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Authors: Caroline Stevermer

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BOOK: A Scholar of Magics
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As Jane drew near the gatekeeper, he looked up and smiled. “Nice to see you again, miss. Just wait at the visitors' bench until your escort comes to meet you.”
Hopes dashed and feeling foolish that she'd ever let them rise in the first place, Jane turned back to the bench. She would need a moment to put the silly thing away and get her glove back on. Then she'd send for Fell. If Fell ignored her, she'd send for Lambert. If neither came, she'd wait. She would grind her teeth, but she would wait.
So resigned was Jane to this program, she was astonished and delighted to see Lambert stalking through the arch before she'd buttoned up her glove again. He saw her and changed course to join her at the bench. Her pleasure was squelched by Lambert's thunderous expression. “What is it? What's wrong?”
“Fell's gone.” Lambert spoke softly but his anger and concern were unmistakable. He seemed oblivious of the incongruity of their situation, a gentleman dressed for dinner accosting a lady dressed for a late afternoon stroll in the very shadow of the great gate.
“He's
gone
?” Jane forgot about buttoning her glove. “What happened?”
“All I know is, his study is a worse mess than ever. If he left a message, I sure can't find it.” Lambert looked at her sharply. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see Mr. Fell.” Jane met Lambert's challenging gaze and watched it soften. “You're worried about him.”
“Hell, yes.” Lambert shook his head as if to clear it. “Sorry, ma'am. Didn't mean to use that kind of language. Yes, I'm worried. He's gone, but his valise is still right where he dropped it when we got in this afternoon.”
“This morning, not to put too fine a point on it, Mr. Fell tried to run away,” Jane reminded him. She couldn't keep a touch of waspishness out of her tone.
Lambert glowered. “He wasn't running away. He was leaving. There's a big difference.”
Jane raised an eyebrow. “You were both doing a bunk.”
“Fell wanted to go to London.” Lambert's face cleared as he pushed his hat back on his head. It gave him an air of utter harmlessness. “I didn't want to let him go alone.”
Jane turned away from the gate, back in the direction she'd come. “Walk with me.” Lambert fell into step beside her. For a hundred yards they walked side by side in silence, each consumed by their own thoughts.
Jane touched Lambert's sleeve and he stopped beside her. “You're concerned for Fell's safety. Yet we don't know that he's come to any harm.”
“Concerned? I'm scared stiff.” Lambert held out his hand to show Jane the slight yet distinct tremble in the fingers. “I don't even have a vice to blame this on. It's all me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I was headed to your place to ask you that.”
“Who else knows?” Jane gazed up at Lambert, wishing for more light. “You are going to report this to the authorities, aren't you?”
“I guess I should, shouldn't I?” Lambert sounded resigned. “I have to. But I haven't told anyone yet”
“Good.” Jane took Lambert's arm for a moment, just enough to draw him along beside her as she set forth for her brother's house again. “Let's think this over before you do. The police won't take you seriously until Fell has been missing for more than twenty-four hours, so you aren't behindhand with them yet. Who would you tell at Glasscastle?”
Lambert rattled off the names without hesitation. “Voysey, Stowe, and Stewart. Brailsford, only he's not here to tell. Porteous is sure to find some way to push his nose in where he doesn't belong. I should see Voysey first.”
“Yes, you should, but not yet.” Jane wished Robin were there to advise her. The relative merits of Glasscastle's wise men were difficult for her to discern. To Jane, they all seemed alike, marvelously pleased with themselves and inexplicably certain of their own superiority over the rest of the world.
Lambert went on, “Why shouldn't I? Fell is gone. The bowler hat is gone too. But nothing else seems to be.”
“The hat is missing? Oh, dear. I had great hopes of that bowler.” Jane castigated herself for not insisting that she conduct an immediate examination of the hat as soon as the intruder was in custody. A little excitement and a large headache were no excuse for neglecting the fundamentals. Now she would have to think of a way to get back in the police station to question the intruder again. It made her tired just to imagine the effort it would take to conduct a reprise of her spell.
“If Fell left, why would he go without taking anything else? Just the bowler hat?” Lambert sounded frustrated.
“Put that way, it does seem unlikely. But what if Fell isn't really missing? What would he say if you'd raised the alarm prematurely?” Jane cautioned.
“What would—” Lambert stopped in his tracks, all indignation. “I thought you believed me.”
“I do, I do,” Jane assured him. She tugged at his sleeve again, just enough to get them moving.
“That's a good point about the false alarm,” Lambert conceded. “Fell would hate it if we kicked up a fuss for no reason.”
“Too bad if we did. It would serve him right, if he was that careless about leaving a message for you. Not only is it foolish for a warden to be so cavalier, it's rude.”
“But neither one of us really thinks this is a false alarm.”
It was Jane's turn to concede the point. “No.”
“What should we do?” Lambert looked as frustrated as he sounded. “I know what I'd like to do. I'd like to turn the whole place upside down and shake it. Either we would find Fell or we would know for sure that he isn't there. But unless I can persuade a Provost or a Senior Fellow to authorize it, that's not allowed”
“We will plan the best way to search for Fell, I promise.” Jane used her most soothing voice. “But first, we'll have a nice cup of tea.”
Far from being soothed by this prospect, the suggestion made Lambert touchier than ever, but by the time they walked to the Brailsford house, she had talked him around. There was
no time for a restorative cup of tea, however. Jane and Lambert were scarcely inside the door when Amy joined them. Despite the hour, she still wore that morning's delicately filmy white dress and her hair had come unpinned in the back.
