The Hod King

by Josiah Bancroft

  Voleta smoothed and squared the paper. She scanned until she found her name and then began to read: “‘After last night’s party, it’s safe to say that the Marquis de Clarke has reclaimed the mantle of Reveler in Chief. As always, he drowned us in wine, fattened us with confectionary, and stitched our ribs with laughter. But let it not be said that this was some rote affair. Not at all! The marquis’s talent for inviting the most enthralling guests was again on display. Lady Voleta Contumax’s unusual style seemed, at first, to be the product of some sort of hereditary defect. But what we learned from the young lady’s apology for the polly is that her appearance and conduct, bizarre as they both are, are not senseless. She is a sincere eyesore, an unvarnished original! She stood tall in the court of the cabaret and left her voice ringing in our ears, crying out: “The prettier the mob, the prettier are we all!” How right the lady was! And her eyes are very, very purple.’”

  “They are!” Xenia squeaked.

  “What is this rubbish?” Voleta said, cracking the newspaper in half. “I didn’t say that. If anything, I said the opposite of that!”

  “Milady, you’re missing the point,” Xenia cooed. “They liked you. That’s all that matters.”

  “What part of me did they like? All I see are insults!”

  “Have you never read a paper before? That’s a glowing review. Papa can’t be mad at you now. You’re a hit!” Xenia dug through the pockets of her day dress and produced a gold-foiled envelope that had obviously been opened by someone who was in a hurry. “And I saved the best for last. Look at this! It just came.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s an invitation to Prince Francis’s Summer Cotillion! He must’ve read about you in the paper this morning and said to himself, ‘Now there’s somebody I want to have at my party!’”

  A flush ran up Voleta’s throat at the mention of Prince Francis’s name. “I suppose it’s an important party?”

  “You suppose it’s a … Voleta, you really are the biggest dum-dum in the history of history. It’s the prince’s Summer Cotillion!” Xenia said each word more loudly and distinctly, apparently believing volume could cure Voleta’s stupidity. “Everyone will be there. I’ve only been invited once before, and it was the most fantastic evening of my life!” She gasped. “We must start getting ready.”

  “Right now? But it’s morning.”

  Xenia clasped Voleta’s hands and pumped them excitedly. “Oh, you silly goose! If we start now, we just may be ready in time!”

  Chapter Eight

  I’d rather be misquoted than never quoted. Some of my best lines are misattributions.

  —Oren Robinson of the Daily Reverie

  Xenia insisted that they go through each and every article of clothing in Voleta’s luggage, which was no small undertaking. Byron had filled an entire steamer trunk with frocks, another with blouses and skirts, another with boots and shoes, and a fourth with all the supporting accoutrements a young woman could wish for: scarves, tights, girdles, vests, jewelry, and even a muff or two. Since the stag wasn’t sure what would be in vogue, he packed as if for a theatrical troupe. Xenia found most of the garments so hilarious she insisted she be allowed to try them on. Voleta wore a plastered-on smile while Xenia modeled a pair of baggy bloomers, a bare wire bustle, and a feathered cape.

  Every piece of baggage bore a tag that said PASS in big block letters, evidence that customs had searched them for contraband. Their luggage had arrived with a short inventory of confiscated items, which included the reason they had been seized:

  2 six-inch hat pins (potential for violence)

  1 unmarked bottle of scent (general suspicion)

  1 tortoise-shell hair pick (potential for violence)

  1 brocaded belt (general suspicion)

  1 set of hair-curling tongs (general suspicion)

  Iren found the phrase general suspicion galling. She had worked long enough in a port to know what that really meant. It meant one of the agents wanted to take a present for their wife, daughter, or mistress and had to make up some excuse for stealing it. And why in the world had Byron thought to pack a hair curler for two women who hadn’t enough hair between them to make a single ringlet?

  If only customs would have confiscated her bonnets.

  In the end, there was really only one item in the luggage that concerned her, and that was the Sphinx’s necklace.

