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Authors: Caroline Stevermer

BOOK: A College of Magics
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“What does the Pagan know about coal?” Charlotte inquired lazily.
“Nothing, apparently. She bought a scuttleful of this stuff at the market. I happened to walk back with her and she gave me a few pieces. So we've both been hoaxed.”
“As long as it burns.”
Faris blinked sleepily at the blaze. It had colors enough to please her, not just scarlet and gold but sometimes a pale green too, like a touch of the northern lights.
“Give it a poke, will you? I've just found the perfect spot and I don't want to move the fork.”
At the heart of the fire, the coals snapped and shifted. A spark leaped and caught in Jane's lace cuff. Jane dropped the toasting fork and jerked her hand back.
Hissing, the damp stockings began to burn. Acrid smoke billowed. Jane slapped at her wrist and the sparks spread to the other lace cuff. “Oh, dear.”
Charlotte sprang to her feet, knocking her chair over and upsetting the ink. Faris sneezed, dropped the hearth rug over Jane's arms, and set to slapping vigorously.
After a moment, Jane pushed her away. “Stop that. You'll break both my wrists.” Cautiously, she emerged from the hearth rug and examined her shirt cuffs. “Ruined.”
Faris helped Jane to her feet. “You can mourn your wardrobe on the way to the infirmary.”
“Oh, there's no need to trouble the infirmary.” Jane held out her wrists. “Not even singed.”
In astonishment, Faris seized Jane's wrist for a closer look. “No damage at all.” She released Jane, eyes wide. “You
are
a witch.”
“I didn't do anything. It must have been the luck of the Brailsfords.”
Deftly Charlotte extracted what was left of Jane's smoldering stockings from the hearth and displayed them, neatly impaled on the toasting fork.
“‘What work is here, Charmian? Is this well done?'”
Jane looked past the toasting fork and spied the ink, trickling disastrously across Charlotte's illustration, over the table, and on to the floor. “Oh, dear.”
Charlotte sighed. “More ink, less wash. One less illustration.”
 
