Matt’s heart dropped into his shoes. Whether he was arrested or not, his performance in the Great Hall of Montilagus had ended in disgrace, just as Mattheus’s had done. As the Prince demanded, he drew the cape slowly away from the lumpy shape beneath it. What would the Prince say when he discovered a rolling pin from the kitchen had been used in place of the most precious item the principality had ever possessed?
Best get it over with. Matt gave the cape a final tug, pulling it free to expose the rolling pin. But when the satin fell away, it wasn’t a rolling pin he saw. There on the cushion lay a shimmering shaft of gold studded with emeralds and rubies and topped by a pale blue diamond the size of a pigeon’s egg.
16
Pandemonium
Mattheus Coperneau had been thrown into a prison cell when he made the Royal Sceptre disappear. Matthew Cooper was afraid he would end up in the same place for doing exactly the opposite.
First, there was a loud gasp – not from a single pair of lungs but from everyone who stood watching. One of the dressmakers fainted. Her companion screamed, although it wasn’t clear if this was because her friend’s body now lay at her feet or because a sceptre that had been missing for more than sixty years had suddenly appeared out of thin air.
Prince Eisenne was the first to move. In long, determined strides, he walked to the table and plucked the sceptre off its cushion. He clutched it in both hands as though he couldn’t quite believe it was solid. But it was. This was no illusion.
The dressmaker’s scream brought people running from all over the Palace. Every door into the Great Hall seemed to burst open to admit guards, men in smart suits, even the tour guide who had been conducting his latest group along the corridor outside at just that moment.
‘What’s wrong? What’s happening?’ they called.
Catine joined her father to inspect the rod of gold in his hands, her eyes a match for the brightest of its sapphires. A circle of bodies formed around them and Matt, a mere foreigner, found himself forced back out of the way. He would have been happy if they’d forgotten him altogether, because any minute now someone was going to ask him where the sceptre had come from. If there was ever a time when a magician should make himself disappear, this was it.
Too late: the circle opened and Matt saw the Prince, with Catine at his side, staring at him like a lion that can’t decide whether to swallow the lamb in one gulp or chew it up bone by bone. But instead of asking where the sceptre had come from, the Prince said, ‘Is this the real sceptre or are you tormenting us with a fake?’
Since he had spoken in English, the advisers around him switched to the same language. ‘Your Highness, the boy can’t be trusted to answer honestly. Only the Keeper of the Royal Jewels can be sure.’
‘Send for her,’ snapped the Prince.
The Keeper must have already been on her way, because she arrived just as a messenger was setting out with the Prince’s order. It wasn’t surprising that she’d heard of the discovery. The servants and the dressmakers had been sent back to their duties and people were coming and going like rush hour in a train station. The news had probably reached every corner of the Palace by now.
The Keeper of the Royal Jewels was younger than Matt had expected, and her high heels and tight skirt didn’t match his idea of someone with such a grand title. But she knew her stuff, obviously. She took the sceptre in her hands and twirled it over and upside down as though it was no more valuable than the rolling pin that had now gone missing. A small magnifying glass appeared in her hand and, holding it to her eye, she inspected the gemstones and every centimetre of gold. The chatter died away until there was absolute silence. Only then did she give her verdict.
Matt didn’t need Catine to translate. The Keeper pointed out a mark on one end of the sceptre, then, handling it with more respect than before, she offered it back to the Prince. No doubt about it: this was the real thing.
But where had it come from? Matt didn’t know. He hadn’t planned it, it wasn’t part of his ‘magic’, but he knew that was how everyone would see it. He had been desperate to find the sceptre, and now that it had appeared he was in more trouble than ever. For a start, the Prince would think the Coperneaus had known where it was all along, which would make it look even more like Mattheus had stolen it in the first place. Just as bad was what Genardi Kallinar would think. When word got round that the sceptre had turned up and Mattheus’s great-grandson was refusing to explain how it had happened, he would think it was real magic. He and his friends would be doubly convinced that Matt was a sorcerer who knew the alchemists’ secrets.
While the scrum around the Prince cranked the noise back to full volume, Matt turned to face the stage. In his mind he went over the trick he had performed. There was nothing very special about it. There was the table where he had deposited the sceptre during the trick and the flowers he had used to hide it from the audience.
He sensed a body close by and found Helvar had joined him.
‘I can’t work out what went wrong,’ said Matt.
‘Perhaps you should ask what went right,’ Helvar replied. ‘The sceptre is genuine. This is a big moment for Montilagus.’
‘Yes, but it’s not so good for me. What am I going to tell them?’
He found a comforting sympathy in Helvar’s face. In the last two days, he had spent almost as much time with the tutor as he had with Catine. He might not trust him entirely, but right now he needed someone on his side. With barely a second thought, he said, ‘Helvar, yesterday a man came to where my grandfather and I are staying …’ And while the Prince and his advisers continued to argue and exclaim over the sceptre, he told the bodyguard of Genardi’s threats.
‘Then we must find a way to explain how the sceptre turned up on that cushion,’ said Helvar, as though Matt’s problems were now his own.
‘But that’s just it. I don’t have a clue.’
