‘Ah, it is happening again,’ said Frau Grossen after she had listened for a few moments. ‘Prince Eisenne is having a difficult time. Every few years it is the same – some troublemakers say the Mahlings are not our proper rulers. The Prince can no longer carry the Royal Sceptre through the streets. It is the judgement of God, they say, proof that others should take power. They mean themselves, of course. This time it is Olivar Delano, who has the blood of a dozen royal families in his veins. A lot of people support him. The Mahlings might lose the throne after all.’
That explained the graffiti, thought Matt.
Frau Grossen insisted on making coffee for Grandad before they went to bed.
While she was in the kitchen, Grandad leaned close to Matt and whispered, ‘This is rather awkward. Would Frau Grossen be so happy to have us in her house if she knew who my father was?’
‘Maybe we should tell her so she stops making eyes at you,’ said Matt.
Grandad winced. ‘You’ve noticed, have you. I don’t want to be rude to the dear lady, but I wish she wasn’t so obvious.’
This was all said in a lighthearted tone, but being members of the Coperneau family in the middle of Montilagus was a serious matter, especially when there was a crisis going on over who should be the Prince.
Matt was first into the dining room the next morning and so he was the first to discover the unusual stuff Montilagans eat for breakfast. Sausage, ham, cheese with holes in. ‘Weird,’ he muttered. At home, he ate cereal out of a packet.
Frau Grossen was acting weird too. She greeted him with a wink and the smile of someone hiding a secret, but only when Grandad appeared did she reveal her surprise.
‘Free passes,’ she said gleefully, holding up some tickets. ‘I got them for you from a friend.’
‘Passes to where?’ asked Mr Cooper.
‘To the Palace, of course. It is a must for all visitors to Montilagus.’
They did want to see the Palace, but after last night Matt knew he would feel edgy and out of place there. He was still feeling that way an hour later when they approached the gates, which, like the building itself, were deliberately grand, as though their job was to boast of the royal family’s wealth and power.
Yet once through the gates, he forgot all about that. The Palace was crammed with suits of armour, some with dents and nicks from real battles. There were swords and shields and a mace on a chain that must have belonged to a giant. If his mother had been there, she would have gone into raptures over the furniture, which looked a bit over the top to Matt’s eyes.
‘How much carving can one chair leg take before there’s nothing left?’ he said out loud to no one in particular.
To begin with, visitors were allowed to wander around on their own, but once they reached the first grand staircase, they had to join a guided tour.
‘Through those doors is the Great Hall,’ said the guide, a man in his forties who acted as though he owned the place. He didn’t open the doors; instead, he turned to the left to lead them along a corridor.
‘Can’t we go inside for a look?’ Matt asked.
‘No, that is not part of the tour,’ said the guide bluntly.
‘But that’s where the special sceptre disappeared, isn’t it?’
The guide stopped suddenly, and since he was out in front everyone else stopped too. ‘That is not a matter we like to talk about,’ he said, and if his eyes had been hammers Matt would have been smashed into bits on the floor.
His grandfather backed him up. ‘Matt is right though. The sceptre went missing in that hall, didn’t it?’
‘During a magic show,’ Matt added, to show the guide they weren’t going to be put off so easily.
‘Yes, during a magic show,’ said the guide. ‘And the incident causes trouble even today. Especially today. Please do not ask me any more about it.’
The tour moved on through kitchens, where copper pots of every size hung from the walls, along hallways lit by glittering chandeliers and into a gallery of paintings and sculptures. Here, the guide took his time naming artists – mostly they sounded Italian, Matt thought. It looked like they would linger here for a while, so he did his own tour, trying to find an artwork he actually liked.
He was standing before the painting of a beautiful young woman when a voice spoke from behind him. ‘Can I ask you something?’
He spun round to find a girl staring at him rather boldly. Had he seen her before? No, he couldn’t have because her accent wasn’t Australian and this was his first time overseas. He wondered when she’d joined the tour, because he’d been the only young person in the group when they’d started.
