Ten Little Wizards: A Lord Darcy Novel (14 page)

“Is he reliable?” Coronel Lord Waybusch asked.

“Absolutely,” Lord Peter answered. “If you ever meet him, I’ll tell you his story and you will see why. On the other hand I must point out that, as he is attached to the delegation of Crown Prince Stanislaw, there is every chance that if such a plot existed, he would not know of it.”

“Why is that, my lord?” Marquis Sherrinford asked.

“The Poles seem to run their government by factions,” Lord Peter told him. “Crown Prince Stanislaw and his faction are in favor of a lessening of tensions between Poland and the Angevin Empire. Feel it doesn’t do either side any good. Not that this is in any way a liberal faction, my lords. I’m sure that Crown Prince Stanislaw believes in the ultimate destiny of Poland to take over Europe and thence the world as much as does his father and his son Sigismund. But Stanislaw believes that the Angevin Empire should be left alone, and we will quietly wither away all on our own.”

“Wither, is it?” Coronel Lord Waybusch asked. “We’ll see who does the withering!”

“And this is the liberal view?” Marquis Sherrinford asked,

“Such as it is. The King, of course, believes in the total destruction of the Angevin Empire by fair means or foul, as does his grandson, Crown Prince Sigismund. And they both believe implicitly in the
Serka
as the means of accomplishing this. Crown Prince Stanislaw’s views are not supported by his father or by his son. And it seems likely that the
Serka
would not feel impelled to notify Stanislaw of its most secret doings while his father is yet alive.”

“Nonetheless,” Marquis Sherrinford said, “get word to your man if you can. See if he can nose out anything.”

“I shall, my lord,” Lord Peter agreed.

“My lords, unless I am mistaken, there is some cause for concern here,” Harbleury said. “And it may affect the current discussion.” He was standing by the desk, to one side of the group, with the Marquis of London’s letter in his hand. He had unrolled one of the accompanying documents on the desk and was staring at it as he spoke.

Lord Darcy turned around and leaned over to look at the paper. “What is it, Harbleury?” he asked.

“This map that was in de London’s letter,” Harbleury said, pointing to the document in question. “It seems to be of the interior of Castle Cristobel. Most of it is rather sketchy, but look—here’s the ballroom, and the throne room, this is the armory, and this is the royal chambers.”

“I think you’re right,” Marquis Sherrinford said, peering down at the pencil drawing.

“He is right,” Lord Darcy said.

“There is some similarity,” Coronel Lord Waybusch said, staring closely at the paper and tracing some of it out with his finger. “But look here—if this is the ballroom, then what is all this? A whole lot of rooms where the courtyard should be? That’s not right.”

“That would be the second floor,” Lord Darcy said. “Whoever copied it placed them side by side. And look at this suite of rooms marked off by X’s. It would seem to have some special significance. Which rooms are they?”

Harbleury straightened up and turned to them. “That is the Villefrance suite,” he said. “It has been assigned to the Polish delegation.”

“Well, I’ll be a monkey’s cousin!” Coronel Lord Waybusch said. “How do you like that?”

“Our mysteries are coming together, my lords,” Lord Darcy said. “Have you noticed?”

“How’s that?” Coronel Lord Waybusch asked.

“We have three mysteries,” Lord Darcy said. “One: someone is, or may be, trying to kill His Majesty. Two: someone is murdering Master Sorcerers and leaving verses of a nursery rhyme. Three: someone murdered two people in an inn in Tournadotte.”

“That is so,” Marquis Sherrinford said. “But I’m still not convinced that the slaying in the
Gryphon d’Or
was more than a murder and robbery.”

“It’s possible,” Lord Darcy admitted, “but highly unlikely. Considering the advance preparation that went into it, whatever was stolen must have been of immense value.”

“How are they coming together?” Lord Peter asked.

Lord Darcy took the Marquis de London’s letter from Harbleury and opened it. “Consider this,” he said. “Do you remember Master Sean’s description of the murderer of Master DePlessis?”

“He had no description, Lord Darcy,” Coronel Lord Waybusch said. “He said he couldn’t see the fellow clearly with his magic, or some such. Said the fellow was like a ghost.”

“He said the impression was of someone who wasn’t completely there,” Marquis Sherrinford said thoughtfully.

Lord Darcy tapped the letter. “‘The other is an enigma,’” he read from it. “‘Lord John describes someone “who was there, and yet was not there.”’”

“That’s right!” Lord Peter said. “I knew there was something tugging at my memory when I read that.”

