I followed him, ignoring the offer of his arm. Even if I wasn’t still pissed at him for leading me into an ambush, I just didn’t want to feel his Mark that close to mine.
I wasn’t exactly sure of the direction, but I was pretty sure we were going up and forward. The hallways became progressively more elaborate in their decoration. He led us to another grand staircase that, like the entryway that had greeted me to the airship, appeared to be carved marble. This time I had a better look at it, and when I touched the molded banister, I realized the marble was simply a very good faux-finish paint job over a thin metal shell.
Near the head of the stairs were a pair of men who might have been guards, but given their elaborate blue, red, and white uniforms, they might have also just served as more decoration. Between the decorative guards, a massive pair of doors awaited us. They were the first conventional-looking doors I had seen aboard the airship, though I suspected that, like the staircase, their true nature was disguised.
Ivan waited at the head of the stairs for me.
“What now?” I asked him as I caught up. I’d fallen a bit behind him. The elaborate skirts restricted my movement way more than I was comfortable with, especially on the stairs.
“We’re waiting for you to be announced.”
“To?”
“The other guests.”
I began feeling self-conscious. I hadn’t thought about other people being involved. I was wrapped in this ridiculous dress and had half my Mark hanging out. I wasn’t great with crowds of people in normal circumstances. My mom’s calling hours had been brutal, and I’d known most of those people.
Way too soon for me, the door opened, and someone was saying something about, “Dame Dana Rohan de la Marque Grande.”
I stepped into the doorway because I didn’t have much choice.
Beyond was a room that had no place on any sort of aircraft. I faced down the long axis of the room, at least fifty feet. The walls were dominated by tapestries, portraits, and sculpture, and the ceiling arched twenty feet above everything, dangling a half dozen crystal chandeliers from what looked like molded plaster.
Beneath the chandeliers, dominating the parquet floor, was a long mahogany banquet table that could easily seat thirty people. Past the end of the table, four musicians congregated around a harpsichord in front of a vast window that appeared to be looking out the front of the airship and into the night sky.
Of course, once I stepped into the room, all the guests turned to look at me. I could feel my cheeks burn, and that made me feel even more self-conscious. At least, the music didn’t screech to a halt to draw attention to my entrance, as it would in some cliché western saloon.
I smiled when I saw Jacob. They’d dressed him “appropriately” as well. They had wrapped him in an Edwardian tuxedo that looked much less silly than I pictured my own outfit. He stood when he saw me enter, followed a bit more formally by the other men at the table.
All gave me looks that ranged from amused to analytical, but Jacob’s look was the only one that held any warmth, and his gaze was the only one that didn’t make me feel as if I was naked and painted with clown makeup.
Ranks of servants stood at attention, blending into the walls. One of them darted forward ahead of me and drew back an empty chair for me, just short of the head of the table.
To my chagrin, it wasn’t anywhere near Jacob. The men were across the table from the women, and while I sat next to the head, Jacob had been seated all the way at the other end. Even though the table was only a third full—a dozen people at most, intimate for the space—that still put him about fifteen feet away from me.
That has to be intentional.
They’d decided to treat me like a peer rather than a prisoner. And that probably meant that they were more likely to be playing at some sort of intrigue. I hadn’t heard of any royal court in history that was free from mind games or politics.
That made me wish even more that Jacob was next to me. He was the history buff. Instead, to my annoyance, Ivan got the seat across from me. My only real consolation was the fact that the table was too wide to easily converse with people on the opposite side.
The woman next to me was a sharp-faced brunette in a pastel blue dress. She’d been whispering something in French to the woman next to her, and something about the tone made it sound catty. Once I was seated, she turned and gave me a warm smile that held all the sincerity of a congressman at a parole hearing. She asked me something in French, and I did my best to sound polite, “I’m sorry? I don’t speak French.”
Her smile became even wider. “Oh, I do apologize. So embarrassing for me that I did not even consider you might be a foreigner.” Her eyes lit up as if we were keeping score and she had just won a point.
I should have held my tongue, but the woman was already annoying me. “Technically, if we’re still off the coast of Washington, aren’t you the foreigner?”
She laughed. “Oh, but it is all l’Empire, is it not?” She took a drink without taking her eyes from me. The crow’s feet and the few strands of gray made me guess her age at forty plus. It gave her a maturity that made the laughter and the light tone in her voice feel false, calculated. She carefully set down the crystal glass without taking her eyes off me.
“So you are the Emperor’s new plaything?”
I wanted to smack her, and I realized that was exactly the reaction this woman was going for. I could see it in her eyes, the desire for a confrontation. There was something primal in the eagerness, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if she wasn’t even aware of what she was doing. I’d seen plenty of people with that same look; most had more than their share of beers in them and had some psychological need to mouth off to a cop.
When I was a cop, it had been easy enough to deal with. Here, much as I wanted to, I couldn’t threaten to cuff her.
