PRUNELLA WAS INDIGNANT to be roused early the next morning for her lesson.
“Surely you have better things to concern yourself with than my instruction,” she protested.
The same thought had, of course, occurred to Zacharias. Prunella’s education was a demand upon his time and energy that he could ill afford. But the thought had followed quick upon its heels that he ought to make the most of every opportunity he possessed to teach Prunella, if she were to govern her familiars safely. It seemed increasingly likely that very little time remained to him to do it.
Then, too, this lesson had required special preparations. It would not be nearly as convenient to repeat it on any other day; indeed, to seek a postponement might occasion offence. Therefore Zacharias insisted.
“Let us resolve to complete five formulae today,” he said. “They shall culminate in a spell with which I think you will be pleased. It is beyond anything we have done before, and requires us to be outdoors. I have reserved a tolerably large space for us at the Park, but I beg you will have particular regard to my concealment charms. It is early for anyone to be about, but we cannot be too careful to avoid detection.”
“I think it is all silliness, and you ought to be spending your time thinking of ways to defeat Mr. Midsomer, not teaching me tricks,” said Prunella. The mention of a great spell had piqued her interest, however, and she followed this with:
“But since you are set upon it, I suppose I must comply, and the exercise will be good for the familiars.”
Prunella insisted on her familiars attending all her lessons. She vowed she could not learn half as well without them, and since the purpose of her education was to enable her to understand the creatures, Zacharias permitted it, despite the risk of discovery. The familiars made poor students, however—they were discourteous, inattentive and quarrelsome; insisted on exploded theories in the face of Zacharias’s polite reasoning; and often disrupted the lesson with their squabbling.
They arrived so early in the Park that there was not a soul to be seen, but Prunella kept her familiars within her reticule until they had reached the concealed grove where the lesson was to be conducted. She set the reticule upon the ground and opened it so that the tiny heads of the familiars—shrunk for the occasion so that each creature would fit upon the palm of her hand—could peer over the side.
“Now mind you behave yourselves. We shall have time to talk later, but if you are always interrupting I shall never learn all the things Zacharias says I must learn,” said Prunella. “Nidget, I beg you will attend, and not abandon your notes halfway through, as you did before. It is so very useful to have a record of each lesson.”
“If Youko had not distracted me, the blackguard, you would have the most perfect record the world ever saw.”
“Blame attaches to no one, I am sure,” said Prunella hastily. “Pray do not fight, or wander off, and under no circumstance must you leave the reticule. I must go, my darlings, or Zacharias will be cross.”
“I thought we might consider the enchantments for summoning today,” said Zacharias. “We shall begin with the simplest example of such spells, a charm for drawing upon atmospheric magic—ours is thin stuff, but it is as well to know how to get at it if ever you need it. Then we shall work our way up to the greater summoning spells. We will restrict the scope of our endeavours to this realm—you have no cause to do it, but to seek to summon oneself a familiar from Fairy is both unlawful and exceedingly dangerous. Summoning within this realm is not necessarily unethical, however, and if one agrees it in advance with the person to be summoned, it need not even be annoying.”
“Will I be summoning a person?” said Prunella.
“Oh yes. One can summon anything capable of being acted upon by magic,” said Zacharias. “The gentleman I shall ask you to summon is a colleague of mine, whom I met at a council of the world’s magicians last year. We have since corresponded by shewstone, and he has agreed to assist us. I beg you will not mention your familiars, but he knows I have been instructing you in the principles of thaumaturgy. We may trust him to be discreet: he is a reformer himself, though something of a skeptic as regards female magic, and he has some notion of the difficulties we face.”
Prunella thought very little of the charm for drawing upon atmospheric magic, but the summoning formulae were a pleasing contrast, more complex than any of the spells she had learnt before, and she soon grew absorbed. The fourth formula was the most difficult. Prunella was so little satisfied with her performance that she would have begun at once upon a second trial, seeking to correct the inelegancies of the first, if Zacharias had not stopped her.
