A College of Magics

by Caroline Stevermer

  Faris let the king choose his spot and settled her bay at his side. She had already grown accustomed to the crutches of the borrowed sidesaddle. The bay’s manners were good and she had his rhythm now, in her spine and her wrists.

  “We try to get out two or three times a week in season,” said the king. “It makes a good excuse to ignore those tiresome administrative briefings, for one thing. For another, it makes a good impression with the people, taking an interest in sport.”

  “There speaks the true king,” muttered Faris. Luckily her words were lost in the squeal of the huntsman’s horn. The hounds struck off at full discordant cry, an urgent babble that put Faris forcibly in mind of a flight of wild geese.

  “Gone away!” shrieked the ambassador’s wife.

  “Stay close to us,” said the king to Faris. “We’ll see you come to no harm.”

  Eyes narrowed with disdain, Faris gave her bay his head and left them both behind. It was time, after all, to do the best she could.

  Faris followed the field across a rocky pasture beside the covert and through an open gate. There were riders behind her so she left the gate as she found it. Beyond the gate lay another pasture, a stone wall, and yet another pasture. Faris waited her turn at the stone wall and the bay took her easily over. Far ahead, she could see the pack of hounds, very white against the brown grass, as they surged ahead of the huntsmen. She could not glimpse anything of the fox.

  The thunder of hooves and the rush of the wind in her ears could not drown the wild cry of the pack. Faris forgot her annoyance in the exhilaration of the ride. In the chaos of the field, she was alone. In the confines of her impractical riding costume, she was free.

  At the far side of the far pasture was another stone wall, a little higher than the first. The hunt spilled over it. Faris followed. Her bay let her pick the approach and sailed over the fence with perfect nonchalance. In the fifteen minute run that followed, the bay gained ground on the huntsmen with such speed that Faris drew him in a little. It would not do to go thrusting herself before the rest of the field.

  The bay humored her until they reached the first fine high bank. There he took no notice of Faris’s preference for a more modest approach. He simply vaulted to the top at the highest point, changed feet as easily as a stag, and scrambled down into the lane beyond, giving Faris the sense that she had just been kicked gracefully downstairs. She recovered herself and let the bay forge on in the wake of the huntsmen. A glance back showed her the rest of the field encountering the bank. She did not see the king in the melee.

  The hunt led her along the lane and across a field planted to turnips and swedes. Faris’s agricultural soul forbade her to follow and she persuaded the bay to flank the field and rejoin the chase at the far side. The rest of the hunt tore heedlessly through the crop. Faris sneered happily and sent the bay on at a pace that pleased him.

  Twenty minutes later, Faris came down off another big bank and splashed across a muddy stream. Some of the morning mist was still hanging in the little hollow where the stream ran. Faris had to blink to see the best footing up the opposite side.

  Once out of the mist, she drew rein. The hunt was out of sight but not out of earshot. She could hear them ahead and a little to her left. From the splashing, she judged not all the field had managed the stream as neatly as her bay. Faris smiled grimly.

  Ahead lay a long stretch of rolling meadow, no rocky pasture, but carefully tended turf. Faris concluded that a hunt that would ride across crops would not stick at riding across a lawn. She gauged the pack’s progress by their noise and sent her bay after them.

  The groomed turf led her up a hill. Faris and the bay topped the rise and saw the hunt to the left. Behind the hunt and beyond them, the stream curved past a dense cluster of oak trees. To the right, the hillside swept down to the river the stream was meandering to meet. Before her, centered in gardens of mathematical precision, lay a manor house of ocher brick, roofed with slates like blue-gray scales.

  Faris gazed across the gardens, and winced at the thought of the damage the hunt would do. The gardens held a harmonious network of privet hedges, an avenue of statuary, and a fountain, fed by a diverted stream. At the heart of the gardens, the network of privet hedges became a maze of walls, doubling and redoubling into a labyrinth. Eve-Marie’s warning came back to Faris, for this, surely, must be Sevenfold.

  The hounds had been hunting loudly along a strong scent. At the edge of the garden, they checked. The huntsmen tried valiantly to rally their pack. But from every shrub—it seemed almost from every shadow—ran foxes. Not one fox, not one dozen foxes, but thirty foxes or forty.

