The Grand Ellipse Page 5

  “I see.”

  “Do you?”

  “Not the whole of it.” Luzelle studied her companion. “Why are you telling me all of this, Deputy Underminister? I assume it’s connected in some way to the Grand Ellipse and the ministry’s offer of sponsorship, but I don’t see how.”

  “You recall the prize awaiting the winner of the race?”

  “A Hetzian peerage, I believe, together with some sort of house or castle.” Whose sale might keep her financially afloat, thus preserving independence, freedom, and pride.

  “And one other thing—a private audience with Miltzin IX. A rare, almost unique, opportunity for a foreign emissary to catch the ear of the king.”

  “That’s it, then?” Luzelle inquired in disbelief. “All of this elaborate, expensive strategy of sponsoring a Grand Ellipse contestant, in the faint hope that your candidate will, against all odds, not only win the race but then go on to somehow persuade the king of the Low Hetz to sell a secret that he has so far firmly refused to part with?”

  “To sell the secret, or at the very least to reveal—perhaps inadvertently—the whereabouts of Master Nevenskoi.”

  “Rather a long shot, isn’t it?”

  “Better than no shot, Miss Devaire.”

  “Why, you people must be as loony as Mad Miltzin himself!”

  “I would prefer to think otherwise. Actually, matters in Toltz have lately shown signs of change. We have it upon good authority that King Miltzin’s latest enthusiasm—an investigation of the approaching Grizhni Comet’s communicative properties—severely strains the depleted Hetzian treasury. The construction of the new Phoenixfire Palace at Jüschl imposes another large burden. Last summer’s drought, so destructive of the Hetzian lorber crops, inflicts additional damage. In short, there’s reason to hope at this juncture that a generous cash offer, appropriately presented, might find His Majesty receptive.”

  “Appropriately presented?”

  “Set forth in the manner best calculated to touch the king’s heart, as well as his mind.”

  “Doesn’t that call for the talents of an experienced diplomat?” she inquired carefully. “Forgive my dullness, but I don’t understand why you’ve come to me. Not that I don’t appreciate the compliment, but aren’t there better-qualified candidates to be found?”

  “Your qualifications are most unusual, and ideally suited to the task at hand.” He studied her dispassionately. “In the first place, your public reputation as an adventurous, courageous traveler justifies your participation in the race. Then, your gender masks your mission, for the enemies of Vonahr won’t readily credit official reliance upon a female. And finally, your personal attributes are more than likely to impress His Majesty in your favor.”

  “Personal attributes? I’m not certain I understand you.” She was not certain that she wanted to.

  “To speak plainly, Miss Devaire, you are a woman of uncommonly striking appearance, and the king’s tender susceptibility is well documented. Moreover, you are recognized as a lady of some worldly knowledge, experience, and sophistication, quite capable, should you so choose, of exploiting your many resources to best advantage in the service of your country. Thus it is much to be hoped that the charm of the messenger may greatly influence King Miltzin’s response to our offer.”

  He spoke gracefully enough, but his meaning was clear, and not pretty. Luzelle took a thoughtful sip of tea, and briefly considered tossing the contents of the mug straight into the face of the deputy underminister. She controlled the impulse; vo Rouvignac intended no insult, after all. If he, along with the rest of the world, regarded her as a woman of questionable character, she had only herself to blame.

  “The ministry’s approach to the problem is novel.” She let nothing show on her face. “In fact, your methods surprise me. Deputy Underminister, have you and your associates not considered the possibility of public embarrassment, should this afternoon’s meeting come to light?”

  “I do not believe that it will come to light.” The potentially menacing observation sounded merely avuncular upon vo Rouvignac’s lips. “Should I misjudge, however, whatever embarrassment or trouble that comes will be mine alone, for the minister of foreign affairs will deny all knowledge of the matter. If necessary I am prepared to assume full personal responsibility.”

  “I understand.” She did indeed. Quite clear now why she hadn’t been invited to set foot within the sacred confines of the Republican Complex.

