Lady of Magick (32 page)

Sophie blinked in astonishment, and no little alarm; unless she much mistook, her father's ambassador had come very near to issuing a direct threat to the King of Alba.

“My lord Ambassador,” she said, “I beg you will not—”

“As I hope I have made clear,” said Donald MacNeill, narrowing his eyes at Lord de Courcy, “any assistance which we may reasonably offer in this matter, you may be sure of receiving.”

“And we do thank you, my lord,” said the Ambassador, with a little bow.

*   *   *

“What assistance?” said Sophie.

“I beg your pardon, ma'am?” said Donald MacNeill.

Joanna narrowed her eyes; Sophie's voice might be low and husky with exhaustion, but her query had been perfectly clear.

“What assistance,” Sophie repeated, a little more loudly, “had you intended to offer us, sir?”

Mr. Powell looked appalled.

“Mrs. Marshall,” he said, in a tone of gentle remonstrance which made Joanna long to bite him, “may I suggest—”

But Donald MacNeill held up a hand, and Powell fell silent.

Donald MacNeill paced slowly across the distance that separated Lord de Courcy from Sophie and stopped once more before the chaise longue.

“This affair concerns me as closely—that is, very nearly as closely as yourself, Sophia of Britain,” he said quietly. “The University in Din Edin operates under my personal patronage as well as by the charter of the clan which holds the chieftain's seat of Alba; any harm perpetrated within my borders upon such visitors as these is a direct threat to the continued flourishing of that ancient institution, which exists for the advancement of knowledge and to welcome all those who seek it, no matter their origins—and thus an offence to Alba and to myself. It is a matter of great personal regret to me, and no little frustration, that our investigations thus far should have discovered nothing of substance which might lead us to an explanation of the facts.”

He had by now seated himself beside Sophie on the chaise, perhaps tiring of the painful-looking curve of her neck as she looked up at him.

“What we now possess, thanks to you and your friends,” he went on, “and had not before, is direct evidence of foul play. Whether or not, as Lord de Courcy has posited, these several disappearances are all the work of the same person or persons unknown, the similarity of the persons concerned, and of the circumstances of their vanishing, would seem to preclude mere coincidence.”

“Indeed,” said Sophie, a little stiffly.

“My serjeant-at-arms will be fully briefed by Lord de Courcy and his assistant,” Donald MacNeill continued, glancing up at them with an expression which Joanna could not read, “as they appear to have collected considerable intelligence on this matter. All of which I presume they are very ready to share, for everyone's benefit.”

Lord de Courcy bowed, and Donald MacNeill nodded in satisfaction.

Just as he turned away, Joanna caught Courcy's face in a just perceptible smirk of satisfaction; he had got exactly what he wanted out of this meeting, then.

Good.

*   *   *

Joanna was enormously relieved that neither Courcy nor Donald MacNeill seemed inclined to waste time in organising their search for Gray and the other vanished mages, and had circumstances been otherwise, she must herself have leapt in to help in whatever capacity might be permitted her. But this was not London, where she could expect to be indulged, and Sophie's need for her was plainly much the greater.

She kept her seat on the chaise longue with Sophie, therefore, whilst Donald MacNeill summoned his serjeant-at-arms—a stocky, grey-headed man of serious mien and very few words, by the name of Ciaran Barra MacNeill—and the latter departed with Lord de Courcy and Mr. Powell; whilst Rory MacCrimmon and Lucia MacNeill conferred in low, worried voices; whilst the latter took her father aside for a whispered conference, which resulted in the arrival of yet another pair of servants bearing tea and scones and half a dozen varieties of preserves.

The refreshments were plentiful and smelled delicious, and Joanna was not a woman to turn down the offer of an excellent meal. But she had a great deal of difficulty in enjoying this one, and her companions likewise; the sight of Sophie picking at her share with trembling fingers, struggling to swallow a morsel of buttery scone spread with an exquisitely balanced greengage jam as though it had been a mouthful of gravel, thought Joanna, might have put even Gwendolen off her feed.

At last Joanna had had enough. “I am grateful for your hospitality, sir, ma'am,” she said, addressing Donald MacNeill and his daughter in turn, “and extremely grateful for the promise of assistance in finding my brother-in-law, but my sister is very ill, and I must take her home.”

