Sorcerer to the Crown (Sorcerer Royal, #1)

by Zen Cho

The red-whiskered gentleman shouted an indistinct riposte, but he was not allowed to finish, for three other thaumaturges spoke over him, disagreeing vociferously. Six more magicians took up Mr. Midsomer’s defence, alternating insults to their peers with condemnation of Sir Stephen and mockery of his protégé. A poor sort of performing animal it was, they said, that would not perform! “What an edifying sight for a child—a room full of men several times his size, calling him names,” said one gentleman, who had the sorcerer’s silver star pinned to his coat. He did not trouble to raise his voice, but his cool accents seemed to cut through the tumult. “It is all of a piece with the most ancient traditions of our honourable Society, I am sure, and evidence of how well we deserve our position in the world.” Mr. Midsomer flushed with anger. “Mr. Damerell may say what he likes, but I see no reason why we should restrain our criticism of this absurd spectacle, child or no child,” he snapped. “I am sure you do not, Midsomer,” said Damerell gently. “I have always admired your refusal, in the pursuit of your convictions, ever to be constrained by considerations of humanity—much less of ordinary good manners.” The room erupted into more argument than ever. The clamour mounted till it seemed it must wake the carvings on the box, and even the slumbering bosses on the ceiling, without Zacharias’s needing to lift a finger. Zacharias looked around, but everyone had ceased to pay attention to...

“Oh, Zacharias,” said Lady Wythe, distressed. “Is there any need to explain yourself to me? Sir Stephen told me of his complaint even before he confided in his physician. We knew his heart would be the death of him. I only wish we had prepared you for it. Sir Stephen knew he ought to tell you, but he could never bring himself to the point: he could not bear to think he must leave you so soon. He would be so proud if he could see how well you have done—and so sorry to have caused you such trouble.” Zacharias shook his head, twisting his hands together—a nervous habit Sir Stephen had sought to rid him of, but to which he reverted in times of intense emotion. He opened his mouth to speak, scarcely knowing what he was about to confess, but the ghost spoke first. “If you tell Maria about me, I shall never forgive you,” said Sir Stephen.

No other man would have ventured to speak so openly of the dark rumours that circled Zacharias, but Damerell’s was a nature that thrived on picking up rocks and making amusing comments on the manners of the creatures scurrying underneath.

“Then you must tell your aunt you will not do it.” “One might have thought you had never met my aunt Georgiana,” said Rollo, with the steeliness of despair. “She is the one with the false curls and glowing eyes and smoke rising from her jaws. Do not you recollect her?” “She did strike me as possessing unusual force of character,” admitted Damerell. “Whereas I haven’t any character to speak of,” said Rollo. “If I were to say anything to Aunt Georgiana that she did not like, she would devour me in two bites. I doubt she would even wait to reach for the fish knife.” “Well then, Rollo,” said Damerell, “it seems you are in for it.”

“Yes, of course,” he said. “Pray take a seat, Your Highness. I beg you will not be concerned by the skull at the window—it is only a harmless relic. In life it belonged to Felix Longmire, who was exceedingly mild-tempered as Sorcerers Royal go.” This did not seem to assuage his visitors’ nervousness.

He turned, swallowing his indignation, and began, “I should counsel against rushing into any sort of violent action—” when Felix Longmire toppled off the windowsill. A faint persistent magic lingered in everything to do with a sorcerer, and the skull fortuitously avoided collision with anything that might cause it injury. It dropped onto a cushion that had fallen off an armchair, where it was forgotten by the living—for their attention was engrossed by the crystal ball vibrating upon the sill.

At seventeen Henrietta was as good as out, and really too old for the school, but she had been sent back for another term by her mamma, who fretted about her continuing tendency to levitate in her sleep.

Of course, if she were patient and tractable, there was a chance she might inherit Mrs. Daubeney’s worldly possessions, but: I am the most impatient, intractable creature I know! thought Prunella.

