“Did you want this upstairs, Maisetra?” one of the footmen asked doubtfully.
“No, there’s no need for that. Just somewhere out of the way, I suppose,” Frances interjected. “I am sorry for the inconvenience.” She addressed the company at large.
“But whatever is in it?” Margerit asked. It couldn’t be clothing to be that heavy, though if it weren’t then Frances had brought little enough to wear. She gestured them to take it into the second parlor that served as an office.
When the trunk was settled in place, Frances undid the straps and locks to raise the lid. She pulled back a fold of blanket and lifted a thin metal plate from where it rested in its swathing. At an angle to the light, the tracery of lines and markings could be seen. “It’s my book,” she said. “The important part, at least. The plates.”
Margerit tempered her curiosity with sympathy for her travel-worn guest and waited until the evening, when hot water, fresh clothes and dinner could do their work. The Chafils and the Faikrimeks were invited to dine and there was no chance to discover whether Frances would care to tell her story before strangers. With the table cleared at last, she suggested to her aunt that their dinner guests might enjoy a hand of cards. That distraction allowed a chance to examine the contents of the trunk more closely.
“Aquatint?” Barbara asked, lifting one of the plates carefully to examine under the lamplight.
“Oh goodness, I have no idea,” Frances replied. “I suppose I’ll need to find out, though heaven knows when I’ll be able to have it printed now.”
“You promised me a book,” Margerit teased lightly. “You didn’t say I’d need to provide my own printshop!”
“I am sorry,” Frances began. Half her sentences started that way. “I did promise. I promised so many people.” The no-nonsense crispness of her voice wavered.
Barbara gently replaced the plate she’d been examining into its wrappings and crossed the room to pour brandy from a decanter into several small glasses. “I suspect this is a story that calls for something stronger than Madeira. And perhaps we’d be more comfortable in the library?”
A few sips seemed to fortify Frances for more direct answers. “It was my brother,” she said. “He’s been collecting the subscriptions. We’ve been planning it for years. But he thought…I was still writing, you see. And the plates would take some time to be engraved. And he thought it was silly for the funds just to sit in his account. He’s not a gambler, you must understand that.”
“An investor,” Barbara said. It was clear she felt the difference was minor.
Frances nodded. “There was really no risk at all. There shouldn’t have been. He told me no one could have expected…”
“And yet the money is gone,” Barbara concluded.
Again she nodded, this time more miserably. “If we could only have published, I’m sure the additional sales would have made up the lack. And the plates were already finished as you see. But the publisher refused to take the risk. He was very cold about it. What could I do? He was threatening to sell this all off to a foundry.” She waved back in the direction of the trunk in the next room.
“So you stole them,” Barbara said.
Frances looked horrified. “Of course not! They’re mine aren’t they? My own work. And I left my mother’s emeralds there as a pledge, so no one can say…” She trailed off in confusion. The unexpected travel, the paucity of her luggage, all that told a story of hasty departure. “I had to go somewhere and I’d promised you a visit, so here I am.”
* * *
It took only one day for Frances Collfield to return to the stout cheerfulness that had always been her hallmark. The future would manage for itself. It always had. She accepted an invitation to stay through the New Year without any discussion of what would become of her afterward. And the only remaining question seemed to be how to keep her occupied in a season when tramping over mountains to collect specimens was impossible.
“You should give another lecture,” Margerit told her over the breakfast table. “You were the one who inspired me to start them.” She handed Frances one of the handbills listing the next two months’ topics. “There’s no end of interested speakers. They’ve become quite the thing. I think I have all of October scheduled, but that would give you time to plan.”
“Good heavens!” Frances said when she looked over the list. “Every week? That’s quite the accomplishment. And all this because of me?”
Would she have begun sponsoring the lectures without that first inspiration? Margerit wasn’t certain, but it would have made for a duller life. The program of women scholars had become one of the joys of her life. It was her own special contribution to the Rotenek season, given that she had no interest in holding balls.
