“Ah, my lord, We are relieved,” His Majesty said. “Your ability to deduce the existence of an ocean from a few drops of water is well known to us, but sometimes We fail to allow for it. For Our own curiosity—how did you hypothesize the existence, and the importance, of this State secret?”
“In this case the deductive process was hardly called into play at all, Your Majesty,” Lord Darcy explained. “When a man is brought secretly into the Palace, and then bundled up the back stairs, it is not a great exercise in deductive reasoning for the man to conclude that it is not desirable for his presence to be known. Likewise, when, in a small room off the Royal Chambers, the King pours his own cognac, not to speak of serving a guest, it is a reasonable deduction that servants are forbidden to enter that room. And why else but for security? And, as the Palace servants are highly reliable, the secret must indeed be of a high order to routinely exclude them. As to there being a possible threat to the Realm involved, as I explained, the very identities of those concerned would certainly indicate that.”
“That is so,” the King admitted. “And it surely seems obvious when you explain it. We will have to rethink our security precautions to exclude the unusual. Although in this case, with time at a premium, We hardly see how We could have done otherwise.”
There was a perfunctory knock at the door, and Lord Peter Whiss entered the room. A small, intense man with a wonderful mind for detail, Lord Peter, as always, managed to look studied and unhurried in the midst of the most intense activity. “Your Majesty,” he said, “Lord Darcy. I apologize for the delay. There is nothing new to report from the link, Your Majesty. I have arranged passage for two on the Steam Packet Aristotle, which sails at seven tomorrow morning. I trust Lord Darcy can be ready by that time.”
“We think you’d better explain to Lord Darcy where he’s going,” His Majesty said dryly, “and why.”
“Certainly,” Lord Peter said, sitting down.
“One moment,” Lord Darcy said, taking his fountain pen and a small notebook from an inner pocket of his jacket. “If, as I suppose, the second passage is for Master Sean O Lochlainn, kindly have someone take him this note. The longer he is given to prepare, the better. It is wise not to hurry wizards.”
“I will have the note sent immediately, my lord,” Lord Peter said. “Please reveal no more than is necessary.”
“That will be easy,” Lord Darcy told him. “At the moment, I know nothing beyond the bare fact that there is something to know.”
“Do not convey even that, my lord,” Lord Peter said.
“Just the essential information that Master Sean had better pack for an extended trip,” Lord Darcy said, scribbling a couple of lines on the page and then ripping it out of the book. “And that we’ll be leaving first thing in the morning. It will come as no surprise to him, although the destination may. We often leave for an investigation on scant notice.” He passed the note to Lord Peter, who took it to the door and called for a guard.
“Now,” Lord Peter said, after handing out the note with appropriate instructions, “let me tell you of an interesting problem, which seems to be in your line of business.”
Lord Darcy took another sip of the Imperial cognac and listened.
“The Angevin Empire is about to sign a treaty of amity and assistance with the Azteque Empire; one which we have been negotiating for some time,” Lord Peter said, pacing back and forth before the table as he spoke. He kept his gaze focused on his own hands, which were clasped in front of him. “It will define boundaries between our New England territory of Robertia and the Azteque lands, codify the complex bipartite situation of our Duchy of Mechicoe, establish trading rights and trapping rights, and the like, and allow for the exchange of emissaries and missionaries and commercial travelers of various sorts.”
“I have heard something of this,” Lord Darcy said.
“Yes, well, you will be hearing a lot more in the near future,” Lord Peter said. “I imagine you’re going to have to become something of an expert on it.”
“How does the Duchy of Mechicoe come into this?” Lord Darcy asked. “Nothing, I trust, that reflects adversely on the present Duke.”
“Ah, yes, a friend of yours, isn’t he, Darcy?” His Majesty asked.
“His son, actually, Your Majesty. Master Lord John Quetzal. A fine young man, and a promising forensic magician.”
“Of course,” His Majesty said. “We’ve met the lad. Good blood.”
