The Soul Mirror

by Carol Berg

  In a seeming eyeblink, she had bridged the gap between us and was fingering the emerald silk of my court gown. “Perhaps the fee should be larger.”

  “Your mistress decides that, I’m sure,” I said, yanking the skirt from her fingers and berating myself for not taking the time to change clothes. “Take me to her, if you please. I’ve little time.”

  “Testing for a fight, ben’t tha? Tha’rt quite the little scrag-dog. Come.”

  She led me across the wide portico, down the steps past the tangle of dry weeds snagged by a short fence, and into a small fountain court. Water trickled from the moss-slicked statue of a sinewed woman locked in an endless struggle with a sea monster. My skin prickled.

  My guide sat on a bench facing the font, spread her arms along the back, and stretched her long, booted legs in front of her. “Welcome to my abode of business, girl wearing the white ribbon. None shall overhear us in this place. Speak your need.”

  For a moment, I was fooled, hunting the source of the deeper, richer voice. But only the runner and I occupied the fountain court, as solitary inside the dribble of the water as we might be in the cave behind a waterfall.

  Then I understood. I sheathed the zahkri and extended my open—and empty—palms in her direction. “Raissina Nialle, may the winds of war and commerce fill thy sails and coffers. May our exchange be of honor and to our mutual benefit.”

  “Better! A start more friendly than fierce.” Here where the torchlight scarce reached, I could not read her face. But the air seemed less taut between us.

  “I am to be betrothed to a man I despise. I wish to stop it.”

  Her arms swept a gesture large enough to signify me and my situation. “Marriage is difficult to counter if law permits and those who rule the family decide. Yet, occasionally, obstacles can be found. The son of Salvator specifics I cannot ask the lady’s name. But I must know the man’s.”

  “Derwin de Scero, Barone Gurmeddion.”

  Her hand clapped over her mouth. The odd noises squeezing past her fingers told me variously that she was in the throes of a fit or choking on her dinner in compatible revulsion. But before very long her shaking shoulders clarified her reaction. She was convulsed with laughter.

  I located a nearby bench, sat down, and waited for her to regain composure. “Ah, poor dearie, dearie, dearie. Be tha a devil spirit? Whoever pawns this loathsome mate on tha must think it. Weren’t I a businesswoman, I’d do this for naught but air and glory!”

  She dealt with a fit of the hiccoughs and wiped her eyes. I waited, hopes rising, relishing what she might tell.

  “Be tha easy, lady-born. The ways this marrying can be obstructed are numbered more than Riverside rats. No need to consultate my sources. To begin, this Gurmedd lord has a wife living. Not pleasured about it is she, but breathing, nonetheless . . .”

  The Fassid woman reeled off a history of murder and larceny enough to fill Spindle Prison were each offense committed by a separate man. Surely Derwin’s wife chained in his cellar must be sufficient to halt any marriage contract.

  “. . . yet tha knowst a scurrit lord so large as this one is crafty, else he’d not have so long a tally for the Fallen to punish. So I’ll advise ta move with caution, else ye’ll join poor Elliana in his cellar. He’d lick his lips at that.” She shuddered, all laughter spent. “And now you’ve what I can give. To diddle the law on your behalf would be a new tally on your own account.”

  Her warnings were well given. I’d need to use this information with care, else I could end up in Derwin’s custody with vengeance to be served on top of lust—a prospect to make a future with the Souleater a pleasurable idea.

  I rose and opened my palms to her again. “My need is served, Raissina Nialle. Our commerce ended. No diddling required just now.”

  “Ah, but ’tis wise to deposit a bit on account with me. Naught but a name . . . a demesne . . . for a fierce little lady-born pledged to the Gurmedd snake . . . who comes fearless through the middle-night, knowing a smat of the Fassid tongue and politenesses of my kind. The prospect of your tale curls my toes. Be certain ’twill be held in trust until you’ve need again.”

  “Or until someone pays you for it.”

  “With no deposit made, the cost for service in the future grows higher. A kinsman’s name, perhaps, or a bit of gossip gleaned in your . . . very high . . . circles. Tell me a name friendly; then I’ve no need to go hunting for who might be talking of Gurmedd links.”

