Masque (The Two Monarchies Sequence) Page 8

  “You too, Carrots.” Melchior roused himself enough to grin and whisper: “Perhaps old Somersby will choke on one of those ‘s’s, and then we’ll all be able to go home early.”

  I laughed softly, but the truth was that the day was beginning to feel particularly long: and to make matters worse, I had an idea that my headache was coming back. I hoped, without much optimism, that the conference would not last too long. Listening a little idly to Lord Somersby’s introductory remarks, which tended to be over-long and largely muddled in a morass of desperate alternative words that did not contain the letter s, I let my gaze run around the table. The King of Glause was there, his heavy-lidded eyes almost closed as if he was asleep and his double chin settled comfortably into the folds of flab at his neck. He didn’t seem to be listening, but I knew rather better: there was nothing said around the King of Glause that was not remembered, considered, and sorted into its proper place.

  The Glausian Horselords were not the only Glausian troop to be represented; further down the table were the generals of the Foot troops and Mages respectively, looking as different as night and day. General Kropke, commander of the foot soldiers, wore a well-cut black uniform for dress occasions and a rather ragged green and brown uniform on all other occasions that made the foot soldiers all but disappear in anything but the barest terrain, under the maxim that a sighted soldier was most often a dead soldier. Most of the countryside surrounding Glause was hilly and deeply forested, making battles an effort of stealth rather than military might. The Mage General, on the other hand, tended more to spangled gold and massively outsized epaulettes on all occasions, and was of the opinion that anyone stupid enough to shoot at, swing at, or in any way attack a mage was a dead man anyway, so why not be noticed?

  The Civetan party, by comparison, was a small one. My father, as Ambassador of Civet, was seated with the Ambassador of Glause, both of them listening with apparently undivided attention to Lord Somersby; but Melchior and I were the only other representatives now that Raoul was dead. The junior guardsmen, I considered, did not count.

  Lord Pecus was almost opposite me, arms folded across his massive chest and leaning back with the air of a man at his ease, but I had the impression he was watching me. He had altered the spell in his hood from a blurry facsimile of a face to what amounted to a Keep-Away spell, making it difficult for my eyes to rest on the place where his face should have been. After a little while I gave up trying to look into the hood and looked elsewhere instead, but the feeling of being watched did not abate. It did not make me feel any easier, when, looking up the length of the table to gaze limpidly at Lord Somersby, I discovered that the King of Glause was watching me beneath his eyelashes, his podgy face unreadable and motionless.

  It was later than I had hoped for by the time I got back to my suite, tired and hungry. I had all but forgotten Vadim, and I blinked a little at the sight of Keenan asleep on the end of my bed, and Vadim likewise asleep in an uncomfortably straight-backed chair that she had evidently sat in to keep herself awake. They both looked absurdly young, Keenan with his face scrubbed as it had probably never been scrubbed before, his thin body clothed in stiffly new clothes, and Vadim with her hair plaited in a coronet very like my own on a head that looked too slight and delicate to bear the weight. I picked her up without difficulty and put her beside Keenan, covering them both with one of my lighter shawls, and sat down in my favourite armchair to write to Annabel. The chair felt luxuriously comfortable tonight, and I felt my eyelids dropping as I laboriously scratched out the first few sentences. A snore from the bed – Keenan or Vadim? – was the last thing I remember before I fell asleep.

  Chapter Five

  I was woken by a gentle and really quite expert attempt to unbutton my bodice and cuffs. Evidently Vadim was used to undressing slumbering bodies.

  Instinctively, my hand slapped over both parchment and quill from the night before, ripping paper and sending the quill spinning.

  “Careful for the ink!” said Vadim, mildly scolding.

  I opened my eyes and gave her an amused smile. “There is no ink, child. It’s a magic quill; the words appear on the other person’s parchment. Much easier than a commlink for two people with less than the usual amount of magic ability.”

  I focused sleepily on the torn parchment in my hand. It said: Belle, have you fallen asleep? Talk to me! I want to know more about this dastardly Lord Pecus! And Melchior, of course . . . Belle! You’ve fallen asleep, haven’t you? Belle. Belle. Bellebellebellebelle. Oh, all right. But I want a proper recital when you wake up.

