Sword and Sorceress 30
Page 30
“Robert St-Juste. He said he found it in his mail slot in the students’ common room.”
“This certainly wouldn’t be the first time something went into the wrong slot. Do you want to take a look?”
Juliana nodded.
“Just let me look him up first.” April opened a ledger on the left side of the desk, flipped through the pages, and ran a fingertip down the list. “Here we are. He’s first-year, reading law.”
“Oh, joy,” Juliana said ironically. “Young law students—and young lawyers—have an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. It generally takes at least a couple of decades before they turn back into human beings. If they ever do.”
“That would explain a lot of the calls I’ve received this morning,” April muttered. “Keven?” she called. “Can you cover the desk for me? I’m taking my lunch break now.”
“Would that be for the purpose of eating lunch or for having today’s nervous breakdown early?” the second assistant registrar quipped, coming forward to take April’s place.
“Neither, I’m afraid,” April said. “I’m assisting the City Guard with their enquiries. Would you please have lunch sent in for both of us, and make mine something that will still be edible whenever I finally get back to eat it.”
“Will do,” he said, opening her desk drawer and extracting what looked like the sort of compact that ladies used to powder their faces in emergencies. “Keep in touch.”
April tucked the compact carefully into her pocket before leading Juliana in the direction of the common room.
~o0o~
“Here we are,” April said, looking at the wall: “St-Juste, surrounded by Peake, Clarke, Hart, and Davis.” She pulled out the compact, and Juliana looked at her incredulously.
“Is this really the time to worry about your make-up?”
“Don’t be silly. I don’t wear make-up.” April flipped the compact open, made a measured, two-fingered gesture in front of it, and spoke into the mirror. “Keven?”
A few seconds later Keven’s voice issued from the compact. “Yes, April?”
“In the ledger on the left side of the desk is a list of students and their subjects. I need the subjects for the following: Clarke, Davis, Hart, and Peake.”
The sound of rustling pages was followed by: “Here we are. Clarke, Fine Arts; ... Davis, Fine Arts; ... Hart, Maths; ... Peake, Physics.”
“Thank you, Keven.” April shut the compact. “It seems that we’re looking for Hart or Peake—unless either of the Fine Arts is music.”
“Is something wrong, Magistra?” a small blonde asked nervously as she came up next to April.
“And you are—” Juliana asked.
“Hypatia Clarke, Guardswoman,” the girl said respectfully.
“And what do you study here, Clarke?”
The girl looked nervously at Juliana and then at April.
“Please answer her questions, Miss Clarke,” April said soothingly. “As far as I know, you’re not in any trouble.”
“Fine Arts,” Miss Clarke said, and when Juliana continued to stare at her she added, “Interior Design.”
“And your fellow Fine Arts student?” Juliana tapped the slot labeled “Davis.”
“Jeremy Davis? He’s a painter.”
“Do you know Hart and Peake?”
“Yes, ma’am.” April said. “They’re Maths and Sciences. They’re over at that table in the corner.” She gestured at two young men with a barricade of books surrounding the papers they were scribbling on.
“Thank you, Miss Clarke,” April said. “We won’t keep you.”
“Yes, Magistra,” the girl said quickly. She grabbed her mail and fled.
“I bet the note is Peake’s,” April said.
“Why?” Juliana asked. “The physics?”
“And the fact that his mail slot is above St-Juste’s, and the label is below the slot.”
“Ah. Let’s go find out,” Juliana strode to the table in the corner, while April followed hastily in her wake, ready to reassure terrorized students.
In addition to Hart and Peake, there was a girl hidden behind a stack of books. April recognized her as Mary Ann Short, the child prodigy of the Maths department. That explained who was really running the riddle game—and probably whose idea it had been in the first place.
Mary Ann looked up and saw the compact still in April’s hand. “Oh! You’ve got one of the new micro-mirrors!”
Almost simultaneously Peake said, “Is that my invitation? We’ve been looking everywhere for it!”
“I told you I put it in your mail slot!” Mary Ann protested.
“How tall are you, Miss—” Juliana began, looking to April for the surname.
“Mary Ann Short, Maths,” April murmured.
“—Miss Short,” Juliana finished with a barely-perceptible wince.
“Five foot,” Mary Ann replied cheerfully. “Don’t worry, Guardswoman; I’m used to the jokes. It’s worse for my parents—they’re both tall. Once, when I was younger, Mother took me to see a new consultant. He looked down at me, up at her, and asked, ‘Is she adopted?’ Fortunately Mother chose to be amused.”
“So you would have trouble reaching the mail slots on the top row, is that correct?”
“Yes, Guardswoman... oh, dear, did I put it in the wrong slot?”
Peake winced. “St-Juste, right?” he asked. April nodded.
“But how did it get to the City Guard?” Hart asked.
“St-Juste brought it to us in the belief that it was a death threat,” Juliana said blandly.
Three faces stared incredulously at her for several seconds before all three students dissolved into hysterical laughter.
“Juliana!” April protested.
“Don’t you believe that humility is a virtue?” Juliana asked with mock innocence.
“Yes, just as firmly as I believe that humiliated law students are dangerous.”
Mary Ann sobered first. “She’s right. And St-Juste is a particularly good example.”