“There can’t be that many ghosts running around the Angevin countryside,” Lord Darcy said. “I suggest that this is either the same ghost or a ghostly relative. That is—that the two findings are intimately connected. Precisely what Lord John and Master Sean are psychically seeing—or almost not seeing—we will have to find out.”

“Gwiliam of Occam would certainly have agreed with you, my lord,” Marquis Sherrinford said.

“I agree myself,” Coronel Lord Waybusch said. “It isn’t hanging evidence, but I wouldn’t give odds against it.”

“And what of the other two mysteries?” Lord Peter asked. “How do you tie them together with this letter?”

“As to the Polish connection, there’s the scrap of paper and this map,” Lord Darcy said. “Although it still doesn’t verify the existence of a plot against His Majesty, it makes it hard to ignore the possibility. Considering the connection to the murders in the
Gryphon d’Or
, I would say that the square of oiled cloth was probably used to wrap the blanket that covered the corpses buried in the hill. It would defy logic that two such similar highly unusual objects were not somehow connected.”

“So you would have it,” Marquis Sherrinford said, “that we have here a Polish madman who, having killed two people in an inn at Tournadotte for reasons of his own, has now come to Castle Cristobel and, possessed of the secret of invisibility, is murdering Master Sorcerers. And this man is planning to assassinate our liege sovereign.”

“That is one possible interpretation,” Lord Darcy admitted. “No less possible than any of the others. Let us face it, my lords, whatever the correct solution turns out to be, it is going to be no stranger than that. We are looking at a situation sideways and with insufficient information. I assure you, my lords, that to whoever is responsible for this, it makes perfect sense.”

“This cannot go on!” Marquis Sherrinford said, slapping his hand on the desk. “I cannot go in to His Majesty twice a day and tell him that his life is still in danger and we have done no more about it.”

“We are doing all that can be done, my lord marquis,” Lord Peter said. “I have every hope that we will apprehend this man. Success, when it does come, will come all at once, remember that.”

“That may be so, Lord Peter,” Marquis Sherrinford said. “But remember this—so will failure. All at once.”

The agent known as Pyat entered the ballroom as early as possible, before many others had arrived. The guests were announced as they entered, and Pyat had no desire for anyone to look too closely as the name that was not his own was called out. There could be someone who would recognize the imposture. Or fail to recognize the impostor. There was no way to guard against the possibility of random discovery; one must simply be ready to brazen it out or to flee.

He walked among these Angevins feeling a sense of unreality, and a sense of power; like a fox in a hen suit wandering around the barnyard. He knew something they didn’t know, something they couldn’t even suspect; and it was a matter of power, of life or death.

He bowed to the ladies and nodded to the gentlemen, and wandered about the room, pausing for refreshment, speaking briefly to a brilliantly attired nobleman who had met him in his assumed identity. His manners were, perhaps, a bit overdone, a trifle foreign, but that served to make him more interesting.

And all the while something inside of him wanted to scream out “
Look at me, you fools!
”

It was the danger of his work. Since each moment was fraught with the possibility of discovery, there was no respite.

His costume was a disguise, his conversation was an act, everything about him was other than it seemed. It created in him the simultaneous dimorphic emotions of being a hunted animal and a demigod. It kept him alert.

He took a ouiskie-and-splash from a passing footman. What could be more Angevin than a ouiskie-and-splash? He walked about, admiring the beautiful women in their extravagantly lovely gowns. The men, he noted with disgust, also were extravagantly garbed. The court dress of today in the Angevin Empire was the fashionable dress of the seventeenth century, and the century had been a time of silk jackets with slashed sleeves, and puffed-out pants that ended at the knees above bright stockings and pointed shoes. These nobles and masters, the leaders of the Angevin Empire, looked like bright popinjays as they minced about the ballroom floor. He probably looked much like a popinjay himself in his acquired court costume. Lucky it fitted him as well as it did, since small differences would loom large in these tight things.
A decadent land
, he thought, looking about him,
and ripe for the plucking
.

The man who was his weapon approached him from across the room. “I feel it building inside of me,” the man said. “You told me I would find release. Through you I would find release.”

Pyat nodded briskly. “Release shall be yours,” he said in an undertone. “It is all arranged as I promised. Go over to that corner and await me. I shall join you presently and tell you what to do.”

“You are sure?” the man asked. “This must be.” He was so intent, and yet so matter-of-fact about it, that even Pyat, who had created what he was, found it a bit unnerving.

“I have not failed you yet,” Pyat reminded him. “But the time is not yet right. Just a bit longer. Perhaps an hour, perhaps two. Be patient. Enjoy the anticipation.”

