The Mystic Marriage (50 page)

At last she clamped the lid on tightly, took note of the position of sun and stars and marked the seals as best she could determine. The furnace had been ready for some time. She grasped the crucible in the tongs and cracked the door just enough to slide it in.
This time—this one time—give me the sight to find the alignments.
The heat made her eyes water as she turned the vessel in place bit by bit, as she had so often seen Margerit do. Was that only the waves of heat or had she seen… She moved it again, trying to follow patterns she wasn’t sure of. And then—just when she despaired of being given a sign—the iridescent
fluctus
dazzled her eyes in a blinding flare.

Not daring to breathe, she withdrew the tongs and closed the door. Eight hours should be enough. She fed another scoop of coal into the back of the furnace and busied herself with putting things away and cleaning.

Time dragged as slowly now as it had earlier. She only noticed dark had fallen when Mefro Feldin poked her head in at leaving for the day, saying, “Was there anything else you were wanting?”

Antuniet’s stomach growled. An honest pain this time. “Is there anything for supper?”

“If you wanted supper, you should have sent me out before the cookshop closed,” she replied sourly. “There’s a bit of cold pie in the pantry. I thought you’d be going to dinner with your friend like you always do.”

“Never mind, the pie will do.”

She settled in to read after that, timing the adding of coals to every ten pages. Sleep tugged at her and she found herself reading the same page over again. More coals. The book nearly slipped from her hands and she set it aside. More coals.

Dawn streamed through the window and she stretched stiffly…then came upright in a panic. The furnace! How long had she slept? She ran her hands just above the top, then tapped the iron door with a moistened fingertip. Cold. She thought she remembered hearing the midnight bells the last time she tended it. That should have been long enough.

Antuniet pulled the crucible out onto the workbench and took a deep breath before unclamping the lid, prepared for what she would see. The matrix was crusted and lumpy but not the glassy char of complete failure. She waited impatiently through the quenching, then tipped the crucible over and tapped the work gently onto the tiled benchtop. It fell out in a lump, crumbling a bit at the part that had been the bottom. She took up the smallest hammer and chisel and began chipping away at the matrix.

Hours later, what sat revealed was an irregular rounded mass like a baroque pearl, just a little smaller than her thumb. In the main it was the color of blood but there were shadows of other hues inside. The light glinted from a thousand tiny flakes and flaws in the stone and a thread of slag ran deeply through one lobe like a hidden vein. It should have shattered, but in her fingers it felt warm, like a living thing. What might it have been if she’d taken more care?
It is what you see.
That was her answer. She thought briefly of running through the streets to Jeanne’s house. Of bringing her the heart-stone to show like a child with a toy. A shyness held her back. It was a sign; it needed the proper setting.

The pale autumn sun was reaching toward noon when her brisk steps brought her to Zempol Street. Monterrez’s shop stood shuttered and dark and for a moment she was struck by dismay, until she recalled the day. The law set limits to what business could be done on a Sunday, even in the Jewish district. It set limits on an apprentice’s Sunday hours as well but she often ignored those. Antuniet circled the block to come to the front steps of the residence and rang the bell. Anna answered it and, on seeing her, asked anxiously, “Did you need me today? You should have sent word.”

“No, it’s your father I’ve come to see, if I may. I have a commission for him.”

A few minutes later, Monterrez took the stone from her and examined it with his customary care. “Not your usual work,” he observed with a hint of reproof.

“An experiment. I’d like it set.”

He raised his loupe again and turned it this way and that. “I could get two, maybe three good stones from it. They could be polished but I think they would shatter with faceting. Look there: what catches the light are a hundred tiny flaws. But something could be done. What style of setting did you have in mind?”

“No, no cutting. Leave it just as it is. I’d like to wear it as a pendant. Here.” She touched her breast just under the hollow of her throat. “On a ribbon, I think. I haven’t enough for a chain; there’s been no time for tutoring since summer.”

Monterrez looked up in surprise and calculation. “This will not be on Maisetra Sovitre’s account?”

“No, nor the princess’s. It’s a personal matter.” She drew out her thin purse. “I don’t think I can manage gold, but silver will do.”

