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Authors: Caroline Stevermer

BOOK: A Scholar of Magics
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Voysey's dignity came to the fore. Jane might have been a duchess, such was Voysey's courtesy. Lambert watched with reluctant admiration. As Vice Chancellor, Voysey spoke for all of Glasscastle. He was a busy man. Yet Jane might have been the only person in the world, the way Voysey treated her. Bearing like that could never be learned. It was innate courtesy improved by years of polish.
Under Voysey's admiring eye, Jane's mood seemed to improve. She returned compliment for compliment, saying nothing in particular, yet saying it with elegance and poise.
“And you, Samuel,” Voysey said at last. “What of you? Perishing with hunger, I've no doubt?”
Lambert had long since grown used to Voysey's informality toward him. It had been Voysey's idea to recruit the best possible marksman and he seemed to view Lambert as a kind of honorary younger brother. The advantage of such informality was that Lambert could be honest. “It has been a long time since breakfast.”
“I think, if we devote ourselves to the quest, we might find something to sustain us. Now that Lord Fyvie and Mr. Wiston have returned to their native heath, my time is my own again, thank goodness. Will you be my guest, Miss Brailsford? This time of year, the cooks at Holythorn do an extremely good smothered quail on Tuesdays.”
For an instant, a pert rejoinder seemed to tremble on Jane's lips. Lambert could almost see the thoughts move behind Jane's changeable face as she considered an assortment of replies. Whatever the temptation, good manners won out. With decorum, she accepted Voysey's invitation and the four of them adjourned to the common room of Voysey's college
to dine. Lambert was surprised at the small but distinct pang of regret he felt. Now he would never know what sort of saucy remark Jane had been about to make to Voysey.
 
J
ane tried not to look peeved, but inwardly she was seething as Voysey and Robin bore her off with Lambert in their wake.
It had been forethought, planning, patience, and a smattering of luck that brought Jane to the gates of Glasscastle in time to be waiting there when Lambert passed. To have her campaign sidetracked by her brother, of all people, made her want to swear.
To get Lambert talking about Fell had been well worth the time spent in admiration of Glasscastle's—admittedly admirable—architecture. To see Fell's study had been an unlooked-for benefit, and to be first on the scene to find the disruption there was as intriguing as it was alarming. She had intended to get Lambert to herself again as soon as the authorities were located and dealt with. To be forced to become an official guest again, officially escorted and officially patronized, was all the more annoying since it dashed her hopes of learning more about Fell from the man who seemed, so far, to know him best.
At the common room table, where the food was every bit as good as Vice Chancellor Voysey had promised, Jane found herself engaged in conversation by Voysey and James Porteous, a Senior Fellow of mathematics. Porteous was older than either Voysey or her brother by at least fifteen years and his gravity of manner was proportional.
“You will forgive me, Voysey,” Porteous decreed, “for
monopolizing the young lady. You take it for granted that we may share hospitality with a lady. To me, a member of a more sheltered generation, it has the charm of the exotic.”
Jane caught Lambert's eye. “I'm not the only exotic guest, surely. You have Mr. Lambert among you every day.”
Lambert looked mildly disgusted to be brought to Porteous's attention. “I'm not as exotic as all that.”
Jane wondered if Lambert's response was distaste for attention in general or Porteous's attention in particular. She suspected it might be the latter.
“No comparison at all, dear fellow,” Porteous agreed. “Where have you taken Miss Brailsford? I trust you let her fully admire the beauties of St. Mary's?”
“First thing,” said Lambert.
Porteous turned to Jane. “You'll have been more interested in the tombs or the stained glass, I suppose, but there are some extremely subtle things in St. Mary's. For example, if you compare the length of the nave to that of the choir, you get a ratio of four to three. That's the equivalent of a musical fourth. The whole place is music if you know how to read the intervals.” After a dreamy pause in which he seemed to be contemplating music only he could hear, Porteous returned the subject at hand. “But I suppose such things are a bit more abstract than the stained glass and the stone carvings.”
“I've always been fond of misericords myself.” Jane risked a simper. She judged that misericords would rank with playing with dolls or cuddling puppies to a man of Porteous's interests.
Lambert looked mildly stunned. Jane wondered if her
simper was responsible or if Lambert was remembering the architectural lecture she'd given him in St. Mary's.
