The Privilege of the Sword (8 page)

She kissed him, and he was silent.

They left through the door he had come in. Like a young man squiring a debutante through crowded seats at a ball, the Mad Duke escorted her through the mad halls of his house, from the secret room to a bedroom hung with red curtains, already warmed by a fire.

B
UT THAT WAS NOT WHERE
M
ARCUS FOUND HIM TWO
hours later—more than two hours, for it took him a while to locate his master, after the woman had been shown the door. The Duke Tremontaine was alone in a room empty of furniture. He was hunched over a dying paper fire in an elaborately carved fireplace. His unbound hair swept the ashes. The room was cold and dark, but for the red glow of the last of the embers.

Marcus knew which floorboard creaked.

“I need more wood,” the duke said without turning around. “I’m cold.”

“There’s a fire in your bedroom.”

A shudder passed through Tremontaine. “No. I won’t go back there.”

“Shall I get blankets for you?”

“Yes. No—I can’t sleep in this room. Not here.”

“If you’d let me move a bed in, or even a couch…”

Tremontaine wore nothing but a velvet robe. It twisted around his long limbs when he turned to look up at his servant. “No, Marcus. There will not be any bed in here ever again.”

“All right. What if I make a fire in the library? You could have some blankets in there, and read for the rest of the night.”

“Where are my guests, my scholars?”

“They’ve all gone to bed, or gone home. Shall I wake one up for you?”

The duke shook his head, and noticed his hair. He tucked most of it into his collar. “No, you go to bed. I’ll…I’ll be along.”

“I think you’ll like the library,” coaxed Marcus doggedly. “There are cushions, and rugs, and nice heavy curtains. And plenty of books.”

“I know what’s in the library,” the duke snarled, sounding a bit more like himself.

Marcus held out his hands, and the tall man took them; together, they pulled him to his feet.

chapter
VI

I
T WAS ALL RIGHT DURING THE DAY.
B
UT AT NIGHT,
stripped down to my boy’s shirt, tucked in the great bed in the empty house in a city of strangers, I wanted my mother! We always shared our woes and tried to help each other. I wished she knew how brave I was being, but there was no way to tell her about any of it, and what could she do, anyway? I cried very quietly, not liking to hear myself.

In the morning, I let the chocolate console me, and let Betty do up all my clothes with her able fingers. She didn’t smell of drink—yet. I left half the chocolate for her.

My new clothes were not so hard to move in today. They seemed looser, more welcoming, less restrictive.

Master Venturus was waiting for me in the wet rabbit room. He was practicing against a wall, and didn’t seem to see me when I came in.

“Good morning!” I said, to show I wasn’t afraid this time.

“Yes,” he said, still crouching and springing with sword in hand. “Why aren’t you practice?”

“I will if you like.”

“You get up, you practice. You eat, you practice. You go to bed, you practice—first.” He turned at last to face me. “Otherwise, no good. No point.” He looked me over. “No blanket today? Not so cold? Very good. Now you show Venturus you hold.”

I held. Then I stood—wrong, of course, at first, and then right, so perfectly, I was told, that I must not move, and did not, and thought I was going to die of the ache in my arm holding the sword and my legs holding the stance, a gradual ache that became pain that sharpened to agony.

“Strike!” Venturus shouted suddenly.

I sprang forward, heedless of form, just to release the pain—and nearly fell over. My sword clanged from my hand to the floor.

“Not so good.” My master’s exaggerated sympathy failed to cover his smugness. “Not so good, ha? You practice, practice, practice, then no pain, no hurt, you strike—strike like snake. Ha! Now pick up sword.” He hissed. “Tsss! No thumb on blade! Stupid. Rust, dust, all kinds of blick. You polish, make good.”

It was worse than polishing silver. The blade’s shiny metal darkened the moment my finger touched it. And those edges could be sharp, too, though the tip was blunted. Venturus gave me lime powder and oil and a soft leather cloth. For once, I was glad of my breeches; it would have been hard to do in skirts.

Venturus waited ’til I was done. Then he said, “I go. What you do now?”

I looked out to the garden. It was raining. “I practice,” I said.

“Good.” To my surprise, he added, “Not too long, first day. Then make bath, good soak with—tss!—how you call, good salts—then wine. After.” On his way out the door, he paused and whirled back to me: “No-wine-no-sword!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You no drink with sword! Drink is ruin sword.”

With a swirl of his cloak, he was gone.

