Rowbotham, it can’t wait! I need to speak with you, urgently.”
Muttering like a man waking from dreams, Ibblie stepped back. Gerald opened his mouth to recapture him but it was too late. Ibblie’s face was full of purpose again, and with Bibbie agog at his elbow he didn’t dare risk a fresh compulsion.
“Very nice to chat with you, ah, Algernon,” Ibblie said, with a slight bow. “Do enjoy the rest of your evening.” With a nod to Bibbie, he withdrew.
Gerald watched the happy crowd swallow him, then turned. “Miss Slack — ”
But Bibbie ignored his frustration. “What’s the matter with you? Are you ill? You must be, or surely you’d have felt it!”
Oh. Damn. His altered potentia. Of course she’d noticed its stirring. “Felt what?” he said vaguely. “Sorry, I’m not sure-”
“That awful ripple in the ether!” said Bibbie, lowering her voice. “A few moments ago. I tell you, it made my head swim. I can’t believe you didn’t feel it.”
He couldn’t meet her eyes. “No, no, sorry. Can’t say I did,” he said, wandering his gaze around the room. “Are you sure you’re not imagining things? It’s awfully crowded in here, lots of different etheretic auras, all clashing, so perhaps-”
“Don’t you dare,” she growled, digging a finger into his ribs. “I did not imagine it. Something-or someone- dangerous is in this hall right now!”
Well, damn. “All right, all right. No need to drill a hole in me,” he said, shifting. “Can you still feel it?”
He held his breath as Bibbie half-closed her eyes and sent her own formidable potentia seeking.
“No,” she said at last, disappointed. “No, it’s gone.”
Saint Snodgrass be praised. Light-headed, he took her elbow. “Oh. Well, never mind.”
“Trust me,” she said grimly. “I’m not minding. Now that I know what to look for, I’ll be on the highest of high alerts. You should be, too. Truly, one whiff of that disturbance and your hair will stand on end.”
Gerald cleared his throat. “It certainly sounds alarming. Ah-you’re sure it’s not familiar, in any way?”
“No,” said Bibbie, after some thought. “But then it did come and go very quickly. If I had more time I might recognise something.”
More time? Ha! Over my dead body. “Then we’ll have to keep our fingers crossed, won’t we, that you feel it again.”
“Honestly, I’d rather not,” said Bibbie, shivering. “But since it’s for the mission…” She glanced across the hall. “And speaking of which, what were you and our doorkeeper discussing?”
No point pretending. He’d never manage to fob her off. “His name’s Ibblie. He’s a palace secretary. And I think he might’ve been one of the last people to see our mutual friend. In the stables, of all places. He-”
But Bibbie wasn’t listening. “Our mutual friend! Drat, I was so spooked by that etheretic surge-” She grabbed his wrist. “Come on Algernon. With me, quickly. There’s someone you must meet. That’s if she’s still there. Oh, lord.”
Gerald let himself be hauled through the crowd of revellers to the far side of the hall, where a buxom young maid moped beside a potted tree fern. When she saw Bibbie she blotted her tear-streaked cheeks with her sleeve.
“Oh, miss, there you be,” she said, in strongly accented Ottish. “I thought you’d forgotten about me.”
“No, no, Mitzie, I wouldn’t do that,” said Bibbie, taking hold of the girl’s hands. “Mitzie, this is the man I was telling you about. Mister Rowbotham, the princess’s private secretary. Mister Rowbotham, this is Mitzie. She’s very worried about her friend Ferdie Goosen, who works in the palace kitchens, and I told her she should talk to you, sir, seeing as how you know so many important people.”
“Of course,” he said, and offered Mitzie a bow. “Anything I can do to help. Tell me, Mitzie, why are you so worried about this friend of yours?”
Mitzie bobbed an unsteady curtsey. “Well, sir, because he’s not here, and he’s meant to be.” Her cheeks flushed a becoming pink. “He’s my young man, y’see.”