“The anticipation,” the man said, savoring the idea as though it were a physical thing.

“You remember what I told you? The exercises? The preparation?”

“Yes. I remember.”

“Good. Go, then, and prepare. That corner of the room over there. There are chairs. Close your eyes. Recite the words. Practice the exercises. Breath deeply. I will fetch you when it is time.”

“I go,” the man said, and turned and walked away.

Pyat looked around. Nobody had noted their conversation; that was good.

His chosen target had not yet come in. Any of six would have done, but he chose this one for esthetic reasons. It. somehow, felt right. A powerful man would suffer an unseemly death. It was almost poetic. Poetic—what a strange thought, considering. He chuckled and joined in the conversation of the group he was standing next to. They were discussing crime novels. “Reading them is unhealthy,” he told the group. “Could lead to committing crimes.” It was all he could do not to break out laughing.

Lord Darcy and Mary of Cumberland arrived late at the ball. They walked down the long hall leading to the ballroom together, she on his arm. The rows of mirrors on either side of the hall showed endless images of a handsome seventeenth century nobleman escorting his beautiful seventeenth century lady through an arras-draped stone-walled castle corridor. Even the guards of the Household Regiment in their traditional dress uniforms, unchanged for over three hundred years, added to the effect as they snapped to attention at the noble couple’s passage. We are dancing through time, Lord Darcy thought idly, and have just stepped back three centuries. Turn, turn, come together—

“It isn’t fair, you know,” Mary of Cumberland told him, breaking into his musing as they approached the entrance line at the ballroom door. “If anyone notes our entrance, they’ll say, ‘Isn’t that just like a woman, taking hours to dress.’ When the truth is that I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Absolutely true, Your Grace,” Lord Darcy admitted. “But I’m saved from having to admit it by the fact that officially we’re not together. And besides, anyone who sees you in that gown will think that it was well worth the wait.”

Mary of Cumberland smiled at the slender, sharp-featured man beside her and adjusted the bodice of her red silk gown. “The rules that society chooses to live by have always struck me as especially fascinating,” she said. “There are things one can do but not talk about, and there are things one can talk about but not do. There are things—not apparently gender-related—that men can do, but not women, and there are things that women can do, but not men. We live in an invisible maze, and we have all learned where to turn and when, so as to find our way through.”

“Some of the rules are good, Mary, and many are necessary,” Lord Darcy said mildly.

“You misunderstood me, my dear,” Mary of Cumberland told him. “As in magic, where there are absolutely essential words to say and gestures to make or the spell won’t work; so in society there are absolutely essential words to say and gestures to make or we won’t understand each other or trust each other, and it will all come tumbling down around us. The problem is that the rules of society, unlike magic, have never been formalized mathematically, and we don’t know which words are essential to the spell and which are just silly words.”

“I see, Your Grace,” Lord Darcy said, nodding. “I never thought of it that way, but now that you’ve pointed it out, it makes a lot of sense.” This duchess, who was but did not work at being a journeyman sorcerer, still had unsuspected corners in her mind like the unseen facets of a prized gem that added to its sparkle. And the lady did sparkle.

She went in through the main doors before him to be announced and join the throng, since they were neither married nor formally engaged. But they could, without approbation, spend the entire evening together once they were inside. Mary of Cumberland, as usual, was right: when you thought about it, it was strange.

Lord Darcy allowed several people to go in ahead of him, and then went through the large doors. He presented his card to the red-faced footman, who passed it to the ornately attired majordomo, who tapped with his staff thrice on the floor and bellowed, “His Lordship the Baron Darcy,” as Lord Darcy walked into the room.

The last time he had entered here, there had been a body on the floor, and blood splattered in a great snowflake around it. All had been removed—not a trace remained. There was, Lord Darcy noted, a red carpet covering the outermost quarter of the floor. That must be the result of his instructions to save the strange marks on the floor. A thousand square feet of carpeting laid down to conceal two marks an eighth of an inch wide by no more than a foot long. And the freshly shellacked floor shone brightly where it wasn’t covered with carpet. The household staff must have resorted to magic, Lord Darcy reflected, to get the new patches dry so fast.

The receiving line was short and averaged fifty pounds overweight. There was the Lord Mayor of London, by tradition the honorary head of the Honorable Society of Guilds of London, with a great red-and-gold sash around his neck bearing the arms of the City of London; his charming round-faced wife, and several people whose names Lord Darcy didn’t catch above the babble of introductions. He shook hands with them all and wandered into the ballroom.

“My lord, good to see you here.”

