A Study in Sorcery: A Lord Darcy Novel

by Michael Kurland

  Lord Darcy decided that he liked this girl. “How many of them are there?” he asked. “Did the Serka agents have anything to do with Prince Ixequatle’s murder?”

  “I don’t know the answer to either of those questions,” she said. “I know my immediate contact, and a few of their lesser agents. I don’t think there are more than two dozen, possibly quite a few less. And they have some people working for them just for money; criminals who don’t really know for whom they’re working. Also I don’t know for sure whether the Serka was involved in the Prince’s murder, but I just discovered last night that they had been storing guns in the pyramid up until the night of the murder.”

  “How did you find out?” Lord Darcy asked.

  “I was asked to pass a message on to the captain of the Sibyl, which just came into port, not to drop his smuggled arms at the pyramid, but to wait for instructions.”

  “Who is the chief Serka agent here?” Lord Darcy asked.

  “I am trying to find out,” she told him. “It is a man, that’s all I’m sure of. I have only seen him at meetings, elaborately cloaked and masked. She paused, and then added, “If I had to guess about whether the Serka was involved in the Prince’s killing, I’d say not.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because my superior, whoever he is, didn’t ask me to get friendly with you, to try to find out what you’re doing—how well you’re doing—that sort of thing. If they were involved in the Prince’s death, you’d think they would have.”

  “You’d almost think they would have, anyway,” Lord Darcy said.

  “I’m glad they didn’t,” she said. “It gives us a chance to get to know each other without anything complicating the issue.”

  Lord Darcy nodded. “So it does,” he agreed. “What did you want to tell me?”

  “Your query about Mullion was passed on to me,” she said. “In case I could recognize him as a Serka agent.”

  “Well?” Lord Darcy asked.

  “He isn’t, as far as I know,” she said. “But, as it happens, I know what he is. Your valet is a Paradoxical Materialist.”

  “What is that?” Lord Darcy asked.

  “It’s a sect that has been gaining in popularity, particularly here in the colonies for some reason. They believe that there are no mysteries, only paradoxes; and that if you don’t know the answer to something, it is because you are asking the wrong questions. They feel that nothing should be taken on faith, but everything should be examined, probed, taken apart, and fully described; and only thusly can the universe be known.”

  “Oh, yes,” Lord Darcy said. “One of the material science sects. Anything that can’t be touched doesn’t exist. Any answer that can’t be reproduced is the wrong answer. They think magic is merely a manifestation of some mental power that we don’t understand.”

  “That is a fair description of the group,” Lady Irene agreed.

  “I wonder what it is about these beliefs that makes them so abstracted from the world, so complaisant, and so morose,” Lord Darcy said.

  Slowly, arm in arm, they wandered back into the great ballroom. The buffet dinner was now being served, and they filled their plates. Lord Darcy tasted gobbler for the first time, and it did taste like chicken.

  “Well, my lord, I trust you find our hospitality to your liking,” Count de Maisvin said, appearing at their side out of the crush of people. He was, as usual, dressed all in black. But the silver-trimmed formal jacket, with its double row of buttons, gave him a striking look of foreign elegance. If anyone could bring black into fashion, Lord Darcy thought, it would be the count. De Maisvin bowed to Lady Irene. “My lady. So charming, and so beautiful. I hope you are going to sing for us tonight.”

  “I have been asked to,” she told him, “and it will be my pleasure.”

  “What will you sing?” he asked. “Something patriotic, no doubt, given the occasion.”

  “I’m singing the ‘George’,” she told him. “You can’t get much more patriotic than that.” She referred to the anthem based on the old Plantagenet battle cry: “God for Harry, England and St. George,” which—with the name changed to that of the current monarch—had been sung at patriotic moments for the past five hundred years.

  “My face will glow with an innocent courage, and my patriotic fervor will be revitalized from listening to your sweet voice,” de Maisvin said, bowing again, and wandering off into the crowd.

  She shook her head. “He talks like that,” she told Lord Darcy. “Often.”

  A handsome young lad of about sixteen or seventeen, in elaborate court dress heavily into green and gold, walked by looking distressed. “Julian!” Lady Irene called. He turned.

