Roland, concealing a smile, opened the box and took out the first volume that came to his hand; Conall frowned at him, and then at Lucia.
“Here you are,” said Roland, handing over the open codex.
Lucia took it from him and read—slowly, translating from Latin into Gaelic as she went—“Luneday, the fourth of April, in the tenth year of King Edward the Second. Court remains at Gloucester. Weather very unsettled. Faucher has sent report that, er, Lightning has been delivered of a healthy foal. The entertainment this evening consisted in a troupe of players from Shrewsbury, or so Gloucester said, who gave us the tale of—”
“Very well,” said Conall Barra MacNeill, waving a hand at her. “I shall see your dusty old books delivered to Sophie Marshall.”
“You are a treasure among guard lieutenants,” said Lucia, and startled Roland by standing on tiptoe to kiss Conall’s grizzled cheek.
CHAPTER XXXII
In Which Joanna Counsels Prudence, and Sophie Receives a Gift
The diaries of King Edward II arrived in Grosvenor Square in a crate whose nominal purpose was to convey to Sophie a gift from her friend Lucia MacNeill: to wit, a large and impressively hideous statuette depicting Lady Minerva with an owl. Sophie stared at this astonishing object for some little time before her eye was caught by the corner of a folded sheet of note-paper, protruding from the statuette’s base.
Sophie, it read, We have found you something we hope you shall like, and with it a few books to help you pass the time.
—L & R
There were fourteen leather-bound ledgers in all, all of them heavy and some a trifle damp, and all—as requested—dated to the tenth year of Edward’s reign. Stacked on the library table, they made rather a daunting sight: a full year’s worth of his cramped, crabbed hand to pore through, perhaps, before they found what they sought.
If we do find it, which is by no means certain.
Having summoned Joanna and Gwendolen—she had decided already that neither Jenny nor Lady Maëlle could be permitted to assist in this stage of the project, nor to understand its urgent character, for they were neither of them fools and must very quickly have discovered what she was about—she set a ward upon the library to prevent interruptions and then arranged the diaries in order and divided them into three.
“Research,” she said vaguely, when Jenny inquired over dinner as to what the young people presently had in train. “I may perhaps write something for the Proceedings of the Society for the History of Magick.”
“That you should bury your head in a stack of books for days at a time does not at all surprise me,” said Lady Maëlle, “but Joanna?”
“Gwendolen and I have nothing else to do at present,” said Joanna—more gently than Sophie might have expected, but after all, Lady Maëlle had Amelia on her conscience, or thought she had—“as you may remember; and research makes a change from needlework.”
“And it is quite interesting, by times,” Gwendolen chimed in, then added, as though regretting her small burst of enthusiasm, “though very dusty.”
By design or fortunate happenstance, she sneezed.
Jenny grimaced. “I shall leave you to it, then, I think.”
* * *
It was Gwendolen who found the first clue, about the second hour before noon on the third day, in the diary covering the month of September.
“Jo,” she said sharply. “Sophie. I think—”
They looked up—Joanna from the second volume of January, Sophie from May—and left their own researches to peer around Gwendolen’s shoulders.
x September
Roazhon, en Petite-Bretagne
Expect to be at Karnag before the Equinox, and am assured that all shall be in readiness there. It remains to pray that the gods may forgive me my father’s neglect of this duty, and smile on my efforts to rebuild what he allowed to fall to ruin.
“Oh, well spotted!” cried Sophie. “Now, you must read forward from the tenth of September, and I shall read backwards from the end of August, for he may have set down something of his plans; and, Jo, here is July—”
Three hours later, they had assembled a précis of King Edward’s expedition to the Stones of Karnag, and Sophie was aquiver with ideas and plans.
“We shall need half a dozen mages, according to Edward,” she said, scribbling shorthand notes on a scrap of notepaper, “to replenish the magick of the stones; and if we are to reach Karnag before it is too late to do any good, we shall have to go by ship—shall not we, Jo?”
