The True Queen Read online

  Henrietta could not like to hear her father spoken of in these terms, and yet after such a scene she could hardly defend him. She only said, “Oh, Prunella!”

  “I am sorry to speak so of one so nearly connected to you, but it is only the truth,” said Prunella. “How cross your papa made me! As for all that nonsense about your marrying Mr. Hobday, ought not you to disillusion him? I suppose you are hoping that Mr. Hobday will not offer, but perhaps he will, and if he does I should think it would be best to have given your papa notice of your intention to refuse.”

  Henrietta would not meet Prunella’s eyes but drew her robe around herself, saying in a hurried manner, “What on earth possessed you to transform me into a rabbit?”

  Prunella stared.

  “You don’t mean to say you would accept an offer from Hobday?” she demanded, scandalised.

  “I did not say anything.”

  “But you cannot like him,” said Prunella. “He is quite old and not at all handsome. And I must warn you, if you tell me he has other excellent qualities, I will not credit it in the least!”

  “Prunella,” said Henrietta, with dignity, “I understand your feelings, but surely we may speak of this at another time.” She cast a meaningful look at Muna, who tried to pretend she had not understood anything of what had been said. “You have not answered my question. I had no notion you understood the art of metamorphosis.”

  “Damerell started teaching me before he left for Threlfall,” Prunella explained. Rollo Threlfall had received a summons from his aunt Georgiana but a week ago, requiring him to visit his family’s home in the Fairy province they governed on behalf of the Queen. This had so cast him down that his friend Damerell had agreed to accompany him, for though he was a mere mortal magician, Damerell’s connection with Rollo was of long standing, and he was well regarded by Rollo’s relations.

  Which was all very well for Rollo, said Prunella, but it was highly inconvenient for her. Damerell was one of her few allies in English thaumaturgy; an old friend of her husband, Zacharias Wythe; and a sorcerer possessing not only a fund of magical ability but what was even more valuable to the Sorceress Royal—an understanding of thaumaturgical politics surpassed by none.

  “But he had scarcely begun when he was obliged to depart,” Prunella said now, sighing. “It is a wonder the spell came off! Was it very unpleasant? I confess I simply reached for the first charm that came to hand. I would not have done it if I had known you would not like it!”

  “It felt excessively peculiar,” said Henrietta. “Though of course I am obliged to you for concealing me from Papa. I thought I should die when I heard his voice! I tried to cast a spell myself—an invisibility spell—but it did not take, though I am sure I took the greatest care in pronouncing the formula.”

  Prunella looked thoughtful. “Perhaps it was your worry that threw off the spell. If you cast it again now, we might study it and see if we can trace the flaw.”

  Muna had been watching the Englishwomen, waiting for an opportune moment to speak. She had supposed herself forgotten, but this was not so, for now the Sorceress Royal smiled at her.

  “It will be an opportunity for Miss Muna to see an example of English magic, which I am sure she will like,” said Prunella. “And then, Miss Muna, if you have no objection, perhaps you could demonstrate some of the magics with which you are acquainted?”

  Muna would not have a better chance to plead her case—and Sakti’s. “I should be delighted to tell you all I know of the magic of Mak Genggang, but—there is the matter of my sister, ma’am.” Her voice quavered despite her best efforts.

  A shadow fell across the Englishwomen’s faces. Looking thoroughly ashamed, Prunella said, “Oh yes, of course! I am so sorry. What an appalling thing to have happened! You must think us entirely unfeeling. I can only beg your pardon.”

  “You will wish to rest,” said Henrietta, touching Muna’s elbow. “We have prepared a room for you. Shall I take you there now?”

  “You are very good, but I am not tired in the least,” said Muna. The way the Englishwomen spoke made her anxious—it was action she desired, not sympathy. “I could lead you now to the place where I last saw my sister, if you could open the way again. I marked the trees along the path as I came.”

