“What? And you let him go?”
“I am an out-of-practice journeyman, My Lord Darcy,” Mary of Cumberland said. “He is a master. He is the Sorcerer Laureate. I don’t see how I could have stopped him.”
“You’re right, Your Grace, I apologize,” Lord Darcy said. “But we’d better go find him. You can tell me about it on the way.”
“I’ll come with you,” Lord Peter said. “You may need an extra pair of hands.”
As they started down the hallway, one of the palace guards came thudding toward them from the other direction, his sword flapping noisily against his side as he ran. “Lord Darcy, Lord Darcy,” he called. “You’re wanted, my lord!”
Lord Darcy turned. “By whom?” he asked.
“Sir Darryl Longuert. He has captured the killer, my lord.”
“Well, I’ll be—Lead on, Serjeant.”
The Serjeant of the Guard swiveled on his heel and dogtrotted back the way he had come, with Lord Darcy, Lord Peter, and the Dowager Duchess of Cumberland close behind.
He led them down and around the inner corridors of the Castle until they came out at the guard room by the main kitchens. Sir Darryl was standing by the door, looking crestfallen, and Master Sean O Lochlainn was next to him, talking to him in an earnest undertone.
Sir Darryl looked up as Lord Darcy came puffing into the room. “I had him, my lord,” he said, holding up his closed right hand. “I had him frozen with this very hand. The murderer. He came after me, but I was ready for him. Or so I thought.”
“Don’t let it get you so upset, Sir Darryl,” Master Sean said. “How were you to know?”
“What happened?” Lord Darcy asked. Lord Peter and Mary of Cumberland came into the room behind him.
“He tried to kill me, my lord. The murderer you’re looking for. He tried to use these on me”—Sir Darryl pointed to a knife and a coil of wire sitting on the Officer of the Guard’s desk—“but I froze him.”
Lord Darcy stepped over to the desk and picked up the coil of wire. “I thought we would find something like this,” he said. “You see, Master Sean—this is what killed Master Sorcerer Paul Elovitz in the ballroom. The murderer places it around the victim’s neck, leaving most of it dangling on the floor, and then frightens him into running away. The wire slices through the victim’s throat as it’s pulled back, and he effectively kills himself. Very neat, very clever.”
“That’s what made the marks on the ballroom floor, my lord?”
“That’s right. The murderer never let go of his end, you see. And as he pulled it back, it bounced on the floor.” He turned back to Sir Darryl. “And then what happened?”
“I froze him, my lord. But he got away. I should have known, but I never thought of it.”
“Thought of what?”
“I think, Sir Darryl, that you had better start from the beginning,” Master Sean said. “I’m sure Lord Darcy would like to hear all the details.” He turned to Lord Darcy. “A general alarm is out for the culprit, my lord,” he said. “Now that we know who it is, he should be easy to apprehend.”
“Fine,” Lord Darcy said. “But who is he?”
“His name is Bowers.”
“Who is he?” Lord Darcy repeated.
“Tell his lordship about it,” Master Sean said.
“It’s my fault,” Sir Darryl said earnestly to Lord Darcy. “I didn’t think of the obvious. Goodman Bowers has a grudge against sorcerers. And, more particularly, against the sorcerers he has so far murdered.”
“How so?”
Sir Darryl went to the bench along the wall and lowered himself onto it. “He was once a sorcerer,” he said. “A journeyman, almost ready to qualify as a master. He, ah, went bad.”
“Bad?” Lord Darcy asked.
“Black magic?” Mary of Cumberland asked, going over to sit next to Sir Darryl on the bench. “What led him astray?”
“It was, as I remember, pretty much the old story,” Sir Darryl replied. “There are three or four patterns that these things seem to run to, and this was one of them. He got in debt to gamblers, playing pukka. To try to get out, he plunged heavily with money that wasn’t his, and lost, of course.”
“Then he tried to win by black magic?” Mary of Cumberland asked.
