IT WAS NOT a situation in which even the most elegant woman would have appeared to advantage. Laura Midsomer (née Lee, alias Lorelei) suffered further from having had insufficient notice of her marine excursion. She was still clad in the everyday attire of a mortal woman, dressed in expectation of encountering nothing wetter than the British spring. Her top half was clothed in a spencer, whose hardier material hid the curves her sodden dress could not fail to display. The whole shining, sinuous length of her tail emerged from her dress below.
The men soon thought better of staring, however. This was Mrs. Midsomer’s native environment, and her anger rendered her incandescent with power.
“Blackguards!” she spat. “Fools! Weaklings! Is this how you defend me, Geoffrey, your wife whom you promised to protect, your familiar who pledged you her service? Are these your friends indeed the finest magicians in England, who have permitted a jumped-up chit and her pet beast to manhandle me?”
The pet beast in question peered over the side of the Cobb. An expression of astonishment overspread his countenance.
“Why, what’s this?” cried Rollo, but no one paid any mind to him.
Prunella was haloed in green light, the remnants of the power she had expended in her spell still clinging to her frame. The glow reflected in her eyes made them appear lightless and deep, giving her the remote look of a vengeful goddess.
She held out her hand, and a metal ball floated out of the wreck of Mrs. Midsomer’s dress. It was wreathed in the same eldritch light that outlined Prunella’s form. Within the depths of the orb was reflected an image of the sea, small but wonderfully vivid. Waves crashed against the shore, and white flecks of seagulls wheeled around the grey curve of a minute sky, their lonesome cries echoing in counterpoint to the voices of the birds in the skies above.
“Our conversation was interrupted, Mrs. Midsomer,” she said. “This is yours, I think.”
“You know perfectly well it is,” snarled Mrs. Midsomer. “What business had you to take it?”
“Oh, I am always poking my nose into things that are not my business,” said Prunella. “But on this occasion, I had better grounds than usual for doing so. I exercised the rights of an apprentice—” She lifted her eyes to Zacharias, and smiled. “The rights of a friend. Are you the author of the attacks upon Mr. Wythe? That is all I wish to hear from you.”
“This is beyond anything,” cried Midsomer. “Gentlemen, do you mean to stand by and permit my wife to be interrogated by this—this—”
“Chit?” said Prunella helpfully.
“Magicienne,” said Zacharias.
The Presiding Committee stared at him.
“Do you require any further evidence of her abilities?” said Zacharias. “As you have witnessed yourselves, Miss Gentleman has been trained in the strictest principles of thaumaturgical practise, and can justly be called no witch, but a magicienne. Though indeed I hope we can one day overcome this unreasoning dislike of witches—fine craftsmen and women, on the whole—no worse, taken as a body, than any illusion of thaumaturges.”
“Really, Zacharias, this is not the time to be lecturing the gentlemen,” exclaimed Prunella. “Cannot you tell that we are on the brink of extracting a confession from Mrs. Midsomer that she has been conspiring to murder you?”
“These accusations are baseless,” said Midsomer, crimson. “I admit I moved for the Hallett when it became evident that Mr. Wythe was unfit to hold his office. That seemed to be my clear duty. However, the notion that I or my wife should have made any attempt upon a brother thaumaturge’s life is ludicrous!”
“I say nothing as to your involvement. I can well believe you had little to do with it,” said Prunella graciously. “Your wife, however, is certainly a murderess.”
“You had better say: not a murderess yet!” said Mrs. Midsomer. “If my efforts to kill Zacharias Wythe have failed, it is only because I could not draw upon my full powers. My puling master insisted I refrain from wonder-working, lest I reveal my nature. Now I am in my true form, however—!”
“There, you see,” said Prunella to Midsomer. “She has been endeavouring to kill Mr. Wythe. She says so herself.”
To Midsomer’s credit, he looked as astonished as everyone else.
“I knew nothing of this, Laura,” he said.
“That is because you do not attend,” said Mrs. Midsomer waspishly. “If I have told you once, I have told you a thousand times. I did not come to your realm for my health. I came with one motive: to discover the sorcerer who murdered my beloved, and avenge his death. Once I am done we shall return to my home—to the glorious caverns my aunt the Queen has bequeathed to me, and their mysterious underground seas—so there was no need for you to be in such a pother about your silly Society. Even if you did become Sorcerer Royal you could not remain one for long.”
