The Mystic Marriage (64 page)

But the time had ticked past and the guards were at the door. “Something will be arranged, I’m sure of it,” she said to Jeanne through the bars. She’d meant the words more for Jeanne’s sake than her own, but in the light of day she felt half convinced by them.

That day when she’d returned to Rotenek, near penniless and alone with nothing but DeBoodt’s book and her vow, she never would have believed that her brightest gems would come in human form. Jeanne, Anna, Margerit, Barbara—all tried by fire and enhanced through the long, slow layering of work side by side. Was there need for any other talismans than these?

The hours stretched out empty after that, without even expectation to fill them. Counted only by the drip, drip, dripping echoing hollowly. Another meal. A second blanket offered—what luxury! She thought back on the little room in Heidelberg that sometimes had given up its coal to feed the workshop furnace. Would she still have left, knowing it would come to this, if Kreiser hadn’t pursued her? Knowing she could die here with her oath left unfulfilled and the name of Chazillen even more a curse? Yes, even so. Not to have tried—that would be the true shame.

* * *

Another night of fits and starts. She woke once, thinking she felt Jeanne’s touch and reached for the spot at her breast where the jewel should hang. Later she woke to screaming—not hers this time—echoing down the corridors from some other cell. Another dawn. How long did the wheels of law take to grind? She realized she had no idea. A fortnight, at least, between when Efriturik was charged and when the magistrate had been named. But now Elisebet had her magistrate chosen. Surely it would be swifter for her?

Barbara was the next day’s visitor, bringing news. Efriturik had been cleared: Feldin’s testimony, Margerit’s
veriloquium
, the brisk efficiency of the royal court, all joined in harness. There was nothing else to tell for now.

* * *

The dripping that measured her days stopped. She didn’t notice until one long afternoon passed in deafening silence. Perhaps the last of the ice had melted on the roof somewhere overhead. She’d stopped counting the days. Each was much alike except for the identity of the one visitor she was allowed. Most often Jeanne, sometimes Barbara. Once Margerit came and could find nothing to say, spending her brief minutes in mute witness. It was enough to know she was not forgotten. She could have asked any of them what day it was, but what did it matter? All would pass in time.

Her mind filled with the absurd injustice of fate. To have come so far, to have learned so much and to have triumphed in her chosen art, only to fall victim to petty palace jealousies and superstition. To know the truth and have no way to prove it. And the most bitter irony of all: to have the work of her own hands brought out in evidence, pointing its finger at her in accusation, like the telltale beam of a watchman’s lantern, with no way to turn it on the genuine traitor.

That was what Margerit’s mystery had been meant to do: to use the light of divine judgment to point to the truth. To point the light… Her thoughts caught for a moment, recalling the box of stones that Tio had risked so much to show them. What else had it contained beyond the amulet she’d given Feldin—the one with that child’s trick of the blue light? There had been ammonite and scarab, far more prominent in memory than effective in use; onyx engraved with a goat’s head and jacinth. What else? What else?

She closed her eyes and tried to bring the box’s contents to memory. Had there been a moonstone or crystal spar? She remembered a flat square crystal, but it might have been quartz. In a pinch, any lens would do. There had been a handful of polished spheres and cabochons. Surely one would have the right properties.

A plan took shape, born out of hope and nourished by desperation. Would they be there in the room when she came to trial—every person needed for the resolution? She couldn’t imagine Elisebet leaving such a thing to chance. But would Sain-Mazzi come as well? Surely she would. She must be watching over Elisebet ever more closely now. Was there a way to ensure it? What did she have a right to demand as defendant? Barbara might know. She rehearsed speeches in her mind, playing out as many scenes as she could imagine. But the plan she kept to herself, not wanting to tease the others with what might be a vain hope.

* * *

Another meal, another sleep.
Let it just be over.
Yet when they came for her at midday, her only thought was,
So soon?
She was led out, not through the yard toward the
salle-iust,
but to a bright and comfortable room that must belong to the warden. Jeanne was there and Barbara as well. Such luxury for a visit! The guards closed the door behind her, remaining outside, and she was bewildered until she saw the other figures in the room.

