The Great Game (14 page)

             
"A what?"

             
"One of them devices what with you
send
messages by sunlight.
A little wooden stand with a mirror, and a kind of scrunched-up telescope for aiming."

             
"How odd," Barnett said. "What can you see out his window?"

             
"Water," the mummer said. "You get a grand view of the lake."

             
"Thanks, Mummer," Barnett said. "We'll ponder that one for a while."

             
Cecily came through and stood, like a goddess in shimmering red, in the doorway. She nodded at the mummer and then turned to Barnett. "Dinner, my love," she said. "Shall we go down? We mustn't keep our host and hostess waiting."

             
"I was going to ask you how I look," Barnett told her, taking her arm, "but with you beside me, no one will glance at me anyway. Let us go."

             
Cecily smiled. "Now I remember why I married you," she said.

             
The dinner, served in a private room off the regular dining room, was delightful. The room held a small but ornate wicker table, just right for four, with matching chairs and sideboard. There was a large pair of French doors giving a fine view of the mountains on the far side of the lake. The sort of room, and sort of view, that encouraged pleasant dining. Ariste Buleforte played host, having arranged the entire meal beforehand with the chef of the pensione, who was delighted to show off what he could do given a free hand and a slight monetary consideration. Three waiters and a pair of busboys were kept busy running back and forth with assorted dishes.

             
In addition, Barnett noted the two muscular servants that the mummer had mentioned. There were two doors to the room, one to the main dining room, and one to a hall leading to the kitchen. One of these large men stood by each of the doors looking impassive and as unobtrusive as a very large man can look. They reminded Barnett of Gog and Magog, and he decided that the mummer was right, they must be bodyguards. He wondered what there was about either of the Bulefortes' bodies that required guarding. He would like to have asked Cecily what she thought, but there was no way to do so without the Bulefortes noticing.

             
Soon he gladly put aside all such thoughts to concentrate on the food and the company. There was a cold white fish in a tart lemony sauce, a puff pastry collage of the meat of various shellfish, a layered dish involving pork and eggplant that seemed curiously Middle Eastern except for the pork, and a roast game bird with greens.
Then pounded slices of veal with mushrooms.
And on the side, artichoke,
sautéed
spinach, and gnocchi.
Three different wines accompanied the diverse foods.

             
After a certain point dinner became a sort of haze of good food, good wine, and fine conversation. Then the plates were cleared away to make room for dessert and coffee.

             
"I see your plot," Barnett told Buleforte, staring down at a cake and compote construction that he obviously couldn't take another bite of without bursting. It was incredibly good. Cautiously he took another bite. A short waiter with a large mustache busied himself sweeping crumbs from the table with a silver mounted brush.

             
"Which plot is that?" Ariste Buleforte asked, his face showing deep interest.

             
"You're attempting to have us so contented and befuddled with fine food that we are easy pickings at the bridge table this evening." Barnett waved a finger at Buleforte across the table. "Don't say you're not. There can be no other explanation."

             
"Ariste likes nothing better than good company, and enjoys entertaining," Diane Buleforte said. "We get so little chance for anything so intimate at home. And you have yet to prove, as you call it, 'easy pickings.' "

             
A tall waiter with a dour expression brought in four delicate blue glasses nesting in ornate silver cages and filled them from an even more ornate urn of espresso coffee.

             
"Easy pickings," Ariste mused.
"A nice expression.
It is this which I love about the English language; it is so permissive of idiomatic construction. Of course it is just this which makes it so difficult for the unwary; but once one develops the ear, it is greatly pleasurable."

             
"Your English is excellent," Cecily told him.

             
"You have been greatly complimented," Barnett said. "My wife has a fine ear for language. Her father is a world-famous linguist."

             
"Is that so?" Ariste turned to Cecily with a lively interest showing in his face. "And what can you tell from my speech?" he asked her.

             
Cecily considered for a moment. "You have a very interesting accent," she told him. "It might be a textbook case for the student."

             
"Ah!" Buleforte said. He turned to his wife. "You see, my dear, I am a textbook case."

             
"It is a question of what my father calls the 'overlays,' " Cecily explained
. "
Your native tongue is one of the Slavic
group
; I cannot tell which, unless I hear you speak it, of course. You spoke it interchangeably with French as a child. You learned English from someone who is perfectly fluent in it, but also not a native speaker."

             
"Your father must be very good," Buleforte said. "How can you tell all this?"

             
"The Slavic base shows up in your treatment of V's and W's, and a slight liquidity of the sibilants," Cecily explained. "In your case it takes a good ear to detect it. The French is evident in a certain emphasis about your vowel sounds."

