Chương 290: Debutante Ball

After killing Yheta and dealing with all the fallout from that, it seems grossly unfair that I put in my evening with a social occasion of any sort, let alone a community debut. These things are not on a rigid schedule, but periodically all the girls of the appropriate age who have not gotten a debut occasion of their own will all come together for a single occasion that I try desperately not to think of as a livestock auction.

Their families all chip in for a single big event, and the intention is for the world of Society to get to know these young women as adults and members in good standing. The links to "-and of marriageable age" are normally unspoken, but there is a heavy heavy undercurrent here.

This is not only the event where a lot of young women suddenly become part of Society, but it's also the event where a lot of people who are looking for a fifteen-year-old bride (gross) of a valuable noble upbringing (gross) but likely from vulnerable financial circumstances (gross) are going to pick out their prospects from a crowd of likely candidates (gross gross gross). I hope that nobody says things like that in front of these girls, they deserve to feel nice during this fête.

For a lot of them, this is their big coming-of-age ceremony, and to make sure there's a good turn-out and to keep expenses down, they share it with dozens of other girls of the same age. The regrettable effect of that is that they're all trying to stand out and outshine the others so they can enjoy their first real moment in the sun.

Last year I was not invited to this event because at the time I was also fifteen, only newly considered an adult, and it would have been in extraordinarily bad taste for me to intrude on that party. It would have looked like I was competing against them for attention and/or marriage proposals, despite that I'm not even eligible to enter an engagement for years yet. But this time my debut is far enough past that it does not invite comparison, so I feel comfortable accepting this invitation.

Also, it's the biggest party going on, and we're only only a few weeks out from Spring Fashion. Back in autumn I managed to capture the sanction of the Houses by making a damn good showing for the four weeks leading up to Fashion, often by contending directly against the royals. And, loath as I am to say it, Nathan's various plots definitely helped me there. I'm still not sure whether he was trying to help me, but the final effect was positive.

And since I intend to stay relevant for the next few months, I definitely need to be highly visible during these next few weeks. So, I'll be at the biggest parties I can get to. My compromise was to wear a more subdued dress, so it did not look like I arrived here with the intention of pulling attention away from the debutantes. Should be fine, I'm mostly here to conduct more serious business rather than to swan about and be seen by as many people as possible.

I am still wearing my Harigold brand livery like usual, red and white, but rather than the big bold swathes I normally favor I had Hanje's team make me a simpler cut with thin vertical stripes. It was a flattering design and it represented my colors clearly without being so in-your-face about it. The main downside was that I feel like I look like a piece of mint candy. Nobody else thinks so, because they keep making mint candy here in teal green instead of starlight red-and-white.

Nobody else associates it, but I do, and I get self-conscious. So I am still carrying some stuff from my first life. It's natural. At first everything was normal enough. Portal, herald, sitting room, announcements, entrance, applause, mingling. I met Trazom there, he had spent the day out in town while I was busy with murders. There were a few other ducal heirs, as well as two marquises and a few dukes.

After all, most of us are related to the debutantes at least distantly, and it means a lot to these girls to see the House leaders in attendance. There were several people whose introductions were announced after my own, very highly-stationed, including a couple of Lachel's older siblings. But all of us got announced and released before the big event, the promenade of the debutantes. Since all of them were really the guests of honor, they get announced in higher regard, and that means after all the rest of us.

So the guests were all in place when the heralds began to announce the newly-emancipated young ladies. I stood by and applauded for them, as was proper and polite, but I kept a nice distance because I did not want to cramp their style. Despite not really making a plan for it, Trazom just sort of wound up at my side and we chatted together whenever there wasn't someone else bringing business. I withdrew both of us to one side and let various family members close around us.

They did not form a tight wall this time, just a dispersed collection in matching colors to stake out Our Territory. Several of the younger and more marriageable men in our camp were watching the new arrivals as they began circulating through the room, but it seemed like the Harigold menfolk were less eager to approach them and make those acquaintances than were most of the other houses.

It has become known that Princess Natalie has opinions about how proper the current legal age of consent is, and those who wish to curry my favor do not flaunt that custom in front of me. Instead, we just settled amicably and politely and wished the young women all our best, as we settled to more adult conversations, with me at the center, and The Famous at my side. And from there I would occasionally wave to a familiar face and invite them to chat for a few minutes.

