by Tim Susman
“Ah, ’tis nothing I’ve not done before.” Malcolm smiled and punched Kip in the arm, lightly. “And I know you meant well yesterday with that Adamson fellow.”
Kip nodded. “He’s off studying with his group today, or at least he hasn’t come to see us at all. Would you like to talk sorcery?”
Malcolm’s green eyes gleamed. “I’d welcome it, aye.”
It turned out that neither Malcolm nor Smith had any practice in sorcery, although both of them had felt an affinity for it. Smith had been rejected as an applicant in the past, but was hoping he could enroll now that the College was desperate. Malcolm’s parents had not let him apply previously because, they said, the College would never take an Irish student.
“My da says the College wanted to become more American, to have Colonial-born students, and even that they were taking some Wampanog or Mashpee to try to learn their magic.” He spread his hands. “But I thought that if they were desperate enough, they might take an Irish-born who happens to love these Colonies.”
“Their advertisement sounded desperate indeed.” Smith drew in his breath. “I’d applied to Prince Philip’s before it was destroyed and the masters said I had encouraging potential but that they had enough students.”
“If they take me, they’ll certainly take you,” Kip said, more to Malcolm than to Smith, and Coppy nodded his agreement.
“The Irish in London had a bad time of it, while I was there,” the otter said. “Most Calatian families at least had their own houses and clothing. Many of the Irish all lived together in shacks on the Thames.”
“Course, there are fewer of you.” Malcolm’s brow lowered. “What’s more, you’ve got a piece of paper from King James himself says you’re to be treated as human beings.” He paused, looking between Kip and Coppy. “We Irish got no such thing.”
In the silence that followed that remark, Kip said, “You do here,” and Malcolm’s smile came warmly back, making Kip wish that he’d insisted even harder that the Irishman accompany them the previous day.
Master Argent’s raven flew by to summon the next student before Emily had returned, so Coppy walked off, and when it came cawing Malcolm’s name, he and Kip guessed that the students, once tested, were not allowed to rejoin their fellows. They wondered whether they would be allowed to talk to the other groups once the day was complete.
Alone with Smith, Kip asked more about his previous test, but Smith gave short, clipped answers, and finally said, “Look, I’m sure you’re a fine fellow. We had Calatians come in and help the slaves with the harvest, and almost none of them stole. But you don’t belong here any more than that woman does.”
“I’m here nonetheless,” Kip said.
Smith looked away, and Kip, forcing himself to relax, stared past the Tower and longed for the raven to return so he could leave.
When it did, he followed it around to the Admissions tent, where it alit above the tent flap and regarded him with what he swore was a smirk. He bowed to it and entered the tent.
Master Windsor spoke the King’s English more dryly and properly than anyone Kip had ever heard. His deep voice filled the tent. “Be seated,” he said, and Kip obeyed. “Penfold. I understand that certain people upon this hill are of the opinion that you should be treated differently from the other candidates. I will tell you what I told Miss Carswell and Lutris: you need not seek any special favor from me.”
He was making it sound far better than it was. “No, sir,” Kip said. “I don’t want any.”
“What is of importance to me is your suitability for matriculation into this school, and should you satisfy me on that count, your ability to learn and do this school credit upon your departure from it. Now. Why do you wish to become a sorcerer?”
“To protect and serve the Empire to the best—”
“Not that formulaic drivel you wrote on your application.” The sorcerer leaned forward. “You, Phillip Penfold, why do you want to become a sorcerer?”
Kip struggled to find the words. “To learn to cast magic—to know how it works—”
Master Windsor raised his voice, a barked command that cut through Kip’s thoughts. “Why?”
“I want to cast a Great Feat!” Kip blurted out.
His ears went back immediately, and he looked down at the desk where the sorcerer’s elbows rested, waiting for the laughter. Silence. He looked up. Master Windsor leaned back and surveyed Kip with steady dark eyes. His voice lowered, smoother. “Why?”
Kip squinted. “Why? I mean—doesn’t everyone? Don’t you, sir?”
