Blessings in Disguise

“So it is an elopement you’re after, rather than an offer to help me to freedom,” I say slowly, more to myself than to him as I sit down on a nearby bench, one hand on my forehead. This is all just too much to deal with right now. What I wouldn’t give to be alone! “I should have suspected as much. You suggest I trade an engagement for a marriage on the run, with no ceremony and barely any legitimacy, to a man who has been only a combat tutor to me, and that with all the grudging my fiancé could muster.”

“Not quite. He didn’t kill me,” Giacomo mutters. “In fact, he told me several times that you were engaged to him and that I must never forget that for a moment.”

“And yet you seem to have forgotten it now, to make such a ludicrous offer to me.”

“Hardly. Now more than ever this ‘engagement’ of yours preys upon my mind, for I was in the library when you caught Yekaterina and your fiancé at a rather inopportune moment for them. I had been doing a bit of research a few shelves over, and I heard everything.”

“How sneaky of you.”

He rolls his eyes in reply. “You can get away from them. Come to Venice with me.”

“But at what cost would I be getting away from them? I would sacrifice my honor, not to mention that my grandmother arranged this marriage for me, and to defy her wishes is nothing short of asking for a death sentence. I appreciate your concern for my happiness, but my answer by necessity must be no.” I do not mention that the shattered remnants of my heart could not bear to leave this place, even now. I hate to admit it, but I care for Dmitri deeply, in spite of all that has happened, and I cannot bear to leave him. He has made mistakes in the way he dealt with Yekaterina, but then, perhaps if I had been honest with him from the start about how much her conduct towards him bothered me, he would have been more firm and all of this could have been avoided. Perhaps I am also at fault, for the games I have been playing.

Giacomo’s eyes turn hard, but a new light of understanding gleams in them, also. “Does she not wish you to fight with her allies anyway, which includes my clan?”

“Not at the expense of violating the agreement she and my grandfather have made with the Berkeleys. I’m sure you know the story, as well informed as you seem to be about such things.”

“On the contrary, my knowledge of such things stems only from rumours and overhearings, though it is commonly said that your grandparents have arranged for the marriages of their grandchildren into families whom your grandfather offended with various indiscretions and irregularities at the gambling table.” He pauses, and when I do not contradict this, he feels himself permitted to continue. “It is also rumoured that your grandmother uses her dark arts to ensure that these matches are not opposed by the young people forced into them. I have heard that she enchants necklaces and that the young people use them instead of engagement or wedding rings, and are thus kept under her power.”

“So it is said,” I reply carefully, wondering where he might be going with this. His eyes are tumultuous, with a victory light blazing in them.

“And so, to set you free to follow the desires of your heart, to enable you to accompany me to Venice, I need only free you from the instrument of your grandmother’s control!” Without warning fog rushes around my neck, enveloping the necklace and condensing around it without also condensing around my neck, which would have choked me.

“You can’t! It’s a magic thing, you know, and even if you should succeed, have you any idea what my grandmother might do to you for interfering in her schemes?!” I protest, trying to get rid of the fog. Giacomo’s response is to sit down beside me and forcibly hold my arms at my sides. The fog’s pressure on the necklace increases. No metal, even enchanted metal, is entirely unbreakable. The necklace is throbbing and growing hot, despite the fog around it. Should it break, it will hurt someone. But I can’t be invisible while he’s touching me. I try to make myself slippery like an eel. Giacomo’s grip on me tightens. I squirm and squirm, but I can’t get away. Will he try to take me with him by force? I can’t get away. There has to be something—

Water is falling from the sky. Did I do that? It’s freezing cold. Giacomo is undeterred, fiercely concentrated. The fog continues to condense around the necklace. The metal gets hotter, throbs more, hurting me.

SNAP!

The chain of my necklace finally snaps from the pressure of Giacomo’s fog and falls in pieces from my neck to sizzle on the ground, purple smoke trailing from its broken places. Giacomo is in front of me in an instant, observing my expression of horror as I stare at the fragments, mind reeling. More than the necklace has just broken. Where is Dmitri? Does he feel this, too? But then the pieces of broken chain on the ground begin to tremble again. The sky darkens with angry purple clouds that swirl in a tornado-like fashion, stemming from the smoke that still emanates from the remnants of the necklace, which has taken on an eerie violet glow.

“What have you done?” I scream. This can’t be happening. All the purple can only mean one thing. Trying to run will only make her angrier.

“Aerys, it’s okay—” Giacomo starts, but I shake my head. It’s too late.