“You understand, my lord,” Lord Peter said, “that there are two Dukes of Mechicoe. One of ours, your friend’s father; and one of theirs. And there are two Duchies. But it happens that the territory each claims to control is the same as the other’s.”
Lord Darcy thought this over. “Interesting,” he said. “How does—how can—such an arrangement work?”
“Up until now it has been working based only on the fear the Azteques still harbor after the 1789 Three Prisoner incident. They regard the ridiculous ease with which their army was crushed as a sign of our military and magical superiority. Which, they feel, has increased over the years. We have carefully nurtured this feeling.”
“I see,” Lord Darcy said.
“The Azteque ruling class has a very restricted view of themselves and the world around them,” Lord Peter said. “All those who they can best are their slaves—or should be. And all those who can best them—which, so far, has only been the Imperial Legion—are fools for not enslaving them. It is a rather abrupt, simplistic, and unsympathetic philosophy.
“The native dukes who came over to the Angevin Empire, and embraced Christianity, like de Mechicoe and d’Eucatanne, are accepted for what they are. But new dukes were appointed to take their place. It makes a strange sort of sense. After all, the Azteque nobility also has a religious function, which their Christian cousins cannot take part in.”
“This treaty is of great importance to Our government, my lord Darcy,” King John said, hunching back in his seat. The gaslight reflecting off his hair created a halo effect, reminding Lord Darcy of a medieval painting of Saint Thomas he had once seen. “There are those on both sides who are interested in seeing that it is never signed.”
“Both sides, Your Majesty?”
“On our side,” Lord Peter explained, “some of our less enlightened citizens believe that the sins of the fathers carry through to the sons and the grandsons, and down through the generations. On the basis of his ungenerous belief, they feel that | it is sinful for the Angevin Empire to have anything to do with the Azteque Empire, whose rulers worshiped Huitsilopochtli, a war god who demanded human sacrifice, until we discouraged the practice. His victims had their hearts torn out on bloody stone altars atop massive pyramids.”
“I’ve read of the ceremony,” Lord Darcy commented.
“Well then, as you know, the ceremony was abandoned hundreds of years ago, and since then has not been practiced anywhere in the civilized parts of the Azteque Empire. Religions, like people or cultures, grow up. And we all tend to be pretty barbaric in our youth. But there are those in the Empire—clerics and others—who selectively forget the barbarisms of our own youth and insist that these evil practices of the early Azteques make their great-grandchildren unacceptable as treaty partners. The ‘blood-can-never-be-cleansed-from-these-stones’ sort of thinking.”
“There is a sense,” His Majesty said mildly, “in which the blood never can be cleansed from those stones.”
Lord Peter paused and glanced at his sovereign, and then back down at his clasped hands. “That is so, Your Highness,” he said. “But the guilt of those responsible has long since been determined by a higher court than we can convene.” He looked up at Lord Darcy. “And then there are those who believe we should go to war with the Azteque Empire, to support the claim of the Dukes of Mechicoe and Misogohelli and the other native nobility who have embraced the Christian faith and who owe fealty to His Majesty.”
“What claims?” Lord Darcy asked.
“Aye there’s the
rub,” Lord Peter said, resuming his pacing. “The native Christian nobles have made no territorial claims beyond what they already possess. And this treaty would endorse those very possessions. They are at peace with their Azteque brethren. And His Majesty has taken on the title of Premier Chief of the Moqtessumid Clan and has appointed a Bishop of Mechicoe to show continuing royal interest. The Christian nobles, it would seem to me, have the best of both worlds at the moment. They’d be very foolish to do anything to rock the boat. And they do not strike me as being particularly foolish.
“On the Azteque side, there is what they call a ‘war party,’ within the nobility that believes they should not give away their ancestral right to the territory we call ‘New England,’ and by that, they mean the whole eastern coast of the continent. The fact that they retreated from it over four hundred years before we arrived, and that the Fifteen Nations—the loose confederation of native tribes of the Northeast—have much more claim on it than they, should we disappear, is somehow not relevant to them.” Lord Peter sounded personally aggrieved.
