Masque (The Two Monarchies Sequence)

by W. R. Gingell

  Melchior’s voice said behind me: “The gardens are nice, you know.”

  “You must have been talking to Damson,” I called back, in some amusement. “One might think you were trying to get rid of one, Melchior. One might be offended.”

  “One would be right,” he retorted, without glancing up. “Be off with you, Carrots, and cause your own particular blend of madness and mayhem elsewhere.”

  I would have pointed out, with great dignity, that it happened to be my suite of rooms that he was currently occupying, but Melchior was doing me a good turn after all, so I let the bait go unmolested and wandered out into the garden once again.

  The gardeners were still as interested as ever, looking stealthily over hedges and bushes to watch me walk, but once I passed beyond a last manicured hedge into the wild tangle beyond, there was a pleasing lack of gardeners. I should perhaps have wondered why: but the most sensible explanation for the absence of serfs unhappily did not occur to me until I was strolling down a crumbling walkway that converged on the large form of Lord Pecus. He was standing with his back to me, forearms propped on ancient masonry that must once have been the balustrade of a charming outlook, but when I turned silently to retrace my footsteps, he said with uncanny perception: “Lady Farrah. Good afternoon.”

  No way back but forward. I moved forward again and said pleasantly: “It is a good afternoon.”

  Lord Pecus turned, leaning his hips casually into the parapet, and observed my approach with folded arms. I gave him a politely enquiring look, and he said: “I have to congratulate you, Lady Farrah.”

  I raised my brows. “Indeed, my lord? I can’t imagine why.”

  “Can’t you? It was a beautiful job of acting: I was out the door before I realized.”

  I was betrayed into a giggle. “How unfortunate! I was afraid it might not work on you.”

  “Should I be flattered?”

  “Certainly!” I tucked my hand companionably into the crook of his arm and linked my fingers together. “It works with most people.”

  “Do you throw pot-pourri at all your suitors?”

  I threw him a sharp look, and found that his eyes were glinting down at me in something very like challenge.

  “Oh no!” I assured him lightly, smiling guilelessly up at him. “I treat my suitors very well! My friends, on the other hand, frequently inform me that they find my, ah- pot-pourri -decidedly off-putting.”

  “Oh, are we friends, Lady Farrah?”

  “Certainly we are!” I gave Lord Pecus a real smile this time, friendly and open; and his porcelain brows rose.

  “I thought you’d be angrier,” he said thoughtfully.

  “Oh, I’ve been angry. Now I am merely determined.”

  “Why is it that I find myself more apprehensive than before?”

  “I can’t imagine, my lord!” I looked at him through my lashes and said confidingly: “I’m inclined to believe that it points to a sadly suspicious side in your nature. I’m sure you struggle to overcome such defects in your character, so I feel no scruple in pointing them out.”

  I distinctly saw a tremor of laughter shake him, but he said: “Then I feel no scruple in adding that if you refuse my dinner invitation again, you’ll be carried down, nightdress or no.”

  I gave a tiny sigh. “May I ask why?”

  “It’s . . . necessary,” he said, after a brief pause. “I’m sorry to insist, but I do insist.”

  “Very well,” I said consideringly. “I have a stipulation, however.”

  “Which is?”

  “You dine with me unmasked.”

  There was a short silence, then Lord Pecus took in a slow breath. “Do you know what you’re asking?”

  I levelled a steady gaze at him. “I believe so. I may add that I think it only fair in the light of what you are asking, my lord.”

  He gave the low, rumbling chuckle that I liked. “I think we will get along very well, Lady Isabella.”

  “I’m sure we will,” I agreed cheerfully, allowing myself to be pulled away from the wall. Melchior should be finishing the detached commlink by now, and if Lord Pecus was inclined to walk me back to the suite, I was quite content.

  Instead, I found myself being drawn irresistibly down the left-hand fork of the path, away from the manor.

  “It’s a little stuffy inside,” explained Lord Pecus blandly, when I turned my head to look at him. “Cook tells me that your meal trays have been returning to the kitchen full, Lady Farrah.”

