If the familiar could not be tamed, it must be killed. Zacharias remembered stories of familiars that, in hatching, had left towns and villages in ashes, devastated lands, and killed the magicians that sought to restrain them.
One could not predict what would emerge from a familiar’s egg. It might be anything. It might be angry.
The three eggs were vibrating, their surface covered with fine branching lines, and a tiny wet face emerged from a gap in the eggshell. The sight gave Zacharias the impetus to grasp Prunella’s arm, pulling her away from the eggs.
“Go,” he said urgently. “Wake the servants, and get out of the building. I will contain them.” He had no notion how he would do it, but at least he could try to limit the damage, even if he were destroyed in the attempt.
Prunella was not at all grateful for this display of nobility, however.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” she said crossly. “Why do notyougo, and take the servants with you?” She wrested herself from Zacharias’s grasp, and went to kneel by the eggs. “There is nothing to be alarmed about, only I wish you would go back to bed, and not trouble yourself about my business. I cannot deal with the treasures in your presence. It would be very improper!”
The familiar farthest advanced in its hatching crawled out from among the shards of its egg. It was a tiny, naked homunculus, hairless and sexless, with pallid skin and glowing eyes. Zacharias had never before seen an immature fairy in the flesh, but it corresponded exactly to the drawings he had studied. The strange, inhuman face screwed up; the mouth opened and let loose the protesting wail of an infant. Prunella caught the creature up in her hands.
“Pleaseleave the room,” she cried. “I do not at all wish to do what you will compel me to!”
Zacharias started forward to help. He was recalling to his memory everything he had ever learnt about fairies, and his attention was so fixed upon the elvet that Prunella’s hex took him unawares. It was a simple cantrip for confusion—naughty girls at the school had used it to deceive the mistresses on their nightly rounds of the dormitories—but it hit Zacharias full in the face.
He tripped over a chair and fell on the floor, noting as he went the clever design of the spell. It was devised to achieve not only a confusion of the limbs, but a bewilderment of the senses, and his were tangled quite successfully. His vision went dark. The elvet’s wail was suddenly quieted. He heard the tread of tiny feet upon the carpet, an “Oh!” from Prunella—and then he could see again.
Prunella rose, cradling the elvet, her face flushed, and her dress in disarray. Eggshells lay scattered upon the floor. The feverish light of magic, which had so distorted the appearance of the room, faded away.
The two other infant familiars stretched and yawned. One was a garuda, or Malay simurgh, with the black-curled head of a baby and the body of a chick, its feathers wet and plastered to its body. The other was a wobbly-legged colt with a broad leonine face and tiny antler buds—an Oriental unicorn, of the kind calledch’i-linby the Chinese andkirinby the Japanese.
The elvet was crooning in a soft, loving voice to Prunella, and the others reached for her. They seemed content, well fed—but a familiarcould only be tamed at birth by the liberal application of fresh blood, the blood of the magician who wished to be its master. It was this that made taming familiars from the egg such a chancy venture, for the sorcerer was rendered vulnerable at the time when he most needed his full strength.
“You are wounded?” said Zacharias. Prunella must be hurt, though she looked unharmed; there could be no other explanation. “I will go for a physician—no, that will not do—we must make shift to tend you here. Permit me to examine the injury.”
Prunella had gone a brilliant scarlet.
“There is no injury,” she said pettishly. “I beg you will not make a fuss over nothing. I have settled it all.”
“If it would not be proper for me to examine it, the housekeeper could assist, I am sure,” said Zacharias anxiously. “Pray do not allow reserve to expose you to any risk.”
“Mr. Wythe,” said Prunella, with indescribable hauteur, “I beg you will not take offence when I say that a gentleman would not persist in this line of questioning!”
Her face was averted, but her cheek was still flushed with high colour. Little though Zacharias had had to do with women, Sir Stephen—believing there was no area of knowledge that should be withheld from an unnatural philosopher—had taken care to acquaint him thoroughly with the workings of the mortal frame, male and female. It became evident to him what the source of Prunella’s mastery of the familiars must be.
“Oh,”Zacharias said, stricken with embarrassment.
Prunella did not dignify this with a reply, but busied herself with her new familiars. The elvet still cradled in her arms, she drew a shawl over the chick, and knelt by the unicorn, cooing, “What a sweet creature you are! And will you grow into a great horse, truly?”
It was a charming scene. It was also unprecedented in the history of Britain. In one fell stroke Prunella had become the most powerful sorcerer who had ever lived.
16
ZACHARIAS’STRIALSHADrevealed within him an unsuspected core of unflappability. He passed almost immediately from shock to applying himself to practicalities.
“We shall have to take Lady Wythe into our confidence,” he said. “It will make everything easier, for she will be able to prepare a space for our lessons, and get the servants out of our way. We must be discreet. No one else can know. The Society is no more kindly disposed towards female magic than Mrs. Daubeney, and I shall need time to change its mind regarding your education.”
Prunella was not really attending, she was so blissfully absorbed in her familiars. She looked up with the start of someone waking out of a lovely dream.
“My education?” she said. “Need I any instruction now? Surely my familiars will teach me all I need to know.”
“Your familiars know scarcely more than you about the operation of magic—certainly not the principles of mortal thaumaturgy,” said Zacharias. “Recall that they are newborn, and will have forgottenmuch of their former lives in Fairyland. They will rely upon you for guidance and restraint—and you will pay dearly for any lapse. Even under Mrs. Daubeney’s scheme of instruction you must have heard of the perils of excessive magic ungoverned by learning.”
“Say, rather,especiallyunder Mrs. Daubeney’s scheme of instruction,” said Prunella. The infusion of potent magic had had much the same effect upon her spirits as a bottle of champagne, and Zacharias’s sobriety could not dampen her. “If she had her way the girls would hardly have been taught anything else. Miss Jellicoe used to have to pretend she was lecturing them on the evils of magic, when they were only conning their figures. Poor thing! I believe algebra was all she ever thought of.”
Zacharias paid this diversion little regard. Giddiness was to be expected in a new sorceress.
