Wizard Undercover

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

When Monk reached his jalopy, parked on the street outside the Nettleworth building, he found Reg perched on the bonnet like an oversized hood ornament.

“Well?” the bird said. “How did he take it?”

“Better than I thought he would. What are you doing here, Reg?”

She flapped onto his shoulder. “Making sure that government stooge didn’t turn your guts into his garters. Blimey, sunshine. You look like a walking corpse. Anyone ever tell you natural light is not your friend?”

Buzzing with exhaustion, Monk unwarded the car door, opened it, and slid behind the wheel. “Look, Reg,” he said, as the bird hopped onto the back of the passenger seat. “I don’t need a nursemaid. I’m going straight home and then I’m crawling into bed.”

Reg rattled her tail. “Well, you’re going straight home. But your bed’ll have to stay empty a while longer, sunshine.”

He stared at her. “What?”

“Dodsworth’s waiting for you at Chatterly Crescent, all gee’d up about something and raring to go.”

Dodsworth? “Gee’d up about what? Did he say?”

“Oh, yes,” Reg said, looking down her beak at him. “Once I’d let him in through the locked and warded front door, your butler and me had ourselves a lovely chinwag over tea and toast. And he wasn’t the least bit discombobulated to find out I say a bloody sight more than Polly wants a bloody cracker and make sure it’s got no sesame seeds. I’m only holding back the particulars because I don’t want to spoil the surprise.”

Right. With a sigh, Monk fired up the jalopy and pulled away from the kerb. “Sorry. I’m a bit tired.”

“Yes. Well,” the bird muttered. Then she slapped him with her wing. “Oy. Don’t suppose you thought to ask that manky Sir Alec of yours if he’s heard from our Gerald?”

“I did, and he hasn’t.”

“Bugger,” said Reg. “What’s our boy up to? Didn’t his mother teach him it’s polite to call home?”

Monk winced. A steady drumbeat of pain was booming in his skull. He pulled down his driver’s side window for some fresh air, then nosed the jalopy into the heavy flow of traffic along Kastelan Street.

“I expect he’s a bit busy, Reg. Please. Don’t go on.”

She considered him closely, head tipped to one side. “On second thoughts, maybe I should’ve poked Dodsworth in his unmentionables until he went away. If you go wandering about the place looking like that, Mister Markham, you’ll frighten the horses into hysterics.”

Dodsworth wouldn’t have come to see him if it wasn’t important. “Bugger the horses, Reg. They can take care of themselves.”

His family’s butler was perched on the front steps of the Chatterly Crescent town house. Seeing the jalopy turn in to the driveway, he got up, creakily, and tottered to meet it.

“Master Monk! I’m sorry to disturb you, but I thought you’d want to know at once,” he said, bending down to peer into the car. “I’ve just had word from-” Dodsworth frowned. “Master Monk, there is a bird on the seat beside you.”

“Ah-yes, I do believe there is,” he said, carefully not looking at Reg. “I found it lying stunned on the side of the road, poor thing. Couldn’t leave it there, could I? Anyway, you were saying?”

“I feel bound to point out, sir, that it is no longer stunned and is in possession of a very long, sharp beak.”

“Is it? I can’t say I noticed. Anyway — ”

Keeping one eye on Reg, Dodsworth managed to collect himself. “Yes, sir. I’ve had word from my friend, the Harenstein embassy’s butler. He’s back at work, but now that useless guffin who filled in for him has succumbed to dropsy and there’s an important supper at the embassy this evening. He wanted to know if I couldn’t see fit to lend him a hand.”

Despite his headache, and his bone-shattering weariness, Monk felt himself start to grin. “Really?”

“Yes, really, sir,” said Dodsworth, with an answering smile. “And seeing as how I know you’re interested in getting in there, and Master Aylesbury’s away on business and your dear parents are off visiting Lord and Lady Patchoo, I thought I could, without compromising my position, answer my friend’s cry for help and take you with me as my assis-”

Monk reached through the open driver’s side window and seized Dodsworth’s lined, retainerly face between his hands. “Alfred, I swear, if there wasn’t a jalopy between us I’d kiss you.”

“Indeed, sir?” said Dodsworth, slightly muffled. “How very enthusiastic of you, to be sure.”

