The Magicians and Mrs. Quent (75 page)

W
ATCHING THE HIGHWAYMAN drink, Eldyn felt not fear but rather a kind of thrill he had never known before. He had dreaded that the trick might be exposed under the harsh light of day, but the parasol and fan had served their purpose, and here in this dim chamber the illusion was less likely to be discovered.

As Dercy had told him, it was easy to make people see what they wanted to see. He had only to powder his face and put on the frock Dercy had brought him—one of Sashie’s own, retrieved from their rooms in Lowpark—and he was already much of the way there. People had always said brother and sister were very alike in looks.

There in the cathedral, beneath the watchful gazes of saints, Dercy had taught him a glamour to make him seem smaller, finer, and more pale. It was easier to work the illusion than Eldyn had thought. Yet he had done it with the coin in the tavern, and it was not so different than weaving the shadows—save that it was light he was shaping, not darkness.

The rest of the trick was up to him—to move delicately and speak with a soft voice. At first it was a great effort and required much concentration, but, strangely, the more he did it the easier it became. By the time they had entered the private dining chamber at the inn, he felt like he was on a stage giving a performance.

Eldyn’s audience set down his cup.

“By God, I have a great thirst,” he said, and he filled both their cups again. Then his gaze fell upon Eldyn, roving up and down. “And I daresay I am hungry as well.”

Eldyn pushed the plate of sweets toward him, but the highwayman pushed them back.

“That’s not what I meant, as you know well.” He leaned over the table. His breath was warm and wine-scented. “Sashie…it’s a pretty name. I always thought you pretty yourself, but today you seem more than pretty. You’re like an angel. The sight of you goes to my head more than the contents of this glass. I confess, I had thought to punish your brother through you. I see now that I can, but not in the way I thought.”

Eldyn took the chance to switch their cups again, then smoothed a lock of gold hair back from the highwayman’s brow. “Whatever do you mean, my dear? What were you thinking of doing before now?”

“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I know what we must do. I had thought you a creature in his power, yet you have a will of your own. With you I can accomplish what I have not been able to do on my own. Then, when it is revealed to him that you are mine and that I have made you happy in a way he never could, it will ruin him far more than any hurt I might have delivered to him. He will be utterly defeated.”

Eldyn suppressed a shudder. Instead, he let out a trilling laugh and leaned closer. “Tell me more,” he crooned.

As Westen spoke, Eldyn continued to weave the wan light around himself. He did not know if it was because of the wine or due to some unforeseen effect of the illusion, but the highwayman indeed seemed intoxicated. His eyes blazed, and he spoke with great animation, sometimes rising from his chair and pacing back and forth across the room.

She must not think him a common thief, he said. He did not rob others for profit but instead for a nobler cause. He belonged to a group of men whose goal was nothing less than to bring down the government of Altania—Crown and Assembly both. For one was as corrupt as the other, and only a new ruler, one who heeded the voice of Altania, could lead the people forward.

“And who would this ruler be?” Eldyn asked. “Prince Huntley the Usurper?”

He shrugged. “If the Morden heir will do as the people will, then why should it not be him? Yet if he seeks to rule only for his own gain, then surely Altania herself will choose another. Altania will no longer tolerate a ruler who rapes her for his own benefit and glory, with no thought to her lands and people. Altania will suffer such men no longer.”

Eldyn laughed. “Altania will choose; Altania will not suffer. You make her sound like a living thing!”

“She is alive—very much alive.” He leaned over the back of Eldyn’s chair, and his voice went low. “There are things you do not know, my sweet. Things you will have to see with your own eyes. But the day comes soon when you
will
see them, when everyone will see them. You will see what I have been shown, by the one who now leads us. Then you’ll understand what I mean when I say that Altania will no longer suffer men who use her ill.”

This time Eldyn could not help a shiver. He did not know what these words meant, though they filled him with a strange feeling. It was not quite fear; rather, it was a kind of unknown anticipation, a feeling that something was going to happen—something at once dreadful and marvelous.

“Are you well, Sashie? Your color looks poor of a sudden….”

