Moonlight and Ashes (22 page)

Clearly, they didn't want anyone to know the truth about the man they were hunting. Olga and I didn't matter, not really. They didn't care about either of us except that we might learn the truth from Max. The Prince and his friends could have no idea that the thieving servant girl had any connection with the Champainian lady who had rejected the Prince at the ball. As to Olga, well, a foreign werewolf was just vermin. Even Tomi was of no importance to them, Mancer child or not. For Max had said that he believed the Mancers had been deceived too . . .

Deep in thought, I was about to walk away when I noticed the letter Babette had dropped still lying on the ground. I picked it up and saw to my astonishment that it was addressed, in the brown ink my stepmother favoured, to Count Otto von Gildenstein. What on earth was Grizelda doing, writing to Max's father?

Then a stunning thought struck me – here was an undreamed-of opportunity. Max had been so worried about his father. And I remembered the sadness on the Count's face in that scene in Thalia's mirror. He might not know of his son's true fate but he was uneasy, I knew that
instinctively. I could set his mind at rest. What was more, he was on the Mancer Council. I could even plant a subtle suggestion about the way they'd been used and I could easily do that without jeopardising my task. Indeed, it could only help to protect Max and my friends.

I wouldn't say who I really was, of course. He'd only met me once, as Mademoiselle Camille St Clair, but I could make sure I looked nothing like that. I could dress up in those clothes I'd bought from the pawnshop and say I was a maid in the employ of Lady Grizelda, tasked to deliver the letter personally and privately into his hands. And once I was in his presence, I could see how the land lay. If it felt right, I could tell him his son was safe for now and warn him of the situation. If it didn't, I'd keep mum, and there'd be no harm done.

First, I had to know what the letter contained.

On the way back to the hotel, I passed one of those street stalls that sells gags and jokes and disguises, and on impulse stopped and bought a pair of plain glass spectacles. Back in the privacy of my hotel room, I locked the door and sat down to read the letter. It had my father's seal with an address in the city.

Dear Count Otto,

I hope this letter will come as a pleasant surprise. I have recently arrived in Faustina with my daughters, for the sake of my husband's health. Sir Claus is not well but I am confident he will be better soon, with the good care of
Faustina doctors. However, I imagine we will be making our home in Faustina for quite some time to come. In a week from now, I will be hosting a small, informal dinner in our new home and it would be my fondest wish, and that of my daughters, that you and your son might see fit to attend. I dare to hope that the good memories you held of the last time we met, and the warm sympathy we shared, will induce you to grant this wish and honour us with your presence.

With sincere regards and salutations from,

Lady Grizelda dez Mestmor

I shook my head. It was so like Grizelda to be thinking of her social position and her daughters' marriage prospects at a time like this, when her husband lay at death's door. It was all so cold-blooded and calculating. And that bit about ‘the warm sympathy we shared' – that was sheer flirtation. Did she think there could be something between her and Count Otto? In any case, though it disgusted me, it mattered little. Nothing would surprise me about my stepmother. What did matter was the fact that she mentioned Max. And I could use that, simply by adding a line to the letter.

I uncorked my bottle of brown ink, dipped the pen in it and, imitating Grizelda's flowing script, wrote:

Postscript: If you would be so kind as to give the bearer of this letter an indication of you and your son's intentions, I would be most grateful.

That would give me the perfect and natural opportunity to put the question I needed to ask. Well, dear stepmother, I thought, smiling to myself as I re-addressed a new envelope, for the first time in my life I feel grateful towards you, even if you won't ever know it.

While I waited for the ink to dry, I changed into the grey woollen dress and the shawl from the pawnshop, powdered my face till it looked pasty, then put on the spectacles, and tied the bonnet unbecomingly close to my face. Looking at myself in the mirror, I was certain there was no question now of the Count recognising the fine lady from the ball in this mousy creature.

I took the twig out from the desk and found that another leaf had unfurled. I picked it and put it in my bag, replacing the twig in the desk along with the casket of pearls and the forged documents. Once the ink had thoroughly dried, I folded the letter, slipped it into the envelope, and sealed it with a blob of red sealing wax. I didn't put it in my bag, for I did not want to run the risk that the magic might somehow interfere with it. Drawing on my gloves, I unlocked my door and looked out into the corridor. I thought that if anyone saw me, I'd just say I had come for an interview as a maid for Miss Tarneleit.
But in the event there was nobody, so I set off down the back stairs the hotel staff used. Though I encountered a couple of staff members on the way, they barely glanced at me, and I reached the ground floor and slipped out of the service entrance with no problem at all.

I was back at the Palace Protocol Office in hardly any time. Nobody recognised me and, after I stated my business, the same policeman ushered me in, the same clerk took my new name – I called myself Tilda Smit, a suitably innocuous and common sort of name – and the same official I'd seen as the incarnation of a Menglu merchant's daughter sat across the desk and looked at me with disfavour but not recognition.

