The Grand Tour

by Patricia C. Wrede

“Talent without cultivation is useless. It is without form and void. There is no pattern to it. Like the spark one sometimes strikes, sometimes not, when one touches a metal doorknob after walking on a wool carpet.” Thomas took my hand. At the gentle concern in his expression, I felt a rising tide of dismay.

  “It can be a great inconvenience.” Thomas’s voice was hushed, as if he were delivering very bad news indeed. “Like spilling things.”

  “That’s my talent?” I cried, pulling away. “Clumsiness?”

  “That can be a sign you have talent,” Thomas answered. “It isn’t the talent itself. But it’s a good sign.”

  “Good?” I regarded Thomas with something near dislike. “What’s good about it?”

  “Bouncers, Kate.” Thomas reminded me. “You are able to make people accept some of the remarkable things you say as truth, in defiance of all laws of probability and common sense.”

  “I do lie rather well,” I conceded.

  “I regret to inform you that you’re nothing out of the ordinary as a storyteller,” Thomas stated. “But you have a useful way of winning the confidence of those who listen to you. You make them willing to believe you.”

  “Lying? I have a talent for falsehood?” I was good at being clumsy and at telling lies. Things grew worse and worse. No wonder Lady Sylvia kept it from me.

  Thomas tugged at his neckcloth. “Forget your talent. I’m sorry I ever mentioned it. I’m trying to say that it is too soon to be sure of anything concerning your talent, and we’ll never know if you don’t cultivate it. Neglected talent can cause strange things to happen. What you call your clumsiness may very well have such an explanation. Now, for the second thing.”

  I had almost forgotten there was a second thing. “There’s more?”

  Thomas patted my hand. “Don’t look so stricken. It isn’t you. It’s me. And I think it explains what happens with your ring.”

  “It’s you?”

  Thomas nodded. “I think so. You see, there is a connection between us. On all sorts of levels. But in this case, it is a dangerous one. You remember Sir Hilary and his epicyclical elaborations?”

  I remembered what Cecy had told me of Sir Hilary’s attempts (some successful) to drain others of their magical ability to enhance his own power. “Yes.”

  Thomas had gone very gentle again. “It is possible for a magician to use power that belongs to someone else. Whether you choose to use it or not, Kate, you have power. With the connection that exists between us, it would be perilously easy for me to draw on your power as well as my own. I never want that to happen. I have taken steps to prevent that from happening. But I think there must be times when my magic strikes a kind of spark with your inborn talent. It is my hypothesis that one outward sign of such an occasion is the scorching and discoloration you’ve detected.”

  I tried to rephrase what he was telling me. “You use your focus and it burns my glove. So were you using magic at the opera?”

  “Nothing was further from my mind. It is not necessarily when I am using my magic. It is when my power meets yours. Think of a duck pond. Toss a stone into it and what do you get?”

  “A wet stone,” I replied promptly.

  Thomas scowled at me. “Oh, very droll. You get a wet stone and you get ripples, Kate. Concentric rings as the ripples move outward from the stone. Now, then. What do you get when you toss in two stones at the same time?”

  “More ripples?”

  Thomas looked delighted. “Exactly. Two sets of concentric rings—where my set of ripples meets your set of ripples is the point—in my hypothesis, at least—where your glove comes into it.”

  I searched for words. At last, I managed, “Why can’t I feel it, then? I felt it when you created the focus. I felt it when you were sick in the coach. Why don’t I feel it when the ring burns my glove?”

  Thomas took my hand. “I don’t know. Perhaps because it happens when we cancel one another out? I’m glad you don’t feel it, though. What if it caused you pain?” He traced the shape of our wedding band with the tip of his finger.

  We sat together in silence for a long time. The only sound in the room was the fire in the hearth.

  Eventually I brought my thoughts back to the subject. “If being clumsy is a sign of magical potential, why wasn’t Cecy ever clumsy? What about you? How did your talent manifest itself?”

  “I believed I could fly.” Thomas looked embarrassed. “Fortunately, I had an extremely vigilant nurse. Beyond the very minimum of broken bones, there was no harm done. But it wasn’t clumsiness that broke my leg. It was overweening pride.”