  Annabel.

  I stooped for the quill and put it back with the piece of parchment, while Vadim, with a practised tug and snap, removed the bodice of my walking-dress of yesterday. No doubt Keenan wriggled when she dressed and undressed him, too.

  “One of the morning dresses,” I said absently, pushing her hands away and unbuttoning the skirt myself. It would be interesting to see which of the morning ensembles she chose for me. I added: “The morning dresses are the loose ones with filmier sleeves.”

  I would have to write to Annabel again, of course. And then there was the matter of poor Daubney: I would have to find out who he had been friendly with amongst the footmen. Perhaps he had talked to one of them about what he had seen on the night of the ball. All in all, it was morning dress business. I was fond of my morning dresses: foamy and light, they were looser than fashion demanded, but oh so comfortable, with sleeves that were almost scandalously filmy and showed the vague outline of my arms from the shoulder down. One did have to remember not to drape the sleeves in one’s breakfast, but the result was ultimately well worth the effort.

  Thinking of breakfast . . .

  “Where’s Keenan?”

  Vadim, who had been going through my morning dresses with reverent hands, turned with a sleeve trailing from her fingers. “I sent him to fetch your breakfast, m’lady. This one?”

  I considered it, and nodded, my eyes straying to the wash stand. Vadim had been so prepared as to bring up washing water: I wondered how long ago she had done it.

  “I’m afraid it’s cold now,” she said apologetically, following my eyes.

  “Good,” I said approvingly. “There’s nothing worse than lukewarm water on a summer morning. I have hot water only in the winter, Vadim. Remember that.”

  Vadim brightened. “Yes, m’lady!”

  “Don’t think it’s all easy, mind you,” I told her severely, dousing my face. “I’m a hard taskmaster, and don’t you forget it!”

  “No, m’lady,” she said, grinning.

  Vadim was buttoning me up when Keenan charged into the room with an enormous, laden breakfast tray. He kicked the door open with one foot, and scraped the tray edge precariously against the door as he squeezed through, causing Vadim and I to suck in a collective breath.

  “Careful!” Vadim said sharply. “That’s the lady’s breakfast!”

  I flicked back the trailing edges of my sleeves, and prodded Keenan toward the small table by my armchair.

  “Put it down there and then run off and get breakfast from cook. No, Vadim; I will do my own hair this morning. Go with Keenan.”

  I had just sat down again to finish my letter to Annabel when a tap at the door brought me to my feet with some exasperation. It was a footman, bearing, of all things, a packet of tea. I received it from him and took it back to my chair thoughtfully, where I discovered a card tucked into the fold at the top, bearing Lord Pecus’ name. I remembered my packet of rose-tea that poor Daubney had dropped shortly before he died, and found myself smiling. How thoughtful of Lord Pecus: he had even got the same kind. I turned the card over, but there was nothing on the back of it.

  Most men, I thought, with some enjoyment, would send flowers to a lady: Lord Pecus, in his inimitable way, had sent me the very thing I wanted. Well now. I would have to be nicer to him next time we met. Or at least a little less cheeky. One didn’t want to overdo things, after all . . .

  By
the time Keenan came bursting precipitously through the door again (did the boy not know how to walk?) I had finished with my letter. Vadim followed him with a greater appearance of decorum, but her eyes were sparkling in a way that told me she had news.

  “I think,” I said, with more than one end in mind; “That now would be a good time to measure you for your clothes.”

  Keenan looked indignant. “I’ve already got clothes!”

  His tone suggested that to have more than one set of clothing was at the least indulgence, if not outright profligacy.

  “The tailor stuck a pin in him,” Vadim explained, grinning.

  Keenan scowled and folded his arms. “I ain’t having any more clothes.”

  “Then it’s just as well I don’t intend to make any more for you today,” I said mildly. “However, I must point out that it will have to be done eventually; and be done it will, if I have to summon the footmen to hold you down. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, m’lady. Sorry, m’lady,” said Keenan, his eyes very big.

