THE NEWSPAPERS, WHICH HAD so decried the cluttering of Bar-Selehm’s harbor with homeless and unskilled immigrants, were now reporting that the Grappoli advance had temporarily slowed, though no one had any good explanation as to why. Conditions in the northern part of the continent were, they said “difficult,” an understatement offered to explain why their stories contained little more than rumor and conjecture. More interesting to me was a discreet announcement in the society pages. It revealed the arrival of one Lady Ki Misrai, a princess from Istilia, who was touring the region before returning home to a marriage arranged between her family and that of an Antrioan landowner of excellent pedigree and considerable wealth. The visit was, said the paper, strictly recreational. The invitation to attend Elitus had arrived at the post office box Willinghouse had quietly established for that purpose almost immediately.
“You will be staying at the Royal Palace Hotel,” said Madame Nahreem.
I should have expected as much, but the name of the place clearly registered in my face.
“You must not show yourself intimated or impressed by anything,” said Madame Nahreem. “Take everything in stride. Remember the mask.”
She did not wish me good luck.
I rode in Willinghouse’s carriage back to the city accompanied by Namud, who was to be my escort for the evening. A lady would never attend a venue such as Elitus unaccompanied. But Namud was no mere chaperone. He was also my bodyguard, and while he would have to turn in the ostentatious pistol he wore at his side to the doorman when we arrived, he had, he assured me, other weapons concealed about his person that he intended to keep.
I liked Namud. He was perhaps thirty, quiet, and, I felt, gentle, in spite of his physical strength. He said very little, but there was a wry amusement that sometimes surfaced in his face, like a dolphin breaching unexpectedly. The dolphin dived quickly, as if showing itself would violate Namud’s private sense of decorum, and when it did, the waters of formality would close so completely over the top that it became hard to believe you had actually glimpsed that glistening playfulness only moments before.
We left the carriage on the corner of Deerfeld Avenue, waiting in the cool shade of a chapel with my luggage, till we were collected by a cab and driven to the Royal Palace. It was important that no one there connect us to Willinghouse. I asked Namud if there was any chance of his being recognized.
“I rarely venture into the city, my lady,” he said, quite poised. “But even if I did, I am told that one Lani servant looks much like another.”
With the faintest flicker of a smile, the dolphin vanished once more.
I wore a demure veil over a long black dress and elbow-length gloves, which was supposed to be suitable Istilian travel wear for a lady, but was uncomfortably hot and restrictive. I did not speak to the check-in clerk, allowing Namud to confirm my reservation and orchestrate the army of uniformed bellhops who would ferry my luggage to my room, while I stood in a little globe of silence like an ominous statue under dust sheeting.
The Royal Palace had been fitted with a steam-driven elevator that took the form of a small, square sitting room, beautifully furnished and upholstered with plush red fabric and gold cord. I took my place on a padded bench, turned slightly sideways, legs together and hands clasped at my waist, glad that the veil concealed my panic as the attendant closed the gated door and adjusted the ropes that controlled the engine below. There was a distant hiss, a whir, and a clank, and the room rose smoothly and steadily up. I kept my hands locked tightly together and held my breath till we reached the fifth floor and slowed.
I inclined my head to the attendant, all the thanks a lady in my position was expected to bestow, and followed the solicitous bellhop to what would be my room for the night. In fact, it wasn’t so much a room as a suite: a luxurious bedchamber, a separate bathroom with running water, an opulent sitting room and a private bar, which would be staffed at my request. Namud had an adjoining room. It was all extraordinary.
I had only an hour to enjoy it, however, before I had to change, and this I could not do alone, since I would be going out in one of the complex Istilian saris which I had seen only in their simple, impoverished, and it had to be said, more convenient forms in the Drowning. After forty minutes reveling in my solitude, there was a knock at the door and Namud showed Dahria in.
“My, my,” she exclaimed. “We have moved up in the world! And not by climbing like a bush baby with its tail on fire.”
“Did it have to be you?” I asked, secretly pleased to see her.
