“Put us in the picture of what?” Aunt Rosaline asked, sounding offended. “There’s never been any question of my goddaughter marrying a criminal!”
Berenilde turned the limpid pools of her eyes towards her. “This has little to do with crime, madam. We have to defend ourselves against our rivals. I fear that many nobles at the court look extremely unfavorably on this alliance between our two families. What makes some stronger weakens the position of others,” she told her gently, with a smile. “The tiniest change in the balance of power precipitates intrigues and backstairs murders.”
Ophelia was shocked. So that’s what it was, the court? In her ignorance, she had imagined kings and queens who spent their days philosophizing and playing cards.
As for Aunt Rosaline, she also seemed to be thunderstruck. “Ancestors alive! You mean to say that those are common practices? They calmly assassinate one another, and that’s it?”
“It’s a trifle more complicated than that,” Berenilde replied, patiently.
Men wearing black tailcoats and stiff, white shirtfronts discreetly entered the dining room. Wordlessly, they took away the soup tureens, served some fish, and disappeared in three blinks of an eye. No one at the table thought there was any point introducing them to Ophelia. So all these people who lived here weren’t part of the family? Is that, then, what servants were? Anonymous drafts?
“You see,” continued Berenilde, resting her chin on linked hands, “our way of life is somewhat different to yours on Anima. There are the families who are favored by our spirit Farouk, those who no longer are, and those who never were.”
“Families plural?” queried Ophelia in a murmur.
“Yes, my child. Our family tree is more tortuous than yours. Since the creation of the ark, it has divided into several branches, all totally distinct from each other, branches that never mix with each other without misgivings . . . or without killing each other.”
“Totally charming,” commented Aunt Rosaline, with two napkin wipes of the mouth.
Ophelia tackled her salmon apprehensively. She was incapable of eating fish without getting a bone stuck in her throat. She glanced surreptitiously at Thorn, feeling uncomfortable with him just in front of her, but he was paying more attention to his plate than to all those at the table put together. He was chewing his fish sullenly, as though swallowing food revolted him. Not surprising he was so thin . . . His legs were so long that, despite the width of the table, Ophelia had to tuck her boots under her chair to avoid kicking his feet.
She pushed her glasses back up her nose, and observed, this time discreetly, the shriveled figure of the grandmother, seated beside him, who was eating her salmon with gusto. What was it again that she had said when welcoming them? “So here’s the new blood coming to save the Dragons.”
“The Dragons,” Ophelia suddenly whispered, “is that the name of your family?”
Berenilde raised her finely plucked eyebrows and looked at Thorn with amazement. “You explained nothing to them? So what did you spend your time doing during the journey?”
She shook her pretty little blonde curls, half-annoyed and half-amused, and gave Ophelia a twinkling wink. “Yes, my dear child, it’s the name of our family. Three clans, including ours, currently hold sway at court. As you now know, we all don’t like each other very much. The clan of the Dragons is powerful and feared, but small in number. Not too many of them for you to meet, my dear!”
A shiver ran down Ophelia’s spine, from nape to lower back. Suddenly she’d had an ominous premonition as to the role she would be made to play within this clan. Bring new blood? A broodmare, that’s what they were planning to turn her into. She looked at Thorn straight on, his hard and unpleasant face, his large angular body, his disdainful eyes that avoided hers, his curt manner. Just thinking about getting close to this man made Ophelia drop her fork on to the carpet. She was about to bend down to retrieve it, but an old man in tails instantly materialized from the shadows to give her another one.
“Forgive me, madam,” Aunt Rosaline interrupted once again, “but are you now insinuating that my niece’s marriage could put her life in danger, due to the idiotic whim of some courtier?”
Berenilde dissected her salmon without losing her composure. “My poor friend, I fear that the attempt to intimidate Thorn is but one link in a long chain.”
Ophelia coughed into her napkin. Sure enough, she’d almost swallowed a fish bone.