  While Xenia was absorbed with ransacking the dress trunk and Voleta was busy trying to keep her temper, Iren went in search of the jewelry box. She found the ornate rosewood box under a pile of silk scarves. She opened it and began to probe the collection of delicate chains and rings, her fingers moving clumsily between the small nooks.

  When after her first pass she hadn’t found the necklace, Iren suffered a flash of panic. What if an agent had pocketed it and just omitted the theft from the formal inventory? For all she knew, the Sphinx’s necklace might already be hanging from some stranger’s neck on the other side of the city. She could feel her heartbeat in her hands, and she shook them out to steady them before undertaking a second, more thorough search.

  She found the necklace inside a small velvet pouch. The round moon that hung from the silver chain was no larger than a coin. Finely engraved craters decorated both faces of the piece, one side of which was white-gold; the other, dark pewter. The light and dark sides were meant to evoke the full and new moons. It was a simple but lovely piece. More importantly, it was their lifeline. The necklace was a beacon that called the Sphinx’s messengers. As long as they had the necklace, they could communicate with Edith and Byron and, if need be, the Sphinx.

  “What a pretty piece. Is it very valuable?” Ann said from her elbow. Iren turned and realized the small governess had been watching her.

  Iren closed her hand around the moon. “Just to me.”

  “Well, it’s only sentiment that’s worth anything in the end, isn’t it?” Ann said.

  Iren smiled at her, returning the necklace to its sleeve and cubby. “I don’t think your lady would agree with you.”

  “That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile,” Ann said with an appreciative cluck of her tongue. “I know it’s not exactly part of the uniform, but it does look nice on you. I hope you aren’t going to pack that away, too.”

  Their quiet conversation was interrupted by Xenia’s pealing laughter. The young lady had begun to dance about the room using one of Voleta’s gowns as a partner. Her romping knocked over a chair and swept the silver grooming set from the vanity. Ann’s mouth tightened at the sight, but she maintained her good humor. “I’m so glad the papers were positive this morning. She hardly slept last night for sobbing.”

  “Voleta was up, too. Is the marquis still angry?”

  “Probably, but he can’t very well show it now. Everyone’s dying to meet her.”

  “So. We’re going to Prince Francis’s ball.” She spoke the name with a chilly inflection.

  Ann looked up. Iren watched the smooth, almost translucent skin of her brow wrinkle like warm wax. She had large, kind eyes. “Don’t fret. Balls are safe enough, even if there are wolves around. There will be too many people for anyone to get into too much trouble. Though perhaps your lady won’t feel like debating tonight? I don’t think she would want to ruffle the prince’s feathers. He holds his grudges with two hands, if you know what I mean.”

  “She doesn’t listen to me,” Iren said, scowling.

  “Sometimes it’s enough to be heard. At least, that’s what I tell myself,” Ann said. “Can I ask you something? How old do you think Lady Xenia is?”

  Iren considered it a moment. “Seven?”

  Ann laughed. “No, really.”

  “I don’t know. Sixteen, seventeen? It’s hard to tell anymore.”

  “She’s twenty-three.”

  “Really?” Iren looked at the silly golden-haired lady hopping about the room.

  “The older she gets, the younger she acts. She’s afraid her father will wake up one day a
nd realize that his perfect little girl has become a perfect little spinster, and she’ll go from being the feature of her father’s parties to a millstone in his parlor. Pelphia isn’t kind to ladies who don’t marry. Honestly, it’s not kind to ladies in general, but her juvenile behavior puts off a lot of good prospects. She has had a few proposals in recent months and years, some from perfectly fine young nobles, but she’s determined to snare herself a higher place in court. She wants a duke, at least.”

  “So it’s all just an act?”

  “I don’t know if it is at this point. If you pretend to be something long enough, you eventually become it, don’t you?”