“Your Grace,” she said, sinking to a curtsey on unsteady legs. “Mesner Atilliet.” This was no time to presume on familiarity. “How may I serve you?” She couldn’t keep the edge of irony from her voice.

“It weighs greatly on me,” Annek began, “that you should be in peril in place of my son. And you have strong advocates who have urged me to find a way through. But we have a conundrum.” She paused with pursed lips in a way that should have been maddening. “How can we best see that justice is served and not merely the law? It is a delicate matter. If it were a lesser offense, I would have a freer hand—and if I had not expended so much goodwill for my son’s sake. My cousin will hold me to the letter of things, and there are those who support her whom I don’t care to cross needlessly. Yet we still have several possible paths.” She held a packet of papers in her hand.

Antuniet wondered at first if any of them were a pardon. But no, that would break the letter of the law that Elisebet would insist on. For a moment, a flutter of wild hope stirred, but that was dashed by Annek’s next words.

“I cannot go back on my word in the matter of my father’s judgment on the Chazillens now, not in the midst of this trial. It would be seen as too self-serving. But there has always been another option. When the line of Chazillen was disenrolled, those of the name who were not condemned were free to petition
trans-familia
, as your cousin Sepestien did. Baroness Saveze has asked me to allow you to take the Lumbeirt name in respect of your mother and I have agreed. Become Antuniet Lumbeirt and take again the status of your birth. Then we can resolve the charges against you.” She lifted the document in her hand and held it out.

For a moment Antuniet stood silent. What was it she had told herself? That regardless of the injustice, if she were offered the same escape Efriturik had taken she would seize it? And here it was: adopted into the Lumbeirts, once again to be addressed as
Mesnera
, free to claim the privilege of royal justice and only one small price to pay. To no longer be a Chazillen. If the offer had been made on the day of her brother’s execution she would have rejected it as an insult. Barbara was staring at her in anxious trepidation. Now she saw it for an act of love, though at little cost to Barbara herself.

She thought of her desperate plans for the trial, of the trick with the stones. That might fail; this was sure. And yet…she’d told herself that she would take this escape if it left honor intact. And since the day Estefen died, honor had driven her to one purpose and one purpose alone. Everything else had been stripped away from her: dignity, pride, chastity. Only the name remained. And if she could not redeem it, at least she would continue bearing it.

“Do you have an answer?” Annek asked with a hint of impatience.

“My cousin makes a generous offer,” she said slowly, not daring to look at Jeanne for fear of what she’d see there. “I would not insult the baroness by comparing the house of Lumbeirt to a mess of pottage, but I will not trade my birthright for it. I have sworn to bring honor to the name of Chazillen. I cannot do that by trading it away, even to save my life.”

She ventured a look toward the others at last. Barbara looked grave, but she nodded as if she understood. Jeanne was biting her lip to keep it from trembling.

“A fair answer,” Annek said, nodding slowly as if in approval. She, too, looked over at Barbara. “You predicted correctly, though I wouldn’t have credited it. But it was gracious of you to offer.”

She set the sealed paper back on the table and took up a second document that had lain underneath it. “There is another possibility, though now I wonder whether you will hear it.” She tapped the new papers against one hand, as if even now debating some decision. “It was a thought that came to me even before this matter. I expected to have more time to consider, but fate has forced my hand. I find you a formidable young woman. You have resources and dedication that Alpennia would be much poorer for losing. And despite the matter with your brother, no one can deny the deep roots the Chazillens have in this land. I told you once before that I was surprised and grateful for the influence you’ve had on my son. Someday, if he is prince, he will need the support of a strong woman. I wonder, since you will not change your name for Lumbeirt, would you consider changing it for Atilliet?”

Her meaning sank in only gradually. When it did, Antuniet’s hand flew up to cover her mouth. Not—as they must believe—to muffle a gasp or sob, but to stifle an undignified giggle.
Oh Mother!
she thought.
Could I drag you out of hell for just two minutes now, I’d show you this and then throw you back again!

