chapter VI

I T WAS ALL RIGHT DURING THE DAY. BUT AT NIGHT, stripped down to my boy’s shirt, tucked in the great bed in the empty house in a city of strangers, I wanted my mother! We always shared our woes and tried to help each other. I wished she knew how brave I was being, but there was no way to tell her about any of it, and what could she do, anyway? I cried very quietly, not liking to hear myself.

In the morning, I let the chocolate console me, and let Betty do up all my clothes with her able fingers. She didn’t smell of drink—yet. I left half the chocolate for her.

My new clothes were not so hard to move in today. They seemed looser, more welcoming, less restrictive.

Master Venturus was waiting for me in the wet rabbit room. He was practicing against a wall, and didn’t seem to see me when I came in.

“Good morning!” I said, to show I wasn’t afraid this time.

“Yes,” he said, still crouching and springing with sword in hand. “Why aren’t you practice?”

“I will if you like.”

“You get up, you practice. You eat, you practice. You go to bed, you practice—first.” He turned at last to face me. “Otherwise, no good. No point.” He looked me over. “No blanket today? Not so cold? Very good. Now you show Venturus you hold.”

I held. Then I stood—wrong, of course, at first, and then right, so perfectly, I was told, that I must not move, and did not, and thought I was going to die of the ache in my arm holding the sword and my legs holding the stance, a gradual ache that became pain that sharpened to agony.

“Strike!” Venturus shouted suddenly.

I sprang forward, heedless of form, just to release the pain—and nearly fell over. My sword clanged from my hand to the floor.

“Not so good.” My master’s exaggerated sympathy failed to cover his smugness. “Not so good, ha? You practice, practice, practice, then no pain, no hurt, you strike—strike like snake. Ha! Now pick up sword.” He hissed. “Tsss! No thumb on blade! Stupid. Rust, dust, all kinds of blick. You polish, make good.”

It was worse than polishing silver. The blade’s shiny metal darkened the moment my finger touched it. And those edges could be sharp, too, though the tip was blunted. Venturus gave me lime powder and oil and a soft leather cloth. For once, I was glad of my breeches; it would have been hard to do in skirts.

Venturus waited ’til I was done. Then he said, “I go. What you do now?”

I looked out to the garden. It was raining. “I practice,” I said.

“Good.” To my surprise, he added, “Not too long, first day. Then make bath, good soak with—tss!—how you call, good salts—then wine. After.” On his way out the door, he paused and whirled back to me: “No-wine-no-sword!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You no drink with sword! Drink is ruin sword.”

With a swirl of his cloak, he was gone.

T HE MORE TIME I SPENT IN TREMONTAINE HOUSE, the more beautiful I found it. I couldn’t understand why my uncle the Mad Duke didn’t like it here. Maybe it was just too good for him and he knew it. Everything about the house was perfect: the colors carefully chosen, the furniture balanced in form and size to every room; even the views out the tall windows were as lovely as pictures. I would find myself just looking at the way the lines of a room’s molding met the ceiling. Sometimes they joined in carven leaves, edged with just a little gold; sometimes faces peered amongst them; sometimes there were patterned jags, hard edges that almost made blocks of letters, like words you couldn’t quite read.

Each room was filled with treasures. I made myself choose a favorite in each one: the game was that I could save only one thing from each room, and what would it be? In one it was a tiny ivory carving of balls within balls, each one moving separately but never touching. In another I was hard put to choose between a painted fan mounted on a stand and a little china calf with the most winning expression! I was surprised at how many of the things I found were ladies’ things. I remembered the duke my uncle saying with some distaste, “It’s very elegant. I inherited it from my grandmother.” His grandmother had been Duchess Tremontaine before him; that much I knew. Perhaps it was her very own armchair that I loved to sit in, in my room above the river, my feet tucked up under me as I watched the colors change over the hills.

I liked to visit the dining room with the long windows and mirrors, even though I never ate in there. At the center of the enormous table, there was a serving epergne as large as a baby’s cradle, made out of silver. Branches twisted around it, ending in oak leaves on which sweets might be placed; the middle was a large dish supported by silver deer that grazed or glanced up around it, amongst life-sized silver walnuts that were half as big as the deer were. Sometimes I patted or stroked the deer, although I knew it would make the silver tarnish faster. But it was folly to leave silver out like that in the air, anyway. A girl came in once a week to polish it; I came upon her one day and offered to help, but she would not let me. If the servants found me odd, they didn’t say so. They were very polite and always called me Lady Katherine. Of course, they must be accustomed to behavior far odder than mine. And you couldn’t know where they themselves had come from—though, as my mother had taught me, it would be the height of rudeness to ask. It’s different in the country, where we know everybody for miles around. It seemed like a waste to keep on polishing the thing, but I was not invited to give advice on housekeeping. I began to realize just how much money my uncle the duke had at his disposal, and was fascinated by what he chose and did not choose to spend it on. I wondered whether the Riverside house were as richly furnished, or even more so.