The girl took his silence for permission. ‘I wanted to ask you, how did you know that the sceptre disappeared in the Great Hall?’
That wasn’t an easy question to answer for a member of the Coperneau family.
‘I heard it on the television last night,’ Matt lied.
He should have known that lying and magic have a lot in common. Both are meant to trick people, and both only work if you plan ahead to be sure you don’t get caught out.
‘I watched the report last night too,’ said the girl, folding her arms, ‘and it didn’t mention the Great Hall. Besides, I bet you don’t even speak Montilagan.’
Matt shook his head and did his best to hide his humiliation.
‘So how did you know?’ the girl asked again.
She didn’t seem keen to make a fool of him. She genuinely wanted to know. Matt took a closer look at her. She was pretty – no doubt about that. He guessed she might be his age, but she could pass for eighteen if she wanted to, like the girls he’d heard about at school who could get into nightclubs with fake ID. He found girls like that a little scary. This girl wore a skirt and top that looked new and expensive, if he was any judge. He got the impression she would demand people’s attention no matter what she wore.
All right, he thought. He’d been trapped in a silly lie, but that was hardly a crime. It was time he went on the attack.
‘How did you know I asked about the sceptre anyway? You weren’t even there.’
She paused for a moment and glanced over her shoulder at a man who had just joined the tour as well. He hovered close behind her, as though he was her guardian. ‘If I tell you, will you answer my question?’
‘If I believe you,’ he said, trying to match her bluntness without being rude.
‘All right then,’ said the girl. ‘The truth is, I was watching from a hiding place that only a few people know about.’
‘How could you do that?’
‘Because I live here, that’s how. When I can escape my tutor –’ she glanced towards the man behind her – ‘I spy on tour groups to see if anyone interesting has turned up.’
‘But if you live here, then you must be …’
‘Princess Catine,’ she said, holding out her hand.
What was Matt supposed to do – shake it or kiss it? She might be lying, of course, and then he really would make a fool of himself. He glanced towards the tutor who gave a brief nod that said, you’d better believe it, buddy. Matt shook the outstretched hand.
‘That’s Helvar,’ said the girl, without turning around. ‘He’s a good teacher but a girl has to have fun sometimes, even if my father wouldn’t approve.’
‘Your father … er … the Prince,’ Matt muttered.
‘Yes. If you really did watch the news last night you would have seen him, and me too. Terrible pictures, of course. My mother made me wear that dress. It was hideous, wasn’t it?’
‘No, I thought it looked nice,’ he said.
It was another lie, of course. For all he remembered she’d been wearing a football jersey, but she smiled as though he’d paid her a great compliment and said, ‘Thank you. Now you have to answer my question.’
Matt had really dumped himself in it now. He couldn’t lie a second time, but here he was, in the middle of the Palace with the Prince’s daughter waiting for him to tell her his great-grandf
ather had stolen the precious sceptre.
No, wait a minute, a determined voice spoke into Matt’s mind. Mattheus was not a thief. It was his life that had been stolen that day, just as surely as the sceptre. Matt had nothing to fear from the truth, no matter who he told. And, besides, if he wanted to clear the Coperneau name then he needed to be brave. Now was the time to start.
‘My great-grandfather was the magician who made the sceptre disappear,’ he told her.
‘Mattheus Coperneau!’ said the tutor.
‘So you do know who he is?’ Matt asked although he wasn’t surprised.
‘Oh, Helvar knows all kinds of stuff,’ said Catine. ‘That’s why he’s a tutor.’ Then her voice lowered and she became more serious. ‘But I know the story too. That sceptre was important to my family. It still is.’
The silence that followed meant she expected to hear more. So, before he lost his nerve, Matt told her Mattheus’s story up to his escape from Montilagus.
The first response again came from the tutor, Helvar. ‘I had no idea,’ he said, but he seemed embarrassed to have spoken the words aloud and said no more.
‘That’s quite a tale,’ said Catine. ‘I don’t know if I believe it though.’
