The Queen's Necklace (63 page)

“And so you hold me helpless and impotent before my wife.”

“Naturally,” said Raith, with a brief flash of emotion, “since I am willing to do violence to my own feelings, I could hardly be expected to spare yours.” Yet his glance softened as it came to rest on the sleeping girl. “If it is any comfort to you, I do not think any of this diminishes you in the eyes of Mrs. Guilian. Indeed, I believe her regard is only strengthened by what you have suffered on her account.”

Luke gave him an evil look, and took another restless turn around the cabin. It was no comfort to him at all what Tremeur thought. He was diminished in his own eyes. He had meant to play the hero, to swoop down and carry her off, into a better and nobler life than any she had known before—and only look what a pitiful figure he made instead!

Driven by a sudden surge of love and longing, Luke dropped
down on the edge of the bunk and reached out impulsively to stroke his bride's cheek—but remembering that Raith was a witness to his every action, he arrested the movement in mid-air, and drew back again.

Leaping to his feet, he crossed the floor and flung himself down in another chair. This lack of privacy, this constant constraint on any demonstration of physical affection, made everything worse. In the first blissful days of their union, it had been easy for him to be generous, to forget all the sordid details of her scandalous past, but now it was just one more insult among the many he was forced to endure, that while so many other men had enjoyed her favors,
he
was denied even the slightest intimacy.

On the other side of the cabin, Raith cleared his throat. As was so often the case, he seemed to be able to read his prisoner's mind. “If you must blame someone, I direct your attention to Lord Flinx. He, after all, is ultimately responsible for this distasteful situation, and seems to be guilty of worse things besides.”

Luke's eyes kindled, a deep flush rose in his face. “I haven't forgotten Lord Flinx. I know how far he is to blame.” Indeed, Luke sometimes thought it was the only thing that kept him sane, thinking what revenge he was going to take on the Prime Minister if and when they finally caught up with him.

Once they had sailed past Rijxland and landed in Herndyke, Raith and his prisoners left the ship and set out on an arduous overland trek. The days that followed passed in a whirl of activity, a blur of fatigue for Luke and Tremeur. Raith was virtually tireless and kept them all to a terrifying pace, though the course he followed was highly erratic and often involved considerable back-tracking. They travelled by coach, carriage, wagon, barge, and cart, on horseback and even on foot, when the mail-coach they entered at Louu was ditched.

As they moved north, they passed into a wild fen country, where the roads were built up to keep them from flooding. A cold wind from the sea ruffled the pools on either side of these causeways; herons waded in the shallows; geese and teal-ducks paddled where the water was deeper. Except in the towns on the coast, where trade was brisk and smuggling was rampant, the people here were herdsmen and small farmers, who supplemented their meager stock by fishing and fowling. They were slow, silent, unemotional folk, who lived in low houses with reed-thatched roofs, and hex-signs made up of stars, hearts, and queer-looking birds painted or carved above their doors. The men wore big boots of water-proofed leather impregnated with fish-oil, and the women had a weakness for rust-colored petticoats and for bright silk scarves, which they tied in their knotted dark hair, two or three colors at a time. On the rare occasions when any of them spoke, they used a dialect so thick that it was nearly impossible for Luke to understand them.

Seldom would Raith consent to stop in any of the houses, or in the lonely inns or hedge-taverns along the way. He and his prisoners carried food and drink with them, and slept on the move—Tremeur most often with her head on Luke's shoulder, or curled up in a corner of the coach or the wagon; Lucius giving way to sudden, overwhelming urges to nap, which he thought must be induced by Raith, so the Leveller himself might snatch a few hours of rest.

There were unforeseen and surprising obstacles.

Once, when travelling on horseback, they were forced off the high-road and obliged to make their way slowly across a quaking bog, because an entire herd of sheep lay dead in the road, struck down by some mysterious disease.

On another day, they stopped to assist a trio of keening, wild-eyed women as they pulled the water-logged bodies of a dozen drowned men out of a ditch. “How did this happen?” asked Raith. But the women refused to answer, and the men could not.