He compressed his lips in thought and put his hand over hers. “Maisetra, keep your money.”

“But—”

“The day will come,” he continued quietly, “when I will ask you to make a special jewel for my Anna. That will be the payment for this. Leave the rest to me. It’s a stone of power—” He made it a statement, not a question. “—so I will leave the setting as open as may be. When would you like it finished?”

Tonight! Before dawn,
she thought, but that was scarcely reasonable. Tuesday would be the next of Margerit’s lectures. She and Jeanne had planned to attend. She could wear the stone to speak where her voice might fail. “In two days, if it can be done.”

He looked skeptical, but nodded.

On her way home, she heard singing as she passed the small church that served her neighbors. An impulse drew her in. She was careless about attending Mass and made the trek to Saint Mauriz’s when she did, but she needed a place to think where her mind wouldn’t echo in empty spaces. There was space on the last bench. She let the rhythms of the service set her mind adrift.

She had felt how the stone blended the chaotic strands into a whole: the jasper at its core, a trace of sapphire at one edge where the heat must have been stronger, overlying red balas. A trace of cloudiness in one lobe suggesting a vein of moonstone. Only the jasper should have been strong enough for its influence to be felt. It was as if the crystal as a whole lent the focus for each of its parts. No, not as a whole. The different stones had twined and grown together but she could see where the edges met. If not a single larger crystal, then they must reflect and magnify each other in some way. Could that be done more deliberately? She thought of the layered cibations. What if each layer could lend a different property? They would need to be added carefully in order; the heat needed for ruby would destroy lesser stones and the flux for carnelian would ruin peridot entirely unless something like jacinth were interposed. Some pairs she guessed could not be wedded at all. But if each layer could build on the last in some way… And then if it were possible to polish it down to a lenticular cabochon, exposing all the layers at once… Was it possible? Monterrez might know. At least he would try. She could return to the original lists she’d drawn up with Barbara’s help. No need to try to set eight stones, only one eight-layered gem. And all the seed stones were likely in her hands already.
Oh Jeanne, you’ve given me the key,
she breathed in wonder.
Not pure, and yet more powerful for it.

When the service ended, her footsteps home were the lightest she’d known in years.

In the morning the experiments began. The melding of the alternations must be perfect before she risked the good gems. Antuniet laughed suddenly as she explained it all to Anna. “Or, if not perfect, at least proven. We need to know which stones can be married together, which can be layered even without joining completely. But once I have those formulas and the ordering worked out, the entire set of stones might be finished in three weeks. Soon we’ll have both furnaces to use.”

“But there’s barely six weeks in all until the new year. Will it be enough?” Anna asked.

“It will need to be,” Antuniet replied more soberly.

The next day, Maistir Monterrez came himself to escort Anna home and to deliver the pendant. Antuniet waited until they had left before examining it; it seemed too private a thing.

The stone had been unsuitable to set with bezel or prongs. Instead he had cast a branching of slender threads, like ivy wrapping around a tree trunk. The gold flowed through the hollows and flaws in the stone, filling without concealing. He had followed her idea of suspending it from a ribbon, not to save the cost—for the clasp that closed it behind her neck was surely worth the price of a thin chain—but to keep the eye drawn to the stone itself. When she dressed—the rose gown, it must be the rose gown tonight—she fastened the ribbon carefully and let the stone fall against her skin. She felt it pulse briefly like the blood in her veins and then it was as if it had always lain there.

Antuniet arrived at the
salle
early. Too early to worry when Jeanne was nowhere in sight and yet she did worry. What if she decided not to come? She edged her way to where Margerit was standing at one side of the room, deep in conversation with a stranger. The woman was elegantly dark, perhaps another one of the French émigrés who had found refuge in Rotenek during the war? But no—though they were speaking in French, she had an accent of Italy, not that of the far Antilles like Mefro Dominique’s.

“Antuniet!” Margerit called on spotting her. “Come, you must meet Maisetra Talarico. She’s come all the way from Rome to discuss mysteries with me.”

Antuniet curtseyed. “
Buona sera, Signora.
” But she returned immediately to French for Margerit’s sake. “Do you know if Jeanne will be here? We had—” How much did she know?

