It was early autumn, so dahlias dominated the public gardens. By day, flower borders looked like aquarium tanks crowded with big bright sea-anemones. My own eyes were more intent on the flowers of the night: the myriad rainbow lanterns strung outside Seveno’s bars and dancing halls and casinos; the orange lamps hung in the windows of “houses of ladies” to lure visiting male moths.

  Here was I, admiring the salle blanche of the Grand Salon de Chance: white marble walls, water-lily chandeliers, ornate ormolu clocks, green lawns of baccarat and roulette tables. A wide spiral stairway wended upward to the salle privee.

  I’d purchased a half-crown entry ticket from the commissariat. A cadaverous man wearing an impeccable cream suit and mulberry bow tie beckoned me discreetly aside.

  “Gospodin.” To my consternation he addressed me quietly using a polite mode from the magic language. I was wearing ordinary trousers and jacket, a striped shirt, a floppy neckerchief, certainly not my palace uniform. My poniard was hidden in my inside breast pocket.

  “Pardon,” he murmured, “but you have magic. May I remind you that you must not play downstairs? A player with known magic must use the salle privee upstairs, by arrangement with the management. The odds are different there. Of course you may watch the proceedings here.”

  “What makes you think I’m magical? I’ve never been here in my life before.”

  The cadaver permitted himself a faint smile. “I’m this casino’s physiognomist, Gospodin. I know almost every face in Bellogard, and many country faces too. I know the gait of everyone. A certain dishonest farmer may visit town once a year wearing false whiskers, yet I know him. I walk about town every day, memorizing. If someone cheats here once, they are barred forever. Not that I impute any such motive to you, you understand?”

  “Actually I wasn’t planning to place any bets-much less use guile! I don’t happen to know the rules.”

  “In another hour you may know them, and grow excited. However, I’m discretion incarnate. I needn’t reveal your identity to the table supervisors, Gospodin. I merely make a subtle signal; and you fail to find a seat.”

  “Is yours a magic skill?” (How did he know me?)

  “No. A matter of observation and memory. You’re the pipe-maker’s lad. I used to notice you on your way to the Gymnasium. Later, I spotted news items in Noveeny: a certain episode at the Razval baths, your palace appointment.”

  What an ideal fellow to spot a spy! Maybe the Physiognomist tipped off our agents in town. Yet I was sure that he wasn’t the person I was due to meet at the Zupsko Tavern the following week. There was an obsessional pedantry about the Physiognomist which didn’t fit my concept of an agent.

  I watched the roulette and baccarat for a while. More interesting to me than the activities of croupiers and the gambling gentry of Bellogard, accompanied by their fine ladies, was a certain fat woman. Dressed in rosy silks, ruby necklace and domino mask, she strolled the salle, inspecting play through a pair of opera-glasses mounted on a bamboo rod, and holding court between whiles on a sofa. A succession of solo gentlemen sat by her, chatting softly. They generally gave her presents of high-value chips or plaques.

  I stopped a valet. “Excuse me, but who is that lady?”

  “She is the Prophetess, sir. Supposedly she recommends winning systems.”

  “Supposedly?”

  The valet cleared his throat. “She makes arrangements, too. For the subsequent amusements of gentlemen.”

  I thought of Margarita. I imagined myself sitting by the Prophetess describing my tastes to her-such as I imagined those to be, based on the slightest of experience!

  Ah, but I had no plaques or chips to give her, nor any way to acquire them.

  So here was I later that night in a less elegant, more typical casino, kibitzing a rowdy game where dice were tossed along green baize marked with lines and boxes for bets. No Physiognomist accosted me. Even so, I avoided joining any games of hazard.

  Here was I in a noisy bar-restaurant devouring fried horsemeat steak and lovely lumpy potato salad, washed down with black beer.

  And here was I, tipsy in Pozoristu Street, loitering over the way from one of its “theatres”. I crossed and bought a ticket for all of three crowns, but I’d received a large purse from the palace for expenses. I joined a small audience of men in a dark, smoky room to watch a dance-striptease while a jangly piano played waltzes.