Sometimes, there would be a brief pause in some isolated spot, where the Leveller reined in the job horses, climbed down from the wagon or carriage, and began to cast one of his seeking spells. Of these he seemed to know a great number, and he employed a variety of curious devices: wands, pendulums, needles of magnetized iron. He was frequently seen scratching arcane figures in the soft earth, or sketching them in the air.

“Is that a hex?” Luke asked early one evening, when they had stopped at the edge of a rushy lake. He jumped down from the carriage to get a better look at Raith's activities. “I suppose it must be.”

It was the hour before sunset, and a mist was gathering over the water, so that only the tops of the bulrushes were visible. A flight of swans flew overhead. In spite of himself, Luke felt a superstitious thrill pass down his spine.

“It is a pentacle,” Raith answered calmly. “A figure much used by magicians and hexmasters alike.”

Luke scowled at him. “You speak as though there were some essential difference.”

The Leveller went on digging his mystic signs into the damp ground. “Hexes are invariably the work of ignorant rustics, frequently clumsy in their execution, and far more concerned with immediate results than with long-term consequences. As such, no matter how benign his intention, the work of any hexmaster generally leads to unfortunate results, sooner or later. I, on the other hand, am a trained magician. There is a precise calculation in everything I do.”

Frogs were croaking in the invisible lake. The mist had crept inside of Luke's clothing, making his linens heavy and dank. “A trained magician,” he repeated mockingly. “Yet you are also an Anti-demonist—and excommunicate.”

“That is true,” said Raith, taking out and examining another of his curious devices—this one much like a compass, though with two
needles and the signs of the zodiac painted on the dial. “If hexmasters are common in Rijxland, Herndyke, and Catwitsen, so are Anti-demonists. Unfortunately, that very proximity has caused the latter to form an unshakeable aversion to
all
forms of magic. It is an aversion which, needless to say, I do not share.”

“But does any of this really tell you where Lord Flinx
is
?” Luke was determined to be unpleasant—though it did often seem they were moving at random.

“Not precisely where he is, no. What it tells me is where he has been and where he is not, which can also be useful, though it does take longer to find him that way.” Raith's eyes were sunken and shadowed, his skin was dull, yet Luke detected nothing in his voice or his movements to betray fatigue. “But we will catch up with Lord Flinx eventually. When we do, I can only hope that he carries the Jewel with him. If he has passed it on to somebody else, this whole journey may well prove fruitless.”

“Pass it on to—why would he do that?” said Luke, with a fleering laugh. “When the whole idea of stealing one of the Goblin Jewels must be to gain power for himself?”

The device in Raith's hand began to give out a low humming noise. The double needles, which had been swinging wildly up until now, suddenly came to rest: one of them pointing to the sign of the crab, the other to the scorpion. “I do not say he would pass it on willingly. But I believe he may be dealing with people more ruthless, even, than he is himself.”

“But who could that possibly be?” Tremeur asked, coming up beside them, materializing like the ghost of a drowned child out of the mist. “You don't mean to tell us, sir, that my uncle has been nothing more than a pawn in somebody else's game from the very beginning?”

“I do mean to tell you so. Have I kept you both to such a pace that you have not even noticed the forces at work on every side of
us? When we took the mail-coach from Louu, did you hear none of the disturbing news that the other passengers were all discussing?”

Luke thought about that as they all climbed back into their hired carriage, sat down again on the clammy red leather seats. He had been absorbed in his own troubles, yet he had not been deaf or blind—he had simply refused to analyze any of the ugly or frightening things he had seen or heard along the way.

“It does seem as though there is sickness in every village or town we pass through,” he answered slowly. “Or that the people are always just recovering from some freak disaster. But that it might actually
mean
something—it never occurred to me.”

“Then consider it now,” said Raith, taking up the worn leather reins. “Let your imagination run wild. I doubt you will come up with anything more incredible than the truth. If ever there was a time for you to detect evidence of some dread conspiracy, Mr. Guilian, that time is now.”