“What I wish is of no consequence here.” Master Windsor reached up, ran fingers through his hair. “But it is significant that you wish to learn sorcery for the sake of sorcery itself, rather than for revenge or personal gain. Your specific goal may be misguided, however. A Great Feat is an action shaped by history. It is a response rather than an achievement. Tell me of the Great Feats you know, and why they were worked.”
The exam had started. At least Kip felt comfortable enough here to bring his ears upright as he spoke. “The Rolling Rocks of Alesia were cast to defeat a horde of Gauls. The Queen’s Road was built to bring more British citizens from London to New York so that we could occupy lands the French wanted. And I don’t know very much about the Statues of China, except they were supposed to have stopped an uprising, I think?” He tapped his teeth together. “I don’t know why the Calatians were created either, sir.”
“Nor does anyone else.” Master Windsor gave no indication of how good Kip’s answer had been, but on the paper in front of him ink flowed into indecipherable (to Kip) characters. The sorcerer went on to the next question, about the Punic Wars and how the Roman sorcerers had broken Carthage’s famous Siege of Fire. Kip struggled with some questions, but all in all he did well in his history, only failing at one question, about the writings of Hecataeus.
“I suppose there was no reason to expect you to be any more educated than anyone else in this benighted colony,” the dour sorcerer said, as though the long-dead Hecataeus had been a personal friend of his. “Now, let us cover your languages.”
Kip demonstrated his excellent French and his capable Latin. He knew only the alphabet of the Greek language, and a few words of Spanish. After about fifteen minutes of recitals, Windsor cut him off. The ink continued to form strange words on the paper and then stopped. “You may proceed to the back of the tent,” the sorcerer said, pointing behind him.
There, Kip found Emily and Coppy sitting together on the grass, and Cobb and Malcolm sitting a little ways off, not speaking much. He hurried over to Emily and Coppy and sat with them, discussing the questions Windsor had asked. “Old Sourpuss, he is,” Coppy said. “Puts me in mind of this sorcerer used to come down to the Isle and pick up his calyx like we was a prostitute’s underthings.”
“He said we weren’t to get special treatment.” Kip was the only one who had thought that encouraging. Both Emily and Coppy thought that Windsor had been over-reacting to their difference and might single them out for punishment to prove that he was even-handed. Kip could not convince them otherwise, and he didn’t himself know why he believed the sorcerer genuinely meant what he said.
“We both did rather well on the history part, anyway,” Emily said. “Oddest history exam I’ve ever sat for, though. He was all interested in the causes of things, not when they happened.”
“Good job we studied together.” Coppy patted Kip’s leg. “I remembered quite a lot.”
“You learned most of that yourself in London.” The fox turned to Emily. “Coppy’s mum took books from the trash behind schoolhouses and brought them home so her cubs could have a good education.”
“She swatted our backsides if we didn’t learn.” Coppy grinned and slapped his tail against the grass. “And we weren’t allowed to scavenge the Thames if we failed a lesson.”
“Was she a teacher?”
The otter slowed his tail. “Aye. She taught lots of us, but others said they didn’t understand w
hy a Calatian would need an education, when we’d be bound to be calyxes if we were lucky, and shipworkers or rope-walkers otherwise, and in any case there’d be no call for reading or learning.”
“Rather short-sighted, I’d say.” Emily folded her arms. “Of course, Boston society women say the same thing about young girls. ‘You’ll be married or working a loom, and neither one of those requires you to read.’ It’s ridiculous. Abigail Adams is one of the best writers I know, and if she’d not gotten an education, I’d never have been able to read her work.”
“Father would’ve never allowed me not to go to school.” Kip had tried once or twice to quit, intimidated by the crowd of large human boys. Max had said that an education was worth one or two broken arms, and Kip supposed he’d been right even if the number of broken bones had risen so much that he could no longer pinpoint it exactly.
“Good for all of us, then.” Coppy looked around and grinned. “Suppose we get Math tomorrow, or Magic?”
