A Winter's Promise

by Christelle Dabos

  “This disguise is as humiliating as it is indecent!” railed Aunt Rosaline. “Turning my niece into your valet! If my sister found out about this, all the hairpins on her head would stand on end.”

  “Our luck will change,” Berenilde assured her with a confident smile. “A little patience, Madam Rosaline.”

  “A little patience,” repeated Thorn’s grandmother with an inane smile. “A little patience.”

  Too elderly to be apart from her daughter, the old lady had joined Berenilde’s retinue. Ophelia had always seen her dressed very simply; it was quite something to see her decked out in her large feathered hat and blue damask dress. Her long tortoise neck had almost entirely disappeared behind the rows of pearls.

  “Patience—it strikes me that we’ve hardly been lacking in that up to now,” observed Aunt Rosaline, coldly.

  Berenilde glanced slyly at the Antechamber’s clock. “We’ll be there in fifteen minutes, dear friend. I would advise you to use them to perfect your ‘yes, madam’s, and to serve us some more of that delicious spiced tea.”

  “Yes, madam,” said Aunt Rosaline with a highly exaggerated Northern accent.

  Berenilde arched her brows with satisfaction. She was wearing a light-colored dress with a ruff, and a wig of breathtaking height that resembled an iced wedding cake. She was as radiant as Aunt Rosalind was austere in her severe outfit of a lady’s companion. Her tiny bun pulled the skin of her forehead so tight, she no longer had the slightest expression line.

  “You are proud, Madam Rosaline,” sighed Berenilde as she sipped her spiced tea. “It’s a quality that I like in a woman, but it is out of place in a lady’s companion. Soon I’ll be speaking to you haughtily, and you must simply reply with, ‘Yes, madam’, or, ‘Very well, madam.’ There’ll no longer be any ‘I’ or ‘you’ between us, we’ll not be part of the same world anymore. Do you feel capable of enduring that?”

  Putting the teapot down abruptly, Aunt Rosaline straightened up, mustering all her dignity. “If it were for the sake of my niece, I would even feel capable of scouring your chamber pot.”

  Ophelia stifled the smile that rose to her lips. Her aunt had her own very particular way of putting people back in their place.

  “From you two, I expect the utmost discretion and unconditional obedience,” declared Berenilde. “Whatever I do and whatever I say, whether to one or the other, I won’t tolerate any sideways looks. Most importantly, never reveal your Animism in front of a witness. At the first error, the measures that I will find myself obliged to take will be exemplary, in the interests of all four of us.”

  After this warning, Berenilde bit into a macaroon with voluptuous relish.

  Ophelia checked the lift’s clock. Still ten more minutes before Clairdelune. Maybe it was the relief of leaving her gilded prison, but she felt no apprehension. She even felt curiously impatient. All the idleness, the waiting, the vacuity that comprised her existence at the manor, it would all have ended up crushing her, bit by bit, until she was reduced to a pile of ashes on her wedding day. This evening, she was finally getting moving again. This evening she would see unknown faces, discover a new place, learn more about the workings of this world. This evening she’d no longer be the fiancée of the Treasurer, but a simple valet, anonymous among the anonymous. This livery was the best vantage point she could have dreamt of, and she was determined to make the most of it. She would look without being seen, listen while remaining mute.

  Thorn could think what he liked, Ophelia was totally convinced that there couldn’t be only hypocrites, corrupt individuals, and murderers on this ark. There had to be people worthy of trust. It was up to her to know how to spot them. The manor has changed me, she thought, twiddling her fingers in their new gloves. On Anima, Ophelia had only been interested in her museum. Now, by force of circumstance, she had become more curious about other people. She felt the need to find a support network, some honest people who wouldn’t betray her over some clan rivalry. She refused to be entirely dependent on Thorn and Berenilde. Ophelia wanted to form her own opinions, make her own choices, and be self-sufficient.

  When there were only three minutes left on the lift clock, a concern arose to spoil her fine resolutions. “Madam,” Ophelia whispered, leaning closer to Berenilde, “do you think there will be Mirages at Mr. Archibald’s ball?”

