I digress.
They don’t do red carpets in troll country, they do gold. All the gold. In Their Majesties swept, prancing elegantly up the gilded carpet as music swelled. We followed shortly after, and I was bemused to note that Their Majesties’ courtiers seemed as pleased to see Alban as they were to see the king and queen. I’d underestimated his popularity. Again.
I will skip over the next half hour or so, which passed in a blur of silks and jewels and curtseys and titles. I tried to study the interior architecture but the tumult was too distracting; I received fleeting impressions of painted murals and statuary, rich carpets trampled by a great many feet, and other such Baroque fussiness.
Their Majesties looked around for Baron Alban, more than once. The Baron, inexplicably, chose to remain with us. This held true even at dinner, when I was seated on the Baron’s right and Jay upon his left. He talked exclusively to us, which was probably rude of him but I appreciated the thought.
On my other side sat a majestic old troll, his silvery hair elegantly coiffed, his amber velvet coat elaborately decorated.
‘You keep high company,’ he said to me, nodding at Baron Alban.
‘We’ve worked together a time or two,’ I replied, grateful for his kindness in not ignoring me but also wishing he might save the polite chitchat for a bit later. The dining parlour at the palace was twelve miles long and the table several miles longer still, I’d swear. Every inch of it was crowded with dishes, and since one of those nearest to me was a kind of floating pudding consisting of a flock of meringue swans sailing over a lake of sweet cream, my priorities clearly lay elsewhere at that moment.
‘I believe I have heard of you,’ said my talkative neighbour, ignoring his own plate of fragrant delicacies. ‘From the Society for the Preservation of Magickal Heritage, am I correct?’
My mouth being full of cream, I could only nod. It tasted of peaches and rose water.
‘I should not repeat gossip, of course, but it is said that you and the young man got as far as Farringale.’
It was not quite a question, but he was watching me with sharp, intent eyes and I realised he was probing for something.
I swallowed my piece of meringue swan-wing. ‘It is a true story, though may perhaps have been exaggerated. We barely set foot in Farringale, and saw very little of it.’
My companion clearly wanted to ask more, but the Baron claimed my attention and talked determinedly to me for the next few minutes. By the time I had leisure to glance about again, my amber-clad interlocutor was deep in conversation with his other neighbour.
‘Who is that gentleman?’ I murmured to Alban.
The Baron spared him one brief, dismissive glance. ‘The Marquess of Valony.’
‘Surely not,’ I blurted.
‘He most certainly is,’ said Alban, with a raised-eyebrows look at me.
How could I explain my peculiar comment without being insulting? It only struck me as bizarre, that a man enjoying so high a station as marquess should call a mere baron high company. Baron was the lowest rank among the aristocracy, at least in my world; a marquess was second only to a duke.
But this was Mandridore, not England. Perhaps things were different here.
After dinner, there was dancing. Delightful, though as soon as I realised I was to take a turn about the ballroom with the Baron, I began to wish that last almond and orange blossom cheesecake uneaten. A mere, weak Ves should never be turned loose upon a banquet like that. It is hazardous to her health.
Fortunately, when the royal orchestra struck up the first strains of music and Their Majesties took to the floor, they chose a slow, stately minuet and I gave a tiny sigh of relief. I would not be obliged to engage in any strenuous gyrations, at least not at present. The king and queen made a handsome couple, though it occurred to me that they looked a little tired as they swept slowly around the centre of the polished marble floor. They were not dancing for the enjoyment of it; they were performing for their subjects. They went through this routine for a few minutes, and then, upon some unheard cue, the floor filled with other couples and Their Majesties withdrew. I wondered if they were obliged to undergo this parade every night. How exhausting.
‘I give you fair warning,’ I said as the Baron came to claim me. ‘I have no idea how to dance a minuet.’
‘No one can see your feet anyway.’
‘But you can feel them,’ I pointed out as he swept me up, and sailed me away on a tide of harpsichords.
‘There are advantages to dancing with a featherweight. I shan’t even need my steel toe caps.’
