The Crusading Wizard

CHAPTER 16

Jimena and Ramon led Lakshmi back to the solar from which her attack had drawn them. The peace and harmony of the room seemed to calm the djinna instantly, the sun streaming in the tall windows onto the warm, polished woodwork and furniture and brightening the colors in the tapestries. Jimena showed her to a chair, told the guard to send for some of the coffee Tafas bin Daoud had been sending them, then summoned Lady Eldori.

“I do not understand,” Lakshmi protested. “What good can come of what this woman may not remember?”

“We deal with an enemy that is prince of negatives,” Jimena told her. She realized that, to Lakshmi, anything that didn’t relate directly to the finding of her own twins must seem a waste of time. She patted the younger woman’s hand. “Patience, my dear. Whoever kidnapped your children may have kidnapped Matthew’s, too. It is worth trying to pick up the trail here.”

“Would it not be better to trace them by the slipper?” Lakshmi touched her bodice, as though reassuring herself the little garment was still where she’d left it.

“It would be as good,” Jimena conceded, “but not better. Where do you find the beginning of a circle, my dear?”

“Why …” Lakshmi gazed off into space a moment, thinking. “Anywhere!”

“Exactly.” Jimena nodded, settling back in her hourglass chair. “And Lady Eldori will start us as well as your babe’s bootie. Come in, milady!”

Lady Eldori entered with furtive glances at Lakshmi. Ramon rose in respect.

“Please sit, my lord,” Lady Eldori said automatically. She glanced at Lakshmi and tilted her chin up with a sniff of scorn for the scantiness of the guest’s attire.

Jimena said, “Lady Eldori, may I present the Princess Lakshmi.”

Lady Eldori stared, then, flustered, dropped a curtsy. “Your Highness! My pardon for not recognizing your exalted station!”

“Granted,” Lakshmi said, amused.

With a nervous glance at her, Lady Eldori turned to her mistress. “What further help can I be, Lady Mantrell?”

“Only to repeat what you spoke before our interruption, milady,” Jimena said. “Whose turn was it to care for the prince and princess when the castle was under attack?”

“The Lady Violette’s, as I said—and she is not here.”

“Have you searched while we dealt with the disturbance?”

The disturbance, sitting next to her, blushed.

“We have, milady.” Lady Eldori lifted her chin again. “She is not to be found.”

Jimena frowned. “Nowhere within the castle?”

“Nowhere at all.” Lady Eldori‘s voice was heavy with censure. “Not in her apartments, nor in the nursery, nor anywhere that we can find.”

“So the children’s nursemaid has disappeared with them?” Lakshmi asked, wide-eyed.

“I would not have put it that way, Your Highness,” Lady Eldori said, “but that is the gist of it, yes.”

Lakshmi turned to Jimena, frowning. “Why would the kidnapper take the nursemaid also?”

“Perhaps because she clasped the children to her,” Jimena suggested.

“There is a less pleasant possibility,” Ramon said in a somber tone.

All three women turned to him, bracing themselves. “What is that, my husband?” Jimena asked.

“It may be that Lady Violette is herself the kidnapper,” Ramon said.

Jimena and Lady Eldori stared, taken aback, but Lakshmi’s eyes narrowed. “I should have seen that.”

“But … but why would a lady-in-waiting steal her own charges?” Lady Eldori protested.

Ramon shrugged. “As I remember, she is young and unwed. Perhaps a handsome gentleman played upon her affections—or a less handsome one upon her greed.”

A shadow crossed Lady Eldori’s face. “She had a great fondness for fine gowns and other luxuries …”

“And a yearning for freedom?” Ramon suggested. “Life within these castle walls might seem confining to a young woman still in her teens. The promise of money and the freedom to enjoy the pleasures it could buy might persuade her.”

“She is young and foolish,” Lady Eldori snapped. “Such fripperies might move her indeed.”

Storm clouds gathered in Lakshmi’s face.

To avert the blast, Jimena said quickly, “Let us discover where she has gone, then—and trust we shall find her alive.”

