"I'm Harald Redbeard," he said.
"I wrote your invitation," Mirabel said. "I've been wondering who you are. Shall we dance?"
"With a will," he said, and offered his arm.
In the course of the first two dances, Mirabel discovered that Harald suited her perfectly as a dance partner. Tireless, nimble, quick-witted, familiar with all the standard dance patterns and variations… and with unflagging appreciation of her charms, which he described in terms that made her fantasize about the latter half of the ball.
She would happily have danced more with Harald Redbeard, but Nuttin Broadaxe tapped her firmly on the shoulder at the end of the second, and she remembered that she'd promised him a dance last week.
"Excuse me," she said, giving Harald a last squeeze of the hand and significant glance from under her lashes. He bowed.
Nutty was, after Harald, a letdown. A competent enough dancer, he felt no obligation to flatter someone he already knew beyond, "Gosh, Mirabel, this dress doesn't have any back at all!" and "Good thing that necklace isn't real; some thief would have it off you in no time." Instead, he regaled her with a description of the Queen's emerald necklace: "a lot like that paste thing you're wearing, actually, but of course hers is real." The last thing Mirabel wanted to hear about was the Queen; the Queen didn't like women soldiers in general, and Mirabel in particular.
Mirabel parted from Nutty at the end of that dance, pleading a need for something to drink, and went in search of Harald. Before she was halfway to the drinks table, Primula had caught her by the arm. "Mirabel, didn't you have Sergeant Gorse in your list of names?"
It took a moment to think what Primula was talking about, and then she shook her head. "No-I'd have remembered. At least half mine were people I'd never heard of."
"Oh." Primula let go and wandered off. Mirabel made her way to the drinks table, handed in her chit for a free drink, and spotted the chancellor, Sophora Segundiflora, chatting with two ministers of state, and a banker. Mirabel edged that way, keeping an eye out for Harald.
"Mirabel… what a lovely gown," Sophora said. "And necklace, too. So like the Queen's, did you know that?" Her voice had the slightest edge.
"No… it's borrowed."
"Ah. I'm glad you didn't wear it just to annoy her. It's amazingly good-it hardly looks like paste at all."
No one ignored Sophora's hints. "Do you think I should take it off?"
"Perhaps-oh, dear." Sophora looked past Mirabel and then murmured, very fast. "It's too late, be sure you tell her it's a cheap imitation and that you borrowed it." Then, in her usual ringing tone, "Good evening, Your Majesties. What an honor to have you at the ball."
Mirabel turned. The Queen's face squinched up as she recognized Mirabel-then paled in fury as she recognized the necklace.
"Where did you get that!?" the Queen demanded. "What are you playing at?"
Mirabel looked at the Queen's necklace-as like her borrowed one as if it were spell-doubled, except that the emeralds seemed somehow diluted of their rich green color. Perhaps that was because of the taupe gown the Queen wore, perhaps the colors cancelled out or something. "I'm-I'm sorry, Your Majesty," she said, attempting a curtsey. "I just borrowed this-I didn't know-"
"Borrowed! From whom, may I ask?"
"A-a friend." Instinct, racing ahead of thought, warned her not to give a name. "A-a dancer. It's only paste, Your Majesty, and I didn't know it was a copy of yours-"
"A likely story," the Queen sniffed. She turned to the King. "You promised me mine was unique. No other like it, you said, an exclusive design. And now I see it around the neck of a muscle-bound swordswoman who got it from some bawd. What do you say to that, eh? I demand that you take this up with the Royal Jeweler; if he's selling copies on the sly-"
Mirabel glanced at the King, who looked paler than the Queen. He patted the Queen's arm. "It's not like that-" he began.
"Not like what?" the Queen asked. Her brow furrowed. "Did you know about this? Did you intend for me to be humiliated in front of everyone?"
Mirabel edged away from what promised to be a royal spat of epic proportions, and bumped into a large well-muscled man in barbarian costume of fur and leather, who leered straight down her cleavage. She vaguely recalled seeing him with Krystal, but couldn't think of his name.
"You're… stunning," he said, dragging his gaze back up to her face, but only momentarily.
"Who are you?" Mirabel asked.
"Skyver Twoswords," he said.
Another one whose invitation she'd addressed, and wondered about. "You're a friend of Krystal's, aren't you?" she asked.
He gulped, blushed, and said, "Well, sort of. More than, actually."
Mirabel eyed him with more interest. "Sort of?"
"Well, she's… you know… she's different."
Different was not the adjective Mirabel would have chosen. Just then the band struck up "Granny Morely's Wedding," one of her favorite pattern dances, and she smiled at Skyver. "Want to dance?"
"Er… I'm sorry… Krystal told me to stay here."
"Do you always do what Krystal says?" It was on a bright May morning… when Granny Morely came… Her foot tapped the rhythm.
"Well… er… yes. I'm supposed to… "
… With all her friends and relatives… to change her maiden name… Skyver looked glum and embarrassed all at once, and Mirabel didn't want to miss the dance. She looked around for another partner.
"There you are!" Sergeant Gorse said. He beamed at her, not his usual expression. "May I have the honor?"
They set off into the pattern: She had pink ribbons in her hair… she had them on her shoe… and Sergeant Gorse inserted his words where he could. "I wanted to thank you… for getting us in. Some mistake… just as we thought… "
"My pleasure," Mirabel said, ducking under his upraised arm twice for She turned herself about again, as shy maids often do, and caught sight of Krystal in the middle of the next row. She was dancing with Harald, and Mirabel almost tripped to see the same look given to Krystal that he had given to her. Then she shrugged-what did she expect from a smooth-tongued stranger at the ball? She continued the figure with her usual enthusiasm, all the way to And so you see, dear children, was never such a sight, as Gramps and Granny Morely, upon their wedding night, which ended with a whirling embrace.
"You dance as well as you… er… look," Sergeant Gorse said.
"My turn, Quill," said Sergeant Dogwood. He bowed to Mirabel. "If I might have the honor."
Mirabel spent the next five dances with the sergeants, one after the other; by then she wanted a rest. Though the sales booths hid the alcoves, she managed to squeeze in behind the patchwork animals, where she lounged sideways on the bench with her feet up. The freckled girl looked at her.
"I don't know if you're supposed to be here. Miss Primula said-"
"Miss Primula hasn't been dancing with six sergeants, child; my feet hurt."
From her vantage point, she could peek over the pile of patchwork animals and see the dancers. At one side of the ballroom, the King and Queen sat on a dais, pointedly not looking at each other. Sophora had collected another two ministers and the Duke of Mandergash. Then she spotted Harald by his red beard, and next to him Krystal.
Krystal leaned gracefully against a pillar, her followers around her… two barbarians, a man dressed in leather straps and chains, half a dozen pirates, and someone wearing a long plaid skirt with his face painted green and a green target painted on his naked chest. Krystal herself wore a gown like nothing Mirabel had ever seen-it might have been painted on, glittering silver mesh slit up the side to reveal her tall dress boots. She was, Mirabel had to admit, incredibly beautiful.