A Matter of Magic (43 page)

“Well, I don’t see why I have to learn all this foreign talk just so some cull who’s been dead since before I was born can sound flash when he says, ‘Wiggle all the fingers on your right hand.’ ”

“You’ll just have to trust me when I tell you it’s worth the effort,”
Mairelon told her. “You could probably learn quite a few of the simple spells by rote, but it would be very difficult for you to get much beyond that.”

“Why? I have a good memory.”

“Yes, but magic isn’t just a matter of memory. It takes understanding, too. Here, I’ll show you.” Mairelon set the book aside and went over to his mother’s desk. After a moment of rummaging and a few more of scribbling, he returned with a sheet of paper bearing a peculiar diagram and four words.

“This is a spell,” he said, thrusting the paper into her hand. “You ought to be able to handle it at your level. You cast it by drawing this diagram, starting with this”—he pointed—“and ending with these. As you draw each of these points, you say one of these words, in order.”

“How do I say them?” Kim said, staring at the unfamiliar jumble of consonants and vowels.

Mairelon obligingly pronounced each word in turn. “Now cast it.”

Kim gave him a startled look, then lowered her eyes to study the paper. The drawing was of a circle quartered by two double-headed arrows, the heads of which protruded on all four sides.
Draw the circle first, then the cross, and then the arrowheads, and say one word at each arrowhead. Fine.
She took the pen and ink Mairelon handed her, and bent to her task.

As she spoke the first word, she felt a faint tingling. It strengthened a trifle with each additional command, and when she looked up, she thought she saw a faint greenish haze around several of the bookcases, and a brief shower of green sparkles near Mairelon’s coat. The effect faded almost at once. Mairelon nodded in approval.

“Not bad. But look here. The circle represents magic; the four arrows are four directions.
Epistamai
is Greek for ‘to know,’
videre
is Latin for ‘to see,’
l’herah
is Hebrew for ‘to show,’ and
revelare
is Latin again, meaning ‘to reveal.’ Put it all together, and you have a spell that lets a magician find out what things around him have been enchanted.”

“You can tell that most of the time just by touching them,” Kim objected.

“You can’t go around touching everything you suspect of being
magical,” Mairelon said. “Quite apart from the attention you’d attract, it’s not always wise.”

“Trap spells, you mean.”

“Among other things. Now, cast it again.”

Frowning slightly, Kim did so. This time, two of the bookcases glowed a steady green, the third button on Mairelon’s coat was a shower of green sparks, and one of the candlesticks was briefly surrounded by a faint green mist.

The effect took longer to fade, too. A greenish haze still remained around his button when he finally said, “It was clearer that time, wasn’t it?”

Kim gave him a startled look. “Couldn’t you tell?”

“It’s not a general spell to show
everyone
what’s enchanted. It’s only supposed to show
you
.”

“Oh. Yes, everything was brighter.”

“That’s the difference between knowing a spell by rote and actually understanding what you are saying.”

“But—” Kim paused, frowning. Then she dipped the pen once more and began to draw the figure. “To know,” she said as she completed the first arrow. “To see. To show. To reveal . . . Ow!” An instant too late, she flung a hand over her eyes to shut out the blinding light that flared from the bookcases and the searing flashes from Mairelon’s button.

“And
that
is why you can’t just learn spells in English in the first place,” Mairelon said in a tone of smug satisfaction.

“You might of warned me!” Kim said, keeping her eyes closed.

“Some things take better if you aren’t told about them first,” Mairelon said. “Besides, I wanted to see whether you’d think of it on your own.”

“You still could of warned me.” Cautiously, Kim opened her eyes. Green spots still danced in front of them, but the light had weakened to a bearable level.

“If it’s any comfort, you’re doing rather well. I didn’t think of trying a spell in English until my third year of formal study, and I was fool enough to pick a translation spell to try it on. For the next week, everything I said or wrote came out in a garble of French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and some outlandish tongue I didn’t even recognize. I couldn’t
explain to anyone what had happened, and with everything I said coming out in a muddle, I couldn’t use magic to correct matters.”

