by Garth Nix
Jess looked to the darkest corner of the hall, behind the dais.
‘Please,’ she said quietly. ‘Surely this is a matter for the Highest Justice of all?’
‘Who are you talking to?’ said Lieka. She turned in her seat and looked around, her beautiful eyes narrowed in concentration. Seeing nothing, she smiled and turned back. ‘You are more a fool than your mother. Guard, take her away.’
Piers did not answer. He was staring at the dais. Jess watched too, as the unicorn stepped lightly to Lieka’s side and gently dipped her horn into the King’s goblet.
‘Take her away!’ ordered Lieka again. ‘Lock her up somewhere dark. And summon the others from the solar. There is much to celebrate.’
She raised the goblet and took a drink. The wine stained her lips dark, and she licked them before she took another draft.
‘The royal wine is swee—’
The word never quite quit Lieka’s mouth. The skin on her forehead wrinkled in puzzlement, her perfectly painted face crazing over with tiny cracks. She began to turn her head toward the unicorn and pitched forward onto the table, knocking the goblet over. The spilled wine pooled to the edge and began to slowly drip upon the blackened feet of the Queen who lay beneath, conjoined with her King.
‘Thank you,’ said Jess. She slumped to the floor, raising her knees so she could make herself small and rest her head. She had never felt so tired, so totally spent, as if everything had poured out of her, all energy, emotion, and thought.
Then she felt the Unicorn’s horn, the side of it, not the point. Jess raised her head, and was forced to stand up as Elibet continued to chide her, almost levering her up.
‘What?’ asked Jess miserably. ‘I said thank you. It’s done, now, isn’t it? Justice has been served, foul murderers served their due portion. My mother even … even … got her kiss …’
The unicorn looked at her. Jess wiped the tears out of her eyes and listened.
‘But there’s my brother. He’ll be old enough in a few years, well, six years—’
‘I know father was a bad king, that doesn’t mean—’
‘It’s not fair! It’s too hard! I was going to go to Aunt Maria’s convent school—’
Elibet stamped her foot down, through the rushes, hard enough to make the stone flagstones beneath ring like a beaten gong. Jess swallowed her latest protest and bent her head.
‘Is that a unicorn?’ whispered Piers.
‘You can see her?’ exclaimed Jess.
Piers blushed. Jess stared at him. Evidently her father’s outer guards did not take their lead from the King in all respects, or Piers was simply too new to have been forced to take part in the King’s frequent bacchanalia.
‘I … I … There is someone in particular … ,’ muttered Piers. He met her gaze as he spoke, not looking down as a good servant should. She noticed his eyes were a very warm brown, and there was something about his face that made her want to look at him more closely…
Then she was distracted by the unicorn, who stepped back up onto the dais and delicately plucked the simple traveling crown from the King’s head with her horn. Balancing it there, she headed back to Jess.
‘What’s she doing?’ whispered Piers.
‘Dispensing justice,’ said Elibet. She dropped the crown on Jess’s head and tapped it in place with her horn. ‘I trust you will be a better judge than your father. In all respects.’
‘I will try,’ said Jess. She reached up and touched the thin gold circlet. It didn’t feel real, but then nothing did. Perhaps it might in daylight, after a very long sleep.
‘Do so,’ said Elibet. She paced around them and walked toward the door.
‘Wait!’ cried Jess. ‘Will I see you again?’
The unicorn looked back at the princess and the young guardsman at her side.
‘Perhaps,’ said Elibet, and was gone.
A Handful of Ashes
‘THERE’S THE BELL AGAIN,’ GROANED Francesca. She reluctantly lifted her eyes from the copy of An Introduction to Lammas Night Curses, and Counter-Curses that she’d been studying and looked across at the indicator board that dominated one entire wall of the servants’ dining room. ‘Miss Englesham this time. Whose turn is it to go?’
‘Mine,’ answered Mari, with a sigh. She had three books open on the table in front of her, and was in the middle of making some very precise and careful notes that required great concentration. She balanced her pen back on its stand next to the inkwell, slid off the cuffs that kept the sleeves of her blouse ink-free, and stood up.
‘I’ll go for you, Mari,’ said a cheerful young woman who was toasting her feet by the huge kitchen range, without a book in sight.
‘Oh no you won’t, Tess,’ instructed a much older and larger woman who was making pie cases on a neighboring bench. ‘You’re finished for the day, and them sizars knows they only study as work allows. Which it don’t, right now.’
‘Yes, Cook,’ said Tess, subsiding back into her chair.
