Authors: Mary Robinette Kowal
As their time together played through Jane’s mind, a single image checked her recollections: Anne-Marie holding the key to Vincent’s writing desk. A key which Jane had named, and then left in the apartment with Anne-Marie. She had not thought, or rather, Vincent had said that he was concerned about the servants, but Jane had discounted Anne-Marie from that equation, thinking he meant only the foreign servants. Anne-Marie was, after all, the daughter of an English woman.
But despite her mother’s origins and her command of the language, she was French and described herself as a Parisian. For all that, Anne-Marie was less a foreigner than either Jane or Vincent. Jane bewailed her own blind naïveté and felt it urgent that she speak with Vincent at once.
But that she could not do, engaged as he was in working glamours on the stage. Jane chafed at the restraint she must display as the spectacle continued over their heads, but was grateful for the distraction, as it kept the others from paying her much heed.
Mme Chastain did glance at her once and inquire if she would not rather return to the house.
“No, thank you,” Jane replied. “I had rather wait for Vincent.”
“Oh!” Mme Chastain waved her hand in dismissal. “They will not be home until quite late. My husband always takes the students out after a successful endeavour. He says a pint of ale rebuilds their strength after all this exertion.”
Jane forced herself to be calm. Any urgency to find Vincent and speak with him would surely be remarked upon, and though much could be attributed to her situation, she did not think it wise to use that as an excuse more than necessary. She must also acknowledge that her revelation about Anne-Marie could wait. It needed to be communicated soon, but the few hours it would take Vincent to arrive home would mean no great delay.
* * *
Jane had abandoned books
and music to instead pace in a wide circle around their apartment awaiting Vincent. Had he gone to seek the traitorous glamourist and her compatriots, or was he merely enjoying a pint of ale at an inn with M. Chastain and the students? The first provoked worry, the second, annoyance, and Jane wavered between the two states.
Finally the knob on their apartment door twisted slowly, and Vincent eased it open. He held his boots in one hand and jumped visibly when he saw her. “Muse! I thought you would be asleep.”
Her concern vanished and left her with annoyance. “I have been so worried about you!”
“Worried?”
“I was at the celebration tonight.”
“Ah.” He set his boots by the fire. “Yes, that was less surprising than I wish it had been. Unfortunately, all the culprits slipped away, and as a British glamourist, there was only so much I could do to insist that they be found and apprehended. There was a notable lack of concern, though the shoe throwing did hearten me somewhat that not all residents of Binché support Napoleon.”
“They might well. I threw the first shoe, and I suspect that most of the crowd did it simply out of over-excitement.” She tapped her thumbs together in thought. “I believe that Yves Chastain is not a Bonapartist. He rallied his friends to try to hit the woman, and unless he is a surpassingly shrewd actor, then I believe that he truly wanted to stop her.”
“Muse, you are a wonder. Did you recognise the woman?”
“I am afraid I was not situated to see her clearly. Did you?”
Grim, he shook his head and settled into the chair with his writing desk. “I will need to write to Mr. Gilman to let him know that the unrest here is more serious than we thought.”
“Before you do, I have something to tell you.”
Vincent waited with the complete stillness that marked his deep attention as Jane recited her fears about Anne-Marie. When she had done, he worked his jaw, thinking. “You are likely right. I doubt that she was placed here to spy on us, but rather that Lieutenant Segal recruited her when he learned whom she served.” Rubbing the back of his neck he scowled. “The one good thing is that all my papers on the Bonapartists are in code. Unless she has an interest in my more tedious observations on glamour, there is little in the writing desk to attract her notice.”
“Vincent … Might she be the glamourist on the balcony?”
His eyes widened in alarm at that. “You said you did not recognise her.”
“No, but all I could see was the bottom of the woman’s chin.”
He grunted. “Well. I will ride to Brussels tomorrow and confer with Mr. Gilman.”
“And I will try to keep my behaviour unchanged toward her.”
“I fear that you have the harder task. If you would like to accompany me so you do not have to face her, you may.”
