History Literature / MairelonTheMagician

* BewitchedAmphibians: The lower-class slang for wizard is "frog-maker". At the end of ''Mairelon the Magician'', [[spoiler:Mairelon says he'll turn his brother into a frog for a few minutes if it would make him feel better, but he'd rather not]].

* NoodleIncident: In the second book Mairelon mentions an incident from his spying days that somehow involved chickens which the brother of the man he was talking to was somehow involved in. He was sadly interrupted before he could go into any further detail.

* ChildhoodMarriagePromise: Two of the characters in ''Magician's Ward'' made one when they were young. As adults, he loves her, but she's set her aim elsewhere, and dismisses the childhood promise as a meaningless game when he brings it up.

* CainAndAbel: [[spoiler: Criminal kingpin Dan Laverham is the bastard half-brother of Lord Gregory St. Clair. The resentful Laverham absolutely despises his brother, and St. Clair isn't any too fond of him either.]]

* EveryoneCanSeeIt: When Kim and Mairelon end up confessing their love for each other in a room full of people, no one is surprised or disapproving at all, even the guy they've only met a few times.

* GambitPileup: Five separate parties try to steal the Saltash Platter from Henry Bramingham's library over the course of a single evening. The sheer absurdity of this nearly gets Mairelon and Kim (Party number two) caught when they have to force themselves to not laugh upon the arrival of Jonathan Aberford (Party number five). All of them fail, because the real platter had been stolen over a week before and replaced with a forgery.
-->Mairelon: ''Everyone'' broke into Bramingham's library. Including Renee. Everyone who was anywhere near Ranton Hill, that is. I suppose I should be glad St. Clair didn't arrive until a day later, or we might have seen him bumbling around with everyone else.

* GentlemanWizard: Mairelon.
* GoldDigger: Everyone thinks that Lord Gideon Starnes is one, as he's very attractive and [[ImpoverishedPatrician quite poor]]. He's actually quite devoted to his childhood friend, the gorgeous Letitia Tarnower, who, unfortunately for him, is a real GoldDigger who wants nothing to do with a man whose fortune vanished in a haze of gambling debts years ago.

* TheMagocracy: The novels are set in a world where magic does exist, and Wizards are so influential that the government and society bows to them. Specifically British Parliament had to move out of its building because the Wizards already worked in it, and Wizards are automatically considered social equals of any level in society. It's never implied that the King of Britain is a wizard, but the Russian royalty certainly is.
** Also, magic is taught as a part of upper-class education, in the same way as Latin is. (Though not all nobles are ''good'' at magic, and a fair fraction can't use it at all, it does mean that most trained Wizards are from an upper-class background to start with.)
* MealTicket: Lady Granleigh's heiress ward, Marianne. Lady Granleigh's debt-stricken brother expects to marry her; unfortunately, nobody consulted Marianne, and she runs away with a young man more to her liking. In the second book, Letitia Tarnower tries to turn Mairelon into one, failing because he simply wasn't interested in her. No mention is made of whether or not she bagged her secondary target.

-->Lady Wendall (amused): "I see you have decided to take my advice after all, Richard. Marrying your ward is ''exactly'' the sort of usual scandal I had in mind; I wonder why it didn't occur to me before."

* ChekhovsSkill: The first piece of stage magic that Mairelon teaches Kim is a trick knot that looks complicated but can be easily undone by anyone who knows what loop to pull. When Kim gets [[SarcasmMode put under a control spell]] by Laverham, she binds Mairelon with this knot to show that the spell isn't actually affecting her.

* ChekhovsSkill: The first piece of stage magic that Mairelon teaches Kim is a trick knot that looks complicated but can be easily undone by anyone who knows what loop to pull. When Kim gets [[SarcasmMode put under a control spell]] by Laverham, she binds Mairelon with this knot to show that she isn't actually under his control.

** And then there's the climax, where every time they think they've got a handle on what's going on, somebody ''else'' whose plans have to be taken into consideration shows up, resulting in something like ten different interruptions, each of which rearranges the balance of power in the room. Really, this book is "Gambit Pileup: The Novel".

* ChekhovsSkill: The first piece of stage magic that Mairelon teaches Kim is a trick knot that looks complicated but can be easily undone by anyone who knows what loop to pull. When Kim gets put under a control spell by Laverham, she binds Mairelon with this knot to show that she isn't actually under his control.

** And then there's the climax, where every time they think they've got a handle on what's going on, somebody ''else'' whose plans have to be taken into consideration shows up, resulting in something like ten different interruptions, each of which rearranges the balance of power in the room.

* ShipperOnDeck: Lady Wendall ships Kim/Mairelon.

** Also, magic is taught as a part of upper-class education, in the same way as Latin is. (Though not all nobles are ''good'' at magic, and a fair fraction can't use it at all, it does mean that most trained Wizards are from an upper-class background ot start with.)
* MealTicket: Lady Granleigh's heiress ward, Marianne. Lady Granleigh's debt-stricken brother expects to marry her; unfortunately, nobody consulted Marianne, and she runs away with a young man more to her liking.

There is a sequel, ''Magician's Ward'', and the two books have been published together in a collected edition under the title ''A Matter of Magic''.

* LieDetector: Individual pieces of the Saltash set can be used for this; the whole set together can be used to [[TruthSerum force truth to be spoken]].