It was the only province of all of them that Claire had ever seen.
These eight provinces made up the Great American Kingdom, a land that was wider, tip to tip, than the great continent of Europe. King Washington oversaw it all from his jewel-box estate in Mount Vernon, the estate where his rule had been breathed into being, and their country was a glorious beacon of hope. This is what Claire had been taught, what she had read. But the women she listened to now told a different story.
The representative from Willamette told of their Governor, who took advantage of his duchy’s isolation to take what he wanted from his women. “You’ll go to the grocer, or take a walk with a friend, and one of his men will see you. They’re always out ‘shopping’ for their man. If you’re chosen, that night a knock will come at your door. The soldier will tell you to pack your things. For a trip, he says. A trip . . . when the Governor’s finished with you—a few days later, maybe a week—he returns you, gives your husband some money for his trouble.” Her eyes went cold, unfocused. Finally she said, “Mine spent it on drink.”
In Alta California, there was news of a woman mayor, the first of her kind. “Don’t cheer yet,” the representative said; she had been appointed by their Governor for “special services to the Crown.” Some said she was his former mistress, with a cache of exquisite blackmail. Others, that she had been a clerk in his offices and helped him skim off a pretty sum from his province’s coppers. She was doing the same now to the town, levying taxes that left her citizens high and dry. Her detractors were legion, and all said the same thing: “This is what happens when you put a woman in charge.”
The Floridas had erected a wall between them that needed papers and visas to be crossed. Nuevo México was in the midst of a succession war between its Governor’s twin sons, making the governing of the province a faraway thought. New Columbia alone was flourishing under the hands of King Washington’s many advisers. What of the King himself? “He spends all his time in France,” the representative said, “at the gambling houses in Marseilles, and his advisers want to keep him there. The kingdom is far easier to rule without the King.”
Finally a little red-haired woman stepped forward. She toed the carpet with an embroidered slipper. “I have little to say of Livingston-Monroe,” she began, “as it is a blank slate. We have land, resources, few towns, few expectations. Few for women, fewer for men. In my town, as far as I can tell, men treat their wives with some respect.”
Olivetta Wright raised her eyebrows. Beatrix hooted; she wasn’t the only one.
Claire found herself looking around, her arms curling up and around herself. This is it? she wondered. This is the bar they have set? That wives are occasionally listened to as though they were people?
The red-haired woman continued. “Jobs can be hard to come by, due to . . . the porous border with St. Cloud. What we do have is a sizable standing army, built up these past years for the reason many of you have suspected. Our leaders line their borders with outposts, men, engines of war.”
“St. Cloud is the reason why,” someone muttered. “A plum ripe for the picking.” And the muttering spread fast across the room.
Claire felt a flush of contradictory feeling: hope for her idyllic-sounding new home, fear for the home she was leaving.
“Thank you, representatives.” Rosa Morgenstern climbed back to her feet, arranging her skirts. “Yes, the report from St. Cloud is much as you have heard. We have a French whelp for a Governor, locked away in his mansion, playing with his toys. He has spent untold time and money crafting this Fair, meant to be a unifying spectacle of science, and industry, and might. And still, on the eve of its opening, its buildings are half finished, its grounds unpatrolled, its giant wheel a skeleton. He means to show St. Cloud in its glory, but we fear it will only expose our many weaknesses.”
“What are those weaknesses?” someone called.
“Your open borders,” the redhead from Livingston-Monroe said, “for one. All those foreigners you accept spilling then into our province, taking our jobs. Killing folk, acting like animals. It’s not right.”
There was a flush of whispers at that. Claire was horrified; she looked at Beatrix. “Is the DAC so against immigration?” Is Livingston-Monroe?
“Some members are,” Beatrix murmured. “Most aren’t. I’m not, of course.”
“Neither am I,” Claire said. “Why are such abhorrent thoughts voiced here, then, and not shouted down? I don’t like this, Beatrix—”
Rosa held up her hands for silence but seemed unsure of what next to say. All around the luxurious bathroom, the women bristled at one another.
Finally Beatrix cleared her throat. “I can report that the Barrage will go on as scheduled. My source has confirmed it.”
So this was Beatrix’s role here. This was how she made herself useful: reporting what she heard from Claire.
“I’d heard the same,” Rosa was saying. “And it will succeed?”
“We’re not sure,” Beatrix said. “It is down to luck now, and perhaps magic.”
Beside her, Claire stiffened. Beatrix affected not to notice, but the room was hung with gilded mirrors, and in those Claire could see the guilt playing across her best friend’s mouth, reflected over and over and over.
“It will fail,” Rosa said, decisively. “And when it does, we will have the support to replace Duchamp. It is true, then?” She cleared her throat. “That Abigail Monroe has arrived in Monticello?”
The room erupted. “The Duchamp cousin?” “The American one?” “The elizabeth herself?” (As though that made any sense.) And into that noise Claire stood, brushing off her trousers.
“Wait,” Beatrix said, too loud, pulling at her sleeve. “This is important—”
“Is it?” Claire asked.
Heads were turning to look at them.
“You, more than anyone I know, chafe against the rules of this world.” There was a glint in Beatrix’s eyes. “This is how we’ll take it back.”
“All I see here are small dogs fighting for scraps.” Claire tugged her arm away from Beatrix and walked, unhurried, out the powder-room door, a legion of eyes on her back.
They had fought before, Claire and Beatrix; this wasn’t new. But never before other people. Never over something Claire had been so sure that they agreed upon.
Lost in thought, she threaded her way through the dance floor. Discarded flowers, soldiers waltzing with their women, a dark pool of something on the floor. She came to herself at the bar. For once it was quiet, no men clamoring for whiskey.
“How was your meeting?” Perpetua asked. Her giant hair wobbled a bit as she cleaned a glass. There were fake butterflies in that hairdo, violets and peonies and little shining moons.
Claire touched her own loose curls. “I didn’t mean to go. I was followed by a man who . . . wouldn’t take no for an answer. Found myself powdering my nose.”
Perpetua stopped polishing. “Is he still here?”
“Does it matter?” Claire sighed. “I don’t know. Those meetings—are they always like that?”
“I’ve never made it through a full one,” Perpetua admitted. “Elizabeths. It’s not my cup of tea.”