02 The Grand Tour Read online

  James reached for the handful of papers.

  "Not over dinner," Kate and I said simultaneously. We looked at each other, and I continued, "You'll get crumbs on them, and there won't be room for you to spread out, and you'll be unhappy because you can't give them your full attention and eat at the same time, and you'll make mistakes."

  "And I'm sure to spill something on the most crucial page," Kate added. "Wait until later."

  James and Thomas exchanged glances. "You sound quite positive," James said in a mild tone.

  "It's experience," I told him. "Papa used to try to go over manuscripts at dinner sometimes, no matter what Aunt Elizabeth said. It never worked, and he was always in a bad mood for weeks afterward."

  "Ah," said Thomas, and he tucked the papers inside his jacket. They made an unsightly bulge, but there was no more talk of immediate translation.

  I expected dinner to be more hurried than usual as a result of all this, but it is impossible to hurry Italians, particularly where food is concerned, even if they are not eating it themselves. The servants brought in each course in due time, no matter what. I think Thomas would have bolted after the antipasti if James had not given him a stern look.

  Between courses, we talked. None of us had the least doubt that the thefts the Duke of Wellington had asked us about were related to Cavalier Coducci's ill-advised imperial spell, but beyond that, our opinions varied. Thomas thought that Eve-Marie was waiting for some final artifact that would be necessary to the spell, and that we should stay in Venice to intercept it. James thought that Eve-Marie was a decoy, and that we should proceed to Vienna with haste, as the Conte di Capodoro and Lord Mountjoy had likely taken the northern road there already. Kate and I thought that we should go to Rome; Kate, because in Rome we might learn more from the agent who had handled the estate of Cavalier Coducci's deceased friend, and I, because Cavalier Coducci had said the spell could only be finished in Rome, so the conspirators would have to go there at some point, and it seemed to me more useful for us to be in Rome waiting for them than to continue chasing after them and perhaps arrive too late.

  James was much struck by this argument, but Thomas frowned. "We have only Cavalier Coducci's opinion that the ritual must be completed in Rome," he said. "That's why I want a look at these papers before we make any decisions. I've no doubt that he's quite expert when it comes to ancient spells, but modern magic has improved a good deal in the past few years, and I suspect he hasn't kept up with the latest developments."

  "Good point," James said. "The spell was already an adaptation; if someone found a way to adapt it a little more, so that it could just as well be completed in, say, Vienna..."

  "But how could Lord Mountjoy or the Conte di Capodoro have discovered the ritual?" Kate said.

  "The Conte is a collector of antiquities," I pointed out. "Perhaps he purchased some of the collection Cavalier Coducci evaluated." A thought struck me, and I looked at James. "Some of them may have been part of the exhibit Kate and I saw in Milan! We must send to Cavalier Coducci in the morning, to see if he remembers any particular pieces."

  "I don't think that's likely, but I can't see that it would hurt anything to ask," James said. "It will take us more than an evening to decipher all that Cavalier Coducci sent us, in any case. There's plenty of time for it."

  The next course arrived, a savory fish in wine sauce, and we were silent for a few moments as it was dished up. Then Kate said, "What puzzles me is Mr. Strangle."

  "He would puzzle anyone," Thomas said. "Don't think of him."

  "I don't mean his... his death," Kate said. "I mean what he was up to. He can't have been simply collecting stolen goods for Lord Mountjoy, you know."

  Everyone looked at her. "Why not?" Thomas said in a careful tone.

  "Because it doesn't explain all those magical rituals he and Theodore were doing," Kate said. "Or who could have taught him how to do them. You said yourself that he was only enough of a magician to follow directions."

  "Or why all the magic he's done seems to have been in places where old royal rituals were performed," I said. "There must be some connection."

  "Practice?" James said.

  Thomas looked thoughtful. "It's not a completely outlandish idea, if the spell is as complex as Cavalier Coducci indicated. They wouldn't have all the artifacts and they weren't in quite the right places, but they might get some idea how the spell was working from the resonance of the older rituals. Fine-tuning, so to speak."

