“You realise your parents have not, shall we say, endeared themselves to me as relatives by marriage. Not recently. Even allowing for their grief and the upset and all that. They also kept me in the dark about what was planned, plans that very much affect me, and they certainly did not discourage Childeric in any of his actions.”
“No. That is a problem, isn’t it?” Sigbert stopped again, before going back to pacing, more slowly this time, with his hands tucked behind his back. “I can only move them so far, though. It isn’t as if I became the golden child. It’s just that there isn’t a golden child right here to compare me to. Just his memory.” That went sharper and sour.
“And he is even more perfect in memory than in life,” Thessaly said, slowly. “He was really rather awful to me. What will you do if I tell you?”
“I’ll make oath on not telling, if that would be of help.” Sigbert offered it remarkably promptly. “Not to anyone withoutyour permission. Whatever is discussed in the rest of this conversation?”
Thessaly inclined her head, and she listened to him. He used one of the standard forms. This was an oath that anyone who went through Schola learned well enough, because it was handy in such cases. She could see him wince as the Silence magic twisted around him for just an instant. Once that was done, he came and sat again, as if listening would take all his attention. “I would like to know what you will share.”
It took her several moments to consider how to put this. “I expected him to honour the agreements. But even at the betrothal, he was making a show of it, in public, where others could see, and he was beginning to ignore me, in private. He went off to play cards the afternoon before the party. For example. He cared about his pleasure, and whether I could keep up, not my comfort.”
Sigbert opened his mouth, then closed it, before trying again. “And later?”
“You’ve read the agreements?” Sigbert nodded, so Thessaly went on. “Nothing I did with Vitus Deschamps went against our agreements. And yet, he was furious. The gossip was, all right, discomforting. But he didn’t even ask me the truth of it. He threatened me. He threatened Vitus. And all while I’m sure he had a mistress. I hope she’s doing all right, since?”
Sigbert gaped. “You knew?”
“Gossip finds a way,” Thessaly said. “It’s like water. Even if it weren’t the sensible wager, were I a betting woman. I don’t know much about the details, but that he had a mistress, yes. Someone in Trellech, I gathered.”
“He did.” Sigbert looked down, as if tracing a line through the paving stones of the floor. “A widow, her husband had been one of the better up-and-coming tailors. He died suddenly. Childeric helped pay for her flat. Some of the inheritance fromGrand-père. He’d see her once or twice a week, on his schedule. Sometimes we’d be at some private party. Nothing unseemly in public, of course. Maman would have been furious at that.”
“And your father?” Thessaly leaned forward a little. She didn’t know if she wanted to ask if Sigbert had a mistress or dalliances. She wondered if he’d say anything if she didn’t press the point, and that was perhaps more useful information.
“Oh, Father was the one who encouraged us. And he arranged some more substantial token for Mathilde, not long after Childeric’s funeral. Enough to see her set up in her own shop.” Sigbert looked up sharply, caught out, apparently, in honesty. “I also have a mistress. I wouldn’t impose on you for that sort of thing, not unless we were trying for a child, or unless you asked. That’s our custom.” Then he tilted his head. “I don’t think Uncle Dagobert does. Not for a while, actually. I think that’s part of why Father disapproves of him.”
Thessaly thought it a rather odd custom, and also potentially rather tedious for whoever the mistress was, to be at someone else’s beck and call, and with only dubious security. “And what do you think about my seeing other men in private? Well, likely only one.”
Sigbert shrugged. “It is not how we’ve done things. And gossip would, of course, be unacceptable. Maman and Tante Bradamante would disapprove. And Grand-mère. But in private? I would not be bothered by it. With all the appropriate precautions against a child, of course. There is the bloodline to think of.” It was a more direct answer than she’d got from Childeric, at least. Sigbert added, “And you have your own property. It has a portal, yes?”
“It does.” Thessaly inclined her head.
“There. You could easily ensure discretion.” Sigbert took a breath, as if he were deciding whether to say something. Thessaly applied all the patience she’d learned, duelling, aboutwaiting for the necessary time, for the right moment. “Childeric hurt me. Bullied me, hit me a few times. Forced me into doing what he wanted, much more often than that.”
“Threatening to tell your parents, something like that?” Thessaly needed the shape of it. Sigbert nodded, once. He obviously wasn’t inclined to go into the topic or topics.
“I miss how he was, when he was in a good mood. I miss having a big brother who went ahead of me in the world. But I don’t miss that, the way he was when he got spiteful.” Now, Sigbert was definitely talking to the ground, unable to look up. Thessaly hesitated, then reached out to touch his hand. Not to hold it, not to do any of that. “And now, there’s none of him.”
Thessaly let out a breath. “No.” She cleared her throat. “I’m not saying I’ll agree to marry you. Your parents are still, shall we say, a cautionary tale. But if it would help you to tell them you’d talked to me about it, you may. And that I appreciated the clarity of your position, however you wish to put that. You may say that.”
“That would be a help.” Sigbert glanced out the glass. “I suppose we should walk back up. Or would you like to stretch your legs a little more, a circuit of the gardens?”
A circuit of the gardens would give the charms she carried a little more chance to work, and perhaps a chance for her to get a bit of dirt. She could pretend to lose one of the decorative buckles from her shoe. She had set that up as a possibility this morning. “The gardens, please. I could use a little fresh air before tea.” He stood, offering to help her arrange her cloak, and then they walked, side by side, not arm in arm, on a tour of the sleeping gardens.
She got a chance to sneak a little dirt from the furthest edge nearest the Arun, and slip it into the tiny snuff box she’d brought for the purpose.
14
NOVEMBER 19TH AT BRYN GLAS
By Tuesday night, Vitus was very glad that Thessaly had made it clear he should come by. She’d put him off on both Saturday and Sunday— Saturday, because she was going to be at Arundel, and Sunday for reasons she hadn’t explained. She didn’t owe him an explanation, and there was a decent chance it was something to do with her parents or her family.
But then he’d caught several bits of gossip, some on Sunday, some yesterday, about her. Their parents had been out, so he’d gone with Lucas for supper in Trellech. They’d ended up at The Boar’s Head, then gone on for a drink with a group of people at Wishton’s, which was rather more upper class than Vitus usually ran. The conversation had been pleasant, but more superficial, so Vitus had been quieter, listening to the comments around him.
Lucas had asked - Vitus was fairly sure it was a deliberate strategy - about something related to the Challenge. It had been rather easy to get related topics going from there. Including Thessaly. Some of the gossip was that she was going mad with grief, or perhaps somewhat feral. No one had seen her since the funeral, at least no one who was doing any of the gossiping. One source had talked to someone at Hermia’s finishing school, orsaid she had. Vitus thought it might be a lie. That woman had said Thessaly’s family was terribly worried for her, but sensible people had wondered if she was cursed.
Implying, of course, that she’d had a part in Childeric’s death, directly or indirectly. Vitus had had to leave the room after that one. His coming to her defence wouldn’t help anything at all. He’d tell her when there was a chance.
The other gossip had been along those lines, if less personal. That she was running out into the woods, barely dressed, like something out of a Gothic novel. Another had it that she was stalking the halls of ‘that house in Wales’ wearing all black, her hair tumbled and wild. For one thing, the halls at Bryn Glas were mostly rather short, not at all designed for proper ghostly haunting of that kind. And for the second, Vitus was entirely sure Thessaly was wearing as little black as possible.
