ZACHARIAS RETURNED TO London in no mood for the Spring Ball. He had never been fond of a party, and this promised to be an even more dismal occasion than usual, if the Government carried out its intention of orchestrating a humiliating public review of England’s atmospheric magic levels.
Lady Wythe was visiting friends in the country, or Zacharias would have brought Mak Genggang and Prunella to her. Since he could not, he borrowed a leaf from Prunella’s book, and told his housekeeper that he had been honoured with a visit by a fairy princess and her duenna, which must be kept secret.
Fortunately Mak Genggang’s arrival had solved one difficulty, even as it created others. They were able to dispense with Cawley, for as Prunella put it, “Mak Genggang is so old she must be respectable, even if she is a foreigner.” She and Mak Genggang were fast friends at once, and Zacharias might have been concerned by the content of their whispered conversations as they talked away the long miles to London, if he had not been brooding over what he had learnt at the border.
He must obtain an explanation for the block on their magic as soon as he could, and the most direct way of achieving that was to seek an interview with the Fairy Court. The Court must be in expectation of such a calling to account, but Zacharias doubted they would welcome the confrontation. He certainly did not.
There was, of course, the Fairy King’s rout, which was held every rising of the blood-red moon in the Eastern Reaches of the Draconic Provinces. Zacharias had been aware of the occasion, as a potential factor that might affect the ebb and flow of magic into Britain, and therefore the enchantments he had planned for increasing Britain’s magic. He had had no intention of attending the event—the Sorcerer Royal had not been seen at the rout since Sir Stephen had been chased out by a fury wielding a flowerpot (a story Sir Stephen had often told to his own disadvantage, but never fully explained). But in theory the application of any foreign ambassador for an audience with the King would be granted at his rout. There was no reason why Britain’s representative should be an exception, uneasy though their relations were now.
When had Fairy stoppered the flow of magic? Not till after Geoffrey Midsomer had crossed the border upon his return to England, for surely he would have detected it then—the Court had made no attempt to conceal what they had done. Magicians were a gossipy race, and any thaumaturge worth his salt would have broadcast the intelligence far and wide. Zacharias must, then, be the only one who knew of the block.
He must prevent the news reaching the Society till he had a better notion of what had moved the Fairy Court to act as it had done. His position was already so uncertain that it could hardly survive such ill tidings, unless he were able to offer a remedy—though what form that remedy would take was not at all clear to him.
With all of this to worry him, Zacharias arrived at the Society in his best silk stockings poorly equipped to take any pleasure in the Ball. But he was not alone in this. There was a note of unease in the gathering that sat oddly with the gaiety and bustle.
The first Spring Ball had been hosted by the Society at its new buildings in 1376, in celebration of the grant of the lease by the Crown. More than four hundred years later, it remained the prime opportunity of the year for magicians and Ministers to mingle, though the attitude of each body of men to the opportunity had undergone a considerable change within the intervening period.
When the tradition of the Ball had first begun, it had been considered a coup for the Crown that it should have contrived to persuade the intransigent sorcerers to accept its liberality. Now the position was reversed: there were very few English magicians who could claim the title of sorcerer, and the Society was much less sure of its status than it had been in former times.
Zacharias discerned this uncertainty in the strained faces of his blue-coated colleagues and the patient titters of their wives. Everyone was merry, but he doubted anyone was at their ease. No doubt the news of the Government’s plans had got out. But the Society’s imminent embarrassment seemed to recede in importance compared to what he had learnt at the border.
“What are you doing here?” said a voice behind him, in tones of unutterable disgust.
“I could not have stayed away forever, you know,” said Zacharias mildly.
“If you think a week is sufficient for your enemies to forget you—!” exclaimed Damerell. “Sir Stephen never had the least regard for his own security, and he has imparted the same recklessness to you, I see.”
“I thought I might as well return, since Hampshire seemed no safer than London,” said Zacharias.
Damerell eyed Zacharias through his quizzing-glass, then said, “Let us walk on. There is a good spot for confidences up the hall.”
They stopped by an alcove in which hung a painting by a past Sorcerer Royal’s sister. Eliza Hamersham must have had more than a soupçon of the gift her brother had turned to such advantage in his career, for her portrait of a beloved niece and her terrier had an effect out of all proportion to its innocuous subject. Eliza’s way of rendering her subjects’ eyes slightly larger than was lifelike, and of imparting to their skin a deathly bluish tint, made any person of sensibility so uncomfortable that few chose to linger there. The other guests gave them a wide berth.
