I met you and I’ll manage if I leave. No need for you to worry about that. If having me around makes it harder for you to do your job, then I should go. Just say the word, Gerald, and you’ll not lay an eye on me again.”
“No!” he said, sitting up. “Reg, are you mad? Of course I don’t want you to go. No-one wants you to go. Things might be a bit difficult at the moment, but they won’t always be. And I absolutely want you to stay. We all do.”
Instead of replying, Reg hopped from his shoulder to the library’s writing desk and cast her eye over his various scribblings.
“Not bad, not bad,” she said, when she’d finished reading. “In another ten years or so you might make a halfway decent secret government agent. Only you’re mad if you only take one crystal ball with you. You’ll need at least three. More if you can manage it. Because if your luggage doesn’t get left behind, dropped over the side of a riverboat, down a mountain or into a bog, or end up confused with someone else’s so it’s shipped to Jandria by slow hot air balloon, then I’m not the dispossessed Queen of Lalapinda.” She looked at him over her wing. “And no matter where I happen to be, I am.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” he said, grinning despite the evening’s heartache. “At least three crystal balls. I’ll make a note.”
She sniffed. “Yes. Well. See that you do. Because if you’ve only got one and you lose it at a delicate moment, meaning you’ve got to nick someone else’s in order to save the day, all you need is some other snooty guest’s busybody minion poking his nose where it’s not wanted and you’ll be answering awkward questions and drawing attention to yourself. And that won’t please your Sir Alec, will it?”
“No,” he said. “Reg…”
With a rustling of feathers she hopped around to face him. “Gerald?”
Heart thumping, he stared at her. This was as good a time as ever to say it. And he had to say it. Had to.
“Reg, if ever you see me turning into him, you must speak up. And if I won’t listen, if I try to brush you aside, you must go to Sir Alec. He’ll know what to do and he’ll do it, no hesitation. He’s very good at his job.”
Reg chattered her beak. “Now, Gerald-”
“No, Reg. I mean it,” he said, leaning forward. “You promise me. Right now. I need this. I need to know I can trust you. Just in case the day comes when I can’t trust myself.” He swallowed. “And it might come. We both know that. So please, don’t insult me by telling me I’m talking nonsense.”
“Oh, Gerald,” said Reg, and gave her tail feathers an aggravated rattle. Then she sighed. “Fine, you wretched boy. Yes. I promise.”
Was it his imagination, or did the shrouding shadow lighten then, just a little? He touched his fingertip to her wing.
“Dammit, Reg. I wish you were coming to Splotze. But since you’re not, do me a favour, would you? Keep an eye on Monk? Because he adores Bibbie, and Mel, and he’s going to worry himself sick over them. Besides, you know what he’s like. He can no more stop himself from inventing things than Melissande can help giving everyone orders.”
“Ha!” said Reg, eyes gleaming again. “And won’t madam be in her element, with two of you to boss around from sun up to sun down and half way into the night!”
Half laughing, half groaning, Gerald sprawled backwards in his chair. “Saint Snodgrass’s teeth, Reg. Don’t bloody remind me!”
Standing with Frank Dalby in Nettleworth’s dingy Ops room, staring at the enormous relief map of the Central Northern Continent where Fandawandi spread like a threadbare carpet across nearly half of the humpy landmass, Sir Alec pinched the bridge of his nose, hard.
“I must be going blind,” he muttered, glaring at the glowing, unbroken line that traced the thaumaturgically protected edges of Fandawandi’s territory. “Or senile. For the life of me I cannot fathom how these bandits are getting the dirit weed past Fandawandi’s checkpoints and across the border into Dibaloo.”
“Neither can I,” said Frank, his expression dour. “And since we don’t have an agent in Dibaloo, or any kind of political influence there, that means it’s only a matter of time before the bloody stuff’s smuggled from there onto boats crossing the Damooj Strait, then starts showing up on the back streets of Ott and every-bloody-where else you’ll find young fools cursed with more money than sense.”
