It was like stepping back into a familiar parlor. The great moveable furnace stood on its groaning wheel, framed by the brass inlay of zodiacal symbols in the tiled floor. She could visualize where the orrery clock would go when it finally arrived, keeping time to the movements of the stars and planets. Antuniet had been in correspondence with a clockmaker in Geneva but God only knew when the passes would be clear enough to transport the mechanism safely. For now, there was the familiar sight of Toneke pulling out Vitali’s zodiacal watch on its chain from her pocket. Returning it to her mentor in Prague had been one minor excuse for the journey, but in the end he had closed Antuniet’s hand around it again, making it a gift.
“For luck,” he’d said, “since it’s served you so well.”
And now Antuniet nodded. The alignments were correct for the beginning. Anna sifted a measure of powder into an iron vessel, describing aloud how the serpent would begin the calcination, and turned the vessel to align correctly with the stars. She signaled to one of the apprentice boys to begin slowly working the bellows on the fire beneath. Now Jeanne stepped forward with her own addition, calling on the lion to devour the serpent.
Jeanne had only the faintest idea of what the physical changes within the vessel might be, but she kept fixed in her mind the images from the alchemical manual. When used correctly, the symbols and gestures would work the change in matter. She’d seen the results often enough to trust.
This was only the first step, of course—the processing and purification of the ores and materials. Next would come the solution, the separation, the conjunction, each cycle applied to the materiae individually then combined as a whole. And then there would be the tedious cycles through the twinned cibations, marrying spirit to matter within the furnace, enhancing the natural properties of the gem and growing it in size and strength.
They would need another woman to assist with the twinned cycles. A woman, but not necessarily a maiden. One to mirror her in the role of queen, just as Antuniet and Anna would mirror the salamander. But for now she stepped back, waiting in turn as Anna and the youngest apprentice mixed the flux in preparation for the dissolution.
Antuniet checked the watch again. “Two hours before the next process. Princess Annek is sending someone over with the damaged stones I need to examine, so take some time to clean up now.” This to the two boys.
Efriturik himself was Annek’s messenger, somewhat shamefacedly bringing the damaged amulets in the hilt of his ceremonial sword and ring. He, too, had changed in the past year. Any man of his age would look dashing in the bright uniform of a cavalry officer, and Jeanne felt no qualms at all about staring in admiration. But his year attending on the Alpennian embassy in Paris had brought a new depth and seriousness.
“I swear I didn’t abuse them,” he said as Antuniet took up a jeweler’s loupe and examined the spiderweb of fractures through one of the stones. “And it’s odd,” he continued, “that it would be that one, and not the one at the end of the pommel.”
There was a touch of genuine anxiety in his voice. He’d had a hard time throwing off the reputation of wild and careless youth, and only half that reputation was undeserved. But he’d always taken the alchemy seriously and Jeanne knew he wouldn’t have damaged the gifts negligently.
“If it had been only the one,” Antuniet said thoughtfully, “I might have thought I’d overlooked flaws between the layers of the stone. But three? And look.” She held up the ring. “This one is not merely cracked but discolored. That wouldn’t happen from knocking it about.”
She frowned and stared more closely, cupping her hand around the ring to enclose it in darkness.
“What is it?” Efriturik asked anxiously.
“The damaged stones are the ones meant to protect against sorcery and curses, not the ones for physical protection. It may need a simple adjustment of the formula, but I’d like to have Margerit look at them first.”
With business done for the moment, Jeanne asked, “Can you stay for tea? How long have you been back? Anna,” she called into the next room where the girl was being unaccountably shy. “Anna, can you scare up a pot of tea for our guest?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t time today,” Efriturik began. Then he stopped, staring at the doorway to the back room. “Ann—Maisetra Monterrez.” A pause. “How good to see you again.”
He stepped forward and started to bow over her hand, but Anna hid it away under her apron saying, “Oh don’t, I’m filthy!” so he only completed the bow with a flourish as if that had been what he intended all along.