There was a chorus of protest and apology. Lucia MacNeill earnestly pressed them both to consider themselves her guests, and had she been speaking only to Sophie, she might have succeeded—though it was plain from Sophie's stiff shoulders and frozen half smile that she had no liking for the scheme. Joanna's temperament was woven from less pliable and more abrasive fibres than her sister's, however, and she met each new overture with a perfectly civil but implacable
refusal. Though not blind to the obvious advantages of such an arrangement, she could not feel that they outweighed the loss of privacy and independence which must inevitably result.

“We are immensely grateful,” she repeated at last, in what she hoped was a tone of finality, “and honoured by your invitation, but it is impossible for me to accept it.” She gently extricated herself from Sophie, who curled away into the curved back of the chaise like a wet kitten seeking the warmth of its mother's fur, and rose to her feet. “Lucia MacNeill,” she said, more quietly, “a word in your ear?”

From the corner of her eye she saw Rory MacCrimmon move, as though casually, towards the chaise longue and perch on the end of it—within reach of Sophie, though he made no move to touch her. She turned away, satisfied that an eye should be kept, to address Roland's betrothed, whose air of polite inquiry, it seemed to Joanna, hid a deeper curiosity.

“I hope I have not offended you or your father,” she said.

Lucia MacNeill raised her elegantly arched eyebrows, at once rendering Joanna acutely self-conscious of her own straighter, heavier ones. “Not at all,” she said neutrally.

“I am glad of it,” said Joanna, “for I should not have changed my mind even if I had.”

She opened her reticule—Gwendolen's, in fact, for her own was too small for today's purposes—and from it extracted a letter, sealed and tied up with bright blue cord. “I am charged by Prince Roland to give this into your hand,” she said, and did so—trying to forget how Roland had looked, the stiff words and determinedly neutral countenance.

Lucia MacNeill said softly, “Oh.”

“Sophie,” Joanna said, after a moment, “is not at her best with strangers. And crowds of people. And . . . and pomp and circumstance.” She gestured vaguely at their surroundings. “We were neither of us brought up to all of this, and Sophie finds it . . . difficult.”

Lucia MacNeill accepted this with a provisional nod. “You must not suppose that I attend lectures at the University dressed as I am now,” she said. “I have not Sophie's gift of hiding in plain sight, but it
does not follow that I cannot understand the impulse to be known for myself, and not for my rank and title.”

This was something, to be sure, but was it enough? Joanna saw in her mind's eye Sophie's shy, eager, face-transforming smile; saw her slender hands curved over the keys of Mama's pianoforte, coaxing from them some melody to whose tones Joanna might be quite deaf, but whose magick soothed her dark or fretful humours; and, reaching still farther back in memory, saw her dark eyes gleaming with delight as she crouched at the edge of a pond, watching a grey heron stalk through the shallows.

“You may well be correct in supposing that Sophie should be safer here,” she said at last, “but it would make her miserable, and she is miserable enough already.”

“If Sophie will indeed be happier at home,” said Lucia MacNeill, casting a worried sidewise glance at her, “then I shall certainly not press her to remain here.”

“I thank you, ma'am,” said Joanna. She dropped a respectful curtsey as a means of concealing the relief that must otherwise show on her face, already preparing to turn away from this conversation and back to Sophie.
When Kergabet charged me to befriend Roland's betrothed, I do not suppose this was what he meant.

“I wish you would not call me
ma'am
,” said Lucia MacNeill; Joanna looked up sharply at her suddenly less formal (not to say irritable) tone. “It makes me feel like the dowager duchess of somewhere-or-other.”

Joanna regarded her consideringly, attempting to picture Roland at her side. It was a pity, she thought, that Roland was not taller, though of course he might not yet have reached his full growth. But at any rate he should not find his bride insipid and dull. And at least she was not actually
taller
than himself.

“You do not look it,” Joanna said, and turned away.

*   *   *

“I have been thinking,” said Rory MacCrimmon, without preamble, the moment Joanna opened the front door.

She stood back to admit him into the house, and he strode forward determinedly, shucking off gloves and overcoat.

Joanna watched him in some bemusement. “May I ask,” she said at last, “what it is that you have been thinking?”