“What have you done?” This time it’s a quavering whisper. My knees are quaking.

“I’ve set you free.” He still doesn’t see.

“Does none of this mean anything to you?” I wave a hand at the remains of the necklace and at the gathering clouds. “Prepare to meet my grandmother.”

As if to confirm my words, a door opens in the base of the pillar of angry purple clouds, and none other than Xenia de Poitiers herself steps out, resplendent in a deep purple gown of the Renaissance style with an enormous black diamond-studded collar fanning out behind her head. The crystal that hangs at her throat is glowing fiercely purple. The pieces of my necklace shudder and faintly return its glow.

“Who’s this young man, Aerys? He certainly wasn’t the one I expected to find with you when I sensed your necklace had been broken,” Grandmother asks in a voice suggestive of that which a cobra would have, were they capable of speech.

“Grandmother, this is my combat tutor, Giacomo,” I reply with my deepest, most elegant curtsey. Giacomo bows in a similar fashion. Grandmother arches an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed.

“You would abandon your fiancé for this?” she demands, waving a hand at Giacomo, who is suddenly frozen. Purple sparks begin to fly towards him from her fingertips.

“Grandmother, please! That was never my intent! Don’t hurt him! He only meant to help me better conform to your wishes and knew not what he was doing,” I lie, frantically casting about in my mind for a way out of this. The sparks stop and I can see a measure of relief in Giacomo’s hitherto terrified eyes. His eyes seem to be the only part of him currently capable of expression.

“So you admit that he broke your necklace, that he meant to free you from your engagement.”

“Only that I might travel with him to join his clan, which is allied with your patron Kaiser Wilhelm, if I am not mistaken. He meant to provide me a way to fight alongside you, as you once requested me.”

“Such a thing would have been incomplete fulfillment of my wishes. I demanded that you bring your fiancé and his parents along, at the very least! And I was already most displeased that you had not fulfilled my requirements on that count, before this.” She waves a hand at the fragments of my necklace to emphasize her point. They jump to life and seem to be rejoining themselves into the former symbol of my relationship with Dmitri. Where is he?

“I am aware of this, Grandmother, and I apologize and feel my shame most deeply. I have been trying to convince my future husband and his parents of the wisdom in joining your side in the conflict just declared today, but we have had many distractions here, and I’m afraid they pay me very little heed on the matter. Had I been born male, perhaps my persuasive words would have more merit, but as things are, they tell me to continue planning for my marriage, which I now fear will be postponed indefinitely on account of the war, if not because of...of....”

“Of what, Aerys? I am growing impatient.”

I burst into tears. “A relative of Zinaida’s, a girl much prettier than me--”

“Nonsense. None can compare with your looks.” She has always been vain of my appearance. Even Dmitri said so. Where is he?!

“--Ever since she came, she has been making eyes at my fiancé, and he has been torn between duty to his relatives--her included--a desire to please his parents, and duty to me and thus shamefully has not acted sufficiently to condemn her conduct towards him and remedy it.” I sniffle pitifully and take a deep breath before steeling myself to continue. “He has been responsible for teaching her English, you see, and so they have been spending the mornings together. I went to have him look over a letter for me, and...and....” I choke back a sob. Grandmother looks somewhere between irate, sympathetic, and still impatient.

“She kissed him,” I whisper finally, my head lowered with the shame and the renewed pain at admitting such a thing aloud. Purple lightning crackles through the cloud pillar that Grandmother used as her conveyance.

“Where is this nuisance? She is more of a threat to my plans than this fool. If you speak true, his intentions were even at least somewhat amiable to my purposes, if ill-considered.”

“You will release him, then?”

She looks at me with exasperation. Seeing that I am too anxious on the matter to answer her question about Yekaterina’s location, she reluctantly snaps her fingers at Giacomo, who stumbles forward into a kneeling position at her feet, coughing. Her paralysis must have also restricted his breathing. In that case, I have secured his release not a moment too soon.

“Begone from me, and be sure that you never presume to meddle in my plans again. If there is a next time, you will not escape my wrath so easily,” she warns. Giacomo scrambles unsteadily to his feet and scurries away, not even daring a glance back at me or a thank-you. Considering the circumstances, I shall forgo being offended. Grandmother’s cold, crackling purple eyes return to me, and I curtsey again, perhaps more deeply than before.

“You are most gracious, Grandmother, and have all of my thanks for sparing his innocent life.”

“Enough groveling. Where is the miserable wretch who is trying to ruin my plans, and your resolve-lacking fiancé? Had I known of that character flaw, I would have tried to secure better for you.”

