by Prue Batten
The others entered the ballroom amidst a wave of guests, Phelim confident the group would help conceal them from Luther’s perceptive gaze. A giant clock on the wall at the far end of the room ticking inexorably to twelve, its face portraying a happy moon smiling benevolently upon every one, a black gatto mask over the eyes. The hands ticked and moved, moved and ticked and pulled together as if magnetised. The single lamp, a torchère, flared its dancing light upward to the moon’s face. Phelim bent to the hob.
‘May I have the first dance with Adelina, Gallivant? Just the opening waltz? Keep your eye on us, for if we find the Gate we shall go through and you must follow.’
Gallivant nodded, an inscrutable gleam in his eye.
Adelina hadn’t heard, her attention fixed so firmly on the crowd in their blackness, her eyes forever seeking.
The moon’s mask slipped away behind the clock by the magic of a mechanical mind and the orchestra, till now hidden in the shadows, struck up a swaying waltz. Amongst excited cries from the women, as coats and cloaks were cast aside and magnificent colour was revealed, Adelina was almost unique. Along with elderly noblewomen and aristocratic widows, she retained her black garb, her mask the only patch of colour. But as elderly male took the hand of elderly female, a swathe of black found places on the dance-floor and the problem of being conspicuous dissolved.
Giant candelabra slid down massive chains from the dizzy heights of the ceiling. Flickering with the light of dancing candles, the flames reflected in the million facets of the cut-glass pendants. They locked into place, servants scuttling along beams where they had sat patiently lighting the wicks and waiting to let down the beautiful lamps.
At midnight, with the beginning of Carnivale, the Hall of Mirrors sparkled and shone and the sea of colour that was Venichese nobility began to sway back and forth like gentle waves on a seashore.
Chapter Forty four
Oblong panels of looking glass portrayed the lilting crowd and women glanced with at themselves with a coy flick of eyelashes as they glided past, leaning out from the arms of their partners. Swirling, twirling gowns rustled and feet tapped as the orchestra plucked and played.
‘Adelina, may I?’
Her gaze pulled away from the coloured crowd and she nodded vaguely, the half-mask concealing her features. Her breath had quickened at the thought of Severine and Luther in the same room and her full breasts rose and fell, straining at the dramatic silk sweep of her neckline. He slid his hand around her back, feeling the cool of the silk and the warmth of her body, whilst below his tailored damask vest and inside his shirt, the chamois bag lay without interference.
He couldn’t believe that Adelina was blind to his adoration, his longing, but she merely relaxed into his hold. Her eyes were fixed away from him and he knew they were forever roaming the crowd for Lhiannon, for Jasper, for Severine and Luther. As their feet began to move to the three-part rhythm of the waltz, he drew her a little closer and she stepped easily, suddenly looking up, her eyes bright.
But he knew her heart was elsewhere in a Raji’s arms, wrapped in memories. And her mind he suspected, floated far from thoughts of his feelings, focused only on finding her self-esteem and Lhiannon, the two intrinsic, and on her task of revenge.
The feathers on her mask fluttered as they floated to the waltz rhythm. The ebony silk of her gown swirled out as he propelled her around the corner and momentarily she lowered her lashes. Her steps became light and Phelim glanced down to see her eyes closed, understanding the trust she placed in him to guide her through the dance even though he wished it was he she dreamed about in her private little dance of love. He chided himself for such ridiculous longing, the affectation of an immature farm lad, not the man he was nor had become. He began to consciously search for a sight, a frisson... anything that would lead him to the Gate.
He wished he had told her of Lhiannon’s death, a hundred times he wished. But there had been no time, every intention dissolving before a welter of disaster. And after finding her, after that dreadful moment when he gazed upon her torn and battered body, hardly anything had mattered but that he should avenge her.
Her breath sucked in.
‘What?’ he asked urgently. ‘What is it?’, following the line of her gaze.
There swirling around them were Severine and Luther, the woman’s peacock mask glistening and fluttering, the man’s diavolo mask reminiscent of damnation. Obviously the Director had had his turn around the chequerboard marble floor and had been summarily stood aside.