Porteous, it was clear, lived down to Jane's expectations. “Harrumph. Yes, very droll, some of them. In an obvious way. Quite vulgar, some of the others. Your brother tells me you are a teacher at Greenlaw, Miss Brailsford. Perhaps I ought to say, Dame Brailsford? I believe that is the proper form of address at Greenlaw? What branch of magic is your specialty?”
“I teach mathematics,” Jane said. “We don't teach magic directly.”
Porteous seemed taken aback. “You teach mathematics.”
“I do,” said Jane briskly. “I find it quite satisfying. You've no notion.”
Porteous chose his words with evident care. “I'm confident you teach your subject most competently, Miss Brailsford, yet if you do not instruct your young charges in the fundamentals of magic, who does?”
“I cannot generalize. It's a highly individual matter,” Jane replied. “The curriculum is planned with great care, lest anyone suffer through having their own idiosyncratic talent subsumed into the whole.”
“Idiosyncratic poppycock,” said Porteous. “If the individual is not subsumed into the whole, where is the power behind the spell to come from? Eh? And for another thing, how do you get the chants to work together if the theory isn't properly drilled into your students from the very start?”
“Greenlaw doesn't use chants the way Glasscastle does,” said Jane.
“No chants?” Porteous looked horrified. “No chants whatsoever?”
“Greenlaw operates on its own methods,” Voysey put in smoothly. “I believe there are considerable differences in the theoretical structure of the curriculum.”
“In other words, what Greenlaw uses as a curriculum is probably full of the sort of modern nonsense you favor,” Porteous retorted. “Never have I known you to subject one of your theories to full formal analysis before you share it with the world. You enjoy shocking people too much to refine a hypothesis.”
“At least I'm open to the implications of the new work being done. Then again, I'm not considered one of the finest minds of the eighteenth century.” Voysey's inflection made it clear that he was referring to Porteous.
“Very droll, dear fellow. You mean that as a joke but I take it as an accolade,” Porteous countered.
Jane thought it best to bring the subject of the discussion back to magic. “Just as there are considerable differences between men and women, there are considerable differences between the way their magic works. Men must work together, if what I gather from my brother is true. Women must work alone. If magic is to work for either, it must work its own way through us.”
Voysey smiled. “
Vive la différence,
eh, Porteous?”
“Yes, yes. Of course.” Porteous lifted his wineglass to Jane. “The lady is always right. One of those verities of life, eh, Brailsford?”
For a fleeting but vivid instant, Jane longed to slap the smug expression off Porteous's face. She caught Lambert's
eye for a moment. With unsettling clarity, she felt he read her impulse exactly and was waiting calmly to see what she would do. There was no hint of disapproval, merely interest and appreciation. Jane couldn't help feeling nettled. With perfect self-possession, Jane turned to her brother. “The lady is always right. Why have you never learned that particular verity, Robin?”
Perhaps alerted by something in her tone, Robert regarded her warily. “But I did, my dear. It's covered in the very first lessons at Glasscastle. If Greenlaw's classes don't teach the same material, there's a flaw in Greenlaw's curriculum, not in ours.”
Jane tried to keep the crisp annoyance out of her voice. “Another verity, then. Glasscastle is always right.” She lifted her glass as she made the toast.
Lambert gave her a speaking look as he raised his glass of water, but maintained his silence. Jane gathered that even in jest, Lambert would not say those words. Or perhaps, Jane thought, Lambert did not consider Glasscastle to be something one jested about.
Porteous beamed at her. “True, Miss Brailsford. Very true.”
“If I understand the nature of Greenlaw's curriculum, and I'm sure you'll correct me at once if I misstate the matter, Miss Brailsford,” said Voysey affably, “it contrasts with that of Glasscastle in the nature of intelligence. The power of Glasscastle resides in trained intelligence. Mere native intelligence is all very well in its way. Yet the more it can be refined, the greater the source of power.”
“What do you mean by ‘trained' and ‘refined'?” asked Jane.
“Perhaps ‘cultivated' would be a better word than either,”
Voysey replied. “Merely stuffing a student with facts accomplishes nothing. It is the student who learns to question established belief, the student who poses questions of his own, who makes the ideal scholar of magic.”
“Perhaps Greenlaw and Glasscastle are not so far apart on some points after all,” said Jane. “We don't look for magic in books either.”
