Diana Jones - The Merlin Conspiracy

Mam had her latest worry session in Northumbria, in the rain. We were all camped in a steep, heathery valley waiting for the Scottish King to pay our King a formal visit. It was so bare that there was not even a house for the King. The canvas of the royal tent was turning a wet, dismal yellow just downhill from us, and we were slithering in shiny, wet sheep droppings while I went on about the way Grandad grows dahlias.

“Besides, it’s such a stupid thing for a powerful magician to do!” I said.

“I wish you didn’t feel like this about him,” Mam said. “You know he does a great deal more than simply grow flowers. He’s a remarkable man. And he’d be glad to have you as company for your cousin Toby.”

“My cousin Toby is a wimp who doesn’t mind being ordered to do the weeding,” I said. I looked up at Mam through the wet black wriggles of my hair and realised that my dahlia-ploy hadn’t worked the way it usually did. Mam continued to look anxious. She is a serious person, my mam, weighed down by her responsible job in the travelling Exchequer, but I can usually get her to laugh. When she laughs, she throws her head back and looks very like me. We both have rather long pink cheeks and a dimple in the same place, though her eyes are black and mine are blue.

I could see the rain was getting her down – having to keep the water out of her computer and having to go to the loo in a little wet flapping tent and all the rest – and I saw it was one of the times when she starts imagining me going down with rheumatic fever or pneumonia and dying of it. I realised I’d have to play my very strongest card or I’d be packed off down to London before lunch.

“Come off it, Mam!” I said. “Grandad’s not your father. He’s Dad’s. If you’re so anxious for me to be in the bosom of my family, why not send me to your father instead?”

She pulled her shiny waterproof cape around her and went back a step. “My father is Welsh,” she said. “If you went there, you’d be living in a foreign country. All right. If you feel you really can stand this awful, wandering existence, we’ll say no more.”

She went away. She always did if anyone talked about her father. I thought he must be terrifying. All I knew about my other grandfather was that Mam had had to run away from home in order to marry Dad, because her father had refused to let her marry anyone. Poor Mam. And I’d used that to send her away. I sighed with mixed relief and guilt. Then I went to find Grundo.

Grundo’s lot is always worse when we’re stopped anywhere for a while. Unless I think of an excuse to fetch him away, Sybil and Alicia haul him into Sybil’s tent and try to correct his faults. When I ducked into the dim, damp space, it was worse than usual. Sybil’s manfriend was in there, laughing his nasty, hissing laugh. “Give him to me, dear,” I heard him saying. “I’ll soon make a man of him.” Grundo was looking pale, even for him.

The only person at Court that I dislike more than Alicia is Sybil’s manfriend. His name is Sir James Spenser. He is very unpleasant. The astonishing thing is that the whole Court, including Sybil, knows he is nasty, but they pretend not to notice because Sir James is useful to the King. I don’t understand about this. But I have noticed the same thing happening with some of the businessmen who are useful to the King. The media are constantly suggesting these men are crooks, but nobody even thinks of arresting them. And it is the same with Sir James, although I have no idea in what way he is useful to the King.

He gave me a leer. “Checking that I haven’t eaten your sweetheart?” he said. “Why do you bother, Arianrhod? If I had your connections, I wouldn’t look twice at young Ambrose.”

I looked him in the face, at his big, pocky nose and the eyes too near on either side of it. “I don’t understand you,” I said in my best Court manner. Polite but stony. I didn’t think my connections were particularly aristocratic. My father is only the King’s weather wizard and much further down the order than Sybil, who is, after all, Earthmistress to England.

Sir James did his hissing laugh at me. Hs-ss-szz. “The aristocracy of magic, my dear child,” he said. “Look at your grandparents! I should think at the very least you’d be setting your sweet young adolescent cap at the next Merlin.”

Sybil said sharply, “What?” and Alicia gave a gasp. When I looked at her, she was speckled pink with indignation. Alicia has even more freckles than Grundo. Sybil’s long, jowly face was furious. Her pale blue eyes were popping at me.

I didn’t understand what made them so angry. I just thought, Bother! Now I shall have to be very polite – and rather stupid – and pretend I haven’t noticed. This was typical of Sir James. He loved making everyone around him angry. “But we’ve got a perfectly good Merlin!” I said.

“An old man, my dear,” Sir James said gleefully. “Old and frail.”

“Yes,” I said, truly puzzled. “But there’s no knowing who’ll be the next one, is there?”

He looked at me pityingly. “There are rumours, dear child. Or don’t you listen to gossip with your naïve little ears?”

“No,” I said. I’d had enough of his game, whatever it was. I turned, very politely, to Sybil. “Please would it be all right if I took Grundo to watch my father work?”

She shrugged her thick shoulders. “If Daniel wants to work in front of a staring child, that’s his funeral, I suppose. Yes, take him away. I’m sick of the sight of him. Grundo, be back here to put on Court clothing before lunch or you’ll be punished. Off you go.”

“There’s motherly love for you!” I said to Grundo as we hurried off into the rain.

He grinned. “We don’t need to go back. I’ve got Court clothes on under these. It’s warmer.”

I wished I’d thought of doing the same. It was so chilly that you wouldn’t have believed it was nearly Midsummer. Anyway, I’d got Grundo away. Now I just had to hope that Dad wouldn’t mind us watching him. He doesn’t always like being disturbed when he’s working.

When I cautiously lifted the flap of the weather tent, Dad was just getting ready. He had taken off his waterproof cape and was slipping off his heavy blue robe of office and rolling up his shirtsleeves. He looked all slim and upright like that, more like a soldier preparing for a duel than a wizard about to work on the weather.

“Over in that corner, both of you,” he said. “Don’t distract me or you’ll have the King after us in person. He’s given me very exact instructions for today.” He turned a grin on us as he said this, to show he didn’t at all mind having us there.

Grundo gave him one of his serious, deep looks. “Are we allowed to ask questions, sir?”

“Most probably not,” said my father. “That’s distracting. But I’ll describe what I’m doing as I go along, if you want. After all,” he added, with a wistful look at me, “one of you might wish to follow in my footsteps some day.”

I love my dad, though I never see very much of him. I think he really does hope that I might turn out to be a weather worker. I’m afraid I am going to be a great disappointment to him. Weather does fascinate me, but so does every other kind of magic too. That was true even then, when I didn’t know more than the magic they teach you in Court, and it’s more true than ever now.

But I loved watching Dad work. I found I was smiling lovingly as he stepped over to the weather table. At this stage it was unactivated and was simply a sort of framework made of gold and copper wires resting on stout legs that folded up for when we travelled. The whole thing folded away into a worn wooden box about four feet long which I had known for as long as I could remember. It smelt of ozone and cedarwood. Dad and that box went together somehow.