She began to smile, but then glanced at her glowering father and schooled her face. She was about to refuse when Stephen said, “I think that’s an excellent idea.”
For a moment, we all stood frozen in tableau, and at exactly that moment, the butler announced Lord Shannon.
“Good evening,” he said. “What’s an excellent idea, Stephen?”
“Madame Parr has offered to give a recital for Enid.”
Lord Shannon’s gentle, rather shallow eyes lit up. “What a lovely idea! Might others of us attend if we wished?”
“I don’t see why not,” Stephen said. “I’ll tell Leveque to speak to you about the arrangements, Mehitabel.”
“Thank you, my lord,” I said, and as Shannon immediately claimed my attention with a question about the recent crisis at the Empyrean, Lord Philip was able to get Enid away without being openly rude.
The room divided itself into two camps, made even more obvious when Robert of Hermione arrived. He barely bowed over my hand before all but attaching himself to Victoria, and thus the schism was complete: Lord Philip and Lady Victoria with Enid and Robert on one side, myself and Lord Shannon on the other. Stephen, a neutral potentate, stood by the mantel and watched with great, possibly malicious interest.
Noticing my appraising glance, Lord Shannon murmured, “You shall be known by the company you keep.”
“Indeed, my lord. And how do you choose to be known, then?”
“Not meaning any disparagement, Madame Parr, but I would rather stand with a wolverine in heat than with Robert.”
“Gracious,” I said, and he smiled at me, such a dazzling brightness that it was no wonder he had half the young men of the Mirador at his feet. No wonder he’d held Felix’s fickle attention for nearly five years.
“I don’t imagine the enmity between us is any secret.”
“No, my lord,” I said demurely, and he laughed.
“Besides which, I’d much rather be talking to you than Philip and Vicky.”
“And Lady Enid?”
He shrugged, as graceful as any ballet dancer. “She’s an amiable child, and I wish Stephen much joy of her.”
“You think it’s settled then?”
“Oh, I don’t know, but if it isn’t her, it’ll be another just like her. But at least,” he added savagely, “it’ll put Robert’s nose out of joint.”
“We should talk of something else,” I said.
“Powers, why? Robert knows I hate him.”
My curiosity got the better of me. “Couldn’t you influence Stephen, if you hate him so much?”
“It was Emily’s dying wish. She made him promise.”
“To protect Lord Robert?” I looked across the room: Robert was tall for a man of Marathine blood, his hair still dark and glossy, although he’d developed a definite paunch, and the lines of what must once have been a handsome face were sagging and puffy. He didn’t look like a man who needed protection.
Shannon sighed eloquently. “Emily was . . . she was very loyal. And gullible. She believed what Robert told her—and what Robert told her was that he had many enemies in the court who were plotting against him. I understand that it preyed on her mind toward the end. So Stephen promised he would protect Robert against his enemies.”
“And he kept his promise.”
“Teverii. As stubborn as they are honorable and vice versa. And Stephen has his own blind spots.”
The bitterness in his voice prompted me to ask, “Do you not consider yourself a Teverius, my lord?”
“Me?” And bitterness indeed, more than I would have expected from a man like him. “I’m as faithless as my mother. You know that.”
I couldn’t have been more utterly taken aback if the sofa I was standing next to had turned and savaged me. I was fully aware of my own discomfiture, and even as I scrambled futilely for a rejoinder, I was thinking I ought to give Shannon Teverius some sort of award. It had been years since I’d been caught out like this.
And then he was saying, “I beg your pardon, Madame Parr. That was unfair and uncalled for, and in any event, I believe Stephen wants to take you into dinner.”
And indeed there was Stephen looming at my shoulder. “Mehitabel?”
“Me, my lord?” I said inelegantly. God, the next thing I knew, I’d be blushing. “Shouldn’t—”
“You accepted my invitation,” he said and held out his arm.
I had been even more right than I knew. There was nothing else for it: I took his arm as gracefully as I could and moved as a swan-daughter into the dining room.
Felix
Gideon did not want me to go to the soirée.