Lakshmi spun to her, appalled. “I had not stopped to think … but of course …”

“That Lady Violette might have died in defense of her charges, and her body hidden so that we should waste time searching for her?” Jimena nodded. “Still, do not be too quick to pity her, Highness—we may yet find her alive, well, and enjoying the fruits of her treachery.”

Lakshmi’s face hardened. “We may indeed! Bring me some article that belonged to this woman—clothing, or a kerchief, or something else that touched her body.”

Lady Eldori stared in confusion, but Ramon only observed, eyes kindling with interest, and Jimena turned to the lady-in-waiting and nodded. “Find something of the sort, Lady Eldori, and bring it to us, if it pleases you.”

“It will most assuredly please me!” Lady Eldori bustled out the door.

She was back in two minutes with a handkerchief, and presented it to Lakshmi with a curtsy. “Will this do, Highness?”

Lakshmi sniffed the square of linen, then nodded. “It has still her scent, and has not been laundered since last she used it. It will do admirably.” She turned to Jimena. “May I see the nursery?”

“Of course.” Jimena rose and led the way.

The emptiness of the room still tugged at her heart, and at Lakshmi‘s, too, to judge by the tears that filled her eyes. But she blinked them away and waved a hand over the handkerchief, fingers writhing in intricate gestures, and chanted a verse in Arabic.

Footprints glowed, brightening slowly on the floor and the carpet.

Lady Eldori gasped. Ramon and Jimena blinked, and wished they understood Arabic.

“Let us see where she has gone.” Lakshmi paced the footprint-trail from the doorway. The marks of the noble nursemaid’s shoes went in and out the door several times and here and there about the chamber, as anyone’s caring for small children would. Lakshmi picked up a brightly colored ball and gestured over it, reciting her spell, and tiny footprints glowed, too, here and there about the chamber. Finally, though, the lady’s trail led to one set of small footprints, which ceased, then to the other, which also ceased.

“Here she picked them up.” Ramon pointed.

“And there she went with them.” Lakshmi traced the path to the door, her face grim.

“She did steal them!” Lady Eldori went pale, and Jimena, looking at her, could see she hadn’t really believed in the possibility until then.

“Follow,” Lakshmi snapped, and paced alongside the footprints as they left the room.

Ramon and Jimena came after. With professional curiosity, Ramon murmured, “How can she know these footprints are only a few hours old? Surely Lady Violette has come and gone from that chamber a thousand times!”

“No doubt the spell limited the trail to that duration,” Jimena answered. “Perhaps Lakshmi commanded only the most recent footprints to show.”

Ramon nodded and followed.

Down the stairs they went, out the door and into the courtyard. When the trail led to the postern gate, Ramon called for horses and a dozen soldiers.

Accompanied by the small troop, they rode out of the castle and down into the city. Jimena reflected that it must have been only courtesy that kept Lakshmi riding by their side when she could have drifted like smoke over the trail far faster than they rode. She seemed quite at home on horseback, though her mount wasn’t anywhere nearly so calm—it rolled its eyes and fought the bit, wanting to run from the very creature it carried.

“Animals always know when magic is about,” Jimena commented.

“Their instincts are sure,” Ramon agreed, and wondered about the stray cat who had visited the castle so recently. Had she left because of the taint of magic about Matt’s person?

The footprints sprang into light a dozen yards before Lakshmi and died out a dozen yards behind. She followed them unerringly, right down the main street of the town. The sergeant of their troupe pushed his horse to the fore, riding ahead and calling, “Make way! For Lord and Lady Mantrell, make way! For the Princess Lakshmi, make way!”

The townsfolk cleared the road with amazing speed.

“They all know we are wizards,” Jimena said with a smile, “and wish to have as little to do with magic as possible.”

“I would feel the same way, if I were not the magician,” Ramon said. “Our honor. guard cannot be feeling too sanguine themselves, escorting a creature so capricious and powerful as a Marid.”

