Melissande scooped more noxious green ointment onto the tip of her finger. “She did. You should’ve listened. Now do be quiet. After the lies I told Hartwig about you not attending the fireworks because you were indisposed, I can’t have the entire barge listening to you bellow like a banshee.”
“Why not?” he said, backing away from her. “You could tell them I was in the throes of agony, and you wouldn’t be far wrong!”
Melissande smeared the fresh dollop of ointment back into its pot, then held the pot out. “Suit yourself. And while you’re at it, treat yourself. But when you’re in the throes of a terrible fever, because that frequently happens with burns, I suggest you dive overboard. Maybe a dip in the Canal will save you.”
Bumped against a cupboard, trapped, Gerald looked at the smelly ointment, then at Melissande, who was glaring. His scorched bits sang a loud chorus of complaint.
Bugger. “Please finish.”
“If you insist,” said Melissande, and resumed her questionable doctoring.
Beyond the stateroom’s main porthole, Splotze’s starlit countryside glided by as Hartwig’s enormous and lavishly outfitted barge made its ponderous way down the Canal towards the next day’s first official stop at Little Grande Splotze, where they were to partake of a specially prepared luncheon and festive celebration. What a prospect. By the time this assignment was done with he’d almost certainly not fit into a single pair of his trousers.
“Mind you,” said Bibbie, idly swinging her legs, “I still can’t believe you were wrong about the fireworks.”
He glowered at her. “I wasn’t wrong.”
“Oh?” She feigned surprise. “So that wasn’t me and Melissande and those aristocratic whathaveyous and thousands of tourists ooohing and aaahing at all the pretty sparkly lights in the sky?”
“In case you’ve forgotten, Miss Slack, there are more fireworks planned,” he retorted. “I might’ve been wrong about the timing, granted, but I am not wrong about the danger.”
“Oh,” said Bibbie, and frowned. “You sound awfully definite.”
“Miss Slack, I’d bet my life on it.”
Bibbie looked at Melissande. “You’ll have to warn Hartwig. Get him to cancel the wedding fireworks. He’ll listen to you.”
Wincing as Melissande dabbed ointment on his blistered midriff, Gerald nodded. “She’s right, Melissande. The fireworks must be called off. Talk to him tonight, or at the latest first thing in the morning.”
“Well… I can try, but I doubt he’ll listen,” said Melissande. “Hartwig’s spent so much money on this wedding, you’ve no idea. Not to mention its political importance. To convince him there’s danger I’d have to give our whole game away. Sir Alec would fall in a foaming heap.”
“Not if it saved lives,” said Bibbie. “Surely.”
Melissande kept on dabbing. “Look, I’m all for saving lives. But we’ll be touring for nearly two weeks, so there is still time, isn’t there? Algernon? If we can unmask the plotters before we return to Grande Splotze, there’ll be no need to tell Hartwig anything. And lo, the happy ending, complete with fireworks and no secret agents revealed.”
And better yet, no Sir Alec in a foaming heap. “Yes, I suppose I can- ow!”
“Hold still,” said Melissande, peering at the charred patch on his ribs. “This is the worst bit. Honestly, how could you have been so silly as to get yourself blown into the Canal? It’s a wonder you made it to the barge in one piece, and undetected.”
He wanted to hop up and down, the stinging was so fierce. “I’m a wizard, remember? And I came first in swimming class. Hell’s bells, Melissande. What’s in that green muck?”
She shrugged. “I haven’t a clue. Holy Man Shugat gave it to Rupert and Rupert gave it to me. I think he said something about cactus juice blessed by the Kallarapi Gods, and possibly some interesting camel by-products, but to be honest I wasn’t really listening. All I know is that it cleared up Boris’s little problem a treat.”
Gerald stared at her, aghast, as Bibbie dissolved into giggles. “Melissande!”
“You’re welcome,” she said, and thrust his wet clothes at him, “Now go away. Get some sleep. Starting with breakfast, we’ve a lot of work to do.”
Morning saw Hartwig’s scarlet-painted, three-deck barge gliding majestically down the Canal between lush green meadows dotted with heavy uddered milch cows, who regarded them in bovine astonishment as they passed. At some point during the night they’d left behind the industrial untidiness of the cargo barge docks, and now the landscape was painted in varying themes of bucolic bliss. The sky was blue, the air crisp and florally scented. A glorious autumn day, yet empty of calamity.
But likely that would change.
The barge boasted a huge formal dining room and a dance floor, as well as two saloons, a small salon, a ladies’ salon, several games rooms and accommodation in rigorously graded sumptuosity for one hundred and fifty passengers, staff and crew… but even so, the wedding guests’ minions couldn’t be kept entirely out of sight. Which meant that even though they’d been herded down to the far end of the promenade deck for their suitably humble fresh air breakfast, they could still see the wedding party enjoying its extravagant silk-canopied, five course repast, waited on by a bevy of servants.
Pretending to listen as the senior lackeys from Graff and Blonkken shovelled down pork sausages and bickered about which country bred the best racehorses, Gerald kept half an eye on the wedding party and brooded.
He’d only slept through part of the previous night. Not, to his surprise, because of his burns. His burns were almost healed, thanks to Holy Man Shugat’s dreadful ointment. No, he’d spent most of the hours until dawn cautiously eking out his potentia, teasing at the inconsistent etheretics, searching Hartwig’s barge for any sign of the wizard who’d set that filthy entrapment hex and used blood magic to hunt Abel Bestwick. To his immense frustration, he’d felt nothing.
But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to feel.
He had to be patient. Trust that the villain in their midst would stumble, and reveal himself. Or herself, possibly, if he was wrong about the Lanruvians.
Only I’m not wrong. They’re steeped in malice, those three. I didn’t mistake what I felt.
As the bickering lackeys paused to take a breath between insults and mouthfuls, Bibbie, seated beside him, leapt fearlessly into the fray.
“I say,” she said, her voice carefully calculated to project a breathy timidity, “does anyone know why the Lanruvians haven’t brought any staff with them? I mean, it’s rather odd, isn’t it, that they don’t have any staff?”
The Graffish horse expert, middle-aged and portly, favoured Bibbie with a smug, superior smile. “Miss Slack, isn’t it?”
Dimpling, Bibbie conjured a becoming blush. “That’s right, Mister Hoffman. Gladys Slack of New Ottosland. How kind of you to remember.”
Hoffman preened. “Not at all, Miss Slack. It is hard to forget a personable young lady.”
Before Bibbie could further encourage the puffing windbag, Gerald bounced a little in his chair and guffawed. “Yes, isn’t it? And you know, by golly, I think our personable Miss Slack is right. They do seem an odd bunch, those Lanruvians. Mind you, there’s not much known about them at home.” He favoured the table with a gormless smile. “Don’t s’pose any of you chaps care to spill the beans?”
“Oh, yes, would you?” said Bibbie, batting her eyelashes outrageously. “Because while of course I wouldn’t dream of speaking for Mister Rowbotham, I know I dread the thought of my ignorance giving everyone a poor impression of Princess Melissande.”
Bibbie wasn’t the only female lackey seated at the minions’ breakfast table, but she was by far the most alluring. It seemed Dowager Queen Erminium had old-fashioned ideas about suitable lady’s maids for herself and her daughter. As the men rushed to reassure Miss Slack that on the contrary she was charming, delightful, the other two women, older than Bibbie and uniformly hatchet-faced, exchanged disapproving glances then glared at their emptied plates. So far they’d said nothing except “Good morning.”