  Afterwards I walked down Groody Lane past windows with orange lamps. Women and girls sat in the lamplight wearing petticoats or negligees. Some were knitting, others playing patience. I thought again of Margarita. I thought of Princess Isgalt. I walked on home.

  Next day towards noon I retraced my route of the previous night, but everything had become demure and orderly. My commission from the palace: to steep myself in Seveno. Did this mean that I had a positive duty to patronize Groody Lane? I thought about this and decided, “Why not indeed?”

  “You’re keeping late hours,” my mother observed as we sat at our family meal of dumplings, sausages, and mushroom. “Is that what you’ve learnt at the palace? Unless you’re out visiting a friend, it strikes me there’s only one part of Bellogard where you could stay so late.”

  “The boy has grown up,” observed my father mildly.

  My sister toyed with her food. “It wouldn’t do to bring shame. To disgrace one’s position at the palace.”

  “My point exactly,” said Mum. “I’m thinking of how the Slads might regard any sort of. scandal.”

  So that was it. Hints had been dropped. Mother and Drina would rather I donned my squire’s uniform with buttons well polished and promenaded my sister around Terga Square of an evening, pausing at one of the cafes for glasses of spritzer with lots of soda water to dilute the heavy Muskat wine.

  “Mother,” I said. “I have a reason for where I go, and what I do. A squire isn’t an ornament. A squire is a soldier. I’m on holiday. I’m also on the queen’s business.”

  “Didn’t I tell you as much?” said Dad.

  “What business?” Drina asked excitedly.

  I shook my head. “I do have a full soul,” I reminded her.

  Drina cried a little, then cheered up.

  Later, cloaked in night, I passed along Groody Lane peeping in at the ladies sitting by their lamps. I wasn’t the only such window-shopper. Behind one window a slim young woman sat in her petticoat at a little table turning over playing cards. She had fine, delicate features framed by a cascade of crinkly black hair. I wandered on by, then halted. I felt compelled to hasten back. I tapped on the glass. She started, looked, nodded her head in the direction of the door, and extinguished her lamp.

  She met me in the dark hall, a black ghost smelling of jasmine. A single candle flickered at the stairhead. She asked a few inconsequential questions-mainly about the weather-before naming a price; for the rest of the night? or only an hour? I chose the night and paid. She hid the crowns somewhere in the hall then locked the front door and led me upstairs, collecting the candle as she passed. She ushered me into a large bedroom, where she lit a second candle. The two candles combined yielded less light than her downstairs lamp, but the lamp had given her skin the look of orange peel. Her flesh now took on a buttery hue.

  As she hoisted her petticoat over her head I sneezed violently three times.

  Oddly, I’d expected that making love to her might feel radically different, as regards the main sensations, from making love to Margarita. I remember when I first saw another boy’s penis at school, in the urinals, it had looked different to my own. This was because the other boy was uncircumcised. At the time I drew the logical yet absurd conclusion that every boy’s penis was of a unique character, as diversely designed as faces are.

  Likewise I somehow expected the act of sex with another woman to produce unexpected joys. The ultimate pang of pleasure might taste as different as peaches from pears.

  Not so, of course. I felt that I’d travelled to a distant province where all sights and scents were strange, only to taste, from an unknown bottle, a familiar delicious wine.

  “What’s your name?” I asked as we lay together later.

  “Sara,” she said, and rubbed my nose with hers. “What’s yours?”

  I hesitated.

  “No need to tell! I shall call you Karol, since you’re my king for tonight. Should I blow the candles out, Karol? Should we sleep?”

  “I’ll blow them out for you.”

  “You might stub your big toe in the dark.”

  She slipped naked from the sheets and went to extinguish the wicks. I watched her. Big toe, indeed.

  The day-no, the nights-slipped by; and soon I knew Seveno pretty well. I also got to know Sara more deeply. Maybe it was unenterprising to revisit her time and again, but I found her sweet and friendly. I could hardly stay away. She liked to fantasize that I was a royal Prince Karol who had slipped from the palace at dead of night to her bed. She stroked my ego playfully.