“No, Your Grace,” Sir Darryl said. “That wouldn’t have worked. The card houses are heavily protected against such things. A little precognition, for those who can manage such things, is accepted as the fortunes of the cards, since the ability is uncontrollable and almost random. But no formalized magic is allowed by the card houses. Except, in some cases, their own.”
“But if magic was being used against him, couldn’t he have detected it?”
“Most certainly, Your Grace. But some people are just bad card players.”
“Oh. Of course.”
“Bowers started doing favors for these people, using his magic. Under threat of exposure. And then they began asking for things that were not to be accomplished by white magic.”
“And he did them?” Lord Darcy asked.
Sir Darryl nodded. “Apparently. Now, many magicians have been in fixes similar to this. There comes a point at which they stop. Confess to their priest. Tell all to their master or grand master. And take their punishment. These people can be salvaged.
“But some others discover that they like it. The feeling of power—of control—is strong. You know, somewhere in the back of your mind, that you are destroying yourself. But it is like some of the addictive drugs. You can’t help what you are doing, and get sucked further and further into abominable acts. That is what happened to Bowers. By the time the case was discovered and brought to his Bishop’s attention, he was incurable.”
“And so?” Lord Darcy asked.
“And so he was tried by a court of his peers and found guilty of practicing black magic. For his secular crimes—fixing horse races or whatever—he was sentenced to some years in prison. For his practice of black magic, a Committee of Executors was formed, and he was thrummed. All his Talent was removed. All. And he was sent forth blind into the world.”
Lord Darcy nodded. “I see,” he said. “Apparently he bore a grudge.”
“That’s right, my lord,” Sir Darryl said. “All of the murdered sorcerers were on the committee.”
“And yourself?”
“Yes. But that was almost ten years ago. Many things have happened since then. I had almost forgotten.”
“This explains how he was able to get away from Sir Darryl’s freezing spell, my lord,” Master Sean said. “It also explains some results I’ve been getting on my magical tests. You see, as an unintentional side effect, the person who is thrummed becomes almost transparent to magic.”
“Ah!” Lord Darcy said. “There’s your ghost.”
“That’s right, my lord,” Master Sean agreed. “In a sense, our killer was a ghost. A ghost with a grudge.”
“Ten Little Wizards,” Lord Darcy said.
Sir Darryl nodded. “Yes, my lord. That reminds me.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper. “This was pinned to my jacket by Bowers when he assaulted me.”
Lord Darcy unfolded it and passed it around. “Cute,” he commented.
Seven little wizards practicing their wizard tricks
One misread his formula—and now there are six.
“I confess that I am surprised, my lord,” Sir Darryl said. “This case is going to have to be studied. Usually—indeed, almost always—a person who has been thrummed loses all initiative. He is thenceforth no danger to himself or his community. Clearly in this case we misjudged.”
“Perhaps not,” Lord Darcy commented, looking thoughtful. For a long moment he was silent, and then he turned to Lord Peter. “My lord, if I’m right, there is immediate danger of another murder. We have to speak to His Majesty the King immediately!”
“I’ll go find Marquis Sherrinford,” Lord Peter offered.
“I’d rather not do this through the Marquis,” Lord Darcy
said. “I think that, between us, we can get an audience with His Majesty. And we need his help to prevent what might be a grave threat to the Empire.”
“Come with me,” Lord Peter said.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The bedroom was pitch-dark. From the heavily canopied bed, the sound of even breathing indicated that its royal occupant was sound asleep. But this was doubtful.
Two men waited silently by the bedroom door; Lord Darcy on the right, and Lord Peter on the left, for what Lord Darcy knew—and had convinced them all—was going to occur. Farther into the room Coronel Lord Waybusch was concealed beside a dresser and Master Sean O Lochlainn waited by the head of the bed.
For three hours, which seemed like three months, nothing happened. Then, gradually, with a sound so slight that only silence-tuned ears could have heard it, the door lock released. After a longer wait the door swung inward.
Lord Darcy held his breath and listened to the slight creak of the door hinges, only inches away from his face, as the door opened toward him. There was a cautious footstep into the room, and then another.
