The Spirit Lens (18 page)

Across the room, Mage Orviene laughed with another admirer. Lady Antonia embraced two bejeweled ladies at once. Ilario’s prattling floated atop the general buzz of voices like a gemsflute against a room full of hurdy-gurdies.

Dante’s gaze swept the room like a sea storm, rousing a first tremor of uncertainty. Voices faded. Heads turned. His attention seemed to settle on a destination, and as he moved forward, the guests parted to let him through. His broad left hand cupped a glittering heap of glass or jewelry. He halted in front of Ilario.

Ilario aborted his monologue in midsentence.

“A serving man graced me these’n yestertide, along with your requirements for ‘an enchanted musical gaud, suitable for a gift to an aged baroness. ’ ” None in the large chamber could fail to hear the measured menace in Dante’s quiet statement, issued in the rough patois of Coverge. “I spoil for to clarify a few mots as to your request.” With a twist of his hand, he tossed the heap into the air.

Ilario’s young ladies gasped, and the chevalier himself leapt backward. Yet the glittering pieces did not strike any guest, nor did they plummet. Rather they hovered a handsbreadth from Ilario’s long nose—a jumble of colored glass shards, small mirrors, strings of pearls, lapis, jade, and slips of metal.

The guests withdrew into a gaping circle. As every eye widened in wonder—mine not least—the shimmering mass rose toward the coffered ceiling, organizing and collecting itself into a revolving fountain of light and music. Rings of glass prisms focused light into crossed beams; rings of mirrors reflected the light in a hundred dazzling directions. The colored beads twisted and draped like a canopy of ribbons; dangling bits of bronze and silver rang clear and joyous as the structure spun.

The guests pointed and gasped, shocked murmurs growing into laughter and expressions of awe and admiration. Yet how many of them could truly comprehend the magnificence of what they saw? This was no illusion, no scant veil of sensory deception draped over a decorated wire frame. Naught supported these glittering elements or interlaced their light beams but purest magic.

“Is this what you had to mind, great lord?”

Ilario moved underneath the sparkling font of light, bobbing his head, whirling on his heeled boots. “Oh, yes! Magnificent! Marvelous!”

Only those who heeded the mage’s tight voice, only those who tore their eyes from the creation to the creator, would have seen Dante brush his silver earring, then point a steady finger at the spinning enchantment.

The glancing light soured to a thunderous purple; the melodic jingle rose to a mind-jarring cacophony.

“Lord, beware!” I darted forward and yanked Ilario from underneath the quivering folly just as it shattered, raining splintered glass and fractured beads.

Ladies screamed. Gentlemen shouted and pressed the circle of onlookers backward. Ilario tripped on my feet and stumbled to his knees.

Dante stood over Ilario, pinning him to the floor with his scorn. “I do
not
make gauds. I do
not
take orders from trivial men. Sorcery is
not
an amusement.”

Before a speechless Ilario could rise, Dante had gone.

Whispers rushed through the shocked crowd like a swarm of insects.
Illusion . . . Madman . . . Who is he? Insufferable . . . dangerous . . . Who?

Lady Antonia pushed through the frantic crowd and gazed down at the mess, Orviene at her side. The mage dropped to a knee. Closing his eyes, he swept widespread fingers over the debris in a dramatic, but entirely unnecessary, gesture. An experienced examiner sensed magical residue on his skin, on his tongue, in his bones.

As he bounced to his feet, Orviene palmed a few slips of silver and colored beads from the floor and slid them into his doublet.
Yes, test them. Feel them. I’ll wager you’ve never felt the like.
The residue of Dante’s enchantment sparkled and shimmered through my skin and spirit as no fragments of glass or metal could ever do.
Well done
, I thought.
Very well done
. Orviene could not but be impressed with his new colleague’s talents.

The dapper mage waved dismissively. “No enchantment remains. You are all quite safe.”

