The Mystic Marriage (32 page)

The travelers arrived at last late on that fourth day and instantly turned the gracious calm of Margerit’s house into a cacophony of confusion, misplaced baggage, reorganized arrangements and giggling dashes in and out of rooms. One might think they were schoolroom girls rather than the grown matrons and widows who formed Jeanne’s most intimate coterie. Hopefully Margerit’s servants were sufficiently accustomed to their mistress’s irregular life to be too scandalized by any lapses in discretion. It was clear that the women considered this trip to be a holiday from their ordinary caution. Antuniet had taken note, with wry amusement, of the moment when Akezze worked out what interest it was that most of the other women shared. No doubt they had considered the scholar to be of no more importance than the musicians and servants in moderating their behavior. Antuniet supposed that she, too, now fell in the category of those whose opinion didn’t matter. Who was she likely to gossip with who wasn’t already present?

Escaping the chaos, Antuniet retreated toward the back of the house and found herself in a flowered courtyard nestled between the two wings of the building. An ornate fountain played in the center of a tiled expanse. She sat on the rim of the pool and closed her eyes, drawing in the scent of the roses and heliotrope and letting the sound of the splashing water wash away the tension and weariness of the road. She should return to her room. If she hoped to take advantage of the luxury of a bath before dinner, it would be good to put her request in before too many others. Instead, she rose and followed the sound of birdsong through a columned pergola.

The path led out onto a terrace behind the house and then farther down through wilder gardens and shrubberies spilling out toward the river. It reminded her of Tiporsel House but in larger scale. One could lose herself on these paths. Indeed, she hadn’t gone more than a few turns when she came face-to-face unexpectedly with Barbara. She, too, looked as if she were escaping the invasion. Recovering quickly, Antuniet curtseyed with her usual brief, “Baroness, your pardon,” as she turned to find a less traveled path.

“Cousin,” Barbara returned. And then, “Still always so formal.”

It seemed an invitation to conversation. She could think of nothing to say but, “Still always so impersonal.”

Silence hung between them. How did one begin? On impulse she added, “You know, it doesn’t bother me anymore. Being addressed as Maisetra.”

The corner of Barbara’s mouth twitched, but she couldn’t tell whether it was humor or distaste. “I’ve tried, but ‘Maisetra Chazillen’ never sits right in my mouth. Which leaves us in the awkward place we find ourselves.” She seemed to contemplate a question and then inclined her head in invitation. Their steps fell together on the path. “It’s easier for you and Margerit,” Barbara continued. “You long since made each other free of your Christian names.”

It was, perhaps, an invitation, but she couldn’t be sure. And it was an invitation only Barbara could make now. “That happened…before.” Before her fall and Barbara’s rise. “I wouldn’t want to presume—”

Barbara stopped in the middle of the path and turned toward her. “Someone once asked me whether it meant anything to me that you and I are each other’s nearest living kin. I’ve been thinking about that recently. I find it means a great deal.”

The moment stretched out between them, then as one they began, “Barb—”

“Antun—”

It might have called for laughter. Instead they turned and continued side by side down the path toward the river, but the tension had drained away.

It was Antuniet who broke the silence. “He never invited us here, you know, old Marziel. He couldn’t avoid having us out to Saveze a few times, with Estefen being his heir-default. That’s where I first remember seeing you. But I’ve never been to Chalanz before.”

Barbara looked back at the house. It was barely visible now through the branches. “It’s a dreadful waste. We barely spend a month out of the year here at most. It’s a lovely place, but it isn’t Saveze.”

Her voice had a possessive edge that Antuniet both understood and envied. The house on Modul Street had been home, but never in that same deep-rooted way. The Chazillen lands had belonged to another branch of the tree: a place to summer if nothing else offered, but not to pin your heart to. And even those were lost to her now. “Do you begrudge spending so much of the year in town?”

“No.” And then a laugh. “You know, it never occurred to me to think about it before. The baron…the court was his life’s blood. And now I could hardly drag Margerit off to rusticate for most of the year. She needs Rotenek like a fish needs water.” Her voice turned almost shy. “She
is
my home. Nothing else matters. Saveze will always be there. And they hardly need me to run the estate,” she finished more briskly.

