Wizard Undercover

by K. E. Mills

  The damp little man waved a hand, pretending indifference. The beads of sweat rolling down his face told another story. He’d been placing scallop-edged, gold-chased name cards at each setting on the official wedding table. She had to wonder if he realised his fingers were slowly crumpling the ones he had left.

  “Princess Melissande,” he said, close to squeaking. “I didn’t hear you come in. Was there something you wanted?”

  She looked around the palace’s state dining room, which had been decorated all over again for the post-nuptial feast. A few servants were adding some finishing touches: silver streamers, potted flowers, ribbon rosettes in crimson and royal blue, each one centred with a simpering portrait of the happy couple.

  “It all looks lovely, Secretary Gertz,” she said, hoping to charm him. “You should be very proud.”

  “Yes, yes, thank you,” he said. “It’s a blessed occasion.” His eyebrows pinched. “Rather rushed now, of course, with the wedding tour being cancelled.”

  “Which is my fault. I know,” she said. “That’s why I’ve come to see you, Secretary Gertz. I’m at a bit of a loose end, and I thought you might like an extra pair of hands. My way of making things up to you.”

  Secretary Gertz stared as though she’d grown another head. “But—you’re a Royal Highness, Your Highness.”

  “True. For my sins. But that doesn’t precisely make me incompetent.”

  “But—but—” Gertz looked around the dining room, his expression hunted. “Your secretary. Your lady’s maid. Surely it’s more appropriate that they should—”

  “Well, yes, but they’re not here,” she said, unable to take her eyes from the expensive place cards he was slowly destroying. “I gave them leave to visit the township.”

  Gertz, realising at last the mess he was making, dropped the ruined cards on the official table as though they’d burst into flame.

  “You sent your servants away? You’re unaccompanied?”

  She shrugged. “Only for an hour or so. I had to do it, Secretary Gertz. After that awful business at the Hanging Bridge, Slack could do nothing but burst into tears. She was getting on my nerves. I thought an outing with Rowbotham might cheer her up.”

  “I see,” said Gertz, clearly not seeing at all. “Well, Your Highness. I’m sure if your brother His Majesty King Rupert has no objection to his royal sister being left unchaperoned, then I have nothing to say on the matter.”

  Fresh sweat was trickling down Gertz’s thin, sallow cheeks. A nervous tic flickered beside his left eye. He was looking positively ill with wedding strain. Though he irritated her, to her surprise Melissande felt a welling of sympathy.

  “Are you all right, Mister Secretary?” she asked. “After what happened, I mean? You were even closer to danger than I was, and I know it gave me a nasty turn.”

  Gertz tugged at the high, braid-covered collar of his official uniform tunic. “Yes. I am. Thank you for your asking, Your Highness. It was a most unpleasant experience, but it’s behind us now and that’s all that matters.”

  He didn’t look like a man who’d left a brush with death behind him, but there was no point contradicting him.

  “So, Secretary Gertz, is there a way I can help?”

  Looking hunted again, Gertz surrendered to the inevitable, produced a white silk handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face. “I suppose—if you insist—you might pass a message to Mister Ibblie,Your Highness. He should be in his office on the fourth floor. If you’d remind him that Goby must follow the musical program as it has been arranged then I would be—”

  “I’m sorry, but who—?”

  “Goby,” said Gertz, sounding almost impatient. “Dowager Queen Erminium’s music master. He’s conducting tonight’s ensemble at the reception prior to the wedding ceremony.” Another flourish with the handkerchief. “Twice now in rehearsal he has substituted his own compositions for those of Crown Prince Hartwig’s court composer.” An offended sniff. “It seems that the honour of conducting the ensemble is insufficient to Goby’s needs. I have spoken with him most directly, but he seems determined to go his own way. If he should try the same knavish trick tonight then I tell you plainly I shan’t be responsible for the consequences!”

  Oh dear. Politics and Erminium. A lethal combination. No wonder the poor man was on the brink of a breakdown.

  “Yes, Secretary Gertz, I quite understand,” Melissande said gravely. “It would be a debacle.”

  “These bloody Borovniks,” Gertz said under his breath, surprisingly savage. “It’s a pity we never drowned them in the Canal when we had the chance.”

  A mutually shocked silence, as they stared at each other.

