A Scholar of Magics

by Caroline Stevermer

  Bridgewater sobered. “I think there is more to magic than any one person can ever live long enough to understand. The wise men of Glasscastle have been studying it for centuries. Their efforts do them credit, but how can they truly teach what mankind understands so little?”

  “They understand more than anyone else does,” Lambert said.

  “Pygmies placed on the shoulders of giants see more than the giants themselves. Left to themselves, how far might giants see?” Bridgewater’s faint smile was back. “I’m sorry. You must not tempt me to ride my private hobby horse when we have a witch of Greenlaw unaccounted for.”

  Lambert brought himself back to the point. “Right. So we’re up against someone who can overcome Jane’s kind of power and formal straining. The police may be able to help locate her, but I don’t think that’s going to be good enough.”

  Bridgewater frowned. “You say the authorities at Glasscastle are aware of the situation?”

  “They know Fell has disappeared. They haven’t heard from Robert Brailsford at the time I left, but they didn’t seem to find that as alarming as I do.”

  “What influence I have with them is at your disposal. I’ll send a wire at once.” Bridgewater moved to a worktable and took up a pen.

  “Thank you.” Lambert rose. “I appreciate all your help, but in the meantime, I need to do something. At least let me start hunting for asylums.”

  “I understand.” Bridgewater thought for a moment. “You might start with Dr. Hanberry. He’s the best medical man here in Ludlow. Meanwhile, you know where to find me. Keep me informed. If nothing else, I can act as liaison with the authorities.”

  “Well, if you can get the authorities to handle this properly, I’ll tip my hat to you.”

  “Speaking of hats,” said Bridgewater, “I’ll ring for Foster. You’ll want to be on your way.”

  “That’s right.” Lambert shook hands with Bridgewater. “Thank you for everything.”

  “My dear boy, when a man who shoots the way you do asks me for a favor, I make it a rule to oblige him.” Bridgewater accompanied Lambert to the door as the servant arrived. “Mr. Lambert needs his hat, Foster. Show him out when he’s ready. Oh, and let it be known that he is to have any assistance he requires. Understood?” To Lambert, he said, “Remember, keep me informed.”

  “I will. Thanks.”

  Back in the streets of Ludlow, Lambert found his way to the red brick building that held the office of the best medical man in Ludlow.

  “If I may ask, why do you wish to see Dr. Hanberry?” the young man who booked the physician’s appointments asked. His expression suggested anyone suffering from a measly insect sting could just take himself off and stop wasting important people’s time.

  Lambert opted for honesty. “I want to ask him about insane asylums. I was told he was the best man to consult locally. Where would he send a patient of his? Is there a place hereabouts?”

  Warily the young man eyed Lambert over his pince-nez. “Is this question a personal one? That is, are you interested on your own behalf?”

  “I’m asking on behalf of a relation of mine,” Lambert said in as reassuring a tone as he could manage.

  “There’s no need to trouble the doctor. He sends his patients, on the extremely rare occasions when he must,” added the young man, looking down his nose as well as over the neat little optical contraption clamped to it, “to St. Hubert’s. It’s a very exclusive institution.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Lambert agreed. “I suppose Dr. Hanberry must be very important, to get his patients admitted there just on his say-so. I’m sure you’re a big help to him.”

  The young man found nothing odd in Lambert’s clumsy flattery. “It is an excellent facility. As such, it is in great demand. I wouldn’t count on admission there. Not without a referral from a qualified practitioner.” His tone made it clear that the likes of Lambert, no matter how violently insane, would never be admitted there, no, not while there was breath in his body.

  “I’m sure only the most select madmen are admitted.” Lambert took his leave and stepped out into Broad Street with a light heart. He had a place to start. Find that very exclusive madhouse, St. Hubert’s, and he could make a start on the hunt for Jane.

