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Authors: Caroline Stevermer

BOOK: A Scholar of Magics
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“No.” Lambert was honest. “Though I wouldn't be surprised to hear Miss Oakley could do so. But if I can see my target, I can try to hit it.”
“According to Robin, if you try to hit it, you do hit it.”
“Depends on the weapon. Given a decent gun sight, I can do pretty well. Archery is hard. Can't seem to get the feel of the bow. Voysey had me try a crossbow once. That was a little better. I wasn't too excited the time he had me try throwing knives.”
Jane looked surprised. “It isn't just guns, then?”
Lambert suppressed a smile. “I was at my best with a
slingshot when I was a kid. Did my best work ever back then. Dead-eye Sam Lambert. Wasn't a squirrel for miles could sleep through the night for worrying about me.”
“Does Robin know that? Did they test you with that one too?”
“It seems to have slipped their minds so far. They haven't asked me to throw a fastball, either. I used to hope I'd be the next Christy Mathewson, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards.” Lambert took pity on Jane's confusion and explained. “Pitcher for the New York Giants. Finest right-hander in the game. A baseball player. Never mind.”
Jane looked only slightly less confused. “Oh. Baseball. That's rounders, isn't it?”
“Approximately.” Lambert rose. “I'll go back to Holythorn and see what Fell thinks about another outing in your motor car.”
“Encourage him to accept. I'll stay well within the speed limit this time. I promise.”
 
L
ambert's powers of persuasion went untried, as Fell wasn't at Holythorn. Their quarters had been tidied up. Once again, only the tick of Fell's clock provided any sign that the rooms were actually a place of human habitation. Lambert knew the rule. If Fell wasn't sleeping, he was working. Without a pause, Lambert emerged again and headed for the Winterset Archive.
Despite the season, there were half a dozen undergraduates gathered at the entrance of the archive. They looked underfed, underslept, and moody. One had a scale model of an aeroplane in his arms, paper and balsa, as delicate as a box
kite and even less useful. Lambert brushed past them and entered.
As he climbed the creaky stairs up to Fell's study, Lambert heard a substantial crash, as of a glass-fronted bookcase falling over. He took the rest of the stairs at a run.
“What the hell?” Lambert came through the half-open door of Fell's study. At first he couldn't see anyone, then he saw Fell was on the floor behind his desk, grappling with the man in the bowler hat. One bookcase had been knocked over in the struggle and the cascade of fallen books and broken glass added to the difficulties involved in wrestling beneath a large wooden desk.
Fell was not a tall man but he was wiry. Fighting on the floor minimized any disparity in strength, and he held his own against the intruder with pure doggedness, bad language, and an assortment of unsportsmanlike tactics.
Lambert waded into the struggle and pried the man off Fell. The bowler hat went flying as Lambert shook the man and demanded, “What's going on here?”
Weasel-fast, the man turned in Lambert's arms, landed a kick and a flurry of blows that doubled Lambert over gasping, and twisted away. His quick footsteps made the wooden steps squawk as he fled. Lambert caught breath enough to swear, looked at Fell, who seemed neither seriously injured nor particularly alarmed, and gave chase.
The steps squeaked as much for Lambert as they had for his quarry. The door at the foot of the stair was closing as Lambert reached it. Lambert emerged, elbowed past the undergraduates still loitering there, and stumbled down the stone steps outside. The bowler-hatted man had just left the
gravel path to cut across Midsummer Green on his way to the great gate.
The whole world narrowed to panting breath and pounding steps as Lambert pursued the fleeing man at top speed. The yielding crunch of gravel beneath his feet gave way to the velvet softness of grass. Two strides and Lambert fell, wind knocked out of him, knees buckling beneath him. The world tilted and spun and dimmed at the edges as he fought for breath.
So this is why they warn us not to walk on the grass,
Lambert thought, as he tried and failed to make his legs obey him. He couldn't even make himself inhale. He twisted and gasped, crowing for air. From somewhere beyond the edge of his vision, footsteps neared. Strong hands braced him and helped Lambert scramble back to the gravel path.
After what seemed an endless time of choking and gasping, Lambert caught his breath and blinked up at Fell. “Thanks,” he tried to say, but all that came out was a hoarse whisper.
“Better?” Fell's concern was clear, though his voice was as calm as ever.
“I'm not in strong convulsions yet. Whatever they are. Where did he go?” Lambert craned his neck to peer around. There was no one in sight but the huddle of undergraduates watching him, curious as a herd of steers.
“I have no idea.” Fell pushed him flat again. “Nor do I care, to be honest. Whoever he is, he seems able to come and go as he pleases. Let's just assume he'll be back the next time it suits him.”
“He attacked you.” Lambert decided that his ability to breathe was back to stay. He started to get up.
“Yes, I know.” Fell helped Lambert to his feet. “Extraordinary behavior.”
Lambert's vision fogged as he stood and he lowered his head while he waited to recover. Magic was a fine thing to think about in the abstract. To experience it in person was bruising. In a few moments, his head cleared and he was able to think again. “I'll notify the authorities.” Before he could take a step, Fell's grip on his arm stopped him. “What is it?”
“Not now. I'll see to all that later.” Fell turned back toward the Winterset Archive. “Come with me.”
Mystified yet obedient, Lambert trailed Fell back to his lair. There, amid the scattered debris of the attack, Fell picked up his toppled chair, dusted the seat, and offered it to Lambert. “You'll feel better soon.”
Lambert frowned at Fell but took the offered chair. “I feel fine now,” Lambert lied. There was a headache gathering behind his eyes, the way the likelihood of thunder gathered when a summer afternoon grew hotter and more humid. He ignored it. He had his wind back, that was the important thing.
“Do you? That's fortunate.” Fell peered under the desk. He found the bowler hat and inspected it inside and out. “Hm. Good quality.” He left the hat on his desk and started picking up papers from the floor.
“Don't cut yourself.” Lambert looked around for something to use to clean up the broken glass. As cluttered as
Fell's study was, there was nothing remotely resembling a broom.
“Too late, I'm afraid.” Fell held up one hand for Lambert's inspection. The scratches and cuts were minor but messy. “Nothing serious.”
“Exactly what happened, anyway?” Lambert demanded.
“I'm not quite sure. He wanted me to go with him.” Fell righted the bookcase and gingerly began to put shards of glass into the wastepaper basket. “He neglected to mention where.”
From the slight unsteadiness of Fell's hands, Lambert could tell he was more upset than he let on. “Why? Who is he?”
“He didn't mention that either. In fact, he hardly said a word.” More rummaging around under the desk and Fell came up with a gun in his hand. “He dropped this.”
Lambert sprang out of his chair and took the pistol away from Fell. “Watch where you point that thing.” He unloaded the weapon and put it carefully down beside the bowler hat. “Careless of him, leaving that behind.”
“It was.” Fell studied the pistol. “Careless of him to come back, for that matter.”
“But now we can be sure about what he was doing here before. He was looking for you.” Lambert rubbed his head. There was a spot over his left ear that was tender but he didn't remember getting hit there. Already the details of the fight were beginning to blur.
“Yes. He wants me, specifically. I wonder why.” Fell was intent on the objects left behind. “Perhaps I should have played along until I found out more.”
“Bad idea.” Lambert felt his headache diversify to add a deep throb at the base of his skull.
“Perhaps.” Fell didn't seem to be listening.
Lambert asked, “If that's what happens when you walk on it, how do you ever mow the grass here?”
Fell gave Lambert a sharp look. “Are you quite certain you're all right?”
“I am. Honest. I just wondered, that's all.” Lambert felt sheepish. He hadn't meant to blurt out his question that way. He hadn't meant to say anything.
“The Fellows of Glasscastle take it in turns to tend the greens. It's all part of the egalitarian nature of the place. Undergraduates chant to sustain the wards while the Fellows keep the gates and tend the grounds. It keeps us humble.” Fell seemed to believe every word of it.
To his own consternation, Lambert chortled. Humble?
Fell?
He bit the laughter back with difficulty. “Well, I don't know about that, but the place does look nice.”
“Perhaps I should help you to the infirmary. We should have a doctor take a proper look at you,” said Fell. “It's not a good idea, breaking the rules of Glasscastle.”
“I'm fine. I won't do it again. I didn't mean to do it in the first place. I got carried away. Hot pursuit and all that.”
Fell went back to studying the bowler and pistol, tugging at his mustache in concentration. “Strange that only you were affected.”
“Same as last time, the way he cut across the grass. Didn't seem to bother the sidewinder at all.” Lambert wished he'd done more than grab the man's collar and give him a shake when he had pulled him off Fell. A solid punch in the bread basket, for starters.
“Yet only a Fellow of Glasscastle may walk alone on the
grass of Midsummer Green, or any other college quadrangle.”
“He didn't look much like a Fellow of Glasscastle to me. More like a weasel.”
Fell arched an eyebrow. “That fellow was no Fellow of Glasscastle.” He scooped the cartridges up and put them in one pocket, stowed the pistol in another, and tucked the bowler under his arm. “Come along.”
Lambert winced as he got to his feet. His muscles had begun to stiffen even in the short time he'd been seated. “Where are we going?”
“London,” said Fell. “It's a good deal easier to hide in a big place than a small one. If you need me to explain why I want to hide, I will take you to the infirmary after all.”
“Oh, thank you for such concern.” Lambert didn't bother to conceal his irritation. He reached in his breast pocket for Jane's note. “Before we leave, you'd better read this.”
Fell read it and frowned. “I'll wire her from town.”
“She'll be disappointed.” Privately, Lambert thought Jane would be furious, but he knew the idea of Jane's anger would neither impress Fell nor deter him.
“Unfortunate but unavoidable.” Fell dropped the note on his desk. “There's a train in half an hour. Pack quickly.” As an afterthought, he retrieved the note and put it in his pocket, the one with the cartridges. “And do be sure to travel light.”
 
