Ten Little Wizards: A Lord Darcy Novel (4 page)

Long live His Majesty, John IV.

In Haste,

London

The Marquis put the last page of the letter down and looked around. “My lords?” he asked.

Duke Richard stood up, his face white. “Long live His Majesty, my brother John,” he said softly.

“Amen,” the Archbishop of Paris said firmly.

The six men in the room crossed themselves. “June first, that’s the day of the coronation,” Duke Richard said. “Barely three weeks away. What can we do?”

“I called you all here to help me decide what is to be done,” Marquis Sherrinford told him. “Your Highness because, as the Duke of Normandy, you are responsible for the safety of everyone in the Duchy. Lord Darcy because, as Chief Investigator of the Court of Chivalry, as well as the man overseeing the security arrangements in Castle Cristobel during the coronation, you are, or will be, intimately involved in whatever decisions we make. Your Grace because your advice is valuable, and the assistance of the Church may prove invaluable. Master Sir Darryl Longuert because, as ranking member of the Sorcerers’ Guild present, you will have to help us design and implement our, ah, magical defenses, if any.

“I, as the King’s Equerry, am, of course, directly responsible for His Majesty’s safety. And I can assure you that I take that responsibility very seriously.”

“Do you think that this can possibly be true?” Duke Richard asked, sitting slowly back down in his chair. “It doesn’t make sense!”

“His Highness is right,” the Archbishop said. “A threat to His Majesty’s life from King Casimir—or any other Pole—makes no apparent sense whatever. Nominally, we are enemies, but actually—I can’t believe he’d be so stupid!”

“What do you say, Darcy?” Duke Richard asked. “How does it strike you?”

Lord Darcy paused. He was supposed to know such things, and his answer would be given weight.

For most of the twentieth century the kings of Poland had been interested in expansion. At first they had contented themselves by moving east, bringing one small Baltic state after another under Polish hegemony.

By the mid-thirties King Sigismund III had annexed or controlled most of the territory from Revel on the Baltic to Odessa on the Black Sea. But then the Russian states to the east had formed a loose coalition for the purpose of fielding a vast army against further Polish expansion. And since the Russian coalition included states deep into central Asia, their army could be vast indeed.

So King Casimir IX, Sigismund’s son and heir, decided that Western discretion was the better part of Eastern valor, and cast his covetous gaze on the disorganized and fragmented Germanic states that formed a buffer between the Slavonic and Angevin Empires.

While the Poles were expanding to the east, their Angevin majesties had paid little heed. The Imperial Territories of New England and New France on the far side of the Atlantic had taken most of their attention, and were allowing the Angevin Empire to expand as fast as it could responsibly administer its new land and new people. The Russian states, like the rest of Asia, seemed half a world away.

But when the Poles turned their gaze west, they saw their way to the Mediterranean and to the North Sea both blocked by the Anglo-French Empire or its dependents. Not that the Germanic states were really dependent upon the Angevins for anything except stopping the Poles. In theory they owed fealty to the Angevin Emperor as part of the old Holy Roman Empire, but in actuality they had never paid a twelfth-bit of tribute to the Plantagenet kings, and never would. But they did know that, with the Angevin Empire on their west, they could tell King Casimir to go to hell; just as, with the Polish Empire on their east, they could remain as independent as they wished of Angevin influences. It was a balancing act they had become quite good at.

And besides, the German states produced good fighters. Their men served as mercenaries in the Angevin Legion, as well as half the other armies around the world. If Bavaria and Hanover and Hesse and Prussia and all the other little German states could ever stop feuding and get together, the combination would be quite fierce. Nobody would purposely do anything that might encourage such a thing.

But Casimir coveted clear water, which he could not reach. On land, the Germans stood in his way. At sea, the Baltic exit to the Atlantic was closed by the Scandinavian fleet, and the Slavonic navy’s exit from the Black Sea was closed at the Sea of Marmara by the Roumelian fleet, both backed up, if necessary by the Angevin Imperial Navy.

Therefore, on land as on sea, King Casimir IX saw himself as ultimately blocked by the Plantagenets and their empire. His response was to create a powerful weapon and put it to work against the Angevins; a weapon which, he thought, would cause the undermining of an empire in the fullness of time. He might not live to see it, but his son Stanislaw, or certainly his grandson Sigismund, would.

