Wrede, Patricia C - Mairelon 01 (24 page)

           
A shadow
fell across the doorsill. Kim frowned and sank back into her uncomfortable
half-crouch. Had Lady Granleigh brought a coachman, or had Ben awakened in
spite of Lord St. Clair's precautionary spell? Either way, she would be running
into trouble. Not that she wasn't in a proper mess already, of course, but
Dan's temper looked to be deteriorating rapidly, and she didn't like to think
what he might do if she didn't get away on her first try. It would be better to
wait for a more certain chance.

           
The
motley company was slowly assembling in the corner, with occasional low-voiced
grumbling that Dan pretended not to hear. Robert and Freddy between them
supported the slowly recovering Marianne, while Jonathan stalked past and Lady
Granleigh glowered impartially at everyone. For a moment or two, it looked as
if Dan had gotten things under control at last; then Jasper said in a cross, too-loud
voice, "But what is it the fellow
wants
?"

           
"The Sacred Dish!"
Jonathan answered. He gave Dan
and Jack a dark look. "But he shall not get it, however he tries."

           
"The
what?" said
Jasper.

           
"The
sacred dish," Lady Granleigh said, giving her brother a sidelong glance
full of meaning.
"The platter that we gave to Mr. de
Mare this morning."
She nodded in Mairelon's direction.

           
"What?"
several voices said at
once.
Lord St. Clair examined
Mairelon with angry speculation, and both of Dan's pistols swung to point at
the magician. Kim cursed mentally and swiveled her head from side to side,
trying to watch Dan and the door at the same time.

           
"I
told you not to try any tricks with me, Merrill," Dan said. "Where's
the platter? And this time, tell me the truth!"

           
The
shadow on the doorsill shifted and withdrew, but Kim stayed where she was. With
Dan so jumpy, she'd be shot before she was out the door if she made a run for
it. She edged toward the front of the table with a vague idea of doing
something,
she wasn't sure what, if Dan looked like shooting
Mairelon.

           
"Merrill?"
said William Stuggs, giving Mairelon a swift, sharp look. "Well,
well."

           
"What
does that mean, 'well, well'?" Jasper demanded, rounding on his servant.

           
Stuggs's
expression instantly resumed its usual appearance of placid stupidity. "
Ain't
'e the cove you was lookin' for in
London
?"

           
"Answer
me!" Dan said to Mairelon. "Where is the platter?"

           
"Which one?"
Mairelon asked. "The one your
man Stower left by my campfire, or the one Lady Granleigh was so anxious to get
rid of? Or one of the other fakes Fenton seems to have been peddling?"

           
"The Saltash Platter, you buffoon!"
Laverham
shouted.

           
"Infidel!
What have you done with the Sacred
Dish?" Jonathan cried at the same moment.

           
"Fenton?"
said Freddy, frowning. "I've got a footman by that name. What's he got to
do with Jon's dish?"

           
Mairelon
lifted his bound hands and scratched his ear. "I don't have any better
idea where the Saltash Platter is than you do, Laverham."

           
"Do
you expect me to believe that?"

           
"Why not?"
Mairelon shrugged. "It's
true."

           
"I
gave you the Saltash Platter this morning," Lady Granleigh insisted in her
most superior manner. "How dare you suggest otherwise!"

           
"Oh,
you gave me a platter, all right, but it was a forgery and you knew it,"
Mairelon said. He gave her a charming smile that expanded to include the entire
ring of surprised, confused, and skeptical faces.
"By
the by, how do
you
happen to know anything about the Saltash Platter,
hmmm?"

           
"Never mind!"
Dan said. "I don't care about
her, and I don't believe you." He raised his pistol and slowly and
deliberately cocked it. "For the last time,
where is the Saltash
Platter
?"

           
"I
don't have it," Mairelon said.

