Lilothea recoiled in horror from the bear mask that some fat man had worn. In size, he looked like one of the ministers who strenuously advocated that the princess go to the Etar’s harem. He managed to frighten her. He marched to the table with treats and wines. The fat guests all adored the refreshments, and those who were stout preferred to dance. On the high gallery musicians gathered. The lute, mandolin, harp, and flute sounded. It was a wonderful quartet.
Seneschal flapped his wings to the music, careful to keep his distance straight over his hostess’s head, but Lilophea had to dance with the others. She lost count, memorizing the masks of everyone she danced with. Meanwhile, Morissa was training Traitor, catching him off the plumes of the next ladies he jumped on, and reprimanding him for infidelity. Curious, did he understand anything at all? Seneschal was an exception, he had mastered human speech, but could monkeys speak human?
Nereida’s multicolored hair seems to have flashed in the fountain already in the corner of the room. Or was it colored tinsel? Lilothea wanted to look closely, but the dancing pas got in the way. She had to wait until the minuet was over. And now she had some free time. We could skip the next dance. But then someone in the mask of a water king approached Lilophea. How suddenly he appeared. It was as if he had grown out of the floor! A luxurious mask with spikes of coral stretched a crest on the back of his head and back, oriental clothing hinted at the status of the sultan of a distant overseas country. It was probably him! How greedily he looked at her!
Lilothea wanted to slip away from him and could not. Cold arms encircled her waist. The stranger spun her in a dance. Gliding across the parquet with him was much more pleasant than dancing with others, or alone. The dance was like swimming. The unusual couple was already being looked at enviously by others. Lilophea had such a fabulous feeling, as if she were dancing not with the mask, but with the water king himself.
Suddenly she noticed wet footprints on the parquet. Her beau’s hands were wet, too. They soaked his expensive corset with water. Lilophea noticed that the mask’s eyebrows, eyelashes, and lips were lined with gold ochre, and the forehead was decorated with pearls and coral. What if it wasn’t a mask at all? And would it be an insult if she tried to rip it off him right now to see the face under it? What if there is no other face under it? If there isn’t, there’s no one more beautiful than him. This mask is not just a work of art. Such forbidden beauty can only be created by magic.
Where did the cold and sea breeze suddenly come from in the ballroom? Lilophea tried to break free from the hands that held her and could not. The dance was not over yet. The cavalier wouldn’t let her go. And the peacock suddenly flew up to the ceiling and hovered above the chandelier, as if he’d never met his mistress. What a jittery he had become! Instead of being jealous of his mistress and making snide remarks, he seemed to be frightened.
Lilophea became dizzy. Before her eyes flashed the blues, gold, and purples that made up her partner’s costume. She should have shown up at the masquerade dressed as a waterman. All those coral spikes and gold gills made a strong impression. It feels like she’s being danced on by a real waterman who got in here from a lake in the park. It leaves a wet trail on the parquet. Lilothea slipped. And the waterman backed her up.
“Where did you come from?” She tried to distract herself with conversation from the feeling that she was dancing with an underwater creature. What if it turns out that in fact he is just a sheik or a rajah from a distant country? “Have I not seen you at court before? Have you come from afar?”
“Came from the stream in the garden,” he whispered in her ear, and at once she had vivid visions of someone with blue skin and scales climbing out of the spring among the jasmines and leaving wet footsteps on the grass. She glanced sideways at the floor. Small puddles had already collected there. Water was running off her partner. He’d probably just taken a dip in the creek in the garden and was teasing her. There are some very picturesque places in the royal gardens of Aquilania. And in the evening, in the darkness, few are able to see that a guest is swimming in the pond or the streams. Even in a fountain, like Nereida.
“You decided to live in that stream,” she decided to tease him back. “You have a very underwater look. I’d even say seawater!”
“That’s right, Princess,” his voice sounded serious enough, without mockery. “I live in the sea, not in a stream.”
“Then it is strange why you came from the creek, for the coast is very near. Don’t sea carriages go overland? Did you have to get there some other way?”
“You guessed again, as if you’d traveled on the seafloor,” her partner put his arm around her waist so tightly that it was suddenly very cold. It was as if she had fallen into the river instead of his embrace.
“Seaways aren’t meant for land, but I’m lucky, all the waterways are connected. It’s easy to get from the sea to a pond or a river.”
“Or even a fountain?” She remembered Nereida.
“It was true again!” The waterman held her tighter against him. “How did you know about the sea coach made of shells and jellyfish? Your mirror is an eye to the underwater world, but it has not shown them to you yet, or I would know.”
Only the one who gave it to her can know about the miraculous mirror. Lilophea involuntarily tensed.
“Who are you?”
“Haven’t you guessed that yet?”
His face, with its bluish skin and golden eyebrows, leaned right up to her face. Why does she think of the mask as a face? She’d have to dodge and pull that mask off him, and then she’d know there was only a man underneath it.
The peacock under the chandelier became very worried and flapped its wings so vigorously that the crawler must have been staring at it. And Lilophea cautiously ran her fingers over the luxurious mask of the waterman. It was not silk or cardboard or papier-mâché that was palpable beneath her fingers. It was real cold skin, smooth and gliding like water. Droplets of moisture protruded from the coral spikes that grew on her head like a crown.
“You are a waterman! A real waterman! Not a mask!” She whispered faintly, but he caught every sound. His golden lips almost pressed against hers. It felt good and cold at the same time. There was only one thought pounding in her head: How beautiful he was, and how much she wanted to go down with him. Around her was a ballroom, but her partner seemed to draw her into the abyss of the sea. How tempting to be there with him, to see the wonders of the sea. But at the bottom she would not be able to breathe and would drown!
On the galleries above, rows of torches suddenly flashed. It was the king ordering them to be lit. Lilophea heard the excited shouts of the heralds. The flames were blazing everywhere, like monochrome orange fireworks. It was getting warm all around, and she was freezing in the embrace of the watery creature. So someone shouted from the other end of the hall. The water creature! How can you call this handsome creature that? Yes, he is unusual. He has corals and golden gills growing right out of his skin, but how graceful his features are. How athletically built he is! With him it is a pleasure not only to dance, but also just to stand beside. She was only embarrassed by the puddles on the floor, in which small fish were already fussing.
“It’s water, not blood,” he remarked, “but I’ll drown your whole kingdom in it if you don’t marry me.”
Lilothea didn’t have time to tell him that threatening was unnecessary. She was ready to go anywhere with him right now, even if it meant dying in the waves. He had bewitched her. But the flames erupted quite close by. Someone threw a torch right at him. It seems the Second Minister had told him to build a bonfire right in the middle of the ballroom so that the unholy things would crawl back out to sea. How could that be? Lilothea wanted to shout something indignant, but the blue-gold figure with gills and tail had already rushed into the nearest fountain. That was it! In a minute the waterman was as good as gone. The guards didn’t even have time to release the hounds.
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