An Apprentice Without Magic, page 34
part #2 of Magic Missing Series
The men had swords in their hands. The light was poor in the alley, but Sam could imagine the grins on their faces. Sam didn’t want to wait and attacked the smallest of the three. His wand struck the assailant’s sword before it reached him. He heard the clunk of a pollen sword.
Did the men want to pummel them to death? Sam thought. The match had turned back into their advantage. Sam hit the sword time and again, denting the edge until he thrust his wand into the man’s stomach. His assailant hit Sam in the head, but this time, Sam’s concentration didn’t fade. The man sunk to the ground clutching his stomach.
Dickey had fended off the other two, but Sam could smell the iron tinge of blood. He slammed his wand into the head of one of the men, and that distracted the third enough that Dickey ran him through.
“Quickly!” Dickey said. He sheathed his sword and ran deeper into the alley, clutching his arm.
Sam followed Dickey through the alley and into the streets. They walked for quite a while before a hired carriage stopped them.
“Need a ride?” the man asked.
Dickey looked up and down the deserted street and nodded curtly. Sam feared the man might be one of Bolt’s men, but he dropped them off at Lady Grate’s front door. They rushed in. In the light, Sam could see the rough pollen bandage that covered Dickey’s wound.
“One of the men had a steel sword,” Dickey said.
Keet ran to them. “Oh, you have a scratch!”
“Perhaps more than that,” Dickey said. “We will need some rest.” Lady Keet helped him to his room, leaving Sam by himself in the foyer.
~
Sam gulped down breakfast. “Bolt didn’t know it was us. I’m sure he said ‘find out who’ as we fled.”
Dickey nodded. His arm was bound, but since Sam could see through the pollen, the wound didn’t look very deep. “We will have to get word to Bentwick about the theft.”
“But we don’t know where it will be,” Sam said.
“There are only two places that match the description I heard, the Precious Metals Exchange and the Royal Mint.”
“Do people own shares in the mint?” Sam asked.
Lady Grate nodded.
“So we have to notify Bentwick immediately,” Sam said. “He needs to have men stationed at each place.”
Dickey nodded. “Immediately.” He looked at Lady Grate and shook his head. “I don’t want anyone to know the extent of your involvement. If you go to the constabulary, Bolt will know you have been in contact with us.”
“Winnie or Mrs. Bentwick?”
Dickey chewed on his lip for a bit. “They don’t know enough, especially third hand. If you are up to it, I think you should chance it yourself, Sam. You can stay at the constabulary dormitory if nothing else.”
“But then they will know we are alive.”
Dickey looked down at his uneaten breakfast. “If anything, Issak Bolt is a very smart man. He will have already guessed, since we didn’t kill all three of his men.”
“I’ll go through the stables,” Sam said.
Keet sat up straight at the sound of a knock on her door. “In the pantry,” she said.
Dickey and Sam looked at each other and grabbed their food and hurried to their hiding place.
Sam could hear Winnie’s voice in the hall coming closer.
“You can come out,” Keet said.
Something was wrong from the look on Winnie’s face. “My father,” she said. “Minister Bolt has taken him to the Ministry of Justice for spying on him.”
“On Banna Plunk,” Dickey said. He looked at Keet. “Some paper and a pen, please.”
Dickey wrote out some kind of instructions. “Take this to the constabulary. They need to monitor two places. One of which will be broken into.”
Winnie looked at Dickey. “What about my father?”
“I’m going to the king,” Dickey said.
Keet grinned. “He is, he is!” She clapped her hands with excitement. She looked at Winnie. “You must hurry, girl.”
“You’ll need better clothes,” Keet said. “I’ve already had them made.”
Chapter Forty
~
S am looked around the palace. He had to straighten out his clothes after crouching down in Lady Keeta’s carriage. His partner looked different wearing an elegant outfit. Dickey could indeed pass for a noble if he could only keep the smirk off his face.
