Disappearing Act

by James Moloney

  ‘No, Joachim,’ Michelle cried and she grasped his shoulder to make him look at her. ‘You are no assassin. It would hurt me even more if you were hanged as a murderer. Promise me you will stay away from Montilagus and Prince Edvord.’

  Joachim was in the grip of a hatred he couldn’t control and at first he refused.

  Michelle did her best to calm him, saying, ‘Agneta doesn’t want to be avenged. If she could send word from among the dead, she’d agree with me. Give your promise, Joachim, as proof that you love me.’

  He wouldn’t deny his love for Michelle that day, even if it was to be their last together. ‘I promise,’ he whispered and although his voice was weak, he knew he would honour her love by keeping his promise for as long as she lived.

  ‘Promise me one more thing,’ Michelle begged him with tears in her eyes, for she knew their time together was almost over too. ‘As I grow older and you do not, write to me, tell me that you are safe and that you have found happiness, or even love, for a few years at least before your new friends begin to suspect and you must move on.’

  ‘Happiness, perhaps, but never love,’ said Joachim, imagining the life ahead of him. ‘Yes, I will keep that promise too,’ he said and then he rose from the bench and walked back to his gloomy lodging to pack his suitcase.

  11

  The First Messenger

  Montilagus, 2011

  When Matt left the grand gallery with Princess Catine, his head was spinning. Only in his dreams had he thought he might be able to find out what really happened during Mattheus’s ill-fated magic show. Now he had an ally who was just as keen for the truth as he was. It all seemed to have come about by magic, and for that reason he should have guessed it wouldn’t last.

  They had barely rejoined the group waiting in the corridor outside when Helvar bent low to whisper, ‘If your mother finds out where you are, first she will shout at you, then she will fire me.’

  Catine shrugged her shoulders at Matt, as if to say this is what happens when you’re a princess, and after a brief wave she vanished through a side door.

  ‘Who was that?’ his grandfather asked.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,’ Matt said, more disappointed than he wanted to admit.

  In the morning, Frau Grossen was full of helpful recommendations again, spreading brochures across the breakfast table so enthusiastically they became sticky with butter and jam.

  ‘That lake looks worth a visit,’ said Mr Cooper, tapping his finger on a photograph in one of the brochures.

  This prompted extravagant praise from Frau Grossen, although Matt wasn’t sure whether her praise was for the lake or because Grandad had suggested it. The decision was pretty well made by her reaction, however. They took a short train ride, which was spectacular in itself considering the scenery on both sides, and joined the other passengers on a tourist boat for three hours on an equally spectacular lake trapped between high mountains.

  ‘Is this how you imagined Montilagus would be?’ Matt asked Grandad as they took it all in under warm sunshine.

  ‘I don’t quite know what I expected, Matty. I was born in Montilagus, this is my country. I’d hoped to feel more at home here.’

  ‘But you’re an Australian now. You have been since you were two years old.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Grandad. ‘And I won’t stop being Australian, but I’d feel more at home in Montilagus if my father’s name wasn’t something to hide.’

  ‘I’d like to see his name cleared too, Grandad. We should both be proud to call ourselves Mattheus Coperneau instead of Matthew Cooper.’

  His words seemed to affect his grandfather deeply because he moved away from Matt, keeping his face turned away. Matt suspected he was hiding tears and wondered if he should have kept quiet.

  He focused his attention on the scenery – it certainly was beautiful. There was only so much beauty he could capture with his camera, however, and before long he grew bored. He began to look around at the other passengers and soon noticed something disturbing. Another pair of eyes seemed to be watching them. A man in an orange spray jacket was never far away no matter where Matt and Grandad went on the cruise boat. He was alone too, while everyone else on board was with friends or family. By the end of the day Matt felt sure he was spying on them. The man even trailed behind them on the walk from the station, his orange jacket easy to pick out every time Matt turned around. While they were waiting on the doorstep for Frau Grossen to answer the bell, he walked straight past without so much as a glance.

