Prince of Fire and Ashes: Book 3 of the Tielmaran Chronicles (31 page)
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Authors: Katya Reimann
BOOK: Prince of Fire and Ashes: Book 3 of the Tielmaran Chronicles
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The Duchess, satisfied by the Sharif’s reaction, turned to greet Melaudiere’s priest, seated across from her at the bottom seat on the table’s other side.
It was a fascinating performance. In conversation, Vaux-Torres made no secret of the charges that had sent her plummeting from her rightful place at the top of the table. By taking the charges so lightly, she made them seem littler.
But even such a performance could not make the circumstances of her disgrace entirely vanish. Gaultry caught her once in an unguarded look, staring hungrily up to where her daughter Elisabeth was holding the Vaux-Torres seat between dowagers who represented Haute-Tielmark and Basse-Demaine. Was there pain in her face in that brief moment?
Gaultry could not be sure. Vaux-Torres carried herself throughout four courses with a detached, ironic humor, managing to embarrass Gaultry twice with some dry comment that made her laugh into her food, the first a sly observation about Dervla, the second a comment on Tamsanne, who was, Gaultry realized after Vaux-Torres pointed it out, doing a very poor job of appearing absorbed in the comments of the minister who sat next to her. “And why indeed should she attend him?” Vaux-Torres said mockingly, as Gaultry dabbed her napkin to her face, trying to recover. “He’ll be out of his seat in a year or two, while your grandmother endures.”
Gaultry could see why the Duchess’s daughter Elisabeth floundered about court with an air of being over her head in uncharted waters. With such a mother providing running commentary, young Elisabeth must constantly be wondering at the levels of intrigue or communion she was missing. No untutored neophyte could hope to match the sophistication and complexity of Argat Climens’s grasp of court affairs. But then, perhaps the Duchess had been too clever, had tried to play her advantages against her pledge to the Prince—and her judgment had failed her. Perhaps Dervla was right to charge her with Bissanty collaboration—
“She charged Haute-Tielmark too,” the Duchess interjected. Even as she had turned for a moment to exchange a bon esprit with Melaudiere’s priest, she had followed the play of Gaultry’s eyes and expression. “And she would have charged you as well, if not for that old woman whose ashes went in the ground today. On that happy note, a toast to Gabrielle Lourdes, and all she’s done for us and Tielmark together! May her ashes rest in peace, in all their scattered corners.” The Duchess picked up her chalice, and Gaultry found herself doing the same. What could be the harm, indeed, of drinking to the honor of the woman who had mentored her at court?
“And now we have the moment Gabrielle herself would have been eager for,” the Duchess said. She gestured with her cup toward the top of the table, where a pair of house servants were tidily folding back the drapes that had concealed the musician’s alcove. “The moment when she gets to play good fairy and bad at her own funeral.”
As the servants stepped aside, an enormous fat man in a black wool jacket, his outsize head surmounted by a very obvious horsehair wig, came to stand at the center of the alcove. Portentously, he unrolled a scroll. He identified himself as the Duchess of Melaudiere’s solicitor. This was to be a public reading of the Duchess’s last will and testament.
Like the speeches on the lawn, a great part of the document was
devoted to a precise description of Melaudiere’s lands and ducal properties, and of Gabrielle Lourdes’s absolute acknowledgment that her ownership of the same was held in stewardship for the blood heirs of her long dead husband, Hugh, including but not exclusive to those of her own body. Indeed, a long part of the text was devoted to a recitation of Hugh’s nephews, cousins, and other potential heirs, in the event that Gabrielle’s grandchildren did not survive her long enough to reproduce.
devoted to a precise description of Melaudiere’s lands and ducal properties, and of Gabrielle Lourdes’s absolute acknowledgment that her ownership of the same was held in stewardship for the blood heirs of her long dead husband, Hugh, including but not exclusive to those of her own body. Indeed, a long part of the text was devoted to a recitation of Hugh’s nephews, cousins, and other potential heirs, in the event that Gabrielle’s grandchildren did not survive her long enough to reproduce.
As a sweet was served, peaches in syrup, the solicitor came to a short passage regretting Hugh’s early passing, “for that you preserved me of the Bissanty scourge, and protected my body with your own, in a time when even a title could not offer me safe haven.” It was an odd juxtaposition, the dessert served by smiling servants in that comfortable room and the deceased woman’s evocation of the past horrors that had swept Tielmark’s court. Why were all these people here? Gaultry found herself wondering, staring around the room. To mourn the dead? For what they might gain? To appear well in the young Princess’s eyes?
