Chapter 16 Left Behind
Sixteen
Left Behind
News buzzed in Dorotèa’s ears when she allowed herself to pursue indulgences at the Orensanz mansion.
Oste occupying her thoughts had been nothing new, but everything else in her mind had been the dead girls.
When she heard an arrest had been made and that the viguerie was confident in it, well—she could justify a little light reading.
Light… doing.
Because if the heavens had dared to send down such a man and make him hers, then she was going to cherish him. Picturing him gave her the same rattling in her psyche and itch in her hands that she felt before a fight. Loving him was a call to war.
Good men ought to have good things.
So Dorotèa primly followed the maidservant to Eflamm’s studio, knocked, and entered.
She closed the door behind her, chin raised, then finally deigned to pull out a familiar tome from her oversized bag and waltz forward with it.
The famed artist peeked out from behind a large canvas; his curls hung messily in tandem with his paint-stained clothes and paintbrush so well-loved it looked like a moldy stick.
Eflamm blinked across and didn’t say a word.
Jeanne in the corner with little Lucie on her lap beat them all to that.
“You know, love,” Jeanne began, “I’ve heard quite the rumor…”
There was a lot Dorotèa felt she could say about that. Jeanne bringing attention to gossip felt like a long-winded joke, considering how astutely her daughter matched the painter on the other side of the room. It was a good thing Aix was full of lawyers who liked Orensanz money.
She responded with a dainty shrug, then dodged the multitudes of props and pigment jars on the floor to get to the side table he had set by his easel.
It was a wonder nobody had ever broken their neck in there; it was a veritable plain of creative caltrops.
Even so, his inventions and the messes that came with had not always left people unscathed.
Painting could be such a dangerous profession.
Dorotèa gently nudged a few jars to the side, then set On Liberation in the Bedroom down on the stained wooden table. There, she flipped it open to none other than page fourteen and jammed her finger down on the illustration. Eflamm flinched.
“I would like to hire you to make this,” Dorotèa hummed.
“What’s that?” Jeanne called out. “What’s she got there?”
“She has a book, Mama!” said Lucie. “Let me see…”
“Does she?” Jeanne murmured, then craned her neck to look at its contents. When her eyes landed on it, recognition lit up her features, and she clamped her hands over Lucie’s ears. “Ah, that’s a book for big girls, my sweet.”
Eflamm stared at the page, entranced. Dorotèa put her hands on the table and leaned forward.
“What will it cost?” she asked.
He coughed and looked back up. “This is definitely on the house.”
Jeanne, impatiently managing her distance from them with her wriggling child, called out in annoyance. “What is?”
“A number that follows thirteen,” said Eflamm.
Jeanne gasped. “But then—that could mean a number of things.” She let Lucie go, then rose, clumsily, to her feet.
Her daughter dashed after the book, but Eflamm had it closed and raised over his head before any damage could be done.
“Dorotèa! Tèa, Tèa, is it true? Are you…? Is he…? We heard that… ah…”
Dorotèa met her halfway. She stepped over a set of angel wings, then took Jeanne by the shoulders. Brown eyes gazed back, searching her face for the confirmation she seemed after.
“Yes,” Dorotèa affirmed. Her expression was severe, brow so taut she felt she was conjuring permanent wrinkles. “I need all the advice I can get, and your help with something else.”
“That’s one of the best slews of words I’ve ever heard in my life,” she breathed. “What’s your ‘something else’?”
“I’d like to teach other girls self-defense.”
“I love hearing you talk.”
“I have no idea how this would work.”
“It’s a good thing you know the best planner in Saint-Mitre.”
Eflamm hobbled over to them. He’d dropped the book and replaced it with Lucie, who was slung over his shoulder like a sack of turnips. She giggled and kicked out her feet, but he caught one and held her balanced with it.
“Is this one eligible?” Eflamm huffed. “You could turn her into the biggest scrapper in Aix-en-Provence.”
