Daughter of Mystery (39 page)

Barbara declined to believe or disbelieve any of the rumors. The one story she did believe was that he had sent ambassadors to Austria over the summer to request the presence of his daughter and his grandsons at a council on the succession of Alpennia. It would take months to arrange their travel—if it could be done at all before winter closed the most convenient passes. That left a long time for rumors to sprout and bloom and die.

The unrest touched Margerit not at all. For that, Barbara was grateful. The levels at which the merits of the prospective heirs were debated lay far above her head and no one expected her to have a favorite, much less to support a faction. And there were factions in plenty: the
Chustines
, Aukustin’s party—or rather, Elisebet’s; the
Charteires
who held by the prince’s contract to his first wife; two or three Atilliet cousins who ventured to offer themselves as alternatives. And for each supporter who took a principled stand, there were two who looked to their own profit, whether in influence or gold. Only the strict rules of polite behavior kept parlors and ballrooms from fracturing into open hostility. The streets were another matter. Every week saw swords drawn in the
plaiz
at least once over some point of honor spilling over from the debates. With luck, the opening of the council and its truce would come before there was a death.

And the season must go on, whatever the undercurrents. Barbara moved farther along the upper balcony of the
salle
to keep an eye on Margerit as she found a seat for the concert. The floor was too crowded to allow for armins as well as guests. It made the watch more nerve-wracking, though in truth it would take a bare half-second more to fly down the stairs in case of need than it would to push through a crowded dance floor. A few of the guests found the vantage of the upper level preferable as well so she took note of the approaching woman only when a familiar voice greeted her.

“I haven’t seen you for entirely too long. One might think you were avoiding me,
ma chere Barbre
.”

“Vicomtesse,” she responded, nodding without taking her eyes off Margerit. The last thing she wanted at the moment was the distraction of Jeanne de Cherdillac’s attentions.

“And how are things progressing with your little
bourgeoise
?” Jeanne raised a hand to stroke her cheek. Barbara fought the reflex to lean into it.

“Mesnera, with all respect, that is none of your affair.”

Jeanne leaned closer. “Once, it would have been my affair. Ah, forgive me, you’re serious.”

Barbara risked a glance at her. “Your pardon, Vicomtesse, but with things as they are,” she gestured to take in the entire city and its restless mood, “I’d prefer not to be distracted from my duty.”

“Ah yes, the succession is poisoning everything at the moment. I even had young Lutoz pestering me to support Elisebet’s boy. As if the fact that she was born Isabelle de Villemont and so part French should be enough for me. He forgets who
I
was born.”

“Do you have a vote on the council, then? I thought—”

“Oh
la
no! I’ve been invited to witness the debates but de Cherdillac had no Alpennian lands to give me a vote.”

The other matter was even more surprising. “Is Lutoz for the
Chustines
party? I had thought he would follow his father’s lead.”

The vicomtesse shrugged. “She’s been courting the young men for years now. I don’t know if she expected to have more time—few enough of them have inherited to the titles yet.”

Now that was unexpected, Barbara thought as the vicomtesse drifted away once more. She reviewed the list of guild members in her mind. The Saluns she knew leaned toward Elisebet’s party. And Filip Amituz followed his father in the same direction. And Iosifin Rezik as well. Antuniet—she was hard to read. Her brother was solidly at the princess’s side but how close were they? And their mother was outspoken in support of whoever Aukust’s choice would be. Antuniet might go either way or have her own opinions.

The ordinary scholars, male and female, were harder to assess, but her curiosity was up. They would have no direct interest in the deliberations but there were endless webs of ties and obligations. Where did their families live? In whose district? Were they supported in their schooling by a patron’s bequests? What were their prospects for advancement? Who stood at the gates to their chosen careers? Again, what of their families? Was a father or cousin in the employ of a partisan to one side or the other? How could that not be the case?