  “My lord, let me introduce you to Sir Julian Despaige, a ward of Duke Charles’s,” Lady Irene said. “Julian, this is Lord Darcy.”

  Julian’s eyes grew big as he shook hands with Lord Darcy. “My lord,” he said, “It is really an honor. I’ve been hoping to have the chance to meet you since you arrived.”

  “I could swear we have already met,” Lord Darcy said, reaching back in his memory to try to place the thin-faced boy with the light brown hair. He snapped his fingers. “Winchester Palace,” he said. “Several weeks ago.”

  “I’ve been here for two years, my lord,” Sir Julian said.

  “Hum,” Lord Darcy said.

  Sir Julian smiled—a wide, disarming smile. “It was my twin, James,” he said. “Nobody can tell us apart.”

  “You’re here, and your twin is in London?” Lord Darcy asked. “Well, praised be for small favors. I dislike the feeling that my memory is becoming undependable. It is a pleasure to meet you, Sir Julian.”

  “What were you looking so worried about when I called you?” Lady Irene asked the lad.

  “Nothing important,” he said, looking embarrassed. “Duke Charles has beguiled me into reciting a poem as part of the festivities.”

  “You are very good at reciting,” Lady Irene told him. “Nothing to be nervous about.”

  “It is one thing to declaim a few stanzas in the presence of appreciative friends,” Sir Julian said. “It is quite another to stand on a platform and recite Lord Dif to half the population of Nova Eboracum, most of whom couldn’t care less.”

  “People like good, rousing verse,” Lord Darcy said.

  A small orchestra trotted onto the platform at one side of the ballroom, and the members began setting up their instruments. “I must be excused for a few minutes,” Lady Irene said. “I believe I begin tonight’s entertainment.” She kissed Lord Darcy on the cheek and made her way toward the platform.

  Sir Julian sighed. “Well, if she can do it, I guess I can also. I’d better find out when I am scheduled for. I hope I have a chance to speak to you later, my lord.”

  “We’ll make a point of it,” Lord Darcy said, and watched the lad hurry off toward the platform.

  Lord Darcy wandered over to the buffet table and poured himself a cup of caffe, thinking speculative thoughts while the orchestra finished setting up. As he sipped the caffe he saw a familiar tubby figure in sorcerer’s blue hurrying toward him.

  “My lord, I’ve been looking for you,” Master Sean said earnestly when he was close enough not to have to yell. “Have you heard the news?”

  “Not a bit of it, Master Sean,” Lord Darcy said.

  “The Azteque treaty party has arrived,” Master Sean announced. “They are camping on the other side of the river, as they refuse to cross running water after dark. Which means they’ll be in New Borkum with the first ferry tomorrow morning.”

  “How exciting,” Lord Darcy said calmly.

  “I’ll wager His Grace doesn’t think so,” Master Sean said. “He wanted this murder cleared up before the Azteques arrived. He will be very displeased.”

  “I hate to displease His Grace,” Lord Darcy said, “but I fancy this is going to take a couple of days more to clear up. I’m sure they can appease the Azteque party for that long. That, thank heavens, is not my job.”
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  “A couple of days more?” Master Sean said. “Does that mean that you know who did it?”

  “I have a glimmer,” Lord Darcy told him. “So far, it’s just a glimmer, but it may brighten into a spotlight, with a little effort.”

  “I hope so, my lord,” Master Sean said.

  From the platform the prefatory bars of the Plantagenet anthem sounded, and all eyes in the room turned to the slim girl who was standing before them.Lady Irene’s voice rose in the centuries-old musical salute: “God for Joh-on—”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Lord Darcy was just emerging from the bath a little after six o’clock the next morning, when there was a discreet tapping at his bathroom door. “My lord,” Mullion’s lackluster voice sounded through the wooden panel, “Some gentlemen to see you, my lord.”

  “I don’t want to see anyone at this hour,” Lord Darcy called through the door. “Bid them come back after breakfast.”

  “They said it’s important, my lord,” Mullion said, sounding even more doleful. “I have put them in the den.”

