“Oh, you’re so masterful,” Estrella murmured, absently swallowing the bit of chicken she’d been holding. “I wish we had men like you in Lusa City, don’t you, Margolla?”
The women were young, pretty, and obviously willing—all the traits Daniel looked for in his off-duty socializing; but they were also forward enough to make him a trifle uncomfortable in a setting whose rules weren’t necessarily as clear as they seemed. He’d done enough snaring in his youth on Bantry to worry that the open path before him might end in a demand for marriage or huge damages to a suddenly-aggrieved father.
Come to think, he wasn’t even sure the girls were daughters rather than wives with God knew what sort of complications. The way Flora was crawling over Count Klimov at the far end of the table showed that was a possibility.
The hall filled the second and third stories of a whole wing; even with scores of guests and seemingly twice that number of servants, it was a hollow cavern. Now that night had fallen, chandeliers hanging from coffers between the darkened skylights were the only illumination.
The curio cabinets along the walls weren’t separately lighted, but as a result the few items that reflected the glow from above stood out like stars on a moonless night. Daniel was in a reverie that was part wine, part the warm pressure of the girls to either side, and part concern about that pressure. It took him almost a minute to understand the image he’d seen gleaming on a shelf behind him when he separated the squabbling waiters.
He set his refilled glass down untasted. “Excuse me, my dears,” he said, sliding his chair back so quickly that the girls might well have toppled sideways together had he not kept a guiding hand on the nearer shoulder of each.
Daniel stepped to the cabinet; as before only Adele paid any attention to him, though in this case there was the excuse that the others probably thought he’d risen to go to the jakes. He took the object out of its niche beside a goblet of tarred earthenware, seemingly ancient, and a sheet of native copper covered mostly with black sulfate corrosion. It was a military belt buckle. That was common enough, but judging from its weight and lack of tarnish this one was made of platinum.
A golden eagle stood out in high relief from an incised shield whose lower portion was crosshatched to indicate a separate color. Daniel turned and found that Adele and their host were already coming around the long table toward them. He was surprised, but he knew Adele well enough that he shouldn’t have been.
Pansuela getting up did create some interest; half the diners began craning their necks to see what was happening. Count Klimov was too far into his wine to care, but the Klimovna was looking. Daniel caught her eye and hooked a finger toward her. She shook off the hand of the local gallant—from his features very possibly Margolla’s brother—and got up to join Enrique and Adele before they reached Daniel.
“Master Pansuela,” Daniel said, holding out the belt buckle, “this appears to me to be a representation in metal of the Novy Sverdlovsk flag. I was wondering how it came to be here?”
“May I?” said Valentina; the form of her words was polite, but she snatched the buckle from Daniel with the ravenous enthusiasm of a predatory fish taking chum. “Yes!”
She turned, folding the buckle in her palm. “Georgi! Come here! The Captain has found the buckle from John Tsetzes’ regalia!”
“What?” said Pansuela. He reached for the buckle, but Valentina obviously wasn’t in a mood for anybody else to touch it at the moment. He shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t have any idea, Leary. One of my uncles catalogued this, but that was . . .”
He waved a hand, indicating a past lost in the mists of time.
“And anyway,” he added, “we all thought he was likely to start chirping with the birds, you see. Not quite right in the head.”
“John Tsetzes left Novy Sverdlovsk sixty-one standard years ago,” Adele said. Her voice was calm but she wore a tense expression—possibly because she couldn’t use her personal data unit unless she sat down and set it on her lap. At the moment sitting on the floor meant she’d be stepped on. “The chances are that were he to have arrived here, it would’ve been within six months of that time. Is that helpful?”