  Since this fantasy wasn’t far from the truth I felt nervous at first, then happily acquiesced and invented bizarre tales of palace life.

  I said that the alabaster soldiers on the ramparts were former lovers of Queen Dama, now enchanted by magic. I told her that the king imprisoned his enemies inside glass bubbles. I made believe that the four princesses dwelled underground in a huge maze which extended outward around the dungeons; its walls and floor were covered with luminous silver fur. I maintained that Queen Alyitsa was guarded by magic glass swords which flew through the air of their own volition. I described a “water library” containing a marble pool of enchanted water and a single huge book of magic. The pages were blank until the book was held underwater, whereupon magic spells appeared, different each time. Fighting fish lived in the pool, and unless you wore special glass gauntlets, which were kept in a secret compartment under the queen’s throne, your hands would be stripped to the bone. Whenever the kingdom was menaced, the book was consulted and it yielded up a fresh, efficacious spell which could only be used once. No one knew how many spells were available.

  And other such nonsense as this.

  I confess to another motive (or rationalization) for revisiting Sara. If anything went direly wrong with my adventure in Seveno maybe I could use Sara’s house as a bolt hole.

  Surprisingly, nobody else was ever with her when I called. We did not speak of other visitors. Ours was a grand, royal passion.

  On the ninth night of my holiday I whispered to her in bed, “I’ll have to go away soon. Duties of state!

  I shan’t see you, maybe for weeks and weeks.”

  She kissed me on the shoulder. “Let me see: you’re really an underchef in the palace kitchens. You cook the king’s feasts. Or a flunkey; you serve them. Or maybe a guard. You know all the secret passages.”

  “What secret passages?”

  “Aren’t there any? Oh dear. A palace without secrets.”

  She stroked me intimately, and I paid no further attention to royal palaces, only to the palace of her limbs.

  I sat in one of the oaken booths of the Zupsko Tavern sipping light beer. A gypsy played a wailing, maudlin violin; his melodies wove in and out of the laughter and tipsy talk like a swallow darting through a storm. A buxom waitress was forever on the go with fistfuls of beer mugs, glasses of vinyak liquor, plates of the house specialities: pig’s knuckle, cabbage leaves stuffed with mince and rice.

  Who should slip in opposite me but Master Samo?

  “Evening, Pedino.”

  “Oh hullo, Dominie. What a surprise! You look well, sir. I’m, um, waiting for someone.”

  His eyes twinkled. “And someone has arrived!” He signalled the waitress, managing at once to catch her eye and to mime an order.

  She rushed a glass of grape brandy to him. “So, Sammy, how’s the world treating you?” She didn’t hang about for an answer. I gathered that he was an habitue.

  “Treating me well enough, I suppose,” he told me, as though it was I who had asked. “Although I’m only of slight soul, which must always cast a shadow over one’s antics.”

  The hastening waitress stopped to confide. “He’s a real card, this one. Watch yourself, young fellow- me-!ad,” and off she went.

  “As well as being a good motive for antics,” Samo continued. “To drown the darkness, don’t you know? But one still serves the palace loyally. The palace bestows life itself-however long that lasts. Better to serve as a shadow-offering Chorny no real target-than as a substantial soul. I tell myself so, anyway.” He drank his brandy. “Don’t look now, but the fellow in question is four booths down on your right, facing this way.”

  “Our suspect.” I stared resolutely into my beer.

  “He’s been lurking all over-by the palace walls, the Samostan-painting little grisailles on glass panes. Supposedly some artist from Letto province. The queen, of course, is devoted to glass art.”

  “What are grisailles, exactly?’”

  “Paintings done without colour; entirely in shades of grey. Verges on the black arts of Chorny, hmm? The artist’s name is Meshko. Good Lettish name.”

  “Isn’t his behaviour a bit public for a spy?”

  “The perfect excuse! An artist has to arouse curiosity. How else could he sell his work?”

