Her manager looked startled, almost guilty. “Why would I have any reason to have dealings with him?”
“No reason at all, that I know,” Barbara returned. “But he’s been out of temper with me for the last year. If he ever looks to interfere with Turinz affairs, let me know.”
“As you wish.”
There it was again, the closing down.
“Is there anything you need for yourself?” Barbara said impulsively. “Is your salary adequate? Do you have enough resources for travel? Does Tuting answer your needs promptly?”
“There is something,” he said. From his expression it wasn’t simply a whim of the moment.
“Yes?”
“Mairet—he was sent to the council of commons last fall but he’s been suffering from dropsy and can’t travel. They’ll be holding a new election. I’d like to stand.”
Yes, he’d hinted in that direction before. “I hadn’t realized you were thinking of leaving my service.”
He shook his head in denial. “Not at all. I was hoping…that is, it would mean a great deal to have your support.”
Barbara frowned. “My support would suggest to the world that you were my man in the council.”
He nodded.
“It wouldn’t do.”
Akermen went still. “Do you doubt my loyalty?”
“Rather the opposite,” Barbara answered. “I fear your loyalty. I have my own voice in the council of nobles. Two voices, for that matter. I have no business dictating a vote in the commons as well.”
“And what if I pledged to be my own man,” he said slowly.
There was a peculiar edge in his voice—something close to desperation—as if he were searching for the path out of some tangle.
“It wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter to what people thought. And could you truly make decisions without thinking what it would mean to my interests? No, I can’t support it.” She shook her head once more. “Besides, I need you here, not chasing off to Rotenek every season. A career in politics is a fine thing to aspire to, but not while you’re on my salary. Let’s get Turinz back on its feet. When that’s accomplished, the votes will come of their own accord.”
“I see,” Akermen said. This time when he fell silent, there was a deep calm. Some unspoken matter had been settled. And in the remaining days of her visit, he never mentioned the matter again.
* * *
It was a dream—that much Barbara knew. Images came in snatches, one after another without connection. Bright sun and a spirited horse between her legs. Voices, talking somewhere out of sight.
“Have you sent word to Rotenek?”
She heard Tavit answering and her mind drifted off. If Tavit were there, he would manage things. There was something she’d meant to tell him. Something he needn’t worry about. They were both riding out in front of the coach and she called to him but he didn’t turn. They’d passed the bend where the road overlooked Mazuk’s canal. Mazuk? Was that what she’d meant to tell him? He needn’t worry about Baron Mazuk.
“What did she say?”
“Something about Baron Mazuk. She must have guessed somehow.”
If she were riding with Tavit, where was Brandel? Now she remembered. He was riding up with the coachman. She’d borrowed his horse, for her own had gone lame. She tried to turn back to look at him but the sun was in her eyes and she closed them against the light.
They’d been riding such a long time, surely they’d come to the inn soon. She was tired and thirsty. They’d be there soon. She’d toss the reins to a stableboy and call out, “Ho, innkeeper, a drink!”
“What’s that?”
“I think she asked for a drink.”
The river water was cold and clear. She didn’t remember dismounting but she dipped cupped hands in the current and raised them to her lips. The water slipped through her fingers, running red back down the bank.
“We have to go.”
Tavit was urging her on. They were on the horses again, racing down the road with the coach on their heels, and beside her Tavit’s voice shouting, “Go! Go!”
There was a sharp crack…the axle of the coach? She tried to turn her horse but Tavit was at her side, grabbing her arm and screaming, “Go! Go!” And she would have obeyed, but he had her arm in a grip of iron, his fingers digging through to the bone. She cried out.
“More laudanum?”
“Not yet.”
They’d been riding through the woods, but the woods were on fire. Where was Brandel? Had he been on the coach? Aunt Heniriz would never forgive her. Was Brandel caught in the fire? There was no fire, it was a dream. She knew it was a dream.
“Brandel.”
“Shh, he’s gone to Rotenek to fetch Maisetra Sovitre.”
Margerit? But why would Margerit be coming here? She had her own duties…the college.
“No. Tell Margerit…don’t come.”
“Mesnera, it’s worth more than my life not to send for her.”
That was Tavit’s voice. But why was Tavit still grabbing her arm? She tried to shake him loose but she couldn’t move. It was a dream. These things happened in dreams.
“Arm…”
“The surgeon says you won’t lose it.”
That wasn’t in her dream. She struggled to rise. “Tavit!”
“More laudanum now I think.”
She must be in the coach now. The slow rocking lulled her to sleep. They must have fixed the axle. But where was Brandel? Brandel was in Rotenek, fetching Margerit. When Margerit came, everything would make sense.
* * *
Bed. She was in a bed, but she couldn’t remember how she’d come there or where the bed was located. That was less important in the moment than the pressure in her bladder. It was dark, but there would be a chamber pot somewhere easily to hand.
Barbara tried to rise to a sitting position and cried out as agony stabbed through her right arm. There was a sound from the other side of the room and the flare of a lamp wick being turned up. Tavit was there at her side, his face pale and hollow.
“Don’t try to get up, you’ll only make it bleed again.”