“Now what has Hampshire done to you, that London would not?” said Damerell.
Zacharias gave him a brief summary of the attack at the Blue Boar, though he said nothing of Prunella’s part in it. “Since running away did not seem to improve my position, I thought I might see how standing my ground would serve. What is the feeling here? Has there been talk of what the Government is planning this evening?”
Zacharias had confided in Damerell regarding his encounter with Edgeworth: he trusted Damerell as much as he could trust any fellow thaumaturge, and he needed a pair of eyes and ears to attend to what occurred while he was gone.
Damerell shook his head, appearing to examine Miss Hamersham’s work closely. “Not one peep from the Government have I heard, though the Society has been a hive of activity in your absence. The object of that is your removal from office. Fortunately, as you know, it requires an Herculean effort to convince thaumaturges to agree. They have just come to a consensus on your successor, but deciding upon a means of unseating you, and installing him, will require a great deal more bickering.”
Zacharias observed to his relief that there seemed to be limitations to the concern a man could feel at the burdens loaded upon him. His organ of anxiety was already so exercised that this new complication only provoked irritation.
“I hope that will not interfere with my reform,” he said absently. “Though I suppose it will—I suppose it will interfere with everything. Bother! Who is to be my successor?”
“I am glad you take it so coolly,” said Damerell. “Your successor is to be the prodigal son, of course. Who else could it be? Geoffrey Midsomer’s return has been so neatly timed, it would be a positive waste for him not to be put forward.”
Zacharias heard this without surprise. The younger Midsomer was, as Damerell said, a natural choice for those Fellows of the Society who disliked a mere African’s wielding the staff of the Sorcerer Royal. Midsomer Senior was more a magician by reason of his birth and connections than for any native ability, but his son was undeniably gifted. Geoffrey Midsomer had invented several ingenious spells in his youth, and of course he possessed the unusual distinction of having sojourned in Fairyland.
It was a bold move to play for the staff of the Sorcerer Royal, but then, why should not Geoffrey Midsomer be ambitious? He basked in the glory of having escaped the Fairy Court; his uncle was Lord Burrow, who chaired the Presiding Committee of the Society; and he could only benefit from having such a rival as Zacharias. He provided a convenient focus for the hopes thwarted by Zacharias’s investiture, and so could not want for support.
Zacharias could only think of one thing Midsomer lacked. “He is not a sorcerer.”
Damerell nodded. “But neither were you, you know, before you took up the staff.”
“Oh, I am a sorcerer,” said Zacharias wearily. “Would that I could forget it!”
The silence that ensued then might have been very awkward, for Damerell knew no more than anyone else of what had happened the night Zacharias had been made Sorcerer Royal. The Presiding Committee had conferred for long, secret hours when Zacharias had emerged the master of the staff, whom none but the Sorcerer Royal could use.
The staff, being famously fastidious, was generally acknowledged to be the ultimate arbiter on the question of who should be deemed the Sorcerer Royal. Still, it was irregular in the extreme for a Sorcerer Royal to lack a familiar. Zacharias himself had been so distressed by Sir Stephen’s death (or pretended to be, said his enemies), as to be unable to offer any explanation for the circumstance. It was whispered that the Committee had been compelled to consult the Fairy Court by shewstone in order to reach its decision. But the decision was made: Zacharias was declared the true Sorcerer Royal, the acknowledged successor of Sir Stephen.
Damerell was an intimate not only of Zacharias but of Sir Stephen, and he might justly have expected to be told more. But Zacharias had not confided in anyone. He had assumed his new responsibilities quietly, as though the abuse and suspicion heaped upon him did not exist. Damerell could scarcely ask, since Zacharias had not offered to explain, and he was possessed of too much true delicacy to probe further. He said serenely:
“Very natural, I am sure! I should feel the same in your position. Though I do not much envy your adversaries either. Their difficulty is that you are a most gentlemanlike fellow, leaving aside your colour. Of course, that can’t be left aside, but it all makes matters rather awkward for those that would persecute you.”
“I cannot say I feel any pity for them,” said Zacharias.
“All things considered, you may be the worse off,” Damerell allowed. Despite the lightness of his tone, the look he gave Zacharias was worried, and he added abruptly, with unwonted seriousness, “What a predicament you are in, Zacharias! What do you propose to do?”
Zacharias had glimpsed John Edgeworth among the milling crowds.
“No more than what I have been trying to do all along,” he said. “My duty. I beg you will excuse me for a moment.”