At the Bridemoor—Catwitsen Border

8 Pastoral, 6538

G
eneral Pengennis arrived with the dawn. A lanky gentleman, something past fifty, he had long fair hair streaked with grey and a fine military swagger. Evidently, he was perfectly at ease in his brand-new uniform, with its gaudy gold braid, immense brass buttons, shoulder loops, and archaic insignia. “If you can prove to my satisfaction that you are in no way connected with the Crown of Lichtenwald, I will issue a passport. Otherwise, I am afraid you will have to turn back.”

Will was absent-mindedly reaching for his missing warrant, when Blaise surprised him by stepping forward and producing a handful of documents. “Blaise Crowsmeare-Trefallon,” he said briskly. “I have here a lieutenant's commission, recently signed by Rodaric of Mountfalcon, and a letter explaining that Captain Blackheart and I have been sent abroad on exceedingly vital official business.”

The general accepted his papers and examined them carefully. “Blackheart,” he said, with a keen glance in Will's direction. “I believe that I had the honor of meeting your wife. She is Sir Bastian's granddaughter?”

Will bowed stiffly, rather than assent to the lie.

“It seems strange you should both be travelling this way—though separately and on different business.”

Will bowed again, even more rigidly than before. The general continued to frown at him for several minutes, then shook his head and turned to Blaise. He asked a number of curt questions and seemed satisfied with the answers, because he scribbled out a pass on the back of the letter and handed all the papers back to Trefallon. He left the tent, but not without another pointed glance in Will's direction.

“Now, why poker up like that and remain silent?” asked the exasperated Blaise. “Or did you
mean
to convince him you are a wife-beater and a brute, in pursuit of your unfortunate bride who has fled with her grandfather?”

Will shrugged. “It scarcely matters
what
he thought; he issued a passport anyway. But as we are asking questions,
lieutenant
, perhaps you'll explain those documents you're carrying?”

Trefallon followed him out of the tent, shaking his head. “Don't sulk, Will, just because Rodaric gave them to me. I admit that I should have mentioned them before, but the truth is—”

“The truth is,” said Will, vaulting up into the saddle, and spitting the words out over his shoulder, “it's been decided I might be inclined to lose them.”

“Nothing of the sort,” Blaise answered patiently, as he untied the reins, and mounted the chestnut. “It's been decided that you are a walking target for the conspirators. Who, we devoutly hope, don't know me—since the Wryneck who
might
have identified me is a handful of ashes blowing through the streets of Fencaster.”

They crossed the mountains and descended into the lowlands of Catwitsen, heading west into country made marshy by the confluence of three rivers: the Catkin, the Eel, and the Windle. It was feverish country; many died there during the summer months. This
early in the year, it ought to have been pleasant. Yet, though the fennel and the lacy water hemlock were in bloom, though an immense blue sky stretched overhead, it seemed a landscape in mourning. At least once a day, Blaise and Will passed some funeral procession: a dozen black barges poling through the reedy waterways, or a straggling line of veiled women and children toiling up a windy hillside rank with sedge. In every churchyard, there were fresh graves under the silver willows.

For Will, the next weeks were a study in frustration. Twice, when he and Blaise stopped at an inn or a tavern to make inquiries about an elderly gentleman and a young woman travelling in a barouche, they were sent tearing off in some new direction, only to discover in the end that they were following the wrong pair.

Arriving late one evening in the town of Rummeny, they were denied lodgings on the grounds that the inn and all the houses were under quarantine for the Yellow Plague. And when—already impatient for dinner and beds—they rode on to the next village, they were stopped four times in three hours by roving troops of soldiers, who demanded to see their passport.

Even the weather turned against them. For a solid week, it rained heavily. Rivers raged, roads flooded, bridges were swept away, causing numerous detours. When the rain stopped, there was a brief period of calm, followed by a wind-storm so violent, it tore branches off trees and thatch off roofs, and even pulled rushes and cattails out of the ground.

The further they rode into Catwitsen, the worse they found the accommodations. Beds were hard, food ill-prepared, landlords, waiters, and chambermaids surly. One night there was nothing to eat but pilchards. Breakfast the next morning was burnt porridge. Boots went unpolished, linen unwashed, until Blaise and Wilrowan became as dirty and sullen as the inhabitants.