Or a few times, I would ask a nearby relative who did not look busy to go and relay a message to one of the other gala guests. Honestly, this whole process is so much easier now that I'm sending forth people to speak on my behalf, rather than fighting my way across traffic to speak to people in person and deliver my own messages. Girhan Grennick better not ever come to me for a favor as repayment for this genuinely good advice. Well, that's where we were when I noticed another familiar face.

Walking about with one of the newly-announced ingenues at his side was a certain captain of the Royal Cavalry Guard. He spotted me before I spotted him, and he was ambling over with a blushing nubile holding his elbow. So that made me a little sour.

I know that the local tradition holds that as of the fifteenth birthday someone is effectively a full adult and can make all their own rash and impulsive life-altering decisions, but I did not think that Sir Chaun Maspers was going to be opportunistically picking up women at a debut ball. I was judging by my own standards, but I had been convinced that he would be better than this. He walked through the loosely-arrayed Harigold family, most of whom were chatting in couple or clusters, normal party stuff.

The girl on his arm was blushing furiously and whispering back and forth with him, and I tried to school my face to something blandly welcoming.

"Princess Natalie," said the guard captain, bowing brightly.

"May I introduce my cousin, Dame Ashela Merlcysa. Ash, this is Natalie Harigold, crown princess of the Meadowtam duchy and the most dangerous and elusive quarry I've ever brought to justice." My smile burst out all at once.

"Sir Maspers," I said, curtsying back.

"Ah, Lady Merlcysa. Your cousin and I go way back. May I acquaint you with Enefiat Trazom?" My celebrity escort made the usual 'charmed I'm sure' while we settled into our roles. His cousin. He was escorting his cousin like a nice, chivalrous older relative, to make sure the unscrupulous wolves in this crowd would not prey on her. He was not, in fact, one of the wolves. I was enormously relieved. Weirdly, Sir Maspers has come to be one of my best friends that I do not see regularly through family or school.

It was strangely important to me that he's not a creep. On the other hand, his cousin is clearly mortified, stammering. She seems more shell-shocked by my greeting than by Trazom's, which is something of a switch- it is not often that someone's reaction to me eclipses his. And the face she made when he introduced me as a dangerous and elusive criminal was very 'oh my god I can't believe you said that'. So she knows who I am, has probably heard the story, but is chagrined and shocked at the way he described it.

He's smiling at me with a twinkle of conspiratorial glee, and I pick it up immediately.

"Dame Merlcysa. Your cousin is still the only person to ever successfully hold me against my will, did you know that?" She was speechless, but Maspers picked up his end.

"I've already told her about the day you were released, taking off your own chains and telling us all that you could have left any time you wanted to. One of the finest moments I've ever been witness to." I found myself laughing along with him.

"I've hired Gedes again, you know. He's told me the same, that it was 'one of the most remarkable acts of brazen audacity' he has ever witnessed." Maspers laughed back.

"Really? I've had the impression that Gedes has seen a lot in his time, and quite a bit of nerve. High praise coming from him, but definitely well-earned!" His cousin interrupted us then.

"Wait, please. Was that story really quite accurate? Princess, did you truly...?" She was stammering it out, tripping over her words. I'm reading something like hero-worship on her, and also notes of real fear. I wonder what combination of rumors about me she's been exposed to. Gods, she is so young. Anyone around us would say she's only a year less than I am. And anyone around us would assume the difference is that she had a nice normal barely-a-noble upbringing and I spent three years in federal prison.

They'd think the massive difference between her worldview and mine just comes down to the harsher circumstances of my life, or perhaps that I had to grow up faster because of my well-known prophetic visions. And, yes, honestly, yes to all of those, but also the fact that I'm mentally twenty years older than anyone suspects. On top of the fact that I've been through traumas that should change me forever. Enefiat stepped in to help.

"I can certainly understand the bewilderment. Hard to imagine anyone showing that sort of patience and perseverance just to relish the big reveal like that. But having gotten to know the princess, I assure you that she is precisely the sort of person that would take astonishing measures just so the dramatic payoff hits so much harder." I felt slightly offended at this characterization. I nudged him.

"I'm not that much a drama queen."

"You composed a song that uses explosions as an instrument."

"Only once," I protested. He is never going to let me live that down. The 1812 Overture remains one of my most well-known works. Meanwhile, the ingenue of the hour was flicking her glance from me to her uncle.

