Chapter 17 #2
He knew this was a poor explanation. If his purpose was to demonstrate the desirability of reforming women’s education by training one talented female, why not select one who would not make such strange demands?
But further Zacharias dared not go. He must conceal the existence of Prunella’s familiars for as long as he could.
“Far be it from me to find fault with so noble a scheme,” said Damerell contemplatively.
“But you will forgive a friend’s impertinence, Zacharias—have you considered the Society’s likely reception of it, when we have recently had such an alarming lesson in what may be done with feminine magic?
I refer, you know, to the Malayan vampiress who nearly killed Mrs. Geoffrey Midsomer. ”
“She was a witch, not a vampiress,” said Zacharias. “And if Mrs. Midsomer was bruised, that is the most I have heard she suffered in the way of injury! If I were to wait until the Society liked the notion of teaching women magic, my reform would never come to fruition.”
“Still, could not you wait till your position is stronger, before you quite upend all of the Society’s beloved prejudices?” said Damerell.
Zacharias shook his head. “Who knows how long I will be Sorcerer Royal? I may never again be in such a position to effect good.”
“But that is just what I do not like. It is such an unfortunate time for you to announce a scheme that is bound to be unpopular, with Geoffrey Midsomer wooing half the Society and bribing the other half, and the Treasury eyeing our coffers, and above all, our magic running dry.”
“That, at least, is a difficulty the Society will no longer be able to throw in my face,” said Zacharias, relieved to be able to supply good news for once.
“I am confident we will see a marked improvement when the results of the next inspection of atmospheric magic levels are published in the Gazette.” The introduction of Prunella’s three familiars was bound to give rise to that benefit, at least.
Damerell blinked. “But that is excellent! Did your efforts at the border succeed, then, Zacharias?”
“After a fashion,” said Zacharias guardedly. The block on England’s magic was another matter best kept secret for now. The Fairy King’s rout was that very evening, and Zacharias would have a better notion of the reason for the block soon enough.
Damerell sat in silence for a while, no doubt turning over the various holes Zacharias could discern in his own account.
“You are grown very sorcerous, Zacharias,” he said finally. “You never used to be so mysterious. But I will see what I can do for your apprentice. The girl will need to be dressed properly, of course. Lady Wythe will obtain her admission to Almack’s, I presume.”
“Yes,” said Zacharias. “We have agreed that Miss Gentleman is to have everything that is suitable. You may call upon my bankers for any expense.”
“Then I think I can contrive a splash for your Miss Gentleman,” said Damerell. “But—you will allow me to say it once—it is a singular deal you have struck, Zacharias! One would think anyone would be pleased to be apprenticed to the Sorcerer Royal.”
“Unfortunately, Miss Gentleman is not just anyone,” said Zacharias glumly.
· · ·
WHEN Zacharias returned to his study there was a small brown leaf on his desk. It looked as though it had blown in through the window, but Zacharias knew it for what it was at once.
A closer inspection proved it to be no ordinary leaf: its veins glittered with gold, and gold edged the blade. The Fairy King’s signature was on the other side: an inky hoof-stamp, redolent of earth and smoke.
His application for an audience had been accepted. Zacharias slipped the leaf into his pocket, feeling unwontedly nervous. It was what he had wanted—but the encounter must be managed carefully if it was to bear fruit.
That evening he laid the leaf on the floor of his study, and paced around it counterclockwise. The leaf would work its own magic. All he needed to do was circle it till the path was open.
As he trod his circumscribed round he found himself murmuring a little rhyme, which his nurse had used to sing to him, in his nursery days:
Ride a cock horse
To Banbury Cross
To see a black man
Upon a black horse—
“But no, I have confused it. How went it?”
A ring on his finger
A staff in his hand
The queerest magician
Ever seen in the land.
But that did not seem right either.
Zacharias stopped his pacing to puzzle it out, and saw that the gold veins on the leaf had spread out and multiplied, so that golden light lay in shining intersecting lines upon the floor.
When he set his foot upon one of the lines, it widened into a shimmering path.
He followed the path, and went through the walls of his study as though they were not there.
He ought to have found himself in the air, for his study was on the second floor, but instead he was walking down a dark tunnel.
