Tess of the Road

by Rachel Hartman

  She poured a dram while the moon rose over the manicured gardens outside her window. A cloying scent tickled her nostrils. Tess frowned and sniffed at the glass to be sure.

  Feh. Crème de menthe. No wonder the bottle had been abandoned. Beggars, alas, could not be choosers. That could have been her life’s motto right there.

  She toasted the moon and downed her whole glass in a gulp. The liqueur was, as anticipated, nasty, but she had one more, enough to soften the brittle edges inside her and put all feeling to sleep. She tucked bottle and glass behind the curtain and flopped back onto the bed.

  This was Tess’s favorite way to fall asleep, her head heavy and her limbs weightless, her bitterness sweetened, her regrets wrapped in muzzy wool until they were no longer recognizable even to her. The goose-down mattress was exactly like her mind, all…fluff…

  The sound of her door closing startled Tess awake. “Why?” she cried in alarm, as if the reason for this invasion bothered her more than the identity of the trespasser.

  “It’s me,” said Jeanne, lingering by the door. “Can I…that is, I hoped—”

  “Yes, come in, I wasn’t asleep!” cried Tess, who had been so soundly asleep that she couldn’t figure out how to sit up. She found herself in a wrestling match with the sheets. The sheets won. She settled for patting the bed beside her. “One last midnight conference before you’re married, eh? Just like old times.”

  Old times, Tess realized, had been but four years ago, and it had been Tess herself who’d put a halt to the practice of creeping into each other’s beds. It would have been impossible to sneak out of the house otherwise. Still—it felt like a lifetime since then.

  Jeanne timidly crossed the room, her linen chemise catching the moonlight like a ghost, and crawled into bed beside her sister. The sheets picked no quarrel with her. Tess offered her half the pillow, and they lay with their heads together in the near darkness, Tess’s dark plait beside Jeanne’s honey-colored one.

  Jeanne’s hand, when it reached for Tess’s, was as cold as ice.

  “I wanted to talk to you, Sisi,” she said. Over seventeen years, they’d accumulated dozens of silly names for each other, but Sisi meant Jeanne was serious.

  “What is it, Nee?” They’d be using their private twin language next. Tess wasn’t sure she remembered how to speak it.

  Jeanne sighed like a butterfly might have. “I need to know that you’re all right.”

  Tess was so astonished by this line of inquiry that for a moment she couldn’t speak. What had she expected? An admonishment to behave herself tomorrow, maybe. “D-do you mean all right, right now,” she asked, feeling foolish, “or in some kind of cosmic sense?”

  Jeanne said, “You had a headache after dinner.”

  “I didn’t really,” said Tess. “I was tired of Duke Lionel droning on, is all.”

  Jeanne didn’t laugh. Maybe she was smiling; it was too dark to tell. “I feared you were upset,” she said after a pause. “You’ve been so solid this week, and I appreciate how hard you’ve worked. Richard’s family likes you. I feel certain they’ll be happy to let you stay. The wedding is going to be difficult, though—on everyone, but especially you—and I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  Tess’s mind had snagged on the idea that Jeanne’s in-laws-to-be liked her. She was growing increasingly sure that she didn’t like them. She’d borne the rules and formality at court for two years, but there had been a goal: to keep Jeanne looking pretty and persuade someone rich to marry her. Tess could tolerate anything if the end was in sight.

  Living here among these sourpusses was the end. She’d have to be on her best behavior for the rest of her life. Whether she wanted to wasn’t the issue; she wasn’t sure she could.

  “Sisi,” said Jeanne, and Tess startled as if she had fallen back asleep.

  Impossible. She knew exactly what she’d been thinking. “I wasn’t asleep,” said Tess.

  Jeanne inhaled slowly through her nose, and Tess realized that her sister was sniffing her minty breath. And judging it, there could be no doubt.

  “My sweet, I need to hear that you’re all right,” said Jeanne.

  That wording rankled. Jeanne needed to hear the magic words to assuage her conscience, did she? Oh yes, dear sister, go right ahead and get married. I’d love to be your children’s governess. I never wanted anything for myself, truly.

  Bitter and ungrateful. Tess knew she didn’t deserve all the help she got.