I asked him why, struggling to be reasonable, and he merely shrugged and turned away.
“Gideon?”
:Is it not enough that I have asked?:
:Well, frankly, no. And it’s not like you to try that sort of manipulation, anyway.: He’d been out of sorts all afternoon, sniping at me with more than his usual, amiable venom, goading me into retort time and again—Mildmay had made his escape almost immediately after dinner— and if he’d planned to manipulate me, he wouldn’t have gotten my back up so thoroughly as a start. Something had to be wrong. :What is it?:
:I don’t imagine you’ll care about my reasons. You never have before.:
“Either talk to me or don’t,” I said, stalking into the bedroom to choose a coat.
:Is there any use? Really?:
“I don’t know,” I said with exaggerated patience. “Since you won’t tell me what you’re talking about, I’m hardly qualified to say.”
:Don’t be disingenuous.:
:I’m not.: I turned to face him, digging my nails into my palms against the urge to strike him or shout at him. :I’m asking you to stop fencing and tell me what the matter is.:
:Isaac Garamond.:
:What?:
He held my gaze. :Or whoever it is you’ll go off with this time. But most likely Messire Garamond, since he is your newest toy.:
“Gideon, I—”
:Don’t think of him that way? Of course you do. How stupid have I been, Felix, to imagine that you think of me in any other way?:
:You know perfectly well I don’t—:
:I know no such thing! You’ve certainly never bothered to be faithful to me.:
:It’s not like that.:
:I beg to differ. It is exactly like that. If I asked, could you even tell me the names of all the men you’ve slept with in the past two years?:
“Sleeping isn’t an activity I engage in with other men, darling, ” I said, turning back to the wardrobe and yanking out a coat. “And anyway, you’ve made it perfectly clear what you will and won’t put up with, so—”
:Have I? When? When have I ever refused you anything?:
“The look on your face was more than enough, thank you.” And the memory still stung like salt on raw flesh.
:So it’s my fault? You’re going out . . . :
“Whoring is the word you’re looking for,” I said and gave him a hard smile.
:Is it? Isaac Garamond isn’t a whore.:
“Is that what this is about? You’re jealous of Isaac?”
:Blessed saints, am I jealous?: His stare was incredulous as well as infuriated. :I’m forty-five, Felix, and apparently inadequate for your sexual sophistication. Why in the world would I be jealous?:
“Because you’re being stupid,” I said, shrugging into my waistcoat and doing up the buttons. “Whatever I do with . . . with other men, has nothing to do with you.”
:Yes, it does.:
The ferocity of his tone startled me into looking at him; his eyes were brilliant with anger, his hands clenched—he was more vital and compelling than I’d seen him in months. :You may believe it has nothing to do with me, but you’re wrong. I am telling you, as plainly as I can, it has everything to do with me, and I can’t stand it any longer.:
“You’re awfully dramatic,” I said, going to the mirror to tie my cravat. I was careful not to me
et my own eyes.
:No, don’t think you’ll slide out from under by making me embarrassed. You love dramatics, and you know it.:
“So what are you leading up to, anyway?” I said, doing my best to sound unconcerned. “Throwing me over?”
:Not unless you make me.:
“I can’t make you do anything.”
:Liar.:
I hoped he couldn’t see my flinch.
:I’m telling you,: he said, :if you want me to stay, you have to stay.:
“But—”
:Coming back is not the same as staying, and don’t pretend you think it is.:
Luckily, Malkar had drilled me in the proper tying of a cravat until I could do it with my mind three-quarters elsewhere. “What is it you want, Gideon?”
:I want you to stop going to other men’s beds. Whatever it is you need, let me do it.:
Oh, you don’t want that, I thought, and did not smile at my reflection. I turned to get my coat.
:All or nothing, Felix. I won’t stand for anything else.:
“I hear you,” I said.
:And?:
“Now that I have my orders,” I said, keeping my voice mild, “I guess I can decide whether to obey or to mutiny.”
