Chapter Three
Chester
Jasper was on escort duty. He was, in fact, the official mage in charge of a contingent of royal guardsmen, and his commission was to travel north to Cheshire, to a place called Nettleford Manor, investigate the rash of unexpected magical happenings centered on that place, and bring back to London a newborn unicorn and its attending maiden.
Hopefully, his duties would not require him to use his uncertain magical skills. It sounded as if Nettleford Manor had enough problems without that.
It was a swift trip. The horses had been trained to trot in enchanted hoof covers, an equine version of royal courier boots.
Based on the seven-league boots of legend, both devices extended each pace to five times its natural length, careful experimentation having established that bones and muscles could not tolerate any greater extension.
Still, what would have been a four or five-day trip was accomplished between breakfast and dinner. Indeed, they spent almost as much time at the fourteen stops to change horses as they did on the road.
The trip back would be at normal, human pace, since such fast travel required special training, and they would be bringing with them a newborn foal and a young woman, presumably a non-magic user.
His Grace of Findlater had enchanted the hoof covers, and had also given Jasper a satchel magicked to access the contents of a table in the Findlater kitchens, where food and drink would be placed at regular intervals, and a purse with a similar spell on it to provide money.
“Your first task is to find out what is causing the flurry of incidents at Nettleford Manor, Jasper. Your second and more important task is to convey the unicorn and the lady safely to the queen in London,” the duke had said.
All unicorns belonged to the queen. “I have assured the king that you are up to the task. Just don’t use any magic of which you are not certain, and all should be well. ”
Jasper had not needed the reminder that his magic was frequently worse than useless, but at least the duke was trusting him with this task.
“Chester is in sight, sir,” said the captain of the guard, as if Jasper did not have eyes. There was the castle, still the administrative center of the county of Cheshire, though the Duke of Pontefract, its master, lived in a more modern townhouse just beyond the castle walls.
Given the hour, Jasper was unsure whether to go to the castle or straight to the townhouse.
The castle was the more judicious choice, since he didn’t want the duke thinking he’d assumed a welcome in his grace’s private home.
Besides, his guard would no doubt be given hospitality in the castle barracks, so Jasper ordered his cavalcade in that direction.
A man was waiting in the castle courtyard, and hurried up as soon as Jasper rode through the open gateway, saying, “Mr. Thornton?”
“I am he,” Jasper confirmed. “And this is Captain Harewood, who is in command of my guard.”
“I am Thomas Richworth, sir, and I have the honor to be secretary to His Grace the Duke of Chester. His grace has instructed me to welcome you and your party to Chester. You and Captain Harewood are invited to dinner, sir, and to stay the night at his grace’s residence.
Lieutenant Miller,” here, he waved a hand to his uniformed companion, “will be glad to show your escort to their quarters.”
Grooms came up to take the horses. A couple of footmen picked up Jasper’s luggage from the back of the carriage, and took charge of the captain’s bag. They followed behind when Mr. Richworth conducted the two visitors out of a postern gate and across the road to a fine townhouse.
From the look of it, the dwelling had been built during the period of the Tudor kings.
The dukedom was a creation of King Arthur the Second, after the successful conclusion of the succession war with his younger brother Henry, and the Duke of Chester’s coat of arms was carved above the doorway.
The device of a lion rampant with a dead unicorn at its feet was quartered with a vicious looking storm cloud over a sheaf of corn on its side.
The final battle with the would-be usurper and his Scottish troops was fought in a corn field and won thanks to one of the king’s loyal followers, a weather mage who called a storm that harried the enemy all the way back to Scotland.
The man was named Duke of Pontefract as a reward, and the title had been in his family ever since.
This centuries-old history went through Jasper’s mind as Mr. Richworth ushered them inside, past the doorman and toward a butler who bowed with stately grace and said, “If I might show you to your rooms, sirs, to freshen up. When you are ready, his grace will welcome you to his study for a drink before dinner.”
Jasper and the captain followed the butler up two flights of stairs and along a hall far too grand and well-furnished to ever be called a mere passage.
He had become accustomed to such surroundings ever since his uncle had plucked him from his parents’ manor to the wealth and elegance of the royal and government circles that were the natural milieu of the Duke of Findlater.