  “I admire an honest broker, Raissina, but you are a broker nonetheless. I’ve no wish to make a deposit just now. I shall report our satisfactory dealings to the one who sent me. He swore you’d hold these ‘smats’ of knowledge about me to yourself as part of his payment, yes?”

  She drew in legs and arms, as if closing her shop. Slow and sinuous, she rose to her full height and bowed deep. “It is so. Tell him we are square, all bargains held.”

  I’VE DONE IT, I SAID, my shaking hand covering my eyes. I’ve arrows now, but no idea how to loft them.

  Good. That’s very good. You’ll find a way. You didn’t . . . give . . . her anything? I should have warned you she’d try to wheedle. . . .

  She tried. I refused. Nor did I ask for more information than your bargain with her specified. You can rest easy about that.

  I wasn’t—He bit off the blurted denial, the lie so easily recognizable. Sometimes it’s difficult to trust. And that was truth.

  CHAPTER 25

  22 OCET, MORNING

  On the morning after my venture into Raissina Nialle’s shop of bargains, Prayers appeared on Queen Eugenie’s schedule yet again. Again Antonia informed me I would not be needed after supper. She did so as she held my arm and guided me into the reception room off the east foyer for our meeting with Simon de Bois and the king’s secretary in residence. I’d not even had time to decide how to use the information my friend of the mind had bought for me. Accusations must be supported by proof—records, witnesses. I could get them, but not quickly.

  It is intolerably easy to sign away a woman’s life. Indenture for debt requires an appearance before three magistrates on three days running. A tenancy agreement with a lord requires five witnesses from the community, only two of whom may be the estate’s current tenants. But a marriage contract requires only a representative of the woman’s guardian and a representative of the prospective husband. My presence was no more required than my consent. Antonia’s presence was to ensure the event took place. Simon’s presence was, as Antonia indicated, to raise any assurances that the king might have given my father when the Ruggiere grant was made—a formality at best.

  My goodfather’s representative was his secretary in residence, Gerard de Physto, a scarred former soldier who could not bear walking outdoors for fear of a conflict erupting in the vicinity. His post had likely been Philippe’s kindness, as he claimed never to have signed anything beyond requisitions for provisioning the palace garrison. Though scarce older than Duplais, his hair was thinned to infantile wisps, and every footstep or pen scratch made him flinch. Antonia’s presence could be naught but a living torment to such a man.

  “I’m sure my goodfather would wish to review this contract for himself,” I said.

  “Nonsense,” said Antonia, grabbing de Physto’s collar before he could escape. “He retains secretaries to relieve him of petty annoyances such as women’s matters. A good soldier knows how to keep the road clear for his commander.”

  The road this man wanted clear was his path out of the room. Which required his signature on the contract.

  The avuncular Simon de Bois had kissed my cheeks on his arrival, whispering an apology at the same time. “I’ve little of help, Ani. I’m sorry.” He held me away, appraising. “Despite all, you’ve bloomed, girl. Getting away from the past has put color in your cheeks and a spark in your eye. You’ve a touch of your mother after all. And he”—he lowered his voice and jerked his head at the man sitting at the head of the table—“he doesn’t look so bad.”
/>   “That’s not Derwin.”

  The man he noted was Derwin’s eldest son. Dagobert de Gurmedd, sleek and wiry as a viper and just as sly, maintained a less rancid outward appearance than his father. But he never stopped grinning and never took his eyes from me. Whenever Simon and the secretary conferred or examined documents, he opened his mouth and fingered his wriggling tongue. I’d never seen a habit so disgusting.

  “The contract is in order,” said Simon, easing back in his chair. “As the Ruggiere demesne grant is void, due to the Writ of Judgment that renders Michel de Vernase a felon, the provision of the grant giving Damoselle Anne the privilege of consent to a marriage partner is also void. In essence, there are no restrictions at all on betrothal as long as the signer is a legal representative of the lady’s guardian.”

  My soul froze. “The partner could be a Norgandi, then, or a commoner? He could be an embezzler or wife murderer or tax cheat?”

  “Any of those,” said Simon, “however—”

  Dagobert snatched up the pen, waggling his tongue openly now. His age must be somewhere about sixteen.

