The large uniformed man who heavily mounted the gazebo’s steps reflected the season well, being in the autumn of his prime and bearing on his face the early first signs of winter in the form of hoary stubble. If Zephyrin was initially disappointed by his corpulence, the shrewdness of his eye quickly disabused him of the notion that he had before his eyes a comfortable byproduct of nepotism, ready to enjoy a comfortable retirement after an uneventful career on the front.

“My dear Count dy Cassade, pray come and assume your posture!”

The marshal’s bushy eyebrow did not rise by much, but the slight movement was enough to signal to Zephyrin that this was a man no more impressed by the diction of the Exalted than he. “You flatter me to excess, mesdames,” said the marshal in a voice moderately lighter than his build seemed to promise. “Yet I fear your summerhouse lives up to its name altogether too well. I’ve not returned from the Fleurian front, you understand, to find my death beneath these heating stones.”

Some cajoling was required, but at last the Exalted succeeded in persuading the marshal to remain for a brief spell before he resumed his walk. Sitting down heavily as he consented to their invitation, the grizzled veteran listened with an air of amused disbelief as one lady enumerated his charms. “My dear, I am little more than a crumbling ruin, around which the court’s fairest flowers humble themselves to bloom.”

“Ruinenlust, however, is of the age,” she retorted easily, to which the marshal could only acquiesce with a nod. “That it is! And so we find an explanation for my popularity among the fairer sex.” The soldier turned to Zephyrin. “Now, who’s this young shoot growing out of season?”

“Why, this is… this is…” Arthénoïdaline extended her hand palm up in Zephyrin’s direction, her defoliated brows rising quizzically as she smiled blankly. Zephyrin supplied the necessary information, conscious of the retired general’s penetrating eyes upon him. The man complimented him on his good fortune to be here in the capital despite his upbringing but said little else after, returning his attention to the noblewoman soliciting his attention.

“Monsieur, can we expect a recrudescence of violence north of the border?” asked Tintinnabulina with furrowed brows and yet also somewhat vaguely, as one with little inward concern for a matter that she knows ought to be taken seriously.

“At this point the outbreak of the Fifth Border War is very unlikely. The Elysians are content with the terms of the treaty, as are we. The towns that passed into their hands had been criminally neglected—practically falling apart, really, with sewage overflowing in the streets. We will let ten years elapse for the Elysians to rebuild them, then find a convenient pretext for a declaration of war and take them off their hands once more.”

“How very droll war is! And how simple-minded the Elysians for failing to anticipate this!” observed Amalthéa, blissfully oblivious to the obvious fact that the Elysians had signed the truce with identical intentions.

“Why have not the Outremer realms formed a compact?” said Brociliandra suddenly, fiddling with the lacy fringe of her shawl. “Surely if the Principality of Achaea banded with the other kingdoms against the Soldan…” The countess cut herself off there, having exhausted the depths of her knowledge of the East and no doubt hoping the meaning of her contribution was plain enough to absolve her from further elaboration.

The marshal took pity on the lady, allowing her to maintain a veneer of erudition. “Ever since the Great Schism, it has been impossible to coordinate offensive operations, much less a new crusade. Those states will form defensive alliances as necessity arises, but retaking the territory lost to Kosmædom is not yet a feasible undertaking.”

“How terrible it is that the Preordained Lands remain in the hands of the infidels,” said Galaxeria, not sounding sorry at all. “But whyever does the Goddess desire that the Kosmæan nations should be in possession of that barren, inhospitable tract of land?”

The marshal lifted his shoulders. “Women have been known to indulge outlandish caprices.”

“You are unfair, monsieur!” protested Tintinnabulina. “Were I the Goddess, I would covet only the fair heights and pure springs of Tirrah, and men would have nothing to reproach me.”

The marshal quirked his lips. “Are you then more reasonable than our common mother, Countess dy Leste?”

“Oh no! But at least my caprices would be more comprehensible to mortals.”

Aware that the ladies were eager to move on from this bellicose digression yet desirous himself of more details, Zephyrin hazarded an interruption. “What of the situation across the western ocean? I believe the heir of Noha wishes to submit himself to our liege and reign as a viceroy?”

“Such wholesome inquisitiveness is to be commended in youth,” the marshal quickly said, glad to take advantage of Zephyrin’s inquiry. “You are correct, young man. The crown prince of Noha bypassed his father’s wishes and crossed the ocean with his son in the hopes of concluding an agreement; he, at least, understands the precarity of their position.”

“The red-head men of the West…” Oristaline mused. “What has earned them such a distasteful appellation?”

“They are called thus because the sun sets reddest over their lands. Supposedly their hair has assumed something of its hue. I beheld the crown prince during his visit, and I can vouch that it makes a striking pairing with their almond eyes,” Arthénoïdaline replied.

