by S G Dunster
When she described Guzal, Hele even went so far as to clap. “Are you bringing her?” She exclaimed. “A Tatar girl. I’ve heard of them, heard they’re lovely and such hardworking girls and . . . ” she paused, glancing sidelong at her sister, “know a great deal of how to please men.”
“Guzal is very pretty,” Rosalie put in impulsively. “She has gold hair past her hips and dragon’s eyes, and a smile like a princess. She works very hard. And she . . .” Rosalie paused, glancing at Thessaly, “she seems to please the crewmen well enough.”
Thessaly stifled a sigh, and something heavy settled in her stomach.
Now Jivette was fascinated. She leaned forward. “Do you think,” she murmured, “that she might give us an education on these matters?” Her eyes flicked to the door, as if worried Lady or Duke DuCarne might be listening. “It could be quite a handy skill, don’t you think?”
Hele tittered. Beatrice’s fine brows rose, and she rolled her eyes. “I’m certain it would be,” she said. Correctly interpreting Thessaly’s expression, she rose. “Come. Let me show you my rooms. They are the largest suite in the mansion.” Her smile turned sharp, half-directed at the Dudleys.
As the three of them left, shutting the door behind them, Beatrice’s smile turned genuine, and wicked. “Beg pardon,” she said to Thessaly. “I do enjoy getting them in a ruffle. It’s too easy, though. Like shooting ducks in a basket.”
Thessaly shook her head. “I can’t believe I have to spend hours each afternoon here.”
Beatrice shrugged. “It’s not so bad. Lady DuCarne is a gentle sort. She knows many unusual arts. I have learned a great deal, and I’d rather pass the war here.”
“War?” Thessaly asked.
Beatrice gave her a long look. “Your father’s ships will be out of European waters soon, I hope?”
Thessaly nodded, a worry, followed by a thrill of something sharper, passing through her.
“Please, let us see your rooms, Miss DeNought,” Rosalie begged, completely missing the tension and underlying message. “Our fathers will be looking for us soon.”
“Beatrice,” Miss DeNought replied. “I haven’t shown Jivette or Hele my rooms, so beware their jealousy.”
“Why haven’t you invited them?” Rosalie asked.
“Because they’re twats.”
Rosalie looked confused, but Thessaly choked back a laugh. She’d heard the word before, but she’d sailed on a spice-fleet. How had Beatrice learned such a word?
“No doubt they hope to find a jeweled Saracen sword hidden somewhere in a wardrobe,” Beatrice continued, “and my collection of jeweled turbans. They don’t know what to do with me. Highborn, and brown as a savage. I don’t plan to give them any satisfaction. They can wonder and make up stories in their heads. Heaven knows we need some entertainment around here.”
“You’re lovely,” Rosalie said impulsively.
“Thank you.” Beatrice’s smile softened, and she touched the top of Rosalie’s head.
“My grandfather’s nickname was Il Moro,” Thessaly said. “I’m a bit brown myself.” She put her arm up next to Beatrice’s and laughed. “Your color is much richer than mine, though.”
Beatrice slung her arms through theirs and led them along the balustrade.
Her door was the last one on that side, and her apartment was elegant, though there was not much show of trinkets or riches. Thessaly recognized the quality in the clothing lined up in the wardrobe, and the girl’s small store of jewelry was worthy of a Sforza’s ears and throat.
Beatrice had a few books, too. Thessaly leapt on them immediately. “I’ll trade books with you,” she said, thumbing through Utopia, a work by Sir Moore, the very one whose pamphlet Henri had used to prick her father. “I don’t read enough in English.”
“I have French and Latin also,” Beatrice said.
“Have you tried Greek?”
Beatrice laughed. “What would I need Greek for?”
Thessaly set the book down, regarding her seriously. She decided to trust her. “I’m truly not here for finer arts. I’m here to study,” she said. “Papa wants refinement for me, but I want mathematics. Philosophy. Rhetoric. And . . . ” she hesitated, saw Rosalie bite her lip, “I’m learning the magick arts.”
