by Tim Susman
At least, he thought he was, until Victor mentioned the discovery of demons. “It was in 1480,” he said, “and it allowed the House of Lancaster to triumph in the War of the Roses. Calatians were instrumental in the discovery.”
This piqued Kip’s curiosity. “How?” He turned to his father. “Did you know?”
Max shook his head. They all turned back to Victor, who looked put out at the attention. “I couldn’t find any more information on it,” he admitted. “I know that sorcerers began agitating for protection of Calatians in the 1500s,” he said. “And of course you would know well that you were first created in 1402.”
“We celebrate it every year.” Max did speak up then.
“Quite. I would guess that the discovery of demons coincided with the movement to protect Calatians, but I have not researched it thoroughly.”
“What else do you know?” Kip asked, leaning in, and Victor spent most of the next hour talking about the other tests: math and philosophy and grammar.
“Grammar is frightfully important, because you must speak the spells clearly and well, even if only in your head.” The boy looked at Coppy.
“We’re all accomplished at that, given how well we all speak,” Emily said.
“Cor, not ‘arf, guv.” Coppy exaggerated his accent. “I’m right precise wi’ me speech, I is indeed.”
Kip stifled a giggle. “Good thing you’re not applying.”
Adamson did not look amused. But they never heard what he would have said next, because Kip’s ears perked up then, and a moment later he got up and ran to the flap of the tent.
That voice; that high-pitched laugh. What would he be doing here? Kip didn’t want to open the tent flap, because if it was him, and Kip saw him, it would be real. And he was holding desperately on to these last few moments in which it was not.
4
Broadsided
“What is it?” Emily asked.
Max, too, had risen. Coppy had not quite heard it yet, but he knew Kip, and even Adamson and Emily felt the tension in the tent. “It’s not…?” Coppy asked.
“He may be up here with the Watch,” Max said, coming to the tent.
“Why would the Watch be up here?”
“Who?” Emily stood now, her tone more worried.
“Remember the story I told you?” Kip spoke in a tight, low tone. “Well, Farley Broadside graduated with us this spring.”
“I thought you said he was two years older.”
“So he is.” Max had his eyes locked on Kip’s.
“And,” Kip said, “he went and joined the Watch.”
“To protect the town from miscreants like himself,” Coppy put in. His thick tail smacked a table leg, making Adamson jump.
Understanding dawned on Emily’s face. “And you think he may be up here to be a candidate.”
Kip laughed, a short, humorless bark. “Only if obtuseness is a discipline of sorcery.”
“Who is this person?” Adamson rose, surveying all of them.
“In your shipyards,” Coppy said, “with the mice and all, did you have fellows who went out of their way to step on tails? To make jokes about setting the cats on them? To crush paws, shove bodies, make life difficult?”
“Yes.” The boy’s eyes narrowed.
“Imagine all the worst ones rolled up into one, with bad breath the least of his offenses.” Coppy pointed outside. “That’d be him.”
From the way Adamson’s hand went to his collar, Kip saw the importance he placed on personal grooming, but his voice remained measured. “It is of course possible to change one’s opinion,” he said.
“Surely you’ve read the Boston papers.” Emily’s eyebrows arched. “There are more than a few who would have the Calatians live with the sorcerers permanently so that ‘good, honest humans’ need never be troubled by them.”
Kip had heard that too. “The good, honest ones aren’t the ones with the trouble. It’s easy enough to live with them,” he said. And yet Calatians went missing, not as often in New Cambridge as in London, true, but still it happened. The night of the attack, a calyx had been killed, and yet Abraham Lapelli was listed in none of the accounts of the slain. And there was Adam, who’d suffered most at a human bully’s hands—that Kip knew of. A younger squirrel kit had disappeared two years ago, and though Farley knew better than to brag or even mention it, the fact that it had happened just after Mike Warner’s family had to leave New Cambridge had linked the disappearance to Farley in Kip’s mind.
