“I shall go in what I am standing in,” said Mak Genggang. “A witch is always appropriate whatever her attire. It is quite another matter for a young girl, however. We will ask the sky what is suitable for the occasion.”
“Cannot the sky tell you where the Society is?”
“I know where it is, but that is hardly to the point. It would be shockingly brazen of me to go alone to a party full of foreign gentlemen,” said Mak Genggang. “But if you are with me, there cannot be any impropriety, for we shall look after each other. Are you coming? We ought not to delay any longer, or they will all go home, and my interrogation of the sky will be all to do over again.”
“Yes,” said Prunella. She stood, and slipped the silver orb under the collar of her dress. It nestled against her breastbone, a cold weight, heavy with secrets. “I shall certainly come.”
•••
PRUNELLA’Sfirst impression of the Spring Ball was of light. Veritable forests of candles were arrayed around the Society’s rooms, their glow reflected within innumerable shining mirrors, till it seemed as though the rooms were ablaze.
The effect had been achieved by mortal art alone. The Society, being composed in large part of gentlemen fond of their food, had chosen to focus its magical enhancements upon the refreshments. But to Prunella, the change from the dark night without was almost magical in itself. She felt as though she had entered another world.
When her eyes had grown accustomed to the light she looked around, ready to take pleasure in everything. But her heart sank as she registered her surroundings.
It had been her intention to avoid Zacharias if she could, since she presumed he was at the Ball, but in fact when she saw him she was so consumed by disaster that she hurried towards him, grateful to see a familiar face.
“Mr. Wythe, what is to be done?” she exclaimed. “Mak Genggang assured me that the sky knew these things, but it is clear to me the sky knows nothing of high society, and I wish I had never come! It was very unwise—indeed, it is nothing less than a disaster!”
“I cannot but agree,” said Zacharias. “But if you think so, why did you come?”
Prunella was too troubled to attend. “Only look at my dress!” she said. “To think of wearing hoop skirts and silk taffeta when every other young female is in white muslin! I do not know if the sky meant to be disobliging, or if it is merely ignorant. Surely it must have seen that this is not at all the thing. I look a very guy!”
“That was not quite what I meant,” said Zacharias.
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.
Fortunately they did not long have the luxury of feeling awkward. Mak Genggang’s path had been blocked by a footman who sought to prevent her from accosting the sultan, and she began haranguing him for his impertinence, in tones that drew the fascinated attention of everyone in the room.
“Wythe,” gasped John Edgeworth, emerging from the crowd, “what in Heaven’s name is that harridan doing here? Was not it enough to magic her up in your shewstone to affront the sultan?Whatis she saying to Morton?”
Mak Genggang was dressing down the footman with animation and fluency. Her translation spell was still in effect, and her words were comprehensible enough.
“She is telling Mr. Morton that everyone knows the hooting of an owl always presages a death,” said Prunella helpfully. “I wonder what she means by prosing about owls at a ball! Oh, I see what she is at. She says she has not heard any owls hooting tonight, but if Mr. Morton persists in his impertinence, she may well do so. How cleverly she has put it!”
Mak Genggang raised her arm. A bony, stick-like limb it was, but there must have been some potent power in her eye and voice, for the footman took a step back. Seizing her advantage, Mak Genggang sailed past him, and pitched straight into the terrified sultan.
“I see Your Highness’s royal wife is not present,” she said. “I hope she is resting. I was shocked to hear that she should have been dragged across the seas in her condition! But there, it is all of a piece with your want of foresight and consideration! I am sure the poor girl rues the day she was ever compelled to leave Achin and take you as her husband.”
Sultan Ahmad made a defiant reply. Unfortunately it was lost on the onlooking audience, since he lacked the benefit of a translation spell, and must needs make his defence in his own language. Nor was he even allowed to complete it. Mak Genggang cut him off, crying:
“I didn’t know, he says! I should have thought even a blockhead would guess the likely consequence of bringing his wife along on such a journey. You ought to have checked yourself. But you could never govern your lower passions, even as a boy. What a life you led your poor nurse! They hoped you would improve with age, but your being taken by the Achinese put paid to all of that. We celebrated when the foreigners sent you back to us, but we should have mourned instead, that they took our prince and returned him a tyrant! Oh, your father was a verysyaitanin his youth, but he would never have done what you do now. God was merciful in decreeing his death before he could witness his own son, puppet of the Achinese kingdom, grovel before the British like a cur!”
The blood drained from the sultan’s face. He stood staring, his eyes burning in a rigid countenance. Then he unsheathed his dagger and held it up before him. The crowd gasped and fell away. The dark blade of the creese gleamed like rippling water touched by moonlight.
“Woman, you will rue your insubordination!” snarled Mr. Othman.
“Shall I, indeed?” said Mak Genggang.
She flicked her hand as though she were waving a fly away. The creese was knocked out of the sultan’s grasp and went shooting across the room. The swifter of thought and keener of instinct ducked orleapt out of the way, but not everyone was so alert to the danger. The dagger impaled a yellow satin turban crowning the bemused countenance of Mrs. Geoffrey Midsomer.
