Ten Little Wizards: A Lord Darcy Novel Read Online Free PDF

he does.”
    “And he cures people?”
    “In many cases. He seems to.”
    Marquis Sherrinford took off his glasses and rubbed his temples with his thumbs. “I’m not surprised that the man is a scientist,” he said. “His method sounds decidedly unmagical. But if it works, who am I to argue?”
    “I’ll take you in to see him now, my lord,” Father Phillip said. “He was delighted that you decided to come. He says he hopes he can help you.”
    “So do I,” Marquis Sherrinford told the good father, sounding a bit doubtful. “So do I.”
    Count d’Alberra was a small, dark-haired man with a closely trimmed beard and mustache. The beard came to a point, emphasizing the angularity of his head. He dressed in the somewhat more ornate costume common to central Italy, all blues, yellows, and tasseled gold fringes. He met them at the door to his treatment room. “It is a pleasure—a pleasure—to meet you, my lord marquis,” he said, taking Marquis Sherrinford by the hand and wringing it firmly. “Thank you, Father, for recommending me. I shall most sincerely try to help.”
    “I can ask no more than that,” Marquis Sherrinford said, allowing himself to be pulled into the small room.
    “I’ll leave you now,” Father Phillip said. “God bless.” He smiled, nodded, and walked away.
    “Just what is it that you do here?” Marquis Sherrinford asked, looking around the small room. It contained a desk, a chair, and a leather couch.
    “Nothing mysterious,” Count d’Alberra assured him. “I will start by taking a patient history, and then we will talk. You, actually, will do most of the talking. I will ask you to lie on the couch, since I have found that most patients are able to relax better lying down. But if that bothers you, I can have another chair brought in.”
    “No, no,” Marquis Sherrinford said. “I have no objection to lying down. Quite the contrary. You’ll have a job keeping me talking, though. I’m liable to drift off to sleep. It’s been a busy day, and it’s only half over.” A look of concern suddenly crossed his face. “You don’t ask me about my work, do you? You know I can’t discuss—”
    ”I assure you,” Count d’Alberra interrupted, holding up his hand. “I have no concern with your lordship’s work. Our conversations will revolve mostly about your childhood, your relations with your parents, things of that sort. We may also touch upon how you feel about, ah, the ladies, or what sports you like and why.”
    “That’s all?”
    “That is all.”
    “And this may cure my headaches? Asking questions about my childhood?”
    “If, indeed, as the healers say, there isnothing organically wrong that they can find, it well may.”
    Marquis Sherrinford lay back on the black leather couch. “Go ahead, friend Count, ask away.”
    “First the history,” Count d’Alberra said, uncapping his fountain pen. “Where were you born?”

CHAPTER FOUR
    The skinny county armsman refused to sit, and instead shifted uneasily from foot to foot as he waited, looking and feeling out of place in the elaborate drawing room of this sumptuous suite. Lord Darcy could sympathize with him; the ornate, cane-bottomed Gwiliam II chairs did look as though they would break under anything but the most delicate behind. He was not entirely at home here himself, but the seneschal had assigned him these quarters, and with the hundreds of people arriving for the coronation, it would not be fair to ask the the seneschal to do a musical-chairs act because Lord Darcy would have been happier in plainer surroundings. At least they had found a large desk and comfortable chair for him.
    The armsman kept making surreptitious moves to doff his hat in the presence of so much finery. But he would remember that he was in uniform and under arms, and in the presence of the Chief Investigator of the King’s Court of Chivalry, and his hands would snap back down to his sides. Then he would try to polish the sole of one boot