A Matter of Magic by Patricia C. Wrede
Jonathan mumbled something, and Kim stopped listening. No matter what he said, no matter what Mairelon thought he could do, there wasn’t time. She could hear the note of desperation in Dan’s voice; she could feel his words twisting like oiled eels. The very air inside the lodge was beginning to shine with reflections from the invisible, impossible crystal words, and with every syllable Dan spoke, the glow grew stronger. He had to be stopped now, before he put so much power into his distorted spell that it really would destroy them all when he finally lost control of it.
Kim took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and stood up with a surge, pushing the heavy wooden card table up and forward with all her strength. Cards and markers slid off and scattered across the floor; the pistol Dan had set on top of them followed with a metallic scraping noise. The table hit Dan hard, knocking him sideways. He staggered briefly, then regained his feet, but his concentration had been shattered and the spell broke free.
There was a brilliant flare of light, and sharp-edged words flew in all directions. Mairelon, Renée D’Auber, and Lord St. Clair flung their arms up in identical gestures of repudiation and simultaneously shouted the same unintelligible phrase. Kim ducked behind the upturned table as the unseen words bounced back toward her. Something hit the floor with a metallic ping, and something else with a clear ringing noise. Dan cried out and fell heavily against the table. Kim heard a peculiar muffled noise that sounded like Jack Stower’s voice; then the remnants of the spell swirled and settled around her like dust. They lay in shimmering silver drifts on the wooden floor for a long moment before they melted into nothing.
“Well done,” St. Clair’s voice said to someone.
“Thank you,” Renée D’Auber responded.
“Kim!” Mairelon called. He sounded very close; an instant later, he appeared, bending anxiously over the end of the table. “Kim?”
“I ain’t hurt,” Kim assured him. “Is that spell done with?”
“For the most part,” Mairelon answered.
Judging this to be as near a “yes” as she was likely to get from him, Kim climbed cautiously to her feet and looked around. Freddy, his arms locked around the unconscious Marianne, was trading icy stares with Lady Granleigh and Jasper Marston. Jonathan alternated between baleful muttering and attempts to untie his hands with his teeth. Meanwhile, Jasper’s man, Stuggs, had a firm and very professional-looking armlock on Jack Stower. Stower’s pistols had vanished, and his clothes were even more rumpled and disreputable than usual. Kim was sorry she had missed seeing their encounter. Robert Choiniet and Mairelon’s brother, Andrew, were standing over Dan Laverham, who looked and smelled somewhat singed but seemed otherwise unhurt. Renée D’Auber stood next to the door, her face composed, her eyes bright and alert; on the opposite side of the room, Lord St. Clair watched the others with a cold, speculative expression.
“ ’Ere, now,” Stuggs said to Jack, who was struggling in vain. “None o’ that.”
“Get your hands off me!” Dan said to Robert and Andrew. They had considerately helped him to his feet and then neglected to let go of his arms.
“And give you a chance to grab one of those pistols again, or start some more magic?” Robert said. “Not likely.”
“Someone should find those guns and get them out of the way,” Andrew added.
“Did you say something about brandy a bit ago, Jon?” Freddy asked. “Like to get some for Marianne.”
“Get me out of this first,” Jonathan said crossly, holding out his hands and the tangle he had made of Kim’s knots.
Mairelon was studying Kim with an abstracted air, as if she were wearing her coat inside out and he couldn’t puzzle out why she should do such a thing. “Now what?” Kim asked him in a low voice. “We ain’t much better off than when we started.”
“Aren’t,” Mairelon said without thinking. He blinked. “Aren’t we?”
“Well, Dan don’t—doesn’t have his guns any more,” Kim admitted. “That’s something. But we still haven’t found that platter. The real one, I mean. And we ain’t—aren’t going to with this lot of Bedlamites muddling everything up proper.”
“Ah, yes; thank you for reminding me,” Mairelon said. He glanced around, then took two steps sideways and reached under a chair. He straightened and held up the vine-covered silver sphere that Dan had used to focus the spell he had cast on Kim. “You don’t happen to see the other one, do you?”
