Singer from the Sea (12 page)

“Nonsense!”

“Father, if you were a junior officer, would you invite to your table two superior officers who were sworn enemies?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, here in Havenor we are very much junior residents, yet we have invited two noble ladies who are sworn enemies. If that were not enough, we have invited two other persons who are opposing litigants before the Tribunal. We want everything to do you credit, but we can’t manage it if we are not well prepared, so please, Father, allow us a little time to learn the way.”

He turned slightly red. “I had guests at Langmarsh House with no more notice than a word to the butler in the morning! In the field, I have had my fellow officers join me for meals on no notice at all!”

Her face grew hot. Without stopping to think she said, “In Langmarsh you had old servants who knew the place intimately, and you entertained old friends, who would take Langmarsh as it was with no more light than a few candles and the fire. In the field, soldiers are accustomed to soldier’s fare. This dinner you plan, however, is for people who will arrive with their ears pricked, their eyes sharpened, and their noses twitching to judge us by everything they hear and see and smell. They will rate the service, the food, the look of the place, and our manners, yours and mine. None of the guests know us well, some may be maliciously inclined to dislike us, and none of the guests, I’ll wager, have ever been on a field of battle, nor would they like the setting, the food, or the manners they would find there.”

She had been carried away, had heard herself “spouting” and stopped, too late, for she looked up to find his eyes fixed on her, really looking at her, with an expression
that she could not read. It was not angry, but neither was it appreciative. Weighing, perhaps. Deciding.

“Where have you picked up all this?” he growled.

She faltered. If he was offended, she couldn’t blame Aufors, and apology would only convince him he was right to be annoyed. Well, now was the time to press a momentary advantage.

“As your hostess, I am responsible for the success or failure of social events, Father, and I have been asking questions, as I was taught to do. You sent me to school to learn how to do this! I was a dedicated, faithful student and I have learned. Now you really must let me do it. The house will be in a frenzy over the next several days. I need to be here. If you will make the courtesy calls by yourself, it would help enormously.”

He grunted at her, still with a very equivocal expression, and went to his rooms, demanding Terson, his servant, to bring something light by way of supper. Genevieve breathed deeply.

“Good for you, my lady,” whispered Della from behind a portiere.

“Good for Aufors,” breathed Genevieve. “Now if I can only hang on and Father will just … settle down.”

The days that followed were too full of work for any enjoyment. The Marshal made his calls alone. Workmen came in and workmen went out. Carpets were taken up (leaving great continents of dust on the floor) to be cleaned and turned; furniture was sent to be repaired; draperies were removed, shaken free of several years’ worth of detritus, brushed carefully to reveal unexpected colors and patterns, and those that were whole were rehung while worn ones were shifted about to hide the wear, there being no time to have new ones made.

Foodstuffs were delivered and preparations begun. Wines were fetched from the cellars—thankfully, rather good ones—and set ready in the cooling room. Plate was polished. The dining room was given a complete going over, walls and ceiling as well as floors, evicting generations of spiders from behind the cornices while the huge table was brought to a silken polish by two newly hired young footmen who flung themselves back and forth along
it on lambskins, much to the amusement of the equally new housemaids.

Responses to the invitations arrived, virtually all of them acceptances. Those who refused were replaced by others nominated by Aufors. “These people I’m suggesting are not important,” he said, “but they are amusing. Just as every dinner needs a little spice, every dinner party needs a few people to be diplomatic and pleasant, to keep things moving.”

On the day of the dinner, Della insisted that Genevieve do nothing but lie about.

“Is everything done, Della?”

Della put out her lower lip, hands on her hips, and nodded firmly. “Everything is as close to done as it’s going to get, Jenny. Everything’s delivered, put up, put down, plucked, stuffed, cooled, warmed, hung or unhung, as may be. Everything that’ll take a polish has been polished at least twice and what won’t polish has been hidden behind something that will. The cook’s in a temper, which Halpern tells me is a good thing. Her dinners are always delicious, he says, when she’s in a temper. The table looks lovely. The flowers just came, sneaked in the back way by somebody who knows or works for the Duchess Bellser-Bar, so he told us. She’s a friend of the Colonel, it seems. I think it’ll all go fine.”

