An Apprentice Without Magic, page 30
part #2 of Magic Missing Series
“That doesn’t get us out of here,” Sam said.
“I wouldn’t try to escape from this cell. These are strictly temporary. I think we will be transferred soon enough.”
~
“Get up,” a guard said, rapping his stick across the bars.
“What time is it?” Sam asked. He had been sound asleep, despite the hard cot.
“Not for you to know,” their captor said. “Up.”
Sam sat up, but Dickey stood before he did.
“Another cell. They are moving us in secret or they would be transferring us during the day,” Dickey said. He didn’t say another word as they were placed in manacles and directed upstairs and into a waiting wagon.
“They let us simmer for two days, by my reckoning,” Dickey said. He looked out at the sky. “No one is up at this hour.”
“Except us,” Sam said. “They aren’t going to take us out of the city and kill us, are they?”
Dickey shrugged. “Anything is possible, but Fork’s men took us openly. Bentwick will demand an accounting for anything they do. Bolt is smart enough to let the bruises heal. He can manufacture a hearing with a judge, though.”
Sam sat back on the hard seat of the wagon. This was beyond his experience. He had broken Harrison out of imprisonment, but he hadn’t been in jail himself.
The wagon trundled endlessly over cobblestones before they stopped. Dickey looked out at the outline of a dark building, and Sam did the same.
“Royal prison,” Dickey said. “At least the cells will be more comfortable.”
“Is it a place they put nobles?”
Dickey snorted. “Yes and no. It depends on what cell level they put you in.”
The guards pulled them out of the wagon, their manacles clinking in the silence of early morning. A door opened, painting its opening bright against the blackness of the jail.
“These two are yours, for now,” their guard said.
A man dressed in a different uniform took a slim file from the guard and looked it over. “You can go,” he said, dismissing the Ministry of Justice guard.
Their new jailer stood up. “I’ll show you to your new cell.”
Dickey seemed to sigh with relief, as the guard took them to stairs leading up, not down. Sam guessed the higher up in prison, the better the cells.
They walked up two flights. “In here,” the guard said. “Keep it clean.”
The room was dark, but they had a barred window looking out at the gloom. Sam saw three beds. “I guess we get our choice.”
Dickey just grunted and took the closest one to him and went to sleep. Sam looked up into the blackness and wondered if he’d ever get out. Banna Plunk was as mysterious as ever, and Minister Bolt seemed more and more sinister.
Someone jostled Sam. He opened his eyes in the light of dawn. The room they were given was a mess. Bedclothes were twisted and strewn on the floor. Sam and Dickey had collapsed on bare, stained mattresses, but they were much more comfortable than the cots in the Ministry of Justice holding cells.
“We didn’t do so badly. I guess someone thought I am nobler than I feel,” Dickey said.
Sam had no reply within him. He began to pick up the floor while Dickey went through drawers and looked underneath the chair with its stuffing trying to escape from holes in the upholstery.
“They intend to keep us incarcerated for a while, or we’d have been put into another criminal cell,” Dickey said. “Don’t think we are especially privileged.” He turned his gaze to a chamber pot in the corner.
“Oh,” Sam said. “Well, at least we will sleep better.”
Dickey nodded. “Can I read the little book?”
Sam looked through the coat he had slept in and handed the volume over.
“You said this contains the wisdom of the ancients?”
Sam smiled. “It talks about pollen manipulation as a mystical thing. Some people are pollen magicians because they have been blessed with more magic than others.”
Dickey thumbed the pages. “And you believe that?”
Sam shrugged. “Maybe. Some people are better with pollen than others, that’s for sure. Banna Plunk and Les Oakbrush, one of her confederates, were extraordinarily gifted in creating pollen objects and the pollen patches that went over the maps in Mount Vannon and the documents at the Royal Recorder’s office.”
Dickey pounded on the only chair in their chamber to move the lumpy stuffing around and sat down. He spent the next hour reading until they heard keys clinking in the door. Dickey quickly jammed the book into a hole in the chair.