  “I don’t envy you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” said Tess, not lying exactly. It wasn’t envy so much as self-pity. Did that make her “all right” or not?

  Jeanne exhaled. “I wouldn’t envy me, either. Have you met my mother-in-law?”

  Tess couldn’t help smiling at this. “I’ll be here to shield you,” she said, squeezing her sister’s hand. “And once you start popping out the heirs, she’ll have nothing to criticize.”

  Jeanne tensed. “Sisi, does…does it hurt terribly?”

  “What, having a baby?” asked Tess, lolling her head in her sister’s direction. Jeanne had never asked her about that; silence had squatted between them like a toad.

  “Oh. No,” said Jeanne, clearly embarrassed. “I’m certain that must hurt. Remember how Mama screamed when Neddie was born?”

  Tess had an inkling what Jeanne was really asking. Somewhat cruelly, she wanted to hear her say it aloud.

  “I mean…,” Jeanne began again, meaningfully. She paused as if hoping that would be enough; Tess wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. “You know what I mean,” said Jeanne.

  “No, indeed,” said Tess.

  Jeanne elbowed her; Tess played dumb. “I mean the wedding night,” said Jeanne at last, in a voice like a terrified gnat. “Does it hurt as much as Mama always said?”

  Tess had half a mind to say, I never had a wedding night, but Jeanne squirmed pitiably, making Tess relent at last. “If you mean the ‘consummation,’ as darling old St. Vitt calls it—” Tess broke off abruptly; she’d been about to answer facetiously, but another answer had leaped into her throat and was perilously close to coming out: It hurts. Every single day.

  But that wasn’t the answer to Jeanne’s question. Jeanne was asking about the act itself, not…not her heart. Not her conscience, or what it felt like to see her future shattered in front of her like a mirror. Jeanne had the official sanction and blessing of both families, Heaven, the Saints; her situation was completely different.

  “That doesn’t hurt,” said Tess at last. “I promise. You’ll hardly feel it.”

  “But there’s supposed to be blood,” cried Jeanne, her voice nakedly afraid now.

  Tess wrapped her arms around her sister, who trembled like a baby bird. “There isn’t always, even if you’re a virgin. That part is a lie. And Richard will be gentle with you, if you ask him. He loves you, Nee. I know he does. That’s what tipped the balance in his favor; otherwise I’d have urged you to accept Lord Thorsten.”

  This wrung a soggy giggle out of Jeanne; Lord Thorsten was sixty and bandy-legged like a beetle.

  They lay a bit longer in silence, Tess drifting in and out of memories and dreams. The memories were of Will, mostly—the big hands, the small humiliations—but also the birth of Dozerius. The dreams…well, surely she dreamed that Jeanne muttered their old watchword, “Us against the world,” and kissed her cheek.

  Tess awoke hours later to the cacophony of country birds jeering at the dawn. Jeanne was long gone, her side of the bed grown cold.

  * * *

  Tess had been dressing her sister all week, but on the wedding day Duchess Elga insisted upon letting Jeanne use her own dressing room and her own lady’s maid. Tess did not object; it would have been futile, and she had enough to do getting herself ready. The duchess had provided both Jeanne and Tess with gowns, which seemed generous on the
surface of things, but Tess knew it wouldn’t do to let the bride’s sister look shabby. The other noble guests would talk.

  Tess’s revised theory, as she maneuvered herself into her farthingale—an imported Ninysh petticoat with willow hoops sewn in—was that the duchess was trying to torture her. The architectural underthings gave dressmakers an excuse to add an extra foot of fabric to the hem and an extra twenty pounds of beads, buttons, and embroidery to everything else. All that weight converged right at the middle; she felt crushed whenever anything bumped her perimeter, and she was bumping everything. She couldn’t get used to how wide she was.

  Tess wound her brown braids around her head and frowned at herself in the glass, knowing she ought to do her face but feeling exhausted by the notion. When she made up Jeanne’s face, it was a hopeful, anticipatory act, but to do her own seemed to underscore the futility of everything. She powdered her cheeks (which were unexpectedly damp) and reddened her lips and called it good enough.