  St. Hubert’s, Lambert discovered, after consulting his two-penny booklet and asking a few questions at the pub where he was staying, had begun life as a priory. Monks searching for a safe place to pray had built a Gothic masterpiece on a hill among greater hills, an island of serenity in the wilderness, a holy grove blessed with a holy well. Over the centuries, the priory had been worn down like a bar of soap until there was nothing left but picturesque ruins. One hundred years ago, it had enjoyed a renaissance when the spa craze drove investors in search of ever more therapeutic waters. The holy well had inspired a massive building intended to house the sick who would come to drink the healing waters. The trustees would have done better to bottle the water and ship it to the sick, so few wealthy invalids came to stay. In three years, the despairing investors had sold the place to a company that enclosed the grounds securely and turned the imposing structure into an asylum for the mad.

  St. Hubert’s hadn’t been a fashionable facility for long, just since the 1880s, when a pair of London physicians had taken it over and invested a great deal of money in what amounted to home comforts. Since the modernization, the place had become so exclusive that hardly anyone remembered it was there at all. Lambert was able to get directions from his host at the pub. His route lay across the Teme and southwest among the wooded hills, to what amounted to a fortress in a forest.

  As part of the modernization of the priory, a substantial stone wall had been constructed around the grounds. The only gate, a monumental affair of mock-Gothic ironwork, was posted No Admittance. To judge from the size of the sign, the height of the gate, and the sharpness of the spikes atop it, the owners meant business.

  A court order would open those gates, Lambert knew, but court orders, even when the Earl of Bridgewater was asking for one, took time. Lambert couldn’t wait for a court order. He didn’t want to take the time to argue about waiting for court orders, either. So he’d put everything he knew in writing, addressed the letter to the Earl of Bridgewater, and sent it from the pub to the castle by way of his host’s young son.

  Lambert climbed over the wall at a secluded spot, and dropped down into the wood on the other side. The landing thumped the Colt Peacemaker against his ribs. Lambert tucked the weapon away more securely and for a full minute stood motionless, watching and listening with every sense strained.

  He was in a well-kept woodland, the earth under his feet soft and yielding with a cushion of long-fallen leaves. The place smelled good, a cool amalgam of leaves and earth. It felt good. Lambert didn’t trust that feeling. Overhead the trees interlaced their branches in arches that made a tapestry of leaves against the sky. Beyond the tree branches, the sky was pearly, a high overcast taking on the mutable tints of the failing daylight.

  There was underbrush, but not enough to make walking difficult. Grazing animals probably kept the worst of the scrub down. Lambert told himself he’d know what kind of animal soon enough. From where he stood he could see oak and ash trees. The breeze was so slight only the very top branches were stirring, so no rustle of leaves mixed with the intermittent birdsong. The soundless motion of the branches far overhead added to Larribert’s faint sense of uneasiness.

  Lambert reminded himself that if this place were like the greens of Glasscastle, any trespassing spell would have acted the moment he dropped down off the wall. Since nothing had happened, he was safe to proceed. Probably. Lambert took a tentative step away from the wall. Still nothing happened. He walked as quietly as he could but every step seemed loud in the silence. If he kept going uphill, leaving the wall behind and keeping the setting sun to his right, he should be walking south toward the priory. The wood was thick enough to shut out the long view in every direction. After fifty yards, when he looked back the way h
e’d come, he couldn’t even see the wall.

  For the first time since Lambert had come to England, he had the feeling of unbounded wildness, limitless space given up to nature. But for the grazing (done by deer, Lambert surmised from the droppings he found as he walked), the place looked as it might have centuries before. The monks of St. Hubert’s might have walked in this very place. If they had, Lambert wished they’d made more of an effort to leave a path.

  It took Lambert a long time to be sure that he’d walked too far. The slope of the hillside had changed slightly. The angle of light through the trees had sharpened as the sun dropped. But there was no priory. There wasn’t even the wall on the far side of the wood. There was just the wood. It couldn’t go on indefinitely. It couldn’t stretch for miles. But that was how it seemed.

