The Mislaid Magician

by Patricia C. Wrede

  Thank goodness today’s post brought us your new direction from James, for if I could not relate my news to you and send it off at once, I think I might shatter into small pieces. Small and silly pieces, so put aside any expectation that I have news of importance. I have nothing but nonsense for you. Be warned. I intend to burden you with it in painful detail, for otherwise it will buzz around inside my head for days. I know you are much too sensible to permit anything so foolish to buzz around inside your head for even five minutes, so I look forward to hearing your opinion of the matter.

  I gather we may count ourselves fortunate indeed that we are neglecting the London Season, as Aunt Elizabeth puts it, for I have learned that the London Season has not, alas, been neglecting us. You must keep this news in strictest confidence.

  Alice Siddington (you remember Alice Grenville that was, I hope?) is a tolerably regular correspondent of mine. She does not generally devote much of her attention to the gossip in town, but when she does, her information is to be relied upon.

  The most recent newspapers have confirmed, with their usual mixture of speculation and inaccuracy, a rumor I had heard from Alice in her last letter. A most mysterious volume of poetry has taken the fancy of the Ton. (Not for its quality, I assure you, but because the identity of the poetess is shrouded in secrecy.) Some speculate that the verses were written by a peeress, some that the author is a foreign noblewoman, still others that the poetess is someone belonging to the throng of King George’s cousins, half rackety, half royal, or both.

  Demiroyal or demirep, the anonymous poetess has taken the Ton by storm. Copies are selling in the dozens, and hardly a fashionable gathering goes by without some reference to the mystery.

  Dear that she is, Alice sent me a copy of the slim volume so that I could speculate, too. A handsome article it is, bound in limp red leather. If the verses matched the quality of the paper they are printed on, it would be an impressive object. They don’t. The moment the curiosity of the Ton has been satisfied, all interest in the poetess and her work will go where dew goes in midmorning. For now, however, it is a nine days’ wonder, perhaps even ten.

  I’m sure you are well ahead of me, Cecy. It would have taken you a few lines only to detect the identity of the mysterious authoress. I had to read an entire page before I came to these lines, written ostensibly upon the topic of an ornamental fountain, although the author’s determination never to fall in love again has been hammered at relentlessly throughout the verse:

  Falling I rise again

  And rise to fall no more

  Even I could hardly fail to guess the author, could I? Georgy once embroidered those words on a sampler. If her handkerchiefs had been large enough, she would have embroidered it on each of them, she was so proud of her poetical efforts.

  When I recovered my breath, I locked the slim volume safely away with Alice’s letter. If I have learned anything from Thomas, it is the importance of keeping vital evidence safe while one considers the ways and means with which one might put it to the best possible use. No wonder Georgy enjoyed wagering. If there was ever anyone with such luck—to find herself all the rage for her poetry, of all things—I have never heard the like.

  I found Georgy in her bedchamber, trying which bonnet suited her best. When I closed the door and leaned against it, she turned to me from the looking glass with visible reluctance. I showed her the passage in the most recent Gazette. “No more penitent poems to James and Cecy, I fear, or all will be discovered.”

  Georgy blushed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Don’t try to dissemble. Is that why you ran away? To create some sort of cause célèbre to sell more copies of your book? You might have warned us of your impending notoriety.” I was not nearly so stern as the words make me sound. Indeed, I could hardly keep from laughing at her indignation.

  “I would never do such a thing!” Georgy snatched the Gazette from me and hurled it across the room. That is, she tried. As I have often observed from Thomas’s attempts to do the same, newspapers do not hurl well. They flutter and come down on the carpet in pieces, so that one has to bend repeatedly to pick it all up before one is discovered mid-tantrum.

  Georgy did not stir herself to pick up even a single page of the scattered Gazette. She held her head as if it pained her. “People are so dreadful!”

  “Which people? Those who buy your book?” I tidied up the scattered sheets. “Or those who shelter you from the curiosity of the Ton?”