             
"And the fact that my instructor in English was not himself a native speaker?"

             
"The very precision of your language and the paucity of idiom.
No one whose native language is English speaks it quite that well. You were stressed on speech patterns by someone who was, himself, similarly stressed."

             
"And how, if I spoke both French and Rumelian—for I admit
it,
and the Slavic language in question is Rumelian—if I spoke both of these interchangeably as a lad; how can you tell which was the native language?"

             
"Simple deduction," Cecily explained. "Little Rumelian schoolboys learn French, but little Parisian schoolchildren do not learn Rumelian. Indeed, the French are almost as linguistically xenophobic as the British."

             
"Astonishing!"
Ariste Buleforte exclaimed. "You do yourself an injustice when you call it a simple deduction. Indeed, it is the sort of logic that is obvious when one hears it, yet one would never think of it on one's own."

             
Cecily nodded. "One of the secrets of the trade," she said, smiling at the Bulefortes.
"Although, as my father keeps telling me, the clever magician never reveals his secrets."

             
"And you," Diane Buleforte asked, "
do
you speak any other languages?"

             
"I do," Cecily said. "We traveled on the continent a lot when I was a little girl. Professionally, you know. My father was the director of a touring theatrical company, and acted in the troupe. My mother was the leading lady."

             
"Actors?"
Diane Buleforte looked faintly startled. "My dear, how dreadful for you," she said, extending one dainty hand to pat Cecily sympathetically on the arm. "What an improper childhood."

             
Cecily laughed. "Not at all," she said. "Actually, it was quite wonderful, and almost unbearably proper. The one way it made me unfit for contemporary society was that I never learned that there are things women cannot do. As a result, I've always been able to do anything I set my mind to, and for that I will be everlastingly grateful. It came as quite a shock to me to realize, as I approached adulthood, that there were professions that most people, including other women, thought women incapable of learning and uninterested in practicing."

             
"But surely, my dear," Diane Buleforte said, "there are many things that women or, at least, ladies should not indulge in."

             
Ariste Buleforte pushed his chair back. "I never thought I should hear you admit that there was anything you could or should not do, my dear," he said to his wife.

             
"Oh," Diane Buleforte said. "But those things I wish to occupy myself with are all—" she waved a hand in the air, searching for the right phrase "—proper for a woman to do," she finished. "That is to say, I would never wish to do anything improper, so the question of whether I should or should
not never
arises."

             
"And if something you wished to do were to be regarded as improper by others?" Cecily inquired.

             
Diane Buleforte looked slightly shocked. "That would never happen," she said.

             
"Never?"
Cecily persisted.

             
"Oh, come now," Ariste said, taking his wife's hand. "There are some in our, ah, circle, who would consider our merely being here to be improper."

             
Diane laughed.

             
Here? Barnett wondered.
Italy, or Como, or the pensione, or this room?

             
"I suppose it is possible that some narrow-minded persons could consider some things I do, or might wish to do, to be slightly improper," Diane acknowledged, after a moment's thought. "But I refuse to allow myself or my actions to be limited by the prejudices of a few narrow-minded old ladies."

             
"I, also," Cecily said.
"The one thing that your aristocratic background, and my growing up in the theater have given us in common.
I will not
conform
my activities to the preconceived notions of the narrow-minded old ladies—of either sex!"

             
"Aristocratic?" Barnett asked.

             
"Oh, yes," Cecily said. "Judging by Signora Buleforte's accent, she is of the French nobility. It is quite unmistakable. A hundred years ago, during the Terror, she would have been in danger of la Guillotine every time she opened her mouth."

             
Diane Buleforte
nodded,
her eyes wide.
"Incroyable!"
she said. "Indeed, several of my ancestors were unlucky enough to be caught by the mob, and so lost their heads. But, my dear, several hundred years ago, surely, you yourself would be burned as a witch!"

             
Cecily smiled.

             
Ariste Buleforte leaned back in his chair and signaled to the waiters. "I thought it might be pleasant to conduct our bridge game in here this evening, rather than retiring to the perhaps overcrowded card room," he said. "I have spoken with Frau Schimmer, and she has graciously given her consent. The waiters will shortly be going off duty, but my men will take care of our needs."

             
"It sounds good to me," Barnett said, pushing back his chair and getting up. "But it might be nice to stretch our legs for a bit before settling down to the game."

             
"Perhaps a brief stroll in the garden?" Ariste suggested. "It will give the servitors time to clear the table and prepare it for gaming." He got up and went over to the French doors. "I don't believe it is too chilly out.
Although the ladies, perhaps, would like their wraps?
We will send one of the waiters to your rooms, if so."