The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [103]
‘Where is—’ she began, but stopped abruptly when she heard a tiny sneeze, an unmistakable baby sneeze. Then another. They were coming from the fur bag. Stevie looked closely and saw it was a baby carrier of some kind and deep inside it, almost hidden in all the fur, was the Hammer-Belle baby. That made three.
Yudorov’s marquee took polo spectatorship to a new level. Stevie had never seen anything quite like it. It was the biggest of all the marquees and would have comfortably held three hundred guests. At one end, there was a huge bar carved entirely out of ice. Dotted about in that ice
were stems of orchids, in all strange and gorgeous shapes, and different colours. Shot glasses made of ice were filled with vodka, slammed down the throat and crushed underfoot, where, on the warm red carpet, they melted to nothing. A huge bowl of caviar stood at one end of the bar, also carved out of ice, a silver ladle for serving.
From the tented roof hung six chandeliers, their crystal baubles suspended above the guests like icicles. At the other end of the tent was the most enormous harp Stevie had ever seen, and on a stool beside it, the tiniest harp player, her long dark hair threaded into a plait that reached past her waist.
Trays of food were being handed around—crabs claws, sushi, steamed dumplings on spoons—the variety seemed endless. All the waiters, Stevie realised with a start, were dwarves dressed in traditional Swiss costume: embroidered shirts in red and blue, matching embroidered skull caps and black velvet knickerbockers. They made the whole scene seem faintly surreal.
Where was Yudorov? He would want to greet his famous guests.
Stevie looked for the thickest clump of security men . . . There. The host himself was wearing a rust-coloured fur jacket and sharply pointed python-skin cowboy boots in the same colour. He was hatless and smoking a cigar, giving Stevie a clear view of his round face, topped with fine gingery hair, and his piercing blue eyes, also perfectly round. His wife, Amalia, was by his side, a tiny woman with perfect black hair in a huge, black fur bomber jacket from under which poked tiny, denim-clad twigs. She looked—and her sharp face only added to the impression— rather like an exotic breed of chicken.
Stevie knew from Josie’s notes that Amalia rarely left London, while Yudorov was constantly travelling. Everyone knew, presumably including the wife, that he had girlfriends galore and none of them over twenty-two. He caught sight of the Hammer-Belles. Sandy gave a little wave.
‘Yoo-–hoo,’ she cooed as he made his way over to them and kissed Sandy’s hand.
‘Welcome to my tent!’ He clapped Douglas on the back and ushered them over to where he had been standing. The match was about to begin.
The side of the marquee was rolled up so guests could actually watch the match, although many seemed totally uninterested.
The captain of Yudorov’s team—renamed the Blue Bears—had a ten-goal handicap, the team a twenty-goal handicap between them.
Yudorov would, Stevie thought, be feeling confident of winning against the red team, led by rogue Australian Jack ‘Ruki’ Baillieu with his eight-goal handicap. Stevie had, however, seen Ruki play enough times to know he was a wild card that could turn the game in an instant.
The first chukka started and the horses raced around the field at unbelievable speed, especially given that they were galloping on snow and ice. Stevie had seen the grooms shoeing them earlier—huge iron shoes with metal spikes to give the horses grip.
The ball was large and fiery orange, easy to see in the snow, but the oddest thing was the silence. The thud of hooves was muted to almost nothing, even the thwacking mallets, the cries, were distant and muffled. The red and blue jerseys of the players stood out brightly against the grey day and the air in the valley was as still as a crypt.
Sandy and Douglas watched with some interest for a few minutes then Sandy’s eyes began to wander over the other guests. There were some rich pickings: Prince Albert of Monaco was there with two