An Apprentice Without Magic, page 9
part #2 of Magic Missing Series
Sam’s partner looked surprised. “Faran? It’s been years.”
“Indeed it has. I’m the butler here. I will take you.”
Sam followed as the two men talked about times past when they both attended the Royal University. No wonder Dickey had friends there. He wondered why both men were working men rather than lords, or merchants, or high-ranking civil servants.
“We have to be quick, Sam,” Dickey said. “The lady of the house said the jewels were taken from this locked box. Only she and her husband have keys.” Dickey looked at Faran. “Is she right?”
The butler nodded. “My masters don’t trust servants, so that is correct. Have we been accused of anything?”
Dickey shook his head. “Not yet. Both lord and lady are mystified.”
Sam wasn’t so befuddled. He looked around the room and found a few yellow pollen strands, as well as a few more of the pink variety. Why did they show up at all? Couldn’t someone enter just after being exposed to the pollen? Maybe he didn’t understand how the pink pollen worked. He’d have to ask Antina Mulch.
He pulled out an envelope and tweezers that he had picked up from Dickey’s desk. He felt that he had to be more prepared this time. The pink strands were barely visible, even with his spectacles on. The door began to open. Sam stood quickly. He had gathered enough. He straightened out his clothes.
“Are you done?” the housekeeper said. “You must leave—” She noticed Faran standing in the room. Her face turned cold. “What are you doing here? Today is your off day.”
“Dickey Nail is an old school chum, Doris. I will escort them out.” His demeanor suddenly stiffened with the appearance of the woman. Sam could feel the tension between them.
“This way, Constable Nail,” Faran said. He led them back out the servant’s entrance.
“Imagine running into you here,” Dickey said. “I expected you to be running your father’s large import business.”
“I did…for a while. Ships have a nasty habit of sinking sometimes. I had two go down in the same year, and it wiped us out. The previous butler is a friend of my father’s. When he retired, I took his place. My position pays well, but I have to deal with the Doris DSevil. I have just about enough to buy a new ship…well not new, but a ship, nevertheless. I’ll captain for a while and build up my business again.” He looked back at the mansion. “It’s been three years here.”
“Let me know when you quit, and we will have a little celebration,” Dickey said. “I like celebrations.”
Faran nodded. “I know your celebrations. That’s why you aren’t a Chief Constable, eh?”
Dickey frowned and looked at Sam. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
Faran waved his hand. “What is up with the boy? Is he someone special? I can’t imagine why you’d have a junior person examine where a crime had been committed.”
Dickey made a face. “He has certain unique talents, or he wouldn’t be connected with the Investigative Unit.”
Faran nodded, again. “I enjoyed my conversation with him. I don’t know who learned more.”
Dickey grunted. “It better have been Sam,” he said. “We have to be on our way.”
Faran smiled. “We won’t wait so long to meet, eh?”
“No,” Dickey returned the smile with a smirk and waved as he pushed Sam towards the exit.
“We will walk back,” Dickey said. “Now what did you learn?”
Sam told his trainer about the absent-minded lord.
“Deer pollen, again?”
Sam nodded. “I took a few more samples of pink pollen threads. I don’t know why they show up. I would think whoever is behind this wouldn’t want to leave evidence behind.”
Dickey raised the corner of his mouth into a half-smile. “I learned a little on my trip to the University. I think it is time to visit Antina Mulch, again. Can you handle two visits with the woman in a day?”
Chapter Ten
~
T he pair walked into Antina’s shop. Dickey walked to the right to examine curios in a glass case, leaving Sam standing in the middle of the room.
“Sam!” Antina’s face brightened when she saw him. “If you expected me to have finished your last pair of spectacles, you will be disappointed.” She paused and looked at Dickey Nail, who was just turning around from the case. “Constable Nail, welcome to my shop. Is this a professional visit?”
Dickey gave her his half-smile. “It is. Can we sit somewhere? I’d like your opinion on a few matters.”
