Lady of Magick (28 page)

They are only dreams,
she told herself, over and over. No matter how many times she repeated the words, however, they grew no easier to believe.

At last she did succumb—only to dream again and again, in the long hours before dawn, the same distressing scenes. Just before dawn she woke again, heavy-eyed and weary, and knelt for some time with her elbows on the window-sill, waiting for daylight to disperse the fears of night.

The sun was well above the horizon when at length she gave it up; her dreams had lost none of their immediacy, surrendered none of their power over her imagination, and she was frightened for Gray, and for herself, as she had not been (had not allowed herself to be?) until today.

They had been separated before, of course, and on each such occasion she had felt vaguely discomfited, slightly askew, as though nothing were quite as it ought to be. But the grim, sickening dread of these speaking dreams . . .

Joanna is right; this cannot be what it seems. What ails me, that I did not see it at once?

*   *   *

“What should you like to see today?” Sophie asked her guests the next morning, with a sort of determined cheerfulness. “The weather is fine, but I expect it is still a great deal too muddy for climbing Arthur's Seat; perhaps you may like to go down and look at the Firth, however, and the ships coming in—or to see the University Library?”

“Sophie,” said Joanna, frowning, “I think we had much better call upon Lord de Courcy.”

“What? Why? Oh—do you mean that you have letters for him?”

“No—that is, yes, I have, but they are not such as might not be handed to his secretary. I meant that you ought to tell him about Gray.”

“Jo, what am I to tell him? Indeed, if the news came via Courcy, as Gray's letter says, what can I tell him that he does not know already?” Inexplicably restless, she pushed back her chair from the dining-room table—where Donella MacHutcheon had insisted upon laying the breakfast things, in honour of Sophie's having guests—and stood up to prowl about the sitting-room.

Joanna and Miss Pryce continued to spread crab-apple jam on Donella MacHutcheon's scones, of which they had between them consumed a round half dozen thus far.

“It is all perfectly plain,” Sophie burst out, after a long moment's pacing. “Gray's father is ill; he was summoned to Kernow; he has gone thither, and I shall hear from him when he is safe arrived. I shall be happy to go with you to deliver your letters, Jo, but I shall not go crying to Lord de Courcy like a child who has lost her doll!”

Joanna swallowed the last of her scone and jam, stood up from the table, and crossed the sitting-room to stand by Sophie at the window. “Sophie,” she said quietly, “have you never met Edmond Marshall?”

“Of course I have,” said Sophie, “and I take your point, Jo; but a dire illness may greatly alter a man's sensibilities, and make him think better of decisions made in anger.”

Joanna sighed. “A bargain, then,” she said. Sophie tilted her head in tentative acquiescence. “If you have heard nothing from Gray before Joveday next—that is to say, within a fortnight of his leaving Din Edin—we shall go and speak to Lord de Courcy.”

Joveday next! Surely she should have a letter by that time, which should put Joanna's mind at rest as well as her own. “Very well,” Sophie said, contentedly enough, and put out her hand. “A bargain.”

*   *   *

The hoped-for letter did not wait for Joveday, but was delivered to Quarry Close on Marday morning; its arrival, however, did not bring Sophie the peace of mind which she had been expecting. By this time Joanna had called at Lord de Courcy's residence, found him from home, and handed her letters from Lord Kergabet in to Mr. Powell; and Sophie had escorted Joanna and Miss Pryce to half a dozen bookshops, the University Library, the Grassmarket, and the harbour, and felt as though she should have liked to sleep for a week.

The letter was very short, its exterior very grubby and battered (which was in no way remarkable, for the Marshalls' post from Britain frequently arrived in a like state), and the postmark so badly smudged that Sophie could not at all make out where it had originated. The wax seal bore the unmistakable imprint of one of Gray's cufflinks, the ones she had given him—an owl, an oak-tree, a rhododendron leaf—but there was, to her enormous frustration, no return address.

She broke the seal.

My dear Sophie,
she read,

I regret to say that my dear papa is very ill
indeed,
and I cannot say how much longer I shall be needed here. I hope that you will give my best regards to all our friends in Din Edin, and particularly to our friends Aurélien and Einion. Mama sends her best love.

I shall write again as soon as I may.

