Ten Little Wizards: A Lord Darcy Novel

by Michael Kurland

  “That man is a fool,” Lady Marta said, her dark eyes staring at Baron Hepplethong’s retreating back. “Most men are fools, but he carries it to unnatural extremes. I have the misfortune to be distantly related to him. He believes in the natural superiority of the white race, the noble class, and the male sex. He also feels that people who wear green are morally superior to those who wear red or brown. I do not jest.”

  “We all are subject to the prejudices of our class and our time, my dear Lady Marta,” Master Darryl said firmly. “Some of us more than others. You must learn to suffer fools, there are so many of them.”

  “I try, Master Darryl,” Lady Marta said, turning back to him with a rustle of her skirts. “And I find that an occasional outburst helps.”

  “Why, so it does,” Master Darryl admitted.

  “An interesting theory you have,” Lord Darcy told the Major. “Is it that you hold with the nobility of the savage, or the savagery of European civilization?”

  Major von Jonn thought it over for a second. “Yes,” he said finally. “I hold that there is no difference ethically, morally, or spiritually between us; only materially, the last and weakest of the four.”

  “No difference, Major?” Master Sorcerer Dandro Bittman asked. “Surely—”

  “I apologize, Master Dandro,” Major von Jonn said, bowing slightly to the sorcerer. “I did not mean no distinction. Several of their practices are quite different from ours in all of these ways. I meant no qualitative difference. Neither is superior to the other, given the basic differences between the two cultures.”

  “Yours is a minority opinion, Major, as I suppose you know,” Lord Darcy told him. “But it is one which should be heard more often. It is a question that deserves to be debated and discussed, and not simply have the answers assumed by those in authority.”

  “So I have often said, my lord,” Major von Jonn said.

  “I don’t suppose that your outspoken notions regarding the native New Englanders had anything to do with your return home or your desire to get into another line of work?” Lord Darcy asked.

  “Actually not,” Major von Jonn told him. “I have returned because I completed my five-year tour. I now have a six-month leave before I get reassigned. As to my change in interest—I cannot say that being a career soldier has ever truly appealed to me. It was the best route for advancement and education open to a young commoner from Hesse, so I took it. As I gained the education, I discovered that I disliked the career.”

  “Fascinating discussion, fascinating,” Master Dandro said to the group at large. “But I must leave now. A matter of importance to discuss with His Majesty. You’ll excuse me, I’m sure.” And, smiling and bowing, he backed away from the group and into the surrounding throng.

  “Why would His Majesty want to see Master Dandro Bittman?” Lady Marta asked.

  “I fear that his description of the coming event might not tally with His Majesty’s,” Sir Darryl said. “When Master Dandro lies dying he will excuse himself, saying that there’s a small matter he wants to take up with the Lord.”

  “A strange little man,” Mary of Cumberland said.

  “But a fine sorcerer for all of that,” Sir Darryl told her. “His mind is rigid and not receptive to new ideas. But the ideas he holds are, ah, orthodox.”

  “Soldiering is a noble calling, young man,” General Lord Halifax said. Looking like a brightly plumaged bird of prey, the tall, skinny general leaned forward and tapped the major on the shoulder. His two rows of medals clanked together on his chest. “It’s soldiering that has built this empire, and that keeps it together. You young chaps from the principalities would have little chance for advancement at all were it not for the profession of soldiering that is open to you all. It’s the hand that feeds you, young man, don’t bite it!”

  “I’m not, sir. Not at all,” Major von Jonn protested. “As history has shown too clearly, any country that ceases to pay attention to soldiering soon ceases to exist. So it has been, and so it shall be into the foreseeable future. But personally, I’ve put in my ten years and I think it’s time for a change. And it could be that some would say that those of us from the provinces should have other opportunity for advancement besides the chance to die for our country.”

  “Sir!” General Lord Halifax snorted.

  Major von Jonn raised his hand. “Not I, General, I assure you.”

  From the front of the room the ballmaster, who was the president of the Honorable Guild of Glassblowers, and therefore had mighty lungs and a powerful voice, announced the commencement of the first dance. It was to be a cotillon, with His Majesty and Her Majesty leading.

