The ladies around her shrieked as one woman.
“What in the name of Poseidon—!” said Mrs. Midsomer.
“Oh, Laura! Tell me you are not killed!” cried a friend.
Another friend swooned, and this example was followed by several of the other women in quick succession. Mrs. Midsomer stared at them as if wondering what they were about, but then the danger she had been in seemed to dawn suddenly upon her. The change was so comically abrupt it almost seemed as though she had realised all at once how improper it was for her to take an assault upon her person so calmly.
Her eyes rolled back. She collapsed, and was caught by her husband.
“Good God!” cried Geoffrey Midsomer. “Stay away, sir!” Zacharias had rushed over to help. “If you come any closer, I shall not be responsible for the consequence.”
“Is Mrs. Midsomer injured?” said Zacharias.
“What a vast fuss for nothing at all!” exclaimed Mak Genggang. She looked more embarrassed than her words suggested, but she continued with obstinate ferocity: “It has only hurt her turban. Surely that ugly woman’s head does not go all the way up?”
To Zacharias’s relief the weight of Mrs. Midsomer’s drooping head, combined with that of the creese, induced the turban to drop to the ground, revealing her ringleted scalp to be unharmed.
“Thank God,” said Zacharias. “Midsomer, I cannot say how deeply I regret this accident.”
“Regret?”said Midsomer. He rose to his feet, raising his unconscious wife with no very gentle hold as he did so. “Oh, you have not begun to regret this evening’s work, sir. But you will regret it, indeed. I shall see to that!”
“How dare you!” shrieked Prunella across the room. “Unhand her this moment, you brutes!”
Zacharias looked up to see his colleagues descending upon Mak Genggang. A few were already unsheathing their wands, but this worried Zacharias less than the way Mak Genggang raised her hands. He strode over, his staff held negligently—but pointedly—at his side.
“What is the meaning of this?” he said.
Zacharias was still the Sorcerer Royal, even if his peers questioned his right to the title. They hesitated, even the more belligerent lowering their wands, but one of the boldest said:
“You saw what she did to that blade. It was magic! A woman, polluting the halls of the Society with rank witchery! She must suffer the traditional penalty.”
This received a warm reception among his fellows, but Zacharias said dampeningly:
“Let us have no doubt about what you propose. Do you mean to say you wish to burn her at the stake? An elderly woman, a stranger to us, who has committed no worse crime than that of making a scene?”
The thaumaturge who had spoken first hesitated.
“Yes?” he said, but another said at the same time:
“Do you call attacking Mrs. Midsomer nothing?”
Zacharias saw that this line of talk must be headed off, or the men would work themselves up into a righteous fury, and he would be hard put to it to control them.
“She must certainly be tried,” he said. “But let it be conducted in an orderly fashion, by the Presiding Committee. This is hardly the time or place.”
He swept a pointed look over the ruins of the Spring Ball. The Society’s unmagical guests might have enjoyed the drama of Mak Genggang’s confrontation with the sultan, but they had cleared out at the first sign of a magical quarrel.
“I am surprised that the Sorcerer Royal should show such indulgence to a foreigner, and ignore her insult to an Englishwoman,” saidone of the wand-wielding magicians. “But perhaps I should not be. If we had a Sorcerer Royal that thought of his country first, this evening might have had a very different conclusion.”
“If you think it in Britain’s interests to antagonise Mak Genggang’s nation, I beg you will take it up with the Government,” said Zacharias, unmoved. “I have been told the Government is anxious to preserve its relations with her people, and I am bound to act accordingly. Though she may seem a mere common old woman, in her country Mak Genggang is an arch-witch of repute, and rough treatment of her is likely to cause ill feeling.”
“Was not the witch’s quarrel with her own sovereign?” said a thaumaturge. “I do not know how these foreigners manage their affairs, but in England she would be hung for high treason.”
“The sultan has little love for her, but he is not likely to be pleased if we execute his subject out of hand,” said Zacharias. “He might well think his opinion ought to be consulted on the point. I cannot condone anything that risks offending him.”
Zacharias secretly suspected Sultan Ahmad would be just as pleased to hear Mak Genggang had been dealt with by the Society after he had decamped from the Ball. Any pique would soon be outweighed by the incalculable benefit of never again having to deal with Mak Genggang himself.
But the Society had not the privilege of Sultan Ahmad’s acquaintance, and no grounds upon which to gainsay Zacharias’s account of the sultan’s feelings. He had introduced just enough doubt to render his colleagues uncertain about their course. While they hesitated, he grasped Mak Genggang’s arm, declaring that she should be detained in the Society rooms for the night:
