Chapter Nine

The Earl of Semweir was one of the more disgustingly wealthy gentlemen in London. Of course I say disgustingly wealthy, but that is to do the man an injustice. By the standards of his era his wealth was eminently respectable, meaning his distant ancestors had stolen it from other Englishmen long enough ago that it didn't count, and his more recent ancestors had increased it by stealing from people who were not English, and so that didn't count either.

Indeed his house was so respectable that it was ordinarily entirely closed to the Caesars. Lady Mary might, perhaps, have been welcome on her own account had she left the entirety of her family at home, but since she would never have wished to enter such a house in the first place, the point was moot. While Lady Mary would have scrupled at attending a ball at which neither her husband nor her children would ever have been welcome, however, her eldest daughter had the giddiness of youth, a sheltered upbringing, and fairy magic guiding her away from such considerations.

It was not the grandest house Miss Caesar had ever seen—her grandfather's residence, being in the countryside and thus having more land to sprawl over, was larger, as was the Duke of Annadale's ancestral-ish residence of Leighfield—but it was by far the most splendid building she had ever been invited to within the confines of the city.

"And you are certain we shall be admitted?" she asked the Lady, her eyes wide with wonder.

"Quite certain." The Lady gave no further explanation. She simply willed the carriage to halt, and the door to open, and disembarked. Making another determined attempt to stop me following her by slamming the door in my face as I tried to leave. Unfortunately for her its windows were transparent and in the days before my exile I could take the form of sunlight if I wished, and so I did.

The door of the great house (Inching, it was called, though the name will largely not matter) was attended by two footmen who approached the newcomers with the initial intent of informing them that they had not been invited but who, at the sight of Miss Caesar and her escort, fell to deference, opening the doors wide and letting Miss Caesar, the Lady, and the things that posed as her servants walk past quite unimpeded.

By the year 1815 the practice of guests at a ball, or any public event, being introduced by fanfare had long since died out, but this did not stop the Lady, whose servants heralded her arrival, and that of her protégé, with the uncanny piping of their bone trumpets. I found the sound pleasant enough, but then I am accustomed to the music of the otherworlds.

For any mortal to so interrupt a dance in progress (for the Lady had come, as it would now be termed, fashionably late) would be an unforgivable social transgression. But transgression is the lifeblood of our kind and so it was quite overlooked.

What was not overlooked, however, was Miss Caesar. Like the sunlight and the starlight before it, her body of unearthly glass captured the candlelight of the ballroom and whirled it into a cavalcade of pale motes that coursed through her and wrapped around her like the finest gown ever spun by hands mortal or immortal.

You cannot know, reader, how much it pains me to admit it, but the Lady was very, very good at her job.

When the trumpeters finished trumpeting, the whole room fell into an eerie silence, broken only by the ringing tap-tap-tap of Miss Caesar's glass feet on the ballroom floor. The Lady and I stood back and watched and she, content with her work, permitted herself to fade from view.

"You have to admit," she said, more challengingly than I thought warranted, "she looks wonderful."

I nodded. "For how long?"

"Long enough."

Had I cared, and of course I did not, I would have found the answer ominous.

From the great silent crowd a young man came forwards. It was Mr. Bygrave, still in uniform—even an earl liked to have the occasional respectable soldier in his home—and looking now at Miss Caesar with a very similar rapt admiration to that with which he had once looked at her sister.

"Miss Caesar," he said, with remarkable composure for a man beholding the Beauty Incomparable, "would you be so good as to give me this dance?"

And although she had no card to mark, Miss Caesar nodded, and gave him her hand, and the band struck up a waltz.

At the same time (well, not quite the same time, but the distance from Inching to the Folly was not so very long and I am so very fast) that Miss Caesar's glass slippers were tap-tap-tapping through the waltz at one of the ton's more exclusive private balls, glass of a different sort was becoming important to her brother.

That glass was window glass. It was important because it had shattered. It had shattered because something had been thrown through it. The thing that had been thrown through it was the severed head of a bull.

The many and various insalubrious inhabitants of the Folly scrambled. For the civilian occupants, that meant making for the exits; for the military men (and for Sal, who was currently a lady), it meant finding cover and arming themselves.

Without a word from anybody in the regiment, Jackson skirted the edge of the room with his head down and a pistol he'd acquired from the-god-of-your-choice-knows-where drawn. With the caution conveniently shared by professional soldiers and professional criminals, he risked a glance through the least grimy corner of the unshattered window.

"Red robes," he said, "white masks."

"Mithraists?" asked Kumar, who had readied a musket and trained it at the door.

Jackson still had his eyes on the intruders. "The fuck should I know? Do I look like a professor of comparative religion at a celebrated university?"

"It'll be the major," replied the captain, with bitter confidence. "Every rich bastard in His Majesty's army's in at least two cults."

… Back at Inching (I am swift, reader, so very swift), Miss Caesar danced with Mr. Bygrave, their hands joined above their heads, the music and the lights swirling inside her. …

In my fleeting absence, the door had been breached, and the robed men had come forth with fire and sabre and pistol. It had not, in the first instance, gone well for them, because while the musket was not so accurate as the rifle, the Irregulars were good shots and Kumar caught one in the chest, Callaghan got another in the shoulder, and the captain, with his pistol, took a third through the mask.

… In the ballroom all was harmony and wonder. The first waltz had ended and, sensible even now of the mores of society, Miss Caesar chose another man to dance with. Mr. Bygrave, after all, she could return to later, if he truly favoured her. …

The civilians, having learned in lives harder than they were long to take care of themselves, were scrambling for back doors and side windows, with Barryson and Boy William assisting the best they could. Mr. Caesar, aghast at the violence, shrank back against one wall next to Mistress Quickley. She, by contrast, was rather less aghast, at least at the battle. The damage to her property, on the other hand, distinctly soured her.