The place to start was the university registers. With the same zeal she had brought to searching for her own origins, Barbara followed each thread in the web. The hunt was more difficult than it might have been in the palace district. She had few existing contacts and the excuse of scouting out Margerit’s safety held little weight with the university clerks. But slowly a pattern emerged. A few of the ordinary scholars had no known ties to any faction. They were, on the whole, among the more skilled. The women from the poor-scholars fell entirely in this group. That made sense in the emerging picture. They had no immediate obligations beyond the Scholars House itself; by definition they were residents of Rotenek. And it had been clear from the beginning that they had been invited to the guild for the reputation of their work as much as to keep the balance of men and women.

But the bulk of the guild membership—both high and low—were either partisans of Elisebet or in their patronage. Could it still be chance? Or, more likely, a simple consequence of that web of connections? But then, why Margerit? Yes, she was invaluable to their work but they couldn’t have known that at the time. If she were looking for a conspiracy, it was as if they had designed the guild as a lure to draw Margerit in: a mixed guild to satisfy proprieties, a few personal connections to disarm suspicion, the promise of serious study of the mysteries as bait. Once the idea had seized her, it was hard to shake loose.

She ventured the topic with Margerit one evening over books. “At the guild meetings, is there much talk of politics?”

Margerit thought a moment. “Not much—not like at parties, where the old folks go on and on. We talked about the succession at the beginning, of course, when we were choosing a mystery to work on. It was one of the thoughts, that the land would be unsettled and vulnerable and that our
castellum
could help keep it safe for whomever was chosen.”

“Did you know,” Barbara ventured, “that most—almost all—of the guild members lean to Princess Elisebet’s side?”

Margerit shrugged. “What of it?”

The ground was growing tricky. “I’ve been wondering whether the guild’s work might be meant to her benefit in some way.”

“It’s meant for the benefit of all the land; why shouldn’t it benefit her as well?” Margerit seemed genuinely confused.

“It seems odd that people so strongly partisan would put this effort, at this time, into what did not raise the chances of their favorite over others.”

“You’ve seen the mystery,” Margerit protested. “You helped write it! Is there anything of favoritism in it?” An edge of annoyance was emerging in her voice.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen the full ceremony—not with the saints all filled in.” Her further suspicions weren’t strong enough to stand on their own.

“But I have. Barbara, I wish we could be working on it together, like we did this summer. Then you’d see.”

Does she think I’m jealous?
Barbara wondered. And of course she was. But that had nothing to do with it. “Just be careful. There’s something at work here. If it turns out to be dangerous…” If it were dangerous it would fall within her hands and then Margerit would have to listen. But it was too soon to point that out.

* * *

The pattern of the loyalties had emerged as she traced connections back and forth from the south bank to the north bank of the Rotein. Another thing emerged during that search. Her old shadows were back. The same men—some of them—who had dogged her errands the previous year were appearing in view with disturbing frequency. Others were strangers but met too often for chance, even given paths of habit. She’d grown sloppy in those paths of habit. That would change again.

What had brought them back? The last time the question had teased at her, she’d spun an elaborate fantasy around her father’s supposed title and estates and the trading of debts for influence. That explanation had been abandoned as implausible. But now the shadows were back and tangled up in questions of the succession debate. And this time those questions crossed Margerit’s path. If she were right…

It wasn’t a question she could share with Margerit. And Marken—well, he’d been told what to watch for, but he had no curiosity about the larger doings of his employers. She thought briefly of taking Mesner Pertinek into her confidence but he was still too newly come to the household for her to trust entirely. She would drop him a word or two. In the end, the habit of a lifetime took her to LeFevre’s door.

“And you think these are the same men as last winter?” he asked when the bare facts had been laid before him.

“Some of them are the very same men, the others have the same feel. I never told you—I learned they were in Langal’s employ.”

“Ah.”

From his expression she knew the comment was on her discovery and not on the man’s identity. He would give her no confirmation of her other guesses. She didn’t bother to rehearse them.

