The Privilege of the Sword (27 page)

“It’s perfectly balanced.”

“I’m not saying it’s not a good sword; nice, flexible steel and all, but plain, lady, plain.” He smiled. “I think we could persuade the duke to part with some funds to make a good showing at your first ball.”

I shook my head, though I was tempted for a moment. “There’s my New Year’s knife for pretty. Although…a new scabbard would be nice. I don’t think anyone would notice the hilt,” I wheedled, “if it were tucked in a green leather scabbard worked with gold and scarlet, do you?”

Phillip Drake said, “I’ll tell you what: you break my guard three times with the new double-pass I taught you, and I’ll see to it you get any scabbard you like.”

In any given fight, the weaker sword can prevail through sheer accident. But not in a drill, not three times in a row. I did it, though, and got my scabbard. So that was all right.

T
HE NEXT TIME THEY MET, AT A CARD PARTY,
L
ORD
Ferris was determined to let Lady Artemisia feel her consequence.

“You will be pleased to know,” he said, “that half the young men of the town aren’t speaking to me, because I have carried off the jewel that might have been in one of their caps.”

Knowing her friends were looking, Artemisia could not resist tapping the Chancellor’s arm with her fan.

“Really, sir?” she said frostily. “Then how is it that you find yourself invited to so many
fascinating
parties without me?”

He said, “No party is fascinating without you, sweet. And, as you well know, no one would dare to invite me anywhere without my intended.”

Artemisia felt herself blushing. At first she was inclined to mind, but then she remembered that to see a blushing woman in a courting couple was expected. She raised her fan to her face to be sure that it was seen.

“I hear,” she murmured behind it, “there is a ball to which I have not been invited.”

“Really?” the Crescent Chancellor drawled. “Then I expect that I have not been, either.”

“Oh, but I think you have, sir. Or what is that letter in your pocket, which you were not eager to let me see?”

And, indeed, the Crescent Chancellor’s ringed hand flew to his inner pocket, but only for a moment. “Oh, that. Do you think it is from some woman?” he said loudly. “God love the puss, she’s jealous already.” He looked around the table for confirmation; the men guffawed, and Artemisia blushed in truth.

But she got it out of him in the end, when they were nearly alone, with her maid a discreet distance away. It was a ball, a ball comprised of rogues, the invitation said, but a ball nonetheless, and was she not an ornament at any ball? Her star shone too brightly for such low company—very well, then, she would cover it with a mask. She’d heard of married ladies who went to such places for a lark, suitably disguised, and were she and my lord not to be married so soon as made no never mind? As for rough company, well, it was soon to be his life’s job to protect her, and what better place to test it than at a roguish ball? Ferris laughed at that, and allowed that if he could not protect her, no one could. But this would require more discretion than he feared she was mistress of, to quit the house without even her maid’s knowledge. And what would her parents think of him if they found out?

Pooh, she said, her parents thought he’d hung the moon. If he wouldn’t take her, she’d find another who would. There’s Terence Monteith, quite mad for her, everyone knew he’d been drooping like a willow ever since she’d put on Ferris’s engagement jewel…or her cousin Lucius Perry, he’d do anything for her.

Well, said His Lordship, we can’t have you imposing on discarded lovers or worse yet, relatives. I see it is my duty to escort you safely there and back, for one last little girlish adventure…. If she could contrive to be at her own garden gate when the clock struck nine that night, he would be waiting, cloak in hand.

When he left, Artemisia was breathless with excitement. Such a victory, to bend such a man to her will! She would not mind being married to him at all, if this was a taste of things to come.

O
N THE NIGHT OF THE
R
OGUES’
B
ALL,
B
ETTY LAID
out my nicest suit, the blue shot with crimson, and a new shirt with ruffles and a little gold edging, and low boots neatly cuffed. Just because I had no ballgown, I need not go looking like the dog’s offal! I was going to the ball, and I was going as the Mad Duke’s niece who studied the swordsman’s art and wore a swordsman’s clothes. What was the point of trying to hide it? Sooner or later it would all come out. It might as well be now. And if I found a mask to wear, he would only tear it off. I did have my new scabbard, though.

Marcus was delighted. He had retired to his room with a book of essays and a bowl of apples, with instructions to me to enjoy myself because he hated these things and not to let the duke do anything really stupid.

I waited in the front hall for some time, trying not to fidget with my sword. Nothing looks stupider than a swordsman who can’t keep his hand off his tool, the master had said, and although Phillip Drake had laughed uproariously when I repeated that to him, I planned to stand by it. Finally I gave up and went and knocked on the door of the duke’s chamber. Although the sun was nearly setting, the world bathed in its last colors, my uncle’s rooms were shadowy and candlelit, the heavy curtains drawn. He still sat before the glass, his long hair falling all about him, sleek and new-brushed. His eyes looked very large, their color bright, gazing into the glass in which he saw me behind him. There was something about him of the enchanted prince, in the pallor of his skin or the brightness of his eyes, the surprising fineness of his hair and the etched bones of his face. He wore only plain black linen, over a very white shirt whose edges reported crisply at neck and wrists.

“Nothing too gaudy,” he said to me in the mirror, “for a Rogues’ Ball.” But his right hand dazzled with rings. His valet combed the hair back from the duke’s face and bound it with a velvet ribbon.

