“We have confused my mother,” said Josquin, pulling Tess nearer until she lost her balance and ended up in his lap. “Yes, the chair can hold us both,” he added, when she looked down at the iron arachnid legs, perturbed.
“This rain should melt the snow by tomorrow,” said Tess, adjusting her backside. “Come with me to the gala.”
“In my second-best doublet?” said Josquin teasingly.
“Ah, but you’re the better-looking man, so it’s only fair,” said Tess.
The next evening found them both climbing the hill to the Academy.
The night was blustery and wet, but the halls of knowledge were full of warmth and light. Luminaries of Segoshi society—nobles, socialites, intellectuals, financiers—had come to toast the mysterious, dashing, and romantic Tes’puco and his important discovery.
Josquin spotted twenty people he knew almost immediately. He set to socializing, leaving Tess to her own devices, and ended up near the hearth, talking earnestly to a pale, slender woman with graypox scars on her cheeks and hands. Tess smiled a little; Will would never have spoken to someone who looked like that.
Tess squared her shoulders and accepted praise from all quarters. Basked in it. Glowed with it. If it had been warm water, she’d have bathed in it; if it had been wine, she’d have grown embarrassingly drunk.
In fact, this newfound fame was not so different from wine. As much as she enjoyed praise and grew heady with it, it was never enough. There was some chasm in her heart demanding to be filled, but filling it with praise was like dumping gravel down Anathuthia’s sinkhole; the more they poured in, the clearer it became that praise was unequal to the task. Tess found herself approaching clusters of people, impatient for them to realize who she was and applaud her for it. She would hint appallingly—“You’ve heard about my discovery, I’m sure”—and await her reward like a beggar, hand held out.
She didn’t like seeing herself do this, and yet she seemed unable to stop.
If someone called her discovery remarkable, she fretted that they hadn’t said stupendous. If stupendous, why not earthshaking or paradigm-shifting? A dozen people might hang upon her every word as she told the story again, but if a single one turned away, her heart followed and she couldn’t bear it. She found herself pursuing one fellow, crying, “Am I boring you, sir?”
The man, a magistrate, florid-cheeked and wearing a ruff, looked boggled. “Forgive me, Master Tes’puco. Only I wanted some pudding, and I’ve already heard your story twice.”
Tess, embarrassed, went back for more sweets herself.
She found her mind wandering after that. What she really wanted, she began to feel, was to be back in that cavern, gazing upon Anathuthia once more. That moment had meant something; all this was a pale shadow. The praise of the world could not compare.
The torte turned bitter in her mouth, and she set it aside. She was done here. She would say her goodbyes to the masters of the Academy, find Josquin, and go.
She was approaching Master Pashfloria when a shout froze her in her tracks. “Charlatan!”
Tess turned to see who was speaking. A space had opened up in the crowd, and there, at the far end of the hall, stood Emmanuele, who’d doubted her story before. “Tes’puco, you fraud, I accuse you!” he cried for everyone to hear. “You are not who you claim to be. I followed him home last time, Masters. He lives with a seamstress in Crewel Ramble.”
“You might benefit from a mistress yourself, ’Manuele,” someone cried.
Everyone laughed, and the young man turned crimson. Tess’s heart banged against her ribs. “What are you accusing me of?” she asked. “Living among embroiderers is not a crime.”
“You are the embroiderer!” cried Emmanuele, triumphant. “In more than one sense of the word. Tes’puco is a seamstress, gentlemen, and she has embroidered this tale to fool us.”
Tess felt stripped bare, as if everyone were staring through her clothes. “I—I confess my name is not Tes’puco,” she stammered. She felt Josquin’s eyes upon her. “But you must have assumed that? Stupid-head? It had to be a nickname.” No one spoke; the room had gone stony and cold. Tess’s voice barely filled the emptiness: “I work as an embroiderer because I need to earn my keep. And I am a woman. Thank Heaven your finest scholar solved that mystery.”
Masters, dignitaries, people of quality were glaring at her. “What difference does this trivia make?” Tess pleaded.
“Ah, but we must consider seriously,” said Master Pashfloria, rising upon the dais. “A master of the Academy, even an honorary one, must exemplify the philosophical virtues in every endeavor, and the greatest of these is truth.”
“The rest of my story is true,” cried Tess, fury finding foothold in her heart.
“We don’t even know your real name,” said Pashfloria, ignoring her question and making a gesture that apparently called forth the muscle. Two guards approached Tess from the back of the room. “How can we trust anything you say? Gentlemen, I should never have let things get this far without looking into this ne’er-do-well’s background.”
“The Monastery of Santi Prudia!” Tess cried, trying to shake off the guards. She could only free herself from one at a time. “Frai Moldi and the abbot will tell you I was there!”
“I’ve spoken to Frai Moldi via thnik,” said Emmanuele, eyes glinting as he revealed this final triumph. “He was quite clear that a fellow monk, one Brother Jacomo, was there when the monastery collapsed, not an impostor calling herself Tes’puco. Frai Moldi also denied the existence of any such serpent. Master Pashfloria, I think more research is warranted, and I would like to offer up my substantial expertise—”
The guards had been pulling Tess’s arms; she stopped resisting and let them lead her outside. She couldn’t make sense of any of this. Nothing Emmanuele had said should have been enough to get her thrown out of the Academy, not unless Master Pashfloria simply wanted an excuse to publicly discredit her.
Of course he did. He wanted someone to go after the serpent and “harness” it, whatever that was supposed to mean. If Tess objected to this plan, no one would credit her now. It was tidier this way.
For all the good it would do them. There was surely no harnessing Anathuthia.
Tess waited at the bottom of the steps—not daring to stand upon the scientific virtues—for Josquin to come clanking out after her. His chair was very slow on stairs.
“I’m not going to say I told you so,” he began.
Tess raised her shoulders and let them drop despairingly. “You cannot imagine how often I’ve been told so. So, so, so. And still I pigheadedly do things my own way.”
The rain was mixed with snow. Tess stomped down the hill, slowly for Josquin’s sake, her arm linked through his. She grew damper and colder as the wet soaked through every part of her (except her feet, thanks to the miracle of good boots).
“I probably wouldn’t have listened to me, either,” said Josquin as they neared home. “There are lessons we can only learn by falling. But, Tes’puco, I do think Tess Dombegh is good enough to be the hero of her own story, for what it’s worth.”
Good enough. He’d inadvertently chosen exactly the right words. “Tess was a mess,” she said, sleet beading on her lashes. “I haven’t wanted to be Tess since I left home. Nine months.”
Nine months, she suddenly realized, was as good a time as any to be born.
They were shivering when they arrived home. Tess followed Josquin to his room, expecting to help him with his bath as usual, but he beat her to the boiler and, even though it was hard for him to maneuver behind it, he stoked the fire.
“Er,” said Tess, in some confusion. “I would have done that.”
“You’re so cold your lips are purple,” said Josquin, “and you’ve had a terrible night. I think it’s your turn for the bath. I can wait out in the kitchen. Or not.”
She felt too much; her heart seemed ready to burst. “Stay,” she said.