A College of Magics

by Caroline Stevermer

  With the deliberate pace of extreme fatigue, Faris started to return Nathalie’s feather comforter to the dormitory. On the way, she saw the college stirring to life. It would soon be time for the Structure lecture. Resignedly, Faris left the comforter in number five study and turned toward the lecture hall. If she came too close to her bed, she would not have the heart to leave it again.

  In the hall Faris saw Jane, who was frowning as she listened to Dame Villette’s corner-of-the-mouth conversation. Near the front of the room, Menary sat, resplendently smug, among Gunhild and the younger students. Faris found an inconspicuous place in a far corner and braced herself to stay awake one more hour.

  The Dean, the steel in her manner more noticeable than usual, delivered a lecture on the wardens of the world. Faris was feeling a little worried about having spent an entire night near the upper ward of Greenlaw. She told herself that she was imagining the Dean’s cutting emphasis on the necessity of balance, but resolved to avoid catching the Dean’s interest in any way for the next fortnight. The possible double meanings in the lecture had one good effect. By the time the hour was up and the speech over, Faris made her way to the door completely awake and on her guard.

  As she reached the door, Jane joined her, looking grim. “You’re wanted in the Dean’s office.”

  Faris thought of her bed and set her jaw to suppress an involuntary protest. “Now?”

  Jane nodded. “Or sooner.”

  When Faris presented herself at the Dean’s office, the door was open and the Dean was already at her desk. She looked up as Faris entered and held out a sheet of paper.

  “I have received another letter,” she said crisply. “I think you had better see it at once.”

  Faris took the letter warily. It was not, as she had instantly feared, from any of Menary’s family. Written in a clear, clerical hand, signed with her uncle’s untidy scrawl, it read:

  Greenlaw College will permit the withdrawal of Faris Nallaneen. Her presence in Galazon is urgently required.

  Stricken, Faris looked up. The Dean met her eyes gravely. When Faris said nothing, the Dean folded her hands and spoke.

  “What Greenlaw College will or will not permit is no matter for your uncle to dictate. If you choose to obey him and return to Galazon, be aware that the nature of your studies here cannot be lightly interrupted. If you ever choose to return to finish your work here, you must begin at the beginning. You will not be permitted simply to resume where you left off.” The Dean glanced down at the inkstand on her desk, then reached out to adjust it minutely. Without looking up again, she added, “Should you choose to stay here and complete your studies, Greenlaw College could inform your uncle that your withdrawal is not permitted.”

  Faris blinked. She had heard barely a word of the Dean’s well chosen statement over her deafening thoughts. Galazon needed her. Or was it Brinker who needed her? Or did he need her? Was this something else altogether? She folded the letter and surprised herself by asking levelly, “Is there any message for me?”

  “That missive was delivered here by a courier from Galazon. He wishes to speak with you as soon as possible. He is staying at the White Fleece.”

  “If he has some more explicit message for me, I wish to hear it,” said Faris. “It might make my uncle’s motives more clear.”

  “That seems perfectly reasonable. Please return when you’ve explored your uncle’s motives sufficiently. We must discuss this further.”

  Faris managed to keep herself in hand until she was out of the Dean’s presence. The instant she was in the corridor, she ran. Down the hall, down the steps, out the college gate, and through the streets of Greenlaw, Faris ran to the White Fleece. Her black robe billowed behind her with the speed of her passage. She ran, frowning fiercely, and the students she met on her way scattered before her.

  A summons home was unlooked-for good fortune. Wasn’t it? Yet she did not feel the delight she should have. Even at the beginning of Michaelmas term, she would have been glad to go home. Now she felt as though she’d been shoved out of a vivid dream, jostled rudely by her uncle’s summons. The wording of his letter to the Dean was characteristically opaque. If he’d sent along a message for her, very well. But if she was to leave Greenlaw for Brinker’s convenience, some explanation was required.

  Inside the White Fleece, Faris remembered that she didn’t know who to ask the innkeeper for. Just as she decided to ask if a foreigner had recently arrived so she could sort out the candidates by their accents, she saw Reed. He was at a long table in the dining room, his nose buried in a pewter tankard. As she crossed to join him, he glanced up, snorted, and slammed the tankard down as he shot to his feet, choking.

