‘Oh, hush to you,’ Alice told her. ‘“Love cares not for privilege”,’ she quoted from somewhere.
‘You cannot have love at first sight, sister, until the gentleman has actually looked upon you,’ Emily chided her, but Alice, she felt, would make a fool of herself no matter what, and so why say more? She watched as the elder wizard accepted the greetings of Lord Deerling and his lady. The younger men’s eyes flicked around the room, from face to face, and Emily felt that they were mostly as overawed by the prestigious gathering as she was.
‘Oh, Emily, look!’ Alice cried again, but at the very room this time. The door through which the wizards had entered was now closed, but the wall it was set into was moving, opening outwards to reveal a mirror-image room beyond: a doubling of the ballroom; another swathe of gilt and paint and silvered glass that the guests dispersed into. Dominating the far end of this extended room was a magnificent staircase, carpeted in deep red with the fighting stags of Deerling heraldry embroidered on each step. Either side of these stairs was arrayed the orchestra.
At first, Emily did not see what caused the ripple of surprise amongst the guests, but as people drifted further into the larger space, and she and Alice were also drawn in, she realized that every musician was a woman. Some were girls younger than Alice, and some were spinsters with grey hair and lined faces, but each and every one was female. Even concert musicians had taken the Red in the King’s service.
The King—! And even as she thought it, the orchestra struck up the first passionate strains of Lascanne’s national anthem.
He appeared at the top of the stairs, casting his gaze down onto his lords and ladies, gentry and officers, with a slight and subtle smile. His Majesty, by the grace of God, King Luthrian of Lascanne, fourth of that name. A ripple went through the crowd below him, as men bowed low and women curtsied, all the way back as far as Alice and Emily, who bobbed with the rest. When they looked up again, he was halfway down the stairs.
Emily caught her breath because he was all she had heard he was, and every inch the most beautiful man she had ever seen. His hair fell to his shoulders in deep brown curls, and his heart-shaped face was free of blemish, regular as a statue’s but filled with benign and noble character. A half-smile never left his lips, as though he saw the joke in everything around him, but was far too polite to laugh. His beard was a sharply trimmed diamond shape, his moustaches elegant as stiletto blades. His eyes flashed, all human experience mirrored there. Here was a king who laughed and cried along with his people, who knew their ills and their woes, their great joys and their little pleasures.
His cloak of turquoise velvet was swept back from his shoulders like the wings of the heron that graced his coat of arms, and at his throat, above his shirt of spun silver and his waistcoat of cloth of gold, was a crescent gorget of precious metals inlaid with gems, which he was known to prefer to the weight of Lascanne’s crown.
‘Rise. All rise, please.’ His voice, clear as a bell, rang out across the great space of the ballroom. ‘My lords, my ladies, my guests and friends. I cannot express the joy it brings to me to be here visiting Deerlings once more. Not an hour have I ever spent here, but it has been a happy one, and none happier than this. Let no man say that, come strife or rack, we cannot hold to the pleasures and the heights of joy that we have known.’
‘Long live His Majesty! Long live the King!’ cried out the elder wizard, and the crowd echoed his words.
‘Isn’t he magnificent!’ Alice squeaked. ‘And scarcely five and twenty, your very own age, sister.’
‘I fear you match me above my station,’ Emily told her drily.
‘I could speak on at length, dear friends,’ the King continued. ‘If I were master here instead of a mere monarch, I would dote on each and every one of you, and give my thanks that you have come here at my invitation. It is Deerlings House that is the true ruler here, however, and the hands that built it intended this chamber for dancing. Who am I to gainsay their wisdom?’