A College of Magics

by Caroline Stevermer

  “When Copenhagen meets the train,” Jane coaxed.

  “Copenhagen meets the train.” Haverford’s mouth twitched. He took a deep breath and nestled comfortably in the laundry, like a sleeper in search of a cool bit of pillow.

  “Meets the train where?” Jane’s soft voice was strained with effort.

  “Port-a-bloody-Orientalis …” Haverford’s words turned into a snore. His mouth went slack and his head dropped forward. He was profoundly asleep.

  For a moment, they watched him in silence. Then Faris handed the knife back to Tyrian. Reed put his pistol away. And Jane put her head in her hands and leaned against the wicker crate. “Oh, dear,” she said.

  Faris touched her shoulder. “What’s the matter?”

  “My head is splitting. There’s nothing about this in the theory. I can scarcely see—”

  “I’ll finish up here. As soon as I’m done, I’ll stop at your compartment and we can discuss this.” Tyrian gagged Haverford and began to buckle the straps on the wicker crate.

  “What are you going to do with him?” Reed asked.

  “I’m going to make sure he doesn’t disturb anyone until he reaches the laundry in Constantinople.”

  9

  Shieling

  Jane’s berth had already been made up for the day. While Faris sat with her in her own compartment, Reed folded the sofa back into a bed. He retired to his compartment across the corridor while Jane was settled in with a tisane for her headache and the damask-covered blinds drawn.

  By the time Faris joined him, Tyrian was waiting with Reed. “She’s asleep,” she told them, accepting the fauteuil Reed had left empty for her. “She said she’s certain she can still keep the, er—hat—stable, but she is exhausted. At the moment, she isn’t able to alter her appearance, either.”

  “If she does lose her grip on that, er, hat,” said Reed cheerfully, “the bang from the baggage car will let us know.”

  “How long will it take for her to recover?” Tyrian asked.

  “She doesn’t know. She says she’s never tried this technique before.”

  “How long can we let her rest?” Reed asked. “We’re going to have to leave the train before we get to Porta Orientalis, aren’t we?”

  Faris looked thoughtful. “Unless we go farther and double back to Galazon somehow?”

  “I think we should stay as far away from Porta Orientalis as we can,” said Tyrian. “I have no idea if it’s the same one, but six years ago I encountered a man calling himself Copenhagen. I have no desire to meet him again unless it can’t be avoided.”

  “Is he familiar with this part of the world? Will he know the routes open to us if we leave the train early?” Faris asked.

  Reed looked disgusted. “Why does it matter? He must know our destination. If we don’t leave the train at Porta Orientalis, he can just go ahead to Galazon Ducis and wait for us to arrive.”

  “If we leave the train at Pavlova, we can take the next steamer up the White River, and cross the border that way,” suggested Faris.

  “When might that be?” Reed countered. “They never used to run more than once a week. We can get off at Islet, instead, and take the Haydock road.”

  Faris frowned. “How far will we get before we’re set upon by a band of Haydocker cutthroats? We’d never get a carriage through the high pass anyway. We might try Epona. If we can take passage on a barge down the Lida, we’ll end up in Galazon eventually.”

  “Eventually is the word. Why give Copenhagen the chance to reach Galazon Ducis before we do?”

  “There might be others, as well,” said Tyrian. “Copenhagen was never one to work alone. Although he usually has a better eye for help than Haverford suggests.”

  “So we may well be walking into a trap,” said Reed. “That’s a happy thought.”

  “And we can’t rule out the possibility that Haverford was planted on us,” Tyrian added.

  Faris put her chin in her hand. “Now I’m getting a headache.”

  “So am I. What’s your suggestion, then?” Reed asked Tyrian.

  “I don’t have one. You know the terrain. I agree that we must make all speed to Galazon Ducis.”

  Reed looked thoughtful. “The swiftest way is to cross the Haydocks from Islet to Puckrin and take the Alewash road into Galazon Ducis. Then we don’t have to attempt the high pass, either. We can cross at the Ela, almost at once.”

