The Magicians And Mrs. Quent Part 2

Mrs. Baydon fit another piece into the puzzle: a painting of a verdant garden. "That's not true at all, Mr. Baydon. The guest list is very exclusive. Only thirty-two are invited to attend on any particular occasion. And it's said everybody wishes to be invited to parties at Lady Marsdel's."

"Which is precisely the reason why I don't," Rafferdy said. "If everybody wants a thing, then it's a sure sign it's awful."

"Really? Then why did you come tonight?"

"To help you find this." Rafferdy picked up a piece and set it into the puzzle.

Mrs. Baydon clapped her hands, her face aglow; she was a lively young woman and always looked prettiest when animated. "I've been searching for that piece for the last hour. I must have stared at it a hundred times. Whatever will we do without you, Mr. Rafferdy? Lady Marsdel is right; everything will seem dreary when you're gone. You will come back to us soon, won't you?"

"Like a moth fluttering to a streetlamp, no doubt. I hope to return before the beginning of the month."

Mr. Baydon emitted a grumble as he turned another page; all that could be seen of him were the furrows in his forehead and a thicket of curly brown hair.

"Why do you read those broadsheets, Mr. Baydon?" his wife asked. "You know they always make you frown."

Rafferdy took the liberty of answering her. "But, Mrs. Baydon, that's precisely the reason he reads them. Here in the Grand City, a gentleman's life is so filled with ease and luxury that annoyance is prized as a novelty, and thus becomes a form of amus.e.m.e.nt."

"Is that so, Mr. Rafferdy?"

"I swear to it."

"Then your level of amus.e.m.e.nt is likely to increase, for here comes Mrs. Chisingdon, no doubt in search of a fourth hand to complete a table. You do enjoy playing parlor games, don't you?"

"Nearly as much as I enjoy donning my most expensive coat and strolling St. Galmuth's Square where all the pigeons fly." And he excused himself, departing just in time to pretend not to hear Mrs. Chisingdon calling his name.

He retreated into the study and there discovered a number of men who, like him, were refugees from the parlor. They were drinking brandy and discussing the ills of the monarchy and agreeing that only a.s.sembly was wise enough to lead Altania in these trying times; they were, in other words, avid readers of The Comet.

Still, they were preferable-if only just so-to a table of Mrs. Chisingdons and an endless game of Queen's Court. Rafferdy claimed an empty chair on the edge of the room, declined the tobacco box a servant offered him, accepted the brandy, and pretended to find a globe of the world fascinating.

There was a general complaint in the room that the making of business had grown risky of late. The Outland counties were all but lawless, with the king doing nothing about it; the roads were unsafe. And how many ships, laden with gold and chocolate, had been dashed to bits by capricious winds on their way back from the New Lands? True, trade with the Murgh Empire was profitable. Very profitable, several men were quick to say. Even so, there were whispers of an ill wind that might one day blow west across the sea. Yes, there had been peace for over fifty years with the empire, but who knew when that might change?

There was, in sum, an overall want of stability, a deficit of that most precious predictability upon which both civilization and business relied. Nor was there any hope that the king would do anything about it. Rothard's will was as weak as his const.i.tution, though all agreed his daughter, Princess Layle, was a modest young woman, sensible and not given to frivolous displays. The only hope was that she would be married to a man of good sense who would do what King Rothard had not: namely, rely upon the wiser heads of a.s.sembly in determining the best course for Altania. Regardless of the man, marry she must, and before her father's health failed. That a woman should rule Altania on her own was, of course, unthinkable.

"It seemed to go well enough for Queen Elsadore all those centuries ago," Rafferdy said, looking up from the globe. "Grant you, I'm no historian. But there is a rather enormous statue of her in front of the Citadel."

"And a shame it was ever erected!" exclaimed Sir Earnsley, a high-colored old fellow who wore a gray flannel waistcoat despite the balmy evening. He was a baronet-that is, a member of the gentry, and not a far step up from a country squire. Lady Marsdel must have been positively frantic to get to thirty-two that night. "What sort of signal does it send to the young ladies of our nation to have her lauded so? Queen Elsadore never took a husband."

"I believe that, upon her ascension to the throne, she claimed she was married to Altania," said Mr. Harclint. He was a nephew of Lady Marsdel-not that this was at all special, as her ladyship seemed to have a mult.i.tude of nephews. This one had the usual receding chin and watery eyes.

"No, not married to Altania," Sir Earnsley said darkly. "She said she was married to the land of Altania. We all know what that means. It is wrong for her likeness to stand in such a place of respect."

"Just so, Sir Earnsley," Rafferdy said, "for I gather she did nothing at all, save to turn back endless hordes of Murghs who wished to overrun our fair island, thus preserving the sovereignty of our nation and the ident.i.ty of the Altanian people forevermore. I agree, that's hardly worth commemorating."