“There is no royal road to magic. No textbook to follow slavishly. Books may even act as a damper. A distraction, in fact.” Voysey's enthusiasm was plain.
Jane thought of the way a whole dormitory of energetic young women, dangerously restless with spring fever, could sometimes be soothed by a suitable three-volume novel. “A very welcome distraction at times.”
“I agree there is no royal road to magic.” Porteous made no effort to conceal his disapproval of the direction the conversation had taken. “That's as far as I go with you, Voysey. I see no point in breaking rules unless you learn them first. For one thing, it's dangerous.”
“True,” Voysey conceded.
Robert added, “For another, it's far more entertaining to break the rules intentionally than inadvertently.”
“Why, Robin,” Jane turned to her brother in mock astonishment. “Break the rules?
You?
”
“A shocking revelation, isn't it?” Robert was smug. “Is it enough to make you question my authority?”
“That's the key,” said Voysey. “That is what makes Glasscastle great. Its scholars have the ability to question all manner of authority. Indeed, they have the responsibility to do so.”
“If they do so without overstepping the bounds of prudence,” Porteous added.
Jane glanced across at Lambert to see if she could catch his eye, but all his attention was on Voysey and he was nodding slightly. Jane felt mildly disappointed in him.
“Agreed,” said Robert. “So you see, Jane, we are all models of intellectual and moral decorum. Therefore we endorse your previous statement, which I suspect you made with your tongue in cheek. Glasscastle
is
always right.”
Jane said, “I am left speechless by what passes for logic here.”
“Then let me provide the toast.” Robert lifted his glass and the others joined him. “Glasscastle is always right. Amen.”
“And the gilded car of day
His glowing axle doth allay”
A
fter yet another boiled dinner in hall that evening, Lambert slowly climbed the staircase to the empty quarters he shared with Fell. Still no sign of his friend. The conversation between Voysey and Jane earlier in the day had given Lambert the chance to let Robert Brailsford know that there was something important he needed to tell him. The need to get Jane out of earshot had made it tricky, but her spirited
conversation with Voysey and Porteous lasted longer than their meal did. Eventually the three of them strolled far enough ahead that Lambert could mutter to Brailsford and pass him the plans with a brief explanation of where he'd found them.
“Good gad, man. What was Fell doing with these?” Brailsford tucked the papers away hastily. “He washed his hands of the project long ago.”
Lambert didn't like the critical note in Brailsford's voice. “I'd lay odds Fell doesn't even know they were there. If it turns out he does know, I reckon he just doesn't think they're anything important. He's never given two pins for the project anyway.”
Brailsford shook his head in mock despair. “
Tuppence.
The idiomatic phrase should be ‘He doesn't care tuppence.'”
Happy that Brailsford had let himself be distracted, Lambert continued to play dumb. “He doesn't give two cents for it either.”
Whatever Brailsford had in common with his sister, a sense of humor was not included. “I'll tell Voysey as soon as Jane is safely out of the way. I don't suppose you'd like to show her the glass at St. Joseph's, would you?” Clearly, Brailsford thought it most unlikely that anyone would willingly choose to spend time with his sister.
Lambert didn't have to think it over. “I would.”
“Capital.” Brailsford started to move toward Voysey, Porteous, and Jane, caught himself, and turned back to Lambert. “Would you really?”
Lambert nodded.
Brailsford frowned slightly. “That's good. That's fine.
Just—don't take her too seriously. Jane was rather strange as a child. Fanciful. When it suits her purpose, she can be most—convincing.”
Lambert had puzzled over that piece of advice for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Much of the afternoon he'd spent in Jane's company, as Porteous showed them around some of the more restricted areas of Glasscastle. Jane had seemed a bit subdued, politely attentive to Porteous no matter what flights of architectural or philosophical fancy he took them on. Any talent she had for convincing people of things they ought not be convinced of remained hidden. Lambert could appreciate any brother's urge to protect a sister, but the warning seemed intended to protect Lambert from Jane. Odd, that.
There had been a moment that afternoon, although no more than a moment, when Jane's courteous attention to Porteous had faltered. It occurred during Porteous's lecture upon the architectural excellence of the Wearyall College chapel.
