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Harrowhark fretted with the edges of her veil. “It’s no use the damn thing being down,” said her captain, sotto voce.
“I do not intend to compete,” said Harrowhark—not moving her lips but inclining her face very slightly toward the woman next to her. “If I did, I would never compete with my face.”
“Yes, but you might as well have one,” said the older woman calmly. “That’s the first thing Her Divine Highness will look for in a bride: presence of a face. It’s a precondition of attraction.”
“That is not why we are here. Unlike every other House scion present, I will not—flaunt my goods in the shop window.”
“Emperor knows what we’d even flaunt,” grunted Aiglamene.
The other seven Houses present were flaunting as though they were birds in a particularly baroque mating season. Her so-called cavalier primary took great interest; he jotted verses on a scrap of flimsy that he palmed discreetly into his pocket every time her gaze fell on him. The other Houses had mingled into a spectrum of colours, interweaving in the dances like a living drift of spangles. Clean Cohort whites with coloured ribands vaunting colour on the pips or wrist; long dresses in iridescent white, a simpering tactic, with hued wreaths on the head to denote the House; necromancers in robes of all kinds, none of them practical. All except for the Sixth House, who did not seem to be represented among the dancers, but sat in a grey puddle by the wall in wallflower blessedness, as though they were a communal gawky child who could not find a partner. They all wore the same dead-dove greys and chattered among themselves. If the situation had been different, Harrowhark might have made an introductory approach to them, but she had other things to think about.
One tall, astonishingly built Third House princess had chosen to sit among their number like a butterfly in a grey bog: she wore a silk robe in gold and breeches that showed off a calf too fit to be called a necromancer’s, and she was holding a glass of champagne and laughing at something she was being told. The rest of the noble House of Ida made intermittent attempts to chivvy her back, in case being seen among the Sixth House proclaimed her too hopeless to win the attention of Her Divine Highness, but the Third princess kept waving them off.
Harrowhark’s anticipation was at a fever pitch by the time anyone approached her. She did not know why her heart was beating so hard; she did not know why she was afraid, other than that the crowd was unmanageable and that there was too much noise and light. She knew her eyes were too wide within her sacramental paint—the elegant skull called simply the Chain, which she had been practising for months—when a couple approached, without a retinue. A man and a woman, the lady with the hint of a necromancer’s build: she was arm in arm with the man, and he appeared to be eating a canape on a stick with his other hand, and so Harrowhark refused to look at him. The lady wore a deep cocoa satin gown with a train, and when she stood before Harrowhark she coughed, discreetly, into one buff glove. The simplicity of the gown revealed little about her, but the cut said more, and the cursory little gold tiara perched on the gleaming brown braids of hair said a lot and loudly.
“Lady Abigail Pent,” said Harrowhark, who had been practising that as well.
“To be honest,” said Abigail, “I’m quite sorry to crash this one, as I would love to see where this mixer goes.”
“I, also,” said Harrowhark’s cavalier primary, from behind her shoulder.
Magnus had finished his canape, and added enthusiastically: “Agreed. This is top. Have you ever eaten party food before, Lady Harrowhark? Because if you haven’t, this is a very good approximation. No taste, but incredibly salty.”
Harrow said frigidly, “Pardon?” before she remembered that she could not have known Lady Abigail Pent by sight.
“This still isn’t how it happens,” said the Fifth—
42
MONTH??? DEATH
“LIEUTENANT!” CRIED A VOICE. “Wait up—please.”
Coming out of the briefing room, still a little bit pinched with space exposure—she had learned belatedly that after the first week it was considered namby-pamby to wear one’s placket of grave dirt anywhere visible, and it made a bump within the uniform—Harrowhark stopped and pivoted to the two soldiers behind her. She came to the unpleasant realisation that she would be forced to salute, and duly did so: although the navy-rimmed pins in front of her denoted the same rank as her own, the burnished steel pins on the opposite lapel indicated that these two had seen action. This was not greatly surprising, in the context of the navy edging of the Fourth House. She had already heard a great many jibes to the effect that Fourth House arrivals ought to be issued with both a medal of honour and a coffin. But they were very young. They were younger even than her, which was grotesque. She recognised them before they had finished their responding salute, which was significantly worse.
She said stiffly, “Lieutenant Tettares. Lieutenant Chatur. Do you require the service of the Black Anchorite?”
“No, because who would, ever,” said Lieutenant Chatur, whose corkscrew hair had been bound up at the back of her head. She did not resemble Harrowhark’s idea of a cavalier primary, even with the rapier bound to her hip. She was looking Harrow over rather critically in return. Harrow had been allowed her paint—she had been granted her jewels of office—as a chaplain, she had even been allowed a bit of robe, though a cursory Cohort robe that pinned to one shoulder and was about as much use as a sugar-spun bone. The starched white shirt and trousers seemed to take away all her substance. The more substantial child before her was saying in a piercing voice: “I heard they actually had to exhume a book as to how your lot work, because we haven’t had a black friar for fifty years.”
“Then I will take my leave—Lieutenant. Lieutenant—”
“Excuse her, please, she sucks,” said her necromancer briefly.
(“Thanks?”
“You do though?) Look—I wanted to introduce myself. You obviously know who I am. But we’ll be going through training together—we’re the only House heirs entering on the same footing—I don’t think it would be stupid to keep together. And you’re here without a cavalier. Nobody knows why the Reverend Daughter’s signed up for action. But I can’t judge—I’m the Baron of Tisis, and they’re probably going to haze us all until we’re half dead. Now we’re all together, I’d like to be friends. Pax?”
Harrowhark stared down at the gloved hand proffered, then at the hand’s owner. He had recently taken out quite a lot of earrings, and his ears were riddled with little empty punch holes, as though he were the recent victim of some guerrilla sewing. Both faces were, in fact, turned to her with none of the disgust she had initially fancied; their enthusiasm, she had to admit, was sincere. She did not shake the hand, but she reached out to briefly touch the fingertips with her own, and she said, “I would advise you against this. The Cohort were … opposed to my inclusion.”
“Oh, you have to get over that,” said the cavalier dismissively. “We could’ve papered the walls in strongly worded Cohort letters. It’s not like you’re the only one. The Cohort hates it when the actual heir joins up. They legitimately tried to give us mumps—”
(“They did not legitimately try to give us mumps. My little brother gave us mumps.”)
“—there’s a whole bushel of rules about asking permission to engage, and if there’s a war on we’ll get packed off to the back, so if you’re smart the first thing you have to say to your commanding officer is, ‘Excuse me, I don’t want my rank to get between myself and the troops,’ and then she can ‘forget’ to follow the safety missive, and you can get put on the post-thanergy front, where it’s interesting— Do you want to go to the cafeteria?”
Harrowhark did not want to go to the cafeteria. Lieutenants Tettares and Chatur accompanied her to the cafeteria anyway, a place she had contrived never to visit unless absolutely necessary. She felt acutely visible standing in the queue in full view of all the other officers-in-training; the massed necromancers and sword-handling men and women of the Nine Houses who had passed examinations, or paid money, or whatever it was they did in the other Houses, to acquire an officer’s rank. She was the only one with a black-enamelled lieutenant’s pip; she was the only one with black slashes at her sleeves. All the while, the Fourth pair kept up a stream of meaningless chatter, like two human waterfalls. Crux would have said that their tongues were hung in the middle. If, Emperor forbid, she had been a flesh magician, she would have been very sorely tempted to hang their tongues in the middle herself.
Harrow tuned back in to the cavalier-enlisted saying, enthusiastically: “—tried the coffee yet?”
