A Scholar of Magics (7 page)
Read A Scholar of Magics Online
Authors: Caroline Stevermer
A stocky man in a bowler hat walked close as he passed Lambert and Jane on his way toward the gatekeeper. He paused, his back to Lambert and Jane, at the visitors book. Lambert didn't let his attention waver from Jane for a moment. “How do you know? You've only been here a day. Not even that long.”
“Oh, I know.” Jane's eyes were as steady as her voice, and as sure.
Lambert said, “Your brother may be trapped in that meeting all day. Why don't we start without him?”
Jane's eyes brightened at the invitation. Lambert permitted himself a moment of deep satisfaction. He might be a wayfaring stranger at Glasscastle, but he could do this much kindness. He presented himself to the gatekeeper, signed his name and Jane's in the book, and won them admittance. There was no delay, for the man in the bowler
hat who had gone in ahead of them was already out of sight.
hat who had gone in ahead of them was already out of sight.
Together Lambert and Jane walked through the outer quadrangles of Glasscastle. It was a glorious morning. Ivy covered the stone walls, green against gray freshened by last night's rain, and deep within the foliage, leaded glass windows gleamed as diamond panes of glass caught the brilliant morning light. The place smelled sweet, a combination of the morning's baking, the rosemary in the perennial border, and the sun-warmed roses.
Everything looked grand to Lambert, though he supposed a purist might find fault. Maybe the ornamental borders were not at their best. Profusion of shape and color had been worn down by months of rain until only the toughest blossoms were unscathed. The thunderstorm the night before hadn't helped. Still, the pale graveled paths were more geometrically precise than usual, with fewer students around to trample the precincts of the university. Only the minimum number required to chant the wards remained through the summer. The rest of the undergraduates were off on holiday. This was a piece of good luck. There was no question that Jane's visit would be more comfortable with fewer young men staring as she passed. As he let Jane walk ahead of him through a narrow passage between ornamental borders, Lambert had to reconsider that. Something in the line of Jane's attire, utterly correct though it was, hinted that she might not mind being stared at by a lot of polite young men.
“This is where most visitors begin.” Lambert hesitated at the threshold of St. Mary's. “It looks like morning service is
over. We ought to be able to look around for quite a while without bothering anybody. Would you like to?”
over. We ought to be able to look around for quite a while without bothering anybody. Would you like to?”
Jane, it seemed, was enthusiastic about church architecture. She followed Lambert into the peace of the church, then led the way as they moved from nave to aisle, transept to choir, through the sweet scent of the incense used during the morning's service. When they stood in the crossing, Jane pivoted on her heel, head back and eyes bright as she took in the splendors of the place. She put one hand up to hold her extravagant hat firmly in position while she gazed.
“Look at this.” Jane kept her voice down, but the excitement and pleasure in it carried her words to Lambert vibrantly no matter which way she turned. “See the ratio between the length of the nave and the length of the transept? That's two to three. The ratio of the nave to the choir is four to three.”
“How do you know that?” Lambert asked. Once his attention was drawn to the proportions, he could see the harmony of it. If Jane could pick out distance with that accuracy, Meredith might want to give her a few tests of marksmanship too.
“Mathematics.”
“I mean, you can tell just by looking?” Lambert knew very few people had an eye for distance like his, but he hadn't given up hope of finding one.
Jane shook her head. “I've read the architectural studies. The men who built this place knew their mathematics. See the height of the columns and the distance between the base of the columns and the first molding, the plain one there?
Compare that with the height of the piers. That's the golden section.”
Compare that with the height of the piers. That's the golden section.”
Lambert noticed the line of Jane's throat. He thought how much younger she looked this way. She might have been a schoolgirl, spinning herself dizzy as she gazed up into the heights overhead. Well, except for the hat. Lambert asked, “The golden section? What's that?”