  Henrietta glanced at Prunella. “Perhaps the summoning circle . . . After all, there is nothing to prevent your entering Fairy, Prunella.”

  The Sorceress Royal looked as though she could think of several reasons, but she said nothing, only going over to the summoning circle they had chalked upon the floor. She tapped her staff on the circle, but after a moment she shook her head, saying, “No, it is as I thought! The way is closed. Mak Genggang was always very tidy in all her workings.”

  She turned to Muna.

  “I am afraid we here in Britain are allowed far less liberty in the matter of travelling to Fairy than you are in your country,” said Prunella. “In Janda Baik, I hear, one may wander into the Other Realm by accident! But we had the misfortune of offending the Fairy Queen some years ago, and in consequence she closed the borders of her realm to Britain—no one may cross over without her permission. To travel here from Fairy is one thing—the Queen frowns upon it, but it is known to happen. But to go the other way is nearly impossible for a mortal. Of all the English only I may open the doors from Britain to the Other Realm.”

  It was as though there was an object stuck in Muna’s throat, which made it difficult to speak. Nonetheless she managed to say, “Cannot you do it? Oh, Mrs. Wythe, I beg you! I should do anything—render any service in my power—”

  “I could,” said Prunella slowly. “But the realms of Fairy Within are various and extensive, and they do not behave as mortal lands do. That is why no mortal has ever succeeded in mapping Fairy. Even if I contrived to open a route into Fairy without attracting the Queen’s attention, I could not promise to return you to the place where you lost your sister. Do you think she will have returned there?”

  “Oh, Miss Muna,” said Henrietta in a tone of pity. It was only then that Muna realised that her cheeks were wet with tears.

  “No,” said Muna, drawing her arm across her eyes and ignoring Henrietta’s attempt to console her, “I doubt she will be where I lost her. But surely something can be done to find her!”

  The Sorceress Royal looked grave. “Do you have any idea what can have taken her? Was it a fairy? Could you tell what magic had been employed?”

  Muna explained what had occurred, though the more she said, the worse she felt. She might have been telling the Englishwomen that Sakti had been struck by lightning, or drowned at sea. The looks that passed between them said what they would not—that they believed Muna’s sister to be lost beyond any hope of recovery.

  “Could not a message be sent to Mak Genggang?” Muna said finally. The witch would be able to help, she thought. Mak Genggang was not one to submit to fate when fate’s workings did not suit her.

  “Oh yes, there is no question of that!” said Prunella, sounding relieved to be entrusted with a task she was able to perform. “She must be told what has become of your sister.”

  “Perhaps she will know of a way to find her,” said Henrietta. “After all, she knows the Fairy realms far better than we do.”

  Muna could see that Henrietta meant well, but her very gentleness had a chilling effect. Nothing could have better conveyed the Englishwoman’s absolute conviction that Sakti was gone forever, swallowed up by the mysterious forces of the Unseen Realm.

  Muna was suddenly overcome by the weariness she had been so eager to deny. She had run the remainder of the path to England in her desperation, slowing her pace only to score the bark of the trees she passed so she might find them again. She had known that she risked offending the spirits of those trees by doing so, but what could she care for that when Sakti had been taken?

  She swallowed.

  “M
ay I send a message to the witch myself?” she began to say, but a great booming noise, as of an explosion, drowned out her voice.

  Screams rose from the street outside. For a moment the three women stared at one another, frozen in shock. Prunella dashed to the window.

  She was pale when she looked around.

  “Another one, Henny!” she said. “They grow bolder by the day. I wonder if we still have a door! Did not I tell you we should be sorry if we had been so extravagant as to paint it?”

  She turned to Muna, saying, “I beg you will forgive me for leaving you with Miss Stapleton. She will see to it that you are settled in and answer all your questions. I must go now, but I shall come to you as soon as ever I can, and we shall summon up your mistress on the shewstone.”

  She did not wait for Muna to answer, but shot out of the room, calling out, “Tjandra! Youko! To me!”