Rory MacCrimmon turned on one heel and regarded her with wide eyes and raised eyebrows, as though the question baffled him. “A relay,” he said. “What we need is a relay.”

“A relay of . . . what, exactly?”

He strode towards her, looming rather, and gripped her shoulders; she controlled an instinctive yelp.

“Jo?” Gwendolen called softly from the top of the stairs. “Is all well?”

“Of finding-spells, of course,” said Rory MacCrimmon. “What else should we want, when we have lost someone, but to find him?”

“Ye-es,” said Joanna, doubtfully. She had not the least idea what a relay of finding-spells might look like when it was at home; still, if anyone might be supposed to understand such things, a lecturer in practical magick was surely the man. “But you have tried such spells already, have you not? And Sophie and Mór MacRury also—”

“Ah! But a
relay
—”

“A relay, yes. What is that? And what should we need, then, for a
relay of finding-spells
?”

Rory MacCrimmon was pacing about the Marshalls' tiny sitting-room now, scrubbing one hand through his fire-bright curls in a manner so strongly reminiscent of Gray when deep in thought that Joanna was very grateful for Sophie's being laid down upon her bed upstairs, and not here to see it. He stopped abruptly, looked at Joanna, and produced a startling grin. “Mages,” he said. “A great many mages.”

“Ah,” said Joanna, feeling no wiser than before.

He was putting his overcoat on again, and his gloves—why had he put them off, then?—and sweeping out of the room. “I shall be back directly,” he called over his shoulder, just before the front door slammed behind him.

Mages.
Joanna rolled her eyes, shot the bolt on the door, and started up the stairs to look in on Sophie.

She found Gwendolen placidly reading Cymric poetry, and Sophie sleeping—by the kindness of Morpheus, sleeping peacefully, the tight unhappy lines of her face relaxed in slumber. Joanna kissed her softly, brushing the dark hair back from her pale brow; exchanged a weary smile with Gwendolen; and when the latter had gone downstairs, leaving her in sole possession, circled the small bedchamber, subsuming her anxiety in the useless tidying away of Sophie's things.

*   *   *

A storm of knocking at the front door startled Sophie into wakefulness; she sat up straight, and for a moment hope dawned in her eyes—the more painful for the almost immediate clouding over of her face. “No,” she said dully, “it cannot be Gray, for I should have felt it.”

Joanna wished very much to know what this might mean; but she wished even more to discover who was knocking so importunately below, and the one question would keep, whilst the other must be investigated at once. She nudged the window-curtain aside to peer down into the street. Could this be Rory MacCrimmon and his
great many mages
, back again already?

Rory MacCrimmon it was, though he had brought with him only four people that Joanna could see; did that suit the definition of
many
?

“Sophie,” she said, “Rory MacCrimmon has come to see us, and has brought some friends of his—I see Mór MacRury, and some others whom I do not know. Should you like to see them? Or had you rather not?”

She turned from the window to look at Sophie, who grimaced at her and said, “I had very much rather not.”

Joanna suppressed the exasperated sigh that rose to her lips and said carefully, “I shall go and let them in, then, and tell Rory that you are resting.”

Sophie produced something that she presumably meant for a smile—though if that were so, it was a miserable failure. “I thank you, Jo,” she said. Her eyes drifted closed, then opened again. “Jo, I am sorry. But—” She paused, her pale lips twisting in frustration, and
at last went on, low, “It is not only a lack of will, Jo, I promise you. Truly I am doing my best.”

Joanna did not trust herself to make any reply to this. Instead she kissed Sophie, gently gripped her shoulder for a moment, and drew the door closed behind her with a gentle
snick
of the latch as she passed out of the room.

*   *   *

Sophie's sitting-room was full of mages—Rory MacCrimmon, Mór MacRury, and, as it transpired, three more young men and two more women, one of an age with the men, the other at least two decades older—as well as Sorcha MacAngus, whom Joanna had met briefly at Mór MacRury's lodgings, and who seemed to have come along to provide moral support, or perhaps simply to watch the mages at work. They had brought with them a long cylindrical leather case which had proved to contain maps—of Alba and of various regions thereof, and of the cities of Din Edin, Glaschu, and Obar Dheathain—and were arguing over them in a disorienting mix of languages.