  “The trifler who betrayed the confidence of a lady,” Georgy snarled. “You can’t think I intended my most intimate letters to be published?”

  “Do you mean you did it by accident?” I asked, before reason caught me back again. “Wait—did you say your letters?”

  “Yes, my letters,” Georgy said defiantly. “I wrote to—a friend, confiding my distress to him only under conditions of strictest secrecy. That my thoughts took the form of verse only proves how intimate, how private they were. He betrayed me. He had the bare decency to suppress my identity, but when I could not—would not!—meet his terms, he carried out his threat! I only meant to make Daniel jealous. I thought he would send the letters to Daniel, never that he truly intended to have them published.”

  The dramatic vigor of Georgy’s lament was not lessened by the fine disdain with which she took the Gazette away from me again. The interest with which she reread the passage I had pointed out to her spoiled the effect a little, but under the circumstances I could not blame her for her curiosity.

  “It seems he has fulfilled his threats to the last degree,” Georgy exclaimed when she had read the passage twice. “What am I to do?” She said a good deal more, but I will spare you what I can.

  “What a mercy you are here, safely away from the scandal,” I told her. “We may scrape through with our reputations intact. It’s not as if anyone ever saw you read poetry, let alone write any.”

  “You are heartless!” Georgy informed me. “What can you know of the finer feelings?”

  I ought to have shown Georgy more sympathy, I own. Very likely I would have done so if she had not been watering our carpets for months on end now. My patience deserted me, as usual, just when I needed it most. “I don’t see what your feelings have to do with it,” I confessed. “It’s your infernal verses that are causing the trouble.”

  “You have taken on a harder stamp since your marriage,” Georgy said. “I blame your husband.”

  “Oh, do you?” I retorted. “Then be sure to blame him for the roof over your head and the food on your plate, too, for I don’t see anyone else lining up for the privilege of entertaining you, Your Grace, particularly not your husband.”

  I was a fool to lose my temper. But there it is. I am a fool. I flew out of Georgy’s bedchamber as if a swarm of wasps were after me, and only pouring out the whole silly tale to you has made me feel any more composed about the matter. I am sorry to burden you with these starts when you have the whole weight of English history, ley lines and all, upon your shoulders.

  I will write again, and in a more temperate vein, as soon as I have something of genuine value to say. In the meantime, thank you for existing. At least I have one relation (other than Aunt Elizabeth) with some sense. I find it a great comfort.

  Yours,

  Kate

  5 May 1828

  Skeynes

  Dear James,

  Thank you for settling down in one place long enough for me to learn your direction and write to you properly. You’ve earned so much commiseration from me over your trials that I won’t bore you with any. Instead I send something far more to the point—news.

  In my unceasing efforts to protect your offspring (I sometimes forget why I bother, particularly when we have had to purchase a fresh supply of India ink for the third time in a fortnight), Kate and I cast and recast the warding spells daily. This requires us to ride the bounds every morning, which I grant you proves no hardship, given the season of the year. As we rode past this morning, our ga
mekeeper, Josiah Penny, gave me one of his sidelong glares.

  Remember Colonel Ettrick of the Seventh? Come to think of it, perhaps his name wasn’t Ettrick. Remember the chap who looked like a broomstick topped by a hatchet? You’d remember him if you ever saw Penny, for not only does Penny have the same hatchet profile, he usually possesses a similar air of half-scandalized disapproval whenever he sees me. Not, however, of late. Indeed, if Penny were capable of beaming at me, he would certainly have done it by now. Our riding the bounds has made his duties far easier, as the local poachers can’t cross the boundary spell. The pheasants are safe for months to come.

  I have just come from an exchange of intelligence with Penny. My contribution to the dialogue took the form of a small quantity of ale and a few questions.

  Penny has sources of information you and I can only dream of. Someone he will not name to me (several someones, I suspect) reports that a foreigner has been seen at the very edge of the estate these past two nights. (Don’t take the term to heart. To Penny, anyone not from his village qualifies.) It is possible, I suppose, that some gudgeon is out birds-nesting. I think it more likely someone has come to test my attention to spell-casting detail.