“Sophie, you cannot be seriously considering—”
“How long have you known me, Joanna Callender?” Sophie demanded, low and fierce. At Joanna’s shoulder, Gwendolen shivered—perhaps sensing some magickal exudation which Joanna herself could not. “What did you imagine we were about, in searching through this rubbish-heap, if not to use whatever treasure we found for some good purpose?”
“And haring off into the midst of a pitched battle between the armies of two kingdoms, entirely without support of any kind, is your notion of some good purpose?”
“Certainly not,” said Sophie indignantly.
Joanna exhaled relief, but too soon, of course, for Sophie continued, “Our purpose is to defend Britain against Orléans, and to rescue Amelia, and to find Gray and bring him home. Haring off into the midst of a pitched battle is merely the means to that end.”
“And is there truly no other means available?” said Joanna, after a moment of gobsmacked silence. “None which does not require you to risk your own life, break your sworn word to your father, deceive Jenny and Kergabet—”
“Suppose,” said Gwendolen, arresting Joanna’s increasingly manic momentum with gentle hands on her shoulders, “suppose that we took the results of our researches to Lord Kergabet, or to His Majesty, and explained what is needed?”
“Yes,” said Joanna, with more confidence than she felt. “Lord Kergabet has great faith in your judgement in magickal matters, Sophie.”
“But Lord de Vaucourt does not,” said Sophie bitterly. “And it is Vaucourt who must be persuaded—Vaucourt and my father—if the Crown is to dispatch so many Court mages to Karnag on such a mission. And the Court mages themselves, of course, who are nearly all in Vaucourt’s pocket.”
“But Lord de Vaucourt and his fellows could work the spell?” Gwendolen persisted. “If they could be persuaded?”
“I—I do not see why not,” said Sophie. “But—” She fell silent, biting her lip; after a moment, she continued, “but if they cannot be persuaded, they will know—or must suspect—what we are about, and will be the more able to prevent us from doing what they refuse to do.”
Which, Joanna conceded, was entirely true. Nevertheless—
“Nevertheless,” she said aloud, “we are not irresponsible children, Sophie; we must try, at the least, to do as we ought. There is a name for persons who withhold vital military intelligence from those who have most need of it, and it is not a pleasant one.”
Sophie’s face twisted into a thunderous scowl. Sophie was in general disposed to be truthful, however, and Joanna was therefore unsurprised when she made no effort to disagree.
* * *
“What a fascinating theory,” said Lord de Vaucourt, leaning his chin upon his folded hands. He turned from Sophie to Lord Kergabet and continued: “Such imaginations as these young people have! I am all admiration.”
The Sophie who had arrived in London all those years ago at the age of seventeen might well have incinerated Vaucourt’s study and everyone in it with the force of her outrage and indignation. The Sophie of the present moment possessed a hard-won level of self-control which permitted her instead—though not without effort—to smile thinly at her antagonist and say, “I assure you, my lord, that no admiration is necessary—unless, that is, you meant to express admiration of our investigative efforts. There has been no imagination i
n the case.”
Vaucourt had turned back to her when she spoke to him—according her that show of respect, at any rate, if he could not bring himself to do more—and now returned her edged smile with one of his own. “You must not think, ma’am, that your desire to assist in the defence of the kingdom is unappreciated,” he said. “I am sure, however, that you must be aware how much your enthusiasm outstrips your practical experience.”
“Must I?” said Sophie. Vaucourt, who did not know her well, returned her gaze impassively; Joanna, who did, laid a restraining hand on Sophie’s, clenched in her skirts beneath the table. “Tell me, Maître Vaucourt—”
Lord Kergabet, also well acquainted with his sister-in-law, chose this moment to intervene: “My lord,” he said, touching Sophie’s shoulder in silent apology, “it is a grave mistake, I assure you, to underestimate Magistra Marshall’s practical experience in matters of . . . unusual magick.”