“It’s finding the venue that’s the difficult part,” she said with a sigh. “There’s a hall down in the university district that I use but it’s very small. Most places available during the season are so small, and I have to change locations all the time. I’ve asked my business manager LeFevre to try to find some suitable building to purchase but nothing has turned up.”
Frances looked startled. “You’d buy a property just for the lectures? What would you do with the place the rest of the time?”
Plans spun out in imagination. She’d asked herself the same question many times. “There are so many possibilities. The Orisules run a charity school that could use more room. The lectures need to have general interest but I’d like to start some more intensive classes—ones that the university doesn’t offer. The Poor Scholars have expressed an interest, and some of the older women who come to the lectures have suggested topics. We live in a wonderful age of ideas and yet we’re reduced to begging for scraps. I’d like to see every girl who’s as thirsty for learning as I was have the opportunity to drink her fill.”
“Why that sounds like you’re planning to found a college!” Frances said.
Margerit laughed. “You aren’t the first person to say that! Antuniet keeps calling me a second Fortunatus, after the man who started Rotenek University.” She blushed at how much the nickname cheered her.
“Well, I think it’s a brilliant idea,” Frances said.
Everyone thought it was a brilliant idea, but accomplishing such a thing would be far more work than she could imagine. And overseeing a large household gave her the basis to imagine a great deal. “So shall I put you down for the first week in November?”
* * *
Akezze was the one who found a solution for Frances’s publishing woes. They were sharing a late supper at the Red Oak tavern in the student quarter after Akezze’s lecture. Margerit looked around at the other tables in the crowded room. Barbara was greeted as a regular, but she would never dare come here on her own. It wasn’t a rough place—if it were, Marken would have stopped her with one of those meaningful armin’s looks and silences. Not rough, but filled with noise and conversation. Akezze, too, was greeted as familiar here. This was a side to academic life that Margerit had never had a chance to experience.
With her bold manner and striking flame-colored hair, Akezze had become a favorite speaker. Her speeches on the history of logic and public rhetoric might have drawn crowds on their own, but some came for no other reason than to watch her talk. In one way, Margerit thought, it was a triumph to see the listeners include so many men—serious men with hopes of public careers. But it felt like an intrusion at times, as if they might crowd out the girls and women she’d meant the gatherings for.
Akezze was still flushed with excitement, the bright spots in her cheeks standing out against her pale, freckled skin. “And did you see?” she whispered in delight. “Who would have thought I’d have diplomats coming to hear me?”
“You mean Perzin?” Barbara asked. “I suppose he might be considered a coup. He’s one of Albori’s rising men. I hadn’t realized he was back from Paris.”
Oh yes, Margerit had noticed Perzin, for his wife Tionez was unaccountably one of Jeanne’s bosom friends and ha
d stuck close to Jeanne’s side all evening, though Margerit had hoped for a private word. “I doubt we’ll get quite that many to hear about your lichens, Frances. I can’t imagine botany has an interest to diplomats and government ministers!”
“So long as it’s of interest to someone,” Frances said cheerfully. “I’m hoping I may find new subscribers to publish my book here.”
Margerit held her tongue. She couldn’t entirely like the notion of selling a duplicate set of subscriptions. If felt too close to fraud. Her heart had urged her to fund the project herself, but she could imagine LeFevre’s opinion of that. You may of course spend your funds on any extravagance you choose. But not on all of them, so choose wisely.
At Akezze’s quizzical look, Margerit added to Frances’s explanation, “Her book on the lichens of the western Alps. You should see the lovely plates she has to illustrate it. Forty or fifty I believe it was. Quite luxurious!”
“Do you know?” Akezze said thoughtfully. “We have a few of our girls placed in a printing shop. Some of them are journeymen now.”
By “our girls” Margerit knew she meant the Poor Scholars. Akezze still worked closely with the charity school that had provided her own start.
