both. This patient young man is going to show us the peacocks.”
“You’re going to see the menagerie?” Josette asked, suddenly beside us. “You know, I think that’s just the thing I need this evening. Is it very far?”
Caius tapped the side of his jaw with one finger. The nail was a perfect oval, manicured like that of a woman at the Fans. “It isn’t too far a walk, from what I recall. Certainly the sort of brisk evening stroll to put color on a lady’s cheeks.”
“You should enjoy it too, then,” Josette said wryly.
I’d never minded Josette, at least. If I was lucky—which I wasn’t, but I still liked to hope—then he’d talk to her all night and leave me right out of it.
“You will pardon my intrusion,” a Ke-Han-accented voice said from just behind me, “but if you are going to the menagerie, then it is only fitting you should be taken there by a guide, and not a servant.”
I turned, not liking the way he spoke—he was too confident at it, for one thing, and a confident man of the Ke-Han set off all kinds of alarms, no matter how much I’d supposedly trained myself out of those old soldier’s reactions.
It was the lord who’d sat to the left of the Emperor. He’d been introduced the night before, and when I tried to remember, the name came back to me as one of the most important in the quick tutorial the ’Versity students had given all the diplomats who didn’t know their asses from their elbows: Lord Temur.
Caius, of course, was ecstatic.
“Would you offer your services to us, my lord?” he asked, like a blushing maiden entertaining her suitor. “I’ve been so looking forward to seeing the peacocks!”
He was laying it on a little bit thick, I thought, but Lord Temur proffered a faint, unreadable smile. A civility, as far as I could tell, but at least he was trying. His hair boasted more braids than the young prince’s had, but fewer than his formidable bodyguard’s. I was starting to judge men by the quality of their hair—a peculiarity I didn’t altogether enjoy noting in myself, but it was useful there. Lord Temur looked fierce, but fewer braids meant that he was more of a diplomat than he was a soldier. Or maybe he had men to do all his soldiering for him. I didn’t know, and I didn’t plan on making polite conversation with the man until I could find out.
“That’s very kind of you to offer,” Josette added, ever the diplomat. I thought that the lord hadn’t so much offered himself as given a shrewd counsel, but that was the danger in coming too close to the swirling tornado of conversation that was Caius Greylace. Even an important Ke-Han warlord wasn’t immune to getting swept up, turned all about, and spat back out again whenever the storm grew tired of its latest plaything.
But Lord Temur didn’t seem too concerned about that though he couldn’t have realized the danger yet. Instead of running for the hills, he extended to Josette the same thin smile he’d given Caius and offered his arm. There was just enough time for Josette to look surprised then flattered before Caius launched himself into the gap between them like a small, very well-groomed dog doing a trick with a hoop.
“You are too kind,” he murmured, beaming that grin that made him look more like a jack-o’-lantern than a person. He laid his hand delicately on Lord Temur’s arm like he was used to getting that sort of treatment. “Oh! What a lovely fabric.”
I didn’t think that Lord Temur was the sort of man who concerned himself with what fabric his robes were made out of though there was no way of telling that from the expression on his face. Disregarding that smile, I hadn’t ever seen his face lose its calm, blank stare. Not even during the talks.
“The menagerie is this way,” he said, and bowed, before turning around and starting off. Caius looked pleased as punch.
“Now, you mustn’t think me rude, but are you quite certain that all the lions are safely within their cages?” he asked.
Like Caius Greylace didn’t know already he was perfectly capable of handling a lion or two. If I could trust the stories—and I was more and more sure than ever that I could—then he’d already handled his fair share of them.
Lord Temur said something in a low undertone that I didn’t quite catch, but I gathered