by ‘Good morning Vesper, Jay,’ said Milady as she admitted us to her room. The air sparkled as her disembodied voice spoke.
‘Milady.’ I took up my usual station in the centre of the sumptuous blue carpet, and made her a curtsey. Jay produced the same courtly bow he’d offered to Bill earlier.
‘Very fine form, Jay,’ Milady complimented him.
Jay grinned. ‘Thank you.’
‘He’s been practicing,’ I said.
‘He will make a fine ambassador to the Courts someday.’
That shut me up. Jay! The Society’s representative at the magickal royal courts! Since I’d secretly coveted such posts for some years, I could not help feeling a twinge of envy at the idea.
‘Not before you, Ves,’ said Jay, apparently reading my feelings. It was so kindly said that I instantly forgave him for his earlier teasing.
‘Have you ambassadorial ambitions, Ves?’ said Milady.
I sighed. ‘I’m a little susceptible to the glamour of the post, I can’t deny it. But while I think I would suit such a post well, I would probably grow bored after a while.’
‘You would, in fact,’ said Jay, though whether he was referring to my assertion of being well-suited to such a job, or to my conviction that it would eventually bore me, I could not determine.
‘Very well, I shall not rush to reassign you. And we cannot yet spare Jay from Acquisitions, either. What can you tell me about that terrible book?’
We told her everything about the terrible book. I personally chose to gloss over the close relationship I was beginning to enjoy with dear old Bill, but Jay had no such scruples.
Milady seemed more struck with the book’s history than its present configuration. ‘I am astounded,’ said she when we had finished, ‘that this sorceress should have faded so completely from all memory or record, considering the extent of her accomplishments. Such a book must qualify as a great artefact. In fact, I have rarely heard of so spectacular an achievement in magick. Valerie had nothing to tell you?’
‘I got the impression she had some kind of an idea,’ I replied. ‘But too shaky an inkling to share, just yet. I’ve hopes of hearing something more concrete from her before long.’
‘I am sure she can be relied upon to unearth something,’ Milady agreed. ‘As to the book…’ She trailed off into silence, and Jay and I waited patiently while she thought the matter over. ‘I think it had better be kept a secret, for the present,’ she finally decided. ‘Such a powerful object would be so highly sought after, were it known to exist — even now, we have nothing in magick to equal it! I fear there could be trouble over it.’
‘Absolutely, Milady,’ I said. ‘We won’t spread it about.’
‘Should be easier to keep a lid on it, now that Bill’s calmed down,’ added Jay.
‘Yes,’ said Milady. ‘There I must agree with Bill. Zareen’s methods are somewhat to be deplored, but they do appear to have done the trick this time.’
‘That’s why we have Zareen,’ I said. ‘She does the questionable stuff, so most of us don’t have to.’
‘Not that it stops you from trying,’ muttered Jay.
‘Sometimes, the strangest tasks require the most difficult procedures,’ Milady gracefully agreed, letting Jay’s comment pass. I knew that Zareen was often given leeway on this kind of thing, more so than the rest of us. I had never resented it, because I knew it was part of her job; Toil and Trouble, indeed. She paid dearly for the privilege of not being decapitated for such transgressions as, say, copying famous proposals of marriage into ancient books.
‘Do keep me informed,’ said Milady. ‘In the meantime, Ves, I understand you have some few articles withdrawn from Stores, which might wish to be replaced?’
‘Er, yes.’ I felt a little shame-faced. I’d gone a bit mad in the store-rooms on the last mission, and gleefully carted off all manner of shiny charms, magickal trinkets and minor artefacts. Most of which I had not even used, and I had indeed forgotten to return some of them.
I do have terrible hoarding tendencies sometimes.
‘Jay,’ continued Milady serenely. ‘Your sister is in the development labs with Orlando. She is feeling overwhelmed, I believe, and would benefit from some family time.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Jay.
Knowing ourselves to be dismissed, we made our parting obeisances and left the tower, clattering back down the stairs in some relief. I’d half expected Milady to be appalled at the way we’d handled the book, and was pleased to find that we were not in disgrace.
