Vaun ha Tesne nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose so. I know that if I loved a woman I should not let a thing like a legal fiction of marriage stand in my way.”
“That’s very romantic. But with a husband—if I didn’t like him, I might suffer under his dominion, but at least I’d be done with my parents meddling. This marriage will be the worst of everything.”
“Which one of you plays the husband?”
Ellais wrinkled her nose. “Plays the husband?”
“In most marriages one spouse has dominion over the other—if one of you were a man there would be no question. A woman is passed from her father’s dominion to that of her husband. In a case like this dominion is usually spelt out in the Writ.”
“I’ve seen the Writ,” Ellais said slowly. “There’s no mention of dominion.”
Ha Tesne laughed. “Well, then I imagine it would be up to the two of you to decide who rules the house.”
“We could take turns,” Ellais said thoughtfully. After a moment, a smile quirked at the corner of her mouth. “Are you sure of this? That if one of us has dominion that ends the other’s parents’ right to interfere?”
Ha Tesne nodded. “I studied law for a while, until my father died and I had to come home to manage our farms and property. But the theory should be entirely defensible. And I doubt your parents would want to appear before the Magistracy to contest the matter.”
“You should have been a lawyer,” Ellais said firmly.
“As it happens, I like farming. I like knowing the land and the people working it. I’m proud of my home. In fact, if I bring back a carriage for you, would you like to see it? Before you continue your escape, that is.”
Ellais had no chance to answer; a cloud of dust plumed beyond the shrubs as if several riders moving at great speed were approaching.
“Inside,” Vaun ha Tesne said.
A man on foot rounded the shrub, wearing the livery of House Caudon. Ellais ducked into the cot and shook Taigna. “It’s your father’s men!”
Taigna sat up, blinking. Outside, Ellais heard the approaching man hail Vaun ha Tesne. She turned away from Taigna to peer around the doorsill.
Vaun had risen and was going to meet the Caudon servant. He had his staff in one hand, walking as if with its support. Ellais did not hear the Caudon rider’s words, but she heard Vaun greet him as friend and ask how he could help. There was a low murmur from the Caudon rider.
“No, there’s only me. My horse was lamed, and I paused here in my walk home.”
This time Ellais heard the rider’s words: “You’ll not mind if I look for myself?”
“Do you not trust me?” Vaun asked. He sounded affronted.
“Beg pardon, sir, but it’s my job to be certain.” The man pushed Vaun aside and started for the cot. Vaun’s staff came up, caught him square on the jaw, and the man dropped. In the sudden silence Vaun returned to the cot.
“Ladies, I think it is time that you decide if you want to continue your elopement or return home. I pledge to assist you either way, but that fellow was not alone, and his friends are doubtless going to come round the path in a moment or—and here they come.” Ha Tesne stepped outside again.
Three appeared behind the fence, calling a name, seeking the first Caudon rider. Ellais returned to her post at the door, explaining Vaun ha Tesne’s interpretation of the law to Taigna.
One rider spied the fallen body of his companion, cried out, and all three drew swords and made to attack ha Tesne. Ellais, horrified, would have run out the door except for Taigna, who grabbed onto her arm with both hands, reminding her friend that she had no weapon, no skill, and would only cause more trouble.
Vaun ha Tesne had disarmed one rider with a circular swoop of his staff, buffeting the man across the shoulders so that he was knocked to his knees, retching. Another man stepped in, cutting downward at Vaun’s shoulder; he barely caught the foible of the blade with the back of his staff, and stepped back to face his attacker. Behind them Ellais saw the last rider approaching, circling around between Vaun and the cot.
Without thought, Ellais took up the heaviest of Taigna’s books, stepped outside, and hit the rider on the side of the head, as hard as she could. He staggered but did not fall, so she hit him again, on the other side of the head. This time he dropped to his knees. She raised the book again for a third blow.
“Ellais, stop!” It was Taigna behind her. “We’ll go back! There’s no need to hurt anyone—for anyone to be hurt. You, there!” She called to the swordsman who was still harrying their protector. “Stop at once! I am Taigna me Caudon, and I want you to leave that man alone! He thought he was protecting us! We’re ready to come back to Meviel—I hope you have a carriage ready, for I cannot walk any further.”
