Wrede, Patricia C - Mairelon 01 (29 page)

           
"Home,"
Mairelon said, rolling the word as if he were checking its taste. "Not
just yet, I think. Until the word gets out, I prefer to lie low. We'll stay
here for a few days,
then
start back to
London
.
Is the old stable still there?"

           
"In
London
?"
Andrew asked, bewildered.

           
"No, in
Kent
.
The one we used to climb on the roof of, when we were boys."

           
"Oh.
Yes, it's there. Why?"

           
"It
would be a good place to leave my wagon. I'll send Hunch down with it once I'm
settled in
London
."

           
"And not before," Hunch put in darkly.
"You
ain't fobbing me off with
no
tale this time, Master
Richard."

           
"You're
going to stay in
London
for the
Season, then?" Andrew said with an uncertain look in Hunch's direction.

           
"It
is an excellent plan," Renee D'Auber said. "You will be the nine
days' wonder, and it will be entirely plain to everyone that you had nothing to
do with the robbery."

           
"I
expect I'll have more to do than attend social events," Mairelon said with
a hint of sarcasm. "Shoreham is bound to want me for all sorts of things.
Which reminds me, there was one other thing I wanted to attend to.
Kim!"

           
Kim
jumped and nearly fell off her footstool. "What?" Her throat felt
scratchy, and she experienced a sudden desire to run. She knew what he was
going to say, and she didn't want to hear it.

           
"Why
did you tip that table over on Laverham when he was in the middle of that spell
a few minutes ago?" Mairelon asked.

           
"The
table
?"
Kim said blankly. The question
was so completely different from what she had expected that she couldn't quite
grasp it.

           
"Yes,
the table." Mairelon looked at her sternly. "I've told you more than
once that interrupting a wizard is dangerous, and if you claim you forgot, I
won't believe you. So why did you interrupt Laverham?"

           
"Because
his spell was queer as Dick's hatband anyway," Kim said. "You know
that."

           
"Yes,
I
knew it," Mairelon said. "But how did
you
know?"

           
"It
was the words," Kim said. She frowned, trying to think how best to
describe what she had sensed when Laverham's spell began to go wrong.

           
"You
speak the Latin, then?" Renee D'Auber said, raising her eyebrows in polite
incredulity.
"Or the Greek, perhaps?"

           
"I
ain't got
no
need to speak it," Kim snapped,
wondering why they were staring at her like that. "Laverham's words weren't
. . . They weren't lined up neat and proper like they should
of
been."

           
"Should
have
," Mairelon murmured. "And I did warn you, Kim, about
reverting under stress."

           
"Do
not be hard with her," Renee reproved him. "It is not at all
wonderful that she should have the difficulties after all that has
happened."

           
"No,
the wonderful part was the bit about the words," Mairelon said. "Kim,
do you mean that you can feel when someone is casting a spell?"

           
"I
don't know about that, but I can tell when somebody says some of them--of
those
shiny, sharp words you use for spells," Kim replied carefully.

           
"You
mean like
apheteon
? Or perhaps--" Mairelon rattled off a long,
bumpy sentence and raised his eyebrows at Kim.

           
"No,"
Kim said, happy to be sure of something. "Those sound right, but they
don't have
no
edges. They're just nonsense."

           
"And these?"
He said a short phrase that crackled
and glittered.

           
Kim
flinched and nodded. Mairelon stared at her. "My Lord," he said in a
low voice. "No wonder you weren't hurt when the spell shattered."

           
"There ain't nothin' wonderful about
that
,"
Kim said, staring in turn. "I ducked, that's all."

           
Renee and
Mairelon exchanged glances. "Nothing wonderful about it at all,"
Mairelon agreed.
"For a wizard."

           
"What?"
Hunch gasped.
"That Kim, a wizard?
She ain't
no
such thing!"

           
"Not
yet," Mairelon said, smiling. "But with proper training she will
be."

           
"Me?"
Kim said, stunned.
"Me, a wizard?
Me?"

           
"Ah,
bah!" said Renee to Mairelon. "You do not explain at all well, I
find, and so you are frightening her." She stepped forward and put a
comforting arm around Kim's shoulders. "It is because you can feel the
magic, which is a thing very difficult for most people to learn and for some
quite impossible. So you have the talent for magic, and now, if you wish, you
will come to
London
and get the
training."

           
"Of
course she wishes," Mairelon broke in. "Kim likes
London
.
We'll start the lessons as soon as we've found a house to hire for a few
months, and--"

           
"Richard!"
Andrew sounded horrified. "Are you mad? You can't live with this . . .
girl in the middle of
London
!"

           
"Really,
Andrew, you're as bad as Hunch," Mairelon said. He gave Kim an uncertain,
sidelong look that Kim, in her confusion, found impossible to interpret.
"I'll make Kim my ward; that will satisfy the proprieties."

           
"But,
yes!" Renee said before Andrew could object again. "That will do
entirely well. And you and Mademoiselle Kim will stay with me to begin, and
there will be no foolish gossip such as Monsieur Andrew Merrill fears, because
I will be there and everything will be proper." She tilted her head to
study Kim, ignoring the brothers Merrill.

           
"It
is a great pity we cannot take you to
France
,"
Renee went on. "But there is a dressmaker I know who will do well enough,
although she is entirely English. You will be quite charming in a gown, I
think." Her eyes flickered from Kim to Mairelon and back, and she smiled
to herself, as if contemplating a private joke.

           
"Hold
on a minute, Renee," Mairelon interrupted. "I'm not spending hours at
some dressmaker's. I refuse.
Positively."

           
"But
of course you will not," Renee said gently. "You will be spending
hours with Milord Shoreham. He will want the details of all your work, and he
is very persistent."

           
Mairelon
looked at her with a blank expression that changed slowly to chagrin. "Oh,
Lord, you're right again. It'll take hours.
Days."

           
"Naturally,"
Renee said. "And while you and Milord Shoreham talk, Mademoiselle Kim and
I shall shop for the kind of clothes that will be proper for your ward to wear
in
London
." She turned back to
Kim and leaned forward conspiratorially. "But we will save the boy's
clothing for other times, because, all the same, Monsieur Richard Merrill is
not at all proper and of a certainty you will need them."

           
"It
ain't fitting, Master Richard," Hunch grumbled, but he was not chewing on
his mustache at all, and Kim decided he was only complaining for the form of
the thing.

           
"Well,
Kim?" Mairelon said. "You do want to come, don't you?"

           
"Come?"
Kim shook herself, thinking,
Me, a wizard
!
,
and gave Mairelon a look full of
scorn. "Do I look like a looby? Of course I want to come!"

           
"Good,"
Mairelon said, relieved. "That's one thing settled. Now, Hunch, about the
wagon--"

           
He half
turned, to include his henchman and his brother in his conversation, and Kim
stopped listening. She was going back to
London
.
She'd never have to sleep on the streets again as long as she lived, or bear
the cold and the nagging hunger. She had escaped Dan Laverham and the looming
shadow of the stews for good. She was going to learn real magic, and not just
tricks, but proper wizard's training. She was going to stay with the notorious
Mademoiselle Renee D'Auber, who might be willing to teach her a thing or two of
a different kind. And she was going to be Mairelon's ward. She wasn't quite
sure what that would mean, but it was certain to be interesting. She looked at
Mairelon, who was arguing with Hunch and Andrew about the passability of some
obscure road in
Kent
,
and shook her head. Interesting wouldn't be the half of it. Slowly she began to
smile. After this, anything might happen.

           
Anything at all.