Mother of Souls: A novel of Alpennia

by Jones, Heather Rose

  Rotenek should have been quiet and dull at midsummer. The court should have been away, traveling between several carefully selected hosts and royal properties, mingling leisure and the never-ending press of state. The great houses along the Vezenaf should stand half-empty, with skeletal staffs attacking those chores that could not be attempted with the family in residence. The newer mansions along the city’s northern edge supported a summer season in imitation of those in rural gathering places such as Chalanz, Akolbin or Suniz, but the grand salles in the city center fell quiet and the cafés around the Plaiz saw more businessmen than barons.

  It was far from unprecedented for the councils to be called to return at midsummer. During the tense and troubled times of the French Wars, it had been as common as not, though the bills decided in those sessions had been for show. If not for the other attractions of Rotenek, Barbara might have begrudged the summons enough to ignore it. Little enough of moment would be agreed on in the council of nobles, even if they could choose among the concerns for focus. In truth, there was little enough that could be done. Fires in the wharf district were outside their concern. Disease might be addressed by sanitation and the funding of hospitals. The topic of canals had caught everyone’s imagination, but there was no chance of agreement on action.

  Lord Chormuin set the cat among the pigeons in the second week with a bill that would transfer all governance of water transport and its appurtenances to control of the common council. “For,” he argued in his opening remarks, “matters of ordinary trade and industry fall within their ambit, so long as they don’t touch on tariffs or foreign exchange. It should be beneath the dignity of this body to squabble over whether canal locks are open or closed.”

  One might suspect Princess Annek’s hand behind the unexpected move. Most of Chormuin’s acts aligned in some way with her preferred goals. But Annek had kept carefully silent on any of the more practical debates concerning the river, confining her influence to a suggestion for dredging the chanulezes. And despite his reputation for legal reforms, Chormuin had old-fashioned views when it came to the nobility dabbling in trade. This move might be nothing more than what it seemed: a distaste for having the nobles’ council devolve into bickering over transport rights and investments.

  Barbara sat quietly on the bench and kept her thoughts to herself as tempers drove the speeches to the edge of insult and beyond. Given the source of the old baron’s fortune, she was scarcely in a position to be disdainful, however little of that fortune had fallen into her own hands.

  And yet, mere snobbishness aside, Chormuin’s point was sound. The maintenance of the wharves, the dredging of channels, repairs to the river walls and the chanulezes, all of these fell under the lower council unless specific private properties were involved. Was the construction of a canal like the building of a new warehouse—no concern to anyone save the owner? Or did it fall together with ancient regulations such as the discharge of tanneries—a matter of common concern and common welfare?

  The questions stirred Barbara’s fascination with the structures of the law, and she idly made notes of every point where a search of the Statuta might bear fruit. Law and precedent might be complex, but at least they were fixed, not like the question of what the consequences of canal closures might be. As voices rose around her, she confined herself to providing citations.

  That reticence failed to save her from demands for support. Only absenting herself entirely from the Assembly Hall would have done that and she’d grown to enjoy the interplay even when the goal seemed vain. It felt like the excitement when she had watched the old baron at work as voices and opinions flew like shuttlecocks. Back then she had watched from the armins’ benches at the side, with more focus on the currents of emotion than the details of law.

  Tavit had that task now. No sooner had the staff been struck three times on the floor to signal each day’s close than he was at her side, close as a shadow. He blamed himself that she’d lost her temper at Feizin back in the spring. It shouldn’t have gone that far, she could admit that now. But it terrified her that someone like Feizin might feint at Margerit to strike at her. Her own place was secure. Was Feizin behind the guildmasters’ attack on the Royal Thaumaturgist appointment? Margerit’s position—her plans, her dreams—might still crumble if such filth were thrown and allowed to stick.

  But the rituals of honor held. You kept the reputation you allowed others to give you. And as long as her arm was sure, no one would be allowed to cast that sort of dirt on Margerit. The honor of Saveze might be in Tavit’s keeping, but Margerit’s was in hers.

  With her thoughts turned in that direction, Barbara started like a spooky horse when Tavit coughed discreetly at her back as they made their way through the press toward the doors into the Plaiz. But it was only one of Annek’s pages, holding out a folded and sealed note.

  She took it with a nod and broke it open. Yes, she had expected this since her return from Saveze. With a small gesture, she indicated the change in plans and direction to Tavit and turned to work back through the crowd toward the palace proper. There was a report to be made, and perhaps new instructions that would never see their way into a minister’s dispatches.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Luzie

  July, 1824

  Every summer morning brought Luzie the same slow-dawning awareness. An unaccustomed warmth under the covers. The scent of sandalwood and clove. One stopped noticing scents after a time. She no longer noticed the faint trace of lavender in the sheets or the otto of roses she had always preferred in pomade. But it was hard to imagine becoming oblivious to that sign of Serafina’s presence.

