Page 98 of Confounding Oaths
“Perhaps the next set, then,” the legionary said—his voice was soft and by now, to the Caesars at least, unmistakable, “if you would so honour me.”
“The lady is—” Boy William had begun, but the legionary had ignored him, and made it quite plain that if Miss Anne wished to refuse him, she would need to do so publicly, thereby giving him great insult.
And given the choice between protecting herself from a man she knew to practise human sacrifice or protecting her reputation, Miss Anne made the only choice she could.
I observed the whole exchange, of course, for such is my function. But Kumar observed it also and circulated at once back to Mr. Caesar and the captain to inform them of the problem.
“He has her for the next dance,” he explained. “The boy did his best, but this isn’t his battlefield.”
For all of fourteen seconds, Mr. Caesar had been lettinghimself relax. One sister was awaiting Titania and could do nothing truly ill-advised until she arrived; another was with royalty and thus as safe from scandal as she could possibly be, so long as she remained in public. The sneaking in of Lieutenant Reyne—for it had tobeLieutenant Reyne, did it not—was a setback he kicked himself for not anticipating.
Sensing his lover’s unease, Captain James laid a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll have a word.”
“What sort of word?” asked Mr. Caesar, suddenly full of yet more trepidation.
“The kind that he won’t ignore.”
Before Mr. Caesar could ask him for any more details, the captain was gone, prowling his great cat’s prowl through the crowd and circling towards the legionary from the last angle he’d be watching.
The helm, in this case, was a help. It meant that Lieutenant Reyne had little to no peripheral vision. Which in turn meant that the first he knew of the captain’s approach was when a voice in his ear whispered: “This costume comes with a nice thin knife, and we both know that armour is for show.”
“And you’d stab a man in the middle of a royal ball?” the lieutenant whispered back. “You’d be lucky to hang.”
Captain James kept his voice low. “Way I see it, you’ve tried to kill one person I care for and are planning to kill another. Reckon stopping you’s worth a hanging.”
“Then strike.”
“Could do. Or we could take a walk.”
To my fairy sight, the hall was a cacophony of mortal wanting and striving and yearning, much of it concealed, but with my attention all focused on the two gentlemen and the blade, I sawtheir hearts beat three times in indecision and watched the captain’s fingers play lightly along the hilt of a dagger that was far less costume than it appeared.
They walked.
As much as I wished to keep observing the dancers, the confrontation between the two military men looked likely also to be fruitful, narratively speaking. So I followed them, taking the advantage of breaks in their conversation to flit back like moonlight into the hall and watch for developments.
And I had time. A ball of this nature spilled over most of the house, and so it took some while for the captain and his companion, moving as they were at implied knifepoint, to find somewhere they could talk openly. They settled at last on the library, which even the revellers of Carlton House would be unlikely to disturb and which was situated a convenient floor below the main attractions.
There, far enough now from crowds that in many ways each man was entirely at the mercy of the other, they moved to a respectable, non-knife-appropriate distance and, watching one another with utter suspicion, settled into two conveniently separated armchairs.
“So,” asked the lieutenant, “what did you wish to say?”
I took advantage of the pause to check that nothing new had happened in the hall. It had not, but the band had struck up a popular piece called “The Fairy Song” and it was fast approaching midnight, both of which pointed to the queen’s arrival being imminent. But not so imminent that I could not return to the library.
“How about you take off your mask first?” the captain was saying. His own mask had already been removed; it had been a silly ornamental thing that kept well with the princely image but had otherwise not suited him.
Whether out of curiosity, coercion, or simple courtesy between military men, Lieutenant Reyne obliged, removing his legionary’s helm and the mask with it, setting the headpiece down on the floor.
“In a more civilised world,” he said, “we would share a brandy.”
“I’m not a civilised man.”
Lieutenant Reyne gave a soft, almost apologetic smile. “You are not arefinedman,” he said, “but you are a civilised one. After all, you are a British officer.”
“Barely.”
“My father was barely a gentleman. I barely scraped together the coin for my commission. We live in a world of barelys.”
The captain’s lips curled into an expression of profound unimpressedness. “If this is the part where you tell me we’re not so different, I’ve heard it.”
