Tess of the Road

by Rachel Hartman

  “Y-yes,” said Papa, flashing Tess a panicked glance. Tess, who was enjoying the spreading warmth under her ribs, fancied he couldn’t remember which wife had been a dragon.

  “So what was that like?” said the old duke, poking Papa’s stomach in galling and comradely fashion.

  “Seraphina was a challenging child, in some ways—” Papa began.

  “Not that,” cried the duke. “Your dragon wife. How were things with her? Is it true what they say, that the saar are slow to warm up, but once they get going they burn hot as the sun?”

  Papa looked like he wanted to sink through the floor. Tess would’ve happily dug him a hole, but she knew her duty. She’d have known it even drunk. She cried in a little-girly voice, “Oh, Papa, what is he implying? My innocent ears don’t comprehend his meaning!”

  Duke Lionel laughed. “Forgive me, maidy! I forgot there were those present whom the corruption of the flesh has not yet touched. I understand you have decided to remain pure and dedicate yourself to Heaven.”

  Tess widened her dewy eyes, the naivest naïf. “I have no greater ambition than to serve the Saints.”

  The duke nodded approvingly. “My youngest, Jacomo, is at seminary, studying for the priesthood. You’ll meet him at the wedding. He is a most pious young man, and I’m sure you’ll have a lot in common.”

  Tess felt her heart harden—she could have nothing in common with a devout student-priest—but she let her smile warm upon her face. The wine helped, oh so much. She could do everything required of her without rage or resentment; her feelings were as inconsequential as a fruit fly, drowning in the dregs of her glass.

  Duchess Elga returned, Lord Richard and Jeanne in tow.

  “Ah, sweet Jeanne!” cried Duke Lionel. “I was complimenting your father on your moral upbringing. It’s rare and refreshing to find a lady of your station with such a pristine reputation.”

  This was also code for virgin. Tess marveled at how many ways there were to say it, and how it was the greatest currency her sister possessed.

  It seemed almost a shame to get married and spend it.

  “We want to set the wedding date for the feast of St. Munn,” Richard was saying.

  “No, indeed, that’s less than four months away. Far too soon,” said his mother, her thin lips bending into a frown. “People will think you’re in a hurry.”

  The word hurry was pregnant with portent. It was astonishing how much meaning could be crammed into a single word. How did such words not crumble under their own weight? Tess swirled the last of her wine and wondered.

  “We are in a hurry,” said Richard, pushing his dark hair off his forehead. “First: I love this lady”—Jeanne blushed enchantingly—“and second, her brother Paul turns thirteen soon and hopes to get into St. Fingal’s Law College, I understand.” Richard nodded at Papa, who nodded back. Paul was to follow in Papa’s footsteps—avoiding, of course, the places where Papa had stumbled.

  The duchess took on a pinched expression. “We live in permissive times, Richard, and I suppose I cannot dissuade you. When I was a girl in Samsam, we took counsel from the priest for six months, made pilgrimage to St. Abaster’s, and submitted to the rite of Breidigswaching upon our wedding night.”

  “Mother,” Richard said warningly.

  “What in the world is Breidigswaching?” Tess asked, curious in spite of herself.

  “Don’t make her explain,” groaned Richard.

  “Don’t be a squeamish baby,” said the duchess, smacking him with the end of her long sleeve. “In Samsam, each family sends a representative to observe the consummation of the marriage, to ensure there is no falsification. You can’t imagine how many girls—already sullied—smuggle a little knife in their bodices, that they might stab themselves in the leg and bleed onto the sheets. Sometimes their new husbands even help them.” Here she glared at Lord Richard, who looked scandalized that any man worth his manliness would try such a thing.

  “But what about me?” Lord Heinrigh asked fretfully. He was shorter than Lord Richard and had been obscured behind him.

  “What about you? Volunteering to watch?” Lord Richard elbowed his brother in the ribs.

  “No! But Mother wants me to marry a Samsamese earlina,” Heinrigh said, pouting. “Are you telling me her family will send someone in to watch us…y’know…” He turned alarmingly pink.

  “Of course they will,” snapped the duchess. “Your father and I endured it. You will hold your head high and endure it.”

