Murder by Magic (25 page)
Moving at last from the door, Montjoye hovered indecisively. Even to his inexperienced eye, it was plain that the Countess was in genuine distress.
“Madame de Ambreville,” said Jaucourt with a terrible ferocity, “what have you done to yourself?”
Her lips moved silently, as though she would answer him but lacked the strength. She continued to struggle for several minutes. At last, she rallied a little and forced herself to speak. “Poison. When I heard—you were at—my door.” She laughed weakly, and tears rolled down her cheeks. “Vanity, perhaps—to wish not to be exposed at a trial.”
“You were about to tell me,” said Jaucourt, “the name of the magician.”
“Was I? Perhaps—I was.” A spasm passed over her, and it seemed for a moment she had left it too late. Then, with a final effort, she gasped out the words: “The apothecary—Doctor Palestrina—at the sign of the phoenix.”
Later that same afternoon, Jaucourt was in a carriage with Buffon and two muscular uniformed guardsmen, heading across the city. He had, with some difficulty, located the apothecary shop, on the fringes of the Goblin Quarter.
“We can only imagine,” he said to Buffon, “the extent of his wickedness. A doctor—even a simple apothecary—is called in so often to ease the dying. And when he seems to be offering comfort—a word, a moment, a gesture—and the spell is wrought, he catches their souls and binds them to his will.”
Buffon nodded without making any comment, and the carriage clattered on. Meanwhile, the Constable experienced a restless discomfort, a frustrated impatience; this trip across town was taking far too long.
When the carriage finally lurched to a stop, Jaucourt was out of the door on the instant, moving toward the modest little shop of brick and timber. “At the sign of the phoenix,” he said under his breath. “Where the dead rise, not to new life, but to slavery and degradation.”
A swift, comprehensive glance around him, and he knew that he had arrived too late. The windows were shuttered, but the door stood half-open and the interior was dark.
Pushing the door aside, Jaucourt moved past it, into the shadows. The hearth was cold; a lantern above the door unlit. On the high counter, a shattered oil lamp lay on its side amidst crystal shards of glass. The shelves had been cleared of bottles and jars—the shop was empty.
He stepped back into the street, grinding his teeth in sheer frustration. “There must have been someone watching outside of de Ambreville’s house. Still, had we acted more quickly, we might have caught him.”
Buffon shrugged. To him, the matter of the apothecary seemed of minor importance. A man firmly rooted in the mundane details of daily existence, his business was with the living, not with the dead. “But the lady has punished herself,” he replied with stolid satisfaction. “
We
needn’t do so. Moreover, we’ve been spared the uproar of a trial, the ugly excitement of an execution.”
The wooden sign with its picture of the mythical bird creaked overhead; a vagrant breeze caused a stray bit of yellow paper to skitter past, over the paving stones.
“De Rouille is dead—and the beautiful Albine,” Jaucourt said with a bitter laugh. “But a man more wicked than either of them has escaped.”
He bent at the waist, scooped up the torn scrap of paper. The printed words were blurred by rain and sun, but he guessed that it was part of one of the revolutionists’ pamphlets.
The Constable sighed and turned away from the shop. As usual, there would be no real justice in Tourvallon.
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller are best known for their Liaden Universe
®
novels and their several short stories featuring a bumbling wizard named Kinzel. Steve was the founding curator of the University of Maryland’s Kuhn Library Science Fiction Research Collection; Sharon has been executive director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and has also served as president of that organization.
They live in Maine, with lots of books, almost as much music, more computer equipment than two people need, and four muses in the form of cats. As might be expected of full-time writers, Sharon and Steve spend way too much time playing on the Internet and have a Web site at
http://www.korval.com.
S
he was old money. He was old magic.
Together, they were a force to be reckoned with on the social circuits of half a dozen capital cities. It was said that they might reverse a fashion, make a playwright, or declare an early end to a tedious season. They were patrons of the arts—scientific, magical, and creative—and stood on terms of intimacy with the scions of several royal houses.