  “Don’t tell me who it is,” Lord Darcy called in an annoyed voice, applying a towel to various parts of his anatomy, “let me guess.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Mullion replied.

  Lord Darcy sighed and, wrapping the towel about his middle, opened the bathroom door. “Who is it, Mullion,” he asked, “and what do they want?”

  “It is Major DePemmery, my lord,” Mullion said, showing no curiosity as to why his master had decided not to guess, “and a native.”

  “A native?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Lord Darcy silently resolved to give his man, Ciardi, a substantial raise when he returned to London. “Tell them I’ll be along in fifteen minutes,” he said, “and ask them if they’ll join me for breakfast. If so, expand the breakfast to feed three and serve it in the dining room. Call me when it’s ready.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Mullion said, bowing and retreating.

  Lord Darcy rapidly shaved and dressed, and went to meet his guests. Major Sir John DePemmery was a tall, lanky, cleanshaven man dressed in the fringed buckskins of the frontier. His face was stern, his eyes were sharp and intelligent, and his grip when he shook Lord Darcy’s hand was firm and hard. “Pleasure,” he said. “Been hoping to meet you someday. Sorry about the early hour. Just got back last night. When I heard you were here, when I heard what happened, I came right over. This here’s Chief Chisolnadak of the Mulgawas. He traveled with me.”

  The Chief, a middle-aged, solid man in the painted and beaded winter dress of the northern tribes, had a battle-ax slung through his wide beaded belt, and a bow and quiver of arrows on his back. His face was daubed in a simple pattern with red and brown paint. “A pleasure, my lord,” he said. “I believe that, if what Major DePemmery says is true, you can help me and my people.”

  “Chief,” Lord Darcy said, shaking the large blocky hand. He thought he recognized the accent. “Brestlemere?” he asked.

  “Quite right,” Chief Chisolnadak told him. “Seven long years in an English boys’ preparatory school, and then four at the University of Paris, to ready me to return to the forests of what you call New England. Life takes many strange twists and turns before it ends.”

  “Breakfast, my lord—gentlemen,” Mullion announced from the study door.

  “Come, messieurs,” Lord Darcy said. “We will discuss our business over the breakfast table.”

  At the table Lord Darcy’s two guests settled in to breakfast with a single-minded intentness, filling their plates with smoked fish and bacon and eggs and large hunks of the New England corn bread, and concentrating on eating their way from one side of the plate to the other. They had traveled through three hundred miles of forest in under three weeks, Major DePemmery told Lord Darcy between bites, and they had a bit of eating to catch up on.

  “Reason I’m here,” DePemmery said when he had pushed aside his plate and refilled his caffe cup, “Heard of the case you’re on. Murder in the pyramid and all that. Went to see the duke when I arrived, of course. Got His Lordship out of bed. Standing orders. Told him about my trip, and he told me all about Prince Ixequatle.”

  “I hope you don’t think I’ve usurped your case,” Lord Darcy said, looking curiously at the thin investigator, who obviously had not been to sleep at all that night.

  “Nonsense!” DePemmery said. “The duke appoints whom he likes. That’s his business. Glad you’re here. I’m no great shakes at fancy murder investigation anyway. Not trained to it, you know. Around here a murder is usually the result of a grudge. Someone shoots somebody, or hacks ’em up, and then flees into the woods. I track ’em and bring ’em back. Good at that.”

  “Damn good,” Chief Chisolnadak agreed. “For an Angevin.”

  “What I wanted to talk to you about,” DePemmery said, leaning back in his chair and fixing his hawklike gaze on Lord Darcy, “is gun smuggling.”

  “Yes?” Lord Darcy said.

  “Someone is smuggling guns to the Western tribes,” DePemmery said. “That much we’ve known for months. What we had to determine was how and why. Now I understand that you’ve pretty much discovered how.”

  “In a rudimentary sense,” Lord Darcy told him. “The weapons were being brought in by ship and stored in a secret room in the pyramid. It was ideal for the purpose, because it had a spell on it that kept everyone away. The cleverest part of it was that, since there was supposed to be an avoidance spell on the pyramid, it caused no suspicions. However, as you can see, that raises several interesting questions.”

