The Royal Sorceress (7 page)

They practiced for nearly an hour, until Gwen felt her head beginning to throb. “Time to stop for the day,” Cannock said, seriously. He sounded more concerned about her than she’d expected. But then, if anything went badly wrong, Master Thomas would have thrashed him to within an inch of his life. “You don’t want to push your talent too far.”

Gwen nodded. She disliked headaches at the best of times. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll just get changed and then I’ll join you for lunch.”

Back in her rooms, she glanced at herself in the mirror and burst out laughing. Her sodden dress was clinging to her skin, her hair was a dreadful mess and her skin was covered in droplets of water. Pulling the dress off and dumping it on the floor was not particularly easy – and when she’d done so, she discovered that her undergarments had been soaked as well. The dress was almost completely ruined, even though it had been designed for rougher use than her ballroom dresses, and she made a mental note to insist on wearing trousers. It might not be acceptable in polite society for women to wear trousers, but the Crichton Family weren’t so rich that they could afford to keep buying new dresses. Conspicuous consumption wasn’t the kind of reputation a reputable older family wished to develop.

She wiped herself with a towel, donned a light-green dress that would be suitable for an afternoon spent in the library, and headed down the stairs for lunch. The lunches in Cavendish Hall were served at noon precisely, with anyone who was late – according to Master Thomas – forced to dine out, unless they had a very good excuse. At least the food was good, although it was a curious mixture of typically British foods and imported tastes from the Empire. Some of the student magicians would be going to India or Africa or even the Americas when they graduated and they would have to learn to eat native cuisine. The Colonial Service frowned on officers who refused to eat local foods, at least outside the network of government officers. It also frowned on British officers who formed liaisons with the local womenfolk, but Gwen had heard enough whispers from relatives of those who had served in India to know that such regulations were tacitly ignored.

The table wasn’t as crowded as she had expected. Master Thomas and several of the senior tutors hadn’t come to dine, which
was
surprising. A handful of students – including Cannock – sat at the table, tucking into the soup that formed the first course. Anyone who failed to arrive by the time the maids started removing the soup would have to beg and plead to receive a share of roast lamb or beef. Gwen took a seat, accepted a bowl of soup and bread from one of the maids, and started to sip at it. The cooks had produced a rather surprisingly spicy carrot soup.

She glanced up sharply as she felt the first tingle of magic surrounding her. No one seemed to be looking at her; in fact, the group of students seemed to be looking
away
from Gwen. The magic faded away, and then reappeared, right behind her. Gwen frowned and concentrated, trying to understand what it was. A moment later, she felt a sharp pinch on her rear end. There was no one behind her, which meant that someone was using magic to pinch her from a distance. She felt a hot flash of anger as she glared at Cannock and his friends, all of whom were clearly fighting to control the urge to burst into giggles. They could play their tricks on the maids if they liked – she’d already heard that Cavendish Hall had a higher turnover of servants than her father’s house – but they couldn’t play them on her. A second pinch made her jump, followed rapidly by a third. It felt as if someone was crawling over her body, pinching away at exposed flesh.

“Stop it,” she ordered. The students burst into giggles, followed by another series of pinches. Gwen yelped as she felt her buttocks stinging in pain. “Stop it!”

Magic flared through her and the soup bowls in front of the students seemed to explode, showering them in hot soup. It was their turn to yelp in shock, just as another wave of magic – only partly under Gwen’s control – slammed into the tureen and tipped it over onto the table. A flood of hot soup spread across the tablecloth and into their laps. She wanted to giggle herself as they jumped up, the stain spreading over their clean trousers, but she was burning with rage. A hot prickling behind her eyes seemed to be overpowering her. Cannock turned and glared at her, no longer so amused now he was dripping with soup. He used his magic to pick up the bread and throw it at her. Gwen caught it with her own magic and knocked it back at him, only to see it come apart as the other students – two of whom were clearly Movers themselves – caught it and shoved it at her. Tiny pieces of bread slashed into her skin, leaving her feeling bruised and sore. Angrily, she sent her own magic billowing out of control across the table, picking up spilled soup, tableware and even part of the table and hurling it at them. Cannock ducked in alarm as a knife narrowly missed him by inches. Maids and kitchen staff scattered, screaming in panic as the magic duel ran right out of control.