This weapon was the
Serka
. A contraction of an expression meaning, roughly, “the King’s right arm,” the Serka was the Polish Secret Police. Owing allegiance only to King Casimir, the highly-trained, highly-dedicated agents of
Amt V,
the
Serka
’s External Division-West, were dedicated to the overthrow of the Plantagenet dynasty and the Angevin Empire.

But against all of this, which seemed to indicate that agents of Casimir IX could well be plotting the death of John IV, there was the overriding question as to why they would do such a thing. The death of John would not bring the wheels of Anglo-French government to a halt. As able as John was, there were other Plantagenets available to take the throne. If Parliament thought either of John’s sons too young, or otherwise unsuitable, there was Duke Richard to act either as King or as Regent. And beyond him, in male and female branch, the Plantagenet tree had many suitable leaves.

And, for any disruption that the death of John might accomplish, there was the counterweighing factor of the danger of discovery. If the death of a reigning Plantagenet could ever be brought directly to the door of the Polish king, it would mean immediate war; a war the Poles could not possibly win.

“I don’t see it, Your Highness,” Lord Darcy said. “I’m not saying that the dying words of that thief were lies, but that there is either more to the plot that he was unaware of, or he misunderstood what he heard. Plotting the death of Our Beloved Sovereign does not make sense in any way that I can see. Even for the Poles.”

“What else could it be?” His Grace the Archbishop asked. “What else could it mean?”

Lord Darcy turned to Lord Peter. “What do you make of it?” he asked.

Marquis Sherrinford raised his hand. “I should explain,” he said to the Archbishop, “that Lord Peter, while serving, quite ably, as my private secretary, is also the Lord Commander of His Majesty’s Most Secret Service.”

“Ah!” Archbishop Maximilian said, turning to Lord Peter. “You are the famous Q, are you? I knew that Grand Master Lord Petrus de Berquehomme was the Chief Sorcerer for the Most Secret Service, but he was most secretive about the identity of his, ah, boss.”

“How did you know
that
, Your Grace?” Marquis Sherrinford asked sharply.

The Archbishop of Paris looked faintly embarrassed. “I, ah, was Lord de Berquehomme’s confessor for a while when he was in Paris. But, of course, in that capacity I could never have mentioned it. I also, ah, helped develop the spells for the Pearls of Identity. Lord de Berquehomme asked for my assistance because of some theoretical work I had published on the Law of Similarity. It was quite a little problem. It made me feel rather adventurous, I must admit, to be even that close to the Most Secret Service. I trust that I was of help in some minor way.”

“Indeed,” Lord Peter said. “It is of utmost importance to the Service to have a means of identifying our agents that cannot be forged, cannot be duplicated, and cannot inadvertently give the agent away. You have performed a valuable service indeed. Lord de Berquehomme never told me of your connection with that particular problem.”

“At my insistence, I assure you,” the Archbishop said. “It was entirely too, ah, trumpery an occupation for an archbishop. Although I admit that I enjoyed the challenge.”

“A pretty problem,” Sir Darryl said. “I have often admired the, um, result. I’d like to discuss with you sometime how you handled the symbolic referents.”

“Delighted,” the Archbishop told the wizard. “With Lord Peter’s permission, of course.”

Lord Peter nodded. “Of course we have no secrets from the Wizard Laureate,” he said. But he didn’t sound too happy about it.

Sir Darryl laughed. “You’re right, of course,” he said, replying to Lord Peter’s expression rather than his words. “The fewer who know, the less the chance of the wrong person finding out. Your Grace, I withdraw my request.”

“Tell me,” Duke Richard interrupted, “what is the meaning of the reference to a ‘ten percenter’? It is a term I am unfamiliar with.”

“It is thieves’ argot, Your Highness,” Lord Darcy explained. “A ten percenter is a receiver of stolen goods; so-called because he pays out a bit over a twelfth-bit for each sovereign’s worth of illicit merchandise, or roughly ten percent of the value.”

