Chapter 22 #3
The man was nowhere to be seen. His accomplices appeared no less bewildered than Damerell.
“Oh, was he here?” said Prunella, looking around. “You might have said. He will have gone to help her, of course. I should not be surprised if the creature were halfway across the Channel by now, with her husband in tow.”
“Where did you leave her?” said Damerell.
Prunella was already climbing back upon her cloud.
“She was just off the coast at Lyme when I left,” said Prunella. “It is a great distance to traverse even by cloud, but we—that is to say, I have worked out a modification of Mr. Hsiang’s spell that closes the leagues with singular speed.”
“We will follow by another method,” said Zacharias, who disliked heights. “Damerell, do you think it wise, perhaps, to call—?”
“It is already done,” said Damerell. “Gentlemen, we will take our leave of you.”
Cullip spluttered: “The Committee’s summons—!” But before he could complete his protest, Zacharias and Damerell had vanished.
“If you are so concerned about what the Presiding Committee will think, may I suggest that you summon a conclave to discuss the matter?” said Lady Wythe.
A dangerous light shone in her eye. “I shall have something to say to the Committee myself, for it seems to me there has been a great deal of impropriety in these proceedings, which would never have been permitted in Sir Stephen’s day. ”
· · ·
EVEN if Cullip had wished to comply with Lady Wythe’s suggestion, he would have struggled to assemble an adequate quorum for a Committee meeting.
Zacharias was received at Lyme Regis by a group of thaumaturges assembled upon the Cobb, comprising Lord Burrow, most of the members of the Presiding Committee—and Geoffrey Midsomer.
“Mr. Wythe,” said Midsomer portentously. “The Presiding Committee has been summoned here to witness, in person, your many breaches of your duties as Sorcerer Royal.”
“This is most irregular,” said Damerell. “Could not this have waited for a proper trial at the Society?”
Lord Burrow glanced at Midsomer. The Chairman of the Presiding Committee was generally esteemed for his integrity, though he had never much liked Zacharias.
“It is unusual,” he said, “but not unprovided for by the Charter. We were informed that we would receive evidence of Mr. Wythe’s alleged misdeeds here.”
“It is just as well,” said Zacharias before Damerell could respond. “For I have an allegation of my own to put to the Committee.”
It was clear he could no longer wait for the evidence he had hoped for, which Sir Stephen was still struggling to unearth. Zacharias must put his case, and hope the public and unusual setting would compel an admission from Midsomer.
“I should have preferred to discuss this with you privately, before putting in action the formal machinery of the Society,” he said to Midsomer.
“But you have left me with no alternative. Do you deny that two months ago you performed an unlawful summoning, thereby depleting London’s atmospheric magic, and acquiring a familiar—a mermaid who until recently you have passed off as your wife? ”
Midsomer’s eyes widened. Lord Burrow looked from Zacharias to his nephew, frowning. Whatever Midsomer had told his supporters, it seemed his uncle had not heard of this.
“Is this true, sir?” said Lord Burrow to Midsomer.
“Oh, why fixate upon such a trifle?” said Damerell maliciously. “Who among us has not dreamt of summoning himself a familiar? Midsomer is to be congratulated upon having become, in one stroke, a husband and a sorcerer. Let us not condemn him for his inattention to such a minor detail as the law.”
Midsomer seemed to lose his head at being so transformed from accuser to accused. He said, wild-eyed:
“Will you take the word of a bastard and a negro over that of your own nephew, sir?”
“Why, if they tell the truth, yes,” said Lord Burrow, but his voice was drowned out by a growling roar from above.
“Dash it, you contemptible mountebank! You are not to speak so to Poggs. You are not to call him such names!”
A vast shadow had fallen upon the roiling seas. In the sky a golden dragon came arrowing towards them, his wings spread wide and smoke rising from his jaws.
A groan of recognition rose from the Committee. Lord Burrow, looking quite human in his trepidation, turned to Damerell and said:
“Pray tell me that is not Robert of Threlfall.”
“Am I not to be permitted the assistance of my own familiar?” said Damerell haughtily. “I am a sorcerer, if I am a bastard. If the Society wishes me to forget it, it ought not to insist on sending me so many circulars.”
To Rollo, wheeling in the sky, he called: “Do not lose your temper, Rollo. It is foolish to expect a Midsomer to conduct himself like a gentleman. Never mind him, but see if you can find this mermaid Prunella has told us about. She is hid within the waters.”
“There you are!” cried Midsomer, with such triumph that Zacharias and Damerell stared.
“There is the evidence I promised you, sirs. Mr. Wythe has sought to deprive Britain’s thaumaturges of their birthright of magic, and to pass that power to the undeserving.
To this end, in secret, he has been educating a female in the unnatural science of thaumaturgy.
And here she comes—the witch he has been training! ”
Prunella dismounted from her cloud, seeming not to notice the startled gaze of the Committee.
“Have you still not found her?” she said disapprovingly. “Really, I have no notion how you managed before we met. It seems as though nothing can be done without me.”
Rollo’s massive scaly head appeared above the waters. He was paddling in the sea, looking for all the world like a gigantic dog.
“The mermaid is here somewhere, for I can sense her,” he panted. “But I believe she has made herself invisible. Oh, have you arrived, Miss Gentleman?”
“How do you do, Rollo?” said Prunella.
Prunella and Rollo had become fast friends in the course of Damerell’s shepherding of Prunella through ton society, but as far as Zacharias knew, Rollo had never appeared before her in his true shape.
He preferred the human form, it being better suited for such pursuits as inspecting the horseflesh at Tattersall’s and playing whist at White’s.
Yet Prunella did not seem disconcerted by encountering a dragon in the place of the dandy she had known.
“If you would have the kindness to continue searching beneath the waters,” she said, “I shall see what I can do to assist.”
She spread her hands, and lightnings flashed between them. The waves rose like children in a schoolroom, shoving and grumbling as they came to their feet. Prunella’s dark hair streamed out behind her on the salt wind blowing off the sea, and she spoke in a clarion voice.
“Bring her to me,” said Prunella. “The siren-singer; the murderous mermaid, fish-tailed and silver-eyed; she of the scale-feet and webbed fingers; she of the many names—Lorelei—Laura Lee—she who is called Mrs. Midsomer!”
“Ha!” said Rollo’s voice from the watery deeps. He rose from the sea, liberally sprinkling the magicians arrayed upon the Cobb.
He held something within his jaws. Rearing up, he dropped it gently on the ground, where it lay gasping like a beached fish.
It was Mrs. Midsomer.