The Mystic Marriage

by Jones, Heather Rose

  “Will you be seeing her this evening?” Margerit asked.

  Antuniet’s answer was prefaced by the briefest of glances to where the new guard stood idly by the door. “No, she’s dining with the Estapezes. But we have that working tomorrow—”

  “And it will be daylight,” Barbara interjected. “And she won’t be alone. Kreiser may be ruthless but he isn’t a fool. He attacked you once because he thought you were nobody. The Vicomtesse de Cherdillac isn’t a nobody. I agree, it’s the work that needs protection.”

  It had been that last mention of Kreiser that reminded Margerit of the other thing he had said and she repeated it to Barbara as their carriage crossed the Pont Ruip.

  “Both messages,” Barbara repeated. “Oh, Margerit, I’ve been played like a puppet. He never thought I was in Elisebet’s circle. The message was always for Annek: that he would find other ears to listen if she wouldn’t.” She pounded a fist against the cushions in frustration. “And I did his will as surely as if I’d been on his payroll.”

  Margerit thought it best not to point out that it hardly mattered. That Kreiser no doubt had other cards in hand if she’d refused his errand. What galled Barbara was how she’d been tricked—she who prided herself on knowing every game being played in Rotenek and all the players in each. But this was a larger board with empires in the balance.

  * * *

  The long gallery that served as an antechamber for the palace offices was only sparsely populated at the hour they arrived, and the morning’s chill had not yet been driven out by the bustle of the day’s business. As Jeanne fussed over the last details of Antuniet’s appearance, Margerit though she was more nervous than all of them together.

  “You shouldn’t have worn the brown. It’s the same dress you wore the last time you were here.”

  Antuniet submitted to the adjustments and smoothing touches with what Margerit could see was discomfort and finally grasped Jeanne’s hands between her own, saying, “Let it be. If she remembers the dress then she’ll know that I haven’t wasted Margerit’s investment on vanity.” She continued her grasp long past any need. “It means so much that you could come with me. Both of you.”

  That, more than anything, told Margerit how much had changed over the summer. This was a new Antuniet who no longer struggled to hold herself apart and aloof from the world. Margerit held out the wooden case containing the careful selection of gems to be presented and Antuniet finally untangled her hands to receive it. Only a few had been set in rings in the short time available. The rest were nestled in folds of white velvet to show their color to advantage, though color was the least of their properties.

  Margerit had hoped to accompany Antuniet into Annek’s private office, to lend her own voice to the petition. But when the summons came, it was for Maisetra Chazillen alone. It was more cheering that the summons came in the form of Efriturik, playing the part of palace page to escort her within. Well, perhaps that would be better. He might not have the deep knowledge behind the work, but it was easy to guess that Annek had encouraged his participation to have an inside view.

  She slipped a hand into the crook of Jeanne’s elbow, saying, “They could be hours if Antuniet feels expansive and Her Grace has the patience for it. We’ll keep warmer if we walk.”

  She had never found her way past being shy in Jeanne’s presence. She wished that Jeanne would open the conversation about Antuniet. She would have begun with a risqué joke. The vicomtesse had a biting wit that often put her to the blush. Finally Margerit ventured, “I was worried when you didn’t join us for the summer as you’d planned.”

  “Ah, yes. I should have apologized for that long ago,” Jeanne replied with a distracted air.

  “You had other things on your mind.”

  Jeanne paused in their aimless promenade and turned to her with a carelessly lopsided smile. “I was madly and desperately in love and hadn’t a thought to spare for anyone else.”

  “I’m glad,” Margerit said quietly as they returned to walking.

  “Are you? I’m not sure that Barbara approves, but she always takes delight in ordering other people’s lives. How do you stand it?”

  Margerit tilted her head to consider the idea. She hadn’t realized she wasn’t the only one to fall under Barbara’s overcautious impulses. “I’ve never been sorry to follow her advice. And I’ve usually regretted it when I didn’t. Why doesn’t she approve?”

