Too Many Magicians

by Randall Garrett

  Mary de Cumberland said nothing, but her sympathy was apparent.

  “I was brought up by Uncle Neapeler—a kind and wondrous man. He has the Healing Talent, too, you see, but it is untrained.” Tia was looking back down at her beer mug, running one tiny, dainty finger around and around its rim. “He had no opportunity to train it. He might never have known that he possessed it if he had not spent so many years of his life in the Angevin Empire, where such things are searched out. He found that I had it, and taught me all he knew—which was small enough.

  “In the Slavonic States, a man’s right to become a Healer is judged by his political connections and by his ability to pay. And the right to have the services of a trained Healer is judged in the same way. Uncle Neapeler is—was—a merchant, a hard man of business. But he was never rich except in comparison to the villagers, and he was politically suspect because of the time he had spent in the Imperial domains.

  “He used his Talent, untrained as it was, to help the villagers and the peasants when they were ill. They all knew they could rely on him for help, no matter who they were, and they loved him for it. He brought me up in that tradition, Your Grace.”

  She stopped, compressed her lips, and took another drink from her mug. “Then—something happened. The Count’s officers …” She stopped again. “I don’t want to talk about that,” she said after a moment. “I … I got away. To Italy. And there were sick people there. People who needed help. I helped them, and they gave me food and shelter. I had no money to support myself. I had nothing after … but never mind. The poor helped me, for the help I could give them. For the children.

  “But those who did not know called it Black Magic.

  “First in Belluno. Then in Milano. Then in Torino. Each time, the whisper went around that I was practicing the Black Art. And each time, I had to go on. Finally, I had to flee the Italian States altogether.

  “I got across the Imperial border and went to Grenoble. I thought I would be safe. I thought I could get a job of some kind—apprentice myself as a lady’s personal maid, perhaps, since it is an honored profession. But the Grand Duke of Piemonte had sent word ahead, and I was arrested by the Armsmen in Grenoble.

  “I was frightened. I had broken no Imperial law, but the Piemontese wanted to extradite me. I was brought before my lord the Marquis of Grenoble, who heard my plea and turned the case over to the Court of Justice of His Grace the Duke of Dauphine. I was afraid they would just hand me over to the Piemontese authorities as soon as they heard the charge. Why should anyone listen to a nobody?”

  “Things just aren’t done that way under the King’s Justice,” said the Dowager Duchess.

  “I know,” said Tia. “I found that out. I was turned over to a special ecclesiastical commission for examination.” She drank again from the mug and then looked straight into Mary of Cumberland’s eyes. “The commission cleared me,” she said. “I had practiced magic without a license, that was true. But they said that that was not an extraditable offense under the law. And the Sensitives of the commission found that I had not practiced Black Magic in my healing. They warned me, however, that I must not practice magic in the Empire without a license to do so.

  “Father Dominique, the head of the commission, told me that a Talent such as mine should be trained. He introduced me to Sir Thomas, who was lecturing at a seminar for Master Sorcerers in Grenoble, and Sir Thomas brought me to England and introduced me to His Grace the Archbishop of York.

  “Do you know the Archbishop, Your Grace? He is a saint, a perfect saint.”

  “I’m sure he’d be embarrassed to hear you say so,” said the Duchess with a smile, “but just between us, I agree with you. He is a marvelous Sensitive. And obviously”—she gestured toward the archiépiscopal arms on Tia’s shoulder—“His Grace’s decision was favorable. Quite favorable, I should say.”

  Tia nodded. “Yes. It was through the recommendation of His Grace that I was accepted as an apprentice of the Guild.”

  Mary de Cumberland could sense the aura of dark foreboding that hung like a pall around the girl. “Well, now that your future is assured,” she said warmly, “you have nothing to worry about.”

  “No,” said Tia with a little smile. “No. Nothing to worry about.” But there was bleakness in her eyes, and the pall of darkness did not dissipate.