  I blinked a little, then chuckled suddenly. “Oh, I see! I assure you, my lord, I am not attempting a hunger strike!”

  “Is there a dish you prefer, then?”

  I shook my head briskly. “I never manage to eat on the first day in a new place: I can’t settle myself to it while the clothes are unhung and the trunks are out.”

  “Ah.” Lord Pecus nodded solemnly. “Then it must have been rats.”

  He saw the look of amused comprehension that swept across my face, and explained with limpid kindness: “My lechias trees suffered a raid yesterday morning. Clever little rascals: they skinned the fruit and tossed the seeds.”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “You know perfectly well that it was me! I didn’t intend to eat your fruit, it was simply there.”

  Lord Pecus’ porcelain teeth showed in a grin. “Lechias is not often palatable to Civetans, Lady Isabella. I was keeping an open mind.”

  “What a fib!” I said, too amused to be indignant. “You thought that I was refusing my meals to spite you and gorging myself in the garden instead, where my depredations would go unnoticed!”

  “Perhaps I did. In my defence, you’re not like other ladies.”

  “Well now, I’m glad you made that point!” I said immediately. “It leaves me free to ask without fear of surprising or shocking you, just how your investigations are proceeding.”

  “I wondered how long it would be before the conversation was wrangled in that direction,” remarked Lord Pecus amiably, assiduously helping me over a tree trunk that had fallen into the path.

  I allowed myself to be swept back down onto the path in his capable hands, and smiled sunnily at him. “Well, one does wonder how it is that you’re home quite so early? I was given to understand that the Commander of the Watch was never off duty. I would also like to point out that I object to your use of the word ‘wrangled’.”

  “I apologize: ‘inveigled’ was the word I should have used. As to being off duty, it may surprise you to know that there have been six tentative forays on my wards since you joined me in the garden.”

  “Interesting,” I said thoughtfully. “Who was it, do you think?”

  “I don’t have the foggiest idea,” he said ruefully. “But I would be prepared to swear that they were six different people. This situation goes from one mad extreme to another.”

  I traced the pattern on Lord Pecus’ cuff with one forefinger. “It appears that our murderer would like to lend truth to your lie by attacking me. Are we setting a trap?”

  He frowned. “No.”

  “Oh, but it would be such a good idea!” I cried, in disappointment. “We could close the investigation!”

  I thought he smiled. “No, Lady Farrah.”

  “I think you are very chicken-hearted!” I said accusingly. “I am willing!”

  “I don’t think I’ve seen you anything but willing to put yourself in harm’s way,” Lord Pecus remarked, leading me back toward the manor. “You wouldn’t be trying to swindle me into agreeing with your plan, would you?”

  I looked up at him with a suitably shocked expression. “Oh, no! I would never try to swindle you into anything, Lord Pecus!”

  “Do you really think so?” asked Lord Pecus meditatively. “My experience seems to suggest otherwise.”

  “Oh, you’re far too clever for me,” I assured him soulfully. The lowering truth was that he just might prove to be so, but it is always productive to plant a little doubt in the mind of- well, not the enemy; but perhaps the
competition.

  “And yet I find myself uneasy! Strange, isn’t it?”

  We rejoined Melchior in my suite just in time to hear him swear and drop my hand mirror.

  “Clod!” I said cheerfully, and picked it up for him. Fortunately it had fallen on the rug beneath my bureau and wasn’t broken. Melchior was too busy wringing one hand in the other and muttering to take it back at once, but when he did, it glowed briefly to finish the spell.

  “Was that you, Pecus?”

  Lord Pecus manoeuvred his bulk through the long, thin windows and trod lightly across the flagstones. “The manor wards sometimes interfere with spell-casting indoors. What happened?”

  “Don’t know. I was just finishing up when a shock came through the powerlines.” Melchior massaged his hand again in remembered pain, and passed the mirror back to me. “It’s done now, Carrots. What have you two been up to?”

  “Strolling through the gardens: Lord Pecus thinks I’m up to something.”