  “Sit down.” Faris clapped him on the back, which only seemed to make the choking worse, and took the seat beside him. “Please sit down.”

  At her elbow, possibly summoned by the expression on Reed’s face, the innkeeper appeared. “Is this young lady bothering you, sir? We do not generally encourage the students of the college to socialize with our guests.”

  Without troubling to rise, Faris looked down her nose at the innkeeper, who fell suddenly silent. Reed blushed and protested that the duchess was not bothering him, that is, he was not bothering her, that is, in short, they knew one another.

  The innkeeper gave Faris a look mingling suspicion and resentment, sneered at Reed, and withdrew reluctantly.

  “Now will you sit down?”

  Reed regarded her with narrowed eyes as he resumed his place. After a moment, he took another long draught from his tankard, and ran one hand over his close-cropped hair. “You’ve changed, your grace.”

  “No, I haven’t. When did you arrive? Did my uncle send any message for me? What’s he hatching this time?”

  “All I know is that I’m to fetch you home. I arrived last night. I have no message for you. And God forbid I should know what schemes best please Lord Brinker.” Reed hesitated. “Look at you. You’re as tall as I am.”

  “Taller, I’d guess, by at least an inch. Let’s stand back to back and make the innkeeper measure.” For an instant, Reed looked as if he were going to stand up. Hurriedly, Faris changed the subject. “Am I to be fetched immediately or only eventually?”

  “Immediately. If you won’t come willingly, I’m to order Tyrian to help me.” Reed eyed the innkeeper. “If you speak to him again, he’ll make me leave. And I haven’t even started eating.”

  Faris pushed his plateful of fish stew toward him. “Don’t stand on ceremony. What news from home? How does the harvest look?”

  Reed busied himself with fork and spoon. “All is well. A good harvest. Gavren wished to come for you but your uncle wouldn’t allow it. The journey is too much for a man of his years.”

  “Bilge. Uncle doesn’t trust Gavren not to take my side, that’s all. What does Tyrian say to orders from you?”

  “I have no idea. I left a message at the address Lord Brinker gave me but he hasn’t acknowledge it. You haven’t asked after your family’s health.”

  “Oh, very well, how does my esteemed uncle?”

  Reed kept his eyes on his plate. “He is well. You ask only after him?”

  Faris looked surprised. “Who else am I to ask news of? He’s all the immediate family I possess, more’s the pity.”

  Reed looked up. “What of his lady wife and their child?”

  Faris regarded Reed quizzically. “I trust they do as well as my husband, our children, and all their get. The feast of fools is months off, Reed. Save your wits until then.”

  Very carefully, Reed put down his cutlery. His voice was gentle. “I feared you had no word from home and so I find it. Your uncle was married a year ago. His daughter is nearly three months old.”

  Faris blinked at him. Before she spoke, Reed had time to take up his fork and spoon again. His stew was nearly gone when Faris repeated faintly, “Married?”

  Reed nodded. “You sent gracious regrets at missing the wedding ceremony. For the child’s christe
ning gift, you presented your own silver cup.”

  “Did I? That was kind of me.” Faris’s blank expression gave way to one of calm calculation. Had she been studying so hard she missed mention of this ceremonial alliance in the newspapers?

  Reed looked relieved and slightly amused. “Your generosity caused much comment. The child was christened Prosperian.”

  Faris’s eyes flashed. “By what right? Why choose my grandmother’s name? Aren’t there enough names in Galazon?”

  “I believe Lady Brinker chose the name,” Reed replied. Gingerly he put his fork and spoon down. “She is a distant connection of your father’s family, I believe.”

  “Oh? And who is Lady Brinker, when she is at home?”

  Reed cleared his throat. “Her Royal Highness, Princess Agnes of Aravill.”

  6

  “Where is Tyrian?”

  Faris sat very still. She was aware, beneath the stillness, of her profound fatigue. It would be good to go on sitting at the table for a long time. Not thinking. Not talking. Just sitting.

