A College of Magics

by Caroline Stevermer

  Faris regarded Jane with wonder. “What happened to you? In the diligence you were as cross as two sticks. Two hundred sticks.”

  “Don’t try to change the subject. What did you do with the pocket knife he gave you? Do you still have it somewhere, tied up with a ribbon? Or perhaps a pressed flower? ‘The last rose of summer, left blooming alone …’”

  “Was your headache that bad?” Faris demanded. “Perhaps Flavia knows some home remedy that will bring it back. At least while you had it, you spared me this—interest in my childhood.”

  “Oh, very well. My turn to apologize. I was a bit cross in the diligence, I admit. Traveling light doesn’t agree with me. Why doesn’t the Baedeker mention that everyone in Galazon eats pancakes at every meal?”

  “I accept your apology,” Faris replied. “You have my uncle to thank for the pancakes. When I last spent a night here, Shieling was as prosperous as any place in Galazon.”

  Jane said dryly, “I do look forward to meeting your uncle.”

  After breakfast, which was, indeed, pancakes, the Woodrowels offered Faris and her party some of their men as escort.

  “It would do them a world of good to go with you,” Flavia said. “They get so bored when they have to stay home and behave, and it is much too soon to send them across the border again.”

  “Only think how an armed escort would add to your consequence,” Jane murmured.

  “I already have one,” Faris replied quietly.

  “You know the terrain,” Tyrian said to Warin. “Is a larger escort necessary?”

  “If you are referring to our neighbors, the Haydockers, not at all. They leave us alone.” Warin replied. “But if you’d like a guide, you’re welcome to one.”

  Faris said, “If there is one place in the world where I don’t need a guide, this is it. How many times did we ride the drove-road when we were children, Warin?”

  Warin smiled crookedly. “Half as many times as we fell out of trees, and twice as many times as we sprained our ankles.”

  “Even when I was most happy to return to Galazon Chase, I was always sorry to leave Shieling. Thank you for everything you’ve done for us, all of you.”

  Warin looked nearly solemn. “You are welcome, Faris.” Flavia nodded her agreement. “Welcome home again.”

  Faris and her companions took their leave. Under a heavy gray sky, they set forth eastward from Shieling along a narrow road. There was thin black ice on the puddles in the ruts, and the mud was touched with stars of frost. On either side of the road, the brown pastures held nothing but occasional patches of low, bare-branched shrubbery.

  “The herds graze here all summer,” Faris told Jane. She gestured out across the hilltops stretched before them. “In the autumn, we drive the stock back down to the valleys. This road is for carts. If we stay on it, we’ll be two days on our way to Galazon Chase.”

  Jane took a careful look at the hilltops. Some of the higher hills were pale, as though they had been powdered with sugar. “And if we don’t?” she asked. Her voice was neutral. “I distrust shortcuts.”

  “The drove-road is quicker. But if you’d rather stay on this road, by all means, let us stay on it.”

  “How far to Galazon Chase by the drove-road?” Jane asked.

  “Thirty-five miles,” said Faris. “We can be there in time for supper.”

  “And will there be pancakes?” Jane asked.

  “If my uncle is in residence, I think I can promise he will not permit pancakes for supper.”

  “And if he is not in residence?”

  “Then I will be shocked.”

  The drove-road was Faris’s favorite way home because it came down so swiftly from the heights to the forest. Ten miles from Shieling, while the cart track still followed the line of the ridge south and east, the drove-road turned straight east and dropped off the shoulder of the ridge into a valley filled with pine. It followed a narrow path through the pine to a shallow stream that ran in and out of ice.

  For five miles, Faris and her companions followed the stream eastward. When it led them around the foot of a hill and bent northward, she left it and rode east along another valley, this one filled with oak and chestnut. From that point, the drove-road took on substance and became a wide lane through the forest. The path was well trodden, cushioned with loam and fallen leaves. The lacework of bare branches nearly concealed the gray sky overhead. On either side, briars and brambles grew among the trees so closely that no traveler would willingly have left the road.