  She sat on the edge of her bed, a difficult trick in a farthingale, and had another crème de menthe, staring out the window at the tidy topiary hedges. She had a second glass. She might have had more than that; it was a small glass and she was very far away. Her hands and mouth had come to some kind of understanding with each other and left her out of it.

  She smudged off half her lip rouge onto the edge of the glass. She didn’t care.

  The service was to start at noon, Samsamese-style. Tess met Paul and Ned at their room and herded them down the curving central stair into the magnificent foyer, where a hundred or more newly arrived guests were milling around. She paused on the landing overlooking the room and let her brothers go down without her. It was a colorful crowd, mostly other landed gentry, but the magistrates of nearby Trowebridge had also been invited, along with some of the more prominent merchants.

  That kind of social blending was still rare, but it would have been utterly unheard of just six years ago, before St. Jannoula’s War. A lot had changed since then.

  A trumpeter rushed in from outdoors and blared a lively fanfare, the new one, composed by Seraphina in honor of the Queen. The mob of wedding guests parted seamlessly down the middle and oriented themselves to face the door. Queen Glisselda, in a farthingale gown of evening-blue silk sprinkled with constellations of pearls, entered upon the arm of Prince Consort Lucian Kiggs. Tess’s half sister, Seraphina, in an outdated maroon houppelande, walked several paces behind them, trying to be unobtrusive.

  One good thing about Seraphina’s houppelande was that it made her belly ambiguous. Was she or wasn’t she? It might just be the hang of the robe.

  Tess longed to tell someone, anyone, that Seraphina, so-called Saint, was no better than she should be. Would it have been a treasonous embarrassment of the Queen, though, to imply that her husband was unfaithful? For the baby must surely be Prince Lucian’s. Of course, for all Tess knew, he’d had Queen Glisselda’s blessing. Seraphina was so tight-lipped about the royal cousins that Tess could only speculate.

  But then, they could do whatever they wanted. People might mutter, but no one would try to stop them. It must be nice.

  Beside Seraphina walked a plump woman wearing a fabulously plumed hat and a red-and-green gown, its skirt cut so daringly short that her boots showed. This was Countess Margarethe of Mardou, the famous explorer; Tess had heard her speak once at St. Bert’s. The countess had her Porphyrian mother’s dark complexion but was clearly Ninysh in her flamboyant dress and carriage. Goreddis, down to the Queen herself, were finally adopting the farthingale, and here the Ninysh had already moved on to calf-length skirts, raised square collars, and shiny, authoritative boots. There was no keeping up with them.

  Seraphina’s ploy to remain unobtrusive by entering behind the Queen and beside the most fashionable woman in the room wasn’t working out for her. She was mobbed by wedding guests, ostensibly wanting to say hello but really wanting to shake her hand so they could later tell their friends and relations, “I know she claims not to be a Saint, but I swear I felt the grace of Heaven in her palm.”

  Seraphina, reserved by nature, tolerated it as best she could, but Prince Lucian was, even now, working his way back through the crowd to extricate her.

  Tess clucked her tongue, refusing to feel sorry for Seraphina. She didn’t have it so tough; she’d always been the special one. The smart one. Jeanne was prettiest and sweetest. That hadn’t left much scope for Tess beyond “the one most likely to get spanked.”

  A momentary glimpse of a face in the crowd—blue eyes, cocky grin—caught Tess’s attention, and her heart nearly stopped. Had William of Affle been invited to this wedding?

  The face was gone. She forced herself to resume breathing, and with breath came reason. It was impossible; the Duke and Duchess of Ducana wouldn’t associate with a poor student like him. Where would they have run into each other? And Will was surely off on some expedition or other, anyway. The opportunity of a lifetime must have come up—that’s what she’d told herself for the last two years. It was the only excuse she could almost accept.

  Will had left her, for who knew where or what, and she’d banished him from her heart and mind. He was not welcome back. If he were to show up out of the blue, Tess wasn’t sure how she’d react. It would be like seeing a ghost.

  She suspected she’d cry, actually. That only made her angry.

  A light touch on her shoulder made her jump. It was merely Mama, who had a talent for sneaking up on people. “I was up at your room,” she said, her ice-blue eyes accusatory, as if Tess had put her to a lot of trouble.