“Yet they perform their duties faithfully.” Jimena bestowed smiles on two or three of the guards. They looked back with surprise, then turned forward and bore their pikes with greater determination. Jimena turned the smile on Ramon. “A little gratitude is never wasted.”

“Especially from a beautiful woman,” Ramon agreed.

“Your nursemaid certainly showed no shyness in her going,” Lakshmi said.

Looking ahead, Jimena saw the footprints going in the door of Bordestang’s grandest inn. “No, not a bit of shyness, nor of shame.” She frowned and rode with her face set.

They dismounted at the inn door. One of the guards held the reins of all the party while the others followed their lord and lady through the portal, Lakshmi leading.

Inside, all was merriment and the music of viols and hautboys.

The tables of the common room had been folded back against the walls and the benches set against them. A score of well-dressed couples paced through the figures of a dance, laughing and chatting as they moved. A glance at broadcloth, fine wool, and linen showed them to be gentry—squires and their dames, burghers and their wives, with here and there a knight and his lady. The glowing footprints vanished in the throng.

Jimena, however, only had to look closely at the laughing, chattering throng before she saw a familiar young face above a velvet dress, laughing, batting her eyelashes at each of the young men in her square, and replying to their flirtations with sallies of her own.

“There!” Jimena snapped.

“I see her,” the sergeant said, and strode into the center of the dance. Couples broke apart as he strode toward them, their exclamations of anger dying as they saw his livery and the half-dozen guards behind him. Lady Violette too looked up, frowning at the sudden ending of her dance—then saw the grim-faced soldiers and screamed.

The male dancers at once pressed forward, shouting at the sergeant, but one elbowed his way to the front, the sword at his hip proclaiming him a knight. “Why do you disrupt our merriment, Sergeant?”

“This lady’s presence is required by the castellan, Sir Knight,” the sergeant replied evenly, sure in his duty.

Lady Violette turned pale. “It was not I! I had no choice! He made me do it!”

Lakshmi strode straight through the throng, eyes blazing, and dancers and soldiers alike stepped quickly aside for her.

Jimena hurried to catch up, dreading what the angry djinna might do. “I think we might obtain more information if I question her, Your Highness.”

“Well, if you must.” Lakshmi stepped aside, but her glare would have stripped paint.

“Now, my dear,” Jimena said to Lady Violette, striving for gentleness, “I must tell you that this young woman beside me is a princess of the djinn, whose children have only this morning been kidnapped.”

Lady Violette screamed and fainted dead away.

“None of that!” Lakshmi snapped, and twisted her hand in a gesture as she rapped out a staccato couplet.

Lady Violette turned a fall into a stagger and looked about her wild-eyed, disoriented by what had proved to be merely a moment’s dizziness. Then she saw the djinna’s anger and Jimena’s sympathetic smile, and moaned.

“Pluck her purse and search it,” Lakshmi snapped.

The sergeant drew a dagger. Lady Violette screamed, but he only cut the strings of her purse and took it from her belt, then upended it over his palm. A stream of gold coins cascaded down, overflowing his cupped hand and piling up on the floor.

“Who gave you that?” the djinna snapped. “He!” Lady Violette cried, tears streaming down her cheeks. “He who compelled me to bring him the babes!”

“I pity you,” Lakshmi sneered, “if the prospect of gold is a compulsion.”

“Tell us who he was, my dear,” Jimena said, much more gently.

“I do not know! He gave me no name, only promised me gold if I would bring the babes to the postern, and a lingering, agonized death if I did not!”

“He knew the weak link in the chains that protected your grandchildren, surely enough,” Lakshmi said, with total condemnation.

Lady Violette flushed but could say nothing.

“Tell us his appearance,” Jimena urged.

“He was in his middle years, with black hair and beard, and wore a robe of midnight-blue, with a hat that was sort of a cone, bulge-sided and rounded at the top! More than that I cannot tell you!”

“And you brought the children to the postern gate, where you gave them to him?” Ramon asked, choking on his own anger.