I felt a compulsion to correct him on this point, for I am far too fond of food to qualify as the delicate scrap of a thing he described. But compared to him, I suppose I was a mere leaf on the wind.
‘I knew there must be some reason you’re dancing with me.’
He smiled, just at me. ‘Because wit, brains and beauty aren’t nearly inducements enough.’
‘Flattering,’ I murmured, super cool (nobody need know that my heart was turning somersaults). ‘But at least half the people here could be described as such, and they’re all gagging to dance with you.’ Scarcely an exaggeration, that. I was uncomfortably aware that I was attracting a great deal of attention as I whirled about in the Baron’s arms. Some of it was merely curious; some of it was outright envious, or something… else. Something else negative.
Alban looked around, as though he hadn’t noticed. He didn’t look abashed so much as annoyed. ‘I knew this was a bad idea,’ he muttered.
I felt stricken. ‘Dancing with me?’
‘No! No. Dancing with you here.’ His stride faltered, and he pulled me a bit more into his arms, as though to shield me from everyone else. ‘Ves, I… ought to tell you something.’
‘Ought?’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘Then don’t.’
He shook his head. ‘If I don’t, someone else will. The thing is…’ He did not seem to know how to continue, and trailed off.
Jay appeared at my elbow. I’d lost track of him in the ballroom. ‘Ves, can I talk to you for a minute?’ He made as if to pull me bodily out of the Baron’s arms, which was unlike him.
‘No,’ said Alban, and clutched me closer.
‘If you gentlemen think you are going to have a tug of war over me, you are much mistaken,’ I said. ‘What’s the matter, Jay?’
‘He’s been keeping secrets from you.’
Alban sighed.
‘I think he was about to tell me,’ I said to Jay.
‘He should’ve told you about six weeks ago.’
I realised that Jay was very angry about something. He looked as composed as ever, but he had an air of suppressed fury I’d never seen before.
‘Will somebody tell me what’s going on?’ I said, hating myself for the plaintive note in my voice.
‘Not here,’ said Jay. ‘Come on. Let’s get somewhere quiet.’
But it was not so easy to withdraw from the middle of the dancefloor as all that. Jay tried to escort me out of the thicket of dancers, but they whirled around us in such profusion, we made little progress.
So it was that I was still within hearing distance when a troll matron in a bottle-green gown sang gaily to the Baron as she waltzed past: ‘We miss your lady wife tonight, don’t we, sir? How long she has been away!’
I stopped dead, to the chagrin of a woman who collided with me mid-minuet. I added her hiss of annoyance to my rapidly growing pile of things-to-ignore, together with the look of mild malice the bottle-green woman had directed at me as she danced away.
I looked at Alban, but none of the thousand questions in my mind made it past my lips.
His broad shoulders sagged. ‘Shit,’ he said under his breath.
‘It’s true?’ I croaked.
‘It— that— I—’ He clamped his lips tightly shut and tugged at his perfect hair, a brief gesture of utter dismay. I’d never seen him speechless before. ‘That wasn’t what I wanted to
tell you.’
‘It wasn’t? Were you planning to tell me at all?’
‘Yes, I… look, Jay is right, we shouldn’t talk here. Come on.’
He swept me away. He had either the bulk or the rank to do it more successfully than Jay, for people melted out of our path. I caught one last glimpse of Jay’s enraged face as I was borne away to the far side of the ballroom, and out through an arch onto a starry terrace. The mild summer breeze gently lifted my hair, and I was welcomed by the heady aromas of strawberries and wine.
How romantic.
The Baron escorted me to a bench, but while I sank down upon it in gratitude — my knees might have been shaking a bit — he remained standing. He stood looking down at me with an expression of consternation. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said.
‘While apologies are nice, I would prefer an explanation.’
He nodded. ‘If only it were not so hard to come up with a reasonable one.’
