Read A Scholar of Magics Online
Authors: Caroline Stevermer
A Scholar of Magics (2 page)
“There was a last time?” Lambert prompted.
Jane looked pleased with herself. “Inadvertently. He needed some help attaining permission to do research in a Breton archive. I was able to smooth the waters, so to speak.”
“Your sister-in-law told me you teach at a school in France. In Brittany?”
“In Normandy.”
“What kind of teaching do you do?”
Prompt came the reply, as the gleam of humor reappeared beneath Jane's gravity. Not for a moment did she seem to entertain the notion of giving him a simple answer. “Oh, Mock Turtle's arithmetic: ambition, distraction, uglification, and derision.”
Lambert could tell she was quoting from something. It
was a sensation he often had at Glasscastle, when an allusion was being made to something that the speaker thought must be as familiar as the alphabet. Nine out of ten times whatever was being alluded to was so far beside the point it wasn't worth the breath it took to explain it. The tenth time the allusion generally turned out to be too clever, or too strained, to make sense to him. Lambert had learned it was faster and more interesting to wait and ask his friend Nicholas Fell to explain later. Either way, letting things pass unquestioned saved him the effort of trying to look interested in the resulting clarification. Lambert thought of it in baseball terms. He was Honus Wagner taking a pitch, confident that the next conversational opening would be something he could handle. So Lambert let the gleam in Jane's eyes go unchallenged. “I take it the school year is not in session yet?”
was a sensation he often had at Glasscastle, when an allusion was being made to something that the speaker thought must be as familiar as the alphabet. Nine out of ten times whatever was being alluded to was so far beside the point it wasn't worth the breath it took to explain it. The tenth time the allusion generally turned out to be too clever, or too strained, to make sense to him. Lambert had learned it was faster and more interesting to wait and ask his friend Nicholas Fell to explain later. Either way, letting things pass unquestioned saved him the effort of trying to look interested in the resulting clarification. Lambert thought of it in baseball terms. He was Honus Wagner taking a pitch, confident that the next conversational opening would be something he could handle. So Lambert let the gleam in Jane's eyes go unchallenged. “I take it the school year is not in session yet?”
“That's right. Michaelmas term starts in a few weeks. Until then I've chosen to spend my free time here in England. I haven't seen Robin and Amy for years. There's also the lure of visiting the celebrated precincts of the university of Glasscastle. I'm looking forward to seeing all the sights.”
“But you must knowâ” An awkward pause threatened to descend as Lambert searched for words and came up dry. “You can'tâ”
Jane looked puzzled. After a moment, she prompted Lambert. “I can't what?”
“It isnâtâThey don'tâFor womenâ” Lambert gave it up.
Jane frowned slightly, apparently perplexed by his lapse into silence.
“Jane knows perfectly well,” said Amy.
Jane relented. “I do know Glasscastle is off-limits for any but those properly escorted by members of the university and they man the gates with Fellows of Glasscastle to keep it that way. Very proper and sedate, this place. What about you? Are you able to range at will, or do you have a chaperon?”
Lambert found Jane's flippancy engaging. “Oh, I range at willâwithin reason. Though there are quite a few places they don't let me ramble on my own.”
“That must have the charm of novelty for you,” said Jane.
“Needing a chaperon? There are plenty of places where outsiders aren't allowed in Glasscastle. Just because they let us inside the gates doesn't mean we're welcome there. An escort provides a simple way to prevent me from delivering unintentional offense while I'm a visitor.” Lambert broke off, conscious of how stuffy he must sound. He must have been spending too much time listening to the Fellows' dinner conversation in hall. Pomposity must be contagious. Lambert felt himself poker up.
Jane's solemnity was back, and the challenging look that went with it. “Intentional offenses only, I take it?”
Lambert didn't let Jane's solemn look fool him. He did let the gleam of challenge in her eyes tempt him to maintain his air of gravity as long as possible. “Maybe I should have said inadvertent,” he added, with diffidence.
His meekness seemed to take Jane aback. “I hope I haven'tâinadvertentlyâoffended you. I prefer the intentional offenses myself.”
“Oh, I agree. There's nothing more satisfying than delivering a sound, well-regulated insult. Only to those who deserve it, of course,” Lambert added with deliberate piety.
“But whoever does deserve to be insulted?” Amy asked. “When one's intentions are properly taken into account, there is seldom cause to give or even receive an affront. It's all a matter of understanding one another's intentions.”
