Gilding the Lily, page 2
Lady Bianca pursed her lips. “We have an itinerary planned already, your highness. Arrangements have been made, accommodations have been paid for. Not to mention the—”
“Oh, I can take care of all that,” said Tullius with a wave of his hand. “Or Vita could. What about it, Princess Elwyn? Why not come stay with us for a while? A few months, or a year, or a couple years. I promise you it will be much more interesting than anything you’ll see in Formacaster or Leornian.”
“That is very kind,” said Lady Bianca, “but Her Majesty, Queen Rohesia, would need to—”
“Rohesia would understand,” laughed Tullius. “Believe me, of all the women at the Myrcian court, she would understand how living in the Empire could...how shall I say? Put a little final polish on a girl.”
“You can polish yourself all you like, Tullius,” said Domina Uggeri, raising an eyebrow, “but you can’t seriously expect Lady Bianca and Princess Elwyn to change their plans for the next year of their lives based on a proposal you make after four glasses of whiskey. At least give them time to think about it.”
“Fair enough,” said Tullius. “For now, however, I simply insist that you come to my little party on my barge in the harbor tonight. I promise nothing untoward will happen to the princess, Lady Bianca. You are also invited. Vita will come, too, and she will make sure everyone gets back to her house safe and,” he cleared his throat, “intact, as it were.”
By this point, Sir Presley and Professor Sobol had joined them, and Tullius invited them to the party on the barge, as well. Their attendance seemed to give the event a cloak of respectability in Lady Bianca’s eyes, and she finally consented to let Elwyn go.
Elwyn thanked her, even though it occurred to her now—as it never had before on this trip—that she didn’t need Bianca’s permission. Prince Tullius was exactly right—she was legally of age, and if she wanted to attend slightly scandalous Immani parties (not too scandalous, but just the right level of scandalousness), then she could do it, and no one could stop her anymore.
Besides, perhaps it was just the whiskey and the wine, or perhaps it was the dancing, or perhaps it was the excitement of being treated like a real adult finally. But she was starting to like Tullius and Vita a lot more than she had, initially.
She liked being accepted by people who knew virtually everyone worth knowing in the entire world. She liked the idea of going to feasts and balls with them and being shown off as “the loveliest girl at the party.” She liked the promise of meeting young men who would appreciate her for herself at last—not like the cloddish, awkward fellows at Atherton, who didn’t know how to look a girl in the eye when they talked to her. Not like her stupid, clumsy cousin, Young Broderick, who couldn’t dance the Mt. Nellis Reel without accidentally grabbing her chest and making everyone laugh.
They left the party at the Imperial Palace as the chimes rang out 10:00. Tullius and Vita sat on one seat of Vita’s carriage with Bianca, while Elwyn sat between Professor Sobol and Sir Presley. They rolled past revelers in the forum and parties in many of the great Palatine mansions. They went down into the Septentrius District, where partygoers were spilling out onto the pavement from taverns and inns. At last, they reached the merchant docks of the North Harbor, and they boarded a little gilded barge that Tullius had engaged for the evening.
A lot of partygoers had already arrived, along with a ten-piece orchestra and what appeared to be a troupe of professional Minertian dancers and acrobats. The guestlist seemed to be highly eclectic. Professor Sobol introduced Elwyn and Bianca to several colleagues from the Imperial University. Vita brought around a few actors and actresses, along with a couple army generals who had known her late husband. There was a professional charioteer who seemed to be quite a celebrity, a Zekustian prince, and a group of waitresses and cooks from Tullius’s favorite restaurant.
At one point, as Elwyn fetched more drinks for herself and Bianca and an ambassador’s wife they were talking to, she ran into Tullius, and he explained how he had chosen his guests: “I believe a party must be cultivated and planned like a menu. You wouldn’t pair Trahernian river pike in butter sauce with a heavy Royal Rodvin, would you?”
“I suppose not,” said Elwyn.
