LeFevre quirked an eyebrow. “And the baron did?”
“The baron could take care of himself. Mar—Maisetra Sovitre doesn’t know what the dangers are.”
“And doesn’t care to be reminded of that by you, of all people.” He rose as well and they began walking back toward the terrace. Before they reached the steps he asked softly, “Whatever she said to you…is it forgivable?”
Barbara struggled to keep her composure from crumbling again. Her heart cried no! But her mouth said, “It must be, I suppose. But I don’t know if I can—”
“Then forgive her if you can,” he interrupted. “And protect her because you must. And remember, if there seems no other hope in sight, take her to Saint Orisul’s. What seems impossible today may become clear tomorrow if you can keep yourselves safe until that day. And if you take refuge with the Orisules I’ll know where to find you.”
Again that odd urgency. “Do you know anything that might send us fleeing into sanctuary?”
He shook his head. She couldn’t tell whether his oath bound him or whether he was as much in the dark as she was.
She slipped up the back stairs to wash her face and make herself presentable once more. And then there was one excuse and another to avoid descending until the odd stillness from the rooms below brought her back to the moment. The Pelnik’s ball—was it that time already? She rushed down to the empty hall and accosted a footman. No, the Maisetras had left already, nearly an hour before. She calculated quickly: foot would be faster than any other method, a change of coat only and she could pass in that venue. What was Margerit thinking to go out unprotected at times like these?
A quarter hour later she presented herself at the back entrance to the salle and slipped along the edges of the rooms looking for a familiar face. She spotted Marken first and felt the tension drain away. So, at least she’d had that much sense. She followed his gaze out through the crowd and spotted Margerit where she was dancing with some forgettable young man. In less haste, Barbara worked her way around to the colonnade where the armins were loitering. She disliked the layout of this room. The back of the colonnade gave way to a row of curtained alcoves overlooking the gardens. A favorite for assignations but the hidden spaces always left her neck prickling.
Marken acknowledged her arrival with a sideways look and a grunt. “They said you weren’t feeling well.”
Barbara shook her head, “I’m well enough.”
“Can’t be,” he replied. “If you were feeling well you wouldn’t have abandoned your charge.”
“I didn’t—” Barbara began hotly, but it was true in its essence. “I’m here now.”
He shrugged. “As you please, but I’m on duty for the evening.”
It would be too much if he turned against her as well. She settled herself in by the next pillar and turned her gaze to the dancers. Watching Margerit as she moved down the line, the ache in her gut was still there but duller, more faded. How had she allowed things to go this far? That a simple rebuke could tear her world apart? When the couples moved through a turn she thought Margerit’s eyes met hers—thought she saw a blush on her cheek—but no doubt it was only the exertion of the dance. The hour stretched on eternally.
A rustle of silk behind her barely impinged on her consciousness but the spicy scent of a familiar perfume brought her back to herself. The one person she least wanted to speak to in her current mood. “Vicomtesse,” she said without turning.
“Barbara.” It wasn’t her usual teasing tone. “A word, if you please.”
“I’m on duty.” She heard a rude noise from Marken’s direction and sighed. Well, since he was there…She gave him the hand signal for a transfer of responsibility—he had the grace not to comment—and followed Jeanne back into one of the half-curtained alcoves. The glow of the candles in the hall reflected in the dark glass of the window like stars lending barely enough light to see each other.
“What’s wrong, chérie? I see it in your face…and hers. What has she done to you?”
“Does everyone in this damned city know my business?” Barbara asked sharply.
“Only the ones who care for you. Barbara, it will end badly, this passion. I fear for you. If you want…if ever you need a friend—a place to go—think of me.” In the flickering light Barbara saw her pull something from her gloved finger. Jeanne pressed a small hard object into her hand and curled her fingers around it. “If you need me, send that and I will stand more than your friend.” And then she leaned forward and kissed her. For a moment Barbara relaxed into the sweet, familiar sensation but they were the wrong lips, the wrong hands.
At the sound of an indrawn gasp they drew apart. Barbara barely had time to see Margerit’s silhouette against the backlit archway before she turned and darted away. How long was she standing there? She made no apology to Jeanne as she followed to the edge of the dance floor, tucking the ring away into a pocket. Margerit had ducked between the lines of dancers, heading for the far rooms where the refreshments were laid out. There was no point to compounding the scene by chasing after her. And what could she say? What was there to explain?
She started to follow at a more circumspect pace but Marken stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Barbara, go home.” She glared at him. “Barbara, I don’t know and I don’t care, but you aren’t in any fit state to stand watch tonight. Go home. I’ll see her safe.”
* * *
She was still awake when she heard the carriage return and heard the opening and shutting of doors that signaled the family’s return. She strained her ears for footsteps and muffled voices. Later, when quiet reigned, she thought the night air carried the sound of sobbing but it might have been a nightingale in the garden.
* * *
It wouldn’t do, she told herself on rising. There was too much at stake to let herself be crippled now. She was an armin. She had a charge to guard and far more peril than over zealous suitors or even highwaymen. Whatever else she had dared to imagine…that was past. As she dressed, she saw Jeanne’s ring lying on the table where she had left it the night before. Perhaps someday her heart might be ready again, however impossible that seemed at the moment. She rummaged in a box to find a small silver chain and threaded it through the ring to place around her neck.
