She arches an eyebrow at me, seeking confirmation. I nod, because that is exactly what I meant.
“Everything I know, I learned at my mother’s knee, much the same as you,” she says. “Your face, she always told me, is your greatest asset, a weapon that you wield. And what she taught me of herbs was not to heal—but rather how to exert and magnify the little force a woman is granted in this world.”
“My lady?” I ask, not understanding. What could be a greater asset, I think, than knowing how to stitch a wound together, or which herbs can be used to staunch the flow of blood?
“Cosmetics,” she supplies after a pause. “How to redden lips and darken eyes subtly, without looking like a common trull. Which oils clear your skin when it blemishes, which remedies keep it supple when it threatens to sag. For instance, goat’s blood mingled with milk has an especially potent effect when applied to the face.”
She laughs a little at my disconcerted expression, a silvery chime. “What a lot of useless bunk, you’re thinking. Such vain, silly nonsense. I can see why you would think so—and yet, how do you think I keep my lands, Anna, when my husband is away? What weapon have I against those avaricious dukes I told you of, when I cannot heft a sword or lance, or even sit a horse properly when hampered with skirts?” Her face hardens like sap snapping into amber, and she leans close enough that her breath sweeps across my face, smelling of caraway seeds and mint. “My charm, my wit, my beauty—they are what I have. All I have, to secure my place. Without them I am nothing. Already a ghost.”
I lean back, digesting what she has told me, marveling again at how oddly similar we are despite the gulf of birth that lies between us. Just like I do for me and my family, she does what she must, for herself and the vassals in her estates.
“I understand, my lady,” I say slowly. “At least, I think I do. Unlike me, you cannot rely on your hands—it would be too lowly, not befitting of your rank. So you make other things into your tools.”
“Yes!” she crows triumphantly, clasping her hands with pleasure. “What a quick study you are, so swift to understand. You are like a gift—my own little sage, delivered to me by the wings of fate. How have I even done without you for so long?”
I can feel my cheeks bloom with pleasure, even before she trails appreciative knuckles down the left side of my face. “Thank you, my lady.”
“Oh, no, no,” she tuts, gathering my hands in hers. “If we are to be as close as I wish us to be—you must call me Elizabeth.”
Chapter Ten
The Spheres and the Shards
For the next week, the countess—Elizabeth, as she insists that I call her, claiming that her name has never sounded so sweet on another’s tongue—summons me each day to help her dress. I do so in darkness, relieved only by the pools of light shed by the candelabra that crouch around the room; Elizabeth prefers to keep her curtains drawn late into the day, allowing barely any sunlight to penetrate her chambers. Too much exposure will only mar her skin, she says, wrinkling her before her time. As much as I detest the cellars’ murky depths, I find that, up here with her, I hardly mind the absence of light. With the dark drawn close around us, she shares her breakfast with me, an impossibly indulgent array of sweet porridge, candied cherries, and eggs poached so gently they burst into a golden flood of yolk as soon as they’re prodded with a fork. My wonder is tempered by guilt at each new delicacy I try; how Klara would love the unabashed richness of the yolk, I think each time, or the tart sweetness of the cherry cakes.
But I find solace in the coin I send back home, and Elizabeth’s assurance that my salary will only grow. And though I almost do not dare extend my hopes so far, I cannot help but think that perhaps, if I please the lady, she might even allow my sister to visit us.
Each day, she reads to me by the fire, sometimes for hours. I love to hear her speak in other languages, and she indulges me by reading selections from the Hippocratic Collection in the original Greek before translating it for me. I don’t believe a word of these teachings—hot and dry temperaments, what utter rot, almost as worthless as bloodletting and leeches—but I love that I am learning what she knows, beginning to understand her thoughts. And I haven’t seen a trace of the cruelty that Krisztina accuses her of. Merely kindness and a curious, attentive nature; a tart, ready wit; and an insatiable mind. I particularly enjoy hearing her read Aristotle and his treatise on the heavens, her avid interest in what rules the skies. I lean back on my elbows and close my eyes as she reads of celestial bodies made of imperishable aether, impervious and flawless as they transcribe circles around our earth.
Whether Aristotle believed that the stars hold sway over our human hearts, I am still not sure, but Elizabeth seems to think they do.
“Do they not sound so wondrous, his crystal spheres and wandering stars?” she muses as we sprawl together over the bearskin in front of her fireplace. “Charting the courses that our own souls strive to follow. Stitching us together from above, determining our destinies.” She casts a half smile at me, faint and dreamy. “Do we not feel somehow fated, you and I?”
“Is that why you called me your cousin, to your lord husband?” I ask her, my cheeks burning with the presumption of saying so aloud. “Because you feel that we are—destined to be close?”
“It’s because I don’t want him touching you, should he have a mind to do so,” she replies sharply, reaching out to trace the curve of my fire-flushed cheek. Nothing pleases her more than the thinness of my skin, how readily it reveals the activity beneath. “He thinks all our servants belong to him, to do with as he pleases. And yes—also because it feels true, does it not? You feel like my blood already, perhaps like a sister. My newfound kin, as if our hearts have yearned for each other long before we met.”
“I have a sister as well,” I tell her. “But what I feel for her is not the same.”
“No?” she asks indulgently. “And what do you feel for her?”
I think on it for a moment, resting my chin on my fist. “We are so similar that sometimes looking at her feels like peering into a mirror. Just as it is with you and Gabor, perhaps. She feels like my own younger self. More tender, sweeter, mostly untouched by the world’s cruelties. And when I look at her . . . the urge to protect her trumps all else.”
“Is she truly so like you, then?” Elizabeth marvels. “It seems improbable for two of you to grace this world.”
“She is her own person, of course. Quieter than me, and more biddable, always eager to please. I call her my dandelion.” A smile skates across my lips as I consider Klara, all her hidden facets. “But she’s more mischievous as well. She plays such clever tricks on our three brothers, confounding them absolutely, and they are never any the wiser for it. They do not even think to look to her when searching for the culprit, instead feuding among themselves.”
“I’m sure you could pull a trick or two yourself,” Elizabeth teases, dimpling at me. “Had you a mind.”
“A mind, and a need,” I add. “I’m not given to such mischief for the sheer fun of it, as she is.”
“Well, she sounds glorious,” my companion pronounces, reaching out to trace the slope of my nose with a light fingertip. “And if you prize her so highly, I hope to meet her one day.”