Sweating anew, but not from exertion, Gerald started rowing again. Such a bugger he couldn’t use a speed-’em-up hex as well. But with the chance of compromised fireworks’ thaumaturgics close by, he didn’t dare risk it. The speed-’em-up was too volatile to risk.
Off to the right, Hartwig’s imposing royal barge glittered and twinkled, bedecked like a queen. Lamps like vividly coloured jewels were strung stem to stern, and across the placid waters of the Canal floated strains of bright music and laughter as the wedding revellers kicked up their heels, sublimely unaware that in the light-flickered shadows danger and death crouched with bared teeth, waiting.
He tried not to imagine the barge exploding in flames. Tried not to hear the screams of the injured and dying. To see Bibbie and Melissande, dying.
It can’t happen. It won’t happen. I’m not going to let it.
The dreadful sense of danger that had swamped him in the palace dining room, that haunted him now, drove him to forget the sweat stinging his eyes, the blisters stinging his palms and fingers, the fire burning in his shoulders and back. He rowed and rowed, knowing countless lives depended on him. That Bibbie depended on him. That he was the only thing standing between her and cruel murder.
Don’t worry, Bibs. I’ll protect you.
He nearly fell headfirst out of the stupid little boat, trying to climb onto the first tethered fireworks pontoon. Panting, heart scudding, he knelt precariously on the unsteady platform, unfurled his magnified potentia and touched it to the wards set to safeguard the complicated thaumaturgics bound up in the bundles of gunpowder and assorted chemicals. They surrendered to him without protest. Ha. Blayling might be a genius with fireworks, but he was rubbish at protective hexes. And wasn’t that a worry? Tampering made simple.
But the fireworks hadn’t been altered. Not these ones, at least.
Daunted only by the knowledge that time was fast running out, he clambered back in the little boat and rowed hard for the second pontoon. Took the risk of staying put, this time, and looking for imminent danger from slightly afar. Still nothing. Pouring sweat now, come on, Dunnywood, row faster, he headed for the third and final pontoon. Stretched out his senses with a desperate gasp, knowing this had to be it, knowing the danger was here, had to be here With a deafening whoosh and an eye-searing flash of light, the floating pontoon of fireworks ignited in a brilliant ball of kaleidoscope colour. He heard the crowd’s full-throated roar of delight and wonder. Heard his own shout of angry despair.
And then, for Gerald Dunwoody, the fireworks ended.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Ow! Melissande, d’you mind?”
“Not at all, Mister Rowbotham,” said Melissande, cheerfully dabbing a disgusting green ointment on his blistered chin. “Now stop being such a baby. You’re hardly scorched at all.”
“Actually,” Gerald retorted, “I’m scorched quite a bit!”
Not to mention embarrassed, stripped down to his still-damp long underwear with his bare torso all exposed. Melissande, bless her, was turning a blind eye, paying him no more attention than if he’d been a horse. She’d even quashed Bibbie, whose utter lack of maidenly modesty had threatened to take full flight.
“And whose fault is that?” said Monk’s incorrigible sister, the fiendishly unsympathetic love of his life, perched on the edge of the bed in Melissande’s magnificent stateroom aboard Hartwig’s royal barge. “I told you to be careful, didn’t I?”
Melissande scooped more noxious green ointment onto the tip of her finger. “She did. You should’ve listened. Now do be quiet. After the lies I told Hartwig about you not attending the fireworks because you were indisposed, I can’t have the entire barge listening to you bellow like a banshee.”
“Why not?” he said, backing away from her. “You could tell them I was in the throes of agony, and you wouldn’t be far wrong!”
Melissande smeared the fresh dollop of ointment back into its pot, then held the pot out. “Suit yourself. And while you’re at it, treat yourself. But when you’re in the throes of a terrible fever, because that frequently happens with burns, I suggest you dive overboard. Maybe a dip in the Canal will save you.”
Bumped against a cupboard, trapped, Gerald looked at the smelly ointment, then at Melissande, who was glaring. His scorched bits sang a loud chorus of complaint.
Bugger. “Please finish.”
“If you insist,” said Melissande, and resumed her questionable doctoring.
Beyond the stateroom’s main porthole, Splotze’s starlit countryside glided by as Hartwig’s enormous and lavishly outfitted barge made its ponderous way down the Canal towards the next day’s first official stop at Little Grande Splotze, where they were to partake of a specially prepared luncheon and festive celebration. What a prospect. By the time this assignment was done with he’d almost certainly not fit into a single pair of his trousers.
“Mind you,” said Bibbie, idly swinging her legs, “I still can’t believe you were wrong about the fireworks.”
He glowered at her. “I wasn’t wrong.”
“Oh?” She feigned surprise. “So that wasn’t me and Melissande and those aristocratic whathaveyous and thousands of tourists ooohing and aaahing at all the pretty sparkly lights in the sky?”
“In case you’ve forgotten, Miss Slack, there are more fireworks planned,” he retorted. “I might’ve been wrong about the timing, granted, but I am not wrong about the danger.”
“Oh,” said Bibbie, and frowned. “You sound awfully definite.”
“Miss Slack, I’d bet my life on it.”
Bibbie looked at Melissande. “You’ll have to warn Hartwig. Get him to cancel the wedding fireworks. He’ll listen to you.”
Wincing as Melissande dabbed ointment on his blistered midriff, Gerald nodded. “She’s right, Melissande. The fireworks must be called off. Talk to him tonight, or at the latest first thing in the morning.”
“Well… I can try, but I doubt he’ll listen,” said Melissande. “Hartwig’s spent so much money on this wedding, you’ve no idea. Not to mention its political importance. To convince him there’s danger I’d have to give our whole game away. Sir Alec would fall in a foaming heap.”
“Not if it saved lives,” said Bibbie. “Surely.”
Melissande kept on dabbing. “Look, I’m all for saving lives. But we’ll be touring for nearly two weeks, so there is still time, isn’t there? Algernon? If we can unmask the plotters before we return to Grande Splotze, there’ll be no need to tell Hartwig anything. And lo, the happy ending, complete with fireworks and no secret agents revealed.”
And better yet, no Sir Alec in a foaming heap. “Yes, I suppose I can- ow!”
“Hold still,” said Melissande, peering at the charred patch on his ribs. “This is the worst bit. Honestly, how could you have been so silly as to get yourself blown into the Canal? It’s a wonder you made it to the barge in one piece, and undetected.”
He wanted to hop up and down, the stinging was so fierce. “I’m a wizard, remember? And I came first in swimming class. Hell’s bells, Melissande. What’s in that green muck?”
She shrugged. “I haven’t a clue. Holy Man Shugat gave it to Rupert and Rupert gave it to me. I think he said something about cactus juice blessed by the Kallarapi Gods, and possibly some interesting camel by-products, but to be honest I wasn’t really listening. All I know is that it cleared up Boris’s little problem a treat.”
Gerald stared at her, aghast, as Bibbie dissolved into giggles. “Melissande!”
“You’re welcome,” she said, and thrust his wet clothes at him, “Now go away. Get some sleep. Starting with breakfast, we’ve a lot of work to do.”
Morning saw Hartwig’s scarlet-painted, three-deck barge gliding majestically down the Canal between lush green meadows dotted with heavy uddered milch cows, who regarded them in bovine astonishment as they passed. At some point during the night they’d left behind the industrial untidiness of the cargo barge docks, and now the landscape was painted in varying themes of bucolic bliss. The sky was blue, the air crisp and florally scented. A glorious autumn day, yet empty of calamity.
