it, and pointedly ignored his dirty looks. “They are—somewhat over the top in the same way. Do you understand that?”
Lord Temur regarded us for a long moment. At length, he replied, “Completely.”
Alcibiades favored Josette with a look that suggested he thought her the worst of traitors, and gazed sadly at what wine was left in his cup.
I patted his hand, and used that extremely opportune moment to turn our conversation around.
“Speaking of characters, my dears, can anyone give me any more detail on this play that’s slated for our entertainment tonight?”
Josette shook her head, and Lord Temur leaned forward, his voice pitched low and careful, though whether this was because it was taboo to speak about plays before they occurred, or whether he merely did not wish to spoil the surprise for the other men and women around us, I couldn’t guess.
“It is one of the old classics,” he said, “about the princess who lives in the moon.”
“She must get very lonely,” Alcibiades whispered loudly. His eyes were wide with inebriated sincerity.
Josette clucked her tongue in disapproval. “It’s only a story, Alcibiades.”
“No, in this case the general is correct,” Lord Temur said, correcting her gently. “It is rather a sad tale, about one who has a home but can never return to it without feeling a great loss for the man she has fallen in love with.”
“Ah,” said Josette, sobering up considerably, despite her foray into the bottle of wine she’d appropriated from Alcibiades.
Lord Temur nodded. “In some sense, it is a story about homes and the loss of them. I do wonder at the choice of program; would not a comedy have been best? But likely it has no real meaning behind it. The play is one of our most popular. If at any time you are interested in learning more of our history, you will find it mentioned in all the classics.”
There was a faint shadow of an expression on Lord Temur’s face—one that I was beginning to associate with something very close to anxiety. I wondered if it were the poor second prince he was thinking of, who had certainly lost his home, though not for any love. If that was what the Emperor meant by showing us the play, then it was deviously cruel of him.
Somehow, this did not surprise me. Perhaps it was because I’d seen him fight that I felt with such certainty all the things I’d only been able to speculate upon before. I had no understanding of the way a prince of the Ke-Han was raised, of course, but when I thought of how that sweet little creature had smiled at Josette’s joke without understanding the half of it, and the careful way he’d shaped his words to sound like ours, I thought perhaps that it wasn’t the way they’d been raised at all. Some things were simply born in the blood.
“So wait,” Alcibiades said, with more interest than I’d heard him exhibit all night. “This princess. She lives on the moon?”
“That sounds lovely,” I said hurriedly. “We’ve been so looking forward to seeing a theatre performance. Why, we were nearly to the point of hiring out a carriage and going back to the theatre ourselves, weren’t we, my dear?”
“Yeah,” Alcibiades said, rather startling me with his agreement. If that was the effect clear wine was going to have on him, I would have to have a bottle sent to his room every evening; then we could take evening constitutionals, or gossip about the day’s events together. It would do wonders for our friendship. “Well, it’ll be a nice change from all the singing, no mistake about that. Caius, what in bastion’s name are you kicking me for?”
I smiled, hastily and winningly. “It was an accident, my dear.”
“The food’s coming out,” Josette said, sounding as grateful as I felt. We couldn’t have planned its timing to be more felicitous.
While I was rather enjoying this new side of Alcibiades, it was probably for the best that he find something to occupy his mouth with rather than talking. It was one thing to create a sensation just by the clothes one was wearing and quite another to be impolitic. I wasn’t entirely certain that Alcibiades was on his guard enough at the moment to catch his little slips.
I would have to catch them for him, I resolved. Even if it did mean resigning myself to kicking him under the table all night long. That was what friends were for.