The door opened. “Eat,” the guard said.
Sam looked around for a table but didn’t see one. Dickey created one in a minute with pollen. He was surprisingly fast. He sat back in the chair.
“I’ll be back for the tray. I know what is on it.”
He retreated. The tray had two bowls of mush and spoons.
Sam plunged his spoon into the unappetizing sludge and put it in his mouth.
“Sugar!” he said.
“Nobility has its advantages,” Dickey said as he took a big spoonful. “Professor Plunk has to be related to Banna. I read enough of it.”
Sam nodded and asked for the book back. “I didn’t finish it.” He finished his breakfast and sat on his bed. He removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. He set them down and opened the book. “I don’t believe this,” Sam said. “Some of the pages are pollen-patched towards the end.”
“What?”
“There is handwriting beneath about twenty of the printed pages,” Sam said, flipping through the book. He grabbed his spectacles and made sure he wasn’t seeing things, since he had passed out a day ago.
“What does it say?”
Sam moaned. “I don’t know. It is in Vaarekian cursive.”
“I won’t be able to see it, will I?” Dickey said.
“Do you know how to write in Vaarekian longhand?”
“No, but neither do you. Maybe it is the original wording?”
Sam sighed. “I need to get this transcribed and take it to Antina Mulch.”
Dickey smirked. “You are in jail. There is an excellent chance that we might not make it out of here any time soon.”
“Can you get us paper and a pencil?” Sam asked.
Dickey shook his head. “The problem is no one knows that we are here.”
Sam tried to puzzle out the writing, but he found that all he’d be able to do was draw the handwriting. It would mean nothing to him. He put his spectacles back on and finished the book.
Plunk’s conclusions summarized what he had written before, leaving Sam vaguely disappointed that there wasn’t another revelation about pollen. He guessed the treatise had expanded his view of pollen sufficiently without knowing what had been hidden beneath.
“Can’t you remove the patch?”
“I can, but then I’ll destroy Plunk’s musings,” Sam said. “I can’t read the handwriting, so what is the point?”
Dickey didn’t respond.
The morning passed slowly after the guard retrieved their tray. Sam tried to look out the window, but it was so dirty, there wasn’t much he could see past the grime.
“Do you want me to make you a chair?” Dickey asked.
“And see it crumble underneath me?”
“Then I’ll make myself a chair, and you can have this vermin-infested thing.” He stood up and made a chair. It took considerably longer than the table.
Sam sat down and looked across the table from Dickey. “Should we review some cases or something?”
“Let’s talk about Banna Plunk a bit more,” Dickey said.
Their conversation was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Who would knock?” Dickey said. He stood up as someone unlocked the door and stepped in.
Sam looked at the unexpected face. “Lady Grate!”
“Keet, if you don’t mind.” She smiled at Sam and beamed at Dickey. Her lips moved into a pout. “You never came back to visit me, so I decided to visit you.”
“How did you know we were here?” Dickey said, seemingly ignoring her comment.
“I went to the constabulary to personally give you an invitation to a private consultation, and the Chief Constable, I don’t remember his name, said you were incarcerated. I had my own methods and learned you were here.”
Sam stood and offered her his chair. She made a face and took Dickey’s pollen chair instead.
“I’m sorry, I will be unable to attend you,” Dickey said. “Why have you come?”
“Because I wanted to see you, and I knew the infamous Dickey Nail wouldn’t be able to evade me, this time.”
Dickey didn’t look as happy to see Keet, as she did to see him. It was obvious she was taken by his partner. Sam let them talk for a bit.
At a lull in their banter, Sam asked, “Do you have paper and a pencil?”
Keet batted her eyelashes. “Do you want to draw a picture of me?”
Dickey chuckled. Sam didn’t know what was so funny. “I want to write a book, and I don’t have any tools to do that.”
She had brought a valise of some kind with her.