           
"But
of a certainty you do not," said a new voice. Dan whirled, and everyone
else's head flicked toward the door. Kim bumped her head on a table leg,
cursed, and turned to see Renee D'Auber standing in the doorway. Her auburn
hair was dressed in ringlets and threaded with a peach-colored ribbon that
exactly matched the delicate muslin of her walking dress, and she smiled
brightly when she saw the faces turned toward her. "I have it."

           
"Renee!"
Mairelon said. "What are you doing here?" Then his face went blank as
a stocky, sandy-haired man stepped into the doorway beside her, and he added in
a thunderstruck tone,
"Andrew?"

           
Hello,
Richard," said the sandy-haired man. He sounded nervous and uncertain,
which Kim thought was understandable under the circumstances, but his attention
was fixed on Mairelon rather than on Dan or Jack Stower. "I, um, it's been
a while."

           
"Well,
well," said St. Clair. "This is becoming quite the family
gathering."

           
Dan
Laverham glared at St. Clair. Mairelon did not move; he seemed as oblivious to
the crowd around him as the man he had called Andrew. Kim frowned, puzzled both
by St. Clair's comment and the unusual strength of Mairelon's reaction. Then
her head jerked and almost hit the underside of the table again as several
fragments condensed into the memory of Mairelon's voice saying in a flat tone, "The
evidence was overwhelming. Even my brother Andrew believed it."

           
"What
are you doing here?" Mairelon said in the same tight voice Kim remembered.

           
"Trying
to keep your head out of a noose," Andrew replied. Now that Kim had
remembered who he must be, she could see how much he resembled Mairelon in his
middling height, neat build, and rounded face. Andrew glanced at Renee D'Auber
and added, "At least, that was the original idea."

           
"What
do you mean by
--
"

           
"Then
you
do
have the Saltash Platter?" St. Clair interrupted, looking
fixedly at Mademoiselle D'Auber.

           
"Nonsense,"
Lady Granleigh said. She made an urgent motion at her brother, but Jasper, who
did not appear to have the slightest idea what she wanted of him, remained
where he was.

           
"But,
yes, I have it," Renee D'Auber told Lord St. Clair. "Though I do not
at all see why it is you who
ask,
when it is this
person with the pistols who was so very curious before."

           
"Where
is it?" Dan demanded.

           
"Don't
tell him," Freddy advised. "Fellow ain't the thing at all, that's my
opinion."

           
"For
once, I agree with you, Freddy," Robert murmured.

           
"Freddy!"
Marianne had recovered enough to pull away from Robert and clutch at Freddy's
arm in protest. "Oh, be careful! That man might shoot you!"

           
"It
would be a singular service to humanity if he did," St. Clair said.
"I have seldom met a more tiresome group, or one more foolish.
Mademoiselle D'Auber--"

           
"Quiet!"
Dan commanded. "Or I'll shoot
you
, Gregory! I'm tired of your
interference."

           
"You
seemed in need of some assistance," Lord St. Clair said with unruffled
calm. "I was only trying to help."

           
"I
don't want your help, you insufferable--"

           
"But
you know each other!" Renee D'Auber said in tones of pleased surprise.
"It is a thing remarkable, I think."

           
Mairelon
shook himself and tore his eyes away from the man in the doorway. "Yes,
St. Clair, how
do
you come to know Laverham? And how long have you been,
er, acquainted? At least five years, I think?"

           
"Oh,
much longer than that," St. Clair replied. "I expect you would be
vastly interested in the details, but unfortunately I don't intend to give them
to you."

           
"Perhaps
Laverham can be persuaded?" Mairelon said.

           
"Not
by you," Dan snarled. He turned back to Renee. "Give me the
platter."

           
Behind
Renee, Andrew made a gesture of protest, but he had enough sense not to say
anything. Renee D'Auber tilted her head and considered Dan Laverham with an air
that suggested something unsatisfactory about the object of her scrutiny.
"It is not at all possible for me to give you the platter now," she
said at last, as if granting a great concession in answering at all.

