The Conspiracy of Magic

by Harriet Whitehorn

  “Horrendous,” Cass said with a grimace. “Where’s Mrs Potts?”

  “Upstairs resting on the sofa. You can imagine how exhausted she was after this morning,” Tig said with a wry smile.

  Cass and Lin giggled. “I can,” Cass replied. “A lot of tea and Rimple’s liqueur will be required to restore her.”

  “But obviously she is beside herself with excitement about you taking the Gilded Thread,” Tig added. Taking the Gilded Thread was the Minarian expression for joining the queen’s household. “And off on a ‘diplomatic mission’ as she calls it.”

  The three of them laughed.

  “Don’t ask me what Queen Arden is going to do in Bunderland,” Cass said. “Because I have absolutely no idea.”

  “Just important queen stuff, I imagine,” Tig said as she bustled around making tea and she plonked a plate of cloud cakes down on the table.

  Cass sighed with pleasure. “You don’t know how happy these make me. I’ve actually been dreaming about your cloud cakes. I have a whole week before the queen leaves and I’m not going to do anything but chat and eat cake,” she announced, taking a cake and biting into the nutty sweetness.

  “You must be careful on the journey, Cass,” Lin said. “The news sheets have been full of talk of how bad the robbers are at the moment. I know they’re based in the Forest of Thunt but apparently they’ve been attacking people all along the road, coming almost down to the Minarian border.”

  “The Sins,” Cass replied with a nod. On their journey back to Minaris, Idaliz had carefully explained to Cass everything she needed to know about her duties as the queen’s sword and what to watch out for on the journey into Bunderland. The main threat was to the queen’s jewels, specifically from a gang of brutal thieves, known as the Sins.

  “No one will get past the incredibly handsome Queen’s Guard I’m sure,” Tig said. “I’m so jealous of you spending a whole month with them. Let alone seeing the Ice Fair in Oskbar! It’s meant to be one of the wonders of the Longest World.”

  Cass was about to reply but there was a loud knock on the door upstairs. “I’ll go,” she volunteered.

  She opened the door to find a palace messenger standing there. “Miss Malvino?”

  “Yes,” Cass answered.

  “The queen wishes to see you immediately,” he announced. Cass was suddenly very aware of her dirty hair and grubby travelling clothes.

  “Umm, could I just get changed and…?”

  “No,” the messenger replied. “You are to come this minute.”

  Cass sighed. “Very well.” She shouted down the stairs to Tig and Lin what had happened, grabbed her cloak from the hall and followed the messenger to a waiting sledge.

  As Cass walked behind the messenger along the palace’s marble corridors, feeling extremely scruffy and out of place, she tried not to feel too nervous about meeting Arden. The queen was, after all, only a few years older than Cass, and Idaliz had told her repeatedly how funny and kind Arden was. Nonetheless, an unhelpful voice in Cass’s head kept insisting, the queen is still the queen.

  But when Cass was shown into Arden’s rooms, such an amusing sight greeted her that she entirely forgot to feel nervous.

  Cass found herself in a large chamber, with frescoed walls and high windows overlooking the Square of Disbelievers. But all she noticed were the towering piles of clothes, books, shoes, hats, bonnets and ribbons that covered every surface. Three vast empty trunks stood in the middle of the room, waiting to be filled for the trip. They weren’t due to leave for a week but Cass supposed that packing for a queen took a long time.

  Arden was standing on a high stool in the middle of the chaos, looking beautiful and hilarious, in a red silk evening dress, with her hair covered in oily mud, her face smothered in cold cream and a pair of wire-framed spectacles perched on the end of her nose. She was reading a book and eating a cinnamon cake while a dressmaker hovered around her feet, hemming the skirt she was wearing. Another woman was behind her, lacing up the back of the dress.

  “Really, Tiger, I cannot breathe,” Arden protested.

  “Your Majesty,” the woman named Tiger replied tartly. “This dress has been let out twice in the last month – you need to stop eating so many cakes!”

  Cass was astounded and held her breath to see how Arden would take such a comment.