“It’s started,” Vaux-Torres said. “Look at them flocking up to receive their gifts. And remember, those are the ones who truly care that she has left us.” The servitors formed a queue of those who had been eating from the sideboards and began moving them toward the alcove. Gaultry recognized a number of faces from Melaudiere’s retinue: a squire here, a knight there, a young serving woman. As the solicitor read their names, they came forward and some small legacy or memento, or both combined, was awarded. The Duchess was a generous woman, even in death. Gaultry felt a fresh pang of grief, thinking that young Melaney should have been among these sad-faced, flustered, and yet quietly joyous people, learning that their mistress’s death had come with the gift of their own independence. “She doesn’t seem to have forgotten anybody,” Gaultry said softly, as one serving lady broke out with a mournful, crying laugh. Her legacy was a pension from Melaudiere’s household, payable in quarters, and certainly enough to live on.
“It takes work,” Vaux-Torres commented. “And Gabrielle’s steward and bailiff both are renowned for their soft-heartedness. But wait for her man to start reading the gifts to those at the table. The Princess will have intervened to soften a few blows here—the duchess will have left her a long purse to compensate for unintentional omissions, and some of it will go to keeping the peace among those whom old Melaudiere wanted to slight—but you can be sure Melaudiere will be left with at least some of her fun. Indeed,” the dark eyes sparkled dangerously, “I’m sure my own
gift will be pointed. Melaudiere could be lacking in humor.”
gift will be pointed. Melaudiere could be lacking in humor.”
“The whole table of us will be getting presents?” Gaultry asked. “But these aren’t the Duchess’s friends.”
“My point precisely,” Vaux-Torres answered, spearing a peach with her fork. “But they have to be honored with legacies for form’s sake. Some of those old biddies,” she gestured to the ducal dowagers at the top of the table, “are safe enough. And I’m sure Elisabeth will receive a nice mourning ring. I hear the Princess selected the design herself—poor Gabrielle didn’t have the opportunity, once her last illness came on her. But others …” She paused, and took a mouthful of peach. “With others Gabrielle will have made a pointed gift, and Lily throwing a gold ring in on the side won’t soften that.”
Melaudiere’s priest was the first called up from the table. He went up slowly and respectfully, not, like some of the earlier recipients, at all in a hurry. Unlike the sideboard guests, his legacy was not read aloud. The solicitor privately showed him the place where his name and legacy appeared on the will, and one of the solicitor’s aides took a scroll out of a little bag and handed it to him. His fingers trembled a little as he reached to take it.
“It’s a good one,” Vaux-Torres said. “Look at the way his back has straightened.” Gaultry had not noticed the minute squaring of the man’s shoulders, the slight puffing of his chest. “But prepare yourself,” the Duchess continued, her lips pressed in a cool smile. “There’s something in this last bag of gifts that is going to make someone very unhappy. They’d read everything out, if it was all going to be harmless.”
The priest returned to his seat, a properly somber expression on his face. Yet underneath, Gaultry could see that he was excited and pleased. She wondered what Melaudiere could have bequeathed him, to make him so happy.
Vaux-Torres was next, as those seated at the great table were called from lowest to highest. A server came to escort her. “Forgive me,” she said lightly, “if I have somewhat lost my humor on my return.” Her manner was loftily disdainful as she rounded the table, heading toward the waiting giant with his ill-fitting wig.
Gaultry took the moment to explain what was happening to the Sharif.
The Ardana nodded comprehension.
We have the same in my country when a leader dies. Also many pledges, in memory of the dead one’s name
.
We have the same in my country when a leader dies. Also many pledges, in memory of the dead one’s name
.
Across the table, Palamar Laconte, whose turn for a gift would come
next, stood prematurely. Vaux-Torres sidestepped to avoid a collision, but Palamar, lurching the wrong way, contrived somehow to stand on the train of the Duchess’s skirt. There was a flutter of movement as their respective footmen untangled them, then the Duchess, with an acid look at the younger woman, glided onward. Palamar, whose turn with the solicitor came next, remained awkwardly on her feet.
next, stood prematurely. Vaux-Torres sidestepped to avoid a collision, but Palamar, lurching the wrong way, contrived somehow to stand on the train of the Duchess’s skirt. There was a flutter of movement as their respective footmen untangled them, then the Duchess, with an acid look at the younger woman, glided onward. Palamar, whose turn with the solicitor came next, remained awkwardly on her feet.
The plump acolyte could not get even a simple matter of timing right with a footman to lead her. Gaultry wished she could sympathize. Poor Palamar had suffered such great losses. Moreover, it could not be pleasant to play run and fetch in her ongoing role as Dervla’s lackey. Still, something in the silly woman drew irritation rather than compassion. Her awkwardness seemed so unnecessary—if she had just waited in her seat, the clumsiness with Vaux-Torres at least would have been avoided.
