The Magicians And Mrs. Quent Part 12

Rafferdy could not help but wince at the name. "Ah, Mr. Wyble. I hadn't realized your relation to him was by your mother. I had a.s.sumed it was through your father."

"It matters not," she said with a laugh. "I think, as far as Mr. Wyble is concerned, we are no relation at all!"

That the law should one day permit an insipid man like Mr. Wyble to deprive three young women of their home was abominable. However, the day this would transpire was many years off-Mrs. Lockwell was in no way old-and no doubt her daughters would be comfortably married by then. Still, it rankled.

"It seems unfair you cannot keep your house as long as you wish to reside in it," he said.

"Indeed, it is unfair." Her cheeks shone from exertion, and the wind had stolen several locks of gold hair from her bonnet. "That is, it is precisely unfair by design. For we are merely women, you see, and all laws conspire to keep us dependent. Though upon what or who we will depend, I cannot say. That we might have any sort of power over our own fortunes is a thing society forbids. Why this is so, I am at a loss. Perhaps over the ages men have found us to be incapable of making such choices. Or rather, perhaps they did not like or trust the choices we made. Either way, the result is the same. A man might make his own way in the world, Mr. Rafferdy, but a woman must transfer all her hopes to others, however ill she might thereafter be treated."

Rafferdy wished to make a response, but none came to him. Then the others had caught up, and a few more minutes saw them to the gate of the house on Whitward Street. Farewells were exchanged, the sisters retired indoors, and Rafferdy found himself walking along the street back to where his cabriolet waited.

"I would ask you what you're doing," Garritt said, "but you always have your own reasons for things. Still, I'm hard-pressed to know what your intentions are this time around."

So lost had he been in his thoughts that Rafferdy had forgotten his friend was walking alongside him. "To know my intentions regarding what?"

Garritt shook his head. "It is cruel to fortify her expectations and to give her cause to antic.i.p.ate an event that can never come to pa.s.s. Hope is no good thing to have when all hopes must necessarily prove false."

"So you think I should inspire despair instead?"

Garritt's expression was serious. "You are many things, Rafferdy, but not a fool. You know there can never be any real connection between you."

"No doubt that's why I like her," Rafferdy replied.

"That might suit your fancies, but I can hardly believe it matches hers. This can only end in one fas.h.i.+on, when it becomes clear she depends upon your offering a thing you can never grant her. You shouldn't have invited her to Lady Marsdel's."

Rafferdy was suddenly vexed with his friend. "You are wrong. She expects nothing of me. And what is there to fear from inviting her to Lady Marsdel's, save that a dull party might be made interesting?" They had reached the cabriolet. "I do not go in your direction. Here is a coin. Hire yourself a hack cab." He climbed in.

Garritt laid a hand on the edge of the door. "I was never certain if concern for another was something you were capable of, Rafferdy, but I do believe you have an affection for her. If that is the case, you will let her alone. Better to do so now than later, when she has developed a true attachment. This is no game. You can not simply open your purse to pay your debts when you are done and be on your way, not if you use her ill."

Now it was Rafferdy's turn to be serious. "I have known you for many years now. You are my friend, Garritt-indeed, for all the various people with whom I am acquainted, you are perhaps in truth my only one. Yet if ever again you imply that I would willingly cause harm to Miss Lockwell, it will be the last thing you ever say to me. Walk on!"

Those final words were directed to the driver. The cabriolet started along the street, and Rafferdy did not look back.

The brief day was half over by the time he arrived at Warwent Square, and clouds had cast a pall over the city. He changed into a robe and told his man to bring him tea in the parlor, for he intended to spend the rest of the day there by the fire, answering letters.

Upon sitting at his desk, he found that day's post lying atop the heap of notes and invitations. At once his eye caught a rather bulky letter, addressed to him in a bold, even garish hand. There was no return address. He sipped his tea, then opened the envelope with a small knife.

Something fell to the table with a clatter.

Rafferdy stared for a moment, then reached down and picked up the ring. It was silver, set with a blue stone and etched with spidery runes. The ring felt cold to the touch, as if the letter had been waiting outside on a chill day rather than here in the warmth of his parlor.

He hesitated, then slipped the ring onto his right hand. It nestled snugly around the base of his fourth finger. A s.h.i.+ver crept along his spine, and he wondered why Mr. Mundy would go to the trouble of sending him the ring. Rafferdy had made it perfectly clear that he had no intention of buying it. While his affectations were many, a pretension to magick was not among them. He would leave that for university men and puffed up young lords in a.s.sembly.