He let go. “When do we leave?”

“As soon as possible, Master Monk,” said Dodsworth. “Apparently there’s a great deal to do.”

“Then come inside and wait while I sort out a few things, would you? And if you felt like it, you could maybe make me some toast? I haven’t had anything to eat since-” His mind blanked. “Anyway. Toast would be nice.”

Stepping back, Dodsworth frowned. “Now, now, Master Monk. I think we can do a little better than toast.”

Monk unfolded himself out of the jalopy. “Actually, I was hoping you were going to say that.”

“Ah-the bird, Master Monk?” said Dodsworth, as they headed for the town house’s front door.

He didn’t look back. “Never mind about the bird, Dodsworth. I’m sure the bird, like hysterical horses, can take care of herself.”

After a quick bath, a slightly longer hunt for clean, suitably assistant butler clothes, a large handful of headache pills and some of Dodsworth’s exemplary coffee and scrambled eggs, it was time to go. Pretending he’d forgotten to lock the back door, Monk left Dodsworth in the jalopy worrying about hidden birdshit and caught up with Reg, who was lurking in the rear courtyard.

“Follow us to the embassy,” he said quickly. “And once you’re there make sure to stay out of sight. Find a handy tree or something. I’ll signal you from a window if there’s anything you can do to help.”

Balanced on the edge of a flower pot, Reg gave him a look. “I don’t know, sunshine. I’m not sure you’re up to this.”

“I’m fine,” he said, impatient. “I’ve had a bath, I’ve had breakfast.”

“So now you look like a clean, well fed walking corpse,” said the bird. “The horses will still go into hysterics.”

“I’m fine. Blimey, how does Gerald put up with you?” Bending, he dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Fly safe and whatever you do, don’t lose the jalopy.”

He and Dodsworth were admitted to the Harenstein embassy without incident. Kreski, Dodsworth’s butler friend, fell upon them with a cry of relief and immediately put them to work in the kitchen. Three hours later, still slicing vegetables, Monk made a note to himself to tell his parents that Dodsworth deserved a raise.

Another hour of slaving, this time over a hot stove stirring an endless array of sauces, and the embassy supper’s guests began to arrive. That meant he had a snatch of time to himself.

Catching Dodsworth in passing, he pulled the butler aside. “Look, I need to do something. Hopefully it won’t take too long. But if Kreski comes looking for me-”

“Don’t worry, sir,” said Dodsworth. “I’ll keep him occupied. Master Monk-”

Monk turned back. “Yes?”

Lines of worry were creasing the butler’s lugubrious face. “What we’re doing. It is important, isn’t it?”

“Oh, Dodsworth, my old friend,” he breathed, and clasped the man’s bony shoulder. “You have no idea.”

Dodsworth cleared his throat. “Very good, sir. Off you go, then, and I’ll see you in due course.”

After countless hours of battling to unlock the blood magic incant’s secrets, and failing, Monk found that the simple task of wrapping himself in a no-see-’em was a lot harder than it should’ve been.

Bugger. I didn’t realise I was this stonkered.

Maybe he should’ve paid more attention to Reg’s pointed walking corpse remarks.

Gritting his teeth against a hot surge of pain, he roused his battered potentia and hid himself inside the hex. As always, the no-see-’em turned his surroundings to watercolours, rendered them thin and slightly sloppy as he drifted up the embassy’s servant stairs, crossed the green baize door threshold into the privileged world of titled ambassadors and their guests, then trod lightly up more stairs to the official offices above the ground floor. Music floated up after him, full of trumpets and hints of war.

His no-see-’em hex was the best ever devised. It slid him past the embassy’s wardings like water through a sieve.

Two chattering maids passed him, oblivious, going downstairs. As he explored his first corridor, a uniformed junior secretary came out of a room and closed the door behind him. Monk waited until he heard the man’s booted feet on the stairs then poked his head inside the room. A stationery cupboard. Probably no secrets in there.

It took him nearly half an hour, but at last he found the office he was looking for. Ornately furnished in the flamboyantly overdone Harenstein style, crowded with books, the paperwork on the desk confirmed that it belonged to Ambassador Dermit who was, according to Sir Alec, uncle to the Bern Dermit currently serving on the Marquis of Harenstein’s personal staff.

