by Hilari Bell
I guessed that “sponsored guest” was the status given to folk who were thinking of enrolling a child here, but it should suit Fisk’s purposes. I had what I most wanted, when she told the guard I was permitted to come and go from the tower as I willed.
Fisk and Kathy set off for the clerk’s office, with Professor Dayless’ note, and Roger was dismissed to his own concerns. Then the professor turned to me.
“Master Sevenson. What do you want to know?”
“I’d prefer to start with Master Quicken, since Benton seems to have spent more time with him than anyone.”
Her brows rose, in the surprised contempt of those who dismiss such folk as gamekeepers as unimportant. ’Twas the first foolish thing I’d seen her do. Those without power must use their wits to protect themselves from those who have it, and their observations of their “betters” are usually keen.
But she led me down the central hall Fisk had described, through a room that held vegetable bins, scraps of wood, and other materials and tools for making or repairing cages, then out the door in the far wall to the tower’s courtyard.
I put Quicken’s age in his early forties, but he rose from the crate he knelt beside with a muscular flexibility that spoke of days tramping through woods and over fields, instead of puttering about on this tame campus.
“Master Sevenson is Professor Sevenson’s brother,” she told him. “You may answer his questions, and help him find whatever he needs. And yes, that includes questions about the project.” She turned, and went back into the tower with no further ado.
Lat Quicken eyed me in some surprise. He’d probably been told not to talk about the project to anyone, on pain of some dire penalty. ’Twas no wonder he was wary at this sudden reversal.
“Benton sends his regards.” I had no qualms about saying this, for Benton had told me enough about the man that I knew he’d have done so. “And I’m to ask how your daughter fares.”
’Twas the right approach; the man’s wary expression faded into relieved joy.
“She’s doing well, sir. The surgeon says she’ll be off her crutches in another month, and likely walk without even a limp, someday.”
“It must have been a terrible accident.” Indeed, chatting as we rode home from the farm Benton had described a compound fracture, followed by an infection that might have carried the girl off, though she seemed to be recovering now.
“Twelve’s the age they get into the most trouble, if you ask me. Even the girls. We told the youngsters to stay out of that old mill, that the floors were rotten. Maybe now they’ll heed the next warning.”
“Do you think so? My brothers and I never did.”
He laughed, and turned back to the cage he’d been cleaning. “Well, maybe not. My brothers and I were the same. What do you want to ask me, sir? I only care for the rabbits, and trap more when they want to try another batch of potions.”
’Twas too soon to ask anything that mattered, so I grasped at a random question. “Do these potions hurt the rabbits?”
“No sir,” Quicken said. “Not that either of them would… Ah, they seem to be painless.”
I doubt many would have cared — though I’d wager the Heir’s mistress did. I remembered all too well how Mistress Ceciel’s potions had hurt me.
“They might not care,” I said. “But Benton would. Here, let me assist with that.”
I helped lift the cleaned crate back onto the end of a row — one of several rows of solid-bottomed crates, that covered the end of the yard and must have held several hundred rabbits. Each rabbit wore a chain with a numbered tag about its neck, but they seemed none the worse for it. As we cleaned the cages, with me drawing buckets from the well and moving rabbits to and from the runs, Lat told me that he’d trapped almost three hundred rabbits for them.
“But I released about fifty that were too wary of magica to show any ‘improvement.’ And about five magica rabbits, caught in my snares.” He shook his head in amazement. “You feel ’em wiggling in your hand, fur and bone, and even the beat of their hearts … but you can see your own hand right through ’em. A chancy business, letting ’em loose, but they go visible as they scamper off and none was harmed, so no ill luck to follow.”
I could feel the heartbeat of the rabbit I held — more rapid than a man’s, but not the racing beat of fear. These wild bunnies had settled into captivity remarkably well, and Master Quicken seemed to have settled too.
“When Benton was dismissed, how did folk around here react?”
Quicken cast me a sharp look. He knew what I wanted. The question was, would he answer, or retreat behind a servant’s dutiful politeness?
He took some time making up his mind, and I waited for him. Which may have been what tipped the balance.
“None of ’em seemed relieved, or happy, or nothing like that. Scholar Roger smirked a bit, but then he would. If anything, they was angry at the Professor for getting hisself in trouble. And Dayless said they should keep him on, maybe doing some other job, so he couldn’t go off and sell his old songs to the highest bidder. As if he would.”
“He might,” I said. “If some other university offered him a job that let him study his ancients. Why not help some other project along?”
“That sounds like sense to you and me,” Quicken said. “But there’s no other university would have him, not after he went and copied his paper. They put a powerful stake in papers around here.”
“So they do. Benton told me about Professor Dayless and Stint, and you, of course. And I’ve met Scholar Roger. Who else works on the project?”
“As to working, I’d not say any but the professors. They have scholar assistants, who help ’em with this and that, but even that Roger, who’s here more than most, isn’t regular like.”
“No one’s been promoted to take Benton’s place? I heard they were going hire someone to take his classes in the fall.”
And unless we solved this matter before the applicants turned up to be interviewed, Benton might not have a job to return to even if he was proved innocent of all wrongdoing.