He had no such pretensions and followed behind Lady Grate and Dickey as they were led through the palace to the private audience that Keet demanded.
They entered the room. It was larger than Sam expected, but the King sat behind a large desk, working on a stack of papers with an aide busily re-stacking and making notes at his side.
“Keeta. What is it that forced me to rearrange my morning schedule?” The king looked odd. Sam couldn’t quite figure out why. His eyes were crossed, and his mouth looked like it was in a perpetual pursing of the lips.
“This is Dickey Nail.”
The king looked Dickey over. “I’ve heard of you, Nail. I’m surprised you would choose to see me. And the boy?”
“Sam Smith. Harrison’s companion this summer.”
The king leaned over his desk. He wasn’t any taller than himself, Sam realized. “You are the boy that saved Harrison’s life?”
“I did that and more,” Sam said. He felt a panic flutter in his heart. Keet hadn’t given him any instructions on how to act in front of the king.
The king flitted his hand. “So you say. I would have preferred you let my cousin die.” He looked at Lady Grate with cold eyes.
Sam shivered at that and decided not to say another word.
“At least you speak court language in a tolerable fashion, Sam Smith.” He looked at Dickey. “So, Nail, what is so important that you disrupt my day?”
Dickey told him about Banna Plunk’s burglary of the Royal Recorder’s office and their subsequent investigation.
“That isn’t what Issak told me. He called the woman Teri Punch, a part-time professor at the Royal University,” the king said. He put his hand to his chin. “Continue.”
When Dickey mentioned the gold theft, the king sat up straight. “The Exchange or the mint?”
“Bolt, to his credit, tried to talk her out of it, but the woman is an astounding pollen artist. She uses an unique animal pollen on him to get her way.”
“So we let her take the gold, and then we catch her.”
“With whom, your highness?” Dickey said. “Chief Constable Bentwick has just been incarcerated in the Ministry of Justice for allowing Sam and me to observe Banna Plunk.”
The king’s lips moved strangely, Sam observed.
“You didn’t spy on Issak?”
“He entered her house.”
The king nodded. He looked at Lady Grate. “And you want me to do exactly what, Keeta?”
“Free Chief Constable Bentwick and pardon Dickey Nail and Sam Smith.”
The king looked at Dickey and at Sam. “I will do so, except I won’t abide someone who aided your brother, no matter what the outcome, especially one, if the reporting was correct, who has no pollen magic, at all. Not in my kingdom. Pardons for Nail and Bentwick in exchange for your exile, Sam Smith, once this episode is over.”
“But I’m only fifteen,” Sam said.
“Your Highness,” prompted Keet.
“Your Highness, sir.”
The king narrowed his eyes. “Should I have you killed, instead? Be happy with what I have offered. You get to keep your head.”
Sam looked sorrowfully at Dickey and Keet. “If an exchange is what you need to stop Banna Plunk, then that’s what you have. I give you my word I will leave Baskin—”
“Leave Toraltia,” the king corrected.
“I will leave Toraltia in exile.”
The king leaned back in his ornate desk chair and nodded to his scrivener. “Make it so.”
The man nodded his head. “Yes, your Majesty.”
Lady Grate led them out of the room. They waited for half-an-hour until the scrivener delivered two copies of the king’s order.
“One of these is to be entrusted to Lady Grate, and the other can be duplicated and used as the pardons.”
Lady Grate nodded. “We will have to get these copied and notarized in the palace before we leave, one for each of you and one for Chief Constable Bentwick.” She looked at Sam. “I am so sorry. You didn’t have to agree.”
Sam shook his head. “I couldn’t not agree with my mentors’ lives on the line. I’ve learned a lot in Baskin, now I’ll have to find another place to learn some more.” He smiled, but he didn’t feel heartened in any way. What a rash thing to do! Sam pressed his lips together. He felt stupid for being so accepting of his fate. His opinion of the king had plummeted during and after the audience.
