Serafina was barely listening. A knot eased inside her when the girl returned, followed by a tall woman dressed with equally quiet elegance. She was darker than her daughter—well, that was hardly surprising if Celeste’s father were Alpennian. If Paolo had given her a child, she might have looked much the same. The thought pricked like a tiny hidden thorn. Serafina found her voice at last, “Madame Dominique, I would be very grateful if you could dress me for a dinner with the Royal Mystery Guild.”
It was the girl, Celeste, who took her measurements, jotting down numbers on a slate while Dominique brought forth samples of fabric and discussed the details of tucks and ruffles. Jeanne participated with a few pointed suggestions.
“Nothing too fussy, I think. There isn’t time.”
Tactful of her not to mention the cost.
“Perhaps something like that wine color you chose for Mesnera Chazillen’s New Year’s gown?”
Dominique deftly turned Jeanne’s suggestions into her own, bringing out a soft red wool with a border of flower vases woven in golds and blues. “This, I think. It was meant to be cut into shawls but if we set the border design at the hem—” She held it up to fall from just under the bosom. “—and a bit more of the motif on the sleeves. No ruffles at all, just a few tucks along the edge of the corsage.” She pinched the fabric between her fingers to show the effect along the collarbone and looked up at Jeanne for approval.
“Yes, you’re right as always!” Jeanne laughed.
“Will you have jewelry?” Dominique asked.
Serafina started to shake her head but Jeanne suggested, “A string of pearls?”
“Perfect! Now how do you plan to wear your hair?”
By this time Serafina had abandoned the thought of having her own opinions, but they all stared at her in expectation. “I usually…” She unpinned a lock and wound it into a tight curl around her finger to hang along her cheek. “Like that.”
Celeste paused over her slate to say matter-of-factly, “I wish mine would do that.”
“Then I think just a small band,” Dominique concluded. “To tie around in back. No feathers, no ribbons.” She kissed her fingers to set the seal of approval on her own vision.
When the decisions had all been made and the samples put away, Celeste returned to help her dress while Jeanne took the dressmaker into the front room to discuss expenses. Serafina suspected that she would be presented with a bill that was oddly thin, but there was no point to protesting.
“Maisetra?” Celeste asked as she did up the last buttons.
“Yes?”
“The vicomtesse said that you work mysteries with Maisetra Sovitre?”
Serafina shook her head. “I can’t work them. But I can see them. That’s what they want me there for—to watch.”
“Could you…?” She bit her lip, calculating the proprieties.
“Yes?” Serafina repeated encouragingly.
“Could you bring me a candle from Saint Mauriz’s altar at the cathedral? One that burned during the mystery? I don’t mean steal it,” she added hurriedly. “But would they let you take one away?”
“I don’t see why not,” she answered. “If I pay for a new one to replace it. You could do the same.”
Celeste frowned. “No, not from the cathedral. I asked and the sexton told me to go about my business. And it has to be from Saint Mauriz.”
Serafina looked at the girl curiously. “And are you a thaumaturgist, then?”
“Oh no,” Celeste said quickly. “But I do this and that. Market-charms and the like.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the front room. “Maman taught me a few things, and Mefro Charl before she died. And I try to work some things out for myself.”
And then the other two women returned, all smiles and agreement, and there was no chance for a further word.
* * *
Looking at the finished gown where it lay across the end of her bed, Serafina felt the illusion of confidence ebbing away. Why had she agreed to this? Because it meant so much to Margerit, of course. And Margerit had never once questioned her presence, or her desires, or her talents, for all that they might squabble over the nature of truth. The thought of disappointing Margerit and losing all that only made her heart pound harder. She set out the fillet for her hair beside her comb and the last treasured bottle of her mother’s hair oil. Not the one she used for everyday, but the one saved through the years for times when she needed that presence.
Where was that girl? Serafina poked her head out into the hallway and called, “Gerta!” It would take close to an hour to do her hair properly and she needed to be laced up first. “Gerta!”