“Exactly. But you don’t want the same old meal, day after day, either, do you? You want variety—something interesting and possibly a little risky. You might match, say, curried peacock with ginger rice and spiced Alokkoan mead. Will it work or not? Who knows? But it will be a meal you remember!”
Elwyn agreed his theory seemed plausible.
“That’s what I like to do with my parties,” he said. “I want all these people to say tomorrow, ‘I met the most interesting fellow with the most fascinating ideas at the prince’s party last night.’ If people say that, then I feel like I’ve done my duty as a host.”
Once again, she thought, “Living and traveling with these people for a year would be amazing.” It would teach her more than all her time at Atherton, no doubt.
“By the by,” Tullius went on, “do you see that scrawny fellow talking to Vita right now? He’s a composer. Do you know who Terentius Horvex is?”
“Oh, I’ve heard of him!” said Elwyn. “Is that really Horvex over there?”
“No, actually. That fellow’s name is Janus Militates. He was a student of Horvex, but they’ve had a falling out. Militates has some idea about musical scales. He says there are more than twelve notes—an infinite number, in fact. And he wants to write songs that use all the possible notes, not just the ones the old classical Thessalian composers used. He’s either a genius, and he’ll change music forever, or he’s a madman, and we’ll have to lock him up in a year or two.” Tullius grinned and offered his arm. “Let me introduce you to him.”
The whole party was like that, for hour after hour. Elwyn kept meeting strange and intriguing people, and she was just drunk enough that she didn’t feel self-conscious at all. For once, she didn’t feel like running away from strangers and trying to find a quiet corner to herself. She liked being there, and she liked the fact that these people seemed to take her opinions seriously.
At some point—she honestly didn’t notice at first—the boat pushed off from the dock and took a long, slow voyage around the peninsula through the Proedrian Straits, with the massive city all lit up on their starboard side, and the villages of the protectorate of Denizvatan on the left.
Long after midnight, after Elwyn had talked art with a general, romance novels with a juggler, and history with a banker, the barge tied up at the southern docks, and everyone disembarked to either make their way home, or to find their next party.
It turned out, in fact, that there was another party planned at Vita’s house. But Bianca only let Elwyn stay a few minutes to politely say good night to everyone before they went up to their rooms and got ready for bed. Elwyn could have objected that she was an adult, but in truth, she was very tired and her head was spinning a little. So she didn’t mind using her governess as an excuse to retire from the festivities.
She fell asleep almost instantly and dreamed of sophisticated adult parties in Albus Magnus and Vinopolis, and of handsome young men who told her she was smart before they told her she was pretty, and who didn’t care in the least that her father was a king.
She woke very early the next morning, even as the sun was coming up over Denizvatan and the straits. A maid brought her tea and seemed surprised that she was awake and functioning. Elwyn didn’t have a hangover at all, though—not even a slight headache.
“Perhaps they’re not used to Trahernian girls who can hold their liquor,” she thought proudly, as she hurried to put on a wool house dress and comb out her hair. She wanted to get downstairs and have breakfast with all those interesting people and keep talking about all their marvelous ideas from the night before.
When she got downstairs, however, there was no scent of coffee or eggs or bacon wafting from the dining room. In fact, the house smelled rather rank—like stale wine and sweat and farts and something else that Elwyn didn’t recognize at all, but which reminded her a little of barns and horses.
People were lying about on couches and the floor, wrapped in blankets and throw rugs and—in one case—a curtain. Many of them were plainly naked underneath their makeshift bedding. A few were still locked in awkward embraces with fellow partygoers. Last night they had seemed so beautiful and sophisticated. Now they put her in mind of bloated fish washed up on a riverbank.
Tiptoeing carefully, so as not to wake anyone, she went in search of her hostess. It took a few minutes, gliding through more parlors full of stranded naked people, before Elwyn located Vita. Peeking through the door of the library, she spotted Vita lying on her side with her head on Prince Tullius’s knee. Both of them had on thick blue dressing gowns. They both looked utterly exhausted and spent, with dark circles under their eyes and sweat-matted hair.
“I don’t think I can move,” groaned Vita.