  The hounds went mad, each after its own particular fox, and forgot they had ever heard of huntsmen. The foxes scattered and the hounds scattered with them. The huntsmen cursed and followed, hooting and tooting in vain. The rest of the field found the foxes’ sudden appearance and equally sudden disappearance unsettling. Their horses scattered too. Faris held her bay firmly and watched the chaos unfold.

  In a few moments, she had the garden to herself. The last huntsman was no more than a dwindling sound of hoof beats in the mist beyond the stream. It did not occur to Faris to turn and follow.

  The empty garden held her motionless. There was something more than foxes here. She watched the symmetrical grounds as intently as the huntsmen had scanned the covert but saw nothing. There was a pattern to the garden, a pattern that brought back memories of her dreams. If she could walk it awake, could she not walk it in her dreams?

  Minutes passed. The bay tossed his head until his bit jingled. Faris found that small noise comforting in the utter stillness of the garden. No fountain, no river, no stream could be heard. She sent the bay toward the house at a walk. Except for the slow, even beat of his hooves, there was no sound.

  As she rode down into the garden, Faris felt the mist close in around her. It was chill and she thought it held a faint acrid scent, unpleasantly like that of a fox’s earth. By the time she reached the labyrinth, she could hardly see the avenue of statuary, white against the mist beyond the avenue. As all sound but the bay’s passage faded, so all sight but the walls of privet faded.

  From the saddle, Faris could see her way through the maze but the rest of the world was lost. The bay turned and doubled as their route demanded. At the center of the maze, as the passage widened, the bay came to a halt.

  With a lack of surprise she usually experienced only in her dreams, Faris recognized the girl who waited, cloaked and hooded, at the center of the maze. The girl, small and slenderly made, put her hood back and smiled mockingly up at Faris.

  “So the gossips had the news right after all. I didn’t think it was possible. You’ve come to seek your fortune in Aravill,” said Menary Paganell.

  Faris held the bay steady. She would not retreat. She could not go forward. Unless she trampled Menary. Part of her thoughts busy calculating the merits of trampling, Faris countered, “I see you still like gardens.”

  Menary studied Faris intently. A faint line appeared between her brows, as though she suspected another meaning beneath the words. “Oh, yes, better than anything. Almost anything. If you have come to pay a social call, you should dismount. We will walk together. I will show you my garden.”

  “No, thank you. I’ll stay where I am.” She looked at Menary more closely and realized that she wore a wig. It was beautifully made and simply styled. Faris, no judge of such matters, would never have guessed at the artifice had it been made in Menary’s own blonde. Instead, it was a shade of red very close to her own. She wondered if it was an obscure insult and since she felt obscurely insulted, she decided it was. “Is it your garden? I rather think it belongs to your father. This is Sevenfold, isn’t it?”

  “It is. My father has decided I should have it. He means to make amends for summoning me home from Paris. I was having a nice time there. I conducted some business. Perhaps you met some of my hirelings? I instructed them to call on you. You must have left Paris before they
could.”

  With an effort of will, Faris held her hands perfectly still. She wanted to make fists, but feared confusing the bay. “I don’t know if I met them or not. Who are they?”

  Menary’s enjoyment of Faris’s discomfiture was unmistakable.

  “Oh, I don’t know their names. I dealt with an agency. All they asked for was an accurate description and an abundance of cash. I gave them a little something I thought might prove useful, but apparently they neglected to use it properly.”

  Faris thought she held herself motionless but the bay shifted uneasily. “A little something like a horsehair?”

  “It looked like a horsehair. I might have known I’d have to take matters into my own hands. They had better refund my money, since they’ve failed to execute my commission.” Menary smiled up at Faris as she spoke, and put special emphasis on her final three words.

  Faris laughed. The bay started slightly at the sound. Menary’s eyes widened and her smile faded.

  When Faris could speak, she told Menary, “One of your hirelings isn’t going to execute anything, ever again. Do you know why? My uncle.”

  Menary’s eyes were wide with annoyance. “What are you laughing for? What about your uncle?”

