The Paper Crown

19. The Parliament Ball

That night, Mariusz and I, and the rest of court, are to attend a ball at Parliament House. Apart from my wedding, it is the first time I have left the palace since I arrived here. The city seems less bleak at night. Gas lighting lends warm colour to the grey buildings, and the shadows, where they fall, hide all manner of sins. Like this, I can almost pretend I like the city, but when our coach draws up to the parliament steps and Mariusz helps me out into the crowd below, I remember that a city is made up of people as much as stones and my dislike hardens.

A young, pretty matchstick-seller presses her wares upon us, and is hastily, but gently, moved on by one of our guards. I think I see a coin pass hands. No doubt the girl will make a small fortune tonight, probably without losing a single one of her matches. Equally certainly, whatever she earns will be gone by the morrow.

Mariusz takes me on one arm and his mother on the other and leads us up the steps between our guards. We are not made to wait in the queue that is forming from the doors. Instead, we pass straight through, people parting ways for us and whispering.

Some of these people, I suppose, must be friends — of the court, at least, if not of Mariusz — but the stares that light upon me are hostile. I meet them with my own stare, determined not to be beat down.

"Smile," Mariusz says. "You look angry."

I try to find a smile to meet the gaze of a hateful looking woman.

"Don't smile," Mariusz says. "It frightens me."

He isn't smiling either. By the way he kept moving his feet and rearranging his legs in the coach, I had some idea he would rather have run away than attend this ball. But we have no choice. The ball, Dowager Duchess Maria explained to me, was arranged by the city to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Selician Parliament. Our presence here shows that we publicly support the existence of parliament, even though that very existence limits the power the duke can wield. If we did not come, the public — the non-titled politicians, wealthy business owners, judges, physicians, priests — would see it as a great insult, and perhaps a threat to parliament.

From the cool gazes of those around me, I suspect I am seen as an insult and threat regardless. Perhaps Mariusz too.

We are announced and descend into a grand chamber, marked out with a dance floor and an orchestra at one end. An elderly woman greets Mariusz and his mother, lets her eyes flick briefly over me, then pulls Dowager Duchess Maria away into conversation. I hold on tight to Mariusz's arm.

"Don't leave me," I say. "I can't talk to anyone."

"They will understand French," he says. "I am going to see if the food is out yet."

He moves with purpose towards a set of archways in the far wall. I keep my hold on his arm. People move to let us pass, rather than stop us with a word. Their eyes, however, quite definitely notice us.

"I am beginning to get the impression you are not very well-liked here," I say.

"It is you they are staring at," Mariusz says. "If you left me alone, they might spare me a smile."

All the same, he makes no effort to dislodge me from his arm. It occurs to me that perhaps I am shielding him from having to use his small talk. And perhaps that is why he is so tolerant of me tonight.

Through the archways, we come to a room laid out with little groups of chairs and settees and long tables of covered trays at one end. It is quieter in here than the main hall, with only a few sparse couples sitting down. We go to the tables, where Mariusz plucks some grapes from a bowl of fruit and eats them slowly. I dare not start to eat — I am sure it is not polite. We should be in the main hall with the crowds, trying to be sociable and pleasant, and saying what we are expected to say.