“Oh, if you pretend to credit that, there is nothing to say!” said Clarissa contemptuously. “But everyone knows what truly happened, and if you were not so in love with him you would too. Everyone knows your precious Mr. Wythe is a murderer!” The roses in Henrietta’s cheeks deepened to a flush. “Henny!” cried Prunella in a tone of warning, but she had left it too late to avert disaster. Henrietta could never govern her abilities at times of strong emotion. She did not mean to cast spells when she was happy or sad or angry, she said, but the spells seemed to cast themselves. The air in the classroom grew thick with magic. A strange light shone upon the girls, so that Henrietta’s curls appeared to writhe like serpents, and glowing sparks clung to Clarissa’s dress. Henrietta stamped her foot, her grey eyes drowned in green light. “I will teach you a lesson for that!” she cried. “How dare you call him my precious Mr. Wythe! How dare you say I am in l-love!”

“Mr. Wythe, I do not know what to say,” stammered Mrs. Daubeney. “What you must think of us!” Zacharias stared. Prunella was light enough for exertion to lend her cheeks a brilliant colour, but that she was not of wholly European extraction was clear from the warm hue of her skin and the profusion of dark curls tumbling over the back of her drab brown dress. Her small, three-cornered face was screwed up in a look of intense concentration that did not injure its beauty. But it was not this alone that fixed Zacharias’s attention. Prunella was stopping Henrietta’s mouth not only with her hand, but with a spell—a spell hastily cobbled together, but of such ingenious construction that he would not have expected to see it from anyone but a trained thaumaturge. That she was contriving to maintain the spell while blocking Miss Midsomer’s hexes—which were also more advanced than Zacharias would have expected from a schoolgirl—was nothing short of extraordinary. Prunella cried in vexation: “Oh, don’t flap! Is that the Sorcerer Royal you have got there? He might be so good as to put a stop to Miss Midsomer’s antics, and grant me some respite!” “To be sure!” said Zacharias, starting. “I beg your pardon.”

It was simple enough for him to draw a barrier around Miss Midsomer to contain her endeavours, but in fact it was not needed, for both girls suddenly lost their appetite for battle at the words “Sorcerer Royal.” Miss Midsomer stopped mid-screech and stood staring at Zacharias with a purple face, as though she had swallowed one of her own curses. Henrietta tore Prunella’s hand from her mouth, shrieked, “Oh, it is not!” and swooned to the floor. “Good gracious!” said Prunella. She added, in a tone of reproach: “If you were going to strike anyone down it should have been Miss Midsomer, for she was most provoking, and she knows perfectly well Miss Stapleton cannot help doing magic when she feels strongly on any subject.” “Prunella!” said Mrs. Daubeney chidingly, but Zacharias was bending over Henrietta. “This is Miss Stapleton?” he said. “Miss Henrietta Stapleton? But I know her father.” “I do not see how that helps matters. I expect he will be very cross to hear you have hexed his daughter,” said Prunella severely. She knelt and raised her fallen friend’s head with all the gentleness her manner towards Zacharias had lacked: “Poor Henny! To think that you were defending the Sorcerer Royal, only to be so served out by the wicked creature!” “I did not—” Zacharias began, but he had no opportunity to complete his defence, for Henrietta sat up and said: “Prunella, if you do not stop upbraiding Mr. Wythe, I declare I really will faint, and I expect I will do myself an injury, and th...

As she paced her room she caught a glimpse of herself in the small, cracked green looking glass on the wall. Her dress bore grey patches of dust, which must have been acquired in the attics. Clothed in this, she had appeared before the Sorcerer Royal! Not that she gave a fig what the Sorcerer Royal thought. Only it was provoking to have looked so bedraggled before such a very handsome young gentleman. (Prunella saw now what had lent Henrietta such fire in arguing her cause against Clarissa’s. A single dinner party would quite suffice to make any susceptible young lady fall desperately in love with a gentleman as beautiful and melancholy as Mr. Wythe.)

“Why, as to that, the low magics may produce spells as intricate and exacting as anything by the name of thaumaturgy,” said Zacharias. “One witch, a Mrs. Hudson, showed me a spell which ensured her cooking never burnt, the principle of which was as philosophical as any thaumaturge could wish. The spell bound together time and the ideal, compelling both to meet at the desired point. An ingenious receipt, one she learnt at her grandmother’s knee. I took a copy of it.” He rose to look for the receipt among his journals, but it was not among the books he had spread out upon the table and floor. Zacharias reached for his luggage, which sat in a dark corner of the coffee-room, but as he did so he stumbled over an obstacle he had not perceived before. “Pray do not step on my case,” said a small, clear voice. Zacharias realised three things: Sir Stephen had vanished. At his feet was a worn old valise, which was not his. On the floor sat a young woman. She rose, moving stiffly, as if she had been sitting for a considerable time. The room, lit by the dwindling fire in the grate, was full of soft dark shadows, and the lamp on Zacharias’s desk threw only a small circle of light. But his visitor had not relied upon the dimness of the room to conceal her presence. She still wore the rags of an invisibility enchantment, that Zacharias had torn by treading upon it. It was a cleverly worked spell, surprisingly original in design, but it would not have so practised upon Zacharias’s senses i...

