Modern Magick

The Fifth Britain: 6

'The Redclovers had style,' Zareen said.

They certainly did. 'Why, then, is it abandoned out here?' I mused aloud. 'If you'd built something that lovely, why would you ever leave?'

'The passage of four hundred years is neither here nor there, I suppose?'

I strode off in the direction of the spire, my boots swishing through the crisp grass. 'Not with these people. Their bodies may have died long ago but I doubt they went far after that. I'm willing to bet that the spire had a Waymaster-in-residence, John Wester-style, for a long time, and maybe it still does.'

'So that's what Jay had in mind?'

'Yes. Especially after Millie. Wester obviously wasn't some kind of a fluke, and if there have been more of them — why not Melmidoc?'

'You saw no sign of him before?'

'He's an old man. He fell asleep over his newspaper a hundred and ten years ago, and has yet to wake up.'

Zareen grinned. 'Right, then. Let's go rattle his door handles and throw stones at the windows.'

My previous visit to the spire had been only a few days prior, but I found a much-changed building when we went inside. Rattling the doorknobs proved unnecessary, as the door was unlocked. And why not? There was nothing left in there, nothing at all. The kitchen on the ground floor was reduced to a collection of aged wooden counters, probably left in situ because they were both unlovely and (I imagined) heavy. The bright, circular room near the top which had previously held all the accoutrements of a comfortable living space was completely empty. The chairs were gone, the knick-knacks and ornaments, and above all, the books. All of them.

Someone had cleaned, for not a speck of dust floated up as Zareen and I tramped up the winding stairs. That was nice, I supposed.

'They did a thorough job,' Zar said as we stood in the doorway of the Redclover brothers' decimated library.

'I wonder why.' I was wondering that pretty hard. Taking the books I could understand, even if I was disappointed. They were a valuable resource, and were liable to be damaged if left uncared for on such remote shelves. But the furniture?

I felt that unwelcome but sadly familiar sensation of foreboding.

Jay and I made the acquaintance of Mabyn Redclover during our previous investigation of the Dappledok pups, a spriggan who was somewhere high-up in the Forbidden Magicks division of the Hidden Ministry. I blessed my forethought in making sure to secure her number, and called it.

'Ms. Redclover, Forbidden Magicks.' Mabyn's voice came crisply over the line.

'Mab. It's Ves. I'm at the spire, but nothing much else is.'

'I was going to call you this afternoon,' said Mabyn, and she sounded grim. 'The Ministry finished emptying the building day before last. There was a bloodbath over the books, as you may imagine, with strong competition from the Troll Court to secure them. In the end they split the books, but the Ministry took everything else. I've only just found out why. It's scheduled for demolition, Ves, and soon. They want it gone, no delay.'

'I thought it must be something like that,' I said. 'Any idea why?'

'None whatsoever. I've spent the whole morning trying to get an audience with the right people and I've largely failed. They won't talk to me. I was reduced to loitering in the hallways hoping to run into the Chief or Vice-Chief Ministers. Well, I did see Honoria Goodenough — that's the Vice-Chief — but she said I'm too close to the situation and wouldn't listen to me. Just because I'm a Redclover! It's not like I have any real connection to a pair of Redclovers from four hundred years ago. I tried to argue that it's a rare and precious example of seventeenth-century magickal architecture and its starstone composition ought to be enough to secure instant and eternal protected status but she wasn't having it. Nor would she tell me why. I'm sorry, Ves. There's nothing more I can do.'