Conrad's Fate (20 page)

“Ha, ha,” I said. I was glad Christopher had cheered up, but there were times when his jokes really annoyed me.

But there
was
a woman in the library. When we softly opened the low wooden door and crept through onto a high balcony lined with shelves of books, we could see her through the carved wooden bars at the front of it. We both ducked down and knelt on the carpet, but she could have seen us through the bars, even so. She was sitting at the top of a long wooden stepladder, reaching for a book on a high shelf. The one good thing was that she wasn't the Countess, because she had dark hair, but that didn't alter the fact that she only needed to turn her head to see us there.

I grabbed for the door, ready to crawl out through it at once. “Never fear, Grant,” Christopher said. I judged from the buzzing feeling I was getting that he had put a spell of invisibility around us on the spot. Then I gathered it was probably a spell of silence, too, because Christopher first sat down comfortably with his arms around his knees and then spoke in his normal voice. “We wait, Grant. Again. Honestly, Grant, I've never
done
so much waiting around as I have in this place.”

“But she could be here for
ages
,” I whispered. The stepladder was so close to the balcony that I couldn't help whispering. “I think she must be the penniless student who's supposed to catalog the books.”

Christopher looked critically through the bars of the balcony. “She doesn't look penniless to me,” he said.

I had to admit that she didn't. She was wearing a dark blue dress that was both flowing around her and clinging to her in an expensive way, and her feet, hooked on a rung of the ladder, were in soft red boots, really nice ones. Her dark hair fell to her shoulders in the same sort of costly hairstyle that Lady Felice had.

“She's a friend of the Family come to borrow a book,” Christopher said.

While he was saying it, the lady took down a book and opened it. She looked at the title page, nodded, and made a note on the pad on her knee. Then she leafed through the book, shut it, looked at the binding, and shook her head. She slipped some kind of card into the front and turned to put the book carefully into a box that was fastened to the back of the ladder.

She was my sister, Anthea.

I stood up. I couldn't help it. I nearly called out. I would have done if Christopher had not grabbed me and pulled me down. “Someone else coming!” he said.

Christopher was right. The big main door
of the library opened, and Count Robert came in. He shut the door behind him and stood smiling up at my sister. “Hallo, love,” he said. “Are you on the job already? It was only a pretext, you know.”

And my sister Anthea cried out, “Robert!” and came galloping down the ladder. She flung herself into Count Robert's arms, and the two of them began hugging and kissing each other frantically.

At this point Christopher got cramp in one leg. I think it was embarrassment, really. Or it could have been running up and down those stairs. But it was real cramp. He whipped himself into a ball and rolled about, clutching his left calf, with his face in a wide grin of agony. I was forced to park my camera on the lowest bookshelf and lean over him, pounding and kneading at his striped silk leg. I could feel the muscles under the stocking in a hard ball, and you know how much that hurts. It used to happen to me after skiing sometimes. I tried to make Christopher take hold of his own foot and pull his toes upward, but he didn't seem to understand that this was the way to cure cramp. He just rolled and clutched.

I kept glancing through the bars in case my sister or Count Robert had noticed us, but they didn't seem to. They were now leaning backward with their arms around each other's waists, laughing and saying, “Darling!” rather often.

“Ooh—ow! Ooh—ow!” Christopher went.

“Pull your
toes
!” I kept whispering.

“Ooh—
ow
!” he said.

“Then use some magic, you fool!” I said.

I heard the main door open again and looked. This time it was Hugo who came in. He stood and smiled at Anthea, too, all over his puggy face. “Good to see you, Anthea,” he said, and then something that sounded like “Join the club.” But Christopher's knee hit my chin just then, and I went back to kneading. When I next looked, the three of them had gone to the leather chairs by the window, where Count Robert and Anthea each sat on the arm of the same chair, while Hugo leaned on the back of it. Hugo was talking quickly and urgently, and Count Robert and Anthea looked up at him and nodded anxiously at what he said.

I wanted to know what Hugo was saying. I took hold of Christopher's ear, put my mouth to it, and more or less shouted, “Use some
magic
, I said!”

That seemed to get through. There was some frantic buzzing. Then Christopher abruptly straightened out and lay with his face in the carpet, panting. “Oh, horrible!” he gasped. “And deaf in one ear, too.”

I looked down into the library again in time to see Count Robert kiss Anthea and get up. Hugo kissed her, too, a friendly kiss on one cheek, and they both turned to go. But the library door opened yet again. This time it was Mr. Amos who came in, looking anything but friendly. Christopher and I both froze.

“Has this young person got everything she requires?” Mr. Amos asked, with truly dreadful politeness.

“Well, not really,” my sister said, cool as a cucumber. “I was just explaining that I need a computer if I'm to do this job properly.”

Hugo said, with an anxious look, “I told you, miss. Atmospheric conditions here in Stallery mean that your programming is liable to random changes.”

Count Robert turned to Mr. Amos with his chin up, all lordly. “
Have
we a computer, Amos?”

It was a splendid cover-up from all three. Mr. Amos gave Count Robert a small bow and said, “I believe so, my lord. I will see to it personally.” Then he went away, very slow and stately.

Count Robert and Hugo grinned at each other and then at Anthea. Hugo gave her a wink over his shoulder as he followed Count Robert out of the library.

“Phew!” said my sister. Then she swung around in a swirl of expensive skirt and came marching toward the balcony, looking really angry. “Come down out of there,” she said, “whoever you are!”

I hardly needed to look at Christopher's face, squashed against the carpet, to know that he had forgotten all about his spells of invisibility and silence from the moment he got cramp. I stood up. “Hallo, Anthea,” I said.

She caught hold of the stepladder and stared. She was really astonished. “
Conrad!
” she said. “What on
earth
are you doing here dressed like a lackey?”

