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the fleas do it every time, whether they've got sickness in them or not."
"I can't believe it," said Jim, turning again to Angie. "EvenCumberland
wouldn't try murdering the King or would he?"
"Maybe Agatha talked him into it. She wouldn't have any qualms about doing
it. And you told me once he does want to be King, or Regent."
"Then maybe he would," said Jim. "This is a hell of a mess! Nobody would
believe it least of all the King. Probably not even the Prince. Angie, if this
is actually what's going on here, I've got to do something to stop it!
Carolinus has been hammering into me that my first and greatest duty is to
keep the King alive but he'd never say why, maybe because I'm not a
full-fledged Magickian yet."
"Jim " Angie began.
"But evidently," he rushed on, "it's the first duty of every Magickian, and
I'll be told that, along with other things, if I'm ever voted into the
Collegiate as one of them. But all the rest of you had better clear out now
without waiting I mean this minute." He was feeling things that needed to be
done pushing him faster than he could think about them. "I'll use magic to
make your going invisible and then work it some way as if you're still here,
when I ask the King for permission to leave tomorrow."
"I won't go without you!" said Angie. "Dafydd won't either, or Brian, of
course, and that means Danielle and Geronde will be staying, too. Yes, Geronde
definitely. On second thought, Danielle will absolutely go, so there'll be her
at least to take care of her children if Dafydd doesn't make it back from
here, but everybody else will stay." Then she paused in her turn for breath.
"Can you be sure that's what's going on?" she asked.
"You're right. I need some evidence. Tiverton hob!"
"Yes, m'lord?"
"How can you be sure they're trying to make the King sick, you hobs?" said
Angie.
"I watched from behind the fireplace fire one eve and saw the lady give
m'lord Verweather his orders," answered Tiverton hob.
"When was this?"
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"A fortnight ago no, maybe three weeks agone."
"But that's not going to help you much," said Angie. "The word of a hob,
particularly one with a grudge against the goblins how can we be sure the
staff here'sallgoblins?"
"If I just knew even one of them was, it'd be a start," said Jim. "I could
try to counter whatever magic makes a goblin& turn it or him into his real
shape. But then if I could, I'd have alerted all of them& "
He thought a moment. Then he suddenly snapped his fingers.
"We can use our own full-length mirror in the Solar the one I silvered the
back of for you. Hang on a minute. I'll get it here!"
Chapter Twenty-Four
Angie looked carefully at the full-length mirror Jim had just transported
from the Solar back at Malencontri. It was really a rather beautiful mirror as
well as being the only one like it inEngland .
True, its images were a little wavery, since the glass was fourteenth-century
window glass rare enough in its own right. It was some of the glass Jim had
gotten for the rare luxury of having real glazed windows in their towertop
residence. But the Malencontri carpenter had made for it as beautiful a frame
as was within his power: no figures of course, but some excellent ornate
carving on the edges.
"I hope nothing happens to it here," she said. "I didn't have time to suggest
it, you acted so fast, but couldn't you just have made a copy, now you've got
the first one?"
"I could not," said Jim. "Magic doesn't understand silvering mainly because I
don't either. I'd have to make another from scratch and you remember how long
it took me to get the silver to stick to the glass, last time."
"You're right," said Angie. "I forgot. I'm not really worried about it."
"All right. Now a touch of magic to make it invisible. Good. And a touch more
to make it reveal things."
"But you haven't made it invisible " Angie began.
"Yes, I have. Not to us. But it'll be invisible to any goblin or anyone else
magically trying to pass his or herself off as something different. Now we
call in the servant or the man-at-arms. Maybe the hobs better be invisible,
too."
"Tiv and I can be up the chimney," said Hob, "and still see and hear
everything."
"Fine," said Jim. "A pinch of magic saved is a pinch of magic earned. Angie
do you want to be the one to call the servant, or the guard?"
"Servant here!" Angie raised her voice. The servant came in.
"Over here, by me," Angie said to her. "Stand right there that's right. Now
look at this pen here. Now, I want that cleaned four times a day andalwayswhen
I'm expecting guests. You understand?"
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Lured into perfect range of the mirror, the servant was suddenly reflected no
longer as a woman, but exactly like a hob, except for a light coat of
buff-colored hair.
"Oh yes, m'lady," said the individual projecting this image.
"Good," said Angie, in a perfectly controlled voice, "you can go now." The
door closed behind the servant. "Jim!"
"Yes, I saw," said Jim.
The two hobs were back in the room. Jim was beginning to be able to tell them
apart. Tiverton hob was slightly shorter than Malencontri hob, and a little
more burly if that word could legitimately be used to describe any hob.
Jim had been standing in a trancelike state looking at the two hobs, his mind
whirring away and getting nowhere like an electric motor out of control.
Suddenly he came out of it, knelt down and began sculpting empty air with this
open hands.
"What are you doing?" Angie said.
"Making a model of Tiverton." Jim stood up from his work. What he had created
was a shape of mist that resembled a castle but only in that it had a
surrounding wall and a tower attached to a broader, lower section. "Now we'll
cause a green light to show for each one in the castle who's a goblin my God!"
Pinpricks of green lights were showing all through the model, in uncountable
numbers.
"How many are there?" he asked.
The two hobs looked at each other. "I don't know, m'lord," said Hob.
"More than two hundred," said Tiverton hob.
"They don't need that many to run a castle the size of Tiverton, do they,
Angie?" said Jim, dazed.
"Seventy would do it," Angie said out of her experience as Chatelaine of
Malencontri. "Jim, if they ever find out we know about them "
"You don't have to spell it out " Jim broke off. "Sorry, Angie. Didn't mean
to bark at you. We'll just have to make sure they don't find out."
"How will you do that, m'lord?" asked Tiverton hob, plainly interested. Jim
stared at him.
"By just giving no sign we ever knew any different," said Jim. "And if you
and Malencontri hob stay in the chimneys and out of their sight, they'll have
no way of finding out that anything unusual has been going on."
"Oh, but they will know that soon anyway, m'lord," said Hob.
"Yes," Tiverton hob chimed in before Jim could respond, "I understand what
you mean, Hob."
"Well,Idon't!" Angie said. "Jim, what are they talking about?"
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"I think," Jim said slowly, "the hobs are saying that that goblin who was
being a servant will have smelled that magic was at work in the room a moment
ago." He shook his head. "I should have remembered that Hob said the goblins
can smell magic."
"But you work magic all the time," Angie said. "So smelling magic around you
shouldn't make them suspect anything."
"What do you think about that, you hobs?" Jim asked. "You both know more
about them than we do. Will they be suspicious?"
"Maybe not right away, m'lord," Hob said, after exchanging a look with
Tiverton hob, who simply nodded. "But later that goblin is going to remember
how m'lady had her stand right in front of the magic she smelled and get
suspicious you magicked her, for some reason."
"But what of it, if she doesn't know we could see her true shape in it?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]