Lord Darcy couldn’t be sure whether there was one person entering the room or two. He fancied there were two. Which would simplify things.
The sound of footsteps crept across the floor toward the bed.
“NOW!”
A bellow in Master Sean’s voice—the agreed-upon signal. Lord Darcy slammed the bedroom door and twisted the lock closed in a practiced gesture.
The room suddenly erupted in bright-white wizardly light as Master Sean activated an already-in-place illumination spell. There, in the middle of the room facing the bed, frozen in the sudden glare, were two men. One of them clutched an ancient, two-handed sword with a basket handle, its blade flat against his chest, its point three feet over his head.
For a second they were too startled to move, and then they both bolted; one toward the door and the other—the one with the sword—toward the bed.
Several things happened at once. Lord Darcy and Lord Peter dove for the man heading for the door, and after a moment’s resistance, he lay still and raised his hands. “I will not fight you,” he said.
The other man reached the bed, his broadsword raised high above his head, and screamed “Die! Die! Die!” in an insane liturgy as he swung it at the sleeping form.
The man in the bed threw his covers aside and gestured in a complex motion with both hands.
The sword glowed bright red and sprang from its holder’s hands, thudding firmly and deeply into the ceiling. The man flopped over onto his back and sprawled, motionless at the side of the bed.
The man in the bed got up and rubbed his hands together. “Dot was very good,” he said. “A good, strong spell you weave, Master Sean O Lochlainn. You Angevin sorcerers are not all cupcakes.”
Master Sean grinned. “It was very effective, Your Majesty, wasn’t it?”
His Majesty the King of Courlandt and Crown Prince of Poland shrugged. “In Poland,” he said, “we got good magicians too.”
Lord Darcy pulled the man on the floor to his feet. “I think, Count d’Alberra, that you have a lot to answer for,” he said.
The Count straightened his clothing and dusted himself off calmly. “You win a few, you lose a few,” he said, smiling at his captor. “But I don’t think you will be asking me any questions. I wish I knew how you knew it was me—but I will never find out. You’re a clever man, Lord Darcy.” His grin twisted sideways and his jaw clamped.
“Watch it, my lord!” Lord Peter said sharply, reaching across to grab at Count d’Alberra. “He’s taking poison!”
But before either of them could do anything, Count d’Alberra, with a high-pitched gargling sound, fell to the floor. He kicked twice convulsively, and then he was dead.
“Well!” Lord Darcy said. “Now that all the excitement seems to be over, we should be going. Coronel Lord Waybusch, would you take the prisoner, please. And arrange for the body to be disposed of. Oh, yes; one last thing.” He opened the bedroom door, which lead to the living room of the Polish suite. “Johnson!” he called.
A little man crawled out from under the living room sofa. “Yes, my lord?”
“Did you see who let them in?”
“Tall, skinny man with short-cropped blond hair,” Johnson said. “Came from the third door on the left down that hall.”
“Very good. Your Majesty, did you hear that?”
“Ja. General Vitapeski. Who would have thought? We will take care of him.”
“No doubt. Good night, Your Majesty.”
The Crown Prince of Poland walked them to the door. “Tonight,” he said, “I think I sleep with my wife. Protocol be damned. Tomorrow I think we move to another suite. I no longer like this one.”
“The seneschal will be delighted,” Lord Darcy said. “Come, my lords, let’s let His Majesty get some sleep.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Well, My Lord Darcy,” the Duchess of Cumberland said, “I think you’d better tell us all about it.”
It was the next afternoon, and they were assembled, at the Duchess’s invitation, in the main room of the Cumberland suite in the White Chateau. Her Grace’s stepson, the Duke of Cumberland, had greeted his guests as they arrived and then discreetly gone back to cleaning his fishing gear. The invited guests, besides Lord Darcy and Master Sean, included Marquis Sherrinford, Lord Peter, Coronel Lord Waybusch, and Sir Darryl Longuert. Duke Richard was not present, but Lord Darcy, as his eyes took in the Chinese screen that walled off one corner, had a feeling that there might be royalty in the room nonetheless.