‘You expect me to believe you’re a princess, but you won’t believe I’m a Coperneau,’ Matt said. He decided a little evidence might help. He pulled a coin from his pocket and held it up for her to see, then made it disappear just as Mr Crank had taught him.
Catine gasped. ‘Magic is forbidden in Montilagus.’
Matt was already reaching towards her to make the coin appear from behind her ear.
‘Sorry, I forgot,’ he said, although he wasn’t sorry at all.
Catine shrugged to show she didn’t really care. ‘So you are a magician too. I believe you are a Coperneau then. The rest of the story I’m not so sure about.’
‘Are you going to have me thrown in gaol?’
‘Of course not. I want to know if what you told me is true. Can’t find out if you’re locked up, can we?’ she said with a grin that made Matt begin to like her.
‘I’d love to prove it, so everyone would know Mattheus was innocent,’ he told her.
‘To be honest, I’m more interested in finding the sceptre. My father’s place on the throne is being questioned again and all because that sceptre is still missing.’
The guide was leading the group out of the gallery by this time. He took a last look to make sure he had everyone and saw Matt lagging behind. He also saw the girl beside him and immediately came to attention and made a little bow. There was no doubt Catine was a princess then.
‘I’d better go,’ said Matt.
‘Oh, he’ll wait,’ said Catine with the confidence of a princess. ‘Would you mind if I came along for the rest of the tour?’
‘Sure,’ he replied quickly. After the way she had dismissed the guide so easily, he was surprised that she’d bothered to ask. For the second time, he found himself liking her.
‘What do you think of this portrait, by the way?’ said Catine, looking up at the painting Matt had picked out as his favourite. ‘She was one of my ancestors. Married a duke, although they say she was in love with someone else. Very romantic, don’t you think?’
Matt searched for the name and found it on a small plaque to the side: Princess Agneta, 1869–1890.
‘She was very beautiful,’ he said, because it was so obviously true.
‘She was even more lovely in the flesh,’ said Helvar.
They turned to find him so transfixed by the painting that he didn’t notice them staring at him in surprise. When finally he did, he flushed a little and stopped fidgeting with a ring on his left hand.
‘So I’ve heard anyway,’ he said. ‘All the stories describe her as very beautiful.’
‘But you didn’t say more beautiful, you said she was more lovely,’ Catine reminded him. ‘People say that about a whole person, not just the way she looks. Only someone who knew her well could know what she was like inside.’
It was the kind of difference a girl would pick up more than a boy, but Matt was just as interested in Helvar’s answer.
‘What are you suggesting, Your Highness? That I knew her personally?’ He was smiling the way people do when they want a little kid to realise how silly they’re being. ‘Princess Agneta died a century before I was born,’ Helvar reminded them.
10
Panacea
Montilagus, 1889
‘Have you heard the news?’ said the gaoler when he brought Joachim Tannislaus his dinner.
There wasn’t much food on the plate and it was already stone cold, but Joachim was used to such miseries and began eating as soon as the plate was slipped through the slot in his door. The gaoler’s question had been another kind of cruelty. He knew only too well that prisoners in these cells heard none of the news from the Palace above, except what he told them.
‘There’s to be a wedding, a royal affair,’ he went on.
Joachim stopped eating, stopped breathing, couldn’t think.
‘The Duke of Bohemia, they say. His wife died last year and he’s looking for someone young, pretty.’
Joachim clenched his eyes shut. He wished he could close his ears as easily.
‘The Prince sent him a photograph of Princess Agneta and the Duke liked what he saw. Not even twenty-one and she’ll be a duchess. It’s a good match for Montilagus too, don’t you think?’
Despite his rumbling belly, Joachim couldn’t finish his meal. He left the last mouthfuls on his plate for the rats that visited his cell each evening. In fact, he’d recognised one of them as the large male Agneta had been experimenting with the day he was arrested. The rats in the laboratory had been poisoned once there was no use for them, but this one had somehow managed to survive. Now it taunted Joachim with its ability to come and go freely while Joachim himself was trapped.