  His humble expression was so out of character it was all I could do not to laugh aloud. “You, Thomas? Proud? Never!”

  “It’s still a failing of mine,” Thomas confessed. “It comes on me sometimes.” He looked deep into my eyes.

  “Does it?” I was ready for Thomas to make a joke of it, the way he stared at me so intently.

  “Just now and then. When I think of you.” There was not a trace of mockery in Thomas’s eyes, and his voice grew just a little ragged. “You make me proud.”

  30 October 1817

  Venice

  Palazzo Flangini

  What a relief to be safely back home at our hired edifice. I have just changed into dry clothes. By the time I finish roasting my toes by the fire, I may feel comfortable again. By that time, however, dinner will surely be served, so I will catch up writing this journal in the interim, and wriggle my toes luxuriously between paragraphs.

  The use of Uncle Arthur’s name during James’s unsuccessful call upon Cavalier Leo Coducci has borne fruit, for we received a formal invitation to visit Mr. Coducci this afternoon, only a day after his return to Venice. The rain has been relentless, but we splashed our way there with great promptitude.

  Mr. Coducci received us in a grand salon that gave the impression of being crowded, even though he was the only person in the room. The furniture was fine, although sparse, but most of the marble floor was taken up with statuary, a few authentically Greek, more Roman, and the rest modern copies. Mr. Coducci’s collection of antiquities is very fine, I’m sure. Nevertheless, I found it a trifle disturbing. Imagine Medusa with a voucher for Almack’s Assembly. Once she turned everyone she beheld to stone, the effect would be very like Mr. Coducci’s grand salon.

  It is clear that Mr. Coducci thinks very highly of Uncle Arthur. His hospitality was as remarkable as his erudition. Before long he and James were on easy terms, and their discussion left the rest of us in the dust. Fortunately, the dust featured excellent refreshments. I had a chance to look around the room as I sipped my glass of ratafia. One wall of the salon was all windows that looked out over the Grand Canal. The other walls were hung with mirrors. Not only did this enhance the amount of light in the room, even on a rainy autumn day, it also multiplied the apparent number of statues.

  While Cecy and I admired the view from the windows, Thomas seemed to be fascinated by the veining of the marble on the floor. I wondered why. It was a perfectly good floor, but I could see nothing to merit Thomas’s particular interest.

  Belatedly, I noticed the flush of embarrassment on Thomas’s cheeks. It takes a good deal to embarrass Thomas in public. I took a closer look at the statuary, to see if I’d missed anything. At last it occurred to me to look up at the ceiling.

  It was a high ceiling, but not so high that anyone with normal eyesight could mistake the goings-on painted among the billowing clouds of the fresco. It was a pagan holiday up there, with no convenient bits of drapery to conceal the details, no sprays of foliage, not even a fig leaf. I trust it was all exceedingly authentic. I really couldn’t say. I only know my cheeks grew hot with my blushes. After the first moment of disbelief, I kept my eyes on the floor as assiduously as Thomas did. I only hoped Cecy wouldn’t notice and ask me what was wrong. I didn’t think I could answer suitably in such mixed company.

  Now I come to think of it, I find that a curious reaction on my part. If I had been a
lone with Thomas, I would not have been so terribly embarrassed by the painting. If I had been alone with Cecy, very likely I would have giggled at it. Even if it had been Thomas and me viewing the fresco with Cecy and James, I would have been less abashed. It was the presence of Mr. Coducci, as amiable as he was venerable, that made me so uncomfortable. Yet it was Mr. Coducci’s fresco. How strange we are, or, rather, how peculiar manners make us.

  From the deposition of Mrs. James Tarleton, &c.

  Fortunately, Cavalier Coducci did not return to Venice before I was allowed to resume my usual routine. I would have been most put out had I been forced to miss talking with him when I did not feel the least bit indisposed. His prompt invitation to visit did much to restore my spirits, which were sadly cast down by the failure of my attempt to create a focus. I went over and over the attempt in my mind, and I was quite positive that I had performed every step correctly.

  Nonetheless, it had plainly not worked. I even wondered whether I was, after all, truly suited to be a magician.