  Jeanne leaned closely, as if divulging particularly spicy gossip. “She thinks I have designs on Toneke’s virtue.”

  Margerit burst out laughing, then covered her mouth hastily as a crowd of women at the end of the gallery turned to stare. But whatever new confidences might have been shaken loose were muffled as one of the women broke away to join them.

  “Jeanne, have you heard? Tionez Perzin has presented her husband with a son. That is, she’s been delivered of a son and will present the child to him once he returns from Paris. What a time to be away!”

  “A son! She must be pleased about that.” Jeanne’s mood had shifted instantly to the smooth insincerity of the parlor and ballroom. “But Charluz, is she here in town? I thought she planned her lying-in for Iohen’s place in the country.”

  “She did.” Another of the women had joined them. Margerit recognized her from some of Jeanne’s parties, but she fell more in Elisebet’s circles and their paths hadn’t crossed beyond that. “But the moment she was allowed to travel she packed up the babe and his nurse and came to town. If Iohen’s parents hoped that motherhood would steady her, they’ve learned differently. She arrived just yesterday, I think.”

  Margerit barely listened to the flow of news and gossip: who had yet to return, what matches had been made over the summer, who had joined or left Princess Annek’s service. It seemed the honor of waiting on her was a mixed blessing and most were glad that protocol gave some respite after a few years.

  “And they say Elisebet has dismissed half her waiting women,” came a whisper, more quietly than other news. “Who knows what it is this time. That’s why Elin is here,” the whisperer continued, with a nod to one of the younger women in the circle. “She’s to be interviewed for a position and we’re all here to congratulate her.”

  “If she’s chosen or if she’s dismissed?” Jeanne asked with mock naiveté. The others joined hesitantly in the mirth.

  An hour passed. The prospective attendant was summoned and led off down a corridor toward Princess Elisebet’s apartments. Another hour, filled by another stroll from one end of the gallery to the other, nodding at the other loiterers. And then the door they never stopped watching opened at last and Antuniet emerged. Efriturik bowed to her with a few words they couldn’t hear then left her standing and looking around as they hurried over.

  The case of gems was gone. Annek accepted the gift, Margerit thought, though nothing of the details could be read in Antuniet’s face.

  “Yes?” Jeanne asked eagerly, grasping Antuniet’s hands and holding them to her heart.

  “It seems I have a commission,” Antuniet said in a dazed voice, as if the import had only now touched her. “Twelve gifts. To be completed for the New Year’s court. With specific effects designed for the recipients.” She blinked and seemed to come to herself. “I hardly know where to begin. She wants…well, I need to design them carefully. There are only so many stones one ring can hold. I may need to rethink the settings. And—”

  “A commission?” Margerit repeated. “Does that mean an appointment or only the one project?” She didn’t dare to ask the deeper question: what this would mean for her quest to redeem the Chazillen name. Annek was more cautious than to give that away at the start.

  “For now, I think, the one—to let me prove myself. But it means official recognition.” And as an afterthought, Antuniet added, “She wants me to move the work here to the palace grounds. Jeanne, I know I promised I’d make time to go with you to Maisetra Chaluk’s tomorrow, but I have an appointment with Annek’s salle-chamberlain and wit
h an architect to see if there’s a suitable space for what needs to be done. I don’t know where to begin. Should I start the work at Trez Cherfis? I don’t know how long it will take to arrange the new facilities.”

  Antuniet was still babbling distractedly when they came out into the Plaiz and the carriage was brought around. Jeanne took advantage of the privacy of the interior to stop the flow of words with a kiss. Margerit looked away in embarrassment as Jeanne whispered, “Never mind about tomorrow. We’ll have plenty of time.”

  “A commission,” Antuniet repeated in wonder. And then, more surely, “A commission. It’s only a step, but a long one. I need to know more about the intended recipients: their strengths and weaknesses. How best to enhance the effects Annek desires. I think—” She seemed to make a decision. “I think it would be best to ask Barbara for help.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Jeanne

  “Toneke, you haven’t answered my question.” It was understandable, Jeanne thought, but she was attending to the conversation even less than she was attending to dinner. “Will you be moving your lodgings to the palace as well?”

