Page 86 of Confounding Oaths
Had circumstances not been so dire, the walk from the Caesar residence to the similarly respectable but not excessively wealthy abode of Mr. Bygrave and his family would have been a rather lovely one. Flanked by Mr. Caesar (the younger) and Captain James (the one and only), Miss Caesar made a picture of maidenly respectability. Or rather a statue of it. A statue of it carved in crystal glass and dancing with pale light.
Mr. Caesar, being in theory at least the ranking member of the party, offered his card to the Bygraves’ footman, who showed a commendable lack of concern at being confronted by so atypical a party. I considered slipping inside and seeing for myself what kindof home life the tedious Mr. Bygrave had, but since I had no interest in the man, I remained outside with my chosen protagonists.
They were admitted in a timely fashion and shown through to a tastefully decorated receiving room where a delicate-featured woman in her late thirties was wearing an unfashionable dress and an expression of suspicion.
“Robert will be with us presently,” she said. “Am I to assume that this is the”—her lips grew thin—“glass ladywho has captured so much of his attention?”
Miss Caesar curtsied, which in her new state was a mesmerising motion, a ripple of impossible materials and a cascade of white light. “I am. And would I be right in assuming that you are Mrs. Bygrave?”
The lady nodded. “It is past time we met, I think.”
“Does your son often speak of my sister then?” asked Mr. Caesar, riven somewhat between his desire to support his sibling and his desire to simplify the complex situation in which his family found itself.
“Incessantly. Indeed I have found it quite concerning.”
While Mr. and Miss Caesar were accustomed to maintaining a certain politesse, Captain James felt that could very much go fuck itself. “What do you mean by that?”
As if she’d only just noticed him, Mrs. Bygrave turned her head the merest fraction towards the captain. “James, is it?” she asked. “Orestes James?”
“CaptainJames,” the captain corrected her.
“My husband spoke well of you.” It was a quiet approbation, almost grudging. “He said you had merit.”
From the cannon-smoke of the captain’s memory, some patches of detail emerged. “Your husband was Colonel Bygrave?”
The lady nodded.
“Good officer. Bloody waste.”
Before the silence could fully settle, the door opened and Mr. Bygrave entered, shadowed by two younger children.
“But we want tosee,” said the taller, a girl of some twelve years with an unruly tangle of brown hair and more freckles than were considered comely. This sentiment was echoed by her younger brother, still young enough to be composed primarily of mucus and entitlement.
“Miss Caesar is not a fireworks display,” Mr. Bygrave chided them. “She is not here to be gawped at.”
At which exact moment, because the magics of my people have a strong sense of irony, a beam of sunlight struck Miss Caesar at just the right angle to light her up like a fireworks display. And the whole room gawped.
Once the assembly had recovered their various composures, Mr. Bygrave glanced nervously at Miss Caesar’s companions. For her brother to accompany her on a visit was not so very unusual. For him to be accompanied by an officer of His Majesty’s army with a reputation for mingled heroism and ruthlessness was rather more out of the way. “Have I”—he hesitated—“have I done something wrong?”
Miss Caesar drifted forward with the endless grace of the Other Court. She looked Mr. Bygrave in the eye and tried to find the words to say the things she very much did not want to say. But at last she had to admit that the words were simple, plain, and unavoidable. “Why do you like me?” she asked.
With almost parodic chivalry, Mr. Bygrave took hold of Miss Caesar’s faux-gloved hands. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”
If there is one thing that my people know, reader, it is that flattery is a drug. Quite literally, for some of us; it can be condensed from the webs of a certain kind of spider and distilled over black fire in the caverns between our world and the domains of the dead gods. But even for mortals it can be intoxicating. And fragmenting as Miss Caesar was, a shard of her wanted to believe that it was enough. “What about me is beautiful?”
Mr. Bygrave was speaking now as in a rapture. “Your beauty,” he told her, “defies speech itself.”
This was literally true. The Beauty Incomparable is, by its very definition, incomparable. No analogy or simile can do it justice, no adjective can seem anything but scorn compared to its shattering, ensnaring reality.
I will admit, dear reader, that this makes it translate rather poorly to a written medium.
“Then … what do youlikeabout me?”
Still half-mesmerised, there was only one answer Mr. Bygrave could possibly give. “You are the most beau—”
“Aboutme,Robert.” Using his given name was an intimacy that should by all rights have been reserved for a far more developed relationship. “About my character, my accomplishments, my connections such as they are.”
“None of those things matter,” Mr. Bygrave replied. And from his breathless lover’s tone he meant it well.