“The Greeks thought it was the key they needed to measure the whole world.” Jane glowed with enthusiasm. “If you divide a line such that the length of the shorter segment to the longer is the same as the ratio between the longer and the total of the two, that's the golden section. You can keep it up forever if you want to, and if you map the coincident points, it makes a lovely spiral.”
Something stirred far back in Lambert's memory. “Oh, is that the chambered nautilus?”
“That's the one.” Jane looked pleased with him.
“What's golden about the golden section?”
“What's golden about the Golden Rule?” Jane countered.
“âTherefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,'” Lambert quoted. “Matthew chapter seven, verse twelve. It's a pretty good rule, don't you think?”
“You have quite a memory,” Jane said dryly.
“For some things.” Lambert made himself look away and concentrate on the stained glass windows. He was careful to ignore Jane's scrutiny, but he could still feel it.
“I suppose you had the Scriptures drummed into you as a child.”
“That's how I learned to read. My mother taught me.”
“Oh, that's right. She was a schoolteacher, you said. Like me.”
Lambert had to laugh a little. “I don't think you teach at the same kind of school.”
“Why? Because Greenlaw teaches magic, do you think it's so different?”
Lambert looked squarely at Jane. “Fifteen students in eight different grades, all mixed together in a room no bigger than a box stall? One room with a potbellied stove for heat and a kerosene lamp for light? If Greenlaw isn't different, I feel sorry for you.”
Jane looked right back as she thought it over. “Running water?”
“All you want, in the creek at the bottom of the hill. There's a bucket and a dipper by the door.”
“I see. Yes, Greenlaw is different. Is that the kind of school you attended?”
“That's right, and a lot of people had to work mighty hard to get that much. We were lucky to have any kind of a school.” Lambert gestured vaguely. “Something like thisâit's more than I can believe sometimes, that a place like this exists at all, let alone that it has existed for hundreds and hundreds of years.”
“It must be very different from what you are accustomed to.”
Lambert couldn't help laughing. “It is. It's different here, but I like it. Who wouldn't?”
“It can't be very exciting for you. They won't even let you join the old duffers in a glass of brandy.”
“There's more than one kind of excitement. It would be
something, to be able to work here. Centuries of effort, all to one end. The men of Glasscastle did all that men can do to protect the wisdom of the ages.” Lambert took another look at the dimensions of the place, the sun through the vivid glass. “It's safe here.”
something, to be able to work here. Centuries of effort, all to one end. The men of Glasscastle did all that men can do to protect the wisdom of the ages.” Lambert took another look at the dimensions of the place, the sun through the vivid glass. “It's safe here.”
“Safer than under lock and key.” Jane gave Lambert a look of keen assessment. “They protect themselves from all kinds of things, these Glasscastle mean.”
Together they strolled through St. Mary's. Jane paused to read every memorial set into the walls, to admire every change in the vaulting overhead, and to step as carefully as possible around the brasses and inscriptions in the floor.
“That was excellent. What's next on the grand tour of Glasscastle?” Jane asked when they had examined every feature of the place.
“Well, it's up to you. You want to see the Winterset Archive, I reckon. After that, would you rather see the stained glass in St. Joseph's or stop to take a look at some of the buildings on the way?”
“Oh, by all means, we must stop on the way. Any chance of having a little snoop behind the scenes? Watching the scholars of magic as they conduct their research?”
Lambert considered showing Jane around Fell's study. She'd enjoy it if Fell weren't there. Maybe even if he was. If Fell were there, he'd hate to have his work interrupted by sociability. Being polite to Jane might be fit punishment for making Lambert worry. Savoring the mental image of Fell's pained reaction to Jane's hat, let alone a whole visit from such a fashionable young lady, Lambert steered Jane out of St. Mary's and along the path toward the Winterset Archive.