“It’s next to Mr. Aberford’s foot,” St. Clair said. Mairelon gave him a sharp, suspicious look, then retrieved the second sphere without comment. “I do hope you aren’t planning to repeat Daniel’s lunacy, Merrill,” Lord St. Clair went on. “Not only was it an uncomfortable and dangerous bit of sorcery, it was pointless as well. I doubt that you could do any better.”
Mairelon raised an eyebrow and smiled slightly. “You think not?”
“Richard, don’t be a fool!” Andrew said.
“It matters not at all,” Renée announced. “For that annoying person with the pistols was not so altogether unsuccessful as you think. Look!” She pointed toward the fireplace.
Kim blinked, not understanding; then she saw the silver shimmer on the hearthstone. Mairelon immediately lost all interest in St. Clair. “Well, well! Andrew—no, you’d better keep hold of Laverham. Aberford and Marston, then; come and lend a hand.”
It was not quite as easy as that; Jonathan had first to be extracted from the rest of the cords on his wrists, and Jasper only stood and glowered until Lady Granleigh poked him and pointed eloquently. It took the three of them longer than Kim expected to find the notches in the edge of the stone and pry it out.
Mairelon reached down into the gaping hole and lifted out a familiar-shaped bundle. Kim held her breath as he pulled the canvas wrapping away and took hold of the silver handles.
“The Sacred Dish!” Jonathan breathed.
“Is it another fake?” Kim demanded, unable to bear the suspense.
“No,” Mairelon said. He looked up with a broad smile. “This is the real Saltash Platter.”
24
There was a long silence while everyone stared at the heavy silver tray. Then Lady Granleigh swept forward.
“I believe that belongs to my dear friend, Mr. Charles Bramingham,” she said. “It should be returned to him at once.”
“By you?” Mairelon’s tone was polite; too polite.
Lady Granleigh lifted her chin. “Certainly,” she replied without blushing.
“No!” Jonathan Aberford leaped to his feet and planted himself between Mairelon and Lady Granleigh. “The Sacred Dish belongs to the Sons of the New Dawn! It will not leave this house!”
“No, no, really, Jon,” Freddy protested. “I lost it to Henry at play; told you that ages ago. So it doesn’t belong to the Sons. Doesn’t belong to this Charles person, either, if it comes to that. It’s Henry’s.”
“ ’Ere,” said Stuggs, “somebody give me a ’and with this cove afore ’e breaks ’is arm accidental-like.”
Kim grinned malevolently at Jack and crossed the room to retrieve the cord that had been used to tie Mairelon and Jonathan. She tossed it to Stuggs, who snatched it out of the air and had his grip back on Jack’s arms before Jack realized he had missed a chance to get free. Kim grinned again to hide her unease and kicked a broken chair rung out of her way. Between the chair Freddy had smashed, the window Dan had broken, and the table Kim herself had overturned, walking across the room was becoming decidedly hazardous. Kim retreated to the back wall, where she could see everyone without getting in the way.
Lord St. Clair looked up from the platter at last and turned a cool, thoughtful gaze on Renée d’Auber. “So you were lying,” he said.
“But of course,” the Frenchwoman replied with a Gallic shrug. “I did not at all like that person with the pistols, whom I hope Monsieur Andrew is holding very hard. Why should I not lie to him?”
Dan lunged, almost breaking free of Andrew’s hold. “Salaude!”
“What?” sa
Renée D’Auber raised an eyebrow, looking faintly puzzled. “Pardon? Your accent is not at all good, monsieur. If you wish for me to understand, you should speak the English.”
“I think not,” said St. Clair. “It might distress the ladies.”
“You!” Dan transferred his glare from Renée to the Baron. “You won’t get away with this!”
“With what?” Lord St. Clair asked in a reasonable tone.
“You’re not getting that platter! You’ve had everything else—the money, the title, everything—just because you were born on the right side of the blanket, but you’re not getting this.”
“That remains to be seen,” St. Clair said calmly.
“Does it?” Mairelon said. “By whom?”
“The Sacred Dish is the property of the Sons of the New Dawn,” Jonathan repeated stubbornly. No one paid him any more attention this time than they had the last.