Breathing softly, willfully ignoring his body’s urgent need for sleep, Monk stood at the desk and coaxed his reluctant potentia to do his bidding. A heaviness. Hexed resistance. And then the warded drawers on the desk surrendered to his illicit coercion and he was able to open them and start rummaging.

He found what he was after in the second-bottom drawer. A sealed envelope, warded three different ways. His fingers tingled against the thaumaturgics. Powerful, yes, but no match for him, not even when he was tired enough to fall asleep in a gutter. He broke all three wards and pulled a folded sheet of paper from the breached envelope.

It was coded in a cypher he’d never seen before… but at first glance, it made him blink. Blimey. Somebody really didn’t want this letter being read by strangers. It’d take more time than he had now to break it. In fact he had the nasty suspicion it’d likely take a whole day. And even when it was deciphered, there was no guarantee that it had anything to do with the Splotze-Borovnik wedding. But this letter was the closest thing he’d come up with yet to a clue. So he was going to take a leap of faith. What other choice did he have?

“Bloody hell, Reg!” he whispered, hanging out of the office window. The sun had set a while ago, and light from the embassy garden’s decorative lanterns brushed her feathers as she thumped onto his outstretched arm. “Where were you? I’ve been signalling for five minutes at least and having multiple heart attacks because I’ve switched off my no-see-’em!”

“Keep your underwear on, sunshine,” the bird retorted. “Have you counted how many windows this embassy’s got? I’ve been hopping from tree to tree since I got here. It’s a wonder I can fly straight, I’m so dizzy.”

He waved his other hand at her. “Yes, yes, all right, never mind. Take this.”

She eyed the envelope he was clutching. “And what’s that? It bloody stinks of thaumaturgics.”

“I don’t have time to explain! Please, just take it and fly back to Chatterly Crescent before somebody sees you and Kreski comes looking for me!”

“Kreski? Who’s Kres-mmph!”

“And try not to drool on it,” he added, as the bird glared at him over the envelope, which he’d shoved into her open beak. “You might set off the thaumaturgics.”

Dark eyes promising a proper poking of his unmentionables, Reg rattled her tail, flapped her wings, and launched herself into the night.

For one precious moment he let himself sag over the office windowsill. Please, please, let that note be what gets Gerald and the girls home in one piece. And then he pulled back inside, reignited the no-see-’em, breathed hard until his protesting potentia settled, and made his way back downstairs to tackle the embassy supper’s dirty dishes.

“Well,” Bibbie remarked, once again comfortably sprawled on the royal bed in the palace’s sumptuous guest suite. “You’ve done a bang-up job, Mel, I must say. After that stunt you pulled at what’s left of the Hanging Bridge, now the only person speaking to you is Hartwig.”

Melissande, seated in the bedchamber’s largest plush velvet chair, folded her arms. Y’know, I’m getting rather tired of this. “That’s not true. You’re speaking to me. And so is Algernon.”

Cross-legged on the carpeted floor, Gerald grunted, not looking up from his crystal ball. “Only because I have to.”

She kicked her heel against the carpet. “Honestly, Algernon. I think you’re being rather mean.”

“Mean?” Gerald laughed, unamused. “Wait till you hear what Sir Alec has to say. Trust me, Your Highness, that’s when you’ll hear mean.”

“Only if you can get that wretched crystal ball to work,” she said. “Can you?”

“No,” he said curtly. “The etheretics are still out of whack. Which means the portals won’t be working either. We’re stuck here, curse it, with no way of reaching Sir Alec.”

“Maybe you should let Gladys have a turn,” she said, feeling nasty. “A fresh eye. A woman’s touch. That sort of thing.”

“There’s no point, Melissande,” said Bibbie. “If Algernon can’t get that crystal ball working, nobody can.”

Disbelieving, Melissande stared at her. Bibbie giving up on a thaumaturgical challenge? Bibbie surrendering the high ground to a wizard? And then she saw the look that passed between Monk’s sister and Gerald. It was full of secrets. Of the mysterious thaumaturgical communion they’d shared at the bridge. She remembered there were things about him that Bibbie still hadn’t told her. Remembered their shocking, heart-stopping kiss. Passion and need and triumph, inextricably intertwined.