:That’s not what I meant.:
“No? That’s certainly what it sounded like.” I shrugged my coat on, checked my reflection again.
:Do you truly not care?:
“Of course I care. But you don’t understand—”
:Because you won’t let me.: He caught my wrist. :Felix, please.:
“All right!” I said and pulled free. “But I’m still going to this damned soirée. I promise, however, that I will not come back to anyone’s bed but yours. Will that do?”
He looked at me for a long moment. I wondered, as I always wondered, what it was he saw, what it was he thought he loved. Finally, he said, :The sign of a good compromise. We’re both angry. Yes, go. We’ll get no use out of each other this evening anyway.:
“How right you are,” I said and left, slamming the door vindictively behind me.
Mildmay
Saints and blessed powers, we were late. We were so late I damn near told Felix we’d be better off not going, but he was in the mood to rip somebody’s head off, and I didn’t feel like it needed to be mine.
His mood was Gideon’s fault. I don’t know what Gideon’s problem was that afternoon, but he was pissed at Felix and he wasn’t letting go of it, neither. They were sort of snarling at each other all through dinner, and it only got worse when Maurice came in with the hot water and Felix started getting ready.
I got dressed and rebraided my hair and tried to ignore them. But Felix was starting to answer Gideon out loud, and that was a real bad sign. I said loudly, “I’ll be out in the hall when you’re ready, Felix,” and ducked out the door before he could think to stop me. I hated watching them fight, and if I was in the hall, it might maybe give Felix a way to escape quicker.
A quarter of an hour later I knew that idea wasn’t working, but it was still better to be out there not listening to them. I said hello to a couple of maids trotting past. Another half-hour went by, just me and Jashuki and the weird people in the tapestries on the walls, and then Maurice came up from the other direction. He stopped when he saw me.
“Don’t go in,” I said.
“Are they, er . . . ?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn,” he said.
“You in a hurry?”
He shifted his weight. Maurice had never told me where he was from, and I pretended I didn’t know. Guys who get themselves into the Mirador from Gilgamesh don’t need a blabbermouth spoking their wheel. Maurice and Rollo were a matched set—tall, broad-shouldered, dark—and they got along okay. I knew they wanted to get into service in one of the Houses, and to do that you got to get yourself noticed by the flashies—which ain’t easy to do if you’re stuck valeting a wing of the Mirador that’s all hocuses.
“Master Architrave said that he’d have some work for Rollo and me if we could get there by eight-thirty.”
“Then go.”
“What? I can’t—”
“Sure you can. Felix won’t yell.”
He gave me a look like he thought maybe I was nuts. Maurice and Rollo were both in the cult of Felix big-time, and they thought Felix would be pissed off or heartbroken or something if they weren’t perfect, but the truth was Felix wouldn’t even notice.
“If he asks,” I said, “I’ll tell him you’ve got a chance at something better. Honest, Maurice, he won’t mind.”
“All right,” Maurice said and grinned like a kid. “Thanks! I owe you one.”
“Yeah, sure. Just go on.”
He went. I walked slowly down to the end of the hall and back, trying to pay attention to what my right leg was telling me. If I’d hurt myself bad enough . . . Just thinking about it felt like somebody’d stuck me in a cage and was getting ready to close the door. My bad leg had already cut me off from what I’d thought was my life—cat burglary and the Lower City and all the trouble you could get yourself into and out of if you had two good legs. And my stupid, dragging, aching leg already made the life I had now worse, because Felix never could quite remember that I couldn’t walk as fast as him. I thought of the staircases to the Crown of Nails and felt like crying. And if I’d really made my leg worse, it was going to get real quick to where I’d have to tell Felix I couldn’t keep up with him. And that would mean either that Felix would have to rearrange his life for his stupid, crippled brother or that he’d go off without me even more often than he did now. I hated the fuck out of both options.
I walked down to the other end of the hall and back, slowly. Then I stood and waited and tried not to think about anything in particular. That was getting harder, too.
