Free Dido and Pa by Joan Aiken Page A

high—maybe from rouge—his skin was shiny; he carried himself with a kind of carefree dignity, as if everything he ever tried had turned out successfully. He wore stays: Dido could hear them creak, just a little, when he breathed. His velvet suit was of deep, dark blue, and his snow-white shirt had ruffles at throat and wrist; diamonds flashed on his fingers and in his ears and ruffles and the buckles of his shoes.
    He's wicked, thought Dido; wicked clean through and through.
    Then she remembered what his cold unmoving eye had recalled to her: once when she was aboard a whaling vessel she had been allowed to go out in a rowing boat, and a huge shark had followed and rubbed its great spine along the keel of the dory, observing the crew of the boat with a chill, passionless round eye, showing its rows of ghastly teeth as it rolled; this man is like that shark, Dido thought. He'd swallow you and never notice he'd done it.
    "Your daughter appears to be wet," said the margrave gently.
    "She fell in the river, my lord..."
    "She had best change her attire," the margrave continued, observing with distaste how Dido dripped on the white marble steps. "My steward will find her something—"
    He nodded toward the door where a man in black jacket and striped trousers waited.
    "Go with Boletus, my love," said Mr. Twite hastily. "His excellency is so kind as to—"
    Dido went with the steward and was swiftly fitted out with a page's uniform of black velvet, muslin collar, and gilt buttons.
    "Not bad," she said, regarding herself in the glass.
    "His lordship does not care to be kept waiting."
    "All right, I'm a-going—"
    Indeed Mr. Twite was anxiously pacing about the entrance to the music room while his master remained seated in the gilded chair.
    "Now, my angel, tell his excellency how you met the Pre—how you met King Richard."
    "There ain't a lot to tell," said Dido, surprised. "It was on account o' the Georgians a-fixing to knock down St. Paul's at the crowning. Me and my mates had got inside the church to warn the king afore he was crowned. He ain't a bad cove—quite a deal of sense, he has. He was up in the top o' the church, chewing the rag with the old dean, playing cards. We had a bit of a parley. And then he got the folk down in the church a-singing hymns while the constables went round, looking for the Georgian coves and sorting them out. He sure knows a sight of hymns, King Dick do. And then—arter that—he said me and another gal and a couple o' boys should carry his train at the crowning.... That's all there is to it, really."
    "So you were talking with the—with the king for an hour or two before his coronation. And then carried his train. Would you know him again?"
    "O'
course
I would," said Dido testily. "I'm not thick!"
    "Dido!" hissed her father.
    "Beg pardon, yer lordship."
    "And you would recognize his voice? You remember the way he speaks?"
    "Sartin sure I would; he speaks rather quick and short, like a Scotsfeller. That's what he is."
    "Look at these pictures and tell me which is his likeness."
    Boletus the steward laid out twenty or so portraits on the velvet benches. They were all very similar—slight, active-looking men in their thirties with long noses, weather-beaten skin, bright gray eyes, and reddish hair. Some were smiling, some serious. Dido considered them all, slowly—once, then again. Then she put her finger on one and said, "That's him."
    Mr. Twite looked anxiously at the margrave, who nodded.
    "Yes, she knows him. But has she the ear for a voice?"
    "She has
my
ear," said Mr. Twite with much more assurance.
    The margrave nodded again, slowly.
    "Very well. She may—for the time—instruct the replacement. We shall see if he makes good progress. If not—"
    Mr. Twite, already rather pale, became paler at that "if not."
    "My daughter is a very clever girl, your excellency—"
    "We shall see," repeated the margrave impassively. His expressionless eyes moved from Dido to her father. "Have you