“Some intentions,” Jane replied, “are not well intended.”
Amy countered, “How do you know that? You can't read people's minds.”
“Of course not. But I can pay attention to what they say and what they do. Easier to read behavior than the shape of people's heads,” said Jane.
The edge in her voice made Lambert wonder if Jane might have some experience of Amy's fortune-telling. Eager to keep a safe distance from that particular topic, Lambert changed the subject. “What do you aim to do while you're here in Glasscastle? Are there any special places you'd like to see?”
“Oh, yes. The Winterset Archive, for one. Some consider it holds the finest collection of magic texts in the world. I'm told there's a larger one in Peking, but not surprisingly, most of that library is in Chinese. For another landmark, the chapel of St. Mary's. I have quite a list, but much depends upon my brother. I'll need him to squire me. If he's too busy, I'll need to change my plans.” Jane sounded distinctly wistful.
“Oh, really,” murmured Amy. “Too heavy-handed of you, Jane.”
“I could escort you,” said Lambert. “I'd be glad to. I've been shown around myself. It would make a nice change to be the one to do the showing. St. Mary's is the place everyone starts with. I'm free to come and go as I please in most
of the buildings around Midsummer Green, including the Winterset Archive.”
of the buildings around Midsummer Green, including the Winterset Archive.”
“Excellent.” Jane's delight was plain. “What else?”
“Do you know much about stained glass? The glass in St. Joseph's chapel is supposed to be old and fine, if you know about such things. I don't. The labyrinth in the botanical garden is famous, of course, but we'd need a Fellow of Glasscastle to escort us there. Everything in England seems old to me, but when they dug a reflecting pool in the garden at Wearyall, they found some Roman potsherds, so maybe Glasscastle will seem old to you too.”
“I'd love to see everything,” said Jane. “Tomorrow, perhaps?”
“Well, sure. Unless Jack Meredith needs me for a marksmanship trial. There are no tests scheduled tomorrowâthat I know of.” Lambert didn't let the pleasure Jane's enthusiasm provoked overrule his honesty. “I can't show you everything, but what I can, it'd be a pleasure.”
“Two o'clock?” Jane suggested eagerly.
Amy rolled her eyes but said nothing.
Lambert asked, “Shall I call for you here?”
“That would be perfect. It will give me the whole morning to torment Robin. You're very kind, Mr. Lambert.” Jane's smile was wonderful.
“It's nothing.” Lambert thought it over. “It might be better to get someone with full authority to go with us. Then neither of us will miss any points of interest.”
“It's all new to me. Amy, would you care to come with us? Robin must have shared the best bits with you, surely?”
“Oh, I have seen quite enough stained glass for now. You two will enjoy yourselves.”
Lambert held Amy's mildly satirical gaze. “You should come with us. I ought to have thought of it myself.”
“Perhaps another time,” said Amy. “I've been shown the glass in the chapel of St. Mary's so many times I think I may scream if I must admire it again so soon. When Robert decides to show you the labyrinth in the botanical gardens, I'll come along. Except for that, I'd rather stay here and put my feet up.”
The parlormaid joined them again, this time bearing an envelope on her tray. Amy added, “Here's your wire at last, Jane. You put the wrong house number, I see.”
“I did not.”
“Your penmanship, I suppose. No wonder it was delayed.” Amy opened the envelope and read. In a moment, she looked up. “I understand the part about inviting yourself for a visit of indefinite duration. I understand the part about hoping to be here in time for tea. But what on earth do you mean by Luke 15:23?”
“âBring hither the fatted calf.'” Lambert smiled crookedly at the stares this earned him from Amy and Jane. “I liked Sunday school, that's all.”
“I'm glad someone knows the reference,” Jane said. “I looked it up specifically for Robin's benefit.”
Amy shook her head. “You're a strange girl, Jane.”
Jane's good cheer was unimpaired. “Odd, that's what Robin always says.”
Â
L
ambert left the Brailsford house to walk back to his rooms at Glasscastle. It was a bright, warm day. Only a brisk southwest
wind kept it from being unpleasantly hot. The wind forced him to adjust his Panama hat to a less jaunty angle to keep it on. It was insistent, shoving him along, as if it thought he should be off doing something useful. Yet he had nothing to do, useful or otherwise, until dinner.
ambert left the Brailsford house to walk back to his rooms at Glasscastle. It was a bright, warm day. Only a brisk southwest
wind kept it from being unpleasantly hot. The wind forced him to adjust his Panama hat to a less jaunty angle to keep it on. It was insistent, shoving him along, as if it thought he should be off doing something useful. Yet he had nothing to do, useful or otherwise, until dinner.
