And speaking of fearing the worst…
But before he could open his mouth, Bibbie’s hackles were up. “Oh, no,” she said, fists clenched by her slender hips. “We are not being left behind in this palace like children.”
“Left behind?” Melissande echoed. “Not attend the fireworks, you mean? Sorry Gerald, that’s out of the question. Hartwig’s barge departs on the tour as soon as the display is over. We have to be on board with the rest of the guests.”
“No, you don’t,” he protested weakly. “You could say you’re feeling poorly, then catch up in a carriage first thing tomorrow.”
“No,” said Melissande. “If I try to stay behind, Hartwig will make a fuss and that’ll draw everyone’s attention. Hardly what I’d call being a secret agent.”
Feeling unfairly put upon, Gerald glared at the girls. If only between them they’d bloody well stop being right.
“Fine,” he snapped. “And for pity’s sake, it’s Algernon. Now, can we please go and interview Hartwig?”
“Actually…” Melissande pulled a face. “It might be best if you let me tackle Hartwig on my own. According to poor Brunelda he’s in rather a prickly mood after the tainted crab puff calamity. I might have to-” Blushing, she cleared her throat. “-sweet talk him into chatting with me. And if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not have an audience.”
As if he had a choice. Without Melissande’s help he was hobbled, and she knew it. “All right. But go now. And if Hartwig gets sticky, promise him his picture will appear next to the article. That way you probably won’t be able to shut him up.”
Melissande bit her lip. “D’you really think the Lanruvians are behind this plot to ruin the wedding?”
“I think they’re sneaky, devious bastards with something nefarious shoved up their silk sleeves,” he said. “Possibly hexes to turn Hartwig’s fireworks into a conflagration. Now, please, Melissande, would you go? The clock is ticking.”
“Yes, yes,” she said, reaching for her fox-fur stole. “But until I get back just you stay in the bathroom. There’ll be a maid along any minute and you’ve no idea how their tongues wag.”
Nearly five hours later, almost halfway across the Canal in a stolen boat scarcely bigger than a bathtub, Gerald paused his rowing through the late autumn’s swiftly falling dusk to catch his breath and mop the sweat of exertion from his brow.
Saint Snodgrass save me. If it turns out I am imagining things I’ll never hear the end of it.
But he wasn’t. He knew he wasn’t. And once he’d saved the day, surely no-one would care how he’d done it, or why he’d been so certain the night’s fireworks were in danger. Besides, even if he’d not been so bone-shakingly sure, still he’d have acted. Because if he failed to trust his instincts, let the chance of humiliation stay his hand, and his instincts were proven right? If people were hurt, or worse, if they were killed? Sir Alec really would clap him in irons then throw away the key.
And I’d never forgive myself.
So now here he was, dangerously shrouded in a no-see-’em hex, cultivating blisters as he rowed a purloined, barely Canal-worthy wooden box out to the nearest tethered firework-laden pontoon, while eager crowds of sightseers thronged both sides of the Canal and the wedding party with its glittering comet’s tail of guests was boarding Crown Prince Hartwig’s royal barge in eager anticipation of the imminent fireworks display.
Watching over his shoulder, Gerald felt a nasty sizzle of nerves. Damn. If only the barge wasn’t anchored quite so close to those burdened, possibly lethal pontoons.
Because the evening’s entertainment was intended as a warm up to the big celebration slated to take place on the night of the wedding, there were only three fireworks pontoons for him to investigate. Thanks to Melissande’s clever questioning of the Crown Prince, he knew that each configuration of fireworks was thaumaturgically sequenced and controlled by Radley Blayling, the Ottish wizard who’d designed the display. And since Melissande had managed to wangle herself a last-minute introduction to the man, with himself as her faithful scribe, taking copious notes, he was confident-well, as confident as he could be, anyway-that Blayling was an innocent pawn in the plot.
Which meant the Lanruvians-if it was the Lanruvians- had somehow, whether by bribery, corruption, serendipity, illegal thaumaturgics or a wicked combination thereof, managed to tamper with the fireworks themselves. And if he failed to uncover the mischief in time…
Sweating anew, but not from exertion, Gerald started rowing again. Such a bugger he couldn’t use a speed-’em-up hex as well. But with the chance of compromised fireworks’ thaumaturgics close by, he didn’t dare risk it. The speed-’em-up was too volatile to risk.
Off to the right, Hartwig’s imposing royal barge glittered and twinkled, bedecked like a queen. Lamps like vividly coloured jewels were strung stem to stern, and across the placid waters of the Canal floated strains of bright music and laughter as the wedding revellers kicked up their heels, sublimely unaware that in the light-flickered shadows danger and death crouched with bared teeth, waiting.
He tried not to imagine the barge exploding in flames. Tried not to hear the screams of the injured and dying. To see Bibbie and Melissande, dying.
It can’t happen. It won’t happen. I’m not going to let it.
The dreadful sense of danger that had swamped him in the palace dining room, that haunted him now, drove him to forget the sweat stinging his eyes, the blisters stinging his palms and fingers, the fire burning in his shoulders and back. He rowed and rowed, knowing countless lives depended on him. That Bibbie depended on him. That he was the only thing standing between her and cruel murder.
Don’t worry, Bibs. I’ll protect you.
He nearly fell headfirst out of the stupid little boat, trying to climb onto the first tethered fireworks pontoon. Panting, heart scudding, he knelt precariously on the unsteady platform, unfurled his magnified potentia and touched it to the wards set to safeguard the complicated thaumaturgics bound up in the bundles of gunpowder and assorted chemicals. They surrendered to him without protest. Ha. Blayling might be a genius with fireworks, but he was rubbish at protective hexes. And wasn’t that a worry? Tampering made simple.
But the fireworks hadn’t been altered. Not these ones, at least.
Daunted only by the knowledge that time was fast running out, he clambered back in the little boat and rowed hard for the second pontoon. Took the risk of staying put, this time, and looking for imminent danger from slightly afar. Still nothing. Pouring sweat now, come on, Dunnywood, row faster, he headed for the third and final pontoon. Stretched out his senses with a desperate gasp, knowing this had to be it, knowing the danger was here, had to be here With a deafening whoosh and an eye-searing flash of light, the floating pontoon of fireworks ignited in a brilliant ball of kaleidoscope colour. He heard the crowd’s full-throated roar of delight and wonder. Heard his own shout of angry despair.
And then, for Gerald Dunwoody, the fireworks ended.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Ow! Melissande, d’you mind?”
“Not at all, Mister Rowbotham,” said Melissande, cheerfully dabbing a disgusting green ointment on his blistered chin. “Now stop being such a baby. You’re hardly scorched at all.”
“Actually,” Gerald retorted, “I’m scorched quite a bit!”
Not to mention embarrassed, stripped down to his still-damp long underwear with his bare torso all exposed. Melissande, bless her, was turning a blind eye, paying him no more attention than if he’d been a horse. She’d even quashed Bibbie, whose utter lack of maidenly modesty had threatened to take full flight.
“And whose fault is that?” said Monk’s incorrigible sister, the fiendishly unsympathetic love of his life, perched on the edge of the bed in Melissande’s magnificent stateroom aboard Hartwig’s royal barge. “I told you to be careful, didn’t I?”