by K. E. Mills
Another kiss, this time accompanied by an ardent look from beneath his wildly untrimmed greying eyebrows. Gerald had to bite his cheek at the way Melissande’s face fixed itself in an expression of coy delight.
“Not at all, Hartwig,” she said, her voice shifted from simpering to strangled. “But if you could send for someone to show me upstairs, and see that my luggage goes up too, I’d be very grateful.”
The Crown Prince’s eyes gleamed. “How grateful?”
Melissande slid her hand free and turned. “Oh, yes, and Hartwig, dear, I should make my staff known to you. I hope you don’t mind that I brought a staff with me. It’s Rupert, you know. Such a stickler for the proprieties. And d’you know, I did rather promise the New Ottosland Times that I’d record a few memories of this momentous occasion, for their readers to peruse and enjoy. So to keep Rupert happy there’s Slack— step forward, Slack, and curtsey to the Crown Prince—and to fulfill my obligations to the Times, there’s my secretary, Rowbotham. Yes, my good man, bow. So that’s who they are, should you see them flitting about the place.”
The Crown Prince of Splotze barely spared them a glance. Not even Gladys Slack’s lithe curtsey and trim figure seemed to disturb him.
“Yes, yes, of course it’s all right you’ve brought a staff, Melissande,” Hartwig said, still fatuously smiling. “Good God, only two? You should see how many hangers-on have accompanied the Marquis of Harenstein! I’ve bloody near had to build a whole new wing to the palace, excuse my Babishkian. And as for Dowager Queen Erminium—” He swallowed, hard. “But there you have it, it’s her daughter who’s marrying Ludwig so I expect that can’t be helped. A piddling two servants? You, my dear, are the very model of restraint. And as for sending you upstairs with a lackey, shame on you for asking. I’ll take you up myself. So, shall we?”
Capturing Melissande’s arm, Crown Prince Hartwig led the way out of the portal chamber. Gerald tipped his head at Bibbie, who tilted her chin, and they fell into step behind.
“So, Twiggy, aside from the bride-to-be and her party, and the Marquis of Harenstein, who else is here?” said Melissande, as they climbed the palace’s spectacularly swooping central staircase. The walls were hugely frescoed with scenes from classical myth: Devonia and the Bull, the Blind Twins of Teresco, the Ascension of the Lark. Very little had been left to the imagination, but instead of modestly averting her gaze Bibbie was avidly staring. Well. Avidly staring in the manner of a demure lady’s maid. Gerald, watching sideways, had to grudgingly admit she was doing a good job with her disguise.
“Who else?” said the Crown Prince, supremely indifferent to the bows and curtseys coming at him from all directions, as dozens of harried-looking servants rushed about in a pre-wedding frenzy. “Let’s see. So far we’ve got the guests from Harenstein, Blonkken, Graff and Aframbigi cluttering up the place. Can’t take a step without falling over one of them. Still waiting for Ottosland’s foreign minister. He’s cutting it fine, since we’re leaving on the grand wedding tour day after tomorrow, but that’s Ottosland for you. Always expecting the world to wait on its pleasure.” He cleared his throat. “No offense meant, of course. I mean, you’ve only arrived just now but that’s different. Old friends, you and I, Melly. Not about to stand upon ceremony with you.”
“Oh, there’s no offense taken, Twiggy,” said Melissande airily. “Feel free to insult Ottosland all you like. New Ottosland is quite definitely its own country. And what’s more, I know exactly what you mean about the government types of Ott. Quite unbearably autocratic, most of them.”
“Yes, aren’t they,” said the Crown Prince, with feeling. “But how do you know?”
Melissande shrugged. “Oh, I spend rather a lot of my time in Ott, these days, on Rupert’s behalf, and what with one thing and another I’ve come to know its government denizens quite well.”
“My dear,” said the Crown Prince, pressing Melissande’s hand. “You have all my sympathy.”
As the staircase continued to unwind above them, they left the frescoes behind and entered a world of old, cracked paintings and more moth-eaten stuffed animal heads. Keeping a blank face with some difficulty, Gerald couldn’t help remembering his arrival at Lional’s palace, and a similarly endless tramp to his apartments with Melissande as his guide.
Bloody hell. This mission better not turn out to be New Ottosland all over again.