“This incident aside, I had been convinced that you could not have chosen better for me. You are the best and most benevolent of guardians,” I lie. I seem to be doing a good deal of that today, but I know of no better way to protect myself and others that I would prefer not to see dead at the hands of this dark woman, who I am now mostly convinced is something like Evil incarnate. “Unfortunately, I know where neither of the persons you seek are currently--”

“Aerys!” Dmitri’s voice calls, not a little distraught, from elsewhere in the garden. Moments later he is at my side, eyes blazing wildly with fear and other emotions. The pieces of his necklace, also glowing faintly purple, are carried before him in a sort of basket made of fire. He deposits them alongside mine at my grandmother’s feet and bows so deeply to her I fear that he will lose his balance and topple over.

“Well then. What part have you had in this?” she demands of Dmitri, pointing to the broken necklaces on the ground. Her fingernails are like long, dark purple claws.

“As for the actual breaking of the necklaces, I know nothing of how that came about. I was searching the mansion for Aerys, after my father released me from discussion of the impending war, when my necklace grew cold and started shaking violently. I couldn’t determine what was wrong with it, only knew that something must have been wrong with Aerys, and so I increased my efforts to find her, particularly once the necklace broke. After what happened this morning, I believed anything could have befallen her.” He turns to me with earnest eyes and spontaneously envelopes me in a tight embrace, which I awkwardly return.

“I feared you had died. I’m so glad I found you, alive, and that it was only the necklaces.... Although, you will have to explain that--” he whispers to me.

“Stand by,” I whisper back, barely audible. “This isn’t over yet.”

“Are you quite finished?” Grandmother shrills, entirely unmoved by this unexpected show of tenderness. We jump apart, showing proper embarrassment. Dmitri is more sensible than Giacomo when faced with this horrible woman and knows how to deal with her properly. “Because you are essential to my plans, young man, I will excuse you from the punishment that ought to be given you, for allowing a shrewish strumpet to cause so many difficulties in your relationship with my granddaughter. Take me to the unfortunate wench.”

“It is my understanding that, after what I disclosed to my father about her, she is currently being scolded in my mother’s chambers,” Dmitri replies, pointing to a third-storey window several paces down the mansion from where we now stand. Grandmother steps back into her cloud column, which rises into the air. I had begun to think us safe, but a serpentine tendril of cloud slithers around us, coiling tightly and lifting us into the air as a part of Grandmother’s terrible means of transportation.

The window Dmitri indicated shatters with a burst of purple lightning. The cloud pours into the room and I can hear several female shrieks, including the easily distinguished voices of Zinaida and Yekaterina. Dmitri and I barely refrain from screaming ourselves as we narrowly avoid being dashed to pieces on the brick walls of the mansion and instead slip through the window. We remain captives of Xenia’s cloud as the door in the column opens again and my grandmother steps out, inspiring gasps of shock and terror from the ladies here gathered. Wesley bursts into the room, no doubt alerted by the shrieking that something was amiss, and seems as overwhelmed by what he has found in his wife’s chambers as any of the ladies who witnessed Xenia’s arrival. Zinaida has fallen into a swoon and two of her ladies are frantically trying to revive her; the others of her staff make elaborate obeisances to Xenia, hoping to be spared a miserable fate such as they have heard of from the rumours that circulate about my grandmother. Only Yekaterina, the brazen fool, remains standing upright. She is white as a sheet and trembling like a leaf in the wind, but she does not curtsey as she ought. Grandmother’s face shows great displeasure at this unthinkable show of disrespect.

“You must be the one who has been disrupting my plans,” Xenia hisses, her violet eyes narrowing on the unfortunate Russian blonde. For anyone else I would feel incredibly sorry. For her I cannot bring myself to feel anything but a grim sense of justice.

“I...I not know vhat you means,” Yekaterina stammers, failing to grasp the gravity of this situation.

“Do you deny that you have been interfering in the relationship between my granddaughter and this young man?” The sorceress waves a hand at Dmitri and me. Purple sparks fly at us and I only just manage enough of a water shield to protect us from them. Fear seems to increase my abilities, or my ability to access my magic. The sparks electrify the shield but cause no further harm, and I let it fall to see the surprised expression on my grandmother’s face. She is not as all-knowing as she would like us to think. Indeed, this is why my lies in the garden went undetected.

Yekaterina seems hopelessly confused. “Your...granddaughter?”

Dmitri translates Xenia’s words into Russian, seeing that his mother, who is only just awakening from her swoon, is in no condition to act as interpreter. Yekaterina’s eyes widen in understanding.