The Duchess returned from her visit to the alcove a little breathless, two spots of color high on her cheeks that no degree of self-control could conceal. Cautious of the woman’s temper, Gaultry took another peach, and busied herself with cutting it open.
“You can look,” the Duchess said. “Indeed, I will show you. It’s nothing so terrible—and yet so ingenious. She must have known I would not be able to resist it.”
Nevertheless, when Gaultry looked, Vaux-Torres had her hands cupped beneath the edge of the table so none of those seated nearby could share the view.
Nestled in the Duchess’s hands was a beautiful golden egg, its surface intricately enameled with crimson curlicues and flowers. At the touch of a hidden catch, the egg sprang into two halves, and a mechanical bird unfolded glittering wings of a surprising, delicate span and raised a tiny crest. “Cuckoo!” it tweeted, from within tiny bellows inside its chest. “Cuckoo!” The little bird was enameled all over in red and gold. There were four tiny eggs at its feet, each a different color: red and gold, golden-brown, diamante blue, and lastly one elaborately swirled in blood red crimson. The first three were constructed with tiny crested heads protruding, the last—the swirled crimson—with only a small beak broken out. “Cuckoo!” the mother bird chimed a third time, then folded its wings and closed up. The egg-halves snapped back together with a distinctive click.
“It’s beautiful,” the Duchess said, rubbing a finger along the fine enamelwork. “And so obviously Gabrielle’s own handiwork. So intricate. Imagine. She took all this trouble just for me,” Vaux-Torres’s tone
changed and hardened, “who quite frankly she despised in her later life, knowing full well that the feeling was mutual. A cuckoo-bird. How unsubtle. Yet she made it a thing of beauty. Where’s the insult in that?”
changed and hardened, “who quite frankly she despised in her later life, knowing full well that the feeling was mutual. A cuckoo-bird. How unsubtle. Yet she made it a thing of beauty. Where’s the insult in that?”
Gaultry looked across the room to where Palamar was receiving her gift from the big solicitor. From a distance it appeared to be a simple ring, though suddenly Gaultry wasn’t so certain. If the old Duchess had expended such energy composing a message for this woman, surely she would have left a message for poor Palamar too. “Your bird has a pretty song,” she said hesitantly, turning back to Vaux-Torres.
“I hold Vaux-Torres in my own right,” Argat Climens said audaciously. “I cannot cuckold the title. Old Gabrielle always resented that, having married a title only a man can truehold from the Prince. I suppose her independence must have felt threatened by that, after Hugh was gone.” She snapped the egg open again and let it replay its brief song, this time interrupting its cycle before the shell snapped closed, and stroking the tiny eggs. “The real cleverness here is in these eggs. This one—” she touched the red and gold egg, “this one is my Remy, heir one day to my title. Here is Anna, and Beaumorreau, and this one—” she touched the closed egg with the crimson swirls “—this one is my Elisabeth. All quite obvious, to my closest friends, which Gabrielle never claimed to be. Imagine, that she found my every peccadillo so intriguing.”
Gaultry gulped. She was vaguely aware that Vaux-Torres had four children, but she was not so close at court to have heard that doubts had circulated as to their parentage. The Duchess, sensing her confusion, gave her a feline smile as her glance slid past to the footman at her shoulder. “It’s your turn,” Vaux-Torres said. “I will be most interested to see your gift, if you care to show me.”
Grateful for even a momentary escape from the woman’s overpowering presence, Gaultry went quickly around to the black-coated giant. His broad face was benign and friendly, his manner as he greeted her surprisingly intimate. “She didn’t have time to make you a gift,” he said regretfully, as he reached into the velvet chambered box proffered by one of his assistants. “I’m sure that would have been her wish. So there is only this ring, and the message of her undying respect.” With an ink-stained thumb, he pointed to Gaultry’s name where it fell on the rolls, marked in near the bottom with a scratchy hand. “Initialed H. L. & G. M.,” read the ring’s description, as if that was all that had been needed to make an identification.
The ring was not gold, as Palamar’s had been, seen briefly glinting in
the room’s subdued light. Set with a small sapphire cabochon surrounded by tiny oak leaves, it was silver, and small for any but Gaultry’s most slender finger. She glanced down at the inscription before slipping it onto her hand. H. L. & G. M. Hugh Lourdes and Gabrielle Montgarret. A gift given a young woman by her future husband before the marriage that had made her Duchess of Melaudiere.
the room’s subdued light. Set with a small sapphire cabochon surrounded by tiny oak leaves, it was silver, and small for any but Gaultry’s most slender finger. She glanced down at the inscription before slipping it onto her hand. H. L. & G. M. Hugh Lourdes and Gabrielle Montgarret. A gift given a young woman by her future husband before the marriage that had made her Duchess of Melaudiere.
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