 
L
ate one November night, Faris was in number five study reading
The Prisoner of Zenda
while Jane performed prodigies of mathematics to present to her tutor the next morning. Eve-Marie knocked at the door and Faris admitted her and Portia, a first-year student who was friendly with Gunhild. Jane looked up from her work as Eve-Marie brought Portia to the table and sat her down in Faris's chair.
“Now,” said Eve-Marie, gently but firmly, “tell Jane what you told me.”
“Gunhild went down to the town,” said Portia obediently. “I couldn't stop her.”
Jane and Faris exchanged a glance of concern.
“After curfew? Why would she do that?” asked Jane.
Helplessly, Eve-Marie lifted her hands. “She's been terribly homesick ever since she arrived …”
Portia interrupted, “She keeps going on and on about the scent of pine in the frosty air …”
“I know,” said Jane. “How well I know.”
“She misses the scent of aquavit, too,” Portia continued. “She found a man down in the town who promised to give her a bottle of the stuff if she came herself tonight to fetch it. I caught her slipping out of the dormitory and made her tell me where she was going, but I couldn't stop her.”
Jane looked harassed. “Doesn't she know one doesn't accept gifts from strangers? It simply isn't done.”
“I tried to tell her,” said Portia. “But where she comes from, there aren't any strangers. She laughed at me and off she went. I don't know what to do. Even if we tell the
proctors, by the time we've explained, she may be in terrible trouble.”
“So she came to me,” Eve-Marie said, “and I came to you.”
“Alarums and excursions,” said Jane pensively, “and quite possibly expulsions as well. What jolly fun.” She looked at Faris. “Do you find that book absorbing?”
“Young Rupert's all right,” Faris replied, “but on the whole, no. Are we to go a-roving?”
“It would be slack to stay in, I think.” Jane turned to Portia. “Where is Gunhild supposed to meet this man?”
“At a brasserie near the gate. It's called the Glass Slipper.”
“Very well, then. To the Glass Slipper.”
Mathematics discarded, Jane led Faris, Eve-Marie, and Portia out of number five study, down a crooked staircase, over a window sill, and into the night. It was cloudless, with moon enough to cast shadows.
Between the dormitory and the Cordelion Tower, as the others clambered through the window, Faris paused beside Jane and forgot anxiety for Gunhild and worry about breaking curfew in her delight with the darkness. Since she had arrived at Greenlaw, Faris had not been outside the confines of the college at night without a reliable escort. By every measure Faris had ever heard of, her companions failed to qualify as a reliable escort. She drew a deep breath, savoring the chill of the evening, the scent of the sea, and her unaccustomed freedom. When the others joined her, she followed Jane and the rest to the Dean's garden, where an oak tree provided means to cross the college wall.
Free in the dark, Faris felt her delight shape itself into a small bubble of hilarity, which lodged at the base of her throat. Oak leaves rustled in the night breeze as they passed.
The garden below belonged to one of the houses of Greenlaw town. They slipped from the garden to an alley. Silently, down twisting streets, they came at last to the brasserie nearest to the great gate of Greenlaw.
“‘This is the place,” said Portia, shivering. “We were here this morning to ask if they sold aquavit. This is where we met that man.”
Inside, the Glass Slipper was not much different from the common room of the White Fleece. A bit smaller, a bit dirtier, it held a few wooden tables flanked with benches. On one side of the room was a spacious fireplace, where dying embers cast enough light to give the room a sullen glow. On the other was the bar, deserted. At the far end of the room stood a sailor with a dark green bottle in one hand, and in the other, Gunhild's wrist.
At the sight of her rescuers, Gunhild stopped struggling and glared at the sailor. “Now you
must
let me go.”
Wide-eyed and mercifully silent, Portia stayed in the doorway as Jane and Eve-Marie advanced toward Gunhild. Faris crossed immediately to the fireplace and helped herself to the poker from the rack of tools beside the hearth. Some of her reckless delight was still with her and this did not seem an appropriate place to be delighted. Without haste, she put more wood on the fire and stirred the coals judiciously.
“Aquavit is filthy stuff, Gunhild,” said Jane. “You'd best come with us.”
Gunhild tossed her sheaf of golden hair angrily. “He won't let me go.”
“Let her go,” Eve-Marie advised.
The sailor laughed. “Cinderella's step-sisters,” he observed. “I think I've got the pick of your litter right here. The two of us made a bargain, and I intend to keep it.”
“Don't be absurd,” said Jane. “All we need do is raise hue and cry against you. You wouldn't care for that.”
“Go ahead,” said the sailor. “Call my friends. I'm not greedy.”
Faris left the fireplace and joined Jane, poker at her side. The small bubble of hilarity made it hard to keep her voice steady. Carefully, she said, “Let Gunhild go.” The words sounded normal enough, but Faris wondered if her hilarity could possibly be the first step toward hysteria.
The sailor eyed Faris. “You're too big for a little lad like me, carrots. You'd better call my friends.”
With a quick tug, Faris kilted her skirts out of her way.
“Look at that, tearing her clothes off to get at me. I'd better call my friends myself.”
Faris heard her own voice as though it belonged to someone else entirely. It was perfectly level, perfectly assured. “Let her go, before I make you.”
The sailor lifted the dark green bottle high. “You come any closer, you'll get to taste this.”
Gunhild twisted aside. Eve-Marie and Jane stepped forward. The sailor pushed Gunhild into them and brought his
bottle down hard on the edge of the table. A crash, a thick scent of caraway and raw spirit, and the broken neck of the bottle was steady in his hand. Portia gave a squeak of alarm.
The sailor smiled. “Come on, then, sweetheart. Let's have it.”
Faris was already on guard. Before he stepped toward her, Faris lunged. The tip of the poker caught him on the breast bone with a noise like thumping a melon. The sailor staggered but slipped aside. Glass glinted as he slashed. Faris parried with a blow that snapped bone. The sailor dropped the bottle and fell to his knees, cursing.
Faris felt Jane's hand on her sleeve, but her voice seemed to come from far away. “Let's go. Hurry, let's go.”
“Get up.” Faris's voice grated in the silent room. Her bubble of hilarity was gone. It took no effort to speak steadily.
The sailor looked up. At her words, he groped for the bottle neck with his good hand.
“Don't do that,” said a man's voice as smooth and cool as buttermilk. “Stand back, your grace, and put the poker down.”
Faris blinked and stepped back. At the door, beside Portia, stood a blond man, dressed in badly cut black. In his hand was a small but formidable looking pistol.
“Let the man alone, your grace. You've alarmed him, sufficiently, I think.”
Portia gaped at him. Eve-Marie looked relieved.
“Who are you?” demanded Gunhild.
“Consider me a witness,” replied the blond man. “If you have any influence with the duchess, will you use it to persuade her to leave?”
“Duchess?” Gunhild looked bewildered. “What duchess?”
“Do put the poker away, Faris,” said Jane. “Whoever he is, he's perfectly right.”
Faris lowered the poker slowly. “His name is Tyrian.” Her voice sounded distant but otherwise quite normal. “I think he works for my uncle.”
“How nice,” said Jane. “May we go now?”
Gunhild began to sniffle slightly.
Eve-Marie put her arm around Gunhild's shoulders and shook her gently. “Idiot.”
“I know,” said Gunhild, hanging her head.
Jane produced a flawlessly clean handkerchief and gave it to Gunhild. “Must we discuss it here?”
“Yes, let's go,” said Portia.
Gunhild blew her nose.
The sailor cursed comprehensively.
“I believe that makes it unanimous. Or would you prefer to stay and explain to the authorities?” Tyrian asked Faris.
Faris eyed him defiantly. “I'll go. But I'm keeping the poker.”
“By all means,” said Jane. “A most useful object, the poker. I had no notion.”
Tyrian bowed them out, paused on the threshold to threaten the sailor, and closed the wine shop door softly. “I suggest we hurry.”
“If you can't speak sensibly, you can leave.”
D
ame Villette stopped Faris after the first lecture the next day. “The Dean asked me to send you to her office.”
Faris's eyes widened. She thought,
Does the Dean know everything that happens within the gates of Greenlaw?
“Do you know why?” She hoped her expression held only innocent surprise.
“No, but I'm sure she will mention it at some point in your conversation. Come to see me when she's finished with you.”
Faris left the lecture hall reluctantly. Had someone told the authorities that she had broken curfew? Or did the authorities know things without the need to be told?
 
