Kingdom of Ruses

by Kate Stradling

  The sight of thousands of Lenore’s citizens processing in the black of night was not easy to forget. It was like fiery tendrils growing through the darkness. When all of the citizens had reached one of five points in the city, a grand display of fireworks exploded in the air, and people returned to their homes to sleep, or to prepare for the festivities on the morrow.

  Viola had always been quite content to watch from afar. She wasn’t going to get that opportunity this year, though. At sixteen, she was finally old enough to attend the palace banquet.

  “Ouch!” she cried as a straight pin stuck her in the side.

  “Sorry,” said the seamstress attending to her.

  “I don’t really see why a new dress is necessary,” Viola said to her mother, who was doting over the whole process with giddy anticipation. “And if it really is, why did we have to wait until the last minute?”

  Elizabeth Moreland loved two things the most in the world: baking sweets and dressing up her children like dolls. Now that she had no small ones left to play with, though, she rarely got to explore this second love. “Viola, this dress was started ages ago—you remember when I took your measurements perfectly well!” she cried. “Of course we would wait until the last minute to have the final fitting, for it must be perfect! Besides that, we couldn’t have anyone else discovering your style and copying it!”

  “I don’t have style,” said Viola crisply. “I do have a very nice dress from my birthday last year that would have done quite well for the occasion, though.”

  “No, no, no,” her mother said with a frown. “The banquet requires a ball gown. All the ladies will be wearing them. It’s a very grand event, and it’s your first time coming, so you must look perfect. You’re a Moreland, remember!”

  “It still seems like a lot of unnecessary fussing,” Viola grumbled.

  Her mother’s brows arched. “Charles never complained anywhere near this much.”

  Viola recalled with perfect clarity the many protestations that had come from her brother the last two years and thought that her mother was over-exaggerating. This year he had no complaints, of course, for he got to wear his military uniform rather than a suit and starched shirt. The whole of Elizabeth’s attention was therefore reserved for Viola alone.

  “I do like the color,” said her mother abruptly. “We should dress you in that color more often, my dear.”

  “Please don’t,” Viola replied, her voice nearly a whimper. Even she would admit that the primary fabric was beautiful—a stiff, purple-blue that seemed to shift colors in different lights—but she also knew for a fact that it had cost a small fortune. Viola preferred to wear muted colors rather than bold ones, for the simple fact that it was much easier to blend into a crowd. She also preferred her nice, simple dresses to an elaborate gown, with its beading and ruching, and whatever other ornamentation her mother had ordered.

  “It’s some of my finest work,” the seamstress said as she moved to pin the hem. “Thank heavens your daughter has such a fine figure, Mrs. Moreland, for I would have cried myself to sleep if I had to put this dress on one of those dumplings that some of these ladies bring me to outfit. Not that they don’t have the right to look stylish,” she added diplomatically, “but sometimes it is so very hard to explain to doting mamas that what looks lovely on one girl can look awful on another, and that each shape has an appropriate style to play up its good points. The number of times I’ve had a woman bring me her sallow daughter and tell me to array her in pink! It’s a travesty, really.”

  Viola’s mother was nodding in agreement. “Good fashion can be so very different for each individual,” she said. “Why, I remember when I was a girl, pastel green was all the rage for party dresses, and I simply cannot wear that color!”

  “I should think not,” said the seamstress with a critical glance.

  “My mother told the seamstress to make me a mint green gown all the same—mint green, can you believe it?—but I coaxed her to change the color to a lovely wine-dark hue that went so much better with my skin. That was the party where I met Mr. Moreland, and he fell madly in love with me. What’s more,” she added with a triumphant smirk, “the seamstress had dozens of orders the next month for dresses in that same shade.”

  “That was you that started that craze!” cried the seamstress in awe. “I remember that from when I was a girl, all of those beautiful red dresses! Forgive me for being too familiar, Mrs. Moreland, but you’ve always been an inspiration when it comes to fashion. So many women look to you for guidance.”

