Fontana’s Hall of St. Sorrel was the finest building Seth had been in (on purpose, anyway, or with permission). The crowd was the finest, too, all plucked and scrubbed and dyed. The classic finery of the Plainlands—men in dark suits with pops of color at their paunches and throats, ladies like birds of paradise.
Lisa moved as though she belonged, and it was a credit to her glamorous bearing that she was treated like it, too, despite being a head taller than any other woman in the hall. Seth tried to mirror her ease.
A half-dozen chickens fluttered and trilled past them as they moved through the verdantly painted vestibule, locked in a rolling rack of cages. The thickset Plainlander pushing them through tipped the peak of his pillbox cap to Lisa, who gave him a smile and a curtsey.
Seth watched the birds’ doomed passage. “Didn’t think they’d need to bring livestock in. Can’t they just get powered dynamos off the trains?”
“Oh, no,” Lisa said. “Once you load hexis onto the artery, taking it back off is punishable by execution. No exceptions. Not even for a bleeding-heart ninny like myself.”
Seth had almost forgotten what this beautiful woman did for a living. He made eye contact with one chicken. Her odd Jurassic head quirked to the side for one of the final times before it came off. The world, for a moment, resembled a vast and motley procession to various slaughterhouses, presided over by various butchers and carnivores.
“Scent aside, it’s handier to transport hexis inside the chicken,” said the carnivorous butcher on his arm. “They power the lights and the sound system, and then they’re the entrée. Quite efficient.”
The cart rolled through a rear door. Seth decided that if he wasn’t quite hungry enough for a full course, he might at least gnaw a drumstick or two.
Into the dance hall, a room of smoky mahogany and old-world finery. The wooden furnishings here were burnished with the shine of ages—Seth wouldn’t be surprised if some of these fine clawfooted seats were pre-Emergence. The proscenium ceiling was crenellated like a layer cake and had twin flags hanging, one on each side of the stage. The green and gold of the Plainland Kingdoms, and the sable black of the Legion.
Lisa nudged Seth. “See the chap in burgundy? With the receding hairline?”Seth followed the crook of her finger away from the banners and back down toward eye level, to an older man in a newer suit, whose thickly plaited blonde beard rested on a burgundy ascot. He was laughing and backslapping in that old-boy way the monetarily insulated had with their fortunate peers.
“There’s our man.” Lisa’s indicating index moved to his conversation partner, a full-bodied woman in an indigo gown. “That lady he’s talking to is Soshanna al Kalarre, the Corregidor of Fontana. Quite the fancy associate for a simple shipper to hobnob about with, wouldn’t you say, Seth?”
Seth’s village had never had a Corregidor, but he was given to understand they were a big deal. “I suppose I would if you would,” he said.
“I would.” Lisa surreptitiously tugged the neckline of her dress up to boost her bust another tantalizing notch upward. “I do believe I’ll have to dial up the giggly frippery for this mark of ours. I hope you don’t mind.”
Seth made sure to put his hands in his pockets before he balled them into fists. “Why would I mind?”
“Gentlefolk.” A beaming emcee in a wide-shouldered, striped suitjacket who’d swanned onto the stage now spoke to the crowd through a tinny vox system. “The music will begin shortly. Ladies, gents. To your places, please.”
Lisa lit up and downed the rest of her drink in a single practiced gulp. “That’s our cue.”
“While you’re with Mr. Moneybags, what do I do?”
“What does a pretty young thing like you do at a dance?” She laughed. “Have fun. Find someone to make out with.”
She parted from him with a swirl of skirts, joining the colorful, chattering crowd of women headed across the dance floor.
Onstage the pinstriped emcee was joined by a troupe of musicians clad in tobacco-colored eveningwear, hauling tonewood and brass to their places on creaking, thin folding chairs. Far from the plump-cushioned thrones available to their patrons. Seth wondered how much this gig paid.
The music began, and its jaunty big-band sound was a tonic to the suspicions all this fanciness raised in Seth’s soul. He joined the other men as they formed one line, in muted gradations of gray, navy and black. The ladies formed another, gauzy and whirling and technicolor. They flowed past each other, like the interlocking teeth of some vast biological clockwork.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
The horns blew bolder, The heavy floor tom banged its final four pulses. One, two, three…
Seth had always counted himself an okay dancer. The first lady he was paired up with seemed to have a different opinion; her powdered face twisted in displeased surprise as he pulled her from the roundel. “Saints, man. Is this your first time?”
“Hmm?” His face heated. Maybe he was a little tipsier than he thought. “First time in Fontana, I suppose.”
“You pull too hard. Here.” She reconfigured his stance with a series of unsparing nudges. “Follow the music. Don’t yank like you’re trying to tug me out of my heels.”
The contredanse numbers began brief and sprightly before lengthening out as the evening went. Seth was glad he only had to spend a bare minute with this woman, though by the time they parted she whispered “Much better. Good luck,” and that went a way toward unburdening his replying bow.
