A College of Magics

by Caroline Stevermer

  “They should. Crops are important. Did you have to travel far?”

  “All the way from Sarlat. I walked.”

  “Oh.” Faris felt renewed inferiority. She had come almost fifteen hundred miles, by riverboat, train, and carriage. There didn’t seem to be much virtue in that, certainly no topic for conversation. Faris stood silent, angry at her own embarrassment.

  After all, what was there to be awkward about? This girl wanted to attend Greenlaw. Faris did not. The proctors could hardly honor an agreement with Brinker if she didn’t give them a chance to do so. All she had to do was leave and let Odile have her place at college. If Gavren insisted, she could return the next day when Odile was safely accepted. There was not an unlimited supply of openings for applicants.

  Faris eyed the stairs. As she did, the outer door opened again. This time the newcomer had an attendant, who bore a lighted lantern. A word at the threshold and the door closed. Alone, the newcomer climbed the steps, lantern in hand.

  With a sweep of velvet the color of the sky outside the great windows, a golden-haired girl of their own age joined Faris and Odile. She wore slippers of the same deep velvet and ignored the puddle that had ruined them. She ignored Faris and Odile too, and walked straight across the great hall to an open door, where firelight shone against the failing of the day.

  Faris and Odile exchanged stares.

  “Was that door there a moment ago?” asked Odile.

  “It’s probably been there all along,” said Faris glumly.

  They followed the girl in the velvet gown.

  In the next room was warmth and golden light, age-faded tapestries, and a marquetry table with a chair behind it. In the chair sat a plump woman with mouse-gray hair and tired eyes.

  “You’re the proctor,” said the girl in the velvet gown. Her voice was melodious but her intonation made the words an accusation. She put out the lantern and placed it on the floor in front of the table. “I’m Menary Paganell.”

  Faris’s eyes narrowed. Her mouth set in a hard line.

  The proctor put her chin in her hand and gestured at Faris to close the door. “Stand over there, all three of you. That’s better. Winter’s just here and I’m already sick to death of drafts.”

  Unwillingly, Menary fell back to stand between Faris and Odile. Next to Menary’s elegance, Odile’s poverty was manifest, but she did not appear to notice it. She stood with the same proud carriage Menary displayed. Beside them, Faris knew herself to be graceless. More, she knew that next to Menary’s determination and Odile’s dedication, her presence was a sham.

  The proctor sighed. “You know there’s only one opening left, don’t you? Officially, admission closed at Martinmas.”

  “I was afraid I was too late,” said Menary, relieved. “We had ill wind for the voyage and a storm delayed us. We didn’t put in to St. Malo until this morning.”

  The proctor opened her eyes a little wider and Menary fell silent. “I said we had only one opening.” Her tone was polite but her weary gaze rested on Menary without interest. “You can count, can’t you?”

  “My family arranged for me to attend Greenlaw when I was four years old,” stated Menary.

  Faris recognized the intonation of the words “my family.” It was similar to her own when it became necessary to mention her uncle Brinker. She regarded the proctor with pleased expectation. If there was only one opening, there was the certainty that someone’s prestige would be insufficient, either her uncle’s or the family Paganell. Either prospect promised entertainment.

  “Then if I were to ask you to recommend someone for this single opening,” said the proctor, “you would choose yourself.”

  “Well, of course.” Menary glanced at Odile, then at Faris, then back to the proctor. Her beautiful gray eyes, the exact shade of her velvet gown, narrowed. “Unless it’s a trick question.”

  The proctor stifled a sigh and turned her attention to Odile. “And you, Odile Passerieux?”

  Odile’s eyes widened. “How did you know my name?”

  “We’ve been expecting you for some time.”

  Odile’s eyes fell. She clasped her hands before her and twisted her fingers. “I know I’m late. I couldn’t help it. My family needed me.”

  The proctor inclined her head graciously. “One opening, Odile. How would you have us fill it?”