A twitch of Lady Antonia’s fingers brought liveried servants with brushes and dustpans to collect the not-at-all illusory debris. The crowd sighed as one and the anxious murmurs grew into a strident babbling.

I gave Ilario a hand up and a raised brow of inquiry. He shook his head ever so slightly. He had not prompted the event. No sooner was he on his feet than he was besieged by ladies and gentlemen alike. “Dante,” he said, “his name is Dante. A master mage. I brought him here to amuse Eugenie, but I never imagined . . . I am wholly flummoxed.”

Dante and his display were the primary topics of conversation for the next hour. Ilario repeated his story of finding Dante by way of his search for a new crocodile-slaying spell at least a hundred times, elaborating as he went along. I retired to the wine steward.

I’d scarce downed a sip when Maura joined me, dragging Mage Orviene alongside her. “Portier, meet Her Majesty’s Second Counselor, Orviene de Cie. Orviene, this is Portier de Savin-Duplais, Lord Ilario’s new secretary.”

“Divine grace, Mage,” I said, trying not to stare.

“And with you, sonjeur, an acolyte yourself, I hear.” The mage’s pale eyes moved from my exposed hand to my face in polite interest. “Fresh from Seravain.”

“My studies ended many years ago, sir. I’ve served as the collegia librarian for almost a decade.” The courret tucked into my waist pocket remained chilly. Surely it should react in the presence of evil, as it would for poisons or unsheathed weapons.

With another not quite a smile that near melted my bones, Maura excused herself.

Orviene smiled broadly. “A scholarly gentleman with an appreciation of the mystical arts will always be welcome in the household.
Common
breeding will ever display itself, eh?” Though he leaned close, as if to share a confidence, any guest within ten metres could have heard. “If your duties allow, you must stop by my chambers and I’ll introduce you to my assistants. Though I’d gladly show you our current work, I doubt you’d quite grasp the intricacies.”

The mage did not so much as take a breath, much less register my embarrassment. “I’d be interested to hear news of Seravain. . . .”

For half an hour, he plied me with questions about the collegia, allowing no more than a bell’s strike for me to answer. Each query would launch a humorous anecdote or a reminiscence of his own student days. Eventually he ceased bothering to ask anything, but provided avuncular advice as to court dress—modesty served best for those of us in service, even when family connection supported more opulent attire—court ladies—Sabria’s most luminous treasures—perfumes—best kept muted so as not to compete with the ladies—and wine—I should seek out Giorgio, the third wine steward, for the best recommendations if I planned to entertain.

By the time the mage apologized that he really must move on and attend to a few more acquaintances, my head swam with trivia. Either Orviene was the most skilled deceiver in Sabria or he was a genial, self-important, silver-tongued gadfly, who truly believed that his most critical decisions each day were which coat and scent to wear as he monitored the queen’s wards and charms. I was entirely confused.

“Many thanks for the introduction, damoselle,” I said when, to my delight, I encountered Maura at the refreshment table. “Not so fearsome after all.”

She smiled sagely. “I told you—”

“Excuse me, damoselle.” Ilario, appearing from nowhere, snatched my arm, and dragged me away. “Come, come, Portier. No time for self-indulgence. Important business awaits.”

Quivering like a captive bird, he urged me insistently toward the doorway, snatching the cup from my hand and shoving it at the first person we passed, a startled Mage Orviene. “Ah, sir mage! I do hope you and your colleagues will grace us with your participation in my Grand Exposition. My private secretary here will be handling the arrangements. But excuse us; we’ve urgent business waiting.”

“Tell me, Chevalier, have you seen Adept Fedrigo today?” Orviene called after us. “Three days he’s missed an important tutorial. I know you often preempt his time for small projects. . . .”

“Not for aeons,” said Ilario, whisking me into the passage and around the corner before Orviene’s question had faded.