It was a wild, risky venture, admitting such. What did she have to lose, though? If she made an enemy of Beatrice, or frightened her, well, it would just add to the pile of those frightened. She did, however, need allies. Badly. And if they were to be close, it would soon be apparent to Beatrice that Thessaly was not ordinary.
Beatrice’s mouth fell open, then curved into a smile. “I’m quite interested in that,” she said. “I’ve known a few . . . ” she hesitated.
“Wytches,” Thessaly provided. “I suppose that is the proper term, though it carries a stigma.“
“Are you a seer?”
Thessaly shrugged. “I can.”
“Thessaly’s marvelous,” Rosalie said. “She reads the cards for me all the time.”
“The Tarot?” Beatrice’s eyes fired with interest.
“Trionfi,” Thessaly replied. “I’ve a lovely set, from the Sforza courts.”
“Tarot, Trionfi, it is the same,” Beatrice said. “If you could—“
A quiet knock, and a small woman with a pale scarf wrapped around her head leaned in.
Thessaly thought she might recognize her—the woman from the garden, and the scarf that had blinded her. It did not look so very bright right now.
Thessaly blinked, and squinted, wondering.
“Your fathers wait for you in the hall,” the woman said. Her eyes slid over Thessaly without much interest or attention.
“Ah,” Beatrice sighed. She stood and led Rosalie and Thessaly out onto the balcony. “I shall come to visit the two of you soon. I showed you my room; you must show me yours.” She met Thessaly’s eyes, a message in them.
Thessaly nodded, and allowed some of the tension in her middle to dissipate. Clearly, Beatrice did not mind what she was.
Did she really know, though, what it meant?
No. Nor did Thessaly. Not yet.
Thessaly didn’t mind reading. She was grateful, so grateful that her revelation had been met with openness and not the shock and primness she knew she’d receive talking to the other two girls.
She needed to confide in someone. Someone who could look around, could watch the people at the mansion. Because, Thessaly was sure there was oddness here. And Lady DuCarne was more than a gentlewoman, too.
The servant led them along to the broad landing where the flights of stairs met. “Here they be,” she called down to Ducarne, Waintree, and Antonio, who stood in the middle of the hall below.
“We look forward to seeing you tomorrow,” DuCarne said as Rosalie and Thessaly went out the door to the carriage.
“Certainly,” Thessaly replied smoothly, and Rosalie giggled. Antonio and Waintree settled themselves across from their daughters and began a conversation about trade routes and winds, not even bothering to ask what anyone thought of this arrangement that would be the next few years of Thessaly and Rosalie’s lives. Thessaly pushed aside her resentment and watched the grounds and woods pass.
A break of silver floes as they passed through the circlet of trees, and Thessaly reached out for it, tasting the crackle of magicks.
It did not feel old to her. How would she know, though?
There is something afoot, she thought as they passed onto the road, and wended their way back toward the village in the distance. From up on the hill, Thessaly could see the abbey’s pale walls towering over the town’s small buildings. Like a hen and chicks, Thessaly thought. The glittering green of the river cut through it all like a wound.
Why would that be the image that came to mind?
Thessaly blew out her breath, checked her fetters, saw that they were in place, and let her mind relax. Or rather, tried to force it to, but it kept wandering to forests and trees and cold snaps and painful aches. Odd things in
the forest.
Odd things.
And Henri’s remark. Where was Henri, she suddenly wondered? Had he ventured back to the village on his own?
“Where’s Henri?” Thessaly asked her father.
“He stayed back to discuss tenancies with DuCarne,” Antonio replied. “He will join us again at the abbey for supper.”
“He was not with you when we left,” Rosalie said.
“No. He had some accountings to make on the Dunne’s Tor holdings. He is steward over this entire area.”
Thessaly nodded, feeling a little unsettled, but unsure why. New places, she told herself. Relax. Let things settle.
Loredan waited for them in the refectory. Thessaly was entirely glad to see him. She would, she realized suddenly, miss him when he left.
How many years was she to stay in this place? She would be of age in four years. When would her father deem her fit enough to marry? A flame of frustration leapt in her.
“I’ve saved all of you the best places at the table,” Loredan said, smiling at Thessaly.