‘I’d just like a true one.’ I folded my hands together and tried not to stare wistfully at the moonlit sky. I might have been entertaining a few fantasies about being kissed under just such a sky, only quarter of an hour before.
‘Jay is right to be angry,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I never meant to get into this absurd masquerade, only… I never throw rank around when I’m working. It’s neither necessary nor helpful. And then, when I decided I liked you, it… it was hard to know how to tell you the truth. The moment never seemed right.’
‘Never throw rank?’ I repeated. ‘But you were introduced as Baron Alban on day one.’
‘Yes, but… I am not a baron. Or not only a baron. It’s an old title. I am comfortable with it, and it suits the work I generally do for the Court. High enough to open doors, not so high as to be intimidating.’
‘High company,’ I said, as enlightenment began to dawn.
‘What?’
‘Just how high in rank are you?’
He ran a hand over his hair again, messing it up. I’d never seen him with disordered hair either. ‘I’m a prince,’ he said, in the tone a normal person would reserve for something more like I have syphilis.
‘A prince.’
‘The prince, actually. I am the next heir to the throne of Mandridore.’
5
Baron Alban’s words echoed in my mind. The next heir to the throne of Mandridore. ‘But,’ I said, and took a breath. ‘But you said— did you lie? You said you were not born to eminence.’
‘No! I didn’t lie. That was true. I am a commoner, same as you. I mean— wait, I didn’t mean that.’ He gave a great sigh and sank down to the floor, resting his back against the ballroom wall. ‘I was given a barony years ago, for services to the Crown. And after that there were a lot more services to the Crown. The rewards piled up. Houses, lands, wealth… for a time, I admit, I was delighted with it all. I’d spent long enough in rootless poverty to appreciate plenty when it came. But it came at a price.
‘See, Their Majesties are childless. That’s a huge problem for them both personally and… and professionally. No family, no heir. And the queen’s been too old to bear children for some years now. Something had to be done.
‘What’s less widely known is that she is sick. She’s in no imminent danger, but there was no time left to adopt and raise an infant. They needed a capable heir, and fast.
‘So they chose me. They knew I could handle the duties of the monarch, I’ve proved it enough times. And we are… fond of each other.’ He stared sightlessly into the middle distance, not looking at me. ‘I knew what it would mean if I said yes: nothing about my life would ever be my own again. But how could I refuse? In effect, they were my family already. And they were desperate. So I agreed. That was a year and a half ago.’
He fell silent. ‘So you became the crown prince,’ I prompted. ‘And got married.’
‘Some say monarchies are outdated in these modern times, but regardless, they’re still here. And they operate according to all the same old rules. The line of succession’s been in doubt for long enough. Ysurra wants to see it secure before she dies.
‘So they chose a bride for me. Her name is Marit. She’s the eldest daughter of the king and queen of Arenmark, the troll kingdom of Norway. She is a good woman.’ He paused, and sighed deeply. ‘Ice cold, a princess to her fingertips… but I cannot rightly fault her.’
I sat silent, my mind reeling. My jovial, easy-going, occasional colleague Alban was a married crown prince, preparing to take the throne of Mandridore.
In truth, the married part did not altogether surprise me. It had previously entered my head to wonder why so popular a man, with so many obvious advantages, had not been snapped up by some pearl of ladykind long before. Of course he wasn’t single. What kind of an idiot was I, that I had accepted this apparent incongruity without ever thinking to ask?
But the rest left me reeling.
‘Why,’ I said after a while, ‘were you flirting with me when you’re married?’
He looked rather sadly at me. ‘Because it is what the old me would have done.’
The old Alban, just a baron and not a prince. Free to explore, free to flirt, free to choose. I watched him for a moment, trying to read his face. I saw mostly sadness. ‘Do you regret saying yes to this new life?’
‘Sometimes,’ he said, so softly I barely heard the word.
Despite my anger and humiliation, I felt a stab of pity for him. He’d trapped himself, and if he was to be believed, he had done it for laudable enough reasons. I tried to imagine the loneliness of the life he had described: married to an assigned partner, chosen for every advantage but your own. Constantly flattered and courted, but incapable of being truly close to anybody. I could see why he’d enjoyed his interludes with me. It must’ve been like having a holiday from his new self.
