Magician's Ward

by Patricia C. Wrede

  "I see you have decided to take my advice after all, Richard," Lady Wendall's amused voice said from somewhere above and behind him. "Marrying your ward is exactly the sort of usual scandal I had in mind; I wonder it didn't occur to me before."

  "However, it is quite unnecessary for him to add to the talk by kissing her in public," Mrs. Lowe put in. "If he must indulge in vulgar behavior, it would be far better done after the notice of his engagement has appeared in the Gazette. And in private."

  Mairelon looked up, plainly startled, and Kim's heart sank. Then his face went stiff, and her heart sank even further. "It was a momentary aberration, Aunt," he said in a colorless voice. "It won't happen again."

  "I should like to think not," Mrs. Lowe said. "It is, perhaps, too much to hope that once you are married you will settle down, but Kim appears to have had at least a little success in keeping you out of trouble. Which is more than can be said for anyone else."

  "You don't understand," Mairelon said dully. "Kim doesn't want to marry a toff."

  Was that what was bothering him? "Well, of all the bacon-brained, sapskulled, squirish, buffle-headed nod cocks!" Kim said with as much indignation as she could muster. "I was talking about the marquis, not about you!"

  Mairelon's eyes kindled. "Then you would?"

  "You've whiddled it," Kim informed him.

  As he kissed her again, she heard Mrs. Lowe murmur, "Mind your language, Kim," and Shoreham say in an amused tone, "Yes, Your Grace, I believe that was an affirmative answer."

  "I'll send the notice to the Gazette tomorrow," Mairelon said when he finally came up for air. "No, today. Where's Hunch?"

  Kim, feeling rather light-headed, leaned back on Mairelon's shoulder and looked around. Lady Wendall and Renee D'Auber were watching them with expressions that could only be described as smug; Prince Durmontov looked mildly bemused; the Duchesse Delagardie was smiling like a gleeful pixy; and the Lords Shoreham and Kerring were exchanging glances of enormous amusement. No one seemed to be either surprised or disapproving, not even Mrs. Lowe.

  "In a minute, dear," Lady Wendall said to Mairelon. "And now that that is settled, perhaps you will let Kim explain the necessity for this interesting interruption. I confess, I do not understand it at all."

  "Mannering!" Kim said. She tried to struggle to a sitting position, but gave up when her head began to swim. Apparently, the light-headedness hadn't just been an effect of kissing Mairelon. "He ain't piked off, has he?"

  "Mannering?" Lord Shoreham frowned. "You don't mean to say you've located the confounded fellow! Where is he?"

  "I believe he is currently on the lower stairs," Mrs. Lowe said. "Richard's man has him in charge, and I expect they will arrive momentarily."

  "Aunt Agatha, you amaze me," Mairelon said. "How did you come to be, er, involved?"

  "If you will assist Kim to one of the sofas, where she may be more comfortable, I am sure she will explain everything," Mrs. Lowe replied.

  Mairelon promptly picked Kim up and carried her to the nearest seat. She did not protest; the headache was beginning to recede, but she still felt shaky and weak. Mairelon took the seat next to her so that he could put his arm around her, and she leaned gratefully into his shoulder. Lord Shoreham, Lord Kerring, and Prince Durmontov pulled up chairs for themselves and the ladies, and they all sat down and looked at Kim expectantly.

  "Um," said Kim, trying to decide where to begin.

  The doors at the far end opened and Hunch entered, dragging the still-bound-and-gagged Mannering. "Now what?" Lord Shoreham said.

  "This 'ere is that Mannering fellow you been a-wanting," Hunch said, looking at Mairelon. "Kim says 'e's some kind of wizard. Where do you want me to put 'im?"

  "The far corner will do nicely for the time being, Hunch," Lady Wendall said. "And perhaps you would remain to keep an eye on him for a few minutes? Thank you."

  "Mannering." Lord Shoreham shook his head and looked back at Kim. "Where did you find him? And how?"

  "I didn't," Kim said. "He found me. He got Tom Correy to send Matt with a message, and--"

  "That message was from Mannering?" Mairelon's arm tightened around Kim.

  Kim nodded. "He wanted me to nobble the de Cambriol book for him--at least, that's what he started with."

  "Wait a minute," Lord Kerring said. "Who is this Mannering person? Yes, yes, I know he's tied up in the corner, but what does he have to do with this interruption? That's what I want to know."

  "He's a moneylender, and he's the one behind the magic-draining spell on Mairelon," Kim said. "Only it isn't really a magic-draining spell, it's that one for sharing power, and he's kept it up for months."

  "C'est impossible!" the duchesse exclaimed.

  Renee D'Auber tilted her head to one side. "I think, me, that it will be altogether better if Mademoiselle Kim begins with the beginning and goes on without the interruptions. Or we will very likely still be sitting here tomorrow morning." Beside her, the prince nodded emphatically.

  Shoreham laughed. "You are quite right, Mademoiselle D'Auber. Miss Merrill, if you would proceed?"

  "I think it starts with Mannering and Lord Starnes," Kim said after considering for a moment. Taking a deep breath, she plunged into the story: how Starnes had offered Henri d'Armand's livre de memoire to Mannering as part of his collateral for a loan; how Mannering must have found the power-sharing spell and persuaded one of the rookery hedge-wizards to cast it in English; how he had kept the spell going by continually adding new wizards to the linkage.

  "Only he must have been running out of wizards," Kim said. "There aren't many real magicians in St. Giles or Covent Garden. He'd have to find some new wizards to steal power from, or figure out some other way to keep the spell stable. That's why he was trying to steal the rest of the memory books--he thought one of them would tell him how to make the spell permanent."

  "Why didn't he just release--oh, of course," Lord Shoreham said. "The rookery wizards would have torn him limb from limb the minute they got their magic back, if he'd tried to release the spell and start over."

