The Spirit Lens

by Carol Berg

  “I will place guest registers at every entry and require each man and woman who attends to sign the lists, so that their names can be invoked in prayers for the dead prince. If you were to create one of your perimeters about the hall, Rotunda, and Portrait Gallery, crossing every exit, you could then use the signatures to match these imprints of those who come and go, could you not? We would know who leaves when. Who might be there under a false name. Other things that their . . . keirna . . . could tell us.”

  “A name scribbled on a page hardly provides enough to pattern a person’s keirna clearly.”

  “I understand that.” As ever with Dante, I assumed that the spellwork he had demonstrated at Montclaire was only a part of what was possible. “But it would allow us to control the scene. Gaetana could have created any number of weapons for Michel before she died, but she’ll not be here to wield them. Michel de Vernase knows we’ll be watching for a mule. Perhaps he’ll decide to try something himself.”

  Dante’s head angled slightly in my direction, so perhaps I’d drawn his interest.

  Without looking up, I pursued one additional avenue. “On the night we went into the deadhouse to see Ophelie, you enspelled a brass ring to foil the lock on the main door. I found the ring in a pocket the other day and wondered what capabilities it has. I’ll have guards posted about the Rotunda, and Philippe will have his bodyguards. But if we were to corner an assassin, it could be helpful if I could lock or unlock doors at will.”

  “The spell breaks locks. It cannot make a lock function properly. Simple logic will tell you the difference in the two problems.”

  Indeed, it was much easier to kill a man than to put an injured man to rights. But I had learned what I needed. I steeled myself. “So, Master, will you honor your oath and build the perimeter?”

  So fast I could not see it, he grabbed my doublet and drew me toward him, until our noses were but a finger’s breadth apart. His green eyes smoldered, reflecting the glints of the dying sunlight. “Do not test me, student.”

  I refused to flinch. Somewhere behind those eyes was the man who had tended my burnt hand and who had stretched his magic to its limits to prevent the ruins of Eltevire from falling on my head.

  “The Royal Astronomers and the other exhibitors will arrive at dawn on the morning of the Exposition. I’ll be in the Rotunda two hours before. Will that give you sufficient time?”

  He shoved me away. “Close enough. Perhaps you’ll learn something.”

  I caught myself on the arm of his couch. Tugging my garments around straight, I clasped my hands behind my back, as if I weren’t shaking.

  “From the day we began this, I’ve learned from you, Dante,” I said to his back. “You have cracked the foundation of my life, and I should hate you for it. But you’ve rebuilt that foundation with a perspective so much larger and more wondrous—a view of nature and magic that I’ve not yet begun to explore. I do sincerely regret our estrangement. My letter to the Camarilla was foolish and dangerous and lazy, and I failed to consider the risks—the considerable risks—to you. I regret that more than you can imagine, and I hope . . . Whatever is going on with you, I hope you will recognize and beware its toll.” I didn’t think an appeal to friendship would move him. Likely I had only imagined we had progressed so far as that.

  He did not move. So I retreated. But as I laid my hand on the door latch, his voice rose from a frigid darkness. “I’ll serve our agreement on the day of the festival, because it serves my purposes to do so. But at middle-night after it, our confederacy will be ended for once and all. Now get out, and do not bring your mewling face here again.”

  All these days, even while pronouncing Dante’s enmity irreversible and totting up reasons for it, I’d held some buried hope that I was wrong. Kajetan had always called me tenderhearted. Soft. But the chill of that dark room settled deep this time. Filled with regret and apprehension, I left him to his brooding.

  AT SUPPER TWO DAYS BEFORE the Exposition, Lady Antonia de Foucal fell ill with an attack of spleen and was taken to her room. As she was unable to make her evening visit to her foster daughter, the Warder of the Spindle Prison accepted her written request that the prisoner’s next nearest kin, Chevalier Ilario de Sylvae, visit in her stead. The chevalier was most distressed at the doleful venue, shrouding himself completely in black and clutching his famous crocodile charm, though crocodiles had never been sighted in the river Ley.