“Josiah wants to keep this within the family. So I get to be your maid for a while. Imagine my delight.”
“I wish you were coming with me tonight,” I confessed.
She looked momentarily surprised, then shook her head.
“You’ll do better without me,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because I know who you really are and that would make you self-conscious, like you’re pretending. Success depends on you believing your own lie. Better that there’s no one there to remind you of the truth.”
It could have been a half joke at my expense, but it wasn’t. She was sincere, thoughtful even, and when I held her gaze, she looked away, as if the remark had meant something more than the words alone suggested.
More masks, I thought, more playing until it becomes true, and your new self outgrows your old.
“Notes from my dear brother,” she said, producing a fold of paper. “There’s little on the club’s layout—because he doesn’t know much, though that has never prevented him from writing a detailed report. It’s a government thing.”
I glanced at it. There was a carefully lined diagram containing almost no detail, but conveying one salient point.
“The office with the membership list is on the top floor?” I said.
“And probably not accessible from inside the building,” said Dahria. “You may have to climb in through a courtyard window. Well within your steeplejack abilities, I’m sure.”
“So when he said I was the only one he could send because I was the one he trusted…” I began.
“That was a lie, yes,” said Dahria. “Sorry. He does that.”
“I see,” I said simply, and left it at that.
Elitus was a members-only club. It was also all white and all male. Unless you were employed in its service sector or brought in for entertainment value, there would be no way for a woman to cross its threshold, particularly if you were black or Lani. I expressed my furious bafflement to Dahria, but she just shrugged.
“You’re not a society lady,” she said, “so you don’t understand, but I actually see the appeal.”
I stared at her.
“Of what?”
“A club where I could be with people like me,” she said. “Women’s clubs are not as common as men’s, not as politically powerful, but if you’d grown up among only your own kind, been sent to an all girl’s school, and been shuffled into the women-only drawing room whenever the meal was over, you might see that a lot of women don’t actually want to have to deal with men who, for the most part, they neither understand nor like. Even their romantic entanglements are largely scripted and occasional affairs. I seriously doubt that any husband and wife are as close as are two old acquaintances of the same sex who do not have to hide their thoughts for fear of violating what might be considered genteel. My dear steeplejack, this may come as a surprise to one raised as scandalously as you, but Bar-Selehm is full of married men and women who want nothing more than to retreat into the company of those with whom they grew up.”
“White people,” I said, shaking my head in bewilderment.
“I wish you wouldn’t take that disagreeable tone,” she said. “It is extremely tiresome. And stop fiddling with your veil.”
“It’s in the way. I can’t see properly.”
“Leave it. An Istilian lady rarely removes her veil in mixed company.”
I scowled. However much Dahria wanted to characterize the clubbable world of the city as a kind of hankering after childhood simplicities uncomplicated by the opposite sex, there was no denying that many of the agreements, deals, policy changes, and alliances that were at the heart of the city’s economic and political life were cobbled together in the private rooms of those exclusive clubs. Elitus was a prime example, and its exclusivity had a tang of secrecy about it. While certain aristocrats, high-ranking politicians, diplomats, financiers, and industrialists were known, or assumed, to be members, there was no precise list of who was allowed in and who wasn’t, nor—and this was more troubling—was there a clear sense of what went on within the club itself. I had prepared to behave as an Istilian lady, but what exactly I was going into, I had no idea.
Half an hour later Namud, a square suitcase in one hand, presented my card at the ornate but discreet door on Rethmina Avenue, turned in his pistol with his coat, and led me into I knew not what.
The entrance was deceptively ordinary—a flight of stone steps up to a black lacquered door indistinguishable from half a dozen others on the same block. The building was four stories aboveground and a basement, so that it looked to all the world like a well-appointed town house with ground floor rooms for entertaining and servants’ quarters below. It was not until I had made my way along an elegant hall that I realized the walls dividing this house from those on either side had been knocked through. Elitus wasn’t on the block between numbers 22 and 34. It was the block.
I could hear music and voices coming from the end of the hallway.
