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“His Highness must greet Her Majesty first,” Evemer said firmly. “It is proper.”
Siranos sighed. “Yes, all right. I’ll come with you.” He was impossible to shake for the rest of the evening. Despite Evemer’s best efforts and Kadou’s increasingly panicked glances, Siranos was seated beside His Highness at the dinner table, one seat away from Her Majesty, who had been engaged in intense conversation with the Oissic ambassador all evening.
Beside the ambassador sat a woman who Evemer had glimpsed talking to Siranos just before he accosted His Highness—Siranos’s sister, Evemer had to suppose, though they looked almost nothing alike. Their eyes were of a similar color, though hers were several shades lighter, closer to green than hazel, and there was something in their manner and expressions that seemed to echo, but that was all. She was short where he was tall; she, blond and he, dark-haired. Her features were pretty and delicate; Siranos was angled and strong-featured like a statue.
She also had an air of great poise about her, as if tempered steel had learned to be demure, and she listened and watched more than she spoke. Though her accent was Oissic, she wore an elegant green dress in the Pezian style, with a bodice and two skirts—the top one was plainer fabric, and it was looped up here and there to show flashes of the costly silver silk brocade beneath, as if she had no need to show it off by wearing it as a top layer. She also wore a large shiny medal pinned to her shoulder, bearing some elaborate insignia that Evemer couldn’t make out from his position at the wall behind Kadou.
“Ah, I promised to introduce you to my sister earlier,” Siranos said to Kadou. “This is Sylvia. Sylvia, His Highness Prince Kadou.”
“Delighted,” Kadou said solemnly. “So pleased you could attend.” She and Siranos both smiled expectantly at him, waiting for him to say anything else, and Evemer could read Kadou’s resignation in the set of his shoulders. “How are you enjoying the city?” he said, as if his tutors had tucked into his pockets a stack of etiquette practice cards, each bearing a simple, polite question for making conversation, and Kadou fully intended to read them out one by one until he could find a way to escape.
“It is bigger than I am used to,” Sylvia said. “And busier. And the prices of everything are just shocking.”
“Oh?” said Kadou politely. “Tell me everything about your home, then.”
The dinner continued in this vein for a full two hours. Sylvia talked charmingly of whatever Kadou asked her—the unfortunate harvests in Oissos the last few years, the lamentable loss of a harbor full of ships the year previous when the sea serpents’ breeding season had come along weeks early, before the harbor was secured. She admitted with a sigh that several of her own family’s ships, including most of their half-unloaded cargoes, had been amongst the wrecks.
However, Sylvia resisted with admirable will Kadou’s attempts to make her do most of the talking—she turned questions back on him nearly as often. His Highness had evidently had enough etiquette tutors and enough practice at formal dinners that he navigated the conversation with all appearance of grace and cordiality. Evemer was almost certain that Zeliha was the only other person in the room besides himself who might have noticed that Kadou was doing it by brute-forcing himself into the role he was supposed to be playing, butshewas occupied entirely with the ambassador.
Evemer did not move from his post, even to shift his weight and relieve the ache in his feet. He had a sharp suspicion that if he left even for a moment, Kadou would require him for something. But when he pictured how upset and disappointed Kadou might be to turn around and find him gone, he knew it was only an exaggeration of his own mind. Kadou had said outright that he wouldn’t miss him, if he left. It was a very silly fantasy to imagine otherwise.
After dinner, there was a musical performance in the room adjoining the banquet hall—a very fine quartet from the city who began with one of Evemer’s favorite ballads and continued with three more that he did not care for at all. Kadou sat quiet and still, hands folded neatly in his lap and his attention fixed so firmly and obviously on the musicians that no one even tried to talk to him. Evemer stood at his shoulder, but after the first song, his attention drifted.
Zeliha was still in intense conversation with the ambassador on the opposite side of the room, firmly shaking her head about something while the ambassador whispered intensely, gesturing just as firmly with her hands. The small assortment of other guests listened to the musicians with varying degrees of attention. Siranos and Sylvia stood toward the back—her arms were crossed, a dark look thunderous over her face, and she seemed to be firmly ignoring Siranos as he murmured occasionally at her.
In Evemer’s boots, one of his socks had shifted and was chafing in an uncomfortable position. He weighed his options: As much as it offended his sensibilities to admit discomfort, a blister would hinder his ability to attend to His Highness, and that would not do. Kadou would be fine for two minutes while Evemer prevented an obstacle to his future service, and then Evemer would return and continue in his current duty without distraction.
He paused only to murmur to Kadou, “I will return,” and headed toward the door to the corridor, remembering a low bench he’d seen on the way in.
As he passed by Sylvia, she caught his sleeve. “You’re a servant of the palace, aren’t you?” she murmured.
“Madam.”
“Perhaps you can direct me to wherever a lady might have a moment to rest and reflect?”
By her delicate and pointed tone, Evemer assumed she meant one of the water closets. “Yes, madam. This way.”
“Sylvia,” Siranos said, his voice almost wheedling. “Just tell me what’s the matter.”
“Hush,” she hissed to him, all delicacy gone, though no less pointed. “Come with me.”
Evemer, too, wondered what had upset her so—nothing particular had happened at dinner, at least that he had noticed. He led Sylvia along the hall, Siranos following in her wake. “Just around this corner, madam,” Evemer said, gesturing. “The second door.”
“So kind,” she said with a smile. It didn’t have anything onYou’re a godsend. “Siranos, to me. You can wait outside the door and make sure no one comes in.”
Evemer left them there, found the bench farther along the hall, adjusted his chafing sock, and took a moment to flex the aches out of his feet. That, perhaps, was a mistake, because the temporary relief meant that it only hurt more when he put his shoes back on and stood up again, but such pains were one of Usmim’s simpler trials and could be firmly ignored.
How long had it been? Evemer was seized with the sudden concern that Kadou might have been accosted by one of the guests, might even now be looking around for Evemer or someone to rescue him from an awkward conversation. Evemer strode back down the corridor. Approaching the corner, he heard whispering voices—Siranos and Sylvia? Some strange instinct made him pause and listen.
“Yes, but why is hehere?” she hissed—they were speaking Oissika, of which Evemer only had a loose grasp.
“Why wouldn’t he be? He’s the prince,” Siranos replied. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Oh, for—me! What’s gotten intome? Hesthera’s saggy tits, Siranos! Perhaps you’d like to answer that yourself?”
“I told you,” he said. “I’m staying. I have adaughter.Yourniece.”
“Moron, you should have made her marry you first if you wanted that baby to be yours.”