It was to be math, they learned at dinner, where they also learned the answer to Kip and Malcolm’s speculation about the disposition of the groups. Everyone sat at the same tables, but could only hear the conversation within their group. Even Kip’s ears, fully perked, caught nothing but silence from anywhere else in the tent. Adamson had approached them and attempted to talk, but whatever barrier had been placed between the groups had also been placed around their members, and all Kip saw was the young man’s mouth moving. Adamson tried to make signs with his hands, and then a very peculiar expression came over his face and he stopped immediately.
After Adamson walked back over to his group, Kip watched Farley to see if he looked in any way discouraged by the exams. It had taken him three years to pass the examination to graduate from school, but he did not seem particularly worried; he smiled and laughed with the plump boy in the black jacket, while Adamson kept his smooth, glassy smile throughout. They paid little attention to the other groups.
Within the group, though, they could talk and compare notes. Smith and Cobb sat a little ways apart, and although Malcolm initially joined them, he moved over to sit with Kip, Coppy, and Emily before too long.
“So pleased you could join us,” Emily said.
“Ah, that lot’s rather boring. After a while you know what they’re going to say next. Me ma used to say a conversation should be like a spring breeze, flying wherever the mood takes it, or else where’s the point in talking? Those two talk with all the excitement of a spilled inkwell.”
“I’m glad you find us so diverting.” She turned back to Coppy and asked him another mathematics question.
Malcolm raised his eyebrows at Kip, but the fox had no answer for him. “How’s your math?” he asked quietly. “Emily’s worried because she wanted to learn, but no school would teach her, so she only has what lessons she learned herself.”
“Never much cared for numbers.” Malcolm lost his slight worry and the now-familiar broad smile returned. “What you reckon they’ll ask us about?”
So Kip discussed geometry and algebra, trigonometry and triangulation, but within an hour, Malcolm had shaken his head. “It’s too much for me to absorb in one night,” he said, stretching his arms. “If I know it, I know it, and if I’m meant to pass, the Good Lord will guide me through.”
“That’s a fine attitude.” Emily turned toward them. “I’d rather trust in my own intelligence.”
“Which the Lord gave you.”
“If you insist.” She turned back to Coppy.
“Anyway,” Malcolm said to Kip, though loudly enough for Emily to hear, “I’d rather work on sorcery. Since that is what we’re here to learn, after all.”
“I can show you what I’ve been able to do,” Kip offered, and they walked over to the practice tent, which Master Argent had vacated, to work on magic for the rest of the night.
The following day passed much like the first. Kip’s examination with Master Patris came in the afternoon, and the old Master spoke as little as possible. He sat behind a plain wooden desk in the dining tent with his raven (Kip assumed) watching from above.
“Recite the Pythagorean Theorem,” Patris said.
“The sum of the squares of the shorter sides of a right triangle is equal to the square of the longest side,” Kip recited.
“It is actually the sum of the squares of the sides that form the right angle that is equal to the square of the side opposite the angle.” Patris, like Master Windsor, did not make marks on his paper, but they appeared there nonetheless.
Kip wanted to say that it came to the same thing, that of course the sides that formed the right angle would be the shortest, but he pressed his lips together. The rest of the exam proceeded much like that; when Kip gave the correct answer, Patris said nothing. When he gave a correct answer that could be better worded, or was slightly incomplete, Patris corrected him with a slight sneer of condescension.
Forty-five minutes into the examination, Patris said curtly, “You are done.” He made two more marks on Kip’s paper and then shuffled it aside. He didn’t even look up to meet Kip’s eyes.
Kip walked out the back without a word, but had to walk back and forth to work off his anger before he could sit down with the others. Coppy had been treated much the same, but it didn’t bother him. “Least he listened to me,” he said.