“What did you do?”

Mairelon grimaced. “There wasn’t much of anything I
could
do. Fortunately, Mother knows a bit of the Art herself, and when I came in sounding like all the workmen at the Tower of Babel rolled into one, she could tell there was magic involved. She sent for my tutor, and of course once he did the spell properly, he understood me. He told the family, which settled things down considerably. There was nothing to be done about me, though, except wait for the enchantment to wear off. I had to make do with sign language for a week.”

“Are you trying to say that if I’d waited until next year to try that, it would have been even worse than it was?” Kim demanded.

“Much worse,” Mairelon said cheerfully. “The further you get in your study of magic, the more power you use without thinking about it. Using a foreign tongue keeps it all from spewing into a spell uncontrollably. And the reason most spells are in ancient Greek and Latin is that nobody grows up speaking those languages any more, so every wizard can use spells written in them without having to translate them first.”

“So if I was to say this spell in French, it would work just as well as it does in Latin?” Kim asked.

“Yes, exactly. Of course, the more complex the spell, the more important the precise shades of meaning become. When we get to advanced work, you’ll find that some spells have completely different effects, depending on whether you say them in Latin or Greek or Hebrew.”

“And Mademoiselle D’Auber could do spells in English if she wanted, but I can’t.”

Mairelon beamed. “Yes. As far as the Royal College can determine, mere fluency in a foreign language does not cause the same problems as growing up speaking it. English is a foreign language to Renée, so she could certainly cast spells in it.” He paused, then added absently, “I sometimes wonder how the Jewish wizards manage. Hebrew is used in quite a lot of spells, and one would think—But then, if they
have
found a way around the language problem, one can’t blame them for keeping it secret. Not after the way they’ve been treated over the centuries.”

Ignoring this novel viewpoint, Kim frowned. “All right, but why do I have to learn
three kinds
of foreign talk? Isn’t one enough?”

“It is an unfortunate side effect of history,” Mairelon said. “The ancient Romans couldn’t cast their spells in Latin, so they used Greek. The Greeks couldn’t cast spells in Greek, so they used Latin. And mixing in a little Hebrew kept spells from being quite so easy to steal, because the spellcaster had to know at least two languages.”

“I still say it’s too tangled,” Kim grumbled. “And what do all those spells
do
, anyway? The ones I saw—on the bookcases and your waistcoat button and the candlestick.”

“Finding that out is a different spell,” Mairelon said. “And we’re not through with the theory of this one, yet. Now, if you alter the order, like this, nothing happens, but if you change the arrowheads to triangles . . .”

An hour and a half later, Kim’s head was buzzing. She was amazed by the number of changes that could be wrung out of the simple spell merely by changing the order of the words or the way in which the diagram was drawn, and she had a new respect for the reasons behind Mairelon’s emphasis on accuracy in spellcasting.

The following morning, Lady Wendall appeared at Kim’s room, accompanied by a plump, middle-aged woman whose sharp eyes belied her outward appearance of placid respectability.

“Wilson will be your abigail,” Lady Wendall informed Kim. “If you must go out without Richard or myself, take her with you.”

“Even to St. Giles?” Kim said, nettled.

“Not at all, miss,” the plump woman responded. “St. Giles ain’t no place for a respectable woman, let alone a young lady of Quality. So if you go there, it’ll be for wizardly doings, and you won’t be needing me. My lady meant more usual places. Shopping and such.”

Kim made a face, and Lady Wendall laughed. “Wilson is quite right. Wizards do not require an abigail when they are on magical business,
though of course it is wise to bring one with you even for most of that. You will become accustomed in time, I am sure.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Kim objected. She didn’t feel up to explaining that it was the thought of shopping, and not of being shadowed by a respectable abigail, that had made her grimace.