  Faris felt the calm and silence of the forest sink into her as she rode. The discomfort she’d felt in the saddle for the first few miles was gone, her stiffness melted into her mount’s motion. Even without a guide, Jane had no need to fear a shortcut, Faris thought. On this road, one could not go astray.

  Tyrian and Reed, always vigilant, rode beside her in the lane and Faris did not worry about what they might see or hear. She felt no twig could stir in the wood today and she not know it. Every step she took toward Galazon Chase was a little more quiet than the step before. She felt as if everything about her was softening, growing muted to match the trees. The only effort the journey required was that she keep a slow and even pace. It was tempting to urge her horse on, faster and faster, until Galazon Chase came into view. But Faris held her horse to a walk and when she was not busy wondering at the beauty of the woods, she wondered at her own reasonable behavior.

  At midday, at the spot where the lane dropped over a bank and became a ford across a small river, they halted to rest the horses, and to eat the food that the Woodrowels had sent with them.

  When she unfolded her cloth-wrapped packet to find only bread and cheese, Jane looked disappointed. “No pancakes?”

  Tyrian was watering the horses. Arms folded behind her head, Faris was watching the patterns the branches made against the overcast sky. Reed stretched his legs out before him, and opened his own packet. “That’s one thing I will miss about this job. The food. I’m not so fond of pancakes, myself, but the food on this trip was very good.”

  “What will you do when this job is over?” Jane asked.

  Reed looked thoughtful. “Take another. And another after that. And so on, until Lord Brinker pays me enough money to buy back the title.”

  Jane stared and swallowed her crust hastily. “You have a title?” she asked, when she could speak again.

  Reed smiled and passed the wine flask. “The title to our farm. We’re perhaps not the best of farmers, we Reeds, but we make up for it with stubbornness.” He tore his bread into pieces as he chose his words. “My parents lost the title when I was fourteen. Lord Brinker bought their note and let them rent the place from him. I went into his service when I was sixteen. I thought it would be appropriate to buy our farm back with money I earned from him.”

  “What do you think of him? Faris makes him sound like a complete ogre.”

  Reed rearranged his pieces of bread on the cloth. “My grandmother planted a quince tree in the garden behind our house. Quince are hard to grow in Galazon. But my grandmother had a gift for such matters and ours grew. The spring we lost the farm, the blossoms were something wonderful to see. My grandmother was very proud. It was going to be the finest crop she ever had. Then Lord Brinker came to see if our place was worth bothering about.” Reed moved a piece of bread as carefully as a chessman from one side of the cloth to the other. “He came himself and walked through the place, house and byre and all. When he left the garden, I heard him say to the bailiff, ‘I’ll keep it. The place is worth the money for the garden alone. Oh, and send that quince blossom home with me. It’s beautiful.’ So the bailiff picked every single blossom off the tree. They were wilting as he packed them up.”

  Jane’s eyes widened. “Surely that was the bailiff’s mistake, picking every blossom.”

  “Oh, I think the bailiff understood the order perfectly well,” said Faris. She sat up and took the wine flask from Jane. “Be glad my uncle settled for the blossoms. He might easily
have had the tree cut down.” She took a swallow and handed the flask back, opened her packet of bread and cheese, and began to eat with fierce concentration.

  “But why?” Jane demanded.

  “It’s his way,” said Reed.

  Faris looked at Reed. “At a guess, it was a reminder. He wanted to be sure your family remembered that the place was his.”

  Reed’s face twisted. “Small danger we’d forget.”

  Tyrian brought the horses back and tethered them with help from Reed. When he had finished his meal, and what little wine the others had left him, he put his elbows on his knees and said, “This wood is too empty.”

  “I like it,” said Jane. “It makes a nice change from the other night.”

  “No brigands here,” Reed said.

  “No,” Tyrian agreed. “No hunters. No game. Nothing, in fact, but trees. Is it always this quiet here?”

