Authors: Carol Berg
Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Fantasy fiction
The Soul Mirror (22 page)
A blinding concussion staggered me. Back to the stone wall, I raised my arms in feeble defense. No assailant stood within the silver-washed shadows, yet the hammer blows continued. A brutal, merciless barrage. Anger. Malevolent fury. Murderous indignation. Inside me. Filling me like a poisonous flood. Drowning me in feelings that were not mine.
I crumpled, hands clutching my head.
Stop!
I screamed it. In voiced word or in mind only, I could not have said.
Please, stop! Have mercy!
Stop!
I screamed it. In voiced word or in mind only, I could not have said.
Please, stop! Have mercy!
Abruptly as it had begun, the noise stopped. Or so it seemed for one brief, blessed instant. But perhaps the source was only drowned in turn, for my discipline collapsed, unleashing the flood.
For some incomprehensible time, I huddled in the corner, arms thrown over my head as my mind ached with unknown joys, raged with unknown anger, sobbed with unknown anguish. Burying my own cries in my arms, I wept for the sorrows and fears of thousands.
Only as the voices faded and silence crept across the dusty flagstones did I hear an echo of the previous night. Not my father’s voice, but the other. The quiet, curious one.
Who?
As a silken sheet it floated over my knotted limbs. As a pallet of eiderdown it cradled my hurts.
Are you injured? In danger? Is this new to you?
As a silken sheet it floated over my knotted limbs. As a pallet of eiderdown it cradled my hurts.
Are you injured? In danger? Is this new to you?
Naught had been so terrifying as this. These words were not random passions, not a collection of scraps, but the communication of a single mind purposefully directed at me. Impossible. Madness. As if one could hold a conversation wholly without speech.
Have you any idea what you’ve done? Just speak clearly, focused on my voice, and I’ll hear. Gods, there has been no one . . . ever. . . .
Not even my father’s pain had spoken such loneliness.
Trust me.
Not even my father’s pain had spoken such loneliness.
Trust me.
Even were the speaker real, how could I trust? No face to read. No background, no reputation, no identity, no consequence for falsity. This overwhelming mystery that he—for of all things, I understood the speaker was a man—seemed to comprehend, but I did not. Madness, waiting to ensnare me.
One word . . .
But I did not, could not, answer. And when true silence enveloped me, thick and safe as a winter cloak, I crept back to my bed and let sleep hush my weeping.
CHAPTER 13
SOLA PASSIERT, MORNING
O
n the morning after my frustrated spying adventure, the queen’s salon was crowded. An array of delicacies had been spread on a sideboard: peeled oranges with cinnamon, breads, sliced cheeses, sugared pastries, and baked apples sprinkled with nuts. A towering crystal sculpture was draped with fat, firm grapes. Unable to remember when I’d last eaten, I filled a plate and perched in a window seat that gave me a good view of the comings and goings.
n the morning after my frustrated spying adventure, the queen’s salon was crowded. An array of delicacies had been spread on a sideboard: peeled oranges with cinnamon, breads, sliced cheeses, sugared pastries, and baked apples sprinkled with nuts. A towering crystal sculpture was draped with fat, firm grapes. Unable to remember when I’d last eaten, I filled a plate and perched in a window seat that gave me a good view of the comings and goings.
The ladies of the queen’s household shifted about the room, murmuring and fretting in soft, quick movements, like doves in a dovecote. A few gentlemen stood here and there, sober anchors in the fluid landscape, ready to offer soft grunts of sympathy or affirmation as the ladies required.
The gentleman the queen had welcomed so late was not among them. I’d yet to recall where I’d seen him before. To my disappointment, Lord Ilario was not among the gentlemen, either.
Duplais stood diagonally across the room from me, jotting notes in his ever-present journal, as householders brought him requests or questions. As the queen’s household administrator, he dealt with accommodations and servants for her ladies and gentlemen, arrangements for entertainments, and every trivial matter from supplies of hairpins to arranging a nursemaid for Baroness Agnecy’s mother. A man of his acuity and determination could not be satisfied in such a position, something between a steward and a nursemaid for seventy women and their requisite servants, one mage, one adept, and a physician. Portier de Savin-Duplais was more than that.