  Lambert arrived at a clearing where the oak and ash trees drew back enough to give him a good view of the sky. Here and there at the edge of the open space were beech trees, silvery columns among the gloom. The sun was gone and dusk was going. He wouldn’t have even the fading twilight much longer. But if he had his distances and directions right, he should have reached the far wall long since. Lambert glanced around the clearing, half hoping his bearings had been wrong and that he’d been walking in circles. He brought out his compass and what it told him made the nape of his neck bristle. Either he had gone mad, or the laws of nature had been suspended. No matter which way he held the little device, the needle pointed exactly toward the N for north.

  Beyond one of the beech trees, from the deepest shade, came the sound of footsteps, more than one pair, shuffling through the long grass. An asylum guard? An inmate of the asylum? Lambert retreated, finding a beech tree of his own to stand behind as the footsteps approached. Motionless, he leaned against the smooth bark to watch and wait.

  Two men walked into the clearing. They were young, so young that they looked unaccustomed to the formal suits they wore. Something about the way they walked out of the woods as if they owned them told Lambert that these were young men of privilege. Something about the way they carried themselves was oddly familiar. Their trousers were cut with the slight fullness that undergraduates of Glasscastle affected. Their straw boaters were appropriate to the season for students of Glasscastle.

  The taller spoke to his companion and his accent and inflection convinced Lambert that he was observing two Glasscastle undergraduates in the wild. Lambert recognized them, belatedly, as Herrick and Williams, the string bean and the potato who had come to search for Fell in his quarters at Holythorn two nights before.

  String bean said, “Season of mists and mellow frightfulness, that’s what. Here we are again, dash it.”

  Potato didn’t seem bothered. “All right. I’ll give you that one. Your turn to pick a direction.”

  “Thanks very much. There’s only the one direction left. We’ve tried east, west, and south.”

  “North it is, then. Since up and down would be impractical.”

  As they approached, Lambert stepped noiselessly out into their path. “Excuse me. Can you tell me if I’m too late for visiting hours?”

  Both young men maintained their placid demeanor but Lambert read the sudden improvement of their posture as a sign of their surprise.

  “Oh, I should think so,” said Herrick the string bean, with an involuntary glance over his shoulder.

  “We were just leaving,” said the potato Williams.

  “Not inmates, then?” Lambert inquired mildly. He wondered how long it would take the young vegetables to remember that they had met him before. “I thought you might be.”

  “We’re not,” said Williams. He started off eastward but looked back when he noticed his companion was still staring at Lambert.

  “I know you, don’t I?” Herrick asked. “You’re the American. You live with Sabidius—I mean, Mr. Fell. Have you found him yet?”

  “Not yet. Have you?”

  “What are you doing here?” demanded Herrick. “Who brought you? Lambert, that’s your name, isn’t it? What’s your game? Who sent you here?”

  “No one.” Lambert said placidly. “I brought myself.”

  “Now, now. Let’s not ask questions we’d rather not answer ourselves,” Williams said to his companion. To Lambert, he added, “You’ll forgive us, I hope, for using noms de guerre. It’s highly illegal of us to be out of bounds, even between terms, so we’d rather not use our real names. On the whole, we’d rather you forgot you ever met us. But since that doesn’t seem likely, we would be obliged if you would call me Polydore and my curious friend here Cadwal. For all practical purposes. We’ll have to deal with the impractical purposes as we come to them.” Williams the potato, who wished to be known as Polydore, held out his hand and Lambert shook it. Herrick, now Cadwal the string bean, followed suit and for a moment the three young men inspected each other suspiciously.

  “I’m here Because I’m interested in St. Hubert’s,” Lambert said. “Just another American eager to see the Old World firsthand, that’s me. Now it’s your turn. What are you two doing here?”

  “We’re here because we can’t find the way out.” Polydore’s frankness was engaging. “We thought it would be simple to scale the wall, find our tutor, and bring him to a proper sense of his duty. That must have been yesterday. It seems as if we’ve been here about a year.”

  “We gave up on that scheme some time ago,” said Cadwal. “If Mr. Fell is here, we can’t find him. We’ve been walking back to the main gate since midday. Just at the moment, that plan isn’t looking too clever either.”

  “What makes you think Fell is here?” Lambert asked.

