“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 the nostrils, imparting a lively pleasure in being alive and outdoors.
“You seem troubled, sir, if you don’t mind me saying so,” said the caterpillar.
Zacharias experienced a brief internal struggle, but decided upon candour.
“I am simply at a loss to account for the preternatural intelligence of you and your brethren,” he said.
“I thank you for the compliment, but I am not certain my brethren are so very intelligent,” said the caterpillar cheerfully. “They seem tolerably addlepated to me!”
“Oh pipe down, Gilbert,” said one of its fellows, without rancour.
“The formula I devised was intended to encourage the development of this garden and its inhabitants,” said Zacharias, thinking aloud. “It was designed to seize upon the urge for life at work within each living being, making use of that natural force, so that magic would have little to do but expedite what would in any event occur in nature. Is the urge for life, at its base, a desire for understanding? Will my cabbages begin to compose minuets if I leave the formula to work itself through them? Indeed, what strange transformations might not I undergo if I pass too much time within the garden? I too am a living being, and presumably subject to the influence of the formula.”
“Your period of rusticating would appear to have made you an eccentric, Zacharias,” said a voice over the hedge. “Does conversing with your vegetables aid their development?”
Prunella stood in the lane outside the garden, her hand on her unicorn’s flanks. It looked as though she had ridden there on Youko, for she was dressed in a smart nankeen riding habit, and a flush glowed in her cheeks. The simurgh Tjandra was perched upon her shoulder, giving her something of the appearance of a fetching young piratess.
“I was addressing the caterpillars, not the cabbages,” said Zacharias, after a pause.
His heart was beating absurdly fast. It was the lack of prior notice, of course. He was no longer accustomed to society.
Prunella nodded. “I suppose you do not often have the opportunity for rational conversation. You must be very dull, living so out of the way. I have not seen a soul since I left the village.”
“There’s us,” said the caterpillar Gilbert.
Prunella blinked.
“I contrive to occupy myself,” said Zacharias. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
•••
PRUNELLAwandered around the cottage, examining the books on the shelves and commenting unasked on the notes scattered on every available surface: “That formula will never work; there is a glaring error in the first verse, and besides, the spirits of the earth will only attend if you speak Anglo-Saxon.”
“There is pen and ink on the desk, if you are moved to correct any errors you observe,” said Zacharias. “I hope you have not been brought here by any untoward circumstance? From Damerell’s letters I had believed that only a minority within the Society continued unpersuaded of your claim to the staff, but I fear he may have sought to spare me anxiety.”
“Oh, I do not give a fig for the Society. It may engage in all the hysterics it desires—they do not make me any less the Sorceress Royal,” said Prunella. “But I must say, Zacharias, it was shocking of you to have foisted the staff on me and gone haring off to the countryside. Why, I had not even completed my studies when you absconded.”
“I did send you the necessary texts,” said Zacharias, looking at her with concern. “I knew it would be a trying time for you, but I believed it the lesser of two evils for me to leave at once. Though I was never a very popular Sorcerer Royal, I feared there might be a movement to reinstate me if the alternative was you. If I removed myself from the scene, however, I believed the Society would soon be brought to recognise your eminent suitability for the position—if only because there was no other eligible candidate, since Midsomer had agreed not to make any attempts to oust you.”
“Oh, Geoffrey Midsomer is quite exploded,” said Prunella. “He has gone back to Fairyland, and we do not expect his return in this mortallifetime. He is not the only wicked thaumaturge in the world, however. I have had three attempts on my life in as many months. Tjandra and Youko insist on sleeping at the foot of my bed, and I am continually tripping over wards—Damerell sits spinning them in a corner of my study. Just you think on that, Zacharias. You have exposed me to the impertinence of every ha’penny magician who thinks he would make a better Sorcerer Royal than a half-caste upstart.”
“You still continue alive, however,” said Zacharias heartlessly.
“They make as unhandy assassins as they are incompetent magicians,” allowed Prunella. “Still, it is a tiresome way to live. It was very unkind of you to have put me in the way of it.”
“I believed you the best candidate,” said Zacharias.
“And it was the only means by which you could prevent my being hauled up before the Presiding Committee and executed as a felon,” said Prunella. “Iknow.”
Zacharias was taking the teacups out of a cupboard, and he would have smashed his best china if Youko had not nipped out and caught two teacups neatly upon the points of her horns.
“Oh, did not you think I would discover your reasons?” said Prunella. “I was bound to find out, you know. Indeed, I ought to have known it sooner. You were always going on about what a shocking thing the Society would think it, that I had so many familiars. Once I learnt that the Sorcerer Royal could not be prosecuted for any crime, save as the Charter provides, it was all perfectly obvious.”
“That was not my only motive,” said Zacharias. He drew out a small table, set out the crockery, and poured the tea, allowing the ritual to calm him before he spoke again.
“I had for some time been wrestling with a dilemma,” he said. “The duties of my office seemed to require that I render up your treasures to the Society, despite the trust you reposed in me. I told myself that since the eggs belonged to you, and I had promised to keep the secret of their history, I could not betray your confidence. I felt nosecurity in that position, however. If I had continued for much longer in the office, I suspect I should have found it untenable. It was necessary for me either to forswear the staff or surrender the eggs: I could not both remain Sorcerer Royal and keep faith with you.”
