The Ouroboros Cycle, Book One. G.D. Falksen

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СКАЧАТЬ thoughts exactly,” the hussar said, taking her hand gently in his and bowing over it. “I am Korbinian Alexander Albrecht Freiherr von Fuchsburg. And I am at your service.”

      Babette felt her heart pounding in her chest. It was all she could manage to keep breathing properly as Korbinian held her hand. The sudden excitement was intolerable, though far from unpleasant. But doubtless she looked a complete fool.

      “I am called Babette,” she said, keeping her chin up and her expression controlled.

      “Surely you have a family name?” Korbinian asked.

      He was joking, of course. How could he not know that she was the granddaughter of William Varanus? She was the shortest woman in the room. Everyone knew her by sight, and most of them avoided her for it.

      Babette smiled pleasantly, prepared to play his game. “Babette shall suffice for now, sir. How can I give you my family’s name? Surely that is the job of a third party, when we are finally introduced properly.”

      A slow smile crept across Korbinian’s face as well, and he bowed his head.

      “Of course you are right,” he said. “Babette is more than sufficient for our purposes.”

      He spoke as if he assumed it was a pseudonym. Well, no matter.

      “It is delightful to meet you, Baron von Fuchsburg,” Babette said.

      “For me also, it is delightful,” Korbinian said.

      “Fuchsburg?” Babette asked, trying to remember her German geography. “On the Rhine?”

      Korbinian smiled and nodded.

      “That is the one.”

      “What brings you to Normandy?”

      “I am pursuing my baronial duties,” Korbinian said, his pale gray eyes twinkling. “I am here to find a wife. Or so my family has instructed me.”

      “How unromantic,” Babette said. “To find a lover would be understandable, but a wife? Surely you have wives aplenty east of the Rhine.”

      Korbinian grinned savagely and looked into Babette’s eyes, making her feel warm and heady with the intensity of his gaze.

      “The wise man does not seek a lover among the French nor a wife among the Russians. Austria suffices for both.”

      “Personal motto?” Babette asked.

      “Family proverb,” Korbinian said. “Though having seen the Austrians fight in Italy not long ago, I have been given cause to doubt it.”

      Babette regarded him dubiously and asked, “Does your family have many proverbs of a similar nature?”

      It would explain a great deal.

      “Many,” Korbinian said. “And worse. You may have heard rumors about us.”

      He said this as if it were something to be proud of. Babette made a note of it.

      “I am beginning to think I ought to have,” she replied, disappointed that she had not. Clearly Father was keeping choice bits of international gossip from her. While she despised local gossip as boring and irrelevant, on the scale of nations, it made politics and diplomacy much more understandable.

      “Tell me, Baron,” she continued, placing her fan in her lap and sitting up as tall as she could. “Is your family very scandalous?”

      “Very,” Korbinian said.

      “Well, if you are going to be scandalous, I hope you have the good sense to make it something interesting. Otherwise it would be a waste of everyone’s very important time.”

      Korbinian tilted his head and made a great show of being deep in thought for a few moments.

      At length he said, “We eat meat during Lent.”

      “Well that is of no great importance,” Babette said. “So does my family, and so do many of our neighbors.”

      “We are Catholic,” Korbinian said, no doubt referencing the holy fast.

      Babette ignored his meaning.

      “That is a fault easily forgiven,” she said. “I am as well, as is my father. My grandfather is not, of course, but he is English and therefore above reproach. Most of the fine people assembled here tonight are Catholic, at least in name, as is the Pope himself, who would never be foolish enough to follow a scandalous religion.”

      Babette snapped her fan open and began cooling herself in triumph. “So as you can see, Catholicism does not suffice as scandal. Please try again.”

      Korbinian drew himself up and took a deep breath, fighting to conceal a smile.

      “We were very nearly excommunicated once,” he said proudly.

      Babette’s ears perked up. That was interesting.

      “On what grounds?”

      “For opening our university to women,” Korbinian said.

      Now that was very interesting.…

      “Why would you do such a thing?” Babette asked.

      Korbinian shrugged.

      “It was during the Thirty Years’ War,” he said. “All the men were out fighting.”

      “That sounds most unseemly,” Babette said. “Most unseemly indeed.”

      It also sounded rather promising.

      “You needn’t worry,” Korbinian said. “There was nothing improprietous about it. The women were all relatives, and they all dressed as men while on the university grounds. The sanctity of knowledge was preserved, and the scandal was kept in the family.”

      “And do they dress as men still?” Babette asked.

      “Often, yes. It’s no longer required, but it’s all in good fun isn’t it?”

      Babette countered with a repeat of the question: “Is it?” She continued, “Still, that seems hardly decent grounds for excommunication.”

      “It is slightly more complicated than that,” Korbinian said. “An Italian cousin who attended the University of Fuchsburg to study divinity apparently went to Rome and passed herself off as a man for many years. She successfully became a cardinal and was very nearly elected Pope. She would have succeeded as well, had she not been found out.”

      “The Church took exception?” Babette was not surprised.

      “The Pope took exception. She would have beaten him for possession of the Holy See.”

      Babette covered her mouth with the fan to conceal a titter of laughter.

      “But surely that is a thing of the past,” she said. “And a scandal of the past is СКАЧАТЬ