A College of Magics

by Caroline Stevermer

  The British ambassador to Aravill led a busy life, attending a wide variety of social functions to commemorate this or that event. Perhaps the widower King Julian of Aravill, who had attained his father’s throne after fifty leisured years, aspired to a marriage with one of English Edward’s profusion of eligible daughters or nieces.

  Poor bride, if he succeeded in flattering the English enough to consent. He brought two eligible daughters of his own to the match. Menary was one of them: The Almanach d’Ostrogotha had given Faris Menary’s precise pedigree. No wonder Menary’s faith in the power vested in the family Paganell had been so complete. Faris could find it in her heart to pity any theoretical stepmother of hers, however utterly starched with nobility.

  The pace of the class lectures proceeded without interference from the students. The instructors at Greenlaw seemed to speak for their own entertainment, without regard to how many or how few came to listen. Such indifference was soothing. When she was able to spare the time to attend class, she sat at the back of the room and let the sound of learned voices lull her. This pleasant pastime was possible in every class save dance and deportment. In dance she had enough technique to go ignored by the instructor.

  The deportment lessons were not difficult in a muscular sense. Yet Faris found them strenuous. Nothing was more certain than that she would be reprimanded.

  Though she had been drilled in the arts of courtesy for as long as she could remember, her knowledge did not suffice. Any other student, Faris felt, might curl fingers into fists and Dame Brachet would but murmur reprovingly and glide on. But Faris’s shortcomings brought Dame Brachet to her side to stay, to hold her errors up before the class, to lecture at length on her elbow, her chin, the hang of her pointed sleeves.

  “Point your toe,” Dame Brachet would say to the class, and every student tried. Then Dame Brachet would glide slowly along the rows of earnest girls in their rumpled black poplin robes.

  “Remember, Eve-Marie, you are a pearl necklace. Relax your hands, Jane. No, don’t curl your fingers. Just relax them. Now remember, your elbows are heavy. Don’t let them stick out. They ought to drop down. Not like that, Faris.”

  Faris was mistress of her facial expression but not of her posture. She could stand before the class for an afternoon at a stretch without altering her mask of composure. But every criticism made her more conscious of her flaws, until self-awareness blossomed into genuine clumsiness, and by the end of the class she would find her hands were shaking.

  “Shoulders back, Faris,” Dame Brachet said one day. “Why are you doing that?”

  “Doing what, Dame Brachet?” Faris murmured through stiff lips. By some miracle, her tone was civil.

  “Doing that with your chin.” Dame Brachet seized Faris’s chin in cold fingers and thrust it into the proper position. “You must learn to learn, Faris. If you apply yourself, you will find it comes in time. Some day you will delight in the proper deportment of every bone in your body. In the meantime, take this opportunity to earn that delight with the work of learning.”

  Faris put her chin out and set her mouth in a hard line.

  Dame Brachet lifted her hand to push Faris’s chin back into position.

  Faris moved her head aside. Very distinctly, she said, “Deportment is a sterile discipline. Habit built on superstition.”

  “Criticize it if you please. You are still no good at it.”

  “There’s nothing to be good at. It’s just an arbitrary set of standards. Why should I waste time learning to point my toes in a way that went out of fashion three hundred years ago? Why shouldn’t I set my own fashions?”

  “You must form your own fashions in a way which demonstrates that you flout the standards from knowledge, not from ignorance,” replied Dame Brachet. “When you leave Greenlaw College, you may or may not be able to practice magic. That is a matter of talent and skill. But you will certainly be a witch of Greenlaw, and that station in the world carries expectations with it. You will be expected to speak with those of high degree and to speak fair to high and low. Your manner will be as vital as your matter, and in some sad cases, your matter will not amount to much. So you had better learn a manner to make up for your other shortcomings.”

  From the first words, Faris followed this speech with eyes narrowed. “But I may flout the standards?”

  “Of course,” said Dame Brachet, with some asperity. “What do you think standards are for? Now drop your elbows and tuck your chin. Very good, Faris. Now point your toe.”

