“Can I credit my eyes?” she said in a low voice. “Did I see Josiah Cullip cut you?”
Zacharias said, in a dishonourable fit of cowardice, “Perhaps he did not see me.”
“Zacharias, my dear, I do not believe I am misled by partiality when I say you are impossible to miss in this room,” said Lady Wythe. “To think of that linen draper’s son presuming to cut you, when you recommended him to Sir Stephen to be Secretary of the Committee! What can he be thinking?”
“I am not popular, you know,” said Zacharias. He had already suffered and swallowed his bitterness regarding Cullip’s defection. To show he minded it would only increase Lady Wythe’s distress. “I suppose he thinks to curry favour with the Society by disowning his connection with me.”
“But what complaint can the Society have with your conduct? I am sure you have done nothing but what redounds to the credit of your office. If anyone has a right to repine, it is your friends, for the Society has taken up all your time since you became Sorcerer Royal.”
“There is the decline in our magic,” said Zacharias. “It is not surprising that my colleagues have linked our difficulties to my investiture. It affords the possibility of a simple cure: remove me, and all will be well again.”
“It is never surprising for thaumaturges to latch on to a silly notion, but that does not excuse their stupidity,” said Lady Wythe. “This lack of magic plagued Sir Stephen for years, yet no one ever thought to fault him for it. It is those wicked fairies that will not let us have familiars, and that is nothing to do with you. Mr. Cullip ought to know that.”
“He cannot help feeling the prejudice against him,” said Zacharias. “A large part of the Committee dislikes the notion of any but a gentleman being counted among their number, and Cullip has a wife and children to support. Without his post he should have been compelled to give up thaumaturgy.”
“Now that is the trouble with you, Zacharias,” said Lady Wythe.“You will go out of your way to help the most undeserving creature, but never have any regard to yourself. I wish you would not run yourself ragged for these ne’er-do-wells. You are quite grey! If I did not know better, I would suspect you of having contracted some illness and concealing it from me.”
Discomfited, Zacharias rolled his shoulders, as though to shrug off Lady Wythe’s searching gaze.
“Come,” he said, with an attempt at lightness, “are not we at a party? We are hardly making a fit return to Lady Frances for her kindness. Should you like some punch? Or I believe there are ices—I am sure you would like an ice.”
Lady Wythe looked wistfully at Zacharias, but she knew that despite his mildness, he had all the traditional stubbornness of a sorcerer. She should like an ice of all things, she said.
Zacharias was as anxious that Lady Wythe should be easy as she was concerned that he should be well—and well liked. It was not within his power to reassure her on either point, and there was more she did not know, that he knew would only distress her further. In his preoccupation he did not hear John Edgeworth say his name, though he spoke it twice.
“I say, Wythe!”
“I beg your pardon, Edgeworth,” said Zacharias, starting. “I did not think to see you here.”
John Edgeworth was the scion of an old thaumaturgical family, but though he had inherited his ancestors’ intelligence and enterprise, he had, alas, none of their magical ability. He had made the best of an awkward situation, and was much esteemed in the Foreign Office, where he was valued for his understanding of Britain’s wayward thaumaturges and their relations with France’ssorcieres. These days Edgeworth was more likely to be found at the dinner parties of political hostesses than among the Fellows of the Society.
“I don’t propose to remain for any time, for I’ve another engagement and cannot be late,” said Edgeworth, glancing around as though he was anxious not to be overheard. “Great men, you know, will not be kept waiting! But I had thought there might be a chance of catching you here. Indeed, Lady Frances gave me her word I should. The fact is the Government is in a quandary, amagicalquandary, and I have been tasked with bespeaking your assistance. Will you come and see me tomorrow?”
Zacharias hesitated. They both knew this was not truly a request. In theory the Sorcerer Royal was independent of the Government, and even of the Society. His only allegiance was to the nation, and it could not be allowed that anybody but a sorcerer was capable of judging how magic might best be employed for the good of the nation—certainly not any mere politician or civil servant.
In practise, however, a Sorcerer Royal whose profession was facing such a scarcity of magical resource must endeavour to keep his Government in good humour. The Government knew the Society’s influence had waned of late, even if it did not know of the extent of its difficulties, and it would be on the alert for any sign of weakness or incompliance. Yet it sat ill with Zacharias to overturn his plans at such a peremptory order.
“I have a meeting of the Committee of Thaumaturgical Standards tomorrow, which cannot easily be postponed,” he said, but John Edgeworth cut him off:
“Then you must come on Wednesday. But stay, you are in the Sorcerer Royal’s quarters now, are not you—those vastly alchemical rooms? They would be just the thing. We will attend upon you on Wednesday. Whether we come in the morning or afternoon will be no great odds to you, I am sure.”
Before Zacharias could protest, or ask who was encompassed within Edgeworth’s “we,” his interlocutor had swept off, leaving Zacharias in a state of suppressed indignation, and with a rapidlymelting ice. The latter prevented his lingering too long upon the former, and he hurried back to where he had left Lady Wythe.
England’s scarcity of magic was a matter of common knowledge among the magical. Edgeworth could not have escaped knowing something of it. But magicians were a secretive lot, and no one but a practising thaumaturge could know how very ill matters stood. If the Society were to retain its position and privileges, its dearth of resource must be concealed—most of all from the Government, which had little fondness for England’s magicians.
Was the significance of Edgeworth’s air of mingled mystery and importance that thaumaturgy’s secret had been discovered? Zacharias would not know till Wednesday. It was a pity his research had been interrupted! If only he had been able to complete his spells to increase England’s magic, it might have been within his power to take the sting out of these anxieties. If he had time to travel to the border of Fairyland, he might yet be tempted to try them.
Lady Wythe was absorbed in conversation with their hostess when Zacharias approached. Lady Frances Burrow affected a penetrating theatrical whisper when imparting confidences, which had the effect of drawing far more attention than her accustomed tones. She was saying to Lady Wythe, very audibly:
“My dear, you could have knocked me down with a feather when Mrs. Quincey told me! I did not credit a word of it, of course, but I hope you will forgive me if I did not quarrel with her over it.”
Zacharias did not hear Lady Wythe’s response, but Lady Frances seemed disconcerted. She protested, in a whisper more piercing than ever:
“But you know, Maria, that Mr. Wythe should have been the last creature to see Sir Stephen alive is rather strange. And then to emerge from Sir Stephen’s study the master of the staff, and Leofric nowhere to be seen—you cannot deny it all looks very odd! You could not fault Mrs. Quincey for wondering.”
This time it was impossible to miss Lady Wythe’s reply.
“I find myself perfectly capable of faulting Mrs. Quincey for wondering whether Zacharias might have murdered my husband and his familiar,” she said. “If she believes Zacharias of all people would be capable of lifting his hand to anyone, much less he who was a father to him, she is even more foolish than she seems. And I am surprised that you should repeat her ill-natured fancies to me, Frances!”