"If that little toad thinks I am paying for this ring, he is quite mistaken," Rafferdy said. He took up the envelope, searching it for any sort of note or letter. There was none. He set the envelope back down. The gem winked at him like a blue eye. The ring was every bit as ugly as he recalled. A feeling of revulsion came over him, and he grasped the ring to take it off.

It did not budge.

Rafferdy tried again, gripping the ring and giving it a tug, but the thing would not go past his knuckle. It made no sense; the ring turned freely around his finger. Yet no matter how hard he pulled at the d.a.m.nable object, the ring would not come off his finger. Soon he was sweating and his hand was raw, but for naught. At last he was forced to give up, panting for breath.

He took a shaky sip of tea, then studied the loathsome ring. Had Mundy put some enchantment upon it? Was this some sort of ploy to extort Rafferdy into paying for the thing? Perhaps. Yet Mundy had not seemed like the sort of man who would part with something without being paid first. If that was the case, it meant that someone else had bought him the ring-someone who knew Rafferdy had looked at it.

Again he stared at the ring.

"Mr. Bennick," he said.

The magician knew that Rafferdy had followed him that day. Mundy must have told him everything. So Bennick had bought the ring, and had placed the spell upon it, and had sent it to Rafferdy. It was the only possibility. And it would explain why Bennick had inquired about Rafferdy when he encountered Lord Baydon.

What game was Bennick playing? Why would the magician do such a thing? To punish him for daring to follow that day?

Rafferdy had no idea. However, there was one thing he knew for certain. Mr. Bennick was going to be at Lady Marsdel's upcoming party-and that meant Rafferdy could not be. Such an encounter could only cause the most extreme discomfort. Whatever game Mr. Bennick was playing, Rafferdy would have no part of it.

His determination to avoid Lady Marsdel's party wavered for a moment when he thought of Miss Lockwell. He had asked her to attend; the invitation could not be rescinded. Yet he could not just abandon her to Lady Marsdel and her guests.

But there was no way around it. If he had to endure an evening in the presence of Mr. Bennick, Rafferdy would be so agitated that his company would be far harder to bear than his absence. Besides, he had no doubt Mrs. Baydon would take excellent care of Miss Lockwell.

His mind settled, he called for his man and told him to take a message to Vallant Street, informing Mrs. Baydon that he would be unable to attend Lady Marsdel's upcoming affair, that he was ill, that he did not expect to be recovered for many days, and that she must give his regards to her aunt.

"Shall I call for the doctor, sir?" his man inquired.

"No, but do call for the cabriolet."

"Very well, sir. And where shall I tell the driver to take you?"

"To Greenly Circle, and with haste."

Rafferdy went to his room, stripped off his robe, and donned his clothes. Minutes later he was out the door and into the damp afternoon. It was time to pay Mr. Mundy another visit.

And to have him remove this blasted ring.

CHAPTER TEN.

O VER HALF A month had pa.s.sed since she first conceived her plan, and still Ivy had not ventured to the old house on Durrow Street.

It would not be a simple thing. First, it would have to be a long lumenal. Even days of middling length were out of the question, being already overfilled with all the usual requirements of living. By her calculations she would need at least four hours to make the trek to the Old City, discover the house (whose location she recalled only vaguely), perform her investigations, and return home with a bolt of lace from Albring's.

Purchasing the lace would be her reason for being away from Whitward Street for such a prolonged period. For one thing, Albring's shop was on the edge of Gauldren's Heights nearest the Old City. What was more, it had a reputation for excellent lace but inferior service, and so she might credibly make an excuse that she had been forced to wait for the order. In fact, the lace was already bought and paid for, and the order needed only to be picked up. Mrs. Lockwell had wanted for some lace from this shop for a long time, and it was Ivy's hope that her mother, in her excitement, would not think to question why Ivy was away for so long.

After thorough consideration she deemed the plan sound; however, putting it into action had proved difficult. There was a profusion of short lumenals, and each time the almanac promised a longer day, something conspired to distract her: either Ca.s.sity had misplaced something that had to be found at once, or Lily was in a desolate mood over the ending to one of her romances and required the consolation of her sisters, or Mr. Lockwell was having another one of his spells and shouted at people who were not there and pounded at the window gla.s.s, so that Mrs. Lockwell wrung her hands and begged Ivy to go to him. Ivy would sit with him for hours, murmuring such things as she thought might soothe him, until at last he grew still and his eyes emptied of fear.