Now fear did strike Eldyn’s heart. In his distraction he had begun to let the threads of the illusion unravel. With a hasty thought he wove them together again.

“Your words shock me, that’s all,” he said, and took a sip of wine. Then he transferred the nearly full glass to Westen’s hand. The highwayman drank of it. “But tell me,” Eldyn went on, “how can so small a thing as I help you with such grand goals?”

“It is always the smallest who brings down the mighty,” he said. “A million little drops can make an ocean great enough to drown any king.”

With that he laid out his plan. There was a man who was a servant of the Crown. Exactly what he did for the king was not important for her to know right now. All that mattered was that this man’s work interfered with the plans of the revolutionaries—indeed, it posed a dire threat to their very purpose of freeing Altania from tyranny—and so he must be removed.

However, this was more easily said than done. He was a powerful man, a member of the Upper Hall of Assembly, and was always guarded when in the city. Furthermore, like a cowardly dog, he had recently built walls enclosing the lands about his manor in the country, so that none could approach him there without being detected.

Still, there were other ways they might get at this lord. There were some few men who were his agents, men who traveled about Altania performing duties in his name, for the lord himself was infirm. One of these men had been, for some time now, the object of Westen’s attentions. He was, the highwayman had determined, chief among the lord’s servants. If this man could be removed, it would be a grievous blow to the lord’s ability to do his foul work.

“What mysterious figures you make them sound!” Eldyn said. “Who is this man and this lord you speak of?”

“Be careful, Miss Garritt,” he said, leaning over the table. “If I divulge these things to you, then you will be privy to secrets that the king’s Black Dog would give much to learn. The knowledge will make you beholden to me and to my compatriots. We cannot allow our intentions to become known to those we cannot trust.”

Eldyn coiled a hand beneath his chin and smiled. “Trust me as you trust yourself, for I am yours to command.”

“As you will, my sweet. The man I speak of is named Mr. Quent, and he is one of the inquirers of a certain Lord Rafferdy.”

His shock was too great to be concealed. Eldyn lifted his hands, covering his face, knowing his illusion had wavered. However, the action would look natural enough. Surely Westen had expected such a response, and after a few moments Eldyn was able to steady himself and weave the illusion anew. Once he was sure the glamour was again in place, he lowered his hands.

“Are you astonished?” the highwayman said, his expression amused.

Eldyn nodded. “A little, I confess. It’s just that…Lord Rafferdy…It can only be that he is the father of my brother’s friend. It’s strange chance that the one you seek to…that he is in fact connected to me.”

He sat, filling their wine cups again. On the contrary, he told her, it was anything but chance. In hopes of getting close to Lord Rafferdy, he had begun following his son. Upon observing the son’s friendship with her brother, Westen had thought to use Eldyn Garritt to gain information that might help get him close to Rafferdy the son, and thereby to Rafferdy the father.

Though these words chilled him to the core, Eldyn worked his face into a petulant expression. “I understand very well now. I don’t mean a thing to you at all—you were merely using me to get at my brother.”

“No, you misunderstand. You were rather a lovely benefit I had not anticipated. It was never my intention to use you, for I had other ways of bringing your brother under my control.”

You lie!
Eldyn wanted to shout. Instead, he said demurely, “Only he isn’t under your control, is he?”

Westen’s expression darkened. He gripped his cup, then tossed back the contents. “I confess, your brother has been more difficult to deal with than I thought. Not because of any strength or cunning, mind you—rather, I had not anticipated the depths of cowardice and depravity he would sink to in order to elude me. I had thought him a gentleman, at least.”

A gentleman such as you are?
Eldyn would have sneered. Instead, he said, in a scornful tone, “My brother is not a man like you.”

“To be sure, but he has been a bother nonetheless. Nor did things go as I planned recently, when I sought to close with Mr. Quent at his estate in the country. I was…I was most grievously deprived in that affair of one who was beloved by me. However, I will be vexed by wives and weaklings no longer. I have learned Mr. Quent is even now on his way to the city and that once here he will meet with Lord Rafferdy. I can bag them both with one shot, as it were. All I need is to get near to them. Your brother is the key to that. And you—”

Eldyn laughed gaily. “And I am the key to my dear, sweet brother. He will do anything for me.”

