The guard didn’t quite manage to swallow his sigh. Tourists. “We know the approved guests for Prince Ludwig’s wedding. Her Royal Highness is welcome to Splotze.”
“Excellent!” Gerald said, beaming. “Well, it happens I need to toddle off for a bit. And I just wanted to make sure you know who I am, so you’ll let me back into the palace when I return.”
The guard thought for a moment. “Name?”
“Rowbotham. Algernon Rowbotham.”
More thought on the part of the guard. Risking a glance at the young man’s five brothers-in-arms, Gerald saw that although their gazes remained strictly front-and-center they were closely listening, ready to take action should they perceive any threat.
Thinking concluded, the guard held out his hand. It was heavily callused, as though he spent many hours training with his dagger and his sharp, double-pronged pike.
“Papers.”
“Oh, yes. Of course,” said Gerald, and slid his own uncalloused, yet still lethal, hand inside his boring tweed coat and extracted from its concealed pocket the identity paperwork so meticulously prepared for him by Beevish Trotter, the Department’s document specialist. “Here you are. All in order, I hope!”
The guard scanned Algernon Rowbotham’s particulars then scanned them again, for good measure. Waiting for his false identification to be approved, Gerald noted from the corner of his eye three remarkably vivid individuals mounting the marble steps leading up from the palace forecourt and into the Entrance hall.
Well, well. So the Lanruvians really are here. I wonder what for? And why Sir Alec didn’t know they’d been invited…
The Lanruvians were impossible to miss or ignore, with their scalp-locks dyed bright emerald and lips tattooed cobalt blue. Tall and disturbingly thin, the three men were swathed head to toe in sand-white woollen robes. Their shimmering skin was very nearly the same shade. One of them had beads of jet and ivory dangling from his pierced nose, marking him as his wedding party’s Spirit Speaker. The Lanruvians were thaumaturgists, after a fashion, but their etheretics were wrapped so tightly in the chains of religious mysticism that as far as the Lanruvian people were concerned they might as well not exist. On that score Lanruvians weren’t terribly unlike the Kallarapi. Only compared to them, the Kallarapi were the life of any party.
Watching the guards draw themselves that little bit taller as the Lanruvians approached, Gerald hid his consternation. With his etheretic shield engaged it was much harder to feel their inner power, but it was there, elusive as a name on the tip of his tongue. Smarmy, Crown Prince Hartwig had called them, and he wasn’t entirely wrong. There was a slickness to the Lanruvians that couldn’t sit easily with anyone who possessed an aptitude for thaumaturgics.
Blimey. I hope they’re not the ones causing trouble. Because if they were, his job was going to be nigh impossible. And then Sir Alec really will go spare.
As the Lanruvians passed unchallenged into the palace, just a rap of five pikes to the marble-covered floor in honour of the Crown Prince’s guests, the guard held out the false paperwork. “You are free to go, Mister Rowbotham, and free to return.” A sardonic smile. “Enjoy your little visit to Grande Splotze.”
Gerald shoved the papers back inside his tweed coat. “Thank you! D’you know, I think I will!”
He’d memorised a suitably havey-cavey route from the palace to Abel Bestwick’s lodgings, one that made sure he took in some of the more popular attractions a visitor might wish to see in Grande Splotze. As the crow flew it was no more than a brisk three-quarter hour’s walk to his destination, cutting through various side-streets and alleyways, but it was the kind of route that only someone familiar with Grand Splotze would use. If Algernon Rowbotham was seen nipping along it smartish, like a man who knew precisely where he was off to, eyebrows would rise. And if they weren’t friendly eyebrows, well, the next thing being lifted might well be a knife. Not that there was any reason to think that Algernon Rowbotham, secretary to Princess Melissande, would be the object of scrutiny.
But under the circumstances, he couldn’t afford to take the chance.
On a deep breath, Gerald marched off to give his best impression of a gormless tourist-about-town.
Splotze’s royal capital was abuzz with a feverish anticipation of the upcoming wedding. Being very late in autumn, with a definite nip in the air but no picture-postcard snow to delight visitors from warmer climes, this was the time of year that tended to fall between two seasonal sightseeing stools. At least, ordinarily. But the pending nuptials between Hartwig’s young brother, Prince Ludwig, and Borovnik’s only daughter, the Princess Ratafia, had turned ordinarily on its head.
The people of Splotze were easy to spot, with their abundant hair in varying shades of chestnut red and the men sporting moustaches most walruses would gladly claim. But for every proud local, Gerald saw a face that didn’t belong. His own folk from Ottosland, with their indefinable yet distinctive cast of features. A great many dark-haired, dark-eyed Borovniks, which was only to be expected. They were very well behaved, for once. In startling contrast to their trim swarthiness were the floridly well-fleshed visitors from Blonkken, with their blond hair thick as straw. They were almost as well-fleshed as the tourists from Graff, with whom they shared a common ancestry and a great many squabbles. And if that weren’t enough to turn Grande Splotze into a human zoo, there were also ebony-skinned Aframbigins, wiry-haired Steinish folk and even a few silk-wrapped Fandawandins shimmering in the cool sunshine like Rupert’s late, lamented butterflies.
Indeed, Grande Splotze was so crushed and crowded with visitors that Gerald was slowed to a maddening hop-step-and-shuffle as he made his way from the palace to the township’s heart. Not wanting to draw attention to himself, just in case someone was watching, instead of causing a fuss when confronted by yet another pedestrian of the voluminously-attired female persuasion, he simply stepped into the gutter. Sadly, the city’s gutters weren’t empty. By the time he’d navigated the length of Palace Way and reached the junction with Bessleslitz Circus he was mired well over the instep with a variety of evil-smelling substances he didn’t dare investigate too closely.
Bugger, he thought, casting another look behind him at the cheerful crowd. If I am being followed, how will I know?
The thronged centre of Grande Splotze was gaily festive. Garlands swooped from lamp post to curlicued, wrought-iron lamp post, intricately entwined in royal blue, gold and crimson. In the middle of each swoop was a portrait of the prince and princess, and if a certain amount of artistic licence had been taken with Ludwig’s likeness, well, it was a wedding, after all, starring the prince as The Dashing Bridegroom.
And it wasn’t just the lamp post garlands that created the air of celebration. Every shop front was festooned with bunting, every window graced with a larger version of the happy couple’s official portrait. In the pastry shops’ displays he saw cakes baked in the royal likenesses, some of them terrifyingly life-like. One ambitious baker had produced a figured cake to actual size and standing upright, with Ludwig and Ratafia’s iced hands coyly clasped-which seemed on the whole to be a sad waste of flour, eggs and sugar. He couldn’t imagine anyone eating the thing. Surely they’d be tried for treason if they did.
With one last horrified look at the life-sized cake, acutely mindful of Sir Alec back in Nettleworth doubtless impatient for a report, Gerald hurried on, making sure that Algernon Rowbotham took a moment to stare admiringly at the famously mosaicked Town Hall, then ogle the surprisingly unclothed statues in the Groblemintz Gardens. Both times he risked lowering his shield again, but couldn’t detect any trace of untoward thaumaturgics.
Probably I’m not being followed. Probably I’m letting Bestwick’s message give me unnecessary collywobbles. But my motto from here on in is Better Safe Than Sorry…