• • •
ZACHARIAS thought he ought to break the news of Mak Genggang’s arrival as soon as he could. It was an awkward thing to do at a party, but then the Spring Ball had always been an occasion for intrigue.
How Mak Genggang’s presence might affect the Government’s plans regarding Janda Baik, he would not attempt to predict. If Zacharias were a Foreign Office bureaucrat, he thought he might throw in his lot with Mak Genggang, rather than the fretful sultan. His encounters with each had been brief, but they had been sufficient to decide his views on who was likely to triumph in any struggle for power.
Fortunately, his views were of no importance whatsoever. If those whose decision it was to make would only take Mak Genggang off his hands, Zacharias would be content.
Luck was not with him that day, however. Edgeworth was at the opposite end of the room, but what with the crowd, he might have been a league away. Zacharias had not contrived to cover half the distance when he found his path blocked by a stranger, who was talking animatedly to someone behind her.
Zacharias murmured a courtesy, intending to edge around the woman, but something about her voice caught his attention.
“I must see him! Knowing the face of one’s enemy lends such nourishment to one’s hatred as cannot be equalled. I am surprised you wish to forbid it!”
Her companion replied in a protesting tone, “I should not dream of forbidding it, Laura. I merely beg that you have patience. There will be time enough to see— Wythe, by Jove! Are you here indeed?”
Zacharias had already recognised the companion’s voice, and was attempting to wriggle away before he could be observed, but he was defeated by the crush. He turned to face the one person he most wished to avoid.
“Good evening, Midsomer,” he said.
“I had not expected the pleasure of seeing you at the Ball,” said Geoffrey Midsomer. “Were not you lately in Hampshire?”
Midsomer wore an awkward smile, as if he were as discomfited by the encounter as Zacharias. They had been acquainted since they were boys, but they had never had much to do with each other. Zacharias could not feel friendly towards the son of a man who had campaigned against him since he was a child, and that the young Midsomer now wished to supplant him was unlikely to be any further recommendation to Zacharias. He bowed, and his reply, though civil, was brief.
“I returned to town today.”
“I should not detain you, but my wife has entreated to be introduced,” said Midsomer. The woman who had been standing in Zacharias’s way went to Midsomer’s side and slipped her hand through his arm, looking up into Zacharias’s face with unusual directness. “Laura, my dear, this is Mr. Zacharias Wythe, who is the Sorcerer Royal.”
“How do you do?” said Zacharias.
Mrs. Geoffrey Midsomer was fashionably dressed, with her curls piled high in a yellow satin turban, but neither her face nor her figure possessed any particular beauty or distinction, save her eyes. These were large and bulbous, and of a hue so pale they almost seemed silver. She stared openly at Zacharias.
“So this is the Sorcerer Royal!” she said. She had a high-pitched, musical voice, with the slight inflection of a foreign accent—a curiously familiar accent, though Zacharias could not identify it. It was this accent that had drawn his attention when Mrs. Midsomer was speaking to her husband earlier. “He is not at all what I expected, Geoffrey.”
Zacharias glanced at Midsomer, taken aback, but though Midsomer flushed, and appeared conscious of his wife’s discourtesy, he did not reply. It did not seem meet for Zacharias to respond, since he had not been addressed. After a moment’s hesitation he said to Midsomer:
“I hope you do not suffer any ill effects from your residence in Fairyland. It has been a considerable time since any thaumaturge has enjoyed such exposure to Fairy and been able to return. I believe the last was Loveday, was it not? I read his journals with interest, but his observations are now fifty years old, and fresh intelligence will be very welcome.”
“I am preparing a paper for the Society,” said Midsomer. He seemed ill at ease, and glanced around the room as if looking for some means to extract himself from the conversation he had begun.
Zacharias was really interested in what Midsomer might have to say regarding the Fairy Court, and he might have forgotten his own discomfort in pursuit of this subject if John Edgeworth had not emerged from the crowds and approached them.
Edgeworth was accompanied by Sultan Ahmad and his interpreter, though the sultana was absent. Zacharias would have to find some means of dispensing with Edgeworth’s foreign guests while they spoke. Edgeworth would hardly desire the sultan to know of Mak Genggang’s arrival before he had had the opportunity to digest the news himself.
“Edgeworth! I had hoped to see you here,” said Zacharias.
Perhaps he spoke with more heartiness than he felt, in recollection of the unfriendly note on which they had last parted. He was braced for Edgeworth still to be aggrieved, though disguising it with a statesman’s politic civility, but he was not prepared for Edgeworth’s response.