  Viola’s mother made a tinkling sort of laugh. “Thank you so much,” she said, then added wistfully, “My only regret is that my one and only daughter doesn’t seem to have any interest in such a noble pursuit.”

  Both women paused to look critically at Viola.

  “What?” she replied uncomfortably. “I just think that there’s more to life than how many yards of lace you can fit on a dress.”

  The seamstress clucked and shook her head sadly. “Lace in this day and age? You would be mistaken for a dowager.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting—”

  “Viola, dear,” said her mother kindly, “lace isn’t fashionable for young women. It hasn’t been for, oh, about three years now.”

  “Are we almost finished?” asked Viola with feigned politeness.

  “Just a few more pins, dearie. Hold yourself very still so that I don’t poke you again.”

  Viola glanced downward to where the seamstress crouched upon the ground. If the woman poked her, it would hardly be an accident, given that the hem pooled far from her ankles.

  The next few moments seemed to pass at a snail’s pace, what with Viola’s mother prancing around to inspect the dress from every angle. “It really will be perfect,” she said at last, and she clapped her hands together in excitement. “Just you wait and see whether you don’t hook yourself some handsome young man at this banquet, my dear Viola.”

  “I don’t want to hook myself some handsome young man,” Viola protested. “My life is complicated enough already without adding suitors and courtship to it.”

  Both women exchanged a knowing glance and rolled their eyes. Viola hated when women did that. She knew her own mind perfectly well, and just because she hadn’t experienced the joys of a twitterpated first love didn’t mean that she was really missing out on anything. In her opinion, it was one less headache to worry about.

  “All right, now,” said the seamstress at last. “Slip it off over your head—there’s a good girl—and I’ll hie me off to home to finish the last details. I’ll have it back for you in plenty of time tomorrow afternoon. You’re going to look like an absolute dream!” She carefully, lovingly folded the dress into its box. “Have you decided how you want to fix her hair?” she asked Mrs. Moreland.

  “My usual braid should be fine, right?” Viola asked in all innocence, just to be impertinent.

  Her mother looked as though she was about to faint from despair. “A braid—! Heaven forbid you should wear such a plain hairstyle with that gorgeous dress!”

  “You must set her hair in curlers tonight,” said the seamstress with haste. “She has a lovely neck, so an upswept style will look wonderful. I have some ribbon at my shop that is just the perfect color for this material as well, if you’d like.”

  “You are such a life-saver,” said Elizabeth Moreland with utmost gratitude. “Yes, indeed that will be the very thing! I wonder if I ought to send for some flowers as well—or would that be too much, flowers in the hair?”

  “I have heard that many of the young ladies are planning such an adornment,” said the seamstress sagely. “My one piece of advice on that front would be to keep it simple—none of these orchids or sprays of roses that they all seem to be demanding.”

  “How about daisies?” asked Viola, affecting a naïve expression.

  Both women looked at her with pitying eyes before turning back to one another to discuss more appropriate possibilities.

  “T
here really is nothing wrong with daisies,” Viola muttered. “They’re very pretty, even if they aren’t quite the fashion these days.”

  The seamstress went her way soon enough and left Viola and her mother to one another’s company. “This is so exciting,” said Mrs. Moreland, giddy with anticipation. “Your first banquet and your first dance! Soon you’ll have your first boyfriend and your first kiss—”

  “I’ve already had that,” Viola absently interrupted.

  Her mother went ashen-faced. “What? When? With whom?”

  “Ah,” said Viola, suddenly very wary of that hawk-like expression. She backed away from her mother slowly. “You know, I’ve just remembered something I forgot to do earlier…” Then, she turned and fled.

  “Viola!” her mother called after her. “Come back here! Who was he? Was he handsome? Give your mother the details!”