“Best to come back and sit down,” Kip’s father said to him. “There’s no use in searching for trouble that hasn’t found you yet.”
Kip moved away from the entrance, stomach tight. He was sure of the voice, and yet he hadn’t smelled or seen Farley yet, and there might be someone from Boston or New York or Philadelphia who sounded like him. Part of him wanted it not to be true, but a hot white flame inside him wanted Farley to be here, up away from the laws of the town, where Kip would be on a more even footing with him. He flexed his fingers, feeling the tingle of magic all around. If he felt a surge of magic again, even half as strong as the one he’d felt at the Tower, he could toss Farley in the air like a rag doll and let him fall.
Only he never would, he knew. Such a fantasy was best left to be a fantasy. He would be no better than Farley then, and yet the knowledge frustrated him, that by being the better person, by adhering to laws and respecting others, he was putting himself at risk—and not just himself, but any other Calatians Farley might come in contact with. His eyes swept the tent, covering his father and Coppy. At least Coppy would still be able to protect his father and the shop. Farley had tried several times to break windows or otherwise vandalize Calatian homes.
Once he’d sat down, they resumed their conversation, but it was not for very long. A disturbance at the entrance turned all their heads, and when a pair of hands wrestled with the tent flap, the tension in Kip’s stomach tightened. A moment later, the smell reached him, and then there was no longer any doubt whose leering face he would see when the hands finally found the rope latch holding the tent flap closed.
“Ah, there it is,” Farley Broadside said. “Knew I smelled some shitting pelts around here somewhere.”
The stout boy had grown into a stout young man, though the pockmarks of youth still dotted his cheeks and forehead. His thick neck was easy to miss even when his shoulders were down as his chin seemed to disappear behind the high collar of the wool jacket of the Watch. His small eyes had not grown with the rest of him; they looked out from behind bulwarks of flesh and strands of wet hair at the five people in the tent. “You,” he pointed at Kip, “you’re to get your things. You’re leaving.”
Max stood. “By what authority?”
Kip stood too, and so did Coppy and Emily. After a moment, Victor got fluidly to his feet to join them. Farley faced them, a flush rising in his cheeks. He tapped the symbol of the Watch sewn onto his jacket and spoke in a loud, slow voice. “This here means I have aw-thor-eye-tee in the town.”
“Not in the College,” Kip said.
“We’ll see about that, won’t we?” A grin spread on his face, and it was not a pleasant grin. Kip did not think Farley capable of grinning a pleasant grin.
“I’ve been accepted as a candidate, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” the fox said quietly.
“Oh, Sheriff Winters might have a thing or two t’say about that. But you stay if you like.” His hand went to his waist, grasped the handle of a solid wooden club. “I’d be happy enough to take you down by force.”
“You won’t take anyone anywhere,” Coppy said, but Max acted while the otter spoke, walking toward Farley with such determination that the young man stumbled back two steps, crying out, and fell against the tent entrance. It gave way, leaving him flailing outside to regain his balance as Max strode by him, all with at least a foot of space between Farley and the older fox.
Kip hurried after his father, and the others followed him. Max stalked around t
he castle, tail curled around his leg, ears flat, as angry as Kip could remember seeing him. This time, he barely even noticed the Tower’s arched entrance; he did not look away from his father’s back.
Emily caught up to him. “What’s he going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Kip stared ahead. “I don’t want him to get in trouble for me.”
“If the sorcerers admitted you, the Watch can’t make you leave. Can they?”
That was what Kip had been asking himself, and although the sensible part of his mind thought the answer would be no, the bruised part that had catalogued the grievances against his kind over the years whispered that of course they could, they could do anything they wanted, that Calatians might be people in the eye of the Church, but they weren’t real people, were they?
