The Magicians and Mrs. Quent

by Galen Beckett

  “You ask magicians to identify themselves,” he went on, “when by its very nature magick is a secret art. I would say it is an axiom that the more likely one is to speak of it, the less likely one is to practice it.”

  “Then I imagine you practice it not at all!” Sir Earnsley said.

  Mr. Bennick bowed toward the baronet. “In that, sir, you cannot be more correct.”

  “I wonder,” Mrs. Baydon said as she laid another piece in the puzzle, “given that magicians all go about it so secretly, if we haven’t all met one and don’t even know it.”

  “I cannot say if you have met a practicing magician,” Mr. Bennick replied—though it was Ivy he looked at. “But I know for a fact you are acquainted with a young gentleman who is often a guest at this house and who is a scion of one of the seven Old Houses from which all magicians can trace their descent. That some among his forefathers were enchanters is a fact. I have read many histories of the arcane in which their names appear.”

  Mrs. Baydon looked up from her puzzle. “Indeed! And who is this remarkable individual? Do point him out!”

  “I cannot. He is not here tonight.”

  “Well, I suppose that wouldn’t be mysterious enough if he were.” She resumed fitting the puzzle.

  Ivy, however, could not let the topic go so easily. What young gentleman could Mr. Bennick speak of who was so often at this house but not tonight? There was only one such person she could think of—and it was not her cousin Mr. Wyble.

  For a time she did not know what to say. Even if she wished for some confirmation from Mr. Bennick, she dared not mention Mr. Rafferdy’s name. So she labored vigorously at the puzzle. At last, perceiving his dark eyes still on her, she looked up and said, “You seem learned in ancient lore, Mr. Bennick. May I ask you a question?”

  His only answer was a nod.

  Now that she had his attention her question seemed outlandish, but there was nothing to do but speak it. “Tell me, sir, do you know of any legends or myths that speak about twelve wanderers coming together in one place?”

  “You say twelve wanderers, Miss Lockwell?”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “Then I cannot help you. I know of no myths of ancient Tharos or the northern counties that speak of such an event. However, twelve is a number of significance in the study of magick. There are, for instance, twelve houses of the moon, each with its own occult properties, and the number twelve comes into play in many spells and enchantments. May I inquire as to the reason for your question?”

  Ivy shrank under the force of his dark stare. “It’s nothing,” she murmured. “Only something I read and did not understand, that’s all. Please don’t think of it further.” She bent back over her work.

  They had made good progress on the puzzle. More of the trees were complete now, their branches drooping over the top of the wall, while leaves scudded before the clouds. A pair of travelers had appeared beside the wall. The gentleman gazed out of the picture, as if looking back the way they had come, but the lady’s head was tilted up toward the trees.

  Ivy supposed the particular stand of forest depicted in the painting was the Evengrove. While there were few patches of Wyrdwood left in the heartlands of Altania—and those that remained were small, whittled down by ax and plow over the centuries—the Evengrove was a notable exception. Not thirty miles from Invarel, a great tract of primeval forest was preserved behind high stone walls first erected by the Tharosian emperor Madiger and later improved during the reigns of numerous kings.

  Folk seldom ventured into the Evengrove, for no roads had ever been hewn into the preserve. However, travelers made a common practice of walking along Madiger’s Wall, and it was a popular subject for artists. Ivy set another piece in the puzzle.

  “Oh, well done!” Mrs. Baydon exclaimed, clapping her hands. “I have looked at that piece a dozen times and couldn’t see where it fit. What a clever thing you are, Miss Lockwell!”

  Ivy merely bowed her head. The room had suddenly become too warm. She longed for a breath of wind, like that which the travelers in the painting must have felt.

  “Do set down your news for a moment, Mr. Baydon. Tell us, what do you think of our work?”

  He peered over the edge of his broadsheet, revealing a face not unhandsome but cast in frown. “I think it’s perfectly ghastly, what with those hoary old trees. And those two people look like they’ve just come from a funeral. You’d find more jolly-looking folk in a workhouse.”