  Busy powdering her nose, Berenilde looked at her in amazement, and then dissolved into tinkling laughter. “But of course! Mirages are inescapable characters, they’re present at every reception! You’ll come across them continually at Clairdelune, my dear.”

  Ophelia was taken aback by such nonchalance. “But the livery I’m wearing, it’s a Mirage creation, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t worry, no one will recognize it. You’re the most insignificant of servants, with no personality or distinctive sign. There will be hundreds of valets looking just like you, so no one will notice any difference between you and them.”

  Ophelia lifted her head and looked at Mime’s reflection in the mirrored ceiling. A wan face, nondescript nose, expressionless eyes, neatly combed hair . . . Berenilde must surely be right. “But you, madam,” Ophelia insisted, “are you not worried about openly rubbing shoulders with Mirages? They’re your sworn enemies, after all.”

  “Why would I be worried? Clairdelune is a diplomatic sanctuary. There’s conspiring, maligning, threatening there, but certainly no killing. Even judicial duels are forbidden there.”

  Judicial duels? Ophelia would never have imagined finding those two words in the same sentence. “But what if we bump into Freya and her husband?” she continued. “Your family knows I’ve been placed under your protection; won’t they guess that I’m hiding within your retinue?”

  Lifting the folds of her dress, Berenilde stood up, gracefully. “You’ll never bump into my niece at Clairdelune. She is forbidden access, due to her vicious ways. So rest easy, my child, we’re just arriving at our destination.”

  The lift was, indeed, slowing down. Ophelia exchanged a look with Rosaline. At this moment they were still aunt and niece, godmother and goddaughter, but soon their relationship would become purely formal, as it had to be between a lady’s companion and a mute valet. Ophelia had no idea when she would get the chance to speak freely again with her, so her final words went to this woman who was sacrificing comfort and pride for her: “Thank you.”

  Aunt Rosaline briefly clasped her hand in her own. The gilded gates of the Antechamber opened onto the estate of Clairdelune. At least, that’s what Ophelia had been expecting. She was perplexed to discover instead a large waiting hall. It was a stunning place, with checkered tiles, gigantic crystal chandeliers, and gold statues bearing baskets of fruit.

  Following Berenilde’s directions, Ophelia undertook to push the luggage trolley out of the lift. It was loaded with such heavy trunks, she felt as though she were moving a brick house. She stopped herself from marveling at the hall’s painted ceilings. All manner of landscape came spectacularly to life: the wind whistling through the trees, here; some waves threatening to spill over onto the walls, there. Ophelia also had to refrain from staring at the bewigged nobles, as she tried to avoid them with her trolley. They all wore outrageous make up, spoke in shrill voices, and adopted affected poses. They expressed themselves in such a precious way, with such convoluted turns of phrase, Ophelia could barely understand them, and it wasn’t a question of accent. And they all bore, from eyelid to eyebrow, the mark of the Mirages.

  As soon as the nobles spotted the beautiful Berenilde, they greeted her in the most eccentric and ceremonious of ways, to which she responded with a distracted flutter of her eyelashes. Ophelia really would have thought, to see them, that there was no rivalry between them. Berenilde took a seat beside her mother on a velvet bench. There were similar ones across the entire waiting hall, on which many ladies sat impatiently fanning themselves.

  Ophelia parked the luggage
trolley behind Berenilde’s bench and remained standing, heels together. She didn’t understand what exactly they were waiting for here. It was already well into the evening, and Archibald would end up finding the tardiness of his guest insulting.

  On a neighboring bench, an old lady in pink was giving a quick brush to what Ophelia presumed to be a long-haired greyhound. It was the height of a bear, had a ridiculous blue ribbon tied around its neck, and sounded like a steam train as soon as it showed its tongue. She hadn’t expected to see a Beast in a place such as this.

  Suddenly, silence fell upon the hall. All the nobles turned as a man, who was as round as a barrel, went by. He walked with small, hurried steps, with a huge smile on his lips. Judging by his uniform, which was black with gold braiding, Ophelia concluded that he was a head butler—Berenilde had made her learn the servant hierarchy by heart—but he so lacked the bearing of one that she had her doubts: he was swaying on his legs and his wig was skew-whiff.