  IT TOOK NO MORE THAN one passage of the three iron water gates bound with hoary spells, one long walk up the steep, twisting central stair, one finger touch of sweating walls, one inhalation of the unnatural gloom, to believe Ilario’s contention that his fragile sister must surely die if kept in Spindle Prison too long. I certainly would.

  “Prisoner, stand forward,” shouted the warder, when we halted our climb before a thick oak door with a barred window.

  The bronze key cranked in the lock, spitting a magical residue that tasted like metal shavings. The door swung open soundlessly. A pale figure sat up on a narrow bed, drawing the thick blanket around herself. She pushed bare feet into slippers and made to stand up.

  “Dearest Geni,” I said, rushing past the warder to bury the lady’s face in my embrace before she could stand up and the keen-eyed officer notice the disparity in our heights or the puzzled expression on her face. “Beloved sister.”

  “Here now,” said the officer, “every prisoner, no matter rank, is to stand before the warder.”

  “Honor binds a Sabrian chevalier to kneel before his queen,” I said, releasing the stiff Eugenie, “especially when he pledged himself her own true knight on Grennoch Rock so long ago.” I remained kneeling by the bed, head bowed, praying sleep, surprise, and despondency would not prevent Eugenie noting the words Ilario had given me.

  “Warder,” she said softly, “forgive my brother. He is impulsive and”—she ruffled my hair, pressing downward so firmly as to keep me kneeling—“known to be a bit foolish from time to time. I humbly request permission to sit privately with my visitor.”

  “Granted,” said the warder, gruffly, hanging his lamp outside the door. “The usual time, though. No extension for prattling fools.”

  “Divine grace, Warder,” she said. “And my thanks for the gift of light.”

  She remained standing until the door swung shut, and the lock clanked. Her hand remained firmly on my head. “Please tell me you’ve brought good news, brother. It is so good to see you. Refreshing. Though I dearly love Antonia, she says so little of interest. . . .”

  Her words died away as nailed boots rang, descending, on the stair. Then she tweaked my hood aside and turned my chin so the weak lamplight shining through the barred square in the door illuminated my face.

  “Duplais!” She snatched her hand away and stepped back. “Who sent you? Why are you here?”

  “Forgive my impertinence, Majesty,” I said, remaining in my genu flection. “Your noble brother contrived to get me here, sending his dearest love and encouragement. At the last, I near had to truss him to a tree to prevent his upending our arrangement and coming himself.”

  “Our mother consented to this?”

  “No, my lady. She is indisposed and knows naught of it. Nor will she ever know, unless you choose to tell her. The chevalier is prepared to reap the consequence of her anger.”

  “What could persuade him to such a tempest as that?” Her hand flew to her mouth, and she sank to the bed. “Mother of angels, has the verdict come? Am I—?”

  “No, no, Your Grace! I bring no resolution to your situation. Of that I can say only that many keep faith on your behalf.”

  I would not give her vapid assurances. I had done so for Maura, convinced that truth must win out. But I had learned that lesson.

  “What news I bring tonight will be hard for you to hear,” I said, rising, “but Lord Ilario insists that your devotion to your friends and your passion for justice will compel you to act. And I have no one else. . . .”

  As succinctly as I
could, I told her Maura’s story, both what solid evidence had reported, and Maura’s own testimony. I spoke without sentiment. Without interpretation. The burden of judgment had to rest with Eugenie, for the risks she took would be considerable, in circumstances when her own position would yet be vulnerable.

  Ilario’s estimates of Eugenie’s reaction were entirely borne out. “The only other prisoner in the Spindle is two turns up from me,” she said, pausing in her tenth traversal of her cell. “Never in all the woes of this world could I have guessed it to be Maura . . . clever, kind Maura. And never this side of Heaven will I believe she has purposefully betrayed a soul to murder. I understand the law, and the need for the king to serve it, else I would be banging my head on these cell walls. But the souls one touches in this life are more important than law. Let Philippe condemn those foul, wretched vipers who so torment young girls. No one will die for my sake. Not if I can prevent it.”

  Nailed boots again rang on the stair. Ascending.

  She dropped to the edge of the bed beside me. “Quickly, tell me your plan.”

