MacAllister shook off his preoccupation and laid a hand on my knee. “No, no. We’re in the carriage line to be left off at the palace. Dougal will open the door when we reach the front portico.” He searched my face, his brow wrinkled with concern. “Are you all right with this? I’ll tell you whatever you need to know.”
“I feel like a fool.”
He leaned over and took my hands in his, and in his dark eyes I saw the reflection of a woman I did not recognize. “You are the most beautiful, the most glorious fool I have ever laid my eyes on,” he said. He gave me my silver mask and donned his own, as the carriage door opened and a flood of music and light welcomed us to our doom.
Chapter 26
The royal palace of Aberthain made Aidan’s guesthouse at Devonhill look as plain as a Ridemark tent. I never knew there was so much gold in the world or so many candles, or rooms so large a forest of marble was required to support the roof. I had never seen walls painted with scenes of dancers so like to life you felt the brush of their skirts or warriors so real you heard the clash of their swords.
Surely a thousand people crowded the room, all of them wearing diamonds and emeralds, silk, brocade, and satin, and every kind of mask: some simple like ours, some elaborate concoctions of paint and feathers, jewels or ivory. I would have stood gawking until the world ended had not Aidan taken me on his arm and propelled me through the mob. He spoke to the footman at the door, who passed along the whispering to a line of ten others in gold-crusted livery, ending with a haughty man in blue satin. The haughty man cried out, “Lord Fool and Lady Fire” as we descended a long flight of steps into the room.
“Lord Fool?” I scoffed, thinking I had mistaken MacAllister’s ease in these surroundings for some small talent at intrigue. “You think no one will question such a ridiculous name?”
“Our masque names,” the Senai murmured as he led me through the crowd. “I gave my father’s title as our true identity—it will appear on the Elyrian Peers’ List when they check. But at a masque they’ll not announce it, and by the time anyone makes the connection with me, we’ll be gone.”
I felt like an ignorant beggar. I would rather have walked into a lair undefended than take one step into that ballroom. The air was thick with sickly perfumes and the smells of wine and roasting meat. The lamps—huge, garish things made of bits of glass—hung over our heads, blazing, brilliant, threatening to expose our true identities. People swarmed everywhere, bumping into us. Women glared at me through their masks. Men bowed and grinned, and glanced over their shoulders as we passed. What were they looking at? Everyone talked at once. Though they used the common speech, it might as well have been the tongue of frogs for all I could understand of it. Everything was light, noise, and danger. My stomach curled into a knot, and I thought I would suffocate.
But then an odd thing happened. I stepped on a sharp pebble tracked in on somebody’s boots. I winced and kicked it away, but somehow when I felt only the cool marble beneath my bare feet, I was able to breathe again. It was a touch of reality, a steadiness beneath my feet in a strange and unreal place. Whether he knew it or not, MacAllister had done me a great service, leaving me shoeless.
At the far side of the room were two huge doors, flanked by tall trees that had every leaf and twig painted silver. Between us and the doors, a line of guests moved slowly. I couldn’t see what they were doing, but Aidan steered me to the end of the line, murmuring in my ear. “Once we’re received by Renald, the queen, and the princess, we’ll be on our own. You must curtsy to each one, and for the king you stay down until he gestures you up. No need to say anything unless they speak to you. Take it slow and don’t fall over, and you’ll do fine.”
“But ...” Before I could ask him what kind of gesture the king might make or what in the world to say if he did speak to me, MacAllister started talking to a man wearing a bird mask. It sounded as if he knew the man. Aidan was making some idiot’s joke about “did we not fly together at the Duke of Folwys’s hunt last year?” How could he be so stupid as to speak to someone he knew? I tried to pull him away, but he wouldn’t budge.
The bird man laughed and presented his wife, who wore a mask of swan feathers and diamonds. “Countess Cygne,” he said.
“Lady Fire,” said Aidan as he bowed, tugging slightly at my elbow to remind me to dip my knee at the swan countess. The lady looked down her nose and nodded so slightly, you’d think she believed her head would break off if she moved it. The line crept forward like a snake. Aidan kept talking about nothing, and I listened to the others near us in the line. They all talked like that, as if they knew each other even when they didn’t.
The princess was a cold-eyed, dull-looking girl of ten or twelve, her plump child’s body stuffed into a silver gown that was much too tight for her. Little rolls of pink fat peeped out around the armholes of her gown, above her long sleeves. The queen was tall and slender and wore a ruby-studded gold mask that curled into her dark hair like a devil’s horns. She was too proud to notice us, but greeted the swan countess over our heads and began talking about “the princess’s fine health.” Aidan bowed gracefully, but I wobbled a bit on my curtsy, saved from falling by his hand under my elbow.
“Lord Fool and Lady Fire,” announced another man in blue satin who stood just behind the dark-haired, heavyjowled man of thirty-some years—King Renald of Aberthain.
The king wore no mask and scowled impatiently at the room while speaking to someone over his shoulder. The aide standing behind him was also unmasked, dressed more for war than a ball. “They know we’ll fight,” said the king. “They don’t have to ensure our alliance by trumping up some story about murdering madmen. Clear them out of here. I don’t care what they say. I don’t want them ruining Raniella’s birthday.”
“They refuse, sire,” said the aide. “They’ll not leave without bloodshed.”
MacAllister sank to one knee and pulled me down beside him. It boiled my blood to do it. A daughter of the Ridemark making obeisance to a Senai king—it was humiliating, obscene. I tried to make it as brief as possible, but Aidan dug a finger into my arm so hard I almost struck him. The king dismissed his aide, then waggled a finger, which must have been the “gesture,” for the singer finally allowed me to get up.
“Is that you, Gaelen?” The king cocked his head at MacAllister as he actually looked at us for the first time. “I’ve not seen you since winter.”
“No, Your Majesty, the good Earl of Sennat does not lurk behind this Fool’s mask. And it is a very long time indeed since I was fortunate enough to visit Aberswyl. It was your late father—all honor to his memory—who last received me here.”
“Ah, well, then.” The king lost interest and shifted his attention to the bird-masked man.
We had to greet fifty other nameless people in the line, all of them soft and proud and garbed with outlandish extravagance. Only then were we able to pass through the double doors into an even larger hall. Musicians were playing all sorts of harps and flutes and horns. Long tables were piled with food enough for a small city. I couldn’t even say what most of it was. A few guests were dancing, and some were drinking and making loud, boisterous conversation. But more of them were standing about in small groups, speaking in furtive voices with sidelong glances. Perhaps that had something to do with the soldiers who stood alert at every doorway, and the proud strangers clad in red and black who stood with them.