My uncle rose, and looked down at my head, and further down to my toes. He nodded; I was all right. “Stay close to me,” he said. He wore not even a dagger. The gold rings, I supposed, were his weapon. And the plain black linen was exquisitely tailored; when he turned, I saw all the tiny folds and tucks stitched up and down the front.

He stumbled into a stool, and flung his hand out to the bedpost for support, and steadied himself there. “Stay close to me,” he said again. “Things aren’t quite where they should be.”

“My lord,” said his valet, “do you wish a draught of something steadying?”

“No,” said the duke; “what for?”

I followed him down the stairs, where he was wrapped in a heavy cloak. At the door, a palanquin was waiting. He got through the curtains and into his seat very slowly, and lay back with his eyes closed. “Is it summer?” he said. “It’s very warm.”

I didn’t answer; he wasn’t listening to me anyway. When we were over the old bridge, a carriage attended. It took us slowly along the river. Now I could see all the other people going our way, mostly on foot—Riversiders, all decked out in their tasteless best, like painted poles at a Spring fair. Some impudent rascal rapped at the side of our door, demanding a lift—our footman beat him off, but the duke put a restraining hand on my arm, although I hadn’t moved but to look. “Easy,” he said. “Not yet.”

The guildhall was so brightly lit inside that from the outside its tall windows shone like beaten gold. I was not the duke’s only guard; other of our men had ridden outside the carriage, and it took the entire escort to clear a path to the guildhall steps. But they left us at the door. The duke put a hand on my shoulder, balancing. A huge footman in a livery all of ribbons came forward. He looked at my uncle. My uncle looked at him. Clearly something was supposed to be happening but wasn’t. I wondered just how awful things would get if the footman tried to throw us out.

“We were invited,” I said nervously, but nobody even looked at me.

My uncle spoke, finally, to the footman. “What a getup. You look,” he said slowly but clearly, “like a booth at a fair.”

“Ah,” said the footman. “You’ve got that right. Shall I announce you, sir?”

“Why bother? Everyone knows who I am.”

And so we entered the Rogues’ Ball.

I recognized Sabina only because I didn’t think our hostess would allow any other woman at her ball to be reclining in a nest of red velvet at the heart of a huge golden shell. Anyone, I suppose, was free to wear pink gauze and a necklace of the biggest pearls I’d ever seen. The shell was on a platform at the center of the room; all the activity swirled around her. The duke was staring hard at it and blinking. She caught sight of us and called “Alec!” and waved a napkin in our direction. As we drew nearer she shrieked, “Black! You wore
black
to my party!”

“Get me a drink,” my uncle muttered, but he wouldn’t let go of my shoulder.

By now, of course, everyone was staring at us. “Is
this
your new
boyfriend
?” Sabina demanded. We were now at the foot of the shell. It was raised above the throng, supported by carved horses with fishes’ tails rising from the waves. It reminded me a lot of a serving platter for a banquet table, and I’m not sure she didn’t mean it to.

“No, dear,” he replied; “this is one you’d find very hard to steal from me. Unless you
like
unnatural blondes?” he asked me; but, not waiting for an answer, told her, “This one
guards
my body, instead of trying to rob it of my vital fluids.”

Sabina threw back her head. She did have a glorious neck. “Brilliant. We all wondered when you were going to think of that. Well, then, I won’t worry about your getting snuffed at my party. You’re so considerate, you plan for everything.”

“Shove over,” he told her; “I want to sit down.”

The pink gauze shifted in our direction. “No. You’ll ruin my effect.”

“Shove over, I said; you’ve got the best view.”

“I will not.”

She was getting mad, and I wasn’t Marcus. But I tried. “My lord duke,” I said, “don’t you want to go see who’s here?”

“Oh, good god,” said Sabina. “This isn’t a boy at all. It’s the baby chick poor Ginnie was telling me about. Send her home, Alec, what’s wrong with you?”

“I can fight,” I said staunchly, to my surprise.

“Well,” she replied, “keep your uncle out of trouble, or you’re going to have to.”

“I am staying out of trouble.” He arranged himself on the steps to the shell. “How’s that? And don’t say you won’t get a huge bang out of having the Duke Tremontaine sitting tamely at your feet. People will talk for days.”

“No, no, no!” She smacked him with her fan. “Not only are you ruining the effect, but people always
want
things from you. I am not having my lovely seashell turned into a queuing for petitions for better drains on Tulliver Street.”

“I’ll stand guard,” I said. It seemed like the safest place to be.

“I’m sure you will, angel,” she purred, “but I want you to have a good time. Both of you. Alec, dearest darling, do go enjoy yourself and pick up some pretty man, and then you can tell me all about it tomorrow. I’ll let you be the very first one to call on me, I promise, and we’ll thrash the whole thing out together first thing. Will you do that for me? Please? Oh my goodness, who’s this dashing blade?” This last was addressed, not to us, but to a masked young man in very tight breeches and an open collar. He was awfully good-looking, and he was leaning over us to kiss her hand.

“Oh god,” my uncle groaned, “dinner is served. Get me out of here.”

I took his cold hand, and led him into the throng.