Masque (The Two Monarchies Sequence)

by W. R. Gingell

  “Most young girls giggle when they flirt,” I observed. “A distressing habit, but there it is.”

  “The flirting or the giggling?”

  “The giggling, of course. I quite enjoy flirting, as a matter of fact; it would be very hypocritical in me to condemn it.”

  “Yes, but you don’t giggle.”

  “Ah, but I’m no longer a girl,” I said serenely. The fact of that matter was that I knew better. Besides, I have never been able to giggle properly, and the bell-like laugh of the sophisticates is likewise beyond my meagre talents. In polite company I try for a dry chuckle, and am thought to be terribly witty and intelligent in consequence.

  A great, rich chuckle rumbled through Lord Pecus’ chest somewhere about the region of my right ear.

  “Lady Farrah, despite your protestations of being nearly thirty I find it hard to believe that you are more than twenty-seven or eight. You are still a girl.”

  “I most certainly am not!” I said firmly. I had no intention of losing the – perhaps dubious – distinction of being an old maid. It was a surprisingly comfortable one, and had many uses. “I am an excessively cantankerous old maid.”

  Forbearing to comment as to cantankerousness or not, Lord Pecus said affably: “When you are my age, Lady Farrah-”

  “There, there, my lord,” I said soothingly. “It’s only your aching feet speaking.”

  This time his laugh resounded around the ballroom, turning heads.

  “I assure you, Lady Farrah, I’m at least eight years your senior. When you are my age you may call yourself an old maid with my right good will.”

  “That’s very good of you, my lord; you can’t think how anxious I’ve been all these years without your permission!”

  The dance was ending, so all Lord Pecus did was grin, porcelain teeth gleaming in the light of the chandeliers. I found myself wondering how many people knew he was masked. I fancied that I saw the faint fuzziness of a spell about the edges of the mask, but whatever spell it was it was not directed at me, because I could see the perfectly carved coldness of the porcelain quite clearly. I could understand why Lord Pecus did not frequent parties.

  I made a mental note to ask some discreet questions of a few pertinent people, and said with wicked glee: “Oh look! Here comes Lady Louisa! What do you suppose she wants?”

  Lord Pecus grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the new set that was forming. “You’d better dance with me again.”

  “I can’t tell you how flattered I am,” I assured him, slipping my hand free with some difficulty; “However, I have a better idea. Lady Louisa! How good to see you again!”

  “La! Isabella!” simpered Lady Louisa. She had an unfortunate habit of addressing everyone by their first names as if they were the general populace and she the lady of the manor. “How clever of you to monopolize the most eligible bachelor at the dance!”

  Lord Pecus’ huge form stiffened in shock behind me, and it was with difficulty that I repressed a gurgle of laughter. Lady Louisa was showing her youth.

  “It was, wasn’t it?” I agreed. “But I’m willing to share, Louisa! The earl told me that you would be delighted to show us the waterfall room.”

  Louisa, looking anything but delighted, said querulously: “I’m sure Father wouldn’t like me to leave the ballroom, Isabella.”

  “Oh, but Lord Pecus was so looking forward to it!”

  Admirably quick to catch on, Lord Pecus bowed. “I hear that your water displays are second to none, Lady Louisa.”

  Louisa’s face was instantly wreathed with smiles. “I would be happy to show you the waterfall room, Lord Pecus!”

  She insinuated herself gracefully between myself and Lord Pecus, much to my amusement, and slipped her hand into the crook of his arm. Lord Pecus, a distinctly put upon set to his shoulders, silently offered me his other arm, which I took as a mute plea not to be left to the mercies of Lady Louisa and accepted in a spirit of pure mischief. Louisa showed her displeasure at my importunity by tossing her head and addressing her remarks solely to Lord Pecus as we strolled around the dancers, but since this particular tactic left me unmoved I was still tagging along when we left the ballroom.