  But to Cass’s surprise she burst out laughing. “Honestly, you are so rude, Tiger!” Her eyes alighted on Cass. “Aha,” she cried, jumping down from the stool and coming over. “Are you Cassandra, my rather late lady-in-waiting?”

  As she came closer, Cass could see that Arden was indeed looking a little plumper than when she last saw her, and she was as pretty as ever under the cold cream, with her caramel-coloured skin and amused green eyes.

  “Yes,” Cass replied, making a deep curtsy. “But please call me Cass – everyone does. And I am so sorry to be late, we were terribly delayed by storms.”

  “Never mind, you are here now. But I’m afraid I’ve had to bring the trip forward for various reasons,” Arden added vaguely. It seemed as though she would elaborate, but she only said, “So we are due to leave tomorrow. I hope that won’t be too inconvenient for you.”

  Cass gulped a little at the thought, but replied politely, “No, of course that’s fine.”

  “Hmm,” Tiger grunted, coming towards Cass. “It might be fine for you but it’s a nightmare for me – I’ve got next to no time to find you some dresses and generally make you look like a lady-in-waiting, which at first glance seems a near-impossible feat.”

  Cass was not sure whether to laugh or be offended so she settled on no reply, only a sort of quizzical smile. Tiger was a Far Islander, around forty years old, Cass guessed, but it was hard to tell because her black skin was completely unlined. She had a strong face dominated by high, sharp cheekbones and large brown eyes. Her hair was immaculately braided, her body was slim and long-limbed and she moved like a dancer.

  Tiger cast a critical eye over Cass. “Goodness me, what a state you’re in – we’d better hope you scrub up well. It’s hard to tell what you look like under the dirt.”

  Arden tutted at her and said to Cass, “This is Tiger, my chief lady-in-waiting. I do apologize for her rudeness. Now, I’m anxious that you go and see your family and rest before we set off tomorrow, so will you let the dressmaker measure you? Then we can send some Gilded Thread over to you later. And please do eat some of these delicious cinnamon cakes – really, you would be doing me a favour. Tiger, please pour Cass some tea.”

  Tiger poured her a bowl of tea, which Cass took along with a cake and stood eating while the dressmaker measured her.

  “We leave at seven o’clock tomorrow morning. You will be collected from your house at six thirty by one of my guards. Is that all clear?”

  “Yes,” Cass replied.

  “Excellent, I look forward to getting properly acquainted on the journey. But in the meantime you must go home,” Arden said.

  “And have a bath,” Tiger added.

  “Tomorrow!” Tig exclaimed when Cass got home.

  “I know,” Cass said with a sigh. She felt exhausted. “I can’t face going out again to the bathhouse – will you help me have a bath in the copper?” she asked.

  “Of course,” Tig replied and together they boiled enough water to fill the large copper washing basin in the basement kitchen. As Cass got undressed, Tig said, “And you’d better give me your citizen necklace to polish up as well, so you look like a proper Minarian.”

  “Thanks,” Cass replied, unhooking the gold necklace from her neck. The fish charm dangled from, it showing that she was a free citizen of the city. “Do you mind cleaning my ring too?” she asked, to which Tig replied of course not. The ring had been a present from Lin when Cass had set off on her adventure the year before, and it had allowed Lin to keep an eye on Cass.

  Cass lowered herself into the warm water with a sigh of pleasure that almost instantly turned to a yelp of horror as the water tu
rned a soupy grey.

  “That’s revolting!” she cried. “I must be absolutely filthy.”

  “I’d better put some more hot water on,” Tig responded with a laugh.

  The rest of the afternoon slipped away. Lion returned home from school and seemed in perfect health and as jolly as ever. Mrs Potts raised herself from her sofa just in time to shriek with delight over the trunk that was delivered from the palace.

  It was navy-blue leather with the queen’s coronet embossed on the lid and when opened it revealed a perfectly packed trunk containing two day dresses in a heavy navy fabric shot through with gold, one evening dress in gold-and-navy silk and a navy sheepskin coat with gold fastenings. There were also boots, indoor shoes (all in embroidered bags), white underdresses, camisoles and pantaloons, as well as hairbrushes, and a box full of glass bottles and pots of various lotions and creams, which Cass was unsure what she was supposed to do with.

