A Scholar of Magics (38 page)

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Authors: Caroline Stevermer

BOOK: A Scholar of Magics
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Lambert took the bait willingly. “And what is that?”
Pride shone from Jane. “I did what
I
set out to do.”
“Oh, good. I'm glad for you.” Lambert rolled his eyes.
Jane sobered. “I haven't thanked you for trying to move that armchair. I appreciate that.”
“It was a botched rescue.” Lambert renewed his interest in the vaulted ceiling. The afternoon light had dimmed a little, he thought.
“It was impossible. You tried just the same. Admirable. Don't look so flustered. I'm serious.”
“Oh, yes. Utterly sincere.” Lambert returned her gaze. “Oh. You are.”
“You did very well.” Jane's eyes were steady on Lambert's. The look held.
“You did indeed.” A booming voice from the direction of the porch drove them apart as Porteous joined them. “I hope I'm not intruding.”
“Oh, no. No, not in the least.” Lambert realized he was stammering and silenced himself.
Jane looked peeved. “Things must be going well if you have time to spend admiring ecclesiastical architecture.”
“Things are going extremely well.” Porteous seemed disposed to take all the credit himself. “However, I came looking for you, Lambert.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“I have my ways.” Porteous glowed with satisfaction. “I have my little ways. Not much goes on here to which I am not privy. I have come to invite you to take sherry with me tomorrow. With the transformations restored, thanks to our Fell, the inquiry will be more simple than we'd feared. I think by five o'clock tomorrow, we should be able to clear up the details once and for all. Please come to my rooms at St. Joseph's. Bring Fell with you, if he'll come. I've sent invitations to your brother and his wife as well, Miss Brailsford, and I hope you will join us too.”
Lambert and Jane accepted the invitation. Porteous looked pleased. “Excellent. I must be off. Five o'clock tomorrow, then. Plenty of work to be done first.”
Jane let Porteous leave St. Mary's before she rose herself. “There are things to be done. If you promise to go quite slowly, I'll hold you to your offer of a walk to Robin's house.”
“I promise.” Lambert accompanied Jane out of St. Mary's as the organ practice resumed. Overhead the change ringing came to a triumphant close. They left the organist in sole
possession of the place. As Lambert signed them out in the visitors' book, the half hour struck. All the bells of Glasscastle, in their proper pattern and order, chimed their notes and fell silent. Time was marked as it should be once again.
 
T
he Brailsford house was quiet when Jane let herself in. Though Jane didn't see anyone anywhere, she had the feeling that all was right with this particular world. The sense of domestic calm was unmistakable. Her luggage was back in her room, contents unpacked. Some items of clothing had already disappeared, she assumed for cleaning. Everything remaining was in perfect order.
Moving as slowly as if she were ninety, Jane tidied herself and changed from half boots to a pair of house slippers. Hot water and lavender soap had never seemed such welcome luxuries. From its hiding place in her wash stand, she brought out the Royal Worcester plate and the bottle of ink. Murmuring softly but distinctly, she poured out the ink rim to rim. This time her sense of Glasscastle's bounds was like a waterfall thundering nearby. With all her remaining strength focused on maintaining her concentration, Jane managed to find her way from the gloss of the ink to the matte of the black and through the blackness to a place where she could hear Faris Nallaneen's voice, bodiless in the chamber of her ear.
“Well done, Jane.”
“You know what happened?”
“Couldn't see a thing. You were too close to the wards of Glasscastle. But I felt it when it came right. We all did.”
“It worked? Fell was able to correct the distortion?”
“He did it. Time still runs. Yet it runs more smoothly. It's not just the relief of having four wardens again. He did it.”
Faris's words were already dwindling. This time Jane knew it wasn't Faris's fatigue she sensed but her own. Her concentration was flagging. The roar of the bounds was almost painful. “Sorry. I must stop now.” Before the words were out, the ink had dried from rim to rim.
Jane left the plate where it was. With uneven steps she walked to the bed. Without a thought for the hour, she lay down and slept.
“But now my task is smoothly done,
I can fly, or I Can run
Quickly to the green earth's end,
Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend,
And from thence can soar as soon
To the corners of the moon.”
L
ambert enjoyed the walk back to Fell's rooms at Holythorn. There was no need to shorten his stride for Jane any longer, so he could step out at his own pace. The air was soft and sweet. Every twig on every branch seemed etched against the sky. At each quarter hour the bells of Glasscastle struck, and in each note of their pattern was a reminder of what had been threatened, and a sign of what had
been restored. Lambert's heart lifted at the sound, even as he remembered that his work in Glasscastle was finished. Before long, he must leave it behind.
After that, each stage of the walk assumed a melancholy significance. How many more times would he approach the arch of the great gate, Lambert asked himself. How many more times would the gatekeeper greet him as he dipped the pen and held it out for Lambert's signature in the visitors book? How many more times would Lambert be permitted to pass through the gate into Glasscastle, and to crunch his way along the gravel paths that marked the narrow way open to him from the broad precincts that were not?
