A College of Magics

by Caroline Stevermer

Breakfast was not served in a dormitory, but in a bed chamber. In the matter of doors and walls and windows, it was a room much like the one in which she’d wakened. A carpet, very like the one in the library at Galazon, had been put down in the center of the chamber, despite the dried mud. There was a four-poster bed, as magnificent in its way as the carpet, a washstand, a desk piled high with books and papers, and a table, set for two. Graelent took her candelabrum and put it beside his on the table.

  Faris eyed the four-poster mistrustfully. “This is the first single bed dormitory I have ever seen.”

  Istvan Graelent seated her at the table and took the chair opposite. “I apologize for letting you spend the night in the dining room. You did not seem to notice the inconvenience. It took time to prepare this bedroom for you.” He served her fresh rolls and black coffee, then helped himself. “A few of my papers are still here. I hope you don’t object.”

  Faris drank coffee. It was strong and magnificently hot. The warmth was so welcome she had to close her eyes to conceal her emotion. “Where is Tyrian?” she asked when she could speak again.

  Graelent looked interested. “Tyrian? Who is Tyrian?”

  “My companion.”

  “Ah.” Graelent sipped his coffee. “We sent him back.”

  Faris tore her roll in half and looked at the pieces. It was beautiful pastry, drawn from the oven so recently it still held a little curl of steam. But was it safe to eat? She thought of the food in the books at Greenlaw. Pomegranates, for example. Well, if she didn’t eat something, she wouldn’t be able to leave. Her legs wouldn’t take her far in her present state. She ate the roll in four bites.

  Graelent gave her another. “He seemed anxious to return to your friends. Perhaps he wished to enlist some reinforcements. A burning spear, a horse of air. That sort of thing.”

  Faris finished the second roll and drank more coffee. “When did he leave?”

  Graelent refilled her cup. “As soon as he saw that you were safe here with us. Another roll?”

  Faris nodded. Left to his own devices, Tyrian would have stayed with her until she woke. Only at her order, perhaps not even then, would he have left her. So he was either a prisoner, as she was in this well-furnished tomb, or he was dead. Faris deliberated as she finished her breakfast. If he was a prisoner, she would simply have to find and free him. If he was dead—Faris closed her eyes again.

  “You’re a restful young lady. Are you always so silent?”

  Faris looked at Graelent a long time before she answered. He was young and seemed intelligent. He had a pleasing voice, a handsome face, and his cheer was apparently boundless. It was a great pity his ethics did not match his looks. Finally, she said, “No, almost never. But just now I have nothing to say.”

  “I see.” Graelent contemplated the crumbs that were all that remained of the pastry. “Would you like me to send for more rolls?”

  Faris shook her head. “Where would you send? Aren’t we ten leagues beyond the nearest bakery?”

  “There is a shorter way. I could send the Doorman. He’d fetch us more if you wished. I believe he’s taken a fancy to you. He doesn’t rescue just anyone, you know.”

  “Yes, he said he liked my manners.”

  “He’s very impertinent, but very useful.”

  “Is he your follower?”

  Graelent smiled. “One of them. The Doorman is my personal henchman. There are others. But the Doorman is the flower of them all. Isn’t there anything else I can send him for, even if you don’t want another roll?”

  “I would like my shoes back, please.”

  “By all means.” Graelent brought her slippers to her from across the room. “They are finally dry, although I fear they will never be quite as supple as they once were. Your gloves were ruined, I’m afraid.”

  Graelent knelt to help her put the stiffened slippers on. His hands were very warm on her cold skin. Then he brought her a robe of black wool trimmed with persian lamb, and held it for her to put on. Despite Faris’s height, it was too long for her. When she pulled it on over her gown, more than four inches of hem were left to brush along the floor. Behind her, Graelent lifted her hair free of the robe’s fleecy collar. Faris felt his warm touch at the nape of her neck and could not suppress a shiver.