Antina’s eyes brightened even further. “Please, over here.”
Sam had chatted with the woman a few times in an alcove where the spicy smell that permeated the shop was strongest.
They sat down, and Antina clasped her hands and leaned forward. “Social or cultural?” she said.
“A little bit of both,” Dickey said.
Sam looked at the two adults. Dickey had been silent on their way from the lord’s mansion to Antina Mulch’s shop, so he didn’t know exactly what prompted his partner to visit the woman, but it had to be related to pink pollen.
“The evidence points to someone inside both mansions,” Dickey said. He laid out his thinking since there were definite similarities between the two thefts. “Did the stolen jewels ever show up in your shop?”
Antina pressed her lips together in thought. “Not from the first theft,” she said. “I’m not as familiar with Lord Ditch, the second victim. His wife is not active in Baskin’s social world, despite their obvious wealth.” She looked at Dickey. “What else did you have to tell me?”
“Constable Smith detected pink pollen again.”
The woman sat up straighter. “You have more samples?”
Sam nodded and unfurled his handkerchief. The threads of pink pollen fell to the tabletop.
“Oh, may I keep these?” Antina asked of Dickey.
He nodded his head. “There has to be some need for the pollen to be present to be effective. If it created some effect, the perpetrator wouldn’t have to have carried any around. Is there any use for this pink pollen, deer pollen as you called it, that necessitates constant contact?”
Antina rubbed her chin. “I’d have to do a little research, but I think that memory is impaired all the time the pollen is in contact. Deer shoot it out like a fog,” She laughed as she finished her sentence. “I can’t imagine how they do that.” She shrugged.
“I can,” Dickey said. “It is similar to how a skunk administers a stench. The pollen starts out sticky and then as it dries it falls off.”
Antina giggled or laughed, her expression was a mixture as far as Sam could tell. “So someone has a trained deer?”
It was Dickey’s turn to shrug. “Maybe, or they have developed some kind of applicator, like a perfume spray. I saw a few in the case in your shop when I walked in. I was wondering if you could do a little different kind of research than what you offered.”
“I’m not a suspect?”
Dickey half-smiled again. “Do you want to be?”
“Would it be exciting?”
Sam’s partner shrugged. “Some might find it so, but most wouldn’t. Which kind of person are you?”
“The attention is…interesting, but I doubt I would like to be seen as a criminal. It might hurt my business.”
Dickey nodded. “For a time, anyway. Unless you are the kind of person who likes people to be afraid of you.”
Antina laughed. “Not me. I enjoy people liking me, although that isn’t always the case with my background and my position in life.”
“Don’t you hobnob with the nobility?” Sam asked. Dickey narrowed his eyes in reproof.
Antina smiled at Sam but looked at Dickey with a more serious expression. “Constable Nail would understand how those not accepted as nobles are tolerated.”
“You don’t go in the front door?” Sam asked, not caring if Dickey gave him a dirty look or not. He wanted to know.
“Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t. I’m smart enough to accept whatever entrance is offered.” She patted Sam’s hand. “You will always enter a lord’s house through the servant’s entrance. You are not only the son of a tradesman with a tradesman’s name, but you have your disability. Baskin nobility doesn’t trust those who are different.”
“And you are definitely different,” Dickey said.
Sam felt picked on, but he lifted his chin. “That might change when I’m older,” Sam said, but he knew it for bravado spoken as a defense.
Both of the adults laughed. His comment somehow put the meeting on a smoother footing. Antina retrieved one of her perfume sprayers and showed Dickey and Sam how they worked.
“To spray deer pollen, the apparatus would have to look different. First, a master pollen magician would have to learn how to recreate deer pollen. It may not be possible, and if it was, I don’t think anyone could do so in large quantities. Then the pollen would have to be applied in a larger sprayer or one with a coarser mist to enable the pollen threads to travel through the air and stick to the victim.”