He playacted as a fancy gent with the next woman, a tittering matron who ate it up, and the third, a lady in silver who moved with a crisp, chilly formality that he found himself dodging around like a dog beneath the legs of a horse. He was used to putting a lot more attention on the music than his feet at things like this. No wonder so many of these people had an expression on like they were taking an entrance exam. He supposed he ought to move as if he cared about the opinions of these stuffed shirts.
The toms thundered, the line reformed, and this time Seth halted into place in front of a willowy ingenue in peacock feathers, who gave him a glassy-but-pretty smile. Her freckled skin and her little pug nose marked her as a Tuthimi girl. How she ended up in the Plainlands he wasn’t sure; if he lived in a place as sunny and spacious as Tuthima, he’d stay there.
“Hello, Mister Broody,” his new dance partner said. “I was wondering when they’d blow me over to you. What’s your name?”
“Seth. Uh, Seth…” He reached through the curtain of fine drink for the road-dusted space he’d stashed that codename of his. “i’Lynnok. You?”
“Rumia al Morina.”
The name confirmed her Tuthimi blood. The al raised his eyebrow. “Al Morina, huh? Legion family?”
She grinned proudly. “Father’s side. He’s a Second Exark. I don’t suppose you see so many out in the countryside.”
“Am I that obvious?”
“I’m that observant.” Her smile had a smirky worldliness that made her look older. An odd thing for a smile to do.
A familiar, husky laugh broke out beneath the music. Seth looked over his partner’s frilled shoulder, across the floor, to Lisa, who’d gotten her hands on their mark. She gave an ebullient punch to Marston’s shoulder as he grinned back; the man was so enchanted by her, he barely winced. His hand crept up Lisa’s back, toward the swoop of chestnut skin so elegantly framed and criss-crossed by crimson satin. The man had no way of knowing he was dancing with an unlit, no clue that tiny shavings of his soul were siphoning away with every second of skin contact.
Seth found an unkind satisfaction in that. He did not like Marston very much at all, and wasn’t sure why. Because he’s tied up in the stolen head business, remember? That’s why.That’s all.
Rumia drew up one tweezed brow. “Seeking distraction, Seth i’Lynnok?”
“No, no. Just… looking for the lady I brought,” he said, and then off her souring expression, added, “She’s my aunt.”
“You brought your aunt?” She giggled. “Aren’t you a sweet one. Taking an old maid out on the town.”
He grinned. “Who else’d have me?”
“Well, now.” The once-over she gave him disabused him further of the idea that this was a youthful innocent. “The boutonniere’s fake,” she said. “And the suit’s a rental, isn’t it?”
This knocked a dent in Seth’s smile.
“But the man’s the merchandise, after all. You dance well enough.” She caressed his arm. “And I like them slim and sad.”
“Been called worse, I suppose.” But he’d been called better. Been called a marvel, even. If Seth had been in a dallying mood (which, remember, you aren’t, you’re on mission), this wasn’t the dalliance he’d choose.
She gave him another unearned giggle and leaned into his ear until her delicate chin brushed his shoulder. “How about you tell your aunt, if she doesn’t want to pay for your lodgings or share a room, you and her come find me.”
“That’s real charitable of you, Miss Rumia.”
“You know what Saint Sorrel said.” She moistened her lips. “It is in giving that we most richly receive.”
The cello drizzled its honeyed baritone across the ending stanza. Then the toms pounded again, and the brassy croon of the saxophone, in the grip of a squat, potbellied virtuoso, signaled the final number had begun.
Rumia gave Seth a final parting squeeze, like a grocer checking ripeness. “See you around,” she purred, and then the gaudy tide drew her away. Seth rubbed his arm as he joined up with the beaus, bachelors and boyfriends. He caught his own reflection on an ornately framed mirror in the corner of the room. He’d looked pretty sharp, he thought, when he came in. He’d liked this suit. A rental. He scoffed away the unfamiliar hurt. What did he care how some wealthy poppet saw him? It was just some meanness inherited from the drink.
A lively, jittery energy animated the shifting line—you were supposed to leave it up to chance, always, but nobody did. Not for the last dance. The last dance, you wanted to be careful who you ended up with. All along the promenading length, couples or might-be-couples pulled each other out of the churn and out of contention, spreading out to all sides of the chamber. Some remained in the light, eager to see and be seen. Some retreated into the shadowy, private perimeter.
Seth watched Lisa twirl nimbly down the line, face alight and elated as she slipped into and out of range of a dozen eager men. He listened to the rhythm as the horns swelled higher. Three, four, five. The Verdugo would reach him, then pass him, onto the next guy at his shoulder. He realized with the clarity only available to the somewhat buzzed that he very badly did not want that. Six, seven, eight. Someone had to take on the existential risk of dancing with the only unlit woman in the hall. This would be quite selfless, actually.
He caught her hand and held it fast.