“Does the name Elladine mean anything to you? Elladine of Ylles?” The muffins were spread with sweet butter which clung to the tongue like a lover’s kiss. Why was I thinking of lover’s kisses?
She thought, furrowing her brow delightfully. “What time-of-life person are we speaking of. Would she be a young-appearing woman?”
I nodded. Elladine would surely be a young woman. Did fairies ever grow old?
“Her appearance?”
“Ah,” I murmured. “Very lovely. Very lovely indeed. Rather like me around the eyes.”
She examined my eyes, shaking her head firmly. “No, my dear Lady Wellingford. There is no one like you around the eyes in all of Nacifia. I could not be mistaken about that.”
I sighed. She passed the marmalade. We went on to speak of other things. She told me while in Nacifia I must see the cathedral, the marketplace, the clownery.
Our enjoyment was interrupted by a firm knock at the door. A moment later, the caller was announced: Licencee of the Bureau of Public Morals, Chaperone First Class, Roland Mirabeau.
Mrs. Gallimar composed her face into an expression of dignified pleasure and rose to greet her guest. He entered, bowing, and stood up to reveal a face which would not have disgraced a classic sculpture. He had stature and presence, a curly moustache and eyes that glittered. I was introduced. He bowed again. He took Mrs. Gallimar’s hand and expressed his compliments. Mrs. Gallimar seemed unstimulated by this encounter, and I wondered why.
She signaled to Delice that another chair should be brought to the table and a third place laid.
“Senor Mirabeau,” she began.
“Roland,” he instructed with a polished smile, which was only very slightly peremptory, as he took a cup of tea. “Though we have not seen one another for a time, lovely Mrs. Gallimar, still, we are acquainted.”
“Roland,” she began again, returning his smile with one of her own. I knew that smile. Captain Karon had described that smile, the smile flirtatious, which had been known to conquer whole regiments of men while they were merely marching past.
The chaperone assumed an appropriately spellbound expression, but the mechanics of this process were as entirely visible to me as they were to Mrs. Gallimar. Though the face before us went through a series of calculated adjustments indicating enchantment, its owner was not, in fact, enchanted. Mrs. Gallimar recognized this fact as quickly as I did. Her mood changed, and with it her manner. The smile flirtatious was tucked away. “This gallivant,” she said in a businesslike voice, “seems to be causing a good deal of trouble.”
The chaperone sat back in his chair and said calmly, “Indeed.”
“It must have been very difficult for them to obtain even a provisional permit,” she said.
“Undoubtedly the people of Novabella offered a sufficient inducement,” the chaperone replied, accepting her offer of a cuscumbre muffin. “As you and I both know they must have done, Mrs. Gallimar. Let us not trifle with one another. I have come to inquire what your part in all this may be.”
“I am to convey the permit to Novabella,” she said. “Prior to providing it to the Gallivant Committee, I am to ascertain that all is as it has been represented. The Viceroy wishes me to do so.”
“Is there some doubt that the gallivant has indeed eaten the children it is said to have eaten?” he asked innocently. “If so, how will you be able to tell whether they met their fates by being eaten rather than by some other equally dismembering cause?”
“There is no doubt about the beast. As to the other matter, I will ask questions,” she said. “The Viceroy trusts me to come to the truth of the matter. I am confident of my abilities in this regard. Still, you may expect to be paid your proper fee.”
“Oh,” he said casually, biting into a bit of brown bread, “The fee is the least of the matter. It distresses me that the Viceroy does not think me capable of ascertaining what I am sure you are also being sent to ascertain, Mrs. Gallimar. He wants to make doubly sure that she’s truly a virgin, doesn’t he.”
Mrs. Gallimar flushed, only slightly. “Perhaps the Viceroy felt that … well, a woman would be better qualified.”
“Nonsense,” he said crisply. “Any graduate of the Bureau of Public Morals Institute of Chaperonage is quite capable of knowing on the instant whether One is or One is not.”
“Perhaps he is sending me, dear Roland, to keep her company on the return voyage.” Mrs. Gallimar pouted prettily and cast her eyes toward her tiny shoes. There was a moment’s uncomfortable silence.
“Is it permitted to ask,” I inquired, “what sort of difference this virgin is to display?”
Roland’s perfect lips lifted slightly away from his white teeth. “Difference, dear Lady Wellingford. How can one define difference. The virgin is to have it, else she will not do. Were she lovely as the dawn and pure as the spring rain, I would still find nothing there of interest to me unless there is also difference.”
The words set up that odd resonance once more. Something I had heard. Something I had seen. Where had I, myself, encountered reference to a virgin with a difference?
So musing, I almost missed Mrs. Gallimar’s grumpy response to the chaperone’s comment. “I quite understand,” she said.
I felt that I, too, was beginning to understand. Roland Mirabeau was unmoved by women, by any ordinary woman, by any except an extraordinary woman. Mrs. Gallimar knew this, though her customary manner had caused her to overlook it for a few moments. Roland was, in fact, unteaseable, therefore of little interest to her.
He took another bite of brown bread. “We can hope she is as represented, Mrs. Gallimar. If she is, I will know it.” He snapped up the last bite with a click of his teeth and a quick lick at his lips. “Since our departure is imminent, I
