His family’s butler was perched on the front steps of the Chatterly Crescent town house. Seeing the jalopy turn in to the driveway, he got up, creakily, and tottered to meet it.
“Master Monk! I’m sorry to disturb you, but I thought you’d want to know at once,” he said, bending down to peer into the car. “I’ve just had word from-” Dodsworth frowned. “Master Monk, there is a bird on the seat beside you.”
“Ah-yes, I do believe there is,” he said, carefully not looking at Reg. “I found it lying stunned on the side of the road, poor thing. Couldn’t leave it there, could I? Anyway, you were saying?”
“I feel bound to point out, sir, that it is no longer stunned and is in possession of a very long, sharp beak.”
“Is it? I can’t say I noticed. Anyway — ”
Keeping one eye on Reg, Dodsworth managed to collect himself. “Yes, sir. I’ve had word from my friend, the Harenstein embassy’s butler. He’s back at work, but now that useless guffin who filled in for him has succumbed to dropsy and there’s an important supper at the embassy this evening. He wanted to know if I couldn’t see fit to lend him a hand.”
Despite his headache, and his bone-shattering weariness, Monk felt himself start to grin. “Really?”
“Yes, really, sir,” said Dodsworth, with an answering smile. “And seeing as how I know you’re interested in getting in there, and Master Aylesbury’s away on business and your dear parents are off visiting Lord and Lady Patchoo, I thought I could, without compromising my position, answer my friend’s cry for help and take you with me as my assis-”
Monk reached through the open driver’s side window and seized Dodsworth’s lined, retainerly face between his hands. “Alfred, I swear, if there wasn’t a jalopy between us I’d kiss you.”
“Indeed, sir?” said Dodsworth, slightly muffled. “How very enthusiastic of you, to be sure.”
He let go. “When do we leave?”
“As soon as possible, Master Monk,” said Dodsworth. “Apparently there’s a great deal to do.”
“Then come inside and wait while I sort out a few things, would you? And if you felt like it, you could maybe make me some toast? I haven’t had anything to eat since-” His mind blanked. “Anyway. Toast would be nice.”
Stepping back, Dodsworth frowned. “Now, now, Master Monk. I think we can do a little better than toast.”
Monk unfolded himself out of the jalopy. “Actually, I was hoping you were going to say that.”
“Ah-the bird, Master Monk?” said Dodsworth, as they headed for the town house’s front door.
He didn’t look back. “Never mind about the bird, Dodsworth. I’m sure the bird, like hysterical horses, can take care of herself.”
After a quick bath, a slightly longer hunt for clean, suitably assistant butler clothes, a large handful of headache pills and some of Dodsworth’s exemplary coffee and scrambled eggs, it was time to go. Pretending he’d forgotten to lock the back door, Monk left Dodsworth in the jalopy worrying about hidden birdshit and caught up with Reg, who was lurking in the rear courtyard.
“Follow us to the embassy,” he said quickly. “And once you’re there make sure to stay out of sight. Find a handy tree or something. I’ll signal you from a window if there’s anything you can do to help.”
Balanced on the edge of a flower pot, Reg gave him a look. “I don’t know, sunshine. I’m not sure you’re up to this.”
“I’m fine,” he said, impatient. “I’ve had a bath, I’ve had breakfast.”
“So now you look like a clean, well fed walking corpse,” said the bird. “The horses will still go into hysterics.”
“I’m fine. Blimey, how does Gerald put up with you?” Bending, he dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Fly safe and whatever you do, don’t lose the jalopy.”
He and Dodsworth were admitted to the Harenstein embassy without incident. Kreski, Dodsworth’s butler friend, fell upon them with a cry of relief and immediately put them to work in the kitchen. Three hours later, still slicing vegetables, Monk made a note to himself to tell his parents that Dodsworth deserved a raise.
Another hour of slaving, this time over a hot stove stirring an endless array of sauces, and the embassy supper’s guests began to arrive. That meant he had a snatch of time to himself.
