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“Well, he’s in good hands with Charlotte,” said Lesley, satisfied. “So far our Ice Princess has managed to take the joys of life out of everyone.”
We’d perched on my big window seat while Xemerius sat on the table, curled his tail neatly around him, and began on his report.
First Charlotte and Raphael had gone out for an ice, then to the cinema, and finally they’d met up with Gideon in an Italian restaurant. Lesley and I had wanted to know every tiny detail, from the title of the film to the pizza toppings, plus every word they had said. According to Xemerius, Charlotte and Raphael had insisted on talking at cross-purposes the whole time. While Raphael wanted to know the differences between French and English girls and how far English girls would go, Charlotte had droned on forever about the winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature over the last ten years, with the result that Raphael had been visibly bored and occupied himself with ostentatiously looking at other girls. And at the cinema, much to the surprise of Xemerius, Raphael didn’t even try making a grab at Charlotte. Far from it. After about ten minutes, he fell fast asleep and stayed asleep. Lesley said that was the best thing she’d heard in a long time, and I entirely agreed. Then, of course, we wanted to know whether Gideon, Charlotte, and Raphael had been talking about me in the Italian restaurant, and Xemerius—slightly reluctantly—had regaled us with the following conversation. I did a kind of simultaneous translation of it for Lesley.
Charlotte: Giordano is terribly afraid Gwyneth will get everything wrong tomorrow that she can get wrong.
Gideon: Pass the olive oil, please.
Charlotte: Politics and history are a closed book to Gwyneth. She can’t even remember names—they go in at one ear and straight out of the other. She can’t help it, her brain doesn’t have the capacity. It’s stuffed with the names of boy bands and long, long cast lists of actors in soppy romantic films.
Raphael: Gwyneth is your time-traveling cousin, right? I saw her yesterday in school. Isn’t she the one with long dark hair and blue eyes?
Charlotte: Yes, and that birthmark on her temple, the one that looks like a little banana.
Gideon: Like a little crescent moon.
Raphael: What’s that friend of hers called? The blonde with freckles? Lily?
Charlotte: Lesley Hay. Rather brighter than Gwyneth, but she’s a wonderful example of the way people get to look like their dogs. Hers is a shaggy golden retriever crossbreed called Bertie.
Raphael: That’s cute!
Charlotte: You like dogs?
Raphael: Especially golden retriever crossbreeds with freckles.
Charlotte: I see. Well, you can try your luck. You won’t find it particularly difficult. Lesley gets through even more boys than Gwyneth.
Gideon: Really? How many … er, boyfriends has Gwyneth had?
Charlotte: Oh, my God! This is kind of embarrassing. I don’t want to speak ill of her, it’s just that she’s not very discriminating. Particularly when she’s had a drink. She’s done the rounds of almost all the boys in our class and the class above us.… I guess I lost track at some point. I’d rather not repeat what they call her.
Raphael: The school mattress?
Gideon: Pass the salt, please.
When Xemerius had reached this point in his story, I’d jumped up at once to go down to Charlotte’s room and strangle her, but Lesley wouldn’t let me. She reminded me that revenge is a dish best eaten cold, and she wouldn’t agree when I said my motive wasn’t revenge, it was pure murderous bloodlust. She added that if Gideon and Raphael were even a quarter as bright as they were good-looking, they wouldn’t believe a word Charlotte said anyway.
“I think Lesley really does look a bit like a golden retriever,” Xemerius had said, and when I looked at him reproachfully he was quick to add, “I like dogs, you know I do! Such clever animals.”
And Lesley really was clever. She had solved the mystery of the Green Rider book, although the result of all her efforts was rather disappointing. All she had come up with was another number code with two letters and funny little marks in it.
Five one zero three zero four one dot seven eight n comma zero zero zero eight four nine dot nine one w.
It was nearly midnight when we stealthily made our way right through the house and into the library. At least, Lesley and I stealthily made our way right through the house. Xemerius had flown on ahead.
We must have spent an hour searching the shelves for more clues. The fifty-first book in the third row … the fifty-first row, thirtieth book, page four, line seven, word eight … but wherever we tried beginning to count, nothing made sense. In the end we were just taking books out at random and shaking them, hoping for more notes to drop to the floor. But Lesley was confident, all the same. She’d written the code down on a piece of paper, and she kept taking it out of her jeans pocket and looking at it. “It must mean something,” she murmured to herself. “And I’m going to find out what.”
After that we finally went to bed. My alarm clock had roused me from my dreamless sleep in the morning—and from then on, I’d thought of almost nothing but the soirée.
“’Ere comes Mr. George to collect you,” said Madame Rossini, bringing me back to the present. She handed me a little bag—the reticule, that would be—and I wondered whether to smuggle the vegetable knife into it at the last moment after all. I’d turned down Lesley’s advice to tape it to my thigh. With my luck, I’d probably have hurt no one but myself, and how I was going to get the tape off my leg under the huge skirt in an emergency was a mystery to me anyway. When Mr. George came into the room, Madame Rossini was draping a large, lavishly embroidered shawl around my shoulders. She kissed me on both cheeks. “Good luck, my leetle swan-necked beauty,” she said. “Mind you bring ’er back to me safe and sound, Monsieur George.”
Mr. George gave a rather forced smile. He didn’t seem quite as friendly as usual. “I’m afraid that’s out of my hands, Madame Rossini. Come along, Gwyneth. There are a few people who want to meet you.”
It was already early afternoon when we went another floor up to the Dragon Hall. Getting dressed and having my hair done had taken over two hours. Mr. George was unusually silent, and I concentrated on not tripping over the hem of my dress on the stairs. I remembered our last visit to the eighteenth century and thought how difficult it was going to be to escape from any men armed with swords in all these bulky clothes.
“Mr. George, could you tell me about the Florentine Alliance, please?” I asked on a sudden impulse.