“You will forgive me, my lord, I am sure,” Vaucourt returned, “if I decline to take your word upon it.” He smiled, half apology, half superior smirk. “It has been my duty to advise His Majesty on all such matters these ten years and more; and I do not presume to usurp your authority in matters political.”
* * *
The worst of it was, thought Joanna bitterly, that Vaucourt scarcely even tried to veil his insults, even when speaking to Lord Kergabet—as His Majesty’s chief Privy Councillor, arguably the most powerful man in Britain, save one.
But nearly as bad was the recognition that, in fact, Vaucourt was not altogether wrong; very likely Kergabet’s support was based as much on his own faith in Sophie qua Sophie as on any sober and rational assessment of the process by which she had drawn her conclusions, and undeniably he was as ill qualified to opine on any magickal question as Joanna was herself.
“My lord,” said Sophie, her hand shaking under Joanna’s but her voice admirably even, “what is your own theory as to the Duc d’Orléans’s choice of military targets?”
“The man calls himself Imperator Gallia and has forbidden the worship of any but the gods of Rome in the territories under his control,” said Vaucourt at once. “He is mad, or at any rate is in the grip of some idée fixe, and his military strategy is that of a madman. We should be foolish to seek reason or logic in it.”
Gwendolen had said something very like this, not so long ago—she remembered it too, Joanna guessed from her guilty half glance at Sophie—but it had not stung as Vaucourt’s easy dismissal did.
“I disagree,” said Sophie. “His logic may be that of some particular madness, yet logic all the same, capable of being reasoned through by a sufficiently patient opponent, and circumvented before its worst conclusions can be reached. I have seen it before.”
The logic of some particular madness—she has Cormac MacAlpine of Alba in mind, yes.
Joanna and Gwendolen exchanged a brief but meaning look.
“You refer, I suppose, to that scuffle in Alba three years ago?” said Vaucourt.
The three ladies bridled at scuffle—could an incident be called a mere scuffle, in which so many persons had so nearly lost their lives?—but when Sophie spoke, her voice remained calm and even: “I do. Cormac MacAlpine’s attempt to claim the chieftain’s seat of Alba relied on his belief that his clan alone could restore the spell-net which his distant ancestor had created to unite the warring clans, and that any action which might further that aim could be justified by reference to it. Considered in that light, his behaviour was logical from first to last, though no person who had not fallen prey to the same, as you say, idée fixe could have dreamt of acting in such a way.”
She paused, looking expectantly at Vaucourt.
“Unless I have been very much misinformed,” he said slowly, “the resolution of that . . . tangle was a matter more of luck than of logic.”
Sophie grimaced a little. “That is true,” she conceded. “But only because we lacked the information necessary to draw the correct conclusions. Whereas in this case—”
“In this case,” said Vaucourt, impatient now, “you have drawn conclusions on the basis of information whose accuracy cannot be verified, and you propose to risk the lives of half a dozen trained and powerful mages—men of incalculable value to the kingdom—in hopes of demonstrating your own cleverness. I call that self-serving and cowardly, Magistra.”
“Lord Vaucourt!” said Kergabet, frowning dangerously.
Down the table, Gwendolen gasped.
“I do not ask anything of any other mage which I should not be prepared to undertake myself,” said Sophie tightly, “were I permitted to do so. If you know anything at all of the Cormac MacAlpine affair, my lord, surely you must know that.”
“With respect, ma’am,” said Vaucourt, “the lesson of your . . . adventures in Alba is, rather, that what you lack in judgement, you make up in reckless disregard for the good judgement of others.”
“Were it not for my reckless disregard for the good judgement of others,” Sophie retorted—Joanna could feel her trembling, now, with the effort of remaining calm—“my father would be dead, and my brother reigning under the influence of a conspiracy of regicides; and the gods alone know what Cormac MacAlpine might by now have done to Alba. Do you tell me, Maître Vaucourt, that I was wrong to take those bulls by the horns, wrong to give my help where it was needed?”