  In her heart, Viola vowed never to tell the tale to anyone. It was embarrassing, for one thing, but it was also more than anyone needed to know, especially her mother. She paused to wonder what sort of expression Elizabeth would wear if her daughter told her that she had been kissed by the Prince. She’d likely have an apoplexy, Viola decided the next moment. He was supposed to be centuries older than she was, after all.

  The following day, the day of the banquet, she didn’t have any opportunity to visit the Prince. Her mother had already appropriated her time, intent upon preparations for the grand event to come. Accordingly, Edmund was sent in her stead to perform any sort of errands that the Prince might need (or rather, to give the appearance that the Prince commanded an attendant to his person every day).

  After enduring a morning of “beauty preparations,” as her mother called them, Viola was thoroughly sick of the whole ordeal and longed for years past when she had been allowed to do whatever she pleased during the day and then sneak up to the Prince’s tower at night to watch the city’s festivities. Now she had been scrubbed and cleaned and primped alongside her mother. Some of the palace maids had been summoned to do both her and her mother’s hair, and Viola was eaten with impatience as they curled and pinned and teased her blond locks.

  A simple braid only took three minutes. A fancy one might have taken ten. When she suggested this to the maids, though, her mother promptly told them to disregard anything she said and make her hair into a thing of beauty instead. Viola watched jealously as Elizabeth’s brown locks were twisted into a very neat, very chic bun and a few tendrils were pulled down to curl around her face. The whole process took all of fifteen minutes.

  “Why can’t I have that hairstyle too?” Viola asked resentfully.

  Her mother looked scandalized. “Viola, I’m an old matron—still attractive, if I do say so myself, but old nonetheless. It wouldn’t be right for me to have my hair done up with ribbons and flowers, like I were a mere slip of a girl again. People would say that I was trying to look younger than I really am. You need to embrace your youth, darling, and exploit your beauty as much as you can. The day will come when you can get away with a simple chignon, but you have to earn it.”

  And so it went with pulling and twisting and teasing and curling and pinning, for more than an hour. When the two maids charged with the task finally stood back to survey their handiwork, they both turned and nodded to one another in satisfaction. Then they held up a small hand-mirror so that Viola could appreciate their craftsmanship as well.

  Her breath caught in her throat. The girl staring back at her looked utterly foreign. Her hair had been worked into a chignon far more elaborate than her mother’s, and it gave her a sleek, refined look. Two anemone flowers had been worked into the left side, at the base of the knot, their subtle purple hue soft against their blond backdrop. The seamstress, true to her word, had sent over a purple ribbon as well, and that had somehow been worked into the construction so that it peeped out at intervals.

  It was well done, Viola had to admit. She felt wholly unlike herself, though.

  Her mother was almost in tears and working hard to hold back that emotion. “Oh, Viola, you’re so beautiful! How wonderful it is!” Then, she hugged each of the maids gratefully and commended them on their fantastic work. “You’ve transformed my daughter from that plain, plain look she always wears! How can I ever thank you enough?”

  Viola thought that was perhaps too much. Of course her look was usually plain: who had time for hours of primping each day?

  The seamstress chose that moment to arrive with the two dresses—Viola’s gorgeously fashioned purple one, and Mrs. Moreland’s more conservative brown one.

  “Age before beauty,” Elizabeth said with an adoring wink toward her daughter. “I want mine on first, so that I have more time to fawn over Viola in hers.”

  The maids seemed wary about the choice of brown, but it was a rich shade and the fabric itself had a sheen that made it seem anything but common. The dress, too, was beautifully made, stylish but mutedly so. When everyone stepped back to view Elizabeth Moreland, all agreed that she was a paragon of fashion, even if she was almost forty.

  “Bright colors are for the young,” she said as she surveyed herself in a full-length mirror, “but that doesn’t mean that we have to be resigned to dull couture as we age as well. Take note, all you girls, that when you get older, the more conservative colors are always flattering if you have a seamstress who knows what she’s doing.”