“The summoning has taken, and you will saddle us with someone probably very cross if you repeat it,” said Zacharias.
“After all your demands for practise—” Prunella began, but then she saw the dark spot upon the horizon speeding towards them.
It came on swiftly, skimming above the trees, until it resolved into the figure of a gentleman, dressed in foreign costume and travelling astride a cloud.
Prunella only had time to exclaim a pleased “Oh!” before the gentleman’s insubstantial conveyance drew up in front of them. He dropped to the ground, landing on his feet, and bowed.
He was of Oriental extraction, with a high, broad expanse of forehead, amused narrow eyes, and greying hair in a queue. He was dressed with great elegance in silk robes, his feet clad in neat boots, and his appearance was so completely that of the foreigner that Prunella was astonished when he said, in impeccable English:
“A most effective enchantment: I congratulate you, Wythe. However, did not the second verse go awry? My journey was unaccountably bumpy for a stretch.”
Prunella flushed and said, “It was only my first attempt.”
“Miss Gentleman,” said Zacharias, “may I introduce my colleague, Mr. Hsiang Han? Mr. Hsiang is a magician renowned in his native China for his great learning. Mr. Hsiang, Miss Prunella Gentleman, the lady I have been instructing in the magical arts.”
“Did you cast that spell, indeed, Miss Gentleman?” said Mr. Hsiang, bowing. “When Wythe explained his plan to reform women’s education, I told him he was a mere visionary—I called him any number of bad names—but now I see the reason for his resolve. Such a protégé, uniting beauty with genius, must fire any magician’s reforming zeal.”
“That is all very gallant, but I wish you would explain where I went wrong in the second verse,” said Prunella, too vexed by her mistake to be civil.
Zacharias looked reproachful, but Mr. Hsiang laughed.
“You expended too much power at the outset, so that too little remained for the conclusion,” he said. “In magic, as in all else, balance must be preserved. Let me send my cloud away, and you can execute the formula again to require its return.”
The second attempt proved satisfactory.
“I am obliged to you for your help,” said Prunella, looking at Mr. Hsiang with candid friendliness. “Would you be so good as to name your translation spell? It must be a very clever one, for I can scarcely tell that there is an enchantment at work at all.”
“She has found me out!” exclaimed Mr. Hsiang, looking at Zacharias.
“I said nothing,” said Zacharias. “That was Miss Gentleman’s own discovery.”
“Why, it was not very difficult to find it out,” said Prunella. “Your words sound green.”
“Are you able to describe the mechanism of the spell yourself, Miss Gentleman?” said Zacharias. “You should have sufficient understanding of basic thaumaturgical principles to deduce its workings.”
“I am very happy to provide an explanation,” said Mr. Hsiang. “I understand the lady has only recently begun her studies in our field.”
Prunella was on her mettle. It was one thing to complain privately to Zacharias that he demanded too much of her, and their lessons ran on for too long. The ironic eye of a learned foreign magician was another matter altogether, however. Prunella was in truth proud of her magical ability—though she had little fondness for thaumaturgical books and dry theory, magic itself she loved—and she was determined not to make a poor show before a stranger.
“There is a binding element, for otherwise one would hear two voices,” she said, thinking aloud. “The Culpeper solution would not do, for it only applies to solid objects, so it must be Starr’s entwining that is at work. But that is only the combining element. I shall say it is Horner’s spell for interpretation, with Starr’s entwining, bound together with Crashaw’s preserve. Do I have it, sir?”
“I require Wythe’s assistance to make sense of your answer,” said Mr. Hsiang, laughing. “Wythe, this Horner, this Starr and Crashaw, are they—?”
He spoke in quick succession a series of foreign names, fluid sounds that dropped unchanged through the translation spell.
Zacharias nodded. To Prunella he said:
“The translation spell is one indigenous to the Chinese, and there is an additional element—a mind-reading element, the enchantment for which I shall teach you in due course—but yours is an ingenious solution, and very close to the truth.”
