The Mystic Marriage (23 page)

“Oh, but he isn’t the heir yet,” Lufise said. “That makes it possible. You might give it a thought.”

Margerit shook her head. “I have no ambitions to marry Efriturik Atilliet or anyone else. It would interfere too much with my studies. Speaking of which…” She rose, calculating that she’d put in enough time to be polite.

Bertrut followed her out into the foyer and closed the door behind them. “Margerit, I was wondering…that is, I thought you might give that woman a hint. I know she’s some sort of cousin of the baroness, but for weeks now—”

“You’re speaking of Maisetra Chazillen?”

“Coming and going at all hours and in such clothes. I thought you might let her know that it would be more appropriate if she came in by the side.”

By the servants’ door. Margerit stifled the sharp answer that came first to mind. “Aunt Bertrut, I’m sorry if you were embarrassed in front of your friends, but Antuniet needs to do her research. You know that we thought it safer to keep the papers here for now. She has my invitation to come and go at her own convenience, and I hope you haven’t said anything to make her feel unwelcome.” It had been hard enough to convince her of that welcome in the first place.

“But the front door? Looking like some workhouse girl? You’ve spent enough on setting her up; surely some of it could go for clothing!”

Margerit shook her head. She’d lost that argument already. Whatever rules Antuniet had set in her own mind, they didn’t encompass letting others pay for her personal things. She had her tutoring money for that, she’d said. And Margerit had let it alone. “Don’t badger her about it, Aunt. Please?”

“Of course, if you insist, dear,” Bertrut said doubtfully.

Margerit hesitated before opening the door to the library. She’d meant to do some reading, but would Antuniet take it as a sign to retreat? Antuniet looked up from the spread papers and carefully set her pen aside.

“Don’t let me disturb you. I only have some correspondence to read. Would you like to have tea brought in?”

“Not while I’m writing,” Antuniet said shortly.

“Of course. Perhaps later?” Margerit found the latest packet of letters and poetry from her cousin Iulien and settled into her usual chair by the window, kicking off her shoes and tucking her feet up under her like a little girl.

She’d given up waiting for an answer when Antuniet spoke again, more quietly this time. “Thank you, that would be pleasant.”

For the next hour there was only the rustling of pages and the thin scratching of the pen. The news from Chalanz was all the usual, filtered through a girl’s eyes. Iuli was the only one who wrote to her about the family. Uncle Fulpi wrote only on business: a client who wished for an introduction in Rotenek, a request for a book that her cousin Nikule needed, arrangements to be made for Sofi’s coming-out ball at the end of next summer. Beneath it all was the sense that these favors were the price she paid for not being disowned entirely.

Reading Iuli’s letters was like returning to the chatter of her childhood, full of half-overheard gossip and descriptions of their favorite places. And then there were the poems. The privilege of reading them was made clear by the inscription at the top of the page, “Show to No One,” amended by the awkwardly inserted allowance, “except the Baroness.” Iuli’s staple offerings were solemn and gothic odes to the ruins in Axian Park or meditations on historical figures she had no doubt been set to study by her governess. But in among them was the occasional gem: the description of a nightingale heard through an open window on a late summer evening; a surprisingly mature contemplation of the unreliability of memory. At first, Margerit had responded only with mild praise, guessing how tender Iuli’s pride was likely to be. But lately she’d started sending back comments on a particular turn of phrase or choice of words. Since it hadn’t stemmed the flow of verse, it seemed Iuli didn’t mind.

Margerit kept part of her attention on the other occupant of the room and when Antuniet finally cleaned her nib and sorted the papers out into three tidy stacks, she rang the bell, giving Antuniet no opportunity for a change of mind.

“The copyists did their work well,” Antuniet said when the cups had been poured and the silence hadn’t had time to become awkward yet. “Making two copies as a check was a good idea. I’ve only found a few common errors, though the diagrams were clearly more difficult. They did an excellent job on the ciphers and the Greek is accurate but I suspect they had little knowledge of Hebrew. I may need to have Anna come to help me sort things out sometime.”

“I’d like that,” Margerit said eagerly. “I’ve hoped for a chance to see her again.”

