A Matter of Magic

by Patricia C. Wrede

Jon glared around him, but could not locate the speaker. He turned away, and a moment later another figure came panting over the crest of the hill. Robert handed him the last of the robes, and he struggled into it hastily while the others pointed out the difficulties his tardiness had caused them.

  “Didn’t mean to be so late,” said the newcomer in a muffled voice from halfway inside his robe. “I . . . had to make a stop on the way here.”

  “There will be time to hear your explanations later, Meredith,” Jon said. “Now we must begin. To your places, gentlemen!”

  The white-robed figures spread out in a circle around the fire and drew the hoods of their robes up over their heads. It made them look suddenly eerie, almost terrifying, and Kim shivered slightly. One of the anonymous figures raised his arms above his head, and Jon’s voice cried loudly, “By the Sacred Oak, and Ash, and Thorn! By the Three Wise Birds and the Three Generous Kings! By the ineffable Name Itself! The rites of the Sons of the New Dawn are now begun!”

  9

  The white-robed figures lowered their heads and began a strange, droning chant. Kim shuddered again as sonorous phrases drifted down the hill, and she jumped when Mairelon touched her arm.

  “I’m going to see if I can get a little closer,” Mairelon said, looking at her quizzically. “You can wait here, if you’re feeling jumpy.”

  “Wait here, with them frog-makers up there mumblin’ spells?” Kim whispered indignantly. “What do you take me for?”

  Mairelon snorted. “Spells? Don’t be ridiculous. That’s the most preposterous rigmarole I’ve ever had the misfortune to have to listen to. Don’t let it worry you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they’re mixing magic at random, from the sound of it. Half of it’s Welsh, half of it’s Scottish, and half of it’s cribbed from someone’s classical education, with a few things that are entirely out of someone’s imagination thrown in for good measure. They’ll never get anywhere if that’s the tack they’re taking.”

  “That’s too many halves,” Kim said, frowning. “And whatever it is, it sounds pretty impressive to me.” The words didn’t have the crystalline quality of Mairelon’s magic, but they had a portentous power of their own that was just as striking.

  “That’s because you’ve never read Homer in the original Greek,” Mairelon said. His attention had returned to the hilltop, where the white robes were now marching solemnly around the fire. Kim reached for his arm, anticipating his next move, but she was an instant too late. Mairelon slipped out of the trees and started up the hill, crouching low to avoid the firelight. With a sigh and a string of mental curses, Kim followed.

  To her relief, Mairelon did not try to sneak all the way up to the edge of the hilltop. He stopped about halfway up the slope, near enough to hear every word clearly but still well below the level where a casual glance might see a careless silhouette. Kim stopped beside him and flattened herself against the ground. Mairelon looked at her, then, with visible reluctance, did the same.

  The cold and damp seemed to penetrate Kim’s clothes almost instantly. She ignored the discomfort as best she could, knowing from years of Mother Tibb’s somewhat irregular training that an unnecessary movement was likely to attract unwanted attention. Beside her, Mairelon lay just as motionless, and Kim tried to distract herself by wondering where he had learned the trick. Had someone told him about it when he went off to spy on the French, or had he figured it out for himself the hard way?

  The chanting stopped at last, and Kim heard Jon’s voice announce, “So is the beginning ended, and the Central Mysteries begun.”

  A murmur of agreement rose from the assembled figures. As the muttering died, Jon went on in a much brisker tone, “Tonight we are to dedicate the Sacred Dish, the first of the Four Holy Things. Austen, you’re the Bearer; George, you and Quembly-Stark can do the Escorts, and Robert can act as—”

  “Uh, Jonathan, I’m afraid there’s a bit of a problem,” someone put in tentatively.

  “You forgot to bring the dish, didn’t you?” Jon snapped. “Well, I’m not putting off the ceremony again just because you have a bad memory, Meredith. This time you can just ride home and bring it back.”

  “That’ll take hours!” someone else objected. “Especially if he came on that broken-down nag of his; the creature can’t move above a trot even with a good rider in the saddle.”

  “As long as we can wait down at the lodge instead of up here in the wind, who cares?” another of the men retorted.