They rounded the corner of the Tower. Three figures stood near the path by the Admission tent. Kip recognized Master Patris by his white mane, Master Argent by his face, and Sheriff Winters by his buckskin vest and the rifle slung over his shoulder. Winters, facing away from them, said something Kip didn’t hear, and then Patris boomed out, “And what, may I ask, does that have to do with my College?”
Max halted just beyond the dining tent. Kip and Emily caught up with him, and he held up a paw to stop their progress. Master Argent turned briefly toward them, and though he did not move or nod, his acknowledgment gave them at least a small reassurance.
Coppy and Victor hurried up. “What’s going on?” Coppy asked in a low voice.
“Not sure,” Kip hissed back. “But Patris isn’t pleased.”
“You’d think he’d be pleased enough to be gettin’ rid of us.”
“Aye,” Kip said, and then shushed the otter, for Argent was speaking.
“The College has always operated with the town’s best interests in mind,” the young sorcerer said, “and has expected that the town would do the same. Never do we make unreasonable demands of New Cambridge, not even in our hour of need—”
Winters interrupted him then, too low for even Kip to hear, and Argent nodded. “The gesture was understood and welcomed. But this demand from the town—”
Again, an interruption. Again, an acknowledging nod, but curter. “No, it comes phrased as a request but it is unquestionably a demand. We understand that these are important matters to be weighed, and you may trust that the College is aware of the decision it faces.”
“And we need no help from farmers and carpenters,” Patris snapped.
Farley had come up behind them, and laughed harshly. “Pelt-lovin’ sorcerers might not be too happy, but the law is the law.”
Victor turned. “I believe in this case you may be mistaken,” he said in a soft voice.
“You a pelt-lover too?” Farley sneered.
“I’m a believer in taking advantage of opportunities,” Victor said. “And this antagonism is an oversight on your part.”
“Oh, you don’t half talk fancy. Go back to your pelts, you love ’em so much.”
“Listen,” Victor said, and then Kip lost that conversation as they moved away and Patris raised his voice.
“You may go back and tell the town that we will accept whatever candidates we deem worthy, and that if they wish a voice in our selections, they must procure for themselves an education in the magical arts, come and join the college as sorcerers, and apply themselves to our admissions process. Failing that, they may go about their lives quite contentedly at the bottom of the hill, and I shall not be sorry if I hear no more from them while I continue to be the sole authority at this College.”
Kip and his father both strained their ears forward into the silence, and now Sheriff Winters’ reply came audibly to them. “I thank you for your time,” he said, “and I’ll be on my way, then, as soon as I recover my associate.”
It might have been Kip’s imagination, but the Sheriff did not sound disappointed in the least. He turned, and Patris with him, and they saw the small knot of watchers for the first time. Even at the distance of fifty feet or so, Kip saw Patris’s face twist, a moment before the sorcerer turned and stomped toward the gates of the College. It had clearly been difficult for him, turning down a chance to evict the Calatian from his grounds, but something more precious to him must have been at stake.
Winters raised a hand in greeting and came their way. Max’s ears remained down, but he greeted the Sheriff cordially. “Marshall.”
“Max.” He turned and nodded to the others, and tipped his hat. “Boys. Ma’am.”
They regarded each other, and then Kip’s father broke the silence. “What is all this, Marshall?”
The Sheriff shook his head. “Best not to stir up more trouble. I was asked to come here and make a request of the College, and—”
“Asked by whom?” Max demanded.
“Never mind that. I’ve made it and can return with my reply.” He looked past them. “Broadside!” he called. “Come on, we’re going.”
Farley and Victor were deep in conversation. At Winters’ shout, Farley turned and grinned, though he was looking at Kip when he did. “You go on, Sheriff,” he said. “I’m gonna stay here an’ apply.”
Kip had been feeling relief, even gratitude toward the sheriff, who had long been friendly to his family. The relief evaporated in a breath, and he clenched his fists against the roiling in his gut. “He can’t,” he barked before thinking.
“Oh, I can.” Farley looked cheerful. “If an animal and a girl can, then surely there’s room for an honest man of the Watch.”