  Ivy tilted her head, studying the picture. “I don’t think it’s ghastly at all. The wood is sad, perhaps, and very old. But it’s appealing in its way. It makes me think of…”

  “Of what does it make you think?” Mr. Bennick said.

  Ivy’s cheeks glowed from the attention, but she sat up straight in her chair and spoke in a clear voice. “I don’t know exactly. It makes me think of something ancient, I suppose. Ancient and strange and forgotten. Like a story no one tells anymore, or a song whose tune no one quite remembers. I’ve always wanted to see the Evengrove, only I never have, and here it’s so close to the city.” She touched the picture.

  “But that’s a marvelous idea!” Mrs. Baydon said. “After this night it is to be another long lumenal. What a fine traveling party we would make if we can convince Mr. Rafferdy to come! What do you say, Mr. Baydon? I’m sure we can use Lord Baydon’s four-in-hand. We’ll stay at an inn—there must be one near Madiger’s Wall, what with all the travelers—and have them pack a dinner for us to take when we venture out to the Evengrove.”

  “A patch of old Wyrdwood is not a place for picnics,” Sir Earnsley said.

  “I couldn’t disagree more. Surely it’s a beautiful place.”

  “Beautiful, you call it?” The old baronet shook his head. “Perilous, I say. Full of whispers and shadows. Where I come from, a man gives a stand of Wyrdwood a wide berth when he’s out walking. There’s a reason walls were built around them.”

  “Well, of course there’s a reason,” Mr. Baydon said, setting down his copy of The Comet. “The walls were meant to preserve a few groves of Altania’s aboriginal wood from any sort of modern progress. Though I can’t see the bother. What good is a shabby bit of forest anyway? Those old trees are always losing their leaves—not like the fine New Trees we have here in the city, which have the good sense to hold on to their greenery all year round. Still, I am sure it’s harmless enough.”

  “Harmless!” Sir Earnsley let out a snort. “You would not say that if you had lived your life in the country.”

  “Indeed, if I had lived my life in the country, I am sure I would be as bound to superstition and codswallop as any Outlander.”

  “But you must know of the Risings, Mr. Baydon. Have you not read the accounts in the histories?”

  “The histories? I’m afraid the Lex Altania is no more historically accurate than a book of nursery stories. Such works might still be studied in country schools, Sir Earnsley, but here in the city we prefer to get our knowledge from more reliable sources.” Mr. Baydon tapped a finger against his issue of The Comet.

  The men continued their argument, but the voices faded to a drone in Ivy’s ears, like the noises of cicadas on the endless afternoon of a greatday. She stared at the puzzle on the table, and again she noticed the way the dark clouds above the trees were tinged with crimson. Maybe some in this city still believed the histories, after all. Maybe the red light was not the light of sunrise or sunset, but rather the glow of fire.

  Mr. Baydon had likened the Lex Altania to a book of nursery stories, and it was true her father had read to her from it when she was a child. Written over twelve hundred years ago by an obscure Tharosian captain, the Lex told the history of the earliest days of Altania. Modern scholars considered the accounts in the book to be fanciful and largely invented. Yet Ivy remembered how Mr. Lockwell had always handled the book reverently each time he took it from the shelf to read to her.

  All good tales bear a truth, he had told her once when she
asked if the stories in the book had really happened. Though sometimes you have to look beyond the surface to see it.

  He had never read the parts of the Lex Altania about the Risings to her, but she had studied all three volumes from cover to cover in the years since. She had to concede, the idea that patches of primeval forest had ever risen up and lashed out against mankind was fantastic.

  Yet she felt her father was right, that there was a truth behind the story of the Risings. The deep forests that covered the island had been mysterious and full of peril to the men who first landed their ships on these shores, and they had struggled to subdue it with ax and fire. Was it really so strange for them to believe the forest had fought back?