           
"Renee,"
Mairelon said warningly.

           
A muscle
in Dan's jaw jumped. "Don't lie to me," he said in a tone that made
Kim shrink back from the edge of the table, just in case he turned in her
direction.

           
"I
tell the truth," the Frenchwoman said, affronted. "And it is quite
true that I cannot give you the platter now. I am not a fool, me, and I do not
wish to lose it. So I do not carry it about with me, especially when there are
housebreakers and highwaymen and persons with pistols everywhere. If you were
not yourself without sense, you would have comprehended that and not bothered
me with silly questions."

           
Mairelon
made a muffled, choking noise. Dan lowered his pistols slightly and studied
Renee through narrowed eyes.

           
"She
ain't
no
dull mort," Jack Stower offered. "I
bet she done it like she says."

           
"I
have no doubt of it," St. Clair said. "If, that is, she has done
anything at all."

           
"Ain't
no knowing," Stuggs said with an air of deep gloom. "She's
French."

           
"It's
easy enough to tell whether she's lying," Dan said. He walked over to the
card table and set something heavy down just over Kim's head. She flinched and
backed away slowly, hoping he would not drop anything. If he bent over, he
could hardly miss seeing her. At the rear of the table, she stopped and curled
into a lumpy, motionless ball, waiting for Dan to move away again.

           
"What
do you think you're doing, Laverham?" St. Clair said sharply, and Kim had
to suppress an urge to peer over the edge of the table to see what he was
referring to.

           
"I'm
going to find out which of them is telling the truth," Dan answered.
"If it's Merrill, the Saltash Platter is in this building somewhere.
That's close enough for me to find, even with only two of the indicator balls
to use as a base for the location spell."

           
"Freddy!"
Marianne said in a carrying whisper. "Is he going to cast a
spell
?"

           
"You
know not what you do," Jonathan said in his best master-druid voice.
"Beware the consequences of defiling the hall of the Sons of the New
Dawn!"

           
"Quiet,"
said Dan. "I've had as much of your posturing as I can stomach. Jack, keep
an eye on them."

           
This last
instruction seemed unnecessary to Kim, since, from the way his pistols had been
waving about, Jack had been trying to watch everyone at once for some time. She
could just see him out the side of the table and through the latticed back of a
wooden chair, his jaw clenched and his eyes compressed to slits of grim
concentration. Stuggs was creeping around the outside of the group toward him,
craning his neck to get a look at Dan. Did the great looby think this was some
kind of show, or was he
fool
enough to try a trick on
a real magician in the middle of a spell? Then Dan began to speak diamond-sharp
words Kim could not understand, and every other thought left her mind
instantly.

           
She knew
at once that something was wrong. Always before when she had heard magicians at
work, the too-solid words had settled quickly into an orderly arrangement, full
of dangerous corners and edges but as firm and stable as the words themselves.
Dan's words were floating free, jostling against each other like a market-day
crowd, fighting the structure the magician sought to impose on them.

           
The
magicians in the room were also quick to realize that Dan was in trouble. Renee
D'Auber stepped backward into Andrew, her eyes widening, and brought up her
left hand in a contorted gesture.

           
"Renee,
don't!" Mairelon cried. "You'll only cut what's left of the basic
binding!"

           
"Break
off, you fool!" St. Clair said to Dan at the same moment. "You'll
have the house down in another minute."

           
"He
can't break off," Jonathan said with bitter satisfaction. "If he
does, he'll lose what control he has. He'll lose it soon, in any case. His
obstinacy has doomed us all."

           
Jasper
Marston made a gobbling noise and collided with his sister as he tried to leap
for the door. Marianne gave a ladylike shriek and fainted again. This time,
Freddy caught her without mishap. Dan's voice droned on. Robert stared at
Jonathan and demanded, "What do you mean by that, Jon?"

           
"He
has fallen afoul of the protections of the Sons of the New Dawn," Jonathan
answered. "I warned him not to meddle!"