All the while she longed to ask him about the message he had left for her years ago in the book of Tharosian myths, to ask him who the twelve wanderers were and what door was to open. Instead, she would draw the curtains against the dusk, kiss his brow, and call for Wilbern to put him to bed.

Nor was it true that every event that conspired to keep her from Durrow Street was entirely unwelcome. More than once, while out on various errands, she chanced upon Mr. Rafferdy just strolling around a corner or driving past in his cabriolet. It was improbable that she should meet him in this way even a single time, let alone on several occasions. Indeed, she was beginning to wonder how she had gone so many years without meeting him, given that she now came upon him with such regularity.

Not that she could claim she was sorry for the fact. Each of their meetings was as enjoyable as it was unexpected. Time always pa.s.sed pleasantly as they walked or, when wanting a rest, sat on a bench in some favorite cloister or arched nook.

Ivy did not know what she hoped to gain from her encounters with Mr. Rafferdy. She supposed she hoped to gain nothing at all, other than a moment's diversion from worrying about the state of their finances, or her father, or Mr. Wyble's next visit. When she was with Mr. Rafferdy, she had the feeling she laughed more than she spoke. The observations he made about others in his circle of acquaintance, the little stories he told, were wry yet never truly cruel, and if there was anyone he ever really deprecated, it was only himself. She could not say what it was she felt when she was with him, save that the shadows around her retreated and her heart lightened-until such time as she returned to Whitward Street, and dusk fell, and the dark seemed to press in once more.

While Ivy expected nothing from her encounters with Mr. Rafferdy, the same could not be said for her mother. Mrs. Lockwell never failed to ask if she had seen Mr. Rafferdy if she was away even a minute longer than expected, and, thus confronted, Ivy could do nothing but confess the truth. Her mother's opinions were only further reinforced by Ivy's invitation to Lady Marsdel's house. It was Lily who divulged the news upon their return from church.

"He favors you, Ivy!" Mrs. Lockwell exclaimed after Ivy was forced to describe the particulars of the invitation. "Oh, don't give me that look, for it's true. A gentleman does not go out of his way to walk with a young lady if he does not particularly like her. When he saw you he might have said he had business and gone on his way with a tip of his hat. Politeness would require no more of him. But it is more than being polite that he intends. To be invited to a party in the New Quarter-that is high praise! I do hope there is dancing. If there is dancing, he will dance with you all night, I am sure of it."

"Mr. Garritt walked with us after church as well," Lily said. "He looked very well. Poor Mr. Rafferdy was quite plain next to him. You should have seen how charming he was, Mother."

However, she paid Lily no attention, for Mrs. Lockwell's enthusiasm was always so wholly given that it could be bestowed upon but a single thing at a time. Only then her elation turned into a panic (the two sensations being often interconnected for her), because she did not know what Ivy could possibly wear to a party at the house of a n.o.ble lady. They must head for the finest dress shops Uphill at once, and cost could not be-no, must not be-of any sort of concern.

Despite Ivy's protests, Mrs. Lockwell might have swept them out the door that moment, but there came a crash from upstairs. Either Ca.s.sity was cleaning or Mr. Lockwell was agitated. Ivy went up to investigate.

It was her father. He had knocked over a stack of books. Once the books were picked up, Ivy sat with him until the full moon lofted above the rooftops of Gauldren's Heights. As its cool light bathed him, Mr. Lockwell grew placid, and Ivy was at last able to steal back downstairs. There she discovered that Mrs. Lockwell, having succ.u.mbed to a headache, had retired to her room. Ivy took supper with her sisters. It was a quiet affair, for Rose rarely had much to say, and Lily was unusually subdued.

Ivy was preoccupied herself as she took a candle into the parlor to consult the almanac and see how long the umbral would be. She was certain her mother was wrong, that Mr. Rafferdy in no way intended to make her an object of peculiar favor. On the contrary, his statements demonstrated that, for all his lively wit, he was a man of sense. To her this was a relief. She could never claim friends.h.i.+p with a man so frivolous as to think that two people of such widely disparate circ.u.mstance could ever hope to be united in any way other than by mere acquaintance.

She shut the almanac and turned from the secretary. As she did, the light of the candle illuminated her reflection in the window, facing her like a partner lined up at a ball.

