Julien Camille Élie Cotonnet isn't in the habit of attending aristocrats' dinner parties – as he'll tell anyone who'll listen. ("I can't think how you could be," Félix says, "seeing as you've never been invited.") Then again, even among his friends – 

     "Litran's a Chelish running dog," says Charles-Alexandre, who ought to know, though he's not at the moment on speaking terms with his own equally illustrious family. "I'm sure there's some   little busybody at the viceroy's palace who'd just love to know where you'll be for an evening."

          "Don't flatter the boy." That's Gabriel, or at least Gabriel's the name he's going by at the moment. "I promise you, the palace doesn't take notice every time some little nobody comes out with a moderately popular pamphlet." 

"More than moderately popular. If Artenay's read it – " 

          "Artenay's probably never heard of you. He has a secretary for that sort of thing. You should go, if you want to meet the right sort of people" 

     "The right sort of people? For what?" 

"You heard the man – for that sort of thing." 

     "Artenay, a rebel. Imagine. I can just see him smashing windows in with that absurd little gilded cane – " 

Charles-Alexandre can continue in that vein for some time, so he turns to Lucien. "Do you think I should go," he asks, though he knows what answer he'll get. Lucien will tell him that virtue resists flattery, or that good wine is the death of patriotism – 

– but instead, he smiles, and asks him: "Would you like to?" 

And as it happens, Julien very much would. 

The Artenay house - and there's only the one - may not be the grandest residence in Isarn, but it still seems rather excessive, to his eyes. There are gardens in front and presumably gardens behind and ballrooms and dining rooms lit through the night with enchanted chandeliers. Most of the guests, all finely dressed, arrive in carriages; some fewer fly or teleport in; Fewer still are on foot. At the door, the footman looks Julien up and down, immediately identifies him as one of the Master's "artist" "friends", and asks, "How shall you be announced today, monsieur?"

Excess is in the eye of the beholder, and one day this beholder hopes to have his own demiplane. He smiles brightly. "Why, any way you like!" 

This is not the first time the footman has gotten that response, or one like it. He announces 'Monsieur Très Intelligent' to those already in attendance.

As it happens, the Comte's younger sister is in attendance tonight, and the Intelligents are some of her very favorite guests to meet.

"Monsieur Intelligent! I believe I must have met your cousin here the other week. I'm charmed."

"Please don't judge me too harshly on his account – I think he's rather a bore. My friends call me Julien."

"Catherine. I promise to withhold judgement. Tell me, what brings you here this evening?"

"Monsieur le comte seems to think highly of a little thing I wrote. Or possibly his secretary does."

"Oh did he now? He is quite the avid reader, at times - What did you write, or is it secret?" Sometimes it's secret. Sometimes, she's pretty sure, people claim it's a secret just to seem mysterious rather than because it really is.

"Oh – nothing at all – La Galt Libre – I'm sure you haven't heard of it." 

He's totally sure she's heard of it. 

She's heard of it! "Really. How absolutely thrilling to make your acquaintance, in that case. I must make sure you are introduced to Charles-Louis, he'll be delighted you could make it."

Charles-Louis? 

"...And who, exactly, do I have the honor of addressing?"

"Catherine Marianne Euphemia Aspexia...de Litran. He's my brother. But please, just Catherine."

"Oh, dear, I'm afraid you have the better of me. If you'd introduced yourself properly to being with I could call you Catherine to show what a good revolutionary I am. Now I'm simply accepting your gracious condescension. ...I suppose I could start calling you Citizeness, but I've always thought it sounded silly – don't you? – and besides inappropriate while we're all still subjects."

"My apologies! If you would prefer, I can insist that you call me 'the lady de Litran,' and you can make your best revolutionary arguments for why 'Catherine' should suffice. Or call me citoyenne, it may not be appropriate but neither was La Galt Libre, no?"

"Appropriateness is a matter of circumstance, is it not? What's appropriate for the theater might not be appropriate for the temple – what's appropriate at home may not be appropriate at de Artenay's mansion – and what's appropriate for Egorian certainly isn't what's appropriate for Isarn." 

"Are you telling me that most of what's preached in the temples these days is not farce?"

"That would be speaking too highly of the clerics."

"Well, if the main difference between the theater and the temple is that the priests lack self-awareness and a sense of humor, and the main difference between home and the de Artanay residence is Charles-Louis' gambling problem... I still take your point about Egorian, though maybe some day we will bring culture to the poor souls there too."

"A humanitarian! I don't think my sort of culture would suit them at all in the west, but you might endow a theate or a circulating library or something of that nature."

