#Review - Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho #Fantasy / #Historical

Series: Sorcerer Royal (#1)
Format: Paperback, 384 pages
Release Date: July 12, 2016
Publisher: Ace
Source: Publisher
Genre: Fantasy / Historical

The Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers maintains the magic within His Majesty’s lands. But lately, the institution has fallen into disgrace, naming an unsuitable gentleman as their Sorcerer Royal and allowing England’s stores of magic to bleed dry. At his wit’s end, Zacharias Wythe, Sorcerer Royal of the Unnatural Philosophers, ventures to the border of Fairyland to discover why England’s magical stocks are drying up, an adventure that brings him in contact with Prunella Gentlewoman, a woman with immense power and an unfathomable gift, and sets him on a path which will alter the nature of sorcery in all of Britain—and the world at large…

Story Locale: Regency England 

 

Sorcerer to the Crown, by author Zen Cho, is the first in a series of historical fantasy books set in Regency London blending a touch of fantasy, politics, humor, and romance while taking a poke at Regency prejudices.  It has been 3 months since Zacharias Wythe has taken up the staff of the Sorcerer Royal—not so long since his predecessor, Sir Stephen Wythe, has died. Because he is a negro bought from a slave owner by Mister Wythe and his wife Lady Maria Wythe, he the object of general interest, and of great hatred because others think he is a murdered who usurped his title.

Zacharias is bound to serve the Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers who have been in dire need of answers as to why England's magic has been on the decline. Especially when they are at war with Napolean's France and the Fairy Queen has cut off all access to the land of Fairy. With his main nemesis, Geoffrey Midsomer, back from Fairy, it is probable that Zacharias's problems with become even more dire. What's more troubling is the fact that he is the only Sorcerer Royal who doesn't have a familiar thanks to Fairy's restrictions and that doesn't protect him against numerous assassination plots.

Then there's Prunella, an unexpected and willful, yet completely charming addition to his tangled problems. 19-year old Prunella Gentleman of the Daubeney's School for Gentlewitches is an orphan who also has dark skin, and may in fact be too magical for her own good. After discovering her supposed fathers secret stash, which includes 7 priceless eggs, Prunella decides to leave the school and follow Zacharias to London so that she can learn how to control her magic. Prunella is forbidden to acknowledge her magic because she is a woman and therefore cannot possibly be magically inclined.

Institutional racism and oppression is a real menace in this story, even overshadowing the threats of war from France, the dwindling magical resources of England, and the political entanglements involving the matter of witches, belligerent visiting diplomats, and backstabbing members of the Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers. While I adored Zacharias, it was Prunella who stole the show with the sheer force of her personality. In many ways, the author set up the transition from Zacharias to Prunella and the sequel to this story.

 

PROLOGUE

THE MEETING OF the Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers was well under way, and the entrance hall was almost empty. Only the occasional tardy magician passed through, scarcely sparing a glance for the child waiting there.

Boy children of his type were not an uncommon sight in the Society’s rooms. The child was unusual less for his complexion than for his apparent idleness. Unlike the Society’s splendidly liveried pages, he was soberly dressed, and he was young for a page boy, having just attained his sixth summer.

In fact, Zacharias held no particular employment, and he had never seen the Society before that morning, when he had been conducted there by the Sorcerer Royal himself. Sir Stephen had adjured him to wait, then vanished into the mysterious depths of the Great Hall.

Zacharias was awed by the stately building, with its sombre wood-panelled walls and imposing paintings, and he was a little frightened of the grave thaumaturges hurrying past in their midnight blue coats. Most of all he was rendered solemn by the seriousness of his task. He sat, swollen with purpose, gazing at the doors to the Great Hall, as though by an effort of will he might compel them to open and disgorge his guardian.

Finally, the moment came: the doors opened, and Sir Stephen beckoned to him.

Zacharias entered the Great Hall under the penetrating gaze of what seemed to be a thousand gentlemen, most of them old, and none friendly. Sir Stephen was the only person he knew, for one could not count Sir Stephen’s familiar Leofric, who slept curled in reptilian coils at the back of the room, smoke rising from his snout.

The thickest-skinned child might have been cowed by such an assembly, and Zacharias was sensitive. But Sir Stephen put a reassuring hand on his back, and Zacharias remembered the morning, so long ago now—home, safety, warmth, and Lady Wythe’s face bending over him:

“Never be afraid, Zacharias, but do your best. That will be quite enough, for you have been taught by the finest sorcerer in the realm. If the attention of so many gentlemen should make you nervous, simply pretend to yourself that they are so many heads of cabbages. That always assists me on such occasions.”

Zacharias was pretending as hard as he could as he was propelled to the front of the room, but the cabbages did not seem to help. To be sure, Lady Wythe had never been called upon to prove the magical capacities of her race before the finest thaumaturgical minds in England. It was a grave responsibility, and one anyone would find daunting, thought Zacharias, even if he were a great boy of six.