“Richard,” Andrew put in uneasily, “you’re not going to keep that thing, are you? If you’re found with it—”
“—there are at least thirteen people here who can say that I didn’t have the smallest idea where it was until Laverham there did his locating spell,” Mairelon interrupted. “I’m sure that at least one or two of them would be willing to say as much in court. Don’t be a fool, Andrew.”
“Ah, but you might have been acting,” Lord St. Clair said with a cold smile. “I think Mr. Merrill’s point is well taken.”
“You would,” Mairelon said.
“They don’t like each other much, do they?” Freddy commented sagely to Robert.
“Freddy?” Marianne Thornley was coming around again, and the sound of her beloved’s voice had caught her attention. “Oh, Freddy, what has happened?”
“You have behaved very badly,” Lady Granleigh answered in a severe tone. “We shall, however, discuss it later, in private. Jasper! We have wasted enough time. Bring the platter out to the carriage at once. Come, Marianne.”
“You aren’t taking Marianne anywhere,” Freddy said, stepping in front of the shrinking Marianne.
“Nor you the Saltash Platter,” Mairelon said to Jasper.
“Amelia . . .” Jasper said, waffling visibly.
“Really, Jasper! You’re larger than he is,” said Lady Granleigh over her shoulder. “Just take it.”
“Allow me to get out of the way first,” said Lord St. Clair.
Kim frowned as St. Clair moved farther away from the hearth where Mairelon, Jonathan, and Jasper stood. She could understand a gentry cove not wanting to get involved in a turn-up, but St. Clair hadn’t been close enough to be inconvenienced by a fight. She watched as he crossed the room to join Lady Granleigh, and saw him stumble as he passed a footstool. Her frown deepened. Had he scooped something from the floor? She couldn’t be sure; he had turned away from her as he straightened.
The sound of a scuffle distracted her. She turned in time to see Mairelon shove the handle end of the Saltash Platter into Jasper Marston’s stomach. Kim winced in sympathy as Jasper doubled over with a huff of exhaled breath. Mairelon yanked the platter back, grabbed the free handle, and brought it down on the back of Jasper’s head. There was a satisfying clang, and Jasper collapsed without another sound.
“Very impressive,” St. Clair said without enthusiasm. Kim looked quickly back at him, but his hands were empty; if he had picked anything up, he had hidden it under his coat.
Mairelon turned and flourished the platter in an elegant stage bow. “Would you care to be the next to try to take it?”
“Richard!” Andrew said, sounding horrified. “You can’t go around assaulting peers of the realm!”
“Oh, really, Andrew, he’s only a Baron,” Mairelon said irritably.
Renée D’Auber rolled her eyes. “It is not how it must be done,” she declared.
“And giving St. Clair the Saltash Platter is?” Mairelon asked, his jaw tightening.
“I did not say such a thing at all,” Renée said with dignity.
Lady Granleigh turned, her attention momentarily diverted from Freddy and Marianne. She raked Mairelon with a haughty look that had no apparent effect whatever, and sniffed loudly. “Lord St. Clair seems an infinitely more proper person to have charge of that object than you, Mr. de Mare, or whatever your name is.”
“Just so,” said St. Clair. “And after all, Mr. Merrill is a wanted man. I wonder what the Bow Street Runners would make of this little scene?”
Mairelon’s lips thinned. Jack Stower lurched sideways, whimpering, in spite of William Stuggs’s grip on his arms and the cord Stuggs had knotted around his wrists, dragging the two of them several feet nearer the door. Jonathan Aberford shifted uncomfortably and ran a hand through his hair as if in search of the stocking mask that had been taken from him in the carriage. Lady Granleigh turned a shade paler and raised her chin imperiously.
“Oh, no,” Dan Laverham said softly. He was staring at Lord St. Clair with single-minded intensity, and Kim had never heard so much hatred in anyone’s voice before. “Not this time, Gregory. This time, if I lose, you lose, too.”
“You had better think what you are saying,” St. Clair replied, frowning. “In any case, this is not a suitable place for that discussion.”
“I have thought,” Dan said. “You lied to me before and tried to use me; I won’t make the same mistake again. You call the Runners in, Gregory, and I’ll tell them whose idea it was to nick that bloody platter, yes, and exactly how it was arranged, too. Shall I tell this lot right now?”
