Not in trouble, yeah right. Thoth is always in trouble with adults, even when he didn’t do anything wrong. There’s a moment of sheepish silence to honour his friend being punished, followed by a sharp relief that word of the bats has not yet reached the king. Tarquin had promised to go straight to Arthur after they attacked him, claiming that Thoth had set them on him when he hadn’t. Thoth never told the bats to roost in the unused storeroom on the fifth floor, and it wasn’t his fault that Tarquin had been trying to lock him in it at the time. Somehow, Tarquin’s always seem to overlook their son’s involvement whenever they come knocking on Nimueh’s door to demand ‘justice’. Thoth nearly always gets into trouble, partially because it’s easier to admit fault than to tell everyone that he’s weak.
It’s disappointing to hear that the cook’s cat will be back shortly, since Thoth and his large collection of rodents don’t like him. Or the cook, for that matter. Thoth can’t help but feel that she overreacted just a little over his stealing her rat poison, especially when he had tried to explain that he could just talk to the rats. A rolling pin to the back of the head is definitely out of line.
The king’s next words catch his full attention. There’s no indication of a new subject arising, but somehow Thoth doubts that the guards fetching the cat back is in any way ‘complicated’. ‘Complicated’ is not a good word, in his experience. ‘Complicated’ is usually the word adults used to describe situations which are wrong, but they don’t want to do anything about it to make it right again. He narrows his eyes slightly. Arthur had apologised for not acting quickly enough when there had been the complicated situation of his mother being abducted by Gwythr, which Thoth has subsequently accepted, but he still feels a disinclination to place his trust in him because of it. He places the broom aside and waits for the explanation, which is not long forthcoming. The name of Sir Walter Smythe means nothing to Thoth, and the Auran Church very little; his mother had never gone into detail about it, and few books on Shaman reference it. The names are enough, however, to instil the feeling that this is going to be a long conversation.
His initial reaction, if the circumstances were slightly different, would be delight. He’s wanted to go to Earth for as long as he can remember, and since his mother’s demise that desire has amplified tenfold; to see the place where his mother lived and worked before Shaman would, he is sure, go some way to filling the void that her death left. A quick trip to London, perhaps for a weekend, would be wonderful.
But, as the king had said, it doesn’t seems to be rather more complicated than that. If he were being offered something as simple as a brief holiday, why would the king of Shaman himself feel the need to get involved? Thoth remembers, acutely, how he had been approached by Tsi after his mother’s passing and asked to go to Earth to work with the Aurans. Tsi had never mentioned that the Aurans might send requests of their own, and all of this brushes a little too close to his worst fear: deification. He absorbs the information and is quiet for a moment, deliberately ignoring the questions while he picks apart the underlying meaning in what he’s just been told. The expression of calculation on his face is, in that moment, eerily similar to the one which had often found itself on Aura’s when she had been contemplating how to combat Gwythr.
“Escort me to Earth for how long?” He counters suspiciously. “What do they want with me? Why did they speak to you instead of me?”
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