Chapter 29

JUNE 22ND, LATE AFTERNOON, AT THESSALY’S HOME

T hessaly had a headache. Worse, she felt trapped, and that she absolutely couldn’t let any of that show. She had spent the early afternoon in the parlour with Mama, sorting condolence notes and messages into various piles. There were those that needed a reply promptly, some detail relevant to the funeral or the immediate future. Some had to be read and tended, for a reply later, after the funeral. Some were brief notes and wouldn’t get a personal reply, just a printed card thanking them for their kindness.

What she wanted to do was go and duel, but she was not to be out in public. There would be the funeral, and that would be public. Then she would be expected to be at home for a fortnight, at least, for callers, supporting Mama. She wasn’t to go to her apprenticeship. Though she might reasonably retreat to her own room or some other quiet place on the grounds with a book or something of the kind. If the weather held, she might go outside into the garden or orchard. She didn’t know how she felt about the fact it was sunny and mild. And it was Aunt Metaia who had loved a garden beyond all reason.

She and Aunt Metaia had been supposed to be at the Faire today and tomorrow, taking in all the joys of it. There should have been cakes and fizzy drinks, flowers to consider for next year’s garden, lectures to attend, and dancing to be had. The Faire ran to the delightful abundance of country dancing, as well as the partnered sort, people in vast rings or lines.

“You should rest before supper, Thessaly.” Mama didn’t bother looking up from her desk. “You needn’t hover.”

Thessaly was doing anything but hovering. She’d been sitting in the corner of the sofa, her hands folded, for the last twenty minutes. Probably twenty minutes, she’d lost track of time again. The only possible thing to do was go upstairs. “Of course, Mama. I’ll be down for supper.”

As she came out into the foyer, Master Harris, the man Magistra Rowan had sent over, was just coming in. “Oh, Mistress Thessaly. Third post just came in, there were a few for you, let me just sort them out. Is your mother in the parlour still?”

“She is, yes.” Now Thessaly had to stand awkwardly, waiting for him to sort through the envelopes. There had been ten in the first post before she’d come downstairs, and six from the noon post. All had been school connections, nothing demanding, and she’d sent back replies to the first two batches already.

Master Harris made a slight bow. “If you have any replies to go out this evening, I’ll be taking the last mail down with me when I leave. Half-seven.”

“Thank you.” She inclined her head. He really had been a help. He’d done all the things someone else could do. Master Harris had seen to the post, laying out notepaper and envelopes for Mama. He’d even run out and fetched some additional black sealing wax when it was clear they’d run out sometime today. And he’d been helping with all the other logistics, making sure everyone’s clothes for the funeral were in good form. He’d even arranged for Mama’s dressmaker to come out for a fitting for her and for Thessaly tomorrow morning.

He finished the sorting, flicking through the envelopes one last time to check. “Five for you, Mistress.” Master Harris handed over the envelopes, the top one with the Fortier seal showing. None of the Fortiers had come around, and none of them had - unless there was a note in this batch - written Mama and Father, either.

Thessaly just nodded once more and retreated upstairs. Once she had the door to her room closed and warded - for privacy and sound, both - she settled at her desk and reached for the letter opener. It was cunningly made like a fencing foil, not that she fenced like that, but it was a reasonable physical representation of duelling. Aunt Metaia had found it in a little shop on one of her trips elsewhere in Albion, and brought it back delighted. There was something absurd about opening a letter with a sword, miniature or otherwise, but it certainly worked well.

The one with the Fortier seal was from Childeric. He only wrote a few sentences, his condolences, that his parents were writing separately. They all sent their deepest sympathies. There’d been a family matter to tend to, nothing for her to worry about. The Fortiers would be at the funeral but he wouldn’t be available until then.

Thessaly put it down flat on the desk, setting down the letter opener along the long edge to hold it open. “What am I supposed to do with that?” It actively discouraged any sort of response, and she had no idea what to make of it. She only had more of a headache.

The next three letters were all from people she’d been at school with. She set those aside. It would be an excuse to come up promptly after supper, and none of them would be demanding to answer. None of them were people she was terribly close with, though Eveline North had sent something that was less stilted than most. And there was a note here from Cosi. The note wasn’t much, but it was hard to write a meaningful condolence note, Thessaly was finding. Certainly most people weren’t good at it, whatever good meant in this circumstance.

The last one made her stop again. The seal in the wax on the back wasn’t familiar, but it was Salmon House’s golden yellow. Thessaly opened it, laid it out - the sword opener on the other side of the page this time - and then stared at it. Something in it burst all the things she’d been holding so tightly free, and she braced her elbows on the desk, sobbing into her hands.

One tiny part of her mind was glad she’d already set the privacy charms, no one would hear her. She had her own en suite bathing room, she could wash up and pull herself together before supper. Then all of it was just about crying in a way she hadn’t let herself do yet, hadn’t dared allow. She cried until everything was salt and aches and her head hurting more and differently, and her neck complaining of the strain.

And yet, it also helped.

