Chapter 25
WHETHER IT WAS the exertion of battling Mrs. Midsomer that had worn him out, or whether disclosing the burden he had borne since Sir Stephen’s death had imparted some much-needed peace, Zacharias slept soundly that night.
He roused at the first knock and lay for a moment gazing at the rays of morning’s first light stealing past the drapes.
He felt perfectly relaxed, and the accustomed headache was notable for its absence.
Prunella was at the door when he opened it. Zacharias was so used to tempests and disasters that he did not even recoil at this breach of etiquette, but said:
“I shall get my staff.”
“Do, for we may need it,” said Prunella. She was dressed, though it was early, and her face was unwontedly grave. “It is no emergency, but with this meeting at the Society today I do not know when we shall next have the chance to speak alone, and I could not endure the mystery for much longer.”
She refused to say any more till they were in her sitting room, and she had secured the door.
“Are you in great pain at the moment, Zacharias?” she said abruptly.
“Not at all. I am very well,” said Zacharias automatically, but then he recalled that she knew—indeed, everyone knew. It felt unnatural to say more, but Prunella would assume he was dissembling if he did not. He added, with difficulty:
“Leofric tends to feed at midnight. He knows I must have energy for the day. In any case, he did not trouble me last night. He is not unreasonable.”
“I think he is disgusting,” said Prunella. “You need not frown at me so, Zacharias. I hope he hears me! It is only the truth. My familiars will want their reward in time, but they would never hurt me while I was capable of feeling it.”
“It is the nature of the Exchange. We struck a bargain, and he has abided by it,” said Zacharias.
He would have liked to abandon the unhappy subject of bargains and exchanges altogether, but it was his duty as her instructor to discuss it with Prunella.
“That is why I would have prevented you from bonding with so many familiars, if I could. You benefit from it now, but at the end of your life . . .”
“Never mind about the end of my life,” said Prunella briskly.
“We have sorted it out amongst ourselves. Nidget is to have my head, and Youko and Tjandra will have the rest of me, divided equally, and whoever is fastest may have my soul—though I doubt I have much of one. There will not be much left for a funeral, but when I am dead that will not worry me, and I plan to make old bones. But we must not be distracted, Zacharias; we have not much time. Did not you wonder that I knew Mrs. Midsomer’s orb for what it was? ”
The question had not occurred to Zacharias. It struck him that this was a shocking oversight. He said, embarrassed: “There was so much else to worry about that I did not think to be surprised.”
Prunella nodded. “I had seen something like it before, you see.”
She held out a small silver ball, very similar to Mrs. Midsomer’s orb, save that it was wrought of a paler metal, and etched with different carvings. It was attached to a long silver chain.
“I wear it always,” said Prunella. She was still for a long moment, gazing down at the orb. “I found it in the attic at the school, along with the eggs. They were among my father’s effects. I believe they belonged to my mother.”
“I thought you did not remember your mother.”
“Nor do I.” Prunella looked up at Zacharias, her eyes luminous with unshed tears. “But she remembered me.”
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and continued:
“Mak Genggang showed me how to awaken the orb. I might have told you of it before, but there was not time—and I suppose, Zacharias, I did not altogether trust you. I have been so much in your power that I thought it wisest to reserve a secret or two to myself, in case I should need it. And you are so conscientious, I thought you were bound to report it to the Society. I had no notion you were as capable of keeping a secret as you have shown yourself to be.”
“There is no need to explain yourself to me,” said Zacharias, adding drily, “You will embarrass me with all these compliments.”
A gleam of humour flashed through Prunella’s face in response.
“Well, in truth, if I did not think you might be able to help, perhaps I would not be confiding in you now,” she said.
“But I had not realised before that it was writing—the carvings upon my orb, I mean. I thought perhaps you might be able to read it, for you told me you made a study of the Indian languages, did you not?”
“The Sanskrit only,” said Zacharias. He held out his hand, and after a moment’s hesitation Prunella passed him the orb.
“I recognise the script, however,” he said, examining it. “I believe it is Hindustani, though I am no expert. Shall I sound out the words?”