Prunella made a moue of discontent, but the two thaumaturges seemed better pleased with her success. Zacharias’s satisfaction was obvious, and Mr. Hsiang’s manner altered. Prunella’s dissection of what was really quite a cunningly disguised little formula had put her up sufficiently in his estimation that he dispensed with gallantry, and adopted the manner of a scholar addressing a student.
“That was not a bad analysis,” he said. “Since I have answered your summons upon my cloud, Miss Gentleman, should you like to take a turn on it? It is the most delightful means of transport—nothing so comfortable as a well-conditioned cloud—and cloud-riding is a useful spell to have in one’s arsenal. I have had cause to thank Heaven for my cloud more than once.”
“I should be pleased to learn to ride it,” said Prunella. “Though we have only completed four formulae today, this will make the fifth, so Mr. Wythe can have no objection.”
She shot him a saucy glance, which extracted a half-smile from Zacharias.
“I have no fault to find with your arithmetic,” he said. “It will make an excellent lesson in controlling the elements of nature, and I am obliged to Mr. Hsiang for offering to teach you the formula. I will take the liberty of reminding you both of the concealment spell, and beg that you will take care not to go beyond its bounds. The boundaries should offer some resistance to your approach, but if you happen to stray beyond them, you must turn back at once.”
“Let me call myself a new cloud,” said Mr. Hsiang.
He stuck two fingers into his mouth and emitted a shrill whistle, at which a wisp detached itself from the snowy white cumulus heaped in the sky, and flew to his hand.
“Now, Miss Gentleman, if you will submit to being helped onto my old cloud—a steady, good-tempered mount, who will show you the way of it—you are quite balanced? You must think yourself into equilibrium. Cloud-riding is an act of disciplined imagination. Splendid. Away we go!”
Cloud-riding was indeed delightful: the sensation of height, of delicious liberty, was beyond anything Prunella had ever experienced. In a few moments they were above the trees. Prunella might have been nervous if she had not been absorbed by the effort of controlling her cloud. It was necessary for them to fly in small circles if they were not to breach the bounds of Zacharias’s hiding spell, and directing the cloud required her close attention.
They rode standing upon their clouds, and Prunella realised that she needed to lean forward in the direction she wished to go if she was to move at all. The cloud itself made a soft rest for her feet, but the posture required of her body was uncomfortable in its novelty, and surprisingly difficult to maintain.
“After a period of time the cloud will begin to believe itself as solid as you think it,” said Mr. Hsiang. “A cloud makes a fine pillow as well—smells pleasantly of rain—though we do not, of course, rest our heads on the same clouds as those on which we plant our feet. Still, one must never forget that a cloud is a wild thing. It requires a continuous, determined exertion of will to maintain your conviction, and spread the conviction to your cloud, that it is a solid thing, capable of bearing your weight, and happy to do it.”
“You speak as though the cloud were a conscious being, sir, capable of thought and feeling.”
“But of course it is. What can Wythe have been teaching you?” said Mr. Hsiang. “Do not you know that magic can only issue from, and act upon, that which contains an intelligent or feeling spirit? Fortunately such spirits are present in almost everything, even the apparently inanimate.
“This shred of cloud, for instance”—he tapped it with his foot—“is a tuft of the Jade Emperor’s beard. Of course, it is not intelligent in the sense that anyone would account it a brilliant conversationist. It will never pass for a licentiate. But in some foggy, inhuman way it knows itself: it wishes ardently to return to the beard of which it is a small but noble part, and focused thought is needed to keep it under heel.”
“How extraordinary,” said Prunella, peering at the cloud beneath her own heel.
“No less extraordinary than that the insight should be new to you,” said Mr. Hsiang severely. “I suppose Wythe has been training you in the strict Occidental tradition. For a European he is learned, but he is still prey to many of the curious prejudices that bedevil your people.”
“A European?” Prunella exclaimed. Her cloud bucked a trifle, but she stamped down, and it seemed to quiet itself.