  “It’s the time of year,” said Reed.

  “You know, he’s right,” said Jane. “I haven’t seen or heard so much as a crow all day.”

  “There’s no danger. We’re alone, that’s all.” Faris sounded apologetic. She went back to looking at the branches overhead. The conversation went on without her while she stared up into the lowering sky. The silence of the forest was still with her as an abiding calmness. Even Reed’s reminder of her uncle’s nature could do little to disturb her. She had a growing conviction that the stillness that Tyrian had noted was responsible for her own sense of quiet. She could not explain how, even to herself. Impossible to say aloud, ‘Oh, yes. The wood is calm today, isn’t it? That’s just Galazon welcoming me home.’ Well, impossible to say it before Jane and Reed. Tyrian would probably accept that statement with aplomb. He was sane and competent himself, and he seemed to assume sanity and competence in others. A restful attitude.

  The north wind rose. Overhead the branches swayed. The wind in the trees soughed like breakers on a distant shore.

  It was late afternoon when Faris led her companions out of the woods of Galazon Chase. There was the home valley, its wide fallow fields running down to the river. There across the stone bridge, the road curved up and out of sight behind the hill. There was the gate, complete with carefully restored portcullis, and the gracious new wings of the house, built for comfort and not for security. But that was not the house that she had longed to see. The chess rook looming over the valley, the stout tower that had been the bulwark of her family for hundreds of years before they could afford the luxuries of grace and comfort, this was Galazon to Faris.

  Faris admired the view so long that Jane sidled her horse close and asked, with great innocence, “Are we lost?”

  “No, we’re home,” Faris said, her expression so blissfully happy that Jane made no further remark.

  As they rode across the bridge, sedate with weariness, the north wind strengthened and it began to snow.

  In the courtyard, Faris and her companions handed their horses over to servants who displayed little sign of interest in their arrival. Faris looked hard but saw no familiar faces among them. For their part, none of the servants seemed to recognize her.

  “Where is Lord Brinker?” she asked the servant nearest to the door.

  The man gave her his full attention for as long as it took to bring his eyes up from her muddy boots, past the pistol in her sash, to her disheveled hair. “I do not know if Lord Brinker is at home,” he said very politely. “I will inquire.”

  “Please do,” said Faris with equal courtesy. “If he is, ask him to attend me in the library. If there isn’t a fire there already, please arrange one. And see that someone sends us tea.”

  As if he did not trust his own ears, the man watched motionless as Faris swept past him indoors. Without hesitation Jane and Tyrian followed her, neither sparing a glance at him.

  Reed was not so hasty. He paused on the threshold, looked back at him and the rest of the speechless servants, and smiled broadly. “If anyone remembers where it is packed away, you’d better find the ducal banner and send someone to run it up,” he advised. “The duchess of Galazon is in residence.”

  10

  “We regret Bonnie Prince Charlie.”

  Faris led her companions through the great hall, where the armory of weapons that lined the walls was enduring an inventory, and incidental dusting, under the supervision of a stoop-shouldered, scholarly looking man. High time the collection was catalogued. She ducked into the passage that led to the picture gallery. After Shieling, it seemed almost cluttered, with chairs and tables spaced at intervals along the walls, beneath the gilt-framed family portraits.

  Faris was halfway down the long gallery before she could believe she was really home. It all seemed alien at first—the ceilings were high, but not as high as the ceilings she remembered. The light was different, and slanted through smaller windows than she recalled. Even the picture gallery did not seem as long, after the corridors of Greenlaw.

  She had longed for this moment, and now she found her serene happiness at coming home obscured the fierce possessiveness she’d expected. It was her house, after all. Not her uncle’s, nor even her mother’s—her own house. Yet, even though it was something to be prized, she felt only the pride of ownership she’d felt for number five study. Like that well-beloved room, this house was hers to put to good use and then hand carefully on to the next who came.