  “That would be Agnes Paganell, sister to Menary Paganell, I imagine?” Her voice didn’t sound tired at all. She sounded calm and, in a small dry way, amused. Faris permitted herself to feel proud of that calmness. Perhaps Greenlaw had changed her a little after all.

  “Princess Agnes is Princess Menary’s elder sister, and so heir presumptive to her father, King Julian.” Reed sounded apologetic.

  “King Julian,” repeated Faris, as though the words tasted spoiled.

  “She seems quite decent, for an aristocrat from Aravill. She doesn’t even use her own title. Just Lady Brinker. Not that any of us would ever remember to call her anything else.”

  “If Brinker has his heir, what does he want with me?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea. Why not go home and ask him?”

  Faris rubbed her forehead. “Asking does no good. If you need to find out what Brinker has in mind, you must just wait until it becomes painfully clear. Greenlaw College, for example. Greenlaw is far away and it takes a long time to finish. Probably the only reason he ever agreed to the terms of Mother’s will and sent me here was to negotiate a match like this. Only I would have guessed he’d negotiate my marriage before his own.”

  “It is far away. The sooner you leave, the sooner you can be home in Galazon. There’s a train from Pontorson at five this afternoon. You’ll have plenty of time to pack.”

  “I’ll leave Greenlaw when I’m ready, not before.”

  “You leave today, I admit you may have grown a bit, but together Tyrian and I can manage you.”

  Faris eyed him thoughtfully. “Do you think so?” She rose. “Come along.”

  Reed stood up. “I’m glad you’re being so sensible.”

  “Don’t be glad. I have no interest in being sensible.” Reed’s eyes were precisely level with her own, a detail that she found obscurely annoying. She turned for the door and glanced back over her shoulder. “Are you coming?”

  “Where are we going?” Reed fell into step with her.

  “To talk with Tyrian. We’ll see what he says to your orders.”

  At Tyrian’s lodging, Reed’s message waited undelivered. No one had seen him since the evening before. In troubled silence, Faris led Reed back out into the street. When she led him through the gates of Greenlaw, he started to ask questions.

  Faris ignored him. It was low tide. The empty sands stretched away from Greenlaw. Intently, she picked her way along the rocks at the foot of the seawall. The pace she set quieted Reed eventually. While she waited for Tyrian to interrupt her walk, Faris considered matters.

  Her studies at Greenlaw, and her friendships, had cured her homesickness. It had been a long time since she pored over the pages of foreign newspapers and magazines for word from home. If she had only been more faithful to the tedium of the court circulars, she must have found some hint of her uncle’s marriage. It was her own fault that she’d let herself be taken by surprise. Her love for Greenlaw had put her love for Galazon into the background and this was the price she paid for her faithlessness. Caught flat-footed by the news, without even a rumor to help her judge what to do next.

  If Tyrian and Reed insisted, she would have no choice but to return to Galazon. It would certainly be annoying to obey her uncle promptly, but it might be wise to learn what was afoot at once. There was always the chance, however unlikely, that the summons concerned something of genuine importance.

  On the other hand, if Tyrian and Reed could be set at odds, there might be means to delay her departure from Greenlaw. Under the Dean’s auspices, some sort of comprehensive examination might be administered during that delay. But if it were administered, what was to say she could pass it? Faris was not sanguine about passing in May. To rush the test might merely serve to end any chance at her degree. Faris rubbed her eyes wearily.

  “That was pleasant.” Reed sounded puzzled but amiable. “I like a brisk walk after a good meal.”

  Faris looked up. They were back at the gates. There was no sign of Tyrian.

  “Now shall we go and find Tyrian?”

  Faris looked from the gate, to the gray stones of Greenlaw College rising above the little town, and to the spire that crowned all. “Yes,” said Faris. Her voice was crisp and cold. Her eyes were worried.

  At the college gate, Reed was stopped and given a place to sit on the guard’s bench while Faris was within.

  “I won’t be very long,” Faris promised him. “I last saw Tyrian with one of the students. If I can find her, she may be able to tell me where he is.”