  “Oh my,” Gertz said faintly. “Oh dear. Your Highness, forgive me, I—”

  She held up her hand. “No. No. It’s quite all right, Leopold. I didn’t hear a thing. I’ll just—I’ll go and see Secretary Ibblie now. Good day.”

  Leaving Hartwig’s damp, distraught Secretary of State to his card placing, she took herself off to see Ibblie. And as she toiled up the stairs, thought: Poor little Leopold. I think the pressure has finally got to him. A good thing for his sake it’s all nearly over.

  Mister Ibblie, having risen to greet her, took the news of Erminium’s music master with commendable equanimity.

  “Yes, Your Highness, I was aware there’d been …”A diplomatic smile. “Some friction. Should the chance arise, you might reassure Secretary Gertz that steps have been taken to contain Master Goby’s—” A pause. “Unbridled enthusiasm.”

  Impressed, Melissande nodded. “He’ll be very pleased to hear it, Mister Ibblie. I’m afraid Secretary Gertz is a little overwhelmed just now.” Then she winced. “Oh. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that. Only, to be brutally frank with you, sir, I’m not entirely convinced he’s as sanguine about the accident at Lake Yablitz as he’d like everyone to think. And since Hartwig—the Crown Prince, I mean—relies on him so heavily—and, indeed, since they’re family—”

  Ibblie offered her a small bow from the other side of his desk, which was thickly papered with notes and memos and scribblings. It brought back not-so-fond memories of her time as practically a prime minister.

  “The gracious delicacy of your feelings, Princess Melissande, does you great credit,” Ibblie replied. “If I may be so bold as to say? And might I also say that I, for one, am most grateful that you saw to the safe return of our wedding party.” He shuddered. “So much rests on the success of this marriage. Any threat to it must be seen as a threat to both nations.”

  “Mister Ibblie,” she said, completely charmed, “I could not agree more. And if I might say something else, intending no offence? If ever the day should come when you feel the need for new surroundings—notwithstanding your natural allegiance to your homeland, of course—I wish you would come to me. My brother, King Rupert, is always in need of good men upon whose expertise and counsel he can rely.”

  And who aren’t staring the age of ninety-four in the face.

  Another bow. “Your Highness, I am deeply touched,” said Ibblie. “And I shall remember your flattering offer.”

  “Do, Mister Ibblie,” she said. “Now, unless there’s something I can help you with, I’ll return to the Secretary and set his mind at ease over the Dowager Queen’s music master.”

  “Thank you, Your Highness, that’s very kind,” said Ibblie. “But I’m tolerably confident I have everything under control. Although—”

  “Yes?” she said, helpfully.

  Ibblie was staring at a hand-scrawled note, his expression fastidiously displeased. “It has just been brought to my attention, Your Highness, that the Lanruvians have departed Splotze. Without, I might add, formally informing the Crown Prince.”

  “Departed?” She stared. “You mean they’re not attending the fireworks? Or the reception? None of it?”

  Ibblie let the note drop. “Apparently not.”

  “But … what about their cherries? I thought they wanted to sell you thei
r cherries?”

  If he was surprised that she knew of that, he was too self-disciplined to let it show. “I’m afraid I couldn’t say, Your Highness. The ways of Lanruvia are a mystery to me.”

  And me, Melissande thought, staggered. So does this mean they were never part of the plot against the wedding?

  She had no idea. She couldn’t begin to imagine what Gerald was going to say.

  “Mister Ibblie, I’m astonished. Does Hartwig know?”

  “He does not,” said Mister Ibblie. “But if you could inform Secretary Gertz, then the Secretary could inform the Crown Prince. That is the proper way such news is delivered.”

  In other words, You and Hartwig might be chummy, but I’d rather you kept your nose out of this.

  And she was more than happy to oblige.

  Leaving Ibblie to his ruthlessly efficient organisation, she went back downstairs to Leopold Gertz and gave him the good news about the music master, followed by the bad news about the Lanruvians. Then she escaped the state dining room—Gertz’s agitation was contagious—and, unsettlingly adrift, wandered aimlessly around the armour display in the palace’s Grand Entrance Hall.

  What use am I now? None. Gerald and Bibbie don’t need my help to investigate the fireworks. Mister Ibblie doesn’t need me. Leopold Gertz doesn’t want me. And neither does Ratafia any more. Even Ludwig’s cross, since I upset his little snowbud. Hartwig would be pleased to see me, but I don’t think I could cope with his wandering hands.