  “Ann! Ann, tell Papa I need a squirrel. A squirrel like that one,” Xenia said, pointing at Squit, who was sitting on top of Voleta’s head and nibbling on her hair. “Tell him, if I don’t get a squirrel, I’ll propose to Count Orleans, and all our children will be fat, ugly dum-dums.”

  Ann smiled bravely. “I will communicate the urgency of milady’s request.” She laid her small hand upon the great shelf of Iren’s arm, squeezed it, and whispered, “Let me know if you want to swap.”

  Hours later, the two meticulously scrubbed, dressed, and coiffed ladies left the marquis’s home and undertook the promenade through the streets of Pelphia with their governesses in tow. And just as they had been during the reception parade the day before, nearly every lady within sight was dressed in one shade or another of orange. The auburn-colored river followed the trail of the sun, joining a growing surge of hopeful courtiers who carried bouquets, dance cards, their fathers’ hopes, and their mothers’ fears. Those young ladies who had not been so fortunate as to receive an invitation to Prince Francis’s Summer Cotillion watched the parade from café patios and bedroom windows where they scowled and whispered about the shortcomings of their peers.

  Voleta was blissfully unaware of all the glaring and gossiping. She had discovered that she could attain an almost trancelike state if she concentrated on her breathing, unfocused her eyes, and repeated the admonishing phrases Byron had spent recent days teaching her. She would not raise a fuss. She would not make a scene. She would not speak her mind. When some numbskull nobleman said something horrible or foolish, she would smile and curtsy. She would be gracious, composed, and pliant.

  Though she had refused to let Xenia pick out her dress.

  This “betrayal,” as Xenia called it, had led to hours of argument and fountains of tears. But Voleta had stood her ground. She would wear one of her own gowns: a simple silver frock that was long and straight and without much shape. But it flashed like a blade, and she liked the way it fit.

  Xenia said it was not silver. It was decidedly gray. And gray reminded her of pigeons and old men and ashes and grout. Orange was what everyone was wearing. Orange was the color of sunrises, passionate fires, and poppy flowers! Gray had never been popular; it never would be popular; and why did Voleta hate her so much? What had she done to deserve such a horrid guest?

  Their spat had ended with Xenia declaring that she would never speak to Voleta again, a commitment she kept throughout their walk to the venue. Of course, Voleta hardly considered Xenia’s silence a punishment, though she tried to look suitably forlorn whenever Xenia scowled at her because the sadder Voleta looked, the more determined Xenia was to punish her with peace and quiet.

  The venue for the prince’s cotillion was called Horizon Hall, which sounded grand enough. The hall stood at the city’s edge, half-sunk into the Tower superstructure, where it served as the nightly stable for the mechanical sun. But when Voleta glimpsed the hall from a distance of several city blocks, she thought it bore a striking resemblance to a three-story blob of mashed potatoes. Gold light leaked like melted butter from a door at the top of a warped and bumpy stair. The clockwork sun jabbered down the blue bowl of sky toward the hall’s irregular summit. To Voleta’s surprise, the rattling star did not brake when it reached the rooftop. Instead, the flaming points guttered out as the gas was shut off, and the unlit disc disappeared through a slit in the hall’s roof. Only then did Voleta understand what the hall’s architect had wished to evoke: a fluffy cloud cradling the setting sun.

  The flow of debutantes piled against the uneven steps of the hall, their advance temporarily dammed by the manner of admittance. Each debutante had to present her invitation to the doorman, who reviewed its authenticity before passing the title card to the herald, who in turn announced the lady. The process was necessarily slow as none of the young ladies wished to be hustled through her debut, and so everyone involved had no choice but to be patient.

  Voleta looked back at Iren, nearly pinned against her by the crowd. She had never seen Iren look so miserable, though probably that was owed largely to the wig. It really shouldn’t have been so blond.

  The wig had been Ann’s idea. While the young ladies were off taking baths, she and Iren had spent the better part of an hour folding and hanging up all the clothes Xenia had thrown about. Ann took the moment of privacy to tell Iren she might not want to wear her bonnet to the ball.