Antuniet thought,
In five minutes I’ve learned more about you than in the last twenty years.
She offered her own confidence. “I wish we could have been cousins long ago. How different it might all have been.” They had come at last to the stone wall marking the end of the property and the edge of the river. The water flowed past quietly but the flotsam traced a path that gave hints of swift currents and roiling eddies. The air had turned cold. “These days the world seems all out of balance and I feel like that leaf.” She pointed to a green mote, spinning in the shadows under the bank. It bobbed as if tugged by a hidden anchor, spun once more, then sank under the water. Antuniet shivered, and not only from the rising damp.

“Pertulif,” Barbara said cryptically.

“What?”

“Oh, he has a poem about leaves in the wind that I used to quote. But we aren’t leaves, you know. We make our own destiny.”

Antuniet scanned the water farther downstream, but the leaf did not resurface.

* * *

There was an expected rhythm to a country floodtide retreat. No one rose much before noon except the eccentric and the very young. Then there would be long hours sitting and walking in the gardens, engaged in idle talk, followed by whatever entertainments had been planned for the evening, stretching late into the night. There wasn’t a one of the guests who couldn’t lay claim to the title of eccentric—except, perhaps, for Iaklin—but Antuniet found herself one of the few whose eccentricity extended to rising early and seeking the calm of the gardens before it could be shattered.

They saw very little of their hostesses the first few days. Margerit had duties to her family and a circle of old acquaintances that must be tended. Jeanne had taken charge of their program, arranging little games and amusements and setting in motion plans for their private ball. The timing of the river’s rising had inspired her to name the first of May for the crowning celebrations of the week. She was collecting everyone’s memories of the country customs of their youth to add to the plans, starting with rising at dawn to collect wildflowers and the first dew, all the way through a late-night bonfire on the terrace. Even Margerit joined in the planning with a will once her obligations had been completed. But when they brought out ribbons and armloads of rushes onto the terrace to make flower-gathering baskets, Antuniet slipped back into the house to find some more rational refuge.

It had taken three full days to discover the library, though it held pride of place just off the front hall. The door had been locked—perhaps to protect it from careless depredations—and Antuniet had passed it by several times before searching deliberately and requesting admittance from the housekeeper. She sought that refuge again now, finding the door already open and the curtains thrust back to let the afternoon light spill through.

The shelves held an odd assortment. Uncle Marziel hadn’t been known for his bookishness but he’d understood the value of a good collection that went beyond long ranks of matching bound volumes. And, of course, Margerit had set her hand on it since then. But it wasn’t the tidy cases of well-read tomes that drew her interest. Rather it was the high shelves: the odd corners stacked two-deep, the texts no one had thought to examine since they’d been placed there long years since. When was it that Marziel had bought the place? She pulled out a red-bound volume thick with tipped-in color plates. Some of the collection must have belonged to the previous owner, as she didn’t recall that the baron had been interested in cataloging the insects of the Carpathians.

As she stood balanced on the rolling ladder, reaching back behind a set of German poets for a more interesting-looking volume that had fallen almost out of sight, a rustling sound behind her made her turn so quickly she had to grab for the rail to keep her balance.

“I’m sorry to startle you,” Akezze said from the far corner of the room. “I hadn’t realized I was being so quiet.”

Antuniet descended with her prize. The other woman had chosen a chair beside the tall windows, and the glare through the panes had made her nearly invisible. Now, leaning forward, the light turned her red-gold hair into a halo. “So this is where you’ve been hiding,” Antuniet said. “Did you, too, find the chirping birds in the garden a bit too loud?”

A smile and a nod acknowledged that they weren’t speaking of the ones with feathers. “We all find our own refuge. I could almost think I’d stumbled on heaven here, except that I’d seen the library at Tiporsel first.”

Antuniet settled opposite her and leafed through the thin volume. Nothing but a book of household receipts after all. She set it aside on a table. “What brought you along on this expedition? I’d meant to ask on the journey out but you were in such distress I thought it better to leave you alone.”

