Academic Exercises

by K. J. Parker

  “Oh, I am. Absolutely certain of it. And if it was worth their lives, it’s worth the life of an olive oil merchant, if there was to be just one more concerto. As it is—” I shrugged. “Not up to me, of course, I was just your teacher. That’s all I’ll ever be, in a thousand years’ time. I guess I should count myself lucky for that.”

  He looked at me for a long time. “Bullshit,” he said. “You and I only ever wrote for money. And you don’t mean a word of what you’ve just said.” He stood up. “It was nice to see you again. Keep writing. At this rate, one of these days you’ll produce something worth listening to.”

  He left, and I bolted the door; too late by then, of course. That’s me all over, of course; I always leave things too late, until they no longer matter.

  When I got back to the university, I paid a visit to a colleague of mine in the natural philosophy department. I took with me a little bottle, into which I’d poured the contents of a wineglass. A few days later he called on me and said, “You were right.”

  I nodded. “I thought so.”

  “Archer’s root,” he said. “Enough of it to kill a dozen men. Where in God’s name did you come by it?”

  “Long story,” I told him. “Thank you. Please don’t mention it to anybody, there’s a good fellow.”

  He shrugged, and gave me back the bottle. I took it outside and poured it away in a flower bed. Later that day I made a donation—one hundred and ten angels—to the Poor Brothers, for their orphanage in Lower Town; the first, last and only charitable donation of my life. The Father recognised me, of course, and asked if I wanted it to be anonymous.

  “Not likely,” I said. “I want my name up on a wall somewhere, where people can see it. Otherwise, where’s the point?”

  I think I may have mentioned my elder brother, Segibert; the one I rescued from the cart on the mountainside, along with my father. I remember him with fondness, though I realised at a comparatively early age that he was a stupid man, bone idle and a coward. My father knew it too, and my mother, so when Segibert was nineteen he left home. Nobody was sorry to see him go. He made a sort of a living doing the best he could, and even his best was never much good. When he was thirty-five he drifted into Perimadeia, married a retired prostitute (her retirement didn’t last very long, apparently) and made a valiant attempt at running a tavern, which lasted for a really quite creditable eight months. By the time the bailiffs went in, his wife was pregnant, the money was long gone, and Segibert could best be described as a series of brief intervals between drinks. I’d just been elected to my chair, the youngest ever professor of music; the last thing I wanted was any contact whatsoever with my disastrous brother. In the end I gave him thirty angels, all the money I had, on condition that he went away and I never saw him again. He fulfilled his end of the deal by dying a few months later. By then, however, he’d acquired a son as well as a widow. She had her vocation to fall back on, which was doubtless a great comfort to her. When he came of age, or somewhat before, my nephew followed his father’s old profession. I got a scribbled note from him when he was nineteen, asking me for bail money, which I neglected to answer, and that was all the contact there was between us. I never met him. He died young.

  My second visit to a condemned cell. Essentially the same as the first one; walls, ceiling, floor, a tiny barred window, a stone ledge for sitting and sleeping. A steel door with a small sliding hatch in the top.

  “I didn’t think there was an extradition treaty between us and Baudoin,” I said.

  He lifted his head out of his hands. “There isn’t,” he said. “So they snatched me off the street, shoved me into a closed carriage and drove me across the border. Three days before my wedding,” he added. “Syrisca will be half dead with worry about me.”

  “Surely that was illegal.”

  He nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I believe there’s been a brisk exchange of notes between the embassies, and the marquis has lodged an official complaint. Strangely enough, I’m still here.”

  I looked at him. It was dark in the cell, so I couldn’t see much. “You’ve got a beard,” I said. “That’s new.”

  “Syrisca thought I’d look good in a beard.”

  I held back, postponing the moment. “I suppose you feel hard done by,” I said.