Three hours later she was still waiting in the library, her heart pounding every time there was a footstep outside the door. Once past the first words it would be easier, she knew. But when the door finally opened, it wasn’t Margerit but Maitelen, her maid. She closed the door carefully behind her and looked to be steeling herself for a fight.
“She cried herself into a sick headache last night,” Maitelen said sharply. “I thought you ought to know.”
And what business is it of yours? She fought the words back. Stick to your ribbons and mirrors. And most bitterly, You forget your place. But she had need of allies and here was one with more eyes and ears than most. “I need your help,” was what she said at last. The disagreement about the guild—that much she could share. And the hints of plots and deeper currents. She could tell it appealed to the maid’s romantic nature. “You go out and about and hear gossip from every household on the north bank. If you hear anything—anything—about your mistress, about the mystery guilds, about the university, you come tell me. It could mean her life. And if she’s unhappy for a day or two, let that be the least of her troubles.”
It was a lie, the part of it about the argument. But Maitelen took it in with widened eyes and hastened to assure her that she’d be watching and listening. And that was all that could be done for the moment: watch and listen and wait.
Chapter Fifty-One
Margerit
It was the work that kept her from going mad. The rest of the world was off-balance. Barbara wouldn’t speak to her—not beyond what was necessary—and yet she went everywhere with her, a silent shadow two steps behind. Aunt Bertrut had threatened to write to Chalanz. She had stopped going out at all except to the guildhall. But then the mystery was fini
shed, the last sections polished and tested. Even the new tower was completed, though Hennis had decided not to try to add it to the whole for the nonce. They had been working so long piecemeal that it took a week to find a date when the entire guild could meet to read it through for the first time. This wouldn’t be a true celebration, only a sort of actors’ rehearsal. They would sort out roles and movements. Each member would take note of their parts on their own copy of the whole.
The guildhall was oddly silent when Margerit entered with Barbara trailing behind. Only the caretaker who had let them in and Nikule, sitting awkwardly at one of the tables, a look of relief washing over him when he saw her.
“Did I have the time wrong?” Margerit asked him. “Are they all in the chapel already?”
“If you have it wrong, you’re early, not late,” he answered, rising to meet her. “No one else is here, only him,” nodding his head toward the old man.
“How strange.” Margerit spotted a sheaf of papers on the next table and wandered over to examine it, thinking a note might have been left. It was labeled with her name, but she had her own personal copy of the expositulum in her hand. Then whose was this? She put down the roll she’d been carrying and leafed through the pages of the other. Not only the common text but the tower against invasion as well. Had Hennis changed his mind once again?
She turned at the sound of steps and the door opening. Iakup Choriaz came in looking startled to see the place inhabited.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. And when they stared at him blankly, “Didn’t Lutoz send you word? A problem came up and we’ve changed to Wednesday instead.” He went to the cabinet where the copies of the expositulum were stored. “I only came to get my text since I’ll have some time to study it after all. A good thing too or you might have been waiting here all day.”
The old caretaker said sourly, “And he might have sent me word as well, for all that. Maisetra, I’ll go tell your man to put the horse back to. With luck he won’t have started yet.”
“That’s odd,” Margerit wondered as Iakup left. “I wonder how the message went astray. But I could get some work done by myself, since the chapel’s been opened up already.”
“No,” Barbara said suddenly. “This goes beyond odd. The both of you not notified? We’re leaving now.”
Margerit bristled. The silent, compliant Barbara of the last week had disappeared. But before she could respond, there was a sound of flying footsteps in the passage outside and a slight figure burst in. To Margerit’s astonishment, it was Maitelen. She was gasping with the effort of the run and only Barbara seemed to understand when she managed to say, “Palace guard…coming…”
Barbara grabbed her arm. “Where? How long?”
“Just…crossed the bridge…when I did. I ran.”
Barbara spun around, saying, “You’ve been betrayed. I don’t know what’s been said or what they think to find, but we need to leave now!” She turned on Nikule. “If you had anything to do with this, you’re a dead man.” But the shocked and bewildered look on his face must have convinced her of his innocence. Margerit still stood frozen. Barbara took her by the shoulders and shook her. “This is no game, this is your life!” She pushed her toward the door to the courtyard.
Margerit stumbled down the steps, rolling up her expositulum and thrusting it into a pocket of her cloak for safekeeping. She was followed by the still panting maid and by Nikule. As she and Maitelen were pushed into the carriage, the driver asked, “Where away? Back to home?”
“No,” Barbara answered. “Get down. I’ll be driving. Maistir Nikule, get yourself away from here as quickly as possible and lie low until you know what’s happened.”
But Nikule ducked into the carriage after them, saying, “If you think I’m going to abandon you when you’re in danger, Margerit, I don’t know what you think of me.”
Barbara looked as if she wanted to throw him out bodily but she only swung up into the seat the coachman had vacated and took up the reins, telling him, “Go to LeFevre in Lamsiter Street. Tell him—it doesn’t matter what you tell him. He’ll know what it means. Go, man!”