All for a letter that had just been human and kind and thoughtful. Childeric had kept to a few formal words, no sign of actual care. Vitus, here, had thought about what might be a help. He’d barely met Aunt Metaia, but she’d made an impression on him. Of course she had. And he’d offered something that might actually ease a tiny bit of her aching despair.

Suddenly, she desperately wanted to see someone like that. Someone who thought about Thessaly as a person who was hurting. Not the silhouetted cameo shape of a young woman in mourning, treading the expected steps of a dirge for the appointed length of time. She’d write back to him. In a moment.

First, Thessaly went into the bathing room to wash her face and try to do something with her hair. Everything felt messy and sticky. She washed her face first with soap, then with the little washing grains, followed by the preferred apothecary potion for clear and glowing skin. Taking her hair down was easy enough, and the brush strokes were almost soothing. She brushed for the full one hundred, one of those ridiculous traditions that people kept anyway, and then she went to work coiling it and pinning it up.

Only once she had it partially pinned, she remembered viscerally and painfully, the conversation with Aunt Metaia as they were getting ready, just two nights ago around this time. All of a sudden, her legs wouldn’t hold her, and she went down in a heap of skirts on the floor, hitting the tile harder than was good for her. She immediately pushed to brace her back against the wall, and then she was lost in crying again.

Only it wasn’t just crying, it was something deeper than that, like a whirlpool made of edged memories. Aunt Metaia had been worried about her. Aunt Metaia had changed her will three weeks ago, after the betrothal, after she’d first been concerned about Childeric. Thessaly had seen those odd expressions, Aunt Metaia, cousin Owain, that conversation with Hereswith Rowan.

What if this was all Thessaly’s fault, or her doing? What if loving her had meant Aunt Metaia’s death? It didn’t matter that the logic wasn’t smooth and obvious. She could feel the tug of it, the way it had weight and gravity and reality that she couldn’t ignore. Thessaly wrapped her arms tighter around herself, and it didn’t help.

She spun there, barely linking one thought to another, for what felt like hours, but maybe wasn’t. The gong hadn’t gone for supper yet. At least, there was - when she got her eyes cracked open - light from the window that hadn’t changed much. Slowly, painfully, she unclenched each finger from her skirts, then managed to kneel, then stand. She knew better than to lean on the basin, and to use the windowsill instead, less likely to give way under her weight.

Finally, she was standing, and she looked a mess all over again. This time she started with a tidying charm for her dress. She’d ask the maids to tend to it more tonight. Thessaly washed her face again, trying to concentrate on the sensation of being aware of her body rather than fleeing from it. Cosmetic charms touched up the worst of the misery of her eyes, at least to look at. She didn’t trust herself to fix the rawness and soreness. It was far too easy to do herself an injury that way. Finally, she put her hair back up.

When she emerged again, it wasn’t yet four. Thessaly sat down at the desk, pulling out a pen and a piece of black-bordered paper. Painstakingly, sentence by sentence, she asked if Vitus could come meet her tomorrow afternoon, around one. She could get away for a walk for an hour or so. She wrote out and then sketched directions to the orchard down by the river. He could get there without going near the house. She wouldn’t be seen once she’d gone over the top on the hill, but she’d still be on their property, inside the warding. Finally, she said that yes, she would be grateful for a talisman, especially one of his making, and she would be glad to hear his thoughts on that. If tomorrow wasn’t convenient, perhaps the day after. And then, that the funeral was the twenty-fifth, at the Council Keep, at one in the afternoon.

It was not an elegant note, or a clear one. But it was readable. It was somehow unsmudged by tears, and it said what she meant to say. It would have to do.

Just before half-seven, she pulled herself together. Thessaly checked the mirror one more time. She looked pale and worn and not good at all, but in ways in keeping with this degree of mourning. She took the letter, slipping it into Master Harris’s hands as she came down the stairs. “Just the one to go out tonight, thank you. I’ll have some more in the morning.”

Mama came out of the parlour a moment later, and Thessaly turned to her. “I have a dreadful headache, Mama. I’ll retire and take a potion as soon as we’re done with supper.”

Mama fussed about timing for the dressmaker, and whether what they had planned for Hermia was suitable. Thessaly didn’t have to do anything but nod and ask a question or two until Father came out of his office, and they went in to supper. The meal itself was quiet. Mama and Father largely talked about various correspondence they’d received.

The only comment about Thessaly’s was Mama’s. “Did you have a letter from Childeric, dear?”

“Yes, Mama. A brief one, he said he wouldn’t be able to call. There was something needing his attention. That he’d be at the funeral.”

In any ordinary time, Mama would have scrutinised the text of Childeric’s note and whatever his parents had sent, word for word, pen stroke for pen stroke. Today, she just nodded, visibly tired herself. “Indeed.”

As soon as she could, Thessaly made her excuses, handed her dress over to her maid, and collapsed into bed. She took her potion - her temples were pounding, now impossible to ignore. She lay there in the dark for what felt like ages, before finally drifting off, her head in an awkward position, mostly under a pillow.