If for no other reason than this time he didn’t have Reg around to save his hide.
Wheezing as they tackled the next flight of stairs, Splotze’s Crown Prince spared Melissande a curious look. “So you’re swanning about Ott at old Rupert’s behest, eh? Funny. I could’ve sworn Brunelda showed me a newspaper photo a while ago, of you with some young jackanapes, talking about you starting up a witching agency or something. Not even calling yourself by your proper title. Extraordinary. Brunelda read that and needed her smelling salts brought.”
“Oh,” said Melissande, after the merest hesitation. “Really? Well, can you ever believe what you read in the newspaper? I mean, really?”
“So it’s poppycock? Oh, good. Brunelda will be pleased.”
“Not exactly poppycock,” Melissande said, cautious. “It is true I’m dabbling in a little thaumaturgic venture, but that’s for Rupert too. He has plans for New Ottosland, you see, and it’s easier for me to look into certain opportunities than it is for him, being the king. You know what that’s like.”
The Crown Prince laughed, wheezily, then guided them off the staircase and onto a landing which led to a long narrow corridor. “I certainly do. If only the common man knew what we suffered, bearing the burden of a crown.”
As Bibbie gurgled a little in her throat, Gerald managed, but only just, not to swallow his tongue.
“So, Twiggy,” said Melissande, apparently unmoved by the Crown Prince’s ludicrous lament. “Is anyone else joining us on the wedding tour?”
“Oh, did I forget to mention them?” said the Crown Prince, sounding gloomy. “There is one more guest, yes. Lanruvia.”
“Really?” said Melissande, surprised. “Lanruvia?”
She wasn’t the only one who’d not expected that. Gerald felt his pulse race. Lanruvia? Sir Alec was going to go spare.
“But why Lanruvia?” Melissande persisted. “Splotze doesn’t have much to do with them, does it?”
The Crown Prince shuddered. “No. Of course not. But someone—don’t recall who—insisted on an invitation for them. A last minute thing. Can’t say I’m thrilled about it, but no one’s interested in my opinion. I’m here to foot the bill and keep out of the way.”
“Oh, Twiggy,” said Melissande, and sounded genuinely sorry. “It can’t be that bad.”
Crown Prince Hartwig halted in front of a wide set of double doors. “You wait. You’ll see. Now, here we are, my dear. Your secretary’s at the end of the corridor, the green door, and you’re in here. Don’t fret about your things, they’ll be brought up in a trice.” He cleared his throat. “These were my mother’s rooms, y’know. Wouldn’t give them to anyone else.”
“Oh, Twiggy,” said Melissande. “Don’t you dare make me cry. Just be about your important business and leave me to settle in.”
“Well!” said Bibbie, as soon as the Crown Prince was safely on his way back down the staircase. “What a ghastly old man. I hate to admit it, but Mother’s right. Aside from your brother, Melissande, I can’t think what the rest of the world sees in royalty!”
Melissande sighed. “No, well, I expect you need to have been brought up with it. Now d’you mind if we don’t stand in the corridor gossiping? There’ll be a maid along any moment and it’s bound to look odd.”
Gerald cleared his throat. “Actually, you two can settle in without me. I need to get cracking. Sir Alec’s anxious that I nose about Bestwick’s lodgings, just in case he’s still there, or left something behind if he’s not.”
“Still there?” said Bibbie. “But if he’s still there after all this time, won’t that mean—” Sh
e wrinkled her nose. “Oh. That’s disgusting.”
“No, Miss Slack, it’s my job,” he said, repressive. “So if you’ll excuse me? And don’t worry if I’m gone a while. These things tend to take time.”
“Wait,” said Melissande, as he turned away. “You can’t go alone. If there is a plot afoot, you could be in danger. Bibbie and I should—”
“No, you shouldn’t!” he snapped. “Are you mad? There might well be all kinds of classified material where I’m going and if there is and I let you see it, Sir Alec will pillage me. You two are here as Rupert’s royal sister and a meek little lady’s maid. You’re going to stay here and be them. Understood?”
Not waiting for an answer, he left the girls standing in the corridor and headed down the stairs.