“But I had no notion your beloved had anything to do with Zacharias Wythe,” protested Midsomer.
“You would know if you had only listened!” snapped Mrs. Midsomer. “My beloved was not called Leofric when I knew him. A mortal gave him the name—the first Sorcerer Royal. How he loved that mortal! ’Twas for his sake that he went away from me, and lived out his life in exile from Fairyland. To serve the Sorcerer Royal was the only desire of his heart, and Zacharias Wythe killed him, the traitor—the villain—the murderer!”
Her voice rose to a shrill pitch that blended with the wind, whipping the waves into a frenzy. The magicians clapped their hands over their ears. Mrs. Midsomer planted her palms on the ground and flipped herself backwards off the Cobb with effortless strength, splashing into the water.
Midsomer shouted, “Laura, what will you be at?”
“She is growing,” said Zacharias, as the wind howled, and thunder cracked the heavens open. It began to rain, big fat drops falling out of a darkening sky.
“I think she has lost her temper,” said Prunella composedly: her aura was keeping her dry.
• • •
FOR a brief period after Mrs. Midsomer vanished, there was nothing to be seen amid the surging steel-grey waves. Rollo hauled himself onto the rocky end of the Cobb, and thrust his head over the wall, seeming to have something of great importance to communicate.
“I say—” he said, but he was not permitted to finish his sentence.
Mrs. Midsomer burst out of the waters behind him and rose into the skies, growing with inconceivable rapidity.
Her bulk seemed to fill the world, blocking out the horizon and casting a shadow over the magicians huddled on the wall. The enchantment appeared to encompass everything upon her person, for as she grew, so did the fronds of seaweed draped over her, and the pretty amber pendant on her breast expanded till it was itself the height and breadth of a grown man.
“Midsomer!” roared Lord Burrow. “Look to your wife!”
“He can hardly miss her,” remarked Prunella.
“Think of our fishing—our ships—they will be overturned if her antics are not stopped,” said Lord Burrow. “Exert your influence, man. Govern your wife!”
“If you think, sir, that is within my power to restrain Laura,” said Midsomer wearily, “then all I can say is, you must not have been attending.”
“Murderer!” howled Mrs. Midsomer. She drew from the amassed storm clouds a bolt of lighting and flung it at Zacharias. It split the air with an almighty crack, and would have smashed the wall had Zacharias not fended it off with a spell. The bolt went into the sea, and steam rose from the bubbling waves.
“This is outrageous!” said Prunella. “The creature ought to know when she is beaten.”
She leapt nimbly off the Cobb before anyone could stop her, and was borne up by a white horse—a steed shaped from the froth on the waves and animated by magic.
“Hup hup!” cried Prunella, driving her heels into the creature’s flanks, and off they went, cantering over the heaving seas, while Prunella shouted impertinences at Mrs. Midsomer.
“Damerell, pray persuade her to return,” gasped Zacharias. Staving off Mrs. Midsomer’s hexes required all of his attention. They were wicked spells, fiendishly complex and prickly with malice, stinging his hands as he disenvenomed them.
“Miss Gentleman will do very well,” said Damerell, scarcely sparing a glance for the small figure vanishing into the grey murk of sky and sea. “You, however, want aid. Watch your head, there!”
Zacharias escaped being exploded only by Damerell’s intervention. The chantment ricocheted off Damerell’s counter-spell and detonated a pile of rocks at the end of the Cobb, where Rollo sat with his shoulders up around his ears. He jumped, and bawled out:
“Poggs!”
“Rollo, cannot you see that we are busy?” said Damerell. “If you wish to make yourself useful, you might go and find Miss Gentleman, and shield her from the attacks of that sea-woman.”
“But that is what I have been trying to say, only no one would attend,” said Rollo, injured. “She ain’t a sea-woman. She’s Lorelei, my own third cousin twice removed.”
“You don’t mean to say you are related to the wretched creature?” said Damerell.
“Known her since I was out of the egg!” said Rollo. “Lorrie had a frightful temper even then. She ate one of my brothers on a rampage, and he was a mere dragonet, not more than a week old. He had broken her favourite doll, but I don’t call that a meet response, do you? Still, that is Lorrie all over! My aunt gave her a right set-down over it. Aunt Georgiana was the only creature Lorrie would ever listen to.
