Daughter of Mystery (5 page)

“But there was also the child. Did you know that Barbara too is a godchild of mine?” The baron had opened his eyes again and addressed her directly. Margerit shook her head. “When her mother fell ill in prison, at last she sent word to me and begged me to take Barbara into my care. It was an impossible request. There I was, a bachelor. What should I do with a child? But how could I say no? And then, that…viper of a husband forbade it. He wouldn’t ask for me—out of charity—to care for his daughter. But he would sell her to me. He named a sum. It was outrageous, but it could supply a few comforts for them in that place: fuel to keep warm, medicines and charms for her illness, the guarantee of a priest at the end. I ordered the gaoler to bring ink and paper and drew up the contract then and there. In two days, I had found a nurse and made the other necessary arrangements. When I returned to take the child, he was dicing away her price with the guards. Barbara’s mother gave up after that. I saw her twice more in the following weeks and then she was dead. I think he lived a few more years. It meant nothing to me so I didn’t keep track of his passing.”

When he finished, the silence stretched between them. Margerit had listened to the tale with growing dismay and knew she couldn’t entirely keep it from her face. How must it feel, to know that about your father? And to know that the baron…When he’d made that sly comment the night of her ball, she’d assumed Barbara must have been a foundling or some peasant’s bastard, handed over for the hope of a better life. But this?

“Don’t be mealy-mouthed girl,” he challenged. “Tell me what you think of me.”

Aunt Bertrut’s advice rang uselessly in her ears. Be tactful. Dissemble. Play the game until you get what you want. Margerit stood, expecting to be dismissed afterward. “I only wonder what Barbara’s mother would think of you. She might have expected better from an old friend!” There, she’d let her words run ahead of wisdom again. No doubt she’d ruined her chances for any further generosity. She could only hope her guardians wouldn’t learn of it.

The baron’s mouth twitched in an odd smile. “I wondered if there were any steel in you. Well, my reasons were my own and I won’t be explaining them to you or anyone.” He closed his eyes with a sigh and an awkward silence stretched out.

“Perhaps I should leave,” Margerit ventured.

“Perhaps you should,” he replied and fumbled for the bell rope. Margerit pulled it for him. The maid must have been waiting in the hallway for she opened the door before Margerit had crossed to it.

The baron was nothing like how she’d imagined him. Some of that she attributed to his frail health but she’d always seen him as a benevolent—if distant—figure. Close up, she thought “capricious” might be a better word. One expected great men to be self-serving, but every move he made seemed to be directed by a hidden plan.

He had maneuvered her into asking about Barbara’s history and therefore he had wanted her to know it. But why? Why had it felt like he was testing her? And had she passed the test?

Aunt Bertrut broke into her reverie as they walked the long blocks back home. “Was he pleased to have you come, do you think? Will he sweeten the pot of your dowry?”

“Aunt!” Margerit protested. “It would be unseemly for me to ask.”

“Of course it would! But there are ways of hinting and wheedling. You should be sharpening your skills in that regard for your husband.”

Dread clenched her stomach as it always did when they talked of marriage in such practical terms. She had few romantic expectations but surely her future could be more than a campaign of managing and working around and making do. That felt too much like her life so far.

“Margerit,” Aunt Bertrut said more softly. “Have a care. Seize your chances now. Some day you’ll find they’ve all slipped away.”

Was that what had happened to her? It wasn’t often that Margerit looked at her aunt and wondered what her girlhood had been like. Familiarity made it hard to see her clearly. Gossip said she’d been acclaimed a beauty in the bloom of her youth, but none of her features had been strong enough to retain that title in middle age. The chestnut hair that matched Margerit’s own was streaked with gray now and though her cheeks had retained a pleasant glow, pleasant was as far as one might honestly go. What chances had fate brought her that she’d failed to seize before they were gone? Aunt Bertrut seemed content enough in her life now, but surely there were other choices.