Catching Dodsworth in passing, he pulled the butler aside. “Look, I need to do something. Hopefully it won’t take too long. But if Kreski comes looking for me-”
“Don’t worry, sir,” said Dodsworth. “I’ll keep him occupied. Master Monk-”
Monk turned back. “Yes?”
Lines of worry were creasing the butler’s lugubrious face. “What we’re doing. It is important, isn’t it?”
“Oh, Dodsworth, my old friend,” he breathed, and clasped the man’s bony shoulder. “You have no idea.”
Dodsworth cleared his throat. “Very good, sir. Off you go, then, and I’ll see you in due course.”
After countless hours of battling to unlock the blood magic incant’s secrets, and failing, Monk found that the simple task of wrapping himself in a no-see-’em was a lot harder than it should’ve been.
Bugger. I didn’t realise I was this stonkered.
Maybe he should’ve paid more attention to Reg’s pointed walking corpse remarks.
Gritting his teeth against a hot surge of pain, he roused his battered potentia and hid himself inside the hex. As always, the no-see-’em turned his surroundings to watercolours, rendered them thin and slightly sloppy as he drifted up the embassy’s servant stairs, crossed the green baize door threshold into the privileged world of titled ambassadors and their guests, then trod lightly up more stairs to the official offices above the ground floor. Music floated up after him, full of trumpets and hints of war.
His no-see-’em hex was the best ever devised. It slid him past the embassy’s wardings like water through a sieve.
Two chattering maids passed him, oblivious, going downstairs. As he explored his first corridor, a uniformed junior secretary came out of a room and closed the door behind him. Monk waited until he heard the man’s booted feet on the stairs then poked his head inside the room. A stationery cupboard. Probably no secrets in there.
It took him nearly half an hour, but at last he found the office he was looking for. Ornately furnished in the flamboyantly overdone Harenstein style, crowded with books, the paperwork on the desk confirmed that it belonged to Ambassador Dermit who was, according to Sir Alec, uncle to the Bern Dermit currently serving on the Marquis of Harenstein’s personal staff.
Breathing softly, willfully ignoring his body’s urgent need for sleep, Monk stood at the desk and coaxed his reluctant potentia to do his bidding. A heaviness. Hexed resistance. And then the warded drawers on the desk surrendered to his illicit coercion and he was able to open them and start rummaging.
He found what he was after in the second-bottom drawer. A sealed envelope, warded three different ways. His fingers tingled against the thaumaturgics. Powerful, yes, but no match for him, not even when he was tired enough to fall asleep in a gutter. He broke all three wards and pulled a folded sheet of paper from the breached envelope.
It was coded in a cypher he’d never seen before… but at first glance, it made him blink. Blimey. Somebody really didn’t want this letter being read by strangers. It’d take more time than he had now to break it. In fact he had the nasty suspicion it’d likely take a whole day. And even when it was deciphered, there was no guarantee that it had anything to do with the Splotze-Borovnik wedding. But this letter was the closest thing he’d come up with yet to a clue. So he was going to take a leap of faith. What other choice did he have?
“Bloody hell, Reg!” he whispered, hanging out of the office window. The sun had set a while ago, and light from the embassy garden’s decorative lanterns brushed her feathers as she thumped onto his outstretched arm. “Where were you? I’ve been signalling for five minutes at least and having multiple heart attacks because I’ve switched off my no-see-’em!”
“Keep your underwear on, sunshine,” the bird retorted. “Have you counted how many windows this embassy’s got? I’ve been hopping from tree to tree since I got here. It’s a wonder I can fly straight, I’m so dizzy.”
He waved his other hand at her. “Yes, yes, all right, never mind. Take this.”
She eyed the envelope he was clutching. “And what’s that? It bloody stinks of thaumaturgics.”
“I don’t have time to explain! Please, just take it and fly back to Chatterly Crescent before somebody sees you and Kreski comes looking for me!”
