A Matter of Magic (15 page)

There was no one in sight when they reached the woods where they had left the wagon, for which Kim was grateful. She was tired of juggling roles; she did not want to have to think about whether she was supposed to be pretending to be a Tiger or a horse boy or a magician’s assistant. She was tired of silent, empty spaces and the strange sounds and smells of the woods. She wanted London, and she realized that that, more than fear of what Jack Stower’s presence might mean, was her real reason for suggesting she should go back.

She was still pondering this revelation as she stood beside Mairelon and watched Hunch drive briskly off. “Good,” Mairelon murmured. “If he keeps up that pace, he’ll be in London by tomorrow morning.” He looked down at Kim. “Don’t just stand there, come along. We have a great deal to do, and we had better get to it.”

“I thought we were goin’ to wait for Hunch to get back before we did anything,” Kim said, all her homesickness swept away by a sudden wave of foreboding.

“Whatever gave you that idea?” Mairelon said in a tone of mild astonishment. “If we don’t do anything, St. Clair will have the platter by tomorrow evening, and I can’t have that. No, we’re going to have a good meal and get a few things ready and then have a good nap, so that we’ll be wide awake to burgle Bramingham Place at two this morning.”

He turned and marched cheerfully toward the wagon, leaving Kim to stand staring after him openmouthed. She muttered a curse and plunged after him, already more than half resigned to the prospect. If Mairelon wanted to burgle Bramingham Place, burgle it he would, with or without her help. On the whole, she thought she would rather it be with, but she was not going to give up without an argument. Spluttering objections that she expected would be useless, she followed Mairelon into the wagon.

Bramingham Place was an enormous, rambling house that seemed to spread out in all directions. Mairelon, lurking with Kim behind an overgrown topiary duck while they waited for the last lights inside to be put out, explained in a whisper that building new wings had been a tradition in the Bramingham family for two centuries, hence the erratic sprawl. Kim wondered what they did with all the space. From the look of it, the house was larger than the entire village of Ranton Hill, and that was without considering the stables and gatehouse.

The last of the windows went dark, and Mairelon started forward with an exclamation of relief. Kim grabbed at his sleeve. “Give ’em time to fall asleep!” she hissed.

“It’s all right; the library’s at this end. They’re far enough away that they won’t hear a thing,” Mairelon whispered back. “You did say Bramingham was keeping the Saltash Platter in the library?”

“That’s what he told the druid cove, but what if he was gammoning him?”

“We won’t know til we go find out, will we?” She could hear the smile in his voice, though it was too dark to see it clearly. “Shall we?”

Kim sighed. “How can you be so sure the library’s at this end of the house?”

Even in the darkness she could see him stiffen. “I stayed with the Braminghams once, some years back,” Mairelon said in a voice devoid of expression. “Just before the Saltash Set was stolen. I remember the visit . . . very well indeed.”

“Oh.” Kim searched for something to say, without success. She shrugged. “All right, then, let’s bite the ken. But this is my lay, remember; don’t go off on your own, or you’ll muck up the whole thing.”

“After you,” Mairelon murmured, bowing. Kim shook her head, only half understanding, and slid through the night toward the house.

It was not, after all, much different from the jobs she had done so long ago in London. The house was bigger by far, but that was all. Mairelon pointed the way to a pair of long French doors near the room they wanted. Kim reached for the bit of wire hidden in her sleeve and opened the lock with a few deft twists of her wrist. They slipped inside, and Mairelon closed the doors softly behind them.

They were in a spacious sitting room. Kim could see the dim shapes of chairs and tiny tea tables scattered all around, deeper shades of darkness in the dark. Mairelon pointed toward a door in the opposite wall. Kim nodded and made a gesture which she hoped he would correctly interpret as a warning to be careful. Then she began picking her way across the room.

Three nerve-racking minutes later they reached the door. It was locked, but the mechanism was no more of a challenge than the one on
the French doors had been. Kim had it open in a few seconds. On the other side was a hallway, thickly carpeted. Motioning Mairelon to keep to the center, Kim stepped cautiously into the hall.

