A College of Magics

by Caroline Stevermer

  “I’ll handle it with care,” Tyrian said.

  Faris jumped to catch the oak branch and found Tyrian’s hands at her waist as she reached the top of her leap. Aided by his strength, she caught the branch and let the spring of it swing her over the wall.

  The oak leaves rustled around her as she looked back down into the garden. Tyrian was gone. For a long moment, Faris let the tree branch rock her in the darkness, listened to the November wind sort dry leaves with a fitful rustling shiver.

  “Faris?” hissed Jane, from the darkness on the Dean’s side of the garden wall. “Are you all right?”

  Faris climbed down the oak tree and joined her friend in the shadows. “Absolutely.”

  All the way to the Dean’s office, Faris expected to encounter Jane or Gunhild or another fellow culprit. She had the feeling she ought to be riding in a tumbrel. Instead, she walked the maze of corridors alone, climbed the stairs alone, and finally stood alone before the Dean’s desk.

  The Dean, a woman of formidable height, with a glint of steel in her manner, did not look up from her work.

  Faris reminded herself that she was a string of pearls and fell into the perfectly balanced posture Dame Brachet had taught her. It was tempting to steal a glance around at the book-lined room but she kept her attention focused on the Dean instead.

  The Dean put down her pen. “I’ve received a letter, Faris Nallaneen. I want to know the meaning of it.” She selected a sheet of paper from the stack before her and held it up. Her dark eyes caught Faris’s pale ones. “Have you blackmailed many of your classmates, or is Menary your first attempt?”

  Faris felt her jaw drop. After a moment’s stunned silence, she managed to say, “I beg your pardon?” with only one stammer.

  The Dean’s stern expression eased slightly. “Or was it inadvertent?” She held the letter out to Faris.

  Faris took the letter, read it through, and looked up at the Dean, horrified. “I didn’t-threaten her. I didn’t say anything of the kind. It didn’t happen this way at all …” She paused to collect herself.

  The Dean arched an eyebrow. “Yet you are very short of funds. And as Menary’s father makes abundantly clear, the Paganells are an important family. And important families are almost always wealthy families.”

  Faris took a deep breath and let it out as slowly as she could. When it was gone, she took another and told the Dean the story of her conversation with Menary. “I feel as though I should carry a piece of chalk and a slate with me to draw diagrams upon request,” she finished.

  The Dean regarded the Paganell letter with lifted brows. “Tell me, why do you suppose Menary says—what she said—regarding your parentage?”

  “I was born six months after my father’s death. It—it occasioned comment.”

  “Apparently so. Could you be a trifle more explicit?”

  “Very well. Galazon and Aravill were two of a group of four duchies that were once ruled by the kings of Lidia. Geographic and economic interests in common made the four duchies—Cenedwine and the Haydocks are the other two—into a loose trading unit that outlasted the Lidians. The informal alliance lasted well into the eighteenth century. Then the dukes of Aravill began to style themselves kings of Aravill. A ridiculous conceit. There’s no such title and there never has been, no matter what Julian Paganell likes to call himself.”

  The Dean lifted her hands. “I have changed my mind. Be less explicit. What has all this to do with you?”

  Faris smiled grimly. “My father’s mother had the poor taste to claim the throne of Aravill. After her death, my father pursued the claim. Eventually, he found a faction able to put him on the throne. For a while. Long enough for a coronation and a wedding. Another faction took him off the throne and exiled him and my mother from Aravill. I’m afraid that sort of thing is always happening there. It’s not a very organized country.”

  “So I gather.”

  “The faction that deposed him didn’t want him to recruit support and return to Aravill, but they didn’t want to kill him publicly either. So they put my parents on a ship and never let them come to land. From time to time the ship put into harbor and the captain and his crew were changed, to keep my parents from winning their loyalty.” Faris paused to clear her throat. “My father died.” She cleared her throat again. “My mother was the duchess of Galazon. Our laws of primogeniture don’t exclude the female lines. In Galazon, women have always held titles and property. So she was someone to be reckoned with, even before her marriage. Even after she was widowed. With the help of her family, she gained her release on the condition that she return to Galazon and never leave it. That was a condition she was very willing to fulfill. But she was—” Faris hesitated, considered various euphemisms, and settled for the unvarnished word she’d started to say, “pregnant. Had that fact been known, her imprisonment would have had no end.”