“That was gracefully done,” said Mr. Hsiang, observing this. “As you can see, even the slightest disturbance in one’s emotions may disrupt the progress of one’s cloud. It is clear you possess the willpower to master your cloud, however—it is all down to willpower, you know. But to return to Wythe, certainly he is a European, in upbringing, education, habit of mind—even, for all I know, in his religion. Let us not be misled by such a trifle as an accident of birth or colour.”
“You would not call it a trifle,” said Prunella in a low voice, “if you knew how his fellow Europeans use him.”
This embarrassed Mr. Hsiang. He said, with an attempt at lightness:
“I suppose I could not expect you to agree that birth is of no account! I could not think why you seemed so familiar, and your name led me astray, Miss Gentleman, but it is clear which family you belong to. It is many years since I last saw the Grand Sorceress, but I could not mistake that profile! I hope she is well? I did not think to see her relations in lands so farflung, but to one of her powers, the distance between England and Mysore must be nothing.”
“The Grand Sorceress?” said Prunella.
“The Keeper of the Seven Spirits,” said Mr. Hsiang, surprised. “She whom Tipu Sultan named the mistress of the four points of the realm. The Grand Sorceress of Seringapatam, I mean. I hope I did not speak amiss? You look so much like her, that— But I am mistaken. My mind is going with age. I beg your pardon, Miss Gentleman.”
Prunella had gone pale. She stared fixedly at the foreign magician, her cloud forgotten. She was remembering a voice—a weary voice, singing the words of a potent spell—a voice unlocked by her own blood. Her mother’s voice.
“Miss Gentleman, have a care!” cried Mr. Hsiang.
While Prunella’s attention was elsewhere, her cloud had begun to question whether it was, after all, content to bear this strange weight. It seemed to the cloud that it had been happier in a previous life, when it had been as thin as the air, as free as the sky, and united with its kin.
By the time Mr. Hsiang’s urgent voice penetrated Prunella’s consciousness, her cloud was bucking so outrageously it took all her attention to avoid being thrown off. The cloud sped off in a straight line, headed for the mountainous white drift in the distance.
Zacharias’s ward proved a minor obstacle, but it needed only a little straining before the cloud succeeded in puncturing the invisible membrane of the spell. Prunella found herself sailing through a clear blue sky above Hyde Park, unprotected by any disguise, and in full view of anyone who might be there at ten in the morning.
Which—alas for Prunella!—today included Mrs. Alethea Gray and Mrs. Sophia Kendle, driving about the Park in a barouche, their heads bent close together.
Part of Prunella’s mind observed that Sophia gave a guilty start when their eyes met. The rest of her was too sunk in horror to wonder at Sophia’s starts. Sophia might dismiss the sibyl’s speech as nonsense, but neither she nor Mrs. Gray needed to know anything of thaumaturgy to understand that there must be something decidedly magical about Prunella for her to be soaring above Hyde Park on a cloud.
There was no hope of escaping undetected. Mr. Hsiang was pursuing her, shouting:
“Do not look down, Miss Gentleman! To look down would be fatal. But do not fear, we never lose more than ten students a year to cloud-riding.”
Prunella put away the past, and the sibyl’s words, and her mother’s voice, and the guilty surprise in the faces of the women below. There would be time enough to puzzle over these things later.
There was only one thing to do to remedy the situation. Prunella did it.
• • •
THE first Zacharias knew of the disturbance was Prunella’s reticule falling over. The familiars landed on the grass in a wriggling heap, squeaking: “Prunella, Prunella!”
Then the storm descended out of the blue sky.
It was as though a wrathful god had snuffed out the sun. A precipitous darkness fell, and the world was blotted out by rain. The roar of the tempest was inconceivable.
Zacharias groped his way towards the familiars, hustled them back into the reticule, and shut it on their protests. In the illumination of a brilliant flash of lightning, he saw Prunella swoop down out of the turbid sky.
“You have my familiars safe? Good. Come up on this cloud, Zacharias. We must be away at once.”
