The word 'sabotage' was used reluctantly at first. By the end of the two days, however, all at Clear Haven used it with a certainty that chilled Aubrey. The perpetrators weren't mentioned by name, but there seemed no doubt that Holmand was responsible.
Rokeby-Taylor was noticeably absent from all of this. The moment the Electra had docked, he'd claimed any number of pressing engagements and hurried to his waiting ornithopter. Aubrey was impressed by this deft – if temporary – display of blame-dodging.
Rokeby-Taylor's well-oiled departure left many questions unanswered. Each meeting ended with a recommendation that development of the special submersible be halted, with continuation subject to further investigation.
Sir Darius promised Admiral Elliot that he'd take the matter up with Cabinet – and that no news of the incident would reach the public.
All throughout that long day, Aubrey tried to catch Caroline, but he was dragged from one meeting to another with barely time to catch his breath. He held out hopes for the trip back to Trinovant but Caroline snapped up the co-pilot's seat, while Aubrey was jammed in a tiny space in the rear of the ornithopter. Alone, he dozed uncomfortably all the way home, a control conduit thrumming irritatingly right near his head.
The next morning, George received a telephone call at Maidstone, asking him home, which finally gave Aubrey a chance to rest – something he needed more than anything else in the world.
The magical efforts on the submersible had jolted the hold he'd established on his soul. He was back on the wearying, painful treadmill of trying to hold himself together, and he hated it.
In this state, nothing was good. The constant threat of utter dissolution had preyed on him, haunted his days, lurked behind his successes and his everyday happiness.
He accepted that he'd made no progress; his discoveries in Lutetia had been promising, and for a brief time he'd actually felt what it was like to be cured, but ultimately it was a magical dead end in a way that went beyond punning.
His correspondence with researchers, academics and savants across the world had yielded little. Some of this was due to the guarded, theoretical nature of his inquiries, but he couldn't afford to be open. His condition was a secret that only he and George knew. He was going to keep it that way.
Part of this was simple embarrassment. He didn't want to become a laughing stock – the ambitious young magician who fell on his face. A more lofty motive was to spare his father any poor press. The Prime Minister's son a bungler on a monumental scale? What sort of a father would allow such a thing to happen?
He found rest difficult to come by. His mind kept whirring, picking up half-thoughts and poking at them, trying to tie them together. Finally he climbed out of bed, groaning when his joints felt as if someone had seeded them with ground glass.
He limped to his father's study and took Dr Tremaine's pearl from the family safe.
In the complex interweaving of plot and counterplot leading up to the attempt on the King's life, Aubrey had come into possession of the pearl that Dr Tremaine had embedded in the head of his cane. This pearl had been a present from Dr Tremaine's sister, who had died some years ago, a sister whom he loved beyond anything else.
It was roughly egg-shaped, the size of the tip of his thumb, but it wasn't smooth like most other pearls Aubrey had seen. It was creased and folded like a miniature brain.
The pearl had meant so much to Dr Tremaine, Aubrey wondered if it were a magical artefact. After probing it for some time, he provisionally decided it was what Dr Tremaine claimed – a souvenir in the true sense of the word: a remembrance, a concrete reminder of someone dear.
He put it back in the safe and returned to his room, but didn't banish it from his mind.
He was still brooding on it when Tilly, the maid, knocked at his door to say his father wanted to see him in the library.
He stood in front of the cheval mirror, and brushed his jacket and his hair, doing his best to look presentable. As long as no-one noticed the dark circles under his eyes, the sallow skin and the slight trembling of his hands, he thought he could achieve a level of presentability. Provided the standards weren't high.
He straightened his tie and he rubbed his eyes. He was tired again – naggingly, insistently tired. How could he go on like this?
The answer that came to him was simple. It was also unwelcome, almost repellent, and he realised that it had been lurking at the back of his mind for some time but he had refused to listen.
Do no more magic.
Magic was the worst sort of strain. If he renounced it, his body and soul would be much easier to keep in equilibrium. It promised an enduring, perhaps permanent, solution.
But he didn't want to do it.
He had a talent for magic. That was part of his reluctance – the natural aversion to wasting an aptitude; but it was more than that. He enjoyed magic. He liked being special. It was exhilarating to engage with the very stuff of the universe itself, to face challenges that required the utmost from him.
How could he give that up?
Magic was who he was. It defined him.
But even as this came to him, he resisted such a classification. He was Aubrey Fitzwilliam; he was more than a simple label!
Early on in his pursuit of magic, he'd thought it was truly possible to know everything about it, to master it in all its glory. Then he'd come to the understanding that he couldn't know it all. It had been a depressing thought. Hard on the heels of this insight came his usual response: what to do about it. In the end, he drew a diagram of the various branches of magic – including a large area cate-gorised as 'Unknown/Yet to be established' – and circled the areas to which he wanted to dedicate himself. The challenging, the outlandish, the difficult, the mysterious held a heady allure; the well-established, the tried and true were less attractive. If he needed to know more about the Magic of Light or Thermal Magic he could consult someone.
Contemplating this now, he came to the conclusion that if he gave up the practice of magic, there was much to be involved with. He could still research the field. The universities were full of people who did vital work, delineating, exploring and refining spells in an abstract sense, working on crucial areas of magical theory. He could do some serious investigation into the interaction between language and magic, for instance. A universal language of magic would be a staggering breakthrough, a thoroughly worthwhile goal.
It seemed like an eminently sensible approach. Not dull in any way. Not at all.
SIR DARIUS STOOD BEHIND THE LONG, GILT TABLE IN THE middle of the library. When Aubrey entered, he looked up from a large book. He closed it and Aubrey saw, with interest, that it was the Scholar Tan's Deliberations on War. It was his father's favourite, but he knew it by heart and only consulted it when wrestling with profound and knotty problems. His eye could roam over familiar words while his mind worked away.