Luke made a loud, exasperated sound of protest. “But neither,” said the Leveller, “will I ignore any of the disturbing questions you have raised. I shall certainly do all in my power to find Lord Flinx and discover the truth. But I am afraid that allowing you and Mademoiselle to escape in the meantime is quite impossible.”
Tremeur spoke up. “But if you admit we have done nothing wrong by marrying—?”
Raith’s large hands gripped the sides of the chair as he hitched it closer to the table. His expression was troubled. “I did not mean to imply that I condone this illegal marriage of yours, only that I understood and sympathized with Mr. Guilian’s motives. I do acknowledge that there is a law higher than that of Mankind, and perhaps you both believe you have acted in accordance with that law—perhaps you are even right. Yet you have violated a ban which has been in place for fifteen hundred years. Having done so in full knowledge of the law and the consequences, I see no reason why you should expect to avoid them.”
“But the law is so damned arbitrary,” Luke protested. “So much so, that in our own case it doesn’t even make sense. There is some question whether Tremeur is even related to the King of Rijxland. And as for me: I stand within seven degrees of kinship to Jarred, but on the wrong side of the family. I’m not even in the line of succession, and if Jarred dies without issue, I won’t even be related to the cousin who succeeds him. The proscription against our marrying is patently absurd!”
“I must confess,” said Raith, his dark eyes glinting, “that if this were the only crime of which you stood accused, I would be willing enough to allow you to escape. But you have not been cleared of the other charge against you, and so long as that remains the case, I have no choice but to—” His voice trailed off, and he sat a moment in thought. “Or perhaps I do have a choice in this matter. Rather than send you back to Luden, I could take you with me as my prisoners, to be released when, and only when, I am able to establish your innocence.”
Luke stared at him incredulously. “I think you must be joking. Take the two of us with you—bound hand and foot? Or do you mean to accept our parole?”
“It is not possible, or at least not feasible, for me to do either of those things. Yet there are other bindings than rope or iron fetters. You will be bound to me just as surely, but not in any way you might ever have imagined.” Raith drew himself up to his full, impressive height, reached into his cloak and pulled out a short length of silver chain. “I am going to place you under a magical compulsion.”
And so saying, he poured some of the wine into a dish, set it on fire, and proceeded to pass the silver chain through the heart of the flame. For some reason the whole situation struck Luke as enormously funny. He began to laugh, first softly, then with increasing violence. Tremeur watched him in surprise and concern, no doubt wondering at this sudden hysteria.
“It wanted only that,” Luke managed to gasp between peals of laughter. “That you should be a magician along with everything else. My dear Raith, you are the most amazing man I know, but all this time I imagined they had wronged you. A Leveller with a gun in his hand is ludicrous enough—but who could truly believe in an Anti-demonist hexmaster?”
“Not a hexmaster,” said Raith calmly, as he took out a piece of chalk and began drawing figures on the dirty floor-boards. “Though the accusation has certainly been made. However, my fellow magicians and I have a different name for what we do.
“We call ourselves Specularii.”
41
Fermouline, Chêneboix—11 Floréal, 6538
Will was sitting slumped in a chair with a wet cloth draped over his forehead when Nick Brakeburn pushed open his bedchamber door and came into the room. “Darkness, Will! You look like death. What happened to you?”
“I was poisoned last night,” said Wilrowan, cringing at the sound of the lieutenant’s voice. “And Lili was here. No, I didn’t imagine it. I saw her and spoke with her, and if there is any doubt about that, she left this handkerchief with her initials on it.” He removed the cloth from his brow and showed it to Lili’s cousin.
Nick examined it, shaking his head. “But surely you don’t mean to tell me that Lili was part of some scheme to poison you? Be sensible, Will. You probably—”
“Of course she wasn’t part of some plot to kill me,” Will snapped back at him. “She was the one who saved me. And we have to find her. She left Hawkesbridge under the strangest circumstances and now she turns up here in Chêneboix. I’ll tell you the whole of it later. For now, just believe me when I say it’s vitally important. She was dressed for travel and seemed to be in a tearing hurry. Inquire at each of the main roads out of the town, ask if anyone has seen a black berlin drawn by four grey horses. The driver is short, stout, and wears a dark wig.” He could only hope that Lili and her mysterious companion were still using the same coach and driver his servants had described to him back in Hawkesbridge.
“If you hear anything, anything, come back here and tell me at once.”
Nick was gone for several hours. By the time he finally reappeared, entering the room with his long stride, Will was already in a fever of impatience.
“The berlin crossed the river into Bridemoor and headed north, just about midnight—and at a brisk pace, too. Still, it might be possible to catch up with them before they reach Fencaster, which is the first city of any size on the north road. The road loops several times, and a mounted traveller cutting cross-country—”
Will jumped to his feet, slipped into his drab riding coat, picked up his hat, his pistols, his powderhorn, and the red silk baldric. “My bags are packed and my horse is saddled and waiting for me down in the stable.”