They left the palace. Sam held his copy. He was pardoned and exiled. He searched his mind to see if there was anything he could have done differently, but he couldn’t come up with an answer. Sam had been exiled from Cherryton and survived well enough, but it didn’t make the prospect of leaving his home country any brighter.
Dickey and Sam left Lady Grate at the palace gate and headed over to the Ministry of Justice. Bolt was implicated, but as more a victim, it seemed. If they had spied on the minister, Sam didn’t think the king would be so generous with his pardons.
“You don’t have to leave Toraltia,” Dickey said. “The king has little interest in anything outside of Baskin.”
Sam shook his head. “I didn’t like the way Harrison Dimple had to live. That isn’t for me,” he said. “I’ll find another place. If the king dies, maybe I’ll be able to return.”
“Maybe,” Dickey said. It was the only word of encouragement that he gave.
They walked up the steps to the Ministry of Justice and ducked inside. No one recognized them in their court finery as they walked up to a counter in the large foyer.
“I’m here to obtain the release of Chief Constable Bentwick,” Dickey said.
“And what thinks you can do that?”
He gave the notarized document to the clerk.
“King’s orders?”
Dickey nodded.
“And you are?”
“Dickey Nail and Sam Smith. We are wanted by the Ministry of Justice and have royal pardons, as well.” He let the man see the pardons.
“Dickey Nail! I thought you were dead.”
“If I am, then we are all in the bosom of Havetta,” Dickey said.
“I will return.”
A higher-level functionary accompanied the clerk. Dickey knew this person.
“Just been to see the king?” the man said.
“Would I be caught dead in this if I hadn’t?” Dickey said.
“I believe that is what Minister Bolt would prefer,” the man said. “This is certainly genuine. Come with me.”
They followed the functionary to the same row of cells that Dickey and Sam had been thrown into. Bentwick looked the worse for wear.
“Gave you a little massage, Chief?” Dickey said as he stood in front of his cell.
Bentwick looked disheveled. Sam knew how that felt. “Are they bringing you in?”
Sam shook his head. “We are taking you out,” he said.
The jailer unlocked the cell and the manacles that Bentwick wore.
The functionary led them out of the Ministry building. Bentwick blinked in the cold, bright sunlight. “Take me to my family.”
Dickey obliged. They soon stopped at Bentwick’s townhouse. It wasn’t much fancier than the one he rented to Sam and Tru.
Winnie and Mrs. Bentwick hugged their father and husband. Dickey and Sam drifted into the sitting room during the welcome. They waited for Bentwick to change uniforms and tidy up.
Sam looked up to see Winnie enter the room and sit beside him. “Father said you wouldn’t be an apprentice for much longer.”
Sam shook his head. “The king doesn’t like people who help Harrison Dimple.” He shrugged. “It was a small price to pay to free Dickey and your father.”
“Small? A life-changing event is not small. Promise that you’ll write and inform me of your adventures,” Winnie said. She put a hand on his. “I’m so sorry.”
Sam nodded. “I am too,” he said. His impending exile hadn’t truly hit him yet. He would have to tell Tru and Antina Mulch. He dreaded another set of goodbyes, but that seemed to be the only thing that loomed ahead. Everything else was a vague glimpse of his changed future.
~
Sam thrust Winnie’s concerned face out of his mind. His job wasn’t done. After a quick farewell dinner at Keet’s, Sam returned home to dress in work clothes. His day wasn’t over. Dickey and he would be heading to the Royal Mint to keep watch for Banna Plunk.
“Are you ready?” Dickey said when Sam reached the constabulary.
A sword lay on Dickey’s desk. Sam noticed that his partner already had one strapped on.
“Put it on. One of the constables heard that Captain Fork may set up circumstances where he can finish what he started,” Dickey said. “Your wand might not be enough.”
That reminded Sam that his time in Baskin wasn’t over. They climbed into a constable’s wagon and headed to another building that Sam hadn’t ever visited, the Royal Mint.