“They’ve been looking for work to bring into the shop—something to set themselves up in business. The master printer takes half of whatever they bring in, but they’re trying to save enough to set up on their own. Perhaps you could try putting out a selection of the illustrations as prints. If they did well enough, that might fund the book as a whole.”
“They’re looking to set up their own printing house?” Margerit asked reflectively. Perhaps…it might be enough to win LeFevre over.
“It depends on the work,” Akezze said. “A press of their own would be quite expensive. They’d need an assurance of steady jobs. It’s not like the hand-copying and notary work that the girls do. That requires only the skill.”
Margerit had made great use of the Poor Scholars to copy those sorts of thaumaturgical books that publishers avoided. A year past, their work had saved Antuniet’s alchemy text from being entirely lost. The thoughts all fell together in her mind. “I could guarantee at least three or four books that stand in need of a publisher,” she said. “What would you say to putting out an edition of Gaudericus?”
Akezze’s jaw dropped. “The book that’s so rare because no one dares touch it?”
“The book that’s so rare there are a hundred scholars across Europe who would pay dearly for a copy,” Margerit countered. “I doubt his work is as risky now as it was a century ago. That’s the last time someone tried to publish it.” Only a few copies had escaped destruction after that debacle. Margerit’s thoughts spun out,. “If I added my name to the project…”
The tapster interrupted them to offer another round of drinks. Margerit could see in Barbara’s frown that she was rehearsing all the risks. Gaudericus might not be a forbidden book—not like it had been when the church held greater sway—but everyone with a hand in the process would consider the risks. There were other reasons beyond the whiff of heresy that thaumaturgical texts had been tightly controlled.
Unexpectedly, Barbara raised a different objection. “Rare, yes, but is it rare enough to guarantee a large return for the press? Perhaps better to start with a text that’s never been published at all. What about that earlier work of Gaudericus that I found for you,” Barbara suggested. “I don’t know there are any other copies of that around. And it omits some of his more controversial writings.”
Margerit shook her head. “Not that one.” Her reaction felt selfish but she tried to explain. “I think that was a very early draft. The ideas are only half-formed. Some of the more daring ones only appear in Tanfrit’s commentaries in the margins. It’s a curiosity, but I doubt it’s enough of one to turn a profit.”
“Who is this Tanfrit?” Frances asked, trying to follow the conversation. “I’ve heard of your Gaudericus—silly superstitious nonsense.”
Margerit bristled. She’d encountered the Englishwoman’s disdain for the saints’ mysteries before and didn’t care to rehearse the argument here. “She was a contemporary of his. A great correspondent, which is a good thing, as almost everything we know of her work comes from the letters she wrote to other people. My secret book-monger found Barbara a prize—an early manuscript version of Gaudericus’s De Mechanismate Miraculorum with commentary in Tanfrit’s own hand. What I wouldn’t give to have been able to learn from the two of them!”
“Though it seems to me,” Akezze pointed out acerbically, “that if the best ideas in that text are found in Tanfrit’s hand, then perhaps they weren’t his ideas alone.”
Margerit had toyed with that same thought, but it felt disloyal to the man to voice it.
“And if Tanfrit’s thoughts were such an influence on his work, why wouldn’t he acknowledge it?” Akezze continued. “He gives credit to Chizelek and Pontis.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time a woman’s work has been overlooked.” Frances echoed what they all knew.
“True enough,” Barbara added. “And that might be reason alone to make the earlier text available. It’s curious. You know the legends of course, that she had an unrequited passion for Gaudericus but he vowed to be wedded only to his studies. There are darker stories as well, about a bargain he made with the devil for that knowledge. I doubt there’s any truth to them. But the legend says that, in despair, Tanfrit threw herself into the Rotein in flood.”
Akezze pursed her lips in thought. “Didn’t Serafina say she’d found a different story? That Tanfrit was named a dozzur at Rotenek University?”
