Miriam stepped forward experimentally. Her maidservants had taken over an hour to install her in this outfit: I feel like I’ve fallen into a medieval costume drama, she thought. Roland’s high linen collar and pantaloons didn’t look too comfortable, either, come to think of it. “What sort of occasion is this outfit customary for?” she asked.

“Oh, any formal event where one of our class might be seen,” Roland observed: “except that in public you would have a head covering and an escort. You would normally have much more jewelry, but your inheritance—” he essayed a shrug. “Is mostly in the treasury in Niejwein.” Miriam fingered the pearl choker around her neck uncomfortably.

“You wore, um, American clothing today,” she reminded him.

“Oh, but so is this, isn’t it? But of another period. It reminds us whence our wealth comes.”

“Right.” She nodded minutely. Business suits are informal dress for medieval aristocrats? And formal dress that was like something that belonged in a movie about the Renaissance. Everything goes into the exterior, she added to her mental file of notes on family manners.

Roland escorted her up the wide stairs, then at the tall doors at the top a pair of guards in dark suits and dark glasses announced them and ushered them in.

A long oak table awaited them in a surprisingly small dining room that opened off the duke’s reception room. Antique glass globes rising from brass stems in the wall cast a pale light over a table glistening with silver and crystal. A servant in black waited behind each chair. Duke Angbard was already waiting for them, in similarly archaic costume: Miriam recognized a sword hanging at his belt. Do swords go with male formal dress here? she wondered. “My dear niece,” he intoned, “you look marvelous! Welcome to my table.” He waved her to a seat at the right of the head, black wood with a high back and an amazingly intricate design carved into it.

“The pleasure’s mine,” Miriam summoned up a dry smile, trying to strike the right note. These goons can kill you as soon as look at you, she reminded herself. Medieval squalor waited at the gate, and police cells down in the basement: Maybe this wasn’t so unusual outside the western world, but it was new to her. She picked up her skirts and sat down gingerly as a servant slid a chair in behind her. The delicacy of its carving said nothing about its comfort—the seat was flat and extremely hard.

“Roland, and young Vincenze! You next, by the Sky Father.”

“P-pleased to accept,” Vincenze quavered.

The outer door opened again, sparing him further risk of embarrassment, and a footman called out in a low voice: “The Lady Margit, Chatellaine of Praha, and her excellency the Baroness Olga Thorold.”