  “My Cassandra, taking the Gilded Thread,” Mrs Potts said with a contented sigh. “I still cannot quite believe it. Mind you, dear, it’s a shame you’re going so soon,” she added, in case Cass thought her heartless.

  They ate a hasty tea of oyster stew and crackleberry tart, while Mrs Potts filled Cass in on all the square gossip. Then Cass nipped over to see Lin before her friend was inundated with customers wanting their fortunes told.

  “You’re going tomorrow?!” Lin said.

  Cass nodded. “I know; it’s such a rush.”

  “Never mind. You’ll be back before you know it, and please write! Tell me all about the amazing things you see,” Lin said, giving her a hug.

  “I will,” Cass replied. “And I’ll see you at the Mid-Winter Feast!”

  “Absolutely. Oh, you must go on a sledshot in Oskbar.”

  “What’s a sledshot?” Cass asked, intrigued.

  “Wait and see,” Lin replied with a laugh.

  An hour later, the night district of Minaris was in full swing, and the Mansion of Fortune had a long queue of clients waiting to see the fortune tellers and trancers that Mrs Potts crammed into the rooms. Tig and Lion were busy organizing it all. Although Cass had begun to help, Tig told her very firmly to go to bed.

  Cass could hardly stand she was so exhausted and gratefully accepted. She made her way to the tiny room in the basement that she was sharing with Lion for the night – Mrs Potts had wasted no time in letting out her room to a trancer – gave her teeth a quick clean and set her old alarm clock for six.

  Cass was dreaming.

  She was back in the Islands chasing a pirate named Zirt. He had always stood apart from the others – he wasn’t a disgruntled, penniless Far Islander but a pale-skinned, well fed northerner who had joined the pirates relatively recently. He was part of a gang that Cass, Rip and the Company of Eight had pursued across the Mid Isles, finally tracking them down in an inn in the night district of Tarn and ambushing them.

  Zirt always seemed to seek Cass out, she had noticed, taunting her and calling her ‘kitten’. And there was something about the way he fought that she found particularly difficult. Their final battle, for that was what it felt like, took every ounce of Cass’s skill and strength. She had eventually triumphed and Zirt had been captured and taken to Prison Island along with the others. But the fight still haunted her.

  In the dream, Cass’s mind replayed the end of the scene. She had fenced Zirt up against the alley wall, knocked the sword out of his hand and held her blade to his throat. Their faces were inches from each other and she took in his widely spaced blue eyes and large nose, the scar on his cheek, his fair skin burnt to a ruddy gold by the sun. In real life, he had then sworn and spat at her, but in the dream, he pulled a dagger from somewhere and plunged it into Cass’s side, making her wake up with a jolt, sweating and disorientated. There was a terrible noise and it took her a second to realize that someone was hammering on the front door.

  Who in the Longest World can that be? she wondered, swinging herself out of bed. She glanced at Lion who was lying flat on his back, snoring loudly, his arms and legs stretched out like a starfish. I wonder what time it is? she thought, noticing that it was just getting light outside. She glanced at the alarm clock and saw that it read one o’clock. That can’t be right… Her stomach plummeted as she realized that the clock must have stopped. Bang! Bang! The noise came again. Cass dashed upstairs to open the front door.

  A young man dressed in the Queen’s Guard uniform was standing there, looking furious.

  “Cassandra?” he demanded angrily. “I’ve been knocking for ten minutes. Weren’t you told to expect me?”

  “Yes,” Cass said. “I’m really sorry. My alarm clock must be broken and—”

  “The queen leaves in fifteen minutes,” he interrupted her brusquely. “It will take us ten minutes to get back to the palace so unless you want to keep her waiting, which I really wouldn’t advise, you’d better go and get dressed. Be back here in three minutes. Do you need help?”

  “Er, no. I’ll just go and—”

  “Hurry,” he instructed.

  Cass flew back down the stairs and dressed as quickly as she could, pulling apart the neatly packed trunk. There was no time to say goodbye to anyone and Lion looked so peaceful snoring that she just kissed his head while trying to lace up her boots and do up her dress. It was fiendishly intricate with lots of small buttons. And the coat seemed complicated too…

  The young man appeared in the doorway.

