Chapter Thirteen
Thirteen
What makes a magician change? Is it time of year? Is it age? Is it some other natural phenomenon?
—PROSPERO THE ALL-KNOWING TO ELEANOR GUILDFORD
I felt Prospero beside me. “Concentrate, Bianca,” he would say, blue eyes shining. “What does the sky suggest?”
“Mercury and the Sun are nearly touching. I might discover something new today, something miraculous.”
I could have sworn his smirk shimmered in the air, but it was just sunlight cast through the window.
Roland slid Oliver’s translations across his desk, then pulled over two chairs. Before we untied the ribbon, we exchanged a heavy glance.
Roland knew him well, but it was my first time truly meeting this Prospero. He would shapeshift before my eyes—from the Prospero I remembered, assured in his power, to the broken man who had written this cipher, grasping at any means to live.
As we read, we shared eager breath.
I have received word from my contact. He says King Philippe of Lionesse was born in the same year as his mother, on the very same day.
If she were alive, she would be broaching one hundred and seven.
Philippe was born under the two fishes, in March—and so this year will make one hundred and eight.
Common knowledge says eighty-five. This bodes well for our cause.
Roland and I surfaced at different times.
He watched my eyes dart across the page, waiting for me to finish.
“So,” he said. “They must have been passing her Book of Hours back and forth in secret. She would leave it behind for him to pick up. He’d write to her in code, and hand it back to her.
This was how he updated her on his progress. ”
I nodded, but didn’t look up. The next translation began, I have corresponded with Faustus.
I tested the name on my tongue. Faustus. I knew it from somewhere.
He tells me such capabilities of Venus have never been recorded in any book of magic.
However, he himself developed a new ability later in his life.
He was never sure how he had managed it, what change may have possessed him—but suddenly, he said, he would sit for hours reading, or spend long nights attending to his paperwork, only to emerge and find only seconds had passed in the next room.
He never learned control over the ability, and it would only occur when he wanted to work undisturbed.
I shall look more into Venus, but I find it a vain and useless planet.
Roland frowned at the parchment. “A vain and useless planet?”
I only gestured to the next translation.
My spies have intercepted a missive between Philippe and his mistress, here enclosed:
Darling, you are too far for my liking. My eyes are drooping, my legs are too heavy to carry me out of bed, and I have spots all over my hands and neck. Hair falling out. Return at once—I need my remedy.
Is this not our proof?
“That note was from King Philippe to Marguerite,” breathed Roland.
“Marguerite?”
“The king of Lionesse’s mistress,” Roland explained hastily. “Venusborn.”
What are a magician’s limits? What are his boundaries, and when can they be pushed? Somehow, Marguerite of Lionesse has made her king immortal.
Our Richard, in his vanity, has decided immortality is preferable to a new son.
For sons die. They die easily, without any cause.
He knows this intimately now. He has ordered me to master immortality by fall equinox.
He rages about King Philippe having something he does not.
He rages that in our years of friendship I have not yet given him this, his heart’s truest desire.
For who would want a dynasty when they could instead live eternal?
I know you are frightened after last month’s loss. I know it feels as if Richard has abandoned you entirely. We are so close to appeasing him forever.
Venus is the key. Yet I still cannot say how it is accomplished. Roland shows no signs of such miraculous abilities. He is as he always was.
What makes a magician change? Is it time of year? Is it age? Is it some other natural phenomenon?
“Fall equinox…” I gestured to the page. “Presumably, he wrote this only months before he was killed.”
“Yes. Must have been. When he died, it was snowing. There was snow, burying his body. Snow on his grave.” With a groan, Roland ran a slow hand down his face. I reached for him, to touch him, to comfort him somehow, but instead, my fingers folded into a fist.
“No king should rule too long,” I said quietly. “No king should rule forever.”
“Careful, Mouse. That’s nearly treason.” He eyed my hand, as if he could see the ghost of what I intended.
We had arrived at the last translation, the last message exchanged between Prospero and Eleanor before their deaths.
When a planet moves into its sign of exaltation, a position of great strength, so too should a magician’s magic bound forth, uninhibited.
Yet it doesn’t. I am struck by Faustus, the magician who developed magic beyond his prior capabilities later in life.
Think of it this way: If magicians live in a storm, exaltation is the lightning that might strike us.
If it does, we are forever changed, out-of-bodied, and more remarkable than we could ever dream of becoming.
For this Saturn could suddenly create boundaries between time itself, yet never understood what sparked in his blood.
Roland tapped the parchment. “If Prospero was right, if the Lionesse king really is over one hundred years old—” he began.
“If we can do what Prospero couldn’t, if we can discover what causes exaltation, King Richard may never die,” I finished for him.
“It makes perfect sense. If exaltation is an expansion of our natural abilities, then a Venus—you—would be able to prolong life. You already make the king look younger, more beautiful. Every week, you revitalize him.”
“And an immortal king requires no son, Bianca. No heir. No more scheming Guildfords. No Fulke Roet. The king would be loyal to no one but me. He would depend on me utterly. And so I would rule him.”
The knowledge rolled through me.
Did I want such a king to live forever, or for the crown to pass over to Fulke Roet, to Fulke’s son and the son after that, each more twisted than the last?
To those who murdered Hal? Or did I want to sit on this weakened king’s council—and perhaps, in small infinitesimal movements, wield my influence?
Fight for what Hal would have wanted, had he lived?
For what I wanted for myself, if I dared to admit it?
Because there was a part of me that wondered about exaltation for myself. What might I be capable of, if I were the one struck by lightning?
Now, instead of Prospero’s, I imagined Hal’s eyes on me, the intent gray embrace of them. You know what to do, he would have said. I felt the firm grip of his hand. The solid, steadying comfort of it. This is how you avenge me. Let no one take the throne they killed me for. Save Roland’s life.
“So, we’ll depart for Lionesse immediately.” Roland rose to his feet. “Question Marguerite. Find out how she’s done it.” Quieter, he said, almost to himself, “She’ll tell me. She must.”
“There’s something I must do first.”
When I lifted my face, his own fell. “No.”
“Please.”
He softened at that. Sighing, looking almost pained. “I said no, Mouse.”
“I say yes. Where would you be without me?” I thrust out a hand in emphasis. “I found Eleanor’s book—”
He rolled his eyes. “Which nearly killed me.”
“You promised to help me. This is for Hal—”
His hands flew to his hair in disbelief. “Hal? Hal would want me to keep his father on the throne and forget this madness.”
“The Guildfords let Kitty’s name slip for a reason.”
“You always have to scurry about, and around Kitty Seton of all people—”
“Oh, I’m not going as myself. She won’t tell me a thing. I’m going as you.”