A Season of Spells (A Noctis Magicae Novel)

by Sylvia Izzo Hunter

  “You consider Roland and Lucia’s account reliable, then,” said Gray. “That there was such a message, and that it did indeed come—somehow—from the yew-trees in the maze.”

  His tone was not sceptical, exactly—a man who had spent what amounted to whole months of his life in the body of an owl, after all, had not much luxury to scoff at other people’s odd tales—but on the other hand, he had not seen all that Sophie had on that mad midnight escapade in Cormac MacAlpine’s sacred grove.

  Fowler looked up, alert to the possibility of an ally.

  “It is all alike to me,” said Joanna frankly. “It does not seem very plausible, I grant you, but, as Sophie says, Lucia MacNeill is not given to flights of fancy. And,” she added, “I have seen a great many even less plausible things, Gray, since first you came to stay with us in Breizh.”

  “As have I,” said Kergabet, with a small and rueful smile.

  And that, thought Sophie, was certainly true, whatever else might or might not be so.

  “I do not doubt Roland and Lucia’s account,” she said, “not at all; but what I cannot understand is how those yew-trees should come to have knowledge—let alone foreknowledge—of the prisoners’ escape.”

  “One does ask oneself that question,” said Gray dryly. “Among others.”

  “We ought to hope with all our might that this is indeed the danger the trees warned Roland of,” said Miss Pryce. The rest of the table turned to look at her. “Because,” she continued, her quiet voice steady in the face of their collective scrutiny, “if it is not, then there is some other enemy in the offing, of whom we know nothing at all.”

  On this sobering thought their council broke up, Sieur Germain and Mr. Fowler to yet another conference with Vaucourt and his staff, and the others to occupy themselves as best they could, without either stirring out of doors or drawing attention to themselves by any sort of unaccustomed conduct.

  * * *

  The letter was postmarked from Oxford, sealed with the owl-and-oak-tree device of Merlin College, and was directed in a crabbed and tiny hand. This hand was not that of Master Alcuin, who had last written to report that, alas, no copy of The Rise and Fall of Lady Morgan College was to be found in the libraries of Merlin, Marlowe, Plato, or King’s; nor that of Gareth Evans-Hughes, Fellow of Merlin and friend of the Marshalls, with a further report on the contents of the map-room in the Merlin College library. Had one of them, perhaps, recruited some colleague to the cause? Unlikely, but not altogether impossible.

  “What is that?” said Joanna, as Sophie studied it.

  “I have not the least idea.”

  She broke the seal and unfolded the letter.

  To Her Royal Highness, the Princess Edith Augusta Sophia, greetings, the salutation ran—not, in Sophie’s experience, a promising beginning. She sighed, and read on:

  It has come to our attention that a movement is presently afoot to re-establish at Oxford, on an equal footing with the Colleges hitherto established and presently operating by Royal Charter, a College for female students, on the site of that institution lately known as Lady Morgan College.

  Now, how had the letter-writers, whoever they were, discovered this fact? What they spoke of as a movement was in fact Sophie herself and whatever friends and relations she was capable of collecting to assist her; should she succeed in obtaining her father’s sanction for the project, of course, the case would at once be altogether different, but at present she could not expect His Majesty even to attend to such a request, let alone throw his patronage behind it.

  You are the patron, she reminded herself—it was a difficult thing to remember, always. If you can only sway Father to the cause, you shall have the royal coffers—or some fraction of them, at any rate!—at your disposal, and the wherewithal to engage whatever tradesmen, artisans, and workmen may be required.

  But not whilst the King’s attention—and very soon, no doubt, the kingdom’s—was riveted upon the matter of the escaped traitors.

  You may perhaps be unaware, Your Royal Highness, the letter continued, of the many learned treatises which demonstrate the female mind to be ill suited for higher learning. A list is therefore appended of several such treatises which may be suitable, and of which copies are known to be held in His Majesty’s library.

  “Some very kind Oxford dons,” said Sophie to Joanna, looking up from the letter, “have undertaken to explain to me why I ought not to worry my pretty head over the question of Lady Morgan College.”