  “What? Oh, no, I wasn’t granted that mark of favor. And it may be a month before the new workshop at the palace is ready. I can’t wait that long to begin trial pieces for the commission. Most of the work will still be down on Trez Cherfis for now.” She toyed once more with the trout à la genoise, then let Tomric remove it with roasted lamb. The elaborate dinner had been meant to be a victory celebration. “Jeanne, would you mind if I went home tonight?”

  Jeanne’s heart fell, but she reached out to cover Antuniet’s hand with her own. “Of course not, dearest. But—”

  “I have that appointment with Maistir Marzik tomorrow about what space and facilities I’ll need for the new workshop. I need to have lists and sketches ready.”

  It was so very much like the Antuniet she had fallen in love with. Jeanne lifted the hand to her lips and kissed it, first on the knuckles and then on the palm. She felt Antuniet shiver in delight and added another kiss, more slowly. “As much as I will miss your body lying beside mine tonight, your mind is already far away and better you should keep the two together. But do finish dinner first,” she chided. “Or my cook will be in despair.”

  On the morrow, the news regarding Tionez provided distraction. Jeanne found her at home, as expected. Iaklin Silpirt was there before her, holding out a small squirming spaniel and exclaiming, “See what Tio gave me! She says it’s to keep me company now that she’ll be so busy.”

  Tionez rose, saying, “Jeanne! I’ve been hoping you would call! I have such news.”

  “So I understand,” Jeanne said, and kissed her briskly on the cheek. “A son, I hear. And I’m delighted you recovered so quickly. I know you feared to be languishing in the country for half the season.”

  “Oh, that, yes. My mama-in-law thinks it’s almost indecent that I found the birth so easy when I have so little interest in the result.”

  “But that’s not true!” Iaklin protested, struggling to hold the dog quiet as it squirmed on her lap. “I’m sure you love the child dearly.”

  “Oh, I’m delighted to have given Iohen a son, but he’s such an ugly, mewling, puking little thing. The baby, I mean,” she added with a merry laugh. “Mama-in-law found me a wet-nurse: a country girl who dotes on him entirely. She keeps him quiet and content upstairs, and maybe in five or six years I’ll see the boy again when he can bow prettily and say ‘How d’you do, Mama.’”

  Half of that was only to tease the disconcerted Iaklin. Jeanne perched on the settee next to her and resignedly accepted the offer to admire the spaniel more closely. It sat shivering in her lap and she absently fondled it in the soft spot behind the ears. Why was it that nervous women like Iaklin always ended up with nervous dogs?

  “But you haven’t heard my news!” Tio broke in. “I’ve been invited to attend on the princess.”

  Jeanne was startled, until she recalled the conversation in the gallery the day before. “Elisebet? Yes, I’d heard she suddenly had a large number of open positions. Whatever started it all?”

  Tio shrugged. “Some to-do with poor Chustin on the road back to town. The next thing anyone knew, Mesnera Sain-Mazzi was giving notice to half the servants and dismissing six of Elisebet’s waiting women.”

  “It’s a great honor,” Iaklin suggested. Jeanne could see something close to hero worship in the way she gazed at Tio. Pray God she was never too badly let down.

  “More a badge of my dreary new respectability,” Tio said with mock despair. “That’s what motherhood brings me. At least she didn’t ask us all to move into palace apartments; I can’t imagine keeping a child in close quarters like that. I’ll mostly be there half-days unless it’s a special occasion, so I’ll have time to keep up all my visiting.”

  “Perhaps the appointment is a compliment to your husband’s work,” Jeanne suggested. “Do you know what it was that happened on the road? I heard something about a horse—” She stopped herself, trying to remember which parts of Barbara’s story she was supposed to have known.