‘Does that matter?’ said Helvar. ‘Didn’t you tell the Princess that magic is deception? It’s about making people believe what you want them to believe.’
Matt nodded uncertainly. ‘So … um … what do I want them to believe?’
‘That the sceptre has been here all the time and you stumbled across it during your re-enactment.’
‘But where?’ Matt hissed under his breath. ‘This isn’t the same stage. Catine says they tore up the floor, X-rayed the walls.’
Helvar didn’t seem to have an answer any more than Matt did. He stood rocking on his heels, staring into the air above the stage. ‘Sometimes people don’t see what they’re looking at, even when they stare straight at it.’
‘What do you mean?’
Helvar continued to rock back and forth. ‘Those chandeliers have been in this hall for a hundred years.’
Matt looked up and realised that Helvar hadn’t been staring into space but examining the chandeliers. They were made of gold moulded to form stems and branches, which each held dozens of glittering crystals and squares of coloured glass.
‘It couldn’t have been up there though,’ he said.
‘No, but when all the possible explanations are taken away, people will believe the impossible. Isn’t that what you told Princess Catine?’
Matt was still thinking about this when he felt a hand on his elbow and a familiar voice said into his ear, ‘Er, Matt …’
He looked round to find Catine beside him and every eye in the hall boring straight into him. The questions he’d been dreading were about to descend on him like hailstones.
‘Who are you? How do you know so much about what happened here?’ asked Prince Eisenne.
There was no point in lying now. ‘I know because Mattheus Coperneau told me. He was my great-grandfather.’
More gasps, then uproar. If they were going to drag him down to the dungeons, this would be the moment. Maybe they would just throw him off the balcony and save themselves the trouble.
‘Magic,’ said a voice from among the crush of onlookers. He spoke in English. ‘Coperneau
was said to be a real sorcerer.’
‘No!’ cried Matt. ‘There is no such thing as real magic. Not for Mattheus and not for me.’
‘Then how did you know where to find the sceptre?’ asked the Prince.
With a gulp to force down the urge to be sick, and a brief glance towards Helvar, Matt launched into the wild story he and the tutor had invented only minutes before. As he spoke, he watched Catine, who must know it was a lie. Would she expose him?
To his relief, she said nothing, but her father was by no means convinced.
‘A magician was called to recreate the trick the very next day,’ he said. ‘He claimed it couldn’t be done, that Coperneau was hiding the real trick he’d devised to steal the sceptre.’
‘That is not surprising, Your Highness,’ said Matt, expecting his voice to quiver the way his body did. Fortunately, it stayed steady. ‘You see, the magician was Walter Borrodi and he was jealous because Mattheus had been chosen for the royal performance instead of him.’
‘You mean Borrodi lied to get his revenge?’
Matt didn’t like accusing a man when he wasn’t there to defend himself, but at least part of it was true. He’d been told as much by his great-grandfather.
‘But how did the sceptre get up into the chandelier?’ the Prince asked. ‘Someone must have put it there.’
‘All I can say is it wasn’t Mattheus Coperneau,’ said his great-grandson.
Prince Eisenne turned to his advisers. ‘Could it have been this Borrodi? But why would he make so many suffer for so long? Surely once Coperneau was disgraced, he could have sent an anonymous note to the Palace.’
‘Actually, Your Highness, the boy’s story might have some truth in it,’ said one of the advisers. ‘Borrodi died only a few months after the incident. An escape trick that went wrong, apparently. He drowned in a tank of water before he could free himself from heavy chains. Perhaps the secret died with him?’
While they talked of Walter Borrodi, a noise grew steadily louder outside. It came from the far end of the Great Hall, where a pair of gilded doors opened out onto the balcony.
‘It sounds like people, lots of them,’ said Catine.
‘Olivar Delano and his followers must have arrived. The people are cheering him from the station to the Palace,’ said the Prince in sudden despair.
Men were sent to investigate, but before they returned a messenger rushed in from the corridor. As he delivered his breathless news, he pointed towards the balcony. Matt turned to Catine for a translation.
‘It’s not Olivar,’ she said. ‘I told you rumours fly faster than a jet plane around here, didn’t I?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘News about the sceptre has spread through the town. There are hundreds of people outside the gates, wanting to see it, and more arriving every minute.’
While she was explaining, the Prince had formed a huddle with his closest advisers. When the circle broke open, he ignored Matt and instead led the way towards the balcony doors. Servants hurried ahead to open them and the murmur of a large crowd swept into the hall.
The Prince stepped out into the sunlight and immediately the crowd began a cheer, which became a roar when he held up the sceptre.
‘Come on, I want to see this,’ said Catine and, grabbing Matt by the hand, she dragged him the length of the Great Hall. Through the open doors he could see down to the Palace gates and the swelling crowd gathered there. They were going crazy, waving, dancing, singing.
Matt was so engrossed by the sight that he didn’t notice yet more people arriving in the Great Hall, until Catine said, ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to stay in here for the next bit.’
When Matt looked round, he found a woman and a young man staring at him.
‘This is my mother and my brother,’ Catine told him. ‘We have to go out onto the balcony to wave at the crowd. I hope no one shoots you before we get back.’
