The Duchess stared at her. “You look . . . different. Why, Genevieve, you look angry!”
Genevieve laughed without humor, shrugging helplessly as she did so. “I am somewhat peeved at Father. He considers my advice impertinent. Or perhaps he thinks I have none to give, that I know . . . nothing of value. As is his right. According to the covenants, I am brainless on such matters.”
“Oh, yes, as we are all. Nonetheless, what do you know, Genevieve?”
Genevieve bit her lip, wavering, then answered honestly, “Father and I were summoned to the Lord Paramount day before yesterday. I know that His Majesty keeps close watch on all of us here in Havenor.”
“Ah. How does he do that?”
“I think he probably has listening devices that he gets off-world. I think he has them planted in places where he wants to know what people are saying. So, when we go inside, I’m not going to say anything about your daughter. The matter is being arranged, and I have every confidence that someone will be on Ramspize point to meet your daughter on the fifteenth of this month.”
“I can’t thank you enough. . . .”
“Oh, yes.” She made a wry face. “You can thank me enough. You’ll probably think your thanks are onerous before they’re done. I am to be assigned to Prince Delganor, as a kind of tour guide, showing visiting dignitaries around the greenhouses, the galleries, the stables. Father was furious, though he’s settled a bit by now. He feels the duties are beneath a marchioness. I don’t know what he thinks I am able to do that would be worthy of my rank! Except, perhaps, to marry someone who would be helpful to his career. That seems to be the end toward which all the female nobility is driven! Can’t they understand it’s . . . it’s criminal!”
Alicia tittered, a slight, trembling sound. “Criminality has its devotees, when the rewards are high enough. Still, you mustn’t say so, dear. Not to anyone but me. When did you arrive at all this?”
Genevieve smiled, though without much amusement. “Truth to tell, Alicia, it came upon me, all at once . . . like a vision.”
Alicia peered at her closely. “Ah. Like a vision.”
“Yes. Perhaps my cynicism comes in good time. Better I have it early than too late. At any rate, His Majesty said you should acquaint me with my new duties as you had once performed similar ones, and then he remarked on our visit to the greenhouses that morning. I only hope for your sake that he did not overhear our conversation.”
“The place I picked was all right,” said the Duchess. “One of the gardeners works for me as a kind of … gossip. He tells me bits and pieces, what the butler or cook says, what the footmen overhear from dinner table conversation, you know. The palace servants know there are listening devices for they are the ones who install them.” She laughed again, this time genuinely. “Though there are bought-men who actually do the listening, Aresians, I’ve heard, for the Lord Paramount does not trust anyone else. Despite that, the placement of the devices is left to the palace servants, for it is the custom that anything to do with the house is done by the servants of that house. Royals never think of their servants as being people! Lords Paramount don’t consider commoners capable of independent thought or motivation, but I’ve come to know that the palace servants are capable of a great deal. They live upon graft and influence, my dear. A little oil here, to grease the wheels, a little push there, to mitigate a decision. The servants who trade in such matters are careful to leave dead spots between the spy-ears so they and their donors can negotiate privately.”
Genevieve shuddered with agonized relief, an emotion too painful to be enjoyed but too reassuring to resent. “Then I’m right. I’m not imagining it. Someone is listening.”
“Oh, yes, my dear. Somehow, His Majesty finds out almost everything we say and do, no matter where we are, in our houses, our carriages, our bedrooms, including, I sometimes think, our private closets, and no doubt there are specialists who listen to our most indelicate noises in the hope of decoding a conspiracy. They are listening everywhere but out-of-doors, and, I think, sometimes even there.”