She was stuck in a Disney guise, but this was no Disney film, with a handy fairy godmother or blue angel standing by to waft the hapless heroine to a happy ending.
Furious with him, with herself, she stared straight ahead and worked on her breathing, as Canardan looked round to the formed circle of his guests. He caught at least four meaningful glances, people who were going to single him out for A Little Talk.
He faced forward, setting a slower pace. When you’re a king you can slow up an entire circle of people and no one will make a peep. The gap between them and the last couple widened. Speaking low so that Jehan and the duchess behind them could not hear—not that they were listening, for he could hear the duchess talking about her daughter’s stunning talent in the arts—he said, “I take it you feel more comfortable among those of rank than you once did?”
“Oh, I got over the rank thing really fast in the old days,” she responded with forced cheer. “As Math often said, princes have to put on their pants one leg at a time, same as do poets. Or poulterers.”
“I remember you brought that up during one of our first conversations. Such sayings sound earnest and egalitarian, but are they really believed? There is a such thing as protesting too much.”
“Then I’ll drop the sayings. I see your aristocrats as human beings raised to certain customs, ways of speaking and thinking, that become habit. It’s partly training that sets anyone apart from anyone else. And training means you’re taught to do something, whether it’s making lace or running a kingdom, but whether or not you do it well is up to the individual,” she said.
Before Canardan could answer, the musicians shifted up half a key, and he realized they’d been patiently playing the same phrase far too many times. He was not being a good host. He lengthened his step, Atanial matched his pace, and they obligingly closed the distance with the rest of the circle.
Atanial turned gracefully to the right as the king turned to his left, and her palm met the prince’s. They completed their half turn and began pacing in the opposite direction.
Everyone’s attention was distracted by their new partners. She snapped her gaze back to Jehan and was surprised by a narrow, assessing gaze that was, for a moment, startlingly like his father’s.
She murmured without moving her lips, “Ananda said to trust you.”
And heard him draw in a breath.
No more. Already the couple ahead had glanced back, and she felt the weight of the king’s gaze behind her. She turned her attention away from Jehan, smiling vapidly into the room as they trod the measures until the next chord change, half a key up the scale.
Again they changed partners and direction, leaving her facing a man her own age. She recognized a duke from what used to be the west, before Locan Jora forced a treaty onto Khanerenth, dividing the kingdom into two. Thus truncating most of the duke’s land. His spare form was barely in costume, more of an old-fashioned court outfit. The “mask” was the visor of his helm, which he’d lifted.
Obviously he was only paying lip service to the masquerade rules. Being a duke, he could. Atanial remembered the unspoken but iron-strong custom: if someone of higher rank broke a social rule, you could too. But you didn’t do it first.
It was up to the duke to choose whether he would speak to Atanial or to Maleficent. She wasn’t really a princess, not with the Zhavalieshins deposed. It was a mere courtesy title, her privilege (or lack of same) dependent entirely on the king’s whim.
“Is Prince Math alive?” he asked, his brows bristling.
“I don’t know.”
“You trying to find out?”
Step, step, dip—step, step, dip. The music changed, but the duke gripped her hand. “Are you?” He let her go and growled, “Never mind. I think I have my answer.” He turned away.
Atanial also turned, not really seeing her next partner. Nausea bubbled in her gut at the certainty that the duke believed she had forgotten her husband and was angling for a king. No time to consider anything except that, so far, the masquerade was a disaster. I’m a failure without having spoken ten words.
Her next partner asked who she was.
“Maleficent.”
She did not know the man, but he was polite, asking one or two suave questions about Maleficent that were easy to answer, and the dance whirled him on.
The next two partners accepted Maleficent at face value, and embarked on light flirtation with this fantasy wicked queen. She answered in kind, which was easy, but as the long dance wore on she was more and more aware of just how badly she had fumbled.
A new partner leaned close as they placed their palms together. “Do you remember me, your highness?”
She faced him, to encounter her new partner’s mask. Through the eye holes she made out familiar gray eyes. Heavy jaw. Iron gray hair.
Resisting the impulse to rip aside her veil and his mask so they could be two real people, she sifted memories. Those eyes. Younger, browner hair—someone around Canary—yes, one of the captains in his own private guard during the old king’s days, now obviously titled with land of his own. For Canardan did not invite mere guard captains to masquerade balls in the royal palace.
Above her rank? Below it? What was her rank in their eyes, anyway?
Whatever. She was not about to frost him by pretending he’d broken the blasted “rules”. “How nice to see you.” She smiled. “You’ve flourished, I see.”
“Old count of Shesba died. No heirs. So I am still in the saddle, but now riding my own lands, so to speak.” The familiar voice brought back Math saying . . . and he’s one of the quiet, honest sorts, warrior captains who would carry out their duties no matter who was in charge. If left alone, good, reliable people.
Atanial now remembered Shesba as a difficult area way to the north, squished between mountains and the vile coastline. She congratulated him, the music changed again, and she found herself with another partner, this one tall, old, unfamiliar, their voices blending with the hum of conversation and the music. Then the entire company sighed as, at last, the unseen mages got their magic spells working and a breath of cooler air teased her already moist flesh, followed by a gentle, steady breeze.