Prunella’s urgency lent her an irresistible authority. Zacharias was swept upon her cloud before he could think to protest. As they lifted off into the air, she said, in a half-shout necessitated by the howling wind and crashing thunder:
“I have summoned a monster.”
“What?”
“Not a real monster,” said Prunella hastily. “I did not forget what you said about its being a terrible evil to summon creatures from other realms. I used the first formula you taught me—the one for atmospheric magic—to draw upon the thunder hiding within the clouds. Did you know spirits populate all things, Zacharias?”
“That old canard! I told Hsiang not to fill your head with outdated hypotheses,” said Zacharias.
He did not like heights, and though the cloud, turned a stormy grey, had expanded to accommodate him, it was a tight fit for two people. The cold and wet and noise of the tempest combined with the embarrassment of his unavoidable proximity to Prunella to make Zacharias ill-tempered.
“That idea was debunked in 1660 by the unnatural philosopher Gregor Fähndrich, as Hsiang would know if he read the essays I sent him,” he said. “But what has happened? Where is Hsiang?”
“Oh, my cloud went too fast for me, that is all,” said Prunella, with a wholly unconvincing nonchalance. “It is a willful creature, but we understand each other now. Mr. Hsiang is quite right about spirits, you know. It came to me in a flash when I saw those wretched females. I cannot conceive what possessed them to go driving in Hyde Park at such an outlandish hour of the morning! Especially Mrs. Gray, who never does a thing unless it has been done by a duchess first. And when did Sophia become a confidante of Mrs. Gray’s? It is all a great mystery!”
The storm followed them, concealing them from view, as they flew above the rooftops and chimney-pots of London. The air was so thick with rain that Zacharias could not see farther than an arm’s length away.
“I wish you would explain about the monster, instead of indulging in this ill-natured gossip,” said Zacharias plaintively.
“Oh, it was the easiest thing in the world! The thunder came ever so meekly to hand when I called it. At first I thought of casting it at Mrs. Gray—like Jove, you know—but I thought better of that, for it might have hurt them, and I only wished to cause a distraction. So I turned the thunder into a monster instead. I told it in the strongest terms that it must leave off once it had its fun, however, and Mr. Hsiang promised he would restrain its worst excesses.”
Zacharias opened his mouth, but there did not seem to be language strong enough to condemn Prunella’s conduct. He had not managed to hit upon the right phrase when they began to descend.
They landed in a narrow alley not far from Lady Wythe’s house, which was emptied by the rain. Prunella tapped the cloud affectionately as she alighted.
“Off you go to the Jade Emperor, good cloud,” she said. “What a dear creature it is, though it has led me into such trouble. It would be unjust to blame it, I am sure. I don’t suppose clouds have any moral sense, do you?”
“Prunella,” said Zacharias, with deep feeling, “I should be obliged if you would tell me what, exactly, you intended to achieve by loosing a thunder-monster upon Hyde Park?”
“I would not have dreamt of inventing a thunder-monster under ordinary circumstances, of course, but there was nothing for it,” said Prunella. “Mrs. Gray is the most notorious gossip in town, and she and Sophia knew me at once. I could not afford to let them go away, having seen me flying around on a cloud, particularly after what that infuriating sibyl said.”
“What sibyl?”
“Of course, I did not tell you,” said Prunella guiltily. “I meant to, indeed, only there has been such a great deal to think of! There is no time for it now, however. When we arrive at Lady Wythe’s I shall go up to my room and swoon upon my sofa, and you must discover me and call for salts. When I am awakened, I shall explain that I was kidnapped by a foreign sorcerer while I was taking my morning exercise in the Park.”
“Kidnapped by a foreign sorcerer?” said Zacharias blankly.
“Yes, is not it clever? The story is such a pretty one, and I thought it up in a moment while I was flying to you. He caught sight of me as he was passing on a cloud and fell instantly violently in love, and nothing would do for him but that he should snatch me up and whisk me away to his native country. I protested, however, and to frighten me into submission he summoned a thunder-monster. But it did not answer, for the monster turned on him, and in the confusion of battle I was able to escape.”