  “Sensible man.”

  “Even though I assured him that he’s too clever for me, and that I wouldn’t dream of trying to swindle him,” I continued, in gentle melancholy.

  Melchior’s brows professed surprise. “Even then? Strange man!” He grinned at Lord Pecus and remarked: “I’m surprised she didn’t tell you she’s only a poor female. That’s where the conversation usually goes from there. I’m sorry to say I know it from experience.”

  “I was just getting to that bit,” I told them, looking up demurely through my eyelashes. “Of course, I feel bound to point out that my bashful nature wouldn’t allow me to do anything so bold as swindle you. You being so big and frightening, you know.”

  Lord Pecus looked startled. “Pardon?”

  Melchior grinned a little wider. “She can keep it up for days until you’re convinced that she’s misguided but sweet and that you’ve been a beast to her, and then she pinches your best invisibility spell and makes off with your fiancée.”

  “She wasn’t your fiancée then,” I pointed out primly. “Besides, if anyone was ‘made off’ with, Annabel made off with me. I was merely an innocent bystander who got caught up in the general confusion.”

  “I suppose my invisibility spell got caught up in the confusion as well?”

  “How did you guess?” I marvelled. “Your grasp of the matter is really commendable, Melchior!”

  Lord Pecus’ shoulders shook as Melchior glowered, remembering past wrongs.

  “I think I begin to understand,” he said.

  “You think you do,” said Melchior with heartfelt conviction; “But you understand nothing until you’re standing in the middle of a draughty old mansion with a battered tophat instead of a first class invisibility spell. That’s when you begin to understand. You begin to understand even more when a cohort of Old Parrasian councilmen take you prisoner because you’re not as invisible as you thought you were.”

  I put my nose in the air. “That will teach you to tell us not to do something when you intend to do it yourself. Besides, we rescued you! I do think you’re ungrateful!”

  “I would have been more grateful to have my invisibility spell,” retorted Melchior, but he was grinning again. “You haven’t got any invisibility spells, have you, Alexander?”

  Lord Pecus touched a finger briefly to his temple. “Only up here.”

  How interesting! I knew that Glausian spell-casting was different from the orderly, item based spell-casting of Civet, but I hadn’t expected Lord Pecus to remember all his spells on demand. I would have less in my environment to rely upon. I bit back a sigh. Really, it ought to be good for me. At Trenthams any and all items of a magical nature had been kept strictly out of reach of students, and at one time I had been quite ingenious. We would see if I could be so again.

  “That’s her conniving look,” Melchior observed, nudging Lord Pecus. “That’s the one that means trouble.”

  I blinked myself out of my thoughts and paid attention. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “Of course you don’t; you’re the innocent, injured party,” mocked Melchior. “You’ve been duly warned, Alexander.”

  “I think I can manage.” Lord Pecus was smiling at me, and I thought for a moment that I saw his eyes – his real eyes – crinkle at the corners through a suddenly thin veneer of porcelain mask.

  “And that,” continued Melchior, his eyes sharp: “Is her look of startled realization! What did you just understand, Carrots?”

  “I feel faint!” I said firmly, sitting down at my bureau chair. “Go away, both of you!”

  “You don’t look faint.”

  “I’m about to drop any minute!” I reiterated, with even greater firmness. “Vadim! Vadim! Bring the smelling-salts!”

  Vadim brought the bottle in with an impressive amount of bustle that caused Melchior’s eyebrows to rise as he and Lord Pecus took their leave.

  “A girl after your own heart, Carrots!” he said around the door, and vanished before I could do anything but scowl at him.

  Vadim ceased her flurry of activity and sat lightly on the edge of the bureau. “Did you want me for anything, lady?”

  “No, I think that was just enough. Well done, Vadim. How are you making out below stairs?”

  A bright spot of colour appeared high on each cheekbone. “Very well, thank you, lady,” she said stiffly.

  “Oh, that badly?”

  She huffed a small, angry breath. “It’s that footman, lady.”

  “He’s making a nuisance of himself, is he? I thought he might.”