Phelim swung Adelina away, a fierce tendril of something strong and black beginning to curl upward in his body. Seeing Gallivant, he placed Adelina in the safe circle of the hob’s arms. ‘Watch her,’ her ordered, peremptory, Liam-like. ‘And follow me at a discrete distance.’ He tipped his head. ‘You see them? Stay behind them, keep her away.’ He turned to Adelina and ran a thumb down her cheek, letting it linger on her lips below the level of her mask, not unaware of the hob’s interest. ‘Forgive me. Whatever I do, I beg you forgive me.’ He locked his gaze with hers - it seemed for hours that she swirled like the dancers in the black vortex of his eyes but it was mere seconds and he was gone.
Severine and Luther scanned the crowds as they whirled, neither caring much about their partner nor the divine music. Severine thought she caught the hint of copper curls and slowed, her hands dropping out of Luther’s sweaty paws.
But the copper curls disappeared as a tall man in a plain gold mask, as if he were a figure from ancient civilizations, stood singularly. Framed by a tall, open window embrasure, she fancied she saw the last of the evening mists curling away from his broad shoulders.
He advanced and it seemed as if the crowd split apart and flowed around him. His coat was faultlessly cut away to display a tailored vest and shirt and and the thighs which powered him across the floor were so tightly encased in cream breeches that Severine could see muscles rippling. He was the only man in the room who wore long boots, boots polished to such a gloss that reflected light flashed as he walked.
Luther watched the fellow approach and a feeling of unease crawled in his belly. ‘Madame,’ he went to grab her hand.
‘No, leave me Luther.’ She stepped away from him, moving toward the tall stranger as if she were hypnotized.
Luther’s eyes shrank to slits as he watched the fellow bow before his mistress and then take her hand to step close, bringing the white fingers to his lips and kissing them. And then he reached around behind her head and untied the peacock mask allowing it to drop to the floor. Again he took her hand and with his other, he undid the strings of his own and it fell on top of Madame’s mask, almost covering it, the peacock feathers quivering. He slipped his hand around Severine’s waist and she leaned back as he eased her into the dance.
Had Luther been able to see the fellow in sunlight, he would have observed there was no shadow. As it was the crowd swallowed them into its billowing mass, and it was all he could do to shove a way through himself as he tried to keep Severine in his sights.
‘Contessa, I have watched you since you arrived. Your beauty overshadows the entire assembly.’ Phelim’s voice mesmerized.
Severine had never in her life felt true attraction for anything other than her ambition and her own reflection. Overcome, her eyes sparkled as they took in the stranger’s unparalleled features and her fingers felt the muscles moving under the exquisite raw silk of his coat. Her carmine lips curled and sharp white teeth appeared as she gave a laugh filled with unaccustomed sensuality. ‘Who are you, sir, that you should dally with such a one as myself.’
‘I am what you desire, Severine.’ He whispered it close to her ear and trills and shivers filled her body as his tongue moved in amongst the tendrils of her hair to lick.
‘You are,’ she sighed, all free will gone, her body aching to be stroked and kissed, to be loved by this enigmatic stranger.
Luther could see them in the distance and saw the man reach down and kiss Madame’s neck. Behir, he must g
et closer. If the fellow took her away, where then was his chance to rip the ring off Madame’s left hand? Even now as her palm rested against the man’s back as he led her through the dance, he could see the flash of gold against the dark fabric of the tailcoat.
‘Severine, dance with me. Let me guide you, let me take you to a place where your dreams will be fulfilled. Come, follow me.’ Phelim’s iniquitous words tantalized with their meaning. As he flashed past the mirrors, a frisson curled over him and he glanced sideways to see a gilded couple twirl past and then disappear through their reflection as if they had never been and he realized, amongst the terrible darkness that consumed him, that the Gate was there. He had but to sweep his partner through and she would be at the mercy of anything he should choose to do. He spun her in a circle and danced through their reflection, Severine so mesmered that she felt none of the pain on her hand as shards of glass pulled at the gold- ring as if to rip her hand away.