So much for her not being sure he loved her. So much for him worrying that for her, he was the wrong man.

Gerald had confided that fear, late one night a few days after coming home from the mess in that other, dreadful Ottosland. But apparently things changed. Monk. She felt a little ache in the region of her heart. Perhaps if she ignored it, the bothersome pain would go away.

“Anyway,” said Bibbie. “We’re back in Grande Splotze, after a lovely cross-country motorcar dash, and the second fireworks display is set for tonight.” She frowned. “Algernon-”

Gerald picked up his crystal ball and stood. “I told you already, Gladys. I don’t know if there’s danger tonight. I was convinced the first fireworks were a trap and it turned out I was wrong. Perhaps my funny feeling was actually about the bridge. Who can say? Not me. I don’t have much experience with thaumaturgically-induced premonitions.”

It felt most peculiar, being in disgrace with Gerald. Melissande found herself faltering. Reluctant to speak up. But then she felt her chin lift.

I’m not going to let him shut me out. I did what I thought was right, what I thought would save lives. I answer to my conscience, not to him… or Sir Alec.

“Perhaps it was, and perhaps it wasn’t,” she said. “But I don’t think we should take any chances, do you? I think you should trust your instincts, Algernon.”

“Mel’s right,” said Bibbie. “Because in this case, yours are the only instincts we can trust.” She groaned. “Lord, thaumaturgically-induced premonitions give me a headache!”

“And what gives me a headache,” said Gerald, crossing the bedchamber to glare out of the window, “is that after everything that’s happened we still can’t give a name to our villain.”

“Perhaps we will, after tonight,” said Bibbie. “Or perhaps it won’t matter. If you’ve been right all along, and Ratafia and Ludwig really are in danger from the pre-wedding fireworks, then there’s still time to save them. With the wedding set for midnight, we’ve hours to go yet. So really, it’s simple.”

Gerald stared at her. “Simple?”

“Yes!” Bibbie said brightly. “You get us through the fireworks in one piece, Grande Splotze’s bells ring out with joy, Hartwig heaves a sigh of relief, Erminium complains about something else entirely trivial, the cooing lovebirds get married then sign the Splotze-Borovnik treaty, and that’s that. There’s no urgent reason to kill anyone, then.”

Gerald frowned. “Yes. Right. Simple as pie. Only you’re forgetting there’s the chance that if they’re killed soon enough after the wedding, say on the honeymoon, the Canal treaty might still be at risk.”

“True,” Bibbie said, sliding out of her chair. “What matters, though, is that we’ll have bought time for Sir Alec to work with Uncle Ralph and bodgy up a story about accidentally stumbling across a plot against the wedding. Time to keep on investigating too, if we still haven’t worked out who’s behind it. That way nobody need ever know there were janitors involved, or that the three of us were here under false pretences. It’ll be an international diplomacy affair… and we can go back home leaving no-one the wiser.”

The smallest smile tugged at the corner of Gerald’s mouth. “Beautifully reasoned, Bibbie. There’s just one tiny fly in your ointment.”

“No, there’s not, Gerald,” said Bibbie, determined. “Because we are going to make sure nobody dies tonight.”

Secretary of State Leopold Gertz jumped so hard, hearing his name called, that he nearly fell off the royal dais.

“I’m so sorry,” Melissande said quickly. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

The damp little man waved a hand, pretending indifference. The beads of sweat rolling down his face told another story. He’d been placing scallop-edged, gold-chased name cards at each setting on the official wedding table. She had to wonder if he realised his fingers were slowly crumpling the ones he had left.

“Princess Melissande,” he said, close to squeaking. “I didn’t hear you come in. Was there something you wanted?”

She looked around the palace’s state dining room, which had been decorated all over again for the post-nuptial feast. A few servants were adding some finishing touches: silver streamers, potted flowers, ribbon rosettes in crimson and royal blue, each one centred with a simpering portrait of the happy couple.

“It all looks lovely, Secretary Gertz,” she said, hoping to charm him. “You should be very proud.”

“Yes, yes, thank you,” he said. “It’s a blessed occasion.” His eyebrows pinched. “Rather rushed now, of course, with the wedding tour being cancelled.”