“Yes, while the Fandawandi authorities mop and mow and wring their lily-white hands,” Sir Alec said. He thumped his fist to the edge of the relief map. “Why the devil they’ve not taken steps to eradicate dirit is beyond my comprehension!”
“You know bloody well why,” Frank said roughly. “Because when they’re not busy wringing their hands, those same Fandawandi authorities are putting them out for bribes to turn a blind eye. What do they care if a muck-load of Ottish youngbloods fry their brains smoking poisonous herbery?”
“Well, I’m going to damned well make them care. Mister Dalby-”
The Ops room’s door burst open. “Sir Alec. A moment of your time, if you’d be so obliging.”
Frank’s scowl deepened. Sir Alec frowned him into blandness, then turned. “Sir Ralph,” he said, with every appearance of cordiality. “Good morning. Did we have an appointment?”
Ralph’s colour was high, a sure sign of danger. “We have one now. Your office, if you please.”
If it had been anyone other than Ralph, and if the witness to such blatant bad manners had been anyone other than Frank Dalby, there would have been hell and more to pay.
Fortunately for Ralph, that was not the case.
“Right, Mister Dalby,” he said, his tone as cool and conversational as ever. “We’ll continue this discussion later.”
Frank nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“After you, Sir Ralph,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m sure you remember the way to my office.”
Ralph remembered. The door hadn’t even closed behind them before he spun about, fists clenched and chest heaving.
“What the devil, Alec! What the damned bloody devil! You’re involving my niece in your janitor shenanigans? Where the hell do you find the nerve, involving my niece? Without so much as a word to me first? I think I deserve a damned sight better than that!”
Sir Alec hesitated, then chose to stand by his office’s cold fireplace. “How did you find out?”
“What does that signify?” Ralph demanded, his eyes bloodshot with outrage. “The point is, I did. And now you’ll kindly put a stop to it.”
“It signifies,” he said, priding himself on the fact that not even Ralph would know how tightly he was controlling his temper, “because the Splotze-Borovnik mission is already on shaky ground, and if-”
“It was my bloody nephew, all right?” said Ralph, close to spitting. “Monk told me. He’s supposed to be working on a new thingamajig for Bailey’s crew but instead I found him farting about with an obfuscation hex! Naturally I asked him what the hell he thought he was doing, wasting his time with frippery when he knows he’s on a deadline, and he spilled the beans.”
Swallowing a sigh, Sir Alec rested an elbow on the fireplace’s mantel. I’d haul him and Dunwoody over the coals, if I thought there was any point. “Of course he did.”
“I’m serious about this, Alec,” Ralph said, taking a thunderous step toward him. “I won’t have you dragging little Emmerabiblia down your dirty, dangerous alleyways! It’s bad enough Monk’s caught in your orbit. You can’t have his sister too.”
“I’m afraid I must, Ralph,” he said, gently. “This business in Splotze might be nothing, or it might be a powder keg getting ready to blow. Which means I don’t have the luxury of playing favourites with who can and can’t help me keep a lid on things before they go up. Like it or not, your niece is in the right place, at the right time, with the right friends, to be of use. So I am going to use her, Ralph. Because that’s what I do.”
Stricken silent, Ralph stared at him. Then, with a stifled curse, he collapsed into the visitor’s chair, pulled a handkerchief from his vest pocket and pressed it to his sweaty forehead.
“I always knew you were a ruthless bastard, Alec, but you’ve surpassed yourself today.”
He was a fool to let the words wound him, but Ralph had always been more friend than foe. Mask perfectly in place, Sir Alec moved from the fireplace to his desk and sat behind it.
“Your niece is a Markham through and through, Ralph. What’s more, if she’d been born a boy we both know she’d likely be giving your reprobate nephew orders by now. But just because she’s a girl is no reason to waste