He felt as though he was asleep and dreaming, though his eyes were wide open.
The only light was the golden glow from the path beneath his feet; the only sound that of his own voice, as he fumbled for the lyric:
As I was going to Charing Cross
I saw a fine lady upon a white horse
Runes at her fingers and spells at her toes
And she shall have magic wherever she goes—
“But that is all nonsense!
“There is,” Zacharias said, “a great deal in nursery rhymes. I wonder that there has not been a proper study of them. I must propose it to the Committee.”
“Mr. Zacharias Wythe,” announced the liveried eel at the door. “Sorcerer Royal, and ambassador of the mortal kingdom of Great Britain!”
Zacharias stood in a great gilded hall, lit with a profusion of candles, and filled with people—if they could be called people. For a moment he stood blinking in the dazzling light, and the guests stared at him. A brief hush fell.
Then the noise rose again, the chatter as lively as ever.
It had been several decades since a Sorcerer Royal had been seen in Fairyland, but time held a different meaning for the inhabitants of Fairy, and given the Queen’s predilections, mortals were not so uncommon a sight as to provoke any lasting astonishment.
Zacharias was only one of many ambassadors waiting to be shown into the antechamber where the King held audience. He wandered around, still dazed by the strong magic by which he had been whisked to Fairy, narrowly avoiding stepping on the toes, flippers and tails of his fellow guests.
His anxiety about his upcoming audience was suspended for the moment, forgotten in the glory of Fairy. He had always hoped one day to see it, and this was such an opportunity as he would not soon have again.
In the mortal realm, Fairyland was used loosely to describe a number of magical nations which acknowledged themselves subject to the Queen and King of Elfland.
The non-thaumaturgical might be even more imprecise, and use the term to describe all magical realms, whether connected to the Fairy Court or not.
But of course, strictly only a creature of Elfland could be called a fairy: a being capable of changing its shape, but in its true form a sexless homunculus, pale-eyed and hairless.
Dragons, griffins, phoenixes, cockatrices, unicorns and the like were not native to Fairyland.
It was a curious fact that in days past a familiar was more likely to encounter magical creatures of other species in England, in service to its master’s associates, than it was to have met such creatures in Fairy.
For in Fairy could be discerned all the divisions of nation and class which subsisted in mortal society.
Though at least Fairy prejudices did not reflect those of English society, and here Zacharias was no more conspicuous than any other foreign ambassador.
He was not even the only person in the hall wearing the form of a dark-skinned man: a novel incident to Zacharias, which felt all the odder for the fact that he knew his mortal sight could not be trusted to discern the true face of things here in the land of illusion.
The various beings crowding the hall likely bore a very different aspect at home, and in their own eyes.
Though some were less disguised than others. Zacharias leapt back as a platter of sweetmeats clattered upon the floor before him, brought down by the sweeping movement of a dragon’s tail. A school of piscine footmen rushed to clean the mess, but the offender was unabashed.
“The Court might make better accommodation for its guests!” she exclaimed. “I declare the room grows smaller every year! Do not you think so, sir?”
Zacharias was taken aback to have criticism of his royal host so boldly demanded of him. He replied, in some confusion, that as this was his first visit, he was unable to judge.
“Your first visit?” said the dragon. She raised between two imposing talons a monocle the size of a dinner-plate, and peered through it at Zacharias. “Why, you are a mortal—a mortal English thaumaturge! You are never the creature who came and left us? I thought you might return, but not so soon.”
“I think you have mistaken me for another, ma’am,” said Zacharias.
It was no great surprise, perhaps, that a black man and a white should appear much of a muchness to a dragon.
“The thaumaturge you are thinking of is settled in England, and I believe has no intention of returning to Fairy. I am a different man altogether.”
“Oh!” The glowing topaz of the dragon’s eye swung closer to Zacharias.
The pupil was a narrow black slit like a cat’s.
“Why, you are the new Sorcerer Royal! How very droll! I must say you are much handsomer than I expected. Some of the Sorcerers Royal I have seen I would have eaten in the egg.” She let out an unexpected donkey’s bray of a laugh.
“Magical ability does not always correspond with physical perfection in mortals,” said Zacharias. “We differ from dragonkind in that respect.”