A
t a discreet distance, Jane followed Lambert from the Brailsford house back to the great gate. Wettest summer in years or not, it was a pleasant day, with a breeze out of the
north to moderate the heat, and Jane had no difficulty in giving the impression she was merely out for a morning stroll.
At the gate, of necessity, Jane waited. If her guess was correct, Fell would try to elude her. If he chose to leave Glasscastle through Pembroke gate, he would succeed. But if, as was his apparent wont, Fell chose the great gate, she would have a chance to pounce upon him, and once she treated him to a brief scold on good manners, to pass along Faris's message to him.
There were other possibilities. Lots. Lambert might persuade Fell to see her, even to accept her invitation. Fell might listen to Faris's message with attentive courtesy. Pigs might actually fly. Jane was willing to keep an open mind. Or Lambert might fail to find Nicholas Fell at all. Fell might have gone to ground somewhere overnight. Or Fell might have seen the error of his ways and taken up the wardenship of his own free will.
Jane waited and watched the gate.
To Jane's dismay, the bowler-hatted man, this time without his bowler hat, was the first to appear in the arch of the great gate. He paid no attention to the gatekeeper, nor did the gatekeeper seem to take any notice of him. Without a break in stride, without a sign of pursuit, the man ran past Jane. He looked annoyed, but he did not seem upset. If anything, he looked as if he could run all day and not notice. He reached the street. There wasn't much in the way of traffic outside, but at his speed, he could lose himself to view down a side street in a matter of moments.

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