“We are having a dossier prepared for you, Lord Darcy,” said the King, “to study at your leisure. You will have about a week of enforced leisure, while crossing the Atlantic.”
“So far, Your Majesty, I have heard no secrets,” Lord Darcy said. “What has happened that puts this treaty in jeopardy?”
The King looked at Lord Peter.
“There has been a murder,” Lord Peter said. “In an ancient Azteque temple to Huitsilopochtli which sits atop a pyramid on a small island in the harbor of Nova Eboracum, or New Borkum, as it is commonly known. A priest-exorcist and a magician went there to cleanse the temple in anticipation of the arrival of the Azteque treaty party. As a symbol of something—I’m not sure just what—an Eternal Flame is being brought from the Azteque capital city to be kindled in the temple next to it atop the pyramid.
“When they climbed the pyramid and opened the temple—it had been sealed for the past century—they found a body within. Freshly dead, with its heart ripped out. They couldn’t find the heart.”
“Interesting,” Lord Darcy said, pulling thoughtfully at his ear. “Who was the, ah, victim?”
“His name was Prince Ixequatle. He was an unofficial representative of the Emperor of the Azteques. I believe he was the Emperor’s nephew. Apparently he came along a few weeks early to make sure we did everything right in welcoming the High Priest and the Eternal Flame. His Grace of Arc says Prince Ixequatle had been very helpful.”
“I see,” Lord Darcy said. “I will refrain from asking the obvious questions that can be better answered at the site of the crime, or at least on the same continent. When did the murder happen?”
The King looked at Lord Peter, who stopped pacing and looked back at the King. For a long moment neither of them said anything.
Lord Darcy looked from one to the other. “Is this, then, the secret?” he asked. “What is the problem, Your Majesty?”
King John nodded. “We grant it is a problem,” he said. “My lord Darcy, you are indeed one of Our most trusted advisors, and the one We have time and again called upon to solve knotty problems. As, indeed, We are doing now. There are perhaps five secrets held by the Empire that you are not privy to, or would not be if you asked about them—and those only because you have no need to know of them. This is—was—one of the five. And now you are about to become one of the three dozen men and women who have access to this information.”
“Thirty-four,” Lord Peter said.
“Guard it well,” King John said.
“This is known as the Gemini Secret,” Lord Peter said. “You are to take it as a sacred trust not to divulge it, or even mention its name, to any living soul; not to speak of it even with someone who shares the knowledge, unless there is immediate and pressing need and you are quite alone and have actively verified that you are.”
“Well!” Lord Darcy said.
“Do you so swear?” Lord Peter asked.
“On my oath as a peer of the Realm, and by my honor, which I hold most sacred,” Lord Darcy replied, repeating an ancient and hallowed formulation.
Lord Peter nodded. “I shall add your name to the list,” he said. “Now there are thirty-five.”
“If We have a rule, my lord,” King John said, looking slightly embarrassed, it must be enforced for everyone, or else it isn’t really a rule.”
“I understand, Your Majesty, and agree,” Lord Darcy
Lord Peter sat down and, with clasped hands, stared across the table at Lord Darcy. “In answer to your question,” he said, “this morning.”
My Lord?” Lord Darcy asked.
“The murder, or at least the discovery of it, occurred this morning.”
Lord Darcy thought that over for a second. “But—” he said.
“Exactly,” Lord Peter said.
“How?” Lord Darcy asked. “Have you found a way to make the teleson work over water?”
“No, my lord,” Lord Peter said. “Our best theoretical thaumaturgists seem to think that is an unattainable goal. Magic-at-a-distance does not work over running water.”
“Then how—?”
“There would seem to be other forces in the universe besides magic, my lord,” King John said. “The method by which we are enabled to receive information from various distant parts of Our realm has been of great service to Us, and its secret must be preserved.”
