“Crown Prince Hartwig,” she said, her austere reserve pitch-perfect and quintessentially, royally Melissande. “How kind of you to meet me. I wasn’t expecting such an honour.”
“My dear Melissande, so formal!” Splotze’s ruler protested, his Ottish correct but strongly accented, approaching with both heavily beringed hands outstretched. “When you and I have known each other for so many delightful years. You must call me Twiggy when we are spared the rigours of public observances. And I shall call you Melly, just as that good chap Rupert does.”
Anyone less twig-like, Gerald couldn’t imagine. Splotze’s Crown Prince was nearly as wide as he was tall, an impression not helped by the miles of gold braiding on his crimson tunic and trousers.
“Well, Twiggy,” said Melissande, accepting his hands so she could hold them at bay, and suffering him to kiss her noisily on both cheeks. “That sounds lovely. And tell me, how is Brunelda?”
The Crown Prince sighed, lugubrious. “Sadly afflicted with the gout. Today is not a good day, or she’d have come with me to greet you.” Another sigh. “Don’t tell her I told you, eh? There’s something quite lowering about a Crown Princess with the gout. I’m afraid Brunelda feels it keenly.”
“I imagine she does,” said Melissande. “I understand it’s a most uncomfortable complaint.”
“Yes, yes, it’s devilish discommoding,” said the Crown Prince, vigorously nodding. “I’ve had to turf her into a spare bedchamber, Melissande. She was quite cutting up my sleep!”
Wincing, Gerald dropped his gaze to the gold-chased tiles beneath his feet. Sir Alec would go spare if his mission ended five minutes after it began because Melissande lost her temper with their stuffy, middle-aged host.
Bite your tongue, Mel. For pity’s sake, for all our sakes, please bite your tongue.
“Oh, dear, poor Hartwig,” she sympathised. “That’s too utterly bad. And you with so much to contemplate, now that Ludwig’s getting married at last.”
He breathed out relief. Shame on him for doubting the redoubtable Miss Cadwallader. After a lifetime of dissembling in the face of Lional’s tempestuous instabilities, of course she wouldn’t stumble over such a small hurdle. Stupid of him to think that she might.
“Oh, lord, Ludwig!” said the Crown Prince, rolling his bloodshot brown eyes. His florid complexion burned brighter as he tugged his luxuriant fox-red moustache. “If you have the smallest care for me, Melly, do not utter my brother’s name. Not after last night. He went out carousing with some men from Harenstein and didn’t stumble home until dawn.” Reluctantly releasing her, he waved a hand about the palace room into which they’d arrived. “Now, here’s a sweeter topic for conversation. How d’you care for my privy portal chamber, eh? A bit of extravagance, really. With our dodgy etheretics it only works one day out of five, if we’re lucky! But even so-it’s pretty delightful, don’t you think?”
No, pretty hideous, Gerald thought, but kept his face blank. Hartwig and Lional must’ve attended the same art classes.
Melissande, escorted by the Crown Prince, was taking a slow turn around the portal reception chamber, exclaiming in apparently sincere admiration at the plump, naked cherubs and the taxidermied foxes and stoats and the enormous glass domes under which were trapped colourful, taxidermied birds, caught forever in mid-flight.
Domes…
Shuddered by memory- that other Ott’s parade ground, full of the other Gerald’s hideously tortured victims — Gerald thought he felt the gold-touched tiles beneath his feet tilt.
Bibbie sidled closer. “Ger-I mean, Algernon. Mister Rowbotham. Are you all right?”
He nodded, a curt dip of his head. Bloody Bibbie. Flirting like that with Melissande’s brother. Did she think he was made of cold stone?
But how stupid am I, to feel betrayed by a little flirting? I haven’t declared myself, have I? I don’t even know if she cares. If she’s ever thought of me as anything more than her brother’s best friend.
With a wrenching effort, clenching his fingers so his neatly trimmed nails bit his palm, he drove the treacherous thought deep inside. Dammit. Let Bibbie distract him on this mission and Sir Alec would rightly skin him alive-assuming that said distraction didn’t get him killed first. Which it might well do, if he wasn’t careful.
On second thoughts, maybe bringing her as camouflage wasn’t such a good idea.
Rebuffed, Bibbie inched away again. A glance at her profile showed him her feelings were hurt.
Yes, well, my girl. That’s what those of us born and bred in Nether Wallop call tit for bloody tat.
