what you may have told Kreiser about me, but he is badly mistaken if he thinks I will work against Her Grace. And you are badly mistaken if you think what he sends is an offer of friendship. Whatever this may contain—” She held up the sealed packet. “—its intent is to serve his master and not you or Aukustin.”

Elisebet held out her hand imperiously. “And what would you know of matters of state?”

“Mesnera, I know that you have no business meddling in those matters of state on your own behalf,” Barbara said, even as she handed the letter over. She moderated her tone from anger to urgency. “I spent years standing at my father’s back when he was the second greatest power in Rotenek after Prince Aukust, God rest his soul. I think I know something of how the game is played. It’s one matter for me to help watch over Aukustin—that falls under my service to your house—but this smells of intrigues I want no part of. If that message is what I suspect, I beg you to leave me out of it.”

She flinched as Elisebet clutched at her arm in a mercurial change of mood from arrogance to desperation. “How can you abandon us now? You don’t know what I face—what peril my son is in. Even here Aukustin isn’t safe from that…that foreigner’s malice.”

This was more than her usual distrust. Barbara asked, “What happened?”

Elisebet looked around in the frightened, furtive way that came over her more and more. “Friedrich. He came here.”

“Is that such a matter for concern?” Barbara asked when no immediate details followed. “He has as much right to spend his time at Fallorek as you.”

“He came with a gift for Aukustin. A spirited horse, trained by his own hand, he said. What boy could resist? And then, after he’d left, we learned the truth. Trained by his own hand indeed! The beast was vicious, unmanageable. I was forced to have it destroyed. Even here we are not safe.”

Barbara listened with barely concealed horror.
No wonder Chustin has fallen under a black mood! To be given such a gift and have it snatched away so brutally…
She dismissed instantly the thought that the accusation was true. But something had set the horse off. Her mind skipped back to the hunt at Feniz.
Someone’s been playing tricks with horses before, someone close to him who wouldn’t be questioned.
Who could it be? Might the same man have been behind both accidents? A servant who’d been corrupted? Or…

“Yes,” Elisebet hissed, mistaking the thoughts behind her silence and frown. “You see what I have to fear? Can you blame me for seeking friends where I can find them?”

“Friends, yes. But Kreiser is no friend to you.” She returned to her pleading tone. “Barely half a year ago he was courting Efriturik and making overtures to Annek on his master’s behalf. If he is making the same offers now to you, never forget that you were second choice. If Her Grace smiled his way, you’d be left behind in a heartbeat. Think on that before you return him any answer that could be a weapon against you.”

That hit home. But Elisebet slid her thumb under the edge of the packet and cracked the seal, then unfolded the letter and scanned it quickly. Barbara tried to read the contents in her expression. Whatever it held was neither startling enough nor pleasing enough to cause Elisebet to betray her thoughts. She folded it again and looked up. “I thank you for your service. You may go.”

Barbara hesitated only a moment before bowing in acknowledgment and turning away.

What did I expect? That she would share her plans with me after all I’d said?
There was relief, in truth, that there would be no tale to carry back to Annek. She had kept faith with all sides and that could be the end of it. And perhaps now there would be no further imperious demands or desperate pleas.

* * *

Annek listened to her scant report with interest but little concern, as if she’d already put the matter behind her. “And she said nothing else?”

“Only the matter of Efriturik’s gift,” Barbara said, thinking it would be old news, but Annek lifted one black eyebrow in question, and that story, too, came out. “It isn’t only Princess Elisebet’s fancies,” Barbara added. “Someone is playing dangerous tricks around Aukustin and leaving a trail that leads to your son.” It would be insulting to add her own certainty that Efriturik himself was innocent.

“I said once before that I valued your sharp eyes,” Annek said. “Use them for me. Discover who’s behind this mischief if you can. Oh, not this moment,” she added with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I won’t keep you from home any longer. If Efriturik must be present to be blamed, then there should be no danger for the rest of the summer. But when we all return to Rotenek, the chance may come again. Look for someone who would gain if both Elisebet’s son and mine came to harm.” She rose in dismissal, adding, “I feel some mark of gratitude is called for, seeing that you’ve ridden from one end of Alpennia to the other in my service. Is there anything you’d care to ask for?”