  “Hold, sonjeur!” Nostrils flared in disgust, Simon held up his hand. “I have shown Secretary de Physto a writ of guardianship, signed by Philippe de Savin-Journia on the occasion of Damoselle Anne’s birth, which occurred six months prior to the Ruggiere demesne grant. In this writ, the king has included a codicil that the girl may not be wed without his presence and consent. Though the language does not preclude betrothal, it does impose restriction on the wedding itself. And as it precedes the deleted grant, it takes precedence.”

  Fear wiped away Dagobert’s grin. “My sire would plug the wench before leaving Merona. How can I go back and tell him he’s got to wait?”

  “By the saints, sonjeur!” boomed Simon, as nausea sent my world spinning. “Where is your dignity . . . and the lady’s?”

  “Wedding is but formality, Dagobert,” said Antonia. “The girl is Derwin’s as of this hour.”

  “Not to contradict, Your Grace,” said Simon, gathering every gram of authority his bulk allowed, “and custom notwithstanding, I would not advise any man to . . . claim . . . the king’s gooddaughter without his required consent. His Majesty arrives a mere eight days hence. Meanwhile, the lady has full freedom to contest the contract.”

  Simon’s bluster seemed to confuse Dagobert and wound the cringing secretary.

  “I most definitely wish to contest the contract,” I said, handing Simon the charges I’d written out from Raissina’s information. “My goodfather will stop this.”

  “Sign the papers,” snapped Antonia, looking as if she might yank de Physto’s remaining hair out. “We’ll allow the king to decide if a traitor’s brat is worth insulting the commander who holds his northern border. And we shall leave it to Barone Derwin to decide how vigorously to pursue his marital happiness.”

  The papers were signed. All I could do was return to the queen’s bedchamber to work, praying I could exonerate my father before testing my goodfather’s forbearance.

  22 OCET, ELEVENTH HOUR OF THE EVENING WATCH

  EIGHT DROPS FROM THE VIAL, I decided. Two hours. “Aventura.” I dripped the tasteless liquid on my tongue. Come the day when I became Derwin’s bride, I might drain the entire vial and walk out Merona’s gates. But for now, my focus must be on the sad lady of Sabria, and what the villains thought to do with her this night.

  I didn’t think I would ever become accustomed to invisibility. To walk brazenly into Doorward Viggio’s velvet demesne in full view of the bald functionary and two guards was not so difficult. But then I had to decide how to get through the inner door without them noticing. Returning to the salon, I heaved a porcelain vase through the garden door, then waited as the three of them stepped out to investigate the clatter. The last overtones of the eleventh-hour bells faded as I tiptoed into Eugenie’s bedchamber . . .

  . . . only to find it deserted as well. No Dante. No Antonia. No Eugenie. Only air the color of ash, despite burning candles set in every sconce and on every horizontal surface.

  The engagement sheet testified I had not erred about the time. Pots of willow branches had been placed around Eugenie’s bed. The cold, dry air, the drifts of incense smoke, and an underlying stench of burnt grass bespoke the extraordinary, yet where were the participants? Was it already ended?

  I pressed hand to nose and mouth to prevent an untimely sneeze. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, a soft amber glow drew me around the bed to the sorcerer’s circle. The ring pulsed softly. At evenly spaced points on the broad ring sat a clay dish heaped with earth, a bone cup filled with water, and a pierced bronze canister that exuded the smoke of smoldering incense. In the exact center of the ring, bathed in the golden shimmer, sat a silver sphere large enough to fill my cupped hands. Beside the sphere, atop a fringed purple sash, lay a folded square of silk-embroidered cambric, a carved wooden horse, a ball, a stuffed doll dressed in white silk, and a boat the length of my hand. Children’s things.

  I tried to set my suspicions aside lest they paralyze me. Whatever this was, it could not be finished, else Eugenie would be abed. Where would they be? Think, Anne. Not the mage’s own rooms. The sorcerer’s circle there seemed little different from this one. Not the queen’s girlhood refuge. Unthinkable that she would take Dante to the place she met her lover. Only one place in the palace spoke vividly of unholy enchantments. . . .