  The talk died down to a murmur and the assembled mass moved aside, and the King and Queen of England and France, Emperor and Empress of the Angevin Empire, took their place in the center of the ballroom. Flanking them were their sons, the Prince of Britain and the Duke of Lancaster (soon to be Prince of Gaul) and their wives. And then, in order of precedence, the aristocracy of the Angevin Empire and the leaders of its most powerful guilds.

  Lord Darcy noticed that Richard, Duke of Normandy, was not there. When he took his place with Mary of Cumberland on the dance floor, he understood why. On the three sides of the overhead balcony not used by the orchestra, spaced evenly around the room, were a squad of men. They were in the uniform of the Household Guard, and indeed they were of the guard, but they were a picked group. Lord Darcy recognized the figure of Richard of Normandy in guard’s officer’s uniform at one end of the balcony, and Coronel Lord Waybusch at the other.

  Mary of Cumberland saw where Lord Darcy was looking and looked up. “Guards?” she asked. “What good can they do from up there?”

  “Archers,” Lord Darcy told her. “Trained, practiced long-bowmen. The English archer has been defending the Empire for eight hundred years, and he’s still at it. A bow is still the best weapon for a medium distance in an enclosed space. More accurate and much quieter than a handgun. It must be Duke Richard’s idea. He is determined that nothing is going to happen to his brother.”

  Lord Darcy looked grave, and Mary of Cumberland squeezed his arm. She knew what he was thinking. “So are we all,” she said.

  The music started, and King John and Queen Marie, and the three hundred people around them, began the stately cotillon. Lord Darcy put his arm around the Duchess of Cumberland’s waist and held her perhaps a bit more firmly than was called for. “Let’s dance,” he whispered.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  By tradition Their Majesties came late to social gatherings and left early. They came late because everyone wanted to be there to see them arrive. They left early because, by tradition, no one could leave a party until after the royal couple had departed. They stayed for two and a half hours at the Guild Hall Ball, which made it a success. The orchestra played “God for Arthur, England, France, Scotland, and Wales,” which was always sung with the name of the current king, so everyone mouthed “God for Jo-ohn, England, France...,” and so on, and on the last note King John and Queen Marie left the ballroom through the private door at the back. The Queen, escorted by two ladies-in-waiting, went to her chambers. The King and Marquis Sherrinford went into the throne room.

  About ten minutes later Harbleury found Lord Darcy talking to the Dowager Duchess of Cumberland, Father Phillip, and Archbishop Maximilian of Paris, and tapped him on the shoulder. “If Your Lordship will excuse me,” Harbleury said to him softly, “His Lordship the Marquis Sherrinford would like to speak with you for a moment.”

  “Of course,” Lord Darcy said. He excused himself from the others and followed Harbleury to the private door, where the Marquis awaited him.

  Marquis Sherrinford silently led Lord Darcy through the anteroom, across the corridor, and unlocked and opened the rear door to the throne room. “The doors are self-closing,” he explained. “And since the only keys are attuned to myself and Their Majesties, I can’t send for you, I must bring you. Which makes what I am about to show you all the more
remarkable.”

  “What’s that, Your Lordship?” Lord Darcy asked.

  “You’d better see for yourself,” Marquis Sherrinford replied, leading the way through the curtains behind the throne and around to the throne itself.

  The lighting was dim, the only illumination coming from the flickering flames in a pair of gas wall brackets on opposite sides of the great room, which were set barely strong enough to assure that they wouldn’t blow out. This was probably the normal night lighting for the room; if the King or Marquis Sherrinford needed to enter, servitors would bring up the lights.

  The only people visible in the room beside Lord Darcy himself, and Marquis Sherrinford, and Harbleury—who were behind him—was a shadowy figure who sat silent on the great throne and a solitary man standing in the middle of the floor, facing the other way.

  Lord Darcy took two steps forward, and then recognized the man standing in front of him by the characteristic Plantagenet shape of his head and shoulders. He dropped to one knee. “Sire.”

