The Queen's Necklace (57 page)

Voirdemare, Château-Rouge—Four Months Later

21 Germenal, 6538

I
t was the worst part of the worst part of town: a paradise for thieves, a maze without a clue. It was miles upon miles of battered old houses, with windows boarded up and hundreds of secret entrances and exits. It was the kind of place where people went who wanted to slip out of sight—sometimes, indeed, they accomplished this far more effectively and permanently than they intended—a place where people went when they had something or someone that they wanted to disappear.

By night, these ill-lit lanes and byways swarmed with highwaymen and horse-thieves, with gangs of swashbuckling adventurers in ragged silks and piratical black wigs, with footpads, bravos, and bully swordsmen. By day, they were a hunting ground for cloak-snatchers and pickpockets.

It was early one evening, in the hour between the horse-thieves and the pickpockets, that an oddly grim figure was seen moving through the narrow streets, with long easy strides. Though he was a stranger in the neighborhood, he seemed to know exactly where he was going, for he entered one of the dirty pink houses, climbed two flights of stairs, and walked right in through the door at the top without stopping to knock.

Inside, a man and woman were sitting at a broken-down table by the window, sharing a simple meal of figs, flat-bread and white wine. At the sight of the intruder, they both jumped to their feet, with mingled expressions of surprise and pleasure.

“Raith, my dear fellow. I can hardly believe—” Lucius began, but he was immediately silenced by the sudden and startling appearance of a large silver pistol in the Leveller's hand.

“Excuse me, Mr. Guilian. I must ask you to raise your hands up over your head and allow me to search you, before we can even proceed to the point of explanations.”

Luke did not raise his hands as Raith requested; neither did he make any move to escape. He laughed uneasily. “And if I refuse to do as you say, am I supposed to believe that you are going to shoot me? Everyone knows that Levellers—?

“—never make use of firearms,” the Rijxlander finished for him. “Neither do we own or carry them. And yet you see this one here in my hand. Are you willing to wager your life that, having so far departed from Anti-demonist doctrine, I will not depart even further by actually firing at you? At this range, I could hardly miss.”

Luke considered for several heartbeats, then slowly raised his hands. At his yielding, Tremeur made a tiny sound of protest. “But you can't really be here to arrest him. He has done nothing wrong. He did not—did not
abduct
me.”

“Mademoiselle Brouillard,” said Raith. That Mr. Guilian saw fit to remove you from the care of your guardian, that he even went so far, I am informed, as to take you through a form of marriage, concerns me very little. I may deplore such imprudent behavior, yet I can admire his chivalry. But that he saw fit to remove at the same time an object of great value to the Crown of Rijxland—that I cannot condone.”

As he spoke, Raith strode across the room and made a quick but efficient one-handed search of Luke's pockets, extracting, in the process, a small pearl-handled pistol that he found inside the coat.

“An object of value?” Luke was flabbergasted. “I can't begin to guess what you mean. I took nothing when I left Luden, nothing that wasn't mine—except that is, this young lady here and a certain post chaise, for which I paid all the charges.”

The Leveller pocketed Luke's pistol, made a movement with the larger one he held in his hand. “If you will sit back down in your chair and put your arms behind you, and if Mademoiselle will do the same—”

Reluctantly, the two resumed their seats. Pulling out two lengths of thin but strong cording from somewhere inside his dark cloak, the Anti-demonist bound first Luke then Tremeur to their chairs.

“Raith,” said Lucius, as reasonably as he could, though by now he was seething with indignation. “I can assure you that none of this is necessary. There seems to be some misunderstanding. And I thought we were friends. How you can—”

“Mr. Guilian, we
are
friends. I am binding you to this chair in order to prevent you from making any move that would force me to harm you. Make no mistake about it: whatever violence it might do my feelings to hurt or to kill you, I will not allow you to escape, and I
will
have the object you took with you when you left Luden.”

Luke and Tremeur exchanged a bewildered glance.

“I still don't know—but you have already searched me. Pray don't hesitate to search the room as well,” Luke said bitterly. “Whatever you are looking for, you won't find it here.”