“I had forgotten she was engaged to Leofric,” he added musingly. “I could never account for his liking her, though she is my own cousin. Do you know, the most astonishing thing is, ’twas she who cried off! He only came to the mortal world after, but I don’t believe the two things were connected, for it is my belief he intended to leave Fairy all along. He was always a great one for insects, and we haven’t many in Fairyland—they have a dashed peculiar habit of growing minds, and turning into fairies.”
Damerell said dangerously, “Rollo, you may not have observed that Zacharias is striving to contain a fireball, and I am in imminent danger of having my best pair of top-boots ruined by a hex. We are not at leisure to discuss your family’s eccentricities. If you are so well acquainted with the lady, however, may I suggest that you ask her to desist? She might take it better from her cousin than from any of us.”
“She never liked me above half,” said Rollo, unconvinced. “The only reason I was not ate was because I was too old and tough, for I am sure I broke half a dozen of her dolls.”
Still, he spread his wings and flapped up towards the upper air where Mrs. Midsomer’s head was shrouded by mist and rain. His uncertain voice could be heard through the clamour of the storm:
“Lorrie? I say, Lorrie!”
“Rollo Threlfall?” boomed Mrs. Midsomer, in a voice mingling the crash of the waves and the howl of the wind. “What business have you here?”
“Go for her throat, Rollo!” bellowed Prunella, galloping along on her sea-horse. “Rip it out and ha’ done with it!”
Rollo gave Prunella a look of terror.
“I shan’t pay her any mind, of course,” he said earnestly to Mrs. Midsomer. “Dashed unpleasant way of carrying on. It don’t seem quite maidenly to be so bloodthirsty, does it? Is it a mortal thing, do you think, or are the modern females of Fairyland like that too? Leaving aside lamiae, of course. Not but what I have known some very agreeable lamiae in my time. There was a good sort of girl who used to live near my father’s cave, Delphyne her name was, I think—unless it was Daisy?”
“Robert,” said Mrs. Midsomer, “I am engaged in very important business at the moment, and if you have nothing better to say than to ask me whether I ever knew a lamia named Daisy . . .”
Rollo had been turning loops in the air, sunk in thought.
“Now I think of it, her name was Sybaris,” he exclaimed. “But she terrorised the town of Delphi, of course, which accounts for the confusion. Aunt Georgiana could never stick her.”
“Cousin Georgiana?” Mrs. Midsomer stiffened. The turbulence of the waves subsided. “Is she here?”
“Good God, no!” said Rollo, horrified. “I was only recollecting that she did not like Sybaris, which is as good a testimonial as anyone could desire. Though to be sure, Aunt Georgiana does not like you above half either—but never mind all that! What I meant to say, Lorrie, is that you ought not to be rampaging about like this. It ain’t good ton! We are not in Fairyland, you know, where everyone enjoys a good magical fisticuffs. In the mortal realm there are things like ships and fishermen and picnics to think about.”
“What have picnics to do with anything?” said Mrs. Midsomer.
“I am surprised at you, Lorrie,” said Rollo. “It stands to reason no one can have a picnic if it is raining cockatrices and dragons. A hugeous mermaid don’t improve the view, either.”
“Do you really mean to defend your friend’s villainy to me by such shifts?” roared Mrs. Midsomer. “That mortal murdered my Leofric!”
“But if you would only listen, I am sure Zacharias would be able to explain himself,” pleaded Rollo.
“What excuse could there be for such faithless conduct?”
“I am not altogether sure,” Rollo admitted. “But Zacharias is a vastly clever fellow, and I am sure he could explain everything to your satisfaction if you would only be so good as to allow him ten minutes—”
Rollo was not allowed to finish his own explanation, however, for Mrs. Midsomer, losing patience, swatted him away. With a piteous yelp, Rollo vanished into the clouds.
“Rollo!” shouted Damerell.
“Pray come out,” said Prunella’s voice through the storm, “for you are needed.”
The storm clouds heaped in the lowering sky merged together to form the shape of a man, large and powerful, and lying prone upon the horizon. He rose, opening eyes of yellow lightning, and said in a rumbling voice:
“If it isn’t that blasted girl again!”
“If you are annoyed to see me, that is all the more reason to do your work quickly,” said Prunella. “I should be excessively obliged if you would kill this mermaid for us. Once that is done you may go back to being insensate clouds as soon as you wish.”
The thunder-monster gave Mrs. Midsomer an unimpressed look.
“It will require a tempest,” he said.
“Go to it!” said Prunella.