  At that moment, the waiter reappeared and coughed politely. “Your pardon, Your Grace.” He looked at Tia. “Your pardon, Damoselle. Are you Apprentice Sorcerer Tia … uh … Einzig?” He hit the final g a little too hard.

  Tia smiled up at him. “Yes, I am. What is it?”

  “Well, Damoselle, there’s a man at the bar who would like to speak to you. He says you’ll know him.”

  “Really?” Tia did not turn to look. She raised an eyebrow. “Which one?”

  The waiter did not turn, either. He kept his voice low. “The chap at the bar, Damoselle, on the third stool from the right; the merchant in the mauve jacket.”

  Casually, Tia shifted her eyes toward the bar. So did the Dowager Duchess. She saw a dark man with bristling eyebrows, a heavy drooping moustache, and deep-set eyes that darted about like a ferret’s. The jacket he wore was of the oddly-cut “Douglas style,” which was a strong indication that he was a Manxman, since the style was very little favored except on the Isle of Man.

  She heard Tia gasp, “I … I’ll speak to him. Would you excuse me, Your Grace?”

  “Of course, my dear. Waiter, would you refill our mugs?”

  Mary watched as Tia rose and walked over to the bar. She could see the stranger’s face and Tia’s back, but in the hash of emotion that was washing back and forth through the room, it was impossible to interpret Tia’s emotions. As for the stranger, there was no way for her to catch his words. His face seemed immobile, his lips seemed hardly to move, and what movements they did make were covered by the heavy moustache. The entire conversation took less than two minutes. Then the stranger bowed his head to Tia, rose, and walked out of the Sword Room.

  Tia stood where she was for perhaps another thirty seconds. Then she turned and came back to the booth where the Dowager Duchess of Cumberland waited. On her face was a look which Mary could only interpret as grim joy.

  “Excuse me, Your Grace,” she said. “A friend. We had not seen each other for some time.” She sat down and picked up her tankard.

  Then she said suddenly, “Pardon me, Your Grace. What o’clock is it?”

  Mary looked at the watch on her wrist. “Twelve after six.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Tia, “Sir Thomas told me specifically that I should wear evening costume after six.”

  Mary laughed. “He’s right, of course. We should both have changed before this.”

  Tia leaned forward. “Your Grace,” she said confidingly, “I must admit something. I’m not used to Angevin styles. Sir Thomas was good enough to buy me some evening dresses, and there is one in particular I have never worn before. I should like to wear it tonight, but”—her voice sank even lower—“I don’t know how to wear the thing properly. Would Your Grace be so good as to come up and help me with it?”

  “Surely, my dear,” Mary said with a laugh, “under one condition.”

  “What’s that, Your Grace?”

  “The dress I have to wear normally requires a battalion of assistants to get it on. Do you think you can substitute for a battalion?”

  The statement was untrue; the Duchess was perfectly capable of dressing herself, but Lord Darcy had asked her to keep an eye on this girl and, even though she was not certain that it was still necessary, she would obey his orders.

  “I can certainly try, Your Grace,” said Tia, smiling. “My room is two flights up.”

  “Good, we’ll go up and strap you into your finery, then go down one flight and strap me into mine. Between the two of us we’ll have every sorcerer in the place groveling at our feet.”

  The Duchess signed the bill that the waiter presented, and the two women left the Sword Room.


  * * * *

  Tia turned the key in the door to her room. She pushed open the door and stopped. On the floor, just beyond the door, was an envelope. She picked it up and smiled at the Duchess. “Excuse me, Your Grace,” she said, “the dress I was telling you about is in the closet over there. I would like Your Grace to give me your opinion on it. It’s the blue one.”

  Mary walked over to the closet, opened it, and looked at the array of dresses, but before she could say anything she heard Tia’s voice behind her. She could not understand the words of the girl’s short expletive, but she could feel the anger in them. Slowly she turned around and said, “What seems to be the trouble?”

  “Trouble?” the girl’s eyes flashed fire. Her right hand crumpled the envelope and then with a convulsive gesture threw it into the wastebasket nearby. “No trouble, Your Grace, no trouble at all.” Her smile was forced. She walked over to the closet and looked at the dress. She stared at it without saying anything.

