But likely that would change.
The barge boasted a huge formal dining room and a dance floor, as well as two saloons, a small salon, a ladies’ salon, several games rooms and accommodation in rigorously graded sumptuosity for one hundred and fifty passengers, staff and crew… but even so, the wedding guests’ minions couldn’t be kept entirely out of sight. Which meant that even though they’d been herded down to the far end of the promenade deck for their suitably humble fresh air breakfast, they could still see the wedding party enjoying its extravagant silk-canopied, five course repast, waited on by a bevy of servants.
Pretending to listen as the senior lackeys from Graff and Blonkken shovelled down pork sausages and bickered about which country bred the best racehorses, Gerald kept half an eye on the wedding party and brooded.
He’d only slept through part of the previous night. Not, to his surprise, because of his burns. His burns were almost healed, thanks to Holy Man Shugat’s dreadful ointment. No, he’d spent most of the hours until dawn cautiously eking out his potentia, teasing at the inconsistent etheretics, searching Hartwig’s barge for any sign of the wizard who’d set that filthy entrapment hex and used blood magic to hunt Abel Bestwick. To his immense frustration, he’d felt nothing.
But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to feel.
He had to be patient. Trust that the villain in their midst would stumble, and reveal himself. Or herself, possibly, if he was wrong about the Lanruvians.
Only I’m not wrong. They’re steeped in malice, those three. I didn’t mistake what I felt.
As the bickering lackeys paused to take a breath between insults and mouthfuls, Bibbie, seated beside him, leapt fearlessly into the fray.
“I say,” she said, her voice carefully calculated to project a breathy timidity, “does anyone know why the Lanruvians haven’t brought any staff with them? I mean, it’s rather odd, isn’t it, that they don’t have any staff?”
The Graffish horse expert, middle-aged and portly, favoured Bibbie with a smug, superior smile. “Miss Slack, isn’t it?”
Dimpling, Bibbie conjured a becoming blush. “That’s right, Mister Hoffman. Gladys Slack of New Ottosland. How kind of you to remember.”
Hoffman preened. “Not at all, Miss Slack. It is hard to forget a personable young lady.”
Before Bibbie could further encourage the puffing windbag, Gerald bounced a little in his chair and guffawed. “Yes, isn’t it? And you know, by golly, I think our personable Miss Slack is right. They do seem an odd bunch, those Lanruvians. Mind you, there’s not much known about them at home.” He favoured the table with a gormless smile. “Don’t s’pose any of you chaps care to spill the beans?”
“Oh, yes, would you?” said Bibbie, batting her eyelashes outrageously. “Because while of course I wouldn’t dream of speaking for Mister Rowbotham, I know I dread the thought of my ignorance giving everyone a poor impression of Princess Melissande.”
Bibbie wasn’t the only female lackey seated at the minions’ breakfast table, but she was by far the most alluring. It seemed Dowager Queen Erminium had old-fashioned ideas about suitable lady’s maids for herself and her daughter. As the men rushed to reassure Miss Slack that on the contrary she was charming, delightful, the other two women, older than Bibbie and uniformly hatchet-faced, exchanged disapproving glances then glared at their emptied plates. So far they’d said nothing except “Good morning.”
Only one of Harenstein’s lackeys had joined them for breakfast. Dermit, the man without the scar. “Miss Slack,” he said, his Ottish guttural with gravelly Harenstein inflection, “there is little known about the Lanruvians.”
“Surely the Crown Prince knows?” said Bibbie, her dark, incanted eyes round with kittenish surprise. She aimed her limpid gaze at the minion sitting opposite. “Mister Glanzig, can’t you shed some light on Splotze’s mysterious guests?”
Peeder Glanzig, Prince Ludwig’s junior secretary and official wedding dogsbody, was a plain-faced young man afflicted with a sparse beard that did nothing to disguise his woeful lack of chin. He swallowed, flushing under Gladys Slack’s melting scrutiny.
“I wish I could, Miss Slack. But as you say the Lanruvians are a puzzle.”