“Isn't it a lovely morning?” Despite her stylishly narrow skirt, Jane matched Lambert stride for stride with no apparent effort. “Amy tells me this has been the rainiest summer she can remember. She said the university boat race had to be canceled and rowed over. I can't imagine it. She says Cambridge sank at Harrod's wharf and Oxford only made it as far as Chiswick Eyot before they sank too.”
Lambert stopped in his tracks, and said, “That's odd.”
There was a main door to the archive building but the side door, facing out on Midsummer Green, was visible from their vantage point on the neatly swept path. To his surprise, Lambert recognized the man leaving the archive building by cutting across the green to the quadrangle path as the stocky man in the bowler hat he'd seen at the gate.
“That's very odd. That man must be a Fellow. No one else is qualified to walk on the grass all by himself. But he was just ahead of us to sign in at the gate.”
“He
does
seem in a bit of a hurry, doesn't he?” Jane watched the man's rapid departure with interest. “One doesn't often see a man in a bowler hat actually bustling. They always look as if they're just about to, but they seldom really do.”
does
seem in a bit of a hurry, doesn't he?” Jane watched the man's rapid departure with interest. “One doesn't often see a man in a bowler hat actually bustling. They always look as if they're just about to, but they seldom really do.”
“Excuse me.” Lambert approached the corner where the man's route would intersect their graveled path. “May I help you? Sir?
Hey
!”
Hey
!”
Without a second glance at them, the bowler-hatted man broke into a run. In moments he was through the stone arch of the great gate, lost from sight.
“How extraordinary!” Jane started back toward the gate, then hesitated as she noticed Lambert wasn't coming with her. “Who was that? Do you know him?”
Lambert stood staring after the man. Downright peculiar, that had been.
“I wonder what he was doing in there,” said Jane. “Shall we follow him or shall we go investigate?”
The rate the man had been running, Lambert calculated he'd be long gone by the time they cleared the gate. “It's probably nothing. But I think we should at least take a quick look in the archive, just to make sure everything's in order. Whoever he was, I don't think he belongs here.”
Lambert and Jane entered the Winterset Archive by the side door, since the man in the bowler hat had left that way. They paused in the doorway to listen. The customary silence of the archive held sway. There was a distinctive quality to the quiet there. Lambert had noticed it on previous visits. It was a very busy silence, a silence composed of human concentration, not only of the activity of the moment but somehow of the long years of concentration that had gone on there since the construction of the building. The place smelled of books and book bindings, wood and wax. To Lambert, it smelled like wisdom.
Lambert led the way through side passages to the foot of the main staircase and started to climb. Three steps up the creaking wooden stair, Lambert noticed Jane wasn't following him. He turned back. Jane was still at the foot of the stair, gazing up at the height of the coffered ceiling, the depth and detail of the linen-fold paneling on the walls, and the angle and sweep of the staircase. Her expression was far more reverent than it had ever been in St. Mary's. Jane seemed to have forgotten all about the man in the bowler hat in her worshipful admiration of the surroundings.
“Are you coming?” Lambert asked.
Jane shook herself out of her reverie, adjusted her hatpins, and followed Lambert upstairs. “Just thinking. Sorry.”
The splendor of the place only increased as they rose from the ground level to the first-floor reading room. From floor to ceiling the room was lined with shelves, each rank served by a spiral staircase of intricate ironwork. More shelves were arranged throughout the room, yielding at intervals to great long tables of polished wood, each like a clearing in a forest. There were brass study lamps in plenty, each with its green glass shade, but they were unlit, for the room was flooded with light from the skylights overhead.
There were only two men at work in the place, one in the robes of an archivist and the other in the short poplin gown of an undergraduate. Neither looked up as Lambert and Jane hesitated on the threshold.
The archivist was speaking to the undergraduate. “All our senses rely on the spirit. Ficino says so quite clearly. Each sense employs its own form of spirit to convey its message. Music is transmitted through air, and air is the medium closest to the spirit itself, therefore hearing is the highest of our senses.”
“What sort of message does smell convey?” asked the undergraduate.
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