  “But why?” wailed Vadim. “I haven’t done anything to him!”

  I wondered whether I should remind her of the ear-twisting incident. Had that really been only yesterday? Time seemed to have lengthened and stopped: or perhaps it was simply that too much had happened in too little time.

  “I would advise against ignoring him,” I said mildly, running my finger lightly around the surface of my newly magicked mirror. It was cool and smooth, and tingled just a little. “I would also advise against any more slapping or ear-twisting: it encourages them to do the same, and scuffling with boys is rarely dignified in the end. If you simply must engage in violence, kick him; it will put a little distance between you.”

  Vadim opened and closed her mouth, then puckered her brow. “I don’t understand.”

  “That’s the joy of growing up, Vadim; you are at liberty to discover things for yourself.”

  She looked gloomy. “I don’t want to discover anything about him. He’s skinny and sharp, and too clever by half.”

  “They always are, my child. He may improve upon closer acquaintance, you know.”

  “I don’t care if he improves or not,” Vadim said, with an annoyed swish of her skirt; “I only want him to stop making snide little comments, and flicking things at me!”

  “Alas, all good things eventually come to an end, Vadim,” I said, with a small, private smile. “I won’t need you again until I dress for dinner: perhaps you and Keenan could explore your new surroundings? I would like you to feel . . . at home . . . in the manor.”

  Vadim’s eyes brightened and narrowed. “You want to know where the exits are, lady?”

  I smiled dreamily at her. “I’m sure I don’t know why you should imagine so, Vadim! I shouldn’t like you to think that I’m at all interested in any other prisoners, or the kind of spells that Lord Pecus wards his manor with. It would be excessively impolite of me as a guest to put my nose into the running of the Commander’s household.”

  She took in an exultant, satisfied breath. “Yes, lady!”

  I wasn’t sure if her antipathy for Lord Pecus and a particular footman was at the root of her satisfaction, or if it were merely her natural joy in looking for trouble, but I congratulated myself on giving her thoughts a happier direction. Of course, one had to wonder if it really were a happier direction as such: one would hate to think that one was leading one’s underlings into pernicious ways, after all
.

  “Oh, Vadim?”

  She paused at the door, and looked back enquiringly. “Lady?”

  “Be a little careful, yes?”

  I spent most of the afternoon leafing through the pages of my Book of Interesting Excerpts. Really, I should have been connecting a commlink with Kit, but I could only contemplate my newly made commlinker with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. Kit had never cared for politics, and he would no doubt be unwilling to be called into Glause (whose climate he referred to as wet enough to swim in) to assist Papa in anything so boring as discussions for a military merger. Besides, my talk with Lord Pecus had reminded me that there were avenues of investigation still open to a person who owned a magical artefact such as the Book of Interesting Excerpts. Interesting Excerpts such as a Watch Commander’s confidential report on crime scene details . . .

  I called it up, waiting impatiently for the ink to fully leach into the pages, and pored over it at length with a furrowed brow. Most of it was, unfortunately, unintelligible. There were small, ovular black spots made up of thin, swirled lines that were marked in Lord Pecus’s decisive handwriting as fingerprints, and which fascinated me completely. One set were written down as unknown, the other, as Lady Farrah. There was even a set marked as Raoul’s. Goodness, how could he tell? They looked so exactly alike!

  The rest of the report was a miscellany that was as comprehensive as it was useless. Of what use was it to know that Raoul had been carrying some twenty-odd Glausian grits and a curlicued ruby ring in his pockets? I read through the pages once more, unaccountably annoyed at Lord Pecus for refusing to tell me anything of his discoveries when he knew perfectly well that he hadn’t made any.

  Ah well, the commlink must be made, I thought at last, sighing as I closed the Book of Interesting Excerpts. Papa needed the help, and since disagreeable things never became the more palatable for letting them sit, I at last took up the mirror.

  However, when the blank intermediary screen of my mirror focused, it was Susan’s enquiring face that I saw. She was looking untidy and a little cross, and when she saw me her eyes grew speculative.