Authors: Carol Berg
Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Fantasy fiction
The Soul Mirror (63 page)
“Dragons’ teeth, girl, have you no sense of responsibility?” snapped the spry little marquesa. “Bad enough you show so little respect for your office that you tattle about in rags the chambermaids would discard, and so obnoxiously hold yourself above the rest of the household, as if a sad history and gifts of the mind are somehow superior to gifts of simple grace or an earnest determination to make the best of one’s family expectations. I had at least conceded your feeling for the woman we serve. You seem genuinely to care about her. Yet as Eugenie weeps for her empty womb, you’ve been haring about in the muck like a tavern girl.”
Though it was impossible to explain that my activities might benefit Eugenie more than any bedchamber service, my calculated excuses evaporated. I, the
knife-tongued aristo
. The
fierce little scrag-dog
. Where had I lost
Anne
?
knife-tongued aristo
. The
fierce little scrag-dog
. Where had I lost
Anne
?
“Lady, I sincerely love and admire our mistress. She’s shown me favor far beyond expectation. I’ll strive to do better.”
Patrice pursed her thin lips. “I believe you. Now see that you do. I’d rather not be fetched to the steps like a steward.”
“But why are these guardsmen posted here?”
“You must
attend
, Anne. You live in the royal city now, not your rustic countryside. The king has returned to Merona.”
attend
, Anne. You live in the royal city now, not your rustic countryside. The king has returned to Merona.”
The earth shifted again. My goodfather. The sole arbiter of my future, assuming any of us had a future. I could be confined to the Spindle in the next hour. “I didn’t think he could be here before night.”
“He’s not in residence as yet,” she said. “Prefect Kajetan and Tetrarch Grabian must greet him at the city gates and welcome him home on behalf of the Camarilla and the Temple. I doubt he’ll brook any other delay. We’ll all be called to account then. Keep your wits about you and your tongue still.”
As we passed through the gilded doors into the household, I could scarce sort through the day’s possibilities. “Is Her Majesty awake now?”
“Fitfully. The fool brother has had a sensible idea for once, suggesting she be moved to the country, where fresh air and happier associations might revive her. The physician approves it. Who knows what the king will say? Many things could change today.”
“Indeed. But it sounds an excellent plan.” Especially if Antonia and her schemes and the revenants of dead kings could be left behind.
I hadn’t asked Dante about the possibilities of procreation with a revenant.
Asked Dante . . .
The idea shivered me to the marrow . . . along with the thought that I
could
ask him when I had a moment, out there in our meeting place in the aether. Somehow the prospect of our next such conversation left me breathless.
Dante. Impossible . . .
Asked Dante . . .
The idea shivered me to the marrow . . . along with the thought that I
could
ask him when I had a moment, out there in our meeting place in the aether. Somehow the prospect of our next such conversation left me breathless.
Dante. Impossible . . .
As we climbed the stair into the inner household, Patrice dismissed me to my bedchamber, saying she would roust Eleanor or Arabella to join her in relief of Antonia and Lord Ilario. “Sleep for a few hours, Anne. You’ve given good service these past days. And for the love of Sabria, take the time to dress appropriately.”
“Thank you, my lady,” I said. “I do feel a bit frantic. There are more dangers around this palace than illness. I’d not have our mistress harmed in any way.”
“Nor I. You’re not the only one who watches. I’ve heard you were a bit clumsy earlier. Very clever. Walk carefully.”
“Yes, indeed I will.” I was near stammering with astonishment. I suppose seven decades of palace intrigues could make a sharp-eyed woman used to almost anything. “Divine grace, Marquesa Patrice.”
As the bells rang eighth hour of the morning watch, I watched her go, brisk and precise in her movements. Perhaps the natural order of the universe was already reversed.
THE BOOK WAS GONE FROM the balcony rubble, and with it my hopes of an hour’s sleep. I could not allow Ilario to do anything drastic—assuming, of course, that Ilario was the one who had taken it. My confidence in my plan seemed suddenly flimsy, with Dante’s life in danger every moment of delay.
I’d taken two drops of the potion, hoping to avoid entanglements along the way. Now my state of invisibility did naught but make my search for Ilario more difficult. He was not in the bedchamber, where Patrice and Arabella were bathing the sleeping queen in preparation for her husband’s arrival, nor in the private dining room. I slipped into his apartments in the wake of his wizened, impatient little manservant, John Deune, as unlikely a pairing of servant and master as any I’d seen, but the chevalier was not at home. Neither was he in the queen’s salon.
The household ladies and maids of honor were all atwitter about what the king might do when he arrived. Cautious whispers agreed that “executing certain terrifying sorcerers” would be wise, but extremely dangerous, if not impossible. One craggy contessa was convinced the king would set Eugenie aside within the month. The king’s privy council had prepared the order of
cerrate vide
months ago, she said. This collapse would be the last straw.
cerrate vide
months ago, she said. This collapse would be the last straw.
My name was whispered, too. Most of the women assumed that I would be shipped to the Spindle the moment Philippe found me serving in Eugenie’s bedchamber.
“That would be a shame.” Chins dropped when Marie-Claire spoke up. “Anne saved our lady’s life yesterday, and watches out for her carefully. She is very wise.”
Rumor spread faster in Castelle Escalon than late-summer fires in the maquis. Marveling at my two unlikely new defenders, I abandoned Marie-Claire at the center of a murmuring group, repeating all she knew, which was very little and mostly wrong.
The experience was incredibly strange, the voices of the aether roaring through my head as I flitted unseen among my companions of the court. Hearing myself discussed. Was this what it was like to be dead?
Having gleaned nothing of Lord Ilario’s whereabouts, I sped down to the viewing gallery that marked the division between the queen’s household and the public rooms. Increasingly I feared he’d taken my treasures and ridden off to his country house with them. Yet I couldn’t imagine him deserting Eugenie.