Almost everyone visibly relaxed, some faces turning to the open doorways, through which the mages had drawn their invisible tunnel of colder air from high in the sky.
The short, stout Chief of the Guild Council was her next partner, followed by another landowner of some degree. Other men danced with her after that. Everyone knew who she was, but stayed on their side of the Maleficent pretense. They were all polite, two or three friendly. But, clearly, the king’s men. Not allies. And in their eyes, Prince Math’s wife was flourishing here in her gilded cage.
Step, step, turn, step, step turn, the promenade sped up, always climbing half a chord. They were nearly at the end of the circle, the talk the most superficial exchanges of politenesses. Her exchange with that duke lingered, making her wary. How many of these smiling men thought she’d abandoned Math to his fate in order to catch a king?
Canardan watched her from across the room. She danced with those entrancing moves she’d always had. Sometimes she spoke, but judging from the lack of reaction in her partners, everything was as it should be. Let her trip prettily around his ballroom and show everyone how well he treated her. He hoped she’d enjoy it.
Thinking about her was more pleasant than listening to the obviously rehearsed compliments and broad hints for returned compliments of his current partner. Fishing for royal catch, Canardan thought sourly. Here he’d invited this baroness—old family, good lands, good support, rich—because her daughter might be a fallback for Jehan. He’d forgotten she was a widow.
“May I honor your majesty with a reminder of how famous were your splendid regattas through the city of Alsais? We still read the poems all these centuries later,” she whispered, fluttering her fan.
What regatta was she dropping her not-so-subtle hint about? Because it had nothing to do with Colend’s past glori
es, not in that tone. Oh yes. That regatta, he thought, smiling into her eyes. Right before he married Ananda, the last time he’d dressed up as Matthias the Magnificent of Colend. What his partner hadn’t found out was that she had been one of three dalliances that memorable night.
So. The women already knew that Ananda wasn’t skipping the social duty tonight as she usually did, but was gone. Of course everyone knew. His worst enemy was rumor, something you couldn’t fight with a sword. He’d underestimated how quickly they’d come a-courting.
The music changed, sparing him having to come up with a reply that was agreeable, but not too agreeable, friendly but not flirtatious.
How was Atanial faring? He had almost completed the circle. Atanial was maybe eight or ten men away, talking and laughing with one of his barons. He was aware of Jehan behind him, murmuring something about Sartoran tapestry weaving, and from the tittering, effusive response, he too was being courted.
Where was that daughter of Atanial’s? He hoped there’d be a message from either Zhavic or Randart soon.
The dance ended.
Atanial watched how the grand circle broke into tiny circles, each revealing in its numbers, in who moved to whom, who collected company, who stood where.
The biggest circle formed around the king. Of course. But Jehan’s was nearly as large—moon to his father’s sun—with the younger women forming most of his group. And if they were all doing their best to attract the attention of a handsome prince, who could blame them?
Father and son retreated to get something to drink.
On either side of the room, mirror images, had been set great carved tables bearing rows of tall, fluted glasses containing punch, water, wine. Water! Atanial located the table on her side of the room and made a beeline, her veil fluttering behind. She took one, lifted her veil to drink. Over the rim, glimmering with reflected fire from the chandeliers overhead, she watched father and son meet to exchange brief words before they were surrounded.
The musicians struck up a melody, and both heads turned, for a breathtaking moment poised at exactly the same angle. There was Canardan’s handsome profile, in his son planed and refined, Jehan’s coloring moonlight and silver instead of ruddy gold. But one thing for certain from their body language: they were fond of one another.
And she, Atanial Fatwit Blitherer, had just tipped her hand to the son. Why, why, why? Ananda, why did you do that to me, was it revenge after all?
Jehan chose at random a partner for the new dance. The rest of the young women drifted by, ribbons fluttering, silks glowing richly in the candlelight, no one wanting to ask him and risk being turned down in front of the others, so they eyed him and smiled.
Atanial felt a touch on her wrist and looked up into the face of one of Canardan’s aristocratic working men, this one the governor of Vadnais harbor. Numb with self-loathing, she set down her empty glass, curtseyed and trod with him to the middle of the floor. He chatted with cheery ease about his racehorses until the dance ended. The seductive triple beat of a waltz—the first one of the evening—signaled, in straightened shoulders, lifted chins, laughs and shimmering fans, the electrical impulse of expectation.
So strange, Atanial thought. Not just that they had the waltz here, but it apparently was far older than it was on Earth. Chicken/egg.
Canardan watched Atanial look around, her profile behind the veil etched against the wall as she watched—who? Jehan was busy with a very young lady dressed in a stunning gown made up of fragile silk roses of twenty graded shades of pink.
Canardan flicked his gaze back. Atanial was lost behind a long whirling knotwork of dancing couples. When they passed, she was visible again, over by the refreshments table, nibbling a cake—
“Your majesty,” someone murmured behind him.
He looked down at the short, balding Chief of the Guild Council, and frowned. No use in hiding behind masquerade nonsense now. His relations with the guilds were already teetering.