And I wondered what was in my uncle’s private rooms, here in Tremontaine House. I knew which ones they were: at the other end of the house from mine, a large suite that overlooked both the river and the courtyard. He could watch the sunset, and he could see visitors arriving. Once I stood outside the door, wondering if it was locked, and what I would do if it wasn’t. He’d never know if I looked in, would he? But what would I see if I did? Next time he makes me really angry, I promised myself, I’ll sneak in and look at everything, no matter what. Behind me, the portrait of a sad young woman gazed mournfully at me, as if to warn me of the perils of intrusion.

Portraits spattered the walls of Tremontaine House: large and small, square and round, dark and bright. In our house in the country there were portraits, too, but they were all my father’s forebears. This was my mother’s family. I tried to figure out which of the painted people looked familiar, and who was related to whom. When I couldn’t guess, I’d make it up. The young man with the sour face and riding crop in the upstairs narrow hall was pining for the stiff young woman holding a rose in the little salon. But she was betrothed from birth to a red-faced bedroom man with a goblet. I could tell they would never be happy. I considered having the young man break his neck in a riding accident just to make sure everyone was good and miserable. I even wrote a poem for the young lady beginning Ah, never shall I see thy shining face once more, but all I could think of for next was When I stand looking out the garden door, and even though it did rhyme I knew it wasn’t really poetry.

But the pictures also discomfited me: after looking at them long enough I would begin to wonder who these people truly were, and what order they had come in. Was the old man the son of the pretty young girl, or her father, or her husband? Or had he died before she was born? My painted forebears could not speak to answer, and no one in Tremontaine House could tell me who they were.

In the mirrored salon was one portrait that always pleased me. The painting was vivid and bright, not so old-fashioned as the rest: a woman in a pretty dress, with curls so fair as to be almost silver. It was a wonderful, lively painting. She was looking just past my shoulder as if someone was coming in the door behind me and she was sharing a joke with them, laughing as if she wanted a secret teased out of her. Her eyes glistened, and the pale grey satin of her dress did, too; even her jewels looked real, until you got close enough to see that it was only bits of paint: streaks of white over rose swirling to red, and such. Behind her, I was almost sure I recognized the lawn of Tremontaine House itself, sweeping down to the river. People were playing flamingo on the grass. I decided we had nearly the same nose. I wondered if, when I had the right gown, I might get the same artist to paint my portrait, too, and if I might look even half as lovely as the lady in grey.

A RTEMISIA FITZ-LEVI’S MOTHER DID NOT THINK MUCH of her choice of gowns for the evening’s festivities, and was busy telling her so. “A supper-party, my dear, is not a ball,” she said. “Even if there is dancing after, you want something a little more…restrained.” “But Mama,” Artemisia argued, “the green silk was most particularly admired by the Duke of Hartsholt at the Hetleys’! And you said his taste is impeccable.”

“So it is, my dear—and don’t think he won’t notice if you wear it again! Do you want to look as if you are courting his favor? And Hartsholt a married man…no, no, it would never do.”

Artemisia pouted. “Don’t be ridiculous, Mama. No one would think that. Besides, I wanted to wear the tourmalines Papa gave me, and they suit it perfectly.”

“So they do, my love, and you shall wear them at the next possible occasion. But not the green, not so soon after you’ve worn it once. Do you want people to think you don’t have enough gowns?”

That worked, where nothing else had. “What about the yellow?” Artemisia asked hopefully. The yellow dress was the result of an argument her mother had lost, with a bodice cut down to there, and enough flounces to trim a cake.

“Don’t you think it might hurt Lydia’s feelings, since it is her party and she looks so peaky in yellow?”

“Mama, you are an angel of kindness!” Artemisia flung her arms around her mother’s neck. “How could I be so unfeeling? I know—I shall write to my dear Lydia.” Artemisia settled in a ruffle of dressing gown at her escritoire. “I’ll see what she’s wearing. If it’s white or cream or ecru, I’ll wear mine, too.”

“Now why,” her mother said dryly, “did we not think of that before?”

And Lady Fitz-Levi went to scribble off a note to Lydia’s mother, so that Dorrie could take them both at once, and return with the correct response.