“Yes, how do you do?” he said, barely glancing at Zacharias. “You have been ruralising, I hear. I hope it has done you good. Nothing like a retreat to the country to set a man up.”
Without waiting for Zacharias’s reply, he turned to Midsomer. “Geoffrey, I had nearly despaired of finding you in this crowd. I had no notion Parliament kept so many braying donkeys fed—Ministers and magicians both. Pray, will you take me to see the Society’s collection of magical artefacts? I believe Uncle Augustine’s thighbone is among them. It is an ancient family legend how he was discovered to have been a changeling only after his demise, and I should like to see him.”
“I should be happy,” said Midsomer, looking relieved at the chance to remove himself.
“Perhaps Mr. Wythe would be so good as to entertain Sultan Ahmad in the meantime, so that we may avoid boring His Highness,” said Edgeworth. “I am conscious that these familial relics must have little interest for any but an Edgeworth.”
With a nod at Zacharias and the sultan, he strode off with Midsomer and his wife. As they vanished into the crowd Edgeworth could be heard saying:
“Now, Geoffrey, regarding that spell you promised . . .”
The situation was worse than Zacharias had thought. He had expected some coolness on Edgeworth’s part, but not this readiness to snub him in public.
That Edgeworth was on such terms with Midsomer as to address him by his Christian name was no surprise—they had probably been at school together. What worried Zacharias more was what it was that Midsomer had promised.
“I must say, this is very irregular!” exclaimed Mr. Othman.
Sultan Ahmad corroborated this with a murmured complaint. He was richly attired in an embroidered gold suit, the look completed by a knotted headdress and a dagger in an elegant scabbard at his hip. His splendour drew admiring glances from the other guests, but any desire to be introduced could not survive the sultan’s glower.
Zacharias roused himself. He must consider his position at another time. For now, he had an offended foreign dignitary to deal with.
“I wish you would convey my apologies for what occurred at our previous encounter,” he said to the translator. “I had no notion we would be broken in upon in that fashion. I would not have offended His Highness for the world.”
“Mr. Edgeworth has explained all,” said Mr. Othman grudgingly. “It was a shamefully botched affair, but His Highness is willing to overlook it. He is extremely unhappy that he has not yet received a commitment from your Government, however.”
It struck Zacharias that it might have served Edgeworth’s purpose to avoid giving the sultan a proper account of the Sorcerer Royal’s position. Edgeworth himself knew, or ought to know, that Zacharias was not beholden to the Crown, nor even at the service of the Society. His first allegiance was to the cause of magic itself, and how it could be turned to the nation’s advantage.
“His Highness knows, of course, that it could not rightly be called my Government,” Zacharias began.
“The sultan is not surprised! He thought it strange that a black man should be a representative of the British King,” said Mr. Othman. “He is pleased to understand the true state of affairs.”
Sultan Ahmad added a stream of lugubrious commentary, which Mr. Othman translated into a fluid particularisation of grievances, much to Zacharias’s discomfort:
“Since you, too, are a stranger here, you will enter into the sultan’s feelings. He fears the British are as untrustworthy as we have always heard. He suspects they have no intention of giving us ships or guns. The sultan wishes he had never been so injudicious as to abandon his island—he finds England excessively cold and uncomfortable, the food unpalatable, and the people unfriendly. It is all the more unfortunate that the country should be so inhospitable, with the queen in her delicate condition. She could not bear to let the sultan leave her for so long, and insisted on accompanying us. We cannot even leave, for we cannot contemplate travelling until the queen is safe. To think that the prince will be born under foreign skies, and not on the soil of his own kingdom!”
Zacharias tried to break into this flow of confidence, but in vain. When Mr. Othman finally paused for breath, he said:
“I sympathise extremely with the sultan’s distress, and am sorry he should be so displeased with this country, but I fear he labours under a misapprehension.”
But Mr. Othman was not listening. Both he and the sultan were staring over Zacharias’s shoulder, transfixed by a sight that seemed to horrify them. The translator opened his mouth and closed it again, and pointed a trembling finger.
“Witch!” he cried. He shot Zacharias a furious look. “You have led her to us. We are betrayed!”
Zacharias turned, and saw something even more dreadful than Mak Genggang standing at the end of the room with her arms akimbo and her eyes ablaze with the light of war. Next to her, rigged out in a spectacular pink dress and looking around with lively curiosity, was Prunella.