  The Emperor of the Anglo-French, Sovereign of New England and New France, turned around. Even in the dim light Lord Darcy could see that this night the cares of Empire hung heavy on his shoulders.

  “My Lord Darcy,” His Majesty said, taking two steps forward. “We meet from time to time, you and I, over the bodies of other men. Figuratively, since you are my Chief Investigator. And now, for the first time, literally.” His Majesty waved his hand toward the throne.

  Lord Darcy stood and glanced toward the throne and the mysterious, silent figure on it. He was prevented from turning to face it by his monarch’s presence. One did not turn one’s back on the King.

  “Let us ignore protocol,” said King John, realizing the problem. “For the moment I am merely the Duke of Navarre, and you have a body to examine. Go to it, my lord.”

  The Duke of Navarre was one of King John’s favorite incognitos, a fiction that would prove useful now. Lord Darcy could work while the Duke of Navarre peered over his shoulder. The Duke of Navarre, after all, was not the King.

  Lord Darcy turned to look at the shadowy figure on the throne. “I assume,” he said, “that this was not an attempt on His Majesty’s life.”

  “His Majesty and I entered the throne room together,” Marquis Sherrinford said. “The, ah, person on the throne was thus when we entered. No one else, save for Harbleury, came in or went out.”

  “That’s clear, then,” Lord Darcy said. He took the two steps up to the dais and studied the figure on the throne. It was a small, plump man, slumped over and with his eyes open, staring. Even in the dim light there was no question as to whether he was dead or what had killed him. A long, wooden pike shaft protruded from the man’s chest, and it appeared to have been driven straight through his body, transfixing him to the throne.

  Lord Darcy bent over the body. “I will need a chirurgeon,” he said, “and Master Sean O Lochlainn, if someone would send for him. Also, I need more light.”

  “Harbleury,” Marquis Sherrinford said, “please find Master Sean and Sir Moses Benander and bring them here. And then Lord Peter. You will say nothing of this.”

  “Of course, my lord,” Harbleury said, and retreated from the room by the rear door.

  The “Duke of Navarre” had found the light pole used for the gaslights and was slowly going around the throne room turning on and lighting the wall fixtures. It must be the Duke of Navarre, Lord Darcy thought. His Majesty John IV would never indulge in such menial duties.

  Then Lord Darcy shook his head, as he realized that he was wrong. A crime had been committed in the throne room of Castle Cristobel within the past half hour. A murder that might, if it was somehow tied in to the others, which it most certainly was, affect everyone in the Castle from His Majesty down. The investigation of that murder was, for the moment, the most important thing happening in Castle Cristobel, in the Duchy of Normandy, and quite probably in the Angevin Empire.

  Given that, it was altogether fitting, altogether proper, altogether Plantagenet, for His Majesty to do whatever had to be done, and if it was merely lighting the gas mantles, so be it.

  As the light increased, Lord Darcy continued with his examination of the body. With a slight shock, he suddenly realized who the victim was. The small, plump body with the sightless, staring eyes, had held the mortal soul of Master Sorcerer Dandro Bittman, until someone had chosen to let it out with the iron point of a pike.

  “How did he get in here?” Lord Darcy asked.

  “We were hoping you could tell us,” Marquis Sherrinford said dryly.

  “His name is Bittman,” Lord Darcy said. “Master Sorcerer Dandro Bittman. I was talking to him less than two hours ago. As I remember, he excused himself, saying he had a meeting with His Majesty at that time.”

  “With His Majesty?” Marquis Sherrinford asked, sounding startled.

  “I assume that that wasn’t the case,” Lord Darcy said dryly.

  “It was not,” the Duke of Navarre assured him. And who, Lord Darcy reflected, would know the King’s business better than the Duke of Navarre?

  “Then neither of Your Lordships let Master Dandro into the throne room?”

  “That is so,” Marquis Sherrinford affirmed.

  “Well, that lets out the back door, to which, as I’ve just been reminded, there are only three keys,” Lord Darcy said. “Let us find out by which of the remaining doors Master Dandro entered.” He walked over to the double doors to the King’s Gallery and pulled them open. Two guardsmen who were framing the door on the other side snapped to attention and turned to face each other as the door opened.