‘Your sister’s with Orlando?’ I asked Jay as we wended our way back down. ‘How!’
Orlando’s the Development Division’s star employee, and a typical eccentric. He’s an inventor, of sorts; he mixes old magick with new technology in genius-level ways, and he’s responsible for some of our best tools (and weapons). He’s very secretive. He lives tucked away up in the attics somewhere, and the only people who are regularly allowed to go into his workrooms are his wife, Miranda, and his assistant, Jeremy.
‘She’s very bright, and very talented,’ said Jay with obvious pride. ‘They’re considering her for Orlando’s new assistant.’
‘New? What about Jeremy?’
‘They think Orlando could do with some more help.’
Perhaps he could, at that. His inventions were so popular with the Society, I could well believe he might have trouble keeping up with the demand. ‘You’ve a very talented family,’ I observed.
Jay smiled. ‘Indira will be the best of us. She’s had a rough time of it lately, though. No sooner did she arrive here than she broke her arm, and now it sounds like she’s homesick. I’d better go right away.’
I realised suddenly that I’d seen her already, a week or two before. Our doctor, Rob, had been tending to her. ‘How did she break her arm?’
Jay grimaced. ‘Fell down some stairs.’
Perhaps that explained a little of Jay’s aversion to them. I filed that away. ‘Isn’t she a bit young to be apprenticing already? Though perhaps Milady was in a hurry to scoop her up.’
‘Yes, and yes,’ Jay admitted. ‘Though she’s older than she looks. She’s almost eighteen.’
I’d thought she looked fifteen at most. I felt a surge of sympathy for her, remembering the distressed look on her youthful face when I’d seen her in the infirmary. ‘That way to Orlando’s secret attic hideaway,’ I said a few moments later, pointing down a dark passageway that led away from the second set of stairs. ‘He won’t let you in, but hopefully he’ll send Indira out.’
Jay gave me a salute in thanks, and wandered off. I trailed back downstairs alone, feeling oddly forlorn. Perhaps it was because I had to give up the remains of my hoard to the Stores again. I do so like my trinkets.
I wondered, on the way back to my room, how Bill was getting along with Val.
Swimmingly, I found. When I’d finished guiltily gathering up my temporary acquisitions and conveying them back to Stores, I trawled back to the library to find Bill holding court from the centre of Val’s desk. His courtiers consisted of the entire library staff — students from research and reference, veterans from the archives, everybody. Val herself sat enthroned in her usual spot, but she looked harassed.
‘Madam,’ I heard Bill say as I approached. ‘You do have the most delightfully smooth fingernails.’
He was addressing Anne from Archives, who blushed to match her fire-red dress and stroked Bill lovingly. ‘You’re so kind to say so.’
A young man I didn’t recognise said: ‘What about the curse of Thetford in 1453? Real or hoax?’
‘Most likely a hoax,’ said Bill firmly. ‘The story was fabricated by a linen-weaver called Wymond Bowe, who hated his brother’s wife with such a passion that he accused her of sorcery, and claimed that she had cursed the townsfolk with a host of unpleasant ailments. The evidence he presented was certainly spurious, but it is fair to note that the good people of Thetford did exhibit an unusually broad range of complaints during that year. There were claims in some quarters that the curse was real (or curses, I should say), and that Bowe was in fact the source of the troubles himself.’
‘But you don’t believe that.’
Bill considered. ‘My mistress was acquainted with Bowe in some distant fashion, and did not give the story much credence.’
‘This is brilliant,’ said the young man, and immediately began typing furiously into his phone. He snapped Bill’s picture.
‘Val—’ I tried to say, but she could not hear me over the clamour of Bill’s audience, and I couldn’t get near her either.
But Bill detected my presence, for he cried with alacrity: ‘Miss Vesper! Surrounded as I am with extraordinary beauty, still you cast all others into the shade.’
I began to wonder whether our precious book wasn’t so much Bill Darcy as Bill Wickham.
I also wondered a bit about Drogryre. Had the book always been so devastatingly charming? (At least up until it came into contact with John Wester).
‘Bill,’ I said, pushing my way through to the desk with a brutality born of mild desperation. ‘Val. Can we please clear everyone out?’