  At this, the seamstress blushed and ducked her head with a humble murmur of gratitude.

  “And now, my sweet Viola’s turn!” said Elizabeth, and she carefully seated herself to watch the entire process.

  Unlike her mother, Viola had the unenvied luck of getting pulled into a corset until she could barely breathe. The maids seemed to be having some sort of contest with each other on who could get it the tightest, so that when it was tied at last, Viola felt like she was ready to faint on the spot. She had to remain standing, of course. Careful of her elaborately coifed hair, they slipped the dress over her head and buttoned her in.

  Her mother gasped with delight. “Viola, you’re like a princess! You hardly look like my daughter anymore!”

  “There’s no mistaking she’s your daughter, ma’am,” said one of the maids. “You two will be the belles of the party tonight.”

  Another maid handed Viola a bouquet of flowers—the pale purple anemones tied with that same dark ribbon that decorated her hair—and then stepped back to survey their work.

  One of them frowned. “Something’s missing,” she said.

  “Ooh!” cried Mrs. Moreland. “I forgot the jewelry! Don’t let her look at herself yet!” With that, she hurried from the room, her skirts rustling as she went. Viola glanced around at the three maids and the seamstress. The mirror was behind her, and they all looked ready to pounce if she so much as glanced over her shoulder.

  Her mother returned presently. “Diamonds for me,” she said, and she set a small box to the side. “It must be amethysts for you, dear, for I had the fabric matched to them perfectly.” She opened a second box and presented it to one of the maids, who withdrew a glittering necklace from within as her companions ooh’ed and ah’ed around her. The stones were deep purple and sparkled with brightness in their hidden depths.

  Around Viola’s throat the necklace went, the metal of the setting cold against her skin.

  “Turn around, dear,” said her mother reverently.

  She did as she was told. The woman—not girl, woman—who stared back at her from the mirror looked nothing like Viola Moreland.

  “I hardly know myself,” she breathed.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” cried her mother, and the other women all nodded ecstatically. “Every young man there tonight is going to shower you with adoration!”

  “Some of the old ones will too, if I’m not mistaken,” said the seamstress.

  “Yes, but she needn’t entertain those,” said her mother with a frown.

  For Viola’s part, she wasn’t concerned with how every young man in the room would react, but only
with one in particular. Would he think she was pretty, or would he think that she was dressing up just to please him? Or would he think the whole ensemble was all too much, too gaudy?

  Her level of anxiety over this subject surprised even herself.

  “Slippers now,” said her mother, and she produced two sets of silk slippers, each dyed to a shade of the ladies’ dresses. “We must have our shawls in case it gets cold, and a fan if it gets too warm—oh, but Viola is carrying a bouquet, so let’s not burden you with a fan as well.”

  “I don’t really want the bouquet either,” Viola began to say, but she was answered with a collective, “No!” from all the women in the room.

  “It completes the look,” said one of the maids fretfully.

  “You must have the bouquet,” said another.

  Viola very quickly gave into their demands and wondered whether she would have the chance to “forget” it somewhere before she left. That chance didn’t come. There was a quick knock on the door, and Charlie poked his head in.

  “Are you two rea—” His voice cut off as he caught sight of his sister. His eyes grew large, and a low whistle ran through his pursed lips. “Wow, Viola. Who knew you could clean up so well? I hardly recognized you! You look wonderful as well, Mother, but I’m used to you being beautiful,” he added. His mother smiled under the compliment.

  “What did you come here for, Charlie?” Viola asked, internally wondering just what was so wrong with liking simple styles.

  “The Prince is ready to go down to the banquet hall. The Prime Minister’s family has to follow him in his entourage, so I came to get you two.”

  “We’re ready,” said his mother as she fastened a diamond bracelet around her gloved wrist. It sparkled wildly, reflecting a myriad of colors. “Come Viola.”

  “What do I do if I trip?” Viola asked with an ominous feeling of foreboding.