Her last words came with a wicked wink, although Matt wasn’t sure whether this made him feel any better.
If the roar for the sceptre had been loud, the cries when the whole family appeared were enough to bring down the clouds.
Matt had seen pictures of Queen Elizabeth and her family on the balcony at Buckingham Palace in London. He’d never imagined he might one day witness a similar scene from close up, like this. It was almost worth being in so much trouble.
Around Matt, the advisors talked among themselves. One solemn voice stood out as though he spoke for everyone. Matt had lost his translator, or so he thought, until Helvar saw him looking confused.
‘They’re saying the principality has waited a long time for a day like this. It’s like the people of Montilagus have been walking around in a cloud of sadness. This is the first demonstration of joy they have shown for many years.’
‘All because of that sceptre?’ Matt asked.
‘Just be happy for them, even if you don’t understand. You might not believe in magic, but today you are witnessing the kind that can’t be conjured with wands and ancient words.’
The celebrations in Montilagus would go on all through the rest of the day and into the night, it seemed, although the scene on the balcony was all over in half an hour. Matt didn’t turn away when the Prince came in from the triumph that seemed to make him so proud. Instead, he stood as straight as his nerves would let him and awaited his fate.
‘What do you want us to do with the boy?’ asked a man at the Prince’s side.
Catine pushed forward and tried to speak, but her father put up his hand to silence her. Long moments passed while Prince Eisenne thought deeply. Then he beckoned Matt to him and put a gentle hand on his shoulder.
‘It seems your great-grandfather might have been innocent after all. His name will no longer be despised in Montilagus. Whatever the truth behind this great mystery, the sceptre has come back to us. And in the nick of time, I have to tell you. Young man, good things will come of what you have done today, more than you imagine. I can only be pleased. All of us are pleased,’ he said, raising his voice so that everyone could hear. ‘There will be no more questions for you. This is a day for rejoicing and that is what we are going to do.’
Turning away from Matt, he said to his advisers, ‘Everyone in Montilagus must see the Royal Sceptre. We will have a parade through the streets as we used to. Get moving, all of you. We’ll begin in ten minutes.’
17
The Real and the Impossible
‘At least they’re not going to lock me up,’ Matt said to himself as the Great Hall emptied of people. His other troubles didn’t seem so great now either. The sceptre had been found and he’d unmasked himself as the great-grandson of Mattheus Coperneau. That meant Genardi Kallinar couldn’t have him and Grandad arrested simply for being who they were. Even the Prince didn’t seem to care. He had the sceptre back – that was all that mattered.
Helvar must have been thinking the same thing. After the royal family had departed, he came to Matt and said, ‘The police will be interested in the secret society of alchemists you mentioned. More than a century ago, an alchemist named Augustine Rey swindled a great deal of money from the Mahling family. Perhaps those men know what happened to it. They might even like to give it back.’
His face broke into a satisfied grin, which Matt couldn’t help returning.
Matt never did find out whether the Maestro was arrested, as Helvar suggested. The Coopers heard nothing from Genardi Kallinar ever again.
But that is jumping ahead too quickly, for the days after the sceptre was returned to Montilagus were very exciting. The celebrations began with the parade led by the Prince, who carried the glittering sceptre along the narrow lanes lined by his people. That night, fireworks lit the sky and there was dancing in the streets until dawn.
Those who did manage to catch some sleep woke up to newspaper headlines that proclaimed the return of the sceptre. Down one side of the front page there was a short article about Olivar Delano, who was not coming to Montilagus to c
laim the throne after all. The people had changed their minds. The general opinion appeared to go like this: if it had been the judgement of God when the sceptre went missing, then it must be the judgement of God that it had turned up again. The Mahling family was back in favour.
Matt had every reason to feel pleased with himself about his success in clearing Mattheus’s name, and he was – except for one detail. Magic isn’t real. It is trickery and illusion performed by magicians who plan and prepare. He knew this was true. He also knew that he hadn’t planned for the sceptre to appear in the Great Hall that morning, so how had it ended up on the cushion instead of the rolling pin?
The mystery deepened when, on his final visit to the Palace, Catine told him the rolling pin had been found a few days after the re-enactment by servants dusting behind the stage.
On that final visit, Matt and Catine didn’t speak as easily to one another as they had done before. Matt felt self-conscious because once the visit was over, he would have to say goodbye, and he suspected Catine was feeling the same uneasiness about that moment. He had never had a girlfriend, which meant he’d never broken up with anyone, yet that was what this felt like. Then he remembered a hope he’d expressed inside his head on his second visit to the Palace, but never said out loud.
‘Do you think you’ll ever come to Australia?’ he asked Catine.
Immediately, she brightened. ‘I’ve never thought about it. Does this mean you’re inviting me?’
‘I don’t have a palace to show you around, but I can take you to the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge,’ Matt said.
‘It’s a deal,’ she said, making him shake on it; and after that, they were as free with one another as ever.
‘Your story about where the sceptre was hidden was a lie, wasn’t it?’ she asked when it was time for him to leave.
He nodded. ‘I can’t tell you what really happened.’
Disappearing Act Page 13