Page 96 of Confounding Oaths
Mr. Caesar’s expression was growing increasingly sour. “That seems perilously close to useless. Must all witches be so vague?”
“Pretty much,” said Barryson. “Magic is fucking weird and fucking complicated.”
Amenirdis laughed, and for the first time there was the sound of St. Giles in her voice. “He’s not wrong. The world is chaos. We try to understand it and to shape it, but we cannotunseeit.”
Being the ranking gentleman in the group, Mr. Caesar should formally have taken control of the visit. But what shouldformallybe, he was beginning to realise, was often not what shouldreallybe, or what actually was. After all, Barryson, rough though he may have been, understood the old gods as nobody else in the group did; the captain, though he may not have been a gentleman, remained an officer; and Mary, though she was somewhat younger and substantially more female than the rest of the party, was theirwhole reason for being there in the first place. Mr. Caesar, by contrast, was with them primarily to be supportive. And there was a liberation of a sort in that. So he let his sister take the lead; that, after all, was what the man he was trying to be would do. To his relief and my disappointment, it did not end badly. Rising gracefully to her feet, Miss Caesar bobbed a perfect curtsey to Amenirdis and thanked her for her hospitality. With her heart hidden from me by absence and Amenirdis’s hidden by the blessings of the Lady of Ten Thousand Names, I found myself in the narratively uncomfortable position of genuinely not knowing what was going to happen next.
I understand that you mortals relish this feeling. And of all the things I fail to understand about you, this is by far the most perplexing.
Chapter Twenty
The ton could not, ordinarily,prepare for a ball in three days, especially not a royal ball, doubly especially not a royal ball with visiting dignitaries, and triply especially not a royal ball with visiting dignitaries that was announced also as a masquerade.
But this was an embassy from the Other Court, and for all their piety and avowed aversion to things uncanny, the ton would move heaven and earth to attend. They would even go so far as to solicit fairy-wrought garments (garments which, I tell you again, are extremely well-made, utterly beautiful, and never ever turn to leaves at dawn) for the occasion in spite of the taboo against such fabrics.
Still the preparation for the event remained complex, especially for the Caesars, who had two daughters and limited funds. Miss Caesar’s garments were a part of her and, as such, could not be easily adapted, although she had some expectation that the Lady would assist her in this regard, but Miss Anne and the younger Mr.Caesar had rather more specific needs. To say nothing of the men of the Irregulars, who it had been agreed would attend in case—as several of them had colourfully put it—of fuckery.
Miss Bickle had, in the end, played the role of—for want of a less loaded term—fairy godmother; being endowed with both wealth and a love of the extravagant she was well suited both to source costumes and to advise on matters of style.
Whether it was the intense flurry of activity preceding the ball or the inherent squeamishness of their set that prevented the Caesars from making the offering to Freyr that Barryson had prescribed I cannot say, but it is worth noting at this moment—as we catch up with our party in the hour leading up to the ball—that the offering had not been made. Whether this would return to bite our heroes in their collective buttocks, we shall see anon.
But what a party it was. Even the costumed nature of the event was not quite able to conceal how eclectic a band they were. Miss Caesar herself was notable by absence, being escorted as always by the Lady, but the rest of the family were a riot of detail. The elder Caesars, accompanying their children on this occasion and fatally determined to let no ill befall them, had chosen simplicity—hooded cloaks and plain black domino masks. Although Lady Mary had signalled her identity to all who knew her by accessorising her cloak with a Wedgwood medallion, depicting a chained and kneeling figure and the wordsAm I Not a Man and a Brother?The others had chosen more complicated attire.
Captain James was perhaps the most straightforward, dressed in court-wear of the like that would have been fashionable two centuries earlier—a heavy doublet with slashed sleeves, and pantaloons in a similar style that gave him the look of a prince from a folktale.
“We all know what we’re doing?” he asked, and was answered with a general murmuring of assent. Of course, a good officer never takes yes for an answer. “Barryson?”
“Watching for magic,” replied the viking. His attire was furs and steel and topped off with a sword he had acquired from somewhere best not considered.
“Sal and Jackson?”
“Staying out of trouble,” said the tallest of the two harlequins. “And reminding you that you don’t have to do this.”
“Staying back,” translated the shorter, “and being ready if help is needed.”
“Kumar?”
Constantine the Great—a specific and well-researched Constantine the Great that could have come straight from the walls of the Hagia Sophia—stepped smartly forward. “Communication. Keeping these reprobates clear on what’s happening.”
“Callaghan?”
The highwayman tipped back his tricorn, although between the kerchief and the mask his face was still concealed. “I’m on Miss Mary,” he said with a smile in his voice. “And if I see her break or fall or something try to take her, I’m to act like she was my own sister.”
“I’ve seen how you treat your sister,” Sal told him. “Do better.”
Callaghan’s fist clenched. “That is a scandalous lie and you know it.”
“Boy William?” said the captain, cutting across the bickering.
“I’m with Miss Anne,” he said. Alone amongst the company he was unmasked, wearing once more the guise of a page boy. “To pay special attention to any man as might try to lead her off. Butdon’t worry, miss”—he flushed a little as he looked over at Cleopatra beside him—“I’ll take good care of you.”
Miss Anne, raised to be courteous even if ungrateful, tried not to show that she would rather have been assigned any guardian but him. “Thank you. I am sure I shall be as safe as anything.”
The list of assigned roles had, from the perspective of the rest of the gathering, included notable absences. Mr. Caesar, his cousin, her lover, and Miss Bickle all stood unaccounted for.
“And what of us?” asked the younger Mr. Caesar, who, from some imp of the perverse, had chosen to dress as a British infantryman. “This is my sister we are speaking of; I will not be consigned to uselessness.”
“Your job is to get us in, and to cover for us if we do something that your lot would never do at a ball,” Captain James told him.