  “It’s completely unreasonable, but it will draw a lot of attention,” Ann explained, shaking the wrinkles out of a scarf before she squared it and returned it to its rightful place in the trunk. “I don’t think you would enjoy the scrutiny.”

  “I don’t think it’s the bonnet they’ll be staring at,” Iren said, impressed at how quickly Ann was able to chip away at the mess. Iren felt like she’d spent half an hour trying to hang the same silk blouse.

  “Well, the thing is, the prince doesn’t like women to wear hats. He holds the somewhat arcane impression that hats are masculine.”

  “You mean, they won’t let me in if I’m wearing the bonnet?”

  “No, I think they won’t. And I know you want to be there for Voleta.” Ann stopped folding for a moment and approached Iren with her hands held up as if she meant to offer to surrender. “So why don’t we just take a look at what we have under here.” With the sort of care one might use to pet a stray dog, Ann reached up and pulled the bonnet from Iren’s head.

  Ann gasped. Iren’s hair was silver, short, and standing out at every angle. It looked like she had cut it herself. Perhaps in the dark.

  Iren frowned. “Is it bad?”

  “Well,” Ann said, shifting her pursed lips from one side of her mouth to the other. “We decided that we would be frank with each other, so I’ll just tell you: I really think you might look nice in a run-of-the-mill, nothing too fancy, average sort of … wig.”

  Stuck in the crowd outside Horizon Hall, Iren was second-guessing the wisdom of that sentiment.

  Ann had scoured the marquis’s lost-and-found closet, where she kept all the garments and accoutrements that guests left behind. Iren had tried on several options, but the blond, layered wig had been the only one that she could squeeze onto her head. Ann sounded confident that Iren could carry the look off, but when Iren examined herself in a mirror, she thought it looked as if she were wearing a haystack.

  Ann, who was pressed snugly against Iren’s hip by the crowd outside the hall, smiled up at her encouragingly. Iren showed some teeth in the general shape of a smile and tried to ignore her throbbing, itching scalp.

  Meanwhile, Voleta had come to the unfortunate conclusion that she needed Xenia to talk to her. Because as irritating as her host was, she was a source of useful information. Xenia would know if the “Mermaid” were attending the prince’s cotillion and would be able to recognize her on sight. Voleta had only the briefly glimpsed painting of Marya and an etching in the Daily Reverie to go by, and neither were sufficient to give her a clear impression. She needed Xenia to point Marya out.

  Voleta thought a moment about how she might bait the lady into talking to her again, then asked, “Xenia, would you like to marry Prince Francis?”

  Xenia seemed to find the question irresistible. “One does not like to marry the Prince; one dreams of it. Oh, can you imagine what my life would be like? No more begging Papa for pets and dresse
s and money for the café. No more second-class seamstresses. No more grouchy Ann. I’d have three handmaids, my own penthouse, and a standing invitation to any party in town.”

  “That does sound grand. But what is the prince like?” Voleta asked the question innocently enough, though she had begun to wonder if the prince might be an ally in her effort to meet Marya.

  “Well, he’s exceedingly handsome and a very good dancer. He can talk with the smarties and still fight with the toughies. He’s well traveled—he’s off on a grand adventure at least once a year. He’s always popping in and out of the papers. And he doesn’t have to court anyone because everyone is so busy courting him.”

  From what Voleta had seen of the prince on the rooftop the night before, Xenia’s version of Prince Francis was plausible. He was good looking, well spoken, and exceedingly impressed with himself.

  “Wait a moment! Excuse me,” the man at Voleta’s elbow said. He pulled a folded newspaper from the inside pocket of his coat. “You’re the girl in the paper, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Voleta said with a tired sigh. “I was very rude at a party last night.”

  “No, no, you were on the rooftops.”

  Now the man had Iren’s attention. He had begun to offer the newspaper when Iren snatched it away. “With my compliments,” the man said, startled by Iren’s appearance. He tipped his hat and shifted away through the crowd.