The Mystic Marriage (62 page)

Tavit had less experience skulking in shadows than she did and she saw few enough shadows in the farmyard as they approached. A direct approach seemed best. The carriage was left behind a stand of willows along the edge of a narrow track that disappeared quickly into a snowy field.

The cottage was small and snug. The sort that might figure in the dreams of a villager exiled to the city. A bit of yard. No doubt when winter was past she’d be acquiring chickens and perhaps even a cow. A woman used to labor who now had a bit of money could live very comfortably here if her past weren’t pursuing her. A thin thread of smoke rose from the chimney, and they watched from the edge of the trees until confident that she was alone.

“Ready?” Barbara asked Tavit. He nodded.

They crossed the yard swiftly, parting to cover front and back doors. Tavit called out the sort of hail a neighbor might use on approach. They’d weighed the risks of complete surprise against even that much warning. A sudden invasion would be more likely to provoke screams. When Barbara heard the sound of the door opening and a suspicious greeting, she slipped through the back door and latched it behind her. Tavit had driven the woman back in and done the same. Barbara pulled off her hat and shook her hair loose for better recognition. She was on edge for the possibility that they would need to muffle shouts but Feldin was wide-eyed in recognition and just awed enough for silence.

Tavit pushed her down none too gently into a chair and held her there.

“What do you want?” she asked in a mixture of outrage and fear.

“I am quite certain that you know why we’re here,” Barbara said, leaving the woman’s imagination to work on her a few moments yet.

She shook her head, either in denial or refusal.

“You left Rotenek very suddenly,” Barbara began.

Feldin thought she saw a chance to bluff it out. “There wasn’t any work. I told Maisetra Chazillen it was a bad time to be let go. What was I to do but come back home?”

“No work? And yet I hadn’t realized the savings from a housekeeper’s wages could set you up this comfortably,” Barbara said, looking around pointedly.

The place showed none of the indifference she’d displayed in Antuniet’s workshop. Sparsely furnished, but with good and comfortable things, and curtains at the window that showed the sign of a dexterous hand. No doubt the daughter had set her up to begin with. Feldin remained mute, finding no explanation that would serve.

“Let us be blunt,” Barbara continued. “Before you left the city, you stole something from my cousin. And that theft has made a great deal of trouble for her. You stole some of her work.”

“She gave it to me!” Feldin protested. “A gift for luck, she said—that fancy friend of hers. I’m no thief.” Curious, how her mind had altered the circumstances to eliminate the exchange.

“I don’t mean the gift,” Barbara corrected her. “But the other stones.”

“That was no theft!” she protested again. “They were trash, to be discarded she said. I heard her myself. It’s my right to keep the castoffs of the household. Or will you hunt me down as well for the heels of stale bread and the dust from the bottom of the coal sack? You’ve come a long distance to pursue me over rubbish.”

Again, her mind and tongue had twisted the truth into something that left her innocent, but at least she didn’t deny taking the stones. How would Margerit’s truth-mystery interpret such a statement? As an ordinary charge of theft, the matter might be absurd, but these weren’t ordinary circumstances.

“But you didn’t take those pretty trinkets just to hang about your neck, did you?” Barbara said, giving just the slightest emphasis to the words
hang
and
neck
. “Someone else was very interested in those stones.” It was a fraction better than a stab in the dark, but Barbara knew she must tread carefully not to give her ignorance away. A shadow of guilt crossed Feldin’s eyes and Barbara probed again. “Someone came to you in secret asking questions.” Again the flinch. “You felt no special loyalty to Maisetra Chazillen. Why should you? She didn’t even pay your wages. And it was quite a comedown having to work for an alchemist. You were owed something extra for that, weren’t you?” She probed step by step, watching Feldin’s reactions. “Just some samples of the work, they said. Isn’t that right? And you knew which ones wouldn’t be missed immediately.” She knew she was inching closer to the truth. “You might have guessed what plans they had for those stones, but it was nothing to do with you.”

Feldin nodded eagerly, as if seeing a clear path out. “Who am I to question my betters? He said they’d be grateful. Important people, he said. They’d see I got what I was due.”

