Her father had disappeared, and obviously Feysa--Marchioness who?--had taken her in charge. Women who were to be her maids, all dressed in finer clothes than she had ever owned, were curtsying to her. They bathed her, and she was too dream-struck to be embarrassed at all. They dried her in towels of lamb's wool and massaged her and rubbed her with scented oils. They dressed her in silk underclothes. They measured her for dresses, and they coiffed her hair and varnished her nails and painted her face...
And suddenly she was standing before a mirror, admiring a lady who had a vague facial resemblance to herself but whose gown and jewels and elegant coiffure were totally strange. The gown! Ocher silk, it was open down the front almost to her navel, yet tight enough to show off her admirably fashionable flat chest. The maids had politely raved about her figure and her complexion. From her hips the gown sprang out in a great wide crinoline of foamy lace. She sparkled with jewels.
"There," Feysa said. "I think that will do to begin with. How do you feel?"
"Stunned," Elosa said.
The marchioness was very beautiful and very gracious, and obviously in charge. She smiled. "Wait till tomorrow--you have twenty-two gowns to try on after breakfast."
Elosa gasped. Feysa laughed and brought in the duke to inspect. He was very complimentary, although she noticed again the deep lines of anxiety.
"Perhaps I may have a word with my most beautiful daughter?" he said with a warm smile at Feysa.
He was asking permission? No, that was ridiculous.
The Feysa lady hesitated. "Make it quick," she replied in a whisper. She made a fast nod toward the balcony and turned to shout at all the maids to get the place in order.
The duke led Elosa out to the balcony.
"A little fast advice, fledgling," he said. "No, face the rail while we talk. Don't trust anyone..."
Really! She felt her face start to burn under the paint.
"Father, I may be inexperienced, but I am not a child!" No silky-tongued courtier was going to take advantage ofher.Kings must marry virgins--and she already suspected that she might be the only virgin in the whole court. She was going to stay that way, certainly.
Now her father went red. He placed a hand over hers where it rested on the balustrade. "I did not mean that, fledgling. I am sure you will be sensible. But this is a court--everyone is conspiring against everyone else, all the time. Try to keep out of it. Be polite and gracious and noncommittal. The marchioness will be giving you guidance, but don't trust her, either. We are invited to dine with the king in just a few minutes."
The king! Her legs started to shake.
Her father nodded unhappily. "I did try to explain that you had come a long way and needed a day or so to adjust to palace life, but the king wants to meet you." His voice became quieter yet and more urgent. "Remember, he is God here. His smallest wish is absolute law. His slightest whim! You understand?"
She nodded, frightened. "Father, is something wrong?"
"Of course not."
His eyes said that there was.
"We should be moving, Your Grace," Feysa's voice said. It was so close to her back that Elosa jumped.
Dining with the king, not--Feysa explained as they strolled in ladylike procession through the palace, did not involve eating. The king ate, and the others watched. There would be nobles serving him, of course, lords with the hereditary right to pour the royal wine, for example. The king would invite only two, or at the most three, persons to sit and actually eat with him--that was a tremendous honor--but the several dozen other guests would stand. Later the king would withdraw and they could have a hurried meal before joining him in whatever entertainment was planned for afterward. Today there was to be a masque.
Elosa did not think she was very hungry, anyway.
"One word of advice," the marchioness muttered between vivacious greetings to passing friends. "Don't make jokes. Not yet. When you know your way around, maybe. He likes humor...to a point."
"I don't feel very humorous," Elosa said.
She got a frown. "Be cheerful, though! Smile all the time. Enjoy yourself." Feysa dropped her voice to a whisper and covered her mouth with her fan. "One young man two nights ago topped one of the king's jests. The king had him taken out and flogged like a serf--Good sky to you, my lord!--and he is a viscount."
Elosa did not feel humorous at all.
The reception court was magnificent in its golds and colors and gleaming furniture. The courtiers waiting around were veritable peacocks. She was presented to this one and that one by Feysa or by her father, and they circulated and scintillated, and the dream sensation came pouring back like the hot wind. Either the rugs were even softer and thicker than they looked or her elegant shoes were not touching them at all.
All her life she had waited for this--her arrival at court. It was vastly more magnificent than she had ever imagined.
Then the great doors opened. The king entered with a small entourage of three older men, two of his own age, and four girls, all of them looking younger than Elosa and even more splendidly bejeweled and bedecked. The king began to circulate, greeting his guests.
Dazzling in mauve and gold, he was about the height she had expected but broader and more muscular, with very fair hair hanging loose to his shoulders. His fingers glittered with treasure. Much handsomer than--she tried to remember Vindax and saw the face of Tuy Rorin.
Jarkadon had bright blue eyes, she saw as she was presented and curtsied. Very bright and very blue.
"It has been too long!" the king said. "We have been eager to meet you--and had we known what beauty we were missing, we should have been much, much more impatient."
He was charming.
In a moment or two, Elosa began to realize that she was being greatly honored. The royal procession around the room had stopped at her. He was ignoring the rest of the company. Charming--that was the only possible word. His blue eyes and his attentive smile charmed her as he gave forth a stream of compliments about herself and her long journey and her faithful father and loyal family and on and on...
Then she was sitting at his side and dinner was being served. The king and she were the only ones eating. Her father was there in the circle of onlookers around the table, and he smiled when she caught his eye and the conversation flickered to and fro. She thought she was managing to make sense. She made no jokes. She smiled.
The marchioness had not mentioned the possibility of only one companion. Two or three, she had said. So this was very special, and she was getting some dark looks from the younger women.
The king sent back the wine and demanded a better. The talk turned to wine. The king remarked on the excellent vintage produced by someone's estate, and the owner hastily offered to have several hogsheads sent at once and to fly a few bottles in daily until the carts could arrive.
"I must say, Majesty," the duke remarked, "that almost any wine on the Range is better than the thin swill we produce at Ninar Foan."Warning: The wine is strong.
Elosa agreed that she had never tasted...
Her head was starting to ache.
They were on the eighth or ninth course, and the food kept coming.
Jarkadon was nibbling at some strange-looking meat. "You know what this is?" he inquired.
No, she could not guess.
"By law and ancient tradition," he said proudly, "it is a dish reserved for the king alone. Our father never cared for it, but we had the tradition revived. Taste some."