‘Thank you anyway, Tess,’ said Mari. ‘Cook is, of course, quite right.’
Francesca made a face behind Cook’s back and handed Mari an apron. Cook was mistress of the kitchen and a powerful curse-cooker, so they could not afford to cross her. Particularly as the two of them were sizars, poor students who were allowed to study at Ermine College in return for menial service. Ermine was one of the seven colleges at the University of Hallowsbridge, the only one for witches, the other six colleges being exclusively for wizards. Only Ermine and the wizard college Rolyneaux still continued the tradition of sizars.
Mari tied the apron behind her back as she ran up the kitchen stairs and out across the North Quadrangle, being careful to stay on the path. Walking on the grass was prohibited except for senior members of the college or university, visiting dignitaries like Inspectors of Magery, and the Head Gardener. The lawn was not to be touched by the feet of undergraduates, and certainly not by the ugly worn-out boots of a sizar.
Across the quad, she slowed to take a shortcut along the narrow lane between the ancient, mossy stones of the western wall of Agstood Hall and the smooth brick of the eastern wall of the Oozery. It was the quickest way, though not without its perils, the foremost being that it was off-limits to servants and sizars. But, as it was already dusk, Mari thought it worth the risk in order to save time. The young ladies, as the sizars were supposed to refer to the proper, fee-paying undergraduates, were generally not very patient. Most of them came from homes with a large and attentive domestic staff, and they did not adapt well to the far less available services of the sizars and the limited number of college servants.
The Miriam Oakenwood Quadrangle on the other side was a much smaller version of the North Quadrangle. It was lined on two sides by an L-shaped four-story building officially called Oakenwood Hall, but known to everyone as Mo’Wood. It housed most of the first-year students. Mari went to the western arm and rapidly ascended to the top floor, where the best rooms were located, and knocked on the door that had a plain white card with ‘Englesham, Miss C.’ inserted in its bronze nameplate.
‘Enter!’
Mari pushed the door open. Four carefully made-up faces on four elegantly attired young women turned to look at her. The four were sitting on two leather chaise longues that were lined up opposite each other, with a low table in between that currently hosted a very expensive and definitely noncollegiate collection of tea things, including a large enameled bronze samovar that Mari was fairly certain she’d seen in The Mercury as being the property of the recently deceased Prince-Wizard Athenanan, sold for a record price at the auction disposing of his worldly goods.
‘You rang, Miss Englesham,’ Mari stated calmly, though inside her heart was racing, and she stood on her toes, ready for flight, all prompted by the sight of her reception committee.
Caita Englesham herself was a typically harmless first year, if thoughtless. But the other three were third-year students, and a consistent problem for Mari and the other sizars
. Aphra Lannisa was a bully of the worst stripe; Susyn Clairmore was a liar and a cheat; and their leader, Helena Diadem, was the worst of the lot, since in Mari’s opinion she was well on the way to becoming a bane-witch, though Diadem was too clever to let anyone in authority see that.
‘Yes,’ said Englesham nervously, with a sideways glance at the others. ‘I had some questions.’
Mari stood, waiting for the questions. None were forthcoming for several seconds.
‘Ah, I believe …’ Englesham wet her lips and hesitated again. ‘I believe that you grew up in the servant’s quarters of the College, Mari?’
‘Yes, miss,’ replied Mari woodenly. Lannisa and Clairmore were giggling, but Mari still couldn’t see where this was going. Everyone knew that she had been found on the steps of the porter’s lodge as a baby and had been taken in by Mrs. Garridge, the porter’s wife. She and her husband had died of the Great Ague three years previously when Mari was sixteen, but not before Old Garridge, as everyone knew him, had managed to call in the many favors owed to him to have Mari made a sizar of the College, so that she might take her degree and thus ensure her future.
‘You’re smart, my girl,’ he’d said on his deathbed. ‘Smarter than three-quarters of them here. You might even be Mistress of the College one day. You get your degree and you’ll be set for life.’
Or so he had thought. But the Great Ague had come again the next year, and the next, and twelve months ago had taken the former Mistress of Ermine College. The new one, Lady Aristhenia, did not approve of the tradition of sizars. She liked her servants to be servants, she’d said, and her scholars to be gentlewomen.
Since Lady Aristhenia’s installation as Mistress, Mari had been doing a lot more serving and a lot less studying, and with her final exams only a month away, she feared that she would not pass, would not gain her degree, and then would either have to stay on simply as a servant, or leave the College that she loved, to find her way in an economically depressed outside world that would not welcome an unqualified witch.