Enough, it seemed. With a stricken look Margerit began, “I don’t know, but you needn’t—” And then looking past her shoulder, “Oh. Here she is.”

Antuniet hardly needed the warning. The gem at her throat had warmed suddenly and she reached up to caress it without thinking.

“What an unusual jewel,” the stranger exclaimed. “What is it?”

Antuniet turned, meeting Jeanne’s anxious gaze. The moment stretched out in silence, as if everyone else in the chamber had faded and only they two remained. When she spoke at last to answer the question, it was Jeanne the answer was meant for. “It’s a heart that was given into my keeping,” she said.

Jeanne’s eyes flicked to the pendant, then back to Antuniet’s face. Her lips parted as if she would speak but no words came.

Antuniet released the gem and reached out to intertwine her fingers with Jeanne’s. They would try again, and again, if necessary. Not from the beginning; there was no way through but forward.

“It came through the fire,” she said. “Flawed, but whole. Perhaps we will too.”

She could not remember later what the lectures covered. All she knew was that the speakers had been Akezze and two younger women from the Poor-Scholars whose depth of knowledge and teaching skill could not be satisfied by the opportunities that had come their way. The evening was filled with the constant awareness of Jeanne at her side. Jeanne’s leg touching hers. Jeanne’s eyes constantly seeking her own. Jeanne’s heart beating in close time with her own. And later…she did not return home that night.

* * *

The initial experiments were more successful than she had dared hope. The principle was sound; only the specific formulas need be devised. Soon she would need to assemble the full array of assistants again. And there were roles that still needed filling. A second for the
virgo
role. Perhaps Margerit would know someone.

The men hired to guard against any tricks Kreiser might try had faded to near invisibility, except for occasional crowding in the back corridors and that constant intangible sense of male presence, for good or ill. But one morning Antuniet was made suddenly aware of Perteld’s presence—or was it Paldek? She still had trouble sorting the two out. Whichever had answered, an argument at the front entry disturbed the calculations for weighing and measuring. Antuniet saw Anna flinch—then try to conceal it—and touched her arm for reassurance as she rose to see to the commotion.

“And I say you have no business with Maisetra Chazillen or I’d know about it.”

He was facing down a furtive-looking man in a frieze coat and low slouched hat. Not a tradesman, nor in service that one could tell, but by his manner a messenger.

“What is it?” she asked sharply, giving no instruction to let the man past.

“You’re Chazillen?” The messenger must have seen some disapproval on Perteld’s face sufficient to amend it to, “You’re Maisetra Chazillen?”

She nodded. His open approach argued against a threat. True danger would either come secretly or wearing a uniform. She hadn’t entirely lost the fear that Kreiser would gain Annek’s ear and turn the princess against her.

The messenger stepped back and spoke as if by rote. “My employer, Maistir Langal, has some information that could be to your advantage, should you care to speak with him.”

Now that was unexpected. She hadn’t spoken to the debt-monger since that time a year past when he had declined to finance her, for which she was still grateful. What would he want in exchange for this information? The message was surprising enough not to be ignored. “When might he be available? Shall I come to his office this afternoon?”

The man shook his head violently. “He says not to come openly. Can you be at Saint Mauriz’s—the chapel of Saint Mihail—at the evening bells?”

Antuniet nodded with relief. That was public enough and unremarkable. But what could call for such subterfuge?

* * *

Saint Mihail’s mysteries had become unfashionable in the last century so there was small chance of being disturbed or overheard. In the chill shadows of the small chapel Langal came quickly to the point. “Your Austrian friend has people poking around into the question of what debts or scandals may have attached themselves to you and—curiously enough—to Baron Razik. And because there was a question of debts, naturally he came to me.”

A blade of fear twisted in her gut. The feeling had once been as familiar as the embrace of an old friend. She hadn’t realized she’d ceased being afraid all the time until now, when it returned. Debt had been the wound through which Estefen’s honor had bled out. And all the other disasters had flowed from that. She’d been so careful. Scandal, he’d said as well. She felt suddenly light-headed and hoped Langal couldn’t see. That was her own wound. “I have no debts to anyone but friends,” she answered, avoiding the other.