I often felt like I was nothing more than a piece of elegant furniture, or a set of expensive dishware, that got taken out from storage whenever we had notable visitors.
My mother hovered around her seamstress, watching closely, nervously rubbing the tips of her fingernails with her thumbs. “And I want you to play your harp tonight. Something pretty. Something happy. None of those sad slow songs you seem to like so much. We can’t have our guests thinking you’re prone to brooding and moping.”
I was neither a brooder nor a moper, but I hated playing in public more than anything in the world. For me, playing the harp was a private, sensual, deeply personal thing. But my mother made sure I had the fanciest harp in the land, gilded in gold, for the times when I was taken out from storage in order to impress.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Maria press her fingers to her temples. She knew how much I disliked playing for a crowd, but more than that, she’d often confided that she didn’t trust my mother. Not at all. Maria came from a world of gypsy magic, of feeling more than knowing.
She once said she was sure my mother wasn’t rotten at her core, but that there was something deep inside her, some obstruction in her heart, that made her prone to thoughtlessness. Perhaps that was true. But she was still my mother. And it was best to humor her until she forgot about me once again.
Somehow, I managed a somewhat convincing, “I’d be happy to play for our guests, mother,” as the hairdresser ruthlessly attacked my tangled damp hair with a fine-toothed comb.
I arrived early to the dinner and was escorted to my place on the royal dais, the big rectangular table that was positioned in front of the assembled crowd. People were still milling around, having conversations, and enjoying champagne brought in high glasses by livery men in full formal dress.
Scanning the big round tables spread out in front of me in the great hall, I recognized fewer than half the faces, if that many at all. My mother and stepfather had spared no expense for this dinner, however—I saw that at a glance. The room sparkled with thousands of candles and shimmering crystal glasses.
At first, I was alone on the dais. My mother and stepfather would sit on either side of me; to my father’s left would sit Maksim. I looked at his empty chair and wondered if he’d even show up. It wouldn’t be the first time that he ditched one of these dinners.
Secretly, I hoped he would show. But I didn’t dare indulge myself in thinking about that too much at the moment. I knew that any thought of him would make my cheeks flush and cause my mother to stare at me with her icy glare.
I was never any good at working the room, and this time I didn’t even try. Maria stood close behind me, hands clasped and head bowed. I glanced back to look at her as I spread my napkin on my lap.
“What is this dinner for, anyway?” I asked her.
She lifted her shoulders. “I have no idea. But before you know it, it’ll be all over.”
I tried to get comfortable in my chair, but every movement I made forced the whale bones of my corset to jab into my hips and back. Miserably, I sucked in my stomach and straightened out my silverware.
The sound of the dinner bell cut through the chatter of the people, and everybody flooded between the tables to find their assigned seats. The table in the center of the room was the biggest and had the most lavish centerpiece by far.
The emblem of my stepfather’s kingdom, which was now also my mother’s emblem, was a white hart stag beneath a crescent moon. It was said that long ago an ancestor of the royal family had discovered the kingdom of Estana after a journey across the wide ocean. The emblem of his family had been a moon and three stars, which had eventually become a moon and a stag with three eyes, and then simply a stag and the moon.
Scattered on every table were wooden stag statues, which were always part of the floral arrangements when we had grand dinners. But there, in the big center table, there were also carved bulls, clearly placed there on behalf of whatever family was being honored. I was no herald, but the bull was entirely unfamiliar to me. The family, too, was unknown to me; the men were big and dark eyed, ruddy-cheeked and slightly impolite. The women looked secretive, also dark-eyed. All of them were beautiful, exotic. But somehow unnerving. Like wild cats.
My mother and stepfather took their places on the dais; my mother smelled too strongly of perfume, but she was very much in her element. There was hardly anything she enjoyed more than a big dinner. My stepfather, too, was in rare form; he was a dreadful human being, as far as I was concerned, but he did have a certain strange magnetism. I glanced at him and smiled, admiring the jewels in his massive ceremonial crown.