“Of course it doesn’t make sense,” Lady Wendall said. “The rules of Society seldom do. One must simply learn them, no matter how little sense they make.”

“Oh. It’s exactly the opposite of magic, then.”

Lady Wendall laughed. “Yes, I am afraid so. But if you transgress the rules of Society, you may well find yourself an outcast. Wizardry cannot protect one from everything.” She paused. “I do hope you will try not to err, my dear. You may not find social ostracism much of a threat, but it would be so uncomfortable for Richard.”

Kim frowned. “You mean that Mrs. Lowe was right?”

“I doubt it,” Lady Wendall murmured. “Right about what?”

“About how me being his ward makes him look bad to the nobs.”

“Not at all. It is a minor eccentricity on his part, but wizards are allowed considerably more freedom in some regards than most people. Were you to create a great scandal—if you eloped to Gretna Green or attempted to turn His Highness into a toad—that would certainly reflect on Richard, the same as if his brother or I were to do such a thing. I don’t think you need to worry too much, however. A little common sense is really all that is needed.”

Maybe that’s all it takes for you,
Kim thought, but she held her peace. Lady Wendall was trying to be reassuring, but Kim could not help feeling that she would be facing less obvious pitfalls than a runaway marriage or a misdirected spell.

Lady Wendall smiled. “Now, if you will put on your green walking dress, we will proceed to Madame Chandelaine’s to procure you a proper wardrobe.”

With a sigh, Kim nodded. She let Wilson dress her and arrange her hair, then joined Lady Wendall. She was still considering Lady Wendall’s comments, and wondering whether the whole come-out business wasn’t
really a mistake after all, and so they had almost reached Madame Chandelaine’s before she thought to ask whether Renée would be accompanying them.

“Mademoiselle D’Auber is to meet us at Madame’s,” Lady Wendall told Kim. “We will have a certain amount of time to talk while you are being fitted, but I warn you that Madame is an inveterate gossip. If you do not wish to find the whole of London discussing your affairs, you will have to watch what you say.”

When they arrived, they were ushered immediately into a private room at the back of the establishment. Renée was already there, engaged in a spirited conversation with a black-haired woman of formidable proportions. Unfortunately, the conversation was in French, so Kim did not understand a word. Lady Wendall greeted the two in the same language, and for a moment Kim was afraid that all three of them would speak French for the entire afternoon. After her greeting, however, Lady Wendall returned to English and said, “Has Mademoiselle D’Auber explained our requirements, Madame?”

“A wardrobe for the young lady, I believe?” The formidable Frenchwoman studied Kim with a critical eye.

Lady Wendall nodded. “Garments suitable for my son’s ward, whom I shall be presenting this Season. And also suitable for an apprentice wizard, recognized by the Royal College, who is having her first Season.”

“A wizard in her first Season?” Madame’s gaze sharpened with curiosity and interest.

“It is not at all uncommon for wizards to enjoy the Season,” Mademoiselle D’Auber pointed out gently.

“It is, however, uncommon for the young ladies to admit that they are wizards—especially in their first Season,” Madame said. “It is not a thing the Mamas believe is of help in catching a husband. Last Season, I had the dressing of only two such; this Season, none at all.”

“My son’s ward is uncommon,” Lady Wendall said. “In fact, her antecedents are somewhat . . . unusual.”

“Wizards are always unusual.” Madame waved dismissively. “But of a certainty, they do not always admit it. I will find it a pleasure to have the dressing of one who does. Turn around, Mademoiselle, if you please.”

Kim complied.

“Charming,” Madame said. “Entirely charming. It will be well, I think. Elspeth! The green-figured muslin, and the yellow silk. And the China blue crêpe.”

“Not yellow,” Renée put in firmly. “For Kim, it is a color entirely unbecoming.”

“So?” Madame studied Kim a moment, frowning. “Yes, yes, I see. The white sarcenet, then, and the lilac. What will she be doing for her display? Roses?”