“You could have come down to the workshop.”

“I didn’t know if…I didn’t want to intrude too much into your life.”

Antuniet gave a bitter laugh. “You’ve already intruded into every part of my life, so why stop there?”

How to answer that?

Antuniet set her cup down and leaned forward. “Manners are like ice on the river: a smooth and polished surface, but brittle and treacherous if it needs to bear weight. I accept that you never meant to destroy my family; you only meant to survive. And yet, here I am. And there you are. I won’t set a price on that guilt but I’m willing to acknowledge that you are paying it.”

Margerit was taken aback. “Did you think this was out of guilt? I would have helped you for the sake of friendship any time you were willing to accept it.”

Antuniet shook her head. “We can never be friends; there’s too much distance between us.”

“No,” Margerit answered firmly. “Barbara said the same thing when she and I first met and I made the mistake of believing it for entirely too long.” She, too, leaned forward in challenge. “Do you know how few people there are in this world that I can meet mind to mind and soul to soul? And I can never forget how much help you were to me when I first came to the city.”

“Help?” Antuniet sounded genuinely puzzled.

“When you set me on the trail of Gaudericus. When you gave me hints on how to get what I needed from the
dozzures
at the university. That day you showed me that mysteries could be designed by trial and experiment. Simply letting me know by your existence that it was possible for a woman to be a serious scholar in Rotenek. If that isn’t friendship, I don’t know what other word to call it by.”

Antuniet was silent for a long time and would not meet her eyes. She began, “Barbara—”

“It may surprise you,” Margerit interrupted, “that Barbara and I don’t always think alike. You’ll have to make peace with Barbara in whatever way seems best to you, but for my part, my hand is there if ever you choose to take it.” She laid it out on the table, matching action to words. It was an offer halfway: not so far that refusal would be pointed.

“I…I don’t know,” Antuniet stammered. “I don’t…” Her voice trailed off and she bit her lip. In anyone else, Margerit might have expected tears. At last she sighed and said, “Come down to Trez Cherfis sometime. I’d like to show you how the work progresses. And perhaps you could talk to Anna about some of the more ceremonial parts of the practice. I feel like the blind leading the blind there. I don’t know whether she has any sensitivity to guide her or whether she’ll need to learn by rote the way I did. She’ll need more teachers than me.”

It was neither acceptance nor rebuff. It would do for now.

They met Barbara just arriving in the courtyard as Antuniet set forth with the day’s work. Antuniet acknowledged her with a deep curtsey and murmured, “Baroness!”

Barbara returned, “Cousin,” with a briefer nod.

Well, stiff formality was better than spitting like cats, Margerit thought.

* * *

Margerit found it hard to seize a chance for private conversation in the evening, even when they stayed in with no guests. It seemed unkind simply to disappear and leave her aunt and uncle to their own company. And when retired at last to bed at an hour still young, there were better things to do than rehearse the events of the day. But later, rolled closely in Barbara’s arms, she felt the need to unburden herself before sleep would come.

“Antuniet invited me to see her work. I thought I might go down to her workshop sometime soon.”

“You hardly need an invitation,” Barbara muttered impatiently.

“But I do,” Margerit said. “I know it seemed the obvious answer to us—for me to be her patron—but you’re the one always talking about the Chazillen pride. I think she would truly prefer to have died than to lose her work, even to me. I don’t want to push too far, so I wait to be invited. And in defiance of Aunt Bertrut’s feelings I won’t insist on buying her a new wardrobe. Maybe someday she’ll believe my offer of friendship.”

“Now there you’re barking up the wrong tree. Antuniet has never had friends.”

“And why is that, do you suppose? I don’t think it’s pride. I think—” How to explain? “I think no one worthy of her friendship has ever tried hard enough.”

Barbara snorted in laughter. “Well, bloody your knuckles knocking on that door if you please.”

Margerit judged it time to let the matter be. “Weren’t you supposed to bring home a new armin to try out today?”

A sigh. “He didn’t suit at all.”

“I thought Perret was an excellent judge?”