M ASTER VENTURUS CONTINUED COMING EVERY DAY. Every day Betty laid out my sturdy practice clothes, and every day I dutifully put them on and went to the practice room to meet him. And every day after he’d left I’d practice for an hour or more. What else was there for me to do with my time? I could hold the sword without my arms aching for quite a while now, and my legs could hold their position without trembling, at least until Venturus was gone. I learned how to hold, how to stand, even how to strike—if aiming at a spot in the air can be accounted striking. It was all a bit dull, really, this training to be a swordsman. Venturus talked, and I repeated drills for him, and he talked some more, and finally he left and I did them again and again, until it was time for my bath.

I didn’t even notice the morning I woke up with no ache in my muscles at all. Betty did, though; sprightly, she called me, and I went down to my lesson feeling very pleased with myself for being sprightly instead of sluggish and dull. Venturus retaliated with a whole new set of moves for me to learn: parries and ripostes, with no particular purpose that I could see except to make me turn my wrist in funny ways and feel like even more of a useless idiot. He would never even show me how to do them properly, just talked talked talked until I got it right, it seemed, only to stop his voice. I began to wonder if he was ever going to teach me to fight for real.

So it was a great startlement to me, the day he stood waiting for me stripped to his breeches and shirt, holding a powerful sword with an intricately woven basket. It was not a practice sword. It had an edge, a real one.

I drew in a deep breath. Guard, feint, parry, riposte…I could do this. I would have to, to keep that evil blade from me. Venturus had thrown his jacket over the rack of practice swords. He smelt sweaty, as if he’d been drilling already. But when I went to pick up a weapon, he stopped me. “No. You no sword. You stand.”

His sharp steel tip directed me to the center of the room. I stood there at the guard, miming a sword in my hand.

“No guard!” my strange teacher corrected. “You standing stand.”

I stood still, my arms at my sides. He raised the sword in one swift motion. I flinched.

“Stand.”

I said carefully, “I think that you are going to hurt me. I can’t just stand here without—”

“Good. Good you think. No laughing sword. Laughing sword is death sword.” He smiled, showing large yellow teeth. “But Venturus not to hurt. No hurt if stand, no move. No-o-o move.” I didn’t move. Slowly, but perfectly steadily, the sword was swinging in a great arc towards me. I watched it come. I thought as hard as I could about how much practice it must have taken for Venturus to be able to keep it at that steady rate, without wavering.

The blade stopped at the cloth of my shirtsleeve.

“No-o-o move.”

I did not move. He swung it suddenly to my knee, and I would have jumped except that I was afraid he’d hit me by accident then.

Venturus stepped back a pace. “Good.”

So quickly I had no time to be frightened, he had the tip at my neck. Without appearing to change his stance, Venturus extended his arm a crucial fraction simply by tightening his muscles, and the metal pressed into my skin. I knew it did not break through, although I felt it all the way down to the small of my back. I did not swallow until he’d taken it away.

“Yess,” he said in his satisfied hiss. He was not even winded. “Now you see.”

“See what?” I demanded hotly. When I lose my temper, I’m afraid it’s gone. “See you are the biggest show-off in the world, or see you nearly scared me out of a year’s growth?”

He lowered his blade and twirled it at his side in a very show-offy way. “Hmm,” he observed to the air around him, “little scared duke-boy gets anger.”

“Yes, I get angry when I’m scared—what do you want me to do, cry?”

“Anger,” Venturus said, “is enemy to sword. Many angry men killed by sword.”

“Is that so?”

Venturus made a tour of the room, working the sword in flashy patterns so that I had to keep well away. “Fear,” he observed to the air, “is enemy to sword. And fear to sword is friend. You see now?”

“No.”

“No? Why not? You have eyes, but you no see. I teach and teach, but you no learn. Why you no learn, silly duke-boy?”

I took a deep breath. “I see one thing,” I said, “and that’s that I’ll never be any good at this. And you know what? That’s just fine with me, because it was never my idea in the first place, remember? So why don’t you just go ahead and tell my uncle that I have too bad a temper and I’m too scared and stupid ever to be a decent swordsman, and then we can all go home!”

He turned to me with real hardness in his eyes. The sword was down at his side, but for the first time, the man truly frightened me. “Do not sharpen your tongue on Venturus,” he growled. “Do not command like to some servant.” His nostrils flared as he breathed deeply. “I go now, yes? This no day for sword.”

I stood very still as he put on his shirt and jacket, picked up his sword-belt and weapon and left. “Do you ever even take a bath?” I shouted to the door once it had closed behind him.