Chapter Nineteen #2
The maid pressed her lips tightly together, but nodded, leaving the room with an indignant huff of breath.
When she had gone, I sat in my chemise and pulled out my embroidery needle and the few silks that Mieka had given me back at Milady’s house from the deep pocket of my cloak.
I tried to clear my mind. Baldbeak fluttered over to perch on the bed next to me.
He seemed overwhelmed by all this wealth and ceremony, too.
“I can at least make this a bit more … me,” I told him.
Baldbeak, who only cared about clothes if they had interesting buttons and shiny thread, croaked back at me.
I let my mind empty and watched the needle as it darted in and out of the silk.
A design began to take shape—something ornate in looks but simple and quick to create.
I added silver, then amber, batting away Baldbeak when he tried to grab the gleaming thread from me.
The finished design traveled all the way around the low scoop of the neckline.
In it, I could see echoes of the embroidered handkerchief I had clutched in my hand all those days ago when I awoke in the Temple—the one I still carried, my mother’s hairs carefully wrapped in it.
Next, I moved on to the long, flowing cuffs of the sleeves that fell almost to the floor. I managed to stitch the same easy design all around both cuffs in a matter of minutes.
When I had finished, I pulled the dress over my head. It had no lacing, but fit me extremely well. Patrick’s annoyingly precise eye for measurements again.
“Now Hair,” I muttered to myself. I looked in the mirror. The rich green made the Hair flame brighter than I had ever seen it. I sighed. The last thing I wanted to do was wrestle with it for an hour.
“Look,” I told it, “I have some hair ribbons the maid left. If I hold them up, could you, sort of, arrange yourself in a pleasing way? However you would like. I just don’t want to look like a fool.”
I felt like a fool, trying to have a conversation with my own Hair about fashion, but it was worth trying.
I selected amber ribbons from the tray and held them up above my head cautiously, as if holding out a piece of food to a wild animal.
For a moment, the Hair stayed still, and I braced myself for a fight …
But then it reached up to tangle itself with the ribbons.
It entwined itself with the shining fabric and braided half of itself into a circlet around my head, crown-like.
The rest of fell in loose tendrils beneath. It took a matter of seconds.
“Er—Thank you,” I said.
Patrick had sent up a case of jewelry as well. An extremely large and heavy case. I hadn’t planned to wear any of it, but something about being dressed in such a formal gown made me want to at least see what it would look like.
I opened the case. My mouth dropped open.
It was a king’s ransom of jewels, literally.
Baldbeak squawked and hopped over to it, his eyes gleaming.
A kingdom’s wealth, strung on chains of silver and gold.
Jeweled hairnets, circlets, brooches, necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings …
Baldbeak reached in with his enormous blunt beak, but I snapped the case shut as if the Watch were about to burst in the room and accuse me of stealing it.
Shiny! he said indignantly.
“I know. Believe me, I know. But we have to be careful with it.”
When my senses returned, I opened it again, slowly this time, and tried to think practically.
I didn’t want to be weighed down with the stuff, but if I were meeting the king …
The thought of anything on my hands or wrists made me recall Ban Morin’s ring, making me feel a little sick.
My ears had never been pierced. The Hair had taken care of itself. But a necklace, perhaps?
I tried to think of it like selecting thread, looking at the colors only, without dwelling on how priceless the pieces were, because the value of them made my stomach knot.
After some deliberation, I selected a green velvet choker with a silver chain and a deep, gold-flecked red stone hanging from its center.
The stone sat right in the hollow of my collarbone when I clasped it.
I stared at myself in the mirror and sighed.
“This will have to do,” I told Baldbeak. He flapped his wings as if he were about to fly to my shoulder, but I fended him off. “No! Not tonight, Baldbeak, I’m sorry.”
For why? he said, offended.
The last thing I needed was claw marks in the velvet dress—or a white line of bird droppings running down the back of it. But I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I reached into the case and selected a bracelet of silver and stones as blue-green as the heart of a candle flame—emeralds, I guessed.
“Come here,” I said. He hopped towards me and bent his head. I clasped the bracelet around his thickly feathered neck. It made a fine collar.
“You can’t ride on my shoulder tonight,” I said. “But you can wear this.”