  From that day, Faris’s hands shook no more.

  The only instruction given in magic took place at the mandatory lecture each morning. This series, delivered by the Dean herself, was known simply as “The Structure of the World.” It was theoretical in the extreme, but it was all that Greenlaw offered. There was no practice allowed. Ever.

  Faris listened attentively to the Dean’s instruction and attempted to sketch the armillary spheres used to model the relation of the world to the celestial order. She recorded the sources the Dean cited in her arguments, pursued them through the stacks of the library: Ptolemy, Cicero, Lucan, and the rest.

  Faris was not in the hunt for scholarship, but for details of doctrine that might prove useful to her among the credulous. By the time the term ended at Whitsuntide, she had a good grasp of the Dean’s “Structure.”

  It puzzled Faris, at first, that the students were neither encouraged to study magic outside the Structure lectures nor permitted to practice it at any time. She decided that the rule was meant to prevent students from discovering there was no magic at Greenlaw to learn. Every student knew that whether or not magic existed within the gates at Greenlaw, it was exceedingly rare outside.

  The Dean explained that this was because the rocky promontory of Greenlaw was warded in such a way that magic was easier to perform within its bounds than without it. Given the dearth of magic among the students, Faris felt the Dean’s words owed much to the tale of the Emperor and his new clothes. Apparently, all it took to learn magic at Greenlaw College was a willingness to claim one knew it when one left.

  In theory, there was the world, the lowest, most mundane sphere in the model. Divided into overlapping hemispheres, north, south, east, and west, the world was theoretically protected by four wardens, whose theoretical wardships enfolded one another.

  The warden of the south watched over her dominion almost unhindered by the wardens of the east and west. Most powerful, but most remote, ruling the ocean-guarded south, she never impinged on the warden of the north. The warden of the east was visited only by the wardens of south and north. He never touched on the wardency of the west. Of the wardens of the north and west, the Dean did not speak.

  From her reading, Faris concocted theories of her own. The warden of the north, she calculated, might communicate with the wardens of the east and west but not the south. The warden of the west could call on the wardens of the north and south but not the east.

  For the rest of the model, the Dean explained, the world lay at the heart of nested celestial spheres. The highest degree of magic in the world was lower by far than the lowest of that in the next sphere of the model. But nothing linked the spheres. There was no passage from one to the next in life. Within the precincts of the world, the wardens held the mundane sphere in balance.

  Without the wardens, the mundane sphere would soon distort. Once disfigured, it would upset the balance of the other spheres.

  Try as she would, Faris could not keep from thinking of the spheres as soap bubbles, floating one within another. She gathered that if there were no wardens to rectify the balance, the entire model would vanish, to go wherever soap bubbles go, just about as suddenly. Since the world showed no signs of vanishing, Faris presumed this was more of the Emperor’s wardrobe.

  The lectures ended, without climax or conclusion, when classes did, at Whitsuntide. Those students who were qualified took their comprehensives. All students left at the end of term. Those who passed their comprehensiv
e examinations were entitled to call themselves scholars of Greenlaw, and to be referred to as witches behind their backs. Those who didn’t pass, such as the Roman, withdrew and the crooked passages of Greenlaw College saw no more of them.

  Those first- and second-year students who were not yet qualified to attempt the comprehensive went home for the summer and early autumn. Not until Michaelmas would they return, and not until they were at their studies for a fortnight would the first of the first-year students appear.

  Her uncle had made it clear to Faris that she was not to return home to Galazon for the long vacation. Had she the means, she might have traveled elsewhere, but lacking funds, Faris stayed at Greenlaw, where her keep was paid.

  As the classrooms closed and the dormitories emptied, Faris found she had the college nearly to herself. Even Odile was gone, permanently. She had passed her comprehensives, slept off the resulting exhaustion, packed her belongings, said her farewells, and set off for Sarlat, a fully-fledged witch of Greenlaw.