“You’re…taller than you were,” Efriturik said. Then he looked sheepish, realizing how silly that sounded.
But his own embarrassment seemed to erase Anna’s and now she put on the air of a practiced hostess, learned through last year’s salons.
“It was so kind of you to come visit us, even for so short a spell. I hope we’ll have the pleasure of more of your company sometime soon. I know Mesnera de Cherdillac longs to hear anything you can tell her about the Paris fashions. Though I’m sure you paid more mind to Parisian politics! I would love to hear your thoughts on what will come if the French king’s health is, indeed, failing.”
“Why yes, yes of course,” he answered after a moment’s hesitation.
Jeanne saw Anna’s eyes glance toward her quickly for permission. “Mesnera de Cherdillac has been holding some little salons at her house. Perhaps you could join us for one? There is always delightful company and the conversation is pleasant and lively. But you must excuse me, I need to help prepare for the next process.”
With a little curtsey, she went to join the apprentices at their work.
It was all Jeanne could do not to smile too broadly as she watched Efriturik’s eyes follow her. Yes, the last year had been well spent indeed. Anna would soon be able to match the elegance and poise of any society hostess. Maistir Monterrez’s jewel scarcely seemed necessary.
* * *
If the work on Anna Monterrez’s amulet went smoothly, the same could not be said for the damaged stones brought back from Paris. Jeanne would have heard only those parts that Antuniet shared at the dinner table if not for her own presence in the workshop. Now, in the idle hours waiting for the best alignments, she listened as Antuniet talked over the puzzle with her apprentices.
There had been a time when Jeanne would not have believed Antuniet could be such a patient teacher. Even so, it wasn’t teaching as much as tracing out her thoughts before them and periodically loosing sharp questions regarding some of the more simple problems.
Perhaps I should be an alchemy apprentice myself, Jeanne thought, if I can discern so easily which of the questions are simple!
“What can cause a layered stone to crack?” This question Antuniet directed at the older of the two boys.
He frowned in effort, then closed his eyes as he recited, “Impurities during separation, the wrong flux chosen for putrefaction, too low a heat during cibation, or performing it under the wrong stars, too high a heat during sublimation…no, too short a time?”
Antuniet’s glance shifted to the younger boy. “You should know the last one.”
He looked down uncomfortably and whispered, “Quenching the matrix when it hasn’t cooled enough.”
“What else? Even more important than those. Anna?”
This one Jeanne thought she could have answered, having watched through many of those initial failures.
“Trying to marry types of stones that will not suit,” Anna said promptly. “Adding a new layer that will destroy or reject the last.”
But most of those could be ruled out, Jeanne knew. The amulets that Princess Anna had requested for her son hadn’t been among those early experiments. And even that first set of alchemical gems had seen no failures of this particular sort, only one or two small chips and scratches that could be blamed on rough handling of the softer layers.
Antuniet returned the flawed gems to their case with a sigh. “I need to question Mesner Atilliet fu
rther on anything unusual that might have happened. Anna, check the inventories and see if we have any twins to the discolored ones that were held back a year past. Margerit wanted to compare them.”
The puzzle was set aside as the minutes ticked closer to the alignment for the next step.
* * *
When the day finally came, the final fixation and enhancement for Anna’s jewel was a gentler process than the creation of the stone itself. It would abide no physical heat at this stage, now that it had been shaped and polished and engraved and set into a simple gold band. As with all the ring amulets, the setting had been shaped to allow the underside of the stone to be in contact with the wearer’s finger. Jeanne felt disappointed at how plain it looked: a rounded square of dark green, flecked with red. The engraving was not a design of birds or flowers but a few letters in the Hebrew script. That had been Maistir Monterrez’s addition, after consultation with Antuniet—that and the shape of the ring. The power would come from the stone itself but the inscription carried its own meaning. Monterrez had joined them for this last part, watching the proceedings with interest and pride as Anna performed her part.
