down into place.
'There! Now that's better!' Ulia beamed a smile of pure, brainless satisfaction. 'How on Toril do you plan to catch any of those nice young noblemen if you don't wear a pointy hat?'
Miliana could think of several ways of catching the aforementioned noblemen-techniques mostly involving nooses, spring-steel jaws, or pits lined with spikes. One fine, slim eyebrow lifted as suspicion lit her eyes.
'What noblemen?'
Ulia beamed a smile which spoke of a great, majestic sweep of dreams finally rushing to conclusion.
'A betrothal, my dear! Your father has arranged a new betrothal-and he shall be here tonight! If the young gentleman approves of you, then the match is made!'
Miliana had thus far been betrothed at least three times. Her advantages included a cute snub nose, a sharp wit, and sole heirship to the votes owned by Prince Mannicci-meaning that potential fiances were never in short supply.
Their plagiarized poetry, feigned sobs and sighs availed them nothing. Miliana had sent her suitors packing through the use of a rare combination of deviousness and malice; it was marvelous what a well-placed bucket of earwigs could achieve. A husband would curtail Miliana's plans to become a sorceress. A husband meant a mundane fate, and an end to Miliana's passionate little dreams. Miliana tugged her clothing straight like a warrior checking his armor straps before a battle, planning her counterattack, as Lady Ulia went into raptures behind her.
'He's from dear, peaceful little Lomatra, and from a very good family! The Utrelli clan, no less. They have votes on Lomatra's Blade Council-oh, and when you're married, it will give us all access to some marvelous little vineyards!'
The marriage would also give Prince Mannicci the ability to control votes within Lomatra's Blade Council-or better still, would allow him to syphon troops from Lomatra to swell his ranks (and votes) at home. Miliana's father played a subtle game, forever struggling to edge Ilego and his cronies out of power.
Disposing of a new suitor meant an evening of tedium. Hours of study lost, and all for nothing! With an ill- tempered growl, Miliana hitched up her hems and stomped down from her little tower.
The palace halls buzzed and bustled like a broken hive of bees, spilling multicolored servants all about the tiles. Miliana's passage was marked only by a cloud of palpable ill temper, a stream of muttered profanities, and the passage of her pointy golden hat.
Behind her, Lady Ulia Mannicci continued the monologue of her woes; it seemed that battles fought and battles won were of a minor consideration compared to bunions, the rising price of beauty potions, and the sudden disappearances of gems.
A broad promenade led past half-finished frescoes of battles, quest, and siege, finally leading down to the Mannicci family ballroom. Lady Ulia collared her stepdaughter at the doors and twirled her around in a final diligent inspection.
'Now remember: simper, be feminine, and above all, be polite! And must you always wear those wretched things on your face?' Lady Ulia removed Miliana's spectacles, leaving the young girl blinking myopically, like a freshly unearthed mole. Ulia watched for a moment, gave a sniff, and replaced the girl's spectacles on her nose. Miliana quietly removed them and polished off the greasy finger stains Ulia had left on the glass.
Ignoring Miliana's activities, Lady Ulia posed herself before the ballroom doors and puffed out her already considerable chest.
'We are about to enter. Now do behave properly this time. We have high hopes that the Lomatrans will accept this engagement. Just remember who and where you are!'
Ulia paused, scowled at Miliana's face, then laboriously licked a handkerchief and scrubbed at an imagined spot on Miliana's cheek. The princess gagged in revulsion, helpless as a bug in her stepmother's claws.
'There! Now Miliana, my dear-we shall do the best with you as we may.' Plucking at the stays of Miliana's gown, her stepmother helpfully bolstered the girl's bust-line by stuffing it with her own damp handkerchief. 'And remember-a happy smile is a window upon a soul filled with eternal sunshine!'