  And who would come next? Jane’s teasing came back to her. In her heart, Faris knew she’d spoken truly that summer day at Greenlaw, when she’d told Jane she’d never been the sort to marry. From her study of three-volume novels, she had gleaned the abstract idea that she might have a mate in the world, the way a glove had a mate. The idea was vaguely pleasing. The thought of marriage was disagreeably concrete in comparison. Marriage with whom? There were millions of people in the world. What were the odds of even finding one’s mate among the throng? And then to create conditions that would allow one to marry? All that effort just to make sure the house was taken care of for the foreseeable future? It was a gamble at best, and not a wager she favored.

  Flavia Woodrowel, in her gladness at Warin’s return, had caused Faris a moment’s wistful pang. Yet her friendship for Warin Woodrowel bore no resemblance to anything she’d ever found in one of Jane’s novels. She couldn’t imagine herself in Flavia’s place, wringing her hands at home while he went haring off across the border.

  More likely, she reminded herself, she’d be the one to go a’roving and a’reiving, and her theoretical husband would be left at home to deal with the tax assessors.

  Faris reached the staircase and heard loud voices coming near. Someone caught her arm.

  “Hold hard, there,” Gavren bellowed in her ear.

  Astonished, Faris looked up from his hand on her sleeve and met his eyes.

  Gavren released her, horrified. “Your grace! They told me an intruder came stalking in, inquiring for Lord Brinker. Forgive me—They said it was some ruffian with muddy boots.”

  At first glance, Gavren seemed to have shrunk. Then Faris realized that he was almost the same as ever. She had grown, so he seemed smaller. His hair had gone from brindle to silver gray. His eyes were just as she remembered.

  He added, “I see your boots are muddy.” He put his hands on his hips and surveyed her disapprovingly. “You look like you lost your way to the cow byre. What happened?”

  The familiar tone of censure was so welcome that Faris could hardly keep from laughing. To conceal her amusement, she shrugged and gestured vaguely. “Oh, nothing. It’s snowing.”

  Gavren shook his head, disgusted. “Was it for this I nursed you across half the world to Greenlaw? So you could come back a worse hoyden than you left? The food must have agreed with you, I see. You’ve grown enormous.”

  Faris grinned at him. Under her interested gaze, he blushed to the roots of his hair. “Forgive me, your grace. Your return made me forget myself. I beg your pardon.”

  “Bilge. Listen, Gavren.” Faris leaned close and murmured, “
I think we may be visited by a sinister stranger quite soon. Come to think of it, he might even have beaten us here. Get the description from Reed and Tyrian. Well, from Tyrian.”

  “We’ve had no sinister strangers here. Who is he? What makes him sinister?”

  “He’s called Copenhagen and someone’s hired him to kill me. I think he’ll have a try, if he troubles to come here after me. Put the word out, will you? I want to catch him, but I want him alive and unable to hurt anyone. Particularly me. Clear?”

  Gavren nodded, eyes wide. Faris patted his arm reassuringly and left him gazing after her. It was very good to be home after all.

  There was a new old carpet in the library. Faris paused just inside the door to stare at the unfamiliar oriental rug. It was magnificently large and of a quality that made everything else in the room look slightly shabby. Faded by time into a subtle trellis of scarlet and indigo, the intricate pattern of the rug diminished its apparent size. Faris felt grateful that only her companions, crowded into the door behind her, were going to witness the spectacle of her taking off her boots so she could cross the rug to the fireplace. As she bent to begin, a blonde woman rose from the armchair closest to the fire.

  “Must I endure a draft in here too?” she began, then demanded, “Who do you think you are, bursting in without leave?”

  Faris straightened. “Who are you?”

  The woman drew herself up to her full moderate height with such indignation that her carefully arranged corona of golden hair seemed to crackle with energy. She swept to the bell rope and pulled it before she spoke, gray eyes flashing. “Get out. And be sure to close the door firmly as you go.”

  “I’ve already sent for my uncle. It would be rude to leave before he joins us. I think you must be Agnes Paganell. You remind me amazingly of your sister.”