"I'll get you for this, Wellington."
"Now, now."
A tall, ruddy-faced man dressed in a Prussian uniform approached them.
Napoleon sought the fellow's name, but could not conjure up much more than Fritz. "Kaiser." The man bowed formally. "It's been a long time since you've been seen at a grand ball."
Napoleon forced a smile, "That's true. You've not met Marie, have you?"
"Your servant," the Prussian said, bowing and clicking his heels. He gestured to the end of the cavernous room. "Wine, champagne, and hors d'oeuvres are down there. Try some of the caviar.
It's quite good."
"Thanks." Napoleon nodded slightly, took Marie's hand, and started the interminable drift toward the refreshments.
Wellington caught up not more than halfway down the room. "Interesting," he said in a hushed voice. "To your left."
Napoleon glanced in that direction. Several Arabs stood clustered against the wall, their white robes brilliant in the lamplight. Arabs at the Sun King's ball? Interesting, indeed.
"Drift, Wellington, drift. See if you can pick up anything. You're far better at this inconsequential chitchat than I am."
Wellington lifted one eyebrow. "If I didn't know better, I'd consider myself insulted."
Napoleon glowered.
"I'm going. Save some hors d'oeuvres for me."
And Wellington walked off across the mirror-like marble floor, nodding to various people he passed. Napoleon shifted his shoulders in his new uniform jacket and ignored the urge to scratch.
"You may hate dressing up," Marie said, her blue eyes twinkling in the lamplight, "but I agree with Wellington. You look wonderful."
"Damn fool thing itches like hell," Napoleon growled, scanning the refreshment table and its various culinary delights.
"Maybe if you washed it again--"
"Again? I washed it six times. Any more and it'll fade." He reached out for a cracker loaded down with some sort of cheese. "Have one, Marie. We may not get to eat for a while."
Something flickered behind her eyes, again telling him she was aware this was not a normal social call. Napoleon frowned and glanced off across the ballroom. Wellington had accepted the news that Augustus and Caesar wanted "observational" help from across the Park in return for continued retirement.
After all, he had said, one has to know which side one's bread is buttered on.
And Marie?
As of now, she knew nothing, or at least that was Napoleon's fervent hope.
With any kind of luck, a commodity usually lacking in Hell, the evening would pass without him having to tell her more than he thought she should know.
He chewed on his lower lip, remembered to keep his expression bland, and looked at the crowd. He was Caesar's friend, not Wellington, not Marie. He it was who should have come to this ball unaccompanied, keeping those he was fond of uninvolved. Yet here the three of them were, waiting for a contact from someone in this room--anyone--and the transfer of certain highly dangerous papers.
Who was their contact?
Where was Attila?
Round One was drawing to a close.
Wellington glanced over his shoulder as he moved in and out of the crowd, exchanging greetings and idle words; Marie and Napoleon still stood by the refreshment table. Napoleon truly looked Napoleonic tonight-bottle-green uniform coat with gold epaulettes, white pants, black boots.
But the frown on the emperor's face told everything.
Napoleon was, to put it lightly, pissed off. When Napoleon had said he had accepted Augustus' and Caesar's protection for them both in exchange for future favors, Wellington had thought it an excellent move. He could sense the shifting in the balance of power that seethed in and around New Hell. Allies, in such situations, were invaluable--especially powerful allies.
Wellington stopped at the edge of a group of people and listened, all the while looking suitably bored. There was a way to these things: information was best gathered if one seemed disinterested by everything one heard.
And then a name. One of the names Napoleon had whispered to him before the party.
Che.
"--heard he's taken the Trip again."
"Oh?" A portly gentleman, straight out of Louis' century and wearing enough lace to start a shop, looked at the woman who had spoken. "I heard differently. He's back with the Dissidents again."
"That may be true, but he had to come through Reassignments to get there."
"Ah, mais non!' An aesthetic face above cardinal's red smiled slightly. "Not necessarily. One can escape before that"
Wellington stared. The man who had just spoken had been hidden by the others in the group, his churchly robes out of place amidst this secular splendor.
Riche-lieu! The Cardinal stroked the surly-looking gray cat he held in his arms, murmured something to it, then looked up.
"Surely he had help," said the man in lace.
"Perhaps." Richelieu smiled enigmatically. "Perhaps not."
Wellington moved on, keenly aware his time of anonymous eavesdropping was over. Che. Now that was news of a sort. Taken the Trip. Wellington shuddered, trying not to remember his own experience with the Undertaker. But the lace-clad man had said Che was back with the Dissidents. As tightly guarded as the Undertaker's level was, Wellington found it hard to believe Che had not had help.
"Ah, Wellington!"
The Iron Duke froze and glanced in the direction of the voice. Who did he know who would be at Louis' party? The guests were mostly French and, bygones be bygones, after Waterloo, Wellington had hardly been popular with the French.
A man dressed in bourgeois finery came to Wellington's side, his pear-shaped face flushed with excitement. Louis-Phillipe. The Citizen King.
"I haven't seen you in years," Louis-Phillipe said.
"Where are you living now? Still the penthouse uptown?"
"No, actually. I've moved. The opposite side of the park." Wellington motioned vaguely in that direction. "Do you know the news?" Wellington lifted an eyebrow; Louis-Phillipe was a gossip and a treasure store of who was doing what to whom. "What news?"
"J. Edgar Hoover's been moved out of the Undertaker's. Got caught smuggling drugs in the cadavers or something like that." "Oh." Wellington lost interest. "Bully for him. Can't say that I ever had anything to do with the man."
"And this is even juicier." The Citizen King glanced around and, satisfied there was no one within earshot, murmured, "You heard Che took the Trip?"
Wellington put on his most bored expression. "Old. news, I'm afraid."
"Ah, but did you hear that he's back with the Dissidents again? And that somebody tweeked the Master Computer to send him there?"
Tweeked the Computer? Wellington rubbed the end of his nose to hide his expression. "No," he drawled, "can't say that I'd heard that."
"You are out of touch then. Everyone's been talking about it."
"Oh, well. We don't get much news on my side of the Park. Bather refreshing."
"And what about Tigellinus? Surely you know he's up for appointment to a cabinet-level position? That Tiberius is backing him?"
Wellington's heart lurched. Louis-Phillipe was proving himself a gold mine again. Tigellinus. The second of Napoleon's names.' The second, and possibly the most deadly.
"Now that is interesting," Wellington commented in a slightly bored voice. "Do you think hell get it?" Louis-Phillipe shrugged. "I just hear things. Wellington. I don't decide them."
A servant threaded his way through the growing crowd, carrying a silver tray on which lay a number of hors d'oeuvres. Wellington nodded toward the servant.
"Something to eat, Louis?"
"Ah, why not." The King gestured grandly. "Over here, fellow."
The servant turned, came to their sides, and bowed. Wellington looked over the assortment of hors d'ouvres, while Louis-Phillipe snatched up the two largish crackers heaped with cheese and some kind of cold meat.