Westen laughed as well and reached for Eldyn’s hands, but Eldyn drew back.

“Only how is it to be done?” he said. “You say you have tried to get close to them before. Will they not be expecting men to come for them?”

“Yes, as you say, it is men they will be expecting. Yet what comes for them will be something else, something I am quite sure they will not expect.” Again he grinned, and perhaps it was only how they gleamed in the dimness of the chamber, but his teeth seemed longer than before. And it could have been nothing more than the reflection of the lamp’s flame, but it seemed his eyes glinted amber.

“What’s wrong, Miss Garritt?” His voice was low. “You seem to draw away, but I thought you favored me. Is there something that frightens you?”

Eldyn’s trembling was not feigned. “It is only that my brother…He told me the shadow we glimpsed last night, that thing that seemed like a beast…He said it was you, but surely…”

The highwayman’s smile broadened.

Eldyn gasped, rose from the table, and hurried to the door. But it was locked, and Westen had the key. He turned around. Westen stalked across the room, and Eldyn saw that it was no trick of the light: the highwayman’s eyes shone with yellow light.

“By God, it’s true,” he whispered. “You
can
become a beast.”

“Can’t every man?” Westen said with a growling laugh. Then he shook his head, and a look of wonder came over him. “No, it’s not the same as for the others. I saw how she did it to them, the witch in the Wyrdwood. I watched her. It was the potions, and the ragged clothes and furs they donned, and a few petty spells. She befuddled them, addled their brains, and tricked them so that they were all scrabbling about in the dirt on all fours, howling and snarling. Others who saw them were tricked as well, but they were still men; I saw it. She knew I did, and I refused her potions. Only she just laughed at me. She told me I didn’t need them.”

There is little distinction between dread and awe. Eldyn felt them both in that moment. “You don’t, do you? You don’t need potions or costumes to make you into a beast.”

Westen studied his hands, slowly shaking his head.

“What are you?” Eldyn said.

The highwayman looked up. “I am what Altania needs me to be.” Now his smile returned. “Just as you will be what I need you to be, Miss Garritt.”

In an easy step he closed the distance between them. He spoke in a low voice, explaining what she was to tell her brother. How she had encountered Westen and had learned of some rebel plot; how she was to implore her brother to take a warning to Mr. Rafferdy and to urge him to seek out Mr. Quent, who could best protect his father. She would tell them the attack was to come the next day. All the while, Westen would follow them.

“Then, when the opportunity presents itself, we will—” He shook his head. “There is no need to bother your lovely head with such details as that, my sweet. Suffice it to say they will not be ready for what befalls them. Do you understand what it is you are to do? It may seem small, but know that you will be doing Altania a great service.”

“Yes,” Eldyn said, looking up and meeting the highwayman’s yellow gaze. “Yes, I will be.”

“You have a courageous heart, Miss Garritt—unlike that brother of yours. I shall make a revolutionary of you yet.” He put his hands on the door to either side, pinning Eldyn in place. “Though there is something else I would make of you first.” He bent his head down.

There was no way to resist it. Their lips came together in a kiss. It was not rough, as Eldyn would have thought, but soft, and sweet with wine.

“By God, you make me mad as you never have before,” the highwayman said. His hands went to the shoulders of the frock, and he leaned against the door, pressing his body forward.

Terror seized Eldyn. There were some things no illusion could conceal. He slipped a hand into the highwayman’s pocket, an action that drew forth a low sound of delight. However, in a swift motion Eldyn ducked beneath Westen’s arms. He darted across the room, the key to the door in his hand.

“You’re quite resourceful, Miss Garritt,” Westen said, prowling in pursuit. “I like that very much. Yet I am resourceful as well, and I will not be denied what I desire.”

“There is no time,” Eldyn said, circling around the table, keeping it between him and the highwayman. “My brother will wake soon. He’ll wonder where I’ve gone.”

“I can be quick about it, if that’s your worry.”

Eldyn donned his most charming smile. “But I’d rather you be slow.”