But it was soon evident to her that the Sorcerer Royal was, as she had hoped, precisely the sort of forbearing gentleman upon whom it might just be possible for an unscrupulous young woman to impose.

She descended into noisy weeping, but not being much of a hand at acting, Prunella was forced to have recourse to a large white handkerchief, appropriated from Mrs. Daubeney’s boudoir, to conceal the absence of tears. Fortunately Mr. Wythe was so befuddled that he did not seem to observe the pretence. “My dear young lady!” This manner of address would have seemed impertinent in any other gentleman of Mr. Wythe’s youth and handsomeness. But his manner possessed such a splendid unconsciousness of these attributes—he spoke so much like a man who believed himself over the hill, and beyond all flirtations—that Prunella was overtaken by an irresistible fit of the giggles. She hastily contrived to bury them in counterfeit sobs.

Prunella had no more interest in magical lore than a fish has in the philosophical properties of water. Magic as a substance, a living force, was the air she breathed and the ground beneath her feet: she would no sooner give it up than she would willingly surrender her sight or speech.

If Zacharias’s air of melancholy increased his appeal to susceptible young ladies, a relaxation in that melancholy scarcely injured it. His smile, and the warmth and gentleness of his manner, were all the more attractive for forming a contrast to his usual reserve. Prunella dropped her eyes, feeling foolish, but she shook his hand and murmured that she was very much obliged—would do her best.

The cut of Prunella’s gown was absurdly old-fashioned, it was true, but the hue was remarkably becoming, and the dress could not but benefit from being worn by the possessor of such lively dark eyes, and such a small, piquant face. The sky had not gone so far as to suggest that she powder her hair, and her dark curls tumbled over the back of her dress, only just restrained by a pretty bandeau. Altogether the effect was charming—Prunella looked like a china shepherdess, modelled in bronze. To Zacharias’s own astonishment, he heard himself say, “Indeed, I think you look very well.” He was no great hand at gallantry, and he felt like a coxcomb the moment his speech was out. Prunella was nearly as embarrassed. How she would have liked to respond with the elegant coquetry of her imaginings! Instead she flushed, cast her eyes down, and said abruptly: “Oh, you are being civil!” Anything less flirtatious could scarcely be imagined. But it was easier to devise witty replies in one’s fancy when the gentleman whom one addressed was a fiction: nameless, faceless, and not nearly so attractive as a certain Sorcerer Royal.

“If you insist, it is better that I teach you than that you should blunder along and be devoured for your pains. The employment of familiars is all very well for infidels, I suppose, and you are a godless creature enough, Prunella.” Prunella acceded to this description of herself cheerfully: “I had no one to teach me better, you see.” “So you have found someone to teach you worse!” said Mak Genggang. “Well, you are a pretty, insinuating child, and you will come to a bad end, no doubt.” But she spoke with grudging approval. Mak Genggang might decry Prunella’s ways all she liked, but the same disregard of order and authority which Prunella possessed animated Mak Genggang’s own heart. Even if she thought the appearance of reproof due to her age and status, she rather relished a measure of lawlessness.

“You know what it is to be on the fringes of everything—to see that others have what you lack, for nothing more than an accident of birth,” she said. “I suppose my scheme sounds wild enough, and perhaps no one will marry me after all, for fear of what my colour might signify. But I must try, or spend the rest of my life a lady’s maid, working petty magics as it suits my betters—and that would not suit me at all!”