“I did! Oh, blame me not, for who would have protected me from him?”

“Lady Mantrell or I!” Ramon snapped. “Then he bade you flee?”

“He did, for he said my head would roll when you learned of this! Oh, spare my life, I beg of you!” Lady Violette sank to her knees, sobbing.

“Spare her? Why?” Lakshmi demanded. “She felt not the slightest remorse until we caught her—indeed, she was so eager to spend her guilt-gold that she could not even wait till she had passed from the town! She has nothing more to tell us. Shall I kill her quickly, or slowly?” She caught Lady Violette’s hair and yanked her face upward, drawing a dagger from her bodice.

The male dancers shouted and thrust forward, drawing their own weapons. The soldiers readied themselves to hold off the dancers, but Lakshmi gave them only one dark look, and they bowled away backward in a wave.

The sergeant’s parade-ground voice rose above the din. “Beware! She is a princess of the Marids, the most powerful of the djinn! Seek not to oppose her will!”

“Yes, but your will need not be quite so apposite, Your Highness,” Jimena said quickly. “Lady Violette kidnapped Queen Alisande‘s children, after all, not your own. It is for the queen to judge her.”

Lakshmi glared down at the cowering woman for a minute, then said, “You are right. She is for the Queen’s Justice.” She let go of the woman’s hair.

Lady Violette fell, sobbing with relief.

“Do not be too merciful,” the djinna snapped. “She did not think her crime very great, or she would not have stopped at so near an inn. She is a silly, vain, and foolish thing, and as such is a ready tool for evil. She feels not an ounce of remorse for her deed, but only for being caught.”

“That is all true, I doubt not.” Jimena bent a sorrowful gaze on the teenager. “I fear you must dwell in the dungeon, poor child, until Her Majesty returns. Still, we shall give you the most comfortable cell that we have.”

“No, n-o-o-o-o,” Lady Violette moaned as the soldiers dragged her to her feet. “Not the dungeon!”

“Be glad you still have your life!” Lakshmi snapped, and turned on her heel to follow Jimena. She caught up with her quickly and demanded, “How could you be so gentle with so vile a traitor?”

“Why, because I had you to rage at her and revile her,” Jimena said as though it were obvious, and hurried out the door. “Come, Your Highness! Let us ride back to the postern door without delay! Perhaps there is still some trail to be found there, though if a sorcerer is the true kidnapper, I suspect he will have covered his tracks far too well.”

“A sorcerer?” Lakshmi frowned as they mounted. Then her face cleared. “Of course! Midnight-blue robes, a conical hat—he would be a magician, would he not? Had his robes been white, I would have thought him to be a magus indeed, one of the priests of Ahura Mazda or Agni, before the prophet Zoroaster reformed the religion of the Persians.”

“One of the magi?” Jimena exclaimed, staring.

“Perhaps he is,” Ramon said, frowning, “but has not yet heard of Zoroaster. Tell me, who was their god of evil? Angra Mainyu, was it not?”

“Angra Mainyu, yes.” Lakshmi nodded. “The older djinn have told us tales of this demon, and the fools who did his work whether they knew it or not. Ahriman, they call him now.”

“It is surely a coincidence,” Jimena said as they started riding back up to the castle, “but I have a very bad feeling about it.”

Saul saw them coming and met them at the portcullis. “Did you find her?” Then he saw Lady Violette surrounded by guards, and relaxed a little. “At least she’s still alive.”

“Yes, through Lady Mantrell‘s foolish mercy,” Lakshmi snapped.

“See her to her dungeon,” Jimena called to the sergeant, then held out a hand to the Witch Doctor. “Come, Saul! We must hurry to the postern.”

“Why?” Saul asked, but he was already in midair, leaping up behind her onto the horse’s back.

“Because the man to whom Lady Violette gave the children was waiting for her there! We may still find his trail!”

But at the postern, Lakshmi could only shake her head in frustration. “I have nothing that belonged to the man, nothing he had touched. I cannot cast a spell to make his trail appear.”