"Why, yes, Mr. Rafferdy," she said, "I would like very much to dance."

Ivy gave a courteous bow, and her reflection bowed in return. She picked up the hem of her dress and danced several steps as her mirrored partner did the same, s.h.i.+ning against the dark outside, a smile upon her face.

"What are you doing, Ivy?"

She stopped and turned to see Lily standing in the doorway.

"Nothing," she said. "I was just checking the almanac. The umbral is not to be long at all. We had better hurry to bed or it will be light before we fall asleep."

Before Lily could say anything more, Ivy blew out the candle and left the darkened parlor.

O PPORTUNITY CAME AT last on the third lumenal after Brightday. According to the almanac, the day was to be twenty hours, and given its length most people would be taking a long rest in the afternoon. As her mother and sisters went upstairs to retire, Ivy excused herself on the pretext that she was not at all tired and that she thought she would venture out for a stroll.

"Of course you are too distracted to rest!" Mrs. Lockwell said. "If I were going to an affair at Lady Marsdel's, I am sure I should be even more excited than you are and should be able to rest even less. But you do not want to look worn tonight. You must promise to sit quietly for a few hours when you come home, or else you will look ragged. And take your bonnet! You already have far too many freckles."

Ivy made all the required promises, then was out the door. The long afternoon had grown hot, and those few people in evidence on Whitward Street moved as if through water rather than air. Ivy shut the gate behind her and walked as quickly as she could Downhill.

Her gold hair clung to her cheeks by the time she reached Albring's shop. She had decided it best to retrieve the lace right away, in order to give her as much time as possible for her investigations.

It took several knocks on the door to summon a girl who did not look pleased at being roused from her afternoon rest. She fetched Ivy the parcel of lace wrapped in paper and handed it over without a word. Ivy had no time to utter even a hasty thank-you before the door was shut again. She put the parcel under her arm and searched for a hack cab.

She was forced to walk several streets over to Hinsdon Street but at last managed to find a cab to hire, though first she had to wake the driver, who sat nodding in his seat.

The cab was an exorbitant expense but one she had resolved to bear, for she did not know the streets of the Old City and could not navigate them una.s.sisted.

"To Durrow Street, please," she told the driver.

The man gave her an odd look, but she handed him the fare before he could speak-a quarter regal, enough to buy a whole box of candles.

He took the coins. "What cross, miss?"

"I'm afraid I don't know," she confessed.

"Durrow Street is more than a mile long, miss, and one fare ain't enough for me to spend all day driving up and down it."

Ivy's cheeks glowed, and not from the heat. Already her plan had gone awry! She did not know the address of the old house, and asking her mother about such things had been out of the question. She had thought simply to direct the cab to Durrow Street, that she would recognize the house upon pa.s.sing by it. However, the illogic of this plan now struck her.

The driver glowered at her. Sweat trickled down beside the crimson bulb of his nose.

"Take me to Beanore's Fountain," she said, remembering how once her father had walked with her to the monument from the house. He had sat her on the edge of the fountain and told her stories about the ancient queen. It was one of Ivy's few and earliest memories of their time on Durrow Street. She had been small; it could not have been far from the house. The driver flicked the reins, and the cab rattled down Hinsdon Street and through the Hillgate.

It had been many years since Ivy had been to the Old City-not since she had come here with Mr. Lockwell in the days just before his affliction struck him. There were a variety of bookshops in this part of Invarel he had liked to frequent, and he had brought her with him on two or three occasions.

To Ivy the shops had been marvels, crowded with shelves of books, and stacks of books, and chests overflowing with more old books. She remembered the smell inside: musty-sweet with paper and leather and turpentine. So thick was the atmosphere of mystery in one such shop, she fancied that over the years some measure of the ink had sublimated from the pages, suffusing the very air with knowledge, so that one could gain wisdom merely by drawing a breath. She had shut her eyes and inhaled deeply, but a dizziness came upon her before any sort of enlightenment, and next she knew she was standing in the street with her father pinching her cheeks.

The cab rattled past a storefront, and Ivy glimpsed rows of books beyond dim windows. Was that one of the places her father had visited? One shop had hung a sign above the door painted with an eye; she remembered how it seemed to stare at her. However, this shop had no sign at all. Still, Ivy was tempted to stop the driver, to look in the shop and see what books they might have concerning magick.