Despite all that—or because of it—they were popular hosts: full of wit and fire, certain to have an opening-night box at the brilliant new play, after which they would preside over an animated table of friends in a little-known gem of an eatery. It was therefore not at all unusual, when the daring new opera
The Fall of Neab
opened at Chelsington Opera House, where her family had kept a box for several generations, that they should host a party.
Nicholas—Lord Charles to most; Nick or Nicky to some few intimates; and “Nicky dear” to one alone—had early discovered that the hidden tax on old money was the absolute necessity of sharing the more public extravagances with others—and as many of those others as possible. It mattered little that he found the tax neither convenient nor fair; if he and his lady wished to go on more or less as they pleased, then these small payments to society must be made.
Since he very much wished them to go on more or less as they pleased, the inconvenience of hosting a theater party now and then did very little, really, to blight his horizon.
He did grumble, of course—a gentleman did not like to disappoint his wife—on this occasion as he knotted his tie, glaring quite fearfully at his reflection, one eye on the wife under discussion, who was nicely
en déshabillé
and clearly visible in the glass.
“I don’t see why we have to play host to the National Zoo at these affairs,” he said, his long, clever fingers deftly manipulating the ivory silk. “It would be very enjoyable, I think, to once attend the opera tête-à-tête with my wife.”
In the glass, Denora was sliding a confection of silver-shot midnight blue up over her legs, her luscious thighs, her delicious belly . . .
“Now, Nicky, you know you like Carrington, and the last time we had Brian, I swear the two of you spent the whole evening in each other’s pockets. I was very much the jealous wife that evening.”
He concocted a fierce frown for the mirror. “And I suppose the attentions of Beyemuir to yourself are only what the husband of a beauty of the first water should resign himself to bear?”
She laughed, easing the cloth over the dizzying mounds of her breasts. “Certainly, it would be, were you the husband of a jewel. As it is, you must allow poor Beyemuir to demonstrate a gentleman’s natural charity to a matron of limited charms.” She wriggled one last time, emphatically. The blue dress was a tight, clinging sheath from breast to hip, where it softened into a wide, inverted tulip shape, allowing Nora her length of stride while still displaying an alluring tendency to cling to her long limbs. In all, it was something of a marvel, this dress, and Nicky gave it full honors, gazing into the glass, his hands quiet amid the intricacies of his tie.
Nora turned her back to the mirror, showing the unsealed row of tiny silver buttons; and smiled at him over her shoulder. “Do me up, please, darling?”
“Certainly.” He winked, the air heated briefly, and the silver buttons glittered, sealing from bottom to top. He was rewarded with another smile as she wriggled appreciatively and adjusted the fabric for maximum fashionable décolletage.
He turned away from the mirror and reached for his coat. She spun, the tulip petal skirt floating above her ankles, the silver threads flashing like meteors through a midnight sky.
“Do you like it?”
“I admire it without reservation,” he told her. “As will every other gentleman in the house—and those not so gentlemanly, too.”
She arched a sable eyebrow. “Oh, come now, Nicky! At the opera?”
“Rogues are found everywhere,” he replied. “Recall where you found me.”
“Too true! Who would have thought Balliol harbored such vice!”
He bowed and went to fetch their cloaks.
The party was complete, with the exception of one, which of course engaged Brian’s attention.
“Our esteemed Dr. Hillier not here yet?” he asked, twinkling at Nicholas over the rim of his wineglass. “Home sulking, do you think?”
Nick raised an eyebrow. “Now, why sulking, I wonder?”
“Ah, you haven’t seen the latest
Magician Internist
? Mine arrived today.”
“I’ve let the subscription lapse,” Nick said, flicking an imaginary fleck of dust from his sleeve. “All that learned discourse—too fatiguing, Brian! Not to mention all those rather graphic descriptions of disease and malformation.” He shuddered, deliberately, and fortified himself with a sip of wine.
Brian laughed. “Trust me, you’ll want to look this issue up and take a look at Wolheim’s refutation of our dear Hillier’s pet theory.”
“Not the spellchucker again?”