  Odile’s eyes held the proctor’s. “Choose me.” Her voice was soft but ardent. “Oh, please. Choose me.”

  Faris altered her stance so that the toe of her left shoe was visible beneath the hem of her dress. She studied it for a long moment, until the quality of silence in the room told her the proctor had finished staring at Odile and had started staring at her.

  “Well, Faris Nallaneen?” The proctor sounded very tired. “What have you to say?”

  “Good afternoon. I didn’t get your name.”

  The proctor sniffed. “We have one opening. How would you have us fill it?”

  Faris took a deep breath. “Choose Menary Paganell. Let Odile stay on and scrub floors or something until Menary loses interest and goes home to marry someone better dressed than she is. Then let Odile take the vacancy.” She let out what was left of her breath and looked at the toe of her shoe again.

  “And what will you do, Faris?”

  “I will go home.” Faris was still inspecting the toe of her scuffed shoe. “And plant oats.”

  “Wild oats?”

  Something in the proctor’s tone brought Faris’s head up swiftly. “All kinds. The one thing I could do here, I can do just as well at home in Galazon—get older.”

  The proctor laughed at Faris.

  “I won’t stay here, no matter what he’s paid you to accept me.”

  “It seems he ought to have paid you.” The proctor sobered slightly.

  “He’s tried,” spat Faris.

  The proctor made no effort to conceal her amusement. “Menary shall have the opening, what do you say to that?”

  Faris’s eyes widened as her thoughts raced. If Gavren could be persuaded to believe in her failure without consulting the proctors himself, she could leave in the morning. She could be home before the turn of the year. She looked from the proctor to Menary, who was triumphant, then to Odile, whose knotted fingers were the only sign of her distress.

  “Will you take my advice about Odile?” she asked the proctor. “Even scrubbing floors is better than walking home barefoot in the winter. If you let her go, they’ll only keep her home for lambing season, or some other chore. Let her have the next vacancy.”

  “What do you say to that advice, Odile?” asked the proctor.

  Odile unclasped her hands and took a step closer to the marquetry table. “A fine idea. But what matters is what you say. Is Faris accepted?”

  The proctor sniffed again. “Despite her uncle’s best efforts, she is.”

  “Wait—” Faris looked from Odile to the proctor and back. “I’m accepted? What about you?”

  “What about me?” Menary gave Faris a look of pure dislike.

  “Oh, fear not,” said the proctor. “You’re both accepted. Along with the students who came on time. Allow me to introduce you again to Odile Passerieux. She is in her third year here.”

  “I’m glad that’s settled,” said Menary.

  Faris fixed Odile with a cold stare and spaced her words deliberately. “Oh, please. Choose me.”

  “Contemptible, isn’t it?” Odile replied affably. “I did walk here though, two years ago.”

  “Did they make you scrub floors?”

  “They made me wear shoes.” She pulled the ribbon from her hair, shook her head and let her black hair go free around her shoulders. “I humored them. You can humor them too.”

  “Do they make you relive your dramatic past for every applicant?”

  Odile shook her head. “I volunteered. Your uncle’s efforts to assure your admission made you sound fairly odious. And then your arrival confirmed the impression—your grace.”

  �
��I thought that might rankle.”

  “It made you seem like an ass.”

  Menary looked bored.

  Faris said darkly, “My uncle is going to be very pleased about this.”

  “He should be,” said the proctor. “He’s rid himself of a minor nuisance for three years.”

  “If he gets a major nuisance back, will he still be pleased?” Odile asked.

  “I wonder.” Faris turned to the proctor. “I’d like to send word to my traveling companions. I don’t have much baggage but I need to collect it from them before they return to Galazon.”

  “Your bodyguards will be notified,” said the proctor. “They can communicate the news to your uncle for us. Perhaps they can also convey your uncle’s letter of credit safely back to Galazon.”

  “Oh, the bribe—” Faris shook her head. “Don’t do that.”

  The proctor’s brows lifted. “Aren’t they trustworthy?”