  "I can't quite picture Theodore plotting to overthrow Europe," I said.

  "I can't quite picture Lord Mountjoy as a Bonapartist," Kate said. "He's too... too..."

  "Thickheaded?" I suggested.

  "No," Kate said. "I just can't see him trying so hard to help someone who might very well disagree with him. About anything."

  "Well, perhaps these"—Thomas touched the bulge of papers under his coat—"will shed some light on the matter."

  So Thomas and James retired to one of the lower rooms immediately after we finished eating. They spent much of the night there, and returned to it again the following morning after breakfast. I was beginning to wonder whether it would be better to call them out or to send lunch in to them, when I heard an angry roar from the room where they were working.

  "Diddled, by Heaven!" Thomas's bellow was clear even through the floor. I rushed down the stairs and met Kate coming from the other direction. Together we pushed open the door and went in.

  Thomas and James were bent over the table, scooping spread-out papers into an untidy pile. "You'd better go pack," Thomas said. "We're leaving immediately."

  "I've never been unpacked," Kate informed him. "Reardon has been complaining about living out of a trunk ever since we arrived, and I can't say I blame her. What is it?"

  "We've been following a red herring," James said grimly. "The imperial spell can be cast on a stand-in—a sort of proxy for the actual candidate. They don't need young Bonaparte at all, as long as they have a suitably prepared substitute. That's what Strangle was doing with young Theodore. Not practicing—preparing."

  "And the journey Mountjoy will be taking from Milan to Rome is straightforward, even at this time of year," Thomas said. "Whereas we'll have to get through the Apennines or else take a boat all the way around Italy."

  "No boats," I said firmly. "And how can you be sure they'll head for Rome next? Theodore said quite clearly that his uncle planned for them to go to Vienna."

  "Because Coducci was right; they have to finish the spell in Rome," Thomas said, and then he explained.

  The ritual that Cavalier Coducci and Cavalier Pescara had designed was both elaborate and elegantly flexible. Because Napoleon had been rampaging across Europe at the time they worked it out, they had chosen to avoid creating an intense three- or four-day coronation ritual that would draw together all of the countries under their imperial candidate (and attract an enormous amount of unwanted attention from other wizards and Napoleonic authorities). Instead, they had developed a series of much shorter and simpler ceremonies based on the most ancient kingship rites and locations they could find.

  Each ceremony was designed to activate the residual magic of the old places, re-creating the rites that had reinforced the ruling power of centuries' worth of ancient kings and tribal chieftains. Although most of the kingdoms and peoples and tribes no longer existed, their descendants made up the modern nations of Europe. When the same person performed all the rituals, he became "king" of a great many bits and pieces—and eventually the bits and pieces added up to all of Europe.

  In this way, the candidate could travel quietly from one obscure ancient site to another, activating spells and accumulating ritual kingships. Even so, the two magicians felt that it might be difficult for one man to reach all the various sites, since it was impossible to predict where Napoleon might choose to send his armies next. So they designed a way for someone else to activate spells on behalf of the candidate. A simple linking spell would allow a deputy to perfor
m distant rituals to benefit the intended Emperor instead of himself.

  "Coronation by proxy," James put in. "There's some precedent for it, though not recently."

  "Not on such a scale, though," Thomas said, and went on with his explanation.

  Once the kingship rituals had been performed, only the imperial ritual itself was required to activate the spell. Here Cavalier Coducci and his friend had been forced to improvise, and, according to Thomas, they had done a brilliant job of it. Each piece of ancient coronation regalia had been carefully chosen for both its symbolism and its power; each came from a different country so that all would be drawn together in the final spell, to be completed on the night of the full moon in November in Rome.

  And nowhere but Rome would do. The Roman Empire had, at its height, united Europe from Britain to Persia; after the Empire broke apart, the spiritual authority of Rome remained strong for centuries. Throughout Europe, Rome was still symbolic of her ancient imperial glory, and symbolism is extremely important in working complex and ambitious enchantments.

