The Royal Sorceress

by Christopher Nuttall

  Doctor Norwell nodded. “With your consent, Lady Gwen, I will leave you with your Master,” he said. “I cannot assist you with practical magic.”

  Gwen watched him go and then looked back at Master Thomas, who had taken a chair opposite her. “I heard about how you came into your magic,” he said. “Have you practiced since then?”

  “Yes,” Gwen said. She didn’t want to talk about what had happened that day. “Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t.”

  “Magic is often that way,” Master Thomas said. “But you slipped into multiple talents, which would have confused anyone who didn’t know how magic worked. I want you to try and summon fire. Be careful you don’t burn your clothes.”

  Gwen held out one hand and summoned a blaze of fire. It roared upwards towards the ceiling, but the air was cool. Master Thomas reached forward and pushed his bare hand through the flames. Gwen scowled as she concentrated. The flames weren’t real. They were just illusions she’d summoned.

  “Close your eyes,” Master Thomas instructed. “Concentrate on the flames. You want them to be hot and warm and hot and warm and...”

  Gwen flinched backwards. For a long moment, she had felt the flames burning in her mind. A second later, a wave of heat had struck her and sent her tumbling backwards. She opened her eyes and saw a roaring pillar of flame, so bright that she could barely look at it. Her hand wasn’t burning, but her arm seemed to be on fire...

  She closed her hand and the flame vanished. Her dress was smouldering; quickly, heedless of what her mother would say, she tore at her sleeves until they were bare. The skin below was red, burned by the heat. Her hand seemed as pale and perfect as ever.

  “Blazers don’t burn themselves,” Master Thomas said, softly. “Doctor Norwell thinks that it is caused by something in their minds, something that tells them not to harm themselves. But they can set their clothes on fire and that does burn their skin.” He nodded towards the bowl of water. “You might want to cool yourself, and then we will try again.”

  Two hours passed slowly. Gwen’s dress was almost totally ruined, but she had managed to master the talent, at least to some degree. Creating illusions was possible, Master Thomas assured her, yet it took years to become really skilful at creating ones that would fool an outside observer. It was easier to summon fire, or beams of energy that could burn through wood and even metal. The classroom’s lack of decoration was explained. Young magicians, according to Master Thomas, frequently destroyed the room back to bare stone.

  “Your Blazing will probably never be as good as a pure Blazer’s,” Master Thomas admitted. “However, by combining Blazing and Moving, you will be able to shield yourself in a manner that no pure Blazer could match. However, learning to combine both talents without actually thinking about it requires years of practice. You’ll be working with some of the younger apprentices to develop your powers over the next few weeks. I may also make you work with some of the more qualified magicians. They, however, are likely to be more jealous of your position.”

  Gwen nodded, soberly. Some of the looks she had received from a few of the apprentices made sense, all of a sudden. Of course none of them would be able to reach the highest position in the magical world, not when they could only master one talent. And if a male Master arrived, Gwen was certain that she would be sent back home and told to marry well.

  “Tell me something,” she said, suddenly. “What happened to the other Masters?”

  “I’ll tell you when you are ready to hear,” Master Thomas said. He made a show of checking the pocket watch he wore in his waistcoat. “For the moment, we will go for lunch. Eat well, Lady Gwen. There is an entire afternoon of hard work up ahead.”

  Chapter Four

  Would all passengers please return to their seats,” the stewardess requested. “The airship is about to land.”

  Jack leaned back in his chair as the airship began to descend over London. From high above, the Thames was nothing more than a silver band running through the darkened city. London had been sprawling out ever since the Romans had arrived and nothing, not war, famine or even death, would ever slow the city. It had expanded out until the green fields of England were facing the risk of being turned into housing blocks or factories to feed the country’s endless appetite for manufactured goods.