  “If Copenhagen took the most direct route from Porta Orientalis to Galazon Ducis, he’d be coming from the other way. We’d run no danger of crossing paths with him,” Faris added.

  “Of course, it depends on what kind of transport we find at Islet,” Reed continued. “If the diligence isn’t available, we’ll have to try to rent a coach.”

  “What about the Haydockers?” Faris asked.

  Reed and Tyrian traded speculative glances. “I think,” said Tyrian slowly, “that you can leave them to us.”

  “If we can’t manage them,” Reed added, “we’ll let you offer them coffee.”

  Jane did not care for the change in plan. But by the time she had recovered from her headache enough to take an interest in what was going on around her, there was little time left to remonstrate. Instead, she followed Faris’s lead, packing the minimum of clothing into a small bag, and preparing to let the rest of her luggage go on without her.

  “My new brocade dressing gown—I can’t possibly leave that.”

  Faris, who had finished her repacking long since, said, not for the first time, “Pack it in your big case, lock it up, make sure the label is firmly affixed, and leave it. They’ll ship it on with the rest of our things. It will be fine.”

  “My linen walking dress—I might need that—” Jane managed to fold the dress and fit it, with the rest of her necessities, into her smallest valise. “Now it won’t shut.”

  “Pack it with the rest.”

  “Now it won’t come out.”

  Faris extricated the crumpled walking dress from the jaws of the valise. “Are you quite sure that your hat will be safe if you leave it on the train? I mean, it won’t go off or anything, will it?”

  Jane clutched her forehead. “My hat! Oh, must I leave my hat as well?”

  “Won’t you have enough to carry as it is?” While Jane was distracted, Faris closed the bulging valise and locked it. “Unless your spell needs you near?”

  “It’s a hat as long as I say it’s a hat,” Jane said grimly. “It will be perfectly safe without me. How am I ever going to fit all the rest of this back into my cases before we reach Islet?”

  “Why don’t you wait in my compartment while I finish for you? It won’t take me long.”

  “You know you can’t fold things properly. Everything will be crushed.”

  “When you eventually unpack, won’t you have it all pressed anyway?”

  “Oh, dear. I suppose so.” Distressed, Jane surveyed the untidy compartment. “It’s too ghastly. I can’t let you finish for me. I’ll have to do it myself.”

  Faris steered her out of the compartment. “Here’s Reed. Make him give you a cigarette or something. I’ll finish.”

  Reed craned to see the disarray. “Are you still at it?”

  For answer, Faris shut the compartment door.

  At daybreak on Sunday, half an hour before it reached Hatzfeld, the train made a brief halt at Islet, a prosperous little town at the foot of the Ela Pass. With speed, stealth, and the very minimum of baggage, Faris and her party left the train. They waited for an hour at the chilly inn near the railway station. Then, under Tyrian’s direction, they took seats on the local diligence, a light coach of sturdy, primitive design. By the time the sun was well up, they were lurching along the road to Puckrin.

  After the Orient-Express, Faris found the diligence excruciatingly slow. There were two other passengers, a paunchy older man who gazed nervously out the window at all times, and a stern-looking matron who knitted with mechanical precision, staring disapprovingly all the while at Faris and Jan
e. Jane, veil down, back straight, and gloved hands demurely folded, stared back, apparently determined neither to speak nor blink for the duration of the journey.

  Faris spent some time trying to decide what the matron was knitting, some time gazing out the window at the passing countryside (steep and rocky, very poor cropland by any measure), and some time staring at the sky, trying to guess if it was going to clear or not. (Probably not.) Then, inevitably, she went back to her principal concern. Brinker.

  What Copenhagen chose to do when the train arrived in Porta Orientalis without them, she left to Reed and Tyrian to worry about. Copenhagen was, after all, a matter of professional interest to them. If he wished to pursue them to Galazon, he would. They would lay their plans accordingly.

  Brinker, on the other hand, was Faris’s responsibility. Even if he were not involved with Copenhagen and Haverford (and Faris had to concede that there was no certainty that he was Copenhagen’s client, oh, no, nothing so simple as that), he was still Faris’s worry.