“Lady Misrai, if you would do me the honor of stepping this way?”
The voice came from a silver-haired white man in a tailcoat with gold braid on the oversized cuffs and a perfectly knotted white cravat at his throat. The shirt he wore beneath showed a pair of familiar cuff links: a blue diamond on a silver field. He stood ramrod straight, one hand extended thumb side up like a statue.
“I am Wellsley, Elitus’s doorman,” he said. “Your man will follow me.” It was a statement of fact, and he followed it with another. “All the rooms on this floor—including the Imperial Library, the Satin Lounge, and the King Gustav suite—are at your disposal. A retiring room has been assigned to you on the second floor, though all other chambers on the upper floors are by prior booking and invitation only. You will be notified if such an invitation is forthcoming. Through this door to the Great Hall, if you would be so kind.”
Namud gave me an encouraging look and, so quietly I barely heard it, breathed, “Be calm. Keep your veil on.”
I approached the end of the carpeted hallway where a pair of white footmen stood on either side of a set of double doors. Without a word or gesture, they opened them in perfect unison, revealing a wood-paneled chamber with a high ceiling in which the air—gray with cigar smoke—moved slowly like fog. It felt more like a lobby than a hall, and I was a little let down by its lack of opulence. The central area was open, but around it was a disorder of armchairs and end tables, couches and newspaper racks, potted palms and drinks carts, around which a dozen or more men had gathered like elderly flies.
Wellsley stepped through and presented my calling card to a liveried servant in a uniform that evoked a military parade ground, crimson with brass buttons and a white silk sash. He wore a saber at his side. He was white, but then they all were, some reading, some playing backgammon, some considering their drinks as they listened to a young man playing a stately piece on the pianoforte.
“Lady Ki Misrai!” boomed the liveried swordsman in a voice so loud and commanding that I started, realizing too late that every face in the room had turned to look at me.
The music continued, but only for a moment. Nothing else did. And eventually, thrown by the sudden silence, even the musician broke off. Everyone stared.
For a second, I felt not merely an imposter, but an attacker, an insurgent deep behind enemy lines, in the very heart of their command headquarters. The room was not grand, but it was old and tasteful, layered with tradition. But then I knew what that tradition meant and what it had cost. The chairs these worthy gentlemen sat on may have been lacquered by Lani craftsmen, the gleaming tiled floor on which they stood had been swept, scrubbed, and mopped by Lani servants for two hundred years, the very stone of which the building had been raised had been quarried by forgotten Lani laborers who ended their lives poor and cast off as their bodies gave in to the ravages of age and they found they had nothing else to show for decades of work. Not just the Lani, of course—the Mahweni too, and the poorest whites, but for a second, I could see only the remains of my own people scattered like dust among the brass and stone of the Great Hall. It was like feeling the ache of a forgotten wound.
And just as quickly as it had come, I buried it. I drew myself up to my full height, met their appraising blue eyes, and held them as if I was wearing Madame Nahreem’s neutral mask, shedding my past, my identity like so much snake skin. I was dressed in a sari of amber silk, worn in the Istilian style—eight yards of lustrous fabric wrapped around my waist and wound up over one shoulder, baring my slim, brown midriff. It was paired with a close-fitting blouse called a choli and a lace shawl, which doubled as the veil I wore over my face. The silk glowed and shimmered like fire reflected on gold. In the center of my forehead, I wore the red bindi mark around which were positioned four minute grains of old, yellow luxorite held in place with spirit gum, and just bright enough to give a warm and gentle radiance.
There was a ripple through the gathering of drab, formally dressed white men as they looked up from their newspapers and got to their feet. At least one of them gasped. I left Namud and strode purposefully into the room, the sari trailing behind me, the shawl billowing slightly like wings, and as I did so, I smiled about me through the veil, each glance a little scattering of gold in a crowd of peasants and for a moment, a tiny, shining moment, I was a princess and the Great Hall had been built with the sweat of their backs for me and my kind.