Bibbie’s bafflement only made her more adorable. “I’m very silly,” she sighed. “I thought since they were invited to the wedding you’d know why, and by whom. I mean, they were invited, weren’t they? They didn’t just turn up hoping to join in?”
“Of course they were invited,” Glanzig said hurriedly. “But it’s not my place to question who is on the guest list, Miss Slack. And these Lanruvians, well, they keep themselves to themselves.”
“That’s true, Miss Slack,” chimed in Lal Bandabeedi, the Aframbigin ambassador’s attendant. “We call them the ghost men. Don’t you see them drifting about like shades of the dead?”
Bibbie gave a delicious little shudder. “Oh, my dear sir, you describe them completely. Especially since, well, they don’t even seem to be enjoying themselves.” Then she furrowed her brow in another irresistible display of feminine confusion. “But I’m still all at sea. What is it to Lanruvia who dear Prince Ludwig marries? I do wish someone could help me understand.”
As servants returned to refresh cups of tea and coffee, clear away the remains of toast and jam, bacon, sausages and scrambled eggs, and deliver some palate-cleansing sliced melon, Bibbie’s admirers attempted to impress her with their superior knowledge. Bibbie, bless her, hung on every blustering word, nodding and exclaiming and praising the acumen of her would-be educators.
Taking advantage of the useful diversion, Gerald thinned his etheretic shield. Immediately he felt the nearby Lanruvians’ simmering thaumic power, like dragon’s breath in his face. But no immediate danger this time, only its sleeping promise. He could also feel the Potentia — dampening hex he’d cobbled together for Bibbie just that morning, having been struck by the belated thought that she, too, could benefit from a little judicious obfuscation. She’d not been pleased, but she’d taken it. And now he found himself touched that she was wearing it, knowing she trusted him enough to do as he asked, at least this once.
Praise Saint Snodgrass for small miracles.
On and on the men babbled, Bibbie artlessly encouraging them. Keeping a wary eye on the Lanruvians, Gerald dabbled through his fellow lackeys’ pallid potentias… and found nothing. There wasn’t a man or woman among them with more thaumaturgical aptitude than a mop. Disconcerted, he let his etheretic shield return to full strength.
Bugger it.
So did this mean the villain, or villains, had been left behind in Grand Splotze? It was possible. Not all the wedding guests’ lackeys had come on the tour. If the pre-wedding fireworks were indeed meant to deal the nuptials their fatal blow, then there wasn’t any reason for the person responsible to be on the barge. In fact, it made more sense for him or her to stay behind. In which case, should he invent a reason to go back?
No. It’s too risky. I could be entirely wrong.
Bloody hell. The uncertainty was going to give him an ulcer.
With the babble dying down Bibbie, still playing her part to the hilt, favoured her eager admirers with another devastating smile.
“Thank you all so much, gentlemen,” she cooed. “Truly, I’d be lost without your kindness. But there was one thing…” She looked to the end of the table, where Lord Babcock’s priggish private under-secretary sipped tea with his little finger punctiliously crooked. “Mister Mistle? I might’ve been hearing things, but I’ll swear you mentioned something about the Lanruvians and cherries.”
Hever Mistle favoured Bibbie with a restrained nod. “I did, Miss Slack.”
“Then could you enlighten me? I’d be ever so grateful. But, y’know, only if you’d not be speaking out of turn. I wouldn’t like you to run afoul of Lord Babcock on my account.”
“It’s unlikely. I am not employed by his lordship to safekeep Lanruvian secrets.” Mistle returned his cup to its saucer with a precise little clink. “I mentioned cherries, Miss Slack, only because I’ve heard it whispered that our pale, reclusive and above all insular friends are thinking to look beyond their jealously guarded borders. It seems the Lanruvians grow a variety of cherry to make a liqueur fancier weep with joy.”
Gerald hid a frown in his own cup of tea. Really? Heard it whispered where, exactly? “I say, sir,” he said, as Bibbie’s admirers exchanged looks. “D’you mean Lanruvia’s thinking of asking Splotze to make its world famous