Fondly,
G.V.M.

Sophie's hands shook so that she was forced to lay the letter down upon her desk before she dropped it.

“Jo,” she said, in a voice that did not sound at all like her own. “Jo, go to the front door and fetch in Mr. Menez or Mr. Williams. I must go and see Lord de Courcy at once.”

Joanna and Sophie
were escorted to Lord de Courcy's residence by the broad-shouldered Breizhek guardsman called Menez, while Williams took up a station within sight of Sophie's front door, the better to keep his eye on Gwendolen. Sophie was pale and silent, speaking only when necessity obliged it; she overrode Menez's attempt to insist upon Lord de Courcy's carriage, and strode along at so rapid a pace that Joanna, walking beside her, was forced into a sort of trot.

The guards at the gate had plainly met Sophie before, for she was admitted both without question and without delay. A page-boy ran ahead of them to the front door, and by the time they reached it, he had summoned forth the envoy's secretary, Mr. Powell—a young man so like Sieur Germain's secretary, Fowler, in so many respects that Joanna half wondered whether they might be brothers, though she knew Fowler to be an only son with five sisters.

“Mrs. Marshall,” he said blankly. “Miss Callender. To what do we—”

“We are come to see Lord de Courcy,” said Sophie, cutting off his question. “At once, if you please.”

Or if you do not please,
said her uncompromising tone and the set
of her chin.
The Princess Royal has come to call,
thought Joanna wryly.

“O-of course,” said Mr. Powell, and with a gesture he invited them to precede him into the hall.

“My Lord de Courcy,” said Sophie, when they were shown into the Ambassador's study. Mr. Powell retreated into the corridor and shut the door behind him.

“Madame Marshall,” said Lord de Courcy. “And . . . ?”

“My sister,” said Sophie. “Miss Joanna Callender.”

“Ah!” said Lord de Courcy. “The protégée of the estimable Lady Kergabet, I believe?”

This, Joanna supposed, was not inaccurate. “I am also by way of being an apprentice to Sieur Germain de Kergabet,” she said, “in which capacity I have been deciphering your letters for at least the past twelvemonth, and the letters you had from Kergabet on Joveday last came here by my hand.”

Briefly Lord de Courcy's face wore an expression of utter astonishment; then his lips smiled at Joanna (though his eyes did not) and he said, “A pleasure, Mademoiselle Callender.”

Still smiling, he gestured them to a seat and retreated behind his desk, which was piled high with books, papers, and dossiers tied up in red tape.

Sophie and Joanna perched on the edges of a pair of wing chairs upholstered in an unpleasant shade of puce, clasping their reticules in their laps.

“Madame Marshall,” said Courcy, after some moments of awkward silence, “may I know to what I owe the pleasure of this unexpected visit? I hope you are not in some manner of difficulty?”

Joanna considered him. He was not at all as she had imagined him—neither staid, nor middle-aged, nor portly, nor particularly affable, but a dark-haired, sharp-eyed blade of a man some years younger than Sieur Germain, with a formidable nose, and long fingers faintly stained with ink.

“My husband has disappeared,” said Sophie baldly. “He left Din Edin nearly a fortnight ago, apparently acting on information about
an illness of his father's, conveyed to him by some member of your household—”

Abruptly all trace of the polite diplomat vanished from Lord de Courcy's face, and Joanna fought an instinct to shrink away from his fierce, narrow-eyed gaze. “I assure you, Madame Marshall,” he said, “no such information has crossed my desk, or Powell's.”

“So I have concluded,” said Sophie. Her tone was bleak. “He left a letter for me, and promised to write again when he should have arrived in Kernow. I have had another letter this morning which gives me strong reason to suppose that he is neither in Kernow nor free to return to Din Edin.”

She fished in her reticule, extracted the two letters, and laid them one by one upon Lord de Courcy's desk. Lord de Courcy frowned at the first—looked baffled at the second—frowned again.

“‘Aurélien and Einion,'” he said; “that is a clear enough message.”

“It is not clear to me,” Joanna muttered. Sophie cast a surprised glance at her, as though she had forgotten her presence, and whispered, “Aurélien, Lord de Courcy; and Mr. Einion Powell.”

