Daughter of Mystery

by Jones, Heather Rose

  “If she accepts.”

  LeFevre chuckled. “Yes, if she accepts! I don’t know her well enough to guess at that, do you? But I think he won’t delay long in making the offer.” He laughed again. “Mesner Pertinek mentioned that he had been expecting something like our little chat but hadn’t the vaguest idea who to approach. I assured him that there were no brothers or cousins lurking in the wings—that she was femina sola—but that if she asked I would be happy to draw up the contracts and settlements for her approval. He seemed much relieved. I don’t think it would have suited his dignity to beg permission from some burfroi to pay her suit.”

  It wasn’t until she had returned home that Barbara remembered the scribbled card still sitting on LeFevre’s desk. It hardly mattered—he’d admitted he could tell her nothing important. It was hardly likely there was anything in the ancient legal tract that could help her deal with her shadows. Only time could unravel that puzzle.

  * * *

  Barbara put less stock than Margerit had in the promise of access to the cathedral library. But whether it was an unexpected respect for the sincerity of her scholarship or a less surprising respect for the likely size of her donations, the name Sovitre had indeed been passed on to the clerk who oversaw the books and archives and they were allowed to enter and grudgingly told to request what they would.

  “I was told you had a written text for the ordering of the public mysteries performed in the cathedral,” Margerit explained.

  He only grunted and disappeared for some time among the shelves, returning with an old-fashioned tome whose binding might have been almost any color before centuries of handling turned it black. He set it out on the central table, shared only with two young boys who seemed to consider their time there more punishment than treat. The librarian’s laconic demeanor dropped briefly as he recited a long list of instructions. “The book stays on the table; when you’re done, you call me. Corners only, no smudges. If you can’t read without dragging your finger across the page you don’t belong here. No pricking, no underlining. No notes.”

  It would have been the height of condescension if it weren’t so clearly a rote speech. Barbara had heard it many times before, back when it had been the baron’s name opening the door for her.

  As Margerit sat and began to turn the first few pages to get her bearings, habit stepped in and Barbara glanced around the room to note all the entrances, the hidden spaces, the lines of sight that would allow the least conspicuous watch. She saw the librarian taking note of her precautions with a sniff and a shake of his head. Well, he guarded his own and so did she. Both rituals might be equally unnecessary in this case, but neither would be omitted.

  Margerit’s identification of the desired text was marked by a quickening of breath and a twitch as she remembered in time to keep her finger from the page. Barbara found it hard not to smile as she noted both the librarian’s dagger-gaze and Margerit’s careful tracing in the air, half an inch above the parchment.

  “Barbara, look here,” she whispered, beckoning.

  She stepped closer and bent over the table. It was a long text, of course, with the parts for the main celebrants picked out in rubrics and centuries of notes on the staging directions cluttering up the margins.

  “Here. This is when the visio went strange.” Margerit pointed above the page to a benediction marked for the principal priestly celebrant. “But,” she delicately turned over to the next page, “I don’t remember this. It was shorter, I think, and then there was a bit from the choir that I don’t see anywhere in here.”

  She looked up and caught the eye of the librarian who still glared, ready to pounce at the slightest infraction. He came over and asked, “Are you finished?”

  Margerit shook her head. “Maistir Iohannes—”

  “Brother will do,” he interrupted.

  “Brother Iohannes, I was wondering…the expositulum for Saint Mauriz’s mystery—the formal one for his feast day—it looks different from what I remember from last month.”

  “Well of course it does,” he said sourly, “since our Mauriz wasn’t good enough for the new archbishop. Too antique he called it. Too countrified. Well it’s been good enough for Rotenek since the days of Bishop Dombert but now we must follow the habits of Lyon. Of Lyon! If it’s the new ceremony you want, I’ll find a copy.” He once more disappeared back among the shelves.

  “That must be it,” Margerit said excitedly. “If the new archbishop made a change, that explains why—” She didn’t complete the thought for Brother Iohannes was returning with a folder of loose pages.

  “It hasn’t been copied out fancy yet. His Excellency wants it bound in place of the old one, but that would mean taking the binding apart and the prince won’t have it. Not his choice, of course, but no one wants the fuss now when—” He shut his mouth abruptly. Even his newfound garrulousness evidently stopped short of reference to Aukust’s mortality. “Well, here it is. Don’t worry about keeping the sheets in order, the catchword will keep them straight. The round hand there, that’s what’s left from the old text. Hard to change the common responses, of course—no one would follow them. And the parts there marked for the prince, don’t mind them. He said he’d been speaking the same part for near sixty years and he was too old to change now. So what’s written there isn’t what he used. But these here—the priest’s lines and the hymn that you mentioned—those are from the Lyon model. Had to change them round, of course, since Rotenek’s not Lyon and Mauriz isn’t Blandina. It’s a patchwork mess if you ask me, but nobody asked me.” He retired to his writing desk still muttering.

  Margerit’s eyes flicked back and forth between the two texts. “It’s not as changed as he makes out,” she said quietly. Barbara wasn’t sure whether it was to avoid reaching the librarian’s ears or because she spoke only to herself. “This phrase, here…and those two lines. And here the original has all these repetitions. That’s what made it seem much longer.”

