“And am I going to like it?”
“I hope so. King Rupert of New Ottosland has expressed a desire to introduce a little modern thaumaturgy into his moribund kingdom. Nothing too extreme. A limited public portal network, a few labour-saving devices here and there. He wondered if I might be able to assist him. I thought perhaps Mister Dunwoody could prove helpful.”
“New Ottosland,” Ralph said slowly, considering. “That’s a nice long way away. And then there’s the Kallarapi desert. All that sand, and New Ottosland like a little island in the middle…”
“Precisely.”
“Out of sight, out of mind, that sort of thing.”
“Indeed.”
Now Ralph was smiling. “And in the meantime, Alec, while Dunwoody’s busy emptying scorpions out of his underwear, you and I-and possibly that ghastly nephew of mine-can come up with a way to get him under control. Permanently.”
Not at all. But he wasn’t about to spoil things with another argument. Not yet, anyway. “So, you agree?”
Ralph sighed. “Do I have a choice?”
“Always,” he said, lying without compunction. “But I really do feel this is the answer, at least for the time being. Now, Ralph, are you quite sure I can’t pour you a drink?”
Nine days after his return to Ottosland, Gerald found the events in Splotze were starting to take on a slightly unrealistic air. Even with the report writing, and the hours of poking, prodding, intrusive tests with Mister Jennings, and the scattering of conversations that had taken place here in Chatterly Crescent, a certain dreamlike feeling persisted.
Of course, that bizarre sense of I wonder if I didn’t imagine it all wasn’t helped by the sight of Sir Alec at the town house’s kitchen table, sharing an informal meal. He’d turned up at the front door, uninvited, just as Melissande was making mushroom gravy, despite unsolicited culinary advice from Reg, and Monk and Bibbie were laying the table. So of course he’d been asked to stay.
To their scarcely hidden alarm, Sir Alec agreed.
Now it was nearly half-past eight. Over the course of an hour and a half they’d eaten their way through an appetiser- onion soup, not crab puffs-then roast beef with all the trimmings, and finally an apple and blackberry pie with generous dollops of cream. Conversation had been desultory and mostly about the foibles of famous thaumaturgists, long dead. Nothing awkward or Department-related at all.
“So,” said Sir Alec, elbows negligently resting on the kitchen table. “The Splotze-Borovnik affair.”
Gerald exchanged glances with Monk. I knew it was too good to last. Then he looked back at Sir Alec. “Yes, sir? What about it?”
“In the end, it was a rather grubby crime, really,” Sir Alec said, sounding mildly offended. “A distasteful dog’s breakfast of passion, misplaced patriotism, and greed.”
That was one way of looking at it, certainly. A very simplified way. But given the enormous list of secrets, both classified and unclassifiable, that the six of them now kept, he had to wonder how long simple could last.
And what was the tally this time? Bibbie’s two dead bodies and his own grimoire-enhanced potentia and the restoration of his sight and Reg and Monk’s enterprising but completely illegal forays into espionage. And Dodsworth, of course. There were probably more, but he was tired and full of food. Those were enough to be going on with.
Perched on the back of her chair, Reg rattled her tail. “What I want to know, Mister Government Stooge, is did we ever uncover the truth about those bloody Lanruvians?”
Sir Alec nodded. “As a matter of fact, Reg, we did. Ambassador Dermit has proven himself to be a fascinating conversationalist.”
“And?” said Reg, when it seemed no-one else felt brave enough to prod. “What did our Steinish chatterbox have to say?”
Sighing, Sir Alec steepled his fingers. Though he was dressed in his customary nondescript grey suit, he had unbent far enough to loosen his tie. It made him look positively debauched.
“Let’s see if I can keep this straight,” he murmured. “Since between them, our players have turned this into something of a melodrama. Norbert of Harenstein encouraged the match between Ratafia and Ludwig in order to lull Hartwig and Erminium into a false sense of security regarding his friendship and the disposition of the Canal. His intent, however, was to bind Erminium to him, encouraging her to rely on his judgement above her own, so that he might in due course undermine the newly formed alliance between Splotze and Borovnik, and the marriage between Prince Ludwig and Princess Ratafia, thus ensuring that the Canal came under Steinish control, with Borovnik the paper partner.”
“Yes, yes,” said Reg. “The political quickstep. It’s all horribly familiar, I’ve seen it a hundred times before. But what about the bloody Lanruvians?”
“Yes,” said Melissande. “And Leopold Gertz?”
Sir Alec’s lips twitched, very faintly. “Former Secretary of State Gertz’s motives were, alas, driven by the personal. In some ways he, too, is a victim. Norbert of Harenstein learned of his history and ruthlessly manipulated it for his own ends.”
“What history?” said Bibbie, drawing patterns on the tablecloth with the tines of her fork. “I never thought Gertz was enough of a person to have a history. He was always just… that damp little man.”
Sir Alec’s gaze was cool and steady. “We are all of us persons, Miss Markham, however plain and damp and lacking in brilliance we might be.”
As Bibbie’s cheeks tinted pink at the reproof, Gerald reached for her other hand under the table and squeezed. His precious, precocious Emmerabiblia. They’d have to talk, and soon. What with one thing and another there’d been little time before now. And, if he was honest, a need for some distance. She’d felt it too. They’d both been hiding.
But that can’t go on. There are things we need to say. Things we can’t hide from, even though they’re hard to look at.
Under the table, Bibbie’s fingers closed around his.
Melissande rearranged her spoon on her empty plate. “What was Leopold’s history, Sir Alec?”
Sir Alec’s expression softened ever so slightly towards regret. “When he was a child, his father was killed in one of the Splotze-Borovnik Canal skirmishes, and apparently the loss disordered his wits. Seeded in him a hatred of Borovnik that bordered on madness. It seems he genuinely believed that in ruining the wedding and the treaty he was saving both Prince Ludwig and his beloved Splotze from a fateful mistake.”
Monk was frowning. “Fine, I can see where and why Gertz did his bit. But that rockslide at the Hanging Bridge-from what Gerald’s said, it could easily have killed Ludwig and Ratafia. How could Norbert’s plan have worked if they were dead?”
“Obviously it couldn’t,” Sir Alec said, his eyes faintly approving. “That was a miscalculation on the part of Dermit and Volker. Fortunately for Norbert of Harenstein, Mister Dunwoody was at hand.”
Gerald cleared his throat. “And Miss Markham.”
“Indeed.” Now Sir Alec’s expression was repressive. “But the less said about that, the better.”
Right. Giving Bibbie a quick nudge under the table, he risked a sideways glance at Monk, whose shoulder twitched in the smallest of shrugs. They’d not done much private talking either, since his return from Splotze… and now there was more to say then ever. The grimoire magic. Bibbie. Where they all went from here.
But that can wait, too. Right now I need everything to wait.
“All right, all right,” said Reg, with an emphatic tail rattle. “So we’ve established Norbert’s a villain and poor little Leopold was simply misunderstood. Not that it excuses him poisoning my Gerald, but since the boy didn’t die I’ll let that pass. For now. But that still doesn’t explain-”
“The bloody Lanruvians,” said Sir Alec. “Indeed. An intriguing puzzle piece, they’ve proven to be. According to Ambassador Dermit, Norbert had reached a mutually beneficial agreement with our pale friends. In return for giving their cargo barges unrestricted and uninspected access to the Canal, once it was in Steinish hands, the Lanruvians would give him the wherewithal to take control of the region’s unreliable etheretics.”