“And the thief would have to have ingested sheep pollen, which induces a person to follow suggestions,” Sam said.
Dickey narrowed his eyes at him again. “I’m supposed to come up with that. My university contacts told me the same thing.”
It was Sam’s turn to shrug. “I probably have more experience observing sheep pollen’s effect on others. It might be an easy thing to combine the two.”
His partner’s eyes lingered overlong on Sam before he turned to Antina. “Is that possible from your perspective?”
She smiled with her mouth and with her eyes. “I would have to say it is. More likely, if you found both together, that the effect might work when applied as a patch of some kind to the neck. So a servant could be waylaid and turned into a thief.” She cocked her head as she thought. “Risky, but it could happen.”
“Not a servant,” Dickey said.
“Of course not.” Sam agreed with Dickey. “The lord of the house would be in a position to be out during the late hours the thefts occurred, and they would also know where the jewels were and how to retrieve them.”
“And what other thing is a link?” Dickey asked Sam.
“The fake artifacts made out of pollen. They were in each of the residences.”
Antina looked a little lost. “Fake artifacts?”
“Sam’s unique perspective led to the discovery of phony armor hung on the walls. Especially unique pieces that would be worth a lot, if real,” Dickey said. “Someone is selling the stuff to the nobility, and that may be another link.”
“Were the reproductions good?” Antina asked.
“Excellent,” Dickey said. “I wouldn’t be able to tell the real from the fake. I have seen fakes before. The best ones were duplicated next to the original.” He looked at Sam. “I learned that, too,” he said with his half-smile.
“I’ll get an example. I have a few pollen replicas. You’ll get an idea what one that isn’t so accurate looks like.” Antina left them and disappeared into the back.
Sam could hear her go upstairs and return. She held something in her hands. Sam had to put on his spectacles to see it was a jeweled breastplate.
“These were popular when I left Polistia. This particular one is ten years old, brought to me by a friend of my husband’s. Made in Vaarek, he claimed.”
Sam wouldn’t dare touch the thing, but he examined it closely while Antina handled it for him. He could see the edges softening in places as if a thousand hands rubbed it. The pollen, brown in color, was showing through the gilded surface. He took his spectacles off and saw nothing.
“It is fully pollen made. No paint,” he said looking at Dickey. “The ornaments in the last house were painted.”
Antina frowned. “That is lower art, but paint would help preserve the pollen, I would imagine. How did you know it was made out of pollen?”
“I asked to see one of the lord’s recent acquisitions. The butler said the piece didn’t feel right. When I examined it, I found it to be made of pollen. It was made to look like metal, and then someone painted over the metallic appearance of the pollen.”
Antina grunted, a bit unladylike for Sam’s taste. “It is easier to make a pollen artifact and paint it than recreate the colors and textures accurately. A Toraltian lady’s veil is all one texture on a flat simulation of silk. An artifact must have the simulation of ancient patina, a skill at a different level.” She proceeded to show Dickey and Sam the elements of an expertly done piece, even though the fake artifact was deteriorating as all pollen did over time.
“Harrison Dimple and I ran across expert pollen artists. One of them made a pollen pouch that looked exactly like a lump of straw. I saw the fakes in other cities, but they were all linked to Banna Plunk.”
“She must be a great pollen artist, but from what I can gather, completely misguided,” Antina said. “It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out a Polistian pollen artist is behind all this. Perhaps it is she.”
“Plunk is more than misguided,” Dickey said. “A dangerous woman, I reckon. More dangerous than you, Antina Mulch?”
Antina smiled. “Well then, that depends how you define dangerous. I am not deranged, but I was dangerous enough in my time…in a different way, of course.”
Dickey smirked. “Of course.” He rose. “My trainee and I have other business, as I’m sure you do?”
The woman pursed her lips. “Not so far today. Sam and you have been my only customers, but there is always later in the day. Feel free to tap into my mind at any time, Constable Nail.”
