Shandar and Zambini had lived for so long, but it didn’t really help us.
‘We
‘Is it likely?’ asked Tiger, who had been on several Zambini searches, and knew the pitfalls.
‘If past attempts are anything to go by we have two chances: fat and thin.’
We walked outside and found Perkins peacefully asleep on the back seat, the paintwork of the beetle slowly turning from blue to green to black and then back to blue again. He was ready.
The King’s Useless Brother
We partly retraced our route back towards Hereford, but instead of going straight ahead by the grave of the unknown tattooist at Dorstonville, we took the four-lane processional avenue that led towards the King’s modest eight-storey palace at Snodhill. The castle covered an area of six square acres, with many of the Kingdom’s administrative departments scattered among its two hundred or so rooms. A roof of purple slate topped the stone building, and the eighteen towers were capped with conical towers, each home to a long pennant that fluttered elegantly in the breeze.
After making our way through three sets of drawbridges, each with their own peculiar brand of pointless and overlong security procedures, we eventually made it to the Inner Bailey, where we parked the car outside the Interior Ministry. I told Tiger to wait for us there, and I walked us to the correct desk, as I came in here quite a lot, usually to submit the endless forms and paperwork that bedevilled modern sorcery.
‘Hello, Miss Strange,’ said the receptionist, ‘here to submit more paperwork?’
‘Magic licence,’ I replied, nodding towards Perkins. ‘We have an appointment to see the King’s Useless Brother.’
She stared at us both over her spectacles for a moment, consulted the diary and then pointed us towards the uncomfortable bench to wait. The one with cushions was reserved for those of higher birth, and was today crammed with bewigged aristocracy, who, by their refusal to sit on the citizens’ bench, made themselves trebly uncomfortable.
Perkins and I talked through the application process. I was more nervous than I thought I’d be, probably because we were one sorcerer down for the foreseeable future, and Perkins was going to have to prove himself pretty fast if we still wanted to do the bridge gig on Friday.
‘How do you think I’m going to do?’ he asked.
‘You’ll pass or my name’s not Jennifer Strange.’
‘Your name’s not Jennifer Strange.’
‘What?’
‘You’re a foundling. You don’t know what your name is.’
‘It
‘It doesn’t seem very likely.’
‘Perhaps not. But listen, you’re going to pass, right?’
And I took his hand and squeezed it, and smiled at him, and he smiled back.
‘Thanks.’
‘Miss Strange?’ said the secretary again. ‘The King’s Useless Brother has become bored and will see you early.’
Perkins and I straightened our clothes and followed the secretary into a high-ceilinged room decorated in the ‘medieval dreary chic’ style that was then very much in fashion. A lot of stone, tapestries on the walls and a stylish cold draught that caught you in the small of the neck like the onset of pneumonia.
Sitting behind a large desk that was full of shiny executive desk toys was the King’s Useless Brother: a thin, weedy man with a constantly dripping nose that he dabbed with annoying regularity with a handkerchief.
‘Good afternoon, Your Gracious Uselessness,’ I said, bowing low. ‘I am Jennifer Strange of the Kazam House of Enchantments. I humbly beg to set before you an application for my client Perkins Archibald Perkins to be licensed to commit enchantments in the worthy Kingdom of Snodd.’
‘Eh?’ he said, so I said the same thing again, only this time much more slowly. When I had finished he thought for a moment and then said:
‘You want a magic licence?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why didn’t you just say so? All that “gracious this” and “humbly beg” makes my head spin. I wish people would say what they want rather than hiding it in long words. Honestly, if we got rid of any word longer than eight letters, life would be a lot more understandable.’
‘Except you wouldn’t have been able to say “understandable”,’ pointed out Perkins.
The King’s Useless Brother thought carefully and counted on his fingers.
‘How right you are!’ he announced at length. ‘What were we talking about?’
‘A magic licence application?’
‘Of course. But tell me one thing before we look at the application.’
‘Yes?’ I asked, expecting to be quizzed about Perkins’ fitness to serve, and whether he would uphold the noble calling with every atom of his being, that sort of thing.
‘How can you be called Perkins Perkins?’
‘My father’s name was Perkins, and I’m named after him. It’s like Adam Adams or David Davies.’
‘Or William Williams,’ I added.
‘Who’s he?’
‘Someone I just made up.’
‘Oh,’ said the Useless Brother, sniffing. ‘Right. What happens now?’
I took a deep breath.
‘I explain exactly why Mr Perkins should receive a licence, and upon your approval, we turn to appendix F of the Magic Enactments Licensing Act of 1867 and conduct one spell each from Group “A” through to Group “G”. Afterwards, once opposition voices are heard, Mr Perkins performs his Great Feat. You then decide upon the merits of the case and stamp the application into authority . . . or not.’
‘Stamp?’
His attention, which had been drifting somewhat, was suddenly renewed.
‘I have a number of stamps for all different purposes – look.’
He jumped off his chair and opened a cupboard behind the desk. It was full of rubber stamps. Big ones, small ones, each elegantly made and presumably to enact some sort of legislation for which the Useless Brother had been made responsible.
‘This is the one we will use today,’ he said, selecting a large and ornately handled rubber stamp that was the size of a grapefruit. ‘It carries two colours on a single stamp, which is a remarkable achievement, don’t you think? Now, where do I stamp it?’
Perkins and I looked at one another. This was turning out to be much easier than we had thought.
‘Don’t you want to see Cadet Perkins perform his Great Feat at the very least?’ I asked. ‘Or even have the adjudicator present?’
‘Oh, I’m sure he’ll be fine,’ said the King’s Useless Brother dismissively, staring at the stamp lovingly. I shrugged. The stamp made it all legal, and we’d be fools to pass up such an easy opportunity.
‘Just here,’ I said, passing the application across the table.
‘This is the bit I like,’ said the bureaucrat excitedly, ‘there’s nothing quite like the satisfying thump of a rubber stamp on paper. The sound of freedom, don’t you think?’
And so saying, he opened a jewel-encrusted pad, reverentially inked the stamp, brought it up above his head, paused for a moment and—
‘One moment, sire.’
Two men had just walked in. The most important of them was Lord Tenbury, one of the King’s most trusted advisers, and the Useless Brother’s business partner. He was a man dressed in the robes of high office and wore a finely combed grey beard and hair that framed his piercing eyes, also grey. I had met him on a number of occasions