  “Come on!” he said and they carried the trunk up the stairs and loaded it on to the back of the sledge.

  “Ready?” he asked Cass as they both scrambled up on to the broad driving seat.

  “Yes,” she replied but just as he started to drive off she remembered her knife and sword.

  “Sorry, I’ve forgotten something really important!” she cried. The guardsman groaned and swore under his breath as he stopped the sledge. Cass jumped down and ran back to her room, grabbing her weapons, her purse and various other things she had forgotten. She shoved the knife and purse in her pocket and wrapped the rest in a blanket to hide the sword.

  “I’m so glad you went back for your blanket,” the guardsman said sarcastically as Cass put it in the trunk. “We’re always short of such things with the queen.”

  The sledge sped through the empty streets as Cass hurriedly finished doing up her boots and her coat. The young man glanced at her. “You might want to do something about your hair. Ladies-in-waiting usually look quite neat,” he said, a smile breaking through his aggravation. Cass put her hands up to her head and could feel that her hair, now clean and washed, had turned into a mass of springy curls on the top of her head.

  “Oh no!” she cried as the sledge swung around in front of the palace and she desperately tried to smooth it down.

  Queen Arden was only travelling with a small party but nevertheless it was still quite a spectacle. It had snowed overnight, giving the ground and buildings a sprinkling of pristine white, making them the perfect backdrop for the queen’s two navy-blue and gilt carriage sledges, which were drawn by four white horses each. Around them stood the other nine members of the Queen’s Guard, looking splendid in their blue-and-gold riding uniforms, their horses stamping and snorting in the cold. Their breath came out like smoke, giving them the look of fairy-tale creatures.

  “Where have you been?” a middle-aged man barked at them as the sledge came to a halt. This must be Captain Toskil, Cass thought, judging by the amount of gold on his uniform. Idaliz had told her that he was a good man, if a little severe. Cass braced herself for a telling-off.

  “I’m very sorry, Captain,” the guardsman replied. “I was late collecting the young lady. I had to stop to help an elderly gentleman who was in some distress – he had locked himself out of his house.”

  Cass thought grateful thoughts, keeping her face neutral.

  “I see. Captain Toskil, by the way,” he said, bowing to her.

  “Cassandra Malvino,” she replied, bowing back. His looked
at her with interest. He was one of the few people who would know that she was really there as the queen’s sword.

  “Well, Cassandra,” the captain went on. “You’d better go and wait by the queen’s sledge. Guardsman, get this trunk loaded up and then go and wait with Miss Malvino so that you can help the queen when she comes out.” And beating his whip gently on his leg, he walked away.

  “Thank you,” Cass whispered to the young man.

  “Don’t worry about it, Miss Malvino,” he replied.

  “You must call me Cass. What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Dacha,” he replied as another guard came to help him carry Cass’s trunk to the luggage sledge.

  Dacha, was that a Bundish or a Veraklian name? Cass mused as they waited on either side of the queen’s sledge as instructed. Veraklian, she decided, was more likely with his brown eyes and coppery hair. Veraklia was the country to the north-east of Minaris. It’d had a lot of difficulties in recent years and many of its citizens had emigrated to Minaris.

  The first person to emerge from the palace was Tiger, looking immaculate in her Gilded Thread and carrying Arden’s jewel case. A palace servant scurried behind her holding a pile of navy-blue document boxes that were loaded inside the sledge.

  “Good morning,” she greeted the captain. “The queen’s latest thoughts are that we will just stop briefly at Perla at midday to change the horses, and then as long as the snow holds off we will press on to Aravura. She is anxious to reach there tonight. She will be out in a moment and wants to leave immediately, so said for you all to mount.”

  Orders were barked and Dacha helped Tiger into the sledge. She wished him and Cass a brisk good morning and Cass could feel her eyes lingering disapprovingly over her hair. Cass tried to pat it down even further, to Dacha’s discreet amusement. Moments later, there was a flurry of activity by the palace door and Arden appeared, dressed in honey-coloured fur.