Penitent-Chapter 226 Book 4 Ch 7: Royal Entrance

They arrived at the gala exactly on time. Stent wasn't the type of place to appreciate being fashionably late. The ballroom was a high domed space with acoustics that made the band in the corner's performance travel perfectly to every side of the room. The center of it was a dancefloor in which a group of attendees were engaged in an intricate and precise number of steps and partner switches that felt reminiscent of a military march. The clothing was mostly an elevated form of the military inspired items he'd grown used to in the castle, but the men were wearing more jewelry and the women mostly wore elaborate gowns that reminded him more of those he'd seen in King Marlo's court, rather than the pants he'd grown used to seeing them in. At the outskirts of the event were a number of tables and chairs for men and women to sit and servants that stood at the ready to bring anyone food and drink or address any of their other concerns.

Michael was surprised that they were having such a function at all, considering how many complaints about it he'd heard people whispering about it throughout the day. King Matthias had insisted though, on the pretense that he had a surprise to reveal that was worthy of celebration. Shreve had asked Bayle if he knew what it was. Bayle had presumed that it had to do with a recent victory at a fort on the border, but couldn't find anyone who knew what the King was referring to specifically. That concerned Michael, given what surprises he'd had to deal with over the years.

They had been given simple, but fine outfits in the blue-gray of Old Hume, though Ollie and Pyotr were partially armed and armored with Pyotr wearing his breastplate and Ollie wearing his usual combat wizard outfit. They shuffled in and Michael made his way to one of the tables on the edge, at which a man with a thick beard and a gloomy expression was already sitting.

Even knowing that the man was Bayle in disguise, Michael still second-guessed himself as he approached him. He gestured at a servant and requested wine, then he spoke as the wine was in front of his mouth, to hide that he was speaking. It was all very basic, but it wasn't as if Michael would be able to actually learn complicated spycraft in an afternoon.

"So, anyone in particular you want me to focus on?" he asked before putting the wine down.

"All of them," replied Bayle, his voice distinctly softer than usual.

Michael took a deep breath and his eyes flashed silver as he activated his Eyes of Judgement. He started with a woman sitting near them devouring a piece of cake.

"Baroness Lyza began abusing a taker servant at the age of twelve, having her regularly beaten. She encouraged her son to military service so that she could convert his wing of the castle into additional storage. She poisoned her father when he refused to accept her husband's proposal." He switched to his Eyes of Love and followed a half dozen threads. "She's romantically connected to that young man dancing over there with the red coat and long hair, she feels some sort of obligation to the young servant girl in the far corner behind us, and she doesn't seem to have much of an obligation for the Baron sitting with her who I presume is her husband."

When he was done speaking he deactivated his ability, his eyes returning to their usual blue as he waited for Bayle to make sure that he had gotten everything he needed. He was surprised to hear a very quiet laugh. He risked a look at the man.

Bayle wasn't smiling with his mouth, but his eyes were smiling. "I really wish I could've kept you here. How differently things might have gone." He paused, reflecting for a moment. "I've got it. Start going through the rest of the room. Don't stop until you've gone through every single person. And try not to get caught staring, it's only a matter of time until you're asked to dance with the way you look and I'd rather not have any pauses with what we're doing."

Michael resisted nodding and looked toward the next nearest person, the husband of Baroness Lyza, and began breaking down all of his sins and connections as succinctly as he'd done his wife's. The first few went fine, but eventually what he saw in the hearts of the men and women there began to weigh on him. Abuse, rape, murder, it was as common among them as it had been among those criminal penitents he'd been forced to work with on the front. He could feel his rage at them growing, and the white-hot heat of Estaid's attention looming over him.

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In order to keep himself from just channeling smite and lunging into the center of the ballroom, he occasionally glanced at the others. Shreve was living up to his role masterfully. Every time Michael saw him he was speaking to another group of nobles with smiles on their lips and laughter in their eyes. Marcus leaned forward in an intense conversation with a portly man who seemed to be sweating profusely as they went back and forth. That worried Michael, but he knew Marcus was too smooth to be saying something he couldn't get away with. Probably.

He saw Pyotr on the dancefloor multiple times, easily mastering the steps to their complicated dance to the surprise of everyone. He was ignoring his bodyguard duties, but as Shreve had said, that was a part of the disguise too. Ollie was in the corner with a few servants, seeming to be having a light conversation even as he reheated a few hors d'oeuvres and cooled some wine for them. Michael was worried that they might be making a bit too much of a spectacle of themselves, but Bayle would've warned them if that was the case, so Michael wasn't too concerned.

As he neared the halfway point of people at the party the more formal dancing in the center of the room ceased and started to give way to more casual swaying and simple steps that reminded him of an awkward prom a lifetime ago. He quickly dismissed his silver eyes of judgement when he realized he was being approached by an attractive young woman wearing a pink dress with light brown hair she had tied in an elaborate braid.

"Young sir, are you planning on sitting in the corner all night, or will you asking someone to dance?"

Michael smiled at her, he'd been told how to handle this. In Stent it was still traditional for men to ask the women to dance, but the women had come up with more than a few ways to get around that. He had been warned that refusing a dance would draw too much attention.

"Well, would you care to dance?" he asked her.

"I would in fact," she said with a flirty smile.

Michael maintained his smile as he stood from the table and took the young lady's hand before they walked out onto the ballroom floor. He followed the simple rhythm that had taken over the dance floor. In his old life he'd never been much of a dancer, but here he had a new body that was stronger, faster, and more controlled so he easily found his footing. Michael did his best to focus on the dancing itself more than anything else. He didn't particularly want to be in the midst of so many people whose sins and connections he'd just dissected. Brushing shoulders with men and women that beat or raped servants, assassinated others, or all manner of other horribleness made him want to scream.

It wasn't that they'd all been amoral monsters of course. Many were relatively normal in terms of sin and the tangle of their connections. He'd just been disturbed at how many were monsters in fine silks. The girl in front of him he'd not yet scanned, he'd been primarily focused on older members of high nobility that would've had the most skeletons in their closet. For all he knew though, she'd had someone boiled alive.

He twirled her, still wearing a smile, and she giggled a bit as she did so, then brought herself in close. She squeezed his arm a bit.

"You have the muscles of a warrior," she said appreciatively.

"I am a knight of Hume. It is important to stay in shape."

"Important and appreciated," she said with a smile.

Michael forced his smile to widen momentarily. The girl was too young to even be his daughter. Still, to her he was a twenty-something young man from a foreign land. He'd need to act accordingly. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

They continued their dance for a while longer, and at some point he noticed Bayle was no longer at the table he'd been at before. He looked around and saw Shreve having words with Ollie. Pyotr and Marcus were moving to join them.

Concerned, Michael prepared an excuse to pull himself away from his young dancing partner, when the music ceased suddenly, replaced by a silence and quick, excited exchanges between members of the crowd.

At the opposite end of the ballroom, at the entrance opposite to the one everyone else had arrived from, stood King Matthias. He was a tall man, wearing the gray military uniform of a Stent General along with an iron crown with a dozen points shaped into swords. He had dark black hair swept back and a thick handlebar mustache. Standing next to him, was what looked to be a woman, but Michael quickly realized that wasn't what she was.

Her proportions were wrong. Her legs and arms were too long, her eyes were a bright incandescent green. Her dress was like a piece of black marble made into cloth, and the pattern of it seemed to shift even as he watched it. Looking closely at her he could see what looked to be long scars along each of her cheeks as well as down the center of her hands. She was a rift monster.