“You promised me an explanation. Or had you forgotten?”
Wilrowan paused on his way to the door. “So I did.” He put down his weapons, pushed back his hat, and rubbed the back of one hand across his forehead. “But where to begin, I hardly know. I suspect that Lili has something to do with this search of ours, though I can’t think how. Besides some mysterious connection with Sir Frederic Marlowe, besides the fact that she left Hawkesbridge at the same time we did, and the fact she was here last night, she was at the Leviathan when Macquay was murdered. It’s not possible that all of these things are mere coincidence.”
“Excuse me,” said Nick, folding his arms, “but I don’t quite follow you. What has Rufus Macquay to do with anything?”
“Damnation,” Will groaned under his breath. “I forgot that you didn’t know everything. Curse Rodaric and his secrecy anyway! He may break me when he hears what I have done, but it’s time that I told you the whole. Especially because you are going to have to take charge of the search here, while I go out looking for Lili.” And Will gave a quick explanation of the disappearance of the Chaos Machine, and all the important circumstances before and afterward.
Nick listened carefully. “Of course,” he said, when Will had finished. “That explains a great many things I have been wondering about. The amazing thing is that I never put all the clues together myself.”
“Why should you?” said Will, with a short, harsh laugh. “Why should it even occur to you that you had been assigned to a secret mission and then deceived about the very thing you were supposed to be looking for? If I were you, I would be furious.”
“I am furious,” said Nick, in a perfectly steady voice. If he was angry it was a nice display of the famous Brakeburn unflappabihty. “But when I consider the matter, I understand Rodaric’s reasoning. If people knew of this, I don’t even like to consider the consequences.” For a moment his composure wavered, and a look of horror flickered across his face, then was gone. “I am glad to be let in on the secret at last, but for all that, I don’t think we should be in any great hurry to tell Gilpin and Odgers.”
“I will trust your judgement on that. Do whatever you think best while I am gone.” Dropping the pistols and the powder horn into his pockets, slinging the baldric over his shoulder, Will was starting once more for the door, when again Nick
stopped him.
“Are you certain this is wise, to go on your own? Someone has tried to kill you at least twice and very nearly succeeded both times.”
“I’ll be on my guard. They won’t get me with poison another time, that I can promise you.” Will laughed and patted a waistcoat pocket, into which he had already slipped the odd little bottles he had picked up in Hawkesbridge. “I’ll test everything that I eat or drink before I so much as taste it.”
He opened the door but paused on the threshold. “I have no idea whether Lili has gone in pursuit of the Wryneck and the woman, or has left town following some other scent. I won’t know until I finally catch up to her. If she isn’t following them, they’re likely to still be here in Fermouline, or across the river in Chalkford. If so, you, Gilpin, and Odgers may be in danger. So be cautious, Nick, and stay alive.”
Bridemoor was grim and windswept—all pitted granite and smokey purple heath, with occasional patches of yellow broom. The settlements were small, rarely more than a dozen houses and two or three churches, one of them sure to be abandoned. The people raised goats and sheep, and scratched whatever else they could out of the hard, unforgiving soil. It was a lonely country, and Will rode for hours without meeting anyone.
A day and a night of largely cross-country travel brought him and the buckskin gelding to the outskirts of Fencaster, without so much as a glimpse of Lili or the black berlin. Just where the open road gave way to cobblestones and cottages, Wilrowan drew up and considered the alternatives.
He had expected to catch up with the coach just about now. That he had not done so meant one of two things: either he had miscalculated and Lili had arrived sooner than he anticipated, or she had been delayed or had turned aside at one of the minor crossroads further back.
The latter seemed by far the more likely, so Will turned south and back-tracked for about twenty miles, this time keeping to the rutted and winding road the entire way. In the tiny village of Starling, where he stopped to inquire, he learned that a black berlin had suffered a broken axle just south of the village earlier that day. Unfortunately, rather than wait while their coach was repaired, the passengers had taken seats on the public stage and gone on to Fencaster, while the coachman bought himself a horse and rode off in the opposite direction.
Will could only curse his bad luck. He had passed the stage fifteen miles back. It had reached the city by now, where Lili and her companion would have effectively disappeared.
And night was falling. Stiff and exhausted after thirty hours spent mostly in the saddle, Will decided that a good night’s rest would best prepare him for the search ahead. He took a room at the village’s one frowsy inn, ate a wretched meal of boiled roots and what tasted like underdone shoe-leather, slaked a heavy thirst with some very small beer, and fell into bed without stopping to undress. The room was drafty, the bed hard and infested with tiny vermin, but he passed out the moment his head touched the pillow. He slept until early morning, when his flea-bites began to itch.