She sat down next to him, managing to return the smile. The room filled up with black robes, and once again, the young men collected around a table opposite the one where Thessaly and her party sat. Rosalie gazed at them longingly. Thessaly was tempted to knee her under the table.
They ate fish porridge, frumentary, and a light sweet of cream and raisins. It wasn’t as refined and complex as the fig cream she’d had in Milan, but it was fresh and wholesome.
After supper they went to mass. Antonio insisted. “Here, you shall have to attend mass both morning and evening,” he told her.
Thessaly nodded. The price for learning. It was not a bad one, she thought. Even if it meant a flash of pain every time she exited and entered the chapel.
Perhaps, though, there was an answer there. Why did she burn, touching the waters at the door? Was it the fetters, or the magicks?
Thessaly tried it as she entered this time—breaking open the fetters on her floes just as she entered the small chapel with its glowing altar full of candles. The silver-haired priest stood behind it intoning the mass. Thessaly touched the holy water. As she’d hoped, it did not burn her this time.
Instead, it flared through her, firing gold, silver, icy, and hot, lighting the swelling run of the floes as they uncurled through her body, glory of blazing light.
Thessaly gasped with surprise, stopping short just beyond the basin, and her father’s hand clamped down hard on her shoulder. “Contain yourself,” he muttered.
“It wasn’t that,” Thessaly muttered back. Antonio gave her a questioning look, but the room was utterly quiet; she couldn’t explain.
She knelt with the others, and her loose floes continued to hum, sometimes growing startlingly bright again. Thessaly realized it happened with certain words. Dominae. Kyrie Eleisu.
What is this, she thought, her mind a whirl as they collected themselves back into the two carriages and rode for the docks. What is this? All of this, it’s too much at once. What are these strange magicks?
She wished one of her aunts were there to tell her.
Henri joined them halfway through the prayers. People looked up, but there was no censure on any faces at his tardiness.
He owns this place, Thessaly thought idly, then corrected herself. Sponsors this place.
She wished her godfather had answers. Perhaps they were in the books he’d given her.
She would definitely be reading late into the night for a long while. She was tired of confusion and questions. She needed answers now.
Chapter 11
T
here was a last once-over of the Espada and Thessaly’s rooms there, with Guzal cleaning all to shining and making sure nothing was forgotten. Thessaly made the round of all three ships with Rosalie, saying goodbye to the various crews.
Thessaly stood for a long time in the crow’s nest of the Espada, watching Nur fly, and finally, having the bird settle to her shoulder back on deck.
Thessaly felt a hardness in her breast as she saw Cerdic, smiling and leaning against the rail, waiting for her to come to him.
“Here,” he said, taking the three-quarters bow and two freshly-thatched quivers of arrows from where they leaned against the rail beside him.
Thessaly shoved the gifts aside and wrapped her arms around him, held him tight, breathed in his dry-grass-and-fish-and-sweat smell. The hardness behind her eyes dissolved into hot liquid, running down her face.
“You’re not a one to cry,” Cerdic said gruffly, putting her away from him. “Don’t start now or it’ll never stop flowing. Believe me.” He brushed the wells of moisture from under his own eyes. “Put a note for me, here and there, in the letters you write your father.”
Thessaly nodded, rubbing vigorously at her face.
“And,” he said, giving her a raised, bristly brow, “I’ll be keeping a close watch on your Loredan. Don’t you worry. No secret fishing trips for him.”
“Will that eye be sighted down the length of a well-thatched shaft?” Thessaly asked.
“As always.” Cerdic smiled.
It was the worst of the goodbyes. The crew wept aplenty—enough for both Thessaly and Rosalie, though Rosalie cried plenty herself, even though she’d only known them a bare month.
Waintree embraced his daughter over and over. “I could only let you go knowing it were to a place as well-kept and kind and safe as this. And knowing it’ll bring you a fine worthy I can’t throw you in the path of myself,” he sniffed, wiped his nose with a silk kerchief. He looked at Thessaly.
“She shall be safe and well,” Thessaly said, feeling he needed to hear the words, and knowing her own Father wouldn’t provide them.