  Joanna snorted into her cup of tea: in view of her present state of tight-strung anxiety, a pleasing phenomenon for which Sophie silently thanked her Oxonian correspondents. She read out to Joanna the beginning of the letter, and continued:

  Far be it from us to disparage the innate aptitudes and talents of the female sex, which, from the earliest times, has excelled in its proper sphere, that is, in the management of a household and family; of a shop or other concern; of children, as a governess or schoolmistress; or of any number of similarly practical transactions; all, in their way, as essential to the common good as the labours of any farmer, soldier, merchant, or scholar.

  Nor do we deny that there may exist the occasional woman capable of those precise, well-regulated, and thorough habits of thought which alone permit the productive study of the complex, inaccessible, or arcane; that is to say, our stock in trade at Merlin or any other Oxford College. Generally speaking, however, young ladies can derive no benefit from being shut away in College libraries and reading-rooms for years upon years; nor does any net benefit to society accrue from their having been thus incarcerated.

  “Incarcerated!” Joanna snorted.

  “You know how fond scholars are of metaphor, Jo,” said Sophie mildly, and read on:

  We urge you, ma’am, not to judge the inclinations and capabilities of young ladies generally by your own exceptional experience, and, instead, to consider as a model your sister-in-law Lady Kergabet, who is admired throughout the kingdom for her hospitality and her capable management of her illustrious husband’s household and estate, and not for any attempt, successful or otherwise, to ape the accomplishments of her father, her brothers, or her husband.

  “Ape!” Joanna exclaimed. “Of all the unspeakable—”

  “Do be quiet, Jo,” said Miss Pryce, unexpectedly, from her corner. Joanna turned sharply to glare at her over the back of the sofa, but to no avail: “The more often you interject with righteous protests, love, the longer we shall be in getting to the end.”

  Joanna’s spine stiffened; Miss Pryce’s face drained of colour, and her knitting-needles fell still. Then Joanna turned, her mouth already opening on some excuse, some explanation—even, perhaps, denial.

  Sophie held up both hands to forestall her and, before she could speak, said, “You need not hide from me.”

  For a long moment they stared at her, wary and still as rabbits surprised by a flash of magelight. Then Miss Pryce nodded slowly, her eyes darting from Sophie’s face to the back of Joanna’s head. “I thank you,” she said, low; and then, more firmly, “Come here, Jo.”

  The words themselves scarcely mattered, for Sophie easily recognised her tone: Whatever she might say would always have meant, I thank you for your kindness, but I have not the least intention of discussing this matter with you, either now or at any other time. She nodded, acknowledging the tone rather than the words.

  Joanna rose to her feet—obedient to her friend’s wishes, Sophie observed with a wry smile, as she had never noticeably been to anyone else’s—and retreated to perch on the arm of Miss Pryce’s chair.

  “There,” said Miss Pryce, smiling at Sophie and laying down her knitting to take Joanna’s left hand in her right. “I shall pinch her if she threatens to interrupt again.”

  Joanna, predictably, emitted a squeak of outrage; Miss Pryce gave her hand a gentle squeeze, however, and she subsided.

 
Sophie ducked her head and cleared her throat to cover the grin she could not quite suppress. Fortunately for her composure—though less fortunately for her good humour—this returned her attention to the letter in her hands, and she sighed, cleared her throat once more, and resumed:

  While not wishing to disparage your own scholarly accomplishments, ma’am, we urge you to heed the wisdom of experience, which confirms that man’s sphere is not woman’s, and that Dame Fortune does not smile on those who flout this truth; and to take counsel of your elders, and seek some other means of exercising what appears to us to be commendable philanthropic fervour: the endowment of an infirmary or lying-in hospital suggests itself, for example, or the foundation of an infant school . . .