“Ridiculous!” exclaimed Rosaline, while shooting her a meaningful look. “This child wouldn’t hurt a fly! What could anyone fear of her?”
Thorn raised his eyes to the ceiling, exasperated. Ophelia, meanwhile, was gathering the fish bones on the edge of her plate. Despite seeming distracted, she was listening, observing, thinking.
“Madam Rosaline,” said Berenilde in a silken voice, “you must understand that an alliance forged with a foreign ark is seen as a seizure of power at the Citaceleste. How can I explain this without shocking you too much?” she murmured, screwing up her large, limpid eyes. “The women of your family are known for their wonderful fecundity.”
“Our fecundity . . . ” repeated Aunt Rosaline, caught off guard.
Ophelia again pushed up her glasses, which slipped down her nose as soon as she put her head down to eat.
There we were, it had been said.
She studied Thorn’s expression, opposite her. Even if he was studiously avoiding catching her eye, she could read on his face the same disgust that she felt, which certainly reassured her. Slowly, she emptied her glass of water, to clear her throat. Should she announce now, right in the middle of this family meal, that she had no intention of sharing this man’s bed? It would doubtless not give the best of impressions.
And anyhow, there was something else . . . Ophelia wasn’t sure precisely what, but Berenilde’s eyelashes had quivered, as though she’d had to force herself to look them in the eye while revealing her motives. A hesitation? Something unspoken? It was hard to determine, but Ophelia stood by her opinion: there was something else.
“In the meantime, we know nothing about your situation,” Aunt Rosaline finally stammered, sounding more embarrassed. “Madam Berenilde, I will have to consult the family on this. This development could call into question the engagement.”
Berenilde’s smile softened. “Maybe you’re not aware, Madam Rosaline, but that’s not how your Doyennes see it. They accepted our offer fully aware of the facts. I’m awfully sorry if they didn’t inform you of all that, but we were obliged to proceed with the utmost discretion, to ensure your protection. The fewer the people who know about this marriage, the better we’ll feel. You are at liberty, needless to say, to write to your family if you doubt my word. Thorn will take care of your letter.”
Beneath her tight bun, Ophelia’s godmother had gone very white. She was gripping her cutlery so hard that her fingers were shaking. When she planted her fork in her plate, she didn’t seem to notice that a caramel custard tart had replaced the salmon on it. “I refuse for my niece to be assassinated because of your little intrigues!”
Her outburst had scaled the high notes, on the edge of hysteria. Ophelia was so moved by it that she forgot her own agitation. At this precise moment, she realized how alone and abandoned she would have felt without this grouchy old aunt by her side. She lied to her as best she could: “Don’t fret. If the Doyennes gave their consent, it’s because they believe the danger to me can’t be that great.”
“A man is dead, you simpleton!”
Ophelia had run out of arguments. She didn’t much like the views being served up to them, either, but losing her cool wouldn’t change her situation in the slightest. She stared hard into Thorn’s eyes, now just two narrow slits, silently willing him to break his silence. “I have many enemies at court,” he said, brusquely. “Your niece isn’t the center of the world.”
Berenilde looked at him for a mo
ment, somewhat surprised by what he’d just said. “It’s true that your position was already tricky from the start, irrespective of any nuptial considerations,” she admitted.
“Of course! If this great blockhead strangles anything that moves, I can quite imagine that friendship doesn’t come pouring through his door,” Rosaline added.
“More caramel, anyone?” the grandmother hastened to suggest, seizing the sauce boat.
No one replied to her. Under the flickering light of the candles, a flash had escaped between Berenilde’s eyelids and Thorn’s jaws had tightened. Ophelia bit her lip. She understood that if her aunt didn’t hold her tongue very soon, someone would see to it that she shut up, one way or another.
“Please forgive this outburst, sir,” she then murmured, bowing her head to Thorn. “Traveling fatigue has made us a little sensitive.”
