Daughter of Mystery (14 page)

This sort of informal family rite was barely familiar. Like most of the nobility, the baron had belonged to several mystery guilds: those it was politic or expedient to join. Their ceremonies—at least the ones she had been allowed to witness—were stiff and formal affairs, barely different in tone from the cathedral Mass that followed them. This celebration of Saint Chertrut had almost a carnival atmosphere and she suspected that some parts of the rite might have been addressed, in ancient days, to an entirely different listener. Each celebrant, from the aged grandmother down to Margerit, took her turn to lead the
Pater
and the
Ave
and then to recite the prayers addressed specifically to the saint.

Some spoke by rote in a singsong chant. Some closed their eyes as if in private meditation. One read her lines from a book, stumbling over the bits of Latin in her text. The whole assembly chimed in on the common prayers. By the time Margerit’s turn came around the day was brightening, although the first edge of the sun wouldn’t top the mountains for some time yet. Margerit looked older, more mature as she stepped into her role. Her voice came clear and sweet, telling the lines she had worked to learn by heart the previous day.

“Bless us, Saint Chertrut, with the new corn in the field. Bless us with the gentle soft rain. Bless us with the warm soft breeze of spring that wakens all creation…”

Barbara felt the hair stand up on her neck and it wasn’t only in response to the air moving lightly down the hillside. She looked around but couldn’t tell if anyone else had noticed.

Margerit raised her arms, as the others had, at the concluding lines and their echoing responses from the crowd, then crossed herself to signal the finish. As if in answer, a swirl of breeze picked up, knocking a dusting of pink and white petals off the trees to fall among the assembly. The children squealed in delight and danced around gathering them up to keep for luck.

Did no one else question it? For nine out of ten, the mysteries were a simple act of devotion. To one among the ten, the saint might hearken and answer. And to one in ten of
those
, that answer might take tangible form. No wonder Margerit was such an avid scholar if her studies had been encouraged by such notice! The others seemed to take the finish as a pleasant coincidence, one pulling out a small knife to cut a few of the flowering twigs to take with them. But Barbara had seen those buds still tightly closed only the evening before.

Soon afterward they returned to the carriages and made their way down to the village church, already filled to overflowing with neighbors, the town square crowded with farm carts and market wagons. The Saldirenk family were of sufficient prominence to push their way through to their accustomed places, but Margerit became separated from them in the press and Barbara drew her back. “Perhaps you would be more comfortable out here?” In truth,
she
would be more comfortable to avoid the suffocating crowd of strangers. But an armin didn’t say that to her charge.

“Even here?” Margerit asked. “Do I have to be so careful everywhere?”

It wasn’t quite the message she’d meant to convey but her goal was accomplished and they retreated to the comfort and shelter of the carriage. They were not the only ones giving up on entering the church itself who had to make do with what bits of the Mass came out through the doors and tall windows.

A couple of minutes passed in silence as the opening notes of the choir drifted across the square, then Barbara asked, “May I speak?”

Margerit frowned at her saying, “I thought I—”

“May I ask something?” she clarified. At a nod, she continued. “Does that happen often when you participate in mysteries?”

Margerit looked confused. “You mean not just as part of the congregation? I’ve never really been a formal celebrant before. Not like this. Sister Petrunel taught me theory but she didn’t really encourage practice. She thought prayers were better than petitions, especially to God but even to the saints.”

“Did she know? That the saints heard you?”

The confusion lingered. “Isn’t that the purpose? I know you shouldn’t pray over trivial matters, but—”

Barbara was hard-pressed not to burst into laughter, fearing it would be taken amiss. “Do you think the saint opens the buds before their time for everyone who asks? Did you see many other families bringing in boughs of blossoms to deck the altar? Do the saints always hearken and answer you?”

Margerit shook her head, looking startled. “I don’t know. Sometimes I…I don’t…What does it mean? Does it mean I should become a nun?”

