“Absolutely nothing.”
“He said—”
“He was just showing off his private news sources. A symptom of youth. I’m sure it will pass.”
They were off the bridge now, and making their way along the river path. A row of ducks sailed past. “And what about the other one? The delight from Opal. He called me ‘Corporal.’ ”
“They saw your insignia. Let’s not be any more paranoid than the situation warrants.”
“But my collar was folded over it. Are you listening to me? Tal!”
Another row of ducks, this time waddling out from the trees, was aiming for the water’s edge. Their direction crossed the pathway. “Hold on a minute,” said Spider, but Tal ignored him. Ducklings scattered as he strode ahead. Spider clicked his tongue. “Now look, you’ve scared them.”
They walked a moment in silence, and Spider pondered the way his life seemed to get more complicated each time his salary went up. Finally he said, subdued, “A Republic ship. Jesus, Tal, sometimes I think you do these things just to make me nervous.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
Chapter 3
There is nothing like the education of a woman of quality as that of a prince. They are taught to dance and the exterior part of what is called good breeding, which if they attain they are extraordinary creatures of their kind, and have all the accomplishments required by their directors. The same characters are formed by the same lessons, which inclines me to think (if I dare say it) that nature has not placed us in an inferior rank to men, no more than the females of other animals, where we see no distinction of capacity, though I am persuaded if there was a commonwealth of rational horses (as Doctor Swift has supposed) it would be an established maxim amongst them that a mare could not be taught to pace.
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU
Women, like princes, find few real friends.
GEORGE, LORD LYTTELTON
Pain. The universe of pain has a very small diameter. Its population is one and its limits extend about a meter beyond one’s body; outside that boundary is gray space, incomprehensible not through lack of knowledge but through lack of caring.
Iolanthe knew this universe so well, was so familiar with its depth and texture, so intimate a dweller in it, that she never gave it a questioning thought. Her first migraine, at the age of ten, had come without warning. “The light has a halo,” she’d said, pointing to the chief candle on the chandelier in the dining room.
Her older cousin James had cocked a head at her, not kindly, but not mocking either. “You’ll have to get your eyes checked, cousin. Maybe you need spectacles. Big, thick, black ones with two-inch glass in ’em—”
“They’ll never give me glasses,” the ten-year-old Io answered primly, satisfied with her beauty, of which she’d heard so much, and aware of its market value, of which she’d heard even more. She’d go blind before her parents would fit her out with spectacles.
“The candles aren’t lit,” James had said gently.
She blinked toward the beautiful starburst halo, startled. Even with her eyes shut, the image remained steady. She felt a thrill of alarm. “Maybe it’s a vision from heaven,” she’d said uncertainly, for they were doing the lives of the saints in the Pelagia schoolroom that year. “They’re sent as gifts to very holy people, you know.”
“With your temper?” James inquired dryly. “I wouldn’t count on it.”
Two hours later she’d been stretched on her bed, moaning. “Make it go away,” she told her father, who could make plush puppies and silk hats and drawing boards with pastel chalk appear. He could bring in tutors and send diem away with a wave of his hand. Surely he could make a doctor appear who would take away this worldfilling pain.
And he did make doctors appear, but their foul potions only made her feel worse. She threw up twice, and her father sent the doctors home. As the hours went by, she still railed at him: “Make it go away!” Baby,” he said, smoothing her long dark hair, “I’m sorry.” Why are you being mean to me,” she cried, her eyes wet, her voice bewildered. It was not that she’d never be denied before; but it had always been understood that, if her parents had decreed it, she could have had anything.
That migraine lasted two days, and years later Io still considered those days the core of her education, not only in pain but in the limits of reality.
Now, at the age of seventeen, Iolanthe knew her migraines as she would know a twin sister. When the first warnings came, she notified her friends and tutors she would be unavailable for two or three days, and retired to her darkened bedchamber to ride out the pain. Her parents made no objection, seemingly aware that exposing potential suitors to an ill, frowning, pale daughter with no charm or conversation would not be in their best interests. The illness only came on her five or six times a year, and the rest of the time she was all they could hope for, and all that luck, instruction, and fine clothes could make her: A beauty just reaching her bloom; midnight hair, fair skin, improbable violet eyes. Bravos from the best families in the City of Opal sought out every excuse possible to visit the Pelagia apartments. Io’s male cousins found themselves very popular among their agemates. Io’s parents discovered dinner invitations raining down on them. And Io herself, though she would have preferred a dark knight with an air of mystery to present himself at a ball and ask—no, insist—on her hand—Io knew her duty. The most boring and unattractive of Opal’s aristos could appear at the Pelagia home and receive a smile from Iolanthe that was proper to the millimeter. So long as she wasn’t ill.
But stress could bring on her twin sister. Iolanthe lay in the darkness of her room now, thinking that, regardless of her parents’ stated opinion, a betrothal was