“O, how charmingly poetic!” Tintinnabulina contributed excitedly, while Amalthéa interposed with more pertinence, “His Excellency Monseigneur d’Auriniac appealed to the king for a hundred thousand crowns and a regiment to secure the colony.”

“Yet I believe his request went unanswered,” said the marshal, the displeasure in his voice hardly audible.

“My dear marshal, a hundred thousand crowns! How could the king have possibly consented to such an outrageous sum?”

“How I feel for those poor pagans,” simpered Galaxeria, her tone dripping with a compassion that noble ears were notoriously prone to confuse with condescension. “I simply can’t imagine life in a barbarian nation. Without the moral instruction of our holy religion, they must lead a life more akin to that of beasts than rational men.”

“Yet I have heard,” replied the newcomer mildly, “that in the West, adultery is punished more severely than in our country. The renowned Térouan d’Arime did nothing but praise their Western civilization, calling it older than ours and more enlightened. It is said that our Minister of Finance has even modeled our economic policies after their philosophy, the name of which escapes me.”

As the marshal and countess engaged in a respectful but spirited back and forth, Zephyrin brooded. In his era, Seaxland had come to dominate the transhesperian isles, to the point of reaching and establishing a foothold on the western mainland. Narcissin had tried to hold onto Gaulyria’s nascent colonies in that region, but the monarchy’s chronic mismanagement and failure to implement fiscal reform had doomed his efforts from the start; Noha had slipped from his grasp soon after his rise to power.

So this aspect of history hasn’t changed. Is this the reason why the Goddess brought me to the palace now, of all times? Am I supposed to sway the king into supporting the claimant before his deposition?

He had to admit to himself that the probablity of succeeding in this seemed absurdly slim; the Nohani prince had already departed, and as for Rudolf XIII…

When next he attuned his ears to the discussion, Zephyrin was disappointed but not surprised to find that it had reverted to the usual complimentary banter that constitutes the chief delight of the highborn. He did not know whether he was more frustrated by the superficiality of the Exalted or his state as a child; both precluded a deepening of the conversation he could have otherwise pursued with the marshal.

“…her correspondence is to relinquish one’s life for. Have you read her latest epistle?” inquired Arthénoïdaline with relish.

“Read it? I do not read her letters; I masticate them.”

“Well do I understand your sentiments, monsieur! By and by, are you quite recovered from your recent indisposition? How grieved I was to learn you were ill not a fortnight past…”

“Ill? With a sickness, no—but with the era, certainly.”

“These are indeed ungracious times,” sighed the duchess. “The masses forget their place to their dishonor, and day by day men of quality enrabbalize themselves. It is enough to drive one to despondency, to reflect that our amiable society is the last sanctuary open to beauty in the world.”

“And assuredly that of virtue as well,” proposed the marshal blandly, a subtle but unmistakable undercurrent of dissimulation in his tone. “Now, my dear lady, perhaps you can be of assistance to an old man. I am in something of a quandary.”

“My friend, there is nothing that would please me better. What is it that ails you?”

“It is this: I am sojourning in the capital’s court, and who says a court says a king. Yet the only man I have seen close to occupying that position, if one is to judge by appearances, is an extravagantly dressed fellow putting on airs and strutting about like a barnyard rooster—”

“That would be Faramond, Her Majesty’s headdresser,” Duchess Oristinaline put in ruefully, manifestly conflicted by the juxtaposition of the man’s skill and his baseblood origins. “He has a third-rate jester’s tongue but a master’s hands, and Madame adores him.”

“Ah. Well, I have no quarrel with socially mobile basebloods—it does no harm to rearrange one’s furniture, from time to time. But this does not resolve my difficulty: where is His Majesty? Surely Monsieur has not handed over the keys to the city to a scissor-handed dandy?”

“His Majesty is still away hunting,” explained the eldest duchess, as Arthénoïdaline concurred with a nod, “he and his finest gentlemen, and so we find ourselves dying of ennui. Why, there is nothing for it but to play trictrac until their return.”

“A most lamentable state of affairs. As for myself, I have undertaken to make a daily, brisk patrol of the park’s series of zigzagging lanes and leafy nooks, the charms of which provide some compensation for that unsightly slab,” he said, gesturing with his cane to the castle.

Arthénoïdaline’s smiled. “I fear you’ve come calling too late in the season, monsieur; you found our fair gardens at a disadvantage, and underdressed for the occasion.”

“Better the gardens than the gentlemen who survey it. Moreover, there are advantages to the trees’ shabbiness of garb; rounsepikes admit more light, and you will be gratified to know that while playing the peripatetic, my post-luncheon perambulations have been most pleasant.”

“I am indeed glad to hear it. Have you had the opportunity to tour the human zoo?”