“I feel like I’ve been rubbed raw,” said Tullius, wincing.
“I can’t believe you can actually sit down,” said Vita. “I don’t think I could.”
“I feel it’s only fair,” said Tullius, “to remember that it was your idea originally.”
“As if you didn’t want to try it, too,” she grumbled. “Moving forward, can we make it a rule that anything I suggest after ten drinks is a terrible idea and should be completely ignored?”
“I’ll second that motion,” said the prince. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to go soak myself from the waist down in a very hot herbal bath.”
“Oh, me, too! If I’m not out by Monday, send someone to fetch me.”
Working together, they rose to their feet, wincing and gasping, and then waddled off in the direction of the back stairs.
Shaking her head in confusion, Elwyn made her way back up to her room, where Bianca was already laying out clothes for the day.
“I wouldn’t go downstairs quite yet, if I were you,” Elwyn said.
“Oh, dear,” said Bianca. “I suppose you saw the detritus of Domina Uggeri’s party. Unfortunate, but it’s part of life in the Empire, I’m afraid.”
Elwyn thought about that as she started getting ready for her own bath. Finally, she said, “You know, I think we should continue with our original itinerary. It’s very kind of Prince Tullius to offer to take us in for a while and show us around, but....”
Bianca nodded. “But you feel as if you have learned as much from this particular experience as you possibly can?”
“Not as much as I could,” said Elwyn. “But perhaps as much as I want, at least for now.”
Old Silver
347 M.E.
At supper the word went out. “Old Silver” had been spotted—the grand old stag that had ruled the hills and glens above the Summer Palace for almost as long as Elwyn had been alive. It was a never-ending mystery how such a big animal could evade hunters year after year. But somehow Old Silver managed to do it. He was only ever seen at a distance—on a rocky ridge across a valley, for instance, or on the far side of a lake. Stalking and baiting were useless against him. He evaded even the best tracking hounds.
But this year, according to the king’s chief huntsman, might be different. “He’s down in the lowlands,” the huntsman said. “He’s been seen in the fields down by the river, and that’s never happened before.”
Elwyn’s father, King Edgar, ordered everything made ready to go out hunting immediately the next morning. As the servants rushed around the great hall, he turned to Elwyn and said gruffly, “You’ll be coming, too, yes? I hope you haven’t forgotten how to shoot.”
“Not at all,” she said, smiling. “I kept in practice all through my trip.”
She almost told him about how her shooting had attracted a crowd of admiring young men on the beach at Vinopolis, or how she had bested the Proconsul’s son in two out of three matches in Presidium. But her father hadn’t shown much interest in her stories. Usually he nodded and shrugged and changed the topic. At most, he might be driven to shake his head and say, “H’m...yes. Foreigners. Most amusing.”
When supper was over, she headed for the stable, hoping to check on her horse and make sure all her riding gear was in good repair for the morning. But out in the grand entrance hall, she was intercepted by her stepmother, Queen Rohesia.
“I was hoping you might come up to the nursery tonight,” the queen said. “All my ladies will be there, and we’ll be making a bit of a party. You can play with Edwin and little Alice.”
Alice was new, and though Elwyn wasn’t rude enough to say so out loud, she didn’t have any strong feelings about her infant half-sister one way or another. The girl had been born a few months ago, even as Elwyn and Lady Henderson were returning from their grand tour. Elwyn had the impression that the queen resented the fact that they hadn’t gotten back in time for the birth—as if they had done it on purpose or something.
As for Edwin, he was a dear, sweet boy. Everyone said so. Even Elwyn said so, when she was pressed. But he was about 3 ½ years old, so Elwyn could never quite manage to carry on a conversation with him. She honestly loved him, but she looked forward to the day when he was old enough that they could go out fishing together and not have to say a word.
In truth, she might have come up to the nursery if she weren’t hoping to get up very early the next morning. And if she didn’t have to sit and talk with all the ladies of the court. They would ask her about her trip and then spend an hour explaining how she should have visited all sorts of different places. And they would ask her about boys she fancied and then explain how her choices were all wrong.