  “Very well. You can go out into the garden while I measure Vadim for a new dress. I want you to find out how many ways there are to get into my chambers from the gardens.”

  His face brightened almost immediately. “Yes, m’lady! I’ll make sure that none of them assassins get in!”

  “I have a feeling I shall regret this,” I said thoughtfully, as the door slammed after Keenan.

  “Thank you, my lady. I didn’t want him to hear.”

  I acknowledged the thanks with the smallest of nods. “What is your favourite colour, Vadim?”

  “Er, blue, my lady.”

  “Good,” I said in mild satisfaction. Blue with that chestnut hair and creamy complexion would suit admirably. I set the startled Vadim atop my footstool, fetching out my measuring tape and a bolt of sapphire blue cloth that I had bought a few days ago at a Glausian market stall.

  Vadim, standing rather awkwardly on the stool, opened her mouth, closed it, and at last said: “I thought-”

  “What did you think, Vadim?”

  “I heard something in the kitchen, m’lady.”

  “Something you didn’t want Keenan to hear,” I nodded, unfurling my tape. “Arms up, please.”

  “Then why-”

  “I find it best not to lie,” I told her pleasantly. “Lying complicates things. Sooner or later you have to lie a little more, and before you know it you’re lying to yourself. Turn, child.”

  Vadim did so thoughtfully. “So I am really to have another new dress? Out of that? But it’s so beautiful! What if I dirty it?”

  “Then I imagine you will have to have it washed. Beautiful clothes are meant to be worn and enjoyed, not molly-coddled. Now, Vadim; what did you hear in the kitchen?”

  The sparkle came back to her eyes. “They were all talking about him that exploded.”

  “Daubney.”

  “Yes, him. One of the chambermaids was walking out with him.”

  “Was she very upset?” I asked, with a swift frown.

  Vadim’s lip curled. “Not she! She was happy as a cat with cream, telling them all he was a spy for the king, and that’s why he was killed.”

  “An interesting hypothesis,” I allowed. I had already cut several pieces from the material, and these I pinned carefully around Vadim. She was far shorter than I was, of course, but it would not be a difficult matter to shorten the skirt. “What then?”

  “Helped her clean a few chambers,” Vadim said, grinning. “She said he was brooding about something after the Ambassadorial Ball. Said he wouldn’t tell her about it, but she heard him muttering to himself.”

  “I assume you were not left baffled?”

  “Well, I don’t know about that, m’lady; but she said that he said: ‘There were two of ‘em, I swear! It had to be magic.’”

  “Two of what?”

  “I don’t know. Only she did say a lot about the palace being full of spies and traitors, and I didn’t want Keenan to hear because if he thinks there’s spies about, he’ll be trying to catch them.”

  “Indeed! Does he make a habit of spy-catching?”

  “Mostly he catches the milkman, a few charwomen and the streetsweeper.”

  “I see. Your discretion does you great credit: I’m obliged. What else did you learn below stairs?”

  “The second footman was Daubney’s friend, and the scullery maid was in love with him.”

  On impulse, I asked: “What do you know about Charles Black, Vadim?”

  “What, the brassworker?”

  “Perhaps. What do you know of him?”

  “He’s dead,” Vadim said, pleasingly to the point. “He was the best known trumpet maker in Glause when he was alive, though.”

  “Interesting,” I said slowly, filing the thought away for future reference. It might or it might not be the Charles Black that Lord Pecus had recognised, but he had certainly recognised the name. I was very well aware that he intended to keep me out of the investigation as much as possible, and it would be pleasant to find I was able to keep up with him through my own resources.

  I was thoughtfully pinning another section of skirt to Vadim’s waistband when I caught a sliver of movement from the corner of my eye. Keenan’s face, grinning proudly, had just appeared over the edge of my windowsill.

  “I can see I’m going to have to grease the windowsill. Well done, Keenan. Is there any other way in?”

  He nodded and hauled himself in with a grunt of effort. “Window in the parlour, too. And your chair’s in the wrong place. Can see it from the other wing of the palace. Some bloke’s up there watchin’.”