  Unfortunately for my enjoyment of the situation, we met Lord Topher in the hallway. By the time everyone had said their hellos (or in Lord Pecus’ case, nodded curtly), he had become one of the party and I was strolling along on his arm instead of Lord Pecus’. I remained optimistic: I could still poke and pry with Lord Topher around. He didn’t seem to mind my stopping along the passage at intervals, ostensibly to admire the running mural that decorated the entire length of the hall, but more importantly, to catch a glimpse into any room of which the door stood open. Louisa was assiduously attempting to outpace us with Lord Pecus, her carefully girlish giggles wafting down the hall, and so my investigations went conveniently unnoticed. Unfortunately, they also went largely unrewarded. Very few of the ridiculously many doors along the passage were open, and even less of those were open more than a crack. Through one such crack I caught a glimpse of a gracefully reclining figure that I took to be the Countess, the lacy edges of her train trailing artistically over the plump settee cushions to the floor, and her mouth dropping open to emit a faint snore.

  Lord Topher caught the line of my eye and snorted with quiet laughter. “Better than the murals, isn’t she?”

  “More graceful, certainly,” I murmured back. The murals were a distasteful blend of bad painting and painfully bloody battle scenes, and I had not had to feign my horrified curiosity.

  By and large, though, I was impressed with the earl’s taste. Most acts of treason have the simplest of motives behind them: money. If that had been the earl’s objective, he had certainly not splashed it about. The rooms were furnished and decorated in a simple, elegant style that was expensive but certainly not beyond his ordinary means: in fact, the only thing I could fault was that ghastly series of murals.

  The sound of the waterfalls gradually filtered into hearing as we approached the double doors at end of the hall. At the doors themselves it became a muted roar that made conversation difficult, and as we entered the room, the scent of water wafted refreshingly around us and into the hall. I heard Lord Pecus take in a deep breath through his nose and saw the tension leave his shoulders in the greenish halflight: Glausians do so love their rain and greenery.

  I had to fight back the urge to helpfully suggest Lord Pecus soak his feet in the frothy pond currently to our right, into which visitors were encouraged to tumble headlong if its position relevant to the door was any indicator.

  Lady Louisa did not attempt to speak over the roar, which I thought very wise of her; instead gesturing mutely to the more elaborate of the waterfalls, which leapt from rockeries built high into a central dome and showered us with a fine spray of mist. The dome was glass, through which I could fancy I saw stars if it were not for the glowing orbs of witchlight bobbing against the ceiling, filtering light through fronds of foliage that grew amongst the rocks. I was inclined to stay and gaze about me, enjoying the oddly peaceful roar of the water, but since Lady Louisa showed every sign of disappearing with Lord Pecus if I so much as looked away, I thought it best to keep up. I did not care to be left alone with Lord Topher, who was just young enough to be foolish.

  The walkway beneath our feet rose to become a bridge over a gurgling stream, and I found myself smiling. Traitor or not, the earl was an artist. I could almost fancy myself to be in a mountain glen if it were not for the queer way the walls echoed back the sound of falling water. It was a pleasant sound, with the added attraction of making it impossible for Lord Topher to speak with any degree of success, and I was as much annoyed as I was intrigued when the next bend in the walkway brought us into such a sudden hush that for a moment I thought I had lost my hearing. The air was heavy with the scent of water, warm and moist all at once, and I had to force myself not to shake my head like a dog with water in its ears.

  “This is the focal point of the r
oom,” Louisa said proudly. Her voice had a muffled sound to it that enhanced my feeling of having lost my hearing. “Father had the rocks arranged just so.”

  Lord Pecus, looking around with critical approval, said: “It took him a full year to get the sound right, did it not?”

  Louisa nodded a charmingly water-frosted head of curls. “Father niggles at things. If it’s not just so, he chips away at it until it is.”

