“She’ll fight like a hellcat,” said Charlie. “I ain’t looking forward to it.”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Rose, tapping her herb bag. “I’ll give her something for it before we do it. She won’t know a thing until they’ve got her miles from here.”
Lucy, while unaware of this conversation, was not so caught up in selling peppermint that she closed her eyes and ears to the other business of the fair: this particular one had a different undercurrent to the others, and it all flowed one way, pulling the talk and the fair-goers towards Huffam’s big top, for it was there that the great “Battle of the Wizards” was due to take place at dusk. It was to be the great finale to the day’s revels, and from the number of people who flowed into the fair grounds, it was clear that the weeks of advertising and playbills which had been distributed ahead of the fair advertising the “magical duel” had done their work well.
She heard people talking excitedly about it, some who remembered Na-Barno’s earlier tours through the area taking his side, others excited by what they had seen or heard of Anderson. Even the clench-faced citizens of the nearby town seemed to loosen up and become a little brighter-eyed at the forthcoming contest, especially as the day progressed and the sales at the beer tents began to have an effect on the general level of cheeriness.
The one strange thing which she noticed at the centre of the fairground was an ancient apple tree heavy with tawny russets glowing gold in the sunlight. What was strange was that each time she passed the tree, the apples were still on it: given it was a fair day and crowds were milling, she would have thought there were enough enterprising young boys to have stripped the thing by midday. Only when she finally got very close did she understand: there were two enormous mastiffs chained to the tree, growling if anyone came too near.
She did not have a chance to talk to Georgiana who was busy selling tickets to the battle. She had come up with the novel scheme of giving away ribbons as well as tickets, all of a yellow colour. She herself was bedecked with them, twined in her ringlets, worn round her neck as a choker, and covering her dress so thickly that it appeared to be made entirely out of yellow bows.
“These ribbons and bows are favours, such as in olden times a fair lady might have worn for her gallant knight!” she cried. “Wear them to show which party you support in the coming contest! And when we win I shall kiss each and every one who wears the yellow!”
She was bright-eyed and at her most beautiful, and Lucy saw young men lining up to buy the tickets and ribbons in droves, and even their female companions, who Lucy would have thought might resent this, were themselves charmed and happy to bedeck themselves in the yellow favours.
By the time the sun had sunk behind the long palisade of willows, which marched across the landscape in company with the distant canal, the crowd pressing to get into Huffam’s big top was so large that an announcement had to be made that due to the excessive interest in the duel, the show would be enacted twice, and only after a tally had been taken from each audience as to who had done better would the announcement be made as to which of the two magicians would henceforth be allowed to style themselves as “Great Wizard of North and South”.
“Two shows?” said Lucy to Georgiana, who was hurrying past as the announcement was made.
“I know,” said Georgiana, leaning in to whisper excitedly in her ear. “Two shows is twice the money. Father is beside himself with pleasure.”
And she skipped off to tempt a group of farm boys who were eyeing her slyly from the shadows.
“Twice the money to be lost and all,” said Charlie from behind Lucy.
“What do you mean?” she said.
“It’s the bet,” he said. “Na-Barno or Anderson, whoever wins the duel, they get to keep the takings. Loser gets nothing and agrees not to call himself wizard of anything. Dad’s shutting up the stall early, special-like. It’ll be a corker! You coming to watch?”
“I don’t know,” said Lucy, knowing she would and that it would be the very last time she saw him or Georgiana again.
CHAPTER 59
SAFE HOME
Mr Sharp did not linger on the matter of his departure: he took the Coburg Ivory from the empty shelf in the Red Library and walked down to the kitchen. Hodge and The Smith were sitting at the table, working on their pipes, adding a tobaccoey fug of their own to the steam from the burbling pudding-boiler on the range.
Jed sat up from where he was stretched out in front of the range and allowed Mr Sharp to scratch his head. The other two pointedly ignored the tell-tale ivory ball in Mr Sharp’s hand.