“Which is my fault. I know,” she said. “That’s why I’ve come to see you, Secretary Gertz. I’m at a bit of a loose end, and I thought you might like an extra pair of hands. My way of making things up to you.”

Secretary Gertz stared as though she’d grown another head. “But-you’re a Royal Highness, Your Highness.”

“True. For my sins. But that doesn’t precisely make me incompetent.”

“But-but-” Gertz looked around the dining room, his expression hunted. “Your secretary. Your lady’s maid. Surely it’s more appropriate that they should-”

“Well, yes, but they’re not here,” she said, unable to take her eyes from the expensive place cards he was slowly destroying. “I gave them leave to visit the township.”

Gertz, realising at last the mess he was making, dropped the ruined cards on the official table as though they’d burst into flame.

“You sent your servants away? You’re unaccompanied?”

She shrugged. “Only for an hour or so. I had to do it, Secretary Gertz. After that awful business at the Hanging Bridge, Slack could do nothing but burst into tears. She was getting on my nerves. I thought an outing with Rowbotham might cheer her up.”

“I see,” said Gertz, clearly not seeing at all. “Well, Your Highness. I’m sure if your brother His Majesty King Rupert has no objection to his royal sister being left unchaperoned, then I have nothing to say on the matter.”

Fresh sweat was trickling down Gertz’s thin, sallow cheeks. A nervous tic flickered beside his left eye. He was looking positively ill with wedding strain. Though he irritated her, to her surprise Melissande felt a welling of sympathy.

“Are you all right, Mister Secretary?” she asked. “After what happened, I mean? You were even closer to danger than I was, and I know it gave me a nasty turn.”

Gertz tugged at the high, braid-covered collar of his official uniform tunic. “Yes. I am. Thank you for your asking, Your Highness. It was a most unpleasant experience, but it’s behind us now and that’s all that matters.”

He didn’t look like a man who’d left a brush with death behind him, but there was no point contradicting him.

“So, Secretary Gertz, is there a way I can help?”

Looking hunted again, Gertz surrendered to the inevitable, produced a white silk handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face. “I suppose-if you insist-you might pass a message to Mister Ibblie, Your Highness. He should be in his office on the fourth floor. If you’d remind him that Goby must follow the musical program as it has been arranged then I would be-”

“I’m sorry, but who-?”

“Goby,” said Gertz, sounding almost impatient. “Dowager Queen Erminium’s music master. He’s conducting tonight’s ensemble at the reception prior to the wedding ceremony.” Another flourish with the handkerchief. “Twice now in rehearsal he has substituted his own compositions for those of Crown Prince Hartwig’s court composer.” An offended sniff. “It seems that the honour of conducting the ensemble is insufficient to Goby’s needs. I have spoken with him most directly, but he seems determined to go his own way. If he should try the same knavish trick tonight then I tell you plainly I shan’t be responsible for the consequences!”

Oh dear. Politics and Erminium. A lethal combination. No wonder the poor man was on the brink of a breakdown.

“Yes, Secretary Gertz, I quite understand,” Melissande said gravely. “It would be a debacle.”

“These bloody Borovniks,” Gertz said under his breath, surprisingly savage. “It’s a pity we never drowned them in the Canal when we had the chance.”

A mutually shocked silence, as they stared at each other.

“Oh my,” Gertz said faintly. “Oh dear. Your Highness, forgive me, I-”

She held up her hand. “No. No. It’s quite all right, Leopold. I didn’t hear a thing. I’ll just-I’ll go and see Secretary Ibblie now. Good day.”

Leaving Hartwig’s damp, distraught Secretary of State to his card placing, she took herself off to see Ibblie. And as she toiled up the stairs, thought: Poor little Leopold. I think the pressure has finally got to him. A good thing for his sake it’s all nearly over.

Mister Ibblie, having risen to greet her, took the news of Erminium’s music master with commendable equanimity.

“Yes, Your Highness, I was aware there’d been…”A diplomatic smile. “Some friction. Should the chance arise, you might reassure Secretary Gertz that steps have been taken to contain Master Goby’s-” A pause. “Unbridled enthusiasm.”