“Very true,” Hart said.
“It will be our private joke,” Peake agreed. “May I have the invitation, or do you still need it?”
“You may keep it,” Juliana said. “We’ll deal with St-Juste, and there’s no need for any of you to mention this to him.”
Three heads nodded obediently.
The two women were walking back towards the Registrar’s office when April suddenly halted and said, “Fiddle! We still don’t know anything more about the riddle game!”
“Not something I shall worry about,” replied Juliana blithely. “As long as no one’s dark speech results in sorcerous death, I shall consider my report complete. Meanwhile, how will you deal with St-Juste?”
“Well,” April began, “Lord Robert does owe us a bit of a favor, even if saving his life was part of your job....”
~o0o~
St-Juste was summoned to the Registrar’s inner office. Standing formally on the carpet before the desk, he appeared to think that the attention of Lord Robert, Guardian of the Key of Solomon and Registrar of the University, was simply his due. He ignored April and Juliana as if they were the chairs in which they sat.
“It has come to my attention, St-Juste,” the seated Lord Robert announced, “that your attendance has been less than satisfactory.”
“You must be mistaken, milord,” St-Juste said. “My attendance is perfect; just ask my professors.”
“Do you attend chapel with them?”
“Chapel?” St-Juste sounded as if he’d been asked if he participated in human sacrifice.
No, thought April, that would probably startle him less.
“I don’t believe that my professors attend chapel,” St-Juste drawled. “Primitive superstition and all that.”
Oh dear. He should not have said that. Not given the part of the Colonies Lord Robert comes from.
To her surprise, the registrar took the statement in stride, as if he had expected it. “If by some chance you’re
thinking of Professor Darius,” he replied, not missing a beat, “you’ll be interested to know that not only does he attend chapel, he’s one of our more enthusiastic participants. In fact,”—he withdrew a folder from a drawer and presented it to St-Juste—“he sent this over to be presented to you. An assignment, to be submitted in seven days’ time. One copy to him, the other to me.” As St-Juste opened the folder and read the single sheet within, Lord Robert continued, “A brief analysis—historical, theological, and thaumaturgical—of Judaism, Christianity, Druidry, and Taoism, correlating each with the phrase ‘primitive superstition’—rigorously defined.
“In the meantime, I assure you that all your professors attend chapel,” Lord Robert said. “You did see them seated in the choir during Opening Exercises, did you not? They fill those same seats regularly throughout the year. Their absence would be noted. By everyone.
“And finally, should you ever aspire to be a barrister—or even a good solicitor—you will need to remember that juries, not to mention judges, are often made up of people who do not consider Christianity or Judaism to be ‘primitive superstition.’ A lot of them can even recognize a verse from a Psalm when they see it, rather than running to the City Guard and making them waste their time investigating non-existent death threats.”
One would think that at this point the student would be rethinking his stance, or at least noticing the Guardswoman in the room. St-Juste, however, appeared slow on the uptake. “But the guards are civil servants; it’s their duty to help us!”
Lord Robert looked at April. “First Assistant Registrar.”
“Milord?”
“Make a note to have me review the first-year Law curriculum, with emphasis on the difference between the terms ‘servant’ and ‘slave,’ and the actual duties of the City Guard.”
“Yes, milord.”
“As for you, St-Juste, I expect to see you in chapel, front section, both morning and evening, by the time the service begins, each and every day for as long as you attend this University. We don’t generally take formal attendance, but in your case I’m willing to make an exception.”
As Lord Robert sat back, April saw a faint smile tug at his lips. “Congratulations. You’ve finally convinced me that some students do deserve special treatment.”
About Sword and Sorceress
Elisabeth Waters
The Sword and Sorceress anthology series started in 1983, when Marion Zimmer Bradley, complaining that she was sick and tired of sword & sorcery stories where the female character was “a bad-conduct prize” for the male protagonist, persuaded Donald A. Wollheim of DAW Books to buy an anthology of sword & sorcery with strong female characters. The book was published in 1984.
The original title, Swords and Sorceresses, was changed during the production process when it was discovered that nobody could pronounce it in a sentence. So the first book was titled simply Sword and Sorceress. It was a success, so the following year we got Sword and Sorceress II.
It is my personal belief that if either Marion or Don had realized how successful this series was going to be, they would not have used Roman numerals, but they did, and DAW published the series through Sword and Sorceress XXI. (That’s 21, for the non-Romans among us.)
Norilana Books picked up the series with volume 22, and because Marion was no longer alive to edit it, Vera Nazarian entitled the book Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress XXII. This led to five titles that were listed on the royalty reports as “Marion Zimmer Bradley’s” with the only thing different being the ISBN.
We finally reissued volumes 22 through 27 as Sword and Sorceress 22 through Sword and Sorceress 27, and we have been using Arabic numbers every since. We hope that our readers find this less confusing. We know that we do.
Volumes available for Kindle are:
Sword and Sorceress 22
Sword and Sorceress 23
Sword and Sorceress 24
Sword and Sorceress 25
Sword and Sorceress 26
Sword and Sorceress 27
Sword and Sorceress 28
Sword and Sorceress 29
Copyright
copyright © 2015 by Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust
cover design copyright © 2015 by Dave Smeds
www.mzbworks.com