“But they aren’t here, and I am.” Barbara pulled the woman closer until their faces were mere inches apart. Feldin’s breath stank of garlic and fear. “Do you know who I am?”

“B…B…Baroness Saveze,” she stuttered as she turned pale.

“No,” Barbara said softly. “I’m Lumbeirt’s duelist. I’ve killed two men with my own hands and sent a third to the executioner’s sword. Those who hurt people under my protection have a habit of disappearing. I tracked you down and I can promise you, there is no place on earth that I cannot find you if I choose. If you care to live, you will return with me to Rotenek and cast yourself on Princess Annek’s mercy. Give yourself up as a witness and cleave to the truth. Do that and I will forget you ever crossed me.”

But Feldin’s body sagged in her hands before she was finished speaking, and whatever answer the woman meant to give was delayed until she could regain consciousness.

Barbara looked up and saw Tavit staring at her. She released her grip on Feldin’s garments and found her hands shaking in the rage she’d allowed to show. “Let’s be quick about it. Go get the carriage so we don’t need to carry her so far.”

He nodded briefly and headed for the door.

* * *

They changed horses at every post station to make time. Barbara didn’t dare to risk leaving Feldin unbound, but there was no need to prolong the woman’s discomfort. And she dreaded learning what might have transpired in Rotenek in their absence.

When the city came in sight Feldin began a ceaseless moaning. “They’ll kill me. They’ll kill me for sure.” Though she wouldn’t say exactly who she believed “they” were.

Barbara closed her ears to the plaint until it was needful to use a gag to keep her from attracting attention on the crowded streets. Feldin’s fears were strong enough to drive one change in plans. Despite invoking Princess Annek’s name, Barbara had always meant to hand her over to the city magistrates. But without knowing where and how high the trail would lead, would that be safe? Annek might be seen as having too great an interest in the matter for impartiality, but she would have the greatest interest in keeping Feldin alive.

The interminable hours together in the carriage had brought one further profit: a detailed description of the man who bought the stones. Of middling height, thin, with hair that fell straight and somewhat overlong to the edge of his collar. Pale blue eyes—that was unusual enough to note—and a slightly hitched way of walking, as if an injured leg had never entirely healed. That last plucked chords in Barbara’s memory. A groom at the hunt at Feniz, swearing,
Mesnera, I saw to the girths myself!
No, not him, the other groom. The one who had stood ready with a second horse in case Aukustin had need. A groom made sense. The matter with the other horse—the gift from Efriturik—it would have been easiest for a groom to meddle there as well.

She cast her mind back. The illness outside Iser. More difficult perhaps, but in the confusion of travel there would be opportunities. The amulets in Chustin’s bed though. That would have been more difficult. He would have no business there. And there was no question that his orders must have come from elsewhere. A groom might have personal grudges but they wouldn’t take this elaborate a form.

But threaten as Barbara might, Feldin could recall no one who resembled Kreiser, no fox-faced man, no foreigner. Barbara felt oddly relieved. There were actions she still couldn’t forgive him for, but she had come to respect him as an adversary. It would have been disappointing to find her instincts so mistaken.

With Feldin safely transferred to the palace guards, Barbara ventured, in all the dirt of travel, to beg a moment with Princess Annek to give her report. “And you’re certain of all this?” Annek asked, after hearing the story and all the conjectures that followed.

“I’m certain as far as it goes,” Barbara said. “I don’t doubt the woman would lie if she thought it served her purpose, but what use would lying be now? She might be guilty of theft but I see no reason to think she knew the purpose the stones would be used for. And whoever directed this will believe that she’s betrayed them as best she can, so there will be no mercy expected from that side.”

“And this groom,” Annek said with a frown. “Do you think he’s still a danger?”

Barbara gave it some thought and said hesitantly, “Not for the moment. I’m certain Princess Elisebet keeps a close eye on her son these days; I doubt he’s allowed outside her apartments. We could move to secure the man with more deliberation safely enough.”

Annek gestured to cut off that thought. “Leave him to me.”

But Barbara ventured, “There might still be a chance to erase the charges. If Elisebet still has any trust in me…Let me go to her and tell her some small part of what I’ve learned: that I’ve traced the stones and that Efriturik is cleared. There’s still time to settle this without the humiliation of a trial—still time for a reconciliation.”