Aufors thought so, too. He swept a bow, saying with a smile, “You’ve done well, my Lady Marchioness.”

“Please don’t call me Lady Marchioness. I hate it.”

“Well, Genevieve, I must, you know. On formal occasions.”

“Well then, when we are alone, could you call me Jenny?”

“Very well.” He smiled. “When we are alone.”

“Who’s the Duchess Bellser-Bar?” she asked in a worried tone, picturing a large and overbearing dowager whom she would at once owe numerous favors.

“Someone I did a very small favor for, once, and she’s repaid me by getting your flowers for you. It’s no problem, Genevieve, really. Please, erase that frightened look from your face. It’s all going to go well!”

“Aren’t you ever frightened of anything?” she demanded, very slightly angry.

He considered the question seriously. “The usual things,” he confessed. “Death, wounds …”

“No, no, I mean just … things.”

“I am quite frightened of water-babies,” he said, the words popping out without any thought at all.

“Water-babies?” She frowned, suspecting he was teasing her. “I’ve heard of them, but …”

“It was nothing, really. When my mother died, she left me a small legacy. Even though my older brother knew he would inherit the farm, he resented the fact she’d left the legacy to me. In his view, eldest took all, regardless. He got even by telling me horrific tales about how my mother had gone to pick cress for salad and had been abducted by water-babies, and because I was her favorite, they would come for me next. He was constantly knocking me down, sitting on me, then peering at my fingers and toes, claiming he saw webs growing between them. He even locked me in the well house once, where it was damp and cold and dark, and hung about outside making frog noises. I was frightened for days afterward.”

Actually, Aufors still had occasional night terrors in which he dreamed himself turning into something green, clammy, and cold, but he was not tempted to confess this frailty to Genevieve.

“That’s dreadful,” she said, indignant on his behalf.

“It seemed so at the time, and I have never been really friendly with my brother since.” Which, he thought, was a charitable way of putting it. “Now, let’s go down this list of people, and then we’ll look at your seating diagram.”

They drilled on the names while Aufors changed the seating diagram about, saying, “Lady Alicia, Duchess Bellser-Bar of Merdune, the donor of your flowers, is cousin to Inelda, Countess Farmoor of Dania, who has not spoken to the Lady Alicia since a falling out over a matter of inheritance. The grandmother of both ladies favored the Duchess as more true to the family lineage, and Inelda has never forgiven her. Put them at opposite ends of the table. As a matter of fact, put the Duchess to your left,
across from Prince Thumsort. She’s done you a favor already, she’s an interesting woman and her rank allows you to favor her, though Inelda will dislike you for it. And remember that the Invigilator of the Covenants, chief of all scrutators and a high-ranking member of the Tribunal, is at odds with Count Farmoor over a question of interpretation.”

“What does that mean?”

“I have no idea. Nobles do not explain covenant matters to commoners. Tribunal matters are sacred and secret. Commoners are not even allowed to go near the Tribunal Building, for any reason. Nonetheless, I feel sure, seating them together would not be a good idea.”

“I’ll never learn the names of all the nobles!”

“Not if you had to learn them all, but you don’t. Only the other six provincial Dukes and Duchesses are regularly here in court, together with a handful of the lesser nobility. Your father’s military role has kept him free of attendance until now, and if a battle broke out anywhere, he’d probably be excused again. Just remember each Province’s Duke is known by the name of the Province, as for example: Duke of Sealand or Duke of Merdune. Each county has an Earl or sometimes a Count, depending upon the original title, who is known by the name of the county, and within counties large estates are held by barons or viscounts. If you forget, flutter your eyelashes and smile.”

He started to leave, then turned back. “Oh, I forgot to mention. Since the Prince is coming, there will be at least a couple of Aresian guards with him. The proper protocol is to take no notice of them, not even if they search behind curtains for weapons or run their detecting devices over your body.”

“Really!” she breathed. “Take no notice!”

“No notice,” he said. “Just … pretend they aren’t there.”

The Marshal came home, looked about himself in amazement, and came up to stick his head in Genevieve’s door. “Didn’t realize that dining room was so big.”

“Well, we’ve never eaten in there, but it is a banqueting hall. Aufors says …”

“Who?”