What Elwyn missed the most about the Empire was the anonymity of crowds. Once she got away from the imperial court, no one knew who she was. No one knew she was a princess. She could sit and watch the ever-changing parade of life in Presidium and Vinopolis, and no one would expect her to participate.
All that was sadly in the past, however, now that she was home. She had already been obliged to attend a dozen parties in the past few weeks, which was a dozen more than she could stand. Lady Henderson had told her to think of it as “bringing a little Immani culture to the court, like a lantern in twilight.” But Elwyn didn’t want to be a lantern. She wanted to be left alone.
So she told Queen Rohesia, “I would love to join you and the ladies, but unfortunately I’ve got to get to bed early. We’re going hunting tomorrow. Old Silver has been sighted, you know.”
Rohesia sighed. “Yes, so I’ve heard. Well...good night, then, dear.”
Elwyn woke more than an hour before dawn the next morning. She ate a quick breakfast of fried sausages and eggs in her room, then put on her favorite dark green riding dress, with a short fur-lined vest over top and a belt to hold her knife and whetstone and spare bowstrings. She wandered down to the stables, where the huntsmen were getting ready, but didn’t see her father. So she went up to his room to see if he had gotten detained by some sort of government business.
The door was cracked slightly, and voices in animated conversation were drifting into the hall. There was a guard on duty, and he probably would have told anyone else in the world to go away. But when he saw it was Elwyn, he bowed, coughed slightly, and went to stand at the other end of the hall so she could eavesdrop in privacy.
“Did your majesty perhaps eat something unusual last night?”
Elwyn recognized the slightly nasal drawl of the royal physician.
“Just the usual,” said her father. He sounded very tired.
“Perhaps essence of blafalle, cloves, and willow bark in fortified wine for now. However,” the physician cleared his throat, “considering your majesty’s years and your, er....”
“Considering I’m old and fat?” her father snapped. “Trust me, doctor, I know how old I am every time I wake up, and I know how fat I am whenever I have to put on my trousers. What of it?”
“Your majesty might perhaps consider taking greater care of his royal person. Perhaps grilled fish instead of roast pork in the evenings. And perhaps malt beer instead of ale, and—”
“Lovely. So in addition to being fat and old, I can be miserable, too. Give me your damned potions and let me go hunting.”
Elwyn slipped down to the stables again. When her father appeared ten minutes later, he stomped and swore at everyone and muttered under his breath whenever he wasn’t swearing.
“Is everything alright?” she dared to ask him, as they set out across the river road into the game park.
“Yes,” he growled. “Why in the Void wouldn’t it be?”
She let the topic drop. They were now, according to the chief huntsman, at the edge of the fields where the great stag had been seen only the day before. It was a gentle, rolling sort of land, covered in long yellow grass and thickets of birch and locust trees. Little streambeds, some of them dry now in the autumn, cut across the land, running down toward the River Trahern. To the left, along the northern side of the fields, were thick woods full of massive old oaks and elms.
At the edge of these woods, the party stopped to look for spoor at the place where the huntsman said the stag had been reported grazing. Elwyn’s father dismounted quickly and went stomping around absentmindedly, still grumbling under his breath. The huntsman and the master of the hounds bit their lips and averted their eyes. When Elwyn jumped down and joined her father on a sandy bank, he turned and glared at her.
“What are you doing? You’ve trampled everything!” he cried. Then he went back and remounted his horse, muttering about how certain people “ought to stay on the damned dancefloor if they don’t know how to hunt.”
Elwyn took a long, deep breath. So this was going to be one of those days, was it? She had almost forgotten he could be like this.
The master of hounds, against all odds, managed to find a trail for them to follow, and they went deeper into the woods. They dismounted again at the base of a low ridge covered in thick pine woods and took a brief rest, with water and dried venison for everyone. Then they started up the ridge on foot. As they climbed, her father kept stopping every twenty or thirty feet to rub his chest. She went over and put a hand on his arm. “Are you feeling well?”