Earnsley glowered but said nothing more on the topic, and after that the conversation turned to a proposal put forth by Lord Farrolbrook, which, if pa.s.sed by both halls of a.s.sembly, would require the king to seek approval before commissioning new ships for the royal navy. At present, the king could order new ships at his whim. As the government must pay its debts, a.s.sembly was forced to levy new taxes to pay for the ships whether it approved of their being built or not. This, it was agreed, offered another example of the monarchy's unwarranted powers and habitual irresponsibility.

"Your father sits in the Hall of Magnates, Mr. Rafferdy, does he not?" Mr. Harclint asked.

Rafferdy set down his empty brandy gla.s.s. "Yes, Lord Rafferdy holds a seat in the Upper Hall, though circ.u.mstances have not allowed him to attend a.s.sembly of late."

"Tell us, then, what is Lord Rafferdy's opinion on the New Act for Rationality in the Commission of Naval Vessels?"

"I have no idea. You'll have to ask him when you see him next."

This resulted in a moment of blinking on the part of the questioner. "Well, what about you, Mr. Rafferdy? What is your opinion?"

"How can that be of any relevance? I neither sit in the Hall of Magnates nor have a vote on such proposals."

"Yes, but we would know what you think about it."

"Even when it can have no significance?"

"Of course it has significance," interjected Sir Earnsley. "A man's opinions are everything. They tell you what he stands for, why he acts as he does, and who he is."

"I don't have opinions," Rafferdy said pleasantly.

Mr. Harclint let out a high-pitched laugh. "Now you're being willfully perverse, Mr. Rafferdy. Everybody has opinions."

"I don't. Or if I find I'm developing one, I remove it from my mind as quickly as possible, as one might have a surgeon draw a bad tooth."

"What sort of nonsense is that?" Sir Earnsley said with a bristling of brows. "It sounds like the sort of prattle a philosopher would spout. You're not at university, are you, Mr. Rafferdy?"

"Not anymore. It made my clothes smell of books."

"Good. I don't approve of this current custom of young gentlemen attending university and getting their heads filled with outlandish notions. The universities are nothing but breeding grounds for agitators and anarchists-that is to say, men who lack proper opinions. In my day, once a man knew how to read and cipher, the only things he needed to learn were what his own common sense taught him."

Which meant he learned nothing at all, Rafferdy was going to add cheerfully. Before he could, another spoke instead.

"And how should a young gentleman learn about magick, Sir Earnsley, if he does not attend university?"

At first Rafferdy could not locate the speaker. Only when the other moved did he become aware of a gentleman whose name he did not know sitting in the corner of the study. The lamplight ventured into that area of the room only reluctantly, and Rafferdy could discern little more than the sharp lines of a sallow face and the glint of dark eyes.

"How should they learn about magick?" the old baronet answered, scowling. "I'd rather they teach young men philosophy or foster them in the courts of Murgh princes for their education, than instruct them in such foolishness."

"But it isn't foolishness, sir," Mr. Harclint protested, making what seemed a great effort to raise his voice in pa.s.sion. "Surely Lord Farrolbrook is no fool. Everyone expects him to sit on the front benches in the Hall of Magnates one day soon, and it's said he's a magician of superior ability."

"More likely he is a superior charlatan," Earnsley replied. "You'll more likely find a hog with wings than an honest man who claims he can perform magick."

"You cast aside the notion of magick very easily, sir," said the dark-eyed man in the corner. With his long limbs and black attire, he gave the impression of a coiled spider. "Yet, were it not for magick, we would not sit here now bewailing the weak rule of King Rothard but rather the harsh rule of the Old Usurper's grandson. For without magick, the battle of Selburn Howe would have been lost."

Earnsley shifted his bulk in his chair. "No one in this room was born then, myself included. Who's to say what really happened on the field at Selburn Howe?"

"What happened there has not been forgotten where I come from," the dark-eyed man said. He pressed the tips of long fingers together before him. "I have heard you all say that winds of trouble blow. And I would say that you are right, and also that other winds stir, the likes of which have not been felt in a long age. The time may come sooner than you think when Altania has need of a great magician again. When that happens, I can only hope she will have one to call upon."

Mr. Harclint took up the cause for magick then, proclaiming there was no force at work today that had more potential for aiding progress and industry or for furthering the general advancement of Altanian civilization. "As for the coming of our next great magician, I warrant we may have to look no further than Lord Farrolbrook. His powers are extraordinary, and it's said he can trace his lineage all the way back to Myrrgon himself."