O
nce away from the Glass Slipper the night before, Tyrian had insisted on escorting them to the college. Jane led the way back to the garden. Under the oak tree, she paused. “Gunhild goes first,” Jane whispered. “If anyone is waiting for us, she ought to be the one to greet them.”
Tyrian helped Gunhild up into the rustling branches, then Jane, Portia, and Eve-Marie. When he turned to Faris, she stopped him with a touch of her hand.
“First tell me,” she said quietly, “did my uncle hire you?”
Tyrian's soft voice was surprised. “Weren't you told?”
Faris didn't answer.
“Obviously not. He hired me as soon as he had certain knowledge that you were a student at Greenlaw. He wanted to be sure you stayed at school.”
“Stayed where he put me, rather. So you are my guard.”
“Your bodyguard, should circumstances ever require one. I am surprised that my services weren't needed tonight. I had no idea Greenlaw College provided such a liberal education.”
“They don't teach that at Greenlaw.” Reluctantly, Faris handed the poker to Tyrian. “Nothing so direct.”
“Perhaps they should. Our nautical friend may think twice before he approaches another student.”
The thought cheered Faris. For the first time since the fight, she felt her heart lift. “A useful object, the poker,” she said.
“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.”
 
A
ll 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.”
 
W
hen 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.
 
F
aris 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.

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