“Got your knives?” said The Smith.
“Yes,” he replied.
The Smith pulled a small thin-bladed dagger in a scabbard from his waistcoat and held it up without turning to look at him.
“Always room for one more.”
Mr Sharp took it and drew it out of the shagreen sheath.
“Beautiful work,” he said.
“Thank you,” said The Smith. “Meteorite iron went into that, and that wavy line down the blood’groove is purest silver I could find. Handle’s made of oak, ash and thorn.”
“So I see,” said Mr Sharp. “Thank you, Wayland. I am most obliged.”
“May help you more than a normal blade against some comers,” said Hodge. “I made the sheath. Lined in red silk inside, it is.”
“Thank you, both,” said Mr Sharp.
They did not comment on the fact that he took his free hand and wiped it on the mixture of chimney soot and grease lining the brass catch-all above the range. He crossed to the door to the secret passage and opened it.
“I have been honoured that you all…” And here he coughed, cleared his throat and scratched Jed’s head again, including him in what he was saying. “I have been deeply honoured that you all have done me the great kindness of being my friends since first I came here as a child. It has changed my life, and only for the better. I hope to see you again soon.”
And with no more ceremony than the hint of a bow, he went into the passage and closed the door behind him.
“What did you say?” said Hodge, sure he had heard The Smith muttering something.
There was a pause.
“I said, ‘Safe home’ if it’s any of your damned business,” said The Smith eventually, puffing furiously at his pipe.
They both sat there for a while, watching the smoke eddy.
“Sorry,” said The Smith.
Hodge waved the apology away as if it had been nothing, and then stopped.
“What’s that noise?”
“Can’t hear it,” said The Smith.
Hodge shrugged.
“Thought I heard singing.”
The Smith snorted.
“Have you ever heard him sing?”
“No,” admitted Hodge. “He whistles sometimes.”
And they left it at that.
And later, when they went into the passage to turn off the lanterns and snuff the candle in the Murano Cabinet, Mr Sharp was gone. All that remained was one new handprint on the wall by the door with his initials scratched below it.
CHAPTER 60
THE BATTLE OF THE WIZARDS
Lucy insinuated herself into the crowd as it wedged itself excitedly into Huffam’s big tent for the first showing.
She wove her way through the crush, all the way to the front, and made herself unnoticeable against the canvas wall separating the crowd from the wings of the stage. She could hear voices on the other side, but before she could quite make them out there was a drum roll and a bright explosion of flash powder, and Huffam himself was on stage.
“Friends!” he roared. “Most esteemed friends and patrons, welcome to my humble auditorium where we have the honour, nay, the distinction of presenting to you the two greatest magicians in the land! On my right, the esteemed Hector Anderson, the Great Wizard of the North—”
Anderson was a little older than Na-Barno, and a little shorter than Huffam, but there was a dark in
tensity to his eyes that held the audience until he dropped in a simple bow, at which point they cheered and whooped their approval. He was dressed in dark broadcloth and this, along with the way he held himself with a sober dignity, gave him the air of a senior member of the church rather than a showman. In fact the only strikingly showy aspect to his look was the startling contrast between his beetle-black eyebrows and the snowy white hair he wore brushed straight back from an impressively high forehead.
“—and on my left,” continued Huffam, voice beginning to get hoarse from shouting, “is Na-Barno Eagle, the Great Wizard of the South!”
Na-Barno strode out from the wings to another good-natured roar of approval. His more theatrical rig of navy velvet was somehow rendered a little cheap-looking by the unshowy costume worn by his nemesis, and made all the more frivolous by the addition of a large yellow rosette he wore on his arm, fashioned from the yellow ribbons Lucy had seen Georgiana handing out throughout the day. Indeed, much more than half the crowd were waving yellow ribbons in the air as they cheered him. He smiled appreciatively and waved back.