“There are complexities upon complexities all around us as we stand here,” Porteous told them. Back to the wall, he faced the entrance and his voice boomed beautifully around the empty space of the chapel. “Every element we see tells us something about the way the architect viewed the world. No, let me rephrase that. Not the stained glass windows. Those are a recent restoration and quite extraordinarily insipid at that. But I digress. The use of space here can hardly be understood by the untrained eye. It requires years of study to comprehend and to appreciate the place fully.”
Lambert tried to catch Jane's eye and failed utterly.
Meekly, he settled for a murmur of polite encouragement and Porteous surged onward.
“This is where the genius of Glasscastle has been made not merely visible but audible. To hear a fully sung service here at Easter is to witness the auditory equivalent of a glimpse of the gates of paradise. Chanting was not discovered here, but it has certainly been brought to a state of perfection at Glasscastle.” Porteous beamed. “Architecturally, musically, aesthetically, the sum is greater even than its parts.”
Jane smiled brightly. “Oh, yes. This is where the Yell Magna was perfected, wasn't it?”
Jowls quivering, with indignation, Porteous drew himself up to his full, not very impressive height. “I beg your pardon?”
“I read about it somewhere.” Jane's expression was demure. “Baedeker, perhaps.”
“You refer, I imagine, to the Vox Magna, the technique that matches architectural space to the acoustics of the human voice in the performance of magic?” Porteous was ponderously sarcastic. “I can assure you, Miss Brailsford, that your little red Baedeker can do no possible justice to one of Glasscastle's greatest achievements.”
Unruffled by Porteous's massive indignation, Jane said to Lambert, “It's for opening doors.”
“Opening doors?” Porteous goggled at her effrontery.
“My dear child, is this what they taught you at Greenlaw? By no stretch of the imagination is the Vox Magna for ‘opening doors.'” His voice echoed ominously throughout the chapel.
The acoustics were first rate. The place gave Porteous's bellow something close to beauty. Lambert wondered what the vibrations of Porteous's voice would be the auditory equivalent of. A bull moose, maybe.
“It's for unlocking things, then,” Jane conceded.
“Oh, is it?” Belatedly, Porteous seemed to detect something suspicious in the utter gravity of Jane's demeanor. His indignation subsided and mild sarcasm took its place. “If one could be permitted to describe the guillotine as a device for the radical adjustment of one's hairstyle or for the drastic reduction of one's hat size, then perhaps one might say the Vox Magna could be used for unlocking things. Perhaps, I say.”
Belatedly, Jane seemed to remember her manners. Her deference returned and the remainder of the tour was without incident. Lambert had admired the unobtrusive ease with which she undermined Porteous's self-control. He wondered if she could do the same to her brother.
 
T
he ticking of Fell's clock seemed unnaturally loud. Even with the windows open to coax in any night breeze meandering by, the sitting room was stuffy. For a luxurious moment, Lambert allowed himself to picture Fell's annoyance if he came home to find the clock silent and the pendulum stopped. Fell was not a patient man. The smallest things sometimes made him cross. Interfering with his clock, just to stop the minor nuisance of its repetitive ticking, would not seem a small thing to Fell. Lambert put temptation aside and distracted himself with the day's newspapers.
It was, as usual, difficult to make out what was happening
in the world from what the newspapers said. Against all odds, the Republic of China had lasted five months and if the much-discussed China Loan ever floated, seemed likely to last for six. The ocean liner
Titanic
had broken her own trans-Atlantic record. Lord Fyvie had delivered a speech in the House of Lords demanding the Imperial Defence Committee deal with the question of aerial navigation. Someone else had delivered a better speech about the need for fiscal restraint in these difficult times. The fortunes of the British Empire were detailed in flattering terms. The court calendar figured prominently. Countries far away and ineffectual received short shrift indeed. Lambert read the society news with the same care and attention he gave to the account of an expedition sent to explore the depths of a jungle.
An item in the society column made Lambert sit up straight in his comfortable armchair. The Earl of Bridgewater, a man sufficiently famous and fashionable that the newspaper saw fit to report his lightest deed, had delivered a speech to the Royal Society the day before. Among the members mentioned as addressing questions to the speaker afterward was Nicholas Fell.