“And his footprints only go to the water.” Saul frowned, following the indentations in the perpetually damp ground.

“Why bother?” Lakshmi demanded. “If we cannot follow—”

“Perhaps we can.” Jimena laid a hand on her arm. “Saul never does things without reason. Watch him.”

The Witch Doctor stopped at the bank and pointed to a gouge in the earth. “A boat’s bow did that. He had a dinghy waiting with an oarsman in it.”

Lakshmi stepped up beside him, frowning. “How can you tell there was an accomplice? Have you the Second Sight?”

“No, just logic.” Saul gestured at the gouge. “It’s too small for him to have pulled the boat up high enough to keep it from drifting away, and there’s nothing near to tie it to.”

“There is also no mark of an anchor,” Jimena said, studying the ground.

Saul nodded. “The castle has a couple of boats it uses for fishing, doesn’t it?”

“You mean he fled in the castle’s own skiff?” Lakshmi was beginning to look outraged again.

“He could have,” Saul agreed. “After all, if you’re going to bribe one person on the inside, why not two?”

“Because that yields twice the likelihood that one will talk before the deed is done,” Ramon answered.

Saul nodded. “Much easier to bring your own boat and carry it away with you.”

“Or sink it,” Ramon said, “when you’re done.”

“That’s it!” Saul turned away from the water. “Race you to the drawbridge.”

“Why bother?” Lakshmi spread her arms to gather them all in as she swelled to forty feet high. Saul shouted a protest, kicking, but Jimena and Ramon hung on, stifling protests, as the djinna calmly stepped across the moat and set them down as she shrank to human size.

“Well, I have to admit that saved time.” Saul wiped his brow with a shaky hand, then looked down at the bank. At once, he saw the tracks. “There! Two horses—one for the kidnapper and one for an accomplice!”

“Then the boat should be—” Ramon leaned, gazing down into the water, then pointed. “—there!”

Saul waded in before Lakshmi could pull another one of her growing pangs, reached down under the surface and heaved. One side of a small skiff came up, then rolled over so the whole boat floated upside down. Saul fished, found the painter—the rope tied to its bow—and waded ashore, pulling the rowboat with him. As it came up onto the bank, Ramon flipped it over, then leaned his weight against the painter. Jimena joined in, and the whole craft slid up onto the grass.

“Now I have something they have touched!” Lakshmi purred, and stepped forward.

“Will not the water have washed all trace of them from it?” Jimena asked.

“Their actual touch perhaps—the oils from their skin and any fibers their clothing may have left—but not the fact that they have touched its wood.” Lakshmi passed her hands over the boat in an intricate pattern, chanting a verse in Arabic.

Footprints glowed into sight on the boat’s bottom, semicircles on its seats; the ends of the oars glowed from the touch of the rower’s hands. Still chanting, Lakshmi continued her gestures over the horses’ hoofprints. They too began to glow.

“Couldn’t she have just recited her spell over the horses’ traces in the first place?” Saul asked.

Jimena shook her head. “The principle of contagion, Saul. The horses are living beings themselves, and she had no trace of them to use as a magical lever. True, the kidnappers had touched the horses, but Lakshmi had nothing the horses themselves had touched.”

“Except the earth.” Saul nodded. “And that’s a thirdhand touch, once too far removed.”

“Follow!” Lakshmi commanded, and set off, following the prints of the horses. Saul and the Mantrells followed, (marveling at the durability of the djinna’s delicate-looking slippers).

The tracks sprang to life in front of Lakshmi and faded behind her, leading them down the talus slope and across a field to the rough, unplowable land around a watercourse lined with trees and thick with undergrowth. The djinna pressed canes and shrubs aside—and saw the tracks end. “It cannot be!”

Saul shouldered up beside her, frowning, and agreed. “The ground’s damp enough that the horses would have left ordinary prints. How’d the sorcerer pull this disappearing act?”

“He did not,” Lakshmi said, thin-lipped. “He left this plane.”