She grimaced. “Thank you for that. I’m not looking forward to the rest of the journey to Saveze; I’d forgotten how much I hate traveling by coach. I’ll be spending the summer there tutoring Maisetra Sovitre in logic and rhetoric.”

“Ah, I had forgotten. So she’s grown tired of crumbs? Good. I always thought she was too weak on the formalisms. You can only go so far on mere talent.”

“Far enough,” Akezze said. “Did you know they sent a copy of her analysis of the Mauriz
tutela
to Rome?”

“Now there’s a terrifying thought.”

Akezze shrugged. “Likely some clerk will file it and it’ll never be seen again.”

“I thought Margerit was trying to gather enough students to keep you in Rotenek in the fall.” Antuniet asked, “Will she succeed?”

Another shrug. “There’ve been enough inquiries already to make it likely. She’s planning a whole series of…I don’t know whether to call them lectures or salons. A bit of both, I suppose. And not just from me. We’ve been discussing other women whose work should be more widely heard. I’m surprised she hasn’t asked you already.”

“She has. But—” No, she didn’t care to rehearse those arguments yet with too many others. “It’s a worthy project, though to hear her talk about it you’d think it was entirely selfish.”

This time Akezze laughed. “To her, it is. But if she isn’t careful she’ll be a second Fortunatus, gathering an entire college around her by accident! And you…What brings you along to Chalanz? I hadn’t taken you for one of de Cherdillac’s set before this. Or did your cousin the baroness invite you?”

One of de Cherdillac’s set
. That was a delicate way to inquire. Before she could think how to answer, the sound of the door knocker out in the entry hall startled them both into silence. It was unlikely to be ordinary visitors. One of the conventions of floodtide was the suspension of casual visiting.

The footman’s voice drifted in, piquing their curiosity. “Maisetra Iulien, are you expected?”

A young but not childish voice answered, “Oh, you know Cousin Margerit never cares for that! Is she at home?”

So it was one of the country cousins. Antuniet went to the door and peered out. The girl was still a few years short of being brought out. No longer a child but not yet a young woman. She had an animated heart-shaped face, spoiled by the petulant look that crossed it when the footman asked, “Are you here alone?” Evidently she was well enough known to the household that liberties were taken.

“No one cares where I go or who I go with. Is Cousin Margerit here or not?”

“I believe she is entertaining guests,” the man replied with no success at giving the hint.

Antuniet took pity on him and stepped out, saying, “I think everyone’s in the garden. I can take you back if you like.” And to the waiting servant, “Perhaps a messenger might be sent to let the, ah—”

“The Fulpis,” he supplied.

“—the Fulpis know where their daughter has wandered off to.”

The girl Iulien was staring at her and Antuniet could tell she presented a puzzle. “This way,” she invited, leading off down the hallway. “I don’t believe we’ve met before. I’m Antuniet Chazillen. You might almost think of me as a distant relation of yours—Baroness Saveze is my cousin.”

“How would that make you a relation?” Confusion was plain in her voice.

Had she put a foot wrong? She should have expected that the Fulpis had sheltered their daughters from the more scandalous parts of Margerit’s life. “Never mind. It was a little joke.” Perhaps thrusting her into the middle of Jeanne’s friends would be a poor idea. “Wait here,” she suggested as they came out into the fountain courtyard. “I’ll go find Margerit and let her know you’ve come.” She quietly extracted Margerit and followed her back to avoid being claimed for cutting ribbons and tying bows.

“Whatever are you doing here, Iuli?” Margerit greeted her cousin.

The girl’s face settled into a mulish look. “I never had any chance to talk to you the other day. Papa never lets me talk at dinner except to answer questions. And then you all disappeared afterward to talk about Sofi’s ball.”

And if you have no more conversation than that
, Antuniet thought,
then it’s no wonder he forbids you to talk.

Then Iuli’s voice turned more coaxing and she threaded a hand through Margerit’s arm. “I never had a chance to sing my new piece for you: the one I wrote you about. It’s been ages since you were here and I barely saw you at all.”

“Your turn will come soon enough,” Margerit said. “I’ll come visit at least once more before we go. And then you can sing and play the clavichord for me and we can have a cozy chat. Does anyone know you’ve run off?”