Dancing With Bears - Michael Swanwick [29]
Then he went inside the mansion.
If the gardens outside held the best of Moscow society, the rooms within held the worst. These were the people who really mattered—the plutocrats and ministers and financiers who, subordinate only to the mighty duke himself, actually ran Muscovy. They were not crowded together as were those without. They gathered in the ballroom in threes and fours, chatting amiably with colleagues they saw every day, while waiters drifted by with drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Nor did Surplus’s entry make much of a stir. The grandees looked up or did not, nodded or failed to do so, and occasionally smiled in the serene knowledge that they were so powerful and the event so inconsequential that not even the most judgmental would think they were trying to ingratiate themselves to a mere foreigner.
A waiter held out a tray holding triangles of toast and an enormous bowl of caviar. “Beluga, sir?”
Surplus leaned forward and sniffed. “Why does this smell fishy? It’s clearly gone bad. Throw it in the alley.”
“But Excellency…!”
“Just do it,” Surplus said, pretending not to notice the shocked and amused reactions of those near enough to overhear.
At the far end of the ballroom, a newly built partition stretched from wall to wall. It was solid from the floor to waist-height and scrollwork filigree above, with a mesh screen behind it to ensure that nothing but air, sight, and sound could pass from one side to the other. Through it could be dimly glimpsed the alluring figures of the Pearls as they entered the space behind and peered about eagerly. There Surplus went.
“So these are the famous Russian women,” Olympias said. “They look like cows.”
“Compared to you and your sisters, O Daughter of Perfection, all women do. Though to be fair, those present are ministers and gene-barons and the like, along with their wives and husbands. No doubt many of them have daughters or lovers who are more fetching. In an uncultured and rough-hewn sort of way, of course.”
“Don’t,” Olympias said, “condescend.”
“Will the duke be here?” Russalka interjected.
“He has been invited, of course. Whether he will attend in person or not…” Surplus shrugged.
“I am avid to see him.”
“I am avid to do a great deal more than that with him,” Nymphodora added.
“We are all avid to begin our new lives,” Zoësophia said.“In fact, if we are not presented to the duke soon, I promise you that things will get ugly.”
“I shall of course make it my first priority to…”
“More ugly than you can imagine,” Zoësophia emphasized.
Surplus returned to his guests. It suited his purposes to meet the Duke of Muscovy, and the sooner the better. The ultimatum the Pearls had just issued did not bother him in the least.
Until, that is, he mentioned his errand to the Mistress of Protocol, and she burst into a short, sharp bark of laughter. “The Duke of Mus-covy—here? Whyever in the world would he come here?”
“He was expressly invited.”
The State Mistress frowned like a bulldog. “The duke never responds to invitations. It would be absurd. They are all discarded, unread. That is, in fact, a significant part of my job.”
“Then allow me to seize the opportunity, since you are here, of arranging a private audience. I am most eager to meet him.”
“Meet the Duke of Muscovy! My dear Ambassador, nobody can meet that perfect man! Oh, such underlings as are ordered to his chambers to receive orders or offer accountings. And Chortenko, of course. But the duke does not socialize. Nor does he see foreigners of any ilk.”
“But, you see, it is my duty to give him a present from his cousin the Caliph of Baghdad, which is of such surpassing—”
“Yes, yes. I’m sure it’s wonderful. If you leave it with the Office of the Treasury, they’ll give you a receipt, and it will be put on display in the Cathedral of the Dormition for a month and then relegated to storage.”
“This is not the sort of present that—”
“Exactly.” The minister turned away.
Minutes later,