It was a pity Aunt Arianne still couldn’t quite manage full sunlight, and so looked odd in comparison, though entirely self-possessed as she handed her invitation to the guard standing to the left of the big gates.
“Shall I send for an autocarriage, Dama?” the guard asked, barely glancing at the invitation, and instead marking a list.
“We wished to take our time admiring the bridge,” Aunt Arianne said. “If that’s permitted.”
“Of course, Dama,” the guard said, smiling at Griff, who had stopped whirling and was now standing on tip-toe to better view the three finials that crowned the centre of the otherwise rather plain gate. A slender, stylised hare and a coiling dragon bracketed the centre finial, a silvery triskelion, three delicate wings springing from a single central point.
The uniformed woman opened a small side gate, and summoned a page from some hidden recess, instructing the girl to take them to Princess Leodhild. In short order they were striding down the perfectly flat paved drive toward the bridge that had had Griff in a welter of excitement for the last two days. Eluned could not pretend to less eagerness, at least for the splendours of the palace, and because she was going to meet one of the Suleviae. Her. Eluned Tenning.
Wanting to rub a few noses in that fact did not fit with the person Eluned tried to be, and so she only briefly allowed herself to picture Retwold School exploding with disbelief and envy. That helped stifle nerves, and with Griff and Eleri by her side even a princess could not be so very daunting. Eluned only had to remind herself of that with every step.
“Two penny tour, damini?” their guide was asking, surveying Aunt Arianne’s heavy veil with bland interest.
“Why not?” Aunt Arianne said.
Caught up in not being daunted, Eluned only listened absently to details of the vast parkland surrounding the lake, and spared less than her usual attention on Griff as he delighted in the Three Dragons Bridge, a rather dull flat arch over the widest part of Gwyn Lynn Lake. More than embarrassment was at stake with this visit. They’d had little choice but to trust Aunt Arianne’s vampire, given his control over her, and he had clearly intended to pass on to the Suleviae the things he’d found out. The secrecy of their investigation would be inevitably lost if shared among whoever knew how many royal advisors and friends, and the chance of one of Them hearing about clues and a second automaton and hidden fulgite increased with every confidant. Not that Eluned expected to be attacked at the palace, but just by visiting they drew more attention to themselves.
“Step to this side, please, damini,” the page was saying. “Car coming.”
It was a tiger, large, sleek and powerful, and Eluned was diverted into wondering if they were now rich enough to buy such an extravagance, and whether that meant they had been poor before. They hadn’t owned any sort of autocarriage, back in Caerlleon, but they’d had a house, and people who looked after it, and though there’d always been a separation between necessities and indulgences, because money had been tied up in projects, Eluned could never remember truly feeling conscious of it before.
Losing the house was a major reason for that, but it was more that Aunt Arianne still seemed to expect them to keep track of how much things cost, even after sorting through a safe full of treasures, and unflinchingly buying them vast piles of clothing.
Working to put money and nerves aside, Eluned reminded herself this visit was a privilege, and she had particularly wanted to see the next place on their ‘tour’, an egg-shaped courtyard surrounded by arched windows and a triumph of carved linework.
This, at least, allowed Eluned to forget other concerns. She’d always been proud that her own grandmother had been among the artists called upon during the construction of Gwyn Lynn Palace, but it was the Running Yard she’d most wanted to see. The walls above and between each and every arch were filled with knotted depictions of the Otherworldly beings the Suleviae, by Sulis’ grace, commanded. The three dragons, Nimelleth, Dulethar and Athian, the Night Breezes, and the triskelion. Fabulous. The kind of balance of form and pattern Eluned longed to achieve.
“The two islands are officially called Thurin and Aliden,” their guide was saying, “but, of course, everyone calls them the Bean and the Bonnet because of their shapes, like we call this the Egg instead of the Running Yard. There are over seven hundred rooms in the main part of the palace, which fills the Bean completely. The Bonnet, Aliden, is the smaller island, but will look more spacious because the royal residences are widely spaced around gardens. This way, damini.”
Patient with their gawping, the page coaxed them past the tiger, waiting with its driver, through an open doorway in the northwest curve of the ‘Egg’, and into a large, dome-ceilinged room with many exits, the most notable flanked by two very impressive guards wearing both swords and pistols. The walls between were hung with paintings, and the room itself busy with groups of people coming and going.
“The Crossing Gallery,” the page said, as Aunt Arianne took her hat and veil off. “The only dry way to reach the residences without a boat—or wings. Let me hold that for you, dama.”
Aunt Arianne smiled her thanks, and they paused to study the paintings until Aunt Arianne discovered a mirror set between two enormous landscapes and said: “Is there somewhere I can tidy my hair?”
“Of course, dama—” the page began, but broke off as one of a pair of men heading toward the Egg stopped short.
“Rian?” he said, voice high with surprise. Aunt Arianne turned, and he looked startled, then held up his hands in apology, continuing in heavily accented Prytennian: “Ah, pardon. It is my error…”
Aunt Arianne, after a moment’s pause, smiled. “You’ve changed far more than I, Felix.”
Eluned, who prided herself on her Latin, was disappointed to barely be able to make out more than a handful of words in the exchange that followed, though it was easy enough to guess that a large part of it involved: “You look so young!” The man himself only seemed to be in his twenties, his companion a good deal older, and the pair of them almost stereotypically Roman in appearance, with curling dark hair and impressive noses. Like most non-Prytennian men, they weren’t wearing a summer shendy at all, only short, sleeveless tunics belted over tight-fitting shirts and trousers, with some rather nice patterns to the cloth.
“But, no, I have learned it with great effort,” the man said, switching back to Prytennian. “Diligently, if not well.” The older man with him murmured something, and he grimaced. “I must go. But I will call on you, and we will to lunch.” He took Aunt Arianne’s hands then, adding: “I was sorry, to hear what happened. That was badly done.”
“An object lesson,” Aunt Arianne said, with her faint, amused smile. “Good afternoon, Felix.”
The Roman man kissed her hands, which made Aunt Arianne raise her eyebrows, and then the page was leading them to discreet rooms where they could primp before meeting Princess Leodhild.
“Used to court him?” Eleri asked, as Aunt Arianne slipped a comb out of her daybelt.
“Given he was all of twelve last time we met, no,” Aunt Arianne said. “He’s a cousin of the Dacian Proconsul, and is apparently in Prytennia with the company assisting the underground railway’s construction. Not at all what I thought he’d end up doing.”