Back at his rooms, the state of disarray in Fell's quarters was about what Lambert had expected. There was still a half-smoked cheroot in the ashtray and the clock was ticking away. There were signs of Fell's return. The door to his room was open and Lambert could see garments scattered across the bed in a way that suggested Fell had gone for a bath before changing for dinner.
On the floor just inside the door, Lambert found four neatly addressed envelopes, two for him and two for Fell. Fell's valise was right where he'd left it, in the center of the carpet. Belatedly, Lambert remembered his own small valise. It was probably still in the Brailsford motor car. He put Fell's mail on the mantelpiece and opened his own. One was a summons to the Tegean Theater, where the inquiry would open at nine the next morning. The other was the sherry invitation Porteous had promised. Both were in the same handwriting.
The card tray bore two items, a playing card and a visiting
card. The visiting card was from Louis Tobias. The name was vaguely familiar. It took Lambert a moment to remember Cromer and Palgrave's dinner guest from Farnborough. Apparently he'd paid a call on Fell after Lambert's departure. Lambert wondered how the two men knew each other. Fell had never mentioned an interest in aviation. Still, when Fell was concerned, anything was possible. The playing card was perfectly ordinary, a three of hearts, unmarked in any way. Lambert frowned at it and put it back in the tray. He would ask Fell to explain it to him later.
In his own room, Lambert pulled off his collar and dropped it in the wastebasket. A bath would be a good idea. So would dinner. Lambert sat on the edge of the bed to take off his boots. The mattress was far more comfortable than he remembered. Lambert forgot about good ideas. Instead he stretched out on the bed, boots and all, and dozed off.
Fell's return woke him. In shirtsleeves, Lambert staggered out to the sitting room they shared. “There you are,” said Lambert to the door of Fell's room, and yawned prodigiously.
“Yes, I am.” Fell emerged, hair still gleaming wet. He too was in shirtsleeves, but his shirt was clean and pressed. Under the cleanliness, there was fatigue, but on the whole Fell looked more energetic than Lambert could ever remember seeing him. “I'm sorry I couldn't express my gratitude earlier. I was preoccupied. But allow me to thank you now. You never made a more timely shot.”
“I'm only sorry it took me so long.”
“Time seemed to run slowly to me too. Perhaps with good reason.” A bit abstractedly, Fell looked across the room.
Lambert followed the direction of his gaze and saw he was
staring at the clock. “Did you ever finish your calculations?”
“My calculations were only an aid to my perceptions, so perhaps fortunately, I didn't have to. When you took Bridgewater out of the equation, I was left in the center of Glasscastle's wards. There was energy in abundance. Without Bridgewater there to devour it, power was drifting aimlessly. I had to try to balance it.”
“You succeeded.”
“I did. When I found my way out of the wards, I started something. By the time I finished walking the labyrinth, order had been restored. I could tell.”
“How did you do it?”
“Jane told me my planes were constituted of points, yet I assumed points existed independently of the planes. She criticized me for confusing two different conceptions. But that made me rethink my perception of points. What if they were something like musical notes? What if they had their own resonance? What if that resonance was the music of the spheres? Once I perceived it, it was as if more strength than mine augmented my will.” Fell uttered a deep sigh and fell silent. After a thoughtful pause, he added, “May I never again be so comprehensively frightened. Thank you.”
“You're welcome.” Lambert remembered cause for gratitude of his own. “Thank you for letting me stay on a bit now that the project is over.”
“Letting you—” Fell looked appalled. “Don't be ridiculous. You must stay.”
“Thanks, but even if you are the warden of the west, the Agincourt Project is over. I'll pack up soon. It may take me a day or so. I don't know just what I'm going to do next.”
“There's no need for haste.” Fell turned to the mirror over the mantel and concentrated on it fiercely as he did up his collar and started on his tie. “You can't possibly do anything before the inquiry is concluded, so take your time making up your mind. I have an idea I want to discuss with you myself.”
“Porteous seems to consider the inquiry tomorrow a formality. He's invited us for sherry afterward.” Lambert held up both cards. “Louis Tobias called. I didn't know you two knew each other. But what is this?”
“Tobias and I belong to the same club. We met at a Royal Society lecture on botany, of all things.” Fell inspected the three of hearts and put it back in the tray. “No idea about the playing card, I'm afraid. It doesn't seem like something Tobias would do, leaving it. Perhaps it came from an undergraduate who fancies it symbolizes something. The Black Spot, perhaps.”
Lambert took the pitch and changed the subject. “A strange bunch, those undergraduates. Will you be called to speak at the hearing?”
“I suppose so. I hope Porteous is right about the brevity of the inquiry. Voysey's fate may be easy to determine. I doubt Bridgewater's will be so simple. Aside from the moral implications, he's one of the richest men in England. For one thing, what becomes of his personal property while he is a tortoise? Someone will have to be named a trustee. Think of the legal wrangling.” Fell studied the angle of his bow tie and was satisfied enough with his reflection to leave it alone and put on his coat.
“Is that something Glasscastle has jurisdiction over?”