“I see,” said Duke Richard. “So His Slavonic Majesty hires thieves to spy for him. Spying is such a foul business that I am surprised that even a good Angevin thief would stoop to it.” He turned to Lord Peter with a sudden realization. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to imply—”

”That’s all right, Your Highness,” Lord Peter said. “It is a common reaction.
Their
spies are dirty, filthy scum, not fit to wipe your boots on, while
our
spies are noble gentlemen doing dangerous work for the love of King and Country. Would that it were so, Your Highness, but I’m afraid that sometimes the desired image is at fault—in both directions.”

“What do you think, Lord Peter, about this message?” Lord Darcy asked again.

Lord Peter paused. “I have been giving the matter careful thought for the past few hours, as you can imagine,” he said. “And I must admit to the possibility that it is true. I have no evidence that it is, mind you. And that is surprising; seldom does anything happen of this magnitude about which we don’t pick up at least a ripple. But it is quite possible. King Casimir has made some injudicious decisions in the past. And then there is always the distinct possibility that this is an operation of the
Serka
that the king knows nothing about.”

“You mean we might be facing a ‘will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest’ sort of syndrome, eh?” Archbishop Maximilian asked.

“Exactly, Your Grace,” Lord Peter agreed. “It could well be that some
Serka
official has decided on his own that what his King
really
wants is the death of His Majesty, although he doesn’t mention it.”

“The question is, what are we to do about it?” Duke Richard asked. “My lord marquis, you are in charge of His Majesty’s security. What precautions do you intend to take?”

“I think Lord Darcy and I will have to sit down and discuss possibilities, along with Coronel Lord Waybusch, who is in charge of Castle security,” Marquis Sherrinford said. “It is a delicate question, Your Highness. We will have the delegations of over a hundred trade guilds, a few hundred various organizations, and some sixty sovereign and not-so-sovereign states arriving over the next week for the coronation. Including the heir apparent to the throne of His Most Slavonic Majesty, as well as the Polish foreign minister. Of course His Majesty’s safety must be held of first importance.”

“None of these people will get to see His Majesty except under carefully controlled conditions,” Duke Richard said. “Sir Darryl, can we get some sensitives to stand at the doors to the throne room as these people come through? Grab them if they show murderous intent? Would murderous intent be detectable?”

The Wizard Laureate of England thought for a minute. “It’s not that simple,” he said. “Something can be done, but it won’t be that clear-cut unless we’re very lucky. You see—”

There was a loud knock at the door, startling the five men in the room.
Reality knocks
, Lord Darcy thought.
And we are not yet ready for reality
.

“Excuse me, my lords,” Marquis Sherrinford said. “They wouldn’t have allowed anyone to knock unless it were very important. I’d better see what it is.”

“Yes, yes,” the Archbishop said. “Go ahead.”

Marquis Sherrinford opened the door a crack and peered around it. “Yes?”

“Beg pardon, Your Lordship,” came a gruff voice from beyond. “But Coronel Lord Waybusch has sent me for Lord Darcy. He’s to come at once. Is His Lordship in here?”

“Yes, I’m here, Serjeant Martin,” Lord Darcy called, recognizing the Norman-French accent of the Coronel’s aide. “What is it?”

Serjeant Martin stepped into the room and stood stiffly at attention. “Beg pardon, my lord,” he said. “But it is murder. A foul murder, and also an impossible one.”

Lord Darcy stood up. “Where?” he asked. “And who was killed?”

“In the bakery shop of Goodman Bonpierre in Between the Walls, my lord. Master Sorcerer Raimun DePlessis.”

“DePlessis?” Sir Darryl rose to his feet involuntarily, as though about to do something. Then, realizing it was too late, he sat back down. “Well, well,” he said. “A lovely man. How strange.”

“What’s that?” The Archbishop of Paris looked startled. “What about Master DePlessis?”

“He was the victim, Your Grace,” Serjeant Martin said. “Stabbed through the heart with no weapon in sight, and no way in or out of the building.”

“Incredible,” the Archbishop said, crossing himself. “I had dinner with him last night. A fine healer. A brilliant theoretician.”

“I’m on my way,” Lord Darcy said. “Send someone for Master Sean O Lochlainn, and have him meet us there.”

“It has already been done, my lord,” Serjeant Martin said.