  I found myself disliking the space intensely. Try as I might, I could not shake off the sense of being deafened with silence, and the rockeries rising around us from troubled pools of water seemed to close in overhead. I took a few steps away from the others, carefully feeling out the cause of my discomfort, but came to the uneasy conclusion that it must be caused by magic. I didn’t care for the conclusion. Magic has never been something at which I’m particularly good, and I didn’t know enough to accurately guess at the type of magic that had been used. I glanced back at Lord Pecus over my shoulder and his eyes met mine with a definite fizz of warning. I blinked a little, not entirely sure that I approved of him using magic on me, and wandered a few steps further, to where the pools did not so much swirl and gurgle, as gently ripple. The lighting was more discreet here, a gentle ambience of muted witchlight that played on the undulating surface of the water and glanced off the pebbles at the bottom of the pond with a pearly sheen. The stones were a pleasing piebald mixture of dark and light, and it was not until the others began leisurely to turn and walk toward me that I saw the oddity of one of them. Unlike its fellows, it was long and slender, and as I gazed at it thoughtfully, I began to fancy that the blackness of it was metallic rather than stone. In fact, if one looked at it in the right way, one could almost say that it looked like the burnt out shell of a communication device. I flicked a quick glance toward the others to measure the distance, and swiftly weighed the differing merits of the fainting fit and the graceful stumble. Certainly once the little coterie reached me I would have no opportunity of slipping a discreet hand into the pool of water: I was annoyed that I had not seen it sooner, when I might have had a chance of doing so undetected.

  The graceful stumble, I decided resolutely; and summoning up a heedless air, I tripped toward the others, carefully and dangerously close to the edge of the unrailed walkway.

  “Careful!” said Lord Pecus sharply, and Lord Topher stepped forward hastily, warning: “Mind the edge, Lady Farrah!” but by then the slippered sole of my right foot had grated painfully off the rough edge of the wooden planks.

  A jolt rather more painful than I had anticipated twisted my ankle beneath me, dipping the hem of my frock slightly into the icy water, and the hand I put down to catch myself was as instinctive as if it really had been an accident. I gave a sharp gasp of pain, but turned it into a pained cry just in time: making a scene is always judicious if one is attempting to get away with a little sleight of hand. The metallic object was there under my hand, shifting dangerously between two rocks, and my fingers closed around it, cupping it between my hand and ankle before Lord Topher, who had rushed to assist me, could see it.

  I clasped the other hand about my ankle, bleating a string of distressed inanities, while my mind worked swiftly for the means to conceal my find. I had no reticule, of course, nor even a fan; and the thing was too big to be discreetly tucked down the front of my bodice even if I could have done so without being seen. A quick look beneath my lashes showed Lord Pecus looking exasperated and Lady Louisa, again showing her youth, looking smug.

  “Do you think you can stand, Lady Farrah?” Lord Topher urged, a hand beneath my elbow. “The water is too cold, you’ll catch your death.”

  “I believe I’ve twisted my ankle,” I said, with an entirely truthful ruefulness. I was gloomily certain that the bottom of my stocking had torn, and if the tear had not ruined them, the blood certainly would. Bother! That was my last pair of really fine stockings.

  I added, with an air of great braveness: “Perhaps I can stand if you give me your arm, Lord Topher.”

  He did so with alacrity, allowing me the moment I needed to conceal my close-fisted hand in the folds of my skirt, and we regained the walkway with little more than one soaked slipper and a damp length of hemline. Lord Pecus, I thought, looked a little cynical, but Louisa still had the hint of a satisfied smile playing about her lips.

  “Oh, what a pity, you’ve spoiled your stockings!” she said, all solicitous sweetness.

  “So it appears,” I said briefly. I’d done a better job in my stumble than I’d originally thought. My ankle was aching rather dreadfully, and I could feel Lord Pecus’ eyes upon me in an uncomfortably searching fashion. I had only taken a few limping steps before he shouldered Lord Topher aside and swept me from my feet with the air of a man doing the only sensible thing.

  I used the flurry of movement to tuck my treasure into his waistcoat pocket, and he took it without a blink.

  Louisa looked annoyed but thoughtful as she trailed behind us. I had possibly just done mankind a great disservice.

  Lord Topher, forced to follow behind with Louisa and sounding equally annoyed, said: “Perhaps we should go back to the ballroom, Lady Farrah. You could sit down there.”

  Lady Louisa brightened. “What a good idea, Lord Topher! I’m sure Isabella would like to sit down, and take a little wine.”

  “A cup of tea, thank you very much,” I corrected, smiling over Lord Pecus’ shoulder at Lord Topher, who took the hint and went ahead to fetch it with a much better grace. The one foot that had been soaked was as cold as ice, and despite the balmy summer evening, I felt the touch of a chill as we entered the hall once again.

