LITMIR.BIZ

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have genuinely not noticed Nicholas’s sarcasm.

      ‘Who can you introduce me to?’ Nicholas asked, the thought crossing his mind that his only acquaintance at this party might be incapacitated before long, just as Tagalong had intended him to think.

      Tagalong looked about, humming as if making a selection, but shaking his head as he said, ‘Deadly bores, come on, we can do better than this lot.’ He led Nicholas off, and before long Tagalong spotted someone that he did know. He introduced Nicholas to Mr Boris Galan before having to discreetly leave to answer a call of nature; in this way he disappeared from Nicholas’s side, with every intention of avoiding Nicholas for the remainder of the evening. As he walked around he fought the temptation to engage in petty theft. He could have loaded up his pockets easily with valuable items that would equally easily net him several thousand strada, but he knew that Jolly would disapprove so he kept his light-fingered hands in his pockets.

      ‘Nice party,’ Nicholas said.

      ‘Yes,’ Mr Galan said coldly. A friend of Tagalong’s was not a friend of Boris’s, so Mr Galan had accepted the introduction with a cold politeness born of being a gentleman.

      ‘Everyone’s having fun,’ Nicholas added.

      ‘Yes,’ Mr Galan said coldly, looking around as if about to leave.

      ‘It’s always a happy occasion when two people decide to get married, wouldn’t you say?’

      ‘Yes, will you excuse me?’ Mr Galan left swiftly without looking back.

      Nicholas walked around on his own, enjoying all the sights and sounds and merriment. He decided he had drunk more than enough that day so he drank nothing but fruit juice. He also made sure to eat plenty of the food in abundant supply on so many tables all over the palace. His sobriety was returning as the food soaked up the remaining alcohol in his system. It was an interesting experience being alone and knowing nobody on such a grand occasion. The palace was enormous and full of people. No-one paid him any attention at all. He might as well have been invisible.

      He came across Mr Galan again talking to two men and went up to them, deciding to pretend not to notice that Mr Galan was cold-shouldering him. He greeted Mr Galan by name and looked at Mr Galan’s companions immediately afterwards. Mr Galan hesitated, but then decided not to take the hint. Seeing this, Nicholas asked, ‘Would you be so kind as to introduce me to your friends, Mr Galan?’

      Mr Galan looked for a moment as if he was about to refuse but one of the men, seeing this, headed him off by saying, ‘Yes, Boris, would you be so kind as to introduce us?’

      Mr Galan reluctantly introduced Nicholas to Mr Haldor Zarek and Mr Alain Eddison. This time Nicholas’s attempts to make conversation were received by something like a response, and so Nicholas chatted cheerfully to Mr Zarek while Mr Galan and Mr Eddison silently slipped away. There were merrymakers around them still, coming and going, and while talking to Mr Zarek and looking across upon hearing a blast of laughter to one side, Nicholas saw Isabel for the first time. She was dressed in a strapless scarlet gown streaked with lapis lazuli blue, her hair piled high on her head and held together by a variety of glittering gemstone fastenings. Her large breasts jutted forward, their cleavage encased in a scarlet lacery finery. Her face was round and full like the moon, her eyes large and brown, her eyebrows arched, her lips red and lustrous, and her skin pale as snow. Nicholas felt his stomach dissolve away into nothingness as he gazed upon her. Vaguely he was aware that he was making a spectacle of himself. Vaguely he was aware of someone to one side speaking to the girl; she looked over at him, looked back at her friend; they whispered together; the girl looked at him again, raised her fan to her face so only her eyes showed. He guessed she was giggling. Then with a sudden movement she had turned and was off like a startled deer racing through the forest, her friend chasing after her, both looking back at Nicholas and visibly laughing.

      Nicholas looked about to see if anyone had noticed that he had just made a fool of himself, only to find Mr Zarek looking at him with an air of amusement.

      ‘Who was that girl?’ he asked. ‘The one in the red and blue gown?’

      Mr Zarek looked at him with what might have been the kind of sympathy that follows amusement. ‘That was Lady Isabel Grangeshield.’

      ‘Lady Isabel Grangeshield,’ Nicholas repeated.

      Mr Zarek then looked at him with what might have been the kind of sympathy which precedes compassion. ‘Not only is she the most beautiful woman in New Landern, but she is also in possession of a fortune of fifteen million strada.’

      ‘She must be popular,’ Nicholas commented.

      ‘Indeed,’ Mr Zarek replied.

      ‘Can you introduce me to her?’ Nicholas asked.

      ‘Unfortunately I do not have the honour of the lady’s acquaintance.’

      ‘Then what good are you then?’ Nicholas asked pleasantly.

      ‘It is without doubt a lamentable failing on my part, a failing which I can only bear as a burden in silence. I can only beg your pardon for that which I lack.’ There was a malicious undertone to Mr Zarek’s feigned apology as if he well understood that he was describing Nicholas’s condition, not his own.

      Nicholas turned away. ‘Does this party have any other sight to compare with the vision of loveliness which I have just seen?’

      ‘I find that the bottom of a recently emptied glass can be a vessel of visions, but whether lovely or not can never be foretold, even by the brewers of such concoctions as may only then have been imbibed.’

      ‘You think I should get drunk because I can never have Lady Isabel Grangeshield on my arm?’ Nicholas asked.

      ‘I cannot say for sure, but I suspect it might not be the first time that such a development has occurred in the grand metropolis of New Landern. The causes of drunkenness in New Landern may be varied in nature, but a sufficiently insightful contemplative gaze might well identify the unattainable loveliness of Lady Isabel Grangeshield as one cause among those many varied causes of the drunkenness which the citizens of New Landern indulged in daily. More I cannot say. Not even the citizens of New Landern know everything that goes on here.’

      ‘I prefer to face misfortune sober,’ Nicholas said in reply. He turned and walked away from Mr Zarek without another word, feeling only that he had to be in motion and that walking would do him good.

      The emptiness in his stomach had changed to an ache of loss. What he did not have had been taken away from him and he could feel the weight of this loss in the pit of his stomach, but he walked away from the place of his defeat thinking only of how to try to keep his face looking normal, as if in that way he might preserve what he still possessed.

      8:30 PM, Thursday 5 May 1544 A.F

      Isabel was standing looking over at Uliana and Berg, wondering whether to go and join them. As she was standing there, Mary Philips came up to her and whispered into her ear, ‘Izzy, look! Look! Look over there.’

      Isabel looked in the direction Mary had indicated and immediately saw what her attention was being drawn to — a shabbily dressed man standing by the side of the room. He was a young man, her own age or so, staring right at her. He wasn’t moving a muscle, and looked directly at her, obviously not giving a thought to the way he was behaving.

      ‘You have an admirer, Izzy!’ Mary whispered into her ear. ‘Handsome and rich!’

      The girls giggled as one. This young man was not at all handsome; in fact, he was very ordinary looking. And judging from the state of his clothes, he had only come to this party as the poor relation of one of the guests. Mary was being very witty, Isabel thought.

      The girls looked again at the stranger. He was still standing there, his gaze fixed on Isabel as if he was entirely unaware of anything else but Isabel.

      ‘Izzy, run for it!’ Mary cried out and the girls ran for it, laughing merrily as they fled. Isabel looked behind her as she ran and saw that the stranger was still

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