  “Mr. Fell to us,” said Polydore scrupulously.

  “We may not be Fellows of Wearyall yet,” said Cadwal, with patience so exaggerated it bordered on rudeness, “but we are students of Glasscastle. We have our ways.”

  “You know, I’ve been wondering. Is it the study of magic itself that gives people airs, or is having a big head a prerequisite to get into Glasscastle? Don’t bother to answer,” Lambert added hastily, as Polydore appeared to be giving the matter serious thought. “Just tell me straight. What are you up to?”

  “We came to find Mr. Fell,” said Cadwal. “We haven’t succeeded.”

  “Now we’re in retreat,” Polydore confided. “Orderly. Dignified. But retreat, definitely retreat.”

  Cadwal’s indignation rose. “Mr. Fell is our tutor. We’ve spent months writing papers for him and since January he’s ignored us completely. Bad enough this spring, when he hid from us in his study. We gave up on following protocol. Finally we beard him in his rooms and that’s when we find out he’s absconded completely. To run away is simply unacceptable. We’ve taken leave from chantry duty to track him down and bring him to his senses. Failing that, we’re going to turn him over to the proctors and have him relieved of his position.”

  “Covert leave,” Polydore added. “So we’d rather not come to official attention until we’re safely back at the university.”

  “I told you Fell was missing, possibly abducted. Where did you get the idea he has absconded?”

  “You’re his friend. We assumed you were exaggerating,” Cadwal said. “To protect him, you know.”

  “Let’s not quibble over semantics,” said Polydore. “He isn’t where he should be, doing his duties at Glasscastle.”

  “Mr. Fell is here.” Cadwal looked confident. “Somewhere.”

  “How do you figure that?” Lambert persisted.

  “We’ll share our reasoning with you,” said Polydore, “just as soon as you tell us what you’re doing here.”

  “I told you. I’m here for visiting hours.”

  “Of course you are.” Polydore became conspiratorial.

  “Who are you visiting?”

  “Mr. Fell?” suggested Cadwal.

  “For all I know, you two are running this whole show and you just told me all that bunkum about being lost to get me to trust you.”

  “Didn’t work very well
then, did it?” Polydore’s round face grew more hopeful. “You don’t have anything to eat, do you?”

  Cadwal said, “You can’t eat here, I keep telling you that. Haven’t you read anything?”

  “You ate your share of the sandwiches quickly enough,” snapped Polydore.

  “Sandwiches we brought ourselves,” Cadwal reminded him. “That’s all we can eat here. Anything else would be dangerous.”

  “Through le Forêt Salvage with Baden-Powell himself,” said Polydore gloomily. “Just my luck.”

  Lambert attempted to bring them back to the point. “Look, if you won’t tell me why you think Fell is here, at least tell me what you know about the layout of this place.”

  Cadwal produced a battered map. It was a proper hiking map with a linen backing, worn to the point of utter limpness. Lambert spared a moment’s wistful regret for one of the Minotaur’s acetylene lamps, and then lit a match.

  The grounds of St. Hubert’s priory were marked near the frayed edge of the eastern boundary of the map. Neither the dimensions of the markings nor the contours of the topographic lines corresponded to the landscape Lambert had walked through. The match went out and he folded up the map. It wasn’t worth wasting a second match on. “Something’s wrong here. The map is old. Things must have changed since the area was surveyed.”

  “Look around you,” said Cadwal. “Some of these trees have been here since Magna Carta.”

  “Longer than that,” said Polydore. “Something’s wrong, that’s certain. Only it’s not the map that’s off. It’s this place. On Saxton’s map, drawn in the sixteenth century, this place isn’t called St. Hubert’s at all. It’s called Comus Nymet. Nymet comes from nemeton, the old word for a holy grove. Does that give you an idea of how long this wood may have been here?”

  “He means a grove holy to druids,” Cadwal added.

  “Druids?” Lambert suspected he was subject to an elaborate leg-pull. He knew students of Glasscastle took their entertainment in some esoteric forms. Hoaxing the American had to be a possibility.