“And what did Mr. Hsiang say to your extraordinary story?”
“Well, he is a consummate gentleman, you know, and he was so good as to agree to remain and duel the thunder-monster,” said Prunella. “Though to be sure I do not know that he understood the details of the story. However, it is of no consequence, for he will go back to China once he has seen the monster away, and will not be around to be questioned. I must say it has all fallen out charmingly.”
Zacharias had been listening in increasing perturbation.
“My dear Prunella,” he said, “do you realise what a diplomatic disaster your story will cause if it is believed? Unnatural philosophers are not on the whole known for their chivalry, but the Society could hardly disregard such an affront as a foreign magician’s attempting to run away with a young lady. The Society is already incensed by Mak Genggang’s escape, and this on top of it will occasion cryings out against all foreign magicians. I have no doubt the Society will propose a motion to break our treaty to refrain from magical war. I will have it on my desk tomorrow morning, wickedly ungrammatical and ill-spelt.”
“Oh,” said Prunella. She was only temporarily deflated, however. She brightened and said, “Then I shall tell everyone it is a dead secret, not to be told to anyone.”
“In that case the whole town will know of it by the evening.”
“Yes, but not officially, you see,” said Prunella. “It will only be a rumour. I shall confide in everybody, and allow them to believe that there is a part of the secret I have told only them, because I trust them so particularly.”
She paused for reflection. “And perhaps I shall suggest to the women that I wish the story to be kept quiet because I have fallen a little in love with Mr. Hsiang, and rather regret my defence of my virtue. With the men, of course, I shall have to take a different tack.”
“Your amoral ingenuity in the pursuit of your interest is perfectly shocking,” said Zacharias severely.
“Yes, isn’t it?” said Prunella, pleased.
The rain had slackened to a thin drizzle when they approached Lady Wythe’s residence.
“I think after all you had best arrive a little later, and ask Lucy for me,” said Prunella, with the air of one who had been thinking deeply on the point. “We shall let her discover me unconscious. I am sure that will be much more convincing.”
“It is an excellent way to drive Lucy into hysterics, but I suppose that is only a slight disadvantage.”
“Oh, fiddle!” said Prunella. “Lucy is not such a poor creature. Likely she will try to slap me awake, so I will be the one to suffer!” She put on a melancholy expression, but could not quite preserve it, for the glee of the scheme would keep breaking through. “Do wait here, Zacharias, and follow in ten minutes.”
Zacharias saw her peer down at the servants’ entrance beneath the street, leap back, and steal up the steps to the front door. She peeped into the window, nodded, laid her hand upon the door, and went into the house.
Her scream cracked in Zacharias’s ears like a whip.
Zacharias was across the road before he had begun to think. He bounded up the steps and burst into the hallway. He would have been swept away on the flood if he had not grasped the doorframe in time.
The hallway had turned into a river. It rushed away past Zacharias, flowing along the steps and down the road. Prunella was flailing along determinedly. The waters surged above her head, and the dark curls vanished. Zacharias’s heart stopped—but she emerged at the end of the hall, struggled up the stairs and clung to the banister, panting.
“I am well,” she said, though her appearance contradicted her. She was wild-eyed, her lips pale. “Oh, I could not bear to drown! It must be quite the worst way to die!” A fit of coughing overtook her, but when she was able to take a breath, she said:
“Zacharias, open my reticule, if you please!”
Zacharias had almost forgotten the familiars. He had secreted Prunella’s reticule in his coat. He fumbled for it, and the familiars spilt out, squawking, neighing and swearing respectively.
“What shall I do?” said Prunella.
“Find the source,” said Zacharias. The water continued to mount, though he could not tell where it came from. He tasted salt on his lips. “The puddle and the fire were pure magic, using merely the semblance of the elements, but this is real water, drawn from elsewhere. The source must be here—find it, and we can stop it up.”