“Are you certain?” Ellais and Vaun ha Tesne asked in the same moment.
“Yes. Thank you, sir.” Taigna nodded at Vaun. “I am sure, with your counsel, we will do very well. Ellais, are we agreed?”
Ellais nodded. “Although I wish I’d had a staff rather than a book,” she murmured. Taigna took the book out of her hands and cuddled it to her chest.
Vaun ha Tesne lowered his staff.
His opponent appeared put out but lowered his own weapon. “You’ll come back to Meviel?” he asked.
“We will,” Taigna agreed. Ellais nodded.
When the riders had recovered themselves and been dissuaded from fetching Vaun ha Tesne back to the city to be charged with assault, the girls said goodbye to their protector. Ha Tesne bowed over Taigna’s hand; “I can see you will make a very fine Cindiese, as well as a scholar.”
Then he kissed Ellais’s hand. She felt her face go hot.
“I’m sorry not to see your house,” she said quietly. “Thank you for your help, Master ha Tesne.”
“It was my very great pleasure to help, Mistress me Morbegon.”
~o0o~
The marriage of Taigna me Caudon, Cindiese-apparent of House Caudon, to Ellais me Morbegon, was celebrated with enough ceremony and lace to satisfy both their mothers, each of whom wept at the service with relief and joy. The Writ of Exception, illuminated with gold leaf and sealed with the Bishop’s Great Seal, was on display for all to see. The Cindon zo Caudon clapped his daughter’s new father-in-law on the shoulder and thought of the thousands of senesti that were now in his daughter’s control, and thereby, of course, his own. Similarly Master Meil zo Morbegon considered the extensive holdings to which his daughter was now half-heir, and was content. And the brides themselves appeared to have put all reluctance or reservation behind them and to be genuinely pleased with their marriage. At the end of the fete given to celebrate their nuptials, the two women left in their own carriage, for the house in the suburbs of the Vocarle district that was part of their dower.
The next morning Taigna do Caudon-Morbegon returned to her studies. The sight of a married woman of rank wearing the black stole of a first scholar and walking unaccompanied to the university, sent ripples of curiosity and dismay through the best society of Meviel. By mid-afternoon Madame do Morbegon was demanding entrance to her daughter’s house. She found Ellais in a tidy parlor where the chairs had been pushed against the walls, swinging a staff about inexpertly.
“Ellais, stop that at once. You’ll break something!”
“Good afternoon, Mamma.” Ellais put the staff down and advanced to kiss her mother.
“Ellais! Your—Taigna do Caudon was at the university this morning, and I find you here, doing—whatever you are doing. What are you doing?”
From her sleeve Ellais took a kerchief with which she wiped her brow. “Please be seated, Mamma. I am trying to learn something I saw in my travels. And my—” she smiled. “My wife is at her studies.”
“Well it stops now, do you hear me? This instant!”
Ellais drew her mother to sit beside her upon one of the sophas that lined the room. She spoke gently. “Mamma, do you realize that your authority over me stopped when you wed me to Taigna? If she does no
t object to my drilling in the parlor, why should you?”
Madame do Morbegon’s eyes bulged with outrage. “Because it’s wrong! Talk is already beginning; they’re saying—”
“Mamma, since I no longer intend to move among the courtiers of the Hub, what they say is of no concern to me. And since Taigna intends to be a scholar—without the beard, I think, unless they absolutely require it—gossip matters not to her.” Ellais released her mother’s hand and stood again. “We made very certain of this before we were wed, Taigna and I. You—and Papa and her parents—wanted this marriage, but it has given us dominion over each other, and taken that control from you. You may disinherit us, of course—but that would only undo all your plans to wed our fortunes. So. Taigna and I, as good married couples do, want each for the other what she wants. Taigna wants to be a scholar, and I think that is excellent. I want—”
What Ellais wanted was not to be spoken, for Lilsa appeared in the door, begged her mistress’s pardon, and announced a visitor.
