Chapter Twelve #2
The man went on, “Rumor has it he’s already begun making overtures to the smaller houses to align them with the king’s interests.”
“Foley is ambitious, but he’s not foolish,” Ban Hallow said, pouring himself another glass of wine. “He knows better than to provoke the Temple outright.”
“He’s still dangerous,” Milady said softly, her voice cutting through like a blade. All eyes turned to her. “Men like Foley don’t wait for opportunity to come to them. They create it.”
“And you would know, wouldn’t you?” the wiry man said with a smirk, raising his goblet in a mock toast.
Milady’s smile widened, but there was no warmth in it. “I merely observe the tides, my lord. Some of us have the foresight to prepare for what’s coming. Others … drown.”
“What about the Plague?” a young lord asked hesitantly, breaking the tension. “I’ve heard whispers …”
“Whispers have a way of growing louder when fear takes hold,” said Milady. “The Temple knows that well. They’ll use these rumors to tighten their grip.”
“Speaking of whispers,” said Ban Hallow, “I heard that a band of Followers will be passing this way very soon.”
Groans around the table. These men clearly disliked the Followers—I supposed because they had to offer hospitality to them, by law. Despite their vast estates and dozens of unused bedrooms, they resented having to share any of it.
I clenched my fists beneath the table, my unease growing with every word. These men spoke of the kingdom’s collapse as if it were merely a game to be played for their own advantage. And Milady, poised and composed, seemed to be pulling every string in the room.
A man on one side of me asked polite, conventional questions and listened to my responses, but I knew how to make myself seem dull and slow-witted, and he soon abandoned his attempts.
I was determined to make Milady’s mission as difficult as possible, without actually courting any more punishment.
I turned my attention to one of the spoons instead, tilting it to catch the light, and then realized that someone else was speaking to me. The man on the other side.
“Persinette, your name was?”
“Yes, sir.” I managed to keep my gaze averted. “But people call me Netta.”
“Interesting name.”
I looked up. The speaker was a handsome man in a dissipated way: middle-aged, heavyset, with a lazy power in the way he sat and moved. Unexpected muscles rippled beneath the silk of his sleeve as he reached for his wine glass. One of his wine glasses. I counted five at each place setting.
“It’s … a plant. A herb,” I said. “It grew around … where we lived, when I was small.”
“Ah yes. And where was that?” he asked.
I stumbled over my response and settled on, “Far from here.”
“What a pleasure, to live in such a wonderful place as this, beneath the warmth of your lady’s smile.”
“Milady is very kind to me.” I hoped he didn’t hear the acid in my voice.
“How could she be anything but kind to such a sweet young woman? You are the moon, my dear,” he said, raising his glass almost imperceptibly, “pale and bright.”
Inwardly, I rolled my eyes. What rubbish.
“If I am the moon, sir,” I said in over-sweet tones, “then I owe any beauty I might have to the sun. Any light I possess was given to me by Milady, who shines brightest of all.”
How do you like that, Milady? I thought. And I could tell she was listening, although she appeared to be deep in conversation.
Someone else had been listening, too. There was a low laugh from the other end of the table. I turned sharply. I could see a figure there, far enough from the candles that his face was in shadow, but close enough to eavesdrop, evidently.
No one else seemed to have heard the laugh—my companion, at least, kept talking, with no pause.
I narrowed my eyes and tried to see the stranger’s features.
He—for I could tell that the owner of the laugh was a he, at the very least—was a moth-like blur in the firefly lights around the table.
However hard I tried, I found my eyes shivering over him, never quite settling, as if my gaze and mind found him too unremarkable to rest on even for a second.
Was it Patrick?
I tried harder. By keeping my gaze fixed and steady, I was able to catch a blurred glimpse of the man—dark haired, with a neatly trimmed beard, and a silver pin winking at his neck. Then the indifference descended again, feeling almost like nausea, and he had gone.
It had to be him—didn’t it?
“You find me tedious?”
I gathered my thoughts from the strange malaise that had overtaken them and tried once again to listen. The man beside me was smiling, lips pressed tightly together. I noticed that one of his canine teeth overlapped his lower lip very slightly.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
I turned my attention back to his mild questioning and passionless flattery, and did not look away again, although I desperately wanted to. Could Patrick really be here, in Milady’s house? My mind raced as I tried to think of a way to find out without Milady noticing.
When dinner was finished, Milady stood. This was the signal for all the others to stand, also.
“Shall we retire to the drawing room?” she said.
This transition would give me a chance to go back to my room—to breathe. I was turning politely to take my leave of the silver-haired gentleman—I had never asked his name—when I heard, “Netta. Won’t you fetch your book? I’m sure our guests would like to hear you read.”
So it was that time. Dread curled in my stomach. I looked from one impassive face to the other and then scrambled to gather my skirts and rise. Every movement was a production when you had this much fabric wrapping itself like an embroidered octopus about your legs.
“And, Netta?” Milady added.
A pause.
“Yes, Milady?”
“Gloves.”
My cheeks burned. I ran one sweating hand down my bare forearm.
“Yes, Milady.”
“It seems I shall have the pleasure of your company a little longer,” said the nameless gentleman, who would probably have to remain without a name forever, because I would never have the courage to ask for it after we had been talking all this time.
“Yes,” I said stupidly. “I mean, the pleasure is mine. Will be mine.”
His mouth didn’t move, but his eyes told me he was laughing at me. I pushed back my chair, letting my napkin fall to the floor, where it was scooped up immediately by one of the footmen.
I half tripped over my own feet as I walked—no, be honest, Netta. Scurried, I was scurrying—away. I could feel Milady’s gaze on my back, but the woman could hardly object to me urinating. At least, she could object, but not in front of the guests.
Several pairs of eyes watched me go, with tangible curiosity. Wonderful. Rather than lessening over the course of the evening, the attention beamed on me was just becoming more and more concentrated.
I felt my way through the door, fluttering my fingers and smiling stupidly at the people I passed, and then I was in the safety of the corridor.
I hurried, as much as my voluminous skirts would allow, startling one of the maids who was seizing her brief opportunity to smoke a hand-rolled cigarette in a secluded corner.
I almost wished I could take a gasp of it myself, to steady my nerves.
I had five minutes, ten at the very most. Enough to compose myself and arrange my face into an expression suitable for another hour or two of conversation and scrutiny.
In the room, Baldbeak was peering hopefully through the window.
Is it finished?
“No, she’s going to make me read. I have to get those gloves, though.” I rummaged through my drawer. “Baldbeak, I think Patrick is here.”
He has come to get us?
“Maybe. I don’t know if I want to go with him, though.”
He clicked his beak.
For why?
“I don’t know if what Milady said about him is true, but it might be. I don’t trust him.”
But we cannot stay here. Although, I have found a flock.
“I’m glad you have friends. Look, I want to get away, but I don’t want to go with him.”
A general sense of skepticism.
“I know, I know. We might have to. But I want to think of something else. I have to.”
I grabbed the gloves, tugging them on over my sweating hands.
The book was next. I was already sick of it—properly, physically sick to my stomach of its weight and smell, of the pages that dried my fingertips as I turned them and the words that left my throat raw.
I grabbed it and started back to the drawing room.
The door was slightly ajar. I managed to push it open silently and enter the murmuring dimness without drawing too much attention to myself, although I could feel Milady’s bright blue gaze and the mocking eyes of the silver-haired man.
They were sitting together at the far end of the room.
The other chairs were lined up in rows, facing expectantly towards the fireplace.
As my eyes cast about helplessly, I again heard a low mutter of laughter brightening the room for a brief moment like a struck match.
The same laugh I had heard at the dinner table.