Jeanne and Dorotèa laughed and beamed. They kissed Lucie’s head, the little girl’s amusement so infectious that, at least, for that moment, the world was lovely and righteous in full.
It was late evening by the time Dorotèa returned to her family home in the Bourg.
Family was perhaps an exaggeration, though.
Her father resided there with two servants, but her brothers had since moved out.
The home had too much space for four, and when the store and smith weren’t open and running, any sound echoed dramatically from inside the Aixois stone.
There was no laughter. No myriads of daily accounts.
Dorotèa often thought her father ought to have remarried, if only to fill the silence.
She tracked through the kitchen. A candle was burning, and the fire had a few hot coals.
She found it peculiar for this hour, and paused, hesitant, by the dining table.
Her momentary delay allowed for her to blink the dim lighting better into focus and see, in a chair, her father.
Maistre Galoup’s brown hair had only gone half grey, but his hands and face bore every last mark of his trade—weathered, calloused, and dignified even when draped in night clothes.
He could never wear finery or lift his chin without exposing the craft that earned that privilege for him.
He’d once told her she had complete control of how much work she could put in, and she knew that, by choice, he put in too much.
They had that in common.
“Father?” Dorotèa asked slowly.
The master swordsmith set down the hot tea he’d been nursing, then leaned back in his chair. He gestured at the one across from him. Dorotèa loathed the idea of making herself comfortable right then—her skin prickled with a sense of foreboding—but did as directed.
“I was a little surprised to find the Lézins at my door today asking about a marriage,” Maistre Galoup stated in his typical gravely nonchalance.
“I suppose that might be surprising,” Dorotèa admitted, and decided then and there that she wouldn’t hold her tongue. Her father raised her as a sharpened edge; he had no business being shocked when she cut. “I grant that you’ve not remembered that I should marry for some time.”
The swordsmith’s eyes darted up, and he then folded his hands and set his chin on them. “Haven’t I?”
“I’m sure I’d have been annoyed with some of the gentlemen you’d have picked out,” Dorotèa continued right along, “but at least it would have been typical. You’ve done well for yourself. I’m sure I have a suitable dowry. I could have been desirable. A real bourgeoisie catch.”
His expression didn’t change. “You do.”
“That’s good,” she snapped. “You did at least one proper thing.”
“You’re angry.”
“Very much so.” Her voice carried with hot air that could have been poison.
“I’ve come home and told you about all my friends, and Oste most of all, and it…
it surprises you. I’ve admired him, and worked for him, and bring up all the gossip about marriages, and you…
none of it occurs to you until it’s on your lap.
I’m a year from my majority and you’ve never brought up marriage.
You’ve never asked if I’ve loved someone.
I’d have understood what was happening, maybe, if you had. ”
“You love him?”
“Deeply,” Dorotèa bit out, “so don’t you dare act like you’re weighing every option. Don’t you dare start giving a damn now. You have no right to consider a rejection.”
Maistre Galoup removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. “Don’t stop now, Tèa.”
She gritted her teeth and slapped her palms onto the table.
“You told me… you told me the day you put a rapier in my hand to pretend I was your son in that room. I think you thought you were trying to tell me that I was strong, but you did the opposite. You never treated me like a daughter, and when Mother passed, boudiou, it was even worse. Madame Nicaise had to tell me what the blood on my sheets was, and the manners you never bothered to teach. You… You let me walk the streets alone. Do everything alone. Do you know how horrified that’s made some people?
I could’ve—I never became a catch! I was irregular. ”
“You can protect yourself.”
“That’s it. There it is. You taught me how to be a duelist, and nothing else.”
He leaned forward. “I didn’t want anyone to be able to hurt you—”
“It’s much too late for that. You crippled me with cluelessness.”
“I gave you a tool. You were born with—”
“The plight of being a girl?” she blinked back tears.
“You acted like every part of me that made me a woman was… wrong, or weak. I was a victim to you ever since you married Mother and she birthed me. Father—Father, I wish you’d told me in that room that daughters could learn how to use a sword, too. I wish that—”
Dorotèa choked when she felt someone touch her. She looked wildly over her shoulder and found that her father had risen and crouched down next to her. He squeezed her hand while she used her other to rub at her furious tears, but as soon as she could see again, Dorotèa tore away.