  "I haven't had time to work out all the equations," Thomas said, "but that one was easy enough. Mountjoy won't go to Vienna. The stolen regalia and all the minor kingship rituals won't do him a particle of good there. He has to take Theodore to Rome to finish the ritual, or there's no point to any of this."

  "Sending Eve-Marie to Venice was a very good decoy, then," Kate said thoughtfully. "It seemed most plausible, since Venice is very nearly on the way from Milan to Vienna."

  "Just so." Thomas beamed at her.

  I sighed. "I'd better tell Walker to start packing," I said. "How soon do we leave?"

  The Roman Road

  From the deposition of Mrs. James Tarleton, &c.

  It wasn't that simple, of course. Making travel arrangements is not a speedy business at the best of times; in Italy in early winter, it takes forever. Not the least of the difficulties was convincing people that we meant to cross the Apennine Mountains, which run down the center of Italy, at such a time. In the end, I am sure we convinced everyone that all English persons are quite mad, but we succeeded in hiring two travel coaches and departing Venice in less than three days.

  Just outside the city, we turned southwest onto an old Roman road heading for the Apennines. I suppose it is a great accomplishment for the Roman roads to continue in use after nearly two thousand years, but having ridden on them, I am inclined to think it reflects more poorly on the state of modern road building—and repair—in the Italian kingdoms. The cobblestones were not merely uneven; a good many were missing altogether (James said because local people had been carting them away for building material for centuries). The coach lurched along in a way that made talking quite impossible.

  On the second night out, when we reached Bologna, I persuaded James to hire an extra parlor when we stopped for the night, so that I could recast my focusing spell. I had purchased several more of the glass paperweights in anticipation of using one as my focus (and the others as gifts for family members when we returned to England), and I had plenty of the other necessary ingredients. James was dubious, but he could not pretend that we had not come far enough inland to prevent any interference from all the Venetian canals.

  This time, the spell went perfectly. I am afraid I stayed up most of the night afterward, however, as the excitement of being fully focused for the first time gave me far too much energy to allow for sleep.

  In the morning we were told that the pass through the mountains was undoubtedly closed by snow. Thomas had been in something of a brown study for most of the day; when he heard this, he shut himself in the inn's parlor with Cavalier Coducci's notes and did not emerge for several hours. Once he did, he sent Piers off to market with a most peculiar shopping list—two pounds of fresh pig's liver and six feet of sky blue ribbon were the most ordinary items on it. He also ordered some small modifications to the harness of the lead carriage horses.

  "Thomas, what are you up to?" James demanded as soon as Piers had left. "You aren't thinking of trying to get us through the mountains by magic, are you? Because if you are, I shall have to begin making inquiries about the local provision for Bedlamites, and I'm not sure my Italian is up to it."

  "Nonsense," Thomas said. "It's quite clear from Cavalier Coducci's notes. He's really done quite a remarkable job reconstructing some of these ancient weather-working spells; if he were more of a wizard or less single-minded in pursuit of his theories, he'd have seen the implications for himself. The Royal College of Wizards will have a field day with these when we get back to England."

  "Specifics, Thomas," Kate said firmly. "You are not going to distract us with Cavalier Coducci and the Royal College. We want to know what your intentions are."

  "Everything that is honorable, I assure you," Thomas said, looking wounded. "I thought I had proved that when I married you."

  "Thomas..."

  "Oh, very well. I've been studying Coducci's weather spells. They're all partials, and no one in his right mind would dream of using them—they all require rather a lot of, er, 'difficult ingredients.' But if you look at them closely, there are some extremely suggestive patterns that I think can be profitably applied to Caswell and Barnett's cantrip for—"

  "Thomas, you can't mean to change the weather that much!" I said, appalled. "It would take a tremendous amount of power—the pass must be miles long. And even if you could warm things up enough to melt the snow in a day or two, the river would probably flood and block the road."

  "Oh, the weather," Thomas said. "I wasn't planning on meddling with the weather. Not exactly."

  "Then exactly what were you planning?" Kate demanded.