  Barbara leaned in to compare the sections she indicated. “That’s the style of the Penekizes—the old Benedictine house at Eskor. You see it all the time in the chronicles the monks kept there. It only seems repetitive to us but in Dombert’s time each piece had a slightly different meaning.”

  Margerit looked surprised. “Really? It doesn’t look anything like the old Latin that I studied. What’s this word here?”

  Barbara felt off balance. She didn’t like shifting between the roles of armin and fellow scholar in public. She compulsively took another look around the room. There was nothing any more menacing than the glowers of the two schoolboys who perhaps felt that Margerit was setting a bad example by waxing enthusiastic over her studies.

  The two texts were set out in strikingly different manners. The older one was the more familiar style. The new text was written out in a flowing copperplate that marked the change in speakers only by a brief initial at the head of each line. It took some time to match the two to compare the passage Margerit had questioned.

  “Stet dedicatum tuum in aeternum. Dedicatum—is that the word you meant? I’ve seen it before in the chronicles. It’s something between ‘shrine’ and ‘chapel’ but it can also mean ‘home.’ Or even ‘palace’ if the text was speaking of kings. It’s—I guess something like a special dedicated building. It could mean ‘home’ in a poetic sense but you’d never see it for an ordinary house. It’s not proper Latin at all. The older texts have a lot of that.” She traced the same passage on the new page. “See, here, this is where it should be in the prince’s lines and here the bishop’s line echoes it using aedificium.” She frowned.

  “What is it?” Margerit asked eagerly, leaning in to follow the lines.

  “Just a matter of style, I suppose. The old text in this part is a fragment of Mauriz’s lorica—a protective prayer using military images because he was a soldier. But when they borrowed the pattern from the Lyon mystery there wasn’t anything parallel—their patron Blandina was a fairly ordinary martyr. So instead they used bits
of the Martin tutela, which makes sense I suppose since he was a soldier too. Armand’s Martin mystery is considered the ideal model for new liturgy, but his Latin is very much in the French style and the flavor is different. Look here.” She pointed. “If I saw that phrase in the Penekizes chronicles, I’d read it as ‘the building and its walls.’ Sides, more literally. But here it’s clearly meant to be understood as ‘the parish and its surroundings.’”

  “Does the meaning really change that much?”

  Barbara shrugged. “Words change, sometimes. If you walked up to a man in Paris or Barcelona or Vienna and said, “A blessing on your head!” in the vulgar tongue, everyone would understand what you meant. But if you took those same words and put them into Latin, you might end up blessing his cookpots or cabbages.”

  Margerit stifled a giggle and glanced quickly in the direction of the librarian for fear of another disapproving glare. But he still sat unmoving at his desk, no longer muttering imprecations against newcomers who mucked about with the old rituals. She slid the next leaf of the rewritten text to the front of the stack. “So here the prince said his line the same, but the bishop’s part—”

  “—takes out all of the repetitions. The older law texts always said things five times in five slightly different ways to make sure everything was wrapped up tightly. I think this was doing the same. See here in the prince’s old lines: strength…protection…wardship…shielding…and then the new text has only protection. Shrine…memorial…dedicatory stone…altar…church—but the new text uses sepulcrum in this part which wouldn’t have made sense in Dombert’s day because it would have meant only the actual grave where the saint’s body lay. And then here grounds…district…this is an archaic word meaning the people served by the specific church. It’s the same problem. They boiled it down to one word and it doesn’t capture all the meanings.”

  Margerit broke in, “And then the prince has the line about Saint Mauriz protecting us with his shield and defending us with his spear. I remember those because it matches the image in the window so well. And here it finishes—”

  Barbara took over once more. “—with a repetition of the previous bit, but now it’s the archbishop speaking it so we actually got the simple version this time. Before it would have meant something like ‘Grant your protection to this place dedicated as a memorial to you and to its people and the lands surrounding it,’ but he’s gone straight to Armand for the model and if you read it in the Lanpert dialect back in Dombert’s day there’s no way to understand it except ‘to your grave and the body in it and its walls.’ And that doesn’t make any sense because Saint Mauriz isn’t even buried here. I think we have a finger bone and that’s it.”

  “But that’s it!”

  It took a moment to realize that Margerit wasn’t simply echoing her own words. “What?”

  “The vision. The charis was supposed to rise up through the church and spread out over the whole district—the way it always did at Chalanz. But it got confused. At the end, instead of being told ‘protect and bless the church and its surroundings’ it was told ‘protect and bless the saint’s grave.’ The closest thing it could find was the relics buried in the foundations. They must be down there under the corner of the altar where the fluctus sank away.”

  As the meaning of her description sank in, Barbara’s gut clenched. “Margerit, hush!” she ordered, looking over to the desk. Had Brother Iohannes heard? Had the schoolboys understood enough to repeat it?

  Margerit followed her glance, first in fear, then confusion. “What—?”

  The librarian glared at them but only with the expression of one distracted by noise. Barbara lowered her voice. “Maisetra, it might be best to save your thoughts for a more private time.”

