The Grand Tour

by Patricia C. Wrede

  “Your affectionate Father.”

  When I finished reading the letter, there was a moment’s silence. “He does have a fondness for flowing periods,” Thomas commented at last.

  “Are any of his correspondents close to Venice?” James asked. “I can think of several queries I’d like to put to one of them.”

  I looked at the list, blinked, and went over it again more slowly. I had indeed been well aware of Papa’s voluminous correspondence with other antiquaries, but I had had no idea that Papa included two royal dukes (one of France, one of Austria) and a double handful of lesser nobility among his fusty colleagues. “Yes, there’s a gentleman living just off the Rio San Giacomo Dell’Orio, one Cavalier Coducci.”

  “Never heard of him,” Thomas said.

  “I have,” said James, to my surprise. “He’s been a well-known expert in classical Rome for years. He must be getting on a bit.”

  “Then we’d best arrange to meet with him soon,” Thomas said, peering over my shoulder at the letter of introduction Papa had sent.

  “All of us,” Kate said firmly.

  Thomas looked wounded. “Would I even consider anything else?”

  “Yes,” Kate and James said together.

  Thomas looked even more put out, but he did not argue. He did, however, leave the business of arranging our visit rather pointedly in James’s hands.

  Unfortunately, Cavalier Coducci was not currently in town, but his maggiordomo informed us that he would return any day. James rolled his eyes at this, and muttered something about the Italian sense of time. As there was nothing we could do to hurry Cavalier Coducci’s return, James and Thomas went back to occasionally watching Eve-Marie, Kate and Reardon searched booksellers and libraries for a copy of Monsieur Montier’s monograph, and I set about creating a focus for my magic.

  I had been thinking about what to use for some time. At first I had planned on some piece of jewelry, but I soon saw that it would not do. For unless I chose some bit of mere trumpery, I would not wish to smash it if ever I decided to change my focus, and it would quickly become obvious to anyone if I wore the same cheap ring or brooch with everything (besides which, it is quite impossible to find one piece of jewelry that is suitable with everything one wishes to wear). On the other hand, I did not wish to have to pack something as bulky and inconvenient as Thomas’s chocolate pot everywhere I went.

  When we reached Venice, however, I found what seemed the perfect solution. Venetian glass is quite lovely, and among the many unusual things they make from it are intricate paperweights of solid glass with colored patterns inside. Being made of glass, they are quite smashable; being solid, they are not at all easy to smash by accident. (I spent an afternoon experimenting with several samples that I had purchased while Kate and I were out shopping. I confess that I had a hard time forcing myself to destroy such lovely things, for although I had looked for the ugliest ones on purpose, I had been unable to find any that fit such a description.) The smallest of the paperweights fits quite comfortably in the palm of my hand, making it a convenient size for carrying in a reticule.

  Having chosen an object for my focus and gathered the necessary ingredients for the spell, all that remained was to find a quiet time and place for the ritual. This was not as difficult as I had anticipated. I simply stayed behind one afternoon when Kate and Reardon went on their search, and sent Walker off in search of some embroidery silks. This left me with most of the palazzo to myself, as Italian servants are mostly inactive in the afternoon.

  I read through Lady Sylvia’s directions twice, to make certain I had committed them to memory, and also reviewed the incantations (though I had memorized them weeks before, with James’s help). I closed the door of the sitting room and cleared all the miscellaneous objects—the candlesticks, my embroidery, Kate’s inkwell, a penknife that someone, probably Thomas, had left lying near—into drawers or cupboards, and pulled the little writing desk I had been using for my sewing into the middle of the room. I set the basin in the center of the desk, with my chosen paperweight beside it and the candles, salt, water, and feather near to hand.