‘What was it you were planning to do with me?’ In all fairness, I couldn’t accuse him of having done anything all that much wrong. He’d flirted, but he hadn’t seriously courted me. He’d taken me out to breakfast, but we’d never had a real date. He hadn’t even kissed me.
Perhaps it was just my own foolishness that had led me to believe he’d had any of those other things in mind.
‘I don’t know,’ he said dully. ‘I just… liked being with you.’
We sat in silence for a while. My thoughts wandered, inconclusively.
Having got over the initial shock, I found I did not hate him. I wasn’t even angry. Just a little — a very little — disappointed.
‘And where is your lady wife?’ I said at length.
‘In Arenmark. We’ve met about three times since the wedding.’
‘Any children yet?’
‘No.’
There was nothing else to say after that, and I didn’t try. Small talk would have been unbearable. When Jay finally approached and stood hovering upon the threshold, I was glad enough to rise from my bench, and join him.
‘I’d better get to bed,’ I said to Alban. ‘We should get started early in the morning.’
He nodded, looking at me with his beautiful eyes full of questions. He asked none of them, and I didn’t enquire. ‘Goodnight, Ves,’ was all he said.
‘Night, Alban.’
I left him sitting there alone on the balcony, and I hated that I did. One of the things I’d seen in that final glance was the kind of deep, aching loneliness the soul shrinks from acknowledging. I’d wanted badly to stay, and keep him company in whatever fashion I could.
But what good would that do? To him, I could not be any of the things either of us might have wanted. It was going to be difficult enough to forge some kind of working relationship out of this mess.
So I let Jay take me away, grateful for the solicitude that had brought him to my side.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked as we wove our way to the main doors.
‘Fine,’ I said firmly. ‘Nothing terrible has happened.’
‘I’d thought you were becoming fond of him.’
‘No comment.�
�
He smiled faintly. ‘Fair enough.’ We’d made it out into the corridor by then, which was cooler and mostly deserted. Jay paused. ‘You can find your way to your room from here, yes?’
I’d spent an hour in that room not so long ago, dressing and having my hair done. It was a pretty chamber, assigned to me for the night, and I was looking forward to sinking into the enormous canopied bed.
None of this meant I had any idea where in that maze of a palace it was. ‘We have met before, haven’t we?’ I said to Jay, with a look of mock amazement.
He chuckled, and gently took my elbow. ‘This way, then.’
Upon the following morning — bright and early, as I had insisted upon — I had occasion to curse my fate in at least one particular.
If I’d had to have my foolish dreams about the baron crushed to death by cold, cruel reality, couldn’t it have happened after our important monarch-appointed mission rather than before? For when I arrived at the breakfast-table in our shared parlour, I found Jay and the Baron (no, no, wait. The prince) already seated, working their way through plates of pancakes, eggs, bacon and toast in awkward silence. Neither one looked at the other.
‘Morning,’ I said, sitting a few seats away from them both.
I received attractive smiles from both gentleman, which would’ve been nice if it hadn’t so neatly highlighted the coldness of their treatment of each other. ‘Slept well?’ said Alban.
‘Wonderfully well,’ I said with a bright smile. Total lie. I’d slept for about three and a half hours, having taken at least that long to fall asleep. For some reason my head had been spinning too much for repose. I beamed at Jay as well. It was only fair, he being the only one among my present company who hadn’t recently fractured my dreams, and applied myself to the nearest dish of pancakes.
I was left with the renewed feeling that there are few disasters that can’t be improved upon by a good meal. Once I was suitably filled with excellent pancakes and splendid tea, I felt a lot more equal to the unusual demands of the day.
‘So, then,’ I said, interrupting the ringing silence. ‘We left Millie up at Ashdown. Do we suppose she is still there?’
Modern Magick 5 Page 3