The maid arrived in a clatter of shoes on the stairs and set about fitting the corset with impatient jerks.
“Not so tightly, I have to breathe,” Serafina snapped at her. As Gerta adjusted the fit, she began unpinning her hair and teasing out the unruly cloud with her fingers. They were trembling. With the laces tied off she said, “Could you bring me the comb over there on the dressing table?” A deep breath. The next part would take patience.
She heard Gerta give a sort of snort and turned to see her sniffing at the blue glass vial that had been next to the comb. “What’s this?”
“Don’t touch it!”
Serafina snatched at the bottle but her fingers slipped and it flew across the room to smash across the floorboards by the window. A wave of clove and sandalwood filled the room. She stared in horror and heard a frightened squeak from Gerta.
It was an omen. The night would end in ruin and disaster. She would disgrace Margerit and Jeanne and all of them.
“Get out! Get out get out get out!” Her shouts chased the girl from the room, then she knelt on the floor, picking through the fragments of blue glass, and began to weep.
“Maisetra Talarico?”
She barely heard Maisetra Valorin’s voice at the open door until the landlady ordered gently, “Gerta, clean that up and then you can go.”
Serafina sat back and watched mutely as the remains of the bottle were scraped into a dustpan and the spilled oil was sopped up with a towel. The room would be scented with it for weeks to come. After Gerta left, she felt Maisetra Valorin’s hands on her shoulders and smoothing her hair.
“It can’t be as much of a disaster as all that. How do we mend things?”
Serafina said miserably, “I can’t. My mother left it to me. It was all I had.” Even now the scent evoked her presence, the touch of her hands. “It came all the way from Alexandria.”
“Well then, the best place to look for more is the Strangers’ Market, where the sailors sell all manner of things. But for now we’ll have to make do. I have some pomade that may work. One moment.” Maisetra Valorin disappeared off to her own room and returned with a small jar scented with rose. “Now sit over here and show me what you want.”
One lock at a time, the cloud of hair was turned into long, bouncing ringlets as Maisetra Valorin wielded the comb at her direction. With each one, Serafina’s thoughts settled slowly into better order.
“It wasn’t really her fault,” she said at last. “I—” She raised her hands before her. They were still trembling.
“Just like any first performance,” Maisetra Valorin said. “Tomorrow you’ll tell me all about it and this will be forgotten. Now let’s get you into this lovely dress because I think I hear your friends’ carriage out in the street.”
* * *
The reception before the dinner was bearable only for Antuniet sticking by her side, equally ill at ease as the confusion of voices battered at them. The arrays of candles lighting the Assembly Hall left no dim corners to hide in.
“I wish Jeanne were here,” Serafina confided.
Antuniet shrugged. “She wasn’t invited this time. She isn’t a member of the Royal Guild and has nothing to do with affairs of state.”
The guild dinner before the All Saints’ Castellum had become something of an unofficial ambassadors ball, Serafina recalled. It made her a l
ittle more comfortable to see foreign faces and hear the profusion of other tongues. She would stand out less. But the mix of interests brought its own tension. Not all the guests were on speaking terms with each other.
Margerit drifted by regularly to introduce this person or that—she scarcely recalled their names. Most memorable was the sharp-faced, red-haired man that Barbara brought and introduced as Mesner Kreiser, with the Austrian embassy. Memorable because Antuniet gave him a poisonous stare and swept away without a word.
“Maisetra Talarico,” he said, bowing over her hand. “I’ve heard some fascinating things about you.” And to Barbara, “Does your cousin still hold a grudge?”
Barbara looked uneasy. “She might have forgiven you for her own sake, but not on behalf of Maisetra Monterrez.”
Kreiser looked confused for a moment. “Oh, yes, the little Jewish girl. I had forgotten.” He shrugged. “These things happen in war.”