“I know that the Jewel is not here,” Raith answered calmly. “Had you kept it in your possession, I would have experienced far less difficulty finding
you
. What I wish to know is where you have hidden it, or who has it now. Then we will discuss what I am to do with you.”

Luke threw back his head and glared up at him. “Jewel? What jewel? Fiend seize you, Raith! How am I to clear my name, when you won't even tell me what it is I have supposedly stolen?”

The Leveller continued to regard him impassively. “Very well,
since you would have me speak plainly: I am here to recover the Maglore artifact, the Rijxlander Jewel. There is every reason to believe that it left Luden at the same time you did, and as you had access to it, the obvious conclusion is that you are responsible.”

“Access?” Luke gave an incredulous shake of his head. “But I have never even
seen
it. Surely the thing was kept at the palace in Luden, and your spies must have told you: I've never been inside the place!”

“Not at the palace, but at Doctor Van Tulp's, where King Izaiah kept the Jewel within reach at all times. When Mademoiselle disappeared, he grew uneasy. When he found that the Jewel had also disappeared, he immediately sent for the Princess Marjote, who shortly thereafter sent for me, and for the Prime Minister.”

Raith drew up a chair, turned its back to the table, and sat down straddling the seat. “When the summons reached him, Lord Flinx had just learned of his niece's elopement.”

“A coincidence,” Luke insisted. “What else could it be but a damned coincidence? Can you really believe that in planning an elopement I designed to bring anything so large, so immediately recognizable as the Silver Nef? Is this likely? Is this reasonable? And what would I do with the thing, once I had taken it out of Rijxland?”

Now a flicker of doubt crossed the Leveller's face. “Naturally, we do not speak of the Silver Nef. What was stolen was far more valuable. It is possible, I suppose, that you did not know what it was when you took it. Though why you should indulge in ordinary theft—”

He was interrupted by a sharp cry from Tremeur, who had finally realized what he was searching for. “My fault—it was my fault. But I didn't know. Oh Luke, Luke, what have I done? I have embroiled you in something far worse than I ever dreamed of, but all I meant to do was buy us time!”

She turned in her chair, wild-eyed and pale, to face the Leveller. “Can't you see? Luke has no idea, even now, what we are talking about.
It is King Izaiah's emerald pocket watch, isn't it? Lord Flinx ordered me to find it and turn it over to him—months ago—a year ago.”

“And you conveniently discovered its whereabouts just before you left Luden?”

Tremeur shook her head emphatically. “I
always
knew where it was. I was the one who helped King Izaiah smuggle the watch out of the palace. I had no idea why he was so attached to it, but neither could I see why he should not have it. So I did what he told me and hid the watch outside the palace. After he arrived at the madhouse, we crept out together one night and buried it in the garden—where I suppose it remained up until the time that Luke and I eloped. Then I left a letter behind for Lord Flinx, telling him where to find it. I thought that if I did that one last thing he wanted me to do, he might—he might be less likely to follow after me.”

“It is an interesting story, and entirely plausible,” said Raith, who had seemed, while she spoke, to be weighing all the details in his mind. “Unfortunately, mademoiselle, you are so well-known for your storytelling ability, it is difficult for me to accept even so plausible an explanation. Mr. Guilian, too, has a lively imagination. I can hardly suppose this—most convincing account beyond your combined powers of invention.”

Luke had been listening attentively all of this time. At first he had been astonished, then outraged, and finally thoughtful. “But where is Lord Flinx right now?” he challenged Raith. “When the princess told you both that the Jewel was missing, did he elect to remain behind in Luden—which would certainly be the act of an innocent man—or has he covered his own escape by pretending to go in search of
us
?”

Again doubt flickered in Raith's eyes. “I believe I will decline to answer such a leading question. This much I will say: Lord Flinx is not in Luden. He left with the intention of searching for you in Mountfalcon.”

Luke raised his eyebrows in feigned surprise. “In Mountfalcon? When I told
everyone
that I was going to Herndyke?”