  Who was he? One treacherous answer wouldn’t stop badgering Matt, even after they were safe inside the house: the Princess had betrayed them to her father and now they were being watched.

  He spent the night in a sweat about whether he should tell his grandfather about the spy. He’d decided to do just that when, early the next morning, everything got turned on its head and strangers in orange jackets didn’t seem important any more.

  Frau Grossen was still clearing away the breakfast dishes when the bell sounded at her door. They heard her exclaim in shock, but she was speaking in Montilagan so they could only guess at her words.

  Matt peeked through the curtain to see a large car outside and a man in uniform. He’d been right. They were going to be arrested. He turned to his grandfather, wondering if there would be time to explain.

  ‘Matthew, where is Matthew?’ called Frau Grossen.

  Since that was Grandad’s name as well, he joined her at the door.

  ‘No, no, he wants the boy,’ she said.

  Grandad stayed wedged in the doorway to show he wasn’t about to surrender his grandson. ‘What’s this all about?’ he demanded.

  Matt could see the visitor more clearly now and his uniform didn’t look like a policeman’s. In fact, he looked more like a chauffeur. With a bow, he held out an envelope, addressed not to Frau Grossen or Mr Cooper, but to Matt. The handwritten note inside said: Princess Catine invites Matthew Cooper to spend the day with her at the Palace.

  Had the man been following them the day before so she would know where to send the car?

  ‘Do you think I should go?’ he asked his grandfather.

  ‘Looks like a royal command to me,’ said Mr Cooper, making no effort to hide a teasing grin. ‘Of course you should go. Who says no to a princess?’

  ‘But what will you do all day if I go off to the Palace?’

  Matt wondered why he was searching for an excuse not to go. Was he nervous about seeing Catine again? Princess or not, she wasn’t like any girl he’d ever met before.

  His grandfather quickly stopped Matt’s scrounging around for excuses. ‘I’ll be fine on my own, Matt. I’ll do a bit of solo exploring – things you wouldn’t be much interested in. You’ll never get another opportunity like this. Besides, if she falls in love with you then we’ll have a real princess in the family. Find out if she’s rich first though,’ he added with a wink.

  Matt didn’t know whether to laugh or wince as Grandad had done when Matt had teased him about Frau Grossen.

  ‘Okay, okay, I’ll go,’ he said.

  Minutes later, he was in the back seat of the gleaming limousine, which appeared to be the only car allowed on the narrow streets. As it cruised slowly by, some of the pedestrians bowed. Not very Australian, Matt thought, but then he wasn’t in Australia.

  The gates of the Palace opened as they approached and when the car came to a halt, a familiar face appeared to greet him.

  ‘Hello again,’ said Princess Catine. ‘Sorry about having to leave you yesterday. To make up for it, I thought I’d show you parts of the Palace no one else sees.’

  Matt thought he’d better get one matter out of the way from the start. ‘How did you know where to find me?’

  ‘Oh, that was easy,’ she said. ‘All guests give their names when they book a place to stay. It only took a few minutes to track you down.’

  ‘So you didn’t send anyone to follow us?’

  ‘Of course not,�
�� said Catine with a laugh. ‘You watch too many movies.’

  Maybe he did. Matt trailed the Princess into the Palace where Helvar was waiting.

  ‘Sorry,’ Catine whispered when she saw Matt stare at him in surprise. ‘He has to hang around to make your visit look educational. When I told him you were coming he seemed quite pleased.’

  They went first to a large and rather untidy room.

  ‘This is called the playroom,’ Catine said. ‘Can you believe that? Sounds like it’s for little kids, doesn’t it, and I suppose it was once. The only playing my brother does now is on video games.’

  Matt must have looked shocked.

  ‘Yes, even princes,’ said Catine. ‘Mikheil is no different from anyone else, to tell you the truth, except he will be the ruler of Montilagus one day.’

  ‘Will you have to marry a duke, like the princess in that painting?’

  Catine tossed her head back and laughed loudly. ‘Not on your life,’ she said, like any girl would have done.