He tried to peer down at it. I lifted him in my hands and carried him to the mirror, where he could see how well it suited him. He tilted his head to one side and the other, and then preened the feathers on his chest and back. The silver and green brought out the dark iridescence of his plumage.
“You look wonderful,” I said. “Befitting a magnificent talking raven.”
You look shiny, he said.
That was inarguable. The green velvet caught the light, and the metallic thread I had used to embroider it glinted at the neckline and cuffs.
The Hair shone amber and gold, echoing the jewel at my collarbone.
I made a face at myself. I still felt like I was wearing a costume, but at least the embroidery and the addition of Baldbeak with his fine new collar made me feel a little more like myself.
“My lady,” said the maid softly, poking her head around the door after a light knock. “Are you ready?”
I followed her down the corridor, glad to have someone to guide me through this vast place.
I paused by a window. The courtyard outside the palace was bustling.
Carriages stopped outside one by one, and footmen stepped down to open the doors for marvelously dressed people who tottered on heeled shoes to the front door.
I steeled myself. I had to smile and make small talk with the “gentry,” as Mieka called them, for just one evening—for just long enough to charm the Pontiff and glean what information I could about the catacombs.
We came to the wide staircase, and I descended, rather self-consciously holding up a fold of my gown in one hand so I wouldn’t trip over it.
Baldbeak slid down the banister beside me, flapping his wings with great enjoyment and rather spoiling the effect.
To combat the awkwardness I felt, I kept my chin tilted up and my eyes cast down until I reached the bottom of the stair where Patrick was waiting.
When I looked up, I saw he had a rather strange expression on his face. He was dressed in black, as usual, with the dark green embroidery on the lapels and the jeweled pin at his throat providing his only points of color.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I put my hand up to the Hair, making sure it hadn’t unraveled itself.
“You look beautiful,” he said. I waited for a smirk or a joke, but he seemed quite serious. He took my hand and bowed low over it, brushing my knuckles with a kiss. My cheeks flamed, and I snatched my hand back.
“Can we go back to behaving normally now, please?” I said. “Or I will never get through tonight.”
“I am behaving normally,” he said with a slight smile. “Shall we?”
He held out his arm. I took it, but Baldbeak appeared to think it was for him and alighted on his shoulder between us.
“You look very fine, too,” Patrick said to him gravely, and Baldbeak rattled his feathers with a look of great satisfaction.
The ballroom was vast and high-ceilinged, but already warm from the press of the finely dressed throng, their voices mingling to form a muted roar.
Candles, mirrors, and vases of white flowers glittered from every available surface.
I clutched at Patrick’s arm instinctively as we walked in and eyes turned to us—men staring openly, woman glancing coquettishly over their fans.
Baldbeak fluttered behind us, then flew up to land on one of the chandeliers, setting the delicate glass droplets to trembling.
“It’s all right,” Patrick whispered.
I loosened my grip. “I know,” I said, turning my face away. I didn’t want to confess just how nervous I felt. I had thought I was used to crowds by now, but this was a different sort of crowd altogether—glittering and sharp-eyed, regarding me with interest and private judgement.
Dwale was already inside, munching on a little pastry and sucking at his fingers. He wore blue velvet, stretched taut over his barrel of a chest, and looked quite out of place among the perfumed crowd. It was a relief to see him.
“You clean up nice,” he said to me.
“Er, thank you. So do you.”
“Stay by the door,” Patrick told him, “and inform me of anything untoward.”
Patrick led me deeper into the room. Despite his slight figure, he seemed able to part the crowd by force of sheer presence.
We came up to a bevy of gowned and beribboned young women who stood fanning themselves by a white chaise longue.
He smiled at them as we passed, so I followed suit, but received only flat-eyed stares or outright dirty looks in return as their smiles dropped off their faces.
“What’s wrong with them?” I whispered.
“Ah.” He chuckled. “Well, you are on my arm tonight …”
“I’d noticed.”
“And I’m what some might consider an, er, eligible bachelor.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“So the assumption is that you have won my heart, and I might very soon be taken off the market,” he explained.
“I beg your pardon?”
He raised his hands in mock surrender. “You asked! Look, it doesn’t matter. It’s … just one night, after all.”
“They think I’m trying to … That you and I … That’s ridiculous.”