I picked up a crystal glass and took a sip of a wine way too dry for my taste, mostly to gather my thoughts. I was never particularly good in social situations, and most of the potential responses running through my head seemed to be inadvisable when I didn’t know anything about who I was talking to.
Returning the insincere smile, I set down my glass and said, “You seem to have me at a disadvantage. You know all about me, but I know nothing about you.”
“Of course we have not been introduced properly. I am Comte Juliet de Caulaincourt.”
Of course, you are. . . .
Juliet was probably aware of the fact that her name without any context told me nothing, and she didn’t elaborate for me. I got the uneasy feeling that I was being tested. Conversations ranged around the table, but I could feel the attention of five or six people focused on my interaction with her.
“Do you often dine with the Emperor? Or is this a special occasion?” It was an innocent, inoffensive question, but something about Juliet’s attitude had infected my voice. I heard condescension leaking into my voice like an unwanted accent.
“My family has served the Emperor for four generations. But this is a special occasion. We honor a guest from the untamed wilds beyond the Paix de l’Empire.”
“So this is unusual?”
Juliet smiled. “The Emperor has eclectic tastes in his amusements. He has honored Chinese acrobats and trained African monkeys in a similar fashion.” She raised a glass toward me. “But the acrobats were not great conversationalists, and the monkeys were not nearly as well groomed.”
I racked my brain for a response that wasn’t confrontational. It was clearly what she wanted. Thinking about the social politics made my stomach do slow rolls, but I began to think she was trying to sucker me into some sort of outburst. The why of it eluded me, until I realized that if I wasn’t here, the seat I occupied would probably belong to her.
Juliet was probably narcissistic enough to resent attention drawn away from her, even by a performing monkey.
“I doubt I am as entertaining as those acrobats.”
“That remains to be seen. The monkeys were diverting, at least until they soiled the linens.”
I was saved from the agonizing conversation by a short fanfare and the cessation of the chamber music. I turned, and from everyone’s reaction it was obvious that the Emperor had arrived.
THIRTY-ONE
AROUND ME I heard the scrape of chair legs on the parquet as everyone stood up—the synchronous sound broken by two late additions as both Jacob and I stood a half-second after everyone else.
The Emperor didn’t have anyone announce him, but it was pretty obvious who he was. He wasn’t physically imposing; he was a few hairs shorter than Ivan and not nearly as broad. He didn’t go overboard on a uniform either. He wore a tuxedo only a bit more refined than the one they’d given Jacob. The only sign of any rank was a medallion he wore in lieu of a tie, with the Imperial crest inlaid with semiprecious stones.
Despite his subdued appearance, he carried a presence larger than he was—as if the room around him distorted to place him at the geometric center wherever he moved. He walked into the hall accompanied by a uniformed man larger than Ivan, and the Emperor’s presence was such that the huge bodyguard was barely noticeable.
He stopped next to the massive carved chair at the head of the table and stood in front of me. He had a hairstyle that reminded me somewhat of old pictures of General Armstrong Custer. His sandy brown hair had gone salt-and-pepper gray, leaving his facial hair several shades darker. His expression was friendly, if distant, and he regarded me with the most intense blue eyes I’d ever seen.
He nodded slightly. “You must be the Lady Dana Rohan.”
My breath caught when I answered him, not because of his appearance or his bearing, but because of what I felt with my Mark. I had to actually touch Ivan or have him use his Mark next to me in order for me to have much more than a faint sense of it. I felt the Emperor’s Mark full force just from him standing close to me. The sensation was something like having a cat unexpectedly rub against me, if that cat was a large Bengal tiger.
“And you are the Emperor.”
He smiled at me and nodded absently at the table. In response, everyone took their seat, Jacob a fraction of a second late. The Emperor and I remained standing. Once the clamor from chairs scraping the parquet had subsided, an ominous silence filled the hall. The musicians did not move to play, and all conversation around us had died.
I felt more than ever that I was trapped in some sort of test where the questions were in a language I didn’t understand. I had the feeling that, whatever I did, I was going to commit some nasty social transgression with some ugly consequences.
Do I sit? Do I remain standing? Say something more?
I clamped down on the growing panic.
“I’m pleased to finally meet you,” I said, gratified that my voice didn’t tremble.
“And I am pleased to meet an agreeable traveler.” His smile seemed genuine, if distant. “I apologize if the necessities of processing an unexpected guest of your nature were unpleasant.” He gestured at my chair. “Please, be seated. We can talk as well over our meal.”
I took my seat, and the Emperor paused, surveyed the table, and took a seat in the throne-like chair at the table’s head. That was the signal to release the paralysis that had overtaken the hall. The musicians revived themselves, playing something from Mozart, I think—though that might have just been me assuming anything remotely classical was Mozart. The servants that had been stationed against the wall sprang into action, moving plates, filling glasses, carrying food around. Conversation resumed around the table as if it had never paused. I glanced down the table at Jacob, and I was gratified to see him talking with someone. At least most of the people here could speak English.
