Andō’s stern face turned sterner. “Kraye broke Dana?’s heart. Kraye wooed her, lured her, made promises to her, pressured her into an illicit meeting—with a solemn vow that it would be an innocent one—and there, when the lady would not satisfy Kraye’s mad jealous demands of eternal and monogamous fidelity,” here he glanced at golden Ganymede, “Kraye attacked her. He was caught in the act, her blood on his fists, and would not accept the consequences like a gentleman, kept abusing her with slanders no gentleman should utter. Ganymede and I were only two of the many who offered to duel to avenge the lady’s honor, but Kraye refused. When DNA proved the child was Kraye’s they went mad with rage, attacked the lady, and Madame, and others. Madame dismissed them forever from this house, and Kraye killed themself soon after.”
Carlyle scowled. “That’s not an answer, it’s a penny dreadful.”
“Tut,” Dominic warned, his voice deferent here among the princes, but still with its growling undertow. “There, little Cousin, thou malignest our philosophe; Diderot never sold for a mere penny.”
Carlyle turned to Dominic, hot. “You knew, didn’t you? All of this?”
Dominic needs to work on hiding his smiles. “Come, this is good news. Thou art a prince, and, with Ganymede childless, next in line to be the Duke. If thou’rt acknowledged thou mayest use one of thine uncle’s lesser titles. I looked it up for thee: Count of Laval is the obvious choice, but thou couldst make a case for Marquis de Royan.”
Carlyle glared, the true blue diamond sharpness of a scion de la Trémo?lle finally awakening in his eyes. Yes, reader ‘his’; this is the moment for which I was commanded to use ‘he’ for Carlyle. Such are the deplorable laws of aristocracy that a bastard niece might matter little to the Duke, but a nephew, with a nephew comes inheritance, and barbarian blood upon the ducal throne.
If Dominic had another taunt, MASON silenced it with the raising of his merciful right hand. “Cousin Foster,” he began again, “I understand you have been to this house before. You know what is practiced here. Madame and those employed here know how to lure people into their moral palette, as well as their sexual palette. The Merion Kraye affair was a stock, archaic tragedy dredged back from darker ages, but stock, archaic dramas are why people come here, and they choose it knowingly.”
“And you just let Madame do this to people?” the sensayer half shouted.
“I am the law in Alexandria,” MASON pronounced, “not here. Madame and those within this house are Blacklaws. Members who patronize Madame’s establishment do indeed break laws sometimes, as Kraye did by committing assault, against the laws of Europe, but for the residents of the house itself, only the Eight Black Laws stand here. If here Madame wields sex as a weapon, Romanova has no Universal Law to contradict. If here affairs of honor are resolved by dueling, and those who refuse the combat, as Kraye did, are expelled from the establishment, Romanova has no Universal Law to contradict. To ask me to intervene is to ask my Empire to raise its hand against Romanova; this you do not want, for a thousand reasons.”
That fear—a thousand times the scale of petty Seven-Ten lists—made the Cousin pause.
“Exactly!” Ganymede confirmed. “This is a civilized house. My sister did nothing wrong. It was that monster Kraye—that criminal—who brought the poison, Kraye who broke the law, assaulted my sister, and tried to destroy her, and my family honor!”
“That isn’t true!” Casimir Perry could hold back no more.
Ganymede’s eyes flashed murder. “What would you know, Outsider?”
“What do I know?” Perry seethed. “I know the two of you conspired to ruin an innocent man. I know Hotaka Andō paid a king’s ransom for your services, bought you from Madame, set you up in the outside, built your mansion at La Trimouille, arranged your art contacts, your political career, all in return for what you did. I know that whore lying on the sofa over there is not the pure, virginal victim you all pretend. I know Madame knew it all, let it all happen, may even have planned it all themself. And I know that child is not my son!”
No one breathed.
Faust moved first, smiling as he checked his gilded pocket watch. “Seventeen minutes, twenty-one seconds, Madame. I win the bet.”
Madame gathered her skirts, the lacy sea tangling as she attempted to navigate around a tower of cheeses. “Oh, were we counting from when you and Perry arrived, or from when we were all assembled? By the latter count it’s under ten minutes, so I win.”
Perry bristled like a cornered boar. “What bet?”
Madame’s fan hid what must have been a smile. “You were doing so well, Merion. All you had to do was sit quietly through this and no one would have known. You’d finally made it back inside.”
“You knew?” He paled. “You knew it was me?”
“You think I don’t check all comers to my house? All comers to this room?” The Lady blinked. “A suicide is easy to fake, a face, a voice easy to change, but there are always traces. I never lose track of anyone.” Delicately as a hummingbird teasing the nectar from a flower’s heart, she lifted the silver cover from a tray to reveal a layer cake frosted with the chocolate greeting: “Welcome Back Merion Kraye.” Faust alone contributed applause.
I heard a hiccupped gasp across the line from the Anonymous, to my relief, and saw raw and innocent astonishment on Caesar’s face, Kosala’s too, Earth’s Mom and stony Father stepping close to one another, as if ready to battle back-to-back for their Hives and poor Earth’s sanity.
“Merion Kraye?” Ganymede clutched the knife-straight hairpin tighter.
“Calm, Your Grace, calm…” Madame warned.
“Casimir Perry is Merion Kraye?”
“Your Grace, I thank you to keep your temper in my house.” Madame did not raise her voice, but its firm timbre made the Duke—her ba’child as much as Helo?se—tremble.
Of all present, Carlyle had the most right to shudder. “You’re my father? Casimir Perry?”
I wonder if Perry, or rather Perry-Kraye, realized he was backing steadily toward the exit, or that I moved in to block him. I doubt it, for he stared at Madame like a lunatic at his hallucination. “You knew it was me this whole time? And you let me back in? Let me become Prime Minister? The last time you saw me I swore I’d never rest until I destroyed you and all that you’ve created. Why would—”
“Because I asked her to, Merion.” The King of Spain stepped forward, gently, as if trying to keep a cornered animal from panicking.
The Outsider paled. “Your Majesty? Why?”
Spain smiled. “You were young and foolish and in love, and you were one of the most promising political minds of our generation. You did not deserve to lose it all over one sour love affair. Europe needed you. I needed you. Madame recognized you easily after you took on your new persona as Casimir Perry. Madame told me who you really were, but I asked her not to tell the others. They might not have tolerated giving you a second chance.”
Perry-Kraye scrunched his cuffs with tense hands. “A second chance … And then I cheated you out of your office…” The new Prime Minister was too ashamed to meet the King’s eyes. “I rigged the election, I had Ziven Racer cheat so you’d have to drop out, all against my benefactor…”
“I know.” Spain nodded, as a much-tried father nods. “And I forgive you. The important thing is that Europe be ruled well, not that I rule it. I trusted you to value your second chance, and not to squander it on some petty revenge. Was I wrong?”
Kraye held his breath like a man about to dive, and I edged closer, ready to grapple if his dive turned violent. It was a strange way to meet him, really. I had not known this man, you must realize, not as Merion Kraye, nor really as Casimir Perry, the Prime Minister whom I had glimpsed here or there upon a balcony when I ran Jehovah’s errands at Parliament, no more. I had identified Carlyle’s mother by hacking the Gag-gene records, but had not known the deeper scandal.