  Faris shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing.” She managed to stop chuckling.

  A half-grown fox cub, orange as a tabby cat, slipped through the privet hedge and sat down at Menary’s feet, panting cheerfully. Menary bent to scratch its ears. It shed a few stiff hairs on the hem of Menary’s black cloak. Faris eyed it distrustfully. It looked like a fox cub.

  Menary noticed Faris’s scrutiny and curled her lip in disdainful amusement. She knelt and bent her head as if to listen to the fox cub. “All safely gone to earth and the hounds left snuffling? Excellent. I know a hen house not far from here. Ah, you’ve heard of it? Very good. Tell them I sent you.” The cub left, grinning. Menary rose. “And who sent you here, I wonder?”

  “No one.”

  “The Dean of Greenlaw?” Menary mused. “No, I’m done with her and she with me. We’ll trouble each other no more.”

  “I found my own way.”

  Menary looked impatient. “You couldn’t.”

  Annoyed all over again, Faris shrugged. “If you insist.”

  Menary looked extremely cross. “Why are you here, then?”

  After a moment’s consideration, in which she decided honesty could not possibly hurt, Faris replied, “Curiosity.”

  The instant the word was out, she knew it was a mistake. Menary’s eyes widened as if she had been struck. Bristling with indignation, she drew herself up to her full height. “Go look at the lions then, if you like to peer at locked-up creatures.” She took one graceful step closer to the bay, put her hand on its neck, and hissed a word at its flattened ears.

  The bay went up like a startled pheasant. Faris had all she could do to keep her seat without worrying about trampling Menary. Yet somehow, when the bay came down, Menary wasn’t in the way. Nothing, save for the walls of the privet maze, was in the way of the bay’s spectacular bolt. Faris sat down hard, knees clenching the saddle crutches with all her might, and set about surviving Le Nôtre’s labyrinth.

  The bay scraped first one side of the privet corridor, then the other, all the way out. Beyond the maze the mist had lifted slightly, enough to make it possible to avoid the statuary. The bay took the fountain as easily as if it were a water jump at a church sports day, and hurdled a wrought-iron fence without apparent effort. After that, there was nothing left to do but splash across the stream, scramble up the far bank, and leave Sevenfold behind at top speed.

  13

  Twelfth Night

  When Faris returned to the Metropol, Jane was out. By the time she returned, Faris had changed from riding clothes to her favorite merino gown, and was pacing relentlessly the length of the suite. She had given Reed and Tyrian the news on the way back to Aravis. While they did what they could to find out what Menary was doing at Sevenfold, all she could do was wait for Jane.

  Jane was concentrating on unbuttoning her gloves as she entered, followed at a few paces by one of Brinker’s men, bearing an armful of oddly shaped parcels. At the sight of Faris’s expression, she halted. “What happened?”

  Faris started to answer but broke off to consider Jane’s escort.

  “Just put those down on the table,” Jane told him, “and you may go.”

  As the escort turned to obey, Faris lifted her hand to stop him. “As soon as they return, ask Reed and Tyrian to attend me here.” With a nod, the escort withdrew. When they were alone, Faris said, “Menary’s at Sevenfold. She hired Copenhagen and the others to kill me. Not Uncle Brinker. It wasn’t Uncle Brinker after all.”

  “Oh, dear!” Jane dropped her gloves. She stared at Faris for a long moment, then recovered sufficiently to retrieve the gloves. “Who told you so?”

  “She did.”

  “Menary did?” Jane frowned. “And just where at Sevenfold, precisely?”

  “In the labyrinth.” Faris started pacing again. “I can’t believe it. Do you realize what this means? He saved my life.”

  “What were you doing in the labyrinth at Sevenfold? You said you had to go fox hunting with the Spanish ambassador.”

  “Oh, him. He really is thick as thieves with the king. That’s probably why he picked a country place so close to Sevenfold. Anyway, I was fox hunting. Menary hasn’t lost her interest in animals. She conspired with about a hundred foxes and I don’t think either the hounds or the huntsmen will ever be the same.” Faris hesitated. “I think they were foxes.”