  “No reason to wait at all,” Meredith said. Cautiously Kim raised her head. As she had expected, all eyes were on the bland and rather foolish-looking Meredith. “I can’t get the thing, you see,” Meredith explained. “So there’s no point in my going back, and no reason to wait.”

  “Can’t get it?” Jon’s voice rose. He put back his hood and glared at Meredith. “What do you mean, you can’t get it?”

  “I just can’t,” Meredith answered with dogged stubbornness. “That’s all, and there it is. No use going on at me about it; might as well finish up and go on down to the lodge.”

  “Explain this . . . this recalcitrance!” Jon commanded.

  “Yes, Freddy, just why is it that you can’t bring the dish out tonight?” Robert asked.

  “If you must know, I haven’t got it any more,” Meredith said. “Now can we go down to the lodge and eat?”

  Jon goggled at him, all but speechless with rage. “You haven’t got it?”

  “Got a problem with your ears, Jon?” Meredith asked with interest. “M’grandfather’s been having a bit of trouble that way, but you expect it in a man his age.”

  “What have you done with the Sacred Dish?” Jon grated.

  “Lost it in a card game,” Meredith said. “Debt of honor, pay or play, you know. So it’s gone.”

  “How dared you!” Jon shouted, waving his arms for emphasis. “That dish was ours, the property of the entire Order! How dared you even think to appropriate it for your own uses!”

  “Actually it wasn’t,” Meredith said almost apologetically.

  “Wasn’t what, Freddy?” Robert asked.

  “Wasn’t the property of the Order. Bought it myself, never been paid. Logically the thing was mine. All quite in order.” Freddy Meredith nodded, as if to emphasize the logic and propriety of his actions.

  Jon turned a fascinating shade of purple and opened his mouth. “Freddy’s got a point, Jon,” Robert said hastily. “If he didn’t use the Order’s funds to buy it with—”

  “What funds?” Austen put in. “This Order hasn’t got any funds; nobody’s paid their subscription fee in over six months. Including you, Jon.”

  “There, you see?” Freddy beamed.

  “You idiot!” Jon said. “Do you know how long it took me to locate that platter? We must get it back!”

  “It’s quite all right, Jonathan,” Robert said. “We’ll just buy it back from whoever won it from Freddy. Who did win it, by the way? Not Lord North, I hope.”

  “No, no, I don’t play at his table,” Freddy assured him. “Been around long enough to know a flat from a leg, you know. No, I was playing whist with Henry.”

  “What does Henry Bramingham want with the silver dish of the Sons of the New Dawn?” someone asked.

  The grass beside Kim quivered as Mairelon tensed, but she could not tell what had provoked the reaction from him. Surely it couldn’t have taken him this long to guess that the “sacred dish” these culls were so nattered about was the Saltash Platter he was looking for?

  “Only stake I had left by the end of the night was the platter,” Meredith explained. “Henry cleaned me out. Last hand, that went, too.”

  “Who cares?” someone else said. “It’s obvious that we’re not going to dedicate the Sacred Dish tonight, so let’s finish up here and get inside where it’s warm.”

  This suggestion produced a round of enthusiastic cheers, and the entire group threw off their robes and started down the hill despite Jonathan’s gru
mbles and the glowering looks he continued to throw at the oblivious Freddy Meredith. None of them bothered to check the far slope of the hill, so Mairelon and Kim escaped detection. Even so, Kim did not really relax until the last sounds of merriment were muffled by the solid closing of a door.

  Kim sat up at last, feeling cold and stiff, and realized that Mairelon was still lying prone against the side of the hill. She crouched again hastily and hissed, “Somethin’ wrong?”

  “What?” said Mairelon in a normal tone. “No, nothing’s wrong; I’m thinking, that’s all.”

  “Think about gettin’ us back to camp,” Kim advised. “Or Hunch’ll be comin’ after us with a rope, like as not.”

  “Oh, Hunch won’t start worrying until well after dark,” Mairelon said, still without moving.

  Kim looked at him with profound exasperation. “It is well after dark,” she pointed out.

  “Then we’d better get back to camp quickly, hadn’t we?” Mairelon said. He pushed himself away from the hill with his hands, twisted sideways, and slid down the slope feet first. Kim scrambled after him, muttering curses. She was beginning to understand how Hunch had acquired the habit.