Melissande, adroitly managing to evade Crown Prince Hartwig’s suggestive hand hovering near her waist, paid the eye-searingly over-decorated chamber one last fulsome compliment, then halted.
“Now you know, dear Twiggy,” she said, fingertips brushing his braided forearm, in a voice amazingly close to a simper, “that while it’s a lovely morning here, back in New Ottosland it’s still practically midnight and I’m afraid any moment now I’m simply going to wilt. Would you be a dear and excuse me until afternoon tea? I’m sure I’m keeping you from any number of important matters and I feel quite overcome with guilt.”
Clearly not one to be easily dissuaded, the Crown Prince snatched Melissande’s hand and pressed a damp kiss to it.
“Of course, Melly. What a brute I am, keeping you on your delicate feet so I can boast of my lovely new portal chamber, when you should be reclining in the palace’s most sumptuous guest suite.”
Another kiss, this time accompanied by an ardent look from beneath his wildly untrimmed greying eyebrows. Gerald had to bite his cheek at the way Melissande’s face fixed itself in an expression of coy delight.
“Not at all, Hartwig,” she said, her voice shifted from simpering to strangled. “But if you could send for someone to show me upstairs, and see that my luggage goes up too, I’d be very grateful.”
The Crown Prince’s eyes gleamed. “How grateful?”
Melissande slid her hand free and turned. “Oh, yes, and Hartwig, dear, I should make my staff known to you. I hope you don’t mind that I brought a staff with me. It’s Rupert, you know. Such a stickler for the proprieties. And d’you know, I did rather promise the New Ottosland Times that I’d record a few memories of this momentous occasion, for their readers to peruse and enjoy. So to keep Rupert happy there’s Slack- step forward, Slack, and curtsey to the Crown Prince-and to fulfill my obligations to the Times, there’s my secretary, Rowbotham. Yes, my good man, bow. So that’s who they are, should you see them flitting about the place.”
The Crown Prince of Splotze barely spared them a glance. Not even Gladys Slack’s lithe curtsey and trim figure seemed to disturb him.
“Yes, yes, of course it’s all right you’ve brought a staff, Melissande,” Hartwig said, still fatuously smiling. “Good God, only two? You should see how many hangers-on have accompanied the Marquis of Harenstein! I’ve bloody near had to build a whole new wing to the palace, excuse my Babishkian. And as for Dowager Queen Erminium-” He swallowed, hard. “But there you have it, it’s her daughter who’s marrying Ludwig so I expect that can’t be helped. A piddling two servants? You, my dear, are the very model of restraint. And as for sending you upstairs with a lackey, shame on you for asking. I’ll take you up myself. So, shall we?”
Capturing Melissande’s arm, Crown Prince Hartwig led the way out of the portal chamber. Gerald tipped his head at Bibbie, who tilted her chin, and they fell into step behind.
“So, Twiggy, aside from the bride-to-be and her party, and the Marquis of Harenstein, who else is here?” said Melissande, as they climbed the palace’s spectacularly swooping central staircase. The walls were hugely frescoed with scenes from classical myth: Devonia and the Bull, the Blind Twins of Teresco, the Ascension of the Lark. Very little had been left to the imagination, but instead of modestly averting her gaze Bibbie was avidly staring. Well. Avidly staring in the manner of a demure lady’s maid. Gerald, watching sideways, had to grudgingly admit she was doing a good job with her disguise.
“Who else?” said the Crown Prince, supremely indifferent to the bows and curtseys coming at him from all directions, as dozens of harried-looking servants rushed about in a pre-wedding frenzy. “Let’s see. So far we’ve got the guests from Harenstein, Blonkken, Graff and Aframbigi cluttering up the place. Can’t take a step without falling over one of them. Still waiting for Ottosland’s foreign minister. He’s cutting it fine, since we’re leaving on the grand wedding tour day after tomorrow, but that’s Ottosland for you. Always expecting the world to wait on its pleasure.” He cleared his throat. “No offense meant, of course. I mean, you’ve only arrived just now but that’s different. Old friends, you and I, Melly. Not about to stand upon ceremony with you.”
“Oh, there’s no offense taken, Twiggy,” said Melissande airily. “Feel free to insult Ottosland all you like. New Ottosland is quite definitely its own country. And what’s more, I know exactly what you mean about the government types of Ott. Quite unbearably autocratic, most of them.”
“Yes, aren’t they,” said the Crown Prince, with feeling. “But how do you know?”