Zacharias could not like this. “Surely it can only cause her embarrassment once it is discovered there is not a shred of truth in the tale.” But Prunella thought Damerell’s scheme a capital one. “All that is needed is for a gentlemanlike creature of independent means to fall violently in love with me,” she declared. “Then he will not give a fig if I have a duke for a father, or no father at all. And I do not see why I should not persuade at least one gentleman to fall in love with me—indeed, I hope to persuade several!” She was a protégé after Damerell’s own heart. Prunella took to the ballrooms of London in the spirit of ruthless calculation of a general entering a battlefield. Within a week she had marked out the Lady Jerseys and Countess Esterházys of the world, who wielded the most influence among the ton, and she laid herself out to please them. She took no notice of the numerous gentlemen who promptly lost their hearts to her. “I shall not soon stop being pretty and saucy,” she explained, “so I need not worry about losing the interest of the gentlemen. But I must have the good opinion of the women, for their word is all the capital I have, and I am lost if they take it into their heads to disapprove of me.” Zacharias might tut, and Lady Wythe look anxious, but Prunella was in her element. She was a complete success, and had never enjoyed herself so thoroughly. As Damerell said complacently, she paid for dressing: the drab serge dresses and absurd pink satin of the pa...

“What do I see?” cried the sibyl in a voice that to the unfortunate Prunella sounded like a foghorn. “I see the Grand Sorceress, her palms embroidered like a bride’s in mortal blood! I see the Keeper of the Seven Spirits, mistress of the four points of the realm. I see the past and future of English magic, converging in one. I see the Undersecretary of Wonder and the Queen of the Five Boroughs of Magic (the last merely an honorary title, of course). Hail to thee, Lady, who brings such visions with her—hail and well met!” “Hail to thee, too, I am sure,” said Prunella. “But you are talking nonsense!” said Mrs. Midsomer crossly. “What has she to do with my beloved?” “She has nothing to do with your beloved,” retorted the sibyl. “No one cares for your beloved half as much as you do! This girl is a fine creature, for a mortal, and she will make their wicked Society so cross I am delighted to have seen her.”

“Did you say you saw Midsomer?” said Damerell. “Did you say you were practising?” said Zacharias.

He did not yet know what he ought to tell, and what he should withhold. Prunella had not known where Mak Genggang had gone, though she had promised to send a message. If only he could contrive to come to an understanding with Mak Genggang, perhaps— He had not completed the thought when the window shattered. With an energy Zacharias had not known he still possessed, he vaulted across the room, snatching his staff out of the umbrella stand. But what came through the window was no monster or assassin. It was Mak Genggang.

“Your amoral ingenuity in the pursuit of your interest is perfectly shocking,” said Zacharias severely. “Yes, isn’t it?” said Prunella, pleased.

“Our conversation was interrupted, Mrs. Midsomer,” she said. “This is yours, I think.” “You know perfectly well it is,” snarled Mrs. Midsomer. “What business had you to take it?” “Oh, I am always poking my nose into things that are not my business,” said Prunella. “But on this occasion, I had better grounds than usual for doing so. I exercised the rights of an apprentice—” She lifted her eyes to Zacharias, and smiled. “The rights of a friend. Are you the author of the attacks upon Mr. Wythe? That is all I wish to hear from you.” “This is beyond anything,” cried Midsomer. “Gentlemen, do you mean to stand by and permit my wife to be interrogated by this—this—” “Chit?” said Prunella helpfully. “Magicienne,” said Zacharias. The Presiding Committee stared at him. “Do you require any further evidence of her abilities?” said Zacharias. “As you have witnessed yourselves, Miss Gentleman has been trained in the strictest principles of thaumaturgical practise, and can justly be called no witch, but a magicienne. Though indeed I hope we can one day overcome this unreasoning dislike of witches—fine craftsmen and women, on the whole—no worse, taken as a body, than any illusion of thaumaturges.” “Really, Zacharias, this is not the time to be lecturing the gentlemen,” exclaimed Prunella. “Cannot you tell that we are on the brink of extracting a confession from Mrs. Midsomer that she has been conspiring to murder you?”

Mrs. Midsomer burst out of the waters behind him and rose into the skies, growing with inconceivable rapidity. Her bulk seemed to fill the world, blocking out the horizon and casting a shadow over the magicians huddled on the wall. The enchantment appeared to encompass everything upon her person, for as she grew, so did the fronds of seaweed draped over her, and the pretty amber pendant on her breast expanded till it was itself the height and breadth of a grown man. “Midsomer!” roared Lord Burrow. “Look to your wife!” “He can hardly miss her,” remarked Prunella. “Think of our fishing—our ships—they will be overturned if her antics are not stopped,” said Lord Burrow. “Exert your influence, man. Govern your wife!” “If you think, sir, that is within my power to restrain Laura,” said Midsomer wearily, “then all I can say is, you must not have been attending.”