The library was the second door on the left. It was unlocked, and Kim suppressed a snort of derision. That was gentry for you: they’d lock up half the doors and leave the rest wide open. They always picked the wrong half to lock, too. She pushed the door slowly inward, listening for creaking hinges. The door made no sound, and a moment later they were in the library with the door closed behind them.

“Well done!” Mairelon breathed in her ear, and she jumped. “You were particularly quick with that last door.”

“Don’t
do
that,” she whispered back. “I was quick because it wasn’t locked.”

“Not locked?” Mairelon paused, and she could almost hear him thinking.

“Not locked,” Kim repeated firmly. “And this ain’t no time to chat. Find that thing you’re lookin’ for and let’s get out of here.”

“We’ll never find it in the dark,” Mairelon said. “A moment, please.” He muttered a word.

A ball of cold, silver light the size of Kim’s fist sprang into being just over Mairelon’s head, casting threatening, sharp-edged shadows all around. Kim blinked, biting back a protest, and looked quickly about her. The library was a long room with bookcase-lined walls; its center full of large chairs covered with needlework in bright colors that the silver light bleached to bearable pastels. A small table stood beside each chair on thin, fragile legs. Heavy curtains of a dark crimson shut out the light from the windows; unlike those in the sitting room, these came only to the bottom of the window. Below them, short bookcases alternated with glass boxes set on legs. Kim stared, then realized that these must be the “display cases” to which Henry Bramingham had referred.

Mairelon crossed to the windows and walked rapidly along them. He stopped a third of the way from the end and beckoned. “Here it is!” he whispered, and the strange silver light made an exultant mask of his face.

The Saltash Platter was a tray nearly two feet long, heavily ornamented around the edge with the same pattern of fruits and flowers and vines
Kim had seen on the bowl in Mairelon’s wagon. At either end a rope of vines twisted away from the edge and then back again, forming a handle. The silver shone brilliantly in the cold light, even through the glass of the display case. Kim looked at the case more closely. The top was hinged in back, and there was an unobtrusive gold lock at the front edge.

Kim pulled out her wire and paused, remembering what had happened when she tried to poke through Mairelon’s chest. Of course, it wasn’t the lock that had been enchanted, but still . . . She frowned and tugged at the lid, testing the strength of the lock.

It opened easily, cutting short Mairelon’s impatient query. They looked at each other across the case, and Kim saw her own misgivings reflected in Mairelon’s uneasy expression. “Magic?” she whispered.

“Possibly,” Mairelon said softly. The sharp shadows magnified his frown. “If it is, touching the platter will set it off. Be quiet for a moment while I check.”

He reached down, hands hovering just above the open case. The air grew heavy, and Kim held her breath, waiting for an explosion.

A soft crash sounded from the next room, and Mairelon jerked his hands away from the display case. He and Kim froze, and in the silence heard a well-muffled thud from the hall.

“We better get out of here!” Kim said, and started down the long room toward the door.

“Not that way; there’s no time,” Mairelon said, grabbing her arm. He gestured, and the light that hovered over his head shrank to a pinpoint; then he went swiftly to the bookshelf along the nearest wall. “Boccaccio, Boccaccio,” he murmured. “Where—ah!”

Kim stared in astonishment as Mairelon reached out and tilted two books outward. She heard a small click, and then the sound of someone fumbling at the library door made her glance fearfully over her shoulder. The curtains were too short to hide behind. Perhaps if she curled up in a chair, she would be overlooked, but what about Mairelon? She turned back and almost forgot her fear in complete amazement.

“Inside, quickly!” Mairelon said. An entire section of the bookcase had swung outward, revealing a narrow, cupboard-like opening behind it. Kim pulled herself together and darted inside; Mairelon squeezed in
after her, pulling the bookshelf to behind him. The silver light winked out.

Cracking a ken with a real magician certainly had advantages, Kim thought to herself as she wriggled into a more comfortable position. That book-achoo spell was one she’d have to be sure to learn. She felt Mairelon fumble at the wall and thought he was trying to latch the bookshelf in place. Then he breathed a nearly soundless sigh, and with a soft scraping a small panel slid aside, giving them a thin slot above a row of books through which to view the room they had just quitted with such haste.