  “I don’t see why,” said Tess, turning back toward the sea of guests. “I brought Ned and Paul down, like you asked me to. If you’d been here, you would have seen—”

  “I found something very concerning behind your window curtain,” said her mother.

  “Ah,” said Tess dully. Jeanne must have reported on Tess’s breath from last night. Us against the world, my fat behind. “Again, why did you bother? You might have asked me.”

  “And gotten a lie in return?”

  Tess shrugged. “I guess you’ll never know.”

  Her mother took her arm, which Tess’s farthingale made awkward. Indeed, as soon as her mother bumped her perimeter, Tess felt a great pinch at her waist. She wondered whether she’d put the thing on properly. Her mother wore a more sensible unhooped gown of blue velvet. Papa had pawned the last of his library to buy it, assuring them that it was a worthy investment. Jeanne was nearly married; this dip in the family fortunes would soon be over.

  Tess accompanied her mother down the stairs, taking scrupulous care not to wobble; her hawk-eyed mother would be scrutinizing her for unsteadiness, trying to gauge the degree to which Tess was drunk, making contingency plans, no doubt. Tess carried herself steadily, refusing to give the old woman any satisfaction.

  Old. Feh. Mama was thirty-five. She’d been seventeen—same as Jeanne—when she’d married Papa. Years of disappointment, however, had put fine lines around her mouth and a dark sorrow in her gaze. Her hair was not yet gray, but you’d never have guessed. She kept it under a wimple like a widow or penitent.

  Tess refused to pity her mother, either. This made her a hard-hearted, ungrateful daughter, she knew. She’d been told often enough.

  A five-note trumpet flare gave everyone to know that it was time to come to chapel. Tess and her mother lingered behind the crowd; the families of the betrothed were to enter last. Tess gazed dully at her counterparts-in-law, Lord Heinrigh and Lord Jacomo, the mild-mannered, ginger-haired middle brother and the tall, fat, storm-cloud youngest.

  At least Lord Jacomo had stopped glaring at her; he was pacing and reciting under his breath, practicing for the service.

  The thinning crowd revealed a smiling Seraphina, who approached Papa and took his arm. “How are you feeling these days?” Papa asked his eldest.

 
“Like a pile of bricks,” she said in the low, quiet voice that always sounded like she was concealing a laugh somewhere. “You should see my feet. They’re puffed up like morning rolls.”

  Papa chuckled, and Tess’s stomach twisted sourly. Nobody had considerately asked after her health when she’d been pregnant. Nobody would have been charmed if she’d complained of puffy feet. Seraphina was every bit as unmarried, but nobody seemed to mind. She was the exception to everything; rules bent deferentially to make room for her.

  Mama, full of her own kind of envy, tightened her grip on Tess’s arm.

  The families entered at last, walking in procession toward the gilt boxes at the front of the chapel. Lord Richard, decked out handsomely in a wine-colored doublet and slashed trunk hose, waited under the rotunda with Father Michael, the abbot of nearby St. Munn’s. While the families took their seats, Lord Jacomo stepped up beside the abbot and led the opening prayer. At last Jeanne came in, resplendent in gold and green. Mama, Papa, and Seraphina stood up to be her witnesses, though only Papa was to speak: Yes, this maiden has come to be married of her own free will, and not because we dragged her kicking and screaming.

  Those weren’t the exact words, but Tess felt the sentiment behind them. Jeanne was a lamb brought to the knife, a bird to the cage. By her sacrifice would her family be redeemed.

  Tess’s mind wandered during the ceremony, especially when Lord Jacomo read from the scriptures; she wasn’t sure what kind of student he was, but he’d mastered the “droning monotonously” part. Top marks for that. Maybe he was a natural talent. When he finally finished, the chapel disgorged everyone into the great hall, where servants had set up long tables for feasting and a merry band already played in the gallery.

  Later, Tess barely remembered the feast, except that there was wine and that wine came as a relief, extinguishing the fires inside her. As soon as the guests finished eating, an army of servants dismantled the tables and cleared the room for dancing. Tess was a decent dancer, in fact, and her body merrily went through the motions, though her mind was disengaged. The room whirled around; the candles shone. It was pleasant, but she did not like being present.