Now Barbara couldn’t suppress a laugh. “Goodness no! It doesn’t even mean you’re more pious than the next, although that helps, I’ve heard. At least the baron always seemed to think so. But some people are…are blessed with the ear of the saints. And study and devotion can make a difference. I thought that was why you wanted to study at the university—because you had the gift and wanted to increase it.”

“I just—” Margerit shook her head. “I want to know things, to understand. It’s…when I read through an argument or a puzzle and I see all the parts fall into place and everything just—” Words seemed to fail her and she gestured vaguely with both hands. “Everything just feels so
right
, as if the world came into balance. Most of life isn’t like that. At the mystery this morning it was like the world shifted just a little to be in line or as if a fiddler tuned one string just a little to bring the instrument all into tune. I—” She paused breathlessly, her eyes shining in excitement.

Barbara dared to reach out and take her hand. “Go to Rotenek. Study. It’s what you were born for.”

Their eyes locked for longer than was comfortable. Barbara snatched her hand back muttering, “Forgive me.” Without asking leave she swung down out of the carriage and spent the remainder of the wait prowling from one side of the carriage to the other as if expecting assassins at any moment as the sound of the organ rolled out in a swelling chorus.

Chapter Seventeen

Margerit

The experience at Mintun was still in her mind as the services for Holy Week began. There had been a time—she must have been not much more than seven because she thought it was that first summer after the red fever struck, when she was still learning the rules of Uncle Mauriz’s house—that Aunt Honurat had taken her to Saint Andire’s, not to the smaller church nearer Chaturik Square. It probably hadn’t been her first time there but perhaps the first time on a brilliant summer day when the sun poured in through the rose window, casting flecks of crimson and lapis across the tiles.

Aunt Honurat later told her she must have imagined it: that the Virgin rose up from the scattered light, clothed in a blue mantle and rose-colored gown and shining so brightly her face couldn’t be seen. Margerit remembered she’d laughed in delight and pointed, only to be hushed and have her hand slapped. That year she’d learned that you don’t stare around at the other worshippers to see the play of lights. You watched the priest and learned your responses. She’d assumed it was part of growing up; it had never occurred to her that other people weren’t distracted by strange sights in church because they saw nothing. And so she learned not to notice, in the same way you learned not to notice the crippled beggars who had once been soldiers.

Sister Petrunel might have been able to explain some of it but for her the mysteries were for devotion, not experimentation. Petra’s inquisitive mind had led her into the groves of learning but never touched that particular fruit. She tried to remember how much she’d told her governess about the visions. When had she ceased to take note of them? If it hadn’t been for Barbara’s questions she wouldn’t have given the blossoming boughs a second thought. She tried to look with new eyes again as the services rose to the triumphant celebration of the resurrection, staring so hard at the candles and the beams of light filtering through the tinted glass that they swirled and swam before her eyes. Was what she saw of God or of the world? There were no answers, only questions.

* * *

With the release from the strictures of Lent she was thrust once more into the round of dances and musical evenings. Margerit had had been prepared for Chalanz society to envy her sudden fortune and turn jealous, but once the families in the Fulpis’s circle had overcome the shock of her luck they seemed happy to claim her as their own triumph. If the riches the baron had left her had been smaller—if they had fallen within the scope of ordinary comprehension—people might have resented it more. Any sign of change in her life would have been food for criticism. But as it was, in being snatched up so high above her expectations, it seemed she was now beyond comment. The trappings that accompanied her new position were swiftly accepted and forgiven.

One shadow of doubt regarding her fortune was lifted with LeFevre’s return from a trip to the city. “The courts have closed for the summer,” he explained to her after a long morning closeted with her Uncle Fulpi. “The new Baron Saveze has been unsuccessful in having his challenge heard.”

Margerit knew he’d sworn to challenge the will but lawsuits could drag on for years. “Is it entirely over then?”

LeFevre shrugged. “As a nobleman he will have taken his petition directly to the prince’s court. Decisions come more quickly there. It wasn’t that the case was heard and judged against him, the prince simply declined to take it up. In one sense, it leaves the matter undecided, but in another, it signals that the challenge was found to have no merit at all. That’s fortunate for you. An open case in court could have proven awkward for you when you go to Rotenek.”