  "I'm going to clear the road so we can get through," Thomas said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Snow is just weather that's sitting around on the ground, if you look at it correctly, and changing that shouldn't take nearly so much power, especially with Coducci's work to base it on. Even without the 'difficult ingredients.' The equations were actually quite simple, once I saw how to translate Coducci's work into modern terms." He paused and looked at me. "There is just one thing."

  "And that is?" I said warily.

  "You're going to have to do the warding spells tonight, before we reach the pass. I don't want to be even slightly drained when I start work on this, but I don't want to be eaten alive by fleas in the night, either."

  The discussion did not end there, of course, but in the end Thomas had his way. We stayed in Bologna barely long enough for him to make his preparations, then lurched off toward the southwest once more. We reached the small town of Passo di Porretta at the north end of the pass without incident, and spent the night quite comfortably. The following morning we all crammed into two carriages and set out again, amid much head shaking and eye rolling by our Italian hosts.

  The road grew quickly snowier and slipperier as it climbed, though it was nothing like as steep as the trail—I cannot in conscience call it a road—over the Alps had been. Barely an hour from town, it became clear that further progress would soon be impossible, and Thomas called a halt. Then he took the large bag of ingredients Piers had procured for him and walked forward until he stood in a bank of slushy snow.

  Bending over, he drew a diagram in the snow. With great precision, he laid out a mirror and surrounded it with other objects—a bare tree branch, an empty flowerpot, a small fish, and several similar items. He wound the blue ribbon between them in a complex pattern, muttering under his breath, and I could feel power gathering.

  He straightened, looking down at his handiwork, then squinted up at the sun. He shifted his position slightly. Still muttering, he took up the pig's liver and smeared it over the surface of the mirror. Then he put a hand in his pocket and drew out a glass paperweight, very like the ones I had purchased in Venice: clear, with a pattern of green and yellow swirls inside. He held it over the mirror, and his voice grew louder. The sense of gathering magic grew stronger, then stronger still. Suddenly, he shouted, "Fiat!" and
threw the paperweight down on the mirror.

  The mirror shattered, and as it did there was a sort of quiet explosion. Snow flew soundlessly in all directions, and there was a great deal of intense light. The horses shied; it was all Piers could do to hold them. When the dazzle cleared from our eyes, Thomas was picking himself up several feet away. He walked back toward the spot where he had cast the spell. The paperweight rested on bare ground where the mirror had been, glowing with a warm, golden light. There was no sign of any of the other ingredients.

  Thomas bent and picked up the glowing paperweight. Kate made a small noise of protest. Though he could not possibly have heard it, Thomas glanced back and nodded reassuringly. Holding the paperweight out before him, he marched up the road.

  The snow parted in front of him, evaporating under the light from the paperweight. Along the edges of the road, the snowbanks remained, steaming slightly, but the road itself was clear and dry. Thomas nodded again, this time with evident satisfaction, and walked back to the carriage. He placed the paperweight in a fishnet bag that Piers had attached to the front harness; it swung like a pendulum, but the netting hardly obscured the light at all. Swinging himself up beside Piers, he said, "Well, man, let's be off. That spell won't last forever."

  Piers set the horses moving at a steady walk. They were plainly nervous at first, but they soon became accustomed to the way the snow quietly vanished as they approached it. I sat back, calculating. It seemed that we would have no trouble with the pass after all, and would probably reach Florence, on the other side, by nightfall. There, we could take our choice of routes to Rome.

  From the commonplace book of Lady Schofield

  5 November 1817

  Florence

  At yet another inn, as drafty and dirty as all the rest, yet, mercifully enough, a bit less noisy

  I am an idiot. It was a stupid idea to focus Thomas's magic in my wedding ring. I regret it extremely.

  The connection between us proves most inconvenient at the moment, for Thomas is exhausted. I fear he overreached his power when he won our way over the mountains. I do not have the force of will to be much use to him at the moment, for the connection seems to be working the way it did during the highway robbery, and I feel utterly wretched.