  “But it ended,” said the Dean. “And then you arrived. That must have been a trifle difficult to explain.”

  “I am my mother’s child. Her legitimate child. It doesn’t matter to me what my father was, however briefly. But it matters to some people in Aravill.”

  “Hence the sea captain. Had your mother died childless, who would hold her title now?”

  “My uncle Brinker. If I die without issue, he will become duke of Galazon.”

  “Have you never considered pursuing your claim to the throne of Aravill? Has no one ever tried to persuade you to do so?”

  Faris’s chin came up. “I am the duchess of Galazon.”

  The Dean’s mouth quirked. “Just so. Why settle for second best? But be certain that the factions of Aravill don’t see the matter that way. So tell me, why haven’t they killed you?”

  “They’re much more likely to try to marry me to some feeble relation. To be safe, my uncle Brinker arranged an amendment to the act of succession. I’m barred from the throne.”

  “Was it in your best interest to be legally disinherited?”

  “It was in his best interest. The amendment cost a little money but one of the factions paid him handsomely for his trouble. And I am still duchess of Galazon.”

  “The need for an amendment argues that at least someone in Aravill doubts the story of the sea captain.”

  Faris nodded. “There’s the family resemblance, too. I don’t look anything like my mother’s family. But we have reproductions of almost all of the state portraits, among them my father’s mother. Same nose. Eyes of no special color. She was very tall. My father had both the nose and the height. She was supposed to have had red hair, too. My uncle insists he doesn’t see any similarity. That’s what makes me think there’s probably a strong resemblance.”

  “You and your uncle appear to understand one another very well.” After a thoughtful pause the Dean added, “It seems to me that Menary misinterpreted your remarks. See to it that you don’t say anything more that Menary can possibly misconstrue. And don’t discuss your family tree with anyone. It isn’t polite.”

  “I won’t.” Faris started to leave.

  “One more thing.” The Dean’s dark eyes narrowed. Her voice turned cold and crisp. “If I ever hear you gamboling about my garden again, on your way in or out of bounds, I will send you back to your uncle for good. Is that clear?”

  Faris froze.

  “And teach your friends not to call you by name when they’re trying to be stealthy. Now, go on. Get out of my office.”

  When Faris had left the morning lecture to see the Dean, the sky was leaden. By the time she left the Dean’s office, it was raining. Faris took the long way from the Dean to Dame Villette, partly to keep from getting wet, partly to think herself calm. By the time she walked through the north hall and into the cloister garden, it was raining hard. She paused in the eastern arcade of the cloister to lean against one of the cold gray marble columns.

  Before her lay the neat square of garden, punctuated with a central fountain, its shallow stone basin empty but for a few limp yellow leaves. Abandoned
to a winter that had not yet arrived, the garden lay fallow under the icy November rain. Glad of the quiet, Faris lingered.

  At times, in the course of the year Faris had spent at Greenlaw, her own history seemed remote to her. Much more vital were the ideas she struggled with in the library. Much more useful were the terms and techniques she learned in class. What she had learned of Jane’s history, and the history of her friends, told Faris that everyone had a family story, whether a tragedy, a comedy, or a romance. Hers was merely gaudier, not grander.

  It had made Faris extremely uncomfortable to sum up the bald facts for the Dean. In the severe calm of the Dean’s presence, she felt as though she’d invented the entire unlikely story to get attention. At the same time, her recitation of personal history made Faris realize how remote it all was for her now. After a year at Greenlaw, Galazon still lay bright in her mind’s eye, burnished in her heart, but the rest of her story seemed distant and uninteresting.

  The silence of the garden quieted Faris. She let the discomfort go and took refuge in the thought of Galazon.