  LIGHT BOYS, NIGHT GUARDS, THE sleepy serving girl . . . what must they have thought when I ran past them? Heads turned, a blur in my enchanted sight. One guard called out, startled when I almost ran into him as I burst through the ground-level doors into the courtyard gardens. I had no mind to hush my footsteps. Let them imagine a ghost racing the palace halls.

  The ungraceful bulk of the Rotunda rose from the sprawling shrubs, sculpted by lamplight strayed from a window, by watch lanterns hung here and there along the graveled paths, by the star shimmer my friend and I had joyfully reduced to first principles, angles, and formulas. Through the Rotunda’s rose-petal windows, the delicate flickerings of purple, green, and crimson swarmed like fireflies over a rain pool.

  Once inside the east doors, caution slowed and hushed my steps. I crept through the colonnade to the periphery of the cavernous chamber. But my will to move forward wholly failed as I viewed what lay in the center of the Rotunda.

  Amid the swarming scraps of color, a sea green luminescence billowed from Master Dante’s white staff like steam from a boiling cauldron and spilled groundward in a gauzy cascade. The mage gripped the staff as if the raging light might suck him into its wash and fling him into the glittering vault above his head.

  But it was the scene unfolding within the veils of light that thrilled and terrified me. Eugenie de Sylvae knelt on the marble floor, playing ball with four young children. A ginger-haired boy in a nursery smock clutched the cloth ball to his chest with pudgy fists, as if to keep it away from everyone else, then released it with a gleeful crow to bounce across the floor toward a tiny girl with raven curls. She giggled and pounced on it, only to roll it toward two infants sitting next to each other. Their plump, rose-gold cheeks, pale wisps of hair, and sturdy legs hammering with excitement on the floor could have belonged to any healthy infant in the world.

  The vision struck me as a lovely, homely portrait . . . until the little girl, jumping exuberantly in a circle, turned square into my view. White and unreflective, her eyes might have been shaped of ivory or a well of sheerest moonshine. They reminded me of nouri, statues of the dead purposely made with solid black eyes so that we might not mistake the artifice for a living being.

  My aching heart near cracked at the sight. What cruel daemon would give Eugenie this and claim it to be her lost children?

  Were these four entirely creatures of Dante’s sorcery—illusion—or could they be some true manifestation of wandering souls? Certainly they were no phantasm of memory, for even Prince Desmond, the only one of Eugenie’s babes to live past birth, had bee
n but a year old when he died.

  The ginger-haired boy squealed and scooped the ball from one of the infants and ran to Eugenie, dropping it in her lap. And when she rolled it toward the girl child again, he threw his arms around the queen’s neck for one brief moment. She reached out for him, but he slipped her grasp and trotted off toward the others.

  I must have gasped or sighed then, or shifted my feet unintentionally, for the boy snapped his head around and focused those blank white sockets exactly on my face. No mistaking. His cheery smile widened and he laughed aloud, clapping his hands in my direction, as if I might be yet another playmate come to entertain him.

  My skin flushed hot and dry, then cold and damp at that empty gaze. But a babbling “Ba-ba-ba” from the little girl diverted the boy back to his game.

  Soon the four began to lose substance. My gaze passed straight through the little bodies so that I could glimpse the golden bob of the king’s great pendulum stilled behind them. The boy’s hands fell limp to his sides. His head drooped. The infants quieted. The girl child began to wail softly. Fading . . . fading . . . the four soon became no more than misty outlines in the light. And then they were gone.

  Eugenie’s empty arms wrapped about her breast, and she curled forward slowly until her head rested on the floor. Dante’s veils of sea green light dispersed in a sparkling spray. The mage shifted position only when the last wisp vanished, and then but to rest his head on his gloved hands. The ball rolled slowly to a stop.

  As if the weight of the Rotunda’s dome had anchored my feet and was now removed, I was able to move freely again. Yet I did not leave. I needed to hear what Eugenie or the mage might say when recovered from the apparition or whatever it was.

  “Your skills are unmatched, Master. As ever, awe steals my breath.”

  Body and mind froze. The harsh, muffled voice, a male voice bristling with superiority, had originated behind a column not three metres to my left.