“What do you want to know?” Lord Darcy asked.
“Everything!” Mary of Cumberland said, looking up at him innocently.
“How did you know it was Count d’Alberra?” Marquis Sherrinford asked. “And, for that matter, how could it have been Count d’Alberra? He came here from Italy with letters from His Holiness. How could he be a Polish agent?”
“And why would a Polish agent be trying to kill the Crown Prince of Poland?” Lord Peter added. “And how did you know?”
“All right,” Lord Darcy said. He leaned back in his corner of the couch and sipped at his ouiskie and water. “Let me trace it out for you.
“What threw us all off was the reference to ‘His Majesty’ in Albert Chall’s dying words. He overheard someone—it was probably the man we know as Count d’Alberra—say the target was ‘His Majesty,’ and it never occurred to him, or to de London, or any of us, that it might not be His Angevin Majesty who was being referred to.”
“Curiously enough, it is only his enemies who insist in calling him ‘His Majesty’ in Poland,” Lord Peter said. “It’s sort of a joke.”
“Yes, well, we heard him being called ‘His Majesty’ enough times here to have thought of it.”
“So the whole plot was to kill the Crown Prince of Poland,” Marquis Sherrinford said.
“Yes,” Lord Darcy agreed. “And have it blamed on us.”
“But he was going to be killed by a madman,” Coronel Lord Waybusch said.
“Yes, but an Angevin madman. It makes all the difference.”
“Tell us about the Count d’Alberra,” Mary of Cumberland said.
“A learned man, a brilliant doctor of the mind,” Lord Darcy said, “who was killed a month ago in the Gryphon d’Or. The person who died last night was a Serka agent who took his place.”
“Ah!” Coronel Lord Waybusch said.
“Wasn’t he taking an awful chance?” Mary of Cumberland asked.
“A chance, yes,” Lord Darcy said. “But not so great a chance. He would have known that not very many people from Italy were coming to the coronation. And I imagine his research showed him that the real Count had never before left Italy, and would be known by almost nobody here. And then, I imagine his resemblance to the real Count is striking. Besides, whatever else he was, he was a brave man and not afraid to die for his cause, as he showed last night.”
“An evil cause,”
Coronel Lord Waybusch said. “A cabal to kill the Crown Prince of Poland and blame it on an Angevin madman.”
“That poor man,” Mary of Cumberland said. “Is he incurably mad?”
“The Archbishop of Paris is afraid so, Your Grace. But we will have skilled healers look at him. He is a man who started with a grudge against wizards, and had it fostered by a skillful mental scientist. For, even though the man who died last night was not the real Count d’Alberra, there is no doubt that he was a skillful mental scientist. Look at the success he had in treating Marquis Sherrinford’s headaches.”
“On that account I shall miss him,” Marquis Sherrinford said. “I will have to send to Italy and get the real Count d’Alberra’s writings, as I assume that the counterfeit used the same techniques.”
“I would think so, my lord,” Lord Darcy agreed. “A necessary verisimilitude.”
“It’s no wonder that my Polish agents didn’t pick up any sign of the plot,” Lord Peter said. “A cabal of one Polish group against another Polish group is going to be carefully hidden. Especially when the target is the Crown Prince. And a very clever idea it was too. Any move against Prince Stanislaw in Poland would be immediately suspect. But to have him killed at Castle Cristobel would remove him from the line of succession and worsen relations with the Angevin Empire at the same time.”
“That also explains one thing that was troubling me,” Lord Darcy said. “Why the murders were made to look like impossible crimes.”
“Why?” Marquis Sherrinford asked.
“So that the final murder—that of the Crown Prince—would look like an impossible crime. Otherwise it would have occurred to everyone immediately that someone on the Prince’s staff was a traitor. But with people being killed in locked bakeries, in the middle of freshly shellacked ballrooms, and in a locked and guarded throne room, it becomes possible to have someone killed in a locked bedroom in a guarded suite.”
“How were those done, Lord Darcy?” Coronel Lord Waybusch asked. “Magic?”
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