  Time now for the indignant refusal, the flash of outraged virtue, but Luzelle held her tongue, for the alternatives were bleak. She stood within six months or so of financial ruin, preceding the most humiliating imaginable return to her father’s house. Once she vanished into that well-ordered limbo, she might never again emerge. On the other hand, should she compete in the Grand Ellipse at the ministry’s expense, her participation alone was sure to draw public notice, boosting the sale of her books and increasing her value as a lecturer. And should she actually win the race, then her fame, fortune, and independence were assured for the rest of her life.

  What then? Will you select a more lucrative profession, becoming in truth what so many already believe you to be?

  I will, she silently informed her father, if that’s the only way to live free in the world. I will let nothing and nobody stop me. Whatever is necessary—

  “I will do it,” she finished aloud.

  “Miss Devaire?” The deputy underminister looked surprised.

  “I accept your offer of sponsorship. I will run the Grand Ellipse. And make no mistake, I will win. I’ll use whatever means I must, I’ll do anything.” Her companion was staring at her, so Luzelle added for good measure, “Anything at all.”

  2

  EXACTLY ONE WEEK LATER she set off for the Low Hetz. The journey between Sherreen and the Hetzian capital city of Toltz demanded three days and two nights of travel by rail, but Luzelle spent the time comfortably. The cash with which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had so amply supplied her purchased the softest lavender-scented berth in the sleeping car, the costliest of fare in the dining car, the most solicitous of porters, waiters, and conductors all along the route. It was a far cry indeed from her customarily economical mode of travel.

  The unusual spectacle of a young woman traveling on her own drew the inevitable speculative attention, but those squadrons of well-paid menials furnished effective protection, and nobody harassed her.

  The tracks between two such prominent capitals as Sherreen and Toltz were well maintained, and the journey northeast proceeded smoothly, through miles of rich Vonahrish farmland, over the rolling terrain of rural VoGrance Province, then down the hills and across the border into the Low Hetz, whose political neutrality immediately proclaimed itself.

  The train wheezed to a halt at Lolkstok Station, and the local customs officials tramped on through the cars, demanding passports and declarations. Luzelle signed the appropriate documents, submitted her modest luggage to inspection, received the requisite stamp upon her passport, then directed her attention out the window to the platform, where, for the first time, she spied uniformed Grewzian soldiers.

  They didn’t look so bad—many, in fact, were distinctly handsome, with those Grewzian long-limbed frames and those Grewzian chiseled straight noses. Unjustly maligned, perhaps. The accounts of atrocities inflicted upon helpless subject populations were probably exaggerated.

  Won’t those clean-cut lads look just splendid, marching in triumph through the streets of Sherreen. In a matter of weeks, the deputy underminister had informed her.

  The train departed Lolkstok Station, traveling north through many an improbably quaint gabled and halftimbered medieval town, over flowery meadows impossibly idyllic, to reach Toltz in the soft gloom of springtime dusk.

  Luzelle alighted. A porter whisked her luggage into the station house and disappeared, reappearing moments later with a cabdriver in tow. Money changed hands, and her valise seemed to fly to the waiting vehicle, which was lower, wide
r, and heavier than a Sherreenian fiacre, and drawn by a correspondingly sturdy Hetzian bay. Luzelle climbed in and the door closed. The driver ascended, the whip snapped, and the cab clattered off.

  She sank back into a fat upholstered seat deeper and softer than she had expected. Unlike her own countrymen, these Lower Hetzians favored comfort over elegance, and she meant to enjoy it while she could, for circumstances would alter once the race began. Tomorrow. The thought quickened her pulse. Only another few hours to go.

  She looked out the window. The gaslight glowed through the deepening twilight, warming the pale stone faces of mansions, monuments, and ceremonial archways frilled and curlicued in the shamelessly ornate style of the previous century. Sherreen, Flugeln, Lis Folaze—virtually every capital city boasted its architectural extravaganzas, but nowhere else in all the world did the embellishment reach such heights of exuberance as here in the Low Hetz. The most elaborate structure in sight, however—the famous Aspiration Tower, a white marble effusion clothed from top to bottom in bas-relief carvings of lunatic complexity—was modern; a testament to the artistic zeal of the present king, Miltzin IX, whose heart she was required to touch.

