Ganymede peeled himself away just enough to tap the front of her obi, which bound her belly as tightly as a corset. “And just how do you propose to skate in that?”
“Easy, I’ll see which one of you is faster, then I’ll hold your coattails and have you tow me through. Then at the last second I’ll distract you and pull ahead to victory!”
“And how will you distract us?”
Smiling Danaë threw both arms around her husband and locked him in a kiss, while at the same time her left foot snagged Ganymede by the ankle and toppled him forward. With both still stunned, she flitted aside quick as a hummingbird, and let her brother fall into her husband’s arms.
His Majesty Isabel Carlos II laughed.
Danaë had blinded the others as the King of Spain arrived. There are few people in this world whom Ganymede does not hate, but the Duke reserves a special hatred for the King. Isabel Carlos II is not the offender, nor is any Spanish king, nor any Spaniard. Ganymede’s fellow Frenchmen birthed the grudge. No line so noble as his cannot boast royal blood, and with wealth, fame, and his golden presence, Ganymede is worthier than many past pretenders to France’s throne. But there is no throne for Ganymede. France killed its king in our very own Eighteenth Century, and what few kings it has tried on since it discarded, like a grown man no longer comfortable in childhood’s clothes. If he tried, Ganymede might convince as many to call him ‘Your Majesty’ as now say ‘Your Grace,’ but what would it mean when every member of the French nation-strat is more loyal to the Marseillaise than to the memory of Charlemagne? The Duke knows he cannot tame France to monarchy once more. That, I think, is why he lets the world call him by the celebrity nickname ‘Duke Ganymede’ rather than his preferred title ‘Prince de la Trémoïlle’; Prince has enough of Machiavelli’s stink to make a free man balk. And even if he could win France, she spread her contagious liberty to Europe, too. King Ganymede I of France would be as voiceless in the European Parliament as the Queens of England and Belgium are, or the Japanese Emperor among the Mitsubishi. Not so Spain. While the French Monarchy lay dead these six centuries, the Kings of Spain have been peacemakers and powerbrokers, kindled democracy from the ashes of tyranny, shared the podium with Thomas Carlyle, and caught the dying words of Mycroft MASON. Isabel Carlos II would have but to offer his name on the ballot for every European strat from Swedes to New Zealanders to rally to make him Prime Minister again, while if Ganymede sought power in Europe he would have to fight for it tooth and nail like a mere Casimir Perry. I cannot say whether President Ganymede actually feels himself entitled to a crown, but it is certainly the presence of the King of Spain which forced the Duke to choose the Humanists, not Europe, as his kingdom, and La Trimouille, not Paris, as his capital. That he will never forgive.
“Your Majesty.” Danaë bowed stiffly, as a Mitsubishi ought. “Which of these two do you think would be faster at ice skating?”
Spain smiled his modest smile. “If you mean to win, Princesse, you should ride the coattails of the one who built the maze.”
“Of course!” She turned bright eyes on Ganymede. “Grand frère, will you introduce me to your gardener?”
He cuffed her gently on the forehead. “Cheater.”
All laughed together, and the twins exchanged fast French. In fact, between the English and flirtation, you must imagine French fluttering back and forth between the pair all evening, birdsong sibling chatter too quick for even Spain to catch.
“Oh, good evening, Chair Bryar, I didn’t see you there.” The King nodded his respects. “And the Honorable Censor. How are you both?”
Chair Kosala had retreated into the crowd to avoid the glitter, but stepped forward now, dragging Vivien with her. “We’re very well, Your Majesty.”
Ganymede stepped in. “We’re about to view a new piece these two might take home with them.” He offered the King a smile as sweet as the sugar coating around poison. “Would Your Majesty care to join us?”
There is always a hesitation when His Majesty addresses Ganymede, as if he considers each time which style of address to use. “Why certainly, La Trémoïlle. Lead on.”