Damerell was about to put the finishing touches upon a convoluted curse implicating even the neighbours and casual acquaintances of Mrs. Midsomer’s descendants unto the seventh generation when Zacharias interrupted him.

“Lorelei,” she trumpeted, “do I indeed find you in a tantrum? For shame! To be two thousand years old and still so naughty!” Mrs. Midsomer’s churning tail ceased its operations with comical abruptness. The whirlpool it was working up died down abruptly. The mists veiling her form were blown away by a gust of wind, and the sun shone out of the clouds, illumining her abashed countenance. “Cousin Georgiana!” she exclaimed. “I—I thought you never visited the mortal realm.” “That shows how much you know,” said Georgiana snappishly. “I come and go as I wish. You surely did not think I was subject to the Court’s restrictions upon travel?” “Oh no, no,” said Mrs. Midsomer. She had already begun to shrink. “Put a stop to this rain, for pity’s sake,” said Georgiana. “I have just had my scales polished, and the wet will ruin my shine. Pray, who has permitted this thunder-monster to run amuck?” “I have not run amuck,” said the thunder-monster peevishly. “I am only trying to murder this sea-woman, so that I may go to sleep again. I should be happy to wash my hands of the business if the sorceress would only release me.” “Well, never mind this sorceress, whoever she is, but go away,” said Georgiana. “You will not soon kill Lorelei. If it were as easy as all that, one of her relations would certainly have pipped you to the post. I beg you will not try to argue. I do not at all like the taste of an elemental.” The thunder-monster faded out of existence, muttering imprecations. An outraged ...

“Indeed,” said Zacharias. “That brings me to another announcement I wished to make today.” “Another announcement!” said Lord Burrow: he had begun to think of his dinner. “I think I can promise it will be my last,” said Zacharias. “I beg you will be quick about it,” said Lord Burrow. “If it is about those scholarships, we shall take the notion under consideration, so you need not belabour the point.” “I hope you will,” said Zacharias. “I believe it is a scheme that can only benefit the nation. I hope my successor will agree, but as I am resigning, it would be overstepping my place to say any more.” The room went still. Damerell looked up, alert as a hound that had caught the scent. “You are not allowed to resign, man,” cried Lord Burrow. “I think you will find that I am,” said Zacharias composedly. “But I am conscious of the importance of avoiding any gap in succession, and I have already considered who should take the staff after me. I believe the staff will concur, for Miss Gentleman is the best-equipped of any magician living to adapt to the peculiar demands of the position.” For a moment a fragile silence reigned over the Hall—a quiet composed of pure astonishment. It was broken by a deep, bubbling, delighted laugh, issuing from Damerell’s corner of the room. “I have never been so happy to have risen before noon,” said Damerell.

Since the decision to become a parent is invariably self-interested, it is my belief that a parent’s obligation is to the child, and the child’s obligation is to itself.

Once he had worked out a suitable formula, the garden did indeed begin to do better. Zacharias had hopes of roses soon, and he thought he might even venture to eat one of his cabbages. This was to run a real risk, for it was not clear what the full effect of the spell had been. In ingesting the cabbage, would he also be consuming the magic that had grown it? What would be the consequence of that? He would not feed the cabbages to anyone else, but for himself he thought he might make the trial. It was an advantage of living alone in the countryside that it enabled one to lead the uninterrupted life of the mind. Cut off from London, he could afford to ignore the bickering, the intrigues, the grandstanding and shufflings for position that had bedevilled his former life. Provided he did not, by leaving out any excessively magical equipment, alarm the villager who visited once a day to cook a hot meal and tidy the cottage, he was left in peace to pursue truth—even if that involved the occasional ingestion of a dubious cabbage leaf. The caterpillars were a problem, however. Fat, fuzzy and complacent, they sat upon his vegetables in veritable hordes, ignoring him until he addressed one directly. “Good morning, sir,” he said. The caterpillar paused the busy movement of its jaws to reply: “Pleasant weather, this, eh?” It was an ideal summer’s day. The skies stretched out in endless blue overhead, unmarred by a single wisp of cloud; the fresh scent of greenery and earth rose into th...