‘Count Otto is an important man, and is very busy,' snapped Officer Hedde. ‘Give me the letter, Miss Smit, and I will see it gets safely into his hands.'

I gave a nervous laugh, the kind that suited a Miss Tilda Smit. ‘I'm very sorry, honourable sir, but my mistress was very insistent.' I made my accent thick and slow, and saw the impatience on his face.

‘Your mistress being this Lady Grizelda?'

‘Yes, sir, Lady Grizelda dez Mestmor, wife of one of the richest and most important Ashbergian nobles, Sir Claus dez Mestmor, and a personal friend of the Count's, as I explained to your clerk.'

Officer Hedde frowned. ‘I have not heard of these people.'

‘I am sure, sir, that if you look in
The Golden Dictionary
, you will find the name “dez Mestmor” has great honour,' I said, primly, having noticed it on his bookshelf. It was a book that listed all the noble families in the empire, and
something of their ancestral history. My father had it in his own library.

He grunted and, as I'd hoped, reached over to his shelf and pulled out the book. He opened it and leafed through the pages.

‘Hmm . . . Arden . . . Ashberg – here we are . . .' He ran his finger down the column of names. ‘Yes, I see, dez Mestmor. Let me see . . . “One of the oldest families of Ashberg with an unblemished record of service to the empire” . . . um, blah blah, “one of the biggest fortunes in Ashberg . . . present holder of the title: Sir Claus dez Mestmor”. Let me see, two marriages “first to Jana Lubosdera, one issue, a daughter; second to Grizelda Krasenstein, widow of the late Officer Sigmund Krasenstein of Faustina.” Why didn't you tell me your mistress was Officer Krasenstein's widow instead of gabbling about provincial nobility I've never heard of! Officer Krasenstein was a colleague of mine and much respected in this office.'

‘I'm . . . I'm sorry, sir,' I said, taken aback. ‘I didn't know.'

‘Oh, well,' said Officer Hedde, in a noticeably softened tone, ‘I suppose, coming from sleepy, little Ashberg, Miss Smit, you can't be expected to know much of what happens in this great city. Is this your first time here?'

‘Yes, sir, this is my first time. And I can't believe my eyes, sir! I'd seen pictures but it's not the same! Oh, it's like being in a dream, it's all so amazing –'

‘Yes, yes,' he said, holding up a hand to stop my gabbling. ‘Quite overwhelming for a little provincial, I'm sure. After all, you are in the centre of things now, not stuck in some
obscure little backwater. Quite a relief for your mistress, too, I imagine.'

‘Oh yes, sir,' I said eagerly, while inwardly amused by his patronising stupidity, and at the thought that for all her airs and graces, my stepmother had just been the widow of some obscure little pen-pusher in this office. ‘My mistress is thrilled to be back in her native city.'

‘Quite. Now, then, let me find out if there is any possibility that Count Otto might be able to see you today. Briefly, mind. Like I told you, he is very busy.'

And he got up, went to the door and called out, ‘Messenger! Come here!'

They were the longest ten minutes of my life, as I sat in Officer Hedde's office waiting for the messenger to come back. And it wasn't just that I was on tenterhooks. It was also that Officer Hedde clearly saw it as his duty to instruct an ignorant little provincial on the history, customs, manners and wonders of the imperial capital to make me understand just how lucky I was to be here. Torn between boredom, anxiety and indignation, I almost wished I really did have the power I'd told Babette I did and could turn the pompous old fraud into a toad or something. As it was, I just had to sit tight and smile eagerly and ooh and aah.

Finally, my ordeal ended. The messenger came back with good news: Count Otto had agreed to give me a few moments of his time and I was to be taken to him at once.

I bid a fawning goodbye to Officer Hedde and followed the messenger out of the office towards the palace. We did not go in through the main gates, but down a side street into the entrance of a building that stood apart from the palace proper, separated by a locked gate. This, the messenger informed me, housed the offices of the senior advisers and palace staff.

The place was like a rabbit warren, with corridors leading off here and there and rows of closed doors. The messenger led me down one corridor and up another, then up some stairs and finally to a door down the end of the next corridor. He knocked twice, then the deep voice of Count Otto said, ‘Come in.'

It was quite a big room, with a window that gave out onto a courtyard. Simply furnished, it was obviously a working space and not a place to impress. The walls were lined with shelves crammed with books and papers, and tall wooden filing cabinets. The only decorations were the usual portrait of the imperial family on one wall and a plain carriage-clock on the stone mantelpiece. A fire burned in the gate. Count Otto himself sat at a leather-topped desk covered with papers, writing busily. He looked up at me, but without recognition.