  I took a deep breath and began the ritual. It is curious how sweeping out a room, which is the most ordinary of activities, becomes a matter of magic requiring serious concentration simply by virtue of muttering the proper Latin while doing it. Having cleaned the room, I laid a ring of salt on the desktop, enclosing the basin. I was extremely careful to be sure the ring was unbroken, and I was equally careful about positioning the candles along its edge, alternating one inside the ring and one outside it, so that I did not brush the salt out of line in the process.

  Still chanting, I reached between the candles and placed the paperweight inside the basin. Then I lit the candles, working clockwise. As I did, I felt magic gathering around me. Carefully, I reached between the burning candles to pour water into the basin, to wash both my hands and the paperweight. The magic swirled through the air around me, then flowed along my arms like the water, into the circle and the basin.

  When I could no longer feel magic anywhere outside the circle of salt, I picked up the feather and held it over the basin. “Candles, salt, water, feather,” I said in Latin. “Fire, earth, water, air, be a binding link between me and this object. Fiat, fiat, voluntas mea.”

  As I spoke, I felt the magic within the circle swirl and intensify. Then, with my final words, it surged downward and outward at the same time. Suddenly everything seemed clearer, sharper, and more distinct, the way it sometimes does when the wind unexpectedly clears a smoky haze that one had not realized was there.

  And then the writing desk exploded.

  From the commonplace book of Lady Schofield

  27 October 1817

  Venice

  Palazzo Flangini

  When catastrophe strikes, in the domestic sphere at least, it leaves behind a curious hush, a silence different from all other silences. That silence is no mere absence of sound. It is the hush that results when enormity sinks in.

  This afternoon Reardon and I returned from our search for the Montier monograph to find the palazzo entirely silent. Not a servant was stirring. Reardon and I noticed the phenomenon at the same time. She and I looked at each other askance for a moment, but, really, we were listening. An unnatural silence held, precisely the sort of thunderous silence I know so well from Aunt Charlotte’s lectures. I would not have thought it possible the effect could be so marked in an edifice (for call it a house I simply cannot) the size of the palazzo.

  “I’ll find out what has happened.” Reardon helped me out of my muddy shoes and into a pair of dry slippers. “If you can manage, my lady?”

  “Of course, of course.” I sent Reardon on her way and went to the chamber we had been using as a sitting room. To my consternation, the door was closed and locked. I put my ear to the panel but could hear nothing. Then, when I held my breath to be sure, I thought I heard the rustle of fabric. I knocked on the door. “It’s Kate,” I said, quite unnecessarily. “Do let me in.”

  After an unintelligible grumble in Thomas’s distinctive voice, the door opened. Thomas stood in the doorway, arms spread wide so I could not enter. The look in his eyes was pure relief. “Thank God you’re back. Don’t come in.” With his neckcloth disarranged and his hair untidy, Thomas looked somewhat harried, but otherwise much as usual.

  “Are you all right?” I looked past him into the room. “What on earth—” The pictures on the walls were intact, and the great windows looking out on the Grand Canal were undamaged. Everything else in the room looked as if a giant had come by and stirred it with a spoon.

  “I’m not finished yet,” said Thomas hurriedly. “I’ll come out as soon as I can.” Before I could ask my first question, he held up a hand to stop me. “Cecy has had a little mishap, that’s all. James is with her now. We’ve sent for a physician, just to be perfectly sure she’s all right.”

  I clutched at Thomas’s lapels. “Cecy! What’s happened to Cecy?”

&nb
sp; “Don’t be alarmed. It’s all right. I promise.” Thomas put his arms around me. “Cecy would be the first to reassure you. She’s fine.”

  “Oh, Thomas. You know Cecy. She would claim to be fine if both her legs were cut off.”

  Thomas had the gall to chuckle. “Very true. But I promise you, she is fine. Truly. These things happen. Occasionally.”

  I looked back at the wreckage of the sitting room. “They do?”

  “They do when you don’t take pains to ground your focus spell.” Thomas tightened his embrace. “Kate, you don’t fancy yourself a magician, do you? You’d never try something like this on your own? You’d tell me if you were planning to, wouldn’t you?”