  Into her pale, slender hand, I dropped the brass ring Dante had enspelled to break locks. “This is chancy, at best. . . .”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  25 CINQ THE ANNIVERSARY

  “Sonjeur Portier, we need more paper for the Portrait Gallery guest registries,” said the breathless young squire as he hurried along beside me, his request almost drowned out by new cheers from the Rotunda. “Could we not just skip a few names?”

  “Extra pages are stacked on the table by the service entry,” I said, dipping my head to Lord Baldwin’s wife and five stair-stepped children, as I sped the length of the Great Hall for the hundredth time since well before dawn. “Skip no one. Shall a small inconvenience cheat our dead prince of his honors?”

  “No, certainly not, sonjeur.” The squire’s voice faded as I left him behind like a faltering horse in a race.

  One hour remained until the closing program—the two Royal Astronomers, Mage Orviene, and Dante. Some two hours later the honored guests would flood into the Portrait Gallery for wine and supper and discussion of the varied events of the Grand Exposition, while fireworks lit up the river to end it all. But Edmond de Roble had not yet arrived, nor had any other message or evidence from Michel de Vernase. Bless the saints, I had been busy enough to prevent excessive thinking. If Philippe did not find reason to release his wife tonight, then my plan to free Maura was made infinitely riskier. If Philippe did not find reason to release his wife before exacting the penalty for Michel de Vernase’s crimes, then Maura was dead.

  The day had gone smoothly since I had followed Dante on his circuit of the Exposition venue before dawn, inhaling the vibrant energies of his magic as he embedded a wide gray stripe in the floor at every entrance. Now that thousands of visitors had crossed his boundary, I could only imagine what the shimmering film of enchantment would look like if the mage were to plant his staff in one of the main doorways—uncountable haloed forms jammed one upon the other. Dante expressed no doubt that he could distinguish one from another, though he advised me to require full family names and birthplaces on the registers that he might have more information to distinguish them.

  “Heurot!” I called, relieved to see my ever-reliable valet who had been called into service as a footman. “Go round to every entry and remind the door warders that once the tower bell tolls third hour, none but those with court credentials or signed invitations may be admitted to the Rotunda. The morning guests will be escorted out through the Great Hall.”

  “Aye, lord sonjeur.” He’d not gone two steps before he paused and grinned over his shoulder. “Is this day not the world’s marvel, sonjeur? Every hour I’ve thought I’m outside time called to Heaven. The magics are wonders, but these things folk say are not magics have more the look of it than what the mages do! Scholar Rulf conjures sparks with his ball of sulfur and his hand, and that other fellow claims his pump sucks the air right out of his jars! My mind will scarce believe he can silence a bell’s ring, the clearest of the god’s music. And what I wouldn’t give to be allowed to look into the opticum. I heard one gentleman say there were monsters in the water no bigger than a hair from his head!”

  “Indeed.” I could not but smile at his delight. Though the intentions of the day had little to do with simple exposition, it pleased me to think minds might be opened to nature’s marvels, including sorcery, through my efforts. “Now go on about my mission, lad. If I can manage it later, I’ll get you a glance at the monsters.”

  We raced off in opposite directions. The mass of people circling Philippe’s new pendulum in the Rotunda had grown to thirty deep. The heavy golden bob—filled with lead, so I’d been told—had been first released at exactly noonday, the king himself wielding the taper that burned through its thread leash. Suspended from the peak of the Rotunda’s dome by fine steel wire, the orb swung in blinding glory, the plane of its swing constantly shifting ever so slightly about its great circle. Philippe’s pendulum engineer had set up paper standards about the circle and inserted a slim stylus protruding downward from the center of the golden ball. No other display elicited such noisy delight as did the pendulum whenever the stylus toppled one of the standards.

  “Sonjeur de Duplais, what is this horrid marring of the floor? I was told that you were responsible.”

  Lady Antonia’s imperious finger indicated Dante’s gray stripe across one entry to the Rotunda. The dowager queen, a living ikon in a cloth-of-gold mantle, clearly disapproved. Her twenty ladies and gentlemen frowned in unison, as if sullied marble ranked among society’s worst depredations.

