Wizard Undercover

by K. E. Mills

  “Not if it saved lives,” said Bibbie. “Surely.”

  Melissande kept on dabbing. “Look, I’m all for saving lives. But we’ll be touring for nearly two weeks, so there is still time, isn’t there? Algernon? If we can unmask the plotters before we return to Grande Splotze, there’ll be no need to tell Hartwig anything. And lo, the happy ending, complete with fireworks and no secret agents revealed.”

  And better yet, no Sir Alec in a foaming heap. “Yes, I suppose I can—ow!”

  “Hold still,” said Melissande, peering at the charred patch on his ribs. “This is the worst bit. Honestly, how could you have been so silly as to get yourself blown into the Canal? It’s a wonder you made it to the barge in one piece, and undetected.”

  He wanted to hop up and down, the stinging was so fierce. “I’m a wizard, remember? And I came first in swimming class. Hell’s bells, Melissande. What’s in that green muck?”

  She shrugged. “I haven’t a clue. Holy Man Shugat gave it to Rupert and Rupert gave it to me. I think he said something about cactus juice blessed by the Kallarapi Gods, and possibly some interesting camel by-products, but to be honest I wasn’t really listening. All I know is that it cleared up Boris’s little problem a treat.”

  Gerald stared at her, aghast, as Bibbie dissolved into giggles. “Melissande!”

  “You’re welcome,” she said, and thrust his wet clothes at him, “Now go away. Get some sleep. Starting with breakfast, we’ve a lot of work to do.”

  Morning saw Hartwig’s scarlet-painted, three-deck barge gliding majestically down the Canal between lush green meadows dotted with heavy uddered milch cows, who regarded them in bovine astonishment as they passed. At some point during the night they’d left behind the industrial untidiness of the cargo barge docks, and now the landscape was painted in varying themes of bucolic bliss. The sky was blue, the air crisp and florally scented. A glorious autumn day, yet empty of calamity.

  But likely that would change.

  The barge boasted a huge formal dining room and a dance floor, as well as two saloons, a small salon, a ladies’ salon, several games rooms and accommodation in rigorously graded sumptuosity for one hundred and fifty passengers, staff and crew … but even so, the wedding guests’ minions couldn’t be kept entirely out of sight. Which meant that even though they’d been herded down to the far end of the promenade deck for their suitably humble fresh air breakfast, they could still see the wedding party enjoying its extravagant silk-canopied, five course repast, waited on by a bevy of servants.

  Pretending to listen as the senior lackeys from Graff and Blonkken shovelled down pork sausages and bickered about which country bred the best racehorses, Gerald kept half an eye on the wedding party and brooded.

  He’d only slept through part of the previous night. Not, to his surprise, because of his burns. His burns were almost healed, thanks to Holy Man Shugat’s dreadful ointment. No, he’d spent most of the hours until dawn cautiously eking out his potentia, teasing at the inconsistent etheretics, searching Hartwig’s barge for any sign of the wizard who’d set that filthy entrapment hex and used blood magic to hunt Abel Bestwick. To his immense frustration, he’d felt nothing.

  But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to feel.

  He had to be patient. Trust that the villain in their midst would stumble, and reveal himself. Or herself, possibly, if he was wrong about the Lanruvians.

  Only I’m not wrong. They’re steeped in malice, those three. I didn’t mistake what I felt.

  As the bickering lackeys paused to take a breath between insults and mouthfuls, Bibbie, seated beside him, leapt fearlessly into the fray.

  “I say,” she said, her voice carefully calculated to project a breathy timidity, “does anyone know why the Lanruvians haven’t brought any staff with them? I mean, it’s rather odd, isn’t it, that they don’t have any staff?”

  The Graffish horse expert, middle-aged and portly, favoured Bibbie with a smug, superior smile. “Miss Slack, isn’t it?”

  Dimpling, Bibbie conjured a becoming blush. “That’s right, Mister Hoffman. Gladys Slack of New Ottosland. How kind of you to remember.”

  Hoffman preened. “Not at all, Miss Slack. It is hard to forget a personable young lady.”

  Before Bibbie could further encourage the puffing windbag, Gerald bounced a little in his chair and guffawed. “Yes, isn’t it? And you know, by golly, I think our personable Miss Slack is right. They do seem an odd bunch, those Lanruvians. Mind you, there’s not much known about them at home.” He favoured the table with a gormless smile. “Don’t s’pose any of you chaps care to spill the beans?”