  “I nominate Jackie for our side,” said Lord Richard laughingly, since Jacomo the student-priest wasn’t there to defend himself. “He’ll be keen, especially if he joins a celibate order.”

  “Your brother can bear holy witness while praying for your immortal souls,” said Duchess Elga, her expression taking on the hardness of wood. This put an end to all ribald joking, to Tess’s immense relief. She’d have had to find a way to stop it otherwise. Jeanne had tears in her eyes; they were upsetting her.

  Only at the end of the evening, when the twins were walking through the dim palace corridors toward their suite, did Tess finally blurt out to Jeanne: “Your future mother-in-law makes Mama look positively sweet. And the duke! I guess if you have enough money and rank, you can say whatever the devil you want.”

  “Sisi,” said Jeanne quietly, “I’ve talked to Richard and he thinks this is a good idea. What would you say to coming to Castle Cragmarog with us?”

  “I’m not going to miss your wedding, silly,” said Tess, whose wits had been slowed by wine. “They can’t slap me into a convent that fast.”

  “I meant coming to live with us instead of joining a sisterhood,” said Jeanne. “You could keep me company, and when the children come, you could be their governess. I would treasure your companionship in…in that new house.”

  With Richard’s family, Tess completed the sentence in her head. Duke Lionel was pompous and offensive, Duchess Elga strict and bitter. Heinrigh seemed innocuous enough, if a little stupid, but this youngest brother, the seminarian, was surely an apple not fallen far from the tree. Tess chose a trait from each parent and settled upon pompous and bitter.

  If Jeanne had suggested this only a day before, Tess would have leaped at the chance on the principle that anything was better than a convent. Having met the people she would have to share a house with, however, she found herself surprisingly uncertain.

  Except no, here was Jeanne leaning heavily upon her arm and sighing, her fair, dear head drooping under the weight of her fears. How could Tess tell her no? What kind of barbaric heart could harden against Jeanne? She kissed the crown of her sister’s head and said, “Mama won’t like it, but of course I’ll come, dear heart. Wherever you are is my home, always. Us against the world.”

  Weeks passed. The twins turned seventeen upon the cold, dark feast of St. Willibald, halfway between the solstice and the equinox. They invited their family to the palace so that Lord Richard might attend the celebration without embarrassment. Seraphina came (bringing her weird, solemn dragon uncle, against everyone’s wishes) and then announced, in the most tone-deaf manner, that she was—surprise!—going to have a baby. Everyone, down to Seraphina herself, had assumed a half-dragon was like a mule, half this, half that, all infertile, but apparently not. They were all sworn to secrecy on the matter; Seraphina would be leaving for Ranleigh Cottage, one of the royal country estates, and staying there for the duration.

  This untimely pregnancy announcement made the torte go sour in Tess’s mouth. Jeanne noticed her expression and whispered in her ear, “She might have told us tomorrow, when it wasn’t our birthday.” Tess smiled weakly at this, though Jeanne had misdiagnosed the malady. Seraphina always stole their thunder; there was no point minding that. Tess didn’t even resent having to keep yet another secret for her.

  It was Papa’s undisguised pride that gutted Tess, and M
ama’s smile. The smile was entirely fake, but at least she was bothering to pretend.

  Later, alone in her closet, Tess polished off the plum brandy. She awoke with a terrible headache and a festering sullenness. Still, she hauled up her own smile, like a leaky bucket from the depths of a stagnant well, and dressed Jeanne with every ounce of cheer she could muster.

  * * *

  A week before the wedding, when the earliest cherry trees and nodding jonquils were just coming into bloom, Lord Richard drove Jeanne and Tess from Lavondaville to Cragmarog Castle, in Ducana province.

  Once it had been a castle in earnest, but like Castle Orison in Lavondaville, age and peace had transformed it into something more palatial than military. Only a semicircle remained of the battlements, which now enclosed formal gardens and fountains. The keep had relaxed into a great stone house with three wings, like a trident. Cupolas, corbie gables, and whimsical chimneys kept the roofline busy; rows of identical glazed windows reflected the sunset sky. The facade was of native Goreddi limestone, glowing warmly in the evening light, elaborated with strapwork and scrollwork around the great doors.

