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In theory this ensured that the Emperor could never play favorites among the vassal kingdoms. In practice, the kingdoms of the Realm eternally vied for imperial privilege and attention, and could only be united against a common threat to the south, beyond the foreign borders—a chronic threat issuing from the Realm’s grand neighbor, the Domain.
    The Silver Court of the Realm took its name from the grandiose silver-trimmed Hall of the Imperial Palace where the Emperor Josephuste Liguon II and the Emperors before him held the most splendid balls in the world. The Hall’s lofty ceiling was painted by the great Fiorello into a scene of Heaven where each cloud had not merely a silver lining but was coated completely with a paper-thin sheet of pressed silver, and where the Figure of God shone with the purity of this metal while the beatific Angels wore silver halos.
    Gold had been deemed too much of a worldly metal by the ancient Emperor whose conceit this Hall had been. And unfortunately, since silver tarnished so easily, the whole of the grand Hall had to be polished and restored every season by a cadre of Imperial Silversmiths.
    From the ceiling were suspended a hundred chandeliers of transparent crystal, while more crystal hung in garlands on the walls that were the color of deep burgundy.
    The Emperor Josephuste and the Empress Justinia held court while seated upon silver thrones trimmed with burgundy velvet, and the light of a thousand candles shone upon the mirror-polished wooden mosaic of the lacquered parquet floor.
    It was the depth of winter now and the roof and overhangs of the Palace were covered with the ermine coat of snow. Within the walls the myriad corridors were a hive of mayhem as servants of every rank sped about on their tasks. For, tonight was the great Birthday Feast of the Infanta, only beloved daughter of the Emperor, and all of the nobility were invited, including select foreign royalty.
    Outside the Palace the wind howled, swirling snowflakes into a haze of whiteness, and the darkening sky was the color of faint mauve twilight and milk. Aristocratic carriages arrived one after another at the gates, met by liveried servants who seemed permanently fixed in bowed stances from their non-stop genuflecting and from the relentless cold.
    Today the Infanta turned sixteen, and would make her social debut as a grown Princess of the Realm and no longer a child.
    The Infanta, Claere Liguon, was a slight and sickly creature, and her ailments were so plentiful and frequent that she was almost never seen in public at all. Tonight she was to put in a brief appearance as the clock struck eight, and then, after a dutiful hour of hearing out the Court’s congratulations and receiving gifts, she would once again retire to her living quarters and immediately to bed where she spent most of her time.
    The Silver Hall was filling with noble guests as Peers of the Realm arrived in elegant haste yet with a proper semblance of nonchalance—dukes and baronets and marquises and counts and minor lordlings accompanied by their bedecked spouses, all having surrendered their winter furs and capes at the Palace foyer into the accommodating hands of imperial liveried lackeys.
    The Chamberlains had grown hoarse from announcing His Lordship so-and-so and Her Ladyship this-and-that with every breath. The great long gift table on the side of the hall was overflowing with garishly sparkling wrapped boxes, containers of all shapes and sizes, chests, baskets, trinkets, trifles, and curiosities. There were numerous clockwork toys, for none could rival the clockmakers of the Realm for their skill with the delicate timepiece mechanisms—armies of windup miniature horses of lacquered wood and ivory bore upon their backs tiny metallic knights, and reposed on platforms in military lineups; delicate copper and gold birds with jewel eyes perched within filigree cages; porcelain courtier dolls wearing full crinolines or jackets of lace and crimson