The unicorn had struggled through the water to the stairs. Prunella released the banister and climbed onto its back. It had grown enough to be able to support her, though Prunella looked as though she were sitting astride a large dog.
“Darling Youko! Nidget, Tjandra, find us the source of the hex, if you can, my dear ones.”
The simurgh was already dipping in and out of the water, swooping down like a seagull sighting fish, and sneezing and shaking its child’s head vigorously when it emerged again. Nidget clambered on top of the clock that stood in the hallway—a handsome antique that Lady Wythe preserved more in memory of her grandparents than because it kept the time particularly well. This incident was likely to spoil its beauty and ruin what remained of its accuracy, for the clock was half-submerged.
Zacharias was busy casting spells to stop the water from rising any further, and to identify its source, but he was distracted by an indignant chirp from Tjandra.
“It is unkind to call Nidget a coward, Tjandra!” replied Prunella. “I am sure Nidget is doing as much as it can, and neither of us would wish it to drown. You can fly, but if Nidget were to fall into the water it could not swim— Oh!”
For Nidget had leant out over the side of the clock, and dropped abruptly into the waters.
“Nidget!” cried Prunella.
The unicorn reentered the waters, though it looked none too pleased to do it. It had hardly taken two steps, however, when Nidget leapt out of the water, clinging again to the clock like a bald white monkey.
“I have it,” it said.
It held a metal ball, in which shifted hues of green, blue and grey. Water was still dripping from it, but Nidget gave it a shake:
“Now stop that, wicked curse!”
The water began to drain from the hallway. Zacharias lowered his staff, and saw Lady Wythe standing at the top of the stairs.
“Good gracious,” she said.
• • •
ZACHARIAS and Prunella had just been settled before a roaring fire, each with an ample portion of negus to finish, when they were interrupted by an incursion—Damerell, looking for once harassed, and trailed by an apologetic Rollo.
“I beg your pardon, ma’am, to have broken in upon such a charming family scene,” said Damerell, making his leg to Lady Wythe. “However, we have received such news as I thought you would wish to hear at once.”
He looked expectantly at Rollo, who said:
“I am sorry to be the bearer of such wretched news, Zacharias, but I walked Midsomer’s dreams, and he means to move for the Hallett to be undertaken tomorrow. They intend voting upon the motion in the morning, and going straight from the Society to take you up. They have already set up the table at the Society, and the pots.”
“Pots?” said Prunella.
“For the blood,” said Zacharias. He was keenly conscious of Lady Wythe’s dismayed gaze, and he exerted so much effort to conceal his anxiety in consequence that his tone was peculiarly flat, as though he spoke of something that did not concern him at all.
He had known this was coming, of course, but he had thought he would have more time. Perhaps, too, some part of him had thought it would not really happen—had denied, despite all evidence, that his colleagues could bring themselves to carry out such an atrocity. Did he loom so large in their hatreds? Or was it the reverse—did they account him of so little value, that they thought nothing of treating him as they would not treat a dog? What was the death of a black man, after all, against Midsomer’s elevation?
“You had best leave town as soon as you can, Zacharias,” said Lady Wythe. She rose, composed despite her pallor. “Indeed, I do not know that there is any reason why you should not go now. Lucy can pack what clothes you have here, and you may travel in my carriage. Prewitt is the soul of discretion, and will take you as far as you need.”
Her voice steadied Zacharias: it was so calm, so familiar and beloved. He did not respond at once, however, but sat with his head bowed.
He could flee, but he would be easily pursued. Even if he were to disguise himself it was impossible for him to be inconspicuous anywhere in Britain. And it stuck in his craw to think of running from Midsomer: whatever familiars he had summoned, the man was not half the sorcerer Zacharias was, and all his schemes and conspiracies could not alter that fact.
But worthier than pride, and weightier than pragmatism, was duty. Duty required that Zacharias stand his ground. He had too much work to do, and too many promises to keep, for him to give up being Sorcerer Royal quite yet.