  What would she tell him about Aravis? Hello, Uncle, I’m off to Aravis on urgent business. Oh, didn’t I say? I’m the warden of the north. He’d love that. She could almost see the bemused expression he would put on, as if she had suddenly begun to speak in Persian and he was a little too polite to bring it to her attention. Just the expression he’d have if she were to ask, Did you pay someone to kill me, Uncle?

  He would tilt his head a little at that, as if to marvel at how imaginative the young could be. How that little tilt of the head infuriated her. She would lose her temper then, as she always did, and add, as nastily as she could, Did it cost very much?

  And anyone who happened to be in the room at the time would look shocked at her impertinence. Then Brinker would be able to send her away and carry on with his plans unimpeded, as he always did. As he always would do. What would be so different, after all, the day Faris came of age? Would he suddenly listen to her when she spoke to him? Would he magically agree with her, after all the years of looking bored when she spoke?

  Brinker held Galazon in the hollow of his hand. He wouldn’t give up his influence willingly. The only groups who had ever rivaled his importance had been the assembly of landowners called the Curia Ducis, and the advisers Faris’s mother had consulted, men and women drawn not just from the land-owning class, but from all across Galazon. The seeds of reform were there, Faris thought. The ancient Curia Ducis might be revived, a ramshackle house of lords, and the newfangled advisers might someday provide Galazon with something resembling a house of commons. It would be difficult, certainly, even without interference from Brinker. The key, she thought, would lie in the past. If she could present these changes as revivals of ancient tradition, it was just possible they might be accepted. How easy Brinker would find it, though, to frame these ideas as the socialist notions of a student who had been away too long.

  In a way, Brinker had already agreed with her about the potential power of the Curia and the advisers. The Curia had been so troublesome to him, he had dissolved it. The advisers had been ignored for years. Were any of them left? Would any of them trust her as they had trusted her mother? And what would Brinker do if they did?

  What would Brinker do, it suddenly occurred to Faris to wonder, if Copenhagen did pursue her to Galazon? If Haverford’s account could be trusted, and Faris had enough faith in Jane’s skill to believe it could, Copenhagen knew who his client was. Suppose Copenhagen fell into her hands. She had enough faith in Tyrian and Reed to consider it possible. With testimony from Copenhagen, with a threat of exposure to use against Brinker, what could Faris do? What would Brinker do? What did she want him to do?

  Lost in happier speculation, Faris relaxed. The heavy sway of the coach lulled her. Never come back faded for good, banished by the slower tempo of their progress. Faris slept.

  At half past five that afternoon, Faris woke from a fitful doze to find Jane frowning at her. Since Oratz, they had been the only passengers inside. Reed and Tyrian had seats on the box. Despite the relative privacy, Jane still wore her veil down and it only made her frown more alarming. Faris looked around, blinking. “Is there something the matter? Is your headache back again?”

  “Yes. And it is any wonder? This road is a disgrace. Any moment now, my neck will be snapped from my shoulders. How can you possibly sleep?”

  Faris stifled a yawn. “I was just resting my eyes.” She looked out the window. “Dark already? At least the sky cleared. What time is it? Where are we?”

  Jane handed Faris her Baedeker. “I neither know nor care. One pine forest looks very like another. Did you know the roads would be like this?”

  “You want your tea, don’t you?” Faris folded her arms tightly, wishing for a little more warmth.

  “There’s no chance of tea until we reach Ruger—and don’t say anything bracing about a hearty meal and a good night’s sleep, because I won’t be braced. I am miserable and if you weren’t so bucked about going home, you’d be miserable, too.”

  “It’s really not much worse than the private coach from Szedesvar would have been. And it doesn’t look as if it’s going to rain. That’s very lucky. Just think what the roads would be like then.”

  “And while we wander through Ruritania with comb and handkerchief and very little more, all our luggage is in Porta Orientalis, mouldering in some foul hole for unclaimed baggage.”

  “It’s labeled. The train people will send it all on to Galazon Chase. We may reach Ruger in time for supper. As soon as we arrive, I’ll order another tisane for your headache.”