When the enhancement was complete, Jeanne cleaned off the last remnants of the bath with a soft cloth. “After all those steps, I’d expected something more eye-catching.”
Antuniet took it from her and held it to the light to examine closely. “Complex and brilliant are not the same thing. The complexity is inside the stone—all the separate crystals with their individual properties joined together. That’s what makes it possible to adjust the effects so finely, to enhance the revelation of inner truth without focusing on mere physical deception, to open the eyes and the heart in tandem. It’s a far different process than for a simple bloodstone used against wounds and bleeding.”
She turned the ring over once more and nodded in satisfaction then passed it to Maistir Monterrez. “This is your gift,” she said.
It had all the air of a formal ceremony as Anna hesitantly raised her hand. He slipped the ring on her finger with a few quiet words that had the air of a blessing.
Jeanne had never seen visions. Not the sort that Margerit described, nor even the brief glimpses of something that Antuniet used to guide her personal mysteries. But she had sometimes felt that thrill—something like a convulsive shiver—that came during the missio of the Great Mysteries in the cathedral. This was nothing like that, yet between one moment and the next, something changed. A veil was drawn, or perhaps removed. It became a struggle to remember that Anna’s face had been marred. If she concentrated, she could still trace the thread of the scar, but it wasn’t important. The eyes slid away. For the rest…how could the amulet have made any improvement? Anna was Anna: eager, curious, poised, thoughtful. To ensure that the true worth and beauty of the bearer is seen. Anyone who couldn’t see that without assistance was blind indeed.
Maistir Monterrez appeared satisfied. He squeezed his daughter’s hands and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “I’ve done what I can to ensure your future. Now I’ll leave you to your work.”
Jeanne lingered after he had left, until it was clear that Antuniet would be kept busy for another hour or two directing preparations for the next day’s work. The only sign of the previous event was the way Anna sometimes paused to stretch her hand or glance down at the ring. Could she feel the amulet at work? Or was it only the unfamiliarity of its presence on her finger? Would she see a change in herself when she looked in a glass?
A brief knock on the workshop door interrupted Jeanne from gathering her things. When the younger apprentice opened it, Efriturik’s familiar voice was heard.
“Mesnera Chazillen, I know I’d promised an afternoon to you in two days’ time, but I have an errand in Fallorek. Would you have time today?”
Antuniet visibly suppressed the impatience she always felt when plans were disrupted. She glanced around and signaled the apprentices to leave off their work, saying briskly, “Today is better than later. You two may go,” to the apprentices. “Anna, I’d like you to take notes, could you go find the account book we started? And Jeanne, I promise I’ll be home in time for dinner.”
Jeanne touched Antuniet’s hand, in lieu of a kiss, and allowed Efriturik to help her on with her coat. She couldn’t resist asking, “And do you see anything different about our Maisetra Monterrez today?” She was sorry immediately when she saw Anna freeze in the doorway as she returned with the ledger book in hand. She hadn’t meant Anna to hear.
Efriturik tilted his head quizzically and said, “I don’t think she’s grown any taller since a week past. And if she’s dressed her hair in a new fashion, I can’t see it under that cap.” He shrugged. “You must forgive me.”
“Never mind,” Jeanne said hurriedly. “I hope you find some clue to your damaged stones. Toneke, until dinnertime then.”
She turned over that last exchange in her mind, as she stood waiting for one of the palace pages to summon a fiacre for her. And, with a stroke of revelation, her heart dropped. Efriturik…and Anna. No wonder he needed no assistance to see only her inner worth! And Anna—oh, the poor girl! Had this been in her mind all along when she wished for more social polish? And did they each know that the other…? Oh, but it was impossible. Completely impossible. The only saving grace was that they were both sensible enough to know it.