“I'm not entirely sure. Glasscastle is occasionally called
upon to advise in matters of crime magical. In this instance, the crime concerns the security of Glasscastle itself. I don't think the university should yield jurisdiction. Bridgewater struck at the heart of Glasscastle. Glasscastle must teach him what that means.” One moment Fell stood there, faultlessly dressed for dinner, more elegant than Lambert had ever seen him. The next, Fell threw himself into his armchair and the crisp crease of his trousers was gone forever. “Sit down. It makes me tired to watch you stand there swaying.”
Lambert settled into the chair opposite, enjoying the return of his friend's familiar rumpled aspect. “Was that what Bridgewater was after? The power of Glasscastle?”
“Not exclusively. Glasscastle was a means to an end for Bridgewater. He meant to use it to augment his own power.”
“Wasn't that a bit risky, taking on the whole university?”
“If anything, it made the enterprise more attractive to him. Bridgewater loved a challenge. I suppose that was part of Voysey's appeal. He represented a challenge since he had something Bridgewater greatly envied.”
“Bridgewater envied Voysey?” Lambert considered the two men and marveled. “What for? Did it matter so much to Bridgewater that he was getting old?”
Fell hooted. “Oh, Bridgewater envied Voysey, but not for his youth, I assure you. Bridgewater envied Voysey because Voysey had Glasscastle. Voysey studied here, rose fast and far even in the ranks of the Senior Fellows, and was responsible first for Holythorn and then for Glasscastle as a whole. In Bridgewater's view, Voysey was the very lord of Glasscastle.
A place Bridgewater had not even dared ask to attend, for fear he'd be refused.”
Lambert thought it over. “I guess I can understand that. But Bridgewater almost made it sound as if he didn't want to go to Glasscastle in the first place. As if he thought it might limit his power.”
Fell raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. Does it remind you at all of the fox and the grapes?”
“Bridgewater might have envied Voysey's influence, but I don't think he had much of an opinion of the wise men of Glasscastle. He called them pygmies.”
“Cheek.” Fell looked kindly at Lambert. “Voysey went after your fascination with Glasscastle, did he?”
“Voysey offered to arrange for me to be admitted as a student. I knew he must be lying. From things he said when I first arrived, from what I've seen since, I figured I could never be accepted here.”
“
Never
is a big word,” said Fell. “You mustn't assume—”
Lambert cut in. “
Not
just because I'm American. There's more to it than that. I don't know any Latin. I don't have a ‘background.'” Lambert added darkly, “Whatever
that
means. Money, I reckon.”
Fell began, “It's complicated—”
Lambert snorted. “Yeah, that's what I thought.”
“Generally, it has to do with one's social class. But money can enter into it, yes. Among other things.” Fell, with uncharacteristic tact, changed the subject. “Voysey never expected the ministers to choose the Farnborough project over his. When he received word that the funding had been redirected,
he had to adjust his timetable. He combined the prototype with the Egerton wand. To his great satisfaction, the device worked.”
“Was that what he was working on the day he and Wright had me firing the Baker rifle?” asked Lambert.
“That was a pretext to keep you busy during Voysey's last attempt to remove me.” Fell took out a cheroot and toyed with it. “Our intruder in the bowler hat was Voysey's first attempt. In the last attempt, he made sure he sent more men and more cantrips. Voysey's henchmen took me to St. Hubert's specifically to keep me in isolation.”
“Because Voysey wanted you kept out of the way in case anyone persuaded you to be the warden before he was good and ready.”
“Quite so. As we surmised, Voysey was worried that I would abandon the idea of resisting the wardenship before he was in possession of the device. He thought keeping me at my calculations would be the best way to keep me from interfering.”
“I thought Voysey didn't believe in wardens.”
“Bridgewater persuaded Voysey that he could think of the wardenship in whatever terms pleased him, so long as I was kept from accepting my responsibilities. Apparently Voysey never suspected Bridgewater possessed so much wild talent. If he had, he might have been more circumspect about linking the power of Glasscastle to the Egerton wand.”
“Didn't either of them fear that once you were given a chance to concentrate on your work, you would finish your calculations and correct the imbalance?”
“No,” Fell said tartly. “Apparently no one considered that
possibility for a moment.” As if stung by the reminder, Fell lit his cheroot and puffed smoke indignantly.
“Didn't Voysey guess that Jane came here expressly to persuade you to assume the wardenship?”
“Voysey learned that Miss Brailsford was a friend of the warden of the north. He believed that my next caller was likely to be the warden of the north herself. Small chance I would have been able to resist her persuasion in person. This was Voysey's judgment, of course. Between us, I think I'd have had no trouble ignoring her, even now that I've had a chance to communicate with her directly. She's strident, no question, but she's not completely immune to reason.”
Lambert reminded himself, with difficulty, that the undistinguished man before him was truly the new warden of the west. “You don't seem much different now.”
“I'm not.” Fell attempted a smoke ring. “I don't miss the sensation of resistance, I assure you. It was a drain. And not the only one. Just as I lost the ability to resist Bridgewater's pull on my strength, I lost my ability to abstain from the wardenship any longer. It all rushed in. Until you took action, it was all rushing out. Straight into Bridgewater. A most unpleasant sensation.”

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