“Thank goodness you're back.” With only a moment's hesitation, Amy welcomed Lambert in. She touched her hair. “I'm sorry I'm in such a state.”
“You look fine,” Lambert said stoutly.
Amy gave him an absent smile, and said, “James Porteous has just sent a message here for Robert, Jane. He has had word from the police station. That man you caught has fallen into some sort of trance. They're sure it's magic but they can't identify the source or the nature of the spell.”
“Oh, dear,” said Jane. Another source of information gone the way of the bowler hat. This was what happened when she yielded to her own weakness. She should have continued her interrogation, no matter the risk of discovery.
“It's not something you did to him, is it?” Amy asked.
Jane was horrified by the very suggestion. “Please remember that I am thoroughly trained in my discipline. I would never use a spell unless I were confident of the result.”
“You are rather a confident person, though,” said Amy. “Aren't you?”
Jane bristled.
“Do you have the message?” Lambert asked. “May I see it?”
Amy handed him the note and Jane read it over Lambert's shoulder. Porteous had used a great many more words than Amy had, but the meaning was the same.
“Oh, dear,” said Jane. “This is most distressing.”
To judge from her stance, all but a-tiptoe, Amy had more to tell them. “There is something else I must show you at once. Come into the library.”
“It
isn't
anything you did to him, is it?” Lambert asked Jane sotto voce, as Amy led the way.
“Here's a scriptural reference for you,” Jane retorted. “‘O ye of little faith.'”
“Matthew 8:26, I think,” said Lambert, after a moment of silent cogitation. “So it wasn't you?”
Jane wrestled with exasperation and won. “No. Did you really think it was?”
“No.” Lambert gave her a long, measuring look. “I figure if there's anyone in this world I can trust to help me with this, it's you.”
Lambert's gravity took Jane completely off guard. “Oh.”
Jane and Lambert followed Amy into the small library Robert Brailsford used when he worked at home. Across the table in the center of the room, Amy had arranged tiles painted with letters and numbers. A tiny ivory drop spindle was tied to a stout cord of braided white horsehair. Amy dangled the spindle over the tiles.
Lambert stopped in his tracks. “Uh-oh.”
“Oh, no.” Jane recognized the props with mild revulsion. “Not divination. There's no point to this, Amy.”
Amy looked mulish. “You do your magic, don't expect to stop me doing mine. Now, silence, both of you, or it won't work.”
“Do we have time for this?” asked Lambert.
“Just let me show you.” Amy held the spindle's cord steady and waited.
Jane suppressed the urge to deliver a terse lecture upon the unreliability of the domestic enchantments. It might relieve her temper and her conscience, but it wouldn't accomplish anything else. Amy was a devotee of parlor magic, and this device to spell out messages was among the least effectual of any of the sociable magics.
After a long pause, the spindle began to swing. It moved slowly at first, almost imperceptibly, but with time, the movement became more pronounced. The spindle swung out and back from the central point. At the height of its arc, it indicated the tile marked
L
.
Frowning, Jane watched the pendulum swing of the spindle closely.
Amy was triumphant. “There, you see?
L
for Ludlow. I asked it where Robert is. It spells out the rest of the word, but it's terribly slow. You must be patient.” The spindle continued swinging, not bothered by Amy's explanation.
Lambert was looking embarrassed. “We'll be sure to include this in our report to Voysey.”
That brought Amy's attention to Lambert. “What report?” The spindle kept swinging relentlessly despite her distraction.
“Fell is missing. We'll have to tell the authorities. If he were here, your husband would be the first one I'd tell.”
“If Robert were here, no one else would be missing. Nor in a trance.” Amy glanced meaningfully in Jane's direction. “He would have things well in hand.”
“
L
.” Jane ignored Amy and kept her attention on the spindle and the scattered tiles. “
U
.
D
.”
“There it goes,” said Amy. “I told you.” The spindle
picked out the rest of the letters in turn:
L
-
U
-
D
-
L
-
O
-
W
.
Jane looked from the spindle to Amy with respect and resignation. “I'm glad it knows how to spell. So often they don't.”
Lambert continued, “We'll have to tell Voysey and Stewart and Stowe.”
The ivory spindle was swinging wildly now. Amy ignored it, focused entirely on Lambert. “No, you mustn't. They put Robert out of the way for a reason. Don't trust them.”
Lambert was dogged. “There's a logical explanation for Mr. Brailsford's disappearance. And for Fell's. We'll find out what it is.”
The horsehair slipped from Amy's fingers and the spindle flew across the room to lodge in the aspidistra. Amy gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth. Tears welled up and she stifled a sob. Lambert helped her to a chair and patted her hand.
Reluctantly, Jane took off her gloves, plucked the object out of the aspidistra's pot, and let the spindle dangle from its long cord like a dead mouse by its tail as she inspected it. It was old ivory, worn smooth with use, and could have been mistaken for a child's miniature top. Jane touched the ivory. To her consternation, the spindle felt distinctly warm to the touch. “Amy, where did you get this thing?”
“It was my grandmother's,” Amy said in strangled tones. She produced a lace handkerchief and delicately blew her nose. “It never did that before.”
“No, I don't suppose it did.” Jane ignored the efficient soothing Lambert was administering to Amy while she continued her analysis. “Most interesting. Where did the cord come from? It looks like horsehair.”
“It is. I made it. I had a gray pony when I was a girl,” Amy replied. “Orlando, I called him. When I was thirteen, I went out to the stable by the light of the full moon and I clipped a bit of his tail with my silver embroidery scissors.”
BOOK: A Scholar of Magics
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