“I’m sure there are stories enough,” Margerit said. “But I don’t know that I’d believe either of those. The University swears they’ve never let a woman lecture. That’s why they wouldn’t let me use the Chasintalle for my talks. And the commentaries in my book—they don’t sound like a woman in love or in despair.”
“Despair can be a hidden thing,” Frances said quietly.
The comment made Margerit wonder. Had Frances chosen her studies freely or were they consolation when other opportunities were lost? “We were speaking of your book. If we set up a printing shop, we could certainly look into publishing it.” It had become “we” so quickly.
“Yes, a place to begin,” Akezze suggested. “To train more girls in the print shop. They have the use of their master’s press for now, but if we had a patron and equipment of our own—”
Margerit felt Akezze’s expectant gaze. Did she dare? Maybe there was something in the air of a student tavern like the Red Oak—something that encouraged impossibilities. She’d never had a chance to breathe this air in her own university years. Along with the other girl-scholars, she’d been promptly escorted home after lectures. This ferment of debate and inspiration was what she hoped to provide for all of them, all the girls who dared to dream as she had.
A fierce grin spread across her face. “Perhaps,” she suggested, “if I do find my lecture hall, we could combine the two.” She had been thinking only about the teaching side—about classes and studies. That might be enough for those like her who needn’t think about making a living. But Akezze’s Poor Scholars were hoping to find a trade with better expectations than service. A trade for the mind and not just the hands. And something that combined the two: the printing of books…
Her eyes met Akezze’s and beside her she heard Barbara laugh.
Chapter Five
Luzie
Early October, 1823
So many people! The open doorway was cracked open just enough to see the first few rows of chairs beyond the open space where the fortepiano stood. Even without a view of the rest of the salle, the crowd made its presence known in a hum of voices. Above the chairs, an arabesque of gilded plaster arched to define the area that served as a stage. Luzie could barely remember the first time she’d played in public, perched on a box set on top of the bench to raise her hands high enough to reach the keys. One of her brothe
rs had played the violin—she couldn’t remember now whether it had been Gauterd or the unfortunate Ianilm. Later it had been duets, side by side at the keyboard with her father. She hadn’t performed since her marriage—not for more than a few friends in private or for her lodgers. And never her own compositions before. She had confidence in her hands, but this crowd!
Somehow she’d thought it would be a small affair—a parlor, or at best a private ballroom—not the Salle Chapil. In rehearsals she’d imagined a private salon with a dozen listeners. A few friends, the baroness had said. Zarne will be reciting some of his new works after you play, and Hankez is showing off her portrait of Maisetra Sovitre. Baroness Saveze’s few friends seemed to include half of Rotenek society.
How had Maisetra Talarico fallen in with this crowd? She didn’t pry into her tenants’ lives, but one couldn’t help being curious. A letter of reference from the famous Vicomtesse de Cherdillac, familiar enough with Baroness Saveze to secure this commission for her, and yet not familiar enough to be invited to the performance? At first she had taken Serafina Talarico as what she claimed to be: a visiting scholar of modest means, no one of note. That fiction was being torn away piece by piece. They would need to have words later.
Luzie looked out again. The space glittered with the gilt carving of the chairs and the sparkle of elegant jewelry. The guests were beginning to take their places. She could see the baroness seated in the place of honor in the front row wearing a gown of peacock-blue silk. A hair ornament of feathers and sapphires nodded as her head bent in conversation with the woman seated beside her.
If only her father could see her now! He hadn’t set foot in a Rotenek concert hall since his hands had grown too stiff to play, but he would have come, if only she’d known to ask. She wouldn’t have dared to beg an invitation for a truly private concert, but for something like this…surely it could have been arranged. Perhaps there would be more opportunities after this one. There were a few faces in the audience she knew from her own acquaintance: the Alboris and the Silpirts. And everyone in musical circles in Rotenek knew Mesnera Arulik.
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