The Last Suitor. A J McMahon
Читать онлайн книгу.
was naïve but he was not stupid and he was starting out on a train of thought that would have alarmed Tagalong had he been able to witness it. He was wondering how Tagalong had just happened to guide him past a place where a lady needed rescuing, given that Tagalong had himself needed rescuing just the day before. He was also wondering, now that he was in a suspicious mood, if Tagalong had ever really been invited to the party they had attended the night before, given that, now that Nicholas came to think of it, he had not seemed to be in the thick of things that night. Nicholas was, in short, wondering what was going on.
Angela came back into the room, in a light green dress (price: five hundred strada) that reached all the way up to her chin and down to her wrists, not too figure hugging. Her hair was artfully done up.
‘Please sit down, Mr Raspero,’ she said breathily. ‘Can I fix you a drink?’
‘No, thanks, I’m fine,’ Nicholas said, trying to decide whether to leave, or stay and uncover what all this was about.
‘But surely you will not leave, Mr Raspero,’ Angela pleaded. ‘Please stay. I can’t bear to be left alone right now.’
‘Yes, I’ll stay a while,’ Nicholas agreed.
‘Then please join me in having a drink. I detest drinking alone and without your company I cannot drink.’
‘All right, I’ll have a glass of red wine,’ Nicholas said, his suspicions increasing by the minute but deciding to play along. ‘Thank you.’
Angela took two dark red crystal goblets (three hundred strada each) from a shelf, careful to put the one that had a green powder out of sight in the bottom on the right so she could offer that goblet to Nicholas. She poured them each a goblet of wine from the same bottle (Yehunda wine, seventy-five strada a bottle). Nicholas had been raised on stories of his ancestor Etienne, the devious genius whose cunning was legendary, so he was not too impressed by witnessing that the wine she was pouring for him and for her came from the same bottle. Etienne’s trick had been to have a button in the neck of the bottle which, when pressed, switched the flow of wine from one compartment to another within the bottle.
Angela brought the goblet over to Nicholas and handed it to him. By then he was standing by the side of the room. He took the goblet and said, gesturing across the room, ‘That’s a nice painting.’
Angela turned to walk gracefully over to the painting (twelve hundred and fifty strada). Nicholas held the goblet by his side, out of sight of anyone secretly observing him, and tipped the wine into a waste-paper basket that was a hollowed out tree-trunk (eighty strada). He then stood there impassively, pretending to drink from the now empty goblet as she looked back at him.
‘It is an original Nadine,’ she told him. ‘He is such a splendid painter, don’t you think?’ The painting was an investment that was intended to make Angela a profit.
‘Yes,’ Nicholas said shortly, pretending to take another sip from the goblet.
‘Please sit down, Mr Raspero,’ Angela suggested.
‘Thank you.’ Nicholas sat in a chair facing the door behind which were the six wands keeping him and Angela silent company. He pretended to drink again from the goblet.
‘I cannot thank you enough for what you have done for me,’ Angela told him sweetly, changing the use of her voice, as her breathy voice did not seem to be affecting Nicholas. She focused on achieving a musical tone.
‘That’s all right,’ Nicholas said. He pretended to drink deeply from the goblet until he had drained it, then set the goblet down on the table. He sat back in the chair, ignoring the footstool nearby.
‘Could I pour you some more wine?’ Angela asked him.
‘No thanks, I’ll be leaving shortly,’ Nicholas replied, and pretended to yawn. He sat back trying to look a bit sleepy, blinking his eyes.
‘Please make yourself comfortable, Mr Raspero,’ Angela said in her most soothing voice. ‘Close your eyes and rest if you wish. You have been through such a trying ordeal fighting those evil men.’
Nicholas realised his guess had been right. The wine had been drugged, and now she was trying to put him under with her soothing voice and advice about having a rest. He closed his eyes with his hand on his wand and practised macchato. He could see her look at him and then heard her say softly, ‘Mr Raspero?’ He made no response. She pulled out her wand and tapped on the door opposite Nicholas.
Several men entered the room, their wands out. ‘Bind him,’ one of them said, and by macchato Nicholas could see which of them it was. As the karns came flying through the air Nicholas moved. He drew his feet up and sent himself over the chair in a backward somersault.
Nicholas waved his wand to pluck the karns out of the air, gathering them in his left hand while his opponents paused, wands outstretched. Then Nicholas flipped himself forward into a somersault which ended in his feet planted in the chest of one of his opponents who went back into the wall with a shout of anger, knocking a vase (five hundred strada) off the table to smash on the floor. Nicholas used his momentum to drop down to the ground and roll to his right. In two movements he had two men down on the ground amidst a shattered table (two hundred strada). He gathered their wands into his left hand, having bound them hand and foot with their own karns, while they were still falling through the air. The man who had been giving the orders stood to one side taking no part in the fighting while his remaining men, who were four in number, including an energetic and much-recovered Hugo, crouched facing him bringing out more karns and attacking him with a variety of combinations. Nicholas soon disarmed them and bound them hand and foot, but not without the destruction of a crystalline sculpture (three hundred strada), a glass tray (two hundred strada) and a ceramic globe of the world (six hundred strada).
Angela looked at the broken Greig vase on the floor; that vase cost five hundred strada. The table it had been on was shattered: two hundred strada. The sculpture, the tray, the globe … she was busy adding up the cost of all this destruction when she found herself bound hand and foot and thrown into a chair. This did not stop her calculations: eighteen hundred strada worth of damage!
Nicholas looked around at his prisoners, who looked back at him without saying a word. Then Nicholas returned to his chair and sat down. This time he pulled over the footstool and stretched out. He looked at the man who had been giving the orders earlier, the man who must be in charge of this lot.
‘So what’s going on?’ Nicholas asked him.
‘Introductions are by third party,’ the man told him and turned to Angela. ‘Angela, my dear, perhaps you will introduce us.’
‘Jolly, this is Mr Nicholas Raspero,’ Angela said, still angered by the damage to her property. ‘Mr Raspero, this is Mr Frank Jollison.’
‘So what’s this all about, Mr Jollison?’ Nicholas asked.
‘I would strongly advise you to end this foolishness and untie me, Mr Raspero. I will not talk to you while I am treated in this fashion.’
‘So you’re a gentleman?’ Nicholas asked Jolly, who said nothing in return. ‘I can demand satisfaction from you, then?’
‘I have already said that I will not speak to you while I am tied up, Mr Raspero. If you wish to speak to me, then untie me.’
‘No, I’ll make your bonds tighter while you reconsider your position,’ Nicholas said. He pointed his wand and tightened the cords until they cut off the circulation to Jolly’s hands and feet. Jolly writhed in fury, then began to breathe heavily.
‘Mr Raspero, you will loosen these bonds. Do you understand?’
‘I thought you weren’t talking to me until you were untied,’ Nicholas said.
‘Mr Raspero, you will untie me or you will make an enemy of me. You do not want me as your enemy, believe me. Untie me, now!’
Nicholas raised his left hand in order to carefully inspect his fingernails. Jolly was breathing