  * * *

  • • •

  A CRATER had been gouged out of the street below, just outside the Academy. It was smoking gently, glowing with a faint green light. Curious passers-by had gathered around it. As Muna and Henrietta watched from the window, the Sorceress Royal joined the crowd. She was not alone.

  “What are those?” said Muna.

  The Sorceress Royal was shooing people away from the crater, assisted by two animals. One was a deerlike creature with graceful antlers, its body covered in scales. The other was a bird with splendid emerald plumage, like a parrot, but rather larger. When it lifted its face, Muna saw that it had a human head—the elegant dark-haired head of a youth, with a sullen expression and a beak for a mouth. She gasped.

  “Those are the Sorceress Royal’s familiars,” said Henrietta. “The unicorn is called Youko and the simurgh is Tjandra. She did not think they were needed for the enchantment we cast to receive you, for our part of the summoning was straightforward—Mak Genggang supplied most of the magic needed. But they serve Prunella in all magical matters and, by adding their magic to hers, entitle her to call herself a sorceress.”

  It was some diversion from Muna’s misery to see the Sorceress Royal’s familiar spirits as they crawled over the crater with their mistress, studying the effects of the hex. She had grown accustomed to the sight of lamiae when living under Mak Genggang’s roof, but the lamiae looked so much like human women that it was easy to forget they were spirits with such unsavoury habits as preying upon pregnant women and devouring the viscera of unfortunate men. There was no mistaking the unicorn and the simurgh for anything but magical beings, however.

  How Sakti would have liked to see them! thought Muna. This gave her a dreadful pang.

  “What a welcome we have given you!” Henrietta was saying apologetically. “You must think we live in a state of perpetual excitement. But I assure you this is by no means a daily occurrence. We hardly have an attack more than once in a fortnight.”

  Muna said, to distract herself, “It is the effect of a curse—a deliberate attack? Who can have done this wicked thing?” But then she remembered that Mak Genggang had said the English were at war.

  “They are a sanguinary people, the English,” the witch had said. “They are not content with quarrelling with their neighbours, but must needs sail over the seas to trouble us too!”

  “I suppose it is your enemies the French,” Muna said now. “They must be heartless indeed, to prey upon defenceless females!”

  “Oh, well!” said Henrietta, hesitating. “In these times one ought not to leap to conclusions, and perhaps . . . But English thaumaturgy has entered into a treaty with France’s sorcieres, under which neither will attack the other, and we have never yet found them out in a breach. So far as we know, the attacks upon the Academy have all been from Englishmen.”

  Muna stared. “Your own countrymen!”

  “You are surprised,” said Henrietta. “In your country, I am told, it is deemed perfectly natural in a woman to practise magic! But here the open practice of thaumaturgy by females is an innovation, and English society is not fond of innovations. There are some gentlemen who still object to our very existence.” She gave Muna a shy sidelong look. She seemed embarrassed.

  “Your education will not have prepared you for such a reception,” said Henrietta. “No doubt Mak Genggang has never known such opposition!”

  On the street outside, the Sorceress Royal had been joined by a man dressed like an Englishman, but with skin of a much darker hue than that of any Englishman Muna had yet seen. He leant upon a silver-topped cane, watching Prunella and her familiars at their work, and the Sorceress Royal smiled as she looked up at him.

  “I believe she has,” said Muna absently. “Any great witch will have her enemies.” But her mind had turned to Sakti again, and the English witches’ troubles interested her less than her own. She opened her mouth to speak, but Henrietta had caught sight of the dark gentleman.

  “There is Mr. Wythe!” she exclaimed. A pink flush rose in her cheeks. She added, by way of explanation, “Zacharias Wythe is one of our foremost scholars of magic—a brilliant mind. He was Sorcerer Royal before the staff passed to Prunella, shortly before they were married.”

