02 The Grand Tour Page 6

  "Here is the treasure of our blessed Savior." The Bishop gestured to the shelves. "Books, principally, as you can see. The chests hold the records that remain, parchment scrolls, and some of the more fragile of the bound documents. The reliquaries you see for yourself. A small collection, given the treasures we once possessed, but a fine one, if you recall the devastation of those years."

  "It is not so very long ago. Certainly it does not seem nearly twenty-five years," said Lady Sylvia. "I remember." She reached into her reticule and drew forth our flask. "May I ask if you are able to identify this, Your Excellency?"

  The Bishop took the small container and turned it this way and that in his soft hands. Lovingly, he inspected the polished stone vessel. "May I open it?"

  "You will be careful?" said Cecy.

  "Indeed I shall." With precision, the Bishop removed the stopper and sniffed at the neck of the flask. The scent of the oil filled the room and we all found ourselves smiling a little for no real reason.

  The Bishop restoppered the flask. "How have you come by this?"

  Lady Sylvia held out her hand. "We were given it in trust."

  The Bishop's eyebrows lifted. "Sylvie, what have you been doing?"

  "I cannot say just yet. But my beliefs have not altered. Have yours?"

  With reluctance, the Bishop returned the flask to her. "I am loyal to the League of the Pimpernel and all it stands for."

  Lady Sylvia smiled at him, warmth unrestrained. "Don't look so worried, Your Excellency."

  The smile he gave her in return was most reluctant. "I never worry. It's bad for the digestion. But if I allowed myself the luxury, this would be worth considerable concern. You have come into possession of the Sainte Ampoule—how, I do not inquire, please note—that is to say, of the royal holy chrism. It is used to confirm the coronation of the true kings of France. Of old it was kept in the royal treasury in Paris. When that was looted in the Terror, all the coronation regalia stored there was lost. The survival of this flask must surely be miraculous."

  "Not a great deal of it did survive," said Lady Sylvia. "And I have diminished it still further by trying a drop or two when I opened it."

  "Indeed." The Bishop looked troubled. "Yet enough remains to cause considerable trouble. There is enough for one more coronation. Just."

  "Can't someone make more?" asked Cecy. "If it's holy chrism, surely more could be blessed."

  "This is not merely holy chrism," said the Bishop. "Precious as that is, this is far more rare. The ancient magic that created it exists no more. To crown a king is to acknowledge his temporal sway. To mark his brow with this is no mere blessing. With the proper rituals, it renders him the true king indeed, makes him a ruler by divine right."

  James looked intrigued. "Who, precisely? Who would it make into a king? Lady Sylvia seems unscathed."

  "Without the proper rituals, it will do nothing. Yet with the correct procedure—any of the pretenders who come forth so regularly to grasp for power."

  "Bonaparte?" breathed Cecy. "Would it have made him the true king?"

  The Bishop smiled bitterly. "What, the Little Emperor? Quite a diminution of his powers, from emperor to mere king. But, yes, it would have rendered even the little Corsican into the rightful king."

  "No wonder the Lady in Blue was so agitated," said Cecy. "And no wonder she was so concerned about delivering the parcel."

  "No wonder we shouldn't take it to Paris," said James. "Even with Bonaparte in exile, there will be those who search for this."

  "If they know of its existence," I said. "As long as it's a secret—"

  "It's not a secret," said Cecy. "Think of our caller in Calais."

  "If that was what he was after," countered James thoughtfully, "why did he leave without it?"

  Lady Sylvia restored the flask to her reticule and drew the strings taut. "I am not entirely helpless. Thank you, Your Excellency, for satisfying my curiosity. I think we must take mercy on Thomas now and rejoin him. Kate, you may tell him all this at the earliest opportunity, but you must do so in perfect privacy. Do you understand?"

  I must have looked nettled, for she added, more gently, "Of course you do. Still, secrecy is imperative."

  I agreed and promised to wait until I could share our news with Thomas safely.

  "Now, perhaps we should return to my parlor," said the Bishop. "I will ring for fresh tea and we can turn our attention to the pastries. Then I have something to show you that I hope may prove useful."

