He couldn’t come because the first snow had fallen, and his mechanical chair didn’t like to climb the slippery hill. Tess didn’t like it much, either. She hired a young porter with a sledge to haul her props and pictures across town, and she skipped alongside, full of giddiness, kicking clods of snow with her boots.
Unlike St. Bert’s, the Ninysh Academy was not a repurposed church but had been built expressly for the containment of thinkers and their experiments. It boasted a grand odeon and ballroom, laboratories with gleaming soapstone countertops, a library, a menagerie, a cafetorium (providing sustenance for erudite brains), and a smaller odeon for debates (the Argumenterion, some called it, although this was a silly name). A massive dome, pure rationality made manifest in stone, crowned the building. Each of the entrance steps had a scientific virtue inlaid in contrasting marble: REASON, SKEPTICISM, EMPIRICISM, DILIGENCE. They felt like admonitions underfoot; indeed, one could hardly step on such portentous nouns without feeling wholly inadequate.
Tess hesitated at the steps, as had many sensitive souls before, gauging her worthiness to ascend. She squeezed herself to one side and climbed without tripping over any of the words.
With Josquin’s help, she’d prepared drawings and diagrams on large canvases, visible from the back of the amphitheater: a rendition of the map she’d sent to Master Pashfloria, a painting that tried to capture how Anathuthia had glowed in the dark, and a diagram of the chamber complete with made-up dimensions (it might have been a mile deep, mightn’t it? This seemed plausible to Tess, who’d missed any lectures on the importance of accurate measurement and instrumentation). She’d brought the last of the small scales, of course, and a hanging her fellow embroiderers had made for her, depicting the pattern of Anathuthia’s skin in gaudy colors.
Having never given a formal speech before, she’d written it all out and memorized it. She’d taken a few of Josquin’s suggestions to heart, omitting not just Pathka but Frai Moldi and anything that didn’t make it sound like she’d been single-minded in her search for the serpent. It made the story more sharply focused, even if it wasn’t as varied, deep, and true.
Later, Tess couldn’t recall the speech itself, only how her heart palpitated and her armpits grew clammy. Her voice began shakily, then strengthened. She remembered faces in the front row, old philosophers with pointed goatlike beards, an older woman in a diamond-patterned gown that reminded her of scales. She remembered how everyone held their breath at one point, and how the candles of the great chandelier flickered when they collectively exhaled.
She was a trickster-explorer in this story, a latter-day Dozerius hunting the beast with nothing but her native resourcefulness and guile. She’d tracked it across Goredd, deducing correctly that certain large sinkholes might be its handiwork. She’d disguised herself as a road worker to further her research, and met a brilliant geologist who’d given her a missing piece of the puzzle (she was vague about this piece, but definitely said “Nicolas” several times, in hopes of increasing his reputation at the Academy; she’d forgotten that he scorned the institution).
Only when it came time to describe the serpent did she falter, realizing that the moment was still deeply personal even without Moldi, even as Tes’puco. Certainly her chief impression—that she was nothing, and the comfort that had brought her—should have been unutterable at such a philosophical gathering. Her conclusion was the opposite of science, was speculative and subjective and unproved.
Still, she’d told the story with such vigor and enthusiasm to this point that her audience seemed not to mind that she was suddenly at a loss for words. Many had clapped hands to their hearts, moved by her passion. They were with her; they waited.
“There I found it,” Tess said, her voice thick and overawed. “Under the library of Santi Prudia Monastery. And I fell upon my knees and wept.”
The amphitheater erupted into earth-shaking applause.
* * *
She could tell a compelling story, anyway. Only afterward, when the masters of the Academy came to shake hands and congratulate her, when they mentioned her in the same sentence as the luminaries of Ninysh exploration, Nemadeaux and Captain Foille, did it begin to sink in that they’d believed her. Many academics had been skeptical that the southern voyages (such as the one taken by Honorary Master Margarethe, Countess Mardou) would prove fruitful. Now they chattered excitedly. Anathuthia was only the beginning. There were reportedly seven of these creatures, and Ninys could be first to uncover them all.
“Its healing powers alone make it the greatest discovery of our lifetimes, perhaps of the century,” said Master Pashfloria. “Are you excited by the implications, Doctor?”
The doctor he was addressing may have been a saar, because he merely raised an eyebrow. “It remains to be seen—and tested.”
“If we could harness it in some way,” an excitable scholar interjected, “we could—”
“Oh, um. No,” said Tess with some concern. “It’s not the sort of thing one harnesses, gentlemen. It’s a force of nature. One might more easily harness the moon.”
Everyone chuckled at this and let the matter drop.
Only one of the masters, a young pinch-faced fellow called Emmanuele, refused to credit Tess’s story. “Surely we don’t believe this Goreddi? He’s playing us for fools. What kind of name is Tes’puco for a man of science? I smell a fraud, and I’m going to prove it.”
“Do your worst,” said Tess cockily. “The monks of Santi Prudia can corroborate my story. Ask for Frai Moldi or Pater Livian, the abbot. They’ll tell you.”
The abbot might be angry that she’d told, but this wasn’t his secret to keep anymore. She thought Moldi would understand.
“I may do just that,” sneered Emmanuele. He stalked off, pointed elbows jabbing the air.
It was dark by the time Tess went home. She left her illustrations behind, which was just as well. No porter could have kept up with her dancing and cavorting back to Gaida’s.
They’d believed her, felt with her. She could hardly believe it herself.
Tess let herself in and would’ve headed upstairs, if not for the light under Josquin’s door. He was probably reading or writing, but she knocked to see if he needed anything.
She opened the door a crack. He lay in bed, reading by lamplight. “There you are,” he said, looking up from his book. She took that as an invitation to come in. “How was it?”
“Less terrifying than I’d feared,” said Tess, closing the door behind her. She removed his fine doublet and hung it on a low peg near the desk. “Their polar expeditions have come up empty, so I’m the first explorer to find one, Josquin. The very first.” She took a comical bow.
“That must be gratifying,” he said, holding a hand out to her.
She sat beside him on the bed. He wriggled closer to the wall to make room for her. Impulsively, Tess lay beside him on top of the coverlet, her head on his pillow, the way she used to lie beside Jeanne for midnight conferences.
The way she’d cheekily lain down beside Will…It was a position with a mixed history.
She turned to look at Josquin directly, and he was so close. The disarming blue eyes, the tender mouth, the silly red chin beard. She rolled onto her side, touched his cheek, and kissed his forehead. He didn’t recoil from her touch or the kiss, so she went for his mouth next and found it a welcoming harbor.
Reality exceeded all dreams. She felt illuminated.
“I see,” said Josquin when she paused to catch her breath. “It’s like that, is it?”
She answered with more kisses. He smiled against her demanding mouth. “Tess,” he said mushily, then turned his face aside so he might speak: “What are you asking of me, dear?”
She stopped her onslaught and rested her forehead against his. “You know.”
“Yes, but do you?” He took her face in his hands and made her look him in the eye.