  “Oh, yes, would you?” said Bibbie, batting her eyelashes outrageously. “Because while of course I wouldn’t dream of speaking for Mister Rowbotham, I know I dread the thought of my ignorance giving everyone a poor impression of Princess Melissande.”

  Bibbie wasn’t the only female lackey seated at the minions’ breakfast table, but she was by far the most alluring. It seemed Dowager Queen Erminium had old-fashioned ideas about suitable lady’s maids for herself and her daughter. As the men rushed to reassure Miss Slack that on the contrary she was charming, delightful, the other two women, older than Bibbie and uniformly hatchet-faced, exchanged disapproving glances then glared at their emptied plates. So far they’d said nothing except “Good morning.”

  Only one of Harenstein’s lackeys had joined them for breakfast. Dermit, the man without the scar. “Miss Slack,” he said, his Ottish guttural with gravelly Harenstein inflection, “there is little known about the Lanruvians.”

  “Surely the Crown Prince knows?” said Bibbie, her dark, incanted eyes round with kittenish surprise. She aimed her limpid gaze at the minion sitting opposite. “Mister Glanzig, can’t you shed some light on Splotze’s mysterious guests?”

  Peeder Glanzig, Prince Ludwig’s junior secretary and official wedding dogsbody, was a plain-faced young man afflicted with a sparse beard that did nothing to disguise his woeful lack of chin. He swallowed, flushing under Gladys Slack’s melting scrutiny.

  “I wish I could, Miss Slack. But as you say the Lanruvians are a puzzle.”

  Bibbie’s bafflement only made her more adorable. “I’m very silly,” she sighed. “I thought since they were invited to the wedding you’d know why, and by whom. I mean, they were invited, weren’t they? They didn’t just turn up hoping to join in?”

  “Of course they were invited,” Glanzig said hurriedly. “But it’s not my place to question who is on the guest list, Miss Slack. And these Lanruvians, well, they keep themselves to themselves.”

  “That’s true, Miss Slack,” chimed in Lal Bandabeedi, the Aframbigin ambassador’s attendant. “We call them the ghost men. Don’t you see them drifting about like shades of the dead?”

  Bibbie gave a delicious little shudder. “Oh, my dear sir, you describe them completely. Especially since, well, they don’t even seem to be enjoying themselves.” Then she furrowed her brow in another irresistible display of feminine confusion. “But I’m still all at sea. What is it to Lanruvia who dear Prince Ludwig marries? I do wish someone could help me understand.”

  As servants returned to refresh cups of tea and coffee, clear away the remains of toast and jam, bacon, sausages and scrambled eggs, and deliver some palate-cleansing sliced melon, Bibbie’s admirers attempted to impress her with their superior knowledge. Bibbie, bless her, hung on every blustering word, nodding and exclaiming and praising the acumen of her would-be educators.

  Taking advantage of the useful diversion, Gerald thinned his etheretic shield. Immediately he felt the nearby Lanruvians’ simmering thaumic power, like dragon’s breath in his face. But no immediate danger this time, only its sleeping promise. He could also feel the Potentia-dampening hex he’d cobbled together for Bibbie just that morning, having been struck by the belated thought that she, too, could benefit from a little judicious obfuscation. She’d not been pleased, but she’d taken it. And now he found himself touched that she
was wearing it, knowing she trusted him enough to do as he asked, at least this once.

  Praise Saint Snodgrass for small miracles.

  On and on the men babbled, Bibbie artlessly encouraging them. Keeping a wary eye on the Lanruvians, Gerald dabbled through his fellow lackeys’ pallid potentias … and found nothing. There wasn’t a man or woman among them with more thaumaturgical aptitude than a mop. Disconcerted, he let his etheretic shield return to full strength.

  Bugger it.

  So did this mean the villain, or villains, had been left behind in Grand Splotze? It was possible. Not all the wedding guests’ lackeys had come on the tour. If the pre-wedding fireworks were indeed meant to deal the nuptials their fatal blow, then there wasn’t any reason for the person responsible to be on the barge. In fact, it made more sense for him or her to stay behind. In which case, should he invent a reason to go back?

  No. It’s too risky. I could be entirely wrong.

  Bloody hell. The uncertainty was going to give him an ulcer.