“No.” Surely Jane could govern herself as far as that. “I would not want to alert her by a change in our routine.”
“Very good.” Vincent nodded. “And in the meantime, I feel that I should perform some form of absolution for doubting you.”
“What could you mean?”
Vincent drew her onto his lap. “Clearly, I was wrong not to have told you straight away.” He found one of the laces holding her night dress closed. “I should like to make an apology for that.”
Jane’s breath caught as he teased the lace free.
* * *
Vincent woke later in
the morning than was his wont on days when Brussels was on his schedule. The sun was already streaming into their apartments. “Will you be all right today? I will likely be late tonight.”
“I will be quite well, I assure you. After having survived Mme Meynard’s parties, I feel equal to keeping my composure with Anne-Marie.”
Vincent kissed her forehead. “I adore you.”
Jane tilted her head up. “Perhaps you do not need to race off to Brussels?”
One corner of his mouth curled in a smile and he traced a hand down her shoulder to the bare skin on her arm. “I should like, above all things, to stay this morning.”
“But duty calls.” She sighed and raised her hand to her brow in mock remorse. “Woe.”
Laughing, he caught her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist. His lips had barely touched her skin when the sound of horses entering the courtyard drew them both to the window.
Below, a company of men in the blue and white coats and breastplate of French
cuirassiers
positioned themselves around the courtyard. Jane’s heart quickened with alarm. Though Lieutenant Segal might move in their social circle, it was too early to pay a call.
Vincent squeezed her arm. “Stay here. I will see what they are about.”
“But—”
“I will only listen from the top of the stairs.” Before Jane could object further, Vincent had left the room.
Jane, still in her dressing gown, could only stand at the door, listening to the muffled voices from below. She watched Vincent where he stood, just back from the top of the stairs. His shoulders tightened and he retreated slowly, then turned and ran down the hall toward her. Jane backed away from the door as he burst into the room.
Grabbing her by the arm so hard that it ached, Vincent hauled her to the window. “They want the technique of the
Sphère Obscurcie
.” He snatched the glass globe off the desk and thrust it into Jane’s hands, ripping the velvet free. “I do not think they know about the glass one. Keep it safe.”
In the hall outside, boots clattered and Mme Chastain shouted.
Jane seized his arm in protest. “But, Vincent—”
“They will keep searching until they find me.” Vincent shoved her into the sunlight. “I love you, Muse.” With firm and erect bearing, he crossed the room so that he was standing in the middle of it when Lieutenant Segal flung the door open.
The sun coming through the window cast a square prison on the floor out of which Jane could not step without the glamour in the glass being interrupted.
Lieutenant Segal bowed to Vincent. “The Emperor Napoleon requires your services. Will you come quietly?”
“I am not a French citizen.”
“No. As such, I am not compelled to ask you at all. You will come. There is but the question of comfort.” He gestured with his riding whip, and two of the soldiers came forward and took Vincent by the arms. “I hope this will teach you that you will only be
asked
once.”
Segal struck Vincent across the cheek with the whipstock. Her husband’s head snapped to the side, and he gasped. Jane clapped her free hand to her mouth to prevent herself from crying out for him. Before Vincent could straighten, the Frenchmen hauled him forward. Stumbling, he lost his footing and they jerked him upright, shaking him. Jane could see Vincent’s back tense as if he was about to throw them off, but he stayed resolutely still. By neither look nor action did he betray Jane’s presence. “What do you want with me?”
“Such naïveté. But what else could we expect from a man who plays at the womanly arts?” Lieutenant Segal strode to the table where Vincent’s writing desk sat. Jane moved to the far side of her small rectangle of light, praying that Lieutenant Segal would not step within the influence of the
Sphère Obscurcie
. Instead, he picked up the writing desk and slung it under his arm. “The Emperor is interested in your obscuring sphere. Let us go.”