“Is it open? I thought it closed for the season…”

“A human zoo?” One or two heads turned as the comment escaped Zephyrin’s mouth. “How does it differ from a zoo for animals?” he pressed, and as a silence fell Zephyrin found himself the focal point of attention.

“… Why, it doesn’t. That’s the point, dear boy,” Arthénoïdaline said slowly at last, her brows knitting in puzzlement. “The natives are kept in an enclosure where they can be observed to the satisfaction of the visitors. Of course they are well fed, just like any other animals.”

That hadn’t been his concern, but Zephyrin perceived well enough it would be useless to say more. The slave trade would be abolished during his father’s reign; there was no purpose venting his indignation on these nobles. Their reckoning would come, and he and Narcissin would carry on the legacy of Gaulyria—of the true Gaulyria, laden today with the chains of the old order’s decadence, but not for much longer. Contemplating the palace in the distance, Zephyrin listened with divided attention as the marshal spoke.

“…and if in need of more vigorous exercise, perhaps I shall fight a duel.” “A duel! What’s this now at your age, good sir? For what possible purpose?” “There is an epyllion or play lurking in my brain somewhere that still needs finding. Versifying is like hunting. All it takes is one sharp crack to flush out one’s ideas, like so much game to shoot.”

“Madame du Flamandrin has been penning verses,” said the abstracted Tintinnabulina, her gaze wandering, then dreamily settling on a butterfly that two seasons gone had surely presented a charming picture, but now only uncurled its multicolored wings to her mind’s eye.

“As a rusted sword does injury to a scabbard, so too must women take care in exercising their modest intellectual talents, lest imagination does a disservice to a delicate constitution little accustomed to strenuous application,” advised the old marshal, whose wisdom provoked a few cries of consternation among the ladies and a more frantic fluttering of their fans. “No, no, my mind is quite made up on the matter; I knew a lady who betook herself to penning verses once; she did not live to see the year’s end.”

“My dear count, you cannot extrapolate—”

“Where women are concerned, poetry is an aid to melancholy; where men, madness.”

“Hearing you speak, the act of putting rhymes to page seems a very perilous one indeed.”

“There is none deadlier still permitted in civil society. What kills more gentlemen per annum, brandishing swords or pistols to settle an affair of honor, or wielding a pen to indulge rather than dissipate one’s ill humors? One needs a vigorous, manly spirit to craft poesy; I myself would not dare to undertake the endeavor had my spirit not been refined like gold in the furnace of the battlefield. And now, my fair flowers,” said the marshal, rising to his feet and dabbing at his brow, “I believe I shall conclude my promenade. While I do not belong to that school which teaches that one can enjoy too much of a good thing, I do fear that our exchange is unequal, for while you derive but scant profit from my presence, I on the other hand am grossly enriched by your radiant charms.”

“A moment, dear friend!” called out Oristaline, as he turned to go. “Can I count on the pleasure of your presence on my nameday?”

“I readily confess that, in my weakness, a plump capon roasted to perfection still constitutes one of the consolations of my existence on this subnubilar plane.”

“I will take that as a yes,” laughed the duchess, her shoulders jerking in an odd, back and forth motion. “Very well! Do give Aramanthaxina a kiss on my behalf. Oh! Will her cousins be visiting as she expected?”

“Yes. They will assuredly make up part of our party. Two, at least, are tolerably pretty—the third we can probably contrive to conceal behind the aforementioned fowl.”

With these parting pleasantries, the marshal descended the gazebo’s steps and regained the paved walkway. As he did so, Zephyrin was startled to realize that the air around him suddenly felt lighter, as if a hitherto unremarked but oppressive stormhead had dissipated. Curiously, at that moment the actual clouds did part, briefly allowing a shaft of light to spill out on the walkway and illuminate the marshal’s retreating form. Giving his cane a twirl as he strode off, the years seemed to melt from his frame.

“He is such a lamb,” said Oristaline, settling back in her seat. “I absolutely adore him. Do you know what he said when I asked him if he was not embittered by his forced retirement? He said this: ‘The deepening of my intimacy with duty has never failed to reward. And if motives for unaccountable grief I may have, still I dine every evening, and at the same hour.’ O exalted resignation of the philosopher!”

“His soul is of a nobility that recalls to men their own goddess-given dignity—and that, indeed, is a most powerful motive for hatred,” Arthénoïdaline said before widening her eyes, as if surprised by the rare profundity of her own words.

Zephyrin was still staring off in the direction of the marshal’s departure when at last the ladies gave him leave to depart. So relieved was he to quit their company that he quite forgot to inquire after the reward he had been promised. For a fleeting moment he considered retracing his steps, but with the chapel bells solemnly intoning the hour, summoning the court to the noonday liturgy, he wended his way back to the palace.