  With the babble dying down Bibbie, still playing her part to the hilt, favoured her eager admirers with another devastating smile.

  “Thank you all so much, gentlemen,” she cooed. “Truly, I’d be lost without your kindness. But there was one thing …” She looked to the end of the table, where Lord Babcock’s priggish private under-secretary sipped tea with his little finger punctiliously crooked. “Mister Mistle? I might’ve been hearing things, but I’ll swear you mentioned something about the Lanruvians and cherries.”

  Hever Mistle favoured Bibbie with a restrained nod. “I did, Miss Slack.”

  “Then could you enlighten me? I’d be ever so grateful. But, y’know, only if you’d not be speaking out of turn. I wouldn’t like you to run afoul of Lord Babcock on my account.”

  “It’s unlikely. I am not employed by his lordship to safekeep Lanruvian secrets.” Mistle returned his cup to its saucer with a precise little clink. “I mentioned cherries, Miss Slack, only because I’ve heard it whispered that our pale, reclusive and above all insular friends are thinking to look beyond their jealously guarded borders. It seems the Lanruvians grow a variety of cherry to make a liqueur fancier weep with joy.”

  Gerald hid a frown in his own cup of tea. Really? Heard it whispered where, exactly? “I say, sir,” he said, as Bibbie’s admirers exchanged looks. “D’you mean Lanruvia’s thinking of asking Splotze to make its world famous liqueur with their cherries?”

  Hever Mistle shrugged, his expression bland as milk. “I think Splotze’s last two cherry harvests have been … unfortunate. And an unreliable harvest leads to unease, wouldn’t you agree?” Mistle flicked a sprinkling of salt from his sleeve. “Of course, I don’t claim to be an expert. I merely pass along what I’ve heard.”

  Yes, and why hadn’t the same information been passed along to Sir Alec? If someone had fallen down on the job, heads would surely roll.

  “I’d think the cherry-growers of Splotze would have something to say about that,” he said to Mistle, who shrugged. “They’re awfully proud of their cherries.”

  He turned to Peeder Glanzig. “Could you even call it Splotze Cherry Liqueur if the cherries were being brought in from Lanruvia?”

  Glanzig shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I don’t believe these are proper matters for discussion, Mister Rowbotham,” he said, disapproving. Then he laughed, unconvincingly. “I mean to say, all this sombre talk of business, sir. We shall be boring the ladies. Perhaps, Miss Slack, you could entertain us with tales of life in New Ottosland? Such a quaint little kingdom, tucked away in the middle of the vast and mysterious Kallarapi desert. I’m sure we’d all be thrilled to hear more about it.”

  Chilled with forboding, Gerald lightly kicked Bibbie’s ankle under the table. Say no! Say you’ve signed an Order of Discretion! But Bibbie giggled, ignoring him.

  “Oh, Mister Glanzig, I’d be delighted,” she gushed. “For you know, I think New Ottosland is an undiscovered jewel!”

  But it seemed to Gerald that Bibbie was the undiscovered jewel. Eating his slices of melon, listening to her spin a sparkling cobweb of a story out of what he knew were Melissande’s infrequent mentions of her New Ottosland past, he found himself regretting the rigid rules of society that meant Monk’s brilliant sister could never be a janitor in her own right.

  Because, let’s face it, she’d make even Frank Dalby sit up.

  Carefully, casually, he let his gaze roam until it rested once more on the Lanruvians. Could the explanation for their presence really be that simple? That innocent? Cherry liqueur?

  I suppose it could … but since when have I ever been that lucky?

  Dowager Queen Erminium of Borovnik was a difficult woman.

  “This sauce is too thin!” she announced, poking at her third course of sliced roast beef. “Where is the cook? Can someone send for the cook? I must instruct him in the proper way to prepare a green peppercorn sauce!”

  “Please, Mama,” Princess Ratafia murmured, seated at her mother’s side. “I think the sauce is quite—”

  “No, Ratafia, the sauce is not quite anything,” her mother contradicted. “Save for too thin.”

  “My dear Erminium,” said Hartwig’s long-suffering wife Brunelda, bristling, “this sauce is an old family recipe passed down to me by my late grandmother.”

  Erminium smiled. “Indeed, my dear Brunelda? Well. Much is now explained.”

  “Mama,” Ratafia whispered, anguished.

