The lizard opened its frills and sang to her, and she sang a tiny whispered song in return as it flew out into the tree once more. There were no longer any scrutators to penalize noble women for singing, though it would probably take some time before noble women were comfortable doing so. Or comfortable not being noble, which might come harder.
Mrs. Blessingham herself had not been easy to convince. Explain though Genevieve would, the schoolmistress had found it difficult to understand all that had happened and even more difficult to determine what should be done about it now. First, of course, people had to be informed. After much discussion, it had been decided to hold a conference for all the schoolmistresses on Haven, so that each schoolmistress might then go back to her own students and to those who had been her students, and to their mothers.
“Though it will take far too long for all of them to get here,” Mrs. Blessingham had fretted.
Genevieve had already planned for it. “Aufors has offered to help in all possible ways, and I’ve sent word to Langmarsh, asking him to commandeer the Lord Paramount’s airships. He can forge a letter from the Marshal. No one knows yet that the Marshal’s dead. If they come by air, the schoolmistresses can all be here in a few days.”
“I suppose no one is in any condition to gainsay the Marshal,” Mrs. Blessingham had said, a little bitterly. “Not the Lord Paramount, who has simply disappeared. Not the Tribunal, for better than half the members have been slaughtered by mobs of commoners, and all the rest are dying for lack of … what you told me of. Even younger men have been killed, men who’ve lost . . . well,sacrificed a first or second wife. The commons are being quite ruthless in rooting them out, and the ones the commons haven’t slaughtered, the machines have!”
“You sound disapproving.”
“Oh, Genevieve, no, no. How could I disapprove? It’s just, my world is upside down, too. Without a nobility, what need for places like this school? What need for women like me? Ah?”
“There will always be a need for women like you,” Genevieve had told her, honestly. “No matter what happens.”
The first of the schoolmistresses had arrived last evening. By tomorrow or the next day, they would all be here. Though it was still very early in the morning, Genevieve dressed herself and went down to Mrs. Blessingham’s office.
“I’ve come to ask a favor,” she said. “Of course, my dear.”
“Who was my real father?”
“Oh, Genevieve, why do you imagine I would know . . .”
“Don’t put me off. You were Mother’s friend, and if anyone knows, you do.”
Mrs. Blessingham fretted. “I swore never to tell, but well, it doesn’t matter now, does it? He was a commoner. A lovely man. A bit of a poet, a bit of singer, an artist in fabrics. He had a weaving shop here in Avanto. When the Marshal married your mother and took her to Langmarsh House, he sold his shop and moved into Vena, to be near her.”
She sighed, remembering. “After you were born, she gave him up, for duty’s sake. For the sake of her soul. He stayed in Vena, just in case she should ever need him.” “Is he still alive?”
“I have no idea,” she replied, honestly. “After your mother died, he moved away.”
“If he is alive, I will find him,” she said, tears in her eyes. Mrs. Blessingham said, “It’s odd you should bring this up this morning, for last night I had the thought that many of the women of Zenobia’s line must have had lovers. If they had to be married to nobility, as your mother was, how else could they have stayed sane?”
“So I am a commoner, really.”
“If it matters now.”
“It does matter to me. I have always hated the idea of being a Marchioness or Duchess by accident of birth. Now that I know my birth was no accident . . . Well, say that I am happier knowing it.”
Her happiness was short-lived. That evening, as she was readying herself for bed, her door was thrust open, and Glorieta came storming in.