True Magics (36 page)

Instead, he picked up his dagger from his belt, knelt by the wall and very carefully pried at a section of the baseboard. It scraped a bit, but slid easily away from the wall.

Thomas reached into the hole in the wall and pulled out the four packages he’d placed there when Henry had first rented the apartment. He had not touched them since.

The more fool me
. Inside the packages were the three large books he’d taken from Bishop Malloy and the small one he’d stolen from the Academy’s Theology library. He put Bishop Malloy’s books back and pushed the baseboard back into place.

Thomas crawled into bed and unwrapped the small book. It was filled with magic—real magic that worked. Every page glowed with it, though only Thomas could see. He leafed through it, wondering which spells he could cast easily and quickly if he were attacked.
I should never have stopped studying,
Thomas thought.
I should have been ready for them. I should have stopped them.

The part of his brain that was slightly more awake reminded him that he hadn’t been anywhere near his friends at the time of the kidnapping and wouldn’t have been able to help anyway.

And what did Father Alphonse mean that Eileen and I are symptoms of the problem?

The thought strayed in and out of his head, as he read until he fell asleep with the book on his chest.

21

“You missed class yesterday,” said Sir Walter as soon as Thomas entered the fencing hall the next morning.

“I apologize, Sir Walter,” said Thomas as he hung up his coat and cloak. “After the raid we had to get the students to safety and by that time—”

“
Never
miss class,” said Sir Walter. “Not without sending word. Not even if your activities have kept you up all night. How many did you kill?”

“None,” said Thomas.

“Fortunate. Did you wear masks?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Tell me everything, from the moment you left here to this moment now.”

Thomas recounted the midnight raid, the early morning confrontation with the Inquisitor, the return to the Academy and the fallout from it.

“Very good report,” said Sir Walter. “And when does the Academy’s campaign against the preachers begin?”

“Today,” said Thomas. “The complaint against the Church should be lodged tomorrow.”

“Not sure what good it will do,” said Sir Walter.

Thomas hesitated. “The speech the Headmaster gave. It didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Charles or the others. It was as if he’d already written it.”

“He had,” said Sir Walter. “The king gave him orders to rouse the Academy two days ago. He wants to counteract the preachers without actually running them off the streets. How long before the first incidents, do you think?”

By the Four, I hadn’t thought of that.
“I don’t know. The Headmaster has control right now but…”

“And the magicians? How soon can you find out who they are?”

Thomas shook his head. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen Robert since the meeting. The other magicians won’t trust me without seeing my magic first. Can I show them?”

“No.”

By the Four…
“Can I tell Robert it’s for the king? Maybe that will work.”

“You can’t mention the king,” said Sir Walter. “Not yet.”

“Then what?” asked Thomas, exasperated. “If I can’t tell them I’m a magician, and I can’t tell them the king wants them, how am I supposed to get their trust?”

“You aren’t,” said Sir Walter. “You’re supposed to find out who they are.”

Thomas sighed. “All right. I’ll…” He thought about it, and then thought about it some more. “I’ll give Robert another spell to learn. If I do that he might tell the others and then I can follow them and find out who they are.”

“Do that,” said Sir Walter. “And now, let’s see how well you can use your fists.”

Thomas groaned and stepped forward.

An hour and a half later, Thomas, Henry and Eileen walked through the market square on their way to the Academy. The preacher was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Graham was standing on the box, his low, impressive voice rolling out over his audience. Six armed students stood around him.

“We are not mythical creatures,” he was saying. “Though it may certainly be said that we are strange!” The small crowd—much smaller than the one that usually gathered around the preacher, chuckled. “And we have a reputation that we have, sadly, earned. We drink, sometimes to excess. We eat as well as we can whenever we can, and yes, we have been known to engage in the pursuit of lovely young women.” He smiled at a pair of maids in the audience and got a tongue stuck out at him for his efforts. “To that I can only say that we are young men, and have the foibles of young men! But we are also something more.

“We are scholars! And we are the king’s men!

“It is with great dismay that we have listened to the words of these men who stand in the squares and claim to speak for the High Father’s Church. We have heard them again and again, insulting our king, insulting our Academy, and insulting you! And why?

“I have lived in this city all my life. I know the people who live here and I say you are good people! I say that our king is a good king! I say that no one in this city practices witchcraft and I defy those preachers to prove otherwise!”

“He’s doing well,” said Henry.

“He is,” agreed Thomas. He went up to one of the students standing guard. “Where’s the preacher?”

“Delayed,” was the answer. “We had a bunch of Theology students surround him and demand to know under what basis he is making his claims against the king, the Academy and the women of the city. We told them to take about an hour.”

“Clever,” said Thomas. “Good luck.”

The student smiled. “So far, so good.”

When they reached the Academy, they found new posters covering the walls around the gate. One showed students buying food and drink, and read “We spend our money in Hawksmouth.” Another showed two students kneeling before the king with “We serve the king” written in large letters above it. Thomas’s favourite was the one that read, “We help!” and showed two students protecting an old woman from a robber—something which had actually happened, if Thomas remembered correctly. There were twenty students going down the length of the wall, putting up their posters. Thomas figured the Church posters would be covered by the end of the morning.

Everyone in sight was armed. Those who could afford them wore swords. The others carried staves or daggers. Four students with staves guarded the gate.