“Aye,” he said nodding at her, turning away. “Aye.”
“I shall watch over her too, Waintree,” Holystoan said. He nodded to underline his intent, the great diamond in his ear winking in the lamplight.
“And that sets me free of most care,” Waintree said. “But I shall miss you dearly, plum of my heart.” He turned again and squeezed Rosalie impulsively, then swatted her rump. “Now get going. I cannot bear this.”
“Oh dear,” Rosalie sighed as they rode back toward the abbey with only Guzal now, sitting across from them.
Thessaly tried to read Guzal’s expression. Was she worried? What did she think of this place? The girl’s face was a complete blank.
Thessaly was tempted, for a moment, to unbind her silver floes and touch on Guzal, then dismissed the notion violently. Guzal was her friend, worthy of respect, and would speak when she wanted to, and keep her counsel when she wanted to. Margarida’s advice was right in this instance—one did not force oneself into another.
And one tried, hard, to keep oneself from erupting in fire at every emotional moment. Thessaly brought a fingertip up to her mouth. Guzal instantly reached across and batted it aside. “No more chewing of nails,” she said. “You’re becoming a lady now.”
“Aye,” Thessaly said.
Rosalie giggled—a nervous eruption more than mirth. They came to the abbey’s entrance, and as the hooves slowed, then stopped, Thessaly closed her eyes and breathed deep. She looked out at the ships, floating far off in the channel now, unanchored.
It was done. She was grounded. Stuck. Planted. Here, for the foreseeable future.
It was dark and quiet inside. The Abbess let them in, pressing a finger to her lips, and led them up the narrow stairway to their rooms. Guzal went to hers, shutting the door behind her in a way that made Thessaly wonder, again, how she felt about being here.
Thessaly and Rosalie climbed into bed together. The fireplace was cold and unlit, so they pressed close together and piled the blankets high, tucking them tight.
“I’m excited, Thessaly,” Rosalie whispered, yawning as she spoke.
“Aye,” Thessaly simply replied. She was not excited. She was wary. Worried. For herself, and for those around her. She forced thoughts from her mind and allowed a trickle o
f warm silver floes to escape. The fetter came unbound as she fell asleep, though she did not realize it even as the magicks filled her, stirred inside her, calmed her stirring breath and blood with the warmth and heaviness of what she actually felt, which was exhaustion.
She was asleep before Rosalie, and Rosalie cuddled up even closer to Thessaly, enjoying the radiating warmth that Thessaly was unaware she gave off.
The abbey bells rang to wake them at the most unholy hour of four-before-dawn. Thessaly laid abed as Guzal began tugging at the sheets. Guzal, already fully dressed, had a hearth crackling with warmth.
Thessaly woke with a start, and said a rather uncouth word as she felt, and then saw, as she looked inside, the hot silver flowing freely through her. “Vinculum,” she said through her teeth, and pulled the pillow over her head, continuing to furiously curse herself.
She could have burned down the whole abbey. She would have to make certain. Bind herself more tightly. And let not even a stray floe loose unless she planned to bind herself up tightly again. What had possessed her last night?
A need for sleep, she thought dully. A clumsy selfishness.
“You must rise if you’re to curry favor with the Abbess,” Guzal hissed at her, laying a flat, cool hand on the back of her neck. As Thessaly reluctantly pulled away the pillow, Guzal patted Rosalie’s cheek. “Up with you too, girl.”
Thessaly’s conscience seared her more deeply with each breath she took. The two girls put on gowns of dark velvet and long, dark veils. Thessaly splashed cool water on her face and gazed at it in the small hand-mirror she’d brought over from the ship. Her eyes, the liquid gold color of ale, reminded her painfully of Loredan’s. She blew out her breath and closed them for a moment.
What’s done is done. Just do better next time, she told herself.
Though she had gained some weight this last month, her face in the mirror still looked starved; all hollows and shadows. Her hair was a proper mess, rioting all around her face and down her shoulders in matted mane. It was lucky she had a veil to hide it. Guzal dressed in a simple dark dress of linen and wound a length of white cotton around her own untidy night-hair. She held the lantern as the three of them descended the stairs.
