The dance hall was in what appeared to be the shell of a medieval chapel. The pews had been torn out to make way for the tables, but the floor still revealed traces of their anchors, the uneven edges of stone tripping up the unwary. There was a rose window above the musicians, a stained-glass medallion still blossoming with color, blood-red and cobalt and goldenrod, a weeping saint in the very middle gazing down at the merrymakers below.
The ceiling was arched and hazed with pipe smoke. A woman in a citron gown and spangled wrap was singing up on the dais, her palms spread, her throat arched; the beads and feathers decorating her wig swayed impressively every time she moved her head. Zoe couldn't really tell if she was any good. The woman sang and the people clapped and stomped and prattled; the limestone walls and floors muddled everything into a constant roar. She imagined the couples dancing in their lines managed it by the rhythm of the violoncello alone.
The barkeep behind the counter set up in the vestry never stopped moving. Mugs and glasses clattered against wood, beer and wine from the casks behind him leaving a wet sticky mess across every surface.
She'd never been to a dance hall before. The closest thing Darkfrith had to one was Cerise's tavern, which on special occasions would accommodate a revelry if all the tables and benches were pushed back. Zoe was comfortable enough amid the smoke and shouting and noise; at least she wasn't having to serve the crowd.
It was largely working-class, a sprinkling of young noblemen here and there, their shiny coats and waistcoats more garish than the plain tans and browns of the woolens most of the men wore. For the price of five
All the narrow windows to the chapel were shuttered. If Rhys lurked somewhere in the stained glass above her, she couldn't see him.
There were five men from the yard. She'd stolen enough of their thoughts to follow them here; by the time she was certain of the address, they were on their third or fourth beers, which made their minds brightly sloppy but surprisingly easy to perceive. The one named Alain, the one from the book entry, was the most subdued of the group, hardly speaking. He had a plait wrapped in a brown ribbon, pocked skin, eyes as black as her own. And he'd been stealing glances at her from behind his mug for nearly half an hour now.
If she glanced up, straight up, she could see the cloak of blue darkness hovering over her like the spread wings of a hawk. She could feel it, the silence of it, the hunger. The spirits trapped inside. To the people jammed around her it was as invisible as Zoe herself could be. Yet to her it hung opaque, sharpened to life by the strength of her own nerves and ire.
'I never knew you to dance,' said a familiar voice.
Her gaze returned to the rose window, but the only shadows there were still thrown from the sconces.
'Doesn't seem your style,' Rhys continued. 'All that frolicking about. All that fun. Where's that dour little bluestocking who'd rather read Sophocles than flirt?'
The wineglass. He was there, small and curved, just beneath her fingers.
'I doubt most sincerely you fathom anything about
'Zee,' said the shadow against her wine. 'Truly. I have an odd feeling about all this. I think you should leave. We can—we'll make a better plan tomorrow.'
She set down the glass and smiled at the black-eyed coachman who'd finally walked up, bowing low before her.
She lifted her hand to him and allowed him to lead her out to the floor, the indigo cloak trailing in a long arcing scythe behind.
Chapter Nine
She was a passable dancer. It wasn't due to the fact that she'd had a great many public opportunities in the past; she could count on one hand the number of
No, she could dance strictly because Cerise loved to dance, and together they had practiced many a long, silly night as girls, drawing straws to see who would be the gentleman to lead. Mother had done her duty at the pianoforte, laughing almost as hard as they.
Granted, Zoe was rather better at the slower steps, but there was nothing like that being played in this packed smoky hall. Most of the sets were simple jigs, with everyone bobbing up and down and bowing and turning; even in the confusion of bodies and slapping skirts, she had the way of it nearly at once.
The coachman gave her a grin, revealing a missing front tooth. She grinned back, letting their hands remain clasped a little longer than was proper before twirling to her right to hook arms with another man.
Painted faces; bellowing voices. The frantic melodies from the fiddles and horns.
She allowed the cloak slowly to descend, slowly, slowly, enveloping her in those wings. It took concentration to hold it so firmly at bay, to keep it chained to her will. She missed two steps in a row and managed to laugh about it. The coachman laughed too.
The cloak settled over them soft as silence, wrapped them together. The man faltered a little, his smile fading, but Zoe had mastered the dance by now and moved smoothly to his side.
They clasped hands again.
She thought, Show
She saw the countryside in winter. She saw fields of snow glimmering under white-bone moonlight. Horses in front of her pulling a rig. Bitter wind in her face carrying the scent of plowed earth and seed. Manure.
No, not any of this. Hayden.
The coach yard and the stables. The other drivers smoking and drinking, a circle of cards and a lamp burning whale oil on an overturned crate.
A dun-haired man, a lean face darkened by the sun. Neither plain nor handsome. A scar across one eyebrow. Probing gray eyes, his mouth lifted into an expression of sardonic query over the splay of his cards. By the capes of his coat, likely another driver.
Hayden,she thought, ferocious.
But the same man came again, regarding her now by the deep ginger glow of firelight, speaking words she could not hear but could almost feel, syllables shaping themselves into meaning inside her ears.
. you'll like the recompense . you won't make more anywhere else, i promise you that, and for such a small thing, after all. they're criminals of a sort, you understand, a gang of them, our comrades assured me you can be discreet, and no one's complained yet about getting a few extralivresa
It came upon her in a sudden wave: nausea, rolling up from her stomach into her throat, stilling her feet. In a rush of noise the dance hall came back to her, the couples and the fiddles and the echo of drunken laughter, the residue of burning tobacco curling across her face. She stumbled to a halt and pressed a hand to her lips.
They stood there, she and the coachman in the middle of the dance floor, staring at each other through the haze. The people around them shouted in a good-natured way, jostling, trying to get them to move.
Zoe lowered her hand. 'It's too warm, isn't it?' She didn't wait for his reply, instead weaving her fingers through his and pulling him along. The coachman followed, docile as a child.
The air outside the hall was hardly fresher than indoors; it left a sour wooden flavor in her mouth and still couldn't banish the aroma of pipe and beer that billowed up and around her in clouds. Groups of Others lingered outside in the pools of amber light shed from the torches, men speaking sotto voce to wet-lipped girls, couples in the shadows groping, no longer speaking at all. She looked around quickly, searching for an isolated spot.
There was a path of flagstones winding around to the unlit side of the chapel. She followed it, still pulling the man along.
It ended in a small courtyard, dusty and rolling with debris; no one else had ventured here yet. An ancient well loomed by the stump of some long-rotted tree. Its bucket hung askew by a rope, giving an occasional mellow thump against the metal framework.