“Oh,”
said Joanna. “I
see
.”

“But the rest of it seems perfectly unremarkable,” Courcy continued, ignoring their whispered exchange; “I do not see—”

Joanna leant forward to peer at the second letter. She could not read so quickly upside down, but by the time Sophie's emphatic finger descended she had seen enough:
my dear papa
, and
Mama sends her love
, and
Fondly, G.V.M.

“Gray's father cast him off five years ago,” she said, forestalling Sophie; “if you do not like to take my word upon it, you may consult Lady Kergabet, who was witness to the whole sorry affair. His mother refers to Sophie as
that girl
and has as much as accused her of bespelling him. And do you not see the difference in the valedictions?”

Lord de Courcy looked very thoughtful and increasingly grim.

“Your husband is a mage, I know,” he said, turning to Sophie. “Should you call him a powerful one?”

“Certainly,” said Sophie, “very powerful indeed. What has that to do with . . .”

Her voice trailed off uncertainly.

Courcy looked as though he were suppressing language he thought unsuited to ladies' ears; Joanna and Sophie did not disabuse him of his inaccurate ideas, but watched in silence as he rose from his chair and crossed the room to search for something in a cabinet drawer.

“Mademoiselle Callender!” he called over his shoulder. “May I trouble you to ring for my secretary?”

Joanna looked about her for a bell-pull. None was apparent, but a polished brass bell slightly larger than her fist sat prominently atop a locked dispatch-case upon the desk. Joanna picked it up and shook it, then quickly damped its surprisingly loud peal with her other hand.

As she was surreptitiously polishing away her fingerprints with the hem of her petticoat, she heard rapid footsteps in the corridor; the door burst open, and Mr. Powell erupted into the room.

He looked at its occupants in some confusion.

“Ah, Powell!” Courcy said, straightening up from the drawer. “Set the wards and find me our notes on all the missing mages, if you please.”

“Missing
mages
?” echoed Joanna, horrified. “Do you mean that there have been others before?”

*   *   *

There were four dossiers, neatly labelled: four mages who had come to Din Edin and, in the past twelvemonth, had left it again—the first, exactly as planned; the next two, some days before their scheduled departures; the last, nearly a month early—but had failed to reappear at home as expected. Two were British subjects, one hailing from Karaez in Breizh, the other from Cymru; one was an Erseman, and the fourth a visiting scholar from Castilia in Iberia, who had vanished without trace somewhere between Din Edin and Madrid.

Sophie looked at them, one by one, and grew so pale that Joanna rose from her chair to stand beside her sister's, a hand on her shoulder, so as to be nearby in case she should faint.

Joanna did not ask, though she was very curious to know, how
Lord de Courcy had laid hands on such detailed information respecting subjects of foreign and not notably friendly realms.

“They were none of them known to one another,” said Mr. Powell, helpfully spreading the dossiers across his desk for Sophie and Joanna's perusal, “so far as we have been able to ascertain; the only points of similarity amongst them are that all were foreigners to Alba, and all mages of notable talent.”

“And they have none of them turned up again?” Joanna asked. “Alive, or . . . otherwise?”

“No,” said Courcy. “Not one has been seen again, whether alive or otherwise. Which seems to me to suggest that these men were not simply killed for their purses, or bested in a violent quarrel, or the like; in a city of this size, where so many live in such close quarters, it is not so very easy to conceal an unexplained corpse.”

Joanna grimaced; under her hand, Sophie's shoulder trembled.

“Believe me, Madame Marshall,” said Mr. Powell, earnestly, “we have been at considerable trouble and expense to seek information on our vanished countrymen, from any source that might offer; but there seems none to be had, and we have no jurisdiction here to do more. Nor have we any proof that the crime—if crime there be—occurred in Alba; only that no trace of the missing men has yet been found in Britain.”

Joanna thought through the implications of all of this and at last said slowly, “You believe all these disappearances to be connected, do you not? And connected with that of my brother-in-law.”

Courcy nodded, his dark eyes sharply attentive; if he had been humouring Sophie to begin with, he was in dead earnest now. “I am no believer in coincidence,” he said.

There was a long, grim silence, broken only by four persons' tense breathing and by the rhythmic tapping of Sophie's fingers upon the upholstered seat of her chair.