  “Yes, actually.” He swung his legs up onto the ledge and crouched, hugging his knees to his chin. “Fair enough, I did some stupid things when I was a kid. But I did some pretty good things too. And then I gave both of them up, settled down and turned into a regular citizen. It’s been a long time. I really thought I was free and clear.”

  Surreptitiously I looked round the cell. What I was looking for didn’t seem to be there, but it was pretty dark. “How did they find you?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “No idea,” he said. “I can only assume someone from the old days must’ve recognised me, but I can’t imagine who it could’ve been. I gave up music,” he added bitterly. “Surely that ought to have counted for something.”

  He’d taken care not to tell me his new name, that night in the inn, but a rising young star in the Baudoin olive oil trade wasn’t hard to find. Maybe he shouldn’t have given me that much information. But he hadn’t expected me to live long enough to make use of it.

  “You tried to poison me,” I said.

  He looked at me, and his eyes were like glass. “Yes,” he said. “Sorry about that. I’m glad you survived, if that means anything to you.”

  “Why?”

  “Why did I do it?” He gave me a bemused look. “Surely that’s obvious. You recognised me. I knew you’d realised who I was, as soon as our eyes met at the recital. That was really stupid of me,” he went on, looking away. “I should’ve guessed you’d never have turned me in.”

  “So it was nearly three murders,” I said. “That tends to undercut your assertion that you’ve turned over a new leaf.”

  “Yes,” he said. “And my theory that it was somehow connected to writing music, since I’d given up by the time I tried to kill you. I really am sorry about that, by the way.”

  I gave him a weak smile. “I forgive you,” I said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Also,” I went on, “I’ve been to see the duke. He’s a great admirer of my work, you know.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Oh yes. And to think you once called him a savage.”

  “He’s not the man his father was,” he replied. “I think the old duke might have pardoned me. You know, for services to music.”

  “Sighvat didn’t put it quite like that,” I replied. “It was more as a personal favour to me.”

  There was quite a long silence; just like—I’m sorry, but I really can’t resist the comparison—a rest at a crucial moment in a piece of music. “He’s letting me go?”

  “Not quite,” I said, as gently as I could. “He reckons he’s got to consider the feelings of the victim’s family. Fifteen years. With luck and good behaviour, you’ll be out in ten.”

  He took it in two distinct stages; first the shudder, the understandable horror at the thought of an impossibly long time in hell; then, slowly but successfully pulling himself out of despair, as he considered the alternative. “I can live with that,” he said.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to,” I replied. “I’m sorry. It was the best I could do.”

  He shook his head. “I’m the one who should apologise,” he said. “I tried to kill you, and you just saved my life.” He looked up, and even in the dim light I could see an expression on his face I don’t think I’d ever seen before. “You always were better than me,” he said. “I didn’t deserve that.”

  I shrugged. “We’re quits, then,” I said. “For the symphony. But there’s one condition.”

  He made a vague sort of gesture to signify capitulation. “Whatever,” he said.

  “You’ve got to start writing music again.”

  For a moment, I think he was too bewildered to speak. Then he burst out laughing. “Tha
t’s ridiculous,” he said. “It’s been so long, I haven’t even thought about it.”

  “It’ll come back to you, I bet. Not my condition, by the way,” I added, lying. “The duke’s. So unless you want a short walk and an even shorter drop, I suggest you look to it. Did you get the paper I had sent up, by the way?”

  “Oh, that was you, was it?” He looked at me a bit sideways. “Yes, thanks. I wiped my arse with it.”

  “In future, use your left hand, it’s what it’s for. It’s a serious condition, Aimeric. It’s Sighvat’s idea of making restitution. I think it’s a good one.”

  There was another moment of silence. “Did you tell him?”

  “Tell him what?”

  “That I wrote the symphony. Was that what decided him?”

  “I didn’t, actually,” I said. “But the thought had crossed my mind. Luckily, I didn’t have to.”