Aunt Rosaline was about to protest, but Ophelia pressed her foot under the table while keeping her attention riveted on Thorn. “You apologize, godmother, and I do, too. I now realize that all the precautions you took earlier, sir, were just for our safety, and for that I am grateful to you.”
Thorn stared at her cagily, arching his brow, spoon in midair. He took Ophelia’s thanks for what they were, a mere façade of politeness.
She put down her napkin and invited a dumbfounded Rosaline to leave the table. “I think we need a good rest, my aunt and I.”
From deep in her chair, Berenilde directed an appreciative smile at Ophelia. “It’s always wise to sleep on things,” she said, philosophically.
The Bedroom
Ophelia peered into the darkness, hair disheveled, eyelids still half-shut with sleep. Something had woken her up, but she didn’t know what. Sitting up in bed, she gazed at the blurred contours of the room. Beyond the brocade drapes of the four-poster, she could just about make out the latticed window. Night was fading through the misted panes; it would soon be dawn.
Ophelia had struggled to get to sleep. She’d shared her bedroom with her brother and sisters all her life, so it felt strange to spend the night alone in a house she didn’t know. That conversation at supper hadn’t helped, either.
She listened carefully to the silence that was punctuated by the clock on the mantelpiece. What on earth could have woken her up? Suddenly, small knocks could be heard on the door. So she hadn’t been dreaming.
As soon as Ophelia pushed off her eiderdown, the cold took her breath away. She slipped a cardigan over her nightdress, tripped against a footrest on the carpet, and turned the doorknob. An abrupt voice instantly boomed down at her: “It’s not for want of warning you.”
A huge black coat, lugubrious as death itself, could only just be made out in the gloom of the corridor. Without glasses, Ophelia guessed it was Thorn more than saw it was him. He certainly had his own peculiar way to start a conversation.
Still half-asleep, she shivered in the icy draft coming through the door, just long enough to collect her thoughts. “I can no longer pull out,” she ended up muttering.
“It is, indeed, too late. From now on, we’ll have to compromise, one with the other.”
Ophelia rubbed her eyes, as though that could help lift the veil of her shortsightedness, but of Thorn she could still only see a huge black coat. It didn’t really matter. His tone had made it quite clear how little this prospect appealed to him, which Ophelia found very reassuring. She thought she could make out a bag hanging from his arm. “Are we leaving already?”
“I’m leaving,” the coat corrected her. “You, you’re staying here with my aunt. My absence has already been too prolonged; I have to get back to my activities.”
Ophelia suddenly realized that she still didn’t know what work her fiancé did. Because she’d always seen him as a hunter, she’d forgotten to ask him the question. “And what do your activities consist of?”
“I work at a finance office,” he replied, impatiently. “But I haven’t come to see you to make small talk; I’m in a hurry.”
Ophelia half-opened her eyelids. She just couldn’t imagine Thorn as a bureaucrat. “I’m listening to you.”
Thorn pushed the door so roughly towards Ophelia that he crushed her toes. He turned the bolt three times to show her how it worked. He really took her for a half-wit. “From today onwards, you must double-lock yourself in every night, is that totally clear? You must eat nothing other than what is served to you at the table, and, for pity’s sake, make sure your wittering chaperone tones down her remarks. It’s not very smart to offend Lady Berenilde under her own roof.”
Although it wasn’t polite, Ophelia couldn’t stifle a yawn. “Is that advice or a threat?”
There was a leaden silence from the huge black coat. Finally, he said: “My aunt is your best ally. Never leave her protection, go nowhere without her permission, trust no one else.”
“‘No one else’—doesn’t that include you?”
Thorn sniffed and shut the door in her face. He clearly didn’t have a sense of humor.
Ophelia went in search of her glasses, somewhere between the pillows, and then posted herself at the window. She rubbed a pane with her sleeve to clear the condensation. Outside, dawn was painting the sky mauve and adding its first touches of pink to the clouds. The majestic autumnal trees were bathed in mist. It was still too early for the leaves to have shed their grayness, but before long, when the sun had taken over the horizon, there would be a blaze of red and gold across the park.