  “Gavren and Reed are entirely trustworthy. My uncle isn’t. You’d better keep the money.”

  “Hardly,” exclaimed the proctor. “Greenlaw College would be perceived as having taken a bribe.”

  Faris smiled bitterly. “The damage is done. You’ve accepted me. No one will think for an instant that I got in on merit alone. This way, when my uncle is late paying school fees, Greenlaw needn’t be inconvenienced.”

  “We could hold it in escrow, I suppose.” The proctor looked amused. “Merely a formality, of course.”

  “Of course.” It was a small thing, an inconvenience Brinker might not even notice, but it cheered Faris.

  “Your escort will be notified and your baggage brought here at once. Menary, we have made arrangements for you, as well. In the meantime, Odile, will you show them both to their quarters?”

  “Certainly. If we hurry, we will make it to the dining hall in time for dinner. It’s the only meal of the day worth eating.”

  By the time Odile gave them a cursory tour of the college and showed them their places in the dormitory, Faris’s single trunk had been delivered, along with a message that Gavren and Reed were on their way back to Galazon. Menary left them at the earliest opportunity, ostensibly to supervise the arrival of her luggage.

  Her head spinning with long corridors and dimly lit stairs and the infinite jumble of gray stone buildings stacked nearly to the sky, Faris set off with Odile in search of the dining hall and dinner.

  “Was all that playacting the exception or the rule? Do the proctors test everyone who applies for admission that way? Or am I a special case?”

  Odile did not slacken her stride. “Why should you think you’re special? It isn’t usual to interview two applicants at a time, I admit. But you were both late and I suppose the proctors felt you and Menary were similar cases.”

  “What do you mean, similar?”

  “You’re from the same part of the world. You’re from the same sort of background. Not like me. I’m as plain as a potato. At my interview, the proctor made me promise faithfully to keep my shoes on and to stay no matter how desperately homesick I feel. And that was that. I was accepted.”

  “Are you homesick?”

  Odile smiled. “Not really. It’s too flat here and they have the wrong kind of trees and not enough of them. But I’m not desperate.”

  Faris sighed.

  Odile regarded her closely. “You aren’t either, you know. There’s no excuse for being homesick yet. You have far too much to do these first few weeks. After the novelty wears off, you might be on your guard. But for now, don’t think about trees. Think about Greenlaw.”

  2

  “What do you think standards are for?”

  With Odile’s help, Faris made her way into the pattern of life at Greenlaw College. She followed steep staircases and winding corridors from lesson to lesson: grammar, logic, rhetoric, natural history, natural philosophy, Latin, Greek, algebra, geometry, dance, and deportment.

  The sheer amount of work would have overwhelmed her if she’d felt obliged to do any of it. But she had noticed with relish that no one seemed to care what she did or when she did it. Within the confines of Greenlaw College, she was quite free.

  “No one expects anything of new students,” Odile confided, over the evening meal at the end of Faris’s first full day of classes. “If you turn your work in promptly, you’ll be all right.”

  Faris refrained from mentioning that she had no intention of turning work in, promptly or otherwise. “But what if it isn’t finished?”

  “Turn it in anyway.” Odile stirred the gray soup in her bowl and frowned at the residue on her spoon. “I hear we are to have an English cook this year. I see it must be so. Pass the bread, if you please.”

  Faris passed the basket of bread. “What if it isn’t any good?”

  Odile inspected the bread carefully. “It’s from the bakery in the High Street, same as ever. Of course it’s good.” She selected a roll and broke it over her bowl of soup.

  “Not the bread. My work.”

  “Oh, don’t be an idiot. Of course it won’t be any good. How could it be? You don’t know anything.” Odile gave Faris a swift and brutal summary of those in the student body she considered to be from backgrounds similar to Faris’s.

  Faris sheltered her thoughts behind her habitual expression of composure.