Lady Antonia flitted back and forth from the inner rooms, snapping at ladies and servants equally. She dispatched messengers to fetch the royal seamstress and a ribbon merchant, as we of the household must wear black badges on our sleeves throughout the mourning period for Cecile. She organized a party of ladies to sit with Eugenie when Verger Rinaldo came from the deadhouse to discuss funeral rites, as the Ducessa de Blasencourt had no children to see to such details.
Antonia looked stretched, as if her skin could barely contain her hostility, not at all the woman who had danced like a maiden in the night air. Her meeting with her partner in murder must not have gone well, even after I’d run away.
The difficult thing on this morning was pursuing the necessities of the day rather than the experience of the night before.
Who?
I could ask that myself. Someone in this very room? Though the immediacy of the experience tempted me to imagine the speaker as someone nearby, it was clear that the other voices I heard came from every level of society and every possible kind of person. Some would assume the voice daemonic, but the memory bore no taint of evil. Its owner had responded to my cry of pain—heard me, just as I heard all the others.
Who?
I could ask that myself. Someone in this very room? Though the immediacy of the experience tempted me to imagine the speaker as someone nearby, it was clear that the other voices I heard came from every level of society and every possible kind of person. Some would assume the voice daemonic, but the memory bore no taint of evil. Its owner had responded to my cry of pain—heard me, just as I heard all the others.
Reason insisted it was but dream or madness. Yet the bits and pieces—the quality of that voice, the restrained emotion, the caution and care, curiosity and longing—felt genuine, fragments of a single whole. A person. Real. Which implied that
all
the voices I heard were real. Angels’ mercy, my father lived.
all
the voices I heard were real. Angels’ mercy, my father lived.
The sun bathed my back with warm, soothing fingers. A farewell of sorts, for this was the day out of time, Sola Passiert
,
the Day of the Sun’s Passing. From today until spring, night would be longer than daylight.
,
the Day of the Sun’s Passing. From today until spring, night would be longer than daylight.
Oddly, on a morning of such dire certainties and pressing anxiety, the food tasted extraordinary, and not simply because I was famished. Rich, sweet, crisp, and tart, every bite exuded flavor. When a red-haired serving girl offered a tray of warm couchines, I could not resist. The sweet’s thin layers were bathed deliciously in butter, honey, and ground almonds, and I relished the first sticky bite as if I had never tasted food at all. Such pleasures seemed obscene in light of my family’s disaster, in light of Queen Eugenie’s dead children and tormented dreams.
“D-damoselle Anne de Vernase, I believe.” Physician Roussel bowed gravely as I came near choking on a flake of pastry. I’d not even noticed his approach.
I could no more than bob my head in answer as I fumbled for a serviette.
“Her M-majesty requests your attendance within.”
“Now?” I croaked, between futile attempts to clear my throat.
His gray eyes sparked, and he relieved me of the plate, which threatened to dump its sticky remnants in my lap at any moment. “Unless you lose c-c-consciousness from an overdose of c-couchine, I believe you will be summoned when she is finished with her c-current guest.” The hard
c
sounds creased his brow only fleetingly. Though he worked diligently to minimize his afflicted speech, he seemed at ease with it.
c
sounds creased his brow only fleetingly. Though he worked diligently to minimize his afflicted speech, he seemed at ease with it.
“With Lord Ilario, perhaps?” I said as he set the plate aside, whipped out a kerchief, and presented the spotless square of linen to me.
“None so amiable.” The humor fled his square face, and his forefinger touched his gray-tinged mustache as if to hush his own opinion. “She c-consults her mage at present.”
“Ah. I’ll wait, then.” I dropped my eyes and dabbed at my fingers, trying to force my own expression into proper neutrality. “Divine grace, sonjeur.”
A moment passed. I glanced up, surprised to find him still there.
He cleared his throat. Clasped his hands behind his back. “It’s never foolish to be w-wary of sorcerers.”
Better not to acknowledge the softly voiced sentiment, no matter how fiercely I wished to agree. Instead, I returned the now-sullied kerchief. “Thank you . . . uh . . .”
I could not decide whether to reveal that I knew his name.
He must have taken my hesitation for maidenly encouragement. “Roussel,” he said. “Ganet de Roussel. Though we lack formal introduction, D-dame Fortune seems intent on our meeting. I doubt I’ve c-c-crossed paths with any of dear Cecile’s young ladies with such frequency.” A smile softened his well-proportioned lips, once he’d gotten the difficult sounds out of the way.