“I understand, Your Highness,” Lord Darcy said.
“Let us take it that we do have some means of communicating with the Ducal Palace at New Borkum, and perhaps with one or two other places, that is, effectively, instantaneous,” Lord Peter said. “If there is ever any reason for you to know this method, then you shall be informed of it. The very fact that the method exists is the essence of the Gemini Secret, which you are requested and required to maintain.”
King John smiled. “They didn’t want to tell Us, my lord Darcy,” he said, “but We insisted.”
“I shall ask no more questions concerning method, my lord,” Lord Darcy told Lord Peter. “Tell me more about the murder.”
“Regrettably, you now know as much as we do,” Lord Peter said. “We assume the case is being handled by Lord John Quetzal, at least as far as the forensic sorcery goes. After all, he is on the scene. The Duke of Arc’s chief investigator is a man named De Pemmery—but last we heard he was some distance away, visiting the territory around FitzLeeber Land and Garretton, investigating disturbances concerning Angevin subjects among the Fifteen Nations.”
“Will they know I am coming?” Lord Darcy asked.
“Two will,” Lord Peter said. “His Grace the Duke of Arc, and one other. But they will not appear to. Your trip must seem to have been accidental and fortuitous.”
“I see,” Lord Darcy said. “The, ah, Gemini Secret must be maintained.”
“Indeed,” Lord Peter said. “The resident agent of the Most Secret Service in Nova Eboracum is named Muffin—code name, of course. My assumption is that Muffin will check to see whether there is anything of interest to the Service in this killing. Let us hope that there is not, as that would probably mean a Polish connection. If Muffin needs to contact you, the code name and the word ‘opera’ will be used in the same sentence.”
“Opera, my lord?”
“Yes. You know, one of those Italian musical things—”
”I am familiar with the word, my lord.”
“It was chosen as an unlikely but vaguely plausible combination of words, my lord,” Lord Peter said.
“It is that,” Lord Darcy agreed. “And if I wish to speak to Muffin?”
“Tell the duke,” Lord Peter said. “And wait for someone to whisper ‘Muffin’ and ‘opera’ in the same sentence.”
“Ah!” Lord Darcy said.
“Now remember about this Gemini business,” Lord Peter said. “It is not to be discussed.”
“Master Sean O Lochlainn will have to know,” Lord Darcy said. “I can see no way to keep the secret
from him. He is an intelligent, perceptive man, and a master magician. The anomaly in dates will occur to him, if he is not informed.”
Lord Peter considered. “That is so,” he admitted. “We will leave it to Your Lordship to swear him into the Gemini conspiracy, and I shall enter his name on the list. Number thirty-six.”
“Is there any more you can tell me concerning the murder?” Lord Darcy asked. “I take it our mission, Master Sean’s and mine, is to identify the murderer. If there is any more you would have of us, you should tell me now. If not, I’d better get home and pack.”
“You must catch the killer, my lord Darcy,” King John said, “if possible before the Azteque Imperial Retinue d’Ambassade reaches Nova Eboracum. We say ‘if possible,’ because We have no idea when they will arrive. It could be before you do. We do not know what the response of the Azteques will be to the murder of one of their royal princes, but it could hardly be favorable. We sincerely hope that the killer was not Angevin subject, but the murder happened on Angevin territory and the victim was a guest of the Imperial Governor, and thus of Us. Whoever the killer was, he must be apprehended and punished.”
“What makes this treaty so important, Your Majesty?” Lord Darcy asked. “Could the killing be an effort to sabotage the treaty?”
“That is certainly one possibility,” His Majesty replied. “And, indeed, it might have that effect. You, my lord, must see that it does not.”
“As to the treaty’s importance,” Lord Peter said, “of itself, there is little; the Empire of the Azteques and the territories of New England and New France are in no way in contention at this time. But we fear that the hand—and right arm—of His Polish Majesty, King Casimir, is beginning to take an interest in the Western Continents.”
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