Chapter Twenty-One
Margerit
Mid-September, 1824
Two days, Margerit thought. Could there not be more than two days of classes before the next disaster? They’d barely recovered from Petra’s departure.
Two days with twenty students—fewer than she’d hoped but more than she’d expected. There were some she already thought might drop away. Who might find it too difficult to balance the glitter of the season with lectures, or who had thought the studies would be a lighter burden. There was a solid core of ten or so that she had harvested from the lectures and knew to be dedicated. Several more who wavered and might yet join them. Their reasons were mixed: studious burfro girls with academic ambitions like she’d had, girls of good family looking to delay entering society for varied reasons, a few with some degree of thaumaturgical talent whose parents had embraced the chance for training. She had been startled and delighted to find the auditor Valeir Perneld among those, even though she’d been out for two years and there were even rumors of a betrothal in the offing.
No charity students yet, to her disappointment. One couldn’t count the two Poor Scholars who had joined the thaumaturgy students as charity. The foundation paid fees to the Academia Tanfridae just as they did to the university. Just as they had until now, that was. But there were girls unsuited to the Poor Scholars whom she’d hoped to attract as well. That would be an important sign of the academy’s goals.
Two days—just barely time to see the beginnings of a routine. And now…
Margerit glanced across the cold marble floor of the antechamber to the chancellor’s office at the hard bench where Akezze sat, head bent in discussion with Maisetra Nantin, the directress of the Poor Scholars. She couldn’t shake off a sense of guilt, though there was no way she could have predicted or prevented the decision of the university dozzures.
The chancellor had kept them waiting for hours, hoping they would be discouraged enough to leave. Margerit envied the calm patience that Barbara could summon in situations like this. Waiting is a weapon, she had said once. But whose hands held it here? Margerit couldn’t help growing more and more discouraged with every minute that passed.
They were ushered into the wood-paneled office and offered chairs only marginally more comfortable than the benches they’d left. Margerit took the one farthest to the side. This wasn’t her grievance, however much she might have precipitated it.
In their previous brief encounters, Margerit had identified Maisetra Nantin as a formidable woman. Every inch of her appearance was held to the same strict standards as the young women in her charge. Crisp, regimented waves of steel-gray hair edged the opening
of her bonnet in lieu of lace, and the sober black of her coat escaped giving the impression of a religious habit only in the modish style of its cut.
Without waiting for the chancellor’s invitation she launched into her petition with the air of a family matriarch chastising an errant nephew.
“The Foundation for Poor Scholars has had a satisfactory arrangement with Rotenek University for nearly two hundred years. You have benefitted from that arrangement for the price of a very small burden. Our students have never brought the university into disrepute or caused even the slightest disruption. I would ask—” said with the tone she might use to her own charges, “—that you explain why this arrangement is no longer satisfactory.”
Margerit imagined that most men, facing the directress’s disapproval, might scramble for the easiest means to satisfy her, so as to cut short the time suffering under that regard. But Chancellor Epertun spent his days handling unruly students from the most power families in the city. If he were the sort to wilt before autocratic demands he would not have survived.
“Maisetra Nantin,” he said, countering her role of matriarch with the air of a wise and kindly uncle, “the university has long had a tradition of accommodating charitable endeavors so long as it does not interfere with our mission of educating the sons of Rotenek. But it cannot be denied that the presence of women in the lecture halls is a distraction.”
The claim was disingenuous. It might be true of the frivolous girl scholars—the ones who attended lectures for idle amusement. Indeed, some of them were attracted by the opportunity for safe and meaningless flirtation under the guise of study and the watchful eye of a chaperone. But the same could never be said of the women of the Poor Scholars. They lived lives as strict in propriety as any convent.
“When there was no other alternative,” he continued, “we were happy to make certain accommodations.” Accommodations that did not extend to allowing the women to participate in debates or discussions, and certainly not to the granting of degrees.
Mother of Souls: A novel of Alpennia Page 33