  Louisa managed to arrange for me to be sequestered away in a little out-of-the-way alcove, which would have been terribly clever of her had it been Lord Pecus’ attention I was striving for. Lord Pecus stayed only long enough to set me down in a strong, silent kind of way, before shouldering his way through the ballroom and leaving. Considering my ruined slipper, I thought, he had better keep me appraised as to what I had found, or there would be trouble.

  I was not kept short of company after Lord Pecus left. Lord Topher stayed by my side through most of the evening, as did the horselords, who did not often dance; and by and by I had gathered a laughing, talking throng about me. Curran insisted on sitting beside me, where he alternately flirted desperately and fanned me with Katrina’s fan. I allowed it because it made Katrina smile involuntarily and often as the evening passed. I began to see the audacious Curran in a new light.

  By the time Melchior came to fetch me, my ankle was less painful, if a little stiff, and I was not obliged to be carried again; though this didn’t prevent Curran from attempting to do so. He was at length dissuaded, and I strolled away with Melchior, who pulled my hand through his arm.

  “I know you’re up to something, Carrots,” he said conversationally.

  I drew myself up grandly. “Melchior, you should know by now that I am always up to something.”

  That surprised a laugh out of him. “I can’t think why I was expecting a denial! Who did you faint on this time?”

  “Faint?” My eyes widened innocently. “Good heavens, no! My dear Melchior, the most unfortunate incident! I fell into one of the earl’s pools!”

  Melchior thought about this for a moment, and then inquired: “May one ask what was in the pool?”

  “Why, water, to be sure! I believe it is usually the case: it comes from the waterfalls, you know.”

  “One day, Carrots, I will find you strangled, and I won’t be astonished. To what purpose did you fling yourself into the earl’s pool?”

  “Fling? I did nothing of the kind! It was more of a small miss-step.”

  “Any particular reason the earl is a suspect?”

  “Phantoms and ideas,” I admitted ruefully. “Nothing that could be called proof.”

  “Was Pecus part of your little charade, or did he become embroiled by accident?”

  “Accident, and a little necessity. Don’t wo
rry, Melchior, I’m not corrupting the Watch.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me,” Melchior said, a little gloomily. “Carrots, I wish you’d be a bit more careful.”

  “That,” I said in some amusement; “Is a downright case of the pot calling the kettle black! When I think what you did while Annabel and I were at school!”

  “All right, all right,” he said hastily. “Just don’t get yourself hurt.”

  I grinned at him. “Afraid of causing an international incident?”

  “No,” Melchior retorted frankly: “Afraid of Annabel!”

  *

  I was woken some hours before dawn by a cacophony of muffled yelling, breaking foliage, and a heavy thump.

  The door to Vadim’s room swung open, and a shadow whispered piercingly: “M’lady? Are you all right?”

  I sat up, plumping a pillow behind me into a more comfortable shape.

  “Ah, Vadim. I take it Keenan remembered to grease the windowsills?”

  “Yes, my lady,” Vadim said, cheerfully, this time a little louder. She moved into the room and across to the window, her figure a mere silhouette against the opening. There was a mixture of satisfaction and awe in her voice as she said: “There’s a man down there in the garden!”

  “I rather thought there might be. What is he doing?”

  Vadim craned her head further out the window. “Groaning, mostly. Might have broke his arm, m’lady.”

  “Very good. Don’t let me keep you up, Vadim.”

  She hovered uncertainly by the window. “Should I do anything about him?”

  “Oh no!” I said easily, snuggling back down into the covers. “I’m sure the Watch will sort all that out. Goodnight, Vadim.”

  “Goodnight, m’lady.”

  Chapter Seven

  I woke much later to hushed voices and stifled giggles. Vadim and Keenan were leaning perilously out the window, Vadim gesturing with great animation while Keenan grinned. I sat up, yawning elaborately to announce my presence, and they turned eagerly.

  “The bloke’s gone!” Keenan announced with relish. “Mebbe he made a splint of branches and creepers and hobbled away vowin’ his revenge!”