The two days before the ball I watched the sun rise as I stood above our valley. The swallowtails emerged as expected, and I spent each day observing and sketching them, and capturing several. Each evening I turned what I had worn over to Jelena, our housekeeper, to be made fresh for its next wearing. The tigress costume was duly delivered Saturday afternoon, and I submitted to nearly an hour of last-minute alterations while Allura watched and approved. The moment she and the dressmaker’s assistant were gone, I changed into my huntress garb.
Late that afternoon I bade farewell to my father, going early in order to confer with the Barons before the ball. He cut a handsome figure in his army dress uniform plus a buckler strapped to his left arm bearing the planetary symbol of Mars. This, too, had been Allura’s idea.
I was quietly reading in the library when Allura descended on me, furious! She was dressed in the height of current fashion in a slim, high-waisted gown, plus a golden wreath on her hair to show that she was a goddess and embroidered doves around the hem to show that she was Venus to my father’s Mars.
“There you are! Where is your costume? We’ll be far more than fashionably late by the time you get dressed! Hurry, hurry, hurry!”
“I am already dressed,” I calmly responded.
“Going in those clothes? Are you insane? This a ball, my dear, not a peasant wedding!”
“It’s a masquerade, and I’m going as a huntress!” I retorted. “To maintain the family theme, you can introduce me as Diana.”
For a moment she pouted, worried that she would not get her own way. Then she smiled at me cruelly and went to the library door. “Giacomini, come here.”
Giacomini means “little Jimmy”, and never was a nickname less appropriate. He was Allura’s head footman, very tall and ridiculously muscular with a clean-cut handsome face, but in my eyes he was not particularly attractive or manly. Like his mistress, he worked far too hard on his appearance, spending hours exercising half-naked with heavy wands, dumbbells, and clubs, and applying rather too much pomade to his hair and mustaches.
“Giacomini, please tie up Miss Huntress here and lock her in her room.”
Before I realized what I had heard, his massive hands pinned my arms behind me and I was being forcibly marched up to my rooms. There he used some of my own belts and scarves to tie me to my bed. By then I had recovered enough presence of mind to complain that he was tying me too tightly and give convincing little cries of pain. Giacomini listened, so I got loose almost as soon as he had left and locked the door behind him.
Now, how was I going to get out? I could climb out the window; it wouldn’t be the first time. But it was raining, and I was going to a ball! Putting on my heavy hooded cloak would make climbing difficult, though not impossible.
As I heard the carriage drive off, I thought I remembered … there it was, in the third drawer of my dresser, a spare door key I had cast when I was studying metallurgy.
I donned my cloak, unlocked the door and walked out, saddled my horse Copernicus, and rode him to the ball.
I arrived flush with excitement! My swallowtail specimens were exquisite, Copernicus was in fine form, and I’d just outwitted my stepmother-to-be. To maintain the proprieties, I immediately sought out Allura, pretending we had arrived together. An expression of shock flashed over her face, but she could hardly call Giacomini in to abduct me there.
I’m sure my mood sparkled from my own face. I spoke with friends, made new acquaintances, and one of those was … the Baron. As I’m sure my father had expected, I met Baron Iglacias Rostov face-to-face! He was costumed as his grandfather, Baron Sergej Rostov, with buckles on his shoes, lace at his cuffs, and a high wig with curls flowing halfway down his chest, just like his ancestor’s oil portrait outside the ballroom.
We danced, and talked, and walked around the garden, and talked, and danced some more. We discussed plants and nature in general, and my father was right: The Baron shared my enthusiasm.
One rather short young man not much older than I stood among a group on the gallery above the garden, singing some sort of lyrics to the dance tunes, gesturing flamboyantly, and sometimes dancing several steps all by himself, flamboyantly dressed as a Cossack soldier. His audience included a fox, a ballerina, and an Egyptian couple.
A great deal of laughter came from that group. I asked the Baron, and he told me the man’s name was Grigor Jankov. I supposed he was the son of my father’s old friend Jagor. But when I looked a little later, Grigor was gone.
Allura foisted three or four other young men on me for various dances, perhaps honestly concerned that I not be scandalously monopolized by the young Baron, but certainly taking spiteful pleasure in minimizing our time together. The Harlequin was certainly the most colorful. But the best dancer wore the feast-day clothing of our Kalzov Valley peasants: Red cap, embroidered vest with fur trim, and loose white shirt and trousers.
Old Mr. Vrhov brought me two glasses of punch. To his ordinary clothes he had added an Italian-style mask, with many imitation jewels and a long beak.
As we stood together after the last dance, the Baron said, “I hope to see you again soon, Dragana. This has been so enjoyable! Will that happen? Will I see you again?”
“Yes, Your Excellency, of course!” I faltered. He smiled, took my hand, and pressed it perhaps a moment longer than strict propriety would permit before he went to accept farewells from his many other guests.
I rode home with my father, in even more excitement than when I had arrived.
“Sounds like we’re likely to get an invite to his next party.” My father smiled.
I smiled, too, and hugged him.
Just then, Allura’s carriage passed us. She sat staring straight ahead, her mind somewhere else. I finally asked the question that had been on my own mind since Venice.
“Papa, if you will permit me, what do you see in Allura?”
My father hugged me. “Oh, she makes me feel very good,” he said.
“It didn’t happen right away,” he laughed. “I barely remember the first two times we met. She was dressed like any other Venetian grande dame—rich old lady—maybe worse than most because she sure puts on a lot of stuff, doesn’t she! But she was insistent, and said she really enjoyed my stories. Then at dinner the third time we met I saw her in a different light, and the rest is history … or soon will be.” He hugged me again.
“You know, she tried to keep me from coming tonight,” I told him. “Said I wasn’t dressed right.”
I expected more of a response, but all my father did was hug me yet again and say in a somewhat distant way, “She’s a fine woman.”