  Thomas was no help, though I admit he was more than usually forbearing when it came to commenting on the matter. The first thing he did when I was at last allowed to rise from my bed was to present me with a pouch containing, he said, the dust that was all that remained of the writing desk.

  “It’s safer with you,” he told me when I protested. “It’s your magic that made it, after all.”

  “Safer?” I said. “What do you mean?”

  “In the hands of anyone else, it will affect the laws of probability,” Thomas said. “Rather drastically, I suspect, given how much effort it took to clear it all out. It shouldn’t bother you at all, because it’s still attuned to you.”

  “Am I going to have to cart this around forever?” I said, eyeing the bag with disfavor. I did not add, “The way you had to cart that chocolate pot?” because I did not wish to give him more of an opening.

  “I’ll work out some way of reducing it,” Thomas assured me. “But we can’t do anything until we’re out of this palazzo. We’ll want an area for the spell casting that’s completely clear on the arcane levels, and this place won’t be magically clear for months.”

  I found his use of “we” reassuring. Nevertheless, I was pleased to have our visit to Cavalier Coducci to distract me from my thoughts.

  At first glance, Cavalier Coducci seemed nearly as much an antiquity as his collection. He had a thick shock of white hair and a mustache that, while neatly trimmed, was equally thick. Most of his energy seemed to have gone into producing hair; the rest of him was thin and slightly stooped. (He also quite clearly had no more notion than Papa of which antiquities are suitable for public display. Though I must add that I had never before seen quite so many entirely unsuitable antiquities in one place. Their existence in such numbers gives one a very odd impression of the ancients, if one stops to think.)

  He and James hit it off at once, and they seemed quite happy to go through the whole crowded salon one piece at a time, comparing the execution and history of each and every statue (in English, though I was not certain whether or not to be thankful for that, as it meant that I could not justify ignoring the discussion on the grounds of unintelligibility). I was about to abandon them in favor of the thoughtfully provided refreshments, when James particularly complimented one of the statues.

  Cavalier Coducci smiled and shrugged. “It is fine, yes, but please do not be too generous with your praise. These are only the most ordinary of my collection.”

  James gave him a look of polite incredulity. “If these are ordinary, the main part must be impressive indeed.”

  “Only if you have a curiosity about the arcane,” Cavalier Coducci said a little uncomfortably. “It is not an area that interests many antiquarians, I fear, and there are many disagreements among those few of us who concentrate our efforts on it.”

  “I shouldn’t think you’d find much to work with,” James commented. “The Romans abandoned magic quite early in favor of engineering, which, if I recall correctly, they considered more reliable. And the few Greek texts make it quite clear that what little magic they succeeded in doing was based primarily on word rituals rather than on objects. That wouldn’t seem to leave you much to collect.”

  Cavalier Coducci’s face lit with a fervor that I recognized all too easily, having seen it often in Papa’s expression. “The Greeks and the Romans are not the only ancient peoples of interest. It is a limitation, a most unwise and unnecessary limitation, to look no further back than Greece or Rome.”

  “I suppose the Egyptians were in many ways as civilized as either,” James acknowledged. “Likewise the Babylonians.”

  “Egyptians? Babylonians? Bah!” Cavalier Coducci waved his hand, dismissing them. “In arcane matters, the Egyptians had some awareness, I grant you. But the true ancient magics were not civilised.”

  “Do you mean the Etruscans, then?” I said. “Or the Gaulish tribes or … or…” I struggled to remember one of the other groups Papa had mentioned.

  James came to my rescue. “Germanic tribes,” he murmured softly. “Goths and Visigoths.”

  “Or the Goths, or the Germanic tribes?” I finished.

  Cavalier Coducci beamed at me. “Yes, yes, exactly!” he said. “Not civilized, and of course with no knowledge of the modern techniques that have made magic reliable, but practitioners of a sort nevertheless.”

  “Practitioners, perhaps, but so little of their writing has been preserved—and so little was written down to begin with—that it is practically impossible to know what they actually did,” James said. “Like the Druids; all we know of them is from Roman writings, and some of those were plainly unreliable.”