“What do you wish to bring alive, Zacharias?” said Sir Stephen. He gestured at a small wooden box on a table. “In the course of his travels Mr. Midsomer acquired this box, carved with birds and fruit and outlandish animals. You may have your pick.”

Zacharias had rehearsed the enchantment he was to perform many times under Sir Stephen’s patient tutelage. The night before, he had fallen asleep reciting the formula to himself. Yet now, as he was surrounded by a crowd of strange faces, oppressed by the consciousness of being the focus of their attention, memory deserted him.

His terrified gaze swung from Sir Stephen’s kind face, skipped over the audience, and roamed over the Great Hall, as if he might find the words of the spell waiting for him in some dusty corner. It was the oldest room in the Society, and boasted several interesting features, chief of which were the ancient carved bosses on the ceiling. These represented lambs, lions and unicorns; faces of long-dead sorcerers; and Green Men with sour expressions and vines sprouting from their nostrils. At any other time they would have captivated Zacharias, but right now they could give him no pleasure.

“I have forgotten the spell,” he whispered.

“What is that?” said Sir Stephen. He had been speaking in clear ringing tones before, addressing his audience, but now he lowered his voice and leaned closer.

“No helping the boy, if you please,” cried a voice. “That will prove nothing of what you promised.”

The audience had been growing restless with Zacharias’s stupefaction. Other voices followed the first, hectoring, displeased:

“Is the child an idiot?”

“A poll parrot would offer better amusement.”

“Can you conceive anything more absurd?” said a thaumaturge to a friend, in a carrying whisper. “He might as well seek to persuade us that a pig can fly—or a woman do magic!”

The friend observed that so could pigs fly, if one could be troubled to make them.

“Oh certainly!” replied the first. “And one could teach a woman to do magic, I suppose, but what earthly good would a flying pig or a magical female be to anyone?”

“This is a great gift to the press,” cried a gentleman with red whiskers and a supercilious expression. “What fine material we have furnished today for the caricaturists—a meeting of the first magicians of our age, summoned to watch a piccaninny stutter! Has English thaumaturgy indeed been so reduced by the waning of England’s magic that Sir Stephen believes we have nothing better to do?”

Unease rippled through the crowd, as though what the gentleman had said sat ill with his peers. Zacharias said anxiously: “Perhaps there is not enough magic.”

“Tush!” said Sir Stephen. To Zacharias’s embarrassment, he spoke loud enough for the entire room to hear. “Pray do not let that worry you. It pleases Mr. Midsomer to enlarge upon the issue, but I believe England is still furnished with sufficient magic to quicken any tolerable magician’s spells.”

The red-whiskered gentleman shouted an indistinct riposte, but he was not allowed to finish, for three other thaumaturges spoke over him, disagreeing vociferously. Six more magicians took up Mr. Midsomer’s defence, alternating insults to their peers with condemnation of Sir Stephen and mockery of his protégé. A poor sort of performing animal it was, they said, that would not perform!

“What an edifying sight for a child—a room full of men several times his size, calling him names,” said one gentleman, who had the sorcerer’s silver star pinned to his coat. He did not trouble to raise his voice, but his cool accents seemed to cut through the tumult. “It is all of a piece with the most ancient traditions of our honourable Society, I am sure, and evidence of how well we deserve our position in the world.”

Mr. Midsomer flushed with anger.

“Mr. Damerell may say what he likes, but I see no reason why we should restrain our criticism of this absurd spectacle, child or no child,” he snapped.

“I am sure you do not, Midsomer,” said Damerell gently. “I have always admired your refusal, in the pursuit of your convictions, ever to be constrained by considerations of humanity—much less of ordinary good manners.”

The room erupted into more argument than ever. The clamour mounted till it seemed it must wake the carvings on the box, and even the slumbering bosses on the ceiling, without Zacharias’s needing to lift a finger.

Zacharias looked around, but everyone had ceased to pay attention to him. For the moment he was reprieved.

He let out a small sigh of relief. As if that tiny breath were the key to his locked memory, his mind opened, and the spell fell into it, fully formed. The words were so clear and obvious, their logic so immaculate, that Zacharias wondered that he had ever lost them.

He spoke the spell under his breath, still a little uncertain after the agonies he had endured. But magic came, ever his friend—magic answered his call. The birds carved upon the box blushed red, green, blue and yellow, and he knew that the spell had caught.

The birds peeled away from the box as they took on substance and being, their wings springing away from their bodies, feathers sprouting upon their flesh. They flew up to the ceiling, squawking. The breeze from their wings brushed Zacharias’s face, and he laughed.

One by one the carved bosses sprang to life, and the dead sorcerers and the sour old Green Men and the lions and the lambs and the birds opened their mouths, all of them singing, singing lustily Zacharias’s favourite song, drowning out the angry voices of the men below, and filling the room with glorious sound.

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