“For skill, yes, but he has his blind spots.” Humor threaded through Barbara’s voice. “I told the man the first part of his interview was to spar a few bouts with me and he refused outright. Wouldn’t fight with a lady, he said. Not a good sign. So it’s back to the beginning again. There was one other possibility Perret mentioned but Efriturik seems to have snapped him up already.”

“Then at least his problem is settled.”

* * *

Trez Cherfis was neither close enough to the wharf district to be thought rough, nor close enough to the university district to be considered bohemian. And it was a world away from the fashionable neighborhoods north of the river. Margerit watched the passing houses from the carriage window, trying to imagine what Antuniet must feel to have come to this. It was a street of shops and craftsmen and the poorer edges of the Jewish district. Likely not one in ten rated a higher greeting than
Mefro
.

A brief note from Antuniet had suggested a day and time, and the directions brought her to a squat brick and timber building with the fading traces of a trade sign over the door. On entering, she could imagine a shop in the front with storage behind and cramped living quarters above. The first room was more stark and spare than she expected but the back held the familiar clutter of work in progress.

Antuniet ushered her in with the air of a hostess showing off her garden…or perhaps more aptly, a farm manager answering to the landowner. “I thought you might like to see the process as a whole,” she said briskly, “so we’ve left bits of the work at every stage. And then the firing is set to begin around noon. Do you mind if I have Anna explain things to you? I never seem to have time for her examinations.”

“Of course,” Margerit said. She crossed the room to greet the girl with a brief embrace, to Anna’s startled surprise. After the time she’d spent at Tiporsel, it would seem odd to return to distant formality. “I’m glad to see you back at work.” She noticed how Anna ducked her head sideways to hide her scarred cheek from view and decided not to ask how it was healing. Instead she offered, “They say Kreiser has gone back to Vienna.”

“In the middle of winter?” Antuniet sounded understandably skeptical.

Margerit shrugged. “Annek’s warning seems to have been taken to heart. Or perhaps, having failed, he had no further business here. In any event, he’s left. I suppose he must have gone south to take ship at Marseilles. I’ll still keep the guards on duty though.”

Now it was Antuniet’s turn to shrug. “As you wish. I can’t say there’s much need for the both of them. Anna, perhaps you could begin over here.”

They started with the jars of fine powders, ground and sifted and laboriously purified. Anna described the separations and calcinations, the dissolving and filtering, drying and careful mixing. “Some steps are only mechanical,” Anna explained, waving at the mortars and sieves and clearly relishing her role, “but the quartz here was put through a minor exaltation at the last stage—working under a specific alignment of the stars and with Maisetra Chazillen and I taking different roles—to enhance the…the drawing of the—” She looked at Antuniet for guidance but was motioned to continue. “To enhance the influence over the sleeping mind.” She looked back again. Evidently the explanation had been correct. She moved over to the workbench, where a crucible stood, already filled with a muddy-looking mixture. “The mystic marriage isn’t just a matter of measuring and mixing. The
materiae
are put in layers, suspended in the correct solvent, but each must be added by the proper role and sometimes with words as well.”

“The proper role?” Margerit prompted. “I remember reading something about how Mercury will do this and Jupiter will do that and the Virgin will cause the Lion to eat the Sun, but I thought those were just poetic descriptions of the stellar alignments.”

“Sometimes, but some of them mean the people performing the process. Mercury is usually the principal alchemist, though sometimes it means the transmutation itself. The lion and sun are different parts of the heating process. But the virgin, the twins, Mars and Venus, the king and queen usually indicate roles for people. We can only do processes that need one or two, of course.”

As she continued on, Antuniet interrupted only occasionally to correct or expand on a point. “The roles and words…” she explained. “They aren’t mysteries because they don’t call on the saints, though some alchemists use the Great Work to perfect the soul as well as the physical world. The processes use all sorts of heathen names from the ancients, but only to stand for forces and properties of the world, or to mark the alignment of the planets and describe the precise phase and position of the moon, or to indicate the roles of the participants, as you see.”

Anna took up the thread again at her signal. “You could say the same thing in ordinary language, but the ancient writers preferred to conceal their secrets from those outside the craft. And sometimes the more poetic descriptions make things easier to remember.”