In the ballroom on the other side, Luther watched them go and stood speechless, powerless. Blind to the couples who now polka-ed with great gusto around him, he neglected to see he had stepped into the path of a particularly agile pair and they knocked him heavily, thrusting him up against the mirror and his reflection so that he fell through in time to see Severine and her odd partner disappearing amongst divine people, all dancing the polka, the music purer, the sights more stunning than he had ever seen in his life.
In the ballroom of the mortals, Gallivant and Adelina had watched Phelim’s partnering. Adelina’s belly squirmed with distaste, nausea filling her gullet. She hated Phelim for his duplicitousness and would have washed her face to rid herself of the memory of his thumb on her lips.
Gallivant, sensing the anger and confusion and sickness in his Lady, gave her a squeeze. ‘Don’t worry, Adelina. There is a method to his madness. You must trust him.’ But he had seen the shroud of mist trailing off Phelim’s shoulders, had seen the black eyes darken to doom and knew that a profound change had come upon their friend and that the Far Dorocha had taken hold of Severine, that the wiles of the Ganconer were even now seducing her to the point of abandon and that he had abducted her right into the world of Faeran.
It was then that he spotted Luther, as the galloping couple catapulted him through the mirror where he was seamlessly swallowed by reflection and light. ‘Come on Threadlady! We must go! There is the Gate!’
He led her at great speed to a mirror that would surely shatter but launched at the glass anyway. His senses swam as he barged through and he opened his eyes to see soft orchard colours - almond pink, leaf-bud green, apple blossom white, apricot blush, palest yellow peach. His mouth watered at the thought of the ripe fruits and he stared at the masked faces of Others who pranced to the beats of the dance. And then he looked at Adelina, her black robe gone, her face a study of amazement as she fingered the heavenly silk of the stumpwork robe. Sink me he thought, she looks magnificent! And then he looked down at the cut velvet of his own garb - the soft gold of a gooseberry.
How apt…
Chapter Forty Five
Phelim had led Severine to a shadowed corner where there was a door in a flowered panel and through which he propelled her. Here in the secret subfusc of an anteroom, lit only by one gold candelabra on a table, he could have given in to the fierce and rigid dark that consumed him. He could have ripped the emerald gown from the lithe body and taken the woman with cruel delight.
Instead, his hand wafted and she stilled into the kind of frozen mesmer his brother had not long ago used on the same woman. Her eyes stared ahead, sparkling with desire, her lips opened slightly as if she had been going to beg him to take her. Her hands stayed in the action of holding him in the dance as he slipped from her grasp. Her breath came in sharp spurts, her breasts rising and falling and the tiny, gold strung emeralds in her hair tripped and trembled. As he stepped away from her, he noticed the gold jewelry on the middle finger of her left hand and reached out.
‘Leave it!’
He spun around as Luther stood with his back to the panelled door. In his hand he held a knife by its point and with a low grunt, the assassin flicked his wrist to send the weapon flying through the air.
The dark stranger in front of Luther laughed, the sound curling fingers around his spine and sending the hair on the back of his neck into a rigour of attention. He tried to move but found the bottom half of his body frozen, anchored to the ground as if he had sprouted giant roots.
The knife glissaded to a halt, pirouetting so that its sparkling lethal point faced Luther. ‘What are you?’ he shouted, his voice cracking. ‘What have you done to me?
‘I am your most evil thought, your most callous action,’ Phelim turned his back and walked to the wall to lean against it. ‘I am your doom.’
Slowly, inexorably, the knife moved toward Luther. In his half-mesmer, he could see it coming and screamed at his fate.
Phelim swiped his hand in the air and the hysterical yowls cut short. ‘What you will receive in a moment,’ Phelim drawled, ‘you are due. For the death of a Raji and for the rape of a woman.’
The panel door had clicked open as Phelim spoke Adelina slid through, gasping as she heard the words, her hands coming to her mouth. Gallivant held her tight. ‘Say nothing, mistress. This is how Fate would have it.’