  After another moment of confusion the message went home. Margerit dropped her eyes to the bundle of papers and shuffled through them once more as if nothing unusual had transpired.

  But in the close privacy of Margerit’s own library that evening it was a different matter. “I can’t believe it’s that dangerous to discuss the details of a mystery out loud.” There was frustration but no hint of reproof.

  “Perhaps, perhaps not. If I err it must be on the side of your safety. When you talk about the fluctus and charis doing this and that—as if they were angels or demons carrying out our commands—it goes beyond what most would consider orthodoxy. In a philosophy class it could be safe enough, but within the grounds of the cathedral I’d rather not take the risk.”

  “But—” Margerit was pacing back and forth before the fire like some wild thing in a cage. “How can the text of the ceremony get fixed if no one dares to talk about it? Does no one care that the mystery failed?”

  Barbara was stunned into a brief bewildered silence. “What did you think you were going to fix?” she asked at last.

  “But it’s all…wrong. However you want to describe it, the city isn’t being protected by Saint Mauriz the way they all think it is.”

  “And how do you know? How would you prove it?”

  Margerit had no answer.

  “Didn’t you hear what Brother Iohannes said? If centuries of tradition made no difference, if the disagreement of the cathedral canons made no difference, if even the opposition of Prince Aukust made no difference, why do you think the archbishop would listen to you? This isn’t about the mystery, it’s about power and influence. And that’s an even better reason to watch what you say and who hears you say it.”

  “But…gah!” she exclaimed in disgust.

  In her heart Barbara agreed—assuming that what Margerit had seen was true and not a trick of her own senses. But the world had its ways and it wasn’t easy getting around them.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Margerit

  Mesner Pertinek had proposed. Margerit wasn’t exactly surprised but she was a little shocked at the rapidity with which it happened. To go from a first introduction to asking to name a date in the space of a month might not be unheard of for a girl in her first true season, but somehow it seemed precipitous for older people.

  “And what was your answer?” she asked, not even trying to keep the excitement out of her voice.

  Bertrut was sitting in the soft chair at her bedside. It wasn’t her aunt’s habit to claim late evening tête-à-têtes but it was one of the few opportunities for a truly private conversation. She was staring down at her hands twisting nervously in her lap. “I told him I would need to discuss it with you.”

  Margerit laughed. “Isn’t that a bit backward?”

  “Margerit, be serious. Don’t think I’m asking your permission because I’m not. But you’re my first responsibility and I’d never give marriage a second thought if it interfered with that. I don’t have any illusions—his proposal was more in the line of a business proposition. He says he finds me charming and pleasant to talk to and I find him the same. But his intent would be to live here, with us. It would be out of the question if he wanted to set up his own household—well, but if he could do that he wouldn’t be talking to me. It’s not very romantic to be told you’re someone’s last hope at leaving the house he was raised in. Although when you think of it,” she added wistfully, “I suppose there have been spinsters enough who have accepted an offer for no better reason than that.”

  “Do you love him?”

  Her aunt pursed her lips with a faraway look and shook her head. “I enjoy his company. And I believe, in time, we have a chance to become quite fond of each other. There isn’t much point in talking about love. If I’d married at your age, it wouldn’t have been for love. I’d like to tell him yes. He seems like a good man and he’s been very honest about his life and prospects. Do you know, he even went to LeFevre to reassure him that he had no designs on your inheritance!”

  Margerit’s mind went back to the look he had exchanged with Barbara that day in the cathedral. Had she too been asked to approve the proposal?

  Bertrut continued, “The advantage wouldn’t only be on his side. He poi
nted out that his presence would add to the respectability of your house without imposing any hardships on you. He neither wants nor expects any authority over your life, but if you wanted, there are doors he could open for you. You still only see a small part of Rotenek society, you know.”

  “And will you be Mesnera Pertinek?”

  “No, no.” She shook her head, smiling. “I don’t want the burdens of that! And for that he’d need permission from his cousin and a carta equinoma from the prince. And…it would complicate matters.”

  Margerit privately completed the unspoken. Those in the nobility who had welcomed them for the sake of her inheritance might change their mind if she aspired too high.

  “He said if I liked he’d present me at court—and you too, of course—and that would be the end of it, but I told him there was no need for that. What do you think?” For all her attempted diffidence she seemed anxious about the answer.

  Margerit wanted to exclaim, Of course! and begin the congratulations, but too many people were schooling her to caution these days. Did LeFevre truly believe he lacked ambitions for her wealth? What did Barbara know? Would this cause difficulties for her? She replied more carefully than she wished. “Just as you wanted to consult with me, I need to discuss it with—well, with others.” No need to rub it in that Bertrut’s future might depend on the critical opinion of a mere armin.

  “Yes, yes of course,” her aunt replied, returning to a businesslike manner. “But not your uncle,” she said firmly. “I won’t have him thinking he has the right to say yes or no on what I do. If we wed, we can do it before everyone comes for Christmas and that’s how I’d want it.”

  “I’ll have an answer for you tomorrow,” she promised. It would make for an interesting family holiday. And with that thought she remembered that it was past time to steel herself to talk to Nikule. He was unlikely to come if he thought the invitation came from his father and not from her.