Arabella the Traitor of Mars Read online

  “Excellent!” the Prince cried, patting his free hand against the one which held his wine in a semblance of applause. He then raised his glass. “To new friends!”

  “To new friends,” Arabella replied, and drained her glass.

  “To new friends,” Captain Singh muttered, and sipped.

  * * *

  Arabella peered from the Prince’s carriage, the wind from the horses’ rapid progress chilling her face. She rubbed her hands together beneath the blanket on her lap and clapped them to her frozen nose, not wanting to miss the first sight of Brighton Pavilion.

  The Prince’s caravan consisted of three luxurious carriages, plus a wagon which carried the Prince’s Merlin chair. Arabella and her captain shared the third carriage with Colonel the Honorable G. Dawson Damer, the Honorable Frederick Byng, and Byng’s enormous dog, a placid elderly poodle by the name of Buck. For the first hour of the journey the two Honorables had conversed excitedly between each other on the topics of hunting, horses, politics, and wine, including Arabella and Captain Singh only occasionally and reluctantly. Eventually, though, the conversation had trailed off and the two men, sharing a flask, had eventually drifted off to sleep. Captain Singh too, following a long-standing habit, took advantage of any occasion in which his attentions were not absolutely required to close his eyes and rest. For her part, Arabella had been largely content to admire the passing countryside, whose peculiar trees, farm-houses, and occasional snowdrifts were strange and marvelous to her.

  After six uneventful hours of travel the town of Brighton had begun to appear, with sparse farm-houses replaced by more frequent, more substantial dwellings, and the driver had knocked upon the carriage roof to point out the spires of Brighton Pavilion in the distance. Arabella ducked and weaved her head, trying to get a better view of this magnificent structure through the strange trees, black and leafless, which grew on either side of the road. Bright sunlight, sharp and clear as the chill air through which it shone, flickered in the branches.

  And then, quite suddenly, they rounded a curve and the whole pavilion hove at once into view. Arabella could barely suppress a gasp.

  The enormous building—broader than the eponymous fort of Fort Augusta, though not nearly so high—sprawled across several acres, the bright Mars-red of its stones shining in the sun and contrasting oddly with the brown of the English hills beyond. It was designed, as she had been informed on the journey, in resemblance to Martian architecture, with the typical Martian slant-sided, flat-topped arch visible in profusion, and sweeping curves of shining steel leaping into the sky from every corner. But, due to Earth’s higher gravity and the lower quality of English steel, those metal spires were thicker and less elegant than those of the satrap’s palace in Sor Khoresh. All in all it seemed like a child’s sketch of a Martian palace—a talented child, admittedly, but one who had only ever seen pictures of Martian palaces, never actually visited one.

  As the carriage drew nearer, Arabella saw that, like Martian royal palaces, the pavilion’s stones were carved with a multitude of figures in bas-relief. But these carvings represented not Martians but human beings—ancient warriors with spears and shields, and women in a shocking state of undress—along with horses and dogs … though not a single poodle.

  The carriages pulled into the drive, disgorging their passengers with a great creaking of wood and groaning of men. The Prince’s carriage, heavily weighted as it was with the corpulent Prince and five of his closest companions, creaked the loudest as they emerged and saw the greatest complaints. “I swear,” the Prince remarked to the world as he was helped down from the carriage with the aid of a cane, “that journey grows longer every year.” As he reached the ground, one of the coterie of servants that had descended upon the arriving caravan silently handed him a steaming mug. “Still, it is good to be home.” He drank deeply.

  Arabella herself marveled silently at the soaring structure above her. From this close distance it could easily be seen that, rather than being constructed entirely of red sandstone as the equivalent Martian palaces were, only the lower, structural portions of the pavilion were stone; the upper reaches were actually painted wood, though so cunningly executed that the difference could scarcely be detected. The bas-reliefs also served to disguise expansive windows, where a real Martian palace would be of solid stone, perforated only by arrow-slits and hot-oil sluices. Plainly this was a fantasia—a folly of a palace, which merely aped the stern defensive strength of its models on Mars.