“I’ll do that, and I can assure you the tap won’t be lethal. Good day.”
Dickey and Sam emerged onto the street, heading for the constabulary. Sam took note of the route since he never wanted to get lost on the city streets of Baskin again.
“What did you learn?” Dickey asked.
“Banna Plunk might be the one behind all this?” Sam said.
“Are you asking me a question?”
“A guess. She is a high-level pollen artist. She is creative, and I could see her creating a way to spray deer pollen on a victim, although I’m still hazy on how that can work. It even stumped Antina Mulch.” Sam looked at his partner.
Dickey shrugged. “Finding out about such a thing is more suited to Antina Mulch. That is why we visited her. My sources at the Royal University aren’t creative. They have textbook learning, but Mulch has practical knowledge, which in this case is needed. To address your Banna Plunk question, it is possible, given she has left the North and could very well be working on some scheme in Baskin. Maybe she wants her mine back.” He gave Sam his half-smile. “Are you ready to start working out with the constables tomorrow morning?”
Sam stopped in the street. “I forgot all about that. It has been a busy day.”
“Indeed it has. Tomorrow, at half-past six in the morning. See the suppliers to get an exercise uniform. The constables wear them, and if you show up with old clothes on like the apprentices, you will regret it,” Dickey said.
“Won’t they think me presumptuous?”
“You have to show them you deserve to be there, but if Kened Rider says you are better off with them, you are.”
Chapter Eleven
~
T he only exercise togs available were a few sizes too large for Sam. He cinched up his belt and rolled up his sleeves before he made his way past the still-slumbering apprentices. He passed the commissary to see a few constables dressed in the same uniform munching on biscuits and washing it down with hot tea. Sam wasn’t wild about tea, but his stomach was telling him it wanted to be filled with something.
“Hello,” Sam said to the other constables.
One sneered at Sam. “Joining the big boys? We will see how long that lasts. Kened has made mistakes before, you know.”
Sam shrugged. “I just do as I’m told,” he said. “I’m sure I have a lot to learn from you.”
One of the other constables clapped Sam on the back. “Don’t pay attention to him. Few apprentices have ever gone back to training with their peers. The odds are in your favor.”
Sam nodded. He wanted to smile at the compliment, but he pressed his lips together. He expected the same kind of treatment the apprentices gave him. He followed the trickle of constables to the same practice floor the apprentices used.
Kened Rider stood by the weapons racks talking to a few constables. Sam walked up to the group.
“I didn’t know you were teaching the constables,” Sam said.
Kened laughed. “I don’t teach constables. I’m here as an advisor, a referee, and an observer. The practices are much less regimented than what the apprentices get.”
“What do I do, then?” Sam said.
The other constables looked on with amused expressions on their faces.
“Someone will eventually ask you to play. Most of the session consists of short sparring encounters. We use blunted steel,” Kened said. “I roam around and make comments. Some of them are appreciated, and others are…” He shrugged.
The constables laughed at Kened’s premature end of his sentence. The instructor looked at the clock on the wall. “Time to play!”
“I’ll work with you,” a tall, thin constable said. “You can show me why our beloved trainer chose you to work with us.” The man leered at Sam.
“Fine. I don’t know how you choose weapons or any of the protocols,” Sam said.
“I will referee your first match,” Kened said, looking at the constable rather than Sam.
The constable pursed his lips. “Very well.”
Sam looked at the swords and picked one more like the one he carried on the battlefield. The fuller was deep making the sword lighter than the cutlass he had used with Kened the previous day, and it had an oversized pommel like the one he had used. The instructor never brought out a sword like the one Sam picked when he worked with the apprentices.
“An interesting choice,” Sam’s opponent, said. “Going to battle?”
“I learned on a similar sword,” Sam noted that his opponent wielded a cutlass. He looked around the room and could see most constables chose the same weapon. “We will see how they match up.”
