“About tonight?” Brilliana caught her eye and continued. ‘Tonight is the formal ball to mark the opening of the winter session of his majesty’s court tomorrow morning. There will be members of every noble family in the capital present. This is the session in which his majesty must assemble tribute to the emperor beyond the ocean, so it tends to be a little subdued—nobody wants to look too opulent—but at the same time, it’s essential to be seen. To be present in Niejwein at the beginning of winter used to mean one was snowed in, wintering here. Noble hostages at his majesty’s pleasure. We don’t do that these days, but still, it’s a mark of good faith to be seen to offer obedience and at least one older family member. Your uncle sent word by way of his secretary that you be asked to bend the knee and pledge his obedience, by the way.”

“He did, did he?” muttered Miriam.

“Well!” Brill paced across the room in front of her. “What this means is that it will be an assembly of some sixty families of note and their representatives and champions.” She spotted Miriam’s surprised expression. “Did you think we and ours were the sum and the end of the nobility? This is a small fraction of the whole, but thanes and earls from distant towns and estates cannot appear at court, and so many of them make supplication by proxy. We, the Clan families, are merely a small fraction—but the cream.”

“So there are going to be, what, several hundred people present?”

Brilliana nodded, looking very serious. “At least that,” she said. “But I’ll be right behind you to remind you of anyone important.”

“Whew! Lucky me.” Miriam raised an eyebrow. “How long does it go on for?”

“Hmm.” Brill tilted her head over to one side. “It would be rude to leave before midnight. Are you going to be … ?”

“This time, I don’t have a three-day coach journey behind me.” Miriam stood up. And this time I’m going to do business, she added mentally. “So. What do I need to say when greeting people, by order of rank, so as not to offend them? And what have you and Kara decided I’m going to wear?”

This time it only took Kara and Brill an hour to dress Miriam in a midnight-blue gown. But then they insisted on taking another hour to paint her face, put up her hair, and hang a few kilograms of gold, silver, and precious stones off her. At the end of the process, Miriam walked in front of the mirror (a full two feet in diameter, clearly imported from the other side) and took a comic double-take. “Is that me?” she asked.

“Should it not be?” Brilliana replied. Miriam glanced at her. Brilliana’s outfit looked to Miriam to be both plainer and more elegant than her own, not to mention easier to move in. “It is a work of art,” Brilliana explained, “fit for a countess.”

“Hah. ‘A work of art!’ And here I was, thinking I was a plain old journalist.” Miriam nodded to herself. All face, she thought. All the wealth goes on the outside to show how rich you are. That’s how they think. If you don’t display it, you ain’t got it. Remember that. This outfit seemed marginally less overblown than the last: Maybe she was getting used to local styles. “Is there,” she asked doubtfully, “anywhere that I can put a few small items?”

“I can assign a maid to carry them, if it pleases you—” Brilliana caught her expression. “Oh that kind of item,”

“Yes.” Miriam nodded, afraid that smiling would crack her makeup.

“She could use a muff, for her hands?” suggested Kara.

“A ‘muff’?” asked Miriam.

“This.” Kara produced a cylindrical fur hand-warmer from somewhere. “Will it do?”

“I think so.” Miriam tried stuffing her hands in it. It had room to spare—and a small pocket. She smiled in spite of herself. “Yes, this will do,” she said. She walked over to her day sack and fished around in it. “Dammit, this is ridiculous—got it!” She stood up triumphantly clutching the bag and pulled out a number of small items that she proceeded to stuff into the muffler.

“Milady?” Kara looked puzzled.

“Never go out without a spare tampon,” Miriam told her. “You know, tampons?” She blinked in surprise. “Well, maybe you don’t. And a few other things.” Like a strip of beta-blocker tablets, a small bottle of painkillers, a tarnished silver locket, a credit card wallet, and a mobile phone. That should cover most eventualities, she told herself.

“Milady—” Kara looked even more puzzled.

“Yes, yes,” Miriam said briskly. “We can go now—or as soon as you’re ready, right? Only,” she held up a finger, “it occurs to me that it would be a good idea to keep our carriage ready to return at a moment’s notice. Do you understand? Against the possibility that my mystery admirer turns up again.”

“I’ll see to it,” said Brilliana. She looked slightly worried.

“Do so.” Miriam took a deep breath. “Shall we leave now?”

Travelling by carriage seemed to involve as much preparation as a flight in a light plane and was even less comfortable. A twenty-minute slog in a freezing cold carriage, sandwiched between Kara and Brilliana, didn’t do anything good to Miriam’s sense of tolerance and goodwill. The subsequent hour of walking across the king’s brilliantly polished parquet supporting a fixed, gracious grin and a straight back wouldn’t normally have done anything to help, either—but Miriam had done trade shows before, and she found that if she treated this whole junket as a fancy-dress industry event, she actually felt at home in it. Normally she’d use a dictaphone to record her notes—a lady-in-waiting in a red gown would have been rather obtrusive at a trade show—but the principle was the same, she decided, getting into the spirit of things. “Is that so?” she cooed, listening attentively to Lord Ragnr and Styl hold forth on the subject of the lobster fishermen under his aegis. “And do they have many boats?” she asked. “What kind do they prefer, and how many men crew them?”

“Many!” Lord Ragnr and Styl puffed up his chest until it almost overshadowed his belly, which was proud and taut beneath a layer of sashes and diadems. “At last census, there were two hundred fishing crofts in my isles! And all of them but the most miserable with boats of their own.”

“Yes, but what type are they?” Miriam persisted, forcing a smile.

“I’m sure they’re perfectly adequate fishing boats; I shouldn’t worry on their behalf, my lady. You should come and visit one summer. I am sure you would find the fresh sea air much to your favour after the summer vapours of the city, and besides—” he huffed—“didn’t I hear you say you were interested in the whales?”

“Indeed.” Miriam dipped her head, chalking up another dead loss—yet another feudal drone who didn’t know or wouldn’t talk about the source of his own wealth, being more interested in breeding war horses and feuding with the king’s neighbours. “May I have the pleasure of your conversation later?” she asked. “For I see an old friend passing, and it would be rude not to say hello—”

She ducked away from Ragnr and Styl, and headed toward the next nobleman and his son—she was beginning to learn how to spot such things—and wife. “Ambergris, Brill, may be available from Ragnr and Styl. Make a note of that, please, I want to follow it up later. Who’s this fellow, then?”

“This is Eorl Euan of Castlerock. His wife is Susan and the son is, um, I forget his name. Rural aristocracy, they farm and, uh, they’re clients of the Lords Arran. How do you spell Ambergris?”

Miriam advanced on Eorl Euan with a gracious smile. “My lord!” She said. “I am sorry, but I have not been gifted with the privilege of your acquaintance before. May I intrude upon your patience for a few minutes?”

It was, she had discovered, a surprisingly effective tactic. The manners were different, the glitz distracting, and the products and press releases took a radically dissimilar form—but the structure was the same. At a trade show she was used to stalking up to a stand where some bored men and women were waiting to fall upon such as she and tell her their business plans and their life stories. She’d had no idea what happened at a royal court event, but evidently a lot of provincial nobility turned up in hope of impressing all and sundry and carving out a niche as providers of this or that—and they were as much in search of an audience with a bright smile and a notepad as any marketing executive, did they but know it.