With Mrs. Midsomer’s attention distracted, Zacharias was freed from the necessity of defending himself. He was putting his liberty to good use, and constructing another spell, when a freezing hand gripped his arm.
It was Lord Burrow. Upon his wet countenance was an expression composed in equal parts of fear, fury and plain discomfort.
“Damn it, Wythe, these are conditions calculated to bring on an inflammation of the lungs if there ever were such,” he shouted. “Lady Frances will be in such a taking she will not be fit to live with. She has just nursed me through a fever, and found it so tedious she has strictly forbidden my contracting any further illness. Cannot you stop them?”
“That may be within my power,” said Zacharias. “I have a notion I know what will calm Mrs. Midsomer’s fury. Miss Gentleman will likely subdue her thunder-creature if Mrs. Midsomer can be persuaded to leave off trying to kill me. Though I have Damerell to deal with as well, of course, since Rollo Threlfall has got himself involved.”
Damerell was striding up and down the Cobb, chanting curses of such ancient, complex wickedness as to raise the hair of the assembled thaumaturges.
“Do what you can,” said Lord Burrow urgently. “I have organised the men in a chanting circle to drain that blasted mercreature of her power, but since this is her native environment, her power is replenished faster than we can draw it.”
“But stay!” said Zacharias thoughtfully. “The reason for all this disturbance is that Mrs. Midsomer has been so intemperate as to threaten my life. Does not that show a very creditable loyalty in my friends? I am not sure, after all, that it would be wise to prevail upon them to stop.”
Lord Burrow gave him an incredulous look, but with the advent of the thunder-monster the sea had been thrown into even greater tumult. The sheets of rain falling unbroken from the sky seemed as though they would cause a second Flood. The strivings of Mrs. Midsomer and the thunder-monster so infused the place with magic that every wave bore a crest of green foam, every magician was outlined in light and the opaque vault of the sky was a livid green, reflecting the unearthly glow of the battle below.
“Damn your impudence!” said Lord Burrow. “Do you mean to blackmail me at such a time as this?”
“You and Mr. Midsomer both,” said Zacharias.
Midsomer was huddled in a corner, watching his wife and familiar in terror. He looked up at the sound of his name.
“If Providence permits us to survive this calamity, it will behoove me to report an unlawful summoning to the Society,” said Zacharias. “I understand Mr. Midsomer proposes that the Hallett be undertaken. It could be done at the same meeting.”
“We will not survive,” said Midsomer, with a slight improvement in his spirits. “So the point is moot.”
“It strikes me that my report could cause some awkwardness for so well-known a family as the Midsomers,” continued Zacharias.
“My sister Polly would not like it, if that is what you mean,” said Lord Burrow. “So you will keep quiet about this business of summoning a familiar—a froward familiar at that; you ought to have chosen a more peaceable creature, Geoffrey—you will keep quiet, will you, Wythe, and sort out this business, at a price?”
“I only desire your support at the next Society meeting,” said Zacharias. “I require no more than that you and Mr. Midsomer should vote as I vote, second any nomination I make, and shout down any proposal contrary to my wishes.”
Lord Burrow glowered at him. “And we are to lend our names to any harebrained policy arising from your proposals, I suppose?”
“If you think it right to do so. I hope you will, but my price is your support for the space of one meeting only,” said Zacharias. “For what I intend, a single meeting will suffice.”
A fisherman’s hut close to the shore burst into flames, despite the extreme wetness of the weather. Lord Burrow said:
“If you can stop them, you may have whatever you want, and be damned to you! The Hallett will be withdrawn, and we shall vote on whatever blockheaded reforms you desire.
“It is the sorcerer’s way to gain his point by main force, after all,” he added bitterly. “But you will have to perform your side of the bargain first!”
“It shall be done,” said Zacharias.
Damerell was about to put the finishing touches upon a convoluted curse implicating even the neighbours and casual acquaintances of Mrs. Midsomer’s descendants unto the seventh generation when Zacharias interrupted him.
“Come, man, pull yourself together,” said Zacharias. “There is no need for this. If you are concerned for Rollo there is a simpler way to put a period to the scene, and she will help you recover him, I am sure.”
Damerell stared at him, bemused at having been pulled so suddenly out of his incantation. “What?”
“I have begun the spell, but it requires more work, and I should be grateful for your assistance,” said Zacharias. “We must make it a watertight chantment, else it will be bound to fail—for she is not what anyone would call complaisant.”