More magic, mummery, and misdirection from Randall Garrett’s alternate history Europe, and this time a bit of an impossible crime thrown in to boot. Not that he makes much of that element.

Buckle your swashes(?), it’s…

‘The Muddle of the Woad’ (1965)

The discovery of a body in a coffin wouldn’t ordinarily be that much a cause for surprise, but this body is not the one the coffin was intended for, the body is painted blue, and the coffin in which it was found was kept in a sealed workshop whose points of ingress have either not been used for years or have been protected by spells to prevent anyone gaining entrance. And when the body turns out to be a member of the household of the man for whom the coffin was intended…well, there were already lots of questions, but now there are more.

Brought into matters by an appeal — well, an order, since that’s how it works — from the highest power in the Empire, Lord Darcy’s investigation is once more set against a backdrop of fomenting dissatisfaction. This time, it’s the Holy Society of Ancient Albion who, stirred up by the sabre-rattling of the Polish king Casimir IX, whose actions were the background to ‘A Case of Identity’ (1964), are trying to generate if not so much sympathy then at least traction for their cause:

They had been outlawed because of their outspoken advocation of human sacrifice. Rejecting the Church’s teaching that the Sacrifice of the Cross obviated for all time any further sacrifice of human life, the Society insisted that in times of trouble the King himself should die for the sake of his people. The evidence that William II, son of the Conqueror, had been killed “by an arrow offshot” by one of his own men for just that purpose added weight to the story of the antiquity of the Society. William Rufus, it was believed, had been a pagan himself, and had gone willingly to his death — but it was not likely that any modern Anglo-French monarch would do so.

There are whispers that the Society of Albion might be involved in this latest murder — though how and why are, of course, yet to be determined — and so Darcy and Master Sean O Lochlainn go investigating to see what they can find.

Now that Garrett is a few stories into his milieu, you feel he has a better handle on explaining to the reader how the various magical contrivances in his world work. He’s been very good at sprinkling in some notions of what is and is not possible, but here he firms up some of those ideas with good analogies and clear establishment of precedent, such as examining those hexed locks on the building where the body was discovered:

“What condition are [the locks] in, then?” Lord Darcy asked.

“As far as Master Timothy and myself could tell, not a one of ’em had been broken. O’ course, that doesn’t mean that they hadn’t been tampered with. Just as a good locksmith can open a lock and relock it again without leaving any trace, so a good sorcerer could have opened those spells and re-set ’em without leaving a trace. But it would take a top-flight man, my lord.”

Again and again, Garrett has the principles of magic echo the ideas of physical evidence in our universe, and I like that he’s not just throwing in whatever he likes when it comes to needing to get out of a jam. Indeed, Master Sean is more there to a) be referred to as “tubby” and b) get things on a more procedural footing so that Darcy is able to go about his investigations with certain simple matters neatly established.

Also, it’s kind of amusing to me that this society has only just developed a refrigerator…

“Master Simon of London has invented a new principle for protecting food from spoilage. Instead of casting a spell on each individual item — such as the big vintners do with wine casks and the like — he discovered a way to cast a spell on a specially-constructed chest, so that anything put in it is safe from spoilage. The idea being that, instead of enchanting an object, a space is given the property necessary to do the same thing. But the process is still pretty expensive.”

…but even that is in keeping with the universe as we’ve seen it described to this point.

I have to be honest, while the motive is excellently established and the principles behind why people acted as they did very neatly and lightly sprinkled throughout — the benefits of an alternate history, see — I have absolutely no idea how the workings of the locked room are, like, done. It’s shown that someone could enter the building and then exit sealing the door after them, but not how they got in when the door must have first been locked in their presence. Maybe I’m being dim — that happens more and more these days — but as one of the subgenre’s most ardent admirers I’m somewhat foxed when it comes to explaining this impossible crime. I get the reason, but not the method. Also, why not leave the body, like, literally anywhere else in the entire city? That wouldn’t make as good an opening for a story, I guess…

Anyway, Garrett again writes this smoothly, working in the concept of nobility and the complex systems that have developed well, and his characters are well-realised through, despite everyone having about three titles. There’s again that dry humour at times, not just in the punny naming of this one but also in some of the dialogue, my favourite being the exchange below.

“If the Sovereign does not comport himself properly, in other words, if he doesn’t follow the Old Faith and do things by the Druidic rules, then the Evil Ones can get through the defenses.”

“I see. And one of those rules is that His Majesty must allow his life to be taken any time the Brotherhood feels like it?”

“That’s not quite fair, my lord,” Sir Thomas said. “Not ‘anytime they feel like it’ — only when danger threatens. Or every seventh year, whichever comes first.”

Once again, I enjoyed this story enough to put its minor failings down to just how much Garrett is trying to do in establishing his background as well as write a well-structured and reasonable murder mystery in the foreground. I remember this being my least favourite of the five or six Darcy shorts I read previously, and if that’s the case then it bodes well for everything else that’s due to follow.

The Lord Darcy stories by Randall Garrett