Lilophea didn’t mind, but she was ashamed to take off her dress. What if someone walked along the shore and saw her naked. Besides, a corset without a maid couldn’t be undone. Better just to chat with a new acquaintance for now.
“Are you from far away, Nereida? Your homeland must be very far away.”
“It was measured by depth or height.”
What did she mean by that? Lilophea grimaced as she noticed the white skin between her fingers. It looks so much like webs.
“You must be bored at the beach,” Nereida suggested. “Ashore is always boring, unless it’s a siege of a fortress or a battle at sea. I like to see armadas in action.”
“Have you ever seen one? I haven’t.”
“I’ve seen a lot of things.”
Nereida’s eyes flashed strangely as she stumbled over the mother-of-pearl mirror in Lilophea’s hand.
“It is better to see things in real life than inside toys,” she hinted. So the mirror is a toy after all. And Lilophea decided that it really was magic.
“Don’t stay on the beach, come to me!” Nereida tried to clutch at Lilophea’s dress, but she was just a little short of it. In addition, Seneschal was already flying toward the shore, squeaking something anxiously as he flew. Seeing him, Nereida’s face twisted so sour that it became almost ugly.
“See you later, Lilophea,” she ducked under the water quickly. You could only make out a long tail of her multicolored strands and what looked like fish fins. Lilophea looked after her for a long time, and the foamy circles on the water diverged in the form of some signs.
In the company of the peacock
Morissa was glad that she had successfully traded the monkey. The amusing little beast was worth nothing more than a kiss. She had trained him to sit on her narrow shoulder, where he could only fit with difficulty, and always had his tail around her neck to keep him from falling over.
“I’ll call him Traitor, because he only wants to jump on someone else’s shoulder where there’s more room,” she said.
“Better the Cheater,” said Lilophea, noticing the way the monkey had deftly removed the ring and pearl from the gift chest.
“Traitor sounds more romantic, it’s as if I were a fairy who bewitched the cheating lover into a monkey and now takes him with her,” joked the girl.
Cheater meanwhile offended snorted and dropped the ring, as if burned on it. He even blew on his paw.
“Your jewelry chills me,” said Morissa reluctantly. “I tried it on while you were away, and it looked as if I were freezing at the bottom of the ocean, snow and angry swordfish. It was horrible! I took them off right away, and I felt warmer. Aren’t you cold in them?”
“No!” Lilophea wore a pearl bracelet made of many strands, and she felt no cold at all.
“You’d better be more careful. The pirates in the harbor are wondering if it’s easy to kidnap the Princess,” Morissa hinted.
“And they weren’t teasing you.”
“I could betray them to the harbor-guard, but they gave me Traitor for that. And he’s so pretty!”
“Not for nothing, it is for a kiss. Which means you didn’t get him for free.”
“A kiss is not money. It didn’t make me poorer.”
Lilothea did not remind Morissa that she couldn’t get any poorer, because she was penniless. Her father was losing everything. She would have been better off looking for a worthy match at court, rather than tangling with dubious individuals at the wharf. She even got herself a telescope so she could watch the smugglers from the gallery by starlight. Strange how no one had ever caught them in the dangerous vicinity of the royal castle. Dashing fellows! She even began to respect them for their courage and recklessness.
“They’re in a hurry to earn their keep,” Morissa explained. “Not everyone loves a girl for free.”
“How do you know?”
“They only socialize with those who wear a bright yellow and red dress, and that’s what only portly whoremongers dress like. They always have brightly colored faces. If we can get them, we could walk through the town incognito, and no one would suspect us of being noble ladies.
“It’s too risky,” Lilophea began to suspect Morissa. She might be conspiring with the pirates to sell the princess to them. A penniless freedwoman at court is sometimes capable of all manner of intrigue to secure a well-fed future. Morissa’s prospects were grim. As soon as she was old enough no one would hold her as a lady-in-waiting or a maid of honour. And her father had bankrupted the estate. Where could she go? Except marry a pirate or a smuggler and sail the seas with him.
“I’ll go to the ball,” said Morissa, smoothing her canary yellow dress with puffed shoulders and spreading the feathers of her lemon-colored mask. “I will go with the Traitor. He’s my beau tonight, and let everyone else be jealous.”
She already knew that no one would be jealous. Stately and rather handsome, Morissa was not particularly popular with refined courtiers, but she was easy to get along with all sorts of criminals: pirates, bandits, smugglers. They all tried to oblige her. But at the masquerade ball, where she was going, most likely no one would even notice her. Perhaps such an exotic appearance as hers only appealed to rugged men.
“She looks like a mulatto,” said the peacock, as soon as her maid left.
“Who is she?” Lilophea wondered.
“Well, let’s say, even a Creole or a Quaternary.”
“What does that mean?”
“That she has an admixture of black people’s blood in her.”
“Are there people with black skin?”
“People are rare. Mostly wild island tribes that try to enslave. But I have seen with my own eyes black-skinned wizards and peri.”
“Tell tales!” Lilophea was indignant. It was curious that somewhere there were creatures so unlike the usual people around her.
“There are whole islands in the sea with black peri.”
“What are peri?”
“They are Genie girls. They twirl around the fires at night, like pillars of fire, and lure sailors with their charms to the slaughter. And they are supposed to be kind. That depends on whom! One plucked feathers from my tail to make herself a fan. Can you imagine?”
“You could write a whole novel of adventures about your life before you came to my prosperous palace under the guardianship of a royal daughter.”
“By the way, I was the one who came under your tutelage, not the one who got in. You frowned for the first minute, wondering whether I should be invited to live in your chambers or sent straight to the pigeon-house with the other peacocks.”
“It’s not a dovecote, it’s a greenhouse,” said Lilophea, who had some difficulty in guessing that he was referring to the glass structure in the garden.
“If the peacocks are white, it’s a dovecote.”
“No one’s ever seen a blue one here before you.”
“And in countries other than Aquilania, peacocks are mostly blue or blue with green flecks.”
The Seneschal flew around the room worriedly.
“So are we going to the masquerade ball?”
“I don’t feel like it,” Lilophea went through the pearl and coral jewelry in the chest. It felt so good to touch them. It was as if water