"Get 'em out," she was demanding of the combatants, "and someone do something about them fires."

There was, within Mr. Caesar, a war between his fear of injury and his fear of ignominy. He had no desire to lose any part of his face to a stray blade, but the thought that men were doing battle while he stood by and watched squirmed within him like maggots made of shame. So he set his jaw, snatched up a bundle of rags, tried not to think too much about the mess he was making of his gloves, and remained resolutely rooted to the spot.

"What you waiting for?" asked Mistress Quickley. "If this place goes up we're all fucked."

Being no more a man of science than he was a man of war, Mr. Caesar had no real sense of how likely it was that the fires would burn out of control. But since if it did he would either burn himself or feel like an utter heel for allowing it to happen, he made up his mind to advance. Though out of deference to the blades, he did so crawling.

Within arm's reach, the captain was doing battle with one of the larger cultists, and Mr. Caesar—who, unlike his sister, still had a heart—roiled with a complex mix of admiration and dread. Admiration at the man's uncanny grace in motion. Dread partly that something might befall his new … associate, but mostly at the fact there were swords passing scant inches over his head.

… In the ballroom, his sister's face was turned upwards as she gazed with empty eyes at her dancing partner. She had already forgotten his name, and he was not entirely certain that he knew hers. And it did not matter. Here and now she was the personification of beauty. Wonder in crystal. The fragile all-and-nothing in which every dream reflected …

The cult, if cult it was, had come in force. And while they fought with black powder and steel, the Irregulars knew well enough that if their attackers were men of consequence—even minimal consequence—they could not leave them dead. Or at least not many of them.

So they made a fighting retreat, their own lives and the lives of the locals their first priority.

… Another waltz. It was a new dance, or new by the standards of the higher aristocracy, whose tastes ran conservative, and so not normally danced at the better balls. But tonight was perfect. The Lady had seen to that. As perfect as cut glass …

The Irregulars were military men and fell back with military precision. Mr. Caesar was a gentleman who seldom rose before ten and, having smothered what fires he could, fell back with haste.

It was not, therefore, so terribly surprising that he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun while the rest of the party were efficiently moving to safety.

"You, we have been asked to collect," said a soft voice that Mr. Caesar didn't recognise.

Few of either the Irregulars or the attackers remained in the fight now. Just the man with the soft voice and another masked man behind him—this one thankfully sans pistol. Not clear what else to do, Mr. Caesar raised his hands. "Asked by whom?" he tried, hoping it might at least buy him time while also not being a shot-in-the-face level of defiance.

Unfortunately the soft-voiced man didn't deign to answer, he just flicked the barrel of his pistol sideways in a come with me gesture and began to escort Mr. Caesar out of the burst-open door.

"I wouldn't," said the captain.

… Another dance. Another gentleman. This one shorter, less handsome, too old definitely, far too old; her feet clicked cold and hard on the dance floor. …

The soft-voiced man had only half turned, and Mr. Caesar had barely turned at all but was craning his neck over his shoulder to look at Captain James and, if at all possible, convey with his eyes how very, very important it was that this exchange go smoothly.

"I have the gentleman at gunpoint," the soft-voiced man pointed out. "And that is a slow blade you are carrying."

Captain James's blade was indeed longer and heavier than the sabres the other men were wielding. If you wish to insert your own observation about the relative values of length and dexterity at this juncture, reader, you may do so. But I hope you feel bad about it.

"Slow it might be," the captain agreed with an easy, oddly charming smile, "but I took this off a French cuirassier and though it's not made for fencer's tricks, it'll split you open right enough."

"Orestes," Mr. Caesar half whispered, "he has a gun."

Captain James extended his arm just a half inch further. "So he does." Still smiling, he gave his enemy a challenging look. "Go on then. Shoot him."

"I fail to see how this is helping," observed Mr. Caesar, his voice trembling only the slightest amount.

Ignoring Mr. Caesar's panic, Captain James continued to stand very steady and composed.

All around them, the Folly had grown quiet, and when the soft-voiced man cocked his pistol the click, muted as it was, echoed around the tiny room.

… All around her the music had grown quiet, and when she crossed the floor to take her next partner, the click of her feet echoed like lies. …

"Takes a while to reload does a pistol," said Captain James almost conversationally. "And I'm pretty sure you had your shot when you came in."

The mask made his expression unreadable, but the soft-voiced man's tone was playful. "Really? Bet his life?"

And to Mr. Caesar's great chagrin, Captain James said: "Yeah."

… Even the earl himself danced with her in the end. He was no marriage prospect, of course, being too old and already wed, but she was sensible of the honour nonetheless. …

The soft-voiced man pulled the trigger, and the hammer fell.

… Miss Caesar turned and turned and turned. …

His mouth dry and his body tense, Mr. Caesar waited for the bullet to hit. Although he did not consider himself a brave man, the fact that Mr. Caesar witnessed the gentle click of the pistol without soiling his breeches spoke either to some hidden depth of courage or a devotion to his tailoring bordering on the fanatical.

"Told you," said the captain. "Now, do you want to run, or do you want to see if you've better luck than the French cuirassier?"

From what I read of his heart, the soft-voiced man was no coward, but his bluff had been called and he had the wisdom to concede defeat. So the robed men retreated, and Mr. Caesar, the captain, and the remainder of the Irregulars decided that they, too, would be better off elsewhere.

As, reader, did I.