“Of course, of course you will, my dear, though it seems you already are, ah? Someone said you and the Lady Alicia were together in the greenhouses just this morning? Good. Good. Ask the Duchess. She’ll show you around. She used to help the Prince, when she was younger.”
He smiled, half drowsily, and leaned his head back on his hand. “That’s all, Marshal. Glad you’ve settled in so well.”
The Marshal bowed, Genevieve made the full court courtesy, remaining with her head bent for a long moment. There, on the carpet, lay one of the monarch’s booklets, brightly colored, full of pictures of … things. Furniture. Golden dishes. Extravagant carpets. And there were a hundred such booklets scattered near the throne. Export catalogues. Some of them from planets whose names she knew from her reading in the school library.
Her father touched her elbow, she rose, they backed away from the presence and the tall doors were shut behind them. The Marshal took a deep breath, his face purple, as though about to explode.
“Any servant,” he growled, as they went out into the hallway. “Any footman can escort visitors about!”
“It’s all right, Father,” she said hastily. “I don’t mind.”
His voice rose as he said, “To keep us waiting all that time! He could have had someone apologize for the delay!”
“Shhh,” she said, aware that the approaching footman had his eyes fixed intently on them. “As you once pointed out to me, Father, this may be in the nature of a test. To see whether we are the type of people to cause difficulties.”
His eyes widened. Slowly the blood drained from his face, leaving his usually ruddy skin quite pale, almost ashen as he mumbled, “So I did.”
The footman preceded them on their way out, bowing and gesturing like a mime, obviously well pleased with himself, ears all but quivering. Genevieve remarked casually, “I’m delighted with the duty His Majesty has proposed. It will give me something interesting to do, and allow me quite a bit of exercise. I was amazed at the size of the greenhouses, and the galleries must be equally large. I didn’t even know there were galleries.”
“Nor I,” he mumbled, allowing a waiting servant to place his cloak upon his shoulders. “I’m sure the duty will be very rewarding.”
They descended the flight of marble stairs to find their carriage waiting. Inside, as they relaxed onto the cushions, the Marshal’s face began to redden again.
The air solidified. Genevieve saw a dim room, stone walls, a cone of light, a dwarfish man crouched over a mechanism of some kind. She heard her father’s voice coming from the mechanism: “Any footman can escort visitors about . . .” The dwarfish man looked up with a gleeful, vulpine expression.
And she was back in the carriage with her father just opening his mouth.
“Oh, Father,” she cried, laying her fingers upon his lips. “It’s so exciting! And wasn’t the Lord Paramount wonderful! Imagine seeing him in person. Quite an honor. Really, quite an honor!”
He started to say something, but she leaned forward and put her hand sideways across his lips, gagging him, her eyes fixed pleadingly upon his own. He was at first angry, then puzzled, but at length he pinched his nostrils together, as though he smelled something unpleasant and turned away from her. She turned away also, but to search the carriage with her eyes, the corners of the joinery, the places the cushions met the frame, the buttons tufting the cushions, seeing nothing, turning back toward her father to see the angry question in his face.
She said, with a wide, false smile. “Aren’t you excited, Father? I know youmust be! Anyone who admires the Lord Paramount as you do would be.”
After a long pause he said, “Very excited,” in a solemn, rather aggrieved voice. “Oh, very excited indeed.”
They said nothing more on the way home, though the Marshal stared at Genevieve in a way that made her quite uncomfortable. When they arrived at the house, they drove directly to the stable yard, from which her father fairly dragged her into the desolate garden. “What possible excuse can you offer for all that?”