  “If you aren’t finished here by four o‘clock, I’m going back to the White Fleece for supper. Look for me there in the morning. See you’re packed and ready to leave on the nine o’clock train.”

  While she counted silently to ten, Faris regarded Reed with a look compounded of irritation and amusement. When she trusted her voice, she said pleasantly, “You don’t understand. You don’t issue orders here. Neither does my uncle. Whether I go or whether I stay, you’re only a messenger. Remember that. The day may come you’ll be grateful.”

  Reed shook his head. “You have changed.”

  Faris left him and headed, more or less at random, for the library. She had no idea where to find Menary, but the library seemed as good a place as any to start looking. As she passed the foot of the Gabriel Tower, she heard Jane call her name. Faris paused. Beaming, Jane hurried toward her from the direction of the Dean’s garden.

  “Why aren’t you busy torturing your students with quadratic equations? Has the Dean declared a half holiday?”

  “Thank goodness I found you. The Dean told me you’re going home. I’m so glad for you. And as I’ve told you before, to a normal intellect, quadratic equations are elementary.”

  Faris uttered a small sigh of pure exasperation. “Don’t be glad. It’s my wicked uncle again. He’s summoned me home without so much as a trumped-up excuse. I’m to abandon my education today.”

  Jane raised an eyebrow. “Well, perhaps that is rather sudden. But you do want to go home, don’t you? It’s all you think about. At the slightest excuse you wax agricultural and exude homesickness.”

  “You don’t think he’s sending for me because he misses the pleasure of my company, do you? No, he has some scheme in hand.”

  “You’re so used to thinking of him as an ogre that you credit him with the worst motives out of sheer force of habit.”

  “What do you think are my chances of persuading the Dean to give me my comps before I have to leave?”

  Jane arched both her brows. “Better than your chances of passing them. If you don’t want to go home, don’t go.”

  “I may not have a choice. Much depends upon Tyrian. Have you seen Menary since the lecture this morning? Where can I find her?”

  Jane’s brows drew down into a puzzled frown. “What do you want with Menary?”

  “We spoke last night. She wanted to keep vigil with me, doubtless for some inscruta
ble reason of her own. Tyrian distracted her while I left.”

  “I should just think he would,” said Jane, half to herself.

  “He hasn’t been seen at his lodgings since. I wonder if she knows where he went after I left them.”

  “I can’t imagine that she’ll give you a civil answer, but I suppose it can do no harm to ask. She’s in the Dean’s garden. I saw her when I passed.”

  With Jane at her side, Faris walked to the garden. In the gateway, she paused.

  At the foot of the oak tree, Menary sat on the dry grass, her skirts spread wide. Blond hair loose down her back, she leaned her head against the trunk of the tree, and laughed at the animal in her lap.

  To get a better look, Faris drew closer. The animal was a black cat, its tail bushed rigid. It spat at Menary, but neither clawed nor tried to flee. Ears flat, it seemed to flinch from her touch as she patted its head, but its legs were limp.

  Faris frowned. Beside her, Jane said softly, “I’ve never seen a cat in that humor that didn’t try to bite the first hand to come near it.”

  At her words, Menary looked up. “Come see my new pet. Isn’t he handsome?”

  Faris came nearer. She had always found it difficult to make polite conversation with Menary. This was no exception. “Did your vigil go well?” she asked finally.

  Fierce enjoyment dancing in her fine eyes, Menary smiled up at Faris. “Very well, thank you. And yours?” She caressed the cat, ignoring its rising growl.

  “Well enough.” Faris regarded Menary’s merriment suspiciously. Menary laughed softly, and dropped a kiss between the cat’s ears. The cat spat again.

  “You choose a strange season to sit and play in the garden.” Faris studied the cat intently.

  Jane looked warily from Faris to Menary and back, and said with false heartiness, “Why you aren’t both sound asleep is more than I can explain. After my vigil, I felt as though I’d been laundered and hung on a bush to dry.”

  Faris stared. “What’s the matter with that cat? He can’t move his legs, can he?”