  Thomas was most restrained when we rejoined him. We were all subdued as we resumed our interrupted refreshment. The pastries were worthy of our undivided attention. When nothing was left but crumbs and those had been cleared away, the Bishop took up the skein of yarn he'd set aside as he greeted us.

  "You may recall this, Lady Sylvia," he said, "but I suspect it may prove a novelty to your young people." With deft fingers he shook out the skein and it became evident that it was no mere skein of yarn. Rather, it was a soft, shadowy piece of knitting, still on the needles, about the size of his two palms together. Crafted of dark sheep's wool, undyed and loosely spun, it was as insubstantial as a bit of storm cloud. "Look closely, please."

  In turn, we inspected the knitting, careful not to let the needles slide a stitch free. Upon closer examination, it became clear that there was no pattern to the knitting. In places several stitches had been dropped at once. Elsewhere the yarn had been allowed to snarl or to snag small oddments. I found a willow leaf, hardly wilted, and a glossy, dark feather no bigger than my thumbnail.

  "Heavens," said Lady Sylvia, when she held it at last. "How this takes me back." Gently, she smoothed the knitting flat on her lap and grazed it with her fingertips here and there. "Let me see. Seven weeks since... a visit? Is this feather from a cockerel? Possibly there's a pun on a name there. Hmm. I send my regrets that I cannot attend in person. Is that something like what your message says?" When she looked up at the Bishop, she seemed slightly pink-cheeked.

  The Bishop was gratified almost beyond the power of speech. "You remembered."

  Thomas and I exchanged a puzzled glance. It hardly seemed possible that anyone could find anything more than a tangled skein in the unfinished knitting.

  "Is it a kind of code?" James asked, just as Cecy exclaimed, "You can read that?"

  "Well, not all of it. Yes, it is a code, of sorts. But I think my rustiness may be excused. It has been some time," Lady Sylvia answered.

  The Bishop took the knitting back and tucked it carefully away. "The message is incomplete, of course. That hinders you in reading the meaning, naturally. But if you recall the old system, we might use it as a means of communication again."

  "Excellent notion," said Lady Sylvia. "However, I'll go over the system with you in full, if it is not inconvenient. I may recall the most elementary codes, but the subtleties I've long forgotten."

  "I would be delighted to review the codes with you. It will take some time, of course. I have made a few refinements of my own, in addition to the system we used in the old days." Almost as an afterthought, the Bishop added, "I trust you will all be able to stay for dinner?"

  "I think that would be delightful," said Lady Sylvia. "We will all benefit from the lesson. Particularly Thomas. He's never been patient with handwork."

  "I resent that," said Thomas. "I've never had a knitting lesson in my life, but I'm a devil with a darning needle."

  I couldn't help the chuckle that escaped me. Thomas looked reproachful, and James added, "He's quite right. Modest, even. I wouldn't have had a stocking to my name back in the Peninsula if it hadn't been for Thomas."

  "That's extremely fortunate," said Cecy, "because when it comes to needles, Kate's a positive menace."

  "I'm afraid I am," I confessed.

  "Nonsense," said Thomas. "You simply haven't had a good reason to concentrate on it until now. I'll teach you."

  "But you don't know how to knit any more than I do," I reminded him.

  "Details," said Tho
mas, and our lessons began.

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

  Both James and Kate had great difficulty in mastering the art of sending messages in knitting, though Kate at least found it easy to decipher the messages—it was the knitting itself that caused her problems. Every time she dropped a stitch, it changed what she was saying. Thomas was surprisingly adept, and I did not find it as confusing as I had expected. Still, the lessons took a good while longer than we had anticipated. The Bishop's curate peeked in several times, but the Bishop sent him away. I took it as a measure of his concern over the situation.