  I gazed at him thoughtfully.

  “I don’t think we need worry about the parlour,” I decided at last. The adjoining door had a very good lock, and I meant to see that it remained locked at night from now on: possibly with a small, strategically placed everyday table before it. I fully intended to stir the pot with a vengeance, and if Charles Black did not at some stage try to discover what I knew, I was certain that Lord Pecus would. The idea of watchmen searching my chambers did not appeal to me any more than the thought of revolutionaries doing so.

  “Where would you suggest moving the chair?”

  Keenan put all his skinny might into pushing the chair, and shoved it a foot to the left.

  “Here. The cobber across the courtyard can’t see you from here. Think he’s a watchman.”

  “I’ve no doubt. I believe I shall have a word with Lord Pecus.” Having a watchman trailing me in the streets was bad enough, but for one to be watching my chambers went beyond what was pleasing. “Keenan, you are a treasure.”

  I had finished unpinning Vadim again when Delysia floated into the room in a billowy cloud of pink satin, waving a stiff, white card of invitation.

  “He’s giving a ball!” she squeaked, thrusting the card in my face. “Oh, Isabella! It’s a masquerade, of all delightful things!”

  “Who is giving a ball? The king?”

  “Much better than that!” Delysia assured me, radiating a bouncing excitement that would not have looked amiss on Keenan. “It’s Lord Pecus!”

  “And why exactly are we excited?” I inquired. Nevertheless, I was surprised. I could not think that Lord Pecus was the sort of man to enjoy giving balls. What was he up to?

  Delysia placed the card reverently into my hands. “There hasn’t been a ball at the Pecus estate these twenty years and more! Oh, Isabella! I need a new dress!”

  “I’m amazed that Harroll can stand the music,” I said frankly. I saw Vadim and Keenan giggling behind the chair, and dismissed them with a shooing motion. “Unless, of course, you are hinting.”

  “Dear Isabella!” Delysia fluttered her eyelashes and looked appealingly up at me. “I have simply the most gorgeous material, and no one can make up a creation like you can!”

  “Very well,” I said, unable to resist. “But I expect to be well regaled with chocolate cake, mind!”

  Delysia, ever the thoughtful
hostess, had anticipated my demands. Not five minutes later, I found myself alone in one of her many parlours with a mountain of deep crimson material, and a platter bearing the most enormous chocolate cake it had ever been my good fortune to meet with. Delysia was easy to sew for- she tended to leave the entire gown to the sewer’s discretion, an unconcern I greatly appreciated. It was not unusual for her to see a dress for the first time on the night of the party itself.

  I was engaged in cutting pieces of the muslin when Melchior put his head around the door and said: “Oh, there you are, Carrots! I’ve been looking for you.”

  He spotted the chocolate cake and a gleam came to his eye.

  “Pecus is giving a party,” he said, helping himself to a generous chunk. Before long, he was dropping crumbs over my bodice pieces.

  I swatted his leg. “Buffoon!”

  “This your new dress?”

  “I do not feel the need to make a new dress for Lord Pecus’ ball!” I said, with some asperity. “And if I did, it would certainly not be in this shade! Has everyone run mad?”

  Melchior took another bite of cake and regarded me closely. “Thought you liked Pecus.”

  “So I do,” I said firmly. “However, my liking does not entail the necessity of making a new dress.”

  “Ah. Have one already made, do you?”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “As it happens, I do; but that is completely beside the point. Melchior, if you are going to sit there snickering and eating my chocolate cake, I will trouble you to leave!”

  He grinned lazily at me, and cut another piece even larger than the first. “You’ll get fat one of these days, Carrots, mark my words. I’ve never seen a woman put away chocolate cake like you do.”

  “I do not ‘put away’ anything,” I said, with dignity. “I nibble delicately, thank you very much. Kindly remove your foot from the sleeve of Delysia’s new gown.”

  Melchior settled himself casually on the arm of one of the settees, removing himself from the vicinity of my dress pieces, and, more importantly, the chocolate cake.