•••
ZACHARIASthought he ought to break the news of Mak Genggang’s arrival as soon as he could. It was an awkward thing to do at a party, but then the Spring Ball had always been an occasion for intrigue.
How Mak Genggang’s presence might affect the Government’s plans regarding Janda Baik, he would not attempt to predict. If Zacharias were a Foreign Office bureaucrat, he thought he might throw in his lot with Mak Genggang, rather than the fretful sultan. His encounters with each had been brief, but they had been sufficient to decide his views on who was likely to triumph in any struggle for power.
Fortunately, his views were of no importance whatsoever. If those whose decision it was to make would only take Mak Genggang off his hands, Zacharias would be content.
Luck was not with him that day, however. Edgeworth was at the opposite end of the room, but what with the crowd, he might have been a league away. Zacharias had not contrived to cover half the distance when he found his path blocked by a stranger, who was talking animatedly to someone behind her.
Zacharias murmured a courtesy, intending to edge around the woman, but something about her voice caught his attention.
“I must see him! Knowing the face of one’s enemy lends such nourishment to one’s hatred as cannot be equalled. I am surprised you wish to forbid it!”
Her companion replied in a protesting tone, “I should not dream of forbidding it, Laura. I merely beg that you have patience. There will be time enough to see— Wythe, by Jove! Are you here indeed?”
Zacharias had already recognised the companion’s voice, and was attempting to wriggle away before he could be observed, but he wasdefeated by the crush. He turned to face the one person he most wished to avoid.
“Good evening, Midsomer,” he said.
“I had not expected the pleasure of seeing you at the Ball,” said Geoffrey Midsomer. “Were not you lately in Hampshire?”
Midsomer wore an awkward smile, as if he were as discomfited by the encounter as Zacharias. They had been acquainted since they were boys, but they had never had much to do with each other. Zacharias could not feel friendly towards the son of a man who had campaigned against him since he was a child, and that the young Midsomer now wished to supplant him was unlikely to be any further recommendation to Zacharias. He bowed, and his reply, though civil, was brief.
“I returned to town today.”
“I should not detain you, but my wife has entreated to be introduced,” said Midsomer. The woman who had been standing in Zacharias’s way went to Midsomer’s side and slipped her hand through his arm, looking up into Zacharias’s face with unusual directness. “Laura, my dear, this is Mr. Zacharias Wythe, who is the Sorcerer Royal.”
“How do you do?” said Zacharias.
Mrs. Geoffrey Midsomer was fashionably dressed, with her curls piled high in a yellow satin turban, but neither her face nor her figure possessed any particular beauty or distinction, save her eyes. These were large and bulbous, and of a hue so pale they almost seemed silver. She stared openly at Zacharias.
“So this is the Sorcerer Royal!” she said. She had a high-pitched, musical voice, with the slight inflection of a foreign accent—a curiously familiar accent, though Zacharias could not identify it. It was this accent that had drawn his attention when Mrs. Midsomer was speaking to her husband earlier. “He is not at all what I expected, Geoffrey.”
Zacharias glanced at Midsomer, taken aback, but though Midsomerflushed, and appeared conscious of his wife’s discourtesy, he did not reply. It did not seem meet for Zacharias to respond, since he had not been addressed. After a moment’s hesitation he said to Midsomer:
“I hope you do not suffer any ill effects from your residence in Fairyland. It has been a considerable time since any thaumaturge has enjoyed such exposure to Fairy and been able to return. I believe the last was Loveday, was it not? I read his journals with interest, but his observations are now fifty years old, and fresh intelligence will be very welcome.”
“I am preparing a paper for the Society,” said Midsomer. He seemed ill at ease, and glanced around the room as if looking for some means to extract himself from the conversation he had begun.
Zacharias was really interested in what Midsomer might have to say regarding the Fairy Court, and he might have forgotten his own discomfort in pursuit of this subject if John Edgeworth had not emerged from the crowds and approached them.
Edgeworth was accompanied by Sultan Ahmad and his interpreter, though the sultana was absent. Zacharias would have to find some means of dispensing with Edgeworth’s foreign guests while they spoke. Edgeworth would hardly desire the sultan to know of Mak Genggang’s arrival before he had had the opportunity to digest the news himself.
“Edgeworth! I had hoped to see you here,” said Zacharias.
Perhaps he spoke with more heartiness than he felt, in recollection of the unfriendly note on which they had last parted. He was braced for Edgeworth still to be aggrieved, though disguising it with a statesman’s politic civility, but he was not prepared for Edgeworth’s response.
“Yes, how do you do?” he said, barely glancing at Zacharias. “You have been ruralising, I hear. I hope it has done you good. Nothing like a retreat to the country to set a man up.”
Without waiting for Zacharias’s reply, he turned to Midsomer. “Geoffrey, I had nearly despaired of finding you in this crowd. I had nonotion Parliament kept so many braying donkeys fed—Ministers and magicians both. Pray, will you take me to see the Society’s collection of magical artefacts? I believe Uncle Augustine’s thighbone is among them. It is an ancient family legend how he was discovered to have been a changeling only after his demise, and I should like to see him.”
“I should be happy,” said Midsomer, looking relieved at the chance to remove himself.
“Perhaps Mr. Wythe would be so good as to entertain Sultan Ahmad in the meantime, so that we may avoid boring His Highness,” said Edgeworth. “I am conscious that these familial relics must have little interest for any but an Edgeworth.”
With a nod at Zacharias and the sultan, he strode off with Midsomer and his wife. As they vanished into the crowd Edgeworth could be heard saying:
“Now, Geoffrey, regarding that spell you promised . . .”