  The names of the signatories occupied nearly a full closely written page: a dozen Fellows of Merlin College, five from Marlowe College, eight from Plato, half a dozen from Shakespeare, four from King’s, two from Bairstow. No College Master was among them, but this might mean only that the Masters—who served at the King’s pleasure, though chosen by the Fellows—did not wish to antagonise her father. At least five among the Merlin Fellows she had personally annoyed by attending their lectures, first openly and then, having been asked to leave when they deemed the subject matter unsuitable for female eyes and ears, in a suit of clothes borrowed from one of Gray’s friends; if only she had been more skilled at disguise, in those early days . . . !

  “I wonder,” Sophie mused, “what the learned Fellows of Oxford think of Lucia MacNeill.”

  “I wonder what they think of you,” said Joanna, with a little snort of derisive laughter. “It is perfectly evident that not one of them knows the least thing about you; you are the most determinedly contrary person I have ever met, and if I wished to persuade you to do something which you were not perfectly certain of, that is precisely the sort of letter I should write.”

  “You are discounting yourself, I suppose,” said Sophie, amused.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “From the category of determinedly contrary persons, I mean. I shall not attempt to deny that I dislike being lectured and condescended to; but that you of all people should call me contrary . . . !”

  Joanna, wisely, did not attempt to argue the point; over her head, Miss Pryce gave Sophie a small, sardonic smile.

  “In any case,” said Sophie, “I fear that the very kind intervention of the learned Fellows is unlikely to produce the outcome they expect.”

  CHAPTER XIII

  In Which Sophie and Gray Endeavour to Be Helpful

  Somewhat to Sophie’s surprise, Sieur Germain’s promise to offer her aid and Gray’s to Lord de Vaucourt bore fruit within two days, in the form of a brief and exceedingly correct note—delivered to Grosvenor Square by a confidential courier—which formally requested the participation of Doctor Marshall in the search for the escaped traitors. His Majesty’s carriage, Lord de Vaucourt wrote, shall call for you and Her Royal Highness in Grosvenor Square at the second hour after noon.

  It was not the most promising of beginnings; still, the relief which Sophie felt at this news of swift reprieve from her present quasi captivity, and from her mother-in-law and Amelia, made her feel almost ashamed of herself. In preparation for this excursion, and to relieve these very mixed feelings, she busied herself in making a mental list of potentially useful spells and in packing up a selection of relevant sources.

  “They must be desperate indeed,” observed Joanna, when apprised of this development; “ordinarily, Vaucourt develops a twitch and a case of hives at the mere mention of your name.”

  Sophie frowned, both at her flippant words and at the sardonic tone in which they had been uttered—though it was true, too, that Lord Vaucourt’s letter did not mention her name even once. “I know that you do not underestimate the gravity of the circumstances, Jo,” she said. “How can you make light of such a thing?”

  “Because,” said Joanna, folding her arms defensively across her chest, “if one does not sometimes make light of grave circumstances, one is apt to fall into despair, and may never succeed in climbing out again.”

  Had that been a reference to Sophie’s own behaviour, in the dark days after Gray’s disappearance from Din Edin? No, surely Joanna would not be so cruel.

  But the thought lingered, nevertheless.

  Joanna tossed her dark head, handed back to Sophie her summons from the Royal Palace, and retreated to the sofa, where she astonished her sister still further by taking up a work-basket, extracting from it what looked very like a half-constructed baby’s bonnet, and settling down virtuously to her work. There being nothing more to be done in response to Lord de Vaucourt’s note until the promised conveyance should arrive, Sophie sighed, fetched out her own work-basket from behind Jenny’s armchair, and joined her.

  They sat in uneasy silence for some time, punctuated occasionally by Joanna’s bitten-off exclamations of annoyance with her needle (from which the thread had escaped), her thimble (which had let the point of the needle through), and the (apparently insufficient) pins securing the bonnet’s brim to its gathered crown. At last Sophie—after many sidelong glances at her sister’s deepening scowl—cast up her eyes, laid down her own embroidery in her lap, and said, “Give me that, Jo.”

  Joanna looked up. “What? Why?”

  “Because,” said Sophie patiently, “I can see that you have got into some sort of difficulty, and I should like to help you out of it. May I?”