  Jane looked askance at her.

  “Real foxes. Not sailors or anything.”

  “Stand still. Stop trying to distract me with foxes and answer me. What were you doing at Sevenfold?”

  Faris stopped pacing. “That’s where the hunt went. It isn’t far from Crail. When the rest of the hunt, ah, dispersed, I went on.”

  “What possessed you? Were you lost? Don’t you remember what Eve-Marie said?”

  “I remembered what Eve-Marie said perfectly. The king didn’t even know I was there. And even if he did know, why should he wish to keep me there?”

  “Oh, Faris, use your head. What have you been telling me and telling me about that antique gallantry of his?”

  Faris smiled. “He’s old. Do you really think it would suit his majesty to catch girls in a garden the way a spider catches flies? Even if he had the inclination, what about his dignity? He’s much too full of his own importance to resort to that sort of thing.”

  “Then why did he take such pains to have the labyrinth brought into working order?”

  “To give to Menary, as if she needed any more mischief to get into.” Faris made Jane sit down before she gave her a full account of her conversation with Menary.

  Jane’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe it. If Menary had just been given the king’s favorite country house, why wasn’t she busy unpacking or having a servant thrashed? Why was she in the labyrinth, of all places, communing with a beast that might well give her fleas? And why, if she truly had come into possession of the place, was she in such an ill temper?”

  “Well.” Faris looked apologetic. “I was there.”

  “So you were. And she didn’t do a thing about it, even though she’d just boasted of arranging your assassination. What restraint. Not really like Menary, is it?”

  “She did say something upsetting to my horse.”

  “I would expect Menary to try something a trifle more direct—if she could,” said Jane darkly.

  “Could she? Didn’t the Dean take care of that?”

  “When the Dean expelled Menary, she stripped her of the magic she learned at Greenlaw. Yet think how easily Menary misbehaved, even within the wards.” Jane shook her head. “Until the end of your first year, when you stayed on for the summer while Menary left, the Dean told me she believed Menary was the one Hilarion was waiting for. She had great potential, the Dean said. And what magic
she brought with her, she quite probably retains.” Jane paused, as though measuring out her words like medicine. “If the Dean of Greenlaw can’t be sure what Menary can do with her magic, what do you imagine her father thinks of her behavior?”

  “So he gave her his country place to keep her busy and out of his way.”

  Jane shook her head again. “I think she lied. I think he didn’t give her Sevenfold at all. He gave her to Sevenfold. I think she’s a prisoner there.”

  “Why would he try to imprison his own daughter? And if she’s so powerful, how could he be sure he’d succeed?”

  “If you were trying to keep the country running, would you want Menary about, turning people into animals?”

  “Then why call her home from Paris?”

  “Would you want her loose there either? And he took pains to be certain he’d succeed in imprisoning her. He sent for Eve-Marie.”

  “But did he succeed? Would the labyrinth be strong enough to hold Menary? Le Notre’s been dead a long time.”

  “She’s there, isn’t she?”

  Faris said blankly, “But why would he need to keep her there? He’s her father. She’d have to do as he told her.”

  “Oh?” Jane looked cynical. “The way you do as Brinker tells you?” A knock at the door kept her from continuing.

  Reed and Tyrian entered, each in his own manner looking pleased with himself. Reed still wore the riding clothes his duties among the hunt servants had demanded. Tyrian had changed back to his usual black.

  “Lock the door. Anything useful so far? Jane may have an explanation for Menary’s presence at Sevenfold. Meanwhile, I would like to find out what Menary thinks I’m doing here, if possible. I won’t be any help. I have to be at the Danish ambassador’s house for a dinner party, worse luck.”

  Faris broke off and tried not to look startled as Tyrian cleared his throat. “I have been able to make some inquiries,” he began. Always reserved, since their arrival in Aravis Tyrian had become absolutely taciturn. Any speech was an event. “At the king’s command, Menary was summoned back from Paris. She arrived in Aravill the same day we did. The king received her at his country residence. Unofficially, she’s still under house arrest there. Officially, she is not expected to return from Greenlaw until the term ends at Whitsun, when she would be supposed to have graduated.”