  Ivy set another piece in the puzzle, then let out a gasp. In the picture, the trees swayed back and forth as if under the force of a wind. However, the clouds remained motionless in the painted sky. A chill passed through Ivy, but her skin was afire. The trees bent and stretched toward the two travelers. The black lines of branches reached out…

  “Tell us, Miss Lockwell,” Mr. Baydon said, “what do you think of those ridiculous old histories Sir Earnsley is so fond of?”

  It was only with the greatest force that she pulled her gaze away from the puzzle. Spheres of light glowed at the tips of all the candles in the room, expanding and shrinking in time to the beating of her heart.

  “I think…” she said.

  “Yes, Miss Lockwell?” Mr. Bennick said, his dark gaze on her.

  She lifted a hand to her brow. “The lights,” she said. “They’re too bright.”

  The room spun around her. All was a flurry of dazzling sparks. She heard the scraping of chairs, expressions of shock, and one deep voice that cut through the others.

  “Fetch a doctor at once, Mr. Baydon. Miss Lockwell is not well.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ELDYN LIMPED THROUGH the Lowgate just as a greasy sunrise, rank from the exhalations of all the tanneries in Waterside, slicked the surface of the Anbyrn.

  The umbral had been swift, no more than five hours from dusk to dawn, but by all rights he should have been back from his night’s work in Hayrick Cross an hour ago. However, a mile south of the village he had spied a band of four of the king’s redcrests riding along the road, and he had been forced to dive into a hedgerow to keep from being seen. The moon was bright that night, and even his trick with the shadows could not have preserved him from their notice.

  After that, fearing other soldiers would be on the road, he had made his way south by muddy back lanes and bridle paths. More than once he had gotten lost when some track dead-ended, and upon jumping a stile to go overland across a field he was spied by the farmer, who fired his musket and loosed his dogs. The gun was easily dodged, but not so the hounds. One of them got a chunk of Elydn’s boot, and a piece of his leg with it, before he scrambled up a wall and lost them that way.

  As he entered the Golden Loom, he kept up his guard against an encounter with Miss Walpert, which he feared nearly as much as a run-in with soldiers. Despite his rebuff of her proposal a half month back, she had not lost any interest in him. Not that he should complain, for her father had lately reduced his rent, and Eldyn knew it was due to her goodly words about him. He ought to be thankful. He was thankful. All the same, he had no wish to come upon her—especially now.

  Fortunately, the inn was quiet, and he was able to slip upstairs unseen. That was well, as he was certain he looked a sore sight, with the nettles in his coat and the blood on his leg. It would not do to have anyone ask questions or to wonder where he was at night, in case the king’s men (or, worse yet, one of the Black Dog’s own agents) ever came to the inn looking for news of suspicious doings.

  And if they did, all you would have to do is point them to Westen, Eldyn told himself as he filled a basin and poured water over the back of his neck. However, that was an absurd idea. Who would the magistrate believe when they went before the court? Westen struck a fine figure in his rich clothes, gold as the day. Then there was Eldyn, longhaired, ragged, and far too thin—a pale night thing.

  Sashie had not risen, or at least she had not yet emerged from her room. As far as she knew, he had been out at tavern all night with Rafferdy. In truth he had not seen Rafferdy since the full moon, not since they quarreled about his intentions toward Miss Lockwell. Since then, none of Rafferdy’s usual notes had arrived at the inn. Not that Eldyn’s night work left him time for hanging about taverns.

  Yet he missed his friend. Eldyn would have liked to talk to him, to hear his laughter and his prattle about clothes and parties and dice. Only what could Eldyn himself say in return? How he was carrying messages that surely were intended for spies and traitors? He took off the yeoman’s garb he had donned for the night’s mischief and stuffed it in a bag. He made what bath he could with the basin of yesterday’s water, then donned his second best shirt and his best breeches.

  As for his boots, they were done for; the one was torn, and the other half gone above the ankle. He took a knife and cut off the tops, making them into something like the moccasins the aboriginals of the New Lands wore. He had no choice but to get fitted for a new pair of boots that day. Luckily, the men who gave him the messages to carry usually gave him a little money as well, slapping him on the back and calling him brother as they pressed the coins into his hand. Eldyn felt no fraternal kinship for these men. Their faces were rough, their eyes sly and full of murder. But he would nod and pocket the coins just the same.