The construction of Castle Cristobel was a process that had been ongoing since the thirteenth century. The original fortress had been expanded, modified, and rebuilt so many times in the past seven hundred years that, with the exception of the ancient and central Arthur Keep, only a careful perusal of the architectural documents could tell one what was built when.

The massive and well-protected Norman Gate had been designed as the main gate to the Castle. Protected by a wide moat, it faced a gentle slope and was the only gate accessible by carriage. Over the centuries a group of commoners providing services to the Castle had been allowed to build their houses on the slope outside the gate, and a town had grown up. In the sixteenth century the moat had been filled in and a new castle wall had been extended to the bottom of the slope, enclosing the town; which henceforth and thereafter was known only as “Between the Walls.”

Now Lord Darcy followed Serjeant Martin through the footway in the Norman Gate and along a series of narrow, twisting streets in that ancient cluster of houses and shops. The rain seemed to have let up for the moment, but the overcast was still complete; and the slate-gray sky cast a feeling of gloom over the shadowless streets. As they rounded one corner, turning onto Paternoster Lane, Lord Darcy saw groups of gossiping shopkeepers gathered in doorways up and down the narrow street.
Nothing like a murder
, he thought wryly,
to disrupt the workday.

A small group of armsmen were clustered in one doorway, which told Lord Darcy which shop he was headed for even before he could read the baker’s sign swinging above; and the puffs of light blue smoke he noticed emanating from the doorway when they approached told him that Master Sean O Lochlainn had arrived before him and was already hard at work on the forensic examination of the corpse and the murder scene.

Coronel Lord Waybusch was standing to one side of the shop door, looking worried. A stocky man in his early fifties, with a head of thick, black hair and a wide black mustache, the Coronel was wearing the gold-and-crimson dress uniform of the Household Guard, which looked as though it had been designed particularly to show off his ruggedly masculine good looks. “Glad you’re here, Darcy,” he growled, sticking his large right hand out to be shook. “Job of keeping order in this damned carnival is going to be quite enough without having any damned mysteries to solve. Putting you in charge of this, if you don’t mind. If His Majesty approves. Impossible crime; right up your alley.”

“I know none of the details, Coronel,” Lord Darcy said. “Could you fill me in?”

“Damned few details known,” Coronel Lord Waybusch said. “We’ll know more, of course, as soon as Master Sean finishes his preliminary examination. The chirurgeon has seen the body already. Certified that the chap’s dead. As if we couldn’t tell.” He looked into the cloud of blue smoke that was the interior of the shop, and then looked away. “Don’t like to disturb a wizard while he’s doing his thing,” he said. “Any man who’s an expert at his job should be left alone to do it without outside interference. Most particularly wizards.”

“A prudent philosophy,” Lord Darcy agreed. He usually liked to get a preliminary look at the scene of the crime and the corpse as soon as possible; but as Master Sean seemed well under way in his magical tasks, it would be best to wait until he was done. Interfering with wizardry in progress sometimes had unexpected and disconcerting effects for all concerned.

“The goodman over there,” Coronel Lord Waybusch said, pointing to a quartet of rain-caped commoners standing together nervously in the company of two uniformed armsmen in the doorway of a shop down the street, “the elderly one with the apron, is Master Bonpierre, the baker. It’s his shop, and he found the body. He can tell you what there is to be told until Master Sean is finished.”

“Thank you, Coronel,” Lord Darcy said. “I shall speak with him.”

Lord Darcy walked over to the quartet of tradesmen across the street. “Master Bonpierre?” he asked.

The eldest of the four men stepped forward and doffed his oversized white cap. A skinny man with a prominent nose, he was swaddled from neck to knee under his rain cape in a white apron that seemed several sizes too large for him. “Your Lordship,” he said. “That would be me. This goodman here is Master Chef Virgil DuCormier, and these are my two journeymen; Paval Skettle and Robert Pitt.” He pointed in turn to a short, dark-haired man, who appeared to be in his mid-thirties, and two self-composed, intense men in their late twenties who stood quietly behind him.

Lord Darcy nodded. “I am Lord Darcy, and I shall be investigating the death. I need to ask you some questions,” he told them. “I understand that the bakery is your shop and that you found the body. Is that right?”

“Yes,” Master Bonpierre agreed hesitantly. “Leastwise, it is my shop. As to finding the body, well, we all found it together, as one might say.”