“It’s the
Destinne
,” he burst out the moment his ornately carved door slammed behind us. His earrings and jeweled bracelets jangled as he hurried across the thick carpet to shut the paned garden doors. “She is scheduled to sail on the morning tide, day after tomorrow. Her captain just informed Antonia. His first officer, the other fellow who was there, is some grandnephew’s cousin’s eldest boy or something like.”

“The exploration voyage?” I struggled to switch my thinking away from spinning gauds and unexpected mages.

“Don’t you see? You told me to listen for sudden changes. The sailing date’s been moved up by more than a month.” Ilario threw his hands in the air as if expecting me to congratulate him.

“I’m sure there’s good reason for the change. The tides . . .”

“But, Portier, it
had
been scheduled for the twenty-fifth day of Cinq.”

My heart stuttered. “Prince Desmond’s deathday. The anniversary.” Our deadline.

Ilario lapped the room with his long strides, his brow drawn up in a knot. “Philippe chose that date apurpose, as he’s dedicated the voyage to Desmond, you see, to honor the child and see him through Ixtador. Now something’s changed and the
Destinne
sails early.”

“The king will insist on being at the docks to send her off,” I said. “Out in the open where there will be a thousand places to lurk and a thousand times a thousand places for spell-traps to be hidden. A perfect place for a public murder.”

“So I was right that this was important?”

“Saints and angels, yes. You must play that game of stratagems with Philippe tonight. Put him on his guard. And whatever you need do to arrange it, Dante and I must be near the king that day.”

Scarce more than a day. Too little time to send sorcerers to detect spell-traps. Too few courrets remaining in the world for them to use. This was too soon. We didn’t know enough.

CHAPTER NINE

13 QAT 48 DAYS UNTIL THE ANNIVERSARY

O
n my way to apprise Dante of the new threat, I devised an excuse to stop in at the palace steward’s office. The steward’s third secretary, Henri de Sain, had been a friendly sort and had invited me to return if I needed anything. I needed information.

I found the harassed secretary jotting notes in his ledger book about a large, ill-smelling crate at his feet. “It’s the dung,” he said, when I slapped a kerchief to my nose. “Rare mushrooms growing in a crate full of dung. As if we didn’t have enough trouble with this business of the
Destinne
. . .”

In fact, the steward’s office was in an uproar, taxed with hasty arrangements for honor guards, musicians, a viewing stand, a celebratory feast with an invocation from the High Tetrarch, a smooth-tongued diplomat to coax the prefects of the Camarilla to attend in a show of unity, and little more than a day to do it all. But nothing in the reports of the changed sailing enlightened me.

“By the way,” said Henri, as I rose to leave, “you may not need my tailor’s service after all. Not an hour ago, we received a box from a tailor in Margeroux and sent it on to your apartment.”

From Margeroux . . . The arrow and spyglass! I hadn’t thought I could feel
more
urgency. Without so much as a thank-you, I bolted.

“HOW CAN A CAPTAIN CHANGE the sailing day on his own?” With his skilled left hand, Dante unraveled the last knot binding the canvas-wrapped box from Margeroux. He’d set himself and the bundle on the floor at the center of his circumoccule immediately on my arrival.

“The captain holds full authority on his ship,” I said. “Not even the king can gainsay him. The steward’s secretary says the crew was near mutiny at sailing on a prince’s deathday.”

My cousin had sapped his own authority in the first year of his reign, issuing a declaration that disenfranchised the Camarilla in maritime matters. Until Philippe’s pronouncement, the Camarilla had required every vessel to carry a mage, who could overrule a captain’s decision at a whim. To mollify the prefects, enraged at their loss of influence, Philippe had decreed that neither temple nor civil officials could overrule a ship captain, either.

I helped myself to wine from the pitcher on a low bench. Dante’s apartments had been transformed in the past two days. The heavy draperies and excess furnishings had been removed. Two chairs, one long couch, and one small table remained in front of the tall east windows, while his required cupboards and worktables had been installed about the rest of the room. A variety of implements had been tossed on the worktables alongside a clutter of boxes and bins.