  “Like how long has the Serka been operating in New England, and who in the duke’s court is involved,” Major DePemmery said.

  “It would have to be someone in the administration, to fudge records and arrange to have the avoidance spell changed,” Lord Darcy agreed.

  “As far as the why,” Major DePemmery said, “that was the purpose of my trip. To get the facts. There’s been a lot of skullduggery going on to the West while we’ve been sitting here growing our crops and trading with the local tribes for fur and such. And not that far west, either.”

  “What sort of, ah, skullduggery?” Lord Darcy asked.

  Major DePemmery swiveled in his chair to face Chief Chisolnadak, who cleared his throat. “Tell His Lordship the story, Chief,” DePemmery said.

  Chief Chisolnadak frowned. “There are men,” he said, “traveling about the land of the Seneca, the land of the Iroquois, the land of the Mulgawas; men of much guile, who spread hatred and envy. They look like other Angevin trappers, hunters, that sort. But they are not. In private they call themselves Brothers of the Feather; they say they have come to free their redskin brothers from Angevin bondage. This is a bondage that our braves were not aware they suffered from until these Brothers came. But now they think they know. These men are turning tribe against tribe, and all against the Angevin Empire. For years, perhaps a decade, they have brought these wormtongue words; now they bring guns. Not many yet, but they promise many more—soon.”

  “Ha!” Lord Darcy said.

  “Then, for the past four or five months, these Brothers have been trying to stir up the young braves to go on a crusade against the Azteques. They say an Azteque party is coming north to make a treaty with the Angevins. They say that the Azteques and the Angevins are going to divide the land between them, and murder the Seneca, the Iroquois, and the Mulgawas.”

  “How was this intelligence received by your braves?” Lord Darcy asked.

  Chief Chisolnadak shrugged. “You know young people,” he said. “They do not think with their brain, they think with the seat of their pants. They are excited. They want to go to war with everybody. And some on the Council of Elders are similarly affected. They say Azteques are ancient enemy. I tell them that none of them are that old, although some of them act like it. Now they won’t talk to me.”

  As he discussed his tribal problems the cadence of Chief Chisolnadak’s voice changed; the language was still A
nglic, but the person speaking had dropped his Angevin schooling and spoke from deeper roots.

  “They want to go to war with us?” Lord Darcy asked.

  “No,” the Chief told him. “Not this time. They want to destroy Azteques. They want to wipe out the treaty party. And they have been promised the guns to do it.”

  “So they don’t have the guns yet?”

  “A few repeating rifles,” the Chief said. “Samples. Not enough to fight a war. Maybe six or seven. With little ammunition. But they have been promised many more. Maybe two or three hundred. With many bullets.”

  “I see,” Lord Darcy said. He leaned over his caffe cup. “What can I do?”

  “Find the guns,” Chief Chisolnadak said. “Keep them out of the hands of my braves.”

  “They were stored in the pyramid,” Lord Darcy said. “They’re not there any more.”

  “Finding out what happened to them,” Chief Chisolnadak said slowly and distinctly, “is more important than finding the killer of an Azteque prince.”

  “If the braves of the inland tribes get these guns while the Azteque are here,” Major DePemmery said, “we’ll have a full-scale war on our hands. Makes no sense, but it is so.”

  “You should understand,” Chief Chisolnadak continued, “that the guns are a symbol. My braves would go to war with the muskets we have, and with the bows we have used for centuries, with no hesitation if need arose. But these Brothers of the Feather have made promises along with their warnings. They have promised guns. If the guns arrive, then the warnings will be taken more seriously. And our braves will go on the warpath against the Azteque and the Angevin. That, as the Major says, makes little sense, but it is so.”

  “I believe that finding the guns, or at least who has them, and finding the killer of Prince Ixequatle are the same exercise,” Lord Darcy said. “We are, even now, preparing to round up the Serka agents in Nova Eboracum. We are stopping and searching several suspected ships. But the guns are probably already removed. The agents in the field—your ‘Brothers of the Feather’—will be harder to get in our net. You could help us, Chief, by arresting the ones that show up in your territory and sending them back here for trial.”