Impressed, Melissande nodded. “He’ll be very pleased to hear it, Mister Ibblie. I’m afraid Secretary Gertz is a little overwhelmed just now.” Then she winced. “Oh. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that. Only, to be brutally frank with you, sir, I’m not entirely convinced he’s as sanguine about the accident at Lake Yablitz as he’d like everyone to think. And since Hartwig-the Crown Prince, I mean-relies on him so heavily-and, indeed, since they’re family — ”

Ibblie offered her a small bow from the other side of his desk, which was thickly papered with notes and memos and scribblings. It brought back not-so-fond memories of her time as practically a prime minister.

“The gracious delicacy of your feelings, Princess Melissande, does you great credit,” Ibblie replied. “If I may be so bold as to say? And might I also say that I, for one, am most grateful that you saw to the safe return of our wedding party.” He shuddered. “So much rests on the success of this marriage. Any threat to it must be seen as a threat to both nations.”

“Mister Ibblie,” she said, completely charmed, “I could not agree more. And if I might say something else, intending no offence? If ever the day should come when you feel the need for new surroundings-notwithstanding your natural allegiance to your homeland, of course-I wish you would come to me. My brother, King Rupert, is always in need of good men upon whose expertise and counsel he can rely.”

And who aren’t staring the age of ninety-four in the face.

Another bow. “Your Highness, I am deeply touched,” said Ibblie. “And I shall remember your flattering offer.”

“Do, Mister Ibblie,” she said. “Now, unless there’s something I can help you with, I’ll return to the Secretary and set his mind at ease over the Dowager Queen’s music master.”

“Thank you, Your Highness, that’s very kind,” said Ibblie. “But I’m tolerably confident I have everything under control. Although-”

“Yes?” she said, helpfully.

Ibblie was staring at a hand-scrawled note, his expression fastidiously displeased. “It has just been brought to my attention, Your Highness, that the Lanruvians have departed Splotze. Without, I might add, formally informing the Crown Prince.”

“Departed?” She stared. “You mean they’re not attending the fireworks? Or the reception? None of it?”

Ibblie let the note drop. “Apparently not.”

“But… what about their cherries? I thought they wanted to sell you their cherries?”

If he was surprised that she knew of that, he was too self-disciplined to let it show. “I’m afraid I couldn’t say, Your Highness. The ways of Lanruvia are a mystery to me.”

And me, Melissande thought, staggered. So does this mean they were never part of the plot against the wedding?

She had no idea. She couldn’t begin to imagine what Gerald was going to say.

“Mister Ibblie, I’m astonished. Does Hartwig know?”

“He does not,” said Mister Ibblie. “But if you could inform Secretary Gertz, then the Secretary could inform the Crown Prince. That is the proper way such news is delivered.”

In other words, You and Hartwig might be chummy, but I’d rather you kept your nose out of this.

And she was more than happy to oblige.

Leaving Ibblie to his ruthlessly efficient organisation, she went back downstairs to Leopold Gertz and gave him the good news about the music master, followed by the bad news about the Lanruvians. Then she escaped the state dining room-Gertz’s agitation was contagious-and, unsettlingly adrift, wandered aimlessly around the armour display in the palace’s Grand Entrance Hall.

What use am I now? None. Gerald and Bibbie don’t need my help to investigate the fireworks. Mister Ibblie doesn’t need me. Leopold Gertz doesn’t want me. And neither does Ratafia any more. Even Ludwig’s cross, since I upset his little snowbud. Hartwig would be pleased to see me, but I don’t think I could cope with his wandering hands.

The enormous clock in the hall chimed a quarter to three. Lord, it was hours yet before she needed to dress for the fireworks. Assuming, of course, that they went ahead. Assuming Gerald and Bibbie didn’t blow them up early, by accident, or discover some terrible thaumaturgical tampering they couldn’t undo and had to call a halt to the whole event.

I could read a book, I suppose. Or knit.

And then she had an idea. Mitzie! She should do the right thing and visit Bibbie’s sad little kitchen maid. See how the girl was faring, make sure she didn’t need anything.

Now with something useful to do, Melissande abandoned the horse armour and spiked dog collars-though really, in hindsight, they’d have come in rather useful around Hartwig- and made her way below stairs to the palace’s vast kitchens.