“But how many people know that? I didn’t.”
Margerit had the grace to feel abashed. “I never meant it to be a secret from you, but how does one begin that conversation? Sister Marzina knows because I was indiscreet once, and she’s convinced it makes an abomination of my gifts.”
“And yet that doesn’t seem to bother you.”
Margerit turned more sober. “It bothers me, but what’s to do? I wouldn’t choose a different life. But it’s true—my Uncle Fulpi finds me something of a disgrace to the family name and that’s why my cousins aren’t allowed to visit me, not even at my house in Chalanz.”
“And yet disgrace can be overlooked for a price,” Akezze said dryly.
“Does it bother you?” Margerit ventured, wondering if she’d get a truthful answer. Akezze couldn’t afford to have scruples about an employer’s morals.
But they had come to the livery stable and there was no chance for Akezze to give an answer to that.
The visit to Saint Orisul’s had broken the sense of holiday and on returning to the manor, Akezze asked, “Shall we begin your studies? There’s no point in waiting. The summer won’t last forever and we have a great deal to get through.”
“Where did you want to start?” Margerit asked. “You know I’m not very strong on the modern philosophers, but I’ve been told that Wolff and Mazzies would be useful for my work.”
“We begin at the beginning,” Akezze intoned. “Your knowledge is all bits and pieces. I can’t build without a sound foundation.”
“What? All the way back to Aristotle, then?” Margerit asked, half-joking, but not dismayed when Akezze nodded.
Those first few weeks flew by quickly, if tediously. There was some frustration at going through the baby steps again, but she was on sure ground. The classics had always been her favorites. The blithe confidence of the ancient authors that all the world could be distilled down into simple truths was restful if inadequate. When they moved on to the medieval commentaries, her flaws began to show. The tangled arguments of the Sophists had always seemed a pointless distraction. And as a guest at the university lectures she’d never had a chance to take part in the disputations that might pry sense from them.
“It’s not just an academic game,” insisted Akezze. “You’d be surprised how many mysteries rest on faulty propositions and mistaken definitions. It can be more important to know how to spot a flawed argument than to construct a sound one.”
And that was what made Akezze’s lectures more than dry exercises. They pulled out Bartolomeus’s Lives and Mysteries of the Saints and worked their way through the logical structure of some of the older ceremonies. When, after covering Descartes, they paused in the course of philosophers to take in the grammarians, even more began to fall into place.
She had always been able to see the wrongness of a mystery in the movements and appearance of the fluctus. And working backward from that she had developed an instinct for finding the flaws in the language and structure that generated it. But Akezze showed her how to predict weak points in the mysteries from the expositulum alone. For devotional mysteries it might not matter. Their essence was between the heart of the worshipper and the ears of God and the saints. No one was going to quibble that Aquinas had erred in composing the text of his gloriosa when it had stood unchanged for six hundred years. But in functional mysteries precision and meaning mattered greatly, whether they were the minor everyday ones, like a prayer to soothe the fever of a sick child, or civic rituals like the tutelas. And for the great mysteries like those she worked on for Annek, there the structure and language must be built as strongly as a bridge or tower, with no ill-fitting stones or crumbling mortar.
The summer days filled quickly. With Akezze’s guidance she spent more time over her books than if she’d stayed in Rotenek for the summer term. Barbara finished the survey of her lands and projects and now there was time to drive out, whether for purpose or pleasure. And the reading was augmented one afternoon when Barbara placed a beautiful inlaid box in her lap, saying, “I’ve finished them. I…I’m not sure what to think anymore. Read them.”
She left and Margerit opened the casket to riffle through the collection of paper it contained: the baron’s letters. She hung poised for long moments between curiosity and doubt, then took them up as water to a thirsty soul.
It was easy to see how Barbara had become lost in those missives for days at a time. Margerit set herself a rule to read them only in the morning hours when Barbara was out riding and before her lessons. The story unfolded like a romantic novel: that first formal invitation, hints of secret meetings and growing passion, brief notes slipped hand to hand during the closely scrutinized chaos of the season. There must have been an accomplice. A maid? Perhaps her own mother? No, Margerit recalled, her mother would have been back in Chalanz by then. Then came the crushing disappointment when the season came to a close and he was free to offer.
I spoke with your father last night at the club. It seems his ambitions climb higher than the chance to address his grandsons as “Mesner” and I am to be dismissed as a penniless fortune-hunter. I cannot find it in myself to fault his caution. This year I have set in train several ventures by which I hope to remedy that judgment. They will take some time to show promise. Will you stand faithful to me and have patience?
And she had, for quite some time. There was a series of brief encouraging notes, chronicling the rise of Marziel’s fortunes, his hopes, a reassurance that rumors of his return to religious studies were false, a note of triumph that the uncertainty in France that frightened others was an opportunity for those who were bold enough to seize it. Then a more worried tone: a whisper that Maistir Anzeld had spoken with this suitor or that, and one name appearing too often.
I saw you at the Saluns’ ball but you never found the chance to slip away. Would there be such hazard in dancing with me in everyone’s sight? I know you are as skilled as any woman at dissembling, for I watched you with Arpik and no one could have guessed from the brightness of your eyes that you didn’t mean to encourage him.