  He nodded. “That’s all right, then.” He sighed, as though he was glad some long and tedious chore was over. “I guess it’s like the people who put caged birds out on windowledges in the sun,” he said. “Lock ’em up and torture them to make them sing. I never approved of that. Cruel, I call it.”

  “A small price to pay for birdsong,” I said.

  Most of what I told him was true. I did go to duke Sighvat to intercede for him. Sighvat was mildly surprised, given that I’d been the one who informed on him in the first place. I didn’t tell the duke about the attempt to poison me. The condition was my idea, but Sighvat approved of it. He has rather fanciful notions about poetic justice, which if you ask me is a downright contradiction in terms.

  I did bend the truth a little. To begin with, Sighvat was all for giving Subtilius a clear pardon. It was me who said no, he should go to prison instead; and when I explained why I wanted that, he agreed, so I was telling the truth when I told Subtilius it was because of the wishes of the victim’s family.

  Quite. The young waste-of-space Subtilius murdered was my nephew, Segibert’s boy. I didn’t find that out until after I helped Subtilius escape, and looking back, I wonder what I’d have done if I’d known at the time. I’m really not sure—which is probably just as well, since I have the misfortune to live with myself, and knowing how I’d have chosen, had I been in full possession of the facts, could quite possibly make that relationship unbearable. Fortunately, it’s an academic question.

  Subtilius is quite prolific, in his prison cell. Actually, it’s not at all bad. I got him moved from the old castle to the barbican tower, and it’s really quite comfortable there. In fact, his cell is more or less identical in terms of furnishings and facilities to my rooms in college, and I pay the warders to give him decent food and the occasional bottle of wine. He doesn’t have to worry about money, either. Unfortunately, the quantity of his output these days isn’t matched by the quality. It’s good stuff, highly accomplished, technically proficient and very agreeable to listen to, but no spark of genius, none whatsoever. I don’t know. Maybe he still has the wings, but in his cage, on the windowsill, where I put him, he can’t really make much use of them.

  A Rich, Full Week

  He looked at me the way they all do. “You’re him, then.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “This way.”

  Across the square. A cart, tied up to a hitching-post. One thin horse. Not so very long ago, he’d used the cart for shifting dung. I sat next to him, my bag on my knees, tucking my feet in close, and laid a bet with myself as to what he’d say next.

  “You don’t look like a wizard,” he said.

  I owed myself two nomismata. “I’m not a wizard,” I said.

  I always say that.

  “But we sent to the Fathers for a—”

  “I’m not a wizard,” I repeated, “I’m a philosopher. There’s no such thing as wizards.”

  He frowned. “We sent to the Fathers for a wizard,” he said.

  I have this little speech. I can say it with my eyes shut, or thinking about something else. It comes out better if I’m not thinking about what I’m saying. I tell them, we’re not wizards, we don’t do magic, there’s no such thing as magic. Rather, we’re students of natural philosophy, specialising in mental energies, telepathy, telekinesis, indirect vision. Not magic; just science where we haven’t quite figured out how it works yet. I looked at him. His hood and coat were homespun, that open, rather scratchy weave you get with moorland wool. The patches were a slightly different colour; I guessed they’d been salvaged from an even older coat that had finally reached the point where there was nothing left to sew onto. The boots had a military look. There had been battles in these parts, thirty years ago, in the civil war. The boots looked to be about that sort of vintage. Waste not, want not.

  “I’m kidding,” I said. “I’m a wizard.”

  He looked at me, then back at the road. I hadn’t risen in his estimation, but I hadn’t sunk any lower, probably because that wasn’t possible. I waited for him to broach the subject.

  By my estimation, three miles out of town; I said; “So, tell me what’s been happening.”

  He had big hands; too big for his wrists, which looked like bones painted flesh-colour. “The Brother wrote you a letter,” he said.

  “Yes,” I replied brightly. “But I want you to tell me.”

  The silence that followed was thought rather than rudeness or sulking. Then he said, “No good asking me. I don’t know about that stuff.”