“Is it war?” Barbara asked lightly. Her voice sounded like the ringing tap of steel against steel when opponents were taking each other’s measure. “I had thought the peace still held.”
Serafina sensed there was a game being played between them that she wasn’t privy to. So many mysterious currents always seemed to swirl around these people like a fluctus of emotions. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Mesner Kreiser,” she replied.
And then he had a great many questions about her studies, her work with Margerit, and what she expected to observe on the morrow. Having answered one, and then another, Serafina hardly knew how to stem the flood, until she was able to ask, “Are you a thaumaturgist, too?”
“Not a miracle-worker, no,” he replied. “Simply an observer, like you.” He shot a sidelong glance at Barbara. “I observe, but sometimes I try to prod others to action. Baroness Saveze has been resistant to my hints so far.”
Barbara gave a faint smile. “Your hints all seem designed to inspire others to do your work for you. If you want to know so much about the state of the eastern passes, I’m sure that a journey to Geneva or Turin or points beyond would be more instructive than quizzing me. Ah, they are signaling us to go in to dinner.”
They both departed, leaving her abandoned amidst the stir of activity. There was a moment of deepening panic before she saw Margerit signaling her over from the side of the room where she was in conversation with a liveried man.
“Serafina, I need to go in, but this gentleman will find your dinner partner.” Margerit reached out and squeezed her hand reassuringly. “Everything will go well.”
The dinner did not go well at all. The man chosen to escort her to the tables was distantly polite and spoke no more than five words to her after their introduction. The man seated to her other side was Russian, and though they both had French in common, it was not sufficient to converse beyond the formalities.
The first course offered sufficient distraction in the challenge of deciphering the dishes. After that, her appetite failed. By the third course, Serafina weighed the competing embarrassments and excused herself to her dinner partners, saying she felt unwell.
It was true enough. When she had been directed to the appropriate room, Serafina spent long moments leaning over a basin in a misery that was not relieved, but only ebbed gradually. That misery was only intensified by the presence of a maid standing silently beside her holding a towel in case of need.
And then, when that crisis was past, there was the gauntlet of returning to her seat. Only the speeches and desserts were left. She had been seated at one of the lower tables; few would notice her entrance. But she hesitated inside the doors to the grand salle, hoping that perhaps there would be some distraction to cover her movements.
That was when she noticed the plainly-dressed woman sitting against the wall, nearly hidden by a pillar among an arrangement of flowers and potted plants. The woman glanced her way, and as their eyes met she winked and jerked her head ever so slightly.
Serafina hesitated, uncertain of her meaning, then slipped over to join her. A small easel was set up, entirely hidden behind the vases, showing a rough charcoal sketch of the high table where the princess sat. Several figures not currently present in person were sketched in dramatic poses before her.
“Shh,” the woman said. “I’m not really here. But it looked like you might not want to be here as well, so we can be invisible together.” She picked up a sketchbook where several rough studies of heads overlapped each other on the page and added a few lines to one that was clearly meant to be Margerit. It wasn’t so much in the image itself but some essential presence.
“You’re the Italian thaumaturgist, aren’t you?” the painter asked.
“How did you…?”
“I have a list: the primary guild members, the important ambassadors and of course Maisetra Sovitre herself. My patron thought you might add something to the composition. ‘All the world comes to marvel at the Alpennian Mysteries.’ But I haven’t been able to catch a good likeness where you were sitting.”
Serafina thought of the grinding ordeal of the dinner so far and was grateful for that.
Abruptly the woman stood and took her by the chin to turn her profile this way and that. It was a deft, professional touch that didn’t startle her as much as it should have.
“Yes, I definitely must find a place for you.” The woman stared at her more deeply, but it didn’t feel like mere curiosity, more like recognition. “Would you…?” For the first time in their conversation she seemed hesitant. She reached down into the case that held her supplies and drew out a calling card. “Would you be willing to sit for me?”