  “My dear Gustave!” a Mirage called out to him in an ingratiating voice. “My wife and I have been waiting here for two days. I daresay it’s merely a little oversight on your part?” He had said this while discreetly slipping a small object into the butler’s pocket; Ophelia couldn’t tell what as they were too far away. The butler patted his uniform pocket, looking flattered. “There’s no oversight, sir. Sir and madam are on the waiting list.”

  “But we’ve already waited for two days,” the Mirage insisted, in a sharper tone.

  “And others for even longer, sir.”

  Watched by the rattled Mirage, the butler moved on, with his hurried, mincing steps, offering a beaming smile to all the nobles presenting themselves to him. One put forward his youngest daughter, commending her wit and beauty. Another vaunted the exceptional quality of his illusions. Even the old lady in pink made her giant greyhound sit up and beg to impress the butler, but he cut through the crowd without halting for anyone. He stopped only once he had reached Berenilde’s bench, and there he bowed so low he almost lost his badly attached wig.

  “Ladies, Mr. Ambassador awaits you.”

  Berenilde and her mother rose without a word and followed the butler. Ophelia struggled to wheel her trolley through the mass of indignant nobles. Gustave the butler led them to the far end of the hall, and through a door guarded by policemen who looked far from easy-going.

  They instantly found themselves on the path of a rose garden. Ophelia looked up to discover, between the arches of white roses, a vast starry night. Clairdelune deserved its name. The warm air was so balmy, the flowers’ perfume so heady that she knew for sure they had just entered into an illusion. A very old illusion, at that. She recalled Adelaide’s journal: The lady ambassador kindly received us on her estate, where an eternal summer evening reigns. So, while Archibald had inherited the estate of his forebear, Ophelia was walking in the footsteps of her own. It felt a little as though history were repeating itself. The butler’s high-pitched voice brought her back down to earth.

  “It’s an honor to escort madam!” he clucked, addressing Berenilde. “Might I be so bold as to confess to madam that I share without reserve the esteem in which Mr. Ambassador holds her?”

  Aunt Rosaline raised her eyes skywards at this. Due to the piles of trunks on her trolley, Ophelia couldn’t really see what was going on in front of her. A turning in the rose garden path afforded her a closer look at this bizarre butler. With his beaming fat face and purplish drunkard’s nose, he reminded her more of a circus performer than a servant. “I’m not unaware of that, my devoted Gustave,” whispered Berenilde. “I am indebted to you for more than one favor. And I’ll be indebted for another when you’ve sketched out a current picture of Clairdelune for me.” As the Mirage before her had done, Berenilde discreetly slipped a small object to the butler. Baffled, Ophelia saw that it was a sandglass. So here, favors were exchanged for simple sandglasses?

  Gustave’s tongue instantly loosened. “There’s quite a crowd here, and not small fry, either. After all the rumors that circulated about madam’s indisposition, madam’s rivals made a very conspicuous reappearance at the court. Some vile gossips even suggested that it was a symptom of some disgrace, but hang me if I lent a willing ear to that!”

  “My female rivals don’t concern me as much as my male rivals,” Berenilde said, lightly.

  “I won’t conceal from madam that the Knight features on today’s menu. He rushed here as soon as he heard that madam was to be the guest at Clairdelune. The Knight has privileged access right across the court, and even when it would better for him not to show up, he always does whatever he likes. I do hope his presence won’t be an irritant to madam?”

  There was a long silence, disturbed only by the wheels of the trolley on the rose garden’s paving stones. Ophelia’s arms were aching, but she was dying to know more. So who was this Knight who seemed to make Berenilde uncomfortable? A rejected lover?

  “Will some members of my family also be present?” Berenilde merely asked.

  The butler coughed with feigned embarrassment, but it seemed more like stifled laughter. “With all due respect, madam, the Mr. and Mrs. Dragons are not greatly appreciated by Mr. Ambassador. They cause such mayhem whenever they’re here!”

  “Archibald is doing me a big favor,” Berenilde concurred, lightheartedly. “Save me from my friends, I’m busy with my enemies. At least the Mirages have the good sense not to tear each other apart.”

  “Madam needn’t worry about a thing. My master has reserved his very own apartments for her, and madam will be perfectly safe there. Now, if these ladies would kindly excuse me, I’m going to announce their arrival to him!”