  He smiled at the stewardess as she paused in front of his chair. The stewardess, no doubt used to far crasser behaviour from junior scions of the aristocracy – both English and French – ignored the smile, checked his belt and then strode on to the next passenger. There was no better way to travel, if one had the money, than via airship. Jack took another sip of his gin and tonic and allowed his eyes to rest on the stewardess’s behind as she swayed through the cabin. There were times when playing the part of a junior aristocrat was far too easy.

  A dull rumble ran through the craft as the engines pushed it down towards the landing field, far below. Jack had to smile at the nervous expressions on some of his fellow passengers, the ones who had never flown by airship, but preferred the thought of flying to spending hours on a leaky boat and then a railway trip to London. The direct flight from Paris to London only took around three hours and the food was extremely good. It should have been, given what he’d paid for his ticket. The vast majority of London’s inhabitants would be lucky if they could have afforded a trip to Blackpool or Dover, let alone a visit to France.

  London grew closer as the airship settled to the ground. Darkened blurs became buildings, the new high-rise tenements built by the city corporation to house the influx of labourers from the country. The development of farming technology might have made it easier to raise crops and feed the animals, but it had pushed many thousands of farmers off the land. They ended up travelling to London or one of the other cities, looking for employment and a better life. Others went to the Americas, or Australia, or even the growing settlement in South Africa. Few found a better life.

  The hatch opened, allowing the air of London to slip into the airship. After Paris, it was always a shock to smell London. The stench of industry hung in the air, mocking the puny humans who had to breathe the stuff every day. People got used to it quickly, Jack knew, but it was yet another reminder of how the world had changed over the last three decades. Airships, railways and farming machinery had changed Britain forever. And, as always, it was the poor who bore the brunt of the suffering imposed by the changes, for was there not pain in birth? The price of the brave new world was paid by its people.

  He followed the other passengers out of the airship and onto the landing field. It had expanded since the last time he’d visited London, with several new airship hangers and more hackney cabs waiting for the wealthier passengers. There was no security worthy of the name, but that wasn’t a surprise. Anyone who could afford the price of an airship ticket, the secret service had reasoned, wouldn’t be interested in overthrowing the established order. There was far more security on the docks, where poorer folk from Europe came in hopes of finding a land of milk and honey. They had been sadly deceived.

  Jack waved to a cabbie and the man brought his horses over to meet him. “The Bainbridge Hotel,” Jack said, as he pulled himself into the cab. The horses neighed as their owner cracked the whip. London’s cabbies competed ruthlessly for passengers, knowing that a wealthy passenger might tip them enough to allow them to feed their families better food. “And don’t spare the whip.”

  He settled back into his seat as the carriage cantered away from the airship field, into Greater London. London had changed in some ways since he’d last visited; the glowing streetlight network had expanded and a handful of automobiles could be seen on the streets. They said that one day everyone in England would own an automobile, but Jack had his doubts. The best the industrial geniuses had been able to produce were cranky, prone to breaking down and incredibly expensive to run. Horses were far more reliable, even if they did have a habit of leaving their waste on the cobblestones. It was easier to pay the poor to clean the
streets than it was to iron the bugs out of the automobiles.

  London had its rich areas and its poorer areas, just like any other city in Europe. The Bainbridge Hotel was right on the verge of the middle-class area, rich enough to be respectable, but too poor to be taken entirely seriously. Jack had made the booking through the services of the telegraph, trusting that the Bainbridge Hotel wouldn’t ask too many questions. They thought he was a poor nobleman, with a name, a title and little else. There were hundreds of second sons who had the right to be called noblemen, but stood to inherit little or nothing from their fathers. And there were plenty of little accidents who had been given a proper education by their fathers, even if they were never acknowledged as noble-born children.

  Jack slipped out of the cab, tipped the cabbie just enough to be sure that the man wouldn’t remember him, and strode into the hotel as if he owned the place. As he had expected, the manager was more than happy to take his money without asking too many questions; the Bainbridge had a reputation for discretion that would have done credit to a nun. Jack suspected that some of the wealthier segments of London society used it as a base for activities that would draw the disapproval of their wives and the Church. The last thing they would want would be a scandal that would call their discretion into question. In the unlikely event of the Bow Street Runners coming around to ask questions, the manager would have seen nothing and heard less.

