Angel Mage by Garth Nix

Author:Garth Nix
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

Nineteen

“THESE ARE DEFINITELY THE QUEEN’S OWN?” ASKED THE Watch lieutenant, looking down at the icons, which were laid out once again on the table, with serried ranks of coins alongside, and the letter next to them, the chest emptied and checked for secret compartments. “But we have received word of just such diamond-edged icons stolen from an Alban noblewoman, and there is a reward. Tw . . . that is, ten . . . ten thousand livres!”

A surprised rumble went around the cave, cut through by Rochefort’s imperious voice.

“An Alban noblewoman? What is her name, and when did you receive this news?”

“Lady Dehiems,” said the lieutenant, scratching under her dented helmet. She glanced at Rochefort and then at Simeon, who raised an eyebrow, in remembrance of their last encounter. “She reported the theft this morning. Her great-great-something-grandmother’s, she said. These three icons, with the diamonds, and a draughts set—anyone seen that? No? Well, and the gold, that looks all here. She bought Demaselle House from old Lord Demaselle. Her cellar was dug into from the sewers, by toshers, no doubt about that now. That dead one by the lake who had the chest, you know who she was?”

“No,” replied Rochefort and Franzonne together.

“Called the Worm,” said the lieutenant with a disdainful sniff. “High up in the Night Crew. Maybe she was even the Night King, we’ve never been sure. And those other two floaters? Night Crew, but not toshers, they were thieves from the Demarten Square gang. You can tell because with real toshers the skin on their legs is always sort of wet, like day-old porridge, kind of crusty and wobbly at the same—”

“Enough!” spat Rochefort.

“I’m simply saying there were two sorts of Refuser criminals present,” said the lieutenant. “Who turned on each other. One lot got the loot, the other tried to take it.”

“I have not heard of this Alban noblewoman,” said Franzonne.

The lieutenant got a faraway look in her eyes.

“She’s extraordinarily beautiful, even with a widow’s cap pulled down—”

“I am not particularly interested in how she looks,” interrupted Franzonne. “Why would I have not heard of her?”

“She’s only recently come to Lutace. I asked around. She had a husband back in Alba—much older—who died. Some people there think she murdered him, or hastened him along, and he was a relative of the Atheling. So she had to get out. She’s very rich as well as beautiful. But I don’t understand how she would have these icons, if they belong to the Queen—”

“They were Queen Anne’s,” said Franzonne. “Haven’t you ever heard of the Diamond Icons? The Queen’s Collar? Stolen a hundred and thirty-two years ago?”

“No,” said the Watch lieutenant stolidly. “Before my time.”

“This must all be investigated,” said Rochefort impatiently. “I will take the chest and its contents to Her Eminence the Cardinal—”

“It is the Queen’s property and must go to the Queen,” interrupted Franzonne.

“Two of the icons have somehow become . . . disassociated . . . from their angels, but have not crumbled away or fallen into dust,” said Rochefort.

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