Whatever the residents of Glasscastle town were doing, they seemed to be doing it out of sight. Even the busiest streets were nearly empty. Here and there weeds grew in the center of the streets, the usual wear and tear of cart traffic in abeyance for the summer holiday.
To Lambert, the buildings of the town of Glasscastle circled the foot of Glasscastle Hill like a ring of stone. Set like a jewel in the bezel of that ring was the walled and gated university of Glasscastle, where magic lived and worked in the harsh light of modern day.
Holythorn was the senior college of Glasscastle, and every scholar of Holythorn was a Fellow, a full scholar of magic. St. Joseph's was a less exalted institution, for it and its sister Wearyall admitted beginners, young men who were just setting out in the study of magic. All three colleges were vital to the whole that was Glasscastle. No religious mystery of three in one was required. It was an arrangement as practical as a three-legged stool.
In its way, Glasscastle was its own religion. Those who taught and studied there were devotees of the study of magic, magic for its own sake, the purest of disciplines. Behind its gates, Glasscastle enfolded itself in halls and towers, greens and gardens.
Lambert found it a pure delight to walk the mile and a half from the Brailsford house to the great gate of Glasscastle.
The sun would have been hot, but the morning's high clouds had refused to burn off. The overcast thinned the summer sunlight and gave it a silvery cast. There was just a suggestion of potential bad weather to come in that slight overcast. With a persistent stiff breeze, the sky should have been utterly clear, yet the high cloud lingered. Lambert savored the warmth of the sun on his back as he walked the cobbled streets. He savored the cool of the shade when the street he walked was overarched with trees.
The sun would have been hot, but the morning's high clouds had refused to burn off. The overcast thinned the summer sunlight and gave it a silvery cast. There was just a suggestion of potential bad weather to come in that slight overcast. With a persistent stiff breeze, the sky should have been utterly clear, yet the high cloud lingered. Lambert savored the warmth of the sun on his back as he walked the cobbled streets. He savored the cool of the shade when the street he walked was overarched with trees.
Glasscastle Hill loomed over town and university alike, the long grass on the hillside shimmering green and gold as the wind made waves through it. At first, Lambert had wondered at the starkness of the hill. Why build all around the base and never upon the hill itself? His friend Nicholas Fell, in Lambert's opinion the fount of all knowledge, arcane and historical, had explained the phenomenon to him.
Long ago, the hill had been crowned with a prehistoric fort. Traces of the flat walkway that had circled to the top were still faintly visible, as if the hill had been terraced once. It was no longer possible to tell which had come first, the remains of ancient dwellings at the foot of the hill or the tradition that the hill itself was a place of power and not to be built upon.
“There are legends that the hill is hollow,” Fell had said, when Lambert asked him about it. “Only legends, alas. About one hundred years ago, the Vice Chancellor of the day authorized an archaeological survey. He believed the ancient Phoenicians once had an outpost here and that the local legends were folk memories of a tin mine somewhere in the hill.”
“What did they find?” How many thousands of years had
men walked here? How many stories had been told of hollow hills and places of power? Lambert's imagination was afire with the possibilities.
men walked here? How many stories had been told of hollow hills and places of power? Lambert's imagination was afire with the possibilities.
“Potsherds, mostly. Nothing lasts like a potsherd because nothing much can happen to it. Even if it breaks, from then on you have two potsherds,” Fell said. “There was some excitement about a find at the crest of the hill, right where the old fort once was. It turned out to be a stoneware bottle, probably for beer, quite recent.”
“No tin mine, then?”
“No, nor any gateway to the hollow hill. No champions asleep until England's hour of need. Nothing but a few broken pots. Not exactly the stuff of legends.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Tsk, Lambert. You seem disappointed. It's only to be expected. Modern methods elicit modern answers. If you want a legend, that's easily arranged. Climb the hill by moonlight and weave your own. Profit by past example and take some beer with you.”
Lambert paused at the head of Hautboy Road to savor the view of Glasscastle at the foot of the green and golden hill. Behind the crenellated walls, the spires and towers of the place were peaceful. As they always did in his mind's eye, the stones of Glasscastle seemed more than simply gray to Lambert. They were a gray stained subtly with other colors: lavender, silver, and violet, as iridescent as a pigeon's feathers.
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