I never manage to apologize to Mariusz for calling him a drunken incompetent. It always feels like bringing it up again will only stir up trouble for us both. Besides, however much I regret what I said, I can't be displeased by its effect. Whenever Mariusz and Celina are together now, he treats her with the same distant, faintly embarrassed civility he treats me, and she barely speaks to him at all. In fact, I think she may be trying to avoid him. While Barany and Valery spend many hours idling away the time with Mariusz in the sitting room, Celina never even comes to see our new quarters.

So I am surprised when, one afternoon as I am reading a book alone in the sitting room, there comes a knock at the door and Countess Celina enters.

"Mariusz is not here," I say.

"I am not here to speak with Mariusz. I am here to speak with you." She sits without being invited."Mariusz's name day is at the end of December."

"It does." I try to keep my voice flat and pretend this is not new information to me.

"And have you bought him a present yet?"

I had not even thought of it. Mariusz is one of those unlucky people born on Christmas Day, which I had taken to mean as freeing me from the responsibility of finding him a birthday present. For a Christmas present, however, I had already sent for a set of Goethe's novels. It had taken me a great deal of thought and much scouring of his bookcase to determine what he might like that he did not already have. It is an unexpected nuisance to have to come up with a second present as well.

"I am still thinking about it," I say. "It is a way off yet."

"Well, you will need to buy him one. It will be part of his name day festivities. As his master of ceremonies, I arranged the celebration. It will begin with a sort of play. Mariusz will be kidnapped by fairies — paid actors — and taken on stage. People will offer the fairies gifts for his rescue. It is a sort of game. Everybody, almost everybody, will go up on stage and offer the actors a coin or some kind of small token to free Mariusz. It saves Mariusz from receiving gifts he does not need or want from people who wish to curry favour with him, and whatever money the actors raise will be given to the church."

"I have coin, if that is all that is needed."

Celina shakes her head. "Mariusz's friends and family will of course be expected to give him real presents. The actors will reject such gifts and take them to Mariusz instead. So you will need a present to give him."

There is a hard glint in her eyes and her voice is stony. I am sure the idea occurred to Celina not to tell me about this game, to let me be publicly embarrassed by giving him nothing. I wonder if she was persuaded against it by a wiser friend, or if she decided to be decent of her own accord.

"What else will happen at this celebration?" I ask. "Dancing? Music? Champagne?"

"Champagne, certainly. And fireworks at midnight, since it is the new year as well. The actors will play music after the play, no doubt, so probably people will dance, but it is not a ball. I think if you get bored, you can run away after the fireworks and no one will notice."

"And how many people are coming?"

"Some two hundred, I believe."

"I think I will be missed in a crowd of only two hundred. You might have to think of something more entertaining."

A cold smile curves across Celina's lips. "You could always join in the conversation. Oh. I forgot. You can't, can you?" She adds something in rapid Selician after that, which I know is an insult without trying to translate it.

"You are right. I am quite mute here." The worm of a malicious idea occurs to me. "I don't even know how I will manage to buy him a present. I need an interpreter to shop. You are not busy now, are you?"

Celina's smile freezes. "Me? Why would you ask me?"

"Because other than Mariusz, you are the only one who speaks my language well, and I cannot ask him. You must help me."

"Embroider him a pair of slippers."

"I have no slippers to embroider. No, I insist you help me. It is my official request, as duchess, to my Master of Ceremonies, come shopping with me."

Celina narrows her eyes at me, but she cannot refuse an official request. "What were you planning to buy him?"

"Jewellery, I think."

"We can go to the silversmith district. Perhaps a watch would do."

"Something a little more personal than that, I think, but silver will do very nicely, yes. Do you mind sending for the coach, Lady Celina?"

Celina makes the arrangements for us to go to the city, and while we are waiting for our coach and personal guards to be ready, I decide on a whim to ask Henryka to come too. It is not much fun shopping alone, and I might as well be alone if I shop with Celina.

The silversmith district is a single, narrow street on the southern edge of the city's centre. It is crowded with little shops selling jewellery and trinkets of all kinds, some dingy and mysterious, others gas-lit and glamourous. It is an additional pleasure to me to notice Celina growing visibly more impatient as I explore each one of them. Henryka favours delicate jewellery, while I prefer the mechanical items — Döbereiner lamps, music boxes, or telescopes.