“Your majesty, you have not had time to see me, despite my petitions sent each day,” the man stated. “But I must and will speak. If I end up with the Scribe Sharveshin in the dungeon for my temerity, despite its being my duty—”
Canardan sighed. “It’s not even remotely treason to ask questions, Guild Chief. Why are you pretending it is?”
“Why do you have a scribe in the dungeon? A scribe! May as well be a herald! And the Heralds’ Guild Mistress as well as the Scribes’ Master, at my office every day demanding to know why. If it’s whim, who’s next?”
“Asking questions is not treason,” Canardan said. “But meeting in a cellar and planning overthrow of the government is.”
“Who says they were planning overthrow?” the Guild Chief stated stubbornly. “There has been no public trial. We did not hear witnesses against them. As mandated in the agreement between guilds and crown.”
Canardan cursed, mind working rapidly even as his gaze sought Atanial.
She paid no attention to the king. Or his heir. She finished her cake and wondered who would be mortally offended if she left. She should get away before she bumbled even more stupidly—
A flash of blue, and Jehan stepped before her, his partner having been relinquished to another dancer. Jehan’s blue eyes were no longer as empty as the sky, but focused. Intense.
It was time, he’d decided, to trust someone. Again, that is.
“I saw her,” he murmured, and passed without turning his head.
It was her turn to draw in her breath.
To the Guild Chief (having watched Jehan pass Atanial without stopping) Canardan said, “I will see you after I’ve had a chance to examine the prisoners myself. Everything according to treaty. But I’ve not yet had time.”
The Chief of the Guild Council had to bow and accept that.
Three men ranged before Atanial. She put out her hand somewhat blindly, smiling her social smile, and triple-stepped, neat and light, with the owner of the first warm fingers that gripped hers.
She did not come within speaking distance of Jehan until the evening was nearly over. That dance was the Khanerenth version of a quadrille—that is, a complicated line dance that broke into whirling and braiding twos, fours, twos, eights, twos, fours, and twos as they slowly moved down the line. One always came back to one’s original partner for hands across.
The dance, she had already discovered, had changed only in one regard. There were two dips where there had been two hops, otherwise it was the same one she and Math had drilled down the long royal portrait gallery on those soft spring nights, as they talked and laughed about every subject in the universe.
Once again Jehan appeared abruptly, holding out a hand so they could step past one another.
“You saw Sasha?” she asked.
They parted. Round, round, step, step, smile, dip, twirl, hold up one’s hand, traipse in another circle, dip, bow, turn, step step step, and there he was again.
“She’s gone. I assume she’s seeking Math.”
Twirl. Step. Atanial fought impatience. She could feel Canardan watching. A quick look showed benign pleasure, but if he saw them talk, saw them even look serious, that expression could change fast.
I must protect Jehan too. She glanced at the white-haired prince’s vacant smile in the next group over, all four with their hands together in the center as they tripped in a circle.
He was thinking the same thing. He couldn’t quite see her eyes, but her manner, the way she’d drawn in a breath—the absence of that giggle—had convinced him that he’d done at least this much right. So far. But hurry or furtiveness or even too much said would catch idle eyes, raise questions. They could only speak for that brief time when they met in the center of the square, changing places with hands across.
“She trusted you, then?” Atanial asked, and they parted.
Three, he thought. We only have five chances left.
Instinct prompted him to lie, as he always had. But the relief he’d felt on telling her the truth overrode
the mere protective instinct, and so when they met again, he said, “No.”
Another indrawn breath. Her hand trembled under his fingers, as though she tightened her muscles against betraying expression, and once again he felt relief and alarm.
On the next, when she looked her question as she reached for hands across, he murmured, “Kissed me, yes. No trust.”
And he was gone, not seeing her face.
No one could see her face, except behind the mysterious shimmer of her veil, so they could not see the sting of tears. My fault, my fault, she was thinking. No use in trying to excuse herself. They’d returned to Earth all those years ago grief-stricken and angry; sunshine dancingstar, she who had left her world a hippie idealist, had come back bitter and afraid. She’d told her daughter over and over, in infinite variation, Men are pretty and fun to be with, but never. Ever. Trust them.
Think. Do not make things worse. They had three more exchanges ahead, and the dance would be over.
When they met, both uttered a word at the same time, he blanked his face and she said again, “Is she safe?”
Two more, they each thought as they parted, the pretty melody tripping through the silver flutes and reed horns and harp strings. We have to talk.
He trod his stately pace, smiling at the two young heiresses who cast him languishing (and watchful) glances over their fans as he circled them and mentally reviewed the palace. Her rooms, warded. His rooms, warded, and spies in the stable, kitchen and the government rooms—
There she was again, and he could feel her question, but he had no answer, and so number seven passed in silence.
When she neared for number eight, he saw in the rigid line of her shoulders, the tension outlining her veiled head and neck, that the question still stood.
He said, “So far, yes.” Knowing that she’d figure out what it meant: that he was having Sasha followed.
Chapter Six
I learned two things the first week of my journey.