  “Some of them are all right, I suppose,” Odile conceded. “But most are like the Roman. She’s third-year, mercifully. A Russian grand duchess, if you please. They say even her family can’t bear her and I don’t blame them. They also say the proctors tried to send her down during her first year but it made no impression on her. She couldn’t get thrown out if she tried and she’s too lazy to try. The pity of it is, she has a voice. She just can’t be bothered to practice. A wasted space.” Odile shook her head sadly. “I don’t know why she bothers to honor us with her presence.”

  Odile’s diatribe made Faris think again about the merits of doing nothing. If it were difficult to get expelled, it might be tempting to accept the challenge. But although it might bother her uncle a trifle to have her sent down, Faris knew it wouldn’t inconvenience him for long. The world was full of finishing schools. He’d find one that would take her, no matter what crime she contrived to try the patience of the proctors.

  But to Faris, failure at Greenlaw would be dishonor, whether she was sent home in disgrace or—far worse—kept on condescendingly, as a wasted space. It would be good to be home in Galazon, true. But it would be better to come home a witch of Greenlaw.

  “Do you think I’ll be able to catch up with the other students?”

  “You are at a disadvantage, arriving so late in the term. What possessed your uncle? Anyone would think he wanted you to fail.”

  “Harvest was late this year. School fees don’t just materialize out of thin air, you know.”

  “I know. Oh, I know.” Odile nodded sagely. “It’s not impossible to catch up, if you stay out of trouble. Do your reading. Leave the other students alone, particularly second-years. They’ve been here long enough to know how to get into trouble, and they still have the energy to bother.”

  What Faris liked best about Greenlaw was that no one paid her the least attention. She took Odile’s advice about keeping to herself. Also on Odile’s recommendation, Faris cut classes judiciously and used the free time to make up her work as it was called in and graded. The first lecture of the day was the only event that required attendance, the rest were subject to the students’ discretion. There was far too much work assigned in each class to make attendance at all of them possible.

  Her fellow students at first had given Faris the impression of high intelligence and strange intensity. Even slight familiarity taught her that this impression was, if not entirely mistaken, sadly incomplete. In fact, her fellow students were simply exhausted. Fatigue took strange forms.

  One day in the dining hall, Faris sat across the table from a first-year student who stared blankly at the single artichoke on the plate before her.

>   “That looks good,” said Faris. The artichokes had vanished before she’d arrived and she cherished a faint hope that her classmate disliked them, perhaps enough to barter for it.

  “Extremely good,” agreed the first-year, dashing Faris’s hopes. Wearily, she added, “if only I could remember how to eat one.”

  Faris tried to follow another piece of Odile’s advice and ignore the lack of proper trees in Greenlaw. She found it hard. Though the milder climate was pleasing, she could never quite accustom herself to the utter lack of severe weather. She found herself bracing for what could not come—no blizzards ever visited Greenlaw. Even so much as a hail storm was rare. It was like waiting for a stern lecture that never came.

  The gardens of Greenlaw were a source of wonder to Faris. Some were mathematical in the precise arrangement of herb and simple, some were loose and profuse with merely attractive flowers and shrubs, some were noble in proportion and venerable for antiquity, all held some unfamiliar plant. Anything that did not grow wild in Galazon struck Faris as foreign and probably unnecessary, but since her own presence at Greenlaw was certainly foreign and very likely unnecessary, she tried to be tolerant.

  The best place at Greenlaw, in Faris’s opinion, was the Dean’s garden, named for its location between the walls of the college and the Dean’s residence. The oaks which shaded the Deanery windows and overhung the college wall reminded Faris of Galazon. She stopped there often, sometimes just for a moment between classes. If she closed her eyes and listened to the wind in the branches, the rustle of dry leaves remedied her homesickness.

  Much of her free time was spent in pursuit of news of Galazon. There was very little, though reports from Aravill appeared in the press occasionally. She grew adept at picking out an Aravis dateline as she scanned Le Monde, Figaro, and the International Herald Tribune in the library. The Times of London was her steadiest source of information.