‘There’s a rumour going around the Palace that the Princess won’t accept the betrothal though,’ said the gaoler. ‘And the Duke won’t travel here for the wedding until she does. Prince Edvord’s in a purple rage apparently. He’s not too happy with you either, Doctor Tannislaus, but I guess you know that. Do you have any message for him? He asks every day if you’ll go back to work.’
‘No,’ Joachim said loudly through the small window of his cell.
The gaoler came right up to the door. He was a hard man, but not as cruel as he pretended to be. ‘He’s losing patience with you, Joachim. My orders are to starve you, to take the blanket out of your cell and to stop lighting my own little brazier until you change your mind. Winter’s coming. You won’t survive. Better to give in now. Whatever job the Prince has for you must be better than a slow death in this cell.’
‘You have my answer,’ Joachim told him, and taking his only blanket from the filthy straw where he slept, he fed it through the narrow opening in the door to the gaoler, who tugged it free with a sad sigh.
Weeks passed. Princess Agneta remained in her room as much as she was allowed. The sun bathed it in golden light every morning, a fire warmed it at night and her meals were sumptuous, even if she left them half-eaten. There was no guard at her door, but she was as much a prisoner as Joachim. If he could hold out, then so would she too, she decided. Each day Edvord demanded she invite the Duke of Bohemia to Montilagus for their wedding and each day her answer was the same.
One morning, no different from any other, her maid knocked at her door. ‘I did as you asked, Your Highness,’ said the girl when she was welcomed inside. ‘My sweetheart went to the gaoler for news. It is not news you will want to hear, my lady. Joachim is very ill. His body is racked with fever, he shivers constantly and what little food he is given he vomits straight up again. The rats nibble at his toes and he is too weak to push them away.’
Agneta wept at the scene this made in her head. ‘He will die, won’t he?’
‘That is what the gaoler fears. The sickness is too much for his body to fight off. He must be ta
ken from the cells immediately or he won’t last the week.’
Agneta knew what she must do. She had the maid help her dress as a princess should. When she was ready, she strode along the Palace corridors to Edvord’s chambers. She entered without knocking and found him hunched over a map with the manager of Montilagus’s largest bank.
Edvord looked up in surprise. The dress and the solemn look in her eyes made him turn to the banker. ‘Leave us.’
When the man was gone, Agneta spoke the words she had come to deliver. ‘Have Joachim released today and I will accept the Duke.’
Her brother’s face broke slowly into a triumphant smile. ‘He will be at home with his mother within the hour.’
The history of Montilagus would be a simpler tale if that was all the Princess had to do to save the man she loved. Far from it though. Prince Edvord was true to his word – even though he deserves little credit when he had driven his sister to make such a bargain – but Joachim was in the grip of ailments that were not easily cured in 1889. Starvation had weakened his body, cold had made it worse, and the vermin that scuttled to and fro across the floor of his cell spread disease. Even in the warmth of his own bed and with his mother spooning rich broth into his mouth, he slipped closer to death. Agneta sent her maid to the house every day for news, and always it was the same: ‘He grows weaker.’
By the end of the week, there was news of a different kind. The Duke of Bohemia was due in Montilagus the following day. Prince Edvord had ordered the cathedral to be ready for the wedding as soon as he arrived.
As a chilly dusk settled around the Palace, Agneta left her room. Instead of making her way towards the warm fire of the parlour, where her brother, aunts and cousins waited for the dinner gong, she hurried along the route she had not taken for more than a month. The corridors were deserted, and when she reached the laboratory she was relieved to find Augustine Rey had already gone to his room.
All of Joachim’s equipment remained on the benches, awaiting his return. She went straight to the spot where she and Joachim had been standing when they were disturbed. Fighting tears, she refused to let herself think of their final kiss. That was the past. She had come with the hope of a future – for Joachim at least.
Disappearing Act Page 8