“No, dear boy—you are out of touch! Hillier’s got himself a new pet theory. Mind you, he hasn’t given up on the spellchucker, but if you’ll recall, that little bit of legerdemain required an organic host—and a very specific host at that. Now he’s gone the next step and declared that it is possible to store—
store
—a spell! Rather like a battery, you see. Well, as you might expect, Wolheim was all over that. The usual thing: states that his own tests, following Hillier’s method, did not produce the results described, prosed on about the philosophy of magic, the theory of conservation of energies—oh, and the obligatory insult. Rather a nasty one this time. Said he hoped Hillier is a better engineer than he is magic-worker, else the city is in for a rash of bridges falling down.”
“Well, that was too bad of him,” Nicky said. “But, really, Brian, there’s no need to suppose Hillier to be sulking. He and Wolheim have been at each other’s professional throat for years now. Nora swears that they each live for the opportunity to refute the other’s newest favorite theory or method.”
“Oh, it’s worse than that!” Brian said earnestly. “Wolheim lost Hillier a perfectly good assistant a few years back. You and your lady were traveling at the time, I believe.”
Nicky frowned. “You mean Sarah Ames? I remember hearing about that. A tragedy, of course. But I really don’t see how Wolheim can be blamed for the lady’s decision to end her own life.”
“Wolheim had cost her a fellowship, as I heard it. Hillier was badly broken up for—well, here’s the fellow now!” he cried, turning his head with a wide smile for the tardy guest. “Hillier, old thing! It’s been an age.”
“Or at least a week,” the latecomer returned, removing his top hat. He nodded cordially at his host. “Nicholas.”
“Benjamin. Denora was concerned.”
“Then I’d best make my apologies at once,” he said, and stepped energetically forward.
“Benjy!” Denora looked around Beyemuir’s shoulder and held out her hands. “You are so terribly late! Look, the lights have gone down once already.”
Hillier kissed both hands, with flair and a careful eye to a husband’s pride, and stepped back, smiling. “My apologies, dear Lady Charles! That a mere inconvenience of traffic should cause you an instant’s worry!”
“At least it was worry rewarded,” Nora said, smiling brilliantly upon both Hillier and Beyemuir. “Elihu, do pour Benjy something while he tells me how his daughter goes on.”
“Aletha goes on quite well,” the doctor said promptly, with another smile for her sweet courtesy. “Her talent for the Arts Magical is growing. Her tutor is quite encouraged.”
“I am gratified to hear it,” Denora said warmly. “So she is responding well to the treatment?”
Hillier’s face darkened as he glanced aside to take his glass from Beyemuir. “Thank you, Elihu.” He sipped and looked back to Nora.
“The treatment is not panacea, and not even those who love her best believe that she will ever embrace a normal life. Indeed, her tutor speculates that her affliction adds potency to her talent. I find no corroboration in the literature, and one does not like to subject her to any further testing . . .”
“Certainly not!” Denora said warmly, and met her husband’s eyes across the box. “Nicky dear, I think we should get everyone seated, don’t you? I do believe the lights have gone down again . . .”
It was Nicholas and Denora’s pleasant habit, on the mornings when they were both at home, to breakfast together in their private room, sharing buttered toast, coffee, and the
Times
between them.
Two days after the opera party, they sat cozily together in the window nook, she in her carmine silk robe, he in the kimono Lord Murasaki had given him for his assistance in repairing a certain irregularity in His Lordship’s love life. The window was open in the nook, admitting an agreeable bustling from the street below. The late morning sun bathed the table and remains of breakfast in languorous yellow light.
Nora, her father’s daughter to the fingertips, was immersed in the business section, one slim hand curled round her coffee cup. Nicky slouched in his chair, lazily perusing the world news. According to the
Times,
the world was going to pot—no surprises there.
He turned the page to city news, one hand groping toward the table in pursuit of his cup—and froze.
“I say,” he began, and paused as he read it again.
“Nicky?” Nora’s hand dropped lightly to his sleeve. “What is it?”
He lowered the paper to meet her deep brown eyes, and found his voice. “Wolheim’s dead.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, no, darling! An accident, I suppose?”
Anyone who knew of the nature of Dr. Sir John Wolheim’s experiments with the Force Magical would certainly suppose an accident. Nicholas glanced down at the paper. Yes, the damning phrase was there . . .
“Nicky?”
“Suspicious circumstances, it says here.”