Emily, though, was still furious. “Whenever I didn’t know something, he would say, ‘as I expected,’ or he would just smile, and once I was so angry that I said, ‘If people would take the time to teach mathematics to women, they would find many willing to learn,’ and he said, ‘women do not have the proper parts of their brains to learn mathematics.’ Aren’t they supposed to be intelligent here? I expected him to start measuring my skull with calipers to see how in balance my humors were! It’s completely laughable.”
“She’s rather upset,” Coppy told Kip.
Malcolm did not have any such trouble, nor, as far as they could tell, did Cobb or Smith. And at dinner, most of the students seemed untroubled. Emily finally calmed down with some talk from Kip and Coppy. “Patris is going to be a thorn in all our sides,” Kip pointed out, “and if you take your anger into tomorrow’s exam you may well give him what he wants.”
Kip wanted to talk to Victor again, to find out if he were having any success in his mission to change minds. It was true that Farley had barely paid attention to Kip during the last two days, but there was magic keeping them apart, and even his slow-acting brain might have figured there would be nothing he could do at the moment. That didn’t mean he wasn’t planning some mischief for later. And yet, for all the time Kip watched him, the stout bully only glanced the fox’s way once, and he actually left the dining tent early. Perhaps he was worried after all and going to study.
Thursday morning, it was Malcolm’s turn to be nervous, though he showed it by laughing more than usual and talking nearly non-stop, so much so that he drove Smith away to “find a corner of this hill with some quiet.” Kip attempted to teach the Irishman the tricks of summoning magic while Emily, Cobb, and Coppy were tested in the practice tent, and by the time Master Argent’s raven came to call him, Malcolm had at least managed to produce a flicker of orange light around his fingers.
“It shows aptitude,” Kip said.
“Let’s hope that’ll be what they’re looking for,” the Irishman said, getting up and waving as he walked to the tent.
When Kip’s turn came, he found the tent set up with a small wooden floor and a chair on either side of it. Master Argent sat in one of the chairs, and waved Kip to the other, a plain wooden chair shiny with varnish. What made Kip pause, though, was the array of ravens on the perch high above the floor. Ten of them he counted, watching him step carefully to the chair and take a seat, sweeping his tail around to one side. Not one of them made a sound. Not one of them moved, other than to turn their heads to follow his progress. Ten pairs of gleaming black eyes—and presumably, ten pairs of human eyes elsewhere—watched him sit straight, fold his paws
in his lap, and stare at Master Argent.
The young sorcerer took no notice of the ravens. “Hello, Penfold,” he said. “I believe we have already established that you have some command of at least one spell. However, I hope you will bear with me as we take you through the established examination protocol.”
Kip sat quietly until it was clear the sorcerer was waiting for his answer. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“Very well. Please demonstrate for me the gathering of magic.”
So Kip breathed out and closed his eyes, and breathed in and pulled magic to him. It came easily, comfortably, the feeling of power, the awareness of more below him and around him. He knew his paws were glowing before he opened his eyes to check, looking right to Master Argent’s smile and the reflections of his paws’ purple glow in the sorcerer’s eyes. “Well done,” Argent said.
“Do you wish me to cast a spell?” Kip asked.
“If you like.” On the desk before the sorcerer, six round marbles lay in a wooden tray. “Lift as many of these as you can.”
Kip focused. He had lifted up to four objects, although three was easier, and he resisted the urge to try for all six. Three marbles rose unsteadily but about the same distance into the air, and then descended too quickly, clattering back into the tray. The glow around his paws vanished.
“Very well done. Shall we try another?”
Argent ran Kip through some less familiar physical magic spells; the fox made a game attempt at them and succeeded in one. “Have you studied any other areas?” the young sorcerer asked when they were done.
Kip shook his head. Master Argent nodded and brought out two books. “I am going to show you the most basic spells in the disciplines of translocational and alchemical magic, and I would like you to study them and attempt them.”
“What about spiritual magic?” Kip leaned forward as Master Argent opened the first book.
“If you continue on at the College into your fourth year, you may yet learn it. But it is too dangerous for anyone to attempt prior to that level of experience. The manipulation of the human spirit affords very little room for error.” He pushed the book toward Kip.