And then later: I must see you. Today, tomorrow. I must hear from your own lips that you have refused Arpik’s offer. All of society is abuzz with rumor. And in the next brief scrawl: What have they threatened that you could not refuse? You held true for so long. If there is no other way, my carriage stands waiting. We could go to Genoa; my business flourishes there. Can you find some way to escape from your father’s house when all are abed? I dare not try to meet you by day for you are always in an armin’s shadow.
Whatever plans he had urged had come to naught. The next sheet was not a letter but a black-edged card. The salutation no longer addressed Maisetra Anzeld. The date was more than a year later and leapt from the page. Seventeen hundred and ninety-two. The battle of Tarnzais, when the flower of Alpennia was lost against the armies of France. On Sunday, the 14th of October will be held a memorial mass for the soul of Mihail Lumbeirt. Written on the back in stiffly formal words: Count and Countess Turinz are invited to join us for a reception at Tiporsel House after the services. And it was signed Marziel Lumbeirt, Baron Saveze.
Had he sent it in friendship or bitterness? Had she received it with regret? She couldn’t have known that fate would have rewarded faithfulness so completely. What had driven her to accept the marriage? The baron had alluded to threats, but had she needed any greater threat than the passing years? She would have spent four years out in society by the time she capitulated. And had she attended the funeral and once more faced the man who had loved her so fiercely? Did she know already what a disaster her marriage would be?
One morning Barbara interrupted her in the midst of her reading, saying, “I thought we might drive up to Atefels today. Can you spare the time? I was sent the oddest message about a stranger roaming the hills and from the description I think it might be someone you know.”
“Who?” Margerit asked curiously.
But there was a twinkle in Barbara’s eye that said s
he meant to keep the surprise.
Atefels was the smallest of the five named villages in the lands of Saveze. It lay eastward along the road leading to the pass. There the valley widened enough for fields and gardens below the rocky hills that rose up behind them. The village thought of itself as the first line of defense against foreign invaders, though in truth the last foreign army it had seen was the French heading east after passing through all of Alpennia. But the residents took their duty seriously to cast a sharp eye on travelers coming down from the mountains, even as they lined their pockets with offers of food and clean beds to the weary.
They made quite a cavalcade pulling up to the inn with the light gig and Tavit for an outrider and Marken following behind. Margerit found herself smiling to watch both armins ever so diplomatically declining to leave their charge in another’s hands at the faintest whiff of risk. The innkeeper came out to greet them, unsurprised at the invasion.
“Welcome! Welcome, Mesnera! Come, sit! Will you have beer or wine?”
Margerit tamped back her curiosity. There’d be no skipping the formalities of hospitality to his baroness. So it was only after food and drink had been served and all the concerns of the village had been asked after that Barbara inquired, “So what are these stories that have been drifting down the valley? Who can tell me about them?”
“Ah, for that you’ve come to the right place,” the innkeeper said. “It was my own message that brought you. Some foreign woman wandering in the hills. Could barely understand one word in five but she seems to think she’s a friend of yours, Mesnera. When she asked where she was and we told her that she’d stumbled into the Barony of Saveze, she claimed that she’d met you in Rotenek.”
Margerit hid a smile behind her hand, now certain of who they were dealing with.
He continued, “In the morning she goes wandering up into the hills and comes back with a basket of rocks. Then she paints them. That is, she doesn’t paint on the rocks but she paints pictures of the rocks, if you see what I mean. They all get tipped out back of my garden after that. If today goes as usual, she should be back soon.”
They settled in to wait, enjoying a bottle of wine in the sunshine of the courtyard and watching the occasional traveling coach pass along the road. After an hour, a pair of dark specks making their way down the slope opposite resolved into a sturdy middle-aged woman in a dark walking dress followed by an older man hunched under the weight of a sack.
“Frances Collfield!” Margerit cried when she came close enough to hail. “I knew it must be you!”
The botanist stopped and blinked in surprise. “Whatever are you doing here?”
“That’s what I should be asking you,” Margerit countered. “I thought you’d gone back to England last fall after your lecture.”
“Oh, I did, I did,” Miss Collfield said, pulling her wits about her. “But now you see it’s summer and I’m back collecting again. There’s no time to lose, you know. I have to complete my survey of the Lecanorae this summer if I’m going to finish my manuscript in time. My brother’s started collecting subscriptions for the publication, so I can’t dillydally.”
“But why didn’t you tell us you were coming?” Barbara asked. “I could have made arrangements for you.”
“Well, I never quite meant to come here exactly. I started out in Geneva at the beginning of the summer and simply followed my nose and this is where it brought me. I confess I’m not exactly sure where I am. The innkeeper kept mentioning your name, but I didn’t realize…So this is your land? What a charming place.”
Margerit had to laugh. “But now you’re here.”
In the days that followed, Miss Collfield declined an invitation to enjoy more than the occasional dinner as she worked her way down the valley, but those evenings brought a liveliness to the quiet of summer. It’s like those long sessions in the library at Tiporsel, Margerit thought. Back when that was the only place Barbara and I could meet as equals. And now, one by one, more quick minds were being added to that charmed circle. The season in Rotenek was so bounded about by rules and rituals. There had to be some way to re-create this experience in large.