Rafferdy laughed. "I find it fascinating," he said, "now that studying magick has come back into fashion, that so many sons of lords have suddenly discovered they can trace their ancestry back to Myrrgon or Xandrus or Gauldren the Great."

Mr. Harclint worked his wan features into a vaguely indignant look. "Lord Farrolbrook has a ring that proves his descent, one bearing the crest of House Myrrgon."

"What a marvelous relic," Rafferdy said. "Perhaps I'll buy a similar bauble from an old gypsy the next time I venture to the Beggar's Fair. Then I, too, can follow the latest style and claim descent from one of the seven Old Houses. How about you, Sir Earnsley? Will you accompany me?"

The old baronet crossed his arms and settled back in his chair. "I am quite certain there is no trace of magick in my lineage."

"Of that, sir, I have no doubt," Rafferdy said with a bow.

After that, the conversation turned to other topics, and Rafferdy went back to spinning the globe. However, from time to time he was aware of a pair of dark eyes gazing at him from the far corner of the study, and he began to wonder if he knew the tall man in the corner. Though how that could be, Rafferdy could not say. He was sure he had never seen the fellow at Lady Marsdel's before; meeting someone interesting at one of her socials was such a rare occurrence that Rafferdy would certainly have remembered it.

He was just on the verge of rising from his chair to see if the parlor was still being prowled by Mrs. Chisingdon when the conversation in the study turned to the matter of enclosure and its many merits. Rafferdy stiffened and kept his seat.

Enclosure had first become the fashion in the counties closest to Invarel a generation ago. Lords no longer allowed their tenants to wander freely through lands that were part of their demesne but instead erected walls to keep people out. At first, the walls were raised only around limited areas: an earl's favorite hunting grove, perhaps, or the hills that formed the view from a baronet's dining hall. However, as time went on, the pace of enclosure increased, and more and more lands were shut off, until the countryside around Invarel had become a veritable labyrinth of high stone walls: one from which the common people could find no escape. Instead, they were forced to contain themselves in ever smaller areas and to sc.r.a.pe ever more meager livings from the ever more squalid tenant villages where their lot required them to live.

It was, in other words, a great success.

In recent decades the practice of enclosure had begun to spread outward from the lands closest to Invarel. If it kept going apace, soon there would be hardly an inch of countryside in the central counties that didn't have a wall around it.

"Every lord with any sense at all has enclosed his lands by now," Sir Earnsley declaimed, summing up the general mood of the room.

"My father hasn't," Rafferdy said.

He might well have confessed he was the secret son of the Usurper for the looks that p.r.o.nouncement won him.

"Well, he ought to do so at once," Mr. Harclint said, blinking his watery eyes.

"And why should he? If there is an area in his lands he wishes none to trespa.s.s, he may simply post a sign in the village."

Mr. Harclint took a pinch of tobacco. "Walls and nooses are greatly superior to notices and rules for keeping unwanted folk out," he said with a delicate snuffle. "I'm sure even the Outland lords and earls will learn that fact soon enough. After all, they have only to look at the wonders enclosure has worked here in the central counties."

Rafferdy did not remember rising from his chair, but there he was all of a sudden, standing in the midst of the others. A warmth infused him so that his cheeks glowed, but it was not from the brandy.

"Indeed, the number of starving has doubled, at the very least," he said, "now that in lean times common folk can't hunt a rabbit or gather an acorn on lands that have been public territory for time out of mind. Happily, such folk can be hanged by their necks at Barrowgate the moment hunger and desperation drive them to go over the walls and they are caught in the act. So the problem presents its own cure, getting rid of the starving just as efficiently as it creates them. A wonder indeed!"

Without waiting for a reply, Rafferdy bowed and turned to depart the study. As he went, he was again aware of a pair of dark eyes watching him. But whether they shone with mirth or derision-or with some other feeling-he did not stop to consider.

In the parlor, he searched for Mr. and Mrs. Baydon in hopes of bidding them a surrept.i.tious good night, but his plan was thwarted when he discerned them sitting near to Lord Baydon and Lady Marsdel. He attempted to go in the other direction; however, he was too late to avoid the flick of her ladyship's fan and was compelled to approach.

"Where have you been hiding yourself, Mr. Rafferdy?" Lady Marsdel said. "There has been no sign of you for at least an hour."

"I saw him exit the study," Lord Baydon said.

"The study? So you have been avoiding me, have you?"

"No more than the stars could avoid the moon, your ladyship."

She gave him a look of flint. "Do not attempt to make light with me, Mr. Rafferdy. If you think because I am old that my mind is no longer sharp, then you are mistaken."

Rafferdy addressed her with all seriousness. "Your ladyship, I may be one of those inconstant and undependable young gentlemen you spoke of; it is, I confess, my ambition to be exactly such. But there is one thing upon which you may depend: I know very well that you are a force that must never be underestimated."