Lead Ganymede did, each step printing his own graceful signature into the carpet surface, an elaborately framed linear rendition of his coat of arms, three eaglets surrounding a chevron. “Hopefully the bookies didn’t swarm any of you too terribly as you arrived. They’re out in full force.”
“I know, begging for hints about the lists, as if we knew anything.” Danaë hung on her husband’s shoulder. “The children practically had to beat them off of us. Vivien, I imagine it was worse for you?”
“Oh, unbelievable!” Chair Kosala answered for her spouse. “The way they swarmed, it was as if they thought they could absorb the lists from Vivien by osmosis!”
Danaë hid her reaction behind her sleeve. “I hope they’ll flutter off when the official odds are set tonight. Grand frère, how long until the announcement?”
“Twenty-one minutes. And here we are. Is that not the most tender thing?”
It was an oil piece, Cupid and Psyche. Most artists choose to depict the moment of their final reunion on Olympus, or the earlier moment of betrayal, when curiosity drives the girl to break her vow not to try to see this mystery lover who comes to her only in darkness. But this artist did not show triumph or betrayal, but an earlier moment, when the lovers were still nestled in each other’s trusting arms, with yet no taste of sorrow. Psyche’s eyes were gently closed, while Cupid’s were covered by what might have been a slim, dark mask, but in context was the blindfold which artists sometimes have Love wear. The painting was also, quite intentionally, hung in the center of the villa’s largest open gallery, where hundreds gathered to see and be seen—the perfect hunting ground for Sniper.
The King of Spain was first to recover enough to speak. “A new artist?”
“Fairly new, yes,” the Duke answered. “Up-and-coming new Ganymedist, Hooper Abbey.”
It is odd to hear Ganymede talk of Ganymedists, but there is no excuse to call the school by any other name. It was thirty-two years ago that Lister Dalal, one of the younger New Aesthetes of the Johannesburg Campus, fell into the spell of this golden-haired exemplar of exquisite youth, then only twelve years old. At first Dalal kept Ganymede to himself, producing portrait after best-selling portrait, but as other artists begged for access to his mystery model, he realized this blossoming Adonis could become the center of his own school, hijacking the Art-for-Pleasure rhetoric of his teachers, but focusing on the idealized figure, Ganymede’s idealized figure. The Duke’s galleries—like most great galleries now—hold a hundred portraits which strive to capture facets of his maturing body in oil and pigment, chalk and crayon, bronze and stone. How could he fail to become Earth’s most successful art dealer when half the art world was already in love with him?
“It’s a bit much,” was the King’s judgment, frowning at the halo the dim light cast on Psyche’s rosy nipples, erect in her excitement.
“And a bit dark,” Andō added.
Danaë—of whom a few modest, clothed portraits hang among her brother’s on the walls—shot each of them a pout. “But it’s wonderful! So tactile! You can just feel the texture of those sheets, and the wings, the feathers tickling Psyche’s thigh. What do you think, Bryar?”
Chair Kosala had no chance to answer, for the room went suddenly dark, as the shattering of glass and the screams of startled innocents announced the arrival of Ganymede’s quarry.
CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH
Enter Sniper
Fragments of light broke the darkness sporadically, like the death throes of a battered strobe lamp. A wolf’s howl cut across the startled cries as guests huddled together in the dark. Security tightened around the leaders instantly, Spain’s Royal Guard, the Censor’s Guard, Mitsubishi forces, Cousins, the Ducal-Presidential Guard in livery of blue and gold. Their flashlights cut the blackness, at first revealing only art and wide-eyed faces, but soon one could catch the motion of machinery and great shapes assembling themselves on the ballroom floor like the arrival of a clockwork beast. Startled cries morphed into titters of anticipation, as guests rushed in from other galleries, forcing their way toward spots they hoped would have good views. Then a sudden spotlight brought the beast to life. The center of the hall, which had been nothing but a crowd of socialites, was now a mad laboratory, burbling beakers and giant electrodes raining sparks on bays of ancient vacuum tubes, while in the center a shrouded body lay on a slab, waiting.