“It will have no effect unless I supply the core of the spell,” said Prunella. She could not conceal the significance this held for her, and there was an unmistakable quaver in her voice.
Zacharias knew he must tread carefully, but he knew nothing of these orbs, and his thaumaturgical training rendered it impossible to leave this be. “And what is that, if I may ask?”
“You ought to know by now, Zacharias,” said Prunella. A smile ghosted across her lips. “It comes down to blood, of course. What else could it be?”
A fat pincushion on the mantelpiece held all the needles a witch could require, but Prunella paused with the needle resting against her thumb.
“Do you promise to keep anything we see a secret?” she said.
Zacharias hesitated, but with Prunella’s steady gaze upon him, he said, “I give you my word.”
She nodded, and in one swift, sure movement, stabbed herself in the fleshy base of her thumb.
“Now, Zacharias,” she said, and held her thumb over the orb. The drop of blood spread rapidly along the lines of the engraved words and pictures.
Zacharias saw the script vanish in light as he stumbled over the unfamiliar syllables. By the time he finished reading the words out, the orb was ablaze. Prunella took it from his hand and threw it in the air.
The light blossoming from the sphere took on substance and form.
An image coalesced before them of a dark-skinned woman kneeling on the ground, very lovely, though past her first youth.
She wore a gorgeous silk saree and gold jewellery.
These, and her carriage and bearing, spoke of wealth and power.
“Oh,” said Prunella in a strangled whisper, and then she was silent.
The woman spoke in a low, fierce whisper that resounded through the room.
“My daughter, the spell I have cast will kill your father,” she said.
The language was foreign and the words she spoke entered the ear as mere liquid syllables, but their significance entered the mind.
This was another translation spell, one Zacharias had not encountered before, but elegantly designed.
“Listen well, for he will not survive to tell the tale,” said the vision.
“You are my daughter, the heir of a line of great magicians, and I am the greatest of these, the Grand Sorceress of the Court of Seringapatam.” She said this with the simplicity and directness with which Prunella made her own most outrageous statements—with an unself-conscious arrogance that was utterly convincing.
“Your father has betrayed us, and will suffer for it. He came to our court claiming to be a scholar of European magics, who wished to advance the understanding between magicians of different nations. He professed to love me, and I, believing him sincere, permitted his attentions. For two years he concealed his true intentions within his treacherous heart, waiting for his chance. We discovered I was expecting you. In my loving folly I confided our family’s most precious secrets to him, he being the natural protector of their heir—so I thought.
Fool that I was, I revealed to him the treasures of which I am guardian—the treasures I preserved for you, and my granddaughters.
“I do not believe, now, that he was ever truly attached to me.
I do not believe he intended to become attached to you, but he could not help himself.
You were born, and he found he loved you.
He took you from me—the coward, the liar, the thief!
He fled the country with you, and worse, he has taken the treasures with him.
“Attend! The treasures are seven, each a portal to a realm of wonder, disguised as stones.
They are subject to an enchantment that preserves them in dormancy, but when the charm is broken a spirit of great power will inhabit the stone and be hatched into the world, like a snake from an egg.
My blood will preserve the secret of unlocking the treasures for you, and your blood will reveal it, for the same ichor runs in our veins.
When you are of an age to profit from the treasures—when you are ready for your inheritance—the spell I have laid on you will open the path for you to find this message.
“Unlock all the treasures, when you have learnt the secret of it.
Bind the spirits to you with your blood.
Now that you are lost to me there is no call to preserve them.
Now that you have gone over the black waters the line of our family is broken.
I shall not know my granddaughters, and you shall not know me.
Feed the spirits—love them—learn from them—they will be grandmother, mother, aunt and daughter to you.
The foreigners will not touch them. I have enchanted the stones so that even should a foreigner contrive to hatch a spirit, it would turn instantly upon him and tear out his throat.
“Nor will your father profit from his treachery. He will be tormented by nightmares; his food and drink will turn to ashes in his mouth; he will be served out for the wrong he has done you and me. But I cannot come for you.”
The woman looked away. Light fell across her face—the harsh sunlight of a foreign land, striped with black shadows like prison bars.