Serafina looked at the card. Olimpia Hankez. Where had she heard that name before? She thought Maisetra Valorin might have mentioned it. “I…” she began, but there was a stir in the room as the dishes were being taken away again. “I need to go sit. Yes, I will.”
* * *
The previous time Serafina had stood in the cathedral observing the All Saints’ Castellum, her eyes had been entirely on Margerit. The swirling fluctus had been no more than backdrop. This time the mystic visions occupied all her attention. At her side, she could hear the faint scratch and whisper of the pens and brushes as Margerit sketched and Antuniet took her own notes. Serafina closed her eyes. The patterns of the mystery still came in visions but now there was no distraction from the gestures of the celebrants and the restless movements of those watching.
She tried to envision a map of Alpennia beneath the spreading lines and structures that grew as each course was laid down. There was a geography to the ritual, rooted in the evocation of the principal regions and towns. It wasn’t a geography of mountains and rivers but of the mind. She was still learning enough of the history of the land to bind the two together. Margerit had said, pay attention to the markein—the words and symbols that laid out the ambit of protection being invoked. But the markein, too, was not only geography but the range of perils and ills it was meant to address: disease, disaster, danger. With every cycle of the mystery, every course in the towers and walls, the landscape of her vision shifted. Shapes moved at the edges of her awareness, ones she couldn’t connect to the structure they’d studied. A blur like fingers reaching out, a touch of cold. Was that a phantasm or the chill of the cathedral stones? So much to comprehend! How had Margerit envisioned all this to design the ceremony?
As the mystery wound to its conclusion, as the concrescatio fixed the form of the petitions and the missio sealed their invocation, Serafina reached out to hold the structure in memory, with all its flaws, its infelicities and its gaps. It felt like an allegorical painting where every detail carried a vital piece of the story. Margerit was right: it was far from the smooth and polished effect seen with a long-established tradition. But it wasn’t only the complexity, not just the stumbles and hesitations to be expected in what was still a very new rite. There were puzzles here to solve before the full potential of the castellum could be realized.
Serafina started composing a mental list to have
ready when they all met again in two days’ time to compare notes.
* * *
With the next day free of obligations, she was tempted to lay abed all morning, lulled by the lingering scent of spices to imagine herself a girl, back in that sunlit apartment in Rome once more. Back then there had been no task facing her harder than working sums and going to the market. The market. What had Maisetra Valorin suggested? The Strangers’ Market. That corner of the Nikuleplaiz where crewmen from the ships and barges sold trinkets and crafts of their own, apart from the main cargos. It was said to be a chaotic place where treasures of the seven seas and frauds were in equal supply. Not a place for the innocent or unwary. But if there were any place in Rotenek where one might buy hair oil brought all the way from Alexandria, it would be there.
There was another task to complete first. Serafina dressed for walking and then wrapped up the thick waxen candle she had left sitting on the dressing table the evening before. The dressmaker’s shop was shuttered…but of course, it was Sunday. The long hours in the cathedral the day before had blurred her sense of the week. Hesitantly, Serafina knocked sharply on the door, wondering whether it would be answered. Or might they be at services?
The door opened to Mefro Dominique’s worried face. “Yes, Maisetra, is there some problem?”
“No,” Serafina reassured her. “I only came to see your daughter, Celeste, if I may. I have something for her.”
The dressmaker stepped back to let her in, calling, “Celeste! There’s a lady asking for you! What have you been up to?”
Serafina held out the wrapped candle when the girl emerged from the back room. “I remembered, you see?”
She took it with a grin of triumph. “Thank you, Maisetra!” And then, somewhat more hesitantly but without a trace of shyness, “Would you like to see my erteskir?”
The word was unfamiliar but Serafina had the sense of being offered a gift. And so, especially in the face of Dominique’s quelling frown, she answered, “I would love to. Could you show me?”
Mother of Souls: A novel of Alpennia Page 12