Miliana hissed beneath her breath, straightened her back, and then produced a great, false, sweet smile for her beaming stepmother. Thankfully the silver panes of her spectacles hid the fury seething in her eyes. Wiggling her posterior in the manner approved by matchmaking stepmothers, the girl turned about, dropped her smile, and lunged off out of sight between a pair of potted palms.
Her escape ploy served her little good; assorted predators marked her by the towering height of her conical hat and veil, and soon the chase was on.
Consider a room:
A large room-open, vast and airy. A place of white colonnades and barrel-vaults, where the ceiling had been painted with cherubim and seraphim, and where the polished floor had been spread with chalk to give purchase to a dancer's feet. A place as elegant and as tasteful as centuries of refinement could allow.
Despite the restrained tastefulness of the architecture, the palace ballroom now smote the eye like a multicolored claw hammer. Hundreds of celebrants packed the colonnades and floors-nobility decked out in eye- wrenching, tasteless splendor. Slashed tunics, tight hose, and loose-laced doublets adorned the strutting men, while the women cruised beneath headdresses adorned with points, turbans, battlements and horns. Music swelled and fine wines poured, as the culture of the self-obsessed luxuriated in a glorious afternoon.
The Manniccis' palace looked out across fields of grape vines and olive groves, up on a land of rolling hills and gentle ochre-colored dust. Within the halls they had laid tables heaped with the choicest foods, serviced and maintained by waiters who were the very essence of magnificent disdain.
On the dance floor, half a hundred brilliantly clad men and women turned and stepped to the intricate measures of an arrogant pavane. The dancers seemed to be split evenly between demure artistes and strutting, posing figures who swung briskly back and forth to slash the other dancers with their swinging capes and sleeves.
Above the dancers, a dense crowd had converged-the elderly, the pompous, the wealthy and elite. Sumbria's Blade Captains each boasted a palace of his own-a palace well stuffed with wives and daughters, dowagers and sons, all of whom now claimed a place at the Manniccis' victory ball. Soldiers who had returned home from the wars each formed the center of a small admiring crowd; here and there a man still wore an armored gorget or kept his arm inside a sling, artfully attracting the attention of the ladies in the hall.
Hovering beside a table strewn with orange rinds, roast ostriches, and singing fish, a thin, rather unhappy young man hovered in the shadows and played with his nails. Tall and forlorn, with unfashionably long, straggling hair and a court costume smelling of mothballs, the youth clutched a leather folder to his breast and watched the festival sweep dizzily past his eyes.
Hanging between two of Sumbria's 'young blades,' a brash young nobleman spied the youth and veered over to his side. Helping himself to a chilled bottle of wine, the newcomer thrust drink into his companion's hand.
'Lorenzo! Lorenzo, you look like a landed fish. Dance and drink-lie to women and flash your blade!' The noble clapped a hand against his dress sword-a silly toy that would have scarcely tickled a mouse-and clung to his companion in an unsteady daze. 'We are an embassy! And an ambassador must make an impression-an impression of strength.'
Lorenzo saved his folder from splashing wine as his friend collapsed into a velvet-covered chair and planted his boots between the eyes of a roasted ostrich.
Lorenzo Utrelli, scion of the Blade Kingdom of Lomatra and a visitor to Sumbria's court, stared at his friend with outrage and surprise.
'Luccio! Luccio-you're drunk.'
'Drunk as a… as an animal that drinks a lot. Indeed! Indeed.' Lorenzo's friend poured himself more Sumbrian wine, managing to come quite close to actually putting wine inside his glass. 'I have been fostering diplomatic goodwill.'
'Luccio, if the ambassador finds you, we're both dead!' Wrenching the drunk out of sight behind a platter of stuffed hamsters in sauce, Lorenzo unsuccessfully tried to draw his friend erect. 'Look-brace up! Breathe deeply or something.'
'Lorenzo, Lorenzo, Lorenzo!'
Luccio swung his friend about by the shoulders and led the nervous youth back out toward the dance floor.