  Without closing her eyes, Faris could see Galazon Chase as it would be on this day of November, at this hour of the morning. Instead of gray pillars, gray trees surrounded her. Instead of the tidily staked garden, she could see thickets of bramble and briar, wild meadows of ungrazed grass and weeds, hip high and burned dry by frost, bleached sallow brown, gold, and gray. But by this day, Galazon’s year would have turned to winter. Sky of the same iron gray would bring snow, not rain, and there would be frost in the ground underfoot, a taste of ice on the wind.

  Faris watched the steady fall of rain in the cloister garden soak into the earth of Greenlaw. She was far from home, but she would not always be away. Time, that had brought her here to Greenlaw, would bear her back again to Galazon.

  As if in answer to her thought, the rain slowed. It did not fall less steadily. Only, as Faris watched, the rain fell more leisurely, fell white, fell at the angle the wind wished, fell as snow. On this day of November, at this hour of the morning, as it did in the woods of Galazon Chase, snow fell at Greenlaw.

  Faris came in to dinner late. The dining hall was full. Her customary place, one chair down from the far end of the corner table, was taken. As she approached, she recognized the student sitting there. Menary. And around her, warily polite, sat Jane, Nathalie, and the rest. There was one empty chair, just across the table from Menary. Faris sighed and took it.

  “The Dean called Eve-Marie to her office,” Nathalie was saying, despite a mouthful of stew.

  Faris stiffened but kept silent.

  Portia looked anxious. “Not to talk about last night?” She glanced at Menary and blushed.

  “Vigil,” said Nathalie, paused to swallow, and continued. “Isn’t that always the way? Eve-Marie is short on sleep anyway because she insists on studying. Then the infant here gets in trouble and Eve-Marie makes the lot of you turn out for the rescue.” Gunhild smiled sheepishly but said nothing.

  Nathalie went on. “The very next day, Eve-Marie gets called up for her vigil, short on sleep and hollow with hunger.”

  “Hard cheese for Eve-Marie,” Portia said. “The Dean does it on purpose.”

  “Well, now we know where Eve-Marie is. What about you?” said Jane, filling Faris’s water glass. “Where’ve you been?”

  “I’ve spent the afternoon smiling at Dame Villette while she tore thin strips off me. What have you been doing?”

  “Nothing singular,” said Menary. “Why was Dame Villette angry with you?”

  “Grammar, same as always,” said Faris. She looked up from her plate into Menary’s gray eyes and found her appetite had vanished.

  Menary lifted her eyebrows and smiled faintly.

  Faris started to return the smile, knowing the expression didn’t reach her eyes. But as she began her artificial response, something in Menary’s small porcelain smile provoked Faris to genuine amusement. She grinned at Menary. Menary kept her mask of arch amusement intact. Faris returned her look for look, hardly able to keep from laughing aloud. The other students at the table glanced from Faris to Menary and back, felt their own expressions lighten.

  “Lambkins, we will live,” Faris murmured.

  Menary’s brows drew together as her smile faded. She glanced from Faris to Jane, then up the table. With great dignity, she rose and left the dining hall.

  “Now,” said Jane, when the door was firmly shut and the diners had all gone back to their plates of stew, “what was that all about?”

  Faris shrugged. “I’m blessed if I know. After staring at Dame Villette, my expression is out of control. Dissect my thought processes if you must but don’t hold me responsible for my appearance while you do so.”

  “Menary doesn’t like you,” Gunhild said.

  Nathalie fixed Gunhild with a disapproving gaze. “Odious child, didn’t we tell you not to speak until you’re spoken to?”

  “Who says so?” Faris asked Gunhild.

  “Don’t encourage her,” Jane said. “It’s taken us most of the day to bring her to a proper sense of her own idiocy.”

  “Menary did,” Gunhild answered. “She says you brag about your family too much.”

  “She’s the one who brags about her family,” said Portia, “and all their possessions. Do you think they really keep lions in the house?”

  “And just when has Menary ever wasted the breath it takes to tell a first-year student anything?” Nathalie asked.

  “Or willingly eaten a meal at the same table with us,” added Faris. “What brought her here today?”