  I was somewhat distracted in my knitting efforts by my thoughts. If the mysterious Lady in Blue had given Lady Sylvia one of the missing pieces of the French kings' coronation regalia, did she have the other pieces? Where had she come by it, or them? If our midnight caller in Calais had been seeking it, what was his reason? Was he a Royalist hoping to keep it out of English hands, or a Bonapartist hoping to reinstate Napoleon, or perhaps a Republican hoping to destroy it utterly? Or perhaps he was something else entirely. I found myself wishing that Papa had been less interested in antiquities, and more in politics, for the past ten years; I could not see that knowing about the Temple of Minerva Victrix would do me the least good in the current situation; whereas it might have been a great deal of help to know more about the various factions in France.

  Unfortunately, none of my questions had an obvious answer, and Lady Sylvia seemed very reluctant to discuss the matter except in the safest of venues. I wondered suddenly if perhaps she had reason to know that we were being magically spied upon. Upon reflection, I decided that this was unlikely; if she had actually detected a scrying spell, I was sure that she would have found some way to warn us.

  Eventually we finished our lessons and departed for the Coq d'Or. Though I was extremely curious as to what Lady Sylvia intended to do with the chrism, now that we knew what it was, I refrained from asking about it. Instead, James and I recounted our visit to the temple, and then I brought out Theodore's essay on Druids for Lady Sylvia to look at.

  Thomas craned his neck to catch a glimpse of it as she read, and she obligingly laid it on the table for him. He read through it and chuckled, just as James had. "Cheeky young devil. I think you're tilting at windmills, Cecy; there's nothing magical in this essay."

  "You are half correct, my dear," Lady Sylvia said. "There is nothing magical about the writing."

  Thomas gave her a startled look, then frowned at the wrinkled page. "Ah—yes, I see. It's an odd harmonic."

  "What is an odd harmonic?" James asked. "The rest of us would like an explanation. When you are quite finished enjoying yourself."

  "He means, when you are quite finished being mysterious," Kate told Thomas.

  "Oh, we both know that's what he meant," said Thomas. "Most enjoyable it is, too."

  "That will do," Lady Sylvia said. "Thomas is referring to the residue of the spell in which this little essay was used."

  "I knew I felt something in that temple!" I said.

  "I am a little surprised that you did," Lady Sylvia said. "You must be quite sensitive to it. Can you describe it more particularly?"

  I was forced to admit that I could not; a general sensation of magic was the best I could do.

  "It is a pity that you have not progressed further in your studies," Lady Sylvia said. "I should like to have some idea what this spell was intended to accomplish. It is, as Thomas said, an exceedingly odd harmonic, quite apart from the unusual nature of the setting and the ingredients. Well, it cannot be helped." She smoothed the essay, folded it, and placed it in her reticule.

  Our discussion turned to inconsequentials, such as whether it was possible to reach Paris in a single day with the roads in the condition they were. Thomas held that it was; James considered it inadvisable. Lady Sylvia at last informed them that she, at least, did not propose to spend another night on the road if it was possible to spend it in her own hotel in Paris, and that settled the matter. Shortly after, we retired to our respective rooms.

  I spent the evening studying the book of orisons and invocations that Lady Sylvia had given me. At first, I was rather disappointed, for it was quickly plain that none of the incantations did anything, but after a short while I realized that they were like the five-finger exercises that our governess used to make me and Kate and Georgy practice on the pianoforte. The scales were not intended to make music, but to accustom the fingers to their proper positions on the keys; the incantations in Lady Sylvia's book were, similarly, intended to accustom the would-be wizard to channeling and controlling magical power, so that when one finally attempted a spell, one would not need to concentrate on anything but what the spell was supposed to accomplish.

  The following morning, as we climbed into the coach, I asked Lady Sylvia if my insight was correct. She looked quite pleased, and nodded. I would have liked to discuss the matter more thoroughly on the journey, but I settled for requesting a private conference with her later. I could not feel that Thomas or James would welcome a review of what must to them be quite basic information, and Kate had never expressed more than polite interest in the technical details of magic.

  The talk was not lively, as Lady Sylvia had been quite firm about getting an early start. Due to some mix-up, we had only the one carriage, but it was quite large and not at all uncomfortable, even with five of us inside. Lady Sylvia set the difficulty down to Thomas's account, and warned him that if it happened again, she would leave him behind to follow along with the servants and the baggage, but I do not think that even Kate believed she would actually do such a thing.