“Nice start,” said Henry. “Hope it makes a difference.”

“It should,” said Thomas. “At least it should get some attention.”

It was strange to be in classes with everybody armed. There were some difficulties at first finding the right way to keep one’s weapons in place while sitting at a table or in a desk. By noon most had figured it out, and the Academy had settled into something only slightly off its normal rhythms.

“It’s been odd,” Eileen was saying. “The boys didn’t heckle me every time I talked, and even the professor of Mathematics let me sit in his class.”

“That is impressive,” said Henry. “Now that the petition is in, there’s nothing they can do but wait, so I imagine they’re saving their energy.”

“It was so quiet,” said Eileen. “It was wonderful.”

“That must have been a relief,” said Henry. “What about you, Thomas?”

“I’ve been thinking,” said Thomas. “Father Alphonse called us—Eileen and me— symptoms.”

“Symptoms of what?” asked Eileen.

“He didn’t say. But remember at my apartment when he said that abandoning me was what kings of Criethe do in times like these?”

“He was trying to rattle you,” said Henry.

“I know,” said Thomas. “But what times like these?”

“I assume he meant the last war,” said Henry.

“I did too, and I’ve been looking, but there’s nothing in the histories.”

Henry looked thoughtful. “The last major conflict
was
between the churches, not between Church and State.”

“I’ve already looked at that,” said Thomas. “King Darren III is supposedly responsible for a flowering of the High Father’s Church.”

“King Darren III?” asked Eileen. “The one who kicked women out of the Academy?”

“Yes,” said Thomas.
And the preachers are preaching against women.
“But the histories only say that he declared the other churches banned and brought peace to the kingdom again. They didn’t say anything about him being involved.”

“They wouldn’t if he lost,” said Eileen. “I mean, if I was king and I’d lost, I’d change the histories.”

“Very good,” said Henry. “We’ll make a scheming noble out of you yet.”

Eileen shuddered. “Don’t even joke.”

“So how do we find out what’s going on?” asked Thomas.

Henry thought about it. “Decrees.”

“What?”

“The academy keeps a record of all royal decrees, separate from the histories. Those won’t have been rewritten. East end of the fourth floor.”

Thomas frowned at Henry. “You never study. How do you know this?”

“You never see me study,” Henry corrected. “The Royal laws shelves have complete copies of all declarations, decrees and laws since the Academy started. Shall we look?”

The library was mostly empty and quiet when they arrived. Henry led them up the winding stone staircases to the fourth floor. There were few windows on the higher levels of the library, and they did not let in much light. The fourth floor was grey and empty and quiet. Henry pointed to the shelves.

That,
thought Thomas,
is a lot of decrees
.

There were shelves and shelves of them, dating back 350 years. Thomas could
smell
the age of the books—dust and old leather and mould filling his nose. The books themselves were in relatively good condition.
Probably because almost no one reads them.

He walked down the shelf, fingers running over the spines until he found “King Darren III” etched into one of the books. He nearly smiled until he saw the other nine sitting beside it. He sighed and started passing books to Eileen and Henry.

“How many decrees did the man write?” Eileen complained as they hauled the volumes off of the shelves and took them to the tables in the centre of the hall.

“Too many,” said Thomas. “Three each and whoever gets done first gets to look through the fourth.”

“Could be worse,” said Henry. “Could be precedent cases. Those are awful.”

“Why exactly are you becoming a lawyer?”

“Because it beats being a captain in my father’s army,” said Henry. “Brother’s army, now, I suppose. Right, let’s see what Darren III actually did.”

They skimmed through the volumes. The man had passed laws on everything from clothing one was allowed to wear, to the cost of wheat. More than anything, though, Thomas saw proclamations calling for soldiers, and raising taxes for arms, and calling for the strengthening of defences of the kingdom. By the end of a half-hour, he was certain. “He
was
in the war. By the time he got to the…” he flipped to the front of the volume, “sixth year of his reign, he’s constantly calling for soldiers, money, and demanding the nobles strengthen their fortifications. Which book are you looking at?”

Eileen looked. “Eleventh year of his reign. Henry, what do you have?”

“First year,” said Henry. “Lots of the usual beginning of reign silliness, and an incident of stripping away Church lands for the crown.”

“Interesting,” said Thomas. “High Father’s lands?”

“Aye. Seems they owned a small patch on the coast that Darren wanted for himself.” He looked closer. “Looks like the place where Bishop Malloy had his summer house.”

“The ones here are about women,” said Eileen. “He seems to have been far too interested in how they lived their lives.”

Thomas thought about it. “Go back. Let me know when he first started doing that.”

Eileen put down the book she was reading and picked up an earlier one and skimmed through it. “Here! Look at this. Tenth year of his reign. King Darren III proclaims the supremacy of the Church of the High Father and declares that all other gods are but subjects of the High Father.”

“Very interesting,” said Henry. “Because in year three and he issued a proclamation outlawing the High Father’s services and declaring the supremacy of the Mother.”

“He was a Mother worshipper?” Thomas put down his book and skimmed back through the fourth-year volume. “The first call for troops happened midway through the fourth year.”

“To fight against the High Father, you think?”

“He was at war for nearly seven years, then,” said Eileen.

“And it’s never mentioned,” said Henry. “Very odd.”

“Here!” said Eileen. “End of the tenth year. Look.”