Huffam wasted no time in getting to the nub of the event. He explained what the stakes of the battle were, that the winner would be allowed to call himself the Great Wizard of North and South in perpetuity, and the loser agreed not to call himself the Great Wizard of anything at all, ever again. He didn’t mention the financial side to the wager. But he did explain he was going to toss a coin, and that if it came up tails, Na-Barno would perform first, if heads, Anderson.
Every head in the crowd tilted as they watched the gold coin spin up into the darkness and then fall back into the gleam of the smoking footlights, hitting the wooden stage with a satisfying clunk. Huffam quickly stamped his shiny riding boot on the coin to prevent it rolling away, and then stepped back to read the result.
“Heads!” he shouted, and the crowd roared again.
Lucy saw Na-Barno’s face twitch with something like disappointment, but by the time she’d named the emotion for herself it was gone and he was smiling gracefully, bowing to Anderson and walking off the stage to more cheers.
Anderson watched him go with an answering smile, but it was one in which Lucy thought she saw more than a little satisfaction.
The reason became apparent as soon as he began his act. He explained that he was “interested” to be sharing a stage with the esteemed Mr Eagle (he would not call him a “Great Wizard”, since that name was to be granted by the crowd later, though he was, he averred with a raised eyebrow, undoubtedly a Great Something. What that something might be he forbore to enlarge on, but his very public display of restraint on the matter cleverly led people immediately to the thought that it must be something highly discreditable). He would not say more, he explained, because he believed actions spoke louder than words, and so he would begin his performance forthwith.
Lucy was jammed at the front of the stage, close enough to risk getting both singed and asphyxiated by the smoking oil lamps lining the platform as footlights. She was wedged hard against the right-hand wing, and with her ear to the thin canvas she could also hear a sudden shocked inrush of breath on the other side of the canvas wing.
“My God–my God–my God!” whispered Na-Barno, panic rising with each repetition. “The wretch–surely he cannot—”
“He is, Father,” replied Georgiana flatly. “He most certainly is. We’re dished. How simple. How elegantly simple, and how damnably clever of him to do it.”
What Anderson was doing, the “it” which had dished Georgiana and Na-Barno, was nothing more or less than their very own act.
Or rather Anderson was not only doing their act in perfect mimicry but also improving on it, since he performed each illusion and trick precisely as Na-Barno did it, but then added an embellishment on the end, topping him. The crowd enjoyed the spectacle for what it was, particularly the mind-reading portion, but Lucy could hear a building chatter spreading through the spectators around her as those who knew Na-Barno’s routines from previous tours in the area began to chortle and tell those around them what Anderson was up to. This itself added an extra frisson of delight, and each trick attracted greater applause than the last.
Na-Barno was done for: to come on after this performance and do the very routines which Anderson had now done with such extra flourishes and enhancements would be as excruciating as repeating a joke someone had just told, and repeating it with less coherence and with worse timing.
But it turned out that Anderson was not merely ruthless and clever: he was implacable in his destruction of Na-Barno. After he had performed a mind-reading act with an automaton just like Na-Barno’s, he did something that made the two watchers on the other side of the canvas wing gasp again. He reversed the cabinet with the automaton in it, and lifted the turban from the finely crafted papier-mâché head. He then showed with forensic exactness precisely how the levers and wires worked, proclaiming it a miracle, certainly, but one of artifice and engineering, and not, and he was very definite on this, absolutely not of magic. Too much of what passed for “magic”, he explained, was mere smoke and mirrors, and the clever advances in machinery and engineering powering the new manufactories and mills across this proud nation were also being used by those performers who lacked real ability, and who used automata, clockwork and the like to counterfeit it.
“But, ladies and gentlemen, we just have time for one more thing,” he announced with a knowing smile. “And with it I will not trouble you with mirrors, vapours, gimmicked boxes or even a clockworked automaton as cunningly crafted to confuse as this one. I shall instead do one more thing only. A simple thing but, I think you will agree, a wholly impossible thing!”