A knot of pride and anxiety had forever choked me in the presence of “eligible men.” Taking resolution in hand, I swallowed hard, met his gaze, and returned the smile. “Would you care to share the window seat as I await my summons, Physician Roussel?”
His turn to hesitate. His eyes darted about the chamber.
Embarrassment scorched a path from my toes to my cheeks. “I’m too forward.”
“Alas, damoselle, a physician without title is c-c-considered distasteful, unfit company for the q-queen’s salon. And he is often”—his pale gray eyes returned to mine, introducing a certain deliberate quality to his sentiments—“
c-counseled
as to whom he may address and whom he may not. Perhaps on another day, in a d-different window seat, I might be allowed such a p-pleasure.”
c-counseled
as to whom he may address and whom he may not. Perhaps on another day, in a d-different window seat, I might be allowed such a p-pleasure.”
He bowed and left the room, a finer figure than any man present.
Stupid, this business of rank. I could not fault the shadings of bitterness in his manner. I supposed a physician of unremarkable background might not be considered a useful enough match for a king’s gooddaughter, even the Great Traitor’s child.
A flush of ferocity supplanted all other considerations as I reclaimed the knowledge of these past nights. Papa was
not
a traitor. I wrenched my gaze from the doorway, only to find Duplais watching me from his corner.
not
a traitor. I wrenched my gaze from the doorway, only to find Duplais watching me from his corner.
With irreproachable sobriety, I nodded to him. No more childish rebellion. No more slips of control. Not until I understood his purposes and what use I might make of him in order to locate my father.
“Damoselle Anne de Vernase.” One of the household ladies held open the inner door. I rose, cursing sticky pastries as I dusted my lap for flakes. Duplais’ eyes, and a number of others, followed me as I left the room.
AS THE QUEEN’S GENTLEWOMAN AND I traipsed through the octagonal waiting room, down the passage, and into the royal apartments, it crossed my mind that I might have an opportunity to beg the favor I needed from the queen herself, bypassing her foolish half brother. Yet how great could be the influence of a queen involved with traitor sorcerers in the past and so blind to her own foster mother’s wickedness?
My first glimpse of the company in the queen’s sitting room deepened my doubts.
Eugenie herself might have been one of the moonlit dancers depicted on the canvas behind her. Cocooned in layers of blue silk, her slender form seemed fragile, her softly flushed cheeks as transparent as watercolor, and her eyes larger than a human woman’s ought to be.
Lady Antonia had planted herself on the couch beside the queen, Eugenie’s hand firmly in her jeweled grasp. Her stiff curls brushed the queen’s smooth black tresses, as she murmured to her adopted daughter in such low tones, none else could possibly distinguish the words.
Lord Ilario, resplendent in vermillion brocade, sprawled on a divan much too small for his long limbs. As I made obeisance to his royal sister, he twitched and snorted as happens with those who’ve dropped off to sleep from boredom.
To my dismay, Mage Dante hovered behind the queen, near the hearth, where an entirely unnecessary fire burned. The mage looked ill on this morning, gray-skinned and drawn, leaning heavily on his staff as if he were a much older man. His hard-edged eyes had sunk yet deeper beneath his dark brow. He served as the
mortuis memore
in this tableau—the death’s head crafted into every painting, every sculpture, and every building created since the Blood Wars as a reminder of our trials to come in the realm of Ixtador Beyond the Veil.
mortuis memore
in this tableau—the death’s head crafted into every painting, every sculpture, and every building created since the Blood Wars as a reminder of our trials to come in the realm of Ixtador Beyond the Veil.
The crimes of both civil authorities and the rival sorcerous families during that conflict were so grievous, so the Temple taught, that the Pantokrator had altered his creation, requiring the dead to traverse a bleak and barren wilderness, assaying ten barred gates to find their way to Heaven.
The consideration of Ixtador’s trials roused the steel in me, just as the
mortuis memore
was intended to do. The souls of the dead could not progress through the gates without our honorable deeds on this side of the Veil; so we were taught. Did we fail them, they would wander until the last day of the world, when the Souleater would carry them off to the frozen netherworld.
mortuis memore
was intended to do. The souls of the dead could not progress through the gates without our honorable deeds on this side of the Veil; so we were taught. Did we fail them, they would wander until the last day of the world, when the Souleater would carry them off to the frozen netherworld.
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