  The enormous clock in the hall chimed a quarter to three. Lord, it was hours yet before she needed to dress for the fireworks. Assuming, of course, that they went ahead. Assuming Gerald and Bibbie didn’t blow them up early, by accident, or discover some terrible thaumaturgical tampering they couldn’t undo and had to call a halt to the whole event.

  I could read a book, I suppose. Or knit.

  And then she had an idea. Mitzie! She should do the right thing and visit Bibbie’s sad little kitchen maid. See how the girl was faring, make sure she didn’t need anything.

  Now with something useful to do, Melissande abandoned the horse armour and spiked dog collars—though really, in hindsight, they’d have come in rather useful around Hartwig— and made her way below stairs to the palace’s vast kitchens.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Down in Hartwig’s underground kitchens, Melissande found a level of busyness to make an anthill look lazy. Kitchen maids and pot boys and under-cooks and spit turners and an assortment of culinary dogsbodies scurried under the lash of the highly strung—but apparently sober—head Cook’s sharp tongue. The lamplit air was rich with the mouth-watering aromas of roasting meats, frying meats, baking pies, stewing fruit, boiling sugar syrup and cakes cooling on racks. Knives scythed against sharpeners, pots and pans rattled, oven doors slammed. Someone dropped a plate. Shouts mingled with the smashing. Someone else cut themselves, and curses curdled the thick air.

  Unnoticed at the foot of the staircase linking kitchen complex to palace, Melissande took in the mayhem with appalled admiration. Hartwig’s kitchens made Rupert’s look like child’s play. Even Lional, whose appetite for fine food and entertaining had been far from modest, never achieved a choreographed pandemonium like this.

  A pot boy staggered by her, burdened with dirty saucepans. She stopped him with a smile and a raised hand.

  “Essa?” he said, fox-red curls lank with steam and grease, eyes wide with surprise at the sight of a well-dressed lady.

  Essa. That was Splotzin. Of course the child didn’t speak Ottish. And she hadn’t even a smattering of his tongue. What was essa? Yes?

  “Mitzie?” she said hopefully, and pointed to the outer kitchen where a couple of maids were frantically working. Then she pointed to herself. “Mitzie.”

  The boy was young but not ignorant. He grinned. “Mitzie, essa.” A jerk of his chin suggested that she stand where she was, then he staggered away.

  Eager to avoid a confrontation with the near-hysterical cook, Melissande shuffled into a conveniently shadowed corner and waited.

  “Psst. Miss! Miss? Were you wanting me?”

  She turned, and saw a kitchen maid’s astonished face peering round a nearby whitewashed archway. “Are you Mitzie?”

  Nodding, the incredulous maid stepped into view. She was a plumply pretty lass, her plain blue dress swathed in a juice-stained white apron, with a limp white cap on her curls and her cheeks pink from the hot ovens.

  With another cautious look in the loud cook’s direction, Melissande darted to the archway. “Mitzie, I’m Princess Melissande of New Ottosland. I was wondering if you had a moment to talk, but—” Another look at the kitchens. A few of the bustling staff had noticed her, but were too busy to stop and point and stare. If that changed … “Perhaps this isn’t a good time.”

  Mitzie’s mouth dropped open. “You’re Gladys’s princess?”

  Oh, thank Saint Snodgrass. “I am. Gladys told me all about you, Mitzie. I just wanted to see if you were—Mitzie? Mitzie! What’s the matter?”

  The kitchen maid’s cheeks had blushed a deeper pink, and she seemed on the point of tears. “Oh, Miss! Are you come to help me with Ferdie?”

  Help her with—Oh, lord. Heart racing, Melissande took the girl’s arm. Abel Bestwick’s alive? “Mitzie? Are you saying you know where Ferdie is?”

  With an anguished glance at the head cook, who had his back to them for the moment, Mitzie pressed a finger to her lips, then daringly took hold of Melissande’s sleeve.

  “Will you come, Miss?” she whispered, almost tugging. “Please?”

  Melissande nodded. “Of course.”

  She hurried after the maid, who whisked through the kitchen labyrinth like a field mouse going to ground. They scuttled past rows of benches, bake ovens, spit ovens, an enormous pantry, the buttery, the cold larder and the wet larder and the hanging room ripe with game.

