The parlor was less intimidating, with plush furniture and portraits of horses and country scenes on the walls. Fortunately, the furniture was set with wide lanes between the pieces, so that the three Naxid guests—Lady Kushdai, a convocate come into the city for the Great Master’s funeral, and her kin—could maneuver without knocking things over. Sula admired greatly the crackled surface on the porcelain jars, each taller than a man, that stood in the room’s corners.
“So you see,” Lord Durward finished, “it all has to do with the Twenty-Two Martyrs for the Perfection of the Praxis. One wants to invite them to one’s mourning feasts, to show them that they didn’t die in vain.”
“Fascinating,” Sula said.
“Ah.” Lord Durward’s ginger brows rose as he turned to the parlor door, where a Fleet captain had just entered with an elegant young woman on his arm. “Have you met my son Richard?” And then he smiled. “Well, of course you have. I forgot.”
Sula’s mind whirled as she tried to remember where she might have met Captain Lord Richard Li. He didn’t seem the sort of man one would forget: he was taller than his father, dark-haired, with a smooth, handsome face of the sort that would look youthful well into middle age.
“Caro,” Lord Richard said, taking Sula’s hand. “It’s good to see you after all this time.”
Sula felt herself bristling, and told herself to behave. “Caroline,” she corrected. “I’m not Caro anymore.”
Amusement crinkled the corners of Lord Richard’s eyes. “You don’t remember me at all, do you?”
“I’m afraid not.”Behave, she told herself again.These people are trying to be your friends.
Lord Richard’s smile was very white, his eyes very blue. “I put you on your first pony, in our garden at Meeria.”
“Oh,” Sula said. Her eyes widened. “That wasyou? ”
“I haven’t changedthat much, have I?” he said. “Do you still ride at all?”
“Not in ages.”
Lord Richard looked at his father, then back at Sula. “We still keep stables at Meeria. If you’d like to go down and spend some time riding, I’m sure we’d love having you. We also have excellent fishing.”
Lord Durward nodded agreement.
“Thank you,” Sula said. “I’ll think about it. But it’s been so long…”
Lord Richard turned toward the young woman by his side. She was tall and willowy, with dark almond eyes and a beautiful, shining fall of black hair.
“This is my fiancée, Lady Terza Chen. Terza, this is Caroline, Lady Sula.”
“A pleasure. I saw you on video.” Lady Terza’s voice was low and soothing, and the graceful hand she extended was unhurried but warm and welcoming in its gentle clasp.
Sula knew it was far too early to hate her, to resent the ease and privilege and serenity that oozed from Terza’s every pore, but somehow she managed it.Shove off, sister, she thought.You think you can get between me and the man who put me on my first pony?
“What a beautiful necklace,” Sula said, the first civil thing that popped into her head.
Lord Richard turned adoring eyes to his bride-to-be. “I wish I could say I’d given it to her,” he said. “But she chose it herself—her taste is so much better than mine.”
Sula looked at him. “You’re a lucky man,” she said.
It’s not as if she wouldn’t have bollixed the relationship anyway.
A trim, broad-shouldered man in the uniform of a convocate arrived, along with Lady Amita, Lord Durward’s wife. The newcomer was introduced as Maurice, Lord Chen, Terza’s father. Sula’s knowledge of the status of Peer clans in relationship to each other was hazy, but she understood enough to know that the Chens were on top of the pile. Lords Chen, Richard, and Durward then engaged in a brief contest in who could offer Terza the most compliments, with Sula adding plaudits of her own now and again out of politeness Then Lord Chen turned to Sula and said equally polite things about her parents, and about her rescue ofMidnight Runner.
It was a polite group altogether, Sula thought.
“The problem,” she said, “is I’m not likely to see the end ofMidnight Runner for some time. I’ve had to give a deposition for the court of inquiry, but I’ve been contacted by advocates representing Lord Blitsharts’s insurance company.They want to prove it was suicide.”
“It wasn’t, was it?” Lady Amita asked.
“I found no evidence one way or another.” Sula tried not to shiver at the memory.
“However complicated it gets,” Lady Amita said, “I’m so glad it was you who got the medal, and not that dreadful man.”
“Dreadful man, my lady?” Sula asked, puzzled.
“The one who talked all the time during the rescue. The man with the horrible voice.”
“Oh.” Sula blinked. “That would be Lord Gareth Martinez.”
“That’s what the news kept insisting, that he was a Peer.” Lady Amita made a sour face. “But I don’t see how a Peer could talk like that, not with such a horrid accent. Certainlywe don’t know any such people. He sounded like some kind of criminal fromThe Incorruptible Seven. ”
Lord Durward patted his wife’s arm. “Some of these decayed provincial Peers are worse than criminals, take my word on it.”
Sula felt a compulsion to defend Martinez. “Lord Gareth isn’t like that,” she said quickly. “I think he’s kind of a genius, really.”
Lady Amita’s eyes widened. “Indeed? I hope we never meet any such geniuses.”
Lord Durward gave her an indulgent smile. “I’ll keep you safe, my dear.”
The point of the evening, it turned out, was to demonstrate Lady Terza’s accomplishments before a select group of Lis and their friends. After supper, which was served on modern Gemmelware with a design of fruits and nuts, they all gathered in a small, intimate theater. It was built in the back of the Li Palace in the form of an underwater grotto, with the walls and proscenium covered with thousands of seashells arranged in attractive patterns, and blue-green lighting to enhance the effect. All listened as Lady Terza sat before a small chamber ensemble and played her harp—and played it extremely well, so far as Sula could tell. Terza’s concentration on the music was complete, her face taking on an intent look, almost a ferocity, that belied the serene exterior she had shown with her family and friends.
Sula knew next to nothing about chamber music, and had always dismissed it as the kind of music where you have to make up your own words. But Terza’s concentration led her into the piece. From the other woman’s expressions—the way Terza held her breath before a pause, then nodded her satisfaction at the chord that ended the suspense; the way her eyes grew unfocused as she made a complicated attack; the way she seemed to relax into the slow passages, her movements growing dreamy, evocative—Sula felt the music enter her, caressing or stimulating or firing her nerves, dancing in her blood.
After the music ended there was a pause, then Sula helped to fill it with applause.
“I’m glad to have a chance to hire an orchestra,” confided Lady Amita, her hostess, during the interval. “Musicians aren’t going to be in very great demand during the mourning period.”
This aspect of mourning hadn’t struck Sula till now. “It’s good of you to give them work,” she said.
“Terza suggested it. She has so many friends among the musicians, and she’s concerned for them.” Her face assumed a touch of anxiety. “Of course, once she’s married, we don’t imagine she’ll be spending so much time with—” Tact rescued her in time. “With those sorts of people.”
The interval ended, and the orchestra began to play again. Sula watched Terza’s long, accomplished fingers as they plucked the harp, her intent face hovering near the strings, and then Sula glanced across the aisle at Maurice Chen and Lord Richard, both gazing with shining eyes at the graceful woman on stage. Sula suspected her own accomplishments would never gather quite that level of admiration—she was a good pilot and a whiz with math, but she’d already destroyed any hope of a relationship with the one person who had ever shown appreciation for that particular blend of skills.