I had a surreal moment when I realized exactly how mundane that relief was. I was in a wholly bizarre situation, on an airship in another world, and I was worried that my partner might be left out of dinner party conversation.
I turned back to my host. On the plate in front of him sat a small ceramic crock with some sort of pastry crust on it. He took a fork from the arsenal of silverware on the table before him, and gave the flaky top a token poke, lifting a small bit to his mouth. A nod of approval signaled the servant army to mobilize and slide similar crocks in front of everyone else.
I was grateful for the deference to the Emperor, since it gave me a chance to watch him and figure out which fork I needed to pick up. I knew I probably shouldn’t start interrogating my host, peppering the local ruler with questions was probably bad form at the very least. And, for all I knew, could be dangerous on more than a social level.
But, as intimidating as the situation was, I told myself that the reason I was here was to find out about myself and my Mark. I wasn’t going to discover anything by meekly waiting to be spoken to.
I took in a breath, promising myself that if I took a misstep, I would probably get some sort of pushback before I overstepped what they were willing to tolerate. And I was a foreigner, so they should probably cut me some slack.
It was so much easier questioning someone with a gun.
“So, you’ve had travelers that weren’t so agreeable?”
“Your kinsman in particular,” he said.
I noticed that the conversation around me quieted at the words. There was a subtle accusation in his words, one that served as a reminder of how precarious my situation here was. However they decided to treat me right now, I suffered from guilt by association with a man I never even knew.
“I didn’t know him.”
The Emperor looked at me, as if he was assessing the truth of the statement, or if it mattered. After a moment, he said, “We choose our friends, not our blood. Are you concerned I will hold you liable for his actions?”
Of course, I am. “I’m here because I need to find out who he was.”
“Pity then he only left behind a few corpses.” The Emperor smiled at me and suddenly things felt a little creepy. “However, if his actions brought you here, perhaps some of that can be forgiven.”
* * *
—
I doubted that this evening would ever be displaced as the most uncomfortable dinner conversation of my life. The situation was unnerving as it was, but what could I do when the Emperor started flirting with me? I wasn’t the best at dealing with that in normal circumstances, but this time the guy hitting on me was royalty, and currently the most powerful person on the planet. Saying any flavor of no could have serious consequences.
The one bright side of the situation was the fact that he was fairly free in providing information. He confirmed everything I’d already found out. His scholars had placed me in a family of Walkers that was outside any historical contact with the Empire, and my Grande Marque put me—in the eyes of the Empire—at the top of that family’s hierarchy. As did John Doe’s.
My presence here was akin to hosting the member of a royal family from a distant and unknown kingdom. There was great potential in such a relationship.
And I didn’t like the connotations of the word “relationship” coming from a man whose ancestor had managed to take over a good part of the world by use of a strategic marriage. He didn’t make me feel better when he talked about how the Mark descended parent to child. To have an heir with a Grande Marque, both parents must bear the Mark themselves, and the mother’s bloodline was always more prominent. It was possible that two parents with Marks could have a child more powerful than either, but like a brown-eyed couple giving birth to a blue-eyed son, it was rare. The outcome was much more certain when both parents had blue eyes.
I had the ill luck of being unusual, and not just by being “agreeable.” I was also a woman of the right age, and in the Emperor’s own words, a more pleasing presence than five sixths of the Aristocratie de l’Empire.
At least, it was clearer
why the Comte de Caulaincourt was so catty with me. If the Emperor was currently unmarried, I suspected that every other woman in his court was striving to rectify that in her favor. Anyone just walking—or Walking—into that was carrying a target, regardless of what the rules of status here said about Marks, Grande or otherwise.
Understanding it didn’t make me feel any better.
Fortunately for my state of mind, the Emperor was the first to depart, after the dessert course and after the servants offered cigars and brandy snifters to the men. To my great relief, Ivan came around to escort me back to my cabin.
Back in the hallway, away from the court, I sighed with relief. “I think I’d almost prefer you lock me up in a cell.”
“My Lady?”
“That was agonizing.”
“The Emperor clearly favors you.”
The defensive way he said it raised some ugly suspicions on my part. “Ivan? Were you trying to set me up?”
“I don’t understand what you—”
“You never said your Emperor was looking for someone to shack up with. You weren’t bringing me here just to present me as some sort of diplomatic coup.”
“You’ve been in a single place long enough to empower your own realm. One unknown to the Empire—”
“Like he cares.”
“Of course, he—”
“And bringing home the Emperor’s next consort is probably a bit more praiseworthy than bringing back some random Walker, no matter how they’re Marked.”
“You don’t—”
“Good lord, just be honest. You owe me that for bringing me here.”
Ivan walked me down the corridors in silence. After a while he spoke, almost embarrassed. “It did cross my mind that he might favor you.”
“What if I don’t favor him?”
“He’s the Emperor.”
“Of course, he is.”
“The merging of your bloodlines would create a demesne more powerful than either of yours’ alone.”
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