Page 97 of Confounding Oaths
It was not busywork exactly, and it was certainly true that it made better use of the expertise of the various members of the group. But it did not feel quite that way to Mr. Caesar. “Theremustbe more we can do.”
Lady Georgiana, resplendent as Clytemnestra in a bloody gown, contrived to look down her nose at Mr. Caesar despite his slight advantage in height. “There is not. The world is cruel and arbitrary and we can but suffer it.”
“Georgiana”—Miss Mitchelmore, as Arachne, complete with web, nudged the woman once known as the Duke of Annadale with her elbow—“there is a time and a place.”
“And this is both. We are about to walk into danger; I would recommend that we not jump into it headlong.”
Miss Bickle, whose milkmaid’s outfit (a different milkmaid’s outfit and one that, when challenged, she insisted was actually an outfit representing Marie Antoinettedisguisedas a milkmaid) camewith an impractically large yoke and two pails that she had, at the very least, this time not elected to fill with actual milk, made a noise best approximated aspshaw.“I am certain we can come to no harm while these fine gentlemen are protecting us.”
“That,” Lady Georgiana replied, “is because you consistently overrate gentlemen.”
“I like to think that I overrate everybody,” Miss Bickle replied. “It’s a much nicer way to see things.”
The party had almost finished assembling when the elder Mr. Caesar spoke from beneath his hood. “Captain,” he said, “I am grateful to you for all that you are doing, but you should know that when it comes to our daughter, Mary and I will do as we see fit to protect her, irrespective of your instructions.”
Captain James gave half a nod. “Wouldn’t expect otherwise.”
And with that understanding they went to the ball.
Carlton House was the infamous London residence of the prince regent, a sprawling, palatial tribute to art, joy, and vanity. And on this evening it bore also the unmistakable touch of the Other Court. Its Corinthian columns were wound with ivy and its great halls lit with fairy lights. Which is to say, lights provided by fairies, not the strings of tiny bulbs that now bear our name. It is a wholly inaccurate appellation; the things you hang up in the winter have, I am sure, never lured so much as a single traveller to an early death.
The crowds, likewise, bore the mark of Titania’s presence. For every masked mortal dressed in outlandish costume there was a creature whose mask was its true face: living dolls and ivy-headed dryads, quick-darting goblins and flower-clad fairies on gossamerwings. Then there were the mortals of the court; the Ambassador was there, representing the king to his queen and not entirely welcome. And alongside him, those who had walked deeper or made stranger bargains, those whose transformations—like that of Miss Caesar—marked them out as clearly belonging toelsewhere.
Miss Mitchelmore—not my primary focus in this tale but still a lady around whom interesting things happened—found her eyes drawn inexorably to one of these demi-mortals, a woman with cold eyes and an aquiline profile, with talons of steel and wings of beaten copper, with a bearing and demeanour that seemed somehow familiar. And whispering a gentle word to Lady Georgiana she led her lover away from our present story into another that I shall not tell you.
The Irregulars proved less prone to distraction, keeping to their assigned roles and their positions, letting the crowds swallow them and watching, always watching, for whatever danger might present itself.
For danger, or for wonder.
The queen herself (the queen who mattered, which is to say Titania, not the Queen of England, who was indeed present and holding court in her own pedestrian manner) had yet to arrive, but while she was the guest of honour, she was not the creature at the heart of this glittering web.
That distinction was reserved for Miss Caesar. Although a dispassionate observer might account her more fly than spider.
The Lady and her charge arrived an hour to the second after the official commencement of the ball. Crystal trumpets and spindle-limbed servants heralded her arrival, and she entered the ballroom in a cascade of white light.
Like everybody else, Miss Caesar was costumed. Unlike everybody else (at least everybody else who remained nominally human),her costume was her body. She wore a gown of no cut ever seen in that age or prior, a wild thing of cracked and shifting glass. Her shoulders were bare and transparent, her hair worn high and fused with her headdress into a spire that would have graced any fairy princess. A mask covered her face, a plain oval with tiny, stylised lips, empty holes for the eyes, and, on its left cheek, a single sculpted tear.
The whole room fell silent at her entrance. The queen, the prince regent, and even the young Princess Charlotte—permitted out of seclusion this once at least—watched her in awe as she walked the length of the grand hall, her footsteps echoing like bells. The Lady trailed behind her and, seeing her protégé in no further need of support, cut to one side to collect Miss Anne, who she had, after all, promised an introduction to royalty.
This being a fairy ball, I was entirely within my rights to attend physically, and even invisible I was plainly present to a sizeable minority of the attendees, but provided I retained my bird’s-eye view (occasionally literally; that was the other helpful thing about this kind of ball, the occasional live songbird was very much to be expected) they mostly wouldn’t try to talk to me.
Thus I was able to watch the proceedings from several angles at once, to see Miss Caesar stride confidently to the centre of the hall and be flooded immediately with admirers from whom she selected her first dance partner seemingly at random, and, at the same time, to see Miss Anne—with Boy William following sheepishly in tow and her entire family watching anxiously from the sidelines—follow the Lady to where Prince William was standing, masked only in a plain black domino in order that he not be mistaken for an ordinary person.
I did not hear what words passed between the prince and the girl, but he took her hand for the dance, and the band struck up awaltz. Descending to the crowd, I listened in to what her family were saying.
“It could be worse,” Lady Mary was observing dryly. “He may be four times her age, but we can be relatively confident he has no wish to murder her.”
The younger Mr. Caesar nodded but didn’t take his eyes off his sister. “It is only one dance, and if nothing else it should elevate her status in the eyes of others.”
Captain James, more accustomed to surveying the whole field of view than the Caesars, replied with half his attention elsewhere. “Will it? I thought masques were meant to be anony—Hang about.”
Cutting off his instinctive desire to explain that yes, strictly at a masquerade nobody knew who anybody else was, but in practice everybody did and had a lifetime’s experience of showing they did while pretending they didn’t, Mr. Caesar followed the captain’s gaze to two men on the opposite side of the ball.
The first, the elder of the two, was dressed as a Roman emperor, complete with toga and laurels. By his paltry attempt at a mask and his distinctive whiskers, he was plainly Major Bloodworth. The second was more concerning. He wore the attire of a legionary, lorica segmentata across his chest, his head covered by a Gallic helm. In deference to the British climate and the sensibilities of the day, he had chosen to wear woollen braccae covering his legs to the greaves rather than leaving his knees exposed as Augustus might have. The most peculiar part of his outfit, however, was the mask, which was pure gold—or gilt at least—and covered his entire face in a façade of eerie serenity. Mr. Caesar and the captain were both certain that he was watching Miss Anne.
Balls in general, and masquerades in particular, were supposed to be carefree occasions. An opportunity to let down one’s hair(figuratively at least; to actually let down one’s hair would be the height of unseemliness) and live, for a while at least, in the moment. Which meant of course that inpracticethey were a tangle of white-hot thorns made from petty resentments, old tensions, and new intrigues. The dances changed, and the revellers switched partners. To the Caesars’ relief, Miss Anne had not stood up with the prince twice in a row—there was seeking royal favour and then there was shameless social climbing, after all.
With commendable alacrity, Boy William had noted the Roman legionary approaching Miss Anne to ask her for the next dance and had taken it on himself to point her in the direction of an older gentleman masked as a fox rather than let him sweep her up at once, but he had not quite had the strength, in the space between dances, to stop the gentleman marking her card.