           
"You
might have tried warning him you had a protective spell up, you young idiot!"
Mairelon said acidly as, with two swift motions, he undid the special knot Kim
had used and stripped the binding cords from his wrists. "What did you
use?
Quick now!"

           
Jonathan
mumbled something, and Kim stopped listening. No matter what he said, no matter
what Mairelon thought he could do, there wasn't time. She could hear the note
of desperation in Dan's voice; she could feel his words twisting like oiled
eels. The very air inside the lodge was beginning to shine with reflections
from the invisible, impossible crystal words, and with every syllable Dan
spoke, the glow grew stronger. He had to be stopped
now
, before he put
so much power into his distorted spell that it really would destroy them all
when he finally lost control of it.

           
Kim took
a deep breath, swallowed hard, and stood up with a surge, pushing the heavy
wooden card table up and forward with all her strength. Cards and markers slid
off and scattered across the floor; the pistol Dan had set on top of them
followed with a metallic scraping noise. The table hit Dan hard, knocking him
sideways. He staggered briefly,
then
regained his
feet, but his concentration had been shattered and the spell broke free.

           
There was
a brilliant flare of light, and sharp-edged words flew in all directions. Mairelon,
Renee D'Auber, and Lord St. Clair flung their arms up in identical gestures of
repudiation and simultaneously shouted the same unintelligible phrase. Kim
ducked behind the upturned table as the unseen words bounced back toward her.
Something hit the floor with a metallic ping, and something else with a clear
ringing noise. Dan cried out and fell heavily against the table. Kim heard a
peculiar muffled noise that sounded like Jack Stower's voice; then the remnants
of the spell swirled and settled around her like dust. They lay in shimmering
silver drifts on the wooden floor for a long moment before they melted into
nothing.

           
"Well
done," St. Clair's voice said to someone.

           
"Thank
you," Renee D'Auber responded.

           
"Kim!"
Mairelon called. He sounded very close; an instant later, he appeared, bending
anxiously over the end of the table. "Kim?"

           
"I
ain't hurt," Kim assured him. "Is that spell done with?"

           
"For
the most part," Mairelon answered.

           
Judging this to be as near a "yes" as she was likely to
get from him, Kim climbed cautiously to her feet and looked around.
Freddy, his arms locked around the unconscious Marianne, was trading icy stares
with Lady Granleigh and Jasper Marston. Jonathan alternated between baleful
muttering and attempts to untie his hands with his teeth. Meanwhile, Jasper's
man, Stuggs, had a firm and very professional-looking armlock on Jack Stower.
Stower's pistols had vanished, and his clothes were even more rumpled and
disreputable than usual. Kim was sorry she had missed seeing their encounter.
Robert Choiniet and Mairelon's brother, Andrew, were standing over Dan
Laverham, who looked and smelled somewhat singed but seemed otherwise unhurt.
Renee D'Auber stood next to the door, her face composed, her eyes bright and
alert; on the opposite side of the room, Lord St. Clair watched the others with
a cold, speculative expression.

           
" 'Ere
, now," Stuggs said to Jack, who was
struggling in vain.
"None o' that."

           
"Get
your hands off me!" Dan said to Robert and Andrew. They had considerately
helped him to his feet and then neglected to let go of his arms.

           
"And
give you a chance to grab one of those pistols again, or start some more
magic?" Robert said. "Not likely."

           
"Someone
should find those guns and get them out of the way," Andrew added.

           
"Did
you say something about brandy a bit ago, Jon?" Freddy asked.
"Like to get some for Marianne."

           
"Get
me out of this first," Jonathan said crossly, holding out his hands and
the tangle he had made of Kim's knots.

           
Mairelon
was studying Kim with an abstracted
air,
as if she
were wearing her coat inside out and he couldn't puzzle out why she should do
such a thing.
"Now what?"
Kim asked him in a
low voice. "We ain't much better off than when we started."