“Aye, but how much will they know about those ancients of his? When there was nothing for him to do Professor Benton used to sit, holding a rabbit just like you are now, and natter on and on about them.”
I found myself smiling. That was the brother I remembered, far more than the sad, worried man he’d become.
“You’ve no assistant, Master Quicken? Now that Benton’s gone.”
Quicken snorted, his hands moving quickly to pull nails from a cracked slat. “I’d no need of his help. There’s not more’n half a day’s work here, unless they’re running the rabbits, and I didn’t need help then, either. It’s mostly sitting around. That, and making sure you’ve got the right collar number when you take ’em out of the cage.”
I pulled the chain on the rabbit I held around and looked at the number stamped into the tin plate — 54.
“Who makes these? I saw no metal-working tools in your storage room.”
“We order the tags and chain from a tinsmith in town. All I have to do is cut ’em to length and wire the links together.”
I felt through soft fur and found the joint. He’d done a good job, bending the ends of the wire in so the rabbit wouldn’t be scratched. And he’d relaxed into our conversation enough by now that I might get a candid answer.
“Can you think of any reason someone would wish to be rid of my brother?”
Quicken’s hands and gaze remained on the slat he was marking to cut, but a sigh of regret filled his lungs before he replied.
“I can’t, sir, and that’s a fact. Nothing that has to do with what goes on here. But I’m just the gamekeeper. I don’t know what’s involved in the professors’ formulas and graphs and all.”
So I bade him farewell, and went in search of formulas.
Thanks to Fisk’s description, I knew Professor Stint worked on the second floor, but I took the time to open a few doors on my way, and found nothing but unused offices
, with dust upon desk and chair.
Professor Stint was in his laboratory, but today no braziers burned, no potions bubbled. He was staring at a sheet of paper with notes scribbled over it, and even I could see blank spaces where some item or procedure was missing.
“Who’re you? This building is restricted.” But he threw down his pen with an air of relief, oblivious to the splattering ink.
“I’m Benton Sevenson’s brother. Here to—”
“You have his notes? Hand ’em over, sir!”
“I don’t have them, yet. He says ’twill take several days to recreate them. And in exchange, Professor Dayless has granted me and my associates access to the campus and this project, so we can investigate the events that led to his dismissal.”
“What’s to investigate?” Stint said. “He copied his thesis. It’s sad, but it happens, and Portner’s right. We can’t tolerate it. A thesis must be original work.”
“You’ve dealt with my brother, and used his knowledge of ancient lore.” ’Twas a struggle to keep my voice even, but I managed. “Why would he need to cheat on his thesis? He knows more about the ancients than anyone in the Realm.”
“Not anyone. There’s Golfew over in Camden, and another man at Harold and Benjamin University who studies them too.” But my point must have struck him. He looked thoughtful for several whole seconds, before he shrugged and said, “If that’s true I’m sorry. But what does it have to do with me?”
“It means that if you want to see his notes you have to answer my questions about the project,” I said. Tact would be wasted on this man, but he wasn’t a fool. I needed to frame my questions carefully. “Benton said you were beginning to get results from one of your formulas?”
“So Dayless says, and she’s the one who runs the trials. One of my more complex formulas, too, and I made it several months ago. I need those notes, curse it! I want to try pulling some of the factors that failed in previous attempts, to see if we can isolate the element or elements that are affecting the rabbits’ brain chemistry. Then I can work from evidence, instead of that ‘comfrey for cunning, rue for sight’ nonsense.”
“You really think Gifts are just chemicals acting on the mind, like alcohol or drugs? Even though Gifts work no matter what one eats or drinks?”
I didn’t care about his theories, but Fisk has taught me that folk want to talk about their passions. If you get them started, all manner of information may be washed out with the flood.
Then I wondered if Jack Bannister had taught Fisk that, but Stint was eyeing me critically.
“You have Gifts, don’t you? Thought so, from the accent. It feels like they’re as much a part of you as your emotions, right? As much as joy or rage or laughter.”
He spoke as he would to a student, so I answered as one.
“Exactly like that. And emotions are feelings, not chemical reactions. So why should Gifts be?”
“Have you ever been drunk?” the professor asked bluntly.
“Not often. And not deeply. I don’t much care for it.”
“Why not?”
“Well, the alcohol makes me feel … oh.”
“Precisely. Alcohol, a chemical, can produce a range of emotions from merriment to melancholy. If your emotions aren’t chemical in nature, then how can chemicals affect them? It’s not just alcohol, either. Think how valerian soothes nervousness, how poppy juice not only blocks pain, but gives you a sublime sense of well-being … as long as you keep your dosage low enough that you don’t fall asleep or die.”
I might not be much of a drinker, but I had once had potions forced upon me that had changed me profoundly. That was a tale I dared not share with anyone, least of all these ruthless professors, but… “All those things have other effects,” I pointed out. “’Tis not only emotions they work upon.”
“Of course they affect the chemistry of the rest of the body, too. That’s why we need to isolate the elements that affect Gifts as much as we can, before we call for human volunteers to test them.”