  She contemplated, as she passed through the slab-sided entrance gate, to what degree this reflected the personality and priorities of its owner.

  The entrance-hall, had she not been warned of its design by the Honorables, would have been an utter shock. Even with this warning, it was still overwhelming. Whereas the pavilion’s exterior was Martian in design, the interior was done in a Venusian style, with green brick, black stone, and ceramic tile every where. The ceilings were hung with white Venusian silk, lavishly embroidered, and enameled statues of finned and tentacled Venusian gods glowered from every corner. Illumination was provided by hissing gas flames, contained in lanterns of green glass, which approximated the light of the giant glow-worms employed by the actual Venusians. Arabella had seen gas street-lamps in London, but had never before encountered gas illumination indoors.

  Arabella gaped in every direction as servants took the fur cape and muff with which she had been provided for the journey. She was immediately glad of their service, as the room was warmed to a nearly Venusian level of heat by the urn-shaped patent stoves which stood at intervals along the walls.

  “So!” cried the Prince, rolling in from the cold upon his puttering, clattering contrivance. “Captain and Mrs. Singh—you have just recently returned from Venus. What do you think of my entrance-hall? My decorator has been hard at work upon it for nearly two years now.”

  “It is … most impressive,” the captain said. Arabella reserved judgement—or was perhaps stunned into silence by the hall’s extravagant bad taste. “Though I must confess we had little experience of the native Venusian architecture or ornament during our stay on that planet. We were the unwilling guests of Napoleon, as you may know, in a town which had been built by and for the French. And quite hastily assembled as well.”

  The Prince’s face fell, just fractionally, as Captain Singh spoke. Had Arabella not happened to be looking directly at him, she might not have noted his disappointment. “I apologize for your treatment at the Great Ogre’s hands. I am assured, however, by other travelers that my humble home does credit to the finest palaces and temples of that distant planet, to which I hope some day to pay a visit.” He gestured inward. “Perhaps your stay here will serve to whet your appetite for Venusian art and architecture.”

  The party moved through a vast curtained archway into a long gallery, which plainly served as the pavilion’s central avenue. A rich carpet in green and black bore a pattern of water running over stones; the walls were painted with flowers and vines in fanciful—and, to Arabella’s eye, entirely invented—colors and shapes; and from the high ceiling hung a massive iron chandelier, also designed in imitation of vines, dripping with green glass baubles. Ceramic statues of Venusian gods stood here and there, man-sized and larger, though in this vast space they were not so intimidating as they had been in the entrance-hall. This gallery, too, was heated to an unpleasant degree by patent stoves; Arabella daubed at her face with her handkerchief and fanned herself with one hand.

  “If you please,” murmured a servant, “I will conduct you to your chambers.” His clothing was European in style, but made of white Venusian silk with green piping that matched the walls. He led them up a grand staircase—the railings of dark wood were carved to resemble twisted branches—and down the hall to a room where their traveling cases had already been unpacked. The Venusian theme continued here, though thankfully to a much more restrained degree, and though the room was larger than any bedchamber Arabella had ever before experienced it was, at
least, neither as inordinately vast nor as drastically overheated as the house’s public spaces. “Dinner will be at six o’clock. Do you require any thing?”

  “I do not believe so,” Captain Singh replied.

  “The bell-pull is there.” He gestured to a tapestry ribbon with a pattern of vines in the corner. “Please feel free to call upon us for any need.” Then he bowed himself out.

  “You are unhappy,” Arabella’s husband said to her as soon as the door had closed.

  She stared over his shoulder at the painted wall for a time before replying. “If my wicked cousin Simon had nearly drowned,” she said at last, “and suffered the loss of half his wits under the water, he might have designed a … monstrosity like this.”

  “The Prince’s taste is … cosmopolitan,” he hedged. “He pays homage to the styles of other planets.”

  “Homage?” Arabella sniffed. “I would call it simple theft! He imitates his betters, no more.”