  “Do that, dear Gustave. Tell Archibald that we’re here.”

  The butler went off with his hasty little steps. Ophelia nearly lost her balance trying to watch him go: a wheel of her trolley had got stuck in a rut in the paving. As she wrestled to free it, she got a glimpse of how far she still had to go. The rose garden’s arched path extended into a vast avenue punctuated by large, wide urns. Archibald’s castle, all white stone and blue tiles, stood right at the end; to Ophelia, it seemed almost as unreachable as the fake moon in the sky.

  “We’re going to take a shortcut,” announced Berenilde, offering her arm to her mother.

  They went along a large bed of violets, which struck Ophelia as more of a detour. She was starting to get cramps in her hands. Berenilde set off across a bridge, which, spanning a little canal, led to more gardens, and then, without warning, turned on her heels with an elegant swirl of her dress. Ophelia had to brake with both feet not to bang into her with the trolley.

  “Now, listen carefully to me,” Berenilde whispered. “The butler who’s just been conversing with me is the most treacherous and venal man at Clairdelune. He’ll seek to corrupt you, one day or another, as soon as some friend of mine, whether Mirage or Dragon, offers him a good price in exchange for my life or that of my child. You will pretend to accept his offer and inform me as soon as you can. Is that clear?”

  “What do you mean?” spluttered Aunt Rosaline. “I thought people didn’t kill each other here! That it was a diplomatic sanctuary!”

  Berenilde directed a venomous smile at her, to remind her that, apart from “yes, madam”s, she wanted to hear nothing from her mouth. “People don’t kill each other,” she replied, nonetheless, “but unexplained accidents can occur. They can easily be avoided, as long as one remains vigilant.”

  Berenilde had spoken that last word with a meaningful look towards the figure of Mime, stuck behind the luggage trolley. Behind the illusion’s neutral face, Ophelia was dismayed. In her mind, servants were people who were fundamentally different to nobles, pure souls such as Pistache. The knowledge that she’d have to be wary of them, too, perturbed her.

  As Berenilde helped her mother down the slope of the bridge, Ophelia mindlessly pushed her trolley behind them. It took her a while to
realize that the landscape on the other side wasn’t as expected. Instead of violets, they were now going through a grove of weeping willows. A little waltz melody floated in the air. Ophelia looked up and, above the undulating foliage, saw Archibald’s castle, its white turrets soaring into the night sky. The little bridge had conveyed them from one end of the estate to the other! However much Ophelia thought about it, she couldn’t understand how illusions could play around with the laws of space in this way.

  In the castle’s gardens, couples dressed in their finest were dancing by lamplight. The closer Berenilde and her retinue got, the denser the crowd became, a sea of wigs and silk. In the sky, the fake moon was as brilliant as a nacreous sun, and the fake stars evoked a real firework display. As for Archibald’s home, it was worthy of a fairy-tale castle, with its towers topped with pointed roofs and its myriad stained-glass windows. In comparison, Berenilde’s manor seemed like a country house.

  Ophelia didn’t remain under the spell of what lay before her for long. The dancers broke off waltzing as Berenilde, calm as a lake, advanced among them. They all had friendly smiles and sympathetic words for the favorite, but their eyes were colder than ice. The women, in particular, whispered behind the cover of their fans while indicating Berenilde’s stomach with their eyes. They exuded such hostility, it brought a lump to Ophelia’s throat.

  “Berenilde, or the art of making oneself desired!” jeered a voice above the music and the laughter.

  Ophelia seized up behind her trolley: it was Archibald, opera hat full of holes in one hand, old cane in the other, who was coming to meet them at a sprightly pace. A bevy of ravishing young girls trailed in his wake.

  Upon the arrival of the master of the castle, all servants in the gardens bowed. Ophelia mirrored them. Letting go of her trolley, she bent over stiffly and stared at the tips of her shoes for as long as they did. When she finally straightened up, she didn’t allow herself to be swayed by Archibald’s open smile or big, sky-blue eyes as he kissed Berenilde’s hand. She rather held it against him that he’d concealed his family’s particular power from her. Coming from a man who claimed to be incapable of lying, she considered this omission a minor betrayal.