“You cannot act, you say, for want of proof,” Sophie said at last. Her voice was firm and even, though under Joanna's hand her pulse fluttered as rapid as a bird's. “I take it, then, that should I bring you that proof—”

“Your Royal High—I beg pardon, Madame Marshall—that is entirely out of the question,” said Lord de Courcy. “You must understand that in the circumstances—”

“I understand nothing of the kind,” Sophie said, cutting him off in her turn. In a flash she was out of her seat and facing down her father's ambassador across his own desk, her slim hands flat upon its polished surface. “What
you
must understand, my lord Ambassador, is that the Princess Royal returns to Britain with her husband or not at all.”

“Madame Marshall—”

Lord de Courcy looked rather alarmed, and when Sophie turned from him, saying crisply, “Come, Joanna,” and sweeping towards the door, Joanna did not wonder at it; Sophie's eyes were wide and night-black in her ashen face, and the air around her fairly crackled with suppressed fury.

Joanna cast an apologetic glance at Lord de Courcy and Mr. Powell, and followed her out.

*   *   *

Sophie's cold, furious determination carried her half across Din Edin, into Quarry Close, and through her own front door and up the stairs to her bedroom. Then her eyes lit on Gray's copy of the
Metamorphoses
, abandoned on the window-sill with an owl's tail-feather marking his progress through the poems, and all her tight-wound composure unravelled into tears.

A damp and wretched half-hour later, she smoothed the signs of weeping from her face, descended the stairs, and emerged into the sitting-room, where she found Joanna and Miss Pryce perched in her own armchair and Gray's respectively, their dark heads bent close together—talking over the morning's excursion in great detail, Sophie had no doubt.

They straightened guiltily at the sound of her footsteps crossing the floor. Sophie gazed steadily at Miss Pryce until the latter took the hint and vacated Gray's chair, then curled into it herself and addressed her sister.

“My friend Mór MacRury is a scry-mage,” she said. “A particularly gifted one, I am given to understand, and certainly an authority on the subject. She is on holiday at present, but is expected to return in two days' time; and then perhaps we shall have our proof.”

“That is well thought of, Sophie,” said Joanna, warmly approving, as though she had not herself made the same suggestion within moments of discovering Gray's absence.
If only I had listened then! . . . but Mór was not here, and there is no other scry-mage in Din Edin to whom I should entrust this matter.

“Mrs. Marshall.”

Sophie looked up, startled, at Miss Pryce's hesitant address.

“I— I feel I ought to apologise,” Miss Pryce continued, stiffly formal. Not, Sophie noted,
I apologise
; this was a sense of social duty speaking, rather than any genuine regret. “For intruding at such a time, uninvited—”

“You are not uninvited, Gwen,” said Joanna stoutly; “I invited you. Sophie cannot possibly blame
you
for my presumption.”

Sophie repressed an exasperated sigh. “You are both here now,” she said.
And I ought to have stopped them coming; evidently there is more danger here than any of us imagined.
She pressed the heels of her hands to her smarting eyes—drew a deep breath—opened her eyes again and settled her hands in her lap. “And now I think you must both go back to London. I—”

“Edith Augusta Sophia Marshall.”
From the look on Joanna's face, she had startled herself as much as Sophie by this unusual mode of address; she had also sounded, for just a moment, so much like Lady Maëlle that Sophie's throat closed up and her eyes stung anew. “If you suppose that I mean to leave you alone in a foreign kingdom, just as I discover that someone has
kidnapped your husband
—”

Sophie's attempt to overrule this argument was curtailed by a knock at the door, loud and forthright and so unexpected that all three of them started in surprise.

Joanna was the first to recover, and before Sophie could prevent her, she ran to the front door and stood on tiptoe to peer through the
transom. “It is a tall freckled fellow, with ginger curls,” she reported, “carrying a great many books.”

Rory MacCrimmon.
Sophie reflexively wished him away, but then another thought occurred: Rory, too, had had a letter from Gray, which perhaps she might make use of.

“Stand aside a moment, Jo,” she said, and opened the door to let Rory in.

The faltering of his habitual cheerful grin told her, too late, that she had failed to conceal her own disquiet.