  The cab halted before the new Kingshead Hotel, a grand edifice recently replacing the King’s Head Inn that had occupied the site for centuries. Many mourned the passing of the ancient inn, but undeniably the new hotel was a marvel of luxury and comfort equipped with every modern amenity, from gaslight in most chambers to an astonishing steampowered lift. There were even private bathrooms in certain wildly extravagant suites.

  The cab departed. Another porter carried her bag into a lobby ominously crowded. Taking her place in line before the registration desk, she glanced about. Was the place always so mobbed? If not, what accounted for this evening’s crush?

  The race, idiot.

  Of course. The commencement of the Grand Ellipse (tomorrow!) was attracting international attention. The betting was frenetic; the gain or loss of fortunes rested upon the outcome. Sportsmen of every stripe had converged upon Toltz to see the racers off.

  The Kingshead Hotel could not hold them all. Would-be guests were being turned away by the dozen. Theoretically the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had arranged her reservation, but in the event of a misunderstanding—

  The line inched forward. Luzelle confronted the clerk and gave her name. No misunderstanding. Miss Devaire was expected, and her room awaited her. Miss Devaire was exceedingly welcome to the Kingshead. He was a very well schooled, discreet clerk, displaying no flicker of that impertinent curiosity she had so often encountered during the course of her travels.

  He handed her a key and she followed her bag across the lobby to that incredible brand-new lift—the first she had ever seen—which bore her, to her delight, effortlessly from the ground floor all the way up to the fourth. Abandoning the lift with reluctance, she proceeded along a lushly carpeted corridor to her own room—not one of the miracle suites with a private bath, but spacious and very comfortable indeed. She tipped the bellboy generously, and the lad all but genuflected. Affluence was so enjoyable.

  Alone again, she let her eyes travel the chamber. Gleaming, ponderous walnut furnishings, heavily carved in the Hetzian fashion. Tall windows along two walls, with big glass panes, obviously of modern manufacture. Thick, wine-colored carpet, matching dark-red brocade curtains and counterpane. Dark-red towels on the rack above the washstand, fresh cake of soap, generously sized pitcher and basin. Brass spittoon, polished and mercifully empty. Attractive, expensive, impersonal.

  Luzelle consulted her pocket watch and her stomach, both of which told her that the dinner hour had not yet arrived. Opening her bag, she burrowed within to extract a pasteboard folder full of documents, product of anonymous bureaucratic labor. The papers included a set of maps detailing the entire curve of the Grand Ellipse; a fine assortment of tickets and tokens; a suggested itinerary; lists of hotels and inns; a fistful of railroad, stagecoach, and steamship timetables; and an international directory of commercial transport enterprises that included riverboats, livery stables, rafts, barges, the Big Wormworks, gliders, chasmistrios, hoppers, bumpers, sleighs, dogsleds, treeswingers, and more.

  Her own experience in traveling had taught her the inevitability of the unexpected. Still, this pile of detailed information had to be worth something. No doubt she’d be glad she had it, someday.

  And perhaps sooner than she expected. For the course of the Grand Ellipse, initially transecting the modern, comparatively civilized western nations, stretched far eastward, curving through the remote mountainous reaches of largely untamed Bizaqh and Zuleekistan, through the savage forests of Oorex, even as far as exotic Aveshq. In the weeks to come, one of those stiff little lists or maps supplied by the ministry could conceivably spell the difference between victory and defeat.

  The chimes of a large clock somewhere nearby sounded the hour. Time to change for dinner, and the choice of garments was easy, for she had brought but one remotely suitable dress—a very simple, long-sleeved affair of heavy black silk twill, resistant to wrinkling, forgiving of stains, and devoid of the boning and flounces that would have devoured precious space in a suitcase. She buttoned herself into it and studied the result in the mirror above the washstand.