  Mary of Cumberland stepped back. “It’s a lovely dress, Tia,” she said quietly. “You’ll look magnificent in it.” With one lightning-like movement she reached out to the wastebasket, grabbed the piece of paper Tia had thrown away, and slipped it into her pocket. “Yes,” she said, “a very beautiful dress.”

  Mary could sense the girl’s hesitation and confusion. Something in that note had upset her, had changed her plans, and now she was trying to think of what to do next.

  Tia turned, a pained look on her face. “Your Grace, I don’t … I don’t feel well. I should like to lie down for a few minutes.” For a moment, Mary de Cumberland thought she should offer her services as a Healer. Then she realized that that would simply add to the confusion. Tia had no headache. She simply wanted to get rid of her guest. There was nothing Mary could do.

  “Of course, my dear. I understand. I shall,” she smiled, realizing she was repeating Sir Thomas’ words, “see you later on, then. Good evening, my dear.”

  She went out into the hall and heard the door close behind her. What now? she thought. There was no way of intruding on Tia without making her intrusion obvious. What to do next?

  She went down the stairs. Halfway down she took out the note that had been under. Tia’s door, the note she had retrieved from the wastebasket. She opened it and looked at it.

  It was in a language she could not identify. Not a single word of it was understandable. The only thing that stood out was a number that was easily recognizable.

  7:00.

  Nothing else was comprehensible.

  14

  Lord Darcy leaned back in the hard, straight-backed chair that apparently epitomized Admiralty furniture and stretched his back muscles. “Ahhh-h-h …” he exhaled audibly. He felt as though weariness had settled into every cell of his body.

  Then he leaned forward again, closed the folder on the table in front of him, and looked across the table at Lord Ashley.

  “Doesn’t tell us much, does it, my lord?”

  Lord Ashley shook his head. “No, my lord. None of them do. The mysterious FitzJean remains as mysterious as ever.”

  Lord Darcy pushed the folder away from him. “Agreed.” He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “We have no clue from Barbour as to FitzJean’s identity. The Admiralty staff at Cherbourg Naval Base did not even know of Barbour’s existence. Unless something unexpected turns up, we will get no further information about FitzJean from that end.”

  “Do you see any clues at this end, my lord?”

  “Well, look at the data.” Lord Darcy gestured toward the pile of folders. “Only three men, presumably, know how to build and how to activate the confusion projector: Sir Lyon Grey, Sir Thomas Leseaux, and the late Sir James Zwinge. Of course, it is possible that that information was stolen from them, but let us explore the first possibility that suggests itself: Could it have been one of them?”

  The Commander frowned. “It’s hard to imagine that such respected and trusted men could betray the Empire.”

  “Indeed,” said Lord Darcy. “It is difficult to imagine why any highly-placed officer could betray the Empire. But it has happened before, and we must consider the possibility.

  “What about Sir Thomas, for instance? He worked out the theory and the mathematics for this device. What about Sir Lyon, or Sir James? They collaborated on working out the thaumaturgical engineering technique which made the device a working reality.

  “If you had to pick one of the three, my lord, which would it be?”

  The Commander leaned back in his chair and looked up, away from the low-hanging gas lamp, at the shadowed beams of the high ceiling.

  “Well,” he said after a moment, “first off, I’d eliminate Sir Thomas. Since the basic discovery was his, it would have been much simpler all around for him to have sold it directly to His Slavonic Majesty’s Government in the first place, if he needed money that badly.”

  “Agreed,” said Lord Darcy tonelessly.

  “Sir Lyon,” Commander Ashley continued, “has plenty of money in his own right. I don’t say that a quarter of a million silver sovereigns would mean nothing to him, but it hardly seems enough to entice a man in his position to commit treason.”

  “Agreed,” Lord Darcy repeated.

  “Sir James?” Ashley paused. “I don’t know. Certainly he was not a wealthy man.”