Chapter Six

Barbara

The only member of the baron’s household who was glad of Estefen’s visits was Monsieur Guillaumin, the chef, who had despaired of his talents being appreciated in this exile until his employer’s nephew arrived. Barbara knew Ponivin and the rest of the staff were feeling the strain of enforcing the baron’s scheduled truce as Estefen tested the limits, dropping by at odd hours only to be denied with the implausible response that the baron was not at home.

The baron was always at home. He left his bed only for those hoarded hours of strength when Estefen was allowed to join him at table. There the truce ended and Barbara was hard put to stand silent as he pecked at the edges of the baron’s peace. Though, for his part, the baron delighted in baiting him in return.

“Whatever are you still hanging around here for,” he challenged as the port was brought in at the conclusion of the meal. It was his habit to provoke a quarrel when it was time for Estefen to leave.

Barbara almost had brief flashes of sympathy for Estefen. The two men were closely matched in pride and arrogance. The difference, she thought, was that the baron had earned the right to his while Estefen had merely assumed it. And was that entirely his fault? They said his father had been so struck by the realization that he’d sired the heir to a barony—and he could hardly have expected it, given that he’d married a woman with two living brothers—that Estefen had been raised as if he already bore the title. By the time Mesner Chazillen was gone and the baron might have stood in place of a father, he and Estefen were already constantly at daggers drawn. And there her sympathy ended, even apart from her own grudge.

“Is it so impossible, dear uncle, that I might be concerned for your health?” Estefen answered blandly. “Here you are, all alone, with none but servants to care for you.”

The baron appeared to consider the idea for a moment then shook his head. “No. Impossible.”

“Then let us say that I feel the need to look out for the family’s interests.”

“Good heavens,” the baron exclaimed in mock surprise. “Do you think you might be disinherited?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Estefen scoffed, but there was a flash of doubt in his eyes.

The baron saw it too and couldn’t resist exploring the chink in his facade. “After all, by law I can leave the title where I may. All it takes is the prince’s consent to my choice, just as it only takes the council’s assent to his own choice of heir.”

Estefen shook his head. “You’re joking. There’s no one else left in the Lumbeirt line within seven degrees. He’d never break tradition to go outside that, not when his own succession is under dispute.”

“There’s always your sister,” the baron said, toying idly with the stem of his glass.

Estefen let loose a bark of laughter. “Antuniet? Over a male heir?” But his dismissal sounded less certain than before. It would be outside tradition but not outside law. And there was precedent within living memory.

The baron echoed his laugh more softly. “No, I suppose I have no grudge against her sufficient to set you at her throat. You may remain secure in your hopes. But if you think to find me generous of my purse because of that, you’re wasting your time.”

At last their fencing match came to an end, but with the door safely closed on Estefen’s heels it was an hour before the baron could summon the strength to be helped again to his bed.

* * *

Sleep came more easily for him now; harder for her. After seeing him settled, she moved restlessly from room to room, too uneasy to rest, too anxious to find useful employment. She found herself eventually in the library, returning to the study of
De Mysteriis
. Her tutor—back when there had been tutors—had insisted that anyone who aspired to study Fortunatus must work their own translations. She suspected this longstanding scholarly custom came not so much from respect for the difficulty of the text but was simply a favorite dodge of lazy instructors, disinclined to navigate the competing schools of interpretation. Perhaps it was both. This was the third time she’d worked through the text and each time she came to a different conclusion regarding Fortunatus’s position on the nature of miracles.

It was strange to think that his work had been dangerously revolutionary in his day. His views on the nature of God were of the most orthodox. And his study touched not at all on those mysteries that belonged to the sacraments or were the prerogative of ordained clergy. Yet there was a lingering unease around his position that the celebration of mysteries to petition the saints—and any miracles granted in response—could be understood and not simply accepted. That was what drew her back time and again to the text: that quest for understanding. The chance of grasping the complexity as a whole, both seen and unseen, and comprehending its workings and consequences, if only for a fleeting instant.