  “It was when they stopped at Iser—you know the place, barely half a day’s travel left to go? Well, they were just leaving when Chustin became sick as a dog. They had to spend the night and didn’t that cause a fuss! Elisebet went wild, saying that he’d been poisoned. I doubt it was more than a bellyache—and who wouldn’t get them with her for a mother? He’s so wrapped in apron strings he can scarcely move.”

  “And she gave her entire household notice over that?” Jeanne asked in wonder.

  “It wasn’t the whole household,” Tio said with a dismissive wave. “Only some of those who were traveling with them: a few footmen and maids and a groom or two. And her waiting women, of course. That was the scandal.”

  Iaklin gave a shudder. “To think that someone so close to you might—”

  “Don’t be a ninny,” Tio said scornfully. “Even Elisebet didn’t accuse them of poisoning the boy. She was only angry that they hadn’t kept closer watch over him. As if a boy of fifteen would need or want such a flock of hens around him. When my brother was that age he was forever getting into scrapes and it did him nothing but good. It isn’t natural for a boy to be that much under his mother’s thumb. If she wants something to fuss over, she should get a dog.” She snapped her fingers and Iaklin’s spaniel leapt down to obey the summons. One more habit she shared with her mistress, evidently.

  The next day Antuniet was once again tied up in planning with the salle-chamberlain but this time Jeanne wouldn’t be put off. “It’s such an enormous space!” she marveled as they were led inside. The master of facilities had chosen part of the old summer kitchens as the most appropriate location. They’d stood empty since the building of the new kitchens five years back and the old bakehouse had now been earmarked for Antuniet’s use, being already fitted to handle fire. Little had been done yet except the beginnings of clearing out the dirt and drifted leaves, but there were fresh chalk marks on the floor sketching out where the equipment would stand and where to build the new movable furnace with its clockwork bellows and the automated fuel feed that had Antuniet as giddy as a debutante with a new gown.

  “It will mean less work in tending,” she explained, gesturing in midair to where the equipment would go. “A bin with the coal there—” she indicated an upper corner of the room next to the great chalked circle “—and a screw to deliver it evenly to the fire. That will save Anna the tedium of tending to it, and with more time for preparations we may be able to do a firing every second day.” She had passed over the question of where her other participants would find time in their schedules to spend one morning out of every two doing her bidding.

  “And we’ll need the room for the twinned cibation,” Antuniet continued. “You’ll see on Tuesday. Even with only three primary roles, once we have six people in the old workshop we’ll scarcely have room to turn around.”

  While Antuniet reviewed the plans and dr
awings with Marzik, Jeanne wandered around poking at this and that and trying to envision the bustling crush Antuniet had described. The cozy solitude of the summer was gone entirely. Not that the alchemy itself wasn’t fascinating, but…

  “I think we’re done for now,” Antuniet said, touching her on the shoulder. “I don’t have anything else planned before dinner.”

  There was a warmth in Antuniet’s words that stirred an echoing heat within her. Jeanne covered Antuniet’s fingers with her own and pressed them closely. “Alas, I do have something planned for us. We have an appointment with Mefro Dominique. You simply can’t go around in the same old thing now that you’re Annek’s alchemist.”

  “Shh, don’t say that! It isn’t true; it’s only the one commission so far.”

  Jeanne shrugged. “Now that you have hopes of becoming her appointed alchemist. It comes to the same thing. You need new clothes.”

  “I’ve been saving up to have something made. There’s a dressmaker Anna knows who’s very reasonable. I won’t have time to do much tutoring now and I can’t sell any more of the lesser stones; that would get me in trouble. I can’t afford Dominique.”

  “You won’t be paying for it, so don’t give it a second thought.”

  “Jeanne, I don’t want…” The discomfort was plain in Antuniet’s voice.

  “I know,” Jeanne said reassuringly. She didn’t want to have that argument all over again, however silly Toneke was being about it. “That’s why the bill will be sent to your cousin.”

  “To Barbara?” Antuniet asked.

  “Unless you have another cousin lurking somewhere. And before you ask, yes, I suggested it to her. But you have to grant that she has an interest in seeing you look presentable. The honor of Saveze and all that.”