When. There had been no further discussions on that point with her uncle. There was time. The university term wouldn’t start until late in September and the Rotenek season would be well begun by then. There would be no need to mention her plans to him at all until they had already arrived. She could wait, hard as it was.

* * *

If the better families of Chalanz had been eager to adopt her as their favorite daughter, the first sign that the larger world had noticed the change in her fortunes came with the annual tide of Rotenek nobility exchanging the city’s unhealthy air for the countryside. Count Oriez, whose title-lands lay just north of Chalanz, claimed the right to the first ball of the summer. And from nowhere—for Uncle Mauriz had no dealings with him that she knew of—Margerit received an invitation.

It was as if a sudden storm swept through the household. The days teemed with lectures and admonishments: how she was to behave, who to speak to, who to give which courtesies, what to beware. And then there was the dress.

When it came to matters of fashion and taste, Aunt Honurat was rarely challenged within the household. Her family having climbed to prominence more recently, she took more conscious care for such things than Bertrut’s relaxed attitude. But the elderly widow who had served Aunt Honurat’s dressmaking needs for years had been proclaimed insufficiently up to the current mode. Bertrut had recruited a more fashionable modiste and rival gowns had been created. Margerit was dreading the moment when she could no longer remain neutral in the standoff and would need to instruct Maitelen to dress her in one or the other.

She fled to Fonten Street as often as she could in the afternoons, simply to spend time reading or sitting quietly in the gardens. She had been right about the gardens: they had exploded in a riot of color and when the sun was hot the breeze spread a perfume of roses and heliotrope through the paths.

“I wish the ball were over,” she complained to Barbara as they returned home.

“It’ll be over soon enough,” came the answer. “And then there will be another ball. It’s never over. You’ll get used to them.”

“I don’t want to get used to them!” Margerit said irritably.

“And yet,” Barbara pointed out, “the only acceptable reason to go to Rotenek is to dance at balls.”

“I just know I’m going to do something gauche. I’ll step on some duke’s foot—”

“I don’t believe there will be any dukes in attendance.”

“—or drink from a flower vase—”

“Then it would be the fault of the servant who handed it to you.”

“—and I’ll never remember anyone’s name.”

“You shouldn’t be speaking to anyone without introduction.”

In spite of herself, Margerit laughed. “You sound almost like Aunt Fulpi! She thinks I’m foolish to be in such a state too.”

“Not foolish, Maisetra,” Barbara said more formally. “But it’s only a ball. There are more daunting matters than dancing ahead of you.”

It was only a ball—nothing to do with her plans for the future. But it was hard not to be infected by the importance everyone around her placed on it.

* * *

The night before, as had become their daily habit, Barbara escorted her to her room when she retired and asked, with the comfort of ritual, “Will you be needing me tomorrow?”

“Not until the evening. Aunt Fulpi never wants me to go out when there’s a ball. She thinks it shows a want of proper frailty. And in the morning there’s one last fitting.”

Barbara glanced at the ruffled confection in pale yellow that lay spread across the bedside chair. “I thought…?”

Margerit sighed. “That’s Aunt Fulpi’s choice. She still hasn’t given up.” Abruptly she gathered up the gown and handed it to Maitelen to put away. “Wait until you see what Mefro Teres has made for me. Tomorrow. She’s still finishing the trimming.” As Maitelen returned to help her into her nightgown she asked, “And what will you wear that’s splendid enough for a count’s ball? The green satin that you wore to my coming-out?” How elegant she’d looked with the old-fashioned skirted coat hugging her slim body! And how very daring. She turned questioningly when Barbara hesitated over answering.

“If you wish it,” she said at last.

“That means you don’t think you should.” Margerit despaired of breaking that habit: her avoidance of saying no outright. One had to listen for the refusals in the pauses and silences.

Barbara’s response was careful. “When I served as the baron’s duelist, I dressed to ornament his station.”