Nonetheless, Pontefract House was at least the match of what Jasper had seen during his decade as the duke’s heir presumptive, and exceeded most of them. Captain Harewood, however, looked completely stunned.
“This is your room, Mr. Thornton,” said the butler, opening a door. “Yours is next door, Captain Harewood. The footmen will have brought up your luggage, and will be waiting to assist you.”
Jasper took time for a quick wash, and to don a complete change of linen and formal dinner wear before knocking on the door of the captain’s room. The pair of them went downstairs to meet the duke.
“Thornton, I assume,” said the duke, as soon as Jasper stepped into the study. “Glad you’re here. Captain Harewood, if you just step through that side door, my secretary will introduce you to those here tonight for dinner.”
Having neatly disposed of Jasper’s escort, the duke waved Jasper to a chair.
“Sit, sit. You need to know the situation at Nettleford as soon as possible. You’ll have been told that, about a month ago, their prize mare dropped a unicorn?
And that the place has been a hotbed of magical births and gift manifestations ever since? ”
“I was told ‘an improbable number’, your grace,” said Jasper.
“Damned improbable, my boy,” grumbled the duke. He took a sip from the glass on his desk. Brandy, by the color. Jasper could do with one, but the duke didn’t offer. “Damned improbable,” he repeated. “If I told you two or three incidents a day, all within five miles of the manor?”
“That is more than improbable,” Jasper said. “I would have said impossible, your grace, except that you say it is happening.”
“It is happening, my boy. That is certain. You shall meet some of the evidence before you leave here tomorrow morning. You know about the unicorn, of course. And there’s much more.
To take just one type of event, we’ve had five dragons, most from chickens but one from a goose egg.
All from one village in one month. That is more than the score for the entire county in a decade.
My scholars say it is way beyond being a statistical anomaly.
There is only one possibility. We have a catalyst.”
What, in the name of Blessed King Arthur the Gentle, is a catalyst?
He must have looked as bewildered as he thought, for the duke took pity and explained.
“You have not heard of a catalyst, lad? I am not surprised. Catalysism is the rarest of all magical gifts, and England—nay, Europe—has not had one with the apparent strength of this person since the Lady Niniane.”
“A catalyst,” Jasper mused. “The gift of catalyzing magic in others?”
“Yes, exactly.” The duke beamed as if Jasper were a favorite pupil who had answered a difficult conundrum in the classroom.
“A catalyst affects the magical potential, causing a higher number of magical births, more unusual magical births, and magic gifts manifesting more often, earlier, and more strongly than expected. We have all of that—in impossible numbers—in a single village and the surrounding countryside. So, a catalyst.”
The duke sat back, clearly waiting for a comment.
Jasper did not know what to say. “Ah. That would be a good thing, would it?”
The duke frowned. “So one might think. Balance, my boy. It is all about balance.” He brushed off whatever black mood had seized him to smile again.
This time, for some reason, Jasper was reminded of the crocodile in the picture book that had terrified him as a child—it had been full of cautionary tales for badly-behaved children, and the beast in one of the images had worn just such a smile before it had eaten the naughty child who would not obey its nanny.
“Have you—um—identified this catalyst, your grace?” Jasper ventured to ask.
“That, young Thornton, shall be your task. Identify the catalyst, and the problem shall be solved. Then, you can scoop up the unicorn and its virgin, who is also caring for the snake girl—did I mention the snake girl? And toddle off back to London with them. You can take the minotaur back with you, too—we have a wet nurse for the minotaur, since its mother has rejected it, and who could blame the poor woman.”
“Excuse me, sir. Snake girl? Minotaur? There are other magical creatures?”
“Of course, Thornton. Haven’t you been listening? We have a catalyst. Of course we’ve got magical creatures. Lots of them, but you’ll only be expected to take charge of the rarest. Your London College of Mages will want to see them, you know.”
Jasper cast a longing glance at the brandy decanter on the duke’s desk, and his hand twitched. It would be the height of bad manners to simply help himself. He nearly did it anyway.
“Er… How old are you, my boy?” The duke narrowed his eyes under fearsome bushy eyebrows.