Ten Little Wizards: A Lord Darcy Novel Read Online Free

broom plant he wore in his cap, to John IV, who was the direct descendant of a royal line called “Plantagenet” for most of the last millennium.
    Here was Henry II, Geoffrey’s son, who already held the title of Duke of Normandy when his father died in 1151 and he took over the throne of England. He looked slightly cross-eyed and very somber in the portrait, but Lord Peter decided that the first was probably the artist’s attempt at perspective, and the second due to the fact that the painting probably hadn’t been cleaned in the past three hundred years.
    Lord Peter stopped at the next door, delivered the red-beribboned bundle to the Chamberlain’s secretary-in-chief, and then went on.
    Here, next, was Henry’s son, Richard the Lion-Hearted, glaring paternally down in his old age. On the wall across from Richard’s portrait was the famous nineteenth century Jan Etyacht painting of the Siege of Chaluz, reproduced in every school history book. Twenty feet wide by ten feet high, it showed the full field of battle before the walls of Chaluz. In the right-hand corner was the crossbowman on the battlement who had just fired his bolt. Slightly to the left of center Richard was sinking to his knees as the crossbow bolt penetrated his shoulder.
    The luckiest wound in the history of the Angevin Empire, Lord Peter thought. Had Richard not had the time for reflection provided by his long bout with the infection and fever caused by the wound, and perhaps its intimations of mortality, then he might have remained the good but profligate king who spent his time and energy on foreign crusades instead of wisely ruling his kingdom and his people. Had Richard instead died of the wound in 1199, then his younger brother John Lackland would have ascended the throne, and probably would have proved as stupid and evil a king as he had been a prince.
    But Richard had lived and ruled wisely and well until his death in 1219, when the scepter passed to his nephew Arthur. Lord Peter stared up at the portrait of Arthur I, “Good King Arthur,” whose history was mixed in the popular mind with the legends of the mythical King Arthur of the Round Table. How would history have been changed if Arthur had not reigned? What would John Lackland’s stewardship have done to the kingdom and to the Plantagenet line? Lord Peter shook his head as he continued down the line of portraits. That was the sort of speculation best left to the writers of phantasmagorical fiction.
    Here they were in order: the Geoffreys, Johns, Gwiliams, Richards, and Arthurs; rulers who had kept together their British and Norman holdings and, for the most part, ruled them wisely and well. At the foot of each painting, set into the frame, were the personal arms of the King, which changed slightly with each reign, but which, in every case, joined inexorably the lions of England and the lilies of France.
    Each of the Plantagenets had expanded these holdings slowly, carefully; by marriage, diplomacy, and the sword, until the Anglo-French Empire now ruled over more land than the Roman Empire at its height, and had lasted more than twice as long. And showed no signs of lessening now; with an intelligent and vigorous king at the head of a loyal and vigorous people, administered by a well-schooled, capable, and absolutely faithful civil service. If God willed, there was no reason why there should not be a Plantagenet on the throne of the Angevin Empire for another thousand years. With that thought, Lord Peter crossed himself, and reminded himself that the way to keep the will of God was to continue to do God’s will on Earth to the best of one’s ability.
    As Lord Peter reached the throne room, he resolved to leave by the opposite door, so that he could walk down the Gallery of Queens on the far side. Portraits of the Plantagenet queens, from Eleanor of Aquitaine to the present Marie of Roumania, graced those walls. The queens consort showed the eye for beauty of the Plantagenet men, and