  “You must allow me to furnish you with a green peppercorn sauce recipe of my own,” said Erminium, as though her daughter hadn’t spoken. “I fancy you will find it more fashionable.”

  Brunelda’s answering smile was sickly sweet. “To my mind, many things counted fashionable are, in truth, sadly lacking. If there is a fashion for glugsome sauces then I am content to be seen a dowdy and will not lose a wink of sleep.”

  “Save from indigestion, perhaps,” said Erminium, making a great show of scraping all traces of the offending sauce from her beef. “Or worse. For it is well known among those of us who have made the art of saucery our particular interest, that a thin sauce of any kind must prove an affliction to the bowels.”

  Ratafia dropped her fork. “Mama.”

  But Erminium had the bit well and truly between her teeth. “And I think I have even heard it mentioned by some Borovnik doctors that souls of goutish disposition should especially beware, as a thin sauce is well known to agitate the vital humours.”

  “Indeed?” Brunelda’s vast bosom heaved with barely repressed offence. “Borovnik doctors?”

  So sharp was her tone that the rest of the breakfast table was hard-put to go on pretending that here was a honeyed nattering about naught. Ratafia had given up remonstrating, and was gazing at her plate with not quite masked despair. Seated opposite her, Prince Ludwig’s stormy eyes suggested he was desperate to defend his mother but knew himself honour-bound not to, on account of his promised wife and the deference due to the woman shortly to become his bride-mama.

  Appetite fled, Melissande glanced around the table and saw her own discomfort mirrored in nearly every other face. Only the Lanruvians seemed indifferent, oddly absent even though their presence was oppressively inescapable. Oh—and Hartwig. He was chewing his beef with gusto, thin sauce and all, heedless of the tension. Sometimes he really was a clod.

  She risked a longer look at the man seated to her left. Why the devil didn’t he say something amusing? As Splotze’s Secretary of State, Leopold Gertz had made diplomacy his life. There was nothing at all diplomatic about stabbing bits of fried tomato with a fork, not when the mother of the bride and the mother of the groom looked as though they could cheerfully substitute each other for the tomato. Why wasn’t he merrily defusing the tension? That was his job, wasn’t it? It had certainly been her job, when she was practically a prime minister. Good grief, anyone would think he wanted the women to come to blows.

  Men! They’re all useless!

  “Borovnik’s
doctors,” said the Dowager Queen, breaking the glaring stalemate, “are renowned.”

  “Indeed they are,” Brunelda agreed quickly. “I have often heard my own personal physician pass comment.”

  Her tone left no-one in doubt that the comment in question was anything but complimentary.

  Erminium’s thin lips pinched to vanishing. “As frequently as he must attend you, my dear Brunelda, I’m sure that’s so. I must pass you the stylings of my personal physician. Humboldt has cured countless cases of gout.”

  Melissande closed her eyes. If only Brunelda hadn’t decided to brave her affliction and join them. Lord, if only Hartwig had appointed a Secretary of State who knew his job. The urge to stamp on Leopold Gertz’s foot and wake him up to his obligations was almost overwhelming. Perhaps she should stop resisting it. If nothing else, his screams of pain would provide a welcome distraction.

  “You know, speaking of doctors,” said the Marquis of Harenstein, with an unexpected chuckle, “I had a doctor once who swore by voles for toothache.”

  Borovnik’s Dowager Queen lifted her quizzing glass on its black velvet ribbon and stared at him through the polished lens. Her eye magnified alarmingly.

  “I beg your pardon, Norbert? Did you say voles?”

  Nodding vigorously, the marquis patted his young wife’s hand. “I did, my dear Edwina. No word of a lie. Voles. And I tell you, the pain in my tooth was so bad I was desperate enough to try anything. So I did. But the sight of a live vole trussed to my jaw so alarmed my poor little Anadetta, here, that I was forced to dispense with it, and the physician, and instead put my faith in the court blacksmith and a trusty pair of pliers!”

  Dowager Queen Erminium dropped her quizzing glass. “Really, Norbert! You do talk nonsense!”

  “No, no, it’s true!” the marquis protested, his other hand pressed faithfully to his heart.

  “Then I’m sure it was a merciful escape for the vole,” Erminium snapped. “I can’t imagine what crimes a vole might commit, that it should be trussed to your jaw and forced to endure your blatherings!”