Felix came slamming out the door at about the third hour of the night. Like I said, he was pissed. He gave me one look, like he was daring me to say something, but I wasn’t that dumb. He sort of snorted and started down the hall. I followed, laying odds with myself about how drunk he was going to get.
The closer we got to the Hall of the Chimeras, the slower he walked, and he finally ducked aside into the Puce Antechamber. I went after him like a dog on a leash.
“Is my coat straight?” he said. He was wearing a deep violet-blue coat over a green and white striped waistcoat. The combination made his gold sash and garnet-and-gold rings stand out like a shout. I was in my usual black—trousers, waistcoat, coat—and a plain white shirt. Felix had kept trying for months to get me to wear ruffles at cuffs and collar, but that idea was nuts, and I’d told him to go put garlands on a pig. He’d been mad at me for days, but he’d quit hinting.
“Your coat’s fine,” I said, “and you know it.”
I thought he was going to say something nasty, and so did he, but then he sighed and said, “Yes. What about my face?”
“You’re a little pale, but you ain’t blotchy. Nobody’ll notice. ”
“With the crush in there, I’ll be beet-red in two minutes,” he said, and he faked cheerful pretty well. He gave me the once-over. “You’ll do. Come on.” I followed him back out of the Puce Antechamber and into the Hall of the Chimeras.
We’d missed all the formal stuff, so the Hall of the Chimeras was just a big clump of people talking and drinking. In an hour, they’d clear the middle of the floor, and there’d be dancing. Felix would probably be drunk enough by then to dance, which he was good at if he wasn’t thinking about it. I couldn’t dance no more, so I’d sit somewhere out of the way and watch all the pretty ladies and wish I could get a game of Long Tiffany going. It was what usually happened.
Powers, I hate this, I thought, and I was only glad that I wasn’t Felix and didn’t have to smile. Although, if I’d been Felix, I would’ve been able to get drunk, because I would’ve known my boring little brother would get me home okay. I don’t like being drunk and never have, but at the Lord Protector’s soirées, it always seemed like a better deal
than being sober. Being at home in bed would’ve been better still.
Sure enough, when we got to the bar, there were Maurice and Rollo behind it. Master Architrave had done them a high-class favor, because that was the one place in the Hall of the Chimeras where they were guaranteed the flashies would notice them. They both looked guilty when they saw Felix, like a pair of foxes with feathers in their mouths, but he just said, “Bourbon please. Two fingers, straight.”
“Yes, my lord,” Rollo managed. As he handed Felix the glass, Felix said, “I’m glad to see you get liberated from our corridor once in a while,” and sauntered off into the crowd. Maurice gave me a weird look, sort of half-panicked and half-grateful. I shrugged back and kept after Felix. I didn’t want to lose him until he’d found somebody safe to talk to.
He came up on a knot of hocuses talking about Lord Stephen’s marriage. We’d missed the beauty pageant, too, which I figured was at least one good thing I’d gotten out of the evening. Andromachy Sain and Elissa Bullen were just disgusted with the whole thing, and this mousy little lady wizard who was a connection of the Tamerinsii was trying to make them see how wrong they were. Fleur and Edgar and Simon were working out a pool. Edgar didn’t even say hello before he wanted to know what Felix thought the odds were of Lord Stephen marrying a Polydoria.
“Thousand to one,” Felix said.
“Even a pretty one?” Fleur asked.
“Just like his mother?” Felix said and bared his teeth at Fleur.
“Well, they’re all cousins anyway,” Simon said.
“It would be bad politics,” Felix said.
“And Stephen won’t do that,” Edgar said. “I agree with Felix, little flower.”
“Don’t call me that,” Fleur said. “You know it gives me hives.”
“Who are the other candidates?” Felix asked.
Edgar rattled them off: “There’s a Valeria, a Novadia, the youngest Lemeria chit, an Otania—horse-faced—a Severnia, and of course the Polydoria. Those are the only real contenders. ”
“Apparently, you can scratch the Polydoria,” Simon said. “That brings it down to five.”
“Poor little thing,” Fleur said. “She can’t be a day over fifteen. ”
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