  “Up here, Miss. To the servants’ wing. Mind your step,” said Mitzie, and after ducking between two halves of a heavy leather curtain they toiled up a narrow, winding staircase, higher and higher, up to the miserly maids’ rooms beneath the palace’s lofty roof.

  “Ferdie’s in here, Miss,” said Mitzie, stopping at a door painted a dingy dark green. It was the last room in the narrow corridor leading off the staircase landing. A small, grimy window leaked grudging light onto the uneven timber floor. “I leave a lamp lit. Oh, Miss, I know it’s wrong of me, but I been hiding him. I had to. He’s my Ferdie. And oh, Miss, he idn’t a bad man, he’s only in trouble.”

  Melissande, still panting after the staircase, pressed her palm to the girl’s flushed cheek, then took the small brass key that was fumbled into her grasp. “Bless you, Mitzie. You were right to tell me. And as for hiding him, well, you’ll likely never know what a good thing you’ve done.”

  “Miss, I can’t stay,” the maid said, her eyes anxious. “They’ll be shouting for me in the kitchens.”

  And the last thing either of them needed was a Mitzie hunt, raising a ruckus and making inconvenient discoveries. “You go. I’ll talk to Ferdie. And Mitzie?”

  “Yes, Miss?”

  “Don’t you worry,” Melissande said, patting the girl’s arm. “We’ll sort this out. You’ll not get in trouble, I give you my word.”

  Mitzie’s dimples were as pretty as Bibbie’s. “Thank you, Miss. I’ll find you later, if that’s all right.”

  “Yes, yes. Now go!”

  The dingy green door swung open with a soft creak. Melissande slipped into the room beyond and pushed the door until she heard its latch quietly click. Then, clutching the key, she turned and looked around. A small room, holding only a single bed, a chest of drawers, an elderly wardrobe and one rickety wooden chair. It was pushed next to the bed, a dim oil lamp burning on it.

  Close to tip-toe, she crossed to the bed and touched her fingers to the bare shoulder of the man asleep beneath its blanket. “Ferdie. Can you hear me?”

  With a muffled oath the man startled awake,
twisting away from her. His breath caught, a sound of sharp pain. The lamplight fell over his face, revealing cheeks stubbled and sunken, eyes bright with lingering fever. A plain face. Unremarkable. A Sir Alec kind of face, that wasn’t noticed in a crowd.

  “Who the devil are you?” he demanded hoarsely. “And how the hell did you find me?”

  “Mitzie.” Ignoring his curse, she sat on the edge of the bed. “As for me, I’m Melissande Cadwallader. And you are Abel Bestwick. Sir Alec’s man in Splotze.”

  Sir Alec’s man in Splotze choked. “What?”

  Oh dear. Was he going to be difficult? “Look, Mister Bestwick, we don’t have much time. I know who you are, I know why you’re here, and I know about the message you got through to Sir Alec. He’s sent in another janitor. Gerald Dunwoody. D’you know him?”

  With a pained effort, Bestwick shoved and wriggled until he was sitting up against his pillow. The blanket fell to his waist, revealing faded bruises and a bloodstained bandage wrapped around his skinny ribs.

  “No,” he said, his eyes hard with suspicion. “And I’ve never heard of you.”

  “Well, actually, you might’ve,” she said. “I’m also known as Princess Melissande of New Ottosland.”

  “I’ve heard of New Ottosland,” Bestwick said grudgingly.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake,” she muttered. “Will you at least admit you know Sir Alec? Medium height, brown hair, grey eyes, a disturbing habit of chilly sarcasm? Does that ring a bell?”

  A cautious nod.

  “And Monk Markham? Don’t you dare tell me you’ve never heard of him!”

  Another cautious nod. “Who hasn’t?”

  “Well, it’s a start,” she said, cross with relief. “Mister Bestwick—Abel—I do appreciate this is confusing. And that you’re under strict instructions not to reveal your true identity. But I think we’re a bit past that now, don’t you?”

  Mutely, he stared at her.

  “Abel, please, you must believe me!” she said, trying not to sound desperate. “I’m not secretly working for the Jandrians or the Lanruvians or whoever the enemy is this week. I’m on your side! Gerald and I and Monk Markham’s sister are trying to finish what you started and stop whoever’s out to ruin the Splotze-Borovnik wedding. We’ve already foiled one attempt that we’re sure of. There might’ve been more, but—”