  Kim nodded. "And without the power-sharing spell, he isn't a wizard at all. He couldn't start over."

  "And how did you come to learn all this?" Lord Shoreham asked mildly.

  "He told me a lot of it himself." As rapidly as she could, Kim laid out the particulars of her visit with Mannering, and the conclusions she had drawn from his ramblings and boasts and threats. It took longer than she had expected, but eventually she finished.

  "You took a terrible chance, taking Richard's place in the spell like that," Lady Wendall said. "Without preparation, and barely a year into your apprenticeship--the possible consequences don't bear thinking of."

  "Well, it worked," Kim said practically as Mairelon's arm tightened around her once again. "And there wasn't time for anything else." She looked at Mairelon. "I'm just glad you didn't give me any real argument about getting out of the diagram."

  Mairelon shrugged. "You'd obviously found out something new, and equally obviously thought it was urgent enough to interrupt. I trusted your judgment--though I might not have if I'd known you intended to take my place in the star!"

  "Just as well you didn't, then," Kim said gruffly. Nobody had ever trusted her like that before . . . but then, Mairelon wasn't like anybody else.

  "It certainly is," Lord Shoreham agreed. "We owe you rather a lot, Miss Merrill."

  Kim's face grew hot, and she shook her head, unable to find words.

  "Yes, of course," Lord Kerring said. "But now let's have a look at this Mannering fellow. I confess to a certain curiosity, after all the trouble he's caused." From the expression on his face, Lord Kerring expected his curiosity to be satisfied, one way or another, and he didn't much care what happened to Mannering in the process.

  "Yes," said Renee. "That seems to me a most excellent idea."

  But when the gag was removed from Mannering's mouth, it quickly became clear that he was wandering mentally in some other realm, where
he ruled all wizards with an absolute power and even the King asked for his advice and help. After several fruitless efforts to get something sensible out of him, it was agreed that Lord Kerring and Lord Shoreham would convey him to the Royal College of Wizards, where Lord Shoreham could see that he was properly guarded while Lord Kerring and the duchesse studied the spell that linked him to Mairelon and the other wizards, in hopes of finding a way to undo it.

  For the next two days, Mairelon paced the floor, waiting for news. Only the duchesse's strict instruction that he was not to interrupt--and the determined efforts of Lady Wendall and Kim--kept him at home. On the third day, Lord Kerring arrived without warning and carried Mairelon off, leaving Kim to be the one pacing and fretting.

  But when Mairelon returned two hours later, it was plain from his expression that the duchesse and Kerring had succeeded in their efforts to return his magic, even before he bounded up the stairs and swung Kim off her feet in his exuberance.

  "Put me down!" Kim said, grinning in spite of herself. "You want to break both our necks?"

  "Nonsense!" Mairelon said, but he set her on her feet.

  "I take it everything worked fine?" Kim asked, just to make him say it straight out.

  "Perfectly," Mairelon assured her, and to prove it, he muttered a rapid phrase and made a string of bobbing fairy lights appear and circle their heads briefly.

  "Good!" Kim said. She hesitated, then added, "What about Jemmy and Wags and the others? Are they going to be . . . all right, too?"

  Mairelon's expression sobered. "Probably, but it will be a tricky business seeing to it. Kerring's been comparing Mannering's spell to a pile of jackstraws; they have to take it apart in exactly the right order, or the whole thing will collapse and damage everyone involved."

  "How much time do they have to do the taking apart?"

  "No more than a few weeks; if it isn't done by then, the spell will get so unstable that it will collapse anyway." Mairelon's expression was grim. "Shoreham is trying to round up as many of the rookery magicians as possible--dismantling the spell will be quicker and easier if they are present, and we don't want any more like Ma Yanger if we can help it."

  Kim nodded soberly. Shoreham's men had found Ma the day before, in a back room at one of Mannering's warehouses. After a careful examination, all of the wizards had agreed that returning her magic to her would do nothing to restore her mind, nor were there other methods that might help her. Shoreham had set one of his men to arranging for her care; the costs would come out of Mannering's property.

  "Shoreham will be by later this evening to see you," Mairelon added, studying his hands with an innocent air.

  "To see me?" Kim looked at him suspiciously. "What for?"

  "I believe he wants to offer you a job, of sorts."

  "What sorts?"

  "Much the same as the one I've been doing from time to time," Mairelon replied. "He, er, admires your initiative. And this is the second time you've gotten mixed up in some of his doings; I believe he'd be more comfortable if it were official."

  Kim snorted. "That business with the Saltash Set was your doings, not Shoreham's, and so was this."

  "Yes, well, Shoreham doesn't see it that way. But you needn't agree, if you'd rather not."

  Kim paused, considering. "It sounds a lot more interesting than balls and teas and morning calls." Another thought struck her, and she looked at Mairelon. "Am I done with those, now that we're engaged?"

  "The Season's only half over," Mairelon said. "But I suppose that if you'd really rather not--"

  "Good!" Kim said emphatically. "Let's go tell your mother, quick, before she finishes that note she's writing to Renee D'Auber about going shopping tomorrow."

  Mairelon looked suddenly wary. "I, er, believe she has something else in mind."

  "No, she said I needed more gowns." Kim shook her head. "I have a wardrobe full of gowns already, what do I need more for?"

  Mairelon pursed his lips and said nothing.

  "Mairelon. . . ."

  "Well," he said in an apologetic tone, though his eyes were dancing, "we are getting married, you know."

  "Oh, Lord," Kim said, appalled. "Bride-clothes! I'll be stuck at the dressmaker's forever!"

  "Better you than me," said her unsympathetic bridegroom, and offered her his arm to escort her down to dinner.