“Master Vaun ha Tesne, miss—mistress. Says he knows you from the road?”
“Here? In Meviel?”
“In Meviel, and in your parlor, if you will permit me.”
Madame do Morbegon beheld a tall, fair-haired man in the doorway, dressed for riding in the country rather than calls in Town. When she looked at her daughter to see how Ellais regarded this unmannerly stranger she was surprised to see her blushing. “Ellais, who is this?”
The stranger bowed deeply. “Vaun ha Tesne, at your service, madam. By your resemblance to your beautiful daughter, I take it that you are Madame do Morbegon?” The man touched his hand to his heart in salute, then turned back to Ellais. “I hope you do not mind the intrusion. I wanted to felicitate you upon your marriage.”
Ellais turned to her mother. “This gentleman… helped us in the woods, Mamma. You owe him your thanks.“ She smiled at Vaun. “As do I, sir.”
“Do you? I came to renew my invitation to see my house. You and your bride, of course.”
“My bride will be much engaged with her studies for some time,” Ellais said. She felt curiously out of breath. “I, however, am hardly engaged at all.”
“If she can endure your absence—”
“I should like to come. Perhaps, sir, you could teach me to use a staff as you do.”
“That might take some time,” Vaun ha Tesne said soberly.
“I have nothing but time, sir. And a good deal to learn.”
This was too much for Deira do Morbegon. She grabbed her daughter by the hand and pulled her from the room. “Have you lost your mind?” she whispered. “A visit to the estate of an unmarried man, when you are just barely wed yourself?”
“Well, I’ve little else to do, Mama. Taigna will be at her studies, and I would like very much to see how Master ha Tesne manages his property, since I will one day have the management of the Caudon properties—as you have reminded me often enough.”
“Ellais, you’re married!”
“I am yes, Mamma,” Ellais said firmly. “But that’s no problem; you often told me that marriage is not an impediment to love.”
Ellais do Morbegon-Caudon kissed her mother’s cheek in dismissal, then returned to the parlor and her waiting guest.
Virtue and the Archangel
Velliaune me Corse left her virtue in the tumbled sheets of a chamber at the Bronze Manticore. This act, which would have licensed her parents to cut her off from family and fortune, was a grave error; but with her maidenhead, Velliaune also left the Archangel behind, and that was a calamity.
Velliaune had departed the inn before dawn, made her way through empty streets and back to her parents’ home in the Vocarle district, slipped into the garden and thence through a window into the servants’ hall, and finally to her room. There, happily unaware of the missing jewel, she had thrown herself upon her bed and considered the night just past.
She had gone to the opera. She had flirted dutifully in her mother’s presence with half a dozen acceptable men. At the end of the intermission, she had pled a headache and been permitted to return home on her own; instead, she had gone to meet Col ha Vanderon for a private supper at the Bronze Manticore. She had not intended matters to progress to the point where her clothes were strewn across the room and her ankles crossed behind Col’s back, but all in all, she was not unhappy. As she recalled the event now, Velliaune’s hands strayed across her pale breast, trailing a faint echo of sensation. If it had not been the rapturous experience romantic poetry led her to expect, it had at least been exciting.
Then her fingers reached the hollow of her throat. The Archangel, an enormous sapphire given by a long-dead king to some long-dead Corse forebear and, since then, the sign and magical underpinning of her family’s power and position in Meviel, was gone.
Velliaune had begged to wear it the night before, noting how beautifully it would set off her gown, silver-blue silk chosen to complement her fair, blue-eyed beauty, the bodice cut low across the breast, tight-fitted from shoulder to hip, where the skirt blossomed in a froth of lace. Her mother had hung the jewel, set in a cunning filigree of gold, around Velliaune’s neck, and the girl had sworn upon her life to guard it as she would her virtue.
About which the less said, the better.
Velliaune sat up and plunged her hand frantically into her bodice, hoping the jewel had simply fallen into the gown. Finding nothing, she shed her clothing—dress, under-gown, stay-cover, petticoats one, two and three, stays, and chemise. When she stood naked in the ruins of her toilette, she had nothing to show for it but a love bite on one breast. Velliaune sank into the pile of fabric and despaired.