The crowd growled happily with approval.
“And the only way to do the impossible is, of course, to use real magic!”
The crowd aahed, which sounded like a big happy purr of anticipation. He leapt to the front of the stage, looming out over the lights, his up-lit face suddenly both affable and vaguely diabolical.
“And not only that! But I shall give you, my friends, the choice of what instrument I shall use to do it with: balls, rings, cups or cards. For the plain simplicity of the tools, the very basics of the conjuror’s art will only emphasise the impossibility of the feat! For, gentlemen, I think you will agree, there is no woman so beautiful that is not made all the more so when seen without the impediments of clothing or artifice. This, my friends, is the real magic, the natural magic, the thing itself! And what is more, I shall give one thousand guineas in gold coin to anyone who can now or within the next twelve months show how I did the trick in a way that was not magical!”
This offer delighted the crowd who cheered and roared its approval.
Anderson stepped back and whipped a scarf off the small table in the centre of the stage. There were three blue beakers on it, next to five small yellow balls, and then there was a pack of playing cards in a red box. Lucy, who had sampled all the shows and booths that she had come across on the showmen’s circuit, thought it looked one of the least promising set of props she’d ever seen. And that was, as it turned out, just another part of Anderson’s genius.
“They’ll choose the damned cards,” she heard Na-Barno say behind the canvas wall at her ear.
“Obviously,” said Georgiana. “There’s not a flat born that won’t choose red, unless they’re an Irish crowd.”
The crowd, by a rowdy show of hands, proved that they were not Irish.
“Cards it is!” cried Anderson, picking up the pack and casually tossing it into the crowd, where a young farmer snatched it out of the air. “Well caught, sir! Now if you would show it to those around you, any who wish to see, and ascertain that this is a normal pack of cards, all present and correct, no absences, duplications or tell-tales marked anywhere…”
The pack was opened and passed around, and after much prodding and poking, riffling and shuffling, measuring and feeling, and even some sniffing and one–loudly prevented–attempt to bite it, it wa
s agreed to be as standard and complete a pack as ever was.
“Then shuffle it!” cried Anderson. “Shuffle it and pass it on and shuffle again, as much as you like, then throw it back to me!”
The crowd liked about three people shuffling the pack, tolerated a fourth, after which they grew restive and called for the pack to be returned and tossed back on stage so the “magic” could commence.
The pack was lobbed to Anderson, who nimbly stuck his hands in his pockets and leapt backward so the box of cards landed at his feet, untouched.
“I will not touch the cards. But the pack must be cut,” he cried. “Who has a knife?”
It was a largely rural town, and a great many of the men in the crowd had blades, most of which were now scooped from pockets, belts or boot-tops and waved in the air.
“I need a strong man who you all know to be local,” announced Anderson. “Someone many of you know and can assure the others is not a plant of my own, for it is at this point that a mere prestidigitator would seek to insert a confederate to aid in the trick. But since this is no trick, but the real magic, I need no such assistance.”
After a great deal of pushing and shoving, and shouting and counter-shouting a burly man in carter’s boots was propelled up on stage. He stood grinning at his friends in the crowd, who whooped and whistled at him.
“Now, my friend,” said Anderson. “Please take the cards out of the box again, and put the deck on this table.”
The carter did so and stood back.
“Now take your knife and stab through the pack, as far as you like. Do not worry about how hard you strike, for the table is sturdy, but try not to go all the way through the pack, for we shall pick the card in this way.”
The carter raised his knife and stabbed the pack as hard as he could. The knife went a little more than halfway through. Some of the younger members of the crowd jeered him for a weak stroke, but Anderson waved them quiet.
“A single card is easy to puncture, but fifty-two layered together? Why, I knew a soldier saved by a small Bible in his waistcoat pocket which stopped a musket ball. There is strength in numbers, do not forget. Now, sir, lift the point of the knife and show the ladies and gentlemen the card!”
The Oversight Page 34