T
HE MORE TIME
I
SPENT IN
T
REMONTAINE
H
OUSE,
the more beautiful I found it. I couldn’t understand why my uncle the Mad Duke didn’t like it here. Maybe it was just too good for him and he knew it. Everything about the house was perfect: the colors carefully chosen, the furniture balanced in form and size to every room; even the views out the tall windows were as lovely as pictures. I would find myself just looking at the way the lines of a room’s molding met the ceiling. Sometimes they joined in carven leaves, edged with just a little gold; sometimes faces peered amongst them; sometimes there were patterned jags, hard edges that almost made blocks of letters, like words you couldn’t quite read.

Each room was filled with treasures. I made myself choose a favorite in each one: the game was that I could save only one thing from each room, and what would it be? In one it was a tiny ivory carving of balls within balls, each one moving separately but never touching. In another I was hard put to choose between a painted fan mounted on a stand and a little china calf with the most winning expression! I was surprised at how many of the things I found were ladies’ things. I remembered the duke my uncle saying with some distaste, “It’s very elegant. I inherited it from my grandmother.” His grandmother had been Duchess Tremontaine before him; that much I knew. Perhaps it was her very own armchair that I loved to sit in, in my room above the river, my feet tucked up under me as I watched the colors change over the hills.

I liked to visit the dining room with the long windows and mirrors, even though I never ate in there. At the center of the enormous table, there was a serving epergne as large as a baby’s cradle, made out of silver. Branches twisted around it, ending in oak leaves on which sweets might be placed; the middle was a large dish supported by silver deer that grazed or glanced up around it, amongst life-sized silver walnuts that were half as big as the deer were. Sometimes I patted or stroked the deer, although I knew it would make the silver tarnish faster. But it was folly to leave silver out like that in the air, anyway. A girl came in once a week to polish it; I came upon her one day and offered to help, but she would not let me. If the servants found me odd, they didn’t say so. They were very polite and always called me Lady Katherine. Of course, they must be accustomed to behavior far odder than mine. And you couldn’t know where they themselves had come from—though, as my mother had taught me, it would be the height of rudeness to ask. It’s different in the country, where we know everybody for miles around. It seemed like a waste to keep on polishing the thing, but I was not invited to give advice on housekeeping. I began to realize just how much money my uncle the duke had at his disposal, and was fascinated by what he chose and did not choose to spend it on. I wondered whether the Riverside house were as richly furnished, or even more so.

And I wondered what was in my uncle’s private rooms, here in Tremontaine House. I knew which ones they were: at the other end of the house from mine, a large suite that overlooked both the river and the courtyard. He could watch the sunset, and he could see visitors arriving. Once I stood outside the door, wondering if it was locked, and what I would do if it wasn’t. He’d never know if I looked in, would he? But what would I see if I did? Next time he makes me really angry, I promised myself, I’ll sneak in and look at everything, no matter what. Behind me, the portrait of a sad young woman gazed mournfully at me, as if to warn me of the perils of intrusion.

Portraits spattered the walls of Tremontaine House: large and small, square and round, dark and bright. In our house in the country there were portraits, too, but they were all my father’s forebears. This was my mother’s family. I tried to figure out which of the painted people looked familiar, and who was related to whom. When I couldn’t guess, I’d make it up. The young man with the sour face and riding crop in the upstairs narrow hall was pining for the stiff young woman holding a rose in the little salon. But she was betrothed from birth to a red-faced bedroom man with a goblet. I could tell they would never be happy. I considered having the young man break his neck in a riding accident just to make sure everyone was good and miserable. I even wrote a poem for the young lady beginning
Ah, never shall I see thy shining face once more,
but all I could think of for next was
When I stand looking out the garden door,
and even though it did rhyme I knew it wasn’t really poetry.

But the pictures also discomfited me: after looking at them long enough I would begin to wonder who these people truly were, and what order they had come in. Was the old man the son of the pretty young girl, or her father, or her husband? Or had he died before she was born? My painted forebears could not speak to answer, and no one in Tremontaine House could tell me who they were.

In the mirrored salon was one portrait that always pleased me. The painting was vivid and bright, not so old-fashioned as the rest: a woman in a pretty dress, with curls so fair as to be almost silver. It was a wonderful, lively painting. She was looking just past my shoulder as if someone was coming in the door behind me and she was sharing a joke with them, laughing as if she wanted a secret teased out of her. Her eyes glistened, and the pale grey satin of her dress did, too; even her jewels looked real, until you got close enough to see that it was only bits of paint: streaks of white over rose swirling to red, and such. Behind her, I was almost sure I recognized the lawn of Tremontaine House itself, sweeping down to the river. People were playing flamingo on the grass. I decided we had nearly the same nose. I wondered if, when I had the right gown, I might get the same artist to paint my portrait, too, and if I might look even half as lovely as the lady in grey.