Lord Darcy turned around at the words. It was Goodman Harbleury, looking even more gnomelike in his lacy silken court costume.

“You surprise me, Harbleury,” Lord Darcy said. “I had imagined these sorts of functions would bore you.”

Harbleury chuckled and bobbed his head up and down. “You mean, what am I doing here when I don’t have to come? You’re right, of course. In many ways I have an enviable position. Having risen from a lowborn commoner to a position of power and trust, even though, at my own wish, still untitled, I have the best of both worlds. I can choose to go where I like, but am not forced by convention to attend boring entertainments and other occasions of nobility.”

“I wouldn’t have phrased it quite that way,” Lord Darcy said, “but I suppose I meant something like that. Unless you have a secret passion for seventeenth century pageantry, or ballroom dancing, I would think that by now you had attended enough of these functions to find them totally uninteresting, and as you are not obliged to attend—”

“Ah, my lord, but in this case I am obliged,” Harbleury explained. “On two counts. One, His Majesty and Marquis Sherrinford will both be here, and either of them might need me at any time. I would rather be on hand. Two, I am the, er, designer of this affair, and I feel impelled to see at first hand how it turns out.”

“The designer?”

“Yes, my lord. The Lord Mayor of London, who, as head of the Honorable Society, was responsible for this ball, was not sure of the proper form to follow. After all, this is the first investiture of a Prince of Gaul in sixty-three years.”

“Ah!” Lord Darcy said. “Light begins to dawn. So he appealed to you, as a protocol expert.”

“That is so, my lord.”

“And you—”

“Made it up, my lord. There wasn’t anybody I could find who remembered what the Guild Halls’ Ball was like sixty-three years ago, and the newspapers of the day were exceedingly ungenerous in their descriptions of the event. They told in great detail who was there and what they wore, but not what they did, or how. So I made it up.”

Lord Darcy looked around him. The great arms-bearing shields of the one hundred fourteen guilds that comprised the Honorable Society lined three of the walls, arranged in sequential order from the date of the founding of the guild, leaning forward in their holders as if to keep watch on their members. It would have been an ominous look, but for the frivolous designs of many of the arms. There were the Honorable Bakers, 1487, for instance, with two sacks of flour rampant on a field of eggs. Or the Honorable Furriers, 1614, with a red hand
coupé
holding a string of mink pelts. Or the Honorable Fishmongers, 1627, with three dead herring on a white plate. All motifs, Lord Darcy was sure, that the designers of the arms and the founders of the guilds took very seriously. The colors were gay, and the effect of all of these taken together was almost overwhelming, for those few who thought to look up.

The side doors were open, and the rooms beyond were lined with tables covered with yards of white linen and strewn with a great variety of delicate foodstuffs, with the room on the left being reserved for liquid refreshment. “It looks like a larger version of the sort of entertainment the various guilds throw for themselves every year,” said Lord Darcy, who had been to dozens. “A sort of formal dress but informal dinner-dance.”

“You have no idea how difficult it was to talk the Lord Mayor and his guild-hall minions into that,” Harbleury told him. “They wanted to get all-over fancy. Outdo the peerage at their own game. They would have looked silly, and I told them so. But they didn’t believe me.”

“How did you convince them?”

Harbleury smiled a crooked smile. “I talked about their heritage,” he said. “And the strength of the guilds, and their place in the Empire, and the unending tradition of Angevin freedoms which were their strength and their joy.”

“What does that mean?” Lord Darcy asked.

“Damned if I know,” Harbleury admitted. “But it sounded exactly the right note, and we are going to have a pleasant evening out of what could have been a disaster.”

Lord Darcy took Harbleury’s hand and shook it firmly. “It is a pleasure to know such a master of the fine-sounding phrase,” he said. “Whenever I need some talking-out done, I now know the man to do it. Very good job, Harbleury.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Harbleury said, looking modestly down. “I do much the same for his lordship and His Majesty on occasion, so I was not without practice.”

Lord Darcy parted with Harbleury and almost immediately ran into his master, the Marquis Sherrinford, who was in earnest conversation with a short, dapper man with a spade beard. “Ah, Lord Darcy!” Marquis Sherrinford called out. “Stop for a second. Someone here I want you to meet.”

Lord Darcy paused, greeted Marquis Sherrinford, and was introduced to his companion, the Count d’Alberra. “Ah, yes,” Lord Darcy said, shaking hands with the short count. “You are the gentleman who is curing my lord marquis’s headaches.” Lord Darcy noted that although small in stature, the count was powerfully built, with massive shoulders and a barrel chest. He was also one of those men who regards shaking hands as a contest, and he squeezed Lord Darcy’s hand unmercifully for a long moment before letting go.