  Henrietta was deeply interested in the scene below. She lingered by the window, gazing in rapt attention as Mr. and Mrs. Wythe started to work an enchantment to restore the paving destroyed by the hex.

  It was not polite to interrupt her, but Muna could not afford politeness. She said, “Miss Stapleton, Mrs. Wythe mentioned a shewstone, which might be used to convey a message to Mak Genggang. Would it be possible for me to address her now?”

  This served to break Henrietta’s absorption. She turned away from the window at once, looking concerned. “Of course, you will wish to speak with her as soon as possible. I should certainly summon Mak Genggang if it were in my power, but I am afraid the shewstone is reserved for the use of the Sorceress Royal. Its magic will not answer to any other master.”

  A thought struck her. “Unless . . . do you know of any magics that would enable us to speak with your mistress? Prunella says Mak Genggang does not have a shewstone herself. I am told she employs a basin of water to commune with magicians in other countries.”

  “No,” said Muna. “Mak Genggang has not taught me that magic.”

  But the witch had not sent her and Sakti forth wholly unequipped. Muna’s hand stole to her bundle, feeling the outline of the djinn’s bottle.

  “I confess I am a little tired,” she said. She had not meant for her voice to waver, but perhaps there was no harm in it, for it made Henrietta look sorry for her.

  “Anyone would be, after all you have undergone!” said the Englishwoman with ready sympathy. “Let me take you to your bedchamber and you may rest before dinner. We do not keep fashionable hours here at the Academy, but you can be sure of several hours of peace. And”—she hesitated, looking away—“I beg you will not worry about your sister. With the aid of two such magiciennes as Prunella and Mak Genggang, I should not be surprised if we soon found her!”

  But she did not sound convinced.

  7

  MUNA

  THE BEDCHAMBER ALLOTTED to Muna was a large apartment, scrupulously clean, but not at all cheerful. A thin grey light filtered through the windows; the drapes were threadbare and the wallpaper faded. A large bed sat brooding in the middle of the room like a shipwreck.

  “I am afraid this is the best we could contrive,” said Henrietta.

  Muna was not inclined to be critical. Her chief desire was to be alone. “Very kind, I’m sure! What a handsome room!”

  But Henrietta would not go. She seemed oppressed by the thought of the help she had not been able to render. By way of compensation she lingered at the door, pressing upon Muna every conceivable form of comfort, from a glass of wine to books of magic (“We have begun a collection here at the Academy—it is small as yet, but I daresay you may find something of interest in it nonetheless”).


  With polite obstinacy, Muna insisted that she was not hungry, was forbidden by the laws of her religion to drink wine, and was in no mood to read. Still, it seemed an age before she was able to shut the door behind the Englishwoman. Her face was stiff from smiling.

  She locked the door and pushed a chair against it before drawing the curtains, leaving the barest crack through which light could enter. Even then the room seemed alive with noise. The rumble of passing traffic and the babble of foreign voices rose from the streets, only slightly muted by the glass.

  Rummaging in her bundle, Muna drew out the bottle Sakti had given her. In the dim light the brown glass looked wholly opaque. There was nothing to suggest the bottle held anything but air.

  Muna was shivering from more than the cold English air, and her palms were damp. What would she do if the spell did not work, even now that she had left the Unseen? After all, she was no magician. It might not be enough to recite the verse, if the speaker had no magic with which to give effect to the summoning.

  What if the spell did work? After all, Sakti had vanished after trying to summon the djinn. What if the spirit was the cause of her sister’s disappearance?

  But the thought brought a spark of anger with it, overcoming fear.

  If it is the djinn’s fault, I shall make it bring Sakti back! thought Muna.

  “Kur!” she whispered.

  As she spoke the final peremptory words of the formula, commanding the spirit to appear, the dark streak of blood at the base of the bottle flickered. It moved, squirming like a worm.

  Muna sprang back with a shriek, dropping the bottle. It rolled onto the carpet as a plume of red smoke burst from its mouth.