Coronets and Steel (31 page)

Okay. Maybe she wasn’t crazy—it was unfair to think that way. Tante Mina was simply old, and old folks tend to stick to old forms, even when outmoded. Especially when outmoded. And I could see Theresa Waleska falling for romantic notions of magic and ghosts and the like.

But did
Alec
believe in that?

I remembered what Tony reported about Alec and that stone portal at Sedania. I wanted to clock Tony with his own picnic basket the next time I saw him (which I hoped would be never), but I didn’t think he’d lied.

“The ritual when we wished to invoke the Blessing was a royal marriage solemnified on Xanpia’s Day—September 2, celebrated in church and temple,” Salfmatta Mina went on.

“So they were holding this superstition over my grandmother’s head when they wanted her to marry Milo, is that it?”

Mina looked at me sadly. “How can you judge so easily?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. After all, it’s one thing to be modern and rational, but I didn’t need to be smug and superior right in her own home. “I can’t get used to the idea of ghosts. I mean, it makes no sense that anyone could see something without material form. Sometimes. And the person next to them can’t.”

“It is always easier to close the mind to what we do not wish to understand,” Mina said.

“I’m closed-minded?” I said, surprised.

She set her cup on the tray. “Some do not like the responsibility that comes with such knowledge.”

“Okay, I have to think about that,” I said.

“Good. As for denying the existence of the Blessing, and the Nasdrafus, many, such as Count Armandros, felt the same. They said that the old ways of seeing this world, and others, are outmoded. Or are mere legend. In these modern times, how can miracles exist? Count Armandros did his best to convince my dear Lily that this was a way the old folk used to force the young to marry where told.”

Then I got it: Mina had thought I was Gran’s ghost when I first showed up on her doorstep.

“Have you seen ghosts?” I asked.

“Yes. Rarely, but yes.”

“Did my grandmother ever see them?” I asked.

Mina made a negative motion with her gnarled hands. “Rose said she did, but it turned out to be a pretence. To gain attention, which she had for a while. Lily was as shamed as Rose when the truth was known. More shamed than Rose.” Her lined face creased with a wistful smile. “The count chided my Lily for setting aside their love for superstitious nonsense. He did not believe the Germans would bother with our kingdom—and if they did, we would throw them right out again.”

“So those who believed, like the king, expected her to marry Milo on that special day? Then the entire kingdom would . . . vanish?”
Shades of Brigadoon.

“She wavered. The king took her alone to Sedania for Easter Week. We stayed behind in the palace, on the king’s orders. He included Lily in the secret councils. Duke Milo also. He was seen riding and talking with her, and even playing duets with her as they had when she was small. Not in coercion, you must understand. He said, in my hearing, that the choice must lie with her. When she came down Easter morning the whispers said that she would go ahead with the marriage to Duke Milo.”

Mina straightened herself in her chair. Her eyes stayed distant as she said softly, “It was Rose who brought about what happened, I have always suspected. Never a word was spoken by Lily against her sister at any time, even as children. Lily shared the blame for infractions because she thought it hard that Rose had a mischievous nature and was always being chastised for it. Lily felt bad to always to be held up as an example, which was so unfortunate for Rose! Ah well. She never told me, but after, in the few days left, she did not again mention her sister’s name. I sometimes think Rose listened to a sprite of jealousy and taunted Lily with the fact that she, at least, was free to marry Armandros. Lily went to see her father and gave him a paper she had written. I never saw that either. She had me lock the door while she wrote some letters, and she told me, calm as the sky on a summer’s day, that she was leaving that night. Leaving Riev, I thought, but never the kingdom. ‘You must call me Mademoiselle, Mina, for I have no title,’ she said.

“I begged her to tell me where she was going, I would go, too, to take care of her, but all she said was, ‘I do not yet know. If Count Armandros comes with a priest, let him in. And if he comes alone, I will not see him.’”

Mina rubbed her hands across her eyes. “How it all comes back! The weather was so chill that night. How I shivered—I thought I would never be warm again. The count did not come, but he sent a message, to say that he had arranged for the priest and for the necessary dispensations, and she was to meet them at St. Paul’s chapel at the old school. She wanted me to come and stand up with her, which I did happily, and even though the count had brought two friends to serve as witnesses, she insisted I was to sign as bride’s witness.”

Mina sat back, gazing down into the fire, the light softening the lines in her face. Her expression was tender, a little sad. I curbed my impatience: she was getting to what I’d come all this way to hear.

Presently she continued. “The priest was from the Cistercian monks high in the northern mountains. I was surprised to see him, for they do not normally mix in the world, but I thought there must be a family connection. The priest, he was young, and stiff and performed the marriage awkwardly, but as I said they are monks up there, and I expect he had never presided at a wedding, only baptisms and funerals. But it was done, and the count put the ring on her finger. Oh, I was crying and could hardly sign my name to the paper! After I signed, the count took me aside and made me promise never to tell anyone what I had seen that night. I was to say that when I left the princess to go to bed, she was in her room writing letters. This surprised me but I had no time to ask any questions, for then Lily turned to me and took my hands, and ordered me to go back. I pleaded and begged, but she said she was going to make a new life, and she had no right to ask anyone to give up the old.”

Mina sighed, and pressed the handkerchief to her eyes.

I leaned forward, my heartbeat loud in my ears. “What about the marriage papers you signed? What happened to them?”

She frowned at the glowing remains of the fire. “My mind was bound up with Lily’s leaving me behind. All I recall is the priest rolling them up and sliding them into a pocket in his white cassock.”

“Ahhh!” I sat back. “Do you remember his name?”

“It was Father Teodras.” She lifted her hand toward the north. “From the Cistercians, as I said.”