“I love being a woman,” she wept. “Any resentment I carried was because of you.” Her choked out sobs were ugly and sharp, and her nails dug into her dress and skin as she wrapped herself up in a furious embrace.
Her father didn’t move to try and touch her again.
“You acted like I couldn’t be a daughter and also strong.
You cheated me. I could always have been both.
I’d not have felt so dirty. I’d have loved myself, and loved him sooner. ”
“I’m sorry,” her father uttered. “I am.”
“It took me so long to… to see what… what…”
“Everything I’ve done has come from a place of love, Tèa.”
Dorotèa scowled. “Love? What does convincing me of my supposed inferiority have to do with love? Did you hope I’d not want to be as a lady ought?”
Maistre Galoup’s right brow twitched. His hands, rejected by his daughter, wrung together in front of him. Dorotèa caught his stuttering of composure, and, ruthless as she was and felt with Conseiller Clau, rose to her feet and glowered his way.
“I’m foolish, but not a fool,” she whispered with a poison-soaked tongue.
“That was your cowardly hope, wasn’t it?
Because I was old enough to see how you grieved when Mother died giving birth to that little girl.
I saw your disgust. How fragile you must have thought her and me then, and not strong for—”
Her father grabbed her wrists and pinned them together. Dorotèa stilled her tongue immediately, and found herself made sedate by the strength of his hold exuded without cruel pinches of pain. She knew how easily he could hurt her, or anyone.
“She was my wife, and you are my daughter.” Maistre Galoup’s voice was level. She’d never heard him shout or cry. “Your distinctions come with love.”
“You hate her,” Dorotèa shot back. “You hate what I am.”
“I hate that she died.”
She continued to glare. “The way she died.” Her father made no correction, so Dorotèa set her jaw and continued. “Do I disappoint you?”
Maistre Galoup shook his head and released her wrists, which fell limply at her sides. “No. You’re my flesh and blood. You’re a fine girl, and one I’m proud of, in spite of things.”
In spite of my sex.
“I needed Mother. I miss her so much,” Dorotèa shuddered.
“I really needed her too.”
“I know. It shows.”
“She was eager for you to marry even when you were young, you know.”
The thought of Oste ripped her heart open anew, and she buried her face in her hands. “Don’t ruin this for me, Father. Let me have this.”
“Silly girl,” he sighed, then tried again to embrace her.
Dorotèa bristled, stiff as a board, but allowed it.
How wretched it was, she thought, that her first instinct was to be repulsed by her parent’s caress.
“I was inclined to agree to it anyway; they’re a good family, and I’ve known that boy long enough to trust him with you, if your stint didn’t make that obvious. ”
She blinked up at him. “You… You’ll agree?”
“As long as you do.”
“I want this.” Dorotèa wiped her eyes and quieted.
“Do…” Maistre Galoup started, then rubbed his forehead. “Can you give me a chance to do this thing right? God knows a girl should have a decent wedding.”
“Yes,” breathed Dorotèa. She was surprised how quickly she gave this concession. “But I’m not going to bite my tongue, Father. I know some fault is mine; I seldom voiced what I wanted for myself. I did not challenge you.”
Her father stepped back from her. “Then I failed in what I hoped to teach you.”
“Maybe.” She looked down at the floor. Nicaise kept it polished. “Maybe the lesson just took me until now to master.”
“Even masters are still students.”
“I am always learning,” Dorotèa hummed. She offered the statement in a succinct impression of the first time her father said it to her in the empty training room. “That lesson I remember.”
“It was one of the first.” They lingered in silence for a long time after that. It was only after the candle flickered and died that Maistre Galoup spoke again. “Your mother would be so happy for you, Dorotèa.”
But Dorotèa didn’t know how to answer that, so they drifted in place for a little longer until they made off to bed, still impossibly far apart.