Through all those long years when nothing she had ever accomplished had weighed in the balance of that one failure… No, it would have been absurd to imagine it might come someday to this. Surely this hadn’t been Efriturik’s idea!

She glanced over at him. There was nothing of the eager lover about him, more the apprehension of a man facing a strange dog of uncertain temper. If it weren’t for her predicament, there could not have been a woman in all of Alpennia less tempted by such an offer, or more certain of her unsuitability for the role. And she
was
tempted, just for one fleeting moment.

The moment fled entirely.

“Your Grace, it is a great honor you do me. But as I have said, I cannot fulfill what I owe to my family name by leaving it behind. More than that, with all respect to Mesner Atilliet, I think we should not suit.”

Jeanne came unfrozen at last and rushed to her side to whisper urgently, “Toneke, don’t think to refuse him for my sake. I’d rather see you alive and safe.”

Antuniet shook her head ever so slightly and touched Jeanne’s cheek. “It’s nothing to do with you. I’m sorry.”

“Well,” Annek said as she rose, setting the rest of the witnesses into disarray, “you make it very difficult to help you, but I will look for other means to try.” She called out to those waiting behind the door and it opened with suspicious promptness. “We’ve finished here.”

Had it been the right thing to do?

Lying on the hard pallet that night, Antuniet played over both offers in her mind. Was it nothing but stubborn pride to have refused? To trust the slender thread of her own cleverness against a generous certainty? No, surely there were some things worth standing one’s ground for. To give in now, after all these years? Wouldn’t that be an acknowledgment that none of it had ever been worth the struggle? She could accept the thought of living all her life as Maisetra Chazillen, but not as Mesnera anything else.

* * *

She’d thought there would be no more warning for the final act than there had been for any other scene in this play, but Jeanne came one day with a change of clothing: the brown woolen walking gown that had been her first, most practical gift. And she brought a word of promise: tomorrow. They kissed passionately at parting, not caring who might see, in case all should fail and there would never be another chance.

The courtroom was packed, both floor and gallery. That was no surprise. Rotenek must have its show and she would do her best to give a good performance. She’d thought of several parts to play but in the end her own self seemed easiest: proud, haughty, cold and always in command. She gazed steadfastly out over the crowd as if she were, indeed, a princess, but that was to mask a desperate search among the faces. Of her friends she had no doubt. There was Jeanne, dry-eyed but pale. Beside her, Barbara in her braided coat, wearing her sword in case it came, at the last, to that. But there, apart to one side, where the prosecutor would stand: Elisebet, all somber in black and veils, playing the royal widow as she often did in public. At her back stood several ladies. Was it? Yes, Sain-Mazzi was among them. The stage was set; let the play begin.

It took no playacting to settle her face into impatience with the long speeches at the start. The forms must be followed. Now they began to lay out the charges: Aukustin’s illness, the search for answers. One would not expect Elisebet or her courtiers to take the stand. That place was supplied by Escamund, the thaumaturgist who had found the talismans. That was a gamble when the charge was sorcery, but he was a man of sober and upstanding reputation. Now the stones themselves were produced: the small mahogany box that she had seen before and another bound in brass that held the rest.

Feldin was brought forth to testify to the origin of the alchemical gems. What reassurances had they offered her? Did she know she faced the one who had ordered the death of her contact? Here she was free to lie about the theft as she had not been in the royal court, but there was no need. She was asked only to identify the stones. Yes, Feldin said, she had kept house for the alchemist. Yes, she recognized the magical gems that lay before her. One couldn’t miss them, she said, pointing out the brightly layered stones, their mottled beauty standing out like peacocks in a henhouse. She would know them anywhere. No mention of the gift or of the theft or anything of her own part in providing them.

So, that was how it would be. Antuniet let go of any regret in what she planned. And then the moment came when all eyes turned to her and the magistrate asked if she had aught to say in her defense.

“I do,” she said loudly, stepping forward from the box where she had sat throughout the morning. “Let me examine these amulets that are said to be my work. Would you take the word of an ignorant old woman regarding the esoteric arts? I will know the work of my own hands.”