She dismissed the notion; there was no time for delay. Besides, it was clear after her failed attempt to work an enchantment that she would not progress in the study of magick without help. It was just such help she was seeking now. There was something at the house on Durrow Street they wanted, the two magicians who had come to the door that night. And if she could promise it to them, they would help her. She was sure of it.

The cab maneuvered through the labyrinth of narrow lanes. Around a corner the fountain came into view, its marble etched and gray, and Beanore in her chariot with a bronze crown and a cape of pigeons, all just as Ivy remembered it. The cab stopped, and Ivy was ushered out.

Despite her need for haste, she could not help lingering a moment at the fountain. As a girl Ivy had loved stories of Queen Beanore, and her father had often indulged her with tales of the oldest days of Altania. Beanore was the daughter of the king of one of Altania's southern realms. This was over sixteen centuries ago, when the island had not a single monarch as it did today but rather a collection of thains and petty kings who ruled and fought over twenty little chiefdoms.

When the armies of Tharos sailed across the sea and attacked, Beanore's father was one of the first to fall in battle. The other realms would have succ.u.mbed quickly to the Tharosian legions commanded by the young emperor Veradian. However, Beanore fas.h.i.+oned a bow from a willow switch and with a single shot was able to inflict a great wound upon Veradian. Then she called the other chieftains to unite with her to drive the Tharosians back, and against the common enemy they set aside their squabbling. They swore allegiance to Beanore, and so the first monarch to rule all of Altania was not a king but rather a queen, and under her banner-with its silver branch and golden leaves-they drove the Tharosians back across the sea.

Veradian never returned to Altania himself; the wound from the arrow had weakened him, and after a few years he died. But in time his son sailed across the sea with more s.h.i.+ps, and while Beanore held them back for many years, in the end the forces of Tharos were too much. She was captured and forced to abdicate her crown, relinquis.h.i.+ng it to Veradian's son. However, before she could be dragged in chains back to Tharos, she escaped, riding into the deep green forest that covered most of the island in that time. She was never seen again.

Some said Beanore was the last true Altanian monarch, for all of the island's rulers after that time were descended of the line of Tharos, or more lately of the Mabingorian houses out of the north. And in all the centuries since, Altania had been ruled only once more by a queen.

A man walked past Ivy and gave her a look. His clothes were as drab as the pigeons. His eyes were weathered like the stone of the monument. She became aware that there were others like him lingering about the fountain in small groups. Despite the afternoon swelter, a chill came upon her. She gripped the packet of lace, then moved down the street-not too quickly, yet quickly enough.

I VY RECOGNIZED THE house the moment she laid eyes upon it.

Indeed, so familiar did its shape seem to her that she wondered how she could have had difficulty picturing it. The ruddy stone, the tall windows, the peaks of the gables, even the gargoyles grimacing from the cornices-she remembered everything as she saw it.

The house was farther from the fountain than she had thought; she could only suppose her father had carried her part of the way that day long ago, or else they had driven and she had forgotten it. She had begun to despair as she walked by countless unfamiliar houses and shops, past nameless closes and ancient little graveyards.

Then the street bent a little, and there it was, set in its own yard and bordered by an iron fence. The other houses pressed in close, but with that fence, and the aloofness granted by the yard, and its reddish stone so unlike the gray of the buildings all around, the house gave the impression that it had been there long before the rest.

By the time Ivy reached the gate, her heart was pounding, but she could not claim it was from exertion. She glanced over her shoulder. The street was growing more crowded as people started to rouse from their afternoon torpor and ventured out to take advantage of the last hours of the long lumenal. However, no one looked at her as they went about their business.

a.s.sured she was not an object of attention, Ivy moved to the gate. There was a heavy lock, but this was no surprise. She drew a key from her pocket, which she had taken from one of the drawers of the secretary in the parlor. While her mother had never told her what the key was for, Ivy had long known it was the key to the house on Durrow Street. It was overlarge and heavy. She put it to the lock.

Before she could turn the key, the gate swung open. It had been shut but in no way latched.

Ivy frowned. How strange that the gate was not locked! Had it been so all these years? She withdrew the key, and as she did she noticed several marks around the keyhole. They looked like scratches in the iron, or rather like scorch marks, being silvery and radiating out from the lock in sharp lines. Perhaps at some point thieves had shot the lock with a gun in order to break in and rob the house.

Except that could not be, for the lock wasn't broken. She turned the key and was able to lock the mechanism easily, then unlock it again. She withdrew the key and touched one of the scorch marks. A bit of the silver residue stained her finger.