“You have too much faith in my cousin’s good sense,” Annek said. “That would have taken a miracle, and it’s gone too far for reconciliation. The matter is in our hands now and has become far more delicate.”

“Your Grace?”

“My cousin, it seems, caught wind of my preparations. She arranged to have the case taken up by the magistrate who most disapproves of veridical mysteries. Even had the archbishop himself performed the rite, he would have refused it, and he says he would give no credit at all to a secular thaumaturgist. He seemed curiously eager to judge a case of sorcery. It’s a pity, because Elisebet puts great store in signs and portents. If we’d been able to work the mystery before her, I think even she might have been convinced.”

Was all Margerit’s work for nothing?
“But with the Feldin woman as witness?” Barbara asked. “Surely we can still set out the truth.”

“That won’t be necessary. I would have preferred not to intervene, but I cannot risk it. Efriturik has claimed the right of his birth and appealed his case to the royal court. I have set a judge of my own choosing to hear it. He will accept the
veriloquium
. By that much I can distance myself. It won’t satisfy Elisebet or her party, but it will satisfy the law and the rest of Alpennia. Truth will have its day. If you favor lost causes, go to the Dowager Princess and try your best. It would save us all a great deal of trouble. But I wouldn’t wager a
teneir
on your success.”

When they emerged from the palace, Barbara eyed the thin afternoon sun. She would need to hurry. She didn’t care to put off the errand for another day, but Elisebet couldn’t be approached still in traveling clothes.

The doors of Tiporsel and Margerit’s welcoming embrace almost made her change her mind but to strengthen her resolve she followed a kiss with, “One more errand today and then I’m done. Send Maitelen up to me and some hot water if you can manage it quickly.” She turned to Tavit where he stood waiting for instruction. “No need for you, at least, to be dragged out again today. Tell Brandel to attend me, then go and get some rest.”

“And when will you rest?” Margerit asked.

“When it’s over—but God knows when that will be. Come up with me and tell me everything that’s happened while I was gone that Princess Annek didn’t see fit to mention.”

* * *

Weariness dragged at her feet as she entered the palace corridors for the second time that day. There had been no chance for a return message from her request for audience but she was shown into Elisebet’s sitting room with little delay. Elisebet sent her ladies away at Barbara’s entrance, except for Mesnera Sain-Mazzi, who stood behind her chair rigidly at attention as if she filled an armin’s duties. It was easy to see why Tio and the others called her a dragon. Barbara shook off her weariness and marshaled her thoughts for the best arguments she could make.

“Mesnera Atilliet,” she began, “you have trusted me in the past when you had concerns for Aukustin’s welfare. Whenever you’ve asked, I’ve stood ready to guard the sons of Atilliet. Trust me now, I beg you.” It was stretching the truth perhaps, but it played to Elisebet’s sympathies. “When I heard of the evil attack on your son, my one thought was to hunt down the one responsible and bring him to your justice.”

“We know who is responsible,” Sain-Mazzi said, stepping toward Elisebet and laying a hand protectively on her shoulder. “He already stands accused.”

Barbara answered as if it had been Elisebet herself who spoke. “Accused is not proof and I went hunting for proof. In finding it, the trail was not at all what it seemed at first.” There would be no point in directly challenging their accusation. No counter to the thrust, but a beating away. She poured out the tale, stripped of all specifics. How she’d learned who had supplied the stones and tracked the thief down. That the amulets had been supplied to… Here she faltered. What excuse could she give not to name the man? She passed over that. “I have yet to trace that person further, but I could find no connection at all to Baron Razik. I know why you suspect him, but in this he must be considered innocent. It would be a blessing for all Alpennia if you withdrew the charges.”

“The charges will stand,” Elisebet said imperiously, “and I will see justice done by whatever means it takes. Annek thinks to thwart me but even the royal court must answer my challenge. I know who my true friends are—the ones who stand beside me. Though they’ve become few indeed these days.” She placed her hand over Sain-Mazzi’s where it lay on her shoulder and the older woman gave a triumphant stare. “If you are a friend, as you claim, take up my challenge.”