  She really was a lot of fun. Matt felt himself relax a little. ‘How old are you?’ he dared ask.

  ‘Fourteen,’ she answered. ‘Well, in a few weeks anyway. You’re fourteen already, I know – from the passport you showed Frau Grossen. Now then,’ she went on, with a quick glance over her shoulder, ‘no one ever comes in here, so this is perfect. I want you to show me some more magic tricks.’

  Matt let the doubt show in his eyes and he couldn’t stop himself from glancing at Helvar.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ Catine said. ‘No one’s going to arrest you.’

  There were a few tricks Matt could manage without any props: disappearing tricks using sleight of hand mostly, and then there were the card tricks. He put on a little show for her and Helvar with a pack she found in a drawer.

  ‘Show me how you do it,’ she begged.

  ‘That would be breaking the magician’s code.’

  ‘I could have you arrested for disobeying a royal order,’ she said with a grin.

  Matt showed her how one trick worked, the card trick that had befuddled Hayden back in Sydney.

  ‘This is fun,’ she said. It’s about time magic was allowed in Montilagus again. Trouble is, that won’t happen until the jewelled sceptre turns up, so it’s time we started searching for it.’

  Catine set off through a different door, with Matt hurrying to keep up. He was beginning to see that spending the day with Catine meant following her around and doing whatever she wanted. What else should he have expected from a princess?

  She led him down a long corridor and through a door he didn’t even realise was there until she pushed against it, then more twists and turns. Finally, they emerged into an enormous room with high ceilings dotted with chandeliers and painted with pictures of angels and scenes from the Bible.

  ‘The Great Hall,’ she said and advanced towards a stage raised at one end. She stopped and turned to face him with her arms stretched wide. ‘This is where the sceptre disappeared, right where I’m standing.’

  Matt felt the presence of ghosts. No, that wasn’t true. He didn’t believe in ghosts any more than he believed that a magician could make something truly disappear. But Mattheus Coperneau had stood in this spot.

  ‘That must be the stage where Mattheus performed his act,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a new one actually. They took the old one apart looking for the sceptre.’

  Catine knew this part of the story as well as he did – better, in fact, for members of the Mahling family heard it over and over from the day they were born, she told him.

  ‘What about the floor?’ he asked.

  ‘It was taken up too. Nothing was found – no holes, no secret compartment. You’re a magician, Matthew. Can you tell how he did it?’

  ‘I’ve barely started my training,’ he confessed. ‘I can make coins disappear and birds fly out of my hands, but what Mattheus did with the sceptre must have been special.’

  ‘You don’t think he meant it to go missing, do you?’

  Matt shook his head. ‘My great-grandfather wasn’t a thief.’

  ‘No?’ said Catine, not entirely convinced. ‘Then something must have gone wrong during the trick.’

  ‘Or someone else interfered,’ suggested Helvar.

  ‘Yes, that too,’ said Matt. ‘Are there any secret passages?’

  ‘Dozens, and I’ve explored every one,’ said the Princess proudly. ‘So have hundreds of others since the sceptre disappeared. All sorts of equipment has been brought in too – X-ray machines, scientific stuff I can’t even pronounce. Every wall, every door, every floor has been checked. Whatever your great-grandfather did, he has fooled them all.’

  ‘No,’ Matt said slowly. ‘He was too much in love to play that kind of trick.’

  ‘In love!’ said Catine. ‘What do you mean? How could love have anything to do with his magic?’

  This was something Matt had worked out for himself without quite realising it. ‘To Mattheus, love was a kind of magic – but not something you can create with sleight of hand or illusion. It was real. That’s why he wrote in his notebook Only the heart knows magic is real. He meant only the lucky ones who have felt love in their hearts. That’s where magic is real. His special gift wasn’t magic but the love of his wife, and that meant more to him than any trick he performed on stage. He would have gladly given up all his tricks to be with her and their son. If he didn’t, it was because he couldn’t. Because he didn’t know what had happened to the sceptre.’