“What I tell you, Your Royal Highness, is that you owe your past successes to sheer good fortune; and Dame Fortune’s wheel turns. You must understand—”
“Vaucourt.” Kergabet rose furiously to his feet. “You forget yourself.”
But Vaucourt stared unflinchingly back at him and said, “His Majesty will not thank you for encouraging his precious child in her dangerous fancies.”
“That may be so,” replied Kergabet, low, “but it is not I who have committed that error today.” He straightened to his full height and gathered up Sophie, Joanna, and Gwendolen with a gesture; they collected their documentary evidence—for all the good it had done them—and followed him out of the conference-room without a backward glance, all, Joanna was quite certain, equally seething within.
* * *
The ladies of Grosvenor Square were leaving the breakfast table, several days later, when the next blow fell.
At first Sophie thought she had put a foot wrong, turned an ankle, stumbled over her own feet as she occasionally did when lost in thought. But the momentary disorientation persisted, and catching the back of a chair as she passed it failed to arrest her dizzy downward momentum. When next she blinked her eyes open, the view was of Joanna’s and Gwendolen’s faces, wide-eyed with alarm; behind them, Lady Maëlle’s, bending closer; behind her, the ceiling of the breakfast-room. Some great invisible weight pressed down upon her lungs; her pulse thrummed in her throat, in her ears; the room dimmed, brightened, dimmed again; an oppressive silence closed in about her, broken only by a sharp shock of distress which, after a frozen moment, she recognised as Gray’s rather than her own.
The pain was vicious but short-lived, but the relief of its going was entirely eclipsed, for with it went her faint but ever-present sense of her own magick.
Panicked, she sank deeper, forgetting such mundane concerns as sight and sound and breath in the frantic search for this one quintessential thing. At last, farther down and farther in and smaller and fainter than ever before, but still unmistakably there, she found what she sought, and the relief of it nearly shattered her concentration. But Sophie’s experience of magickal catastrophe had heavily featured not only her own magick but Gray’s, too; and so, having reassured herself that the one remained intact, if strangely subdued, she could not help also seeking after the other.
This took longer—or so it seemed; she had no real sense of how much time might be passing, or how little, whilst she swam these half-familiar depths—but by narrowing her focus again, again, again, she at last perceived the faint, fra
gile thread of Gray’s magick, thrumming the same reassuring deep blue-green. But even this was not quite as it ought to be; shivering up the fine-drawn link, as she listened, there came a note of some altogether alien magick.
No: not one note, one magick, but many.
Gray, I thank all the gods that you are alive and well; but what in Hades are you about?
* * *
“Sophie, thank all the gods!”
Sophie let her eyes close briefly, then opened them again, confused and assessing: her own bed in Jenny’s house; Joanna at her bedside, hollow-eyed with lack of sleep; a bright stripe of morning light through the narrow gap in the window-curtains. Tomorrow morning, then.
Her head ached, and the rest of her felt limp and worn out, but her vision was undimmed, Joanna’s voice came clearly to her ears, and best of all, when she felt for her magick, she found it near at hand and burning brightly. The link to Gray’s magick, too, was easily found and tested, and seemed to have regained its former strength.
But the sense of some other persons’ presence was undiminished, and the jarring note spoilt the otherwise perfectly expected harmony between Gray’s magick and her own.
“Sophie!” Joanna’s tone of real alarm disturbed the fragile equilibrium Sophie had only just succeeded in reestablishing.
“What is it?” she said, wallowing up from the pillows to look her sister in the eyes.
Joanna blinked. “You . . . were not answering me,” she said, after a moment, sounding a trifle sheepish. “For a very long time, Sophie. I did not know where you had gone.”
“I was looking inwards,” said Sophie, “and looking for Gray. I am sorry to have alarmed you.”
Reaching out, she caught Joanna’s hands in hers.
“Looking for Gray?” Joanna said. “Looking, how?”
How to explain it to Joanna, who could experience magick only from the outside—and not always then?
A Season of Spells (A Noctis Magicae Novel) Page 42