"You write, do you not? I suppose someone would have to do a translation - possibly import some loanwords - What is the Chelish word for libre, I wonder? Do they have one?" They both know it, of course. Even if they speak Galtan in the markets, in their homes, at parties and in the cafés, everyone is required to learn Chelish Taldane.

Beaten for speaking anything but Chelish Taldane in school, in fact.

"Oh, I'd hardly think it's necessary." He puts on his best Longmarch accent, after a particularly reviled tutor – "How hard can it be for them to learn to speak properly?"

She gives an exaggerated shudder. "Perhaps you are right, and even in Egorian the people can learn to appreciate proper culture. Though I still think that a translation may be in order - We cannot expect a people to love the writings of another tongue above those of their own, or to love tales of a distant people over tales of home. La Galt Libre, yes, but why not - " she affects her own accent, and switches to Chelish "A free Longmarch? Or Ravounel?"

"I hope to see them both before I die. But it's as you say – Cheliax must have its own patriots, not just poor Galtan scribblers."

"Oh, I'd hesitate to call your scribblings poor - I really must introduce you to my brother. Do you play Brelan?"

It's a popular game among nobles and commoners alike, and always played for stakes. 

"Oh, yes. But when I complained of my poverty, I'm afraid I was being rather literal."

She realized halfway through dismissing what she'd taken to be false modesty about his writings. "All the more reason to play with Charles-Louis, then. My poor brother must be cursed, the way he loses money at cards."

Of course, it would be terribly rude to refuse to play – unless he had an established reputation for asceticism, which he certainly does not – and unthinkable not to play for money. 

"I'll play a hand, then. But just a hand – for your brother's sake."

"How about this - you play a hand, two, three - however long your luck and patience last you - and if good fortune deserts you, I will cover your losses up to, say, two hundred dollars. It would, after all, be unseemly for my family to profit from the further impoverishment of Isarn's literary masters."

Masters? She is laying it on a bit thick. He wonders what she's after – there's nothing he has to offer her family except mild notoriety, and that's free.

"My lady is much too generous."

"Oh, nonsense." She leads him around the dance floor to where she sees Charles-Louis. "My lord, may I introduce Julien, our latest monsieur intelligent. Julien, this is my brother the Comte de Artenay. Julien is a writer, he wrote - " Charles-Louis shakes his head slightly "- some very nice things..." She blinks and trails off.

Aretenay is tall, aristocratic, blond unlike his sister, and, indeed, carrying a faintly ridiculous cane capped with a gilded unicorn head. "I am pleased to meet you, Julien - I do hope you will forgive Jérôme the nickname, I'm afraid he finds less joy than I do in my support for Isarn's itinerant artists."

The cane is, somehow, sillier in real life. He wonders how Artenay came to know of him. Gabriel's right, there must be a secretary – he doesn't think the man in front of him looks careless enough for a copy of La Galt Libre to have ever entered this house. 

"Monsieur de Artenay. I'm grateful to your sister for giving me the opportunity of thanking you for your gracious invitation – and grateful to Jérôme for puncturing my pretensions before I had the chance to bore you with them." 

"It is always a joy to welcome artists such as yourself to my home. I dare say that I must be more grateful for the contributions of people like you to the culture of our nation - an invitation to an evening's festivities really is the least I can do."

Julien is starting to develop the really alarming suspicion he's been mistaken for someone whose opinion matters. 

"Then I must do my best to merit your regard."

"I am sure that you do already, and will only merit it more if you continue as you have been. I do adore the arts. Tell me, Julien, do you play cards?"

"Badly, but with enthusiasm." 

"My dear sister, I am sure, would say the same is true of me. Can I tempt you with a game? The card room is this way."

"A hand can't hurt." Because what can Artenay do if he loses, send him to debtor's prison? He's already a wanted heretic. 

"I am afraid," says Artenay as he deals the first hand, "That I have had some troubles with my banker of late - a small thing, of no real importance and soon to be resolved, but it means that at the moment I only have Absalom money to bet with. I ask that you will forgive me."

Julien can't imagine a banking problem that would produce that particular result. Absalom pounds are hard to get these days – they're more valuable than Chelish dollars, at least on the black market. In other words: he's being bribed.

"I have no objections."

(The trouble with the banker is that the banker is a Mammonite and Artenay does not want to deal with him. It really has left him short on Chelish dollars until he gets it sorted out.)

They play a few hands. As one might expect for a moderately veiled bribe, Julien takes two hands out of the first three and comes out ahead by a couple hundred pounds, though Artenay shows no inclination towards stopping there.

Julien does! If the bribe gets big enough Artenay might be liable to expect something in return. 

"Forgive me, my lord, but I don't usually play for such high stakes." 

Artenay smiles, making no sign of exasperation. "Surely you will at least give me a chance to win it back."