  “You have already learned the penalty we pay to live here. Winter and summer, the temperature never varies. It is pleasant enough in the summer, but in the winter, unfortunately, we are never quite warm. Until now. Allow me to quote from the English play—” Graelent’s breath stirred her hair. “Now is the winter of our discontent mode glorious summer …”

  Faris turned to look at him over her shoulder. As she did, he kissed her.

  For a moment, Faris was too astonished to move. Then she pulled away. Graelent let her go. With a sweep of her robe, she stalked to the door.

  Even as she pulled away from him, she recognized something in herself that she despised. Though the word had not yet been spoken between them, she knew she was his prisoner. She knew that he had lied to her. Yet he did not disgust her. She had liked that kiss. Had her feeling for Tyrian melted something inside her? Was she to be attracted to every man she met? She was disgusted with herself. As she walked to the door, she wiped her mouth hard with the back of her hand.

  Graelent reached the door as she did and held the door shut. “I beg your pardon, your grace.” His rich voice had gone tenor with embarrassment.

  “Let me pass.” Faris’s voice trembled.

  “If we shadows have offended—” Graelent looked mortified. “I most sincerely beg your pardon. I did not intend to force my attentions upon you.”

  “Let me out,” said Faris, more strongly.

  “Your grace, you must consider my chamber your own. And you must believe that I will never enter it again unless at your express invitation. But you cannot leave. I’ll go now.” He opened the door.

  Faris elbowed him in the ribs. For a moment, they struggled side by side, then Graelent succeeded in shutting the door again. He leaned against it and met Faris’s angry gaze. “You cannot leave.” His voice was back in its own register.

  Faris stepped back and drew herself up to her full height. She had to look up slightly to meet his eyes. Her voice still trembled, but now it was with suppressed rage rather than embarrassment. “I think I have been patient long enough. I think I have been the soul of reason. Now I think it’s time that you explain yourself.”

  Graelent scowled. “I must go.”

  This time it was Faris’s hand that prevented the door from opening. “You heard me.”

  Graelent fell back a step, eyes flashing indignantly. He was a splendid sight, Faris thought, and disgust with herself for that thought made her angrier still.

  Before he could protest, she went fiercely on. “What have you done with Tyrian? And don’t spin me any yarns about reinforcements because he never needed any in his life. Where am I? What sort of place is this? You have canopy beds and pastry right out of the oven, but look at the state of the floors. Don’t you have a broom? What kind of man are you, serving me breakfast in your bed chamber and then kissing me? And then apologizing? And what do you mean, I cannot leave? I shall leave if I like.” Faris threw the door open and stalked out.

  In the passage outside, she halted. Six paces away, the Doorman stood, his pistol aimed at Faris’s stomach. “I heard voices, sir. Is there anything I can do?” His close set eyes were bright, almost gloating.

  Graelent slipped past Faris into the passage. Cautiously, he motioned her back across the threshold into the bed chamber. “Do you think it’s necessary that he do anything, your grace?”

  Faris didn’t answer. She took two reluctant steps backward and nearly tripped over the hem of her robe. Graelent swung the door shut. Faris stood so close, it nearly hit her. There was a pause, then the key scraped in the lock. She was alone.

  As angry as she was afraid, Faris struck the locked door with her open hand. Almost at once, the lock scraped again and the
door opened.

  It was the Doorman, his pistol still at the ready. “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do?”

  Faris did not like his avid expression. She mustered all the dignity she could and looked down her long nose at him. “Why, yes. There is. I would like some hot water, please. Enough to wash in.”

  The Doorman grinned. “This isn’t a hotel, you know. Where do you think I’d get hot water from?”

  “You managed it for the coffee.”

  “Piers makes the coffee, not me. I have my own work to do.” He shut the door and locked it again.

  “And don’t be all day about it either.” There was no response from the other side. Faris leaned against the door and let her breath go in a sigh.

  Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end, she thought. Perhaps. But she was somewhere in Aravis still. She looked around her prison with a critical eye.

