So that’s something done right, at least, Gerald thought, relieved. Because being a rogue wizard doesn’t make me a one-man army.
For a moment he was tempted to hex the guards with a no-see-’em, to make sure that Algernon Rowbotham was able to move about the place freely. But would that be wise? What if there was a changing of the guard while he was out breaking into Abel Bestwick’s lodgings? Well, yes, he could simply hex the new guards too, on his return, but either way he’d be bumping into the same problem. The no-see-’em incant was slippery and powerful. He’d have to switch off his etheretic shield entirely to use it, which would leave him vulnerable to detection by the thaumic gauges and monitors and tripwires and so forth riddling the place. And since most of them had been developed by Monk and his friends in Research and Development, he’d be detected.
Or would he?
Heart sinking, he looked the answer to that square in its face. No. He’d not be detected. Not if he took advantage of his unique personal thaumaturgics. With a nip here and a tuck there and a bit of squirrelling with the various devices’ matrixes, he’d be able to hex the palace guards without a soul-or one of Monk’s monitors-being any the wiser.
But if I flout the rules for no better reason than just because I can, well, it makes me someone who thinks the rules are for little people. Lesser wizards. It makes me that other Gerald Dunwoody.
The thought churned him sick.
Somebody brushed past him, needing to get outside. So much frantic activity. Surely palace security was on highest alert. And yes indeed, it was, because one of the eagle-eyed, tautly attentive guards was watching him without appearing to be watching him. Not a good sign. The last thing he needed to do was raise official suspicions.
Recalling Rupert’s remarkably effective gormless butterfly prince routine, Gerald offered the interested guard a foolish, slack-lipped smile and crabbed his way close enough for conversation.
“Ah… excuse me? I say there, so sorry to bother you when you’re busy, only there’s something I feel you ought to know. Oh dear.” He rubbed at his nose, feeling its real shape beneath the obfuscation hex’s snubby illusion. “I say, d’you speak Ottish?”
The guard, a tall, bronze-skinned young fellow with typically Splotzeish ginger-red hair and a truly amazing breadth of muscled shoulders, looked down his long, narrow nose.
“Yes,” he said, his voice heavily accented. The merest hint of a sneer curling his lip suggested the question was an insult. Or perhaps being forced to sully his tongue with Ottish was the insult. According to the Department’s briefing notes, Splotze was at once dazzlingly cosmopolitan and fiercely nationalistic. It was an interesting, and sometimes combustible, combination.
Gerald risked another foolish smile. “Wonderful! Well, the thing is, y’see, I’m on Her Royal Highness Princess Melissande of New Ottosland’s staff. We’ve just arrived, through the Crown Prince’s private portal. Princess Melissande is invited to the wedding, y’know.”
The guard didn’t quite manage to swallow his sigh. Tourists. “We know the approved guests for Prince Ludwig’s wedding. Her Royal Highness is welcome to Splotze.”
“Excellent!” Gerald said, beaming. “Well, it happens I need to toddle off for a bit. And I just wanted to make sure you know who I am, so you’ll let me back into the palace when I return.”
The guard thought for a moment. “Name?”
“Rowbotham. Algernon Rowbotham.”
More thought on the part of the guard. Risking a glance at the young man’s five brothers-in-arms, Gerald saw that although their gazes remained strictly front-and-center they were closely listening, ready to take action should they perceive any threat.
Thinking concluded, the guard held out his hand. It was heavily callused, as though he spent many hours training with his dagger and his sharp, double-pronged pike.
“Papers.”
“Oh, yes. Of course,” said Gerald, and slid his own uncalloused, yet still lethal, hand inside his boring tweed coat and extracted from its concealed pocket the identity paperwork so meticulously prepared for him by Beevish Trotter, the Department’s document specialist. “Here you are. All in order, I hope!”
The guard scanned Algernon Rowbotham’s particulars then scanned them again, for good measure. Waiting for his false identification to be approved, Gerald noted from the corner of his eye three remarkably vivid individuals mounting the marble steps leading up from the palace forecourt and into the Entrance hall.
