Heart's Magic (8 page)

He looked hard at the
British wizards one by one, until finally one of them spoke. "We
know you, Rosato. We know you're a master."

Elinor knew that wizard.
From the battle? His name was Fillmore.

"Then why will you not
believe me when I tell you this ointment--" Rosato rubbed his still
shiny fingers together, "this
magic
is pure genius? I am not sure I could recreate
what
Signorina
Tavis has done in making this salve." He sniffed it, and his
eyes went distant, his voice pensive. "Perhaps. There
is--"

He shook himself.
"
Non importa.
The
ointment is only one part of her genius. Wizards, you all have
wands,
veramente?
One, or perhaps two for stirring and infusing magic. Am I
correct? Did it ever occur to you--to any of us--to use a wizard's
wand in the manner of an
alchimisto?
And yet it was not used as they do, but in a
unique,
wizard's
fashion.

"
Signorina
Tavis used wizard's magic to
defend herself and others from physical and magical attack. She has
produced master level work. I, Antonio Rosato, master wizard, so
declare."

"I am William Stanwyck,"
her godfather said. "Master wizard. I concur. Elinor Tavis is named
master wizard and a member of the British wizard's
guild."

"You're her godfather."
Dodd climbed to his feet. "You're--"

"Stubble it, Dodd,"
Fillmore said. "It's master level work and you know it. We've never
objected before to masters declaring their relatives' work. But if
you want to, then fine. I, John Fillmore, concur in the matter as
well. That makes it all moot, doesn't it?"

A stir went around the
room. Sir William stood to attention. "Magister Tavis." He bowed,
gesturing at the four magister's chairs as he rose.

Elinor stared at Sir
William. Surely he didn't mean
she--

"Where is the Black
Cauldron?" Sir William inquired in a clarion voice. "Who's in
charge of the cauldron?"

Several of the wizards
exchanged rather defiant looks. "We didn't bring it," Dodd said.
"It's in the Guildhall."

Sir William frowned. "I
suppose it doesn't matter. Eleanor Tavis is still magister of the
wizard's guild, cauldron or not."

Wait-- What?
Elinor looked at the people surrounding her,
utterly bewildered. What did a cauldron have to do with
anything?

Harry nudged her arm. "Go
on. You won it fair an' square. You're magister now."

But she didn't want to be
magister. She just wanted Nigel Cranshaw not to be.

Amanusa took one of
Elinor's arms, Harry took the other, and together they guided her
across the room to the dais. Grey lined up at Amanusa's end of the
procession and took her arm. Probably so they looked like they were
presenting a united front rather than dragging Elinor along, she
decided when her mind stopped panicking and started trying to
think.

They climbed onto the
platform where, with pomp and ceremony and another four tolls of
the Great Bell, one for each of the four great magics, Elinor was
seated as the new magister of the wizard's guild.

"It ain't so bad," Harry
muttered at her from the side of his mouth as he sat in the next
chair over. "Magisterin', I mean. You can delegate the paperwork.
That's the worst of it, an' there ain't so many wizards as to make
that a big job. I'll 'elp all I can."

Harry's mutters didn't ease
Elinor's mind overmuch.

"What's all this business
about the cauldron?" she asked, grasping onto the one thing she
could just now.

"It's the wizards' great
cauldron, like the alchemists' hammer. Don't suppose the conjurers
or sorcerers have anything like, but the cauldron's supposed to
stir up the greatest potions. And be in the custody of the
magister."

And it wasn't here.
Oh, joy.

The last dregs of the
afternoon's formalities wrapped up while she was still trying to
think. Harry had to nudge her to her feet for the dismissal, the
final bow and curtsy to the gathered council. The spectator's
railings were swiftly disassembled by assorted Briganti and
bystanders, and the crowd spread to fill the room with bodies and
loud conversation.

"I suggest--" Grey Carteret
stepped off the dais to join his wife as he spoke, "that you make a
preemptive strike and go lay claim to the magister's office
immediately, before anything important is carried off."

"Excellent idea." Harry
signaled to a couple of the nearest Briganti--Norwood was again one
of them--and used them to clear a path out of the chamber,
practically dragging Elinor along behind him.

When had she lost control
of her life? She didn't know how to stop the landslide--that was
mostly Harry--now that it had started sliding down what appeared a
very steep slope, knocking over all the trees in the
way.

The other magisters came
along too, with their spouses and a few hangers-on from the
international set visiting London. It made for quite a procession
through the halls of power.

The wizard's guild office
in the council building was a small adjunct of the offices in the
guild hall, a building not far from Covent Garden.

"'Ere we go," Harry said,
thumping a heavy ledger on the desk in the wizards' council office.
The ledger itself gave off a tiny poof of dust, but the council's
charwomen kept the desk and its surrounds clean. Cranshaw's desk
was disturbingly well-ordered, Elinor thought, the blotter
perfectly aligned, a single paper centered upon it, with pens
arranged in rigid rows beside the ink bottle.

"Your list of wizards."
Harry nudged her, opening the enormous book. It was fully as tall
and wide as the ancient Book of Wizardry, though not as
thick.

"We already know who all
the wizards are," Elinor said. "There are only twelve."

"Thirteen.
You're
not in here, are
ya?" He raised an eyebrow at her. Amanusa handed her a pen and
Pearl opened the ink bottle.

Oh.
Elinor took the pen, dipped it, and wrote her name in the next
section under...Simon Little, apprentice. The only wizardry student
in the academy. "Should I write in the rest?" she asked the crowd.
"It doesn't feel right to be proclaiming myself master
wizard."