  The room was as he had expected; a simple bed, a small washbasin and a tiny mirror hanging on one wall. He glanced out of the window and smiled to himself; the manager had given him the room that stared towards one of the poorest sections of the city. The haze of smog that hung over London seemed to be heavier over the East End. It was probably an optical illusion, Jack told himself firmly. Even the worst of the industrialists wouldn’t deliberately set out to poison the poor and helpless. It was merely a by-product of their industries.

  Shaking his head, he lay back on the bed and concentrated. A capable magician could detect when a Seer was looking at him, even though the Seer might be on the other side of the world. Jack had a profound respect for the Seers in the Royal Sorcerers Corps and knew that if they believed him to be still alive they would have been monitoring him almost constantly. There was no tingle suggesting an invisible presence, no sense that he wasn’t quite alone. Out of habit, he checked the room for knotholes and other ways he could be watched, before he placed his case on the bed and opened it with great care. If anyone else had tried to open it without his permission it would have been the last thing they ever did. There were items in his case that would have aroused suspicions in even the stupidest Bow Street Runner.

  The two fine suits of clothes would have passed without comment. Under them, Jack had hidden a far less reputable outfit, one that would only be worn by someone who had no money to buy something better. He donned it quickly and glanced in the mirror, smiling at his appearance. Anyone who looked at him on the streets would see a common labourer, perhaps one of the Irishmen who had fled to England to escape the famine and seek daily work as builders and carriers. The Irish were often hated by the poorer Englishmen, who believed that the Irish took their jobs and money. They had a point, Jack knew; the only thing that motivated the rich was cheap labour.

  Outside, the night was slowly falling over London. Jack donned a walking cape that would hide his outfit and then stepped outside into the corridor. As he had expected, it ended with yet another window, staring down into the courtyard behind the hotel. Jack opened the window, pulled his magic around him, and jumped down to the cobblestones. Anyone watching would have seen him fall several meters without being hurt. It was astonishing what magic could do.

  He walked into an alleyway a gentleman, wearing his cloak, and walked out of the other end a labourer, carrying the cloak under one arm. It wouldn’t arouse suspicion; anyone who saw it would think that it was a blanket, like the one carried by many homeless men who had found themselves trapped in London. Jack’s lips twitched as he smelt the stench of alcohol and tobacco smoke outside a pub. The working men would be inside, having a few pints before they returned home to their wives. Their pay packets, meagre as they were, would be depleted quite a bit before they left the pub. Jack knew that their children would be lucky to survive the coming winter. It had only been last year that London had suffered an outbreak of cholera and hundreds of the urban poor had died.

  The streets were still alive with people, although many of the shops were closing before the drunkards started pouring out of the pubs. He saw a little girl selling matches and another girl selling flowers and felt his heart break, just before he saw what had to be their older sister, who was selling herself. The poor often had no recourse but to sell their children into slavery, or worse. Few of them could be proud when they lived permanently on the edge of starvation. He caught sight of a black-clad preacher and scowled inwardly. The Church railed against the desperate straits of the poor, but it rarely did anything effective to help. And its preachers claimed tithes from those who could scarcely afford to pay.

  He wandered down the darkest streets, waiting for what he knew would happen. There was no point in going to any of the addresses he’d known last time he’d been in London. His friends would be long gone. The Bow Street Runners turned a blind eye to prostitution, gambling and drinking – at least when the Church wasn’t breathing down their necks – but they broke up socialist meetings with great energy. His old friends would be well hidden. It didn’t matter that much. He would find someone who would know where they were, or knew someone who would know. It was very difficult to hide in London if one wanted to run a criminal or underground enterprise.