They came to me, stopping what they were doing and gathering about me like hummingbirds to nectar, bowing and smiling and murmuring how charmed they were to make my acquaintance. I smiled and inclined my head a fraction and smiled some more, and in my heart I fought a war between blind panic and wild, savage triumph as they introduced themselves, proffering their cards, which Namud took and stored in a silver case.
I recognized some of their names, and I suspected that Dahria would have known them all, at least by repute, so I tried to remember who was who as best I could, filing their titles away while continuing to glide like a swan on water, its unseen feet paddling furiously below.
Nathan Horritch.
Something or other Ratsbane? Rathbone?
Lord Elwin.
Thomas Markeson.
Eustace Montresat.
A Mr. Vandersay …
Someone who might have been called Byron. Or was it Brian?
It was impossible.
I was offered drinks and selected a cordial in a tiny crystal glass shaped like a rose hip. It was rich and thick as syrup and I did little more than moisten my lips with it beneath my veil before setting it down, seeking with each movement to mirror that languid grace Madame Nahreem had modeled for me. As I did so, I considered my solicitous companions, all at least twice my age and pale as paper. None of them resembled the man with the pick and the bland smile, though they all wore his blue diamond cuff links. The thought of that gave me pause. The old men who seemed so delighted by me were, I had to remember, potentially very dangerous.
“Lady Misrai,” said one who had introduced himself as Nathan Horritch, twinkling over the rim of his glass, “do tell us all you have planned for your visit to our fair city.”
Another—Rathbone? Ratsbane?—pulled out a chair, and I settled carefully into it, thereby giving them permission to sit too.
“Well,” I began, speaking quietly but with clarity and decision, head very slightly cocked, planning the upward lilt of the statement even as I made it, “I have heard wonderful things about your great buildings, structures whose like we do not have in Istilia. A great bridge suspended by chains?” I said to Horritch. He was perhaps sixty, silver haired but robust, and his eyes were a deep blue and alive with thought and a watchfulness that felt different from the others, as if he were considering me from a great distance through some kind of lens.
“The jewel of Bar-Selehm,” said one Thomas Markeson, a florid-faced man who was beaming with pride as if he had built it himself. “A rare spectacle indeed.”
“And the Beacon?” I added. “I believe I saw its light from the carriage.”
“You may well have done,” said another, smaller than the others, a wheedling, ferretlike man called Montresat, who clasped his hands before his chest like a squirrel with a nut. “The Trade Exchange is indeed a marvel, and as for the Beacon itself, I suspect it is alone worth crossing oceans for!”
“Perhaps we should arrange a tour for you,” wheezed Markeson, leaning back as if to see over his gargantuan stomach. “I am sure we could find you suitable escorts who would ensure you saw only the best of the city.”
“That is most kind,” I said, feeling thoroughly overwhelmed, “though I’m keen to see the entirety of so wondrous a settlement. Bar-Selehm is renowned throughout the world for its industry, and I find myself driven to see the machinery that makes it work.”
“You may find,” chuckled the scarlet-faced Markeson, “that such places are full of noise and filth, and populated by entirely the wrong sort of people. I think we can find a lady such as yourself more suitable pastimes.”
“Perhaps,” I replied, “but I find that to truly understand a place, to know its heart, you need to see what feeds it, what makes it move, wouldn’t you say?”
“Absolutely,” said Vandersay, as if speaking on behalf of the group, though they seemed unsettled by the idea.
“I think I can survive a little noise,” I added, still smiling beatifically. “As to the people, one never knows quite who the wrong sort are till one meets them, don’t you think?”
Another chorus of hurried agreement.
“Gentlemen,” said Markeson, his voice booming, “I think we know when we have met at least one of the right kind of people.” He bowed his head slightly to me and raised his glass. “My dear and most exquisite lady, welcome to our club and to our city.” As he took a drink, the others burbled their agreement and followed suit.
“Well,” said Lord Elwin, a man with an almost comically aristocratic air and a drawling voice that made every word sound like it was coming out midyawn, “we must not keep you to ourselves, much as we would like to. I am sure the ladies are waiting breathlessly to hear all about Istilian fashion and courtly gossip.”