  She could hear footsteps and clattering from downstairs where Silli and the maids were up and about. And then a shout from one of the boys at their endless squabbles. There were only a few more moments to enjoy this rest, even on a Sunday, and no time remaining at all to pretend the world could be ignored. With every moment spent lying here, the comfort curled into anxiety. Oh, Gerta wouldn’t come up until she rang, but there was no reason at all to lie abed. Someone would question it.

  Luzie opened her eyes to the dark curve of Serafina’s shoulder above the white linen of her nightdress and pressed her cheek against the warmth of her skin. She’d missed this and scarcely dared to admit it. Missed—no, not this precisely. Her marriage had been a different matter. But missed having a friend, a confidante, a companion…she flinched away from the word lover. A widow who took a lover was a figure of contempt. One who remained alone was an object of pity. But a widow could have a close friend. A special friend.

  “It’s getting late,” Luzie whispered, and Serafina rolled toward her, smiling in a lazy stretch. At night, when the doors were closed and the lamps snuffed, and the darkness hid Serafina’s amusement and her own embarrassment, they sated their hungry skins with touch and reached out to take what each other offered. Perhaps sometime she would be daring enough in daylight to study every unknown inch of the body that lay beside her. To explore the unfamiliar planes of Serafina’s bones, the way her breasts melted into small puddles when she lay back as she did now, the way her skin shaded now darker, now lighter in unexpected places. But mornings were shy, as she returned to being uncertain just what it was that they had become to each other.

  “We’re going down to Urmai today after services,” Luzie reminded them both, as she threw back the covers and moved to pull the cord that summoned Gerta with a pitcher of hot water.

  It was fashionable to complain that the heat was oppressive in Rotenek in the summer. If you were rich and had the misfortune to be stranded in town, there were barges that would take you drifting lazily down the river where the breezes were cooler. Once you were out in the current, the stink of the mud along the banks was barely noticeable. If you hadn’t the wherewithal for a barge with chilled wine and soft music, you could still hire a riverman to row downstream to the gardens at Urmai.

  It wasn’t only the gardens, of course. There were acrobats and clowns, sh
ows with performing monkeys, and dogs that would dance on their hind legs, games of strength and chance. The entertainments changed from week to week. Whatever might lure the city-dwellers out for a day’s pleasure.

  This year Hennik was grown old enough to pretend indifference to the shows and games, though he laughed and shouted easily enough when Rikke was the excuse to stop and watch. Hennik had come home from school all lanky and awkward and putting on grown-up airs. When had he grown so tall? Mother had written at midwinter that he’d topped her by an inch or so, but it hadn’t prepared Luzie for the change.

  His stories were still full of Efrans Perkumai and the Feizin brothers, though this year there were no awkward invitations that must be declined. But more than that had changed. Hennik spent half-days over his books, sending his brother off to play alone while he conned his Latin and frowned through a book on geometry in hopes of advancing early. In explanation, he’d only muttered something about examinations, but those were still two years in the future.

  Someone must have been putting it into his head how much his future depended on doing well and gaining a scholarship at the university. He certainly hadn’t picked that up from his schoolfellows. Luzie suspected her brother. Surely it was too early for Hennik to turn from a carefree boy into such a sober young man!

  After the services at Saint Nikule’s, she announced the outing to the boys. They could still be surprised into unguarded excitement. As they descended the steps from the plaiz to where the rivermen waited, Hennik demanded rudely, “Why is she coming?”

  Luzie glanced at Serafina, the target of the question. “Iohen Valorin! Where are your manners? Maisetra Talarico is coming to show us around the grounds at the new Tanfrit Academy. She’ll be teaching at the school there and if not for her we wouldn’t have a chance to visit.”

  “I don’t want to go to a school!” Rikke protested.

  Serafina had composed her expression and took a teasing tone with Rikke. “It’s a school for girls, so you wouldn’t be allowed to study there anyway.”

  Rikke made a face. “Then why are we going at all?”

  “Because it’s a beautiful house,” Luzie said briskly. “And Maisetra Talarico wants to show it to me. And then we’ll go to see the fair.”

  And to settle the matter, she stretched her hand out to help Serafina into the boat, giving a gentle squeeze to say, what can you do with them?

  For the most part, the boys took as little note of Serafina as they did any of the lodgers. Which was to say, as little note as they did of the furniture. But as the novelty of the boat ride began to pale, Rikke observed, “You talk funny.” A sharp glance pushed him to add, “Maisetra Talarek.”

  It might have been just his tongue stumbling over the foreign name and giving it an Alpennian flavor. Luzie took a breath to demand manners again but Serafina took it for a question.

  “Yes, I do. I began learning your language last year. So you must help me if I don’t know the right words.”

  That seemed to satisfy Rikke’s curiosity, but his older brother demanded, “Why do you talk to my mother in Italian? Black people come from Africa. I have a book that says so.”

  Serafina answered more stiffly this time. “But I come from Rome. And in Rome we speak Romanesco. That’s a type of Italian.”

  Luzie felt torn between Hennik’s clumsy curiosity and Serafina’s discomfort.

  “My parents were born in Ethiopia,” Serafina added. “That is in Africa, as your book says.”

