“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-” She 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.”