  The mud on the floor and the stains low on the wall suggested that the room had been flooded long ago. Yet the water damage was minimal, for walls and floor were stone. Faris studied the masonry. She was no connoisseur of such things, but she thought it resembled the stone work she’d observed in the castle. The balustrade on the waterfall staircase had certainly looked like the one in the castle.

  Faris was positive she was either in the castle or very near it, for she had, more vividly than ever, the sense that there was less to the walls around her than met the eye. Even the carpet in the center of the chamber seemed insubstantial. Its pattern of twining foliage, unlike the carpet in the library at Galazon, held constant. But the faded color of the ground behind the pattern changed subtly as she watched, shifting like the colors in a starling’s feather.

  “I hate it here,” Faris said aloud. “I want to go home.”

  Then, dismayed by her own petulance, she made herself sit down at the desk. There was absolutely nothing she could do but wait. While she waited, she would at least study the papers and books Graelent had been careless enough to leave her.

  Graelent’s books were well-worn editions of books familiar to Faris: II Principe, Das Kapital, and Entwickelung des Sozialismus von der Utopie zur Wissenschaft. The margins were filled with notations in a looping, untidy hand. Here and there, the pages were marked with rings of coffee and red wine. All the papers were written in the same untidy script, and stained more freely than the books.

  Faris glanced through the papers idly at first, but her interest soon grew. Despite his clumsiness with wine and coffee, Graelent maintained scrupulous accounts. What money came in, what money went out, what he purchased, for how much, were all set forth in detail. What services he purchased and from whom (by code name only), were there as well. When she found a letter from a bank in Vienna, informing Graelent of a generous deposit to an account in Zurich, her eyes narrowed. With a sardonic smile, she studied Graelent’s records.

  Faris was finished with Graelent’s papers when the hot water finally came. A new henchman brought it, a red-haired youth scarcely in his teens. He did not say a word to her, just put the bucket of steaming water down next to the washstand, collected the breakfast things, and left. Faris tried the door on general principle, but it was securely locked.

  The next time the door opened, Graelent was there, with the red-haired youth, who was carrying a luncheon tray. “May we come in, your grace?” Graelent asked.

  “Since you ask so nicely.” Faris studied the luncheon tray. “And since you come bearing gifts.”

  The youth put the tray on the table and went immediately to the desk, where he gathered up all the books and papers.

  “That will be all, thank you, Piers.”

  Piers left them alone.

  Graelent seated Faris at the table and took the chair opposite her. “Go ahead, please. I’ve already eaten.”

  Faris kept her eyes on him. “I ought to make you taste it for me.”

  Graelent smiled crookedly. “If you wish.”

  Faris handed him her fork. “Please do.”

  “With pleasure. All Piers gave me was bread and cheese.” With great delicacy, Graelent sampled each of the dishes on her tray. “There. Oh, very nice. Yes. He went to some trouble over this for you.” He gave her back her fork.

  Faris passed first her wine glass, then her water glass. Gravely, he tasted each.

  “Definitely, Piers has outdone himself. I am lucky if I have wine with my dinner.” Faris watched him in silence. Her scrutiny made him laugh. “You don’t seriously believe I plan to poison you?”

  “There are other drugs.”

  “What a very unpleasant thought. Fear not, your grace, I do not intend to harm you in any way.”

  Faris prodded absently at the food on her plate. “Then let me go.”

  “I regret that I must continue to hold you here. Let me assure you, it’s for your own protection. There is a warrant out for your arrest. Guards are searching the entire city for you. I do not think it would suit either of us to let you fall into the king’s hands again. If my plans go well, however, one day we will be able to return quite safely to the city above.” Graelent raised an eyebrow. “If you don’t eat that, Piers is going to be very insulted.”

  “How long must I stay here?”

  “I cannot say. But no matter how long or short the time, I hope you will consider yourself not my prisoner, but my guest. Meanwhile, your fish is getting cold.”

  “Do you often have guests here?”

  “You are unique.” Graelent smiled again. “You must know that.”

  Did he know how appealing that piratical smile was? Did he realize how a less sensible person might misinterpret the warmth in his voice? “I know it, but I’m surprised you do. How do you know there is a warrant out for my arrest?”