  It was all very newfangled and said quite clearly: Here dwelleth money. Jeanne looked overawed; Tess buttressed her across the cobblestone carriage drive and up the steps.

  “What a cozy home you shall make it,” Tess whispered in her sister’s ear, but Jeanne was too petrified even to smile.

  The twins lived there a week before the rest of their family arrived, getting lost in the big house, strolling arm in arm past crocuses and daffodils in the garden, sitting in the saffron-silk parlor with Duchess Elga every evening while she read aloud from St. Abaster. They studiously avoided the terrible trophy room, which belonged to Heinrigh and was decorated floor to ceiling with the spooked, hapless heads of deer, boar, aurochs, lynx, and wolf. An entire black bear stood on its hind legs in the corner, claws and fangs bared but glass eyes distinctly sad. Jeanne was a shuddering wreck after seeing it and swore never to return to that room again, even if she lived here a thousand years.

  Tess had gone back on her own, however, to confirm that she’d seen what she thought she’d seen: the head of a quigutl, openmouthed beside the hearth, used to hold the fireplace tongs. Tess hefted a poker, with half a mind to go find Heinrigh, then set it down in disgust. It would be no help to Jeanne if she killed Richard’s younger brother before the wedding even took place.

  She knelt and patted the creature’s spiny forehead. “I know how you feel,” she said.

  Cragmarog would be her home, too, if the duke and duchess felt she fit in. She was given a room far away from her sister’s, near the old nurseries. The young lordlings’ old toys—hobbyhorses and little siege engines and more dolls than she would have expected—were nearly as creepy as the trophy room in the moonlight.

  The hollow halls echoed melancholy, like her heart.

  The rest of Tess and Jeanne’s family, except Seraphina, arrived the day before the service. They would have been welcome sooner—indeed, the duke and duchess would scarcely have noticed four more people wandering lost in their house—but this way the Dombeghs were able to bring along the duke’s youngest son, Lord Jacomo, who had to finish the term at seminary and could return home no sooner.

  That was the official story, anyway. Unofficially, it was Lord Jacomo who brought the Dombeghs, because only Lord Jacomo had a coach sturdy enough to withstand the rutted country roads. If you dug deeper still, it became clear that only Lord Jacomo had his own coach, period.

  When the coach rolled up, the denizens of Cragmarog went out to greet the new arrivals, Tess trailing after her sister like a proper lady-in-waiting. She didn’t mind being last; she was going to have the best view of her mother and Duchess Elga, a meeting she’d been looking forward to with a certain sadistic glee. What would they make of each other? They were so alike, and so different, that it could go either way: they might be best friends or implacable enemies.

  Tess hoped for the latter, not because she harbored ill will toward her mother—or not only because of that—but because friends might see a common target in her and work together.

  The mothers approached each other cautiously, like two wolfhounds, the duchess fresh from the house and Anne-Marie dusty from the road (advantage: Elga). The duchess’s gown, a textured emerald-green velvet, shone resplendently in the morning sun—but wait! Wasn’t Anne-Marie’s mien movingly humble? Younger and blonder than the duchess (advantage: Anne-Marie), she kept her glory of hair under a wimple and her face bare of any cosmetic but piety.

  For what greater adornment need’st thou, woman, than the radiance of Heaven’s approbation? So saith St. Vitt, who surely should know.

  The initial superficial assessment round went to Anne-Marie, Tess decided. Duchess Elga narrowed her eyes cattily. Best friends they would not be.

  “So you’re the twin,” drawled a scornful voice. A young man, who could only have been Jacomo the seminarian, had sneaked up on Tess and stood at her elbow. He had the duchess’s piercing dark eyes and heavy scowling brows, and the same thick black hair as Richard (and Duke Lionel, presumably, before his mane went white). He was taller and fatter than his elder brothers; the seminary must employ excellent cooks.

  “You have the advantage of me,” said Tess archly, pretending not to know who he was. This was a subtle way of underscoring his rudeness; he ought to have led with his name.