“Really?” Gerald arranged his face into an expression of kindly concern, but inside he was boggling. Abel Bestwick was dabbling with a local girl? If Bestwick’s not dead, Sir Alec will skin him alive. “And you’re quite sure this Ferdie knows he should-”
“Yes, sir!” she wailed. “Ferdie’s gone, sir. And I don’t care what Cook says, or Mister Ibblie, or anyone. He idn’t a wastrel and a good-for-naught. Something’s happened to him. I know it.”
“Oh dear,” said Gerald, heart sinking. “That does sound upsetting. Why don’t you tell me all about it?”
Shortly after the wedding party’s arrival at the reception, Hartwig extricated himself from the Lanruvians and made a beeline for the unattainable woman of his dreams.
“There you are, Melissande,” he said fondly, seizing her hand in his. “And don’t you look lovely.”
Acutely aware of the many surprised gazes shifting their way, she smiled instead of pulling herself free. “Thank you, Your Highness. It’s kind of you to say so.”
“Not at all, not at all,” Hartwig gushed. He was having trouble keeping his eyes off her cleavage. “And let me just say, my dear, how sorry I am about tonight’s seating arrangements. Only the thing is, y’see, what with Brunelda ordered to stay off her gout, protocol demands that Erminium take precedent. You know. Little Ratafia’s mother. Borovnik’s Dowager Queen. Met her yet?”
“No, not yet, I’m afraid,” she replied. “I don’t believe she travels, and I’ve never been to Borovnik.”
Hartwig snorted. “Don’t repine. You haven’t missed anything.”
“Hartwig!” she muttered. “Do be careful what you say!”
“Why?” said Hartwig, tiresomely mulish. “I’m the Crown Prince of Splotze, this is my palace, this is my reception, I’m paying for everything, so I think I’ll say what I like!”
There was a lively buzz of renewed conversation and the string ensemble was playing again, as the wedding party mingled with the reception’s guests, but even so…
Sir Alec won’t like it if I preside over an international incident five minutes after I got here.
“I quite understand, Hartwig,” she said in a soothing murmur. “Only perhaps you shouldn’t say it quite so loudly. I wonder, d’you think you could be a dear and introduce me to the Dowager Queen? Because she’s looking at me rather oddly and I don’t want any misunderstandings while we’re on the wedding tour.”
“Very well, Melissande,” Hartwig sighed. “Only don’t blame me afterwards. This is your idea, not mine.”
Dowager Queen Erminium of Borovnik was very tall, very thin, and had never been beautiful. Which made it all the more extraordinary that she should be Princess Ratafia’s mother, because Ratafia was lovely.
“So,” said Erminium, whose wide mouth was pleated with many lines of habitual disapproval. “You’re that scoundrel Lional’s sister, are you? I hope you know you’re lucky he met an untimely end? Rupert might be an idiot but at least he’s not encroaching.”
Melissande waited until the dull roaring in her head subsided. “I wasn’t aware Your Majesty was acquainted with my family.”
“When I was young and on the market, there was a suggestion that your father, Lional that was, might be a suitable husband for me,” said Erminium. “I said no, of course.”
With a pleased chuckle, his duty done, Hartwig rubbed his hands together. “Right then! Seems you two lovely ladies have potloads to talk about, so I’ll just wander off and say a few words here and there before we go in for dinner, eh?”
Erminium spared him a dry glance. “By all means, Hartwig. Go away. You are quite unnecessary.”
A servant walked past with a final tray of crab puffs. Melissande grabbed two and ate them, quickly, to give her face something to do.
“Now, Melissande. Why aren’t you married yet?” Erminium demanded, skewering the servant with a glare that sent him hurriedly backwards. “You’re three years older than Ratafia. Have you no sense of your obligations?”
Melissande blinked. “Ah…”
“You’re not getting any younger,” Erminium added, relentless. “Neither’s Rupert, what’s more. Is he going to start breeding soon? He’ll want to. A king’s first duty is to sire the next king. Well, Melissande? Say something!”
Mind your own business, you ghastly old hag? No, no, she couldn’t say that. Such a pity. Bloody diplomacy, always getting in the way.
