And the dagger, when it’s needed. You can hide a dagger very well indeed, behind enough lace.
She definitely could. I knew that from personal experience.
‘What about the magicians who were there in the procession?’ I asked. ‘They won’t swallow your horseshit, and you can’t make them disappear, however much you might want to.’
Vogel turned to look at me then, and his smile made me feel cold.
‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘I have a job for you, Tomas.’
Chapter 15
The next afternoon found me paying a call on the house of magicians. Me, and Billy. We had Bloody Anne with us, of course, and Oliver and Emil and a couple of Iagin’s strong-arm men as well, but it was Billy who was the important one. Billy, who the previous year had torn the learned magus Absolom Greuv inside out with the power of his cunning.
There were two of the Guard of the Magi on the door, wearing full armour and closed great helms. Blue surcoats hung over their armour, embroidered with the white seven-pointed star of the house of magicians, and they had heavy war swords at their belts and halberds in their hands. The Guard of the Magi were the private army of the house of magicians, and I knew their numbers and their very existence worried the Queen’s Men a great deal. There was no love lost between the house of law and the house of magicians, and I suspected there never had been.
Fat Luka had sent a messenger that morning, so at least I was expected. The two guards snapped to attention when I climbed down from my carriage with Anne and Billy behind me. The other men stayed ahorse, their hands never very far from the hilts of their weapons.
‘I’m Father Tomas Piety,’ I told the armoured men. ‘I’m expected.’
‘Yes, sir,’ one said, his voice muffled by his helmet. ‘The boy will have to wait out here.’
The magi had no magic, we had proved that the previous year, but they had soldiers and I had no idea what else inside their house and I wasn’t taking any chances.
‘Absolutely not,’ I said.
They didn’t like it but they knew who I was and where I had come from, and so had no choice in the face of what amounted to a royal command. They let Billy and Anne in with me, where we were met in the high-ceilinged and galleried marble hall by an attendant in the blue and white velvet livery of the house. The white sigil of the house of magicians was embroidered over his heart.
He blinked at the sight of Billy and Anne but he said nothing about it, and that was wise of him.
‘Archmagus Nikolai Reiter will see you now,’ he said.
He showed us into an anteroom, where the archmagus was waiting for us behind a wide desk. I supposed I was honoured, to be received by one of his elevated status. He was a handsome man with perhaps fifty or so years to him, pale and clean-shaven and with his hair beginning to grey at the temples. He wore the midnight-blue robes of his order.
He stood as we entered, and extended his hand to me across the table. That surprised me, I had to allow. I shook it, and gave him a nod of respect.
‘Father Tomas,’ he said. ‘I understand you come from our colleagues at the house of law.’
‘Aye, I do,’ I said. ‘These are Bloody Anne and my son, Billy.’
He nodded to Anne, and waved us into chairs as he resumed his seat behind the desk. He gave the lad a long look.
‘Billy, yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard of you.’
I bet you have, I thought.
‘Archmagus Reiter, you say,’ I said. ‘I met a Lady Reiter once, at a social function last year. Any relation?’
His eyes narrowed slightly as though he was trying to work out if I was making fun of him. The Lady Reiter I had met was a courtesan, apparently, which Ailsa had explained to me was another way of saying ‘very expensive whore’.
‘My cousin,’ he said. ‘We have as little as possible to do with one another.’
‘Aye, well,’ I said. ‘Family can be difficult sometimes, I know that.’
‘Indeed,’ he said.
He fell silent as the liveried attendant returned and served us tea in shallow bowls, then withdrew with a bow. The archmagus lifted his tea and inhaled the scent of the leaves for a moment, regarding me over the rim of the bowl.
‘Your “family” in particular, Tomas, have been extremely difficult since Dieter Vogel became Provost Marshal,’ he said.
‘Before my time,’ I said. ‘I assume you were at the queen’s funeral?’
‘Of course,’ he said, and pushed a hand back through his hair with a sigh. ‘I am the presiding head of the house of magicians, after all. I suppose you’re here to tell me what we really saw.’
This man Nikolai Reiter struck me as a reasonable enough fellow, greatly unlike the late and unlamented magus Absolom Greuv, who had been a complete arse. I wasn’t going to insult his intelligence by trying to dress this up as anything other than what it was.
‘Aye, that’s about the lay of it,’ I said. ‘There was an accident, you see. A novice priest upset a lamp and it started a fire, and the poor princess was overcome with grief that the dignity of her beloved mother’s funeral was so disrupted. She’s a young girl, and she became quite distraught. Very unfortunate, to be sure, but quite understandable. It’s nothing that needs mentioning ever again. Do I make myself clear, Archmagus?’
‘Oh, it’s perfectly clear, thank you, Father Tomas,’ he said. ‘It’s just Vogel suppressing information again, the same way he seeks to suppress knowledge and learning in every place he can find it. The same way he would like to suppress us, if he thought he could get away with it.’
I sipped my tea and thought about that for a moment.
I oppose anything that the magicians want, Vogel had said to me the