“Let me see…” She opened the valise and pulled out a large sausage, a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine. “I’ll leave these here for you.”
Dickey quickly hid them in his bedcovers.
She did produce about ten sheets of paper and two pencils. “Will these work?”
“They will if you can return tomorrow.”
Keet frowned. “I wanted you to leave with me today.”
“We can do that?” Dickey said. “Who is the sponsor that got you in here?”
“I am related to the king,” she said. “A close relation.”
Dickey looked surprised. “I thought I knew all the royals. Are you a princess?” Dickey said.
“I could claim to be,” she smiled brightly, “but I am glad I’m not. My mother remarried after my father died.”
Sam sat back down, stunned that such a conversation was being held in a prison cell. He and Dickey must smell awful, and yet Keet chattered away as if they all sat in her drawing room.
“Can we walk out of here?” Sam asked.
“Not yet,” she said. “Give me a few days to make any exit permanent. Until then, is there anything I can get you?”
“This is enough. I’d like you to take my scribblings to Antina Mulch. She knows Vaarekian cursive.”
Keet’s eyes flashed. “And so do I. How convenient.” She giggled. “I can help Dickey Nail and his nice apprentice, can’t I?”
Dickey shook his head. Even Sam had to admit Keet was laying on the flirtatious repartee rather thick.
“Bring us a nice dinner,” Dickey said, “and join us. You can read what Sam has transcribed. Neither of us knows how to read Vaarekian handwriting. I guess I didn’t go to the same school you did.”
“You certainly didn’t,” Keet said. She sighed. “I must be leaving, so I can arrange another meeting tonight. It isn’t the easiest thing I have done.” She gave Sam a wave and winked at Dickey. “See you soon…”
Sam looked at the closed door and heard the sound of a lock turning. He looked at Dickey. “Did I imagine Lady Grate?” He shook his head.
“Not at all. The paper and pencils are on the table, and the lump of our lunch is visible on my bed.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
~
T hey began their lunch in silence. Dickey kept shaking his head.
“She is blatantly pursuing you,” Sam said. “Why, do you think?”
“I don’t know, exactly. Maybe it’s because I’ve turned my back on the nobility.” He looked perplexed. “She certainly is pretty, and it takes some gumption to arrange a visit to two prisoners.” He looked at the book on Sam’s bed. “Hurry and get to work on that. I’m curious about the writing, although it could be a list of laundry, for all I know.”
“I’m curious, too,” Sam said.
Sam had his fill of the sausage, which was a bit too spicy for him. Dickey finished most of it off, so he wasn’t too bothered. Sam put the sheet off his bed over the table to keep the pollen from melting.
He meticulously duplicated the writing. He continued until he had to get up and walk around for a bit, flexing his fingers. “This is worse than writing any report,” he told Dickey.
“What else are you going to do?”
“Not sprain my wrist,” Sam said. He didn’t mean it, of course, but continued until the window began to darken as the shadows were probably lengthening outside.
He had filled up the pages on both sides by the time another knock sounded from the door. Sam hid his paperwork, and it was a good thing. Benjoy Fork strutted into the room.
“You are enjoying your palatial surroundings?” Captain Fork said.
“As much as we can,” Dickey said. “Why are you here?”
“To tell you not to wait up for Lady Grate. My uncle has barred her from this prison.”
Dickey pursed his lips and looked like he was about to say something, but he held his tongue.
He finally said, “A guard could have told us that.”
“Perhaps, but a guard can’t do this for me.” Fork punched Dickey in the stomach.
Dickey withstood Fork’s attack and didn’t double over as Sam thought he would.
“I wouldn’t go too far, Fork. I don’t think your uncle will bar the lady for long,” Dickey said. “She has some royal blood, of which you might not be aware.”
“What?” Fork blinked. “Lady Grate?”
Dickey nodded.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Then believe me,” Keet said from behind him holding a basket on her arm. “Your uncle doesn’t run this prison. The king does,” she said. “I think you should be going.”