  I gave Thomas an impatient shake. “Are you mad? Of course not. I don’t know anything about magic. Why would I try to perform any?”

  Thomas gave me a small shake back, more gentle yet far more effective. “Promise me you’ll never try anything like this.”

  “I promise. Anything like what? What did Cecy do?” Reluctantly, I turned my full attention from the expression in Thomas’s eyes to the destruction in the room beyond.

  “She created her focus. Unfortunately, there were one or two problems with the parameters, so the magic didn’t enter the focus she’d chosen.” Thomas looked distinctly grim. “Fortunately, her magic destroyed the object it entered into inadvertently. Just as well, because I don’t think even Cecy could explain away taking a writing desk with her everywhere she went.”

  “A desk?” I looked around again. The gilt-legged, marble-topped writing desk I remembered was gone. Thomas had been sweeping something that looked remarkably like a heap of gold dust, or possibly sand, into a tidy heap on a sheet of newspaper.

  “I’ve been cleansing the room and gathering the magical residue. The lion’s share of it is back with Cecy again,” Thomas explained. “But I’m taking no chances.”

  “Residue?” I echoed weakly, looking at the heap of golden dust.

  “That’s why you can’t come in. No one can.”

  I regarded first the room and then Thomas with great misgiving. “Why? What happens when you have magical residue?”

  “I don’t intend to find out. But at the very least, no games of chance should be played in this room for the foreseeable future.” Thomas added wryly, “I think the laws of probability may be on holiday at the moment.”

  I gazed at the heap of dust. Really, it looked much more like housekeeping than it did like magic. “What will you do with it?”

  “I’ll remove as much of the magic as I can before I clear up the residue. Get as much of it back to Cecy as possible.”

  “How long will it take you to do that?” I asked.

  “I’m not entirely sure. Things are greatly improved since James and I returned, but there are still traces of the ritual to be cleared away.” Thomas took another look at me. “Why don’t you go change out of that very muddy gown? I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

  “You must on no condition hurry,” I countered. “I’ll just go see if Cecy needs anything.”

  “Don’t look so stricken,” Thomas said. “If nothing else, one good thing has come out of this.”

  “Oh?” I gazed at the ruin of the once lovely room and tried to think of a single good thing about it.

  “Now that she knows firsthand that there’s more to focusing one’s magic than meets the eye, Cecy can never again make slighting remarks about my chocolate pot.” With that, Thomas kissed me, locked himself in the sitting room and, I surmised from the muffled sounds I heard through the door, went back to work.

  At Cecy’s door, I met Walker coming out with a tray. Upon it she carried a decanter of brandy and a pair of empty glasses. Apparently James and Thomas subscribe to similar beliefs concerning the medicinal powers of strong drink. “May I see Mrs. Tarleton?” I asked Walker softly.

  Before she could answer, Cecy’s clear voice came from her room. “Oh, Kate! You’re back. Come in!”

  I entered the bedchamber to find Cecy reclining on the grand gilt bed, with James in attendance. Cecy looked at least as healthy as James. In fact, the pair of them shared a certain high color. I wondered if brandy alone were responsible.

  “Cecy, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Cecy assured me, “only I must perform the ritual again. I was particularly careful about the parameters, no matter what Thomas thinks.”

  “I’m quite sure you were,” I said. “James, is she really all right?”

  “We’ll let the physician have the last word on that subject,” said James.

  At precisely the same time, Cecy said, “I’m fine.”

  “She seems fine,” James conceded. He made a minute adjustment to the shawl around Cecy’s shoulders, and I thought I detected a faint tremor in his hands. I felt a rush of gratitude toward him for taking good care of Cecy.

  “Thank heavens for that.” I found a chair and sank into it. “What precisely have you done, Cecy? The sitting room looks as though you’d been at it with a sledgehammer.”