  The touch, when it came, was so light that he would have missed it altogether if he hadn’t been waiting for it. His hand snapped down and caught the hand of a grubby little street urchin who had been trying to pick his pocket – and the wallet Jack had placed inside, knowing that it would tempt someone to try his luck. The child struggled against his grip, but couldn’t break free as Jack hauled him into the alleyway. No one would notice, or care if they did. There were hundreds of children running wild on London’s streets. The lucky ones died early, before they matured.

  He used a touch of magic as he gripped the boy’s shirt and lifted him into the air. It would seem an impressive demonstration of strength to anyone without the ability to sense magic. The child kicked and struggled, but it was useless. Up close, he stank of the streets, a stench that would put the hardiest of souls to flight. It was self-protection as much as anything else, but it still disgusted him. How could anyone live like that?

  The boy – no; he looked at the face and realised that he was holding a girl, dressed as a boy – stopped struggling and stared at him. Jack read hopelessness in her gaze, the awareness that her luck had run out. If he handed her over to the Bow Street Runners, she would be condemned to transportation as convict labour, if she were lucky. And there were people who had far darker ideas about what to do with a young girl. She couldn’t be older than eight, perhaps nine, but her eyes were already old. Jack knew she would be lucky to survive into her teens.

  “You tried to steal from me,” he said, evenly.

  “I didn’t mean to, master,” the girl pleaded. Her attempt at producing a masculine voice wasn’t perfect, but it would probably fool someone in the dark. It had been a long time since Jack had visited the places where the street children slept, but he knew that they could be a very nasty place for a young girl. No one could be trusted on the streets. “Let me go and I won’t steal from you again…I swear I won’t…”

  “Be quiet,” Jack said, in the same even tone. “What is your name, young lady?”

  The girl’s face, already pale, became almost bloodless as she realised he knew her sex. “Olivia, sir,” she said. “I didn’t know you were a spark or a toffee; I didn’t know…”

  Jack smiled, inwardly. Spark was street-slang for magician; toffee was street-slang for upper-class personage, slumming in the poorer a
reas of the city for pleasures that were denied even to people of their lofty birth. If the girl had identified him as a magician, it suggested some magical talent of her own. It was almost a shame that the Royal Sorcerers Corps hadn’t found her. She would have been brainwashed into serving the order that kept the lower classes in their place, but at least she would have enough to eat.

  “I’m looking for Mistress Lucy,” Jack said. It was a name from the past, but unless he was very much mistaken she would still be alive and thriving within the underworld. Any woman in a position of power had to be stronger, tougher and more ruthless than any of her male counterparts. The female of the species was far more deadly than the male. “Do you know where she stays?”

  He allowed some Charm to slip into his voice. “You will take me to where she stays,” he said, as the girl nodded frantically. “Don’t try to run away, or I’ll turn you into a rat.”

  The girl’s eyes went wide, in surprise and fear, and then she nodded. “Follow me, mister,” she said. “I won’t lead you wrong.”

  Jack followed her, shaking his head inwardly at how the locals didn’t seem to take any notice of them. But life on the streets was hard; no one would risk their lives to save a street child who would steal from them the moment their backs were turned. Even the handful of preachers who came down into the maze of houses, bridges and slums would turn their backs on a street child. And once she couldn’t maintain her manly guise, she’d probably be corralled by a pimp or forced into the brothels. They’d use her up and then throw her out to die. There was no mercy for the poor in London.

  The Rookery was more complex than he remembered. It had started life as a set of houses and apartments, but thousands of immigrants from the countryside had taken over and turned it into a mishmash of tiny streets and makeshift houses. The Bow Street Runners wouldn’t come into the Rookery without heavy numbers or military support, which meant in practice that the Rookery was controlled by a shifting network of criminal lords. He smiled to himself as he caught sight of a Chinese man striding past, the people moving out of his way to allow him to pass. The Tongs were known for brutally enforcing their will and their smuggling enterprises were legendary. Jack had used the Chinese community the last time he’d been in London, even though he disliked them on general principles. They always seemed to be laughing at him behind their inscrutable eyes.