Ridiculous! Sarto forgot what he was going to say next, as they entered the lofting front hall of the Buridan estate.
It smelled of fresh paint and drying plaster. Lanterns and braziers burned along the pillared staircases, lighting a frescoed ceiling crawling with allegorical figures. The painted blues, yellows, and reds were freshly cleaned and vibrant to the point of being nauseating, as were the heroic poses of the men and half-clad women variously hanging off, riding, or being devoured by hundreds of ridiculously-posed horses. Sarto gaped at this vision for a while, then shuddered. The past is sometimes best left buried, he said.
Ennersin chuckled. Or at least strategically unlit.
Sarto had been expecting chaos inside the estate; after all, nobody had set foot in here in centuries, so Thrace-Guiless new servants would be unfamiliar with the layout of their own home. They would be a motley collection of rejects and near-criminals hired from the dregs of Lesser Spyre, after all, and he fully expected to see waiters spilling drinks down the decolletage of the ladies when they werent banging into one another in their haste to please.
There was none of that. Instead, a string quartet played a soothing pavane in the corner, while men and women in black tails and white gloves glided to and fro, gracefully presenting silver platters and unobtrusively refilling casually tilted glasses. The wait staff were, in fact, almost mesmerizing in their movements; they were better than Sartos own servants.
Where did she get this chattel? he muttered as a man with a stentorian voice announced their arrival. Lady Pamela Anseratte, who had known Sarto for decades and was quite unafraid of him, laughed and trotted over in a swirl of skirts. Oh, shes a clever one, this Thrace-Guiles, she said, laying her lace-covered hand on Sartos arm. Shes hired the acrobats of the Spyre Circus to serve drinks! I hear they rehearsed blindfolded.
Indeed, Sarto glanced around and realized there was a young lady with the compact muscled body of a dancer standing at his elbow. She held out a glass. Champagne? Automatically, he took it, and she vanished into the crowd without a sound.
Well, well credit the woman with being a genius in domestic matters, he growled. But surely you havent been taken in by her act, Pamela? Shes an imposter!
Thats as may be, said the lady with a flick of her fan. But your imposter has just forgiven Virilios debt to Buridan. It seems that with interest it would now be worth enough to outfit a small fleet of merchant ships! And shes just erased it! Here, look! Theres August Virilio himself, drinking himself into happy idiocy under that stallion statue.
Sarto stared. The limestone stallion appeared to be sneering over Virilios shoulder at the small crowd of hangers-on he was holding forth to. He was conspicuously unmasked, like most of the other Council representatives. The place was crowded with masked faces, thoughsome immediately identifiable, others unfamiliar even to his experienced eye. Who are all these people? he wondered aloud.
Debtors, apparently, said Lady Pamela with some relish. And creditors everyone whos taken care of Buridans affairs, or profited by their absence, over the past two hundred years. They all look happy, dont you think, Jacoby?
Ennersin cleared his throat and leaned in to say, Thrace-Guiles has clearly been doing her homework.
Despite himself, Sarto
was impressed. This woman had confounded his expectations. Was it possible that she might continue to do so? The thought was unexpectedand nothing unexpected had happened in Jacoby Sartos life in a very long time.
He resisted where this line of thought led; after all, he had his instructions. Sarto dashed his champagne glass on the floor. Heads turned. Let her enjoy her little party, he said in his darkest voice. Amandera Thrace-Guiles, or whatever her real name is, has about one hour of freedom left.
And no more than a day to live.
The one spot of white in her apparel was the fan she held before her like a shield. Nobody but Garth would know that its near side was covered with names and family trees, drawn in tiny spiked letters. She hadnt had time to read the complicated genealogies and financial records of Buridan and its dependents; this fan was her lifeline.
As she recovered from her migraine in the last day or so, the reconstruction work had caught up and the servants learned where everything was. To her relief Garth had orchestrated the ball without supervision, making sometimes brilliant decisionstwenty years of pent-up social appetite, she supposed. The estates pantries had been cleared of rats and spiders and restocked; the ancient plumbing system had been largely replaced (not without messy accidents) and the gas lines to the stoves reconnected.
In a way, she was grateful for having been laid low these past few days. This afternoon shed had a brief moment with nothing to do, and into her mind had drifted memories of Chaison. Standing in her chambers, her hand half lifted to her hair, she was suddenly miserable. Pain and anxiety had masked her grief until now.