  Sedate, almost as sedate as the Judge himself might have desired, although the indiscreet radiance of her red-gold curls would never have met with His Honor’s approval. The plain, modest scoop neck of the gown screamed for decoration. Returning to her valise, she extracted the one small vanity permitted to add its weight to her luggage—a necklace and matching earrings of silver set with aquamarines the color of her eyes; pretty pieces, but not valuable enough to draw the attention of thieves. She put them on, and the image in the mirror sparkled to life. His Honor would not have been pleased.

  She went down to the gently lit hotel restaurant, where an impeccably impassive headwaiter seated her alone, and not at a bad table. No doubtful or suspicious hesitation, no lifted brows, no hiding the unescorted female behind the potted palms.

  A waiter took her order and retired, leaving her to wait. In earlier years she had never ventured into a public restaurant, inn, café, or cookshop without a book in hand; any random volume in which to bury her nose and her acute self-consciousness. These days, inured to the curiosity of strangers, she could afford to let her eyes range the room freely.

  The place was well filled, like the hotel itself. The patrons appeared solvent, and some of them were prosperous indeed, judging by the prevalence of well-tailored jackets, ambitious gowns, and assertive jewelry. A scattering of plaid coats, diamond stickpins, and masculine pinkie rings betrayed the presence of professional sportsmen and gamblers. Their feminine companions were prone to yellow hair piled high and satin dresses cut low. There were a few men in uniforms bearing the insignia of officers, and a few others swathed in exotic robes, who might have been pleasure-jaunting eastern princelings, or perhaps simply rich eccentrics. Conversation was lively but muted, voices pitched politely low. Therefore the two refusing to modulate themselves were impossible to ignore.

  A braying of laughter racketed through the restaurant. Luzelle turned to look, and thought she was seeing double. A few tables away sat a brace of young men, perhaps eighteen or nineteen years of age. They were expensively and identically dressed, from their wide-lapelled mauve jackets, to their pearl-grey satin ascots, to the spray of fresh violets each wore in his buttonhole. They were similarly identical in every detail of prettily youthful form and feature. Twins, and apparently rich ones. Four bottles of champagne stood open between them—the best Vonahrish champagne, Belle of Sevagne, the famous hexagonal gold label recognizable at a glance. Two hundred fifty New-rekkoes per bottle, and these boys were swigging it like cheap beer. A platter of expensive rockclingers in blue-butter sauce sat on the table. The twins were flipping bits of shellfish off their forks at one another, each successful shot giving rise to uproarious laughter.

  Idiots.

  Luzel
le’s dinner arrived. For a time she applied herself to her Consommé Dhreve Lissildt, venison medallions, beet-and-lorber salad, braised goldtuber, and Hetzian cracklers. But the hilarity at the twins’ table never abated, and she found herself wondering who the merry imbeciles might be, why they were allowed to travel without a nanny, and if by any chance they could be a couple of her fellow racers. The restaurant might easily contain a number of Grand Ellipse contestants. There was no way of identifying them by sight, and her gaze wandered, only to fasten within seconds upon a table in a corner.

  Two men sat there, one approximately her own age, the other some quarter century older. The senior member of the pair possessed what was probably a very interesting, square-jawed countenance, but she hardly noticed, for the other one, the younger, was perhaps the handsomest man she had ever seen. He had a lean, fair, clear-cut face, with beautifully formed features; large, intelligent light eyes, whose color was impossible to judge at the moment; and hair of the bright golden hue that women often dyed for, but never successfully achieved by artificial means. The really remarkable quality of that face, Luzelle decided, lay less in its perfection of structure, noteworthy though that was, than in its individuality of expression. Something in the eyes, the bend of the lips, the entire cast of countenance, somehow conveyed an impression of—what? Purity? Innate decency? Natural goodness?

  Rather a lot to read into good bones and a head of yellow hair. He was probably a vain, spoiled, womanizing fop, addicted to brandy, dicing, and his own mirror image. She noted that he wore a military uniform. She could not make out the nationality, but the sight rang faint bells in her memory. That handsome face, she realized, wasn’t altogether unfamiliar. She had certainly never before seen it in the flesh, but somewhere, not long ago, she’d seen a picture of it. Newspaper? Gazette?