“It was horrible!” Journeyman Pitt volunteered. Master Bonpierre turned around and silenced him with a glance. Murders were for masters to discuss, not mere journeymen.

“Tell me about it,” Lord Darcy suggested.

Master Bonpierre tipped his head to one side thoughtfully, as though he was composing an epic poem and wanted to get every word right the first time. “It was like this,” he said finally. “We arrive at the shop, the three of us, on the minute of two o’clock, by the sounding of the Stephain bell, as is usual. We meet Master DuCormier there, as was arranged, and I unlock the door. But the door, although unlocked, will not open. I am surprised.”

“Two o’clock is your usual opening time?” Lord Darcy interrupted.

“For the shop, yes,” Master Bonpierre said, looking slightly annoyed that the flow of his narrative had been broken. “I am, as I say, surprised. I think at first that it is sticking because of the weather—rain-swelled, you understand. But it has never done this before, and indeed this is not the case. I push at the door, but to no avail. It does not want to open. This is not usual.”

“Why so late?” Lord Darcy asked.

Master Bonpierre sighed. “We do not have our ovens in the back of the shop,” he explained. “They are, instead, in a separate bakery built up against the new wall. It is there that we go at four in the morning to make bread. It is there that our dozens are sold; to the Castle kitchens, to the military, to the inns. Then at two we open this shop for the trade, and the ‘prentices bring over the stock, and we stay open till the stock is sold or till vespers. Whichever, as you might say, happens soonest.”

“There’s no oven in this shop?”

“Only a small one for special orders,” Master Bonpierre said. “Birthday cakes and such. The large one was converted into a preservator last Michaelmas.”

“Why were you meeting Master DuCormier outside the shop?” Lord Darcy asked. “Doesn’t he work with you?”

“No,” Master Bonpierre said.

“At present I am employed in the Castle kitchen,” Master DuCormier said in a thick French accent, stepping forward. “I am a master chef of the cakes and pastries and
des confitures
—the sweetmeats. Also the table decorations I do. I have come especially from Paris for His Highness’s coronation. I will be creating the reception cake.”

“I see,” Lord Darcy said. “And you came here...?”

“To arrange for the vending of
des souvenirs gateaux
—the little cakes to commemorate the occasion.”

“Very commendable,” Lord Darcy said. “Thank you for clearing that up.” He turned back to Master Bonpierre. “Now please go on with your narrative. What happened?”

“Yes, Your Lordship. At two o’clock we arrive at the shop. The door does not open. I push at it immensely, you understand, but it will not budge. Journeyman Skettle, who is a strong fellow, he pushes also upon it. To no avail. What are we to do? the ‘prentices will be along at any moment with their panniers full of bread.

“I think of the rear window... .” Master Bonpierre paused for the brilliance of this to be appreciated. “It will admit a person. A small person.”

“What of the front windows?” Lord Darcy asked.

“They are both barred, Your Lordship. It’s a regulation on establishments selling comestibles. Mostly to prevent small children from climbing in at night and damaging themselves, or eating themselves sick.”

“Is there no rear door?”

“There is, Your Lordship; but it opens only from the inside. It’s double-barred at night, and there isn’t even any keyhole.”

“But the rear window?”

“It is high up off the ground, and it is only used for ventilation. It is hinged at the bottom, you understand, and opens no more than six inches at the top. In the normal course of events it cannot be opened far enough to allow entrance. But, as these are abnormal events, I have Journeyman Pitt take a brick and smash the glass out. Then we boost him through the window and ourselves go around to the front, so he can let us in.”

“The bakery seems to adjoin the buildings on each side,” Lord Darcy commented.

“Yes, it does,” Master Bonpierre agreed. “There is an alleyway at the back that is accessed from a locked gate around the corner. We did not bother with that today, but asked Goodwife Brewler if we could go through her shop.” He indicated the store next to the bakery, which appeared to sell silver, brass, and pewter kitchen ware.

Lord Darcy turned to the tall, bony youth. “So you went through the window, Journeyman Pitt?”

Pitt rolled his cap into a ball and screwed up his face in concentration. “I did, Your Lordship,” he affirmed. “And I went through to the front room and opened the door. It were the bar what were keeping it closed. I mean it were barred from the inside—like the back door.”