The knife moved effortlessly, free of obstacle or force, no sound, just remorselessly gliding closer until the point pierced the silk damask of Luther’s tailcoat. Severine stared into some sexually charged distance as her henchman writhed, his eyeballs almost popping from the ugly head.
Despite the smooth passage betraying little force, in fact the pressure of the weapon was overwhelming and the point began to gouge, Luther frothing at the mouth, hysterically silent, insensible. A stain spread like an inkblot on his shirt as the knife moved inward.
‘Halt.’ A voice shouted and the sound leavened the horrendous tension. ‘Halt now.’
The knife stalled, its haft quivering as if unsure whether it should proceed or return the way it had come. Luther slumped over himself in a bloody faint.
‘What do you think to do?’ Footsteps emerged from the shadows at the far end of the anteroom. Jasper grabbed the haft and pulled the gory blade away from Luther’s chest, the candlelight catching on the beaten silver handle, small prisms dancing across the walls as it was laid on the table, tiny drops of blood pooling on the polished surface.
‘Jasper!’ Adelina fled from Gallivant’s gasp and threw herself into the healer’s arms. ‘Oh, Jasper!’
He held her as she wept, looking over her shoulder at the dark man against the wall whose shadow now lay behind him and whose eyes were filled with sadness for the woman with the copper hair and for himself at the road he had just walked.
‘Hush now, Adelina. You must be strong.’ Jasper stood her at arm’s length and looked into her eyes. ‘Your time is almost come you know, and then it will all be over and you can give yourself up to the child you grow.’ He stepped forward then, untying her mask and letting it drop to the floor where his booted toe flicked it to the side, kissing her forehead like a benediction and turning to the man against the wall.
‘Well, Phelim. That is certainly something I hadn’t forseen. What has driven you to such malign behaviour, hmm?’
‘You know me?’ Phelim’s voice almost pleaded, as if he hardly knew himself.
‘Indeed.’ Jasper’s eyes betrayed nothing. He wafted his hand and Severine came to life, her eyes searching for Phelim, her lips smiling as she spotted him. Oblivious to anyone else, she tossed a tendril of hair back from her forehead in a gesture of invitation.
‘You have seduced her well, Phelim. She has no idea who or what she is. Did you kiss her. A proper kiss?’
Phelim’s gaze dropped.
‘Ah! I see you did,’ continued Jasper. ‘She will die, you know. Oh, but of course you know. It is why you did it. Well then, tell me, did you think to avenge the Faeran or our lovely friend here?’
Phe
lim shifted his body away from the wall, a spark flaring and quickly growing to a conflagration. ‘Why would I do it for the Faeran? What is Faeran but a place of malicious mayhem? I would do nothing for the place or the people, so help me!’ His voice was as he had never heard it, flaming with burning sentiments of hatred and disgust. ‘I did it for Adelina and her babe and for the babe’s father. That...’ he flicked his gaze towards Severine, ‘woman treated the Stitcher with unspeakable cruelty and has allowed monstrous things to happen, so it was what she was due. Cruelty rewarded.’ As he spoke, Severine had moved on her soft dancing slippers to his side and now she wound her hands around his neck. He reached up and grabbed her wrists and tugged at her, flinging her away with force so that she tripped and fell to the floor.
‘And of course this is how a gentleman behaves, isn’t it?’ Jasper walked toward Severine. ‘You condemn Faeran, my boy, and yet you are one and have found the subtle weapons of such great help, have you not?’ His voice castigated and he raised Severine to her feet and then waved his hand. The habitual ice of the Goti Range filled her eyes and her face collapsed as she stared at the elderly man in front of her, spotting Adelina and the others. Her hastily hoisted sang-froid cracked completely as she stared at the bloody body of Luther and her hands clasped knot-tight as she spoke through clenched teeth. ‘You!’
‘Did you dream about me, Severine? Is that how you know me?’ Jasper smiled. ‘Into the ballroom, I think.’ His hand movements as they mesmered were subtle, barely there, almost as if he lazily swatted a fly. Such a gentle action to presage what followed it.