  “Divine grace, my lady,” I said, bowing. “This is but a fixture in aid of the evening’s program, and no permanent defacement.” Which latter declaration could well be a lie for all I knew.

  “Indeed?” She fluttered a fan, a requirement as the heat and odor of crowded bodies grew ever more oppressive. “Can you give us a hint of what Eugenie’s dread mage has in store for us? Dear Orviene has assured me that his exhibition will be soothing, as I was woefully ill these past two days with such spleen as I thought must leave me blind. Such a banging head, such vicious flashes of fever and chills, and a thirst so fierce that I feared I had contracted sweating sickness. So I must insist that no exhibition be too dreadful or too excessive with noise or lights, else it will surely drive me to Ixtador.”

  Relieved that Ilario’s hand had not been recognized in the lady’s attack of “spleen,” I expressed all sympathy. “Angel’s grace, my lady, you appear well recovered for having suffered so terribly. I wish I could reassure you as to the evening’s prospects. But in truth, Master Dante does not confide in anyone, certainly not those he holds in contempt.”

  She touched her fan to her lips, not at all masking a smile. Gossip of ongoing conflict seemed medicament to many courtiers. “ ’Tis rumored you do not get on with the fiend.”

  “Not by half,” I said with a helpless shrug, imagining the pleasure of chaining her to the pendulum. “But I would suffer far more than scorn to serve Her Majesty.”

  “Prettily said, sonjeur. Ilario reports you’ve been most helpful with this grand folly.”

  “His lordship is more than kind.”

  “Well, we must not delve too deeply into an imbecile’s qualities.” She tapped a red silk slipper on the marked floor. “Do remove this blight when the night is done. Vinegar and coarse wool should serve.”

  Lady Antonia swept into the Rotunda past the pendulum, trailing behind her the potent scent of jasmine, a growing band of admirers, and a barbed commentary on “Philippe’s forever inconsiderate expenditure on mechanical fripperies.” Her voice grated on the spirit very like the sour plucks of the virginal on display just behind me.

  “Adept Voucon, should I have additional materials fetched for you?” I said, peering over the magnificently carved instrument case.

  The stooped, gray-robed sorcerer, acclaimed for playing the virginal without touching
either keyboard or strings, was hunched over a loop of cotton string on the floor, frantically adjusting particles of silver, linen, dust, and bone. “Rid this venue of its disharmonies,” he said angrily. “I understood we were to work in a purified space.”

  “Prefect Angloria herself approved this venue, Adept,” I snapped. “There are no disharmonies here.” Nor anywhere else, so my studies had told me. Many practitioners blamed certain alignments of stars, moon, season, and location for local conditions—disharmonies—that disrupted spellwork. No evidence had ever been produced to support the idea.

  I moved on, unreasonably irritated. Excuses, always. No wonder people were skeptical of the art.

  A hunger for news sent me in search of Ilario. Indeed, no one could miss him. Resplendent in emerald satin, metres of white lace, and a vermillion short cloak, he was perched on a stool near the opticum at present, offering incoherent explanations of mathematical complexities and magical wonders at a volume that could wake the kings in the royal crypt. As I watched, he theorized that the pendulum’s precession about its great circle resulted from a monstrous lodestone being turned by chained demons in the netherworld, and that Adept Voucon’s difficulties with the virginal were surely caused by the nearby vacuum pump. The pump must have removed the very bits of air Voucon was attempting to enchant to shiver the virginal’s strings, he said. The appalled academicians would be months in their attempts to recover from his assault on scientific principles.

  Before I could take Ilario aside, a siren squeal from the Great Hall raked a claw along my spine. I rushed back to the mobbed venue. But the cry signaled only another lady exhilarated by the sparks of the virtu electrik, produced by Scholar Rulf’s spinning ball of sulfur, and transmitted through his hand to hers.

  The tower bells struck third hour of the afternoon watch, signaling the end of the general exhibition. Ranks of footmen politely urged the guests toward the Great Hall, shooing them away from the pendulum and scouring them out from behind the encircling colonnades.