  Penny proposes we go out this evening and watch, just to see if the would-be intruder returns. If the third time is the charm, we will question the visitor. If he seems likely to possess useful information concerning the goings-on here of late, either I will try the good old dicemi on him, or Penny and I will roast him over a small fire until he shares all he knows with us.

  If he turns out to be an innocent passerby, I will send Penny about his business and tip the fellow half a crown for alleviating my boredom.

  In either event, I will write again if the results yield anything of interest.

  Yours,

  Thomas

  6 May 1828

  Dear James,

  Damn. I regret that I posted my last letter so promptly. If I had it to hand, I would destroy it and write you a far less falsely confident one. As it is, I will compound my error by writing you yet another hasty missive. When I’m done, I intend to sand it, seal it without troubling to reread it, and go straight to bed, where I should have been hours ago.

  Here is what happened with no bark on it.

  As I planned, I joined Josiah Penny after dinner. It was raining, but I was dressed for it. With some grumbling, he led me to the stone wall that marks part of the southern boundary of Skeynes. Within the wall lies my ancestral property, specifically a bramble thicket of exceptional ferocity. Beyond the wall, centuries of sheep have trimmed the grass on the common to a rough carpet.

  You would find the place unworthy of interest. Lumps of raised ground, which optimistic antiquarians believe to be traces of an ancient earthwork, make a ring. At the center of the ring is a biggish slab of stone, tall as a tall man and about twice as wide. This is called the Tingle Stone.

  No, don’t ask me. I don’t know why they call it that. It’s always been called that, just as it’s always been there, a monument to masculine pride, I suppose. As it provides the only proper cover for several hundred yards, I kept most of my attention on it, and the earthworks that circle it, as the time passed and pints of rainwater ran down my collar.

  Penny and I didn’t have much to say after the first two hours. By the time another hour passed, despite the miserable conditions, I was beginning to grow sleepy. I’ll swear Penny scented the man on the wind before I detected the first glimmer of magic. Once we knew he was there, I could feel him—almost hear him breathe—as he crouched at the foot of the Tingle Stone. I sent out my holdfast cantrip as slowly as I could, hoping to entangle him in it before he noticed it rising from the grass beneath to grip him around his ankles.

  I needn’t have wasted a moment on caution. From the first touch of my spell, the visitor was as aware of me as I was of him. He sprang up like a salmon. I let the holdfast run thin, enough to trail along behind him as he sprinted away from us. My intention was to bring him down with it and let the rough grass hold him for me while I built its strength.

  It should have worked. Very possibly, if only Kate had been with me, it would have worked. As it happened, it did not work. Despite all my efforts, our visitor found the strength to run—well, to shuffle—away.

  Penny and I were somewhat hindered by the wet and the brambles, but that is no excuse. The visitor’s strength was beyond what I would consider possible.

  Penny gave chase. As soon as he’d fired his ancient fowling piece, he scrambled over the wall and tried his best to bring the visitor down. I was playing the holdfast with all my skill, trying to slow the fellow’s flight, but I spared the time to put up a fool’s light, a burst of cold fire to give us a look at the man.

  The rain made it hard to make out detail in the greenish glow, but I judge the man was young, of medium height and slender build. He had a workman’s cap pulled down as far as one can pull a cap and still see beneath it. His stockings were falling down around his ankles with the force of my holdfast, but he didn’t let that slow him enough for Penny to catch up.

  By the time my fool’s light faded, he was long gone into the outer darkness. Penny tracked him a few hundred yards, but even Penny’s skill has its limits. A search of the place brought us nothing more than some trampled mud and tufts of wet grass to show for our efforts.

  You will understand that the last touch that crowns all my disgust with myself is the one I will hear first once I explain this to Kate. If I had mentioned a word of this to her, she would have insisted on sitting in the rain with us. (My chief discomfort rises from the fact that it was my reluctance to subject myself to Penny’s sighs and grumbles about the presence of a lady that prevented me from including her.) Given the strength she lends my ability to focus, my holdfast would have held fast. I would still be wet and cold and covered in bramble scratches, but I would have a prisoner to question. Interrogation would have been no inconvenience, even given this most unreasonable hour.

