“Well, at least wash yourself. Here.”
He tossed me a piece of soap shaped like a seashell. I sniffed at it suspiciously. It smelled of rose petals, only stronger and powerfully sweet.
“It’s wonderful,” Garnet said. “All produced locally, I hear. There’s quite a lot of soap around. They are a very clean people. They bathe daily. It’s a sign of spiritual purity. But it’s not just about being clean; it’s also about elegance. Look how intricately that has been molded,” he said, nodding at the shell-shaped soap, “and smell the fragrance!”
“Yes,” I scowled. “Very nice. And the next time I want to go round stinking like an expensive whore I’ll put it straight to use.”
“Just get a move on,” he snapped. “And brush your hair.”
And so we left, him in front, striding off and making pleasant little bows every time someone passed, me straggling after him, doing up buttons and cursing quietly to myself.
We entered a large room, flagged with black and white marble like a chessboard and arranged with padded chairs and benches. There were torches and lanterns everywhere and it was like daylight inside, except for the wreath of smoke that hung about the ceiling. It was packed with men and women in silks and satins and jewels, many seated or reclining elegantly on pieces of furniture that looked like chairs with pretensions to couch-hood. Others were poised artistically against columns or leaning with studied nonchalance on mantelpieces. And all were engaged in hushed conversation. Occasionally there would be a ripple of laughter or a soft pattering of polite applause from restrained, gloved hands. Somewhere a wistfully plucked harp was accompanying a woman singing in a high, lilting tone about a lovelorn shepherdess.
“What the hell is this?” I breathed to Garnet.
“It’s a waiting room.”
“What are all these people doing?”
“Waiting,” he said, as if this was self-evident.
“For?”
“A summons from his lordship the king.”
“And us?” I pressed, losing patience.
“We wait, too.”
“Hold it,” I whispered, venomously. “Are you telling me that you dragged me out of bed before cockcrow so that I could stand around with this bunch of overdressed cretins for an hour?”
“More,” he said.
“What?”
“More than an hour. Probably several. But being here is half the fun.”
I gave him an oblique look. Was this a perverse brand of humor I had never glimpsed in my generally surly companion?
“I mean it,” he said, guilelessly. “Just watch and listen.”
Too exasperated to do anything else, I did.
Seated on one of the extended chairs close by were two ladies lounging elegantly in cream-colored lace and taffeta. They dripped with pearls and other forms of conspicuous opulence. One wore a necklace of the largest diamonds I had ever seen. Another pair of ladies sat beside them on velvet cushioned chairs. All four were turned to a pair of gentlemen who held court in their midst. Both were tall, lithe, and blond, one in a doublet of sea-green velvet trimmed with golden cord and matching hose, the other, an older gentleman, in royal-blue-and-silver silk. Both were immaculately groomed and wore trim beards that tapered to waxed points.
“My lord Gaspar,” said the one in green with a wry smile, “affects, I fear, a disposition toward my lady Johanna that he feels not. For as flames give off smoke, so love breathes forth the sighs of passion for all to see. It seems that though my worthy friend bewails his love for fashion’s sake, there is no passion like to mine for my lady Beatrice. I fear his mistress’s disdain has finally quenched his fire and smothered his smoke.”
The ladies smiled among themselves and waited for the elder to reply. He did, with the smallest step forward and the most casual positioning of one hand upon his hip. “My Lord Castileo,” Gaspar intoned, smiling, “embers and smoldering leaves produce a smoke most bitter and unwholesome to the senses, yet the heat from whence it rises is but a poor and mean thing at which one might not even warm one’s hands. The heart of a furnace burns pure and hot, consuming all and leaving little there to smoke withal. So my love for Johanna, like the core of the forge, blazes with white, undying passion, while yours for Beatrice, I fear, so cool and, doused with overlong laments, smokes merely.”
“And yet,” retorted Castileo, “are my words from the heart, not crafted in forges or furnaces where men beat out their labors with the sweat of their brows. My words, like my love, are natural and proceed thoughtless from my consumed heart.”
This met with another burst of applause. I turned, befuddled, to Garnet only to have my confusion increase. He was spellbound, hanging on every word with an awestruck expression on his face.
“What the bloody hell was all that about?” I breathed. Garnet didn’t respond, so I tried another tack. “This is what they do all day?”
“Yes. Isn’t it wonderful? Hush now,” he whispered, his eyes not straying from the peacocks in front of us. “Gaspar is going to respond.”
“The anticipation is crushing me,” I muttered, walking away in search of something more closely resembling entertainment.
There wasn’t any. I circled the room twice and, save for a little dice rolling here and there, that witty little study in who loves who more seemed the rule rather than the exception. A shepherdess in silk and rubies worth about a thousand acres of grazing land bewailed her lost love (“Alack the day, my Corin’s gone away”), and a curious species of high jump contest flared up for a while. But spoken words were the order of the day: elegant, polished, and memorized. They pretended they were making them up as they went, but I know a rehearsed performance when I see one, and I was looking at about twenty. But, there being bugger-all else to do, we sat there for about four hours and listened to what the fair folk did when they weren’t slaying goblins.
Renthrette had arrived midway through this study in futility, and her appearance took my breath away. This was not simply because she was beautiful, in a flame-colored satin gown and an extravagant diamond necklace, gold in her hair and crystal studs set into her bodice-though I suppose she was-but because I barely recognized her. She looked like one of them, blending in so well that it depressed me a little.
“Sorrail sent it,” she said simply, glancing with a kind of delighted uncertainty at her dress. “To help me fit in.”
“Quite,” I said, fitting in less and less by the minute. “Look,” I said, opting for something direct and virile to offset all this court culture, “shouldn’t we be doing something useful, like organizing a rescue of Orgos and Mithos or something?”
“Patience, Will,” said Garnet, a remark so out of character that I was still gaping at him when the liveried lackey who had just arrived started whispering to him.
“They’re ready,” said Garnet, eyes wide with delight. “The king will see us now.”
“Already?” I said. “I mean, I could listen to this I-love-you-more-than-he-does stuff all day.”
“Be quiet, Will,” said Garnet. And suddenly his eyes flashed with that dangerous impatience that I knew so well. It was, strangely enough, sort of a relief to see it. At least some things don’t change.
SCENE X The King
The lackey, a small, obsequious man in a carefully tailored suit with brass buttons and little epaulettes, led us through a series of corridors and double doors, several of which opened onto smaller versions of the room we had just left. In each, diamond-encrusted courtiers sat around swapping witty banter, reciting lousy sonnets, and singing to each other about their disdainful mistresses. Fortunately, we were moving quickly, so I only caught the odd word, but I’d already heard enough of this verbal poncing about to last me a lifetime, and each half-heard quip, each shrewdly worded jest, each ripple of polite amusement stuck me like the blade of a stiletto.