Val looked relieved to have an excuse. ‘All right, back to work!’ she shouted. ‘There’ll be more Bill later.’
Disgruntled, but somewhat mollified by this appended promise, the library’s staff drifted away, leaving me alone with Val.
‘Milady wants him kept secret,’ I hissed.
‘It’s a bit late for that order.’
‘So I see.’ I grimaced. ‘I ought to have known Bill would cause an instant sensation.’
‘He’s like a search engine for magickal history, at least up until the sixteenth century. And he’s got a vast deal of information that’s never come to light before. Of course he’s a sensation.’
‘Not to mention his talent for flattering with sincerity.’
Bill ruffled his pages. ‘It may have escaped your attention, madam, but I can hear you.’
I patted Bill’s soft leather cover. ‘I mean no disparagement, Bill. You’re every girl’s dream, aren’t you?’
Bill appeared pleased with this tribute, and settled down.
‘What can we do?’ I said, despairing. ‘Milady says there’ll be trouble if word spreads, and she could well be right. Can you imagine what a book like this would fetch at auction?’
Val began to look worried. ‘Spreads where, though? We might receive a few purchase offers, but I can’t think who would cause trouble.’
I could think of a few possibilities, but I kept them to myself. It might never happen, and Val had clearly had a trying enough morning already. ‘I’m sure it will be fine,’ I said. ‘Only perhaps we’ll keep him under better wraps for a while.’
‘We can try,’ said Val.
For the rest of the afternoon, I had some of that rare, lovely stuff they call “free time.” Jay didn’t reappear, and my favourite activity — browsing in Stores — would put me too much in the way of temptation. So instead I spent it on my other favourite activity: browsing in the library.
With Bill. And Val. And half the rest of the Society. My esteemed colleagues kept wandering in all through the afternoon, having just happened to remember some vital errand they had to run in the library and which absolutely could not wait another instant… oh, is that the talking book? A quick peek? Bill, do you happen to know the recipe for Gulgorn’s Palliative? It’s been lost since at least the early fifteens… you do! Let me jot that down! All right, all right, I’m going. Brilliant book you have there.
This went on all day. It was of no use bleating about Milady’s orders; our visitors patently did not care, and it was just as obviously too late for us to bother caring either. Oh, nobody would outright flout Milady’s wishes, but it was so easy to come up with an excuse to stop by for five minutes, and since everyone else was doing it…?
Milady ought to have known, I thought darkly, when at last Val grew tired of this and closed the library. It was late in the evening by that time, and we had to turn people away at the door. I did not ask where Val stashed Bill for the night; I only established that it was somewhere suitably fiendish by way of security, and properly unguessable.
‘You’re sure nobody will find him?’
‘Perfectly,’ said Val wearily.
‘He’s behind a few stout locks, of course?’
‘Of course. Will you please go to bed, Ves.’
‘I’m going.’ And I did, but I was back in half a minute. ‘How many stout locks?’
‘Several. Go!’
I went, but I passed an unsettled night, my head full of paranoid imaginings. See, I have never been involved with such a spectacular find before. The pressure weighed upon me rather more than I cared to admit to anybody. Upon rising the following morning, I strove to erase the signs of a poor night’s rest from my face, or at least to draw attention away from them through the use of my sparkliest cosmetics.
I was accordingly a little late reaching the dining area. It’s a bit school-cafeteria down there, to be honest, with great cauldrons of food lined up behind a long series of counters, and little clusters of tables spread about the floor. But they have a way of serving all my favourites — a positive feast of berries this morning, and an entire vat of yoghurt, the full-fat kind — so I don’t much mind.
Jay was already seated at our usual table near the biggest window. He had Indira with him. Val was also there, and Rob, and Nell. They looked formidably as though they were holding an emergency council, which hardly seemed reasonable at that hour of the morning.
When I reached the table with my bowl of breakfast delights, I saw a newspaper spread out in the centre. They were the colour pages from the front, the headlines, and my heart sank like a stone because there in enormous letters was the announcement: ‘Spectacular Find at the Society!’
And Bill’s picture.