  ‘That all sounds very beautiful and sad too, like Princess Agneta’s story,’ said Catine. ‘I thought I’d heard all there was to know about Mattheus Coperneau. Maybe not.’ Moving to a sofa by the wall, she sat and patted the cushion beside her. ‘Please tell me, Helvar, do you agree I am learning important things from Matt’s visit?’

  ‘Very educational, Your Highness,’ he replied in the same teasing tone the Princess had used.

  There was a kind of comfort in telling her about Mattheus, of how he had searched for his family in a strange land, only to die at the moment he finally found them.

  ‘He really did lead a sad life,’ said Catine sympathetically. ‘The biscuit tin he gave you just before he died, did you bring it with you to Montilagus?’

  ‘Yes, it’s back at Frau Grossen’s.’

  ‘Then bring it with you tomorrow,’ she said, clearly forgetting that she hadn’t even invited him yet. ‘There might be something in that biscuit tin that gives us a clue.’

  12

  The Second Messenger

  Catine’s command about the biscuit tin didn’t mark the end of their day together. Matt was treated to the best lunch he had ever eaten, and afterwards Catine showed him through the Palace’s secret passages, all of them narrow and dark and strangely mysterious. One passageway led to the top of a tower that looked out over the oldest streets in the town. Matt picked out Frau Grossen’s house. Where had Mattheus lived? he wondered.

  He had lost all his shyness by that stage. Catine was as easy to be with as Hayden, and yet she wasn’t a boy and they didn’t talk about guy things. She was the first girl Matt had ever really known and he found himself wishing she would come back to Australia and join his class at school.

  By the end of day though, they hadn’t come across the slightest clue about what had happened to the sceptre. They were fools to think that they would, he decided, when the best experts in Europe had spent years scouring every inch of the Palace, including all its secret passages.

  About three, it was time for Matt to leave. ‘No need for the car,’ he assured Catine and he set off through the streets, enjoying being on his own for once. Fifteen minutes and one wrong turn later, he was ringing Frau Grossen’s doorbell.

  ‘You are the first to come back,’ she said. She seemed disappointed it was Matt who’d returned alone.

  When the bell rang again soon after, Matt went into the hall, expecting to see Grandad in the doorway. Instead, he was astonished by who actually
stood there.

  ‘Maestro! What are you doing here?’

  ‘I saw you in the street just now,’ Genardi Kallinar said, ‘and thought I would call in.’

  Frau Grossen showed them into her parlour and left them to talk, but what did a novice magician say to one of the world’s maestros?

  ‘I’m sure Grandad won’t be long,’ Matt offered, trying to kickstart their conversation.

  ‘Actually, Matthew, I am just as sure he will be a little longer than you expect,’ said Genardi Kallinar calmly.

  How could the Maestro know that? Matt wondered. He stayed quiet, hoping Genardi would explain.

  ‘Your grandfather has had a splendid day by himself, or mostly by himself anyway,’ Genardi said. ‘A friend of mine has convinced him to visit a museum, and my friend will stay with your grandfather, telling him interesting stories about the exhibits, for as long as I need.’ A sinister tone had entered the Maestro’s voice. ‘Your grandfather will not return until I have finished talking to you.’

  Matt’s head was spinning. The blood throbbed in his temples and he gripped the armrest of his chair to control his panic. ‘What are you saying?’

  He couldn’t mean a kidnapping, could he? But this was Genardi Kallinar. What was going on?

  ‘I’m saying I have many friends in Montilagus. You should remember that, Matthew. You can never tell who might be among them.’

  ‘The guy with the orange spray jacket?’

  ‘Ah, you noticed. You were supposed to, of course. He wore such a bright colour to make sure. You see, Matthew, yesterday my friends followed you; today they have detained your grandfather using friendship. Tomorrow, they will not be so friendly, unless you give us what we want.’

  Magicians were masters of illusion that created a delicious tension in their audience, but Genardi had gone way past that. He had dragged fear into Frau Grossen’s parlour. Matt felt its chill in his bones.