  “A tisane?” Jane was indignant. “Brandy, at least. Cognac would be better.”

  The diligence gave a violent lurch, followed by a crash. After a stunned moment, Faris untangled herself from Jane. The coach had stopped. As Faris put her hand on the door, it opened with an edge of chill air.

  Just visible in the starlight, Tyrian, hatless and holding his elegant pistol, asked, “Are you hurt?”

  “Not I,” said Faris. “Jane?”

  “Cognac would be far better.” Jane sounded very cross. “I’m fine.” She picked herself up carefully off the floor. Indignantly, she added, “I’m covered in straw.”

  “What happened?” asked Faris.

  “There’s a tree down across our track. The coachman was thrown off the box. I think we’ve broken a trace. Reed is holding the horses. Stay where you are.”

  Faris started to clamber out the door. “We’ll help. I can hold the horses.”

  Tyrian didn’t move. “It isn’t necessary.”

  Slowly, eyes straining to read Tyrian’s expression in the dimness, Faris took her seat.

  “Thank you, your grace.” The door closed and Tyrian was gone.

  Surprised, Jane stopped brushing at her skirts. “What’s the matter with you two? Of course we ought to help. We may be here all night as it is.”

  “Haydock can be rather uncivilized.” Faris frowned. “These forests are renowned for the cutthroats who live here.”

  “Oh.”

  It was a still evening. Overhead, the stars seemed huge, burning ice-cold and blue-white in the faultless sky. There was no wind to trouble the pines. The coachman, calling loudly for plum brandy, was helped to his feet. The horses were quieted. The carriage lamps were lit. They hardly flickered as Tyrian set to work mending the broken harness by their light.

  “That’s a very large pine tree,” Jane observed, her voice touched with gloom. “They haven’t even tried to move it.”

  “I doubt they can. How is your headache now? Could you transform the tree, do you think?

  Jane sounded dubious. “Perhaps I can.”

  “If you can’t, we’ll have to turn the coach and go back.”

  “Oh, dear. Back where?”

  “Wherever we changed horses last.”

  “That was a cow byre with six horses in it. We can’t possibly sleep there.”

  “I don’t recommend sleeping anywhere but the coach, to tell you the truth. Insects.
”

  Jane clutched Faris’s sleeve. “Hush. Look!”

  Faris looked. Tyrian and Reed and the coachman were already looking. From the darkness near the fallen pine, a light shone, small and golden as a firefly.

  “Hello,” a man’s voice called out of the darkness. “Having a little trouble?” The light moved in a quick arc and returned to its place. The speaker came closer. He was a slender man with a pair of ammunition belts slung across his chest. The brim of his slouch hat concealed his face. The light was his cigarette. He exhaled slowly as he regarded the driver, Reed, and Tyrian. “Looks as if you could use some help.”

  “We’ll manage, thanks all the same,” said Reed cheerfully.

  “Oh?” The man studied the fallen pine. “It appears to me you need to move that tree.” His voice sounded young and thoughtful. “If you give me five hundred dinaras, I’ll clear the road for you.”

  “All alone?” Tyrian asked.

  The man dropped his cigarette and ground out the little light. In the next few seconds, thirty matches flared as thirty men lit cigarettes in the darkness around the coach. “Not at all. Better make that one thousand dinaras.”

  Reed and Tyrian made no answer. The driver groaned.

  In the coach, Jane put back her veil. “I’ve still got the headache, but it shouldn’t take much to frighten off a few bandits.”

  “No, wait a moment—” In Faris’s memories, the recollection of summers long past was stirring.

  “Fifteen hundred dinaras,” the man said.

  Faris listened intently. “I know that voice.”

  “While we wait, the price is going up. Who knows what Reed and Tyrian will decide to do?”

  “Two thousand dinaras is less than a hundred pounds sterling. And Reed and Tyrian are just what I’m worried about. I know that young man.” Faris climbed out of the coach.

  Jane rolled her eyes, put her veil back, and followed.