"I shall write it." Tonio
Rosato pushed into the room through the crowd at the door. "Since I
am the one proclaiming you master of wizardry."

"Write it in English,
mind," Harry said with a hint of warning in his voice.

"
Si
, of course." Rosato glowered back
at him, as if insulted Harry would think so. The Italian made a
great show of adjusting his arms, flapping his coat with the
motion. He dipped the pen in the inkwell and spoke the words as he
wrote them. "Master. Wizard." Then he signed his name with swirls
and flourishes on the line for the adjudicator.

"And shall I write in the
'magister'?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at the others. "Or
is that for another magister to write in?"

"I'll do it." Harry held
his hand out for the pen.

"Oh, let me," Amanusa
teased him. Elinor thought so, anyway. "I need the practice for
filling out the sorcery ledger if it ever arrives from the
bookbinders."

"Isn't the old one still
about?" Harry asked.

"Yes, with pages so old I
daren't write on them. We'll start fresh."

The exchange gave Elinor
time to formulate her resolve. Needing time to think things through
sometimes did lead to her being swept along by events, but she
managed sooner or later to dig in her heels and slow things
down.

"I'm not entirely sure I
want to be magister," she said, laying her hand over the register
entry so no one could write in it without her approval.

"Wot? Why not?" Harry
protested, as expected. He didn't understand.

"You have to be magister,"
Amanusa said.

"Why?" Elinor frowned at
her. "As long as Nigel Cranshaw
isn't
the magister, what difference
does it make? I need to be in my stillroom, working on my potions
and ointments and spells. It takes time to come up with things like
the burn salve, or--or the wands."

The words and worries came
pouring out before Elinor could try to stop them. She wasn't sure
she wanted to. "If I'm the magister, I won't have time for the
magic. I'll have to deal with interruptions. And paperwork.
And--and
politics
."
That last bit made her nearly nauseous.

"Then wot did you challenge
Cranshaw for?" Harry propped hands on hips, coat folded back, in
his customary stance.

"Because he didn't deserve
to be magister," she retorted. "And yes, because I want to be a
master wizard and a member of the guild, which I would never be
with Cranshaw in charge. I do want to be able to get at all those
books in the library."

"An' you honestly think one
of the others would be any better than Nigel?" Harry gave her a
doubtful look.

"What about your students?"
Amanusa asked. "What about Mrs. May, or Mary Ellen and
Berthe?"

She named the women Elinor
had so far found, without actually looking, who had an aptitude for
wizardry. Valentina May was a widow who had been caught up in the
mess at Waterloo Station and had helped in the aftermath. She was
thrilled to have a way to better support her rather large family.
The other two had been brought to London as prospective sorcery
students--Mary Ellen Young from Scotland and Berthe Stroud from
Prussia--but had turned out to be better wizards.

"We've been talking," Pearl
said, who of course had come along with Grey. "Amanusa and I. We
don't think we should open a Female Magician's School. We think our
students need to attend the Magician's Council Academy, with the
apprentice conjurers and alchemists. Don't you agree that we all
need to be part of the council from the very beginning?"

"Well, yes,
but--"

Amanusa took the discussion
back from Pearl. "How do you think that is going to happen if you
let some other wizard become magister? You are the only female
master wizard. If the magister is male, how much do you think
things will change? We will go back to battering our heads against
the door."

"The change has already
begun." Elinor slipped her argument in while Amanusa took a breath.
"I am a master wizard. They can't toss me out again. The sorcery
guild has been confirmed as part of the council. They can't toss
you out either. They can't stop us from taking
apprentices."

"And how long do you think
it will take for further changes to come about?" Amanusa demanded.
"If some man is the wizard's magister?"

"Besides," Harry inserted
himself into the female debate. "The magister is the best magician
in the guild. The best alchemist, best conjurer, best sorcerer,
best wizard.
Always.
Cranshaw was head an' shoulders better'n any of the other
wizards, an' we just saw 'ow much better than him you are. Best
wizard is magister of the wizard's guild. And that's you. No way
past that."

Elinor clung to her mulish
expression, but inside, she was resigning herself to her fate.
Amanusa was right. Harry was too, but the sorcerer's argument held
more weight with Elinor. It would be utterly selfish of her to
grasp this opportunity to work master-level magic and deny it to
other women. She did want others to have the chance she had, or
better. She wanted them to have the same chance as any grubby boy
from Seven Dials.

Being magister wouldn't be
easy, or comfortable, but she had already determined to make any
necessary sacrifice to achieve her goals. She could sacrifice a
little more.

Besides, Harry had already
promised she could delegate the paperwork. If only she could
delegate the politics.

Elinor moved her hand from
the registry. "You write it, Harry," she said. "You were my master
of magic and you're the senior magister. It should be
you."

He gave her a quick look
that sent heat flashing through her as he took the pen from
Amanusa. Elinor shook it off. She didn't understand it, didn't want
to.

Harry carefully printed
"Magister" at the top of the separate qualifications section and
signed his name, without any swirls. He'd learned reading and
writing after he entered the academy at 16, so his handwriting
tended to the basic.

Elinor took the pen back
from Harry. If young Simon Little was listed, her female students
should be in the book as well. She turned the page and filled in
three of the four sections on the next, carefully writing
"apprentice" after each name.

She blotted the entries,
wiped the pen clean, and smiled up at those gathered in the office
and beyond in the hall.

"Time to celebrate." Harry
grinned at her. "Cook's laid on a big spread. Everyone's
invited."