Lambert was startled at the relief he felt. No unexplained disappearance after all. Bridgewater had spoken on the history of the armillary sphere, with particular emphasis on the one handed down through generations of his family. Fell's interest in armillary spheres was not as intense as his self-education in the measurement of time, but it was more than sufficient to send him to town to attend a speech without mentioning his plans. If he had bothered to leave Lambert a message, it had somehow gone astray.
Lambert put the newspaper down, surprised at how late
the hour had become. A trip into town might be a good idea. Fell was probably doing research there. Lambert knew which club Fell favored. The intrusion into his study at Winterset would annoy Fell considerably. He would want to know about it sooner, not later.
There was the possibility Meredith might have more tests of marksmanship for Lambert planned for the next day. If so, Meredith would have to postpone them. Lambert would make sure he left before any possible summons might come from that quarter.
Sleep came easily to Lambert that night. London first thing in the morning, that was the plan. Lambert always felt happier when he knew what he was going to do with himself. A day in London would make a bracing change.
 
I
n the morning, London still seemed like a good idea. Lambert let himself out into the cool early silence. Glasscastle had only begun to stir itself. The sky was clear. Lambert thought it promised to be another warm day.
Glasscastle Station was inconveniently distant from both the university and the town itself. The strategy, Lambert had once been told, was that the harder it was for the undergraduates to get to the railway station, the harder it would be for them to abandon their studies to go live it up in London. Whether the strategy worked or not, and it seemed by and large not to, there was no question that it was a long walk to the railway station.
Lambert walked down Silver Street as far as the Haymarket before he struck it lucky with a drayman he knew from previous venturesome mornings.
“You're out early.” The drayman made room on the box to give Lambert a ride to the station. “In trouble, are you?”
“Not this time.” Lambert gauged the driver's degree of disappointment at that news and searched for some bit of entertainment to offer in return for his ride. “I knew a fellow once. You could say he got in trouble.”
The driver looked pleased. “Bison, was it? Or bears?”
“Worse than either,” said Lambert. “Women.”
“Ah.” Deep satisfaction from the driver.
Lambert took that as permission to carry on spinning his yarn. “This fellow was named Max and he was sweet on a girl called Agatha, but Agatha's pa didn't think Max was the man for her. He set up a shooting contest. Winner takes Agatha.”
“This Max was a cowboy?” The driver looked dubious. He turned down Barking Lane on the way to Headstone Road and eventually the railway station.
Lambert had the advantage of aimlessness. He had no particular train in mind so it didn't matter if he were late or not. He'd take the drayman's meandering route to the station and whatever train came next, that would be his. “Yup. Best shot you ever saw. But he wasn't so sure of himself that he'd risk his girl. So he listened to his friend Caspar. Caspar was a cowpuncher who had traveled in some mighty strange places, and he came back with a Sharp's rifle and five cartridges that he swore would hit anything he wanted them to. He promised Max that he'd loan him his rifle for the shooting contest.” Lambert knew perfectly well that the driver would put him off the box
and make him walk if he admitted that this yarn had its origin in one of Lambert's visits to the opera at Covent Garden.
“Ah. What was in it for this Caspar bloke?”
“You guessed it. Caspar had sold his soul to the devil for that rifle and those cartridges, and he knew the devil would be coming around to collect pretty soon. It was his idea that he'd give the devil Max instead.”
“Ah.”
“Max didn't know any of that. He took Caspar up on his offer and he used four of those cartridges to win the shooting contest. The fifth cartridge was ready and waiting when Agatha's father told Max to make one last shot. There was a dove flying past and he told Max to shoot that.”
The driver shook his head. “That's never good luck, shooting at a dove.”
“It's bad luck in Wyoming too.”
“Did he hit it?”
“He did. But it was Agatha who screamed and fell down.”
“Dead, was she?”
“Looked that way. Agatha's father was mighty upset.”
“His own fault, that was.” The driver spat to express his opinion of a shooting contest as a basis for matrimony and gave Lambert an amused look, as much prompting as Lambert required to get on with the story.
“Women are tough, you know.”
The driver nodded. His expression made it plain that he had good reason to know.
“Agatha had only fainted. She wasn't dead after all. But
by the time she was back in her right senses, Max had thrown down the Sharp's rifle and gone for Caspar's throat. It was quite a scrap. None of the other boys who'd come for the shooting contest could break them apart. The fight only ended when the devil came to collect Caspar's soul.”

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