  Luzie loved to hear Serafina tell her parents’ stories, but she took her cue from the tone of weariness and pointed ahead to the right bank. “Look, there’s the landing for the academy. We’re almost there.”

  The outing was not as complete a disaster as Luzie had begun to fear it would be. The boys fidgeted through a tour of the principal rooms but brightened when Serafina took them to the former stable where the printing press had been set up. They took to racing about on the overgrown garden paths while Luzie and Serafina wandered down to visit the small building now called Tanfrit’s cottage. Then there was the walk down to the fair outside Urmai proper and all the entertainments to enjoy.

  By the time they returned up river in the fading twilight, it was worth the extra teneir to ask the riverman to take them up the chanulez to a closer landing than the Nikuleplaiz so the sleepy boys would have only a short walk. In an ordinary summer he could have left them no more than a block away but though the channel looked passable he grumbled and declined to go further than the first bridge.

  Sunday might be a day of rest, but once the boys were safely in bed, Luzie descended to the parlor where Charluz and Elinur were reading and Serafina waited by the fortepiano.

  She looked up with an eager smile. “I want to hear you play the university theme again. I had an idea for how to change it in the second act.”

  Luzie settled onto the bench beside her, took a long, slow breath to settle her mind, and let the music flow.

  When she worked with Serafina on the score for Tanfrit, Luzie felt that she had a masterpiece in her hands. By whatever invisible sense Serafina possessed, her descriptions urged the composition into places Luzie would never have dared explore on her own. But in the light of day? Alone with the notes on the page? Doubts sprang up around her like a sudden ring of toadstools in the garden.

  Serafina was no musician—she would be the first to admit that. And this work was ambitious. Settings for poetry and small concertos were no practice for the scope of an opera. She was so immersed in it herself, it was hard to judge the music properly. Certainly not by the strict rules of harmony and counterpoint that had been drilled into her by her father. This composition played around those rules. Teased at them. Expression was more important than order. The doubts crept in, and she wondered if she’d grown too intoxicated by the joy of the collaboration. Had the flaws in her work become like the scent of lavender in the sheets, too omnipresent to notice?

  And so, one day when no lessons were scheduled, she took up her courage along with the notebook where she had laid out the structure and motifs and she went to call on Maistir Fizeir.

  It was good fortune that he was in the city. At the beginning of summer, he’d been traveling with one of his patrons, but the family had returned a few weeks past and he hadn’t found another invitation for the remainder of the season.

  His greeting seemed stiff but he welcomed her into his parlor and Maisetra Fizeir joined them briefly for tea and cakes, then took her leave with a smile and a comment that surely they wanted to discuss business. It was kind of her to treat it as a social visit. Not all wives were complaisant about their husbands’ female colleagues.

  Fizeir composed his expression into a kindly invitation and asked, “So what may I do for you today, Maisetra Valorin? Your success has meant that I’ve seen little of you this spring.”

  “I hadn’t meant to stay away,” Luzie said by way of apology. “It’s only that I’m busy enough that I don’t need the copywork. And I felt awkward asking for your time only to look at my compositions.” It wasn’t entirely the truth. The new commissions had carried their own judgment of her success. But this was a different matter.

  He sniffed and said, “I would have thought you’d gone beyond anything I might offer.”

  Luzie winced. “It was only that I didn’t want to make demands on your time. But now…”

  He smiled. “But now you wish my advice?”

  “That’s it,” she agreed, nodding. “I’ve been working on…that is, I’ve been contemplating a new project. A rather large one.”

  Why did she feel the need to soften her intent? Here in Fizeir’s parlor they were surrounded by the signs of his accomplishment: the bound volumes of his earlier compositions, the ornate mantel clock engraved with the names of his proud patrons. It seemed brash to admit her plans before a man whose work had graced the largest salles in Rotenek for a generation.

  “I’ve been working on a cycle of songs. A rather extensive one.”


  He looked startled and doubtful.

  She drew out the notebook and fidgeted with it in her lap. “There’s an old story—a legend—about Tanfrit the philosopher. My lodger, Maisetra Talarico, is studying thaumaturgy, you know. With Maisetra Sovitre. And she was telling me about the legend, and—” Luzie shrugged. “It caught my interest. Perhaps you’re familiar with the story?”

  He nodded.

  “I thought it would make a good subject. Something rooted in Alpennian history, rather than the old classical tales.” Was that an ill-advised comment? Fizeir’s specialty was the old-fashioned opera seria, however much they were fading from fashion.

  “Perhaps,” Fizeir said slowly. “Whose verses are you working from?”

  “I’m not,” Luzie confessed. “There aren’t any. I’m writing the whole thing myself. And I thought perhaps you might have some ideas. I have several of the songs worked out, and ideas for the rest.”

  He reached peremptorily for the notebook and she let him take it to leaf through the pages. It was a bare skeleton of the acts—outlines of a structure with snippets of music in the margins and the beginnings of a libretto. Half of the starts were lined out. There were places where she still hadn’t decided between several possible scenes. Luzie suddenly wished she’d thought to make a clean copy to show him.