  “At ease, soldiers,” Lord Darcy said. “I’m Lord Darcy, the King’s investigator. I need to know who has come in through this door since you’ve been on duty.”

  The two soldiers looked at each other and, nonverbally, decided which of them was to speak. The one to Lord Darcy’s left came to a brace and said, “Sir, no one has entered or left by these doors since we have been on duty.”

  “And how long has that been?” Lord Darcy asked.

  “Sir, we came on guard at eight o’clock,” the guard said. “We are due to be relieved shortly.”

  “Did you at any time hear any noises from inside the throne room?” Lord Darcy asked.

  “Noises?” The man looked puzzled. “No, sir.”

  “Thank you, soldier,” Lord Darcy said, checking his watch. It was a few minutes before midnight. He took a step backward and let the door close in front of him. Then he turned around and strode across the throne room to the Queen’s Gallery doors and pulled them open.

  Lord Peter Whiss was running down the hallway toward him as the door opened. “What is it, Lord Darcy?” he said, panting, as he reached the doors. “What’s happened?”

  “One second,” Lord Darcy said, and turned to the guards who flanked the door. “How many people have been through these doors since you’ve been on duty?” he asked.

  “None, sir,” one of them replied, standing at brace.

  “Did you hear any sounds from in here while you were on duty?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Thank you,” Lord Darcy said, and motioned to Lord Peter to follow him into the throne room.

  “We have another killing,” Lord Darcy told Lord Peter. “Walk me to the Doors of State; they’re the only unchecked entrance to this room.”

  “In here?” Lord Peter demanded. “Someone’s been killed in here?”

  Lord Darcy nodded. Lord Peter said nothing further as they walked together to the Doors of State. In the great hall beyond, as they saw when they opened the massive right-hand door, there was a full squad of men deployed around the various posts, pillars, and wall niches, including the usual two at the door. A member of the household staff was scurrying from left to right across the room at that moment, but there were no other civilians in evidence.

  “Has anyone been through these doors since you came on guard?” Lord Darcy asked the closer guard.

  “No, s
ir,” the guard said.

  “And you’ve been there for the full tour—almost four hours?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you hear any sounds from inside while you were standing guard?”

  “No, sir, but then we wouldn’t. The doors are thick and heavy. We never hear anything through them.”

  “I see. Thank you,” Lord Darcy said, and let the doors close. “They’re not lying?” he asked Lord Peter.

  Lord Peter nodded. “Only the truth, so far.”

  “You’d know?” Lord Darcy asked. “Even on such short statements?”

  “I’d know,” Lord Peter told him. “When anyone lies to me, I know. Incidentally, they’re right about not hearing noises. With all this drapery about, sounds are pretty much absorbed within the room, and the doors are the sort they haven’t made these past three hundred years: thick, solid, heavy, and close-fitting. No sound would get through.”

  “I already asked the guards at the King’s Gallery,” Lord Darcy said, “but I think you should check their statements. I don’t have your ability; if they are telling the truth also, we have an interesting problem.”

  Lord Peter went to speak to the King’s Gallery guards while Lord Darcy returned to the throne and its dead burden. Master Dandro had a look of shocked surprise on his face; clearly he had not expected what happened to him. Lord Darcy could believe that. One does not sit down, even on a throne, if one expects to be skewered to the back of the chair with a twelve-foot pike.

  Lord Darcy conducted a superficial examination of the body while he waited for Master Sean and the chirurgeon. Clothing, the same as he remembered: the gold-trimmed powder-blue dress robes of the master sorcerer. The insignias of several holy orders and magical societies were sewn on the left upper arm, the left side of the chest, and other appropriate spots on the robe. Several ribbons were pinned to a ribbon bar on the chest, denoting service awards given him by the Sorcerers’ Guild. Truly a useful member of society, if a bit vain about it.

  And, pinned in the middle of his chest with a long straight pin, was a folded slip of paper. Lord Darcy removed it and unfolded it. His face was expressionless as he read.