The Soul Mirror (10 page)

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Authors: Carol Berg

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Fantasy fiction

BOOK: The Soul Mirror
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“No one’s told me what I’m to do here.” An entirely inappropriate comment to address to a palace chambermaid, who would be taught to display no evidence whatsoever of possessing a mind. “I’ve no idea where I’ll be expected tomorrow.”
The girl glanced up briefly. “If you like, t’morning, after I’ve seen to the other young ladies, I’ll fetch you where you’re to be.”
“That would be very kind. Thank you, Ella.”
“Will you be needing aught else, damoselle? Help with your unpacking?”
“No, I’ve not so much.” The leather case with its precious contents glared at me from the bed. “Not unless you could tell me where I might keep a few valuables out of the common eye.” Duplais would come hunting Lianelle’s trinkets. And Antonia . . . was it ridiculous to imagine she’d been snooping about my belongings?
The girl cocked her head, as if considering whether I was trying to trick her. “Might could,” she said at last. “I’ve cleaned a few of these older closets.” She poked around the ancient armoire, tapping on splintered moldings and fumbling under drawers and behind shelves.
“Hah!” She slid a scalloped corner piece aside to reveal a small drawer and even produced a tarnished key from inside it. “None but a chamber girl like me’s going to figure where that is. I’m sure I’ll forget it myself.”
She dropped the key back in the drawer. Her white cap bobbed, and she was out the door, so quiet and quick in her movements that once she was gone, I wasn’t sure she’d even been there. For the first time in days, I was smiling.
My mother’s jewelry went into the hidden drawer. Lianelle’s packet would go in as well, once I’d read the letter one more time. I sat down on the bed . . .
 
 
. . . AND NEXT thing I knew, a hammering on my door brought Ella, a pitcher of hot water, and a morning of brilliant sunshine.
“It’s just gone half past eight of the morning watch, damoselle. I’ll be back to take you along soon’s I’ve seen to the others.”
The solid sleep had done me good, and I decided not to allow Antonia de Foucal to intimidate me. As quickly and thoroughly as possible, I scrubbed away the sludge of sleep and three days’ travel, then set to buttons, skirts, and lacings. I tied my tangled, unruly mane of bark-hued curls—the bane of my life until I had learned what the words
traitor
and
madhouse
meant—into a knot at the back of my head, ran my fingers through the remaining twists that framed my face, and called my toilet good enough. By that time, Ella was back.
“All right, show me where to go.”
Ella’s heels clicked on the marble floor as she led me through the queen’s household—the east wing of Castelle Escalon. My childhood visits had been confined to my father’s haunts in the west wing and the palace’s public rooms and gardens. I didn’t know this place at all.
A long gallery, its arcade windows bright with a rain-scrubbed sky, and then a few steps and a quick turn to the right led us into a wide passage. Painted huntsmen, half-dressed dancing girls, knights, satyrs, and an interminable variety of sheep peered down from the vaulted ceiling.
“That would be Lady Antonia’s apartments, damoselle.” Ella gestured toward a pair of paneled doors flanked by man-high portraits of courtiers portrayed in sentimental versions of pastoral myth. “That one”—she gestured to a more modest doorway—“is where the queen’s young ladies, the maids of honor like yourself, meet for their instructions. Very like you’ll go there every morning until . . .”
“Until when?”
She blinked. “Until you’re sent somewhere else.”
Though she remained properly expressionless, I detected a sharpness in her gray eyes before she lowered them. I ventured a smile. “That makes good sense. Divine grace, Ella.”
The girl dipped her knee and vanished. Somewhere in the vast reaches of Castelle Escalon, a bell struck nine.
 
