Blood Spirits by Sherwood Smith Page B

with expectation, so I said, “You didn’t have one before?”
    Madam Waleska’s old father, who lived at the inn, said, “The palace did. We in service could stand in the gallery, but before the war, the city’s only public spaces were the cathedral and the temple.”
    â€œNow Riev will have its opera house, where anyone can go,” a younger woman put in.
    An older one added in an undertone, “If they can get chairs.”
    There were some significant looks exchanged. “You must hear the children’s choir at midnight mass,” the dark-haired grandmother said, and the subject of the unfinished opera house was closed. “Children from the mountains as well as the valley are chosen.”
    â€œOh, you must hear the concert at the music school on New Year’s Eve.”
    â€œYou must have the special cheesecake at Branduska’s Bakery . . .”
    â€œ. . . the Roman church on the mountain . . .”
    â€œYou must visit the Capuchins. They sell the best zhoumnyar in the . . .”
    â€œ. . . old ruined Ysvorod castle, where they held off the Swedes all winter in sixteen thirty—”
    â€œâ€”before we left the Polish kingdom and had to make our treaty with the Hapsburgs,” the grandfather said, with as much sorrow as if it had happened three months ago and not three centuries.
    The suggestions came so fast they overlapped.
    I went to get my food, and they squeezed up, freeing a space between the black-haired boy and a solid woman Mom’s age whose voice was even deeper than Madam’s.
    The suggestions were still coming: this shop, those glass windows at Something House, the catacombs near the ancient mine, the new dam.
    Finally the woman to my right said politely. “Did you hear about the death of Madam Statthalter from the radio? The news was broadcast all the way to Paris?”
    They still think I grew up in France . When I’d first arrived at the inn, I’d signed the register as Mademoiselle Atelier—the name I’d grown up believing was my mother’s maiden name. These people seemed to have accepted that as an incognito.
    I was saved from having to answer by the appearance of Theresa, the youngest Waleska girl, a coltish, sober-faced teen who had been of enormous help to me during summer. She wore a skirt of robin’s egg blue, a blouse embroidered with holly leaves and buds, and a silk rose tucked into one of her dark braids. I wondered if this was Dobreni teen fashion.
    She gave me a happy smile. “We have been decorating the cathedral for tonight. Will you come to the midnight mass?”
    â€œI’m invited to a gathering tonight.”
    â€œYes, the Ridotski wreath gathering. Everyone knows about that. But they will end by eleven, so that those who wish may attend mass,” Theresa said.
    Attending a church service was not my idea of fun, nor did I see how it would help anyone, but I couldn’t say no to that earnest face.
    My hesitation prompted them into speech again—as, and all the while the black-haired boy twiddled his fingers, shifted one bony shoulder then the other, and shuffled his feet under the chair. When his elders let him get a word in, he spoke in a voice still breaking, “Why did you leave Dobrenica, Mademoiselle?”
    The man across from him beetled his brows. The woman to my right made a scandalized noise. But they all waited for me to answer.
    â€œThe only thing I knew before my first visit was that Aurelia von Mecklundburg was to marry the Statthalter. For the Blessing.”
    Chins lifted, eyes flicked, little stirrings and murmurs indicated that the word Blessing had a lot of meaning, if not power.
    â€œOnce I met Aurelia, I figured it was better if I went away. I thought it wasn’t good if there were two of us here.”
    â€œWill you stay, now?” the oldest grandmother asked.
    â€œIf it’s the right thing to do. I’m not sure about