“Thank you for the compliment, my lord,” Count d’Alberra said. “But my friend here, the Marquis Sherrinford, is actually healing himself. I am pleased and delighted that my method is enabling him to do so. It is my hope that someday many of those ills that cannot be reached by conventional magic, that are today beyond the scope of either the healer or the chirurgeon, will be reached by the techniques I am developing.”

“I know nothing of your methods, Count d’Alberra, I’m sorry to say. Is there any way you could describe them so that I could get some idea of what you do?”

“He talks to you,” Marquis Sherrinford said. “And he makes you talk. All about your childhood.”

“Childhood?”

“It is my belief,” Count d’Alberra explained, “that the body is controlled by the mind. And that many illnesses that cannot be cured externally, by the Laying On of Hands, can be treated by the body’s own defenses, activated by the mind. The problem is one of how to get these defenses turned on—how to get the mind to work.”

“I see,” Lord Darcy said politely. “And you do this by discussing your patient’s childhood?”

“It works, my lord,” Marquis Sherrinford said. “At least in my case it has. However strange the theory behind it—excuse me, Count—it does work.”

“I cannot argue with success,” Lord Darcy said.

“The childhood seems to be the key,” Count d’Alberra said. “I was surprised myself to discover this.”

The triple rap of the majordomo’s staff sounded, and he bellowed, “His Majesty, the Crown Prince Stanislaw of Poland, King of Courlandt, Duke of Krakau, Knight-Commander of the Most Holy Order of the Bloody Sheep. Her Highness, the Crown Princess Yetta.”

“Ah, His Polish Majesty and wife are here,” Marquis Sherrinford said. “I’d better go over and greet him. Would either of you like to make the acquaintance of the future King of Poland?”

“I’d be fascinated to, my lord marquis,” Lord Darcy replied.

“You’ll excuse me,” Count d’Alberra said, “but I can’t stand the Polish!” And he bowed to the marquis and Lord Darcy, turned on his heels and walked away.

“Well!” Marquis Sherrinford said. “You’d think a healer would have his emotions under better control. I mean, none of us love the Polish. Come along with me, Lord Darcy, and meet His Majesty. Who knows, someday you may have dealings with him.”

“That’s so, my lord,” Lord Darcy said, and followed the Marquis across the ballroom floor.

Crown Prince Stanislaw was a short, muscular man, somewhere around fifty years old, with a round head and close-cropped, graying blond hair. “It is a pleasure, Lord Darcy, to meet you,” he said with a heavy German accent, reminding Lord Darcy that High German was the language of the Polish court. “Your fame of detection has crossed even into Warsaw. Perhaps someday we will call upon your many talents, eh? Would you do that? Would you help the Poles?”

“It would be an honor, Your Majesty,” Lord Darcy said, bowing.

“Dat is good,” Crown Prince Stanislaw said. “Whatever is between our countries, people is still people, ja?”

“That’s so, Your Majesty,” Lord Darcy agreed.

“I go now,” the Crown Prince said, “and dance with my wife. That will help convince these Angevin people that I am no monster, ja?” And with that he nodded to Marquis Sherrinford and Lord Darcy, and holding his arm for the statuesque, blond Princess Yetta, he stalked off to the dance floor.

Mary of Cumberland, Lord Darcy judged, had been alone long enough, so he bid the Marquis Sherrinford adieu and went to find her amid the throng. When he did, it turned out she was not alone, but one of two women in the midst of a gaggle of admiring men. Which was, he decided, as it should be. The other was a small, dark-haired woman with an intent, intelligent expression who Lord Darcy could not remember ever seeing before. The gaggle was about eight men deep, standing around, drinks in hand, trying to look casual. A tall, heavyset, broad-shouldered man with a ruddy complexion and an overly elaborate dress uniform was holding forth about something as Lord Darcy approached.

“Come join us, my lord,” the Duchess said, catching sight of Lord Darcy as he approached. “Lord Darcy, may I introduce Lady Marta de Verre, and this is Lord Brummel, General Lord Halifax, Sir Felix Chaimberment, Master Sorcerer Dandro Bittman, Major von Jonn of the New England Legion, and I believe you know Master Sorcerer Darryl Longuert. The Major is telling us all what life is like on the New England frontier. It’s absolutely fascinating.”

“I imagine it must be, Your Grace,” Lord Darcy said, joining the group after bowing slightly to each person as they were introduced. “The New England territory has always fascinated me.”