“There is,” Kip said, “but I don’t see one here.”
“I could’ve been a carpenter, not stuck on some filthy farm—”
“I had nothing to do with his family losing their store,” Kip told Victor. “Nor did any Calatian. His father died in the war.”
“And the town put the store up to auction, and who bought it? Was it humans, who had always owned that store?”
Kip shook his head and turned to the sheriff. “Can’t you—”
Farley stepped toward them, and Kip recoiled. “Sheriff,” Farley said. “When I’m admitted, I’ll have to relinquish my duties.”
This, too, did not seem to upset Winters. “Good luck to you,” he said, and raised a hand. “But you’ll tell your mother yourself. I’m not knocking on her door with this news.”
Farley blew a raspberry, though whether at the sheriff or at his absent mother Kip could not tell. They stood aside as the boy followed Master Argent into the admissions tent, and then the sheriff made to leave.
“You have to stop him.” Kip grabbed the sheriff’s sleeve and hissed at him in a low voice.
The sheriff’s weathered face remained impassive. “Now, I was just told I can’t stop you from applying here. How am I to stop him?”
“He reports to you! You could…or his mother could…”
Kip let go of the sleeve, desperation ebbing in the face of the sheriff’s stolid demeanor. “All right,” he said, lowering his voice. “But you imagine him with sorcerous powers and then tell me how you’ll sleep at night.”
At that, Winters did grin briefly. “Next to my wife,” he said, tipping his hat. And he lowered his voice as well. “If you ask me, Broadside’s got about as much magical talent as that pile of rocks there. He may be a candidate, might even be accepted as a student, but he won’t be flinging rocks with aught but his arm.”
Kip was not reassured by the sheriff comparing Farley to the Tower. “That’s bad enough.”
“Aye, perhaps, but he’s your problem now. No, put those ears up. He’ll be back at his mother’s farm before you know it, and she perhaps not even the wiser for it, if he fails quickly.”
“Your lips to God’s ear.” Kip stepped back. “Good day, Sheriff.”
“Kip, Max.” He tipped his hat again, and adjusted the rifle. “And the rest of you. Best of luck.”
“Luck.” Kip watched his back as he retreated, unwilling to turn around and see Farley’s smirk. “We’ll need that, all right.”
> On their way back to the practice tent, they questioned Victor about what he’d said to Farley, and he protested that he’d only told the boy that Kip seemed quite dedicated to pursuing sorcery, and that perhaps Farley should reconsider his assessment of him.
“There’s where you went wrong,” Coppy said. “Words over three syllables. He probably thought you meant he should join up too.”
“It was all his idea,” Adamson insisted. “After the antipathy you demonstrated toward him, why would I encourage him to remain?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Kip had been feeling queasy ever since Farley’s announcement. “He’s not magical. He’ll be gone soon.”
“Speaking of being gone soon,” Max said as they passed the great wooden doors of the tower, “We should also take our leave, Coppy.”
“This soon?” Kip squinted into the afternoon sun.
“You’ve your new friends to talk to, and we’ve a perfume store to return to.” Kip’s father grinned wryly. “I only hope young Johnny hasn’t broken half the stock, or sold it for a handful of beans.”
“Ah, a perfume store.” Emily smiled. “That explains why Kip was retrieving vials, and why you all smell so pleasant. I suppose that your nature gives you an advantage in your work.”
“They’re dabs at the scent business,” Coppy said. “Even got their own words for some of the smells. My favorite’s ‘
“Coppy.” Kip folded his ears down, trying to sound reproving.
The otter spread his paws with a smile. “It sounds so cheerful.”
“‘Storf’?” Emily’s pronunciation was not bad, for a human. “What’s it mean?”
Max and Kip looked at each other. “Er,” Max said, “It’s rather unpleasant.”
“I lived with a lawyer for years,” Emily said. “I’ve heard most of life’s unpleasantries.”