Bleed? What did he mean? “If I don’t get up I’m going to piss the bed.”
Tavit sighed. “It wouldn’t be the first time. Here, let me help you.”
An arm reached behind her and she was pulled upright but the roaring in her ears blotted out whatever else Tavit might have said. The room faded.
When she woke again, daylight streamed through an unfamiliar window. She moved more cautiously this time, reaching over with her left hand to examine the source of her pain. Thick bandages were wound around her upper arm. Beneath it a dull throbbing promised sharper agony for misbehavior. The trip north through Turinz. They’d passed Sain-Mihail and been skirting the edge of the woods between there and the border. Then what? Shouts and hoofbeats. Highwaymen. So the reports had been true. But the rest was a blur.
“Tavit?”
The figure in the chair by the window started from sleep. In what must have been reflex by now, he was at her side, lifting a cup to her lips, then dabbing at her forehead with a damp cloth. This time when he helped her to sit, she remained conscious.
“Tavit, what happened?”
“Don’t you remember?”
Barbara began to shake her head and thought better of it. She felt oddly fragile. “I remember the robbers, but that’s all.”
“They weren’t robbers. That is, I don’t doubt they would have robbed us if there’d been a chance. But their instructions were murder.”
“Murder? Why?”
She watched as Tavit pursed his lips in thought. He must be calculating how much she was ready to hear.
“Mesnera, your estate manager betrayed you.”
“Akermen? Why?” She seemed to be saying that word a lot.
“Evidently to protect Turinz from sorcery, or so he claimed. Perhaps simply for his own profit. It seems Baron Mazuk promised him something that he couldn’t get from you
.”
Couldn’t get? But there hadn’t been anything…the council seat? Was that what this was about? Sorcery! That was nonsense. Except…how must it look, this far from Rotenek? She had claimed the title of Turinz and mystical disasters began happening. She was close friends with the Royal Thaumaturgist yet refused any benefit of that bond to Turinz. Akermen couldn’t know how helpless Margerit was against what was happening across the land. But how could Mazuk promise him anything? Akermen held no property from him. Unless Baron Mazuk convinced Akermen that he’d soon have a hand over Turinz.
Murder. And who would the title to Turinz go to if she were killed? There was no heir-default in the Arpik line, not one of noble rank. Not unless…but Akermen had guessed she had plans for Brandel. If she died before those plans were put in motion, the title would revert to the crown. Mazuk might petition for it, but there was no certainty he’d succeed. For Mazuk, the goal must have been simple revenge. Or was there more? The canal had not been the only venture he’d made into Turinz. She’d put a stop to some she knew of. Were there others he couldn’t risk her discovering? And even if it were only revenge, Akermen might not know that.
Barbara’s head was spinning. Tavit was waiting for something.
“Where’s Akermen?” she asked.
“Dead. Along with the two outlaws he hired. But not before I learned enough from him to challenge Mazuk.”
“Tavit, no! You haven’t—”
“Not yet. Mazuk’s yours to accuse. But Akermen was mine.”
Barbara closed her eyes. “I wish you hadn’t.”
“Mesnera, you don’t understand. It was my right and my duty. When I saw you fall…When I thought I’d failed to protect you…”
“Tavit, I chose to ride in the open.”
“That doesn’t change my duty. But this wasn’t the chance of the road; they always meant to kill you. It wouldn’t have mattered if you’d stayed in the coach. I was absolved of that, but not of failing the honor of Saveze. You’re in my charge. You don’t have the right to take that from me unless you dismiss me altogether.”
He was breathing heavily at the end of the speech, as he might after a bout in the fencing salle.
Barbara opened her eyes again and met his. She saw no doubt in them, no self-reproach. His last words hadn’t been a challenge but a simple statement of fact. She reached across with her left hand and grasped his.
“For the honor of Saveze,” she said.
Distantly, somewhere outside the building there were hoofbeats and carriage wheels on a cobbled yard and the shouts of men. Then feet pounding on a staircase and a hurried exchange of voices as the door opened. Margerit rushed in with Brandel close on her heels.
“Dear God in heaven, Barbara, what happened?”
Barbara winced as she failed to stop the impulse to rise. “It seems that I’ve been shot.”
Chapter Thirty
Serafina
Late May, 1825
Summer shifted the wares in the Strangers’ Market from the bright luxuries meant to tempt shoppers from the upper town to still rare but more practical goods offered to those unmoved by the seasons. One last errand brought Serafina’s steps to a booth presided over by a white-haired and wizened man. He sat behind the counter clutching one of the strings of beads that made the bulk of his wares, slipping the counters through his fingers and muttering over them one by one. She hadn’t come to view the rosaries, but she examined several of the more precious ones to distract from the object of her true interest. Coral and crystal, lapis and silver gilt. She hesitated, and reached for a more humble string of enameled beads whose pendant cross was made from a piece of rolled tin.
The man paused in his counting. “Not the one for a fine lady like you.”
Serafina ignored the empty flattery. She was returning to Rome in the same worn blue pelisse she had arrived in. No one would mistake her for a fine lady. She had one thing of value remaining and it sat hidden in the reticule dangling from her wrist.