She urged the horse forward almost without waiting for him to step away. It was when they turned the corner onto the street running toward the city gate that Margerit saw the distant uniformed figures advancing down the road, light glinting from the rifles on their shoulders. It was real. Not something Barbara had conjured out of fears and shadows. She sat back against the cushions and barely breathed as they negotiated the crowded traffic through the Tupendor.
* * *
They were half an hour out on the highway before she learned anything further. Once past the outskirts built up against the city wall, there was space to put the horse into a trot and they made more distance. At last the carriage slowed to a stop and Barbara climbed down. “The horse needs to breathe a bit—the poor thing never bargained for going this far solo—and I need some answers.”
Margerit wanted answers too but hardly knew what questions to ask. Barbara saved her the effort by addressing Maitelen. “How did you know? What did you hear?”
“I was keeping my ears sharp,” she began, “like you asked.”
Margerit wondered briefly just how many of those around her had been asked to keep their ears and eyes sharp on her behalf.
“I was out with Anniz, the Riumai’s lady’s maid. I needed a bit of ribbon to match and we stopped for a cup just off the plaiz when there was this big to-do—people running and calling out. I went out to see and it was a troop of the guards marching out. And someone said they were going after a ring of traitors and someone else said no, it was a guild that was doing witchcraft and that was when I took off running.”
“You ran all the way from the palace to the guildhall?” Margerit asked in amazement.
“Not all—I had to ask directions a couple times. I knew it was hard by the gate and that Market Street ran that way but I’ve never been in that part of town before. When I was a girl I used to run all over. I tell you I thought my heart would burst.”
Nikule burst out, “Treason! What can they be thinking of?”
“It must be a mistake,” Margerit agreed. “Did we do the right thing to flee?”
Barbara was adamant. “Do you understand? If the accusation is treason, that means death. This was no mistake. Someone’s been planning it—I think from the start. I don’t know how but we can all guess who. I would lay a wager that hidden somewhere in your guild’s work they will indeed find treason. And everyone will tell them that you were the one who created that mystery.”
A suspicion began forming in her mind and she clutched close the text she still carried. “Where do we go now?”
“That,” Barbara said slowly, “is a problem. My plans didn’t include four of us.”
“You knew this was going to happen?” Nikule interrupted. “You had plans for it and you didn’t tell anyone?”
It was a poor time, Margerit thought, for her cousin to take up his father’s habits of command. Barbara had tried to warn her and she—she’d done worse than refuse to listen. She shied away from that memory for now.
Barbara hadn’t deigned to answer him. “Maisetra, you and I need to disappear until we can discover what it is we need to disprove on your behalf. LeFevre told me—” She glanced at the others. “No, better you shouldn’t know, in case you’re questioned.”
Maitelen said, “Questioned?” with a little yelp.
Barbara was staring at Nikule with a speculative eye. “Maistir Fulpi, you said you wouldn’t abandon your cousin when she was in trouble, but would you be willing to abandon her to help her? I have a mind to lay a false scent.” Nikule looked skeptical but motioned her to continue. “The guard isn’t likely to be after us yet—they’ll be searching the guildhall until they find what they were meant to find. They may not even know we’ve fled the city. But I expect that as soon as he knows we’ve slipped the net, Estefen will be sending men on our trail. Being helpful. Showing his lo
yalty. They’ll be looking for a well-dressed young woman accompanied by a armin wearing men’s clothing.”
Margerit could see understanding dawning in the others’ faces even as she grasped the plan. “So Maitelen and I exchange clothes, and you and Nikule—”
“That would hardly work!” her cousin interrupted.
Barbara agreed. “You’ll have to make do with what you’re wearing. Your coat’s all wrong and you don’t at all look the part, but if you keep quiet and stand right people will see what they expect. I’ll lend you my sword to help you pass as an armin. Take the carriage to Chalanz. Charge your expenses on the way in Maisetra Sovitre’s name and you won’t even have to lie to leave a trail. There’s a posting inn a few more miles on. You can hire fresh horses and a postilion—you’ll need a pair hitched to make any time at all. Maisetra, tell the innkeeper’s wife that your maid has torn her gown and the luggage has all gone on ahead. Ask to buy an old dress—that will also give us cover to borrow a room for the change.”
“But what do we need with another dress?”
Barbara grinned humorlessly. “They’ll be looking for me in men’s clothing. What better disguise than to return to skirts? It would be easier to travel if we put you in trousers instead, but I don’t think you could carry it off. And it would complicate matters later.”
* * *
The innkeeper’s wife did, indeed, have an old gown she could part with for a few coins. And while the hired horses were being fetched and the harness reorganized for a pair, they played a conjurer’s hide-and-seek game to bring three women into the borrowed parlor to change while leaving the impression there were only two. Margerit stood quietly while Maitelen worked to fit up the inn-wife’s dress to her smaller frame. Barbara was stripping off her coat and waistcoat to don the supposedly town gown that Maitelen had discarded. When she pulled off her shirt a small chain swung free, dangling a heavy gold ring with a crest between her breasts.
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