Chapter 12 #3
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.