“Aerys...your granddaughter? I not knew.... You Bavarian vitch, no? De vun dey call Xenia de Poitiers?” Yekaterina stumbles through the English and manages to irk my grandmother even more for her word choice. Poor fool. But it seems that even the Russians know of and fear Xenia de Poitiers, for now Yekaterina is shaking even more and falls into the obeisance she ought to have made when first Grandmother entered the room.

“The very same,” Grandmother replies coldly. “Regardless of my involvement in the matter, you do not deny that you have been attempting to seduce a man who was promised to another lady?” Again Dmitri translates, hoping to expedite this process, that we might be rid of my grandmother. Yekaterina’s face turns dark red, whether with long overdue embarrassment and shame or with fury at being found out. She does not speak.

“Very well. Your guilt is plain enough on your features. You would have been reprehensible enough had you chosen to meddle in a relationship that I had not set up, but since you have also interfered with my plans, punishment is of course necessary.” Xenia is silent for a moment, making Dmitri’s continued translation the only thing heard. Perhaps she is pausing for effect, to terrify Yekaterina further; perhaps she is contemplating the perfect punishment for such a blatant offender of her will. “A simple transformation is too easy, too unoriginal, and death is too good for a wretch like you, even death at my hands. Aerys, dear, pay close attention. You can obtain power similar to my own, if you apply yourself. You have the talent for it and need not settle for sway over water.” She snaps her fingers, and Yekaterina lets loose a terrifying shriek. A sickening crunching can be heard, followed a few seconds later by the ripping of fabric. An ugly, hairless rat’s tail protrudes from Yekaterina’s posterior, growing longer and longer until it is at least three times her height, trailing across the floor and winding partway around the room.

“This shall soon set you straight. Henceforward your actions determine your fate. If to others you are unselfish and kind, your tail will vanish--out of sight, out of mind. But if you from others happiness take, a selfish rat you soon shall make. To lift this curse, unselfishly your life for another’s must offered be. Regardless of the path you choose, one year remains until your life you lose. One last gift to you I make--these winds to your homeland will you take,” Grandmother intones in a spooky voice, made all the more spooky for her rhymes. Dmitri quickly translates, neglecting any semblance of rhyme, which is perhaps just as well; Yekaterina needs not two tails to feel the pain of this spell. Yekaterina begins to protest vehemently in Russian, but her shrill tones are lost in the rushing of the winds that blow out from inside Grandmother’s clouds. They are felt by Yekaterina alone but heard by all as they sweep the unfortunate strumpet off her feet and out the previously broken window. The tail slithers along the floor for a few seconds after Yekaterina herself has been removed, but it, too, vanishes with its new owner on the wings of the wind. The ladies rush to the window to watch the spectacle of Zinaida’s relation being swept away on an evil wind back to the Motherland.

“Good heavens!” Wesley exclaims, unable to come up with anything more profound.

“If you wish to escape a similar fate, I suggest you and your wife reconsider my proposition to you. I hope to have a direct answer within the week,” Xenia tells him coldly. The cloud that has been imprisoning Dmitri and me suddenly vanishes as Xenia turns her eyes to us. “As for the two of you--” She snaps her fingers, and suddenly I feel once again the weight of my engagement necklace around my neck. “No more funny business. Far worse than Yekaterina’s fate will befall you if ever again those necklaces are broken. And I expect your marriage to take place sooner rather than later. As per the agreement we made, it must take place by Aerys’ next birthday. You cannot wait until whenever this war ends.” With that rather forbidding remark, she steps back into her clouds and they close around her before rumbling back out of the window with astounding speed. Daylight returns at its usual midday strength, which seems unrealistic. There is certainly no reason for sunlight to still be in the world. Excepting the absence of Yekaterina, the probable disappearance of Giacomo, and the broken window, we might be able to believe that this has all been a terrible nightmare.

“Wesley, what will we do?” Zinaida moans, still white as a sheet. Wesley shakes his head slowly, then looks at me sharply. I fall to trembling, having used my last stores of resourcefulness and useful energy in dealing with Xenia de Poitiers. He can hardly blame me for this.

“I believe our means for dealing with this menace is standing next to our son. The sorceress herself has said that Aerys can attain power equal to her own,” Wesley replies in a calculating tone.

I do exactly as Zinaida and Juniper would expect of me after such strain as I have endured today. The room spins and blessed blackness quickly envelopes me as Wesley’s words hit my brain like a runaway train.