  As the gypsy advanced towards us, sawing his violin, I had an opportunity to stare in Meshko’s direction. The man was stocky, with broad open features. He might have been clean-shaven that morning, but by now his jowls were purple-shadowed with fast-renascent beard. He wore a leather jerkin, tough blue serge trousers, a wide floppy felt hat decorated with pheasant feathers. Black curls peeped out. His eyes were chestnut; his brows dark and woolly. He looked more sober than his drinking companions. Casually I transferred my attention to the musician.

  “He might be drawing coded maps,” murmured Samo. “Or magic ink pictures to provide a bridge back to Chorny. Or he might be a lure for our queen; a bait. Over to you, Pedino.” Samo prepared to leave.

  “Hang on: has anyone tried to get reports from Letto on this artist fellow? The man can’t have hatched out unnoticed under a vine.”

  “Reports prove nothing. The Meshko you see here may not be the same Meshko who set out for the capital. He might have been magicked; his crumb of soul overwhelmed.”

  “The Physiognomist at the Grand Salon: is he one of our agents too?”

  “The Physiognomist’s skill lies with familiar faces, familiar gaits. He doesn’t know everyone from the provinces.”

  “But he might be able to tell...”

  “If a man was possessed?” Samo chuckled softly. “You should know more about that than me.”

  Should I?

  I didn’t.

  “No one at our court has ever invaded another soul-not so far as I know.”

  “Maybe no one can,” said Samo, “unless the victim-soul is willing and eager. Maybe magical possession’s no more than a phantom we scare ourselves with. Something vile, of which we believe Chorny capable. A species of perverted love-magic; if there’s any such thing. I’m sure I wouldn’t know. On the other hand, how did Alyitsa become queen?”

  How indeed. By the sacrifice of a squire, who loyally yielded his soul to the new queen, so that she possessed it.

  “I must be on my way.” Samo departed with a cheery wave, leaving me to my booth and beer.

  It wasn’t hard to fall in with Meshko. He broke into a lusty song; which I applauded. I bought him a beer to wet his whistle. I said I’d spotted him down by the Samostan painting on glass.

  “Can’t say when for sure. I hardly know what today is!”

  “You on holiday, then?” he asked.

  “Exactly!” I lowered my voice. “From the palace.”

  And so forth. Soon he was inviting me to visit his “studio” the following afternoon.

  Now a lad like me was unlikely to be a prospective purchaser of glass grisailles. Why should Meshko give up some of his precious afternoon light to show me round unless he was rather more interested in my palace connections? I’d been indefinite about these-I hadn’t confided that I was actually the queen’s squire-but I’d dropped hints. I’d also told him that I was in debt at the Grand Salon and that I’d pawned a family heirloom to raise the crowns which I’d let him glimpse in my purse. I needed a decent win at baccarat to redeem myself. After a few drinks at the Zupsko Tavern that evening to steady my nerves I was bound for the Salon de Chance (upstairs or downstairs, I did not say); but no, I did not wish for company. Once there I must concentrate totally.

  The studio proved to be an attic over an alley five minutes walk from Pozoristu Street. It contained dozens of views of Bellogard meticulously painted on panes in shades of grey. (“Ashen, oyster, dove, pearly, smoky, charcoal, leaden, and special seevo grey,” Meshko explained.) Many were stacked.

  Some stood on narrow home-made easels. Others hung on the walls, though this did not show them to best effect since ideally light should shine through. A table bore tiny brushes, a palette, a pestle and mortar, jars of ingredients: oils and gloomy minerals. An unmade bed occupied one corner.

  My host polished glasses on a hand towel and filled them from an already open bottle of Muskat.

  “If only I could paint inside the palace!” he exclaimed. “I’ve heard there are such enchanting courts and gardens.”

  “Hmm,” I said. The red Lettish vintage was sweet and heavy, like sugary blood.

  “Is it possible, I wonder.?”

  “You would need truly magic paint,” I said lightly, “to capture yon palace.”

  His hand shook; he spilled some wine. Then he laughed. “My little brushes are my magic.”

  “Of course.”

  “Why do you carry a hidden dagger, Dino?” (I’d told him this was my name.)

  My turn to spill a drop. “Do I?”

  “When you shift your shoulder, thus, there’s a slight bulge.”