  Enough. I’ll hear all about my misjudgments tomorrow—no, I mean later this morning.

  You now know all I know—at least for the moment. This letter will be on its way to you by the time I wake up. I hope it provides you some slight amusement. Where friends are concerned, I spare no expense. Oh, hell. I’m going to bed.

  Yours,

  Thomas

  7 May 1828

  Wardhill Cottage, Darlington

  Dearest Kate,

  It is a good thing for Georgy that I am currently in the northern wilds, for if I were anywhere nearby I would most certainly box her ears. Anonymous poetry, indeed! It will all come out eventually, Kate, you know it will, for Georgy has never had the least discretion, and it would suit her down to the ground to be toasted by the Ton as a poetess. No other possibility would ever occur to her. It would not surprise me in the least to learn that her “friend” behaved exactly as she wished in publishing her poems, for it would be just like Georgy to think that she would escape censure so long as she had someone else to blame for bringing her poems out in public.

  And even if Georgy’s mysterious correspondent really did publish her poetic attempts out of revenge, as Georgy claims (and one must ask, revenge for what? It is too much to hope that it was in revenge for sending him such drivel in the first place), his revenge will hardly be complete until the Ton knows the identity of the poetess.

  Aunt Elizabeth is of the same mind as I—you may well imagine her reaction when I told her that Georgy’s anonymous poetry was the talk of the Ton. Of course I had to tell her; she saw that sampler of Georgy’s as often as we did, so even if Georgy’s identity has not been discovered by the time she returns to town, she would recognize the work at once, and I could not leave her unwarned.

  I believe she intends to write Georgy a stern letter, to be followed, undoubtedly, by a lecture when they at last meet face-to-face. And do not be surprised if Aunt Charlotte arrives unannounced. I shall do my best to talk Aunt Elizabeth out of writing to her (for
your sake, Kate, not for Georgy’s!), but with all of Aunt Charlotte’s correspondents in London, it is inevitable that she, too, will discover Georgy’s transgression. And when she does, she will not give a fig that Georgy is a married woman and a duchess, and has been no charge of hers these nine years. Aunt Charlotte will descend in righteous wrath. It is a mercy she is not there already, which I devoutly trust is due to the unfashionable nature of the watering hole where she currently resides.

  James finds the matter quietly amusing, though he is inclined to take more seriously the misdeeds of Georgy’s correspondent. He said something about horsewhipping the fellow when he finds him. I told him that would only encourage Georgy, but I do not think he took my meaning. Fortunately, we shall probably be stuck here for a considerable time yet. A bout of fisticuffs would only add to whatever scandal is going to result from all this.

  James has found us the prettiest little cottage just outside Darlington, with whitewashed walls and a thatched roof. With four people, the servants, and a sheepdog, the accommodations are a trifle cramped. There is, however, a large room at the back that is perfect for magical experimentation—convenient to run off and fetch any ingredients one may have forgotten, but private and thick-walled enough to keep any mishaps from discomfiting anyone in the rest of the house.

  The place is called Wardhill Cottage. This naturally made me wonder whether it had once been owned by a magician or wizard, but Mr. Wrexton found no magical residue when he set our wards. James says the name is very old, having been taken from the name of the previous house, which was replaced in the 1500s, so any magical associations cannot be recent.

  This is probably just as well, as I do not need any more distractions. Studying Herr Schellen’s transformation spell is proving quite enough of a challenge. (And I can think of only two ways for Arthur to have learned of him: Either he is reading my letters to you, which is not possible unless Thomas has been tutoring him in the more advanced magic he would need to decode them, or else he is using that very fine scrying spell Thomas taught him to watch James and me. I must remember to thank Thomas for providing Arthur with such a useful way of practicing his spell casting.)