“How could that happen?” Lord Darcy asked.

“It couldn’t,” Master Bonpierre stated. “No way. Not unless it was magicked.”

Lord Darcy let that stand and turned back to the journeyman. “Why didn’t you open the back door instead of the front?” he asked. “Your master was standing right there; he wouldn’t have had to run back to the front.”

Pitt scratched his head. “I didn’t think of it,” he said. “Master told me to open the front door, so open the front door I did.”

“And then?”

“And then,” Master Bonpierre took over again, and continued his thoughtful description, “I enter the shop. I join in wondering how the front door could have become barred; it is a mystery. Journeyman Skettle opens the shutters on the front windows while I light the lamps. Then the ‘prentices arrive with their panniers full of good French bread. I take my rain cape off and go around the counter to prepare to receive the bread. And then....”

Master Bonpierre’s description slowed to a halt. His eyes widened as, once again, they saw what they had seen an hour before. “And then—on the floor behind the counter—I see...him.”

“Yes?” Lord Darcy said. “Take your time.”

“He is lying there dead—on the floor behind the counter—this overly large man dressed in the robes of a master wizard. There is a surplus of blood on the floor past his head. The floor, you understand, leans that way. He is arranged in death, you know, lying there.”

“You mean composed?” Lord Darcy asked. “As though he expected to die, or was ready for it?”

“No, no,” Master Bonpierre said. “
Arranged
. As by the undertaker. His feet together. His arms crossed—so—over the great belly. His raiment pulled down and folded neatly about him. It was, somehow, more shocking than if he had just been lying there.”

“I see what you mean,” Lord Darcy said. “What then?”

“Then I send Journeyman Skettle out for the nearest armsman, I send the ‘prentices back to the ovens with the panniers of bread; and we, the rest of us, go outside the shop to wait for him.”

“You didn’t touch anything in the shop?”

“No, no. Certainly not. Not after the body was found.”

“Very thoughtful, thank you,” Lord Darcy said. “You know we like to have the scene of a crime left as pristine as possible for our investigations.”

Master Bonpierre shuddered slightly. “It was not forethought, you understand. It was simply lack of desire. We all wished to be outside the shop while that body was inside it.”

“I understand,” Lord Darcy said. He looked around at the others. “Tell me, did any of you recognize the corpse? Have any of you ever seen him before?”

There was a murmuring of negatives from the four bakers. None of them had ever seen the corpse in life, to the best of their recollection. And none of them ever wanted to see such a thing again, thank you.

“Thank you all very much for your assistance,” Lord Darcy told them. “An armsman will be by sometime later to take full statements from each of you. Please do not let this upset you, it is merely our routine.”

Lord Darcy walked through the kitchen ware shop, nodding politely to Goodwife Brewler, who made a curtsy so deep that she must have thought that he was at least a royal duke in disguise. The back alley was just that, a back alley. It was narrow, paved, and swept clean. There appeared to be no entrance other than the back doors of the shops on both streets and the gate at the far end. A small table was against one wall, with several chairs around it; where, Lord Darcy guessed, some of the shopkeepers shared cups of caffe and a game of cards on a quiet afternoon.

The back of the baker’s shop was as described. There was a door, which had no keyhole and was bolted from the inside, and a window about seven feet off the ground, which had recently had all the glass broken from its frame. On the ground to the left of the door, under the roof overhang, were a stack of old and well-used straw panniers, which had worn out in the baker’s service. They were not doing too well in the almost-constant rain.

Lord Darcy contemplated hoisting himself up and peering through the broken window, but decided against it. Whatever there was to see, he could see much better from inside, when Master Sean was ready for him. He returned through the kitchenware shop to the street.

The tubby little forensic sorcerer emerged from the bakery shop about ten minutes later, his cabalistically-marked carpetbag in hand. Putting it carefully down to the side of the door, he wiped both his hands carefully on a bleached white cotton handkerchief which he pulled from his sleeve. “You can go in now,” he told Coronel Lord Waybusch. “I’m done for the nonce. Mind you, don’t disturb anything. Be especially careful about the covered brass bowl on the tripod, it’s still quite hot.”