Jane pressed her hand against her mouth, biting down on the flesh of her thumb to stifle a sob so she would not give herself away by mere noise. She longed above all else to cast a glamour, covering the room in darkness to confound them. Under its cover, she and Vincent could flee. But to where? Into the waiting arms of the soldiers in the courtyard below, there delivering to them the glass
Sphère Obscurcie
? There was no choice, no action she could take beyond bearing witness.
Jane held still in the cold sunlight and watched them take her husband.
Nineteen
An Appeal to Sensibility
The door through which Vincent had been taken stood ajar. Jane waited in the sun, feeling trapped by the rectangle of light. So overrun were Jane’s emotions that she had moved beyond feeling into an insensible state. She leaned her head against the window, the physical sensation of the warm glass replacing any deeper feeling, and stared down as Lieutenant Segal and his men brought Vincent outside. They loaded him in an enclosed carriage, locking the door once he was secured. Jane held her ground until they had ridden from the courtyard. She stood insensibly at the window, unable to think of anything beyond the fact that her husband was gone.
Footsteps in the hall awoke Jane to action as Mme Chastain dashed into the room. The tendons in her neck stood out with strain, and her face had the pallor of a sheet. “Mme Vincent?”
For a moment, Jane thought that Mme Chastain could see through the glamour, but she crossed through the room to the inner bedchamber with an urgency that clearly said that she had not seen Jane. “Mme Vincent! Jane?” The tension in her voice was palpable.
Jane ran her hand over the glass
Sphère
, its core glowing with the light which hid her. The smooth surface was warm to the touch.
Keep it safe,
Vincent had said.
She tucked the glass ball behind the heavy curtains, which hung on either side of the window, masking it from the sun. “I am here.”
Emerging from the bedchamber, Mme Chastain uttered a cry of relief. “Oh! I have been so worried. I will not ask if you are well, but are you unhurt?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Crossing the room with alacrity, Mme Chastain embraced Jane with all the emotion and display of sensibility which Jane felt herself lacking. “My dear. Oh, my dear. I am so sorry for you. Your husband—dear, dear David.”
Jane stiffened, suddenly recollecting that while Mme Chastain offered her sympathy, there were other glamourists in the house, ones to whom Vincent had shown his technique for the
Sphère Obscurcie
. She should inquire if they were safe. It was the correct action to take. “And M. Chastain?”
Releasing her, Mme Chastain screwed her face up in a scowl. “They would not dare touch him, due to his relation to Napoleon. Segal, that scoundrel, asked my husband to come. Bruno refused, of course, and thought that would be the end but—oh, it is too terrible.” She faltered. “He did not think they would take your husband.”
“And the students?” Jane pressed her hand to her middle, as if she could hold down the nausea now brewing.
“Bruno is sending them all home.” She took Jane by the arm and led her to the stairs. “Come. We need to discuss your travel arrangements as well.”
Unwillingly, Jane let herself be pulled along. “My travel arrangements? But you cannot think that I would leave while they have Vincent.”
Mme Chastain patted her hand. “There, there. You have had quite the shock. Let Bruno explain it all, and I am certain it will help you think more clearly.”
Jane was thinking quite clearly. She could do nothing
but
think. Her mind replayed the scene, searching for some different action she could have taken. Had she not delayed Vincent, he would have been well on his way to Brussels by now. Though she might fancy that he would still be at liberty if that were the case, the more likely scenario was that they would have captured him on the road, and then no one would know where he had gone. At least this way, she knew who had taken him.
Likewise, if she left Binché, then how would she find out where he was? No. The only sensible course of action was to stay in town until circumstances warranted her following Vincent somewhere else. Simply knowing where he was, of course, would not be enough, for there was nothing she could do on her own. She would need to apply to Mr. Gilman for assistance. Not knowing Vincent’s codes well enough to write a letter, she would have to go to Mr. Gilman herself and alert him not only to Vincent’s capture, but also to the involvement of Anne-Marie.
The scene downstairs was one of chaos barely contained. Servants sped through the halls, carrying items to store or pack out of sight. M. Archambault dashed past, hurrying upstairs with a text book tucked under his arm.