Fork looked confused for a moment, but he glared at Dickey. “You haven’t seen the last of me, Nail,” he said through his teeth. He turned.
As the Captain left, Keet put out her foot and tripped Fork, who ran into the open door. He glared again at her, for good measure, before disappearing.
“It looks like I rescued you just in time.”
“Not quite,” Dickey said, clutching his stomach. “That hurt more than I thought.”
“You and he are enemies?”
“The Minister of Justice’s nephew,” Dickey said.
Keet grinned and made a stool out of pollen more quickly than Dickey had made his chair. “I said I would join you,” She arranged a cold dinner on the table before she sat down. She plucked at the sheet Sam had laid on the surface and made a face. “Not the kind of linens I would choose, but they will work. Now, if I am to help you, I must be told everything.”
Dickey shrugged and looked at Sam who shrugged back. Both of them spent most of the dinner describing their activities, starting with the jewel thefts.
Sam produced his transcription. “Can you read any of this?”
Keet squinted at Sam’s facsimile of Vaarekian writing. “Do you want me to recite this? It is a missive to the writer’s daughter.”
Sam looked at Dickey. “Daughter? Banna Plunk?”
Keet smiled smugly. “You said Antina Mulch gave you this? I wonder how it got into her hands.”
Sam didn’t know and said so. “You don’t have to translate it. Just read it in Vaarekian. If you use a word I don’t understand, I will let you know.”
As Keet read aloud, Sam closed his eyes and listened to the story.
Banna’s father talked about a change in the ruling class in Vaarek. He implored her not to get overly-involved in the change. He went on and on about honor, virtue, and civility. It appeared that Banna was too angry and that she had already done some things that dismayed her father. He suggested that she live in exile, or her life would be cut short. The man continued to talk about people who had disappeared, and he didn’t want his daughter to be one of them.
“The man certainly writes like a professor. I could say the same things in two or three pages,” Dickey said.
“So Banna Plunk is a political refugee.” Keet smiled at Sam and returned the copied pages.
Sam nodded. “And she has the talent to see through pollen patches. This is a secret letter I thought only I’d be able to read. The father must be a pollen magician, as well as his daughter.”
Dickey got to his feet and paced the room for a bit. “Maybe Banna Plunk isn’t interested in a revolution in Toraltia, but seeks to fund a revolt in Vaarek.”
Keet’s face took on a look of excitement. “Everything she has been involved in to date has been to protect herself and her financial interests.”
“She might not have enough funds yet, so she will definitely be thinking about more ways to raise money,” Dickey said.
“So she had attached herself to the Minister of Justice to find the right opportunity?” Sam asked.
“That fits, doesn’t it? There is a lot we don’t know,” Dickey said. He handed the book to Keet. “I would appreciate it if you would put this in your valise and return it to Antina Mulch. Ask her how it came into her possession and tell her where Minister Bolt has put us.”
“Time’s up, Lady Grate,” a voice said from behind the door.
“Before I go, can I join your little club?” She said, bright-eyed.
“What little club?” Dickey said. He almost growled the question.
“Sam, and you, and I!”
“For now, I suppose,” Dickey said, “since I wouldn’t mind some more of your delicious food.”
She giggled. “Of course. I will see you tomorrow morning.” She gathered her things, leaving the uneaten food behind and winked at Sam as she patted her valise carrying the book and Sam’s transcription.
The guard stuck his head in their room. “I’d like to remind you that there are archers on both sides of the corridor should you try to break out.”
“Yes, sir, guard,” Dickey said.
The guard shut the door.
“We are safer from Banna Plunk’s machinations here than any other place,” Dickey said.
Sam didn’t understand why and said so.
“The guards protect us from people on the outside, other than an errant punch from Captain Fork,” Dickey said. “We can relax in here while Keeta Grate does her stuff.” He smirked. “Remember, we now have a club member on the outside.”