“We knew, of course, that the last place we ought to look for you was in Herndyke, since you had announced so plainly your intention to go there. We concluded between us—the princess, the Prime Minister, and myself—that you were equally unlikely to head further north to Winterscar, where you might involve King Jarred and your other relations in irredeemable disgrace.”

Raith crossed his arms over the back of the chair. “It was Lord Flinx who suggested you might be found in Montcieux, where the young lady might wish to seek out some friend of her early years. I was assigned to search for you there, but I chanced to stumble across your trail and followed you here instead.”

“And did it never occur to you,” said Luke sarcastically, “since Lord Flinx has a house there, that
he
was the one who should go to Montcieux?”

An intent look crossed the Leveller's face. “Now that you mention it, I am somewhat surprised by that. I also admit that my judgement may have been clouded. I was so eager, you see, to send him east. I thought there might be far less grief for everyone involved if I was the one who found you.”

Luke made an impatient movement, straining against his bonds. “You say that we are friends, and everyone knows that you despise Lord Flinx—yet you were ready enough to suspect
me
of this terrible thing, and him not at all. How do you explain that?”

The Leveller shook his head. “I should undoubtedly remind you, Mr. Guilian, that under the circumstances I am the one who should be asking questions and demanding explanations.” There was a sudden disturbance down in the street, a clash of swords and the sound of running feet, and Raith left his seat and closed the shutters.

“Nevertheless, I will answer you this time,” he said, returning to his chair. “I am sorry if what I say pains you. You have always seemed
to be the sort of man who thought he knew better than anyone else how things should be done. This being so, I cannot help thinking that you might—with the best possible intentions, meaning only good to come of it—have entered into some conspiracy designed to—” Raith shrugged. “I will not mince words. A conspiracy designed to arrange the world in a more satisfactory manner. Also, if you were given the opportunity to play at cloak and dagger, I do not see how you could possibly resist.”

Luke winced, since he had clearly left himself open to these very constructions by his own-actions, his own enthusiasms.

“As for Lord Flinx,” Raith continued, “his ambitions, though selfish, have always been considerably less—grandiose in their scope. So far as I can see, he would be perfectly content ruling his own little corner of the world.”

“But it isn't his corner to rule. He may be the most powerful man in Rijxland now, but when King Izaiah dies, Lord Flinx loses everything.”

The Leveller was continuing to listen to Luke with an expression of close attention. “Again you are correct. When the Princess Marjote ascends the throne, in the first surge of popular support which always bears up a new monarch at the time of her coronation, she can have everything her own way. Unless I am much mistaken, that will include choosing her own Prime Minister. By the time her policies come under a closer scrutiny, Lord Flinx should already be established in an embassy post thousands of miles away.”

“Then surely you see,” said Luke, “that Lord Flinx is a far more likely suspect than I am.” Again he strained against his bonds. “For the love of Heaven! Set the two of us free, and then go as quickly as you can to catch the man who is really responsible for the theft of the Jewel.”

Raith shook his head regretfully. “I am afraid that I cannot release
you. As much as I am inclined to believe you—as much as I
wish
to believe you—I dare not risk letting you go.”

Luke made a loud, exasperated sound of protest. “But neither,” said the Leveller, “will I ignore any of the disturbing questions you have raised. I shall certainly do all in my power to find Lord Flinx and discover the truth. But I am afraid that allowing you and Mademoiselle to escape in the meantime is quite impossible.”

Tremeur spoke up. “But if you admit we have done nothing wrong by marrying—?”

Raith's large hands gripped the sides of the chair as he hitched it closer to the table. His expression was troubled. “I did not mean to imply that I condone this illegal marriage of yours, only that I understood and sympathized with Mr. Guilian's motives. I do acknowledge that there is a law higher than that of Mankind, and perhaps you both believe you have acted in accordance with that law—perhaps you are even right. Yet you have violated a ban which has been in place for fifteen hundred years. Having done so in full knowledge of the law and the consequences, I see no reason why you should expect to avoid them.”