 
I CLOSED THE DOOR BEHIND me and tiptoed across the chamber.
“. . . protocols, placings, and appropriate dress for an intimate hunt dinner. We shall discuss guest selection and suitable entertainments. . . .” The elegantly long-necked woman of middling age nodded to acknowledge my arrival, but did not interrupt her commentary.
Ten scarcely distinguishable young women sat in a half circle, facing the lady. All were expensively dressed in ruffles and silks; all were rosy of cheek, smooth-haired, and still in their teens. Every one of them wore painted witchknots, chevrons, or calligrams on a perfect cheek, forehead, or temple. Perhaps the practice was not fear and belief but fashion. Had I ever worn a witchknot in my girlhood, whether at Montclaire or in Merona, I would have been laughed out of the room.
I took the only empty seat, feeling quite old and dowdy at two-and-twenty.
Maids of honor were the third tier of aristocratic women engaged to serve the queen. At the highest level were the few like Lady Antonia, women who had a strong personal connection to the queen, such as kinship or girlhood friendship. Given titles such as Mistress of Gowns, First Lady of the Bedchamber, or Overmistress of the Queen’s Gardens, they set the queen’s schedule, arranged the seating at dinner, and the like. At the second level were ten ladies-in-waiting, women linked to the throne by politics, history, or strategic interests. They stood at the queen’s side at every public appearance.
The young women busily assessing my turnout were the unmarried daughters of important families, brought to court to affirm their families’ alliance with the throne. Every summer a new group was summoned to Merona to serve as the queen’s companions, as decorations to her court, and as attendants to the ladies-in-waiting. My father had promised he would never allow my talents to be wasted on such frivolity. A small betrayal beside the rest.
I folded my hands in my lap as the others did and listened carefully. “. . . preferred application of scented linens to offset unpalatable odors . . . provision for weaponry and game bags . . . extra gloves . . . would never permit flushed complexions . . . immodest activities . . .”
My mother, the kind of hostess who could seat a beggar and a king at table together and make both feel valued and at ease, had made sure that I was knowledgeable in the graces of hospitality, but never would I have imagined that the details of a properly constituted hunt dinner for the royal family and two hundred intimate acquaintances could fill two hours in the telling.
Despite the trivial subject, our mentor’s voice was pleasant and her approach intelligent. My companions addressed her as Lady Cecile. The lavender band embroidered on her left sleeve declared her a widow. The lack of any painted ward against evil marked her as independent minded, a skeptic, or perhaps inordinately devout. While accepting magic as an element of divine Creation, the Temple stood stalwartly opposed to luck charms, daemon wards, and other superstitious practices, calling them the muddy boundary between earthly magic and divine mystery.
For the next hour, my mind wandered off in circular patterns. At least I was not required to contribute to the discussion.
“. . . white gowns for your court introduction.” Lady Cecile had risen. The rest of the women followed and dipped their knees before dissolving into chattering twos and threes as they left the room.
Startled out of my meanderings, I jumped up and offered the same genuflection. A slight twitch of the lady’s two fingers instructed me quite explicitly to sit down again.
As I sank back into my chair, one of the young ladies, a willowy young woman with pale hair like spun silk and eyes so large and so blue they could cause a border war, raced forward and flung her arms about our mentor. “Dear Lady Cecile!”
The tall, cool woman kissed the girl’s cheek, at the same time maneuvering herself free of the untidy exuberance. “Sweet Belinda, such a pleasure to see you returned to health.”
“Whatever am I to do about the Hematian letters?” Though the two women stood at the far side of the chamber, Belinda’s piping tones were piercingly clear. “It’s less than a month until Prince Dessin arrives. Hematian customs are so dreadfully peculiar.”
The lady herded the girl toward the passage door. “Come to me this evening at the usual time and we’ll see to it. Prince Dessin shall not find you lacking in appreciation of his culture.”
The door snicked shut behind the young woman, creating an instant and welcome quiet, as if I’d been sitting in the midst of a gaggle of geese, now dispersed. With a quick survey of the courtyard, Lady Cecile pulled the paned doors securely shut. Then, to my pure astonishment, she engulfed me like the incoming tide, drawing me from my chair and kissing me on each cheek in the robust fashion of Nivanne. “Dearest Anne.”