I blinked.
“Ladies?” I said.
“The ladies of Merita,” said Lord Elwin. “Our sister institution. They are expecting you in the east wing. Activities here that take place in mixed company are rare and all too brief. You will spend most of the evening with our esteemed female companions. If that accords with your wishes, of course.”
“Certainly,” I said, covering my surprise and frustration. It had not occurred to me—or indeed to Dahria or Willinghouse—that the club had a woman’s wing, however nominally separate. The prospect of sitting around on uncomfortable chairs making small talk with a gaggle of Bar-Selehm’s elite flower arrangers and tea drinkers while we waited for whatever absurd ritual of social niceties would permit us to interact with the men in the building was maddening.
Unsure just how much of my face they could see through the veil, I forced a smile—the strain on my cheeks was becoming painful—and turned to where Namud was waiting to escort me out of the room I had only just entered. I found the man with the intense blue eyes—Nathan Horritch—watching me shrewdly, and as my gaze met his, his lip twisted into a knowing smile. Despite his years, he had something of the focused energy I saw in Willinghouse.
“I fear,” he said, “that we have caught Lady Misrai out.”
I hesitated, feeling my pulse quicken and my color rise.
“How so, sir?” I managed.
“This is not, I think, why you came,” said Horritch, his eyes narrow. “Confess yourself, my lady. We shall not judge you too harshly.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” I said, lowering my hands so that their fractional quaver would not attract attention.
“I think,” said Horritch, “that you did not come to talk to other ladies. Indeed,” he said, raising his forefinger, “I do not believe you knew there were ladies here. I would go so far to say, that you dread the company of such light and silly creatures as you have no doubt encountered on your travels. I can only assure you that the ladies of Merita are most accomplished and that”—and here his stern countenance gave away the punch line he had been holding off—“we will do our utmost to rescue you as soon as decorum permits.”
His remark was greeted with laughter and agreement while I nodded and smiled again, though in my case it was relief that I felt rather than mirth, and I was glad to follow Namud to the door.
“Directly along the hall toward the street door,” said the uniformed swordsman who had announced me, “then keep walking directly across. An attendant will greet you at the far end.” He handed a key on a brass fob numbered 236 to Namud. “The lady’s retiring room.”
I stayed in character with each measured step I took down the hall, but my heart was racing, and I was unnerved by how quickly we had been forced off script. How could there be a women’s club here that Dahria had never heard of? It changed everything and meant, I suspected, that I’d be under even more scrutiny than I had anticipated while learning even less. I gritted my teeth, infuriated by how—in spite of all my finery—I felt powerless to do anything useful.
I glanced at Namud, and he flicked his eyebrows, a minuscule but expressive gesture of exasperation. We passed the entrance to the street door where Wellsley, the silver-haired doorman, was overseeing a young Mahweni as he swept the stoop with a broom of twigs and straw. Wellsley nodded respectfully, gesturing in the direction we were walking.
“The ladies’ hall is directly at the end of this gallery,” he said.
And once in, I thought, I am stuck till summoned.
“Perhaps there are other parts of the club I could explore first,” I said to Namud, hopefully.
“I’m afraid you are expected,” said the manservant.
“Fine,” I muttered, recovering my aristocratic poise as I walked on down the hall. “I’m sure this will be gripping entertainment.”
“I suggest,” whispered Namud at my elbow, “that you leave your sarcasm at the door. You are beginning to sound like Mistress Dahria.”
I couldn’t help but grin at that.
But then, back along the hall behind me, came the sound of men laughing and talking. I turned, gazing past Namud toward the entrance. Three men in evening wear were exchanging pleasantries with the doorman as they stepped inside, removing their top hats.
Him.
I took four hurried steps along the corridor, remembering at the last moment to force myself into some more stately gait, glad of the shawl that still veiled my face.
I did not need to see his mismatched cuff links. I knew his eyes, his bland smile. I knew the man who had tried to kill me on the crane over the river.