“No,” she echoed. “That one’s not for a fine lady. The cross holds a relic, save it for someone who needs help.” It was a guess, but a faint glow of power leaked from the seams of the metal.
Now she turned her attention to her goal: a collection of small figures standing at one end of the counter. There was no time for long bargaining. She slid her choice to the center of the space.
“An excellent choice. Very fine workmanship. Said to be—”
“Do you take trade?” she interrupted.
His eyes narrowed.
Serafina loosened the strings on her reticule and pulled out the pearl necklace. She hadn’t worn it since the Royal Guild dinner…it seemed so long ago. She thought of Marianniz. If it had been a gift of the heart, she wouldn’t think of parting with it, but…
“An even trade. I think you will have the bargain of it.”
The man fingered the pearls and peered closely at the clasp, then tapped one of the beads against his teeth and nodded. “Would you like it delivered?”
She shook her head and he swathed the statuette carefully in a clean rag. It was small enough to slip into her reticule in place of the pearls.
When she reached the dressmaker’s shop, Serafina paused to gather her resolve. She had said her goodbyes to Luzie and the others, to Jeanne, and to Margerit who was to pass them along at the school. But there was one more and she had put it off until it could be delayed no longer.
She turned the handle and heard the jangle of the bell echoing into the back rooms. Mefro Dominique came out to the counter, dressed as always in advertisement of her skills, her sharply tailored walking dress of figured bronze muslin finished with a turban striped in the same with green. She smiled welcomingly.
“May I help you, Maisetra Talarico?”
“I was wondering if I might speak to Celeste. Just for a few moments. I won’t interrupt her work very long.”
“Yes of course,” Dominique replied. “She’s in the fitting room. You know the way?”
Serafina nodded.
Before she could head for the doorway, Dominique added, “I’m grateful for the friendship you’ve shown to my daughter. She speaks of you often.”
“It’s nothing really,” Serafina said. They both knew it was more than that. It was the relief, for only a passing moment, of seeing yourself in another’s face. Of knowing even just the kinship of being strangers together. She smiled uncertainly and went through to the crowded sewing room.
“Celeste?”
The girl looked up eagerly. “Maisetra Talarico! I’ve been hoping to see you. Everyone is talking about your friend Maisetra Valorin’s mystery. Tell me about it.”
Was it still on everyone’s lips? Celeste and her friends among the charm-wives would have sensed some of what the opera set in motion. Margerit had had a great deal to say about it, though her visio had only taken in the most wide-spreading effects.
“It wasn’t a mystery,” she corrected. “Only an opera, but yes, Maisetra Valorin could be a great thaumaturgist if only she were a vidator as well as an actor.”
“But she has you for that,” Celeste said.
That brought Serafina back to the purpose of her visit. “No. I have to leave. I came to say goodbye.”
Celeste’s expression froze. Then the excitement drained away, leaving only the face she showed to customers. “Thank you for coming to bid farewell, Maisetra. That was kind of you.”
“Oh Celeste, I wish I could stay, but I can’t. I brought you something to remember me by.”
She drew the small figure out of her reticule and unwrapped it, then placed the likeness of Saint Mauriz on the table between them. “For your—what do you call it?—your little shrine.” She had been thinking of this gift since she first saw the intricacy of the carved ebony features, from the rivets on his armor to the small tight curls of his hair peeking around the gilt halo.
“Oh Maisetra!” Celeste’s composure slipped at last. “I—”
Serafina held he
r arms out and embraced her tightly, tears starting in her eyes. “I want you to promise me something. If you ever need help with your…your talents. If you ever want to reach for something more. Go to Maisetra Sovitre and tell her I sent you. I know you’re needed here, but if there’s ever a chance…”
She broke away, knowing that to stay longer would do neither of them good. Frances Collfield would be waiting at the coaching inn by the Tupendor where the road set off southward. Her one valise had already been delivered there. They were to set out at noon.
* * *
Traveling with Frances was precisely what she needed, Serafina thought, for Frances was happy to fill the miles with explanations of her research, descriptions of what samples she hoped to find on this trip, and the constant refrain of her relief that the successful publication of her book had made it possible for her to return to England. She could finally distribute copies to her subscribers and mend fences with the engraver of the plates.
“For he’s written several very unhappy letters to my brother on the matter, and Edward passed them on to me. Though really, it’s uncharitable of me, but one might think that Edward could have dealt with the matter himself. It’s his fault that I had to bring the plates here to Alpennia to be printed in the first place.”
If, at any time, Serafina found her mind turning to melancholy, she had only to point through the window at some interesting feature of the landscape to have Frances expound on rocks and soils, alluvium and sediment, and to discourse on the plants native to each feature. Underneath it all, Serafina could see the muddled currents of errant sorcery flowing through the land. It wasn’t the sharp-edged menace of a directed curse. More a waiting hazard, like a long-forgotten wellhead, overgrown with vines.
On the day they began climbing through the hills, winding on narrow roads below whitened peaks, they both fell silent. What should have been clear roads were treacherously slick as they passed through shadow, and the fields beside them showed close-cropped grass from sheep and cattle that should have been grazing higher up by now.
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