  Captain Singh stiffened. “Permit me to remind you that we are discussing the Prince Regent of the entire British Empire! He has no betters!” But this argument did not seem very convincing even to him.

  For a moment Arabella considered a sharp reply. But then she relented, and allowed her husband to fold her into his strong, warm arms. “I will attempt not to hold his taste in ornament too much against him.”

  “He has, at least, provided us with a very comfortable private chamber,” he murmured into her shoulder.

  “He has,” she agreed, and after that, for a time, there was no more conversation.

  * * *

  Later, Arabella and the captain dressed and found their way to the banqueting room. This room, though not nearly so long as the long gallery, was much broader, higher, and even more gaudily appointed. Pillars in the form of gigantic, fanciful trees supported a high domed ceiling, from the center of which was suspended a pair of enormous frogs, crafted of some shining metal with jeweled eyes, seeming frozen in the act of dancing about each other. Below the frogs hung an iron chandelier nearly thirty feet tall; it was illuminated by gas, the bright and hissing light harsh to both eye and ear, and its glass panels were painted with colored scenes of Venusian natives at work and play. It must, Arabella thought, weigh several tons, and she looked skeptically at the chain from which it hung, which seemed barely capable of supporting it.

  Beneath this enormous fixture a magnificent table stretched over sixty feet in length. At its center, of course, sat the Prince, his bulk and his Merlin chair occupying what might otherwise have been space for three diners, and ranged to either side in order of precedence were over fifty people, all clearly men and women of importance.

  Arabella’s table companion was one Robert Dundas, the Right Honorable Viscount Melville. He was a Scotsman, with a light mellifluous accent, and his jacket was of rich black superfine wool. “I am given to understand,” he said to her after the first fish course, “that you actually participated in the Battle of Venus as a combatant?”

  “I played a small part,” she concurred modestly, then proceeded to relate her story of the battle. It was a story she had told many times since arriving on Earth and by now it was nearly routine, though she still took pleasure in the reactions of the hearers.

  “Such times we find ourselves in.” He shook his head in wonderment. “In my position I have read many a battle report, but a female navigator is a marvel I have never before encountered.”

  “And what position might that be?”

  “First Lord of the Admiralty.”

  “Heavens!” Arabella glanced down the table to where Captain Singh was conversing with his own dinner companion, an elderly woman with an extraordinarily large bonnet. “My husband, Captain Prakash Singh of the Honorable Mars Company airship Diana, would be most honored to speak with you.”

  “Ah yes, the famous Captain Singh. I am aware of his presence here, though we have not yet had the chance to speak.” The waiter delivered the next course—beef with onions and pepper—and Dundas took a bite before continuing. “If I may ask, how came you to meet him?”

  “I served as his cabin boy.” Though Dundas was a very disciplined man, she noted that his eyes reflected a very satisfying degree of surprise. “I was compelled to disguise myself as a boy and join his ship’s company in order to preserve my family fortune.”

  He regarded her frankly. “I cannot imagine such an attractive girl as yourself being mistaken for a boy, even for a moment.”

  She acknowledged the compliment with a bow of her head. “‘The apparel oft proclaims the man,’ as the Bard said. Replace this dress with an airman’s slops, and no one in this company would give me a second glance.” She sipped her wine. “I have found that most people rarely see beyond surfaces. Captain Singh is one of the perceptive few who can, and even he took some time to penetrate my disguise.”

  “Perceptive, is he? And well respected by his men?”

  “Very much so. His is a very happy crew.”

  “But I have heard that he suffered a mutiny some years ago.”

  “It is true that he did.” She felt her ire rising at the recollection. “I was aboard his ship myself at that time, and I will say from personal experience that it was motivated by the mutineers’ greed and intolerance rather than by any fault of the captain’s. Once the leader was exposed as a martinet and bully, the men’s loyalty to their captain reasserted itself and the mutiny rapidly collapsed.”

  “It is … unusual, for a Mussulman to command an English vessel.” He took a bite, chewed thoughtfully, then swallowed. “Has this intolerance caused any other difficulties for him?”