  “She said she had a whim to sit here,” Portia replied. “There was an empty place and she claimed it. I haven’t seen her so friendly in weeks. We could hardly discourage her. I don’t think it’s possible to keep lions indoors. What would one feed them?”

  “She was nice to me at the Glass Slipper,” Gunhild said.

  “List, list,” said Jane, holding up a hand to silence Nathalie’s reproof, “O list. When was this?”

  Gunhild blushed. “Yesterday. She was talking to Maxim.”

  “Who’s Maxim?” Nathalie demanded. “As if I couldn’t guess.”

  Gunhild drew a complicated design on her plate with the tines of her fork. The other students traded looks of exasperated impatience as they waited for her to speak. “You know,” she said, finally.

  “Menary knew that sailor?” Jane prompted.

  Gunhild hesitated.

  Nathalie said, “Don’t simper, you aggravating little wart. Yes or no?”

  “You knew that man with the gun,” Gunhild told Faris.

  “Don’t try to change the subject,” Faris replied. “Did Menary know the sailor?”

  Gunhild nodded. “They seemed very friendly.”

  “I can just imagine,” said Jane. “Did Menary put you up to that jest with the aquavit?”

  Gunhild shook her head.

  “Could Menary have stopped to put the sailor up to it?” asked Nathalie.

  “Why would Menary waste her time with a sailor?” Portia asked. “She barely speaks to us anymore.”

  “Well, for one thing, the sailor is male,” said Jane. “You may have noticed that the Pagan has interests in that direction.”

  “No,” said Faris, “I hadn’t. Go on.”

  Nathalie glanced around the crowded dining hall. “I wouldn’t elaborate if I were you, Jane.”

  Jane’s eyes narrowed. “Do the walls have ears?”

  “They might as well,” Nathalie replied. “And what do the Pagan’s interests amount to? Nothing but rumors. It isn’t wise to spread them.”

  “Or to figure in them,” said Portia.

  “I heard a rumor,” Gunhild offered. “I heard Faris was called to the Dean’s office.”

  Faris helped herself to a large bite of stew and thought while she chewed. When she was able, she said, “I was.”

  “I rest my case,” said Nathalie.

  “Dare I ask why?” Jane inquired.
r />   “It had something to do with our outing last night,” Faris answered.

  Portia and Gunhild winced at each other.

  Nathalie asked, “Why not all of you truants? Why just summon Faris?”

  “The Dean only caught one name,” Faris replied. “Mine.”

  Jane looked stricken. “Oh—oh, dear. I do apologize. Was it very bad?”

  “Swift and nearly painless,” Faris said. “Punishment suspended, unless I’m caught at it again.”

  “And if you are?” Jane asked.

  “Summary execution.”

  “Sword, or silken rope?” inquired Nathalie.

  “I didn’t ask,” said Faris. “Judging from her manner, I think the Dean had something like a firing squad in mind.”

  “Suitable for mass executions,” said Jane. She glared at Gunhild.

  “I know,” said Gunhild hastily. “It’s all my fault.”

  “Next time you get homesick,” said Nathalie, “do us all a favor and go home, will you?”

  Jane looked past Nathalie toward the door. “Lo, where it comes again.”

  “Finally,” said Nathalie.

  Charlotte paused in her entry to collect a plate of stew, sauntered to the place Menary had left, and sank gracefully into the high-backed chair.

  “How’s Eve-Marie?” Nathalie asked.

  Charlotte slid Menary’s plate into the middle of the table and put hers in its place. “Pass the bread, please. Ask not how, but where.” She smiled slightly.

  Portia passed the bread basket. “Where?”

  “At the foot of the Gabriel Tower,” Charlotte replied. “This stew is extremely cold.”

  “Don’t eat it, then,” Jane advised. “Does she seem all right?”

  “I have to, I’m starving,” Charlotte replied. “She’s all right now. She wandered about for what seemed like hours before she hit on a place that suited her. At least she’s out of the wind.”

  “She’ll freeze anyway,” said Nathalie. “It’s far too early in the term for a vigil.”

  “But then, Eve-Marie’s always been precocious,” said Charlotte, between quick bites.