  “I know more than Apollo.” Graelent’s dark eyes danced but his tone was serious. “I have my resources.”

  “What news of my friends, then?”

  “They are hiding in the British embassy. The king has issued a proclamation. If you are restored to him, he will rescind the orders for your friends’ arrest. He promises faithfully.”

  Eyeing Graelent, Faris decided that the food was probably safe. She sampled the fish. Although quite cold, it was excellent. “So he thinks I’m at the British embassy with them.”

  Graelent nodded. “And offers your friends their safety in return for yours.”

  “Typical. But if he really believes I’ve gone to ground at the embassy, why is he still searching the city for me?”

  “He can’t be certain. He’ll take no chances. Think how embarrassing it would be if you turned up back in Galazon. He brought you here so he could have a look at you before he accepted you and your dowry.”

  “Did everyone know that but me?”

  “We are Monarchists, after all.” Graelent looked a little sheepish. “You must expect us to take an interest.”

  “Why call yourselves that? You believe the king should be deposed.” Faris kept her tone light, hoping to sound no more than mildly interested.

  “Ah, but why? Because his family deposed the true king—your father. We intend to restore you to your rightful throne.”

  “You needn’t trouble yourself,” said Faris dryly.

  Graelent grew earnest. “The pleasure will be ours. Indeed, it will be the crowning achievement of many years of hardship and sacrifice. I never dreamed it would really come to this, you know. That we would have the chance to right that ancient wrong.”

  “Then I congratulate you. How many years of hardship has it been? I would have said you were no more than a year or two older than I am.”

  “I am twenty-five.”

  “And a recent graduate of the university.”

  “Political interests must take precedent, even over scholarship.” He sounded defensive. “I was not merely a student, you know.”

  “Far from it. You are the leading figure of the Monarchist faction—and at such a tender age. How long did it take you to rise to party leadership? Your accounts go back four years.
Have you always been responsible for the organization’s finances?”

  Graelent said cautiously, “I’ve always felt responsible.”

  Faris leaned toward him, her voice pitched low. “You originated the Monarchist party, didn’t you?”

  His dark eyes narrowed. “I merely thought of the name. The movement is as far-flung and as powerful as the working class itself.”

  “Not quite. I think the movement is confined to a few dozen of your friends. Or do you call them henchmen?” Faris sat back in her chair and studied him while she took a sip of wine. “You invented the Monarchists and you managed to persuade interested parties in the Austrian government to finance you.”

  Graelent looked disgusted with himself. “I should have sent Piers to fetch my papers long since.”

  “Very careless of you. It’s extremely dull here. And I’d already read most of your books.”

  He smiled crookedly. “Dreadful, aren’t they? But useful to copy phrases from when it’s time to write off to Vienna for a little more pocket money.”

  “You seem to do well out of the Austrians. Is it expensive to run your own political party?”

  “Only when we need to turn out in large numbers away from the university. No trouble raising crowds there, of course, and who is to say who is a Monarchist and who isn’t? But when we need a show of strength elsewhere, it can be costly. Luckily, we don’t often need to.”

  “You surprise me.”

  “Well, the foreign diplomats don’t have time to do much beyond their social obligations. With two or three well-scheduled demonstrations, we can impress them all at the same time. And the press are usually content to write about me. I got quite a lot of attention just for crashing the Twelfth Night ball.”

  Despite herself, Faris enjoyed Graelent’s confiding air. He took simple pride in his accomplishments. And he did keep scrupulous records. “How thrifty of you,” she prompted.

  “I had to order proper evening clothes, of course, but I view that as an investment. I’ll get years of wear out of them.”

  “Do you plan to crash a great many parties?”

  “Of course not. I’ll soon be able to take part properly, won’t I? It’s been very amusing, and even profitable in a modest way, but I would never have gone into politics if I weren’t genuinely interested in public life. Mind you, private enterprise is tempting. More of a challenge. I could never dare try the Monarchist scheme in a business setting. But politics is where the easy money is.”