Barbara evaluated the nature of the offer and grinned as she found an answer that suited its size. “Could your thanks extend as far as a courier’s commission? The posting inns are strangely hesitant to hire their best horses out to an ordinary traveler. I’d rather keep to my disguise for the journey back, and your name could save me from the worst of the boneshakers!”

If anything, a royal commission made them more invisible on the return journey than they had been when masquerading as common men. No one looked beyond that seal and Annek’s looping signature and, as hoped, the mounts they were offered were as fine as those in the princess’s own stables.

They took a more southerly route, crossing the Rotein by ferry at Falinz, then heading east along the road skirting the hills. On the second day after, Barbara found herself staring at a worn milestone where the road branched, trying to think why the eroded name of
Villa Rabani
should be familiar. Rapenfil. One of the baron’s letters, scant years after he came into the title, when his star was rising and Arpik’s was beginning to fall. She brought those pages to mind. Every word was still burned in her memory.

I saw you at Pergint’s ball last night and could no longer keep my silence. You have been too long absent from society and there have been rumors I feared to believe. Do not assure me that you are happy; your eyes betray you. But can you tell me you are content?

His words had been tender then, without the frantic passion of the earlier letters, but soon turned hard again.
I read what you do not write. You tell me “be careful” and I hear “I am afraid.” Never forget that I will stand your friend to the ends of the earth. Your concern for your family’s good name is misplaced. Arpik can do little harm worse than they’ve already suffered by tying their hopes to his promises. Even those promises mean nothing if you give him no sons. But on that I’ll say no more. I know well enough where that fault lies. Be careful. And, as always, burn these letters.

But she hadn’t. Had their correspondence truly remained secret all those years? Or had Arpik never cared for anything beyond her dowry? In the end, even her dowry had had its limits.
Is it true? The city is abuzz with word that your father’s house was seized in payment of your husband’s debts. I hadn’t thought Arpik was gone so deep or that your father would be so foolish as to pledge his own property as collateral. Arpik will never recover now; the illusion is broken and his creditors will smell blood. They say your family has left Rotenek for Rapenfil. You would do well to follow them.

But that wasn’t the only place she had seen the village’s name. It had been on the card her mother’s sister had left for her, on the line below
Henirez Chamering
.

“Mesnera?” Tavit’s voice broke into her reverie. “Do we change our route?”

“Yes,” Barbara said in sudden decision. “I have a visit to make. An aunt. Cousins, perhaps.” She smiled at him ruefully. “I only hope we find them at home.”

Once again she changed her appearance from male disguise to more feminine eccentricity. Maisetra Chamering had seen her riding clothes before. This way there would be no need for awkward explanations and they were far enough from the court that secrecy was no longer urgent.

Finding the farm proved easier than she feared. The name of Chamering was well known in these parts. “Just continue on down the road through the village,” a carter offered when she asked the direction. “On past the mill and then left after that up toward the old abbey.”

It was the sort of direction that would be easy for a stranger to lose, but they followed the road he’d indicated. It was haying season and the fields they passed were strewn with cut rows drying in the sun. In the far distance precariously laden wagons dwarfed those filling them. The scent was sweet on the warm summer breeze, though a hint of coming rain explained the urgency Barbara could see in the fields.

When the farmstead came at last in view it reminded her of that of Margerit’s cousins in Mintun. Not a neat and tidy house, but well-kept despite its chaos, with bright whitewashed walls and sturdy fences. In the yard, a boy was mending harness at the back of a wagon. He jumped to his feet at their approach and shouted, “Mama! Visitors!” to be answered by a babble of women’s voices from the kitchen beyond.

The boy darted forward to catch their horses’ bridles, staring in awe. At the horses, that is. Barbara noted with amusement that he paid almost no attention to their riders. The steeds that Annek’s name could command stood out against the cart horses tied at the gate like peacocks among geese. “Is Maisetra Chamering at home?” she asked, gaining his attention at last.