  “I was creating a focus for my magic.” Cecy sat up straighter, her eyes bright with enthusiasm. “Only there seemed to be quite a lot more magic than I expected. It was so unfortunate, for in the moment before the magic destroyed the desk, I was truly focused. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it. Oh, Kate, it was simply splendid.”

  I remembered helping Thomas to create his focus. Splendid was not too strong a word, I judged from his reactions at the time.

  “It was rash,” stated James. “You could have been seriously hurt, perhaps even killed.”

  “But I wasn’t.” Cecy’s happiness dimmed for a moment.

  “I’m sorry about the writing desk. Although it was quite spectacular to see the marble dissolve as if it were made of sand. Golden sand, when the gilt mixed in. I suppose we will have to find a replacement for it, or pay damages.”

  “Worth every penny,” said James.

  “Do let me conduct the ritual again before we try to replace any of the damaged furniture,” said Cecy “I believe it might help to perform the spell in an empty room. Easier to sweep, for one thing.”

  The physician arrived before Cecy could persuade James that she should conduct the ritual again. At Cecy’s request, I remained, but the examination did not take long. I could see why the physician was considered a favorite among the English visitors to Venice, for his manners were even more excellent than his English.

  “A light diet and no excitement,” was his recommendation. “Mrs. Tarleton will not leave her room for a day or two. When she does, she must take only mild exercise for another day or two. Then, if there is no relapse, she may resume her ordinary routine.”

  “But I’m fine,” Cecy declared, for approximately the one hundredth time.

  “Of course you are,” agreed the physician. “But for now you will humor those who love you and rest.”

  “Oh, very well.” Cecy looked up at James. “You’ll stay, won’t you?”

  James agreed very readily to stay with her, and the physician and I left them in peace, with Walker to see to anything they needed.

  When I had seen the physician on his way, I went back to the sitting room. Thomas was still not finished there. I did not wish to distract him, so I came back here to our chamber to write this.

  Cecy does seem to be largely unharmed by her experience. I know Thomas has a great deal of experience in dealing with spells that refuse to be cast as they should. But when I think of the remains of that writing desk, reduced to a few pounds of dust upon a sheet of newspaper, it makes me wonder what else might have gone wrong. What a good thing it is Cecy who has the aptitude for magic and the interest to gain the skill to use it. If it were me, I might have blown myself to atoms by now.

  28 October 1817

  Venice

  Palazzo Flangini

  Among the many letters and packages that we have received since our arrival here in Venice was a parcel for me from Lady Sylvia. Most mysterio
usly, the parcel contained no letter, not even a note. I can think of no particular reason for Lady Sylvia to send me a gift, but only she would have chosen something so perfect. It is a shawl. At first I thought there must be some message either embroidered or woven into the very fabric, but I can detect none. It is made of soft wool, not too heavy, the very thing for these cooler days, and it is a most pleasing shade of pink. I love it immoderately. I’m only sorry the note that she must have sent with it has been lost, but I have already posted my letter of thanks.

  29 October 1817

  Venice

  Palazzo Flangini

  The mystery of the vanishing gloves has been solved. I don’t know what is to be done about it, but at least I know I have not been imagining things.

  Chilly as the city can be at this season, Venice is not without beauty. I find it remarkable that I am beginning to feel accustomed to living in such grandeur, where the streets are, for all intents and purposes, liquid. Thomas and I were out admiring the splendor of it all, eating roasted chestnuts Thomas bought from a vendor as if we knew no better than to eat in public. Thomas peeled mine for me, a childish bit of chivalry I found absurdly touching.

  “I’ll let you,” I told him, “because if anything happens to this pair of gloves, Reardon will be so cross.” I was joking. It is true that I have only two good pairs left, but Reardon would never be really cross with me about it. I find her tranquil acceptance of my wretched clumsiness quite soothing. She has a remarkable way with mud stains, too.

  “You tremble in your boots at the prospect, I see.” Thomas handed me a peeled chestnut and started on one for himself. “There’s a simple solution. Order more gloves.”