Gwen felt Cannock’s magic forming around her and pushed it back, slamming her will directly against his. For a moment, she held her own, but his greater experience and skill told and he broke through her defences. A wave of magic slapped into her and sent her staggering backwards; she hit the floor hard enough to hurt as the table started to disintegrate around her. Magic flared over her fingers, slipping from Moving to Blazing, enough magic to burn right through Cannock. If she was fighting for her life.

“
ENOUGH
,” a voice said.
“STOP FIGHTING, NOW!
”

There was enough Charm in the voice to control an entire crowd of angry magicians. Gwen felt her rage dissipate slowly, the magic she had raised to defend herself fading away. Master Thomas was coming down the long flight of stairs, his face as angry as anyone else Gwen had ever seen. It struck her, suddenly, that she was no longer at home. If he felt that she had grossly overreacted to their provocation, she was likely to be in real trouble. Her father had let her run wild, but Master Thomas believed in discipline. It was the key to effective magic.

“I do not expect to see student magicians fighting one another with the food,” he said, sharply. Cannock and his friends looked as if they wished to be somewhere – anywhere – else. Gwen, for once, found herself in agreement with them. Her head was starting to pound again, suggesting that she might have overreached herself. How much Moving could a person do before they risked permanent damage? “I would insist on none of you having any lunch, except you will have exhausted yourself through your silly fighting.”

For the first time, Gwen took in the scene before him. The dining hall was wrecked, with soup and bread scattered everywhere. The massive oak table had been smashed, while the soup was soaking into the carpet, paintings had been torn from the walls and a set of cutlery was embedded in the stonework. It would take hours, perhaps days, for the servants to clear up the mess, if they didn’t give their notice as a body when they recovered from their hysterics. She felt a flash of shame, despite the wooziness that threatened to send her to her knees. They hadn’t meant to tear the room apart during their fight.

“You will all spend the afternoon cleaning up the mess,” Master Thomas decreed. His voice was flat, perfectly controlled. It was clear that any argument would only make the punishment worse. “You have disgraced yourselves in front of your tutors.”

He stepped forward, the tip of his cane tapping against the stairwell. “Control and discipline are the keys to your magic,” he said. “I do not want to see any of you lose control, not again. Losing control could mean that someone – perhaps someone innocent – gets hurt. I will not tolerate that on my watch.”

It took nearly four hours to clean up the mess. The table was beyond repair – the intersection of two different magical forces had shattered its structure – and had to be sent to the bonfires. Gwen found herself scrubbing the floor for the first time in her life, along with a handful of students who had probably never done a day’s real work in their lives. It was a bitter insight into how the servants had felt during her temper tantrums as a young child, with the added threat of malicious magic for those that worked at Cavendish Hall. Afterwards, she had to change again. The green dress had been totally ruined.

She vowed, in the aftermath, that she wouldn’t lose control again. The results, she decided, were too dangerous. Magic was far from safe.

Chapter Six

D
on’t look around too much,” Lucy said, as she ushered Jack into her living room. “I haven’t decided if I want to keep you here yet.”

Jack smiled at her as he took one of the comfortable seats. Lucy had done well for herself over the years, but then owning a brothel was always a licence to print money. Her living room had been decorated to her tastes, with a number of comfortable chairs, a drinks cabinet and a double-sized sofa intended to allow her to share time with a lover – if she had a lover. It was luxury on a scale that made Jack think of the people outside, who would have killed for just one of the chairs in the room, but he refused to allow himself to feel guilt. He would do what he could for them by destroying the system that kept their lives hellish.

“I’m sure you’re pleased to see me,” he said. Lucy shrugged as she poured them both a drink. Jack sniffed the aroma as she passed him one of the glasses and lifted an eyebrow. A bottle of good brandy cost more than the average inhabitant of the Rookery could hope to make in a year through honest labour. He took a sip and placed the glass aside. “It has been such a long time.”