Other than a wall thick enough for guards to walk across, the place looked like a brick warehouse. Sam had expected gold leaf and all kinds of decorations, but that wasn’t the case. They had to show their constable tokens to a guard who looked at them through thick glass. They walked along a brick corridor and did the same thing again. Underneath the nondescript exterior lay a fortress.
“I’ll give you a walk-through,” the lord in charge said in court language to Dickey. The man looked at Sam. “Is he old enough to use that thing?”
“I am, sir, when it is given to me to use,” Sam said, in court language.
The lord cleared his throat. “Of course. Let us proceed.”
There were lots of nooks and crannies inside the building, but the walls were feet thick. Banna Plunk would have to use many layers of wards to blow her way in. Somehow the mint didn’t seem to be something she would try to attack.
The mint stored gold in two places, gold bars from the Precious Metal Exchange in one vault and manufactured Lion coins in another.
“There are three walls to break through,” the lord said, “three feet thick. It would take an army to get to the vaults.”
Sam didn’t have any doubts Banna could get to the gold given time, but he didn’t think she had the time. He did have a thought. “Who guards the mint?” Sam asked.
“We have our own guards. The City Guard did at one point, but we had too much trouble with them wanting free samples,” the lord said.
“Are you under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Justice?” Dickey said.
The lord shook his head. “We work for the Lord Chancellor.”
“Let our constables work with you as much as you can use them, even if it is for increased patrols. We will be heading to the Precious Metals Exchange,” Dickey said.
They exited through the same tunnel.
“Even flying wouldn’t do you any good,” Sam said looking at the guards on the walls.
“No. The mint is too hard of a target. Let’s go to the Exchange,” Dickey said.
By the time they reached the exchange, the constables were running around.
“Someone violated the vault,” one of the other snoops told Dickey. “Wards were used to blow a hole in the back. All we know is that the theft occurred while we were mustering. You can see the wagon tracks in the back of the building. Once they hit the cobbles…” the snoop shook his head.
“Show us,” Dickey said.
The snoop led them to the back of the building. The bricks were blown out. The gold vault had only three courses of brick between it and the back, just about a foot thick.
“That would have never happened at the mint,” Sam said.
Dickey nodded. “Another meticulously planned theft. Just like the Royal Recorder. Banna Plunk is most dangerous when she does these smaller jobs. The revolt was too big for her, I think. This wasn’t.”
A constable came up to Dickey and gave him a message.
“What is it?” Sam asked.
“I’ll tell you later.”
They stepped through the hole. Sam looked for footprints, but it looked like every person at the exchange had walked through the dust.
The snoop pointed to discoloration on the wall. “The thieves left five gold bars. We thought them some kind of calling card. One of the employees touched them and was blown halfway across the vault.”
“The ward was her calling card,” Sam said. “She did the same thing at the Royal Recorders. That time, I was the unfortunate person.”
“He was,” Dickey said. “Let’s look at the tracks.”
Sam and Dickey got down on their haunches to look at the wagon tracks.
“This one had pollen tires,” Sam said. “See the perpendicular treads for traction?”
Dickey nodded. “Wider, too. There must be thousands of wagons like this in Baskin.”
“I don’t think Banna would do anything to call attention to herself, and I’ll bet she made those tires to handle the weight of the gold. She didn’t need Fealty Mining Company, did she?” Sam said.
“No. There is nothing for us to do here. Let’s return to the constabulary. It isn’t far.” Dickey said.
“Do you think it is safe?”
Dickey barely responded. “No, but we are going to walk.”
Chapter Forty-One
~
S am felt defeated, and he didn’t feel any better as they began their walk to the constabulary. Banna Plunk must have had the theft planned before her argument with Minister Bolt. He wondered where the minister was at the moment.
A squad of men emerged from an alley. Captain Fork led them, also dressed in street clothes.
“We are here to execute your sentence,” Fork said.
Dickey backed up. There were too many of them, Sam thought. At the present time, he was now looking forward to exile rather than death, but even that wasn’t to be.