CHAPTER EIGHT
On the Gerald Dunwoody list of Things To Do, visit Splotze had always ranked high. It was a country of great natural beauty, with deep lakes and richly forested mountains, rippling green meadows and picture-perfect milch cows and goats. The headily potent cherry liqueur his parents had brought back from their trip-of-a-lifetime, Splotze’s most famous and lucrative export, was a pretty decent incentive too. If he had time, he’d have to buy himself a bottle or several while he was here.
And who knows? he considered, tromping down yet another flight of opulent stairs. It could be that with this marriage between Splotze and Borovnik, always assuming I can prevent it falling apart at the last minute, there’ll be lots of trade benefits and liqueur prices might actually come down.
In which case somebody, somewhere, would surely owe him a medal. Or possibly a lifetime’s supply of Splotze cherry liqueur. After all, a man could dream …
Nobody in Crown Prince Hartwig’s anthill-busy palace paid attention to him as he descended to its imposing ground floor Grand Entrance hall. In keeping with the country’s martial past—indeed, its martial present, thanks to all those tedious bloody Canal skirmishes—the hall was crowded with an amazing array of armour for man, horse and dog. Though fashioned for violence, the pieces were also works of art. Chased with intricate etching, loops and whirls and filigrees of infinite variety, inlaid with gold and copper and semi-precious stones, they stood testament to the irrepressible human urge to create beauty even out of barbarity.
Carefully, Gerald lowered his etheretic shield a little and examined the impressive collection through the lens of his potentia. To his surprise, he felt nothing. Not so much as one visor, greave, gauntlet or spiked dog collar had been fashioned with the use of thaumaturgics. Only good old fashioned love, blood and sweat had gone into their creation. That the pieces had been crafted long before ratification of the United Magical Nations’ accords prohibiting the manufacture of thaumaturgical weapons made it even more astonishing.
Just as impressive was the fact that he couldn’t detect any trace of thaumaturgical residue on the exterior of the armour, either. Which meant that the battles fought by the armour’s inhabitants had also been fought the old-fashioned way.
He wasn’t sure whether he should feel admiring, or appalled.
Sliding his shield back into place, he headed for the palace’s grand and guarded entrance. Still no-one challenged him. Interesting. Once someone was inside the palace it seemed nobody cared who they were or what they were doing. The assumption was, apparently, that anyone who was inside the palace belonged because they were inside. A definite lapse in security, there.
On the other hand, unless visitors were portalling directly to Hartwig’s little personal indulgence, the only public way into the palace was through its grand front doors. And that meant enduring the stern scrutiny of six tall guardsmen ranged across the foyer, a few paces from the doors. They wore suggestively militant uniforms of dark blue and gold, unsheathed daggers belted at their trim, muscular waists, and carried very tall, very sharp double-pronged pikes. It was a safe bet neither weapon was for decoration.
So that’s something done right, at least, Gerald thought, relieved. Because being a rogue wizard doesn’t make me a one-man army.
For a moment he was tempted to hex the guards with a no-see-’em, to make sure that Algernon Rowbotham was able to move about the place freely. But would that be wise? What if there was a changing of the guard while he was out breaking into Abel Bestwick’s lodgings? Well, yes, he could simply hex the new guards too, on his return, but either way he’d be bumping into the same problem. The no-see-’em incant was slippery and powerful. He’d have to switch off his etheretic shield entirely to use it, which would leave him vulnerable to detection by the thaumic gauges and monitors and tripwires and so forth riddling the place. And since most of them had been developed by Monk and his friends in Research and Development, he’d be detected.
Or would he?
Heart sinking, he looked the answer to that square in its face. No. He’d not be detected. Not if he took advantage of his unique personal thaumaturgics. With a nip here and a tuck there and a bit of squirrelling with the various devices’ matrixes, he’d be able to hex the palace guards without a soul—or one of Monk’s monitors—being any the wiser.
But if I flout the rules for no better reason than just because I can, well, it makes me someone who thinks the rules are for little people. Lesser wizards. It makes me that other Gerald Dunwoody.
The thought churned him sick.
Somebody brushed past him, needing to get outside. So much frantic activity. Surely palace security was on highest alert. And yes indeed, it was, because one of the eagle-eyed, tautly attentive guards was watching him without appearing to be watching him. Not a good sign. The last thing he needed to do was raise official suspicions.