“Please do,” Mairelon said.
“Don’t be absurd, Daniel,” Lord St. Clair put in quickly. “No one will take your word for anything.”
“St. Clair?” Andrew said. “You mean St. Clair stole the Saltash Set? I don’t believe it.”
“There, you see?” said the Baron.
“Not so fast,” Mairelon said. “I want to hear him out.”
Robert nodded. “Let him have his say.”
“He’s a gutter-bred criminal!” St. Clair snapped. “I give you my word as a peer of the realm—”
Dan’s high, half-hysterical laughter cut off whatever Lord St. Clair had planned to say. “Peer of the realm! The only reason you’re the peer and I’m the gutter brat is that our blue-blooded father was too high in the instep to marry a kitchen maid, though he wasn’t above giving her a tumble.”
“Good Lord,” breathed Mairelon, looking from Dan to St. Clair. “So that’s it.”
“This discussion is highly improper,” Lady Granleigh announced. “Marianne, cover your ears. I recommend that you do the same, Miss D’Auber, though I am well aware that French persons do not have any real delicacy of mind.”
Everyone, including Marianne, was too busy studying the two men to pay any attention to Lady Granleigh. The resemblance between them was marked. Kim remembered how shaken she had been by her first glimpse of Lord St. Clair, when she had thought for a moment that he was Dan Laverham, and cursed herself mentally for not guessing the truth before. But who would have pegged Dan for gentry blood, even on the wrong side of the blanket?
St. Clair looked a trifle pale, but seemed otherwise unmoved by the intense scrutiny. “This does not change matters at all,” he said. “Your wild accusations are clearly the delusions of a mind deranged by jealousy. I am very sorry you have been subjected to this, Lady Granleigh, but I venture to hope that you will not hold my father’s indiscretion against me.”
Dan laughed again, bitterly. “Still wanting to have your cake and eat it, too, Gregory? You were pleased enough with me as long as you could make use of my services. You shouldn
“You ’ad this ’ere dish as all the fuss is over?” William Stuggs put in unexpectedly. “ ’Ow did that ’appen?”
“Fenton was my man,” Dan said, speaking directly to St. Clair. “He wouldn’t have dreamed of cracking a crib without cutting me in. You didn’t know that when you told him to keep mum about it, did you?”
“Be quiet, Daniel,” Lord St. Clair said.
“Why? I told you, this time you’re going to lose, one way or another.”
“No.” St. Clair sounded regretful, almost sad. “You may make my life a little difficult for a time, but even if everyone here believes you, it won’t make any real difference. Bow Street won’t take the word of a criminal against that of a Baron, and without Fenton you have no proof of anything you say. There will be rumors, of course, and one or two houses may shut their doors to me for a time, but nothing more serious than that. It’s one of the advantages of my position, you see.”
Dan Laverham growled and lunged again. St. Clair stood quietly, smiling slightly as Andrew and Robert fought Dan back under control.
“There, you,” Robert panted. “Now, before you continue, would one of you mind explaining why that”—he waved a free hand at the Saltash Platter, then had to grab Dan’s arm again—“is so all-fired important? I’m getting tired of not knowing what, exactly, is going on.”
“It’s perfectly plain,” Jonathan said. “The Sacred Dish—”
“Oh, stop nattering about the Sacred Dish,” Robert begged. “This is serious, Jon.”
“Quite serious,” Mairelon said over Jonathan’s spluttered protests. “This is—”
“—the Saltash Platter, part o’ a set as was stolen from the Royal College of Wizards upwards o’ five years ago, by a person or persons unknown,” said William Stuggs. He smiled seraphically over Jack Stower’s shoulder at the circle of surprised faces, and before the surprise could turn to speculation he added, “I ’ate to disconvenience the Quality-like, but I ’ave to inform you that you, Lord Gregory St. Clair, and you, Mr. Daniel Laverham, and this cove ’ere, ’oose name I ain’t ’ad the dubious pleasure of bein’ told, are all under arrest in the name o’ the Law, for the theft o’ the Saltash Set, breakin’ an’ enterin’, ’olding a lot o’ respectable folk at gunpoint, an’ one or two other things as are against the Law o’ the Realm.”