Chapter 20 #3
“It seems there was an acquaintance of theirs in the spirit world, who planned to remove to Britain. She was going to live with a great magician, who had many powerful acquaintances. She promised he would convey the message to the King. That was my women’s mistake, of course.
They should have known better than to put any stock in an English magician’s word. ”
“It is necessary to choose the right English magician for the purpose,” said Zacharias ruefully. “I wish I had known of this sooner.”
“Oh, I do not deny my vampiresses have mishandled the affair,” said Mak Genggang.
“They feared I should tell them to go to their relations if they confessed to any. Absurd creatures! As if I did not know one might disagree with one’s relations, and wish to live apart from them!
They are my women, however. I am bound to defend them, however stupid they are.
Any offence to them must be furiously resented! ”
Mak Genggang was well on the way to working herself back up into a passion. Zacharias saw he must intervene if he were to avoid another curse.
“I am not proud of my nation’s conduct towards yours, if your account is true,” he said.
“But I am bound to defend it, as you are bound to defend yours. If the block placed upon our magic could be removed, I might see my way to helping your people, and perhaps we would not need to quarrel. For my veins do not contain milk either, Mak Genggang, and we have still sufficient magic in England for my staff to draw upon.”
The matriarch was angry, but she was a leader as well as a witch, and she understood power. Zacharias saw a grudging esteem in her eyes.
“My women would happily persuade their cousins to let the British have their magic, if they could be sure they would not be injured by it,” said Mak Genggang.
She rose and went to the window, the wings unfurling from her back.
“But if, in a week’s time, the erring magician has not been found and punished, and assurances of our security given, I shall return.
My army will not be an illusion, and it will not be easily overcome.
We may be mere women, but the dead walk with us. We will give you a week, Mr. Wythe.”
“I doubt I will have so much time,” said Zacharias grimly.
· · ·
Ihave left you no very comfortable office, I find,” said Sir Stephen.
He had just appeared by the fireplace, but it was likely he had been present throughout Zacharias’s conversation with Mak Genggang, and had heard the whole.
“At least I begin to trace my troubles to a singular source,” said Zacharias.
“Yes, that sandy-haired Midsomer lad!” said Sir Stephen. “Who would have thought he was capable of such enterprise? It shows how little there is in blood. If his father ever held two thoughts together in his head at the same time, it was the most he ever did.”
“Midsomer is much more beforehand than me,” said Zacharias, with a sigh.
“If you devoted all your time to plotting divers villainies, I am sure you should soon outpace him,” said Sir Stephen.
“It is continuing to attend to your duties as Sorcerer Royal that hobbles you. Well, it is never pleasant to play the informer, but it seems to me there is nothing to be done but to report Midsomer to the Presiding Committee. It was one thing when you could only accuse him of seeking to get rid of you one way or another—that I can see Midsomer’s friends and relations would happily ignore—but if he is interfering in foreign affairs, that is something the Society will have to take seriously, no matter how many uncles he has. ”
Zacharias had already considered this course, and dismissed it.
“At the moment I have no proof of my allegations. Mak Genggang would hardly be deemed a credible witness by the Society. And by making this new accusation, I would implicate others. John Edgeworth must have been involved in this attack on Janda Baik, and he is not easily accused.”
Sir Stephen frowned, standing before the fire with his hands clasped behind his back, rocking on his feet as he thought.
Zacharias experienced an unlooked-for pang.
The sight was so familiar, the scene so much like what it had been when Sir Stephen was still alive, that for a moment Zacharias could not credit that the world was so utterly changed.
In some respects their relationship was easier, their respective positions more equal.
Yet Zacharias must always regret the shift that had so transformed the footing on which they each stood.
“You have not informed the Society of the block on our magic?” said Sir Stephen.
“I had almost done so,” said Zacharias, “but I fear the intelligence that Mak Genggang’s vampiresses have been conspiring against Britain is likely to incite another attack on Janda Baik.
The situation there is so delicate that anything of the sort must be avoided.
We cannot afford to be entangled in a magical conflict—we have not the resource for it, and there is our treaty with the French to consider. ”
“I tell you what, Zacharias,” announced Sir Stephen. “What you need is evidence of Geoffrey Midsomer’s wrongdoing—solid evidence, such as even that miserable old Committee could not deny. Who better to supply you with such evidence than me? There is nowhere I cannot go, nothing I cannot see—”
“Nothing you can touch or move,” Zacharias reminded him. “I am obliged to you for your offer, sir, but Damerell and Rollo are already at work investigating Midsomer.”
Sir Stephen waved away both Damerell and Rollo, and the minor matter of his incorporeality.
“Paget Damerell is a good enough fellow, but he is not likely to get very far with that addlepated creature to help him. No, it is a task for me, and I shall contrive some way around the inconvenience of my being unfleshed. At worst, Zacharias, we shall have to engage in a spot of necromancy, and I shall appear to give evidence to the Committee in person. It is what I could not wish, of course—Maria would so dislike it—so we must regard it as a last resort. Yet I should very much enjoy the looks on their faces!”
Zacharias did not continue to argue. If Sir Stephen could discover some means of overcoming his inability to interact with the material world, he would be the ideal investigator. It remained only to thank him, but Sir Stephen scoffed.
“There will be time enough for thanks when I have found something! Though even then I would only be making amends for the wretched legacy I have left you,” he said.
“Do you know, I fancy I shall enjoy myself. I was never a man to hold a grudge, but if it is put in my way to serve Julian Midsomer out for the trouble he has given me and mine, why! I am not an angel yet!”
And Sir Stephen’s blue eyes glinted with a most uncelestial light.