Someone was moving slowly among the chairs, carrying a small dark-lantern that was three-quarters shuttered. The lantern beam swung toward them, and Kim wondered whether the bearer had heard Mairelon lower the panel. She heard a snort, and the contemptuous whisper “Mice!” and then the dark blob went on toward the display cases. The figure raised the dark-lantern and bent forward to peer through the glass, and for a moment his face was visible. Kim stiffened and stifled a gasp; it was Jack Stower again.

Mairelon put a warning hand on her shoulder. Angrily she shook it off. She wasn’t such a flat as to make a noise that might reveal their presence, no matter how startled she was. Frowning, she watched Stower work his way slowly up the row of display cases toward the one that held the Saltash Platter.

Without warning, the library door swung wide. A pool of flickering amber light spilled through it, and an irritated masculine voice said, “Stuggs? Is that you? Confound it, where is the man?”

Jack Stower whirled, clutching his lantern, just as Jasper Marston, wearing a black and crimson brocade dressing gown and carrying a branch of candlesticks, strolled through the door. “Stuggs?” Marston said again, and then he saw Jack.

The two men stood staring at each other for a long moment; then a slow, deep voice from the hallway broke the stunned silence. “Right ’ere, gov’nor.” An enormous figure loomed into view behind Marston. Stower cursed. He whirled and jerked the curtains from the nearest window aside, then yanked at the latch. The window did not budge.

Marston, shaking himself free of his paralysis at last, started forward (none too rapidly, Kim noted with scorn), brandishing the candlesticks like a weapon. “He’s trying to steal the platter!” he cried. “Stop him, Stuggs!”

The figure in the hallway ran forward. He was unusually fast on his feet for a big man, but he had too much distance to cover and there were too many obstacles in the way. Stower, after one terrified look backward, hurled his dark-lantern through the stubborn window, snatched up the fallen curtains to keep from being slashed by the fragments of glass and broken window slats, and scrambled out, tipping over the nearest display case in his hurry.

Stuggs lunged after the fleeing Stower and grabbed his feet as the rest of him disappeared out the window. Kim heard a muffled howl of rage and fear, and Stower kicked backward. Stuggs lost his balance and crashed into another display case, his fingers still locked around one of Jack’s boots, while the last of Jack Stower vanished.

Jasper picked his way across the broken glass to the window and squinted out it. Kim could hear distant noises; it sounded as if the commotion had roused the household, and somewhere a dog had begun to bark. Jasper did not seem aware of it. He turned and frowned at Stuggs. “He’s gone! Why couldn’t you hold him?”

“ ’Is bootlace broke,” Stuggs said mildly. “I got to ’and it to you, gov’nor, you ’ad it right about that there bowl being valuable. But you ought to ’ave told me there was other coves after it besides us.”

“This is the platter, not the bowl, you idiot,” Jasper Marston said. “But I suppose I should thank you for reminding me what we came for.” He left the window and went straight to the display case containing the platter. He set the candlesticks down on the nearest table and beckoned to Stuggs. “Come here and open the lock, hurry, before someone else gets here.”

As Kim had done, Stuggs tested the lid and made the same discovery. “It ain’t locked.”

“Not locked? That fellow we chased off must have opened it! We arrived just in time. Give it to me.”

“No!” a familiar voice said in dramatic tones from the smashed
window. Kim’s eyes widened. What was the head of the druid group doing at Bramingham Place?

“What—” Marston turned his head and froze in mid-sentence.

Framed in the shattered glass and dangling splinters of the window were a man’s head and shoulders. The man’s eyes gleamed from the openings of a black mask, and a dark high-crowned hat covered his hair. His form was hidden beneath a driving cloak with several short capes, but the tone and timbre of his voice were unmistakable. “You are too late to further defile the Sacred Dish! Bring it to me, at once!”

Kim bit her lip to keep from laughing aloud. She should have guessed that Jonathan Aberford would be after the platter, the same as everyone else. This was becoming altogether too much like a Drury Lane comedy. Mairelon seemed to think so, too; she could feel him shaking in silent amusement. She hoped they would both be able to control themselves. It wouldn’t be funny at all if they were caught.

“Now, look here—” Marston began.

Jonathan raised a hand, and Kim saw the glint of candlelight on metal. Her amusement died instantly. “Bring it to me!” Jonathan commanded.