Well, well. So the Lanruvians really are here. I wonder what for? And why Sir Alec didn’t know they’d been invited…
The Lanruvians were impossible to miss or ignore, with their scalp-locks dyed bright emerald and lips tattooed cobalt blue. Tall and disturbingly thin, the three men were swathed head to toe in sand-white woollen robes. Their shimmering skin was very nearly the same shade. One of them had beads of jet and ivory dangling from his pierced nose, marking him as his wedding party’s Spirit Speaker. The Lanruvians were thaumaturgists, after a fashion, but their etheretics were wrapped so tightly in the chains of religious mysticism that as far as the Lanruvian people were concerned they might as well not exist. On that score Lanruvians weren’t terribly unlike the Kallarapi. Only compared to them, the Kallarapi were the life of any party.
Watching the guards draw themselves that little bit taller as the Lanruvians approached, Gerald hid his consternation. With his etheretic shield engaged it was much harder to feel their inner power, but it was there, elusive as a name on the tip of his tongue. Smarmy, Crown Prince Hartwig had called them, and he wasn’t entirely wrong. There was a slickness to the Lanruvians that couldn’t sit easily with anyone who possessed an aptitude for thaumaturgics.
Blimey. I hope they’re not the ones causing trouble. Because if they were, his job was going to be nigh impossible. And then Sir Alec really will go spare.
As the Lanruvians passed unchallenged into the palace, just a rap of five pikes to the marble-covered floor in honour of the Crown Prince’s guests, the guard held out the false paperwork. “You are free to go, Mister Rowbotham, and free to return.” A sardonic smile. “Enjoy your little visit to Grande Splotze.”
Gerald shoved the papers back inside his tweed coat. “Thank you! D’you know, I think I will!”
He’d memorised a suitably havey-cavey route from the palace to Abel Bestwick’s lodgings, one that made sure he took in some of the more popular attractions a visitor might wish to see in Grande Splotze. As the crow flew it was no more than a brisk three-quarter hour’s walk to his destination, cutting through various side-streets and alleyways, but it was the kind of route that only someone familiar with Grand Splotze would use. If Algernon Rowbotham was seen nipping along it smartish, like a man who knew precisely where he was off to, eyebrows would rise. And if they weren’t friendly eyebrows, well, the next thing being lifted might well be a knife. Not that there was any reason to think that Algernon Rowbotham, secretary to Princess Melissande, would be the object of scrutiny.
But under the circumstances, he couldn’t afford to take the chance.
On a deep breath, Gerald marched off to give his best impression of a gormless tourist-about-town.
Splotze’s royal capital was abuzz with a feverish anticipation of the upcoming wedding. Being very late in autumn, with a definite nip in the air but no picture-postcard snow to delight visitors from warmer climes, this was the time of year that tended to fall between two seasonal sightseeing stools. At least, ordinarily. But the pending nuptials between Hartwig’s young brother, Prince Ludwig, and Borovnik’s only daughter, the Princess Ratafia, had turned ordinarily on its head.
The people of Splotze were easy to spot, with their abundant hair in varying shades of chestnut red and the men sporting moustaches most walruses would gladly claim. But for every proud local, Gerald saw a face that didn’t belong. His own folk from Ottosland, with their indefinable yet distinctive cast of features. A great many dark- haired, dark-eyed Borovniks, which was only to be expected. They were very well behaved, for once. In startling contrast to their trim swarthiness were the floridly well-fleshed visitors from Blonkken, with their blond hair thick as straw. They were almost as well-fleshed as the tourists from Graff, with whom they shared a common ancestry and a great many squabbles. And if that weren’t enough to turn Grande Splotze into a human zoo, there were also ebony-skinned Aframbigins, wiry-haired Steinish folk and even a few silk-wrapped Fandawandins shimmering in the cool sunshine like Rupert’s late, lamented butterflies.
Indeed, Grande Splotze was so crushed and crowded with visitors that Gerald was slowed to a maddening hop-step-and-shuffle as he made his way from the palace to the township’s heart. Not wanting to draw attention to