  As a result, he had enough funds to keep him and his sister at the inn for the present. He had hoped to use what remained of the money from his mother’s jewels to buy a coat, but boots it would be instead. He carefully brushed his old coat one more time and set it over a chair, then laid down on the bench to try to doze for a little while.

  He was awakened by the sound of the door to Sashie’s chamber opening. She would come out of her room and sit with him these days and would even accompany him to the public room for meals. Her manner was civil, and she would answer any question he asked—though coolly, and she would volunteer no conversation on her own. She had made no attempt to approach Westen or in any way to break the command Eldyn had given her forbidding that relationship. Yet it was equally clear that she had not forgiven him.

  “Good morning, dearest,” he said, sitting up on the bench as she exited her little chamber. He rubbed his neck; the bench was bare wood with only a blanket thrown over it.

  “Good morning, brother,” she said, without a glance his way.

  She wore her plainest dress and no ribbons in her hair, but her sadness made her look fragile and so all the more lovely, like a porcelain treasure from a Murghese palace. A fierce desire to do right by her came over him. He would give her all she deserved, all their father had promised and never given her, and then she would know that he loved her, that he wanted only the best for her. Despite his weariness, he stood.

  “What would you like to do today?” he asked merrily. “Come, we can do anything you wish.” He suggested several things that he thought might lift her spirits: a walk through a garden, or a boat ride on the river, or even a visit to the countryside. He had some coin; he could afford it. And such an expense would be worth the cost if it brought a little color to her cheeks and a smile to her lips.

  Only she could not be compelled to leave their chambers, let alone the inn or the city. “I will stay here today,” she said. “If I sit by the window, I can just see the little pear tree in the courtyard. A lark comes there sometimes, and if I open the window I can hear its song. It’s the prettiest thing. Nothing could give me more joy than to hear it.”

  With that she sat by the window and gazed through the glass. His sister made no complaint about her situation, but as usual when he tried to engage her in conversation she responded with few words. If the lark came, he did not see it, and he heard no birdsong save for the inane cooing of the pigeons.

  At last he could bear the confines of the room no longer. He had intended t
o stay with her all the day—a middle lumenal—so that she would not be alone so much, but the walls pressed closer with every hour, and each clatter of hooves he heard through the window belonged, in his imagination, to an agent of the Black Dog, come to question folk at the inn about traitors to the Crown.

  “Perhaps you can be content here, but I must go out!” he cried at last, leaping up from the bench.

  She said nothing, and only looked at him with languid eyes.

  “I will be at Mrs. Haddon’s,” he said. “Tell Mr. Walpert if you need me for anything. He can send a boy to fetch me. I will bring you something sweet to eat when I return.”

  She had already turned her gaze back out the window. Eldyn donned his coat, took his hat, and shut the door quietly behind him.

  IT HAD BEEN some time since he had been to Mrs. Haddon’s coffeehouse, and her business had not suffered in the interim. The place was, if anything, more crowded than ever.

  “Yes, things are always mad after such a short night,” Mrs. Haddon said when he commented on her business. “A brief umbral leaves little time for mischief, let alone sleep, and what can’t be got in bed must be got in a cup instead if one is to stay awake through the day.” She gave his cheek a quick pinch, then hurried off.

  Eldyn gaped after her. What did she mean by those words? A brief umbral leaves little time for mischief… Did Mrs. Haddon know something of what he had been doing at night? Only that was mad. She was the proprietor of a coffeehouse. What did she know of spies and rebels?

  Perhaps more than he thought. He surveyed the room and saw plenty of young men reading The Fox and The Swift Arrow. In this place, criticism of the king and the magnates was consumed as eagerly as the contents of the cups Mrs. Haddon brought, and it similarly fueled the spirits of those who partook of it. He wondered if it was wise for him to be here. However, even as he considered this he saw Orris Jaimsley waving at him. His old classmates from St. Berndyn’s College sat around their usual table. He went over to them.