  Getting back to camp took nearly as long as Kim had expected. Mairelon got lost twice, forcing them to retrace their steps in the dark. Kim did not enjoy these detours. The noises of insects and the occasional rustling movement of small animals made her jump, where the calls of lamplighters and the rumble of the heavy drays would have been soothing. Stumbling over an uneven clump of grass and falling into a bush was somehow different, and more unpleasant, than tripping on a broken cobblestone and landing in a pile of litter. Even the darkness had a different quality, a clarity and depth that bore no resemblance to the foggy blackness of the back streets of London.

  Hunch met them on the road. He was carrying a lantern and frowning heavily, and both ends of his mustache looked distinctly damp and ragged. “Master Richard!” he said in evident relief when Mairelon came close enough to be identifiable. “You ain’t ’urt!”

  “What? Of course not,” Mairelon answered. “Why should I be?”

  “ ’Cause you ’adn’t got no reason for a-goin’ off and not tellin’ me, if you ain’t been ’urt,” Hunch said, recovering rapidly. “Leastwise, I don’t see as you did.”

  “That’s because you don’t know where we’ve been,” Mairelon said in his most reasonable tone. “You really ought to have a little more faith in me, Hunch.”

  Hunch snorted expressively. “All right, where ’ave you been?”

  “Finding things out,” Mairelon said. “Among them, the reason why our friend Shoreham has such a low opinion of the Sons of the New Dawn. As well as a hint to the current owner of the Saltash Platter.”

  “And ’oo might that be?”

  “According to the ersatz druids whose undeniably imaginative ceremony we observed this evening, Henry Bramingham. Not the best of news.”

  “ ’Enry,” Hunch said, frowning. “I ain’t sure—”

  “Later, Hunch, if you please. Later, and preferably warmer, drier, and much less hungry. I hope no one has stolen our dinner while you’ve been swanning about out here.”

  “You ’ad ought to be sent to bed without any,” Hunch grumbled, “and that dratted girl, too.”

  “Really, Hunch!” Mairelon said in a shocked tone before Kim could do more than gasp in outrage. “And all this time I’d thought you were worried about the proprieties.”

  Hunch’s tangled efforts to refute this deliberate misinterpretation lasted until they reached the wagon. Kim was sure that this was exactly what Mairelon had intended, and while she would normally have been annoyed at his high-handed method of taking over her battle, this time Kim was grateful. She was cold and tired, and her hands and face bore scratches that stung when she thought about them. She was in no condition for an argument with Hunch.

  Dinner was waiting, and if the stew was thick enough to cut with a knife and the potatoes in it were so well cooked that they came apart at the touch of a spoon, Kim did not mind at all. Mairelon was either pickier or preoccupied; he settled himself on the bottom step of the wagon with a full dish and a spoon, but ate so slowly that Kim was halfway through her second bowl before he finished a quarter of his own.

  When Kim paused long enough to notice this curious behavior, she glanced at Hunch. He was frowning and nibbling delicately on the left half of his mustache whenever he looked in Mairelon’s direction. That was enough for Kim. She moved to a conveniently situated rock, rattled her spoon against the side of her dish, and when Mairelon glanced up, said, “What’s got you so nattered, then?”

  “Henry Bramingham,” Mairelon said. He took a spoonful of stew and looked down at his bowl with a frown of annoyance. “It’s gone cold.”

  “If you’d of eaten it right off, you wouldn’t of noticed,” Kim said without sympathy. “Who’s this Bramingham cove?”

  “Henry Bramingham is the son of Charles Bramingham and Harriet St. Clair Bramingham,” Mairelon answered. Hunch made a strangled noise, and Mairelon looked up. “Yes, exactly.”

  “Exactly what?” Kim said, thoroughly exasperated.

  “Exactly the problem,” Mairelon said. “Harriet, you see, is the sister of Gregory St. Clair. And the Baron has, shall we say, very little liking for your obedient.”

  “E’s the one as called in the Runners,” Hunch said darkly. “And gave ’em Master Richard’s name.”