“But now,” she continued, “I don’t know whether I’m the target or Maisetra Sovitre is. There’s something odd happening around the guild. I don’t know how to protect her if I don’t know what it is.”

He watched her closely, as if waiting to be certain she’d finished. “And what would you like me to do?”

What
had
she wanted? What had she expected? “I don’t know. I…I needed to tell someone.”

“You could protect her by removing her from the guild,” he said mildly.

Barbara threw up her hands. “And how am I supposed to do that? This work means everything to her. I don’t think even Maisetra Pertinek would be able to forbid her and have her obey.”

“Maistir Fulpi could. He would be quite capable of dragging her back to Chalanz willy-nilly if he were given good reason.”

Barbara envisioned the scene. “She’d never forgive me,” she said, shaking her head slowly.

“Then you may need to decide which is more important to you: her forgiveness or her safety.” He waved a hand as if dismissing the question. “I don’t say I think it would come to that. But Barbara—” His voice became quietly intense and she marked his words carefully. “If you ever find yourself in desperate straits—you or Margerit or the both of you—take sanctuary at Saint Orisul’s.”

“That’s five days journey away!”

“And well away from Rotenek if it comes to that. If you’re at Saint Orisul’s, I’ll know where to find you.”

Chapter Forty-Nine

Margerit

It had been raining steadily for a week. Not enough to leave small lakes in the low spots of the
plaiz
but a steady drizzle that quenched spirits as if they were candles. Margerit had been damp more often than dry for days. Every time she returned to the house, Aunt Bertrut fussed and warned against taking cold. There was no help for it. They were spending long hours in the chapel working through the task of stitching the local patrons into the
castellum
and she couldn’t be spared. The other
vidators
could tell whether a particular draft had succeeded or failed but only she could see the shape of
how
it failed or how it had almost succeeded. As yet, the guild work had not displaced the time she spent on lectures, but she could see a time when it might.

“Go upstairs and get those things off immediately,” Aunt Bertrut ordered, heading her off when she would have taken her satchel to the library. “Leave that here, someone will see to it. I told Maitelen to keep the fire up in your room. I knew you’d be coming in all wet again. You look like you drove across town with the carriage open.”

“No, Aunt,” she sighed. “It’s only that there’s no way to get from the guildhall to the carriages except across the yard and of course it poured for the two minutes that took.”

“And you couldn’t take a parasol?”

Margerit didn’t try to answer. She hated the bother of carrying too many things. The satchel kept the books and papers dry—that was the important thing. “Where shall it be this evening?” Aunt Bertrut had insisted she be back in plenty of time, but Margerit hadn’t bothered to take note of the details. She stripped off her soaked gloves and tossed them on the side table with the book satchel.

“It’s just a small musical supper at Mesnera Arulik’s. Let me see your hands.”

Margerit held them out, knowing what was coming. Gloves might hide the ink stains but one couldn’t wear gloves every moment of the day and even lemon juice failed to fade the marks entirely.

But Bertrut only sighed and continued where she’d left off. “You wanted a quiet week. I think there’s some new Italian soprano she’s showing off. There’s no dancing so wear something warm.”

The instructions were hardly necessary. Her maid would have chosen the dress already with far more care than she would have taken herself. Maitelen might have started out as a country girl, but from the start she’d determined to live up to the expectations of the lady’s maid to an heiress. She’d made friends and gathered advice in all the neighboring households with the determination of an invading general. After only a few false starts, Margerit had stopped worrying over whether she’d be turned out properly. Tonight it was a pale fawn merino with black piping and her heaviest shawl.

The care came to nothing. Margerit was waiting with Aunt Bertrut in the front parlor when Uncle Pertinek entered, dressed not for the evening’s excursion but as if he had just returned home. Barbara followed him in from the entry hall and Margerit saw them exchange an odd look.

“My dear,” he said to Bertrut. “I think it would be best to stay in tonight.”