  “Ah, one must know where to look!” Cavalier Coducci rubbed his hands together. “Come, I will show you. Come, come!” He beckoned to Kate and Thomas, then led the four of us down a marble-floored hall and up a flight of stairs at the back of the palazzo. A chain of rooms stuffed with books and more antiquities brought us finally to a large, high-windowed room lined with glass-fronted cabinets and filled with lavishly carved tables. Most of the tables were covered with polished rocks and bits of wood; the nearest cabinets held chunks of clay and an occasional lumpy object like a child’s attempt at a statue.

  “Here, you see?” Cavalier Coducci said proudly. “This, these are the true record of the old magic.”

  I leaned closer to one of the tables. “They don’t feel magical,” I said doubtfully. “I can’t sense anything.”

  “Cecy,” James said in a warning tone. He was developing an alarming tendency to become overprotective regarding my magic ever since my little difficulty in creating a focus. Not wishing to encourage this, I ignored him.

  Cavalier Coducci looked at me warily. “You are a magician?”

  “A dabbler only,” I said with some regret.

  He gave me a relieved smile. “Ah, that is the difficulty. Venice is not kind to magicians. It is because of all the canals—the water disturbs the system of the beginner, and disrupts his attempts at spells, and so progress becomes impossible. It is why our great city has produced great sailors and merchants instead of great wizards and magicians. To become a Venetian magician, one must go elsewhere to learn and to create a focus, and only then return.”

  I stared at him. All that I could think was, That’s what went wrong with my focusing spell! I knew I didn’t get the parameters mixed up. I glanced at James, and saw by his expression that the same thing had occurred to him.

  Thomas coughed. “Do you mean that a properly focused magician would sense some magic in these items?” He leaned casually toward the table.

  “But of course!” Cavalier Coducci spread his hands wide. “That is how I found them. Spells of the old magic left a residue, a strong residue, and each use increased the resonance. All of these objects were part of repeated rituals, so that the residual magic became very strong. Strong enough to last centuries, though of course it has faded in that time. Still, if you were a magician, you w
ould feel it yourself.”

  “Even from this?” Kate asked. She had walked a little farther into the room and was looking at a corroded knife on one of the tables. I joined her, and as I studied the knife I felt a faint, unpleasant tingle.

  “Especially from that,” Cavalier Coducci said. “I have said before, the old magic was not civilized. They had no science of magic; they did not have the theory to construct new spells that need but a small amount of magic. They had the most rudimentary forms and rituals, which could only have worked by applying vast amounts of power. Yet even in the writings we have there are tales of great spell castings—the raising of storms, the leveling of hills and mountains, the healing of diseases, even the calming of waves. Think of the power they must have had!”

  “I believe the consensus among wizards is that such tales are on a level with those of Atlas lifting the mountain,” James said slowly. “That is, mere tales.”

  Cavalier Coducci frowned. Before he could take offense, I said, “But, James, what if they weren’t? If these things”—I waved at the collection—“still have enough magic power for a wizard to sense after thousands of years, they must have been used for something major.” Despite myself, my eyes returned to the knife, and I felt a shiver down my back. I knew a little, from experience, about the unpleasant ways an unscrupulous modern wizard could go about accumulating magic power. A wizard who was both unscrupulous and uncivilized…

  “Yes, yes!” Cavalier Coducci nodded vigorously. “That is precisely my theory. A sensitive and skilled wizard can tell not only which objects have been used for magical rituals, but which have been used in the same ritual. By bringing them together, and with careful study, one can begin to reconstruct portions of the spell.”

  “I see,” James said.

  Thomas was less tactful. “Guesswork,” he said. “And no way to prove any of it, even if you do stumble across something that works.”

  Cavalier Coducci seemed less put out by Thomas’s skepticism than he had been by James’s. “Ah, but if one were to reconstruct an entire ritual, and then cast the spell again using the same objects, with their original residual power! That, I believe, would not only demonstrate the correctness of the spell reconstruction; it would also reawaken the residual magic that has faded from the ritual objects so that the success would be clear.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, the spells that are easiest to reconstruct are not… suitable for such a test.”