  She held out her hands, and Joanna, with visible reluctance, surrendered the bonnet. Sophie examined it, assessing the damage: The gathers had gone askew, crowded together on one side and pulled almost straight on the other. Painstakingly, she picked out two dozen small, slightly uneven stitches, wound up the thread, and set it aside.

  “Pincushion,” she said.

  No pincushion appeared in her outstretched hand; looking up, she found Joanna regarding her with arms folded and jaw mulishly set.

  “Please,” said Sophie, repressing the urge to ask, Do you know how very much you resemble a sulky child?

  Joanna clearly did know it; without another word, she looked out the pincushion and handed it over, and watched attentively as Sophie unpinned the two halves of the bonnet, redistributed the gathers, and set about pinning them together again.

  “There, do you see?” Sophie said. “If you first pin the middle and both ends, and then quarter each half, like this, you will not have so much trouble.”

  “Yes, I see,” said Joanna.

  Sophie looked up abruptly at her tone. “You need not take it so much to heart, Jo,” she said. “There is more to life than sewing baby’s bonnets.”

  “It is not that,” said Joanna, scathingly.

  “What, then?” Sophie handed over the bonnet, now properly pinned.

  Joanna took it, retrieved and rethreaded her needle, and began her work all over. Concealing a sigh, Sophie took up her own work again, and silence reigned once more, until all at once Joanna’s bent head came up sharply and she exclaimed, “How can you bear to sit here, sewing, when out there somewhere—”

  “Because,” said Sophie, precariously calm, “if one does not sometimes sit quietly at home, in the company of people one loves, one is in danger of losing the courage to go forth and do unpleasant things in defence of those people. As I think you know very well.”

  It was Joanna, after all, and not she, who had begun today’s impromptu sewing-circle.

  The soft click-swish of the door-handle turning made them both look up. The door opened, and framed in the doorway stood Gwendolen Pryce. She was slightly out of breath and had very much the air of one hastening to deliver a message; whatever the message might be, however, it was lost for the moment, for no sooner had her gaze alighted on Joanna’s face than her own went wide-eyed with anxiety, and she came quickly into the drawing-room, exclaiming, “Jo, whatever is the matter?”

  “Not
hing,” said Joanna, so unconvincingly that Sophie was not at all surprised when Miss Pryce frowned at her and replied, “If you cannot tell a better lie than that, Joanna Callender, you had much better tell the truth and have done.”

  Joanna looked down at her work and set another slow, careful stitch.

  “Joanna and I,” said Sophie, “have been discussing the nature of patience under trying circumstances.”

  Miss Pryce turned to her with an expression compounded of surprise and an unexpected comprehension, but said only, “Have you, indeed.”

  Joanna had by now, it appeared, composed herself sufficiently to meet her friend’s eyes. “We have,” she said, “and I shall tell you all about it in a moment, but you have not run pell-mell up two flights of stairs only to—”

  “Oh!” said Miss Pryce, visibly chagrined. She turned to Sophie. “Mrs. Marshall, there is a very grand carriage outside, with the royal arms and two footmen up behind. Do you know where I might find Mr. Marshall? You both are wanted, it appears.”

  Sophie, startled, dropped her work on the sofa, crossed the room, and peered out of the window in an attempt to gauge the angle of the sun, then down into the street. Sure enough, a carriage bearing the arms of Britain—the lions of England, Normandie, and Maine; the Cymric dragon; the ermines of Breizh and the choughs of Kernow—waited before Lord Kergabet’s front door. “Maître de Vaucourt is before his time, surely,” she muttered to herself—but no matter. It was not as though she were reluctant to begin.

  Vaucourt seemed not to share his colleague’s opinion that Sophie and Gray ought to be keeping a low profile; surely there could be no more conspicuous means of travel than that carriage, with its plainly visible royal arms, its coach- and footmen in the royal livery, and its four glossy chestnut horses.

  “Gray is in the library, I expect,” she said, returning to the sofa and tucking her work away, “hiding from his mother. I shall go and fetch him. I thank you, Miss Pryce. I shall see you both . . .” When? She had not the least notion. “. . . later.”