Akezze’s schedule had added two days a week when she went up to Saint Orisul’s to teach. And though Margerit would have driven her up in the gig or offered to have someone take her, Akezze preferred to walk, saying that there was no point in spending the summer in the country and then wasting the opportunity to savor it. But one day, more than a month after their arrival, she returned with a formally worded request from Sister Marzina that Maisetra Sovitre might lend her assistance with one of the pilgrim’s mysteries if it were convenient. And so, at the next trip back to Saint Orisul’s, they again left the carriage at the foot of the hill and Margerit climbed up alongside Akezze and presented herself at Sister Marzina’s office.
Marzina laid out the purpose of the ceremony in a few brief sentences. So we aren’t to discuss why I wasn’t sent for before, Margerit thought, looking over the rough outline of the proposed text. “The child they hope will be granted a miracle—how old is he?”
“Not quite seven, I think,” came the answer. “It’s been two years since the fever that took his hearing. They thought he might recover and then they tried what could be found closer to home. Likely it took most of the last year to save the expenses of the journey, so we’ll do our best for him in the name of Saint Orisul and Our Lady.”
The outline—for it could hardly be called an expositulum yet—followed the usual pattern: praise and invocation of the chosen saints, a formal statement of the petition and the desired cure, then a blank where the petition became more specific with praise and thanks to close. “You haven’t decided on the elaborations yet?”
Sister Marzina gestured to where a girl in a student’s uniform stood quietly waiting. “I was hoping to use Maisetra Perneld’s gifts there in some way. Valeir, make your curtsey to Princess Annek’s thaumaturgist.”
The girl stepped forward and bobbed a greeting. One of the secular students, by her dress, and old enough that she must be in her last year at school. Margerit had thought at first that she might be a novice in training to assist Marzina. “And what are your talents, Valeir?” she asked.
“I…” The girl glanced at Marzina. “I hear things. They say I hear angel voices.”
“Voices?” She’d never heard of an auditor whose perceptions came that specifically.
“It’s just an old country expression,” Marzina said sourly. “She means the usual humming and ringing, from what she’s described. But I thought that since our miracle involves sound, it could be useful to monitor the sonitus effects as well as your visions.”
“Yes,” Margerit agreed, returning to the outline and taking up a pen, with a brief glance for permission.
Whatever lay between her and Marzina, they’d fallen back into their old working partnership easily. “The miracle I asked when Iohennis Lutoz was struck dumb would be a useful starting point,” Margerit suggested. “I didn’t have time to plan that one, but here is the structure of the part that was answered.” She sketched out a few notes. “We can celebrate the basic ceremony and add changes based on what the fluctus tells us.” Akezze would scold me. But it’s easier to work by feel than to plan it entirely from the beginning. “Valeir, your task will be to stand in for the deaf boy. The more clearly you hear the fluctus, the more effective the mystery is likely to be.”
Working through the preparations took several days—several mornings, rather, for Margerit still kept afternoons for her own studies. The girl Valeir stood awkwardly by at first while they rehearsed and tuned the ceremony, answering only when questioned on what she heard. But when she gave up on words and hummed a sweet but tuneless phrase, Margerit exclaimed, “That’s perfect! Sing what you’re hearing while we work. Then I can match it more easily to my visions.” The key, Margerit thought, was first to open the boy’s ears to the divine music and then to allow it to flow through him, clearing away whatever blockage the fever h
ad left.
When all was prepared and they gathered in the chapel for the celebration, only minor details strayed from the path they had mapped. The boy was restless—fidgeting and hiding in his mother’s skirts—until Sister Marzina thought to add more movements to accompany the words he couldn’t hear. And then it was necessary for Valeir to sing with the fluctus again to guide the progress of the petition and response.
But at last a look of wonder grew in the boy’s face and he stilled, looking around first at the space over the altar where Margerit could see the wisps of color coalescing at the concrescatio, and then staring at Valeir as if she were indeed one of the angels in the stained glass windows, and at last at his mother as she cried his name over and over. The miracle was granted.
When they were back in Marzina’s office, making the final notes and comments on the expositulum, Margerit asked Valeir, “Will you be studying with Sister Marzina all summer?” Her mind darted ahead to the possibilities for training a true auditor.
“Only for another two weeks,” Valeir said. “I should have gone home already but Mama’s been busy with my sister’s confinement and didn’t want me underfoot. I start my dancing season in the fall and there’s so much to do.”
“Then perhaps after you return to Rotenek we could speak about further studies,” Margerit suggested. “It isn’t as easy to find the teaching you’ll need at the university as it would be here, but I can advise you.”
She looked doubtful. “I don’t think Papa…”
“Perneld, that was your family name, yes? I think I’ve met your mother a time or two. I could speak to her.”
But Marzina interrupted, “Valeir, return to the students’ hall. Your work is done here.” When the girl had left, she turned to Margerit angrily. “Is this how it starts? Is this the path to corruption?”
The Mystic Marriage Page 28