“I
am
a lackey,” I said.

“But that's ridiculous!” she said. “You ought to be at school.”

“Uncle Alfred said I could go to Stall High as soon as I had expiated my Evil Fate,” I explained.

“What evil fate? What are you
talking
about? Come down here this instant, and tell me properly,” Anthea said. I had to smile. Anthea pointed over and over at the carpet in front of her as she gave her commands. It was so exactly what she used to do in the bookshop when she was annoyed with me that I felt almost happy as I climbed down the steep stair from the balcony. “And your friend,” Anthea commanded, jabbing her finger toward another place on the carpet.

Christopher got up, quite meekly, and limped down the stair after me. Anthea looked from him to me.

“This is Christopher,” I said. “He's a nine-lifed enchanter, and he's here on false pretenses like I am.”

“Really?” Anthea said suspiciously. “Well, I felt someone doing magic, so I suppose that
could
be true. Now stand there, Conrad Tesdinic, and tell me all about this nonsense that Uncle Alfred's been putting into your head.”

“I knew it was nonsense,” Christopher said. “But I thought his name was Grant. Are you his sister? You look quite alike.”

“Yes. Shut up, you!” Anthea said. “Conrad?”

Christopher, to my surprise, did what Anthea said. He stood there attentively, looking slightly amused, while I told her what Uncle Alfred had said about my bad karma and how it was going to kill me unless I dealt with the person who was causing it. Anthea sighed and looked at the ceiling. So I told her that Mayor Seuly and the rest of the Magicians' Circle had seen my Evil Fate clinging to me, too, and how they had given me the way to
know
the person responsible before Uncle Alfred sent me to Stallery. Anthea frowned heavily at this, and Christopher looked even more amused. But he seemed quite surprised when Anthea said, “Oh dear! I feel really guilty! I shouldn't have left you. And Mother? Didn't she even
try
to tell you Uncle Alfred was talking nonsense?”

“She's always busy writing,” I said uncomfortably. “We never talked about my Fate. And it isn't nonsense, is it? Mayor Seuly thought it was true.”

“Everyone knows he's a crook. He just wants his chance to make money the way Stallery does,” my sister said. “I think he lied to you, Conrad, in order to find out how to pull the probabilities himself.” She looked from me to Christopher. “Have you discovered yet who's doing it, and how?”

“No,” we both said, and Christopher asked, “So it doesn't happen naturally, then?”

“Some of it does,” Anthea said. “But someone is helping it along somehow. This is something Robert and I would really like to know about. It's one reason why I'm here. And what were you supposed to do, Conrad, when you found out who was doing it?”

“Summon a Walker,” I said.

Christopher and Anthea both looked utterly puzzled.

“They gave me this wine cork,” I said, fetching it out. I was feeling awful by then, stupid and taken in and, well, sort of pointless. If I didn't have a Fate, then what
was
I?

I felt worse when Christopher said, “I did try to tell him he hasn't any bad karma.”

“But he might have an awful lot if he does what Mayor Seuly and Uncle Alfred seem to want!” Anthea said. She gave me a worried, puzzled look. It made me feel worse than ever. “Conrad, for goodness' sake, what stopped Mother paying for you to go on at school?”

“She hasn't any money,” I said. “Uncle Alfred owns the bookshop and—”

“But he
doesn't
!” Anthea exclaimed. “Oh, I should have written and
told
you! I admit that puzzled me, too, so I went and looked up Father's Will in the Record Office as soon as I got to Ludwich, and he'd left the entire shop to Mother.”

“What? All of it?” I said.

“All of it,” she said. “And to you and me after that. He left Uncle Alfred some money, but that's all. Come to think of it, I do remember Father saying to me when he was dying that he hoped Alfred would take his money and go, because he didn't trust him as far as he could throw him....” She tailed off in an uncertain way. “Now why didn't I remember that before?”

She was looking vaguely at Christopher as she said this. He must have thought she was asking him because he said, “If he's a magician, this uncle, he could cast a selective forget spell quite easily. They're not difficult.”

“He
must
have cast one,” Anthea said, and went on decisively, “Conrad, I'm going to ring Mother up—I was going to anyway, and this makes it urgent—and see what she says.”

There was a telephone in the corner of the library. Anthea marched across to it and dialed the number of our bookshop. I hurried after her and tried to listen in. Anthea turned the receiver so that I could distantly hear a bored woman's voice say, “Grant and Tesdinic. How can I help?”

Anthea mouthed at me, asking, “Who?” I said, “Daisy. New assistant after you left.”

Anthea nodded. “Could I speak to Franconia Grant, please?” she said.

Daisy said, “Who?”

“The famous feminist writer,” Anthea said. “I believe she married a Mr. Tesdinic, but we feminists don't mention that.”

“Ooh!” Daisy went in the distance. “I get you. Just a minute and I'll see if she's free.”

There were muffled footsteps running about and voices calling murkily. I heard Uncle Alfred, faint and far off, saying, “Not me—I don't have anything to do with those harpies!” Finally there was a clatter, and my mother's voice said, “Franconia Grant speaking.”

From then on it was much easier to hear. Christopher was leaning over us, wanting to hear, too.

Anthea said cheerfully, “Hallo, Mother. This is Anthea.”

My mother said, “Good heavens,” which was not surprising. It
had
been four years. “I thought you'd left here for good,” she added.

“I have, really,” Anthea said. “But I thought you ought to know when your daughter gets married.”

“I don't believe it,” my mother said. “No daughter of mine would ever even think of enslaving herself to a male ethic—”

“Well, I am,” Anthea said. “He's wonderful. I knew you'd disapprove, but I had to tell you. And how's Conrad?” There was a blank pause on the other end of the line. “My little brother,” Anthea said. “Remember?”