“Colonel Leys, Father. He says the table is forty feet long.”

“You called him Aufors,” he said accusingly. “That’s rather familiar, an’t it?”

She took a deep breath. “He’s been very helpful, Father. If it hadn’t been for Colonel Leys, we wouldn’t have managed nearly so well. We have become friendly over this matter, and he is entitled to a little informality as a member of our household.”

He grunted, glaring at her briefly. “Well, I don’t like informality, not among my staff. I prefer them punctilious. Who’re all the stiff-necked men just wandering around down there?”

She frowned. “The footmen hired for the night. If they’re wandering around, it’s because they have to be familiar enough with the house not to direct one of the gentlemen into the ladies’ cloakroom or vice versa. We’ll need them from time to time if you’re going to do a lot of entertaining. And when our men from Langmarsh return home—as they must; their families are there—we’ll need a couple of local men to do the heavier work.” After a pause, she went on to tell him about the Prince’s guards.

“That’s an unfunny joke, Genevieve.”

“It’s not a joke, Father. Please, if you choose to disbelieve me, speak to the Colonel.”

He grunted, gave her another of those slightly surprised, slightly offended looks, and went out.

She leaned against the wall, whispering to herself, “Give me strength to get through this evening.”

As Della was dressing her hair, Genevieve rehearsed the names of the guests. “… and Thumsort of Tansay, brother to the Lord Paramount, and his companion, the Lady Charmante, who, Aufors tells me, is actually a man who dresses as a woman, though I mustn’t let on for a moment and daren’t tell Father. Della, have you ever heard of such a thing?”

“Heard of it, yes, lady. There was one in our village when my mother was a girl. Couldn’t abide men’s clothes. Said he was a woman’s brain trapped in a man’s body.”

“Strange. I, myself …”

“What, my lady?”

She had been going to say that she, Genevieve, had sometimes felt she was a foreign, strange, alien brain caught in a girl’s body, but this was not something for Della to hear. “Gardagger, Duke Bellser-Bar of Merdune,” she went on with her roll call, “and Alicia, the Duchess, who has provided our flowers for the evening … and Rongor, appointed by the Tribune as Invigilator of the Covenants, commander of the scrutators, who would be mightily offended if he knew about the Lady Charmante, as the covenants are strict on matters of gender.”

She took a deep breath. “And of course, the heir, Prince of Havenor, Yugh Delganor, who may bring his guards whom we are to take no notice of …”

She wore again the mahogany gown with the rose decolletage. It fit her better than any other of her evening dresses, though she realized as she put it on that she would have to have something new for the next dinner, for everyone would have seen this one. According to Aufors, there were rules about that. If any of the guests were repeaters, one wore a gown only once in one’s own house, though one could wear it again when invited to other peoples’. Where was she to find a dressmaker?

Her father was at her side and Aufors was at her elbow as the guests arrived.

“The Baron and Baroness Crawhouze,” Halpern intoned, in a voice Genevieve had never heard him use before. An echoing, resonant, larger-than-life voice which leant dignity to every word. Oh, my, how could one live up to a voice like that. One might squeak. One might stutter. Of course, one was not allowed to do so!

“Baroness.” She nodded, offering her hand. “Baron, delighted, so pleased that you could come.”

“Chahming gull,” said the Baron to her father, with a sidelong leer down her decolletage. “Chahming.”

“Old goat,” whispered Aufors, behind her.

“Don’t,” she whispered behind her hand. “If I giggle, I’m lost.”

The Prince arrived, with his guards, who showed considerable interest in areas behind draperies and shadowed corners but mercifully did not search any of the guests. When dinner was served, they stood straight as lances in
the corners, their eyes on Yugh Delganor, who was seated at the Marshal’s right. Prince Thumsort of Tansay was at Genevieve’s right. The Prince was a talkative, elderly man with strong opinions about fish, which was his business, though, as he was quick to say, his business was kept at arm’s length. “Don’t handle them. Can’t abide handling them. Slimy things. Know all about them, though. From the golden talking fish of Merdune Lagoon to the slippery silver elvers of the Randor Isles, I know every blessed thing from egg to fin. Tansay’s fortune is in fish!”