"Wait, that was real? That the princess, accused falsely, stayed in magical prison of her own free will for years?" Don't get me wrong, I really do understand why it's so improbable when you say it like that. If you say 'the princess tricked everyone into locking her up' then it just sounds ridiculous. But that is... a not-inaccurate way to phrase what really happened, isn't it? I was trading a look with Maspers, who looked really amused at my predicament.

"First of all," I said, "I swore to stay on my family's honor." The debutante did not look convinced. I shrugged and committed to it.

"All right, fine. If I broke out they were going to send your cousin to follow me anywhere I would have gone," I admit. She nodded triumphantly, as if now my story made more sense. Not that I could possibly have stayed for my own reasons. But out of fear of Maspers. The guard captain smiled with his amusement, and asked for her to move off a little ways so he and I could speak more privately. Picking up the signal immediately, Enefiat invited the debutante girl to walk with him to the balcony.

The captain watched her fondly as she stepped back a bit, and I sealed sound away to give us a little confidentiality. We moved a bit to keep them in view, without discussion. He barely paused before he changed the subject quite unexpectedly.

"We have an unusual rapport, Princess. A trust and understanding that transcends my duties and your history. In that vein, I would like to ask if you've had anything to do with the attacks against the magisters."

"What?" I said, surprised. He looked surprised at my surprise.

"Really?"

"There have- what?" I repeated.

"I follow the papers! There's not been anything about this!"

"We've kept it out of the papers," he admitted.

"I just rather assumed you had your own sources."

"I do!" I protested.

"And they've been busy! There's been so much going on and- what attacks? Wait, sorry, the better question is 'what magisters?', isn't it?" He wouldn't be asking me about dead magisters for no reason, so there is something that links to me, isn't there? He tapped the side of his nose.

"This case has been baffling some of my colleagues. I just wanted to know if they're spinning their wheels or what. They've been trying to build a case, but they assumed that if this was your doing then it was a dead end because you're legally untouchable."

"There's a reason they have earmarked me for these attacks?" I asked, because I could tell he wanted me to. Ugh, again the Royal Guard makes me suspect number one for any high-profile crimes, even the ones I haven't heard of yet!

"Only because the first one missing was Inquisitor Pina," he deadpanned back.

"Wait, Pina is missing? Missing, even? How? Wait- when?" I was not sure which question was most important, but I was quite baffled here.

"About halfway through your trial," he said. Less deadpan now. He looked a little amused at my flailing. Dick.

"You never bothered to wonder why she stopped showing up?"

"I thought it was because I pissed her off," I said.

"Because I really was pissing her off. I thought she just washed her hands of the whole thing when it became obvious I'm not going back to prison."

"And six other magisters from around the city?" he prompted.

"All murdered in just the past few weeks?" My jaw dropped.

"I guess not," he said, taking a champagne flute from a passing server. He took a sip.

"Hm. Not bad."

"Murdered? How?" I demanded. It's not easy to murder magisters. If it were, honestly, I might have given it some real consideration.

"Mostly by having holes melted in them," Captain Maspers said, way too nonchalantly.

"All the way through. Cauterized wounds, no bleeding. Usually near windows." I folded my arms.

"I'm still a long way from being able to use fire as an effective weapon," I said.

"You sound disappointed," he said.

"Or, annoyed?" I owe him honesty.

"My inability to conduct fire to that degree is an ongoing sore spot," I said.

"It's more envy than annoyance."

"That's your takeaway here?" I shrugged.

"I can't actually be sorry that magisters are getting killed. They are still plotting against me, I'm sure. I know that once I commandeered that trial they backed off some, but that's just waiting for a new opportunity. I'm not naive enough to think they gave up. They tipped their hand early and proved how much they want to have me in their power. So I still have them considered as my enemies. I might find myself grateful to whoever is getting rid of them.

Even more that they're killing magisters using methods that prove it wasn't me." He quaffed the champagne.

"Do try not to sound so very callous about human life," he said.

"It's not as bad as when you just confess to crimes unbidden, but it's still not the best way for you to keep yourself out of prison." I laughed a little.

"As always, your concern for my freedom and well-being are very touching. We should get back to your cousin. Trazom is probably talking her ear off about music." Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

"Or she's talking his ear off about the horse she just got for her birthday," he suggested.

"In either case, someone needs a rescue." I let down the barrier, and we rejoined the party. Ironic that Maspers thinks I'm callous about human life, when I've just spent hours dissecting my conscience over some extremely justified killings. I still haven't canceled out the notice: [Mission Failed: The Boy With The Winning Egg]