  We made good time despite the roads, which seemed to grow worse instead of better the nearer we came to Paris. By midafternoon we had reached Sevran and our final change of horses. It appeared that we would arrive in Paris with daylight to spare, but shortly after we rattled away from the coaching station, I began to feel slightly unwell.

  I am not accustomed to being carriage-sick, no matter how poor the roads, and I was determined not to cause a delay, especially as Lady Sylvia had been so adamant about reaching Paris by evening, so I leaned back and closed my eyes. James and Thomas were arguing about some obscure point of military strategy during the Peninsular War, so I could safely ignore them and concentrate on retaining my lunch.

  The unpleasant sensation in my stomach grew worse, and I was just wondering whether I would have to say something after all, when Kate said, "Lady Sylvia, are you unwell? Should we stop the coach?"

  "No," Lady Sylvia said in a voice that sounded decidedly weak. "No. This is... this is..."

  "Cecy, wake up!" James said in my ear.

  "I'm awake," I managed with some effort. I forced my eyes open. Lady Sylvia was leaning back against the squabs, looking pale. "I just feel exceedingly peculiar."

  "I should have warned you not to have the fish," James said.

  "I hardly think it can have been the fish," Kate said. "Lady Sylvia barely touched it, and Thomas didn't have any at all."

  "Thomas?" James said, frowning in evident puzzlement.

  "I'm in excellent health," Thomas said in a strangled voice. "Never better."

  "You are not," Kate said flatly. "And it's very odd that of the five of us, it's the three wizards who are suddenly feeling not the thing."

  Before James or Thomas could respond, the coach lurched violently. I heard incoherent shouts outside and then a muffled crack. We stopped moving, but I felt no better.

  Then the coach door was flung open, and a man thrust his head—and a large pistol—into the coach and said something in incomprehensible French.

  James looked quite fierce for a moment, but then he glanced at Lady Sylvia and me. His lips tightened. "We had better do as he says," he said.

  "What did he say?"

  "We're being held up," Kate said much too calmly. "We're to get out of the coach. James, will you help Lady Sylvia? I think Cecy and I can manage together, and I'm sure Thomas will do quite
well on his own. Since he is feeling so perfectly well."

  "Held up?" I said as James followed Thomas out. My stomach seemed to be settling at last, but my head still felt very fuzzy. "On the main road to Paris?"

  "It does seem rather unusual," Kate said. She was a little pale, but she had the intent look on her face that meant she was thinking very hard. It is the oddest thing—Kate can be positively terrified by balls and the theater and other ordinary social events, but in any real crisis, she is quite composed and coolheaded. I suppose it is because she is much better at improvising than at remembering rules, and highwaymen are unlikely to care much about faux pas.

  We climbed out after Lady Sylvia. An extremely scruffy man with a faded muffler wrapped around his face sat on horseback, pointing a rusty shotgun at the coachman. Another horseman, similarly muffled, held a pair of pistols aimed at James and Thomas, while a third man went through their pockets. James looked ready to commit murder, and he kept his eyes fixed on the men with the firearms. Thomas looked more saturnine than usual, that was all, but Kate watched him with a faint worry line between her brows.

  The footpad collected Lady Sylvia's reticule and necklace and delivered them to the man with the shotgun, then came to me. James stopped watching the men with the guns and gave me a warning look, which was quite unnecessary. I am not foolish enough to think myself invulnerable to firearms. I let the fellow relieve me of my jewelry and reticule. He delivered them to the leader in similar fashion, and then he turned to Kate. Having possessed himself of her reticule and earrings, he reached for her left hand to strip off her wedding ring as well. And Thomas went mad.

  I had not set Thomas down as such a romantic, and evidently neither had anyone else. His charge was so unexpected and thorough that the thieves were caught quite by surprise. The one who was mishandling Kate was knocked off his feet and landed quite ten feet away. The horses shied. James ran at the horseman with the pistols, while Thomas snatched at the boot and lower leg of the man with the shotgun, levering him up to throw him off balance and dislodge him from his saddle.