"You cannot give him a weapon," Celina says when I linger too long over an ornamental pistol. "Not with your reputation."

"Papa got him a pair of pistols four years ago," Henryka adds in French. "Though Mother won't let him use them."

"I would not give him a pistol." I speak in French also, so Henryka can understand. "I was thinking he might like this hip flask."

Celina looks at the flask in question. "It will look like you encourage drinking, and I know you nag him about it."

"It depends who he is drinking with." But it occurs to me that Mariusz must have at least half-a-dozen hip flasks already.

"What about a letter opener?" Henryka suggests.

"He never uses a letter opener," I say. "He rips them open like an animal."

Henryka laughs. "He's always been like that. Too impatient for his own good."

The shopkeeper watches us anxiously, desperate to please. Every shopkeeper has been like that. I try to smile at them and say thank you as I leave, but I still feel like I have disappointed them by not buying anything. On the other hand, I am having a great deal of fun looking and as soon as I purchase something I will have to return to the palace.

"The prince is a great reader," the shopkeeper says in French. "We do have a number of silver-bound books." He guides me to a glass display case. "The bible, or a set of Vesalius's anatomy, perhaps?"

One of the anatomy books is displayed open, depicting two skeletons, one in a position of intense thought over a plinth and the other hunched over with his hands steepled as though plotting. It certainly might interest Mariusz, but if I giving him books for Christmas I cannot give the same for his name day. I take a closer look at the display. As well as books, they have engraved silver pens, propelling pencils, ink-wells, rulers and bookmarks.

"That's a pretty bookmark," I say to Henryka, pointing to one that shows a woman being dragged into a stormy sky by winged creatures while a man calls to her from below.

"It is from an opera," the shopkeeper says eagerly. "Ruslan and Lyudmila."

The name is familiar to me, and after a moment I place it. Irena mentioned it as her favourite.

"We have others as well," the shopkeeper adds. "Scenes from Oberon, La Straniera..."

"It is hardly to Mariusz's taste," Celina says, peering over my shoulder. "And I have never seen him use a bookmark. He folds the pages."

"But look at those pens," Henryka says. "He would love a pen set. He is forever losing his pens."

"Then should I give him a present just for him to lose it?"

"He will be sure not to lose it if you give it to him."

I actually quite like the idea. He writes enough letters that it is sure not to be entirely useless to him, and besides, most of the pens are prettily engraved and come in ornate silver cases.

"Perhaps not very romantic, but useful, certainly," Celina says.

"He likes useful things." I turn to the shopkeeper. "If I buy one, can you engrave a message on the case for me?"

He can. He has the engraving tools at the back of the shop, as I had hoped. Henryka and I take our time choosing the exact pen set, and decide upon one with a pen knife, quill, and propelling pencil in a silver case embossed with bees and flowers.

"And the message," I say, "it must be in Selician, I think. Yes. It will be, let me think..." I pause to translate the words in my head. "My darling Mariusz, happy birthday." I come to words I do not know. "And, Lady Celina, how do I say, with love, your Sasha? Can you translate that for me? And is my grammar correct? I get so confused about these declensions."

I have, as I intended from the beginning, the pleasure of watching Celina stammer out a translation of my words of affection to the shopkeeper. The filthy look in her eyes gives me a thrill of triumph. I am only slightly anxious as to how Mariusz will feel when he reads the message. He is my Mariusz after all, if not my darling.

While the case is being engraved, Henryka and I continue to look around the shop. I keep coming back to the bookmark. It is not expensive at all, the merest trinket really. I think it is the kind of thing Irena would like, and I want to buy it for her and see if I am right. Is it strange to buy something for someone you hardly know?

But I hardly know Mariusz either, and I have bought him two presents now. One, with a personal engraving. I also bought his mother a Christmas present, and his sisters and brother. I think I know Dominik even less well than I know Irena.

The shopkeeper finishes engraving the message, shows it to me for my approval, and wraps the pen case carefully in black paper and ties it with a white ribbon.

"Is there anything else?" he asks hopefully.

"And that bookmark," I say quickly, before I can persuade myself out of it. "The Ruslan and Lyudmila one."

"Mariusz hates that opera," Celina remarks snidely. "He says it is sentimental."

I am sure he is right, but it is a pretty little bookmark, and if I do not give it to Irena I will use it myself.

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2024-10-01: Alex gets one over Celina. I enjoy their little catfights. They're so passive aggressive.