“But if all the chemistry in the body is involved, how do you know ’tis not the drug’s effect on the body that will unlock or enhance Gifts? Those who are tired or in pain, which are changes in the body, are more likely to succumb to grief or despair than those who are rested and hale. That’s the body’s trouble affecting emotions. And sometimes emotions affect the body; ’tis well known that those who mourn a loss are more likely to fall ill than those who are content. So how can you separate body and mind?”
“You can’t.”
I’d become so involved in the chemist’s discourse, for personal reasons, that Professor Dayless’ voice made me jump.
“I’ve been trying to tell this fool all along that the body and mind are intricately linked, and what drugs really do is to unlock doors in the mind, doors that reveal emotions, memories, visions even. So why not Gifts or magic? But that’s all his potions do.”
“You say ‘lock’ like there was a mechanism of iron pins and keys. What you’re talking about is a chemical process—”
Professor Dayless was already bristling and I broke in hastily. “So you think Gifts and magic work in much the same way?” Had Lady Ceciel’s potions merely unlocked my strange magic, instead of creating it? I divided my question between them, but it was Dayless who answered first.
“Of course. It all springs from the mind. It must, when you think about it, for where else could either Gifts or magic come from? Unless you’re one of those pathetic fools who think the old gods are real.”
I looked to Professor Stint, who shrugged. “She’s right about that, if nothing else. Though everything in the mind is chemical reactions, at the core. Even thought must be a chemical reaction of some sort, because chemicals can disrupt it.”
“Most folk think that magic and Gifts are different. That Gifts are natural, if not common, and magic in normal humans is impossible. If there was ever a normal human with magic ’twould be a freak, like a man with two heads or a tail.”
Or ’twould drive a normal man mad, which was the thing I’d feared most in all the world for the last four years. I awaited her answer with my heart pounding in dread and hope.
“If it’s unnatural,” said Professor Dayless, “then why do animals have it? Or why does it sometime crop up in the simple or the mad — which are entirely different mental troubles, and spring from different roots? Why do they sometimes have magic as naturally as animals do?”
“I … I don’t know.”
“That’s because, like ‘most folk,’ you haven’t bothered to think it through. When you do, you quickly see that the main difference between the humans who possess magic and those who don’t is the ability to produce controlled and complex thought. So there must be something about that type of thinking that shuts the door in the mind behind which magic resides.”
I felt as if the solid foundation of the world had shifted, and everything I knew resettled into a new and better place. “So if that door was opened by some chance, by a chemical formula say, and a man who wasn’t mad or simple was given magic, he’d not be able to use it at will. But in moments of great emotion, when his thoughts stopped working clearly, ’twould spring up?”
“It might well work that way.” Professor Dayless appeared pleased by my comprehension and Professor Stint looked sour. “The more the controlled, thinking mind shuts down, the wider the door to magic should open. But why do you ask? We’re not working with magic, only Gifts. Which should be simpler, for that door opens easily for some, even when complex thought is present.”
“’Twas only an example,” I said. Complex thoughts were swooping through my mind like a scattered flock of sparrows. This explained why I could never make my magic perform when I tried to. And why the times that it broke out, to fight a fire, to save me from falling to my death, to help my horse leap an impossible chasm, were moments in which I had no thought but to fight or die.
“What of you, Professor Stint? Do you agree that Gifts and magic are so similar
?”
“I’ve no idea,” said Stint. “But it’s all chemistry.”
I managed a few more questions, then took my leave, for I’d a great deal to think about … and not much of it involved poor Benton. But my complex, controlled mind had observed one thing, even in the midst of my emotion — ’twas Stint’s formulas that would cause the change they hoped to create, but ’twas Dayless who was in charge. And for all it might be naught but a chemical reaction in his brain, Stint resented it.
Fisk had hinted that the saboteur was probably well-paid. I wondered if Professor Stint had need of money.
It felt odd to leave Michael behind once more — but walking off with his sister at my side was a lot more comfortable, now.
“Is Michael any good at extracting information?” she asked, as we strolled along the paths to the clerk’s office. I was beginning to know my way around campus, to feel the peace that reigned while lectures were in session, with only a handful of scholars in sight. You could even hear a bird singing in one of the trees, though only country-raised Michael would know what it was. Come to think of it…
“What kind of bird is that?”
She listened only for a moment. “Barn sparrow. Is he that bad?”
“What? Oh, Michael. No, he’s surprisingly good. He asks nothing but soft questions, and then sits there looking all sympathetic and honest and interested. After a while they start babbling. And he’s not as bad at seeing the holes in a story as you’d expect. If the project is behind Benton’s woes, he’ll probably figure it out.”
Kathy gave me her version of Michael’s honest, interested stare, but hers was more penetrating than soft.
“Do you really think ’tis Hotchkiss’ murder will solve his problems, and not the project? Or did you take up that theory to score on Michael?”
Her questions weren’t soft, either.
“Honestly? At this point, I give it fifty-fifty odds either way. But Hotchkiss’ murder is the crime they suspect Michael and me of.”
“Ah.”
Michael would have been disturbed by my cynicism. Katherine wore the pleased look of someone whose hunch has panned out. And if I was getting that predictable, Jack would say it was time to change my pattern.