  Faris did not notice much difference in her days after the term gave way to the long vacation. She had always spent more time in the library than in company, and the library’s hours were unchanged by the season. She read, at first with an eye toward her classes, soon for pleasure alone. She took her meals in the dining hall, same as ever, but she was one of half a dozen boarders, instead of one of a hundred. What conversation there was at the table was stiff and civil.

  To her surprise, Faris found she missed the grumbles, shrieks, and giggles of the regular term. She began to sleep late in the mornings and the long afternoons passed more quickly out of doors than in the library. She ventured out of the confines of the college and explored the steep streets of Greenlaw village. Wound around the base of Greenlaw like ribbons, the streets led to the seawall that circled and protected the place. At the foot of the promontory lay the great gate. Beyond that, the encircling rocks and sand flats ringed the seawall.

  One hot afternoon, Faris was sitting on the rocks at the base of the north wall. Tempted by low tide, she kilted up her skirts, took off her shoes and stockings, and went for a walk along the cool gray sands. Fine bubbles broke on the surface as every step fizzed against her bare soles like champagne. Ahead she spied a larger bubble, where something lived beneath the sand. A clam, a winkle? She bent double to peer more closely.

  “Come back. Come away from there.”

  Faris frowned over her shoulder to see who addressed her.

  On the rock where she’d left her shoes and stockings stood a blond man with a broad, rosy face. He was dressed in badly cut black, very different from the light and elegant flannels of the usual summer visitor. He frowned back at her and called, “I think you’d better return at once.”

  Faris straightened so that she could look down her nose at him. “Who are you?” The look had no effect.

  “These sands aren’t safe. You could be pulled down.”

  “Thank you for the warning. I won’t go out any farther.” In the face of his silent disapproval, she added, “You can see I’m perfectly safe.”

  “I can’t just leave you there.”

  “Why not? It’s no business of yours what I do.”

  The man opened his mouth and shut it again without speaking.

  “Is it?” asked Faris, suddenly suspicious.

  “Certainly not. Good day to you.” He turned on his heel and walked away, as quickly as the footing on the rocks allowed.

  Faris returned to the rocks as soon as he was out of sight. Lost in thought, she brushed the sand off her feet and replaced her stockings and shoes, frowning.

  The next time Dame Cassilda took the cart to Pontorson to meet the train, Faris made it her business to go along.

  “It’s a long drive for a hot day. I wouldn’t bother if it weren’t for the baggage. There will be student trunks coming on nearly every train now. And some of them come from the ends of the earth.” Dame Cassilda favored Faris with a sidelong glance.

  “Any trunks that arrive today will be in good time for the beginning of term,” Faris observed. “Nearly two months early.”

  “You’re not expecting a parcel yourself?”

  Faris shook her head.

  “You’ll maybe want to see the seamstress then.” Dame Cassilda eyed the ragged hem of Faris’s gown. “It often happens that you young people have a growing spell when you spend the summer here. It’s the air of Greenlaw, the fresh sea air. You’ll be wanting some alterations done.”

  Faris smoothed her skirt. “No, I have no business in Pontorson. I’m just along for the change of scene. Do you mind?”

  “Glad of the company. I don’t blame you for getting fed up with Greenlaw. If it wasn’t for the work, we’d all go round the bend in a week.”

  Once at the station, Dame Cassilda kept a wary eye on Faris, but her charge contented herself with examining the people on the platform. After a brief wait, the train pulled into the station and halted in a magnificent billow of steam.

  Faris craned her neck as passengers left the train to mingle with onlookers at the station. Departing travelers climbed aboard. When the last parcel was unloaded, the train lurched and drew away. After the porters had lifted the lone student trunk into the back of the cart, Dame Cassilda resumed her seat.

  “You haven’t even gotten down from the cart. Don’t you wish to explore Pontorson now that you’re here?”

  “No, that won’t be necessary,” said Faris. “Tell me, do you know that man standing beside the ticket kiosk?”