“I am sensible of your goodness,” he said finally. “But I shall not go anywhere. I have assured Mak Genggang that I will resolve her dispute with our nation, and I would leave far too much else unsettled were I to flee. I do not think the circumstances so very desperate. Midsomer has yet to succeed in getting rid of me, and there is no reason why his endeavours should begin to bear fruit now.”
“I commend your courage, Zacharias, but I beg you will not be foolhardy,” said Damerell. “Midsomer’s supporters are not all of the Society, but they are numerous, and he has chosen for his allies those most irrational, most furious, most immovably opposed to your existence. You may find yourself facing down a mob.”
“I still have sufficient resource to face even a mob of irate thaumaturges, I believe,” said Zacharias. He picked up his staff, and inspected it as though to check its sturdiness.
“It all seems a vast deal of pother for a position you dislike,” remarked Rollo. “Of course Midsomer is a scrub, but if he is so eager to be Sorcerer Royal, why not let him? I thought you never liked it.”
Zacharias hesitated, glancing at Lady Wythe. He might have spoken more frankly to Damerell and Rollo, who knew his true feelings regarding his office. But he was loath to expand upon his dislike of it in Lady Wythe’s presence, since it had been Sir Stephen’s dearest wish for Zacharias to succeed him.
“I would not surrender the staff to Midsomer,” said Zacharias. “His conduct has given me no confidence in his suitability for the office. I would not be worthy of my title if I conceded so readily to the loss of my staff to him.”
“It all seems perfectly absurd to me,” said Prunella. “To think of enduring hexes and floods and politics for a staff, when your only reward is to labour unendingly, and be abused by the Society for it!”
“Floods?” said Damerell.
“Did not you see the state of the hallway when you arrived?” said Prunella. She hesitated, then opened her palm, showing the orb Nidget had found. “It was caused by this.”
“Oh, we did not come by the hallway,” said Rollo, but Damerell let out a long low whistle.
“What is it?” said Lady Wythe.
“Either someone is so fond of Zacharias as to wish to spare him being sacrificed,” said Damerell, “or he despises Zacharias so much he cannot bear to wait for the Hallett to be carried out. That is a curse.”
“It is not a curse,” said Prunella. “That is to say, I thought it was used to convey messages—is it not, Zacharias?” She held the orb out to Zacharias, who took it.
“I have not seen anything like it before,” he said.
“I have never seen one used to convey anything but malice,” said Damerell. “They are hardly to be found in this country; we have yet to discover the secret of producing them ourselves. All those I have seen were from India.”
The orb was unexpectedly heavy in Zacharias’s hand. He inspected the pinpricks upon its surface, ordered in regular patterns.
“This is writing,” he said.
“Curses are commonly inscribed with a glorification of their owner, or a description of their intentions,” said Damerell, joining Zacharias in his study of the orb. “That looks like a Fairy language to me. The cantillation marks are very similar to those one sees in certain dialects of Banshee. Can you read it, Rollo?”
Rollo made the attempt, but was unable to make out the words.
“I had a governess who was a Banshee, and she tried to hammer it into my noggin,” he said. “The governor chased her off in one of his rages, more’s the pity. But perhaps it’s just as well. The curse brought a flood down upon you, did you say, Miss Gentleman? You may keep several spells in one of these what-d’ye-call-’ems—we say secretkeepers in my family. Reading the inscription aloud unlocks the other secrets, and like as not all the secrets in this one are unpleasant. The best thing to do would be to get rid of the writing, would not you say, Poggs?”
“I am of your mind, Rollo.”
“Surely we ought not to remove the writing yet,” said Prunella, recovering the orb from Rollo’s loose grasp. “We ought to learn all we can of the orb’s secrets first.” She brought it close to her eye. “I do not know how we would remove the writing in any case. It is engraved upon the metal, and I am sure it is magical.”
“Oh, that is the easiest thing in the world,” said Rollo. “A jet of dragon’s flame would do it!”