Rising with the dawn, Will swallowed an equally unsatisfactory breakfast and set off for the city. About ten o’clock, he spotted a flock of ravens flying overhead, coming from the direction of Fencaster. Thinking these might be the same birds he had sent ahead to scout the countryside when he left Fermouline, he sent out a greeting. The ring responded by shooting out a ray of dazzling blue light, and two of the ravens veered away from the others and came winging back: one landing on the saddle bow, the other on Wilrowan’s shoulder.
The news they brought him was mixed. Nothing had been seen of Lili or her companion, but of the Wryneck and his female confederate they had much to tell.
Will frowned, trying to make sense of this.
Will shook his head. He did not see how the woman could possibly be a Gobline, even if, for some bizarre reason, she was using a Maglore name. Still, she had left the city. The question now was whether he ought to try and follow her, or go on to Fencaster in search of Lili.
In the end, he decided he had no choice. It had been one thing to go after Lili when she might actually be in hot pursuit of the Chaos Machine, but now that he knew which direction the Jewel was heading, he had to follow it. Sending the ravens on ahead, he continued north until he came again to the outskirts of Fencaster. A black cloud of smoke hovered over the ancient half-timber houses, giving the city a sinister appearance. If Lili was there, Will could only hope that she was not in danger.
It was in Hoile, a ramshackle village near a windy cross-roads, that the blow fell. Will had taken a room for the night and gone out for a stroll in the gathering dusk, across a scrubby patch of common ground, when he was violently accosted by three stout villagers. Almost before he had time to react, certainly before he had time to get the pistol out of his pocket, one of the rustics had wrenched the weapon out of his hand, and the other two quickly overpowered him. Under loud protest, they hustled him off toward the village gaol.
“Damn the lot of you! Won’t you tell me what it is I am supposed to have done?” Will demanded, as they threw him into a cell and sent him sprawling across a scuffed plank floor. A heavy wooden door slammed shut behind him.
The was a rattle of iron keys, and a face like a huge slab of fat appeared between the bars of a window in the door. “We been asked to hold you on charges of murder and treason back t’Mountfalcon,” said a gruff voice.
“Charges of murder and—ridiculous!” said Will, sitting up and dusting himself off. “I’ve done nothing of the sort. And who asked you? You can’t arrest me for crimes committed in Mountfalcon without—” Acting on a sudden twinge of doubt, he felt for the carte blanche he kept in an inner pocket of his riding coat and found it missing.
“The lady, she did have a warrant from t’King of Mountfalcon—all signed and sealed ’twas,” said the gravelly voice.
Will cursed softly under his breath. It was humiliating enough to be arrested—but with his own warrant? Leaning his back against the rough stone wall, he closed his eyes, struggling to remember. He had a dim impression of a soft pair of hands going lightly over him while he lay poisoned and semi-conscious on the floor of his room at the Cinque d’Or. Had that been before or after Lili entered the room?
“The ‘lady’ you said—was it a small plump woman, or a lady of medium height, very composed and attractive?”
“’Tis not for me to say,” the constable replied with a coarse laugh. “You can speak t’magistrate when he do come next month. Mayhap he’ll tell you what you wants to know—mayhap he won’t. In t’meantime, you can just sit right where you are and think on your own wickedness.”
The next few days went slowly by, as Wilrowan spent most of his time pacing his cell or staring out through the one grated window opening on the outside world, which offered a less than inspiring view of a barren stretch of yard and one
twisted thorn tree. Meanwhile, the constable steadfastly refused to answer his questions, and the two bailiffs who took over at intervals proved equally uncooperative. When Will demanded paper and ink, these were grudgingly provided, but after he wrote a letter to Nick, no one would send it.
“And a fine thing ’twould be, you called in t’rest of your gang to bust you out of here!” said the village lawman.
“Very well,” answered Will, seething by now, yet rendered cunning by adversity. “Then let me write to King Rodaric at the Volary Palace.” This meant a much longer wait before help arrived, but it hardly seemed possible the constable could object. “Or do you imagine he’s a member of my gang?”
After much urging, and the exchange of several small coins, the constable allowed that he saw no harm in it. “Though whether it happens he’ll read your letter, I don’t promise, Mr. Blackheart. But I’ll find a man t’carry it, right enough, and you’ll have to be satisfied wi’ that.”
“Captain Blackheart. If your man gives my name correctly at the palace gate when he delivers my letter, it will get in to the king. And if I receive the reply I expect, there will be six gold guineas in it for you.”
With the letter sent on its way, there was nothing for Will to do but wait. He was likely to remain where he was for at least a fortnight: a week for his message to reach Rodaric, another for the letter securing his release to arrive in Hoile.
But one cold morning, just after dawn, as Wilrowan lay on his bed of moldy straw, he was aroused from a half-doze by a loud tapping on the iron grating. He rose quickly and crossed to the window, before the noise could attract the bailiff’s attention.
A raven had perched on the window ledge, a very old bird with ragged feathers.
It was not one of his own ravens, and the rapport was tenuous, the words very faint in his mind. Will was not even certain he had heard them correctly.
The Queen's Necklace Page 44