  Dame Cassilda inspected the man Faris referred to. He stood barely an arm’s length from the ticket grille, his back against a poster-covered wall. Despite his hat, his blond hair was plain to see. It was hard to judge his features, for he was reading an illustrated paper with great concentration. His dark clothing was ill tailored. “No, why?”

  “I’ve seen him somewhere. Or perhaps he only resembles someone I met once.”

  “A chance likeness can often be quite startling.” Dame Cassilda took up the lines. At her signal the Greenlaw team set off at the amble which would eventually bring them back to the college.

  As they left the station, Faris glanced back, frowning. “Quite startling.”

  Faris spied the blond man again at the very end of summer. It was a cool clear day, with little white brush strokes of cloud so thin and fine they let the blue sky show plainly behind.

  Faris was at the vegetable market at the foot of the high street, trying to distract herself by looking at leeks and cabbages. She was homesick for Galazon, where such wide blue windy days brought in just such a harvest, along with a dozen other useful sorts of produce. When she saw the man, she turned to the owner of the leeks, a rangy woman with her black hair tucked up beneath a red scarf.

  “Do you know who that is?” Faris asked. “The yellow-haired man so absorbed by that basket of turnips? Have you seen him before?”

  “I have,” said the leek-seller. “He rents a room from any godmother and takes his meals there. He’s foreign.”

  “Do you know his name?” Faris knew that anyone not born in Greenlaw and living there anyway was considered to be foreign by the villagers. “Do you know how long he’s lived here?”

  “He rented his lodging a week before the new year.” The leek-seller gazed skyward for a moment. “It’s just come back to me. He calls himself Tyrian. Foreign sounding name, isn’t it?”

  “It is.” Faris gave the woman the last of her money. “Your leeks are lovely but I’ve no way to cook them. This is for your trouble.”

  “Would you like an introduction?” The leek-seller pocketed the coins. “My godmother might oblige.”

  “No, thank you. I don’t care much for foreigners.”

  “Wise girl,” said the leek-seller, and turned back to her vegetables.

  3

  At the Glass Slipper

  By the time second- and third-year students returned to Greenlaw, Faris was miserably homesick. Odile had written from Sarlat. Faris knew s
he ought to take comfort from her friend’s happiness, but it seemed to make things worse.

  Every sign of harvest that she saw made her think of the harvest that she was not in Galazon to see. Every small thing that did not remind her of Galazon reminded her that she was far away and years from going home. Faris grew so homesick, she stopped a returning student in the corridor for no better reason than the embroidery on her shirtwaist.

  “Pardon me,” said Faris. “That’s Galazon white-work, isn’t it? Have you come from Galazon?”

  The student, a girl who would have been taller than Faris a year ago but was now an inch shorter, glanced down at the fine embroidery, snow white on the snow white of her blouse. “You have excellent vision,” she said politely. She regarded Faris a moment, her clear gray eyes curious. “I’ve never been to Galazon. This was a gift.”

  “Oh,” said Faris.

  Something in the flatness of her tone melted the student’s reserve slightly. “Have you been to Galazon?”

  Faris shook her head. “I’m from Galazon. I haven’t been back since I came to college a year ago.” She broke off as she felt her reliable mask of composure alter. To conceal her embarrassment, she became absorbed in an examination of the toe of her shoe. One more word and her voice would betray her.

  The student eyed Faris curiously. “You didn’t go home for the long vacation?”

  Faris shook her head.

  “You’ll know better next year. But think of it this way—you’re lucky you have somewhere to go that’s worth being homesick for. Not everyone has a home better than Greenlaw. Hardly anyone, I should say.”

  Something in her clipped words made Faris look closely at the girl. “Do you?”

  “I suppose I must, mustn’t I? But I don’t wish to live anywhere but Greenlaw. If you don’t like it here, you ought to go home.” With a rustle of faultlessly tailored charcoal serge, she brushed past Faris and stalked away up the corridor.