She put her pen aside at last and glanced at the windows. The last traces of dusk had faded hours ago. From a distant corner of the house she heard a clock chiming midnight. Morning would come too soon, but perhaps now she could sleep.

* * *

The days still carried ghosts of normal routine. Up at dawn to meet Donati for sword practice. Taking one of the horses out for exercise in Axian Park. She would have foregone that except that the baron commanded it directly. And Estefen kept to fashionable hours, so even at his worst there was no chance of him assailing Fonten House’s defenses before noon. The illusion of a normal routine required consultation with the baron before she rode out, to know his plans for the day.

“No, I won’t be rising before dinner,” he acknowledged in a tired voice. “Is there word when LeFevre will be here?”

He’d asked the question several times each day. This time she was able to answer, “Mefro Charsintek ordered the maids to prepare his room so there must have been news that he’s arriving today.”

“Good. That’s good,” he responded. “And why hasn’t that goddaughter of mine visited again?”

The answer seemed obvious. “May I speak?” At a faint gesture that could be interpreted as assent she continued, “She knows you’re ill. I expect she fears to tire you.”

“More likely she thinks she offended me last time.”

That was a surprising idea. Margerit Sovitre hadn’t seemed likely to offend a mouse. But perhaps she had hidden depths.

“Invite her. A formal invitation. I want to see her one more time. Be sure.”

Be sure she comes?
A formal invitation would certainly accomplish that, whatever her qualms. For an offhand instruction, the request entailed complex protocol. It was one thing to encounter the girl casually in a park, but that wouldn’t do even if she could rely on a second such meeting. LeFevre wasn’t available yet to act as secretary, but she could pen the note herself. The formal phrases were familiar enough. There must be another visit to the baron’s bedchamber to seal the missive with the signet ring that never left his possession. For the delivery, the question must be pondered of front door or back. In Rotenek, she would have been understood as a formal emissary, entitled to the front door in the baron’s name. But country towns and country manners took a different view and she decided to play it safer by taking the role of ordinary messenger and bringing the note to the back entrance.

An hour later she arrived at a modest house on Chaturik Square in the southern quarter of town. Modest—well, that was a matter of perspective. Not in the newest style, meaning the family’s money was old enough to be respectable. But neither the sort of crumbling edifice that spoke of ancient lineages and failing finances. As she waited for the response she had a glimpse of a finicky tidiness that told of roots not too far removed from the merchant class. An absence of excess or ostentation. All quite the opposite of the baron’s household. Perhaps that was the amusement he found in Margerit’s visit: the theater of an ordinary
burfro
life without the hazards and dramas of the court.

Word quickly came back from the mistress of the house. “Maisetra Fulpi sends word to Baron Saveze that Maisetra Margerit will attend on him tomorrow as requested.” The messenger looked her up and down with an expression Barbara found all too familiar. It made her tired, dealing with the unbending propriety of his sort. She returned him a look that said,
I speak for Baron Saveze and you will give me his due respect.
But aloud she said only, “I will take Maisetra Fulpi’s response to the baron.”

Chapter Seven

Margerit

Margerit’s first visit to Fonten Street had been an impulsive affair, done quietly to avoid Aunt Honurat’s qualms. But a formal invitation to visit, that was a different matter and there was no question of disapproval this time. There was a barely concealed excitement among her guardians at the thought that the baron was taking a personal interest in her at last.

“For it only stands to reason that he didn’t pay you much mind as a schoolroom girl. Now that you’re coming out into society his attention will do you nothing but good.” Aunt Bertrut was fussing over a choice of dresses, urging her to an ever more elaborate ensemble. Honurat cut the matter short by stating quietly that an ordinary day visit called for nothing more formal than the blue merino.

Margerit was less certain that the baron’s request reflected an interest in her welfare but she saw no point to raising her doubts before her aunts. The invitation meant he’d forgiven her pertness and perhaps he was simply bored. At this time of year, Chalanz society must be far smaller than he was accustomed to, even without being shut in.