  His mouth arced into the bitterest smile Tess had ever seen. “Yes,” he said. “I do have the advantage. Don’t forget that.”

  His long stride carried him past her into the house, and Tess stood wondering what he had meant, a pool of anxiety condensing in her belly.

  Dinner was the second proving ground for the dueling mothers-in-law. Duchess Elga sat at the head of the table, dominating the meal like a castle on a hill above a village. No, like a dragon perched on the ruin of the castle on a hill. She frequently turned her iron gaze toward Jeanne and Lord Richard. This was the first meal where she’d permitted the betrothed pair to sit beside each other, but there was to be no hand-holding or—Saints forfend!—kissing. The duchess didn’t realize Tess’s mama was of much the same mind about these things. Tess wouldn’t tell her. Making the two women get along was outside the scope of her responsibilities.

  Duchess Elga ostentatiously refused wine (causing Tess’s mother to pause mid-sip), and then Mama recited St. Abaster’s Triticum Benedictio over the rolls. Tess imagined them holding a devotional after dinner—secretly a competition, of course. St. Abaster’s champion versus St. Vitt’s. Who read with the most tear-filled, heartfelt piety? Who chose the most severe verses? They’d look devoutly toward Heaven and daggers toward each other.

  This was the first meal where wine had been served, a concession for Tess’s family. Tess was grateful; interfamilial tensions were more manageable with a little lubrication. By the end of her first cup, Duke Lionel’s bloviations seemed almost witty. Pumpkin-headed Lord Heinrigh was no longer a terminal bore, droning on about hunting, but a congenial bonhomme regaling them with tales of high adventure and dead animals. Lord Jacomo scowled, but the wine made this seem rather comical. Clearly, his face had frozen in that position when he was young. It would have been tragic if it hadn’t seemed so well deserved.

  He seemed to be scowling at her. That was absurd, of course. Lord Jacomo could have no reason for such instantaneous dislike, especially when Tess was such a charming specimen of impeccable respectability. She flared her nostrils and made a frog face back at him, and he looked away in apparent confusion.

  Pleased with any small victory, Tess traded her empty goblet for Neddie the Terrible’s full one. Neddie didn’t notice; he and the Abominable Paul were wholly occupied with kicking each other under the table.

  Mama noticed, however, and tried to send Tess a message across the table using only her eyeballs. This might have seemed like an obscure means
of communication, but Tess could read it perfectly well: Don’t you dare! Spoil things for your sister, and I shall never forgive you. All this could have been yours, but you threw your future away and broke my heart and—

  Tess quit reading; she knew how that epic ended. Mama assumed she was a liability, even after two years of concerted effort. The Saints might offer redemption for the fallen (even angry old Vitt, if you fulfilled his strict conditions), but there were no second chances with Mama, and no forgiveness. It didn’t really matter what Tess did.

  On that bitter note, Tess threw back her second glass of wine.

  * * *

  Tess retired early, pleading a headache, but in truth she could bear her mother’s glare no longer. No amount of wine could mitigate that. As she climbed the stairs toward her lonely wing of Cragmarog Castle, the strained voices faded like a weight falling from her shoulders.

  Tess crossed her dark bedroom and opened the curtains; she’d stowed a little green bottle upon the windowsill. She had discovered bottles squirreled away all over the house—brandy in a bookcase, sherry under the stairs. Tess had deduced that these belonged to Duchess Elga. Anyone who drank only water in public was the first suspect for enjoying a tipple in private.

  Tess had some sympathy for that; it was one of her hobbies, too. In her off moments, when Jeanne had not required her solicitous care, she’d sought out the duchess’s liqueur collection like a pig after truffles. Most bottles seemed to see regular use, so while she might sneak a sip here and there, she couldn’t abscond with a whole bottle. This green bottle, however, had been tucked beneath the fuzzy bottom of the black bear in Lord Heinrigh’s trophy room (FRITZ’S BEAR, the placard read, which Tess thought rather cute). It was caked in dust and had surely been forgotten. Tess had liberated it before her parents arrived, along with a crocus-shaped glass, but hadn’t had a chance to try the stuff yet.