  “So we think,” Mairelon said. “He’s also something of a wizard, and well known for his interest in unusual magical objects. If young Henry turns the platter over to his uncle, and I can think of no reason why he shouldn’t, our chances of recovering it are small.”

  “So?” Kim said. The two men looked at her, and she shrugged. “I don’t see what’s the good in your havin’ this platter you’re so set on. If the Robin Redbreasts catch you with it, they’ll be sure you cracked the crib and took it. I thought that was what you didn’t want happenin’.”

  “You’re right, but unfortunately there’s no other way of finding out who really took the Saltash Set in the first place,” Mairelon said. “If we can get all the pieces together, Shoreham and I can use one of the Ribensian Arcana to locate the person who stole them, but it won’t work unless we have everything.”

  Kim shrugged again. “It’s your neck. Which direction are you goin’ to stick it out in next?”

  Mairelon grinned. “The inn at Ranton Hill. I think I can pick up some gossip and get some idea of how things stand at the Braminghams’, how recently Lord St. Clair has visited, that sort of thing.”

  “Not tonight,” Hunch said firmly. “And this time you ain’t a-going off alone, not if I ’ave to ’ide every pair of breeches you ’ave.”

  Mairelon looked startled, then thoughtful. “Yes, I think it will do very well,” he said after a moment. “You can poke about in the stables and kitchens, Kim can sit in the public room, and I’ll see what the news is in the private parlors. Someone’s bound to know something, and this way we don’t stand a ghost of a chance of missing it.”

  “Why’re you so sure?” Kim asked.

  “The country inn is the heart of every village, or at least its ears and tongue,” Mairelon explained. “Think of it as a London public house, only more so.”

  “If you say so,” Kim said dubiously. “Just what am I goin’ to have to do?”

  They spent the next hour or so discussing the exact methods each would use in their descent upon Ranton Hill’s inn, what stories they would tell, and what clothes to wear to be convincing. Mairelon declared that he would pose as a fashionable Town buck, victim of a carriage accident while driving down to a friend’s country house. Kim would be his Tiger, despite her protests that she knew nothing about horses and would be unable to convince anyone that she was what she pretended to be. Hunch was a groom who had been traveling with the baggage coach; he would lead the horses from the wagon, claiming that they belonged to the ostensibly demolished phaeton. Mair
elon’s confidence overrode his companions’ misgivings, and by the time the fire began to die everything was settled.

  10

  Ranton Hill consisted of three shopfronts, two houses, an inn, and a stable. The buildings looked to Kim as if they had huddled together for protection from the empty farmland all around them. Not that the land was, technically, empty, but some low stone walls, a few trees, and a couple of sheep did not go nearly far enough, in Kim’s opinion, toward filling up the space.

  In addition, the village was so quiet that as they approached along the rutted dirt road Kim began to wonder if it was peopled by ghosts. The sound of the wind, the squeak of the harness leather, and the crunching of their feet and the horses’ hooves against the road were the only noises. She was a little reassured when a dog began to bark as they reached the first house, summoning a stable hand in a well-worn smock from the rear of the inn.

  Mairelon gave the man an offhand nod and disappeared into the inn. Kim looked after him, shifting her weight from foot to foot while the stable hand and Hunch eyed each other measuringly.

  “What happened?” the man said at last, making a gesture that included the horse, Kim, Hunch, and the vanished Mairelon.

  “ ’E tipped ’is phaeton over trying to feather a corner,” Hunch said with fine contempt. “Leastwise, that’s ’ow I make it. ’E says a coach-and-four ran ’im off the road.”

  The stable hand spat. “Another one o’ them wild uns. He stayin’ the night?”

  “ ’Ow do I know?” Hunch said. “Even if ’e’d told me, ’e’s just as likely to change ’is mind as not.”

  “That’s the Quality for you,” the stable hand said, and spat again. “Well, bring your horses around back, no reason they should suffer for their master’s stupidity.”

  The man started walking as he spoke. Hunch tightened the makeshift leads attached to the horses’ halters. The animals bobbed their heads, slightly out of sequence, and began to move. Kim shifted her weight again, wondering whether she should follow or wait and wishing Mairelon had told her a little more about the duties of a Tiger. She was just about to start after Hunch and the horses when Mairelon stuck his head out of the door of the inn.