Recalling Rupert’s remarkably effective gormless butterfly prince routine, Gerald offered the interested guard a foolish, slack-lipped smile and crabbed his way close enough for conversation.
“Ah … excuse me? I say there, so sorry to bother you when you’re busy, only there’s something I feel you ought to know. Oh dear.” He rubbed at his nose, feeling its real shape beneath the obfuscation hex’s snubby illusion. “I say, d’you speak Ottish?”
The guard, a tall, bronze-skinned young fellow with typically Splotzeish ginger-red hair and a truly amazing breadth of muscled shoulders, looked down his long, narrow nose.
“Yes,” he said, his voice heavily accented. The merest hint of a sneer curling his lip suggested the question was an insult. Or perhaps being forced to sully his tongue with Ottish was the insult. According to the Department’s briefing notes, Splotze was at once dazzlingly cosmopolitan and fiercely nationalistic. It was an interesting, and sometimes combustible, combination.
Gerald risked another foolish smile. “Wonderful! Well, the thing is, y’see, I’m on Her Royal Highness Princess Melissande of New Ottosland’s staff. We’ve just arrived, through the Crown Prince’s private portal. Princess Melissande is invited to the wedding, y’know.”
The guard didn’t quite manage to swallow his sigh. Tourists. “We know the approved guests for Prince Ludwig’s wedding. Her Royal Highness is welcome to Splotze.”
“Excellent!” Gerald said, beaming. “Well, it happens I need to toddle off for a bit. And I just wanted to make sure you know who I am, so you’ll let me back into the palace when I return.”
The guard thought for a moment. “Name?”
“Rowbotham. Algernon Rowbotham.”
More thought on the part of the guard. Risking a glance at the young man’s five brothers-in-arms, Gerald saw that although their gazes remained strictly front-and-center they were closely listening, ready to take action should they perceive any threat.
Thinking concluded, the guard held out his hand. It was heavily callused, as though he spent many hours training with his dagger and his sharp, double-pronged pike.
“Papers.”
“Oh, yes. Of course,” said Gerald, and slid his own uncalloused, yet still lethal, hand inside his boring tweed coat and extracted from its concealed pocket the identity paperwork so meticulously prepared
for him by Beevish Trotter, the Department’s document specialist. “Here you are. All in order, I hope!”
The guard scanned Algernon Rowbotham’s particulars then scanned them again, for good measure. Waiting for his false identification to be approved, Gerald noted from the corner of his eye three remarkably vivid individuals mounting the marble steps leading up from the palace forecourt and into the Entrance hall.
Well, well. So the Lanruvians really are here. I wonder what for? And why Sir Alec didn’t know they’d been invited …
The Lanruvians were impossible to miss or ignore, with their scalp-locks dyed bright emerald and lips tattooed cobalt blue. Tall and disturbingly thin, the three men were swathed head to toe in sand-white woollen robes. Their shimmering skin was very nearly the same shade. One of them had beads of jet and ivory dangling from his pierced nose, marking him as his wedding party’s Spirit Speaker. The Lanruvians were thaumaturgists, after a fashion, but their etheretics were wrapped so tightly in the chains of religious mysticism that as far as the Lanruvian people were concerned they might as well not exist. On that score Lanruvians weren’t terribly unlike the Kallarapi. Only compared to them, the Kallarapi were the life of any party.
Watching the guards draw themselves that little bit taller as the Lanruvians approached, Gerald hid his consternation. With his etheretic shield engaged it was much harder to feel their inner power, but it was there, elusive as a name on the tip of his tongue. Smarmy, Crown Prince Hartwig had called them, and he wasn’t entirely wrong. There was a slickness to the Lanruvians that couldn’t sit easily with anyone who possessed an aptitude for thaumaturgics.
Blimey. I hope they’re not the ones causing trouble. Because if they were, his job was going to be nigh impossible. And then Sir Alec really will go spare.
As the Lanruvians passed unchallenged into the palace, just a rap of five pikes to the marble-covered floor in honour of the Crown Prince’s guests, the guard held out the false paperwork. “You are free to go, Mister Rowbotham, and free to return.” A sardonic smile. “Enjoy your little visit to Grande Splotze.”