  Arabella thought of the looks the Prince’s coterie had given him in the pavilion at the Jubilee. She thought of how the French had dismissed and belittled him on Venus … to their eventual regret. And she thought of Lady Corey’s objections to Arabella’s marriage to him, and the anguish he himself had shown when he had very nearly turned down her proposal, wanting to spare her the effects of bigotry. But what she said was, “None that he has been unable to overcome through intelligence, discipline, and kindness. Despite all objections to his color and creed, he has risen to the very highest ranks of the Honorable Mars Company, and served admirably under Nelson in the Battle of Venus.”

  “So he has worked with the Navy?”

  “Indeed! And for the last several months he has served as captain of the Admiral’s temporary flagship.”

  Dundas tapped his silver fork against his lower lip, considering. “You have given me much to think about, Mrs. Singh,” he said at last. “I will be certain to speak with your husband over the cigars and port.”

  Eventually, after countless courses of delicious food and much conversation on the weather, the latest advances of science and invention—“you simply must visit the kitchens, the Prince is so proud of the innovative equipment he has caused to be installed there”—and the prospects for prosperity now that decades of war had finally come to an end, the hostess, Lady Hertford, rose from her seat and conducted the ladies to the withdrawing-room, leaving the gentlemen to continue their conversation without the restraint required by female company. Arabella resented this separation, but there was little to be done about it. She nodded to Captain Singh as she passed, to which he replied with a deep bow of his head.

  * * *

  The withdrawing-room, though nearly as large as the banqueting room in plan, had a much lower ceiling and was far more restrained in ornament—apart from the several substantial iron columns that supported the rooms above, which were decorated as vine-wrapped Venusian trees with spreading limbs. Had it not been so very hot, Arabella would have found the space quite agreeable. The ladies seated themselves on the chairs and settees ranged about the carpeted floor and engaged in conversation, cards, and backgammon.

  Arabella found herself in a game of whist with three other ladies, including Lady Hertford. Tall, handsome, and elegant, she wore her gray hair and matronly girth with panache. Every one knew her to be the Pri
nce’s mistress, but Arabella saw no rancor or opprobrium toward her—indeed, the company seemed to treat her with the greatest respect. Princes and Admirals, she thought, did not seem to be subject to the same rules as the rest of society.

  “Mrs. Singh, is it?” Lady Hertford said to Arabella after the game concluded and the two of them had been left alone with tea and biscuits. “An unusual name, and one which keeps coming up in conversation. May I assume the Mussulman is your husband?”

  Arabella was growing tired of that word. “My husband is Captain Singh of the Honorable Mars Company, yes.”

  “Ah.” Lady Hertford nodded. “This explains why it was that Mr. Reid mentioned him so favorably.”

  “Mr. Thomas Reid?” Arabella asked, astonished. “Chairman of the Company?”

  “The very same.” Lady Hertford smiled at Arabella’s reaction. “Do not be so amazed, Mrs. Singh. Your husband’s actions in the Battle of Venus put him among the greatest heroes the Company has produced in a hundred years. Some mark him as even greater than Lord Clive!” Arabella blinked, startled, at the comparison. Robert Clive—Clive of Mars, as every schoolboy knew him—was the general who had consolidated English rule over Saint George’s Land in the last century. “And your own accomplishments are scarcely less famous.”

  “Oh, I could not possibly!”

  “Do not be over-modest, my dear.” She leaned in, conspiratorially. “Prinny is extremely fond of you, you know.”

  Arabella’s heart pounded at this revelation. “I am a married woman!” she blurted.

  Lady Hertford shrugged. “As am I. But you need have no concerns about untoward advances, my dear. Prinny prefers his women more … substantial. No, his sentiments toward you are entirely avuncular. You are nearly the same age as his daughter, you know. As she has recently become engaged to Prince Leopold, and will soon be departing to begin her own independent life, I believe he may be casting about for another young woman to be his protégée.”