This elicited a dry laugh. "You are transparent to me, Mr. Rafferdy. You would deflect my ire with your appealing manner. By confessing your poor behavior in so charming a fashion, you hope to win forgiveness for it. Such methods work with meek young ladies, I have no doubt. But I am neither young nor meek, and so I will say this: a man can hide behind his charms for only so long. Someday that mask must fall aside, Mr. Rafferdy. And you should take great care how you act now; otherwise, you might not like the face it reveals when it does."

It was rare that Rafferdy was at a loss for words. Yet at that moment they eluded him, and he found himself blinking like a regular Mr. Harclint.

"Do stop staring like that, Mr. Rafferdy," Lady Marsdel declared. "You look positively witless, and it's for your wit that your presence is required at these affairs. Besides, I have decided to forgive your infraction. This once. But you must give me your promise to return as soon as possible."

This a.s.surance was willingly given. With matters resolved to her satisfaction, Lady Marsdel folded her fan and retired from the parlor. Her brother followed suit, and as he went, Lord Baydon cheerfully commended the room to the younger people.

Now that Lady Marsdel had retired, it was safe to depart, and not a moment too soon; no doubt Eldyn Garritt was already at the Sword and Leaf and two cups ahead of him. He went to Mr. and Mrs. Baydon to bid them a good night. Mr. Baydon snored in his chair, his broadsheet over his face, while Mrs. Baydon conversed with a man in an ill-fitting black suit-or, rather, the fellow was directing all the vigor of his conversation at her, and she was braced in her chair, enduring its brunt.

"Mr. Rafferdy!" she said, fixing a wild look upon him. "You must come here and meet one of Lady Marsdel's guests. I insist!"

Rafferdy had encountered more than enough of her ladyship's guests, but the fellow had already turned around in his chair and was beaming at him. He was not much older than Rafferdy, but rather bald and doughy in both figure and feature. Reluctantly, Rafferdy sat down next to Mrs. Baydon. Her companion's name, he learned, was Mr. Wyble.

"Mr. Wyble is a lawyer, Mr. Rafferdy. He lives in Lowpark." Mrs. Baydon clutched his arm. "You know, between Gauldren's Heights and Waterside."

He extricated himself from her grasp. "Thank you, Mrs. Baydon, you needn't draw me a map. I know Lowpark." That is, he knew he would never have cause to set foot in that part of the city, as it was home to neither seamy taverns, fine clothiers, nor any other thing of interest to him.

"And how do you come to know Lady Marsdel?" he asked out of real curiosity.

"Know her? Oh, I cannot claim to know her, Mr. Rafferdy. What an honor and delight it must be to be able to say one knew her ladyship! However, I had the recent pleasure of serving her in a minor capacity, representing her cause on a small matter of business before the court."

"Mr. Wyble is too modest," Mrs. Baydon said. "I gather he saved my husband's aunt a considerable sum of money."

His face grew red. "Her ladyship's case could have been argued by anyone. That she was in the right would have been clear to any rational mind."

"Indeed, argued by anyone?" Rafferdy said. "Yet it was you who came to represent her case? How so?"

"I was recommended to her by someone in her acquaintance." He placed a hand on his lapel. "I do not think I give myself undue credit to say I have something of a reputation. All the same, it was a kind act. Just as it was kind of her ladyship to invite me tonight. Was it not too kind of her?"

Rafferdy smiled. "Far too kind."

"Indeed, so it was! But I cannot say I was not pleased to receive the invitation. I am of an age-as I am sure you understand, as you appear to be of much the same age yourself, Mr. Rafferdy-when it is desirable, I should say even expected, to expand one's circle of acquaintance. For one can never know when and where one might encounter a suitable lady who would be amenable to entering into a mutually beneficial arrangement."

"I take it you mean you seek to marry, Mr. Wyble."

"Does not every respectable man? I have not yet been fortunate in the regard. However, my success in the endeavor is a.s.sured, for I am certain that winning the favor of an eligible lady is in no way different from winning a case before the bench."

A fine line marked Mrs. Baydon's brow. "Truly, you think so?"

"I know it for a fact," Mr. Wyble said. "My theory on the matter is quite well developed and my reasoning irrefutable. Once an appropriate aim has been decided upon, I must only present clear evidence and argue my case with force and logic, and a judgment in my favor is certain."

Rafferdy did his best to affect a serious expression. "Tell me, Mr. Wyble, have you won many cases?"

"A good many-very many, if I do say."

"And in the course of your work have you convicted many criminals?"

"Yes, some. A fair number, in fact."

"I see," Rafferdy said. "Then to win your case would be like sentencing the lady in question to a lifelong term with you."