He studied Lucy with frank interest. She had once had long red hair and perfect skin. Now, her hair was still red, but her skin was marked by age and despair. She wore a dark dress that contrasted oddly with her hair colour, tight in all the right places, yet decent enough to pass unnoticed in most parts of London. The Bow Street Runners wouldn’t move her along if they saw her, although some of them might solicit her for free sessions in the brothel. It was always nice to know which of the Runners could be corrupted at will.

“Too long,” Lucy said, as she sat down opposite him. “I had almost given up hope of seeing you again. The French might have wanted to keep you.”

“They knew better than to try,” Jack assured her. “Whatever differences we might have with King Louis and his Court, anything that weakens the British Empire would be sure of their support.”

“Until they discover that the movement is also targeted on the French monarchy,” Lucy pointed out. “Don’t they realise that the British are not the only people in bondage?”

“Oh, I’m sure they know,” Jack said. He grinned at her, mischievously. “That’s what makes the game so exciting.”

He took another sip of the brandy. “I spoke to the American – Franklin – while I was at Versailles,” he said. “He still has high hopes of a second revolution in the colonies and he may be right, but Arnold is still clamping down hard on any expression of dissent. And the savages didn’t make it any easier by rising up against the settlers three years ago. They’ll forget what the redcoats did for them in a few more years, but right now all Arnold really has to worry about is Shays. And Shays has only a small band behind him.

“No, the only hope for freedom is here, in Britain,” he concluded. “Once I did my duty by the French, I set out to return to the land of my childhood.”

“And I’m sure you positively
hated
doing your duty by the French,” Lucy said, sweetly. Jack flushed. It had been years since they’d been lovers, back when he’d first become involved in the underground movement, but she still had the power to embarrass him. Lucy had always been so delightfully crude, unsurprisingly. Living on the streets did nothing for one’s airs and graces. She was so much more alive than many of the aristocratic ladies he had once known. “Do you really trust them to support us when the crowd starts making threatening noises in Paris?”

Jack shook his head. “I think they’ll be sending for the troops again,” he said. The period following the aborted American Revolution had been followed by popular unrest in France, Prussia, Austria and even Russia. It had been a heady time, with hope burning brightly in the population, but the established order had been able to clamp down and reassume control. The streets of Paris had run red with blood as troops had fired on the crowds, dismantling the barricades and restoring King Louis to his throne. “But until then, we can count on their support.”

The French had fought countless wars with the British over the last two centuries – and they’d lost every one of them. France, with its open borders, simply couldn’t concentrate its might upon building a navy to match its island rival, rendering it supreme in Europe, but weak at sea. The British Empire had expanded rapidly under Pitt to the point where it ruled nearly a quarter of the known world. There were British missions in China and even Japan, ones that might lead to conquest and settlement. King George and Lord Liverpool were firm believers in expansion. It kept the masses quiet and provided dumping grounds for criminals who could then be worked to death.

Jack didn’t blame the French for feeling more than a little frustrated, even though most of their problems stemmed from their own government as well as geography. The French nobility had rallied behind the King in the years of unrest, but they remained determined to cling to their ancient rights, as did the Church. No King had the power to force them to reform, which meant that nothing would ever be fixed. The French could only draw money from a small segment of its society, the poor and powerless. France would suffer a revolution when they finally realised that they were damned to poverty no matter how hard they worked. The threats of ruthless suppression would no longer seem intimidating.

“Right,” Lucy said. She took a sip of her brandy. “Most of our networks got crushed by Liverpool and his Dragoons. There aren’t that many of the old guard left.”

Jack had expected that, but it was still a shock. There had been heady days in the past, when the movement had been gaining ground and sucking in people who could support the demand for peaceful change. And then all hell had broken loose and he’d had to flee for his life. Magic, as his old master had told him more than once, didn’t make a person invincible. It often made a person overconfident instead.