“So then what happened?”

“She left with her husband, and I never saw her again. The rumor got around that Lily had left Dobrenica. Ah, that broke her father’s heart, I can tell you. May I grind you more coffee, my dear? That hearth is so hard.”

“I’m fine,” I said quickly. “So then what happened?”

“There is little else to tell.” She lifted her hands. “The count returned. The king had dismissed me, but his heart was so sore I forgave him, especially as I knew I kept the truth from him. The count sent for me in secret, and told me Lily was living abroad and happily. He arranged for me to assume new duties up at the Eyrie, until I married and settled here.” She leaned over and touched her rosary, which hung on a special hook below a holy picture. “I offered novenas for her every night—and asked forgiveness for not speaking about the count’s bigamy, a terrible sin. But who would it help if I spoke, and without proof? The times were so bad.” She shook her head. “In truth, I was a coward.”

“So Armandros went and married Princess Rose?”

“On September 2 that year. But there was no Blessing. The Germans came the very next winter. When it was clear we could not force them out the king abdicated, and then died, many said of a broken heart. The troubles had begun. The baby came two winters later, and poor Rose died almost immediately. She had risen straight from child-bed and went to parties every night. So nervous and strange she had become! Always flirting and laughing. I have always thought she was unhappy. So the count was no longer married to two women. I prayed for his soul, too, and for the baby. We cared for Sisi as we did the other children, but none of them were like my Lily. Afterward my Vasilo died fighting the Soviets at the mines, but I then had the comfort of my sons.”

“So . . . what does it mean, to be called Salfmatta?”

“I protect Dorike,” she said. Her brow wrinkled in perplexity. “You could say in German Schutzmutter, but
Schutz
has a different meaning, I think, and the French is also different. But I protect us through my novenas.” She indicated the rosary again. “And through my roses, which keep the vampires away.”

“Vampires!”

She raised a small hand. “Do not worry. The boundary is strong.”

“Oh. Uh, good.” I never expected to hear that word from an old lady—but after all, the whole vampire legend came from this part of the world.

So . . . did that make it true?

What is truth anymore?

I shoved that aside as she sighed tiredly and folded her hands across her lap. “I am happy that Lily lives. And a daughter! Happy in America, with a good home, and a good man, and contentment. God is good, God is good,” she repeated, nodding, then she said something surprising. “It would be proper for you to tell King Marius. For now the wrongs can be righted again.”

“I’m sure Alec will have told his father about us already,” I said, stretching out my cramped legs. “And if Alec wants to do this marriage thing on the second—”
I put Dobrenica above everything therefore I get trapped in politics,
he’d once said. Even to pretending to believe in magic? “—he’ll soon know where Ruli is.”

She nodded slowly. “Yes, that is true.”

“One last question. Why do you think Gran would tell my mother that her father’s name was Daniel Atelier?”

“Perhaps she did it because to depart from France with a German name, von Mecklundburg, would be to earn opprobrium. You must know how much all Germans, even those who had not wanted Hitler’s government, were hated in those days.”

“Gran certainly hated them,” I said. “Or she wouldn’t have left him. So I was told.”

“I can believe it happened,” Mina said soberly, looking old and careworn as she stared back into the bloody history of her youth. “Such angry partings also happened here. You must understand the strife in Dobrenica in the last days of the war, when it was clear that Hitler would fall at last. Each report brought news of further advances by the western Allies deeper into Germany, and that Hitler was fighting against his own military leaders. They were trying to assassinate him. Yet Stalin, who was just as evil, was poised to take us from the other direction. When the duke his brother died, and Armandros became duke, he called all the men to him. Vasilo came down from the castle and told me Armandros promised them that the madman Hitler was finished. But Germany still had planes. It . . .” She looked away, into the fire, then straightened as if she had come to a decision. “He wanted to protect his home, finally.” She rose. “You must sleep again. Pavel starts for the city soon after three, to be at market in time to set up. You must be ready to slip into the lorry. I will wake you.”

“Mina, I can’t thank you enough—”

She reached up and laid a finger against my lips. “If your grandmother decides to come home, you must bring her to me so I can see her face. It is soon enough that I will see my good Vasilo again in heaven,” she added cheerfully.

She got up and went about finishing her day’s labors. I sat where I was, staring into the fire. I knew my first duty was to tell Aunt Sisi where her daughter was. And then I’d better tell Alec. I remembered his face at Aunt Sisi’s. Would he even listen to me?

Maybe if I found Father Teodras and recovered the marriage documents. Then I could give him all the truth at once.

I
T SEEMED A minute later Mina was shaking my shoulder. The cottage was dimly lit by a candle on the floor. Mina had prepared hot porridge sweetened with honey, and as we eased out into the chill night air she pressed a warm cloth-wrapped package into my hand.

“Bread and good cheese,” she whispered as she walked down the stone steps to where a dilapidated World War I era truck waited. “Eat this at dawn. God bless you, child.”

“And you,” I said awkwardly, bending down to kiss her forehead. “Thanks a thousand times.”

“Wrap up warm now, and stay under the blankets.”

Pavel was nothing more than a silent, bulky shadow. Mina waited as I climbed onto the truck bed and wedged myself between baskets of produce and bales of sheep’s wool, and other goods difficult to make out in the darkness. Pavel’s job, besides blacksmith and mechanic, was trader for the whole village once a week in the open air market in lower Riev.

I settled on folded quilts, and someone laid a heavy rug over me. With a lumbering lurch, the truck began to move. Pavel killed the engine. Lulled by the slow bumping of the old tires as Pavel expertly coasted the vehicle down the winding mountain, I drifted into a drowsing sleep.