The landau glided down a long driveway, flanked on either side by dormant fruit trees. They would look beautiful as the weather warmed, sprinkled with pale flowers and the bright green buds of leaves. For now they were all gnarled branches in bare grey.
The house itself was big enough to be a veche chamber, and as intimidating. Marble steps, warmed by the light from many lamps, led up to a set of large wooden doors opened wide. Colour and light spilled from them. Silhouettes meandered at the top. Fainter shapes danced behind.
All too soon we were at the steps. Devich leapt from the landau with unhealthy enthusiasm and held out a hand for me. What would he do if I refused to come out?
"Come with me, Tanyana." He smiled his beautiful smile, and his large hand didn't waver. "You belong with me."
I gripped his hand and let him lead me down the coach's tight steps. Then he hooked his arm in mine and was sweeping me up the carpet of light, to the open doors and certain doom.
There were a few men smoking fragrant cigars at the top of the steps. They spoke in a low and constant whisper that lulled as Devich led me past. I held my head high and tried not to step on my hems.
An aging servant dressed in a shirt and pants of imitation gold thread gazed down his nose at us as we stepped through the open door. Devich flicked his fingers – doing something I couldn't see to invisible pions – and with a nod and a sweep of his arm, the servant invited us inside the Sporinov home. I realised, as I stepped into warmth and light and noise, that the whole exchange had happened without a word being said.
But then I entered Lord Sporinov's home, and it cast all other thoughts from my mind.
I may have been employed by the veche, but I had never been invited to an old family ball. I had worked for those newer to power. Architecture and planning were not high on the veche agenda. Old families, whose pion strength had established them as rulers long before the revolution even happened, they controlled the enforcers, they dealt with foreign powers, they dictated how much of Varsnia's binding knowledge we wanted to share. I had never been important enough, never been vital enough to the future of Varsnia, to warrant an invitation before.
I couldn't imagine why I was now.
Gold-edged carpets ran in smooth lines over a polished marble floor. Different coloured lights shone in flameshaped glasses that hung from the ceilings on gold chains. Curtains the colour of buttery cream swept over wide windows. And the house was full of beautiful people. Women in dresses that hugged their body shape and were sewn of silk and light-reflecting glass beads. Some women wore a wider skirt, layered with satin and lace. No colour repeated itself in their attire. I saw blue like the sky before dawn, green as the newest sprout from the trunk of a tree, and icy white. Jewels sparkled from ear lobes, necks, wrists and hair.
I realised, with a strangely satisfying kick in the gut, that I wore jewellery far brighter than these women ever would.
Men followed these painting-perfect images of femineity around like shadows. Each was a mirror image of Devich, only older and without the mischievous smile.
Still latched firmly onto my arm, Devich guided me past these, the oldest, the richest, and the most beautiful in Varsnia. I caught sight of a thin young woman, dressed in a skirt that nearly swallowed her. With her large eyes, dark skin and ever-so-charmingly mussed hair, she looked closer to a skittish deer than a woman at a ball. Men hung about her in a circle and vied for the attention of those dark, luscious eyes. I had never seen anything as beautiful, yet Devich's expression darkened when he noticed her, and he looked away. The awkward way she stood, the jerking, fumbling way she tried to walk, started me wondering. What was happening to the pions inside her body? I remembered the rumours, the members of the old families who would snatch pretty women from the streets like gems hidden in mud for their entertainment. What better chains to keep her here than those that already existed beneath her skin?
Devich kept up his pressure on my elbow and she was soon lost in the crowd.
"Here we are," Devich murmured. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes bright and focused with a frightening determination. "Our host."
A tall and greying man stood straight, proudly, on a small step that kept him a few inches above the rest of the ballroom. A much younger but no less proud woman held on to the crook of his elbow. She wore so much silver sewn into the fabric of a long, thin dress that she shone in the light like she was a jewel herself. Together, the couple surveyed the ballroom like shepherds over their flock. They listened politely to the men and women before them, nodding, answering in monosyllables when appropriate, and being altogether gracious and lordly.
I wished I could have taken off my jacket. Surely there was a servant hovering around for that express purpose. But Devich didn't slow, and all too soon we had broken through to the front line of the Lord and Lady Sporinov's audience.
Devich released me long enough to bow, but hurried to grip my elbow again as if I was about to make an attempt to escape.
"My lord Sporinov," Devich said grandly, silencing the constant twitter of the people around us, their bird-like vying for attention. "And my lady Rana. I thank you, again, for your gracious invitation."
The lord and lady turned their faces toward us in a slow and bizarrely coordinated movement. "Devich," the lord said. "You came." His regard was an abrading wind, his wife's cold as ice.
I dipped into the best bow I could manage with Devich still attached.
"I did, my lord."
"And what have you brought?" Rana asked.
I flicked my eyes up, met hers and held them until she looked away. I was no thing.
"Allow me to introduce Tanyana Vladha." Devich didn't seem to realise how uninteresting I was to these people, how low. "The debris collector."
A murmur ran though the crowd around the lord and lady, and gradually spread. I could feel heat beneath my cheeks and knew it would make the scars stand out more.
The lord Sporinov suddenly seemed to animate. One moment he was doing an accurate imitation of a wax statue and the next he was alive. Even had colour in the face and movement in his eyes. He shook off his wife and descended from their single step.
"A collector? Truly?" He held a hand out to me. I shook it, fairly certain I was about to wake up.
"Indeed, my lord." Devich glanced around at the jealous faces, and his smile turned from enjoyment to triumphant. I wished it hadn't. "You spoke to me of your interest in my work, and I thought I could bring a friend who knows far more about it than I do."
"A friend?" A dry voice muttered from the circle.
"Yes." Devich caught my eyes and winked at me. "A very close friend indeed."
"Well, dear lady, this is quite an occasion." Lord Sporinov maintained a hold on my hand. His palm was cool and dry. "Yes, indeed."
With a toss of her blonde hair, Rana stepped down and stalked to a table laden with drinks. Most of the crowd hesitated, seemed to notice the lord's distraction, and decided to follow the lady instead. Only a few of the older men remained.
"I'll return in a moment." Devich headed off in search of a drink himself.
I was left alone, ringed by the aging heads of old veche families, and feeling like a moth pinned to a board, surrounded by butterflies.
"Let's have a look at you." Lord Sporinov studied me, from hair to toes. "Bit of a strange one, aren't you?"
I coughed. "I wouldn't say so, my lord."
He chuckled. "Got a bit of spirit, then? Always good to have."
"Do they all dress like you?" asked a large man with a bald forehead bright with sweat. "The women, I mean."