  He stared at the ceiling for another twenty seconds, then lowered his head and looked at Darcy. “Here’s a suggestion for you, my lord. I don’t know how good it is, but we can try it for size.”

  “Proceed,” said Lord Darcy. “I should be grateful for any light you may shed upon the subject.”

  “All right; suppose that Zwinge and Barbour were in this together. Naturally, to cover themselves, they would have to invent the mysterious FitzJean. No one ever saw FitzJean and Barbour together. Our agents saw him enter Barbour’s place, and they saw him leave it. He came from nowhere and vanished into nowhere. What could be simpler than for Barbour himself to personate this mysterious being? Barbour, after all, actually did have contacts with Polish agents.”

  “Barbour wasn’t Zwinge’s only contact,” Lord Darcy pointed out. “Why not use one of the others, and quietly sell the secret without all this play-acting?”

  The Commander put his hand on the table, palm up. “What would happen if he did? As soon as the Royal Polish Navy was equipped with this device, we would find it out. We would know that one of those three men had sold it. Our first suspicion would naturally fall on Zwinge, because, of the three, only he was known to have had any contacts with Polish agents.

  “After all, an ordinary man with a secret to sell can’t simply say to himself, ‘Well, I guess I’ll just dot out and peddle it to a Polish agent.’ Polish agents aren’t that easy to find.”

  “True,” Lord Darcy said thoughtfully. “It is difficult to sell something if you don’t know how to get in contact with your customers. Pray continue.”

  “Very well then. In order to divert suspicion from himself, he sets up this little playlet with Barbour. Everyone is looking for the mysterious FitzJean. A trap is laid for him. Meanwhile, Barbour is actually dealing with the Poles, giving them the same story about FitzJean.”

  “How was the playlet to end, then?” Lord Darcy asked.

  “Well, let’s see. The secret is given to the Poles. The Poles pay off Barbour. I imagine Zwinge would have found some excuse to be there at the same time. I doubt if he would have trusted Barbour with five thousand golden sovereigns.

  “The trap for the mysterious FitzJean fails, of course, since there is no FitzJean, and—after we find that the Polish Navy has the confusion projector—Zwinge’s excuse is: ‘FitzJean must have become suspicious of Barbour and peddled the secret elsewhere.’

  “Zwinge may have intended to pay off Barbour, to split the money with him, or he may have intended to kill him. We can’t know which.”

  “Interesting,” said Lord Darcy. “There is certainly nothing impossible about just such a plan
having been conceived, but, if so, the plan did not come off. What, then, are your theories as to what actually did happen?”

  “Personally,” said the Commander, “I believe that the Poles discovered that Barbour was working for Zed, and that Zed was Sir James. Now then, if my hypothesis is anywhere close to the truth, there are at least two possible explanations for what happened.

  “One: The Poles decided that the whole business about the confusion projector was mere bait for some kind of trap, a hoax cooked up for some reason by Sir James; so they sent out agents to eliminate both.

  “Or, two: They had reason to believe that Sir James actually was a traitor and was ready to negotiate with them. They would know that Sir James wouldn’t give the plans and specifications for the device to Barbour unless all the arrangements were made. But they would also know that he would have had to have those plans in a place where he could lay his hands on them quickly. He must have had them already drawn up and hidden somewhere; he could hardly have expected to be able to sit down and draw them from memory at the snap of a finger.

  “So, while one group of agents is dealing with Barbour in Cherbourg, another is watching Zwinge in London. Arrangements for the payoff are made in Cherbourg, and Barbour sends this information to Zwinge. Zwinge, not knowing he is being watched by Polish agents, fetches the plans to send them to Barbour. But now, the Poles know where those plans are because Zwinge has taken them from their hiding place. They send orders to Cherbourg to dispose of Barbour, and the agents here kill Zwinge and grab the plans, thereby saving themselves five thousand golden sovereigns.”

  “I must admit,” said Lord Darcy slowly, “that my lack of knowledge of international intelligence networks has hampered me. That theory would never have occurred to me. What about the actual mechanism of Sir James’ murder? How did the Polish agents actually go about killing him?”