I thought, with a pang, that he didn't look well. There were dark circles under his eyes and a tension in his lips that suggested some gnawing anxiety.

‘This is Miss Smit, my lord,' the messenger announced.

‘Please take a chair, Miss Smit,' the Count said, quietly. ‘I won't be a moment. And you can leave us alone now, George.'

The messenger bowed and withdrew, closing the door behind him.

For a moment all was silent apart from the ticking of the clock and the scratching of Count Otto's pen on paper. And the rapid beating of my heart, though I didn't suppose he could hear that. My hands were shaking a little and I tried to keep them still. Finally, he finished writing, folded the letter, and put it to one side. He looked up again, and this time he smiled – a tired smile, of a man ground down under some burden.

‘I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Miss Smit.' He spoke as though his mind was elsewhere. ‘Now, I understand you have something to give me?'

‘Yes, my lord,' I said. ‘This letter, from my mistress, the Lady Grizelda dez Mestmor, she was most insistent you receive it personally.' I handed it to him.

‘Such a pleasant surprise,' he murmured as he slit open the envelope with a paper knife and extracted the letter. Watching him as he scanned what was written inside, I thought of what he'd been like when I'd met him in the corridors of Ashberg Castle. Big, confident and exuding power. Now he seemed fretful, a little shrunken, and hunched, as if he'd aged years – not days – since I'd last seen him. Something was wrong and I knew what it was.

He looked up again. ‘I am very sorry to learn of your master's illness,' he said. ‘He seemed like a good man.'

‘Thank you, my lord. He was – is. It was very sudden, his illness. Quite a shock to everybody.' To my horror, I could feel tears pricking at my eyes. ‘But we hope he will be better soon.'

‘Amen to that,' he said gently. ‘Your mistress has done the right thing bringing him to Faustina. We have the best doctors in the world. Please tell her that if there is anything I can do to help, I will do so without hesitation.'

‘Thank you, my lord, I'll be sure and tell her.'

‘It is really most kind of your mistress to invite me. I have fond memories of meeting her, her charming daughters, and your master, of course. Good food and very good company – an exemplary household.'

Ha, I thought, without letting my feelings show on my face.

‘Unfortunately, though I should very much like to accept her invitation, I am afraid that may not be possible right now. Later, perhaps.' He made as if to hand me back the letter.

I said, quickly, ‘My lord, if I may, I know my mistress will be greatly disappointed.'

‘I'm sorry, Miss Smit. I really am, but I have too much on my mind at the moment. Too much work. Perhaps later, as I said. I should very much like to call on her one of these days.'

‘If I may be so bold, my lord,' I said, desperately, ‘might you perhaps nominate a date when you and your son might be able to honour us with your presence? I know it would mean so much to my mistress.'

‘I'm afraid I can't be sure,' he said. ‘And as to my son, he's away. I don't know when . . . he'll be back. Perhaps we should wait till he is home.'

There was no doubt in my mind any more. The expression in his eyes as he spoke was fear, naked fear. And it decided me.

‘Is he abroad, my lord?'

‘Yes. No. Yes . . . He's on important business.' His hands were shaking now as he pushed the letter across to me. ‘Now if you don't mind, Miss Smit, I have a good deal of work to attend to, and –'

I took a deep breath. ‘Don't be afraid, Count Otto,' I said, very quietly. ‘He's safe.'

For an instant he stared at me as though turned to stone. Then he got up slowly and in a terrible voice, he said, ‘What did you say?'

I stammered, ‘Max . . . your son . . . he is quite safe and well, my lord. I swear it.'

He sat down again, heavily. He had gone very pale. ‘What . . . how – who are you . . .?'

‘I am a friend, my lord – a friend of your son.'

‘What? He doesn't know a Miss Smit – what are you –' He was babbling, and I interrupted him gently.

‘No, my lord, I'm not Miss Smit. She doesn't exist. The letter – I stole it so I could get to you and tell you – to set your mind at rest.'

‘That is . . . very kind of you,' he said, mechanically. There was a little colour starting to come back to his cheeks. ‘Tell me . . . tell me where he is that I may go to him and –'

‘I can't tell you where he is, my lord, only that he is safe and on his way to right the terrible wrong that was done to him.'

‘Oh my God . . .' He covered his face with his hands.

‘They told you he'd been sent on some secret mission or something like that, is that right?'

He looked up and stared at me. ‘Y– yes.'

‘But you didn't believe it.'

‘I tried to but it just didn't add up. I am usually briefed about such things. I felt uneasy –' he broke off. ‘What really happened? Please. You can't hide it from me, not now.'

‘What really happened,' I said, ‘was that your son was dragged off in the dead of night and secretly locked in a Mancer prison. They were going to have him blanked and, if he hadn't escaped, then, well, he'd pretty much be a zombie now.'