“My lady . . .” I tried to draw away, but she wrapped an arm about my shoulders.
“Horrible, horrible,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “This awful thing about your sister . . . and your poor, dear mother. You are very like her. You may have your father’s coloring, but you certainly have those incomparably deep Cazar eyes. My father always said Madeleine epitomized the beauty of another age—the fey, wild spirit of ancient Sabria. But, then, he adored her inordinately, ruing the long days of winter when the bandit kin dragged her home.”
Understanding dawned. “You’re Cecile de Blasencourt! Mama’s school friend.”
In my mother’s day, few collegia had admitted women, and my grandfather Cazar had adamantly opposed formal education for his daughter. But Lady Cecile’s father, fascinated with modern learning, had invited a number of young women into his home for
extended visits
, secretly hiring the finest tutors to mentor them. Cecile’s marriage into a demesne on Sabria’s frontiers had kept the friends apart since I was small.
“Indeed.” Lady Cecile released my shoulders with a firm little shake, as if to imprint her affection on me before stepping away. “Delighted as I am to see you, Anne, I’ve grave misgivings about your presence. For anyone to bring you here behind Philippe’s back, to risk his wrath . . .”
“The king himself summoned me, my lady.”
“Unlikely. He cannot abide Castelle Escalon. The past years he visits here only to pursue his duties to his bloodline. And this border uprising in Aroth will take him off to war again after the new year, so I doubt that issuing invitations to prospective maids of honor has been a concern.” Folding her arms, she drifted back to the courtyard doors and peered through the glass. “No, someone else has brought you here—someone who can issue a summons in Philippe’s name.”
My thoughts reverted instantly to the Royal Accuser. “Savin-Duplais fetched me.”
Her long fingers dismissed the notion. “Duplais is a nothing, an ambitious little toad who follows someone else’s orders if it gives him some advantage. I don’t know why Eugenie keeps him on. He’s clever enough for a household administrator, I suppose, but he’s not a schemer.”
Her opinion surprised me. The king had repeatedly deferred to Duplais’ opinion at Papa’s trial. The man was anything but stupid. Lianelle had once told me she would feel sorry for Duplais, had he not been so ruthless in his prosecution. She said he knew more about magic than anyone in Sabria, despite failing the most rudimentary tests of spellworking in his student days. And queen’s administrator—in essence, a housekeeper? How odd.
“Perhaps it was the new Conte Ruggiere,” I suggested. “Duplais says the Ruggiere titles have been granted elsewhere.”
“Well, that was bound to happen, though I’ve not heard who might be in line for it. Ah, Michel de Vernase, crush your granite heart, what were you thinking?” Her hands clenched as if she could scarce restrain herself from hitting something. “He once told me that magic sapped our will to learn of nature.”
The palace bells pealed the hour’s change. Lady Cecile gathered me up and urged me toward the door. “I’ll advise you to avoid any involvement with sorcery. Any! You’ve enough reason to fear Philippe’s displeasure. I can’t begin to imagine the uproar should he hear your name in the same breath as
magic
.”
Why did everyone feel it necessary to warn me off? I was not an idiot. I knew my father’s crimes. “I’ve no talent for magic, my lady.”
“Talent has little bearing. Ghost charms, witchknots, spellworked perfumes . . . there was a time you’d not see such things in Philippe de Savin-Journia’s house.” Lady Cecile’s voice and manner were consuming in their intensity. “But now these mysteries . . . disturbances . . . drive fools to try anything. It’s all happened since the Exposition, since that dreadful mage—”
Voices carried from the passageway.
“Stay alert, Anne. Someone has a blade destined for your back . . . or, more truly, for your father’s back, but you can be sure it will go through his women first. Only a cretin would imagine Madeleine de Cazar could lose her mind from grief. And now your sister.”
Shock had me stammering. “So you believe they
purposely
—?”
The latch clicked and a party of gentlemen peered in at us. Cecile stepped back and raised her voice. “Report to my apartments this evening at half past seventh hour so that we may begin to review the discussions you’ve missed.”
“As you—” But she was already out of the room, and a haughty young man in pale blue livery was holding the door for me. His left cheek bore a blue-painted witchknot.

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