  They never want to talk to me. I have to conclude that it’s my fault. I’ve tried all sorts of different approaches. I’ve tried being friendly, which gets you nowhere. I’ve tried keeping my face shut until someone volunteers information, which gets you peace and quiet. I’ve read books about agriculture, so I can talk intelligently about the state of the crops, milk yields, prices at market and the weather. When I do that, of course, I end up talking to myself. Actually, I have no problem about talking to myself. In the country, it’s the only way I ever get an intelligent conversation.

  “The dead man,” I prompted him. I never say the deceased.

  He shrugged. “Died about three months ago. Never had any bother till just after lambing.”

  “I see. And then?”

  “It was sheep to begin with,” he said. “The old ram, with its neck broke, and then four ewes. They all reckoned it was wolves, but I said to them, wolves don’t break necks, it was something with hands did that.”

  I nodded. I knew all this. “And then?”

  “More sheep,” he said, “and the dog, and then an old man, used to go round all the farms selling stuff, buttons and needles and things he made out of old bones; and when we found him, we reckoned we’d best tell the boss up at the grange, and he sent down two of his men to look out at night, and then the same thing happened to them. I said, that’s no wolf. Knew all along, see. Seen it before.”

  That hadn’t been in the letter. “Is that right?” I said.

  “When I was a kid,” the man said (and now I knew the problem would be getting him to shut up). “Same thing exactly; sheep, then travellers, then three of the duke’s men. My grandad, he knew what it was, but they wouldn’t listen. He knew a lot of stuff, grandad.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Him and me and my cousin from out over, we got a couple of shovels and a pick and an axe, and we went and dug up this old boy who’d died. And he was all swelled up, like he’d got the gout all over, and he was purple, like a grape. So we cut off his head and shovelled all the dirt back, and we dropped the head down an old well, and that was the end of that. No more bother. Didn’t say what we’d done, mind. The Brother wouldn’t have liked it. Funny bugger, he was.”

  Well, I thought. “You did the right thing,” I said. “Your grandfather was a clever man, obviously.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “He knew a lot of stuff.”

  I was doing my mental arithmetic. When I was a kid; so, anything from fifty-five to sixty years ago. Rather a long interval, but not unheard of. I wa
s about to ask if anything like it had happened before then, but I figured it out just in time. If wise old Grandfather had known exactly what to do, it stood to reason he’d learned it the old-fashioned way, watching or helping; quite possibly more than once.

  “The man who died,” I said.

  “Him.” A cartload of significance crammed into that word. “Offcomer,” he explained.

  “Ah,” I said.

  “Schoolteacher, he called himself,” he went on. “Dunno about that. Him and the Brother, they tried to get a school going, to teach the boys their letters and figuring and all, but I told them, waste of time in these parts, you can’t spare a boy in summer, and winter, it’s too dark and cold to be walking five miles there and five miles back, just to learn stuff out of a book. And they wanted paying, two pence twice a year. People round here can’t afford that for a parcel of old nonsense.”

  I thought of my own childhood, and said nothing. “Where did he come from?”

  “Down south.” Well, of course he did. “I said to him, you’re a long way from home. He didn’t deny it. Said it was his calling, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

  It was dark by the time we reached the farm. It was exactly what I’d been expecting; long and low, with turf eaves a foot off the ground, turf walls over a light timber frame. No trees this high up, so lumber had to come up the coast on a big shallow-draught freighter as far as Holy Trinity, then road haulage the rest of the way. I spent the first fifteen years of my life sleeping under turf, and I still get nightmares.

  Mercifully, the Brother was there waiting for me. He was younger than I’d anticipated—you always think of village Brothers as craggy old fat men, or thin and brittle, like dried twigs with papery bark. Brother Stauracius couldn’t have been much over thirty; a tall, broad-shouldered man with an almost perfectly square head, hair cropped short like winter pasture and pale blue eyes. Even without the habit, nobody could have taken him for a farmer.