He started to leave, then turned back. “Oh, I forgot to mention. Since the Prince is coming, there will be at least a couple of Aresian guards with him. The proper protocol is to take no notice of them, not even if they search behind curtains for weapons or run their detecting devices over your body.”
“Really!” she breathed. “Take no notice!”
“No notice,” he said. “Just . . . pretend they aren’t there.”
The Marshal came home, looked about himself in amazement, and came up to stick his head in Genevieve’s door. “Didn’t realize that dining room was so big.”
“Well, we’ve never eaten in there, but it is a banqueting hall. Aufors says . . .”
“Who?”
“Colonel Leys, Father. He says the table is forty feet long.”
“You called him Aufors,” he said accusingly. “That’s rather familiar, ain’t it?”
She took a deep breath. “He’s been very helpful, Father. If it hadn’t been for Colonel Leys, we wouldn’t have managed nearly so well. We have become friendly over this matter, and he is entitled to a little informality as a member of our household.”
He grunted, glaring at her briefly. “Well, I don’t like informality, not among my staff. I prefer them punctilious. Who’re all the stiff-necked men just wandering around down there?”
She frowned. “The footmen hired for the night. If they’re wandering around, it’s because they have to be familiar enough with the house not to direct one of the gentlemen into the ladies’ cloakroom or vice versa. We’ll need them from time to time if you’re going to do a lot of entertaining. And when our men from Langmarsh return home—as they must, their families are there—we’ll need a couple of local men to do the heavier work.” After a pause, she went on to tell him about the Prince’s guards.
“That’s an unfunny joke, Genevieve.”
“It’s not a joke, Father. Please, if you choose to disbelieve me, speak to the Colonel.”
He grunted, gave her another of those slightly surprised, slightly offended looks, and went out.
She leaned against the wall, whispering to herself, “Give me strength to get through this evening.”
As Delia was dressing her hair, Genevieve rehearsed the names of the guests. “. . . and Thumsort of Tansay, brother to the Lord Paramount, and his companion, the Lady Charmante, who, Aufors tells me, is actually a man who dresses as a woman, though I mustn’t let on for a moment and daren’t tell Father. Delia, have you ever heard of such a thing?”
“Heard of it, yes, lady. There was one in our village when my mother was a girl. Couldn’t abide men’s clothes. Said he was a woman’s brain trapped in a man’s body.”
“Strange. I, myself . . .”
“What, my lady?”
She had been going to say that she, Genevieve, had sometimes felt she was a foreign, strange, alien brain caught in a girl’s body, but this was not something for Delia to hear. “Gardagger, Duke Bellser-Bar of Mer-dune,” she went on with her roll call, “and Alicia, the Duchess, who has provided our flowers for the evening . . . and Rongor, appointed by the Tribune as Invigilator of the Covenants, commander of the scrutators, who would be mightily offended if he knew about the Lady Charmante, as the covenants are strict on matters of gender.”
She took a deep breath. “And of course, the heir, Prince of Havenor, Yugh Delganor, who may bring his guards whom we are to take no notice of . . .”
She wore again the mahogany gown with the rose decolletage. It fit her better than any other of her evening dresses, though she realized as she put it on that she would have to have something new for the next dinner, for everyone would have seen this one. According to Aufors, there were rules about that. If any of the guests were repeaters, one wore a gown only once in one’s own house, though one could wear it again when invited to other peoples’. Where was she to find a dressmaker?
Her father was at her side and Aufors was at her elbow as the guests arrived.
“The Baron and Baroness Crawhouze,” Halpern intoned, in a voice Genevieve had never heard him use before. An echoing, resonant, larger-than-life voice which leant dignity to every word. Oh, my, how could one live up to a voice like that. One might squeak. One might stutter. Of course, one was not allowed to do so!