The more Ophelia contemplated this magical landscape, the more convinced she became. This decor was a trompe l’oeil: a very convincing facsimile of nature, but a facsimile all the same.
She looked down. Between two beds of violets, Thorn, in his huge coat, was already heading off along the avenue, bag in hand. That fellow had managed to quell her desire to sleep.
With teeth chattering, Ophelia turned her attention to the dead cinders in the fireplace. She felt as though she were in a tomb. She took off her night gloves, which stopped her from reading randomly in her sleep, and tipped a ewer over the pretty china washbowl of the dressing table.
“And now?” she asked herself, splashing her cheeks with cold water. She didn’t feel in the mood to stay put. Thorn’s warnings had intrigued her much more than scared her. Here was a man going to great lengths to protect a woman that he didn’t like . . .
And then there was that little something, that indefinable hesitation that Berenilde had betrayed at supper. Maybe it was just a small thing, but it was playing on her mind.
Ophelia gazed at her reddened nose and her eyelashes beaded with water in the mirror of the dressing table. Were they going to keep a close watch on her? The mirrors, she suddenly decided. If I want to maintain freedom of movement, I must locate all the mirrors around here.
She found a velvet dressing gown in the wardrobe, but no slippers for her feet. She winced as she slid into her boots, stiffened by the sodden journey. Ophelia sneaked out of the room. She proceeded along the main corridor of that floor. The two guests occupied the best bedrooms, on either side of Berenilde’s private apartments, and in addition there were six small, unoccupied bedrooms, which Ophelia visited one by one. She discovered a linen room and two bathrooms, and then went downstairs. On the ground floor, men in frock coats and women in aprons were already busy, despite the earliness of the hour. They were polishing the banisters, dusting the vases, lighting fires in the hearths, and filling the place with the combined aroma of polish, wood, and coffee.
They greeted Ophelia amiably when she went around the small reception rooms, the dining room, the billiard room, and the music room, but their politeness became uneasy when she also invited herself into the kitchen, the laundry, and the office.
Ophelia made sure that she captured her reflection in every mirror, every cheval glass, every medallion. Mirror-traveling wasn’t that different an experience to reading, whatever her great-uncle might think, b
ut it was certainly more enigmatic. A mirror retains a memory of any image imprinted on its surface. By a little-known procedure, some readers could thus create a passage between two mirrors in which they had already captured their reflection, but it didn’t work on windows, or on tarnished surfaces, or across great distances.
On Anima, Ophelia had once attempted, without much conviction, to pass through a corridor mirror to get to her childhood bedroom. Instead of turning into a liquid consistency, the mirror had remained solid beneath her fingers, as hard and cold as the most ordinary of mirrors. The destination was much too far; Ophelia knew it, but was still disappointed.
Going back up the service stairs, Ophelia came across a wing of the manor that had been neglected. The furniture in the corridors and antechambers had been draped in white sheets, like sleeping ghosts. The dust made her sneeze. Was this area reserved for other members of the clan when they visited Berenilde?
Ophelia opened a double door at the end of a gallery. The musty atmosphere of the long hall hadn’t prepared her for what awaited on the other side. Hangings of brocaded damask, a large carved bed, ceiling decorated with frescoes—never had Ophelia seen such a sumptuous bedroom. Here, a cozy warmth prevailed that made absolutely no sense: there was no fire burning in the hearth and the adjoining gallery was freezing cold. Her surprise only increased when she noticed rocking horses and an army of lead soldiers on the carpet.
A child’s room.
Curiosity propelled Ophelia towards the framed photographs on the walls. A sepia-tinted couple with a baby reappeared in each one.
“You’re an early riser.”
Ophelia turned around to see Berenilde smiling at her between the two half-opened doors. She was already freshly attired in a loose-fitting satin dress, her hair gracefully coiled above the nape. In her arms she held some embroidery hoops.
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