When she had cried her fill, she slept a little, having slept not at all the night before. When she woke, hope and commonsense reasserted themselves. Col would have found the stone amid the sheets. He would keep it for her; he might even now be wondering how he might discreetly return it to her. She had only to write him a note, and find someone to carry it to him and bring the jewel back. Someone who could be trusted, both to return the Archangel to her and to keep her parents uninformed as to Velliaune’s several lapses.
Velliaune rose up, fetched her dressing gown and writing desk, and wrote a note to an old schoolmate.
~o0o~
To say that Nyana me Barso was surprised to hear from Velliaune me Corse understated the matter. Since they had left school, Nyana’s path had so far strayed from that prescribed for young ladies that a continuing acquaintance between them would have been unlikely. Nyana’s parents had died under an overturned carriage; a cousin had inherited the entire estate and Nyana, a resourceful girl, took rooms in the Dedenor district and learned to fence. She had progressed so far as to become an assistant teacher at a fencing studio where fashionable gentlemen found it agreeable to be coached by a pretty girl. As her livelihood was known by her former schoolmates, it was not surprising that they did not recognize her when they passed in the street. On the whole, Nyana preferred it that way.
The note delivered to the studio was on heavy rose-scented paper.
Dearest friend:
I have a commission I can entrust only to you. Will you come to my house this afternoon? I shall be waiting; do not fail me!
Velliaune
Here’s melodrama. Nyana wiped her blades and sheathed them. Of course, she remembered Velliaune me Corse, the prettiest and most desirable girl of her year. They had never been friends, let alone dearest friends. Still, Nyana was intrigued by the suggestion of mystery and desperation: if Velliaune had thought to summon Nyana and call her friend, her need must be dire indeed.
Nyana arranged to take the afternoon off. Since she was attired in her work garb—leggings, blouse, and leathern tunic—she went home to make herself suitable for the drawing room of a wealthy schoolmate. Some time after the fourth chime, wearing a plain walking dress of green twill, she presented herself at the Corse house. She was shown directly upstairs, not to a parlor, but into Velliaune me Corse’s bedchamber.<
br />
Her schoolmate cast herself directly upon Nyana’s breast. “My dearest, dearest friend, thank you!”
Nyana breathed in the lavender scent of the other girl’s hair for a moment, then disentangled herself. “I was never your dearest friend before. What makes me your intimate now?”
Velliaune me Corse looked briefly disconcerted. Then, “You’re quite right. I did not value you at school as I ought to have done. I tell you, if you will help me now, you will be my dearest, dearest, dearest friend forever!”
Or for as long as you remember, Nyana thought. “What help could I give you?”
“First, you must promise me you will tell no one! I know that sounds like something from an opera, but if my parents learn—”
Nyana found mild satisfaction in her schoolmate’s anxiety, but thought it unfair to tease. “I’m unlike to meet your parents.”
Velliaune shook her head. “No one,” she repeated. “Not my parents, nor any of our friends from school—”
“I have no friends from school, Vellie. You’re the first I have spoken to since my parents’ funeral. But if it makes you feel better, I will vow silence.”
“Thank you.” There was no mistaking her relief, and as Velliaune began to explain her predicament, Nyana understood its reason.
“You wore that great vulgar sapphire to the opera and lost it?” Nyana reflected that the years since school had increased Velliaune’s beauty but done very little for her sense. Or her parents’, for that matter. What had they been thinking, to let Velliaune borrow the talisman of family power? “How do you expect I can help?”
Velliaune, who had stood throughout the embarrassing recital of her seduction and its result, dropped to her knees before Nyana. “I need someone to go to Col ha Vanderon and retrieve the Archangel from him.”
“He has it? And will give it to me?”
“Of course he will!” Velliaune looked shocked. “How could he not?”
“Is the sort of man who invites a young woman to a midnight supper and relieves her of her virtue likely to relinquish a famous jewel she dropped among the bedsheets?” Nyana’s tone was dry.
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