Debating whether to head for the stables or the kitchens, both known for Lord Ilario’s frequent visits, I hurried down the gallery, past the entrance to the mages’ passage. How differently I saw it after these past hours. Despite his violent temper and unrepentant wickedness, I could summon no fear of Dante.
Which was idiocy. He had not changed. Not four hours previous, I’d written Ilario, my faithful chevalier, not to approach him—
Father Creator, he wouldn’t!
Reversing course, I sped down the passage toward Dante’s door.
Ilario stepped briskly from behind a cupboard, hand appallingly near his sword hilt. “Who’s there?”
“Lord, hold,” I said, skidding to a stop. “I’m all right. Wholly intact.”
He spun in place, every fiber of him on the alert. “Damoselle?”
“Right here.” When I touched his arm, he jerked away and backed toward the windows, color draining from his fair complexion. A knife had appeared in his hand as if by the finest magic.
“Who’s there? Where are you? Ianne’s breath, are you—?”
“Don’t be afraid. I’m right here. He didn’t hurt me.”
He took a deep, shaking breath. “Are you sure?”
My admiration for Ilario reached new heights. A laugh bubbled up from somewhere. “It’s only a seeing charm diverts your eye. My sister’s work, not his at all. Here”—I took his hand and laid it atop my head—“if I were a ghost I’m sure I would be taller and have lovely silken hair.”
“And yet you sound something different.” He removed his hand—not without a press firm enough to ensure I was substantial. “Did you not meet up with the devil after all?”
“I’m just relieved,” I said. “He yelled at me a great deal. Tried to frighten me into giving back the book. But he couldn’t explain how I could’ve taken it without his seeing me. Eventually he let me go. He’s nervous about what’s coming. You’d not want to cross him just now. What were you planning on doing here?”
“Ending it in the only way I know how,” he said. “This has gone on far too long.” All smiles withered. The hair on my neck prickled.
“Lord, you can’t. Not yet.” I kept my voice low and backed into the corner, lest anyone happen by and see me reappear. “Duplais was most insistent that we let things proceed so that we’re not held hostage to the Aspirant’s threat from now on. You surely know his mind better than I do. Do we trust his judgment or not?”
He struggled with that. Yet after a few moments, even in the dim light, I could see his body transform from the private man to the public. He bent over the place I had been standing when he touched my hair. “Could we . . . mmm . . . go somewhere else? I’m talking to walls.”
“First fetch the book,” I said, my moment’s exhilaration drowned in the passing hour. My search had gone on much too long. “We’ve got to take a look before I give it back. Then meet me . . . where?”
“Follow me.” Ilario took a lamp from a wall sconce and turned it brighter. “You can’t . . . uh . . . walk through walls, can you?”
“No better than you.”
Which was ironic, as the next quarter hour took me on an entirely unexpected journey through the walls of Castelle Escalon. We began in an abandoned stool closet, which had a movable wall panel in its dusty recesses, and then proceeded through a series of passages, wardrobes, and odd-shaped rooms occupied solely by spiders and mice.
Every few steps Ilario looked over his shoulder and whispered, “Are you still there?”
“I’ll stay close,” I said. “We need to hurry.”
By the time we’d climbed a few steps through another closet, the subtle alteration in the light and the mindstorm told me I was visible again. Ilario almost dropped his lamp the next time he checked on me.
We emerged in a small, comfortable suite of rooms that overlooked the east gardens. The windows and the game table laid with green baize and set with painted cards hinted that this was Eugenie’s game room, the suite where she entertained her private guests . . . including her dead husband. The quiet rooms felt deserted, despite vases filled with fresh flowers and a carefully banked fire, just waiting the stir of a poker to spring to life.
Ilario yanked open a blanket chest and lifted out the bottom. “Geni’s forbidden anyone to come here uninvited, save old Mathilde, who’s cared for the place since we were children and would cut off her arm before snooping. Even Antonia obeys the rule. Geni gave me an exemption, but I honor her wishes . . . for the most part. She doesn’t exactly know about this chest. Our father kept his mistresses’ gifts and portraits in here.”
As he drew out my knotted kerchief and a bundle of linen tied with string, I espied a pile of black silk, a plain-hilted sword in a black scabbard, and the other accoutrements of my masked rescuer.
“Here they are,” he said, passing me the bundles and reconstructing the chest. “I’ve got to say, I’d rather kill the damnable mage. Should have done it that night after the trial, when I saw what he’d done to your mother.”
I couldn’t bear thinking of my mother as I prepared to partner with the fiend who’d hurt her so dreadfully. How would I ever reconcile it? “Why didn’t you?”
“I intended it. Barged into the mage’s room and confronted him. Portier told me that Dante had sunk so deeply into this role of collaborator that he had a difficult time crawling back out. The mage had admitted to him how the sorcery he worked ate away at his mind. Of all men I understand the difficulties of a double life. Sometimes I think I’d better just bash my head against a stone wall so I can forget, and I’ve been at it a lot longer than Dante.
“But on that night the mage just stood there, stone-faced, and let me yell at him. I cursed him, called him the Souleater’s servant for what he had done, told him I’d come to defend Madeleine’s honor. I kept thinking he’d explain. But he just stood there. To draw my sword meant exposure. After twenty years. In the end, I couldn’t do it. Stupid. I didn’t even see the first blow coming. He bound me in some wretched enchantment that left me looking a proper helpless fool. Portier arrived just in time to see him tire of the game. Just in time to watch him break my sword arm and five ribs. Just in time to haul away the scraps. I’ve tried to get him to start exercising so he can arrive a bit earlier next time.”
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