Andrea Höst: The Towers, the Moon

"You two will be able to get by on your Latin," Aunt Arianne said. "Tante Sabet is fluent – most people who have to deal frequently with travellers have some Latin, if grudgingly so, and the constant exchange of rule in Aquitania gives Latin a particularly strong presence in France."

Aquitania was the country south of France – or Southern France, whenever the French won it back from the Republic. It was Roman at the moment, because the Gilded Tower was in charge of France, and they weren’t very interested in armies.

French politics was interesting, but not nearly so much as their buildings, and Griff turned his attention wholly to looking about as Aunt Arianne got them from the north-west airfield to Tante Sabet’s hotel in the city’s south-west quarter, which was not, sadly, within the bounds of the Towers, but at least sat quite close to the nearest outer edge.

The hotel had particularly excellent little balconies, taking a theme of flowers with four petals and doing clever things with the negative space. Otherwise, it was nothing special as a building, just a lot of levels piled on top of each other, looking across at other balconies over a narrow street.

"Hotel Lourien," Ned said, reading the small sign beside the closed glass doors.

"Established by Father’s father’s father’s…" Griff began, but then hesitated, and was annoyed, because Father had told him this, but it had gotten mixed up somehow.

"Your great-great-grandfather, Guillaume Lourien, married Aude Beaumont, and together they took over the running of the Hotel Beaumont," Aunt Arianne said, as she paid for their taxicab. "They had seven children and your grandfather was the son of their third oldest child, Honorine. Tante Sabet married the oldest son of the oldest Lourien son, which means she is, strictly speaking, our cousin by marriage, not our aunt or great-aunt, but the whole extended family and a great many people who are not in any way related call her Tante Sabet. We all come battening on Tante Sabet when we’re short of a place to stay."

Aunt Arianne paid off the driver and checked to see they had their suitcases, then added with a conspiratorial smile: "Brace yourselves," before pulling open the door.

This interesting warning fell flat, since the inside of the hotel seemed all very quiet and restrained. Bigger than Griff had expected, with a nice ceiling and sweeping staircase, and an arch to their right leading to a space that looked like it was someone’s sitting room, multiplied many times over. Lots of low, comfortable chairs, tossed in with some small tables. A big shiny bar took up one corner, reminding Griff of a public house, although the people inside seemed to be drinking coffee.

Behind the foyer counter, a lady dressed in crisp black and white said: "Bonjour Mesdemoiselles, jeune homme," and glanced past them at the door. This had become normal. People kept thinking Aunt Arianne was their sister, and looked around for their parents.

Then a woman coming down the stair said, in a disbelieving voice, "Rian?!", and that was like a magic spell, bringing people out of nowhere to exclaim as well, and to kiss Aunt Arianne on either cheek and tell her, as everyone who had met her before did, that she looked so young. Griff watched the kissing with interest, picking out the people who kissed his aunt on the mouth instead, and one who tried, but Aunt Arianne turned her head just in time, and then, Griff thought, it seemed she might have stood on that man’s foot when he tried again.

Unfortunately, Aunt Arianne remembered them after that, and introduced them to the lady called Tante Sabet, who was very small and fluffy, though her eyes were as sharp and dark as her hair was soft and white. She told them welcome, and to stand up straight, and then she kissed each of them on both cheeks as well, and it seemed the whole room tried to follow her lead.

Griff squirmed out of the onslaught as best he could, though one of those who descended was a red-headed girl maybe a year older than him. Her name was Josette, and she was Tante Sabet’s granddaughter, and Griff did not duck his head so much when she took him by the shoulders and bussed each cheek. Someone his own age had never done that before, and he was surprised to find it only half as revolting as the rest.

Watching Ned glow pink after an older boy did the same to her was worth the fuss, anyway.

Eventually all the kissing and introductions stopped, and they got to go up the stair – Griff eyeing the wide curving railing with interest – and into rooms just one level up. The older boy, called Milo, carried the heaviest bags. He had an interesting face, narrow and all angles.

"Devant les escaliers," Milo said, as he put the bags down in a sitting room that opened out into two different bedrooms. That meant front of stairs , which didn’t make sense to Griff, but Aunt Arianne smiled and told the boy that she’d always wanted to try it.

"My room’s next door," Aunt Arianne went on, switching to Prytennian. "Once you’re settled in, we’ll go to dinner under the Towers."

She gave Milo money before he went, overriding his motion to refuse it. Griff had heard of tipping, though he didn’t know it applied to relatives, and waited until the French boy was gone to ask what front of stairs meant.

"I’ve never stayed here as a guest before," Aunt Arianne said. "Only behind stairs, working for Tante Sabet." She turned a considering glance on them, then added: "Wash and change out of those shendies into your semi-formal wear. Skirts are challenging under the Towers."

She left them to go to her own room, and Griff paused briefly to explore the suite and debate over who got which bed, and then made short work of washing and changing. The tunic and long pants were new, a bit stiff, and Griff much preferred his casual wrap shendy. With winter coming he’d be stuck in trousers for months now.

Tante Sabet was waiting in the foyer as they came downstairs, leaning on a gnarled black cane. Her expression didn’t change, but she watched them every step of the way, and though Griff didn’t know all the words of what she said to Aunt Arianne, even Eleri and Ned would understand trois garçons .

France was one of the countries where boys didn’t wear summer shendies at all, and only foreign girls would think to wear trousers. Since Aunt Arianne was wearing Prytennian daywear – long pants with a knee-length skirt over them – she wasn’t really dressed that differently from Ned and Eleri, but it was true enough that, with their short blond hair and up and down sorts of figures, Ned and Eleri did look a lot more like boys.

They were also pretending to have not understood, and Aunt Arianne was very good at sweeping on around interesting ructions, simply saying: "They’ll have all the girls after them, then," and asking about the taxi that was to take them to dinner.

It ended up being two taxis, since Tante Sabet and her son and his family were coming with them. Griff rode in the second, with Josette and her mother, and the woman who had been on the stair, who was some other sort of cousin called Martine. All of them were inclined to pet him, which Griff was willing to put up with. He suspected Tante Sabet, in the other taxi, would likely tell him to sit properly rather than hang his head out the window.

It wasn’t very far to the edge of the Towers at all, but the drive inward took longer, giving Griff plenty of time to verify some of the things he’d read about the Towers. The domes really didn’t touch the ground at all. Only the central building on the Island of Balance did that. The stresses on the five towers that grew out of it, supporting all of the interconnected filigree, had to be immense, though of course that interconnectedness would also provide support.