“I’m glad you think so,” Marquis Sherrinford said. “I can’t make anything out of it. But it’s not my job, I suppose. If you say it’s interesting—”
“Dammit, Darcy, what’s very interesting?” Coronel Lord Waybusch snapped. “I can’t see that that gets us any forrader at all. What in heaven is three-mouse paper?”
“It’s the watermark,” Lord Darcy explained. “Blazon of the d’Enver family, who own the paper mill. Three mice with their tails tied together. It’s a good grade of paper sold by the quire for correspondence. Unfortunately it’s too common to try to trace the sale.”
“I see,” Marquis Sherrinford said. “And the words mean nothing by themselves, although as de London said, they are suggestive.”
“Too damn suggestive,” Coronel Lord Waybusch said, refolding the letter and handing it back to the Marquis, who passed it on to Harbleury. “Polish. The damn Poles have just moved into their rooms, did you know? Three dozen of them. Wouldn’t get off the train until they were greeted proper by His Highness. Damn insulting about it, they were. Now they want their own guards, and their own damn cook for good measure. As if good, solid Norman food isn’t good enough for them.”
“It’s just as well,” Marquis Sherrinford said. “Let them guard His Courlandtish Majesty. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to him, now would we?”
“I just don’t like the idea of thirty of them wandering around the Castle when we’ve got word that some damn Pole is trying to kill His Majesty.”
“The threat to His Majesty may be of Polish origin,” Lord Darcy said, “but it would seem to come here from London. I doubt whether any of the Polish delegation here even know about it.”
“I agree with Lord Darcy,” Lord Peter said. “And between us, I have a way to check that.”
“What sort of way?” Marquis Sherrinford asked. “Have you placed a magical spy-eye in their suite?”
“No,” Lord Peter said. “That would be most unhospitable. And besides, their sorcerer would be sure to spot it right away. What we have is a secret agent—a man of ours—right in the Polish delegation.”
“Really?” Marquis Sherrinford looked surprised. “You mean one of them is really one of us? How, ah, fascinating. Who is it?”
“I’d rather not say,” Lord Peter replied. “His safety depends upon nobody knowing his identity. And while I trust the discretion of you four gentlemen implicitly, it isn’t my own life I would be putting at risk. When and if the time comes that he must reveal himself, you will know.”
“Whoever he is, does he know of the threat against His Majesty?” Marquis Sherrinford asked.
“I haven’t been able to get word to him,” Lord Peter said. “So, unless he knows of it from the inside, so to speak, he doesn’t know. And if he had discovered the plot, I must assume he would have gotten word to me.”
“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 psyc
hically 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.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
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.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
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.
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