10
“What is this?” Jacoby Sarto glared at the rickshaws clustering in the courtyard below the Buridan estate’s newly-rebuilt entrance. It was seven P.M. and Candesce was extinguishing itself, its amber glories drenching the building-tops. Down in the purpled courtyard the upstart princess’s new footmen were lighting lanterns to guide in dozens of carts and palanquins from the crowded alley.
Someone of a minor noble nation had heard him and turned, smirking. “You didn’t receive an invitation?” asked the impertinent youth. “It’s a gala reception!”
“Bah!” Sarto turned to his companion, the Duke of Ennersin. “What is she up to? This is a feeding frenzy. I’ll wager half these people have come to gawk at the legendary Buridans, and the other half to watch us drag her out of the place in chains. What does she gain out of such a spectacle?”
“I’m afraid we’ll find out shortly,” said the duke. He was as stocky as Sarto, with similar graying temples and the sort of paternal scowl that could freeze the blood of anyone under forty. Together the two men radiated gravitas, to such an extent that the crowds automatically parted for them. True, most of those assembling here knew them, by sight and reputation at least. The nations of Sacrus and Ennersin were feared and respected by all—all, it seemed, save for newly reborn Buridan. These two were here tonight to make sure that this new situation didn’t last.
“In any case, such entertainments as this are rare, Jacoby,” continued Ennersin. “It’s sure to attract the curious and the morbid, yes. But it’s the third audience that worries me,” Duke Ennersin commented as they strode up the steps to the entrance.
Sarto glared at a footman who had the temerity to approach them at the entrance. “What third audience?”
“Do you see the Guineveras there? They’ve been keeping Buridan’s horses for generations. Make no mistake, they’d be happy to be free of the burden—or to own the beasts outright.”
“Which they will after tonight.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” said Ennersin. “Proof that this Amandera Thrace-Guiles is an imposter is not proof that the real heirs aren’t out there.”
“What are you saying, man? She’s been in the tower! Clearly it’s empty after all. There are no heirs to be had.”
“Not there, no… But don’t forget there are sixteen nations that claim to be related by blood to the Thrace-Guileses. The moment this Amandera’s declared a fake the other pretenders will pounce on the property rights. It’ll be a legal free-for-all—maybe even a civil war. Many of these people are here to warn their nations the instant it becomes a possibility.”
“Ridiculous!” Sarto forgot what he was going to say next, as they entered the lofting front hall of the Buridan estate.
It smelled of fresh paint and drying plaster. Lanterns and braziers burned along the pillared staircases, lighting a frescoed ceiling crawling with allegorical figures. The painted blues, yellows, and reds were freshly cleaned and vibrant to the point of being nauseating, as were the heroic poses of the men and half-clad women variously hanging off, riding, or being devoured by hundreds of ridiculously-posed horses. Sarto gaped at this vision for a while, then shuddered. “The past is sometimes best left buried,” he said.
Ennersin chuckled. “Or at least strategically unlit.”
Sarto had been expecting chaos inside the estate; after all, nobody had set foot in here in centuries, so Thrace-Guiles’s new servants would be unfamiliar with the layout of their own home. They would be a motley collection of rejects and near-criminals hired from the dregs of Lesser Spyre, after all, and he fully expected to see waiters spilling drinks down the decolletage of the ladies when they weren’t banging into one another in their haste to please.
There was none of that. Instead, a string quartet played a soothing pavane in the corner, while men and women in black tails and white gloves glided to and fro, gracefully presenting silver platters and unobtrusively refilling casually tilted glasses. The wait staff were, in fact, almost mesmerizing in their movements; they were better than Sarto’s own servants.
“Where did she get this chattel?” he muttered as a man with a stentorian voice announced their arrival. Lady Pamela Anseratte, who had known Sarto for decades and was quite unafraid of him, laughed and trotted over in a swirl of skirts. “Oh, she’s a clever one, this Thrace-Guiles,” she said, laying her lace-covered hand on Sarto’s arm. “She’s hired the acrobats of the Spyre Circus to serve drinks! I hear they rehearsed blindfolded.”
Indeed, Sarto glanced around and realized there was a young lady with the compact muscled body of a dancer standing at his elbow. She held out a glass. “Champagne?” Automatically, he took it, and she vanished into the crowd without a sound.
“Well, we’ll credit the woman with being a genius in domestic matters,” he growled. “But surely you haven’t been taken in by her act, Pamela? She’s an imposter!”
“That’s as may be,” said the lady with a flick of her fan. “But your imposter has just forgiven Virilio’s debt to Buridan. It seems that with interest it would now be worth enough to outfit a small fleet of merchant ships! And she’s just erased it! Here, look! There’s August Virilio himself, drinking himself into happy idiocy under that stallion statue.”
Sarto stared. The limestone stallion appeared to be sneering over Virilio’s shoulder at the small crowd of hangers-on he was holding forth to. He was conspicuously unmasked, like most of the other Council representatives. The place was crowded with masked faces, though—some immediately identifiable, others unfamiliar even to his experienced eye. “Who are all these people?” he wondered aloud.
“Debtors, apparently,” said Lady Pamela with some relish. “And creditors… everyone who’s taken care of Buridan’s affairs, or profited by their absence, over the past two hundred years. They all look… happy, don’t you think, Jacoby?”
Ennersin cleared his throat and leaned in to say, “Thrace-Guiles has clearly been doing her homework.”
Despite himself, Sarto was impressed. This woman had confounded his expectations. Was it possible that she might continue to do so? The thought was unexpected—and nothing unexpected had happened in Jacoby Sarto’s life in a very long time.
He resisted where this line of thought led; after all, he had his instructions. Sarto dashed his champagne glass on the floor. Heads turned. “Let her enjoy her little party,” he said in his darkest voice. “Amandera Thrace-Guiles, or whatever her real name is, has about one hour of freedom left.
“And no more than a day to live.”
Venera strode through the crowd, nodding and smiling. She felt unsteady and vulnerable, and though her headache had finally faded she had to rein in an automatic cringe-reaction to bright lights and loud sounds. She felt hideously unready for the evening, and had overdressed to compensate. Most of the people in Spyre wore dark colors, so she had chosen to dress in red—her corset was a glossy crimson inset with designs sewn in scarlet thread, with a wide-shouldered, open jacket atop that. She wore a necklace from the Anetene hoard. Her skin was still recovering from the burns she’d suffered near Candesce, but the contrasts were still effective. To hide the scar on her chin she’d adopted one of the strange local skullcaps, this one of black feathers. It swept up behind her ears and down to a point in the middle of her forehead, where a single red Anetene gem glowed above her heavily drawn eyebrows—but it also thrust two small wings along her jawline. They tickled her chin annoyingly, but that was a small distraction compared with the sensations that the ankle-length skirt gave her. Dresses and skirts were considered obscene in most of Virga, where one might become weightless at any time. Back home, the prostitutes wore them. Venera wore a pair of breeches under the thing, which made her feel a bit better, but the long heavy drape still moved and turned like it had a mind of its own.