‘And you … um … weaseled … your way into becoming a sizar student in the Beltane term three years ago,’ continued Englesham, her eyes darting to the other girls and back again.
I know who’s really speaking here, thought Mari. Helena Diadem.
‘Yes, miss,’ she replied, trying to stay calm. ‘Is there anything I can do for you? More coal for your fire, perhaps?’
‘No,’ said Englesham quickly, eager to be done with what she had been told to say. ‘It’s just that … we … that is I … I have found a scrap of the Original By-Laws of the College …’
Mari’s eyes narrowed. The Original By-Laws were potent magical artifacts, written in Brythonic and inscribed on stone tablets in the Ogham script to bind everyone in the College to obey their draconian strictures. But fortunately for all concerned, some three hundred years previously the then Mistress of the College, the fabled Alicia Wasp, aided by the Witch-Queen Jesmay I, had nullified the Original By-Laws and buried the stone tablets under the moondial in the Library Garden. Then Mistress Wasp had promulgated the New By-Laws, which were considerably more liberal, and being merely in Latin, were also much easier to read.
As far as Mari knew, the stone tablets were still under the moondial, and even if they weren’t, it was very unlikely that Englesham could understand Brythonic, or read even a sentence written in Ogham script.
It was clearly going to develop into some sort of attack upon her, but Mari couldn’t work out of what nature it was going to be, or where the forgotten and nullified Original By-Laws were going to come into it.
‘I found a parchment,’ continued Englesham. She looked over at the wall. ‘When I moved in, the wallpaper had to be changed, really it was too awful …’
Helena Diadem looked at her. Englesham gulped and continued.
‘There was a parchment under the plaster, and the workmen pointed it out to me. It was a rubbing of part of one of the old tablets. I was going to take it to my tutor, but Diadem said—’
‘That’s enough,’ said Diadem. ‘Suffice to say, Mari, that we have found a paragraph of the Original By-Laws, which, curiously enough, concerns sizars in the College. We thought you should be the first to know, before it is invoked.’
‘That’s old magic,’ said Mari. She tried to look unconcerned, but inside she was scared. ‘Deep magic. You shouldn’t mess with it.’
‘It’s only a sentence or two of the Original By-Laws,’ sneered Aphra Lannisa. ‘Most sensible by-laws, I think.’
Mari took a step back, toward the door. But Diadem pulled a wand out from between the cushions of the chaise longue. It wasn’t a weak student wand, a mere stick of wych elm, carved with some simple runes granting minor magics. This wand was very old and very, very dangerous. Carved from a human shinbone, it was covered in minute inscriptions that called upon serious powers: powers of the past, powers of the present, and powers that were yet to be.
‘You shouldn’t have that,’ whispered Mari. She felt like someone had just pressed an icicle lengthways against her spine, and her heart faltered in its steady rhythm.
Wands like that weren’t just forbidden. They were outlawed. Owning one was a very serious offense. Actually using one put the wielder beyond the law: every witch and wizard who witnessed such activity was then empowered to do whatever was necessary to disarm or even kill the user and keep the wand in place till it could be made safe by the authorities. The only problem being that any sensible witch or wizard would run a mile before tackling the wielder of such a wand.
‘Why?’ asked Diadem. ‘It’s a family heirloom, and besides, I don’t have it, as all my friends here will attest if you claim otherwise.’
She looked at Englesham.
‘Give the fragment to Mari, Caita.’
Englesham, anxious to obey, took a small folded piece of parchment out from inside the sleeve of her gown and proffered it to Mari, who locked her hands into fists at her sides.
‘That won’t do,’ said Diadem. She made a slight gesture with the bone wand and spoke three words that curdled the milk in the silver jug on the table and frosted the cake with a hideous fuzzy green mold.
Mari found her hands opening, and her right arm lifting up, her joints moving like an old puppet brought out of the attic and forced to answer once more to the strings.
‘Read it,’ said Diadem. ‘Aloud.’
Mari’s hands unfolded the parchment, even though she didn’t want to. Nor did she want to raise the parchment to eye level, but her arms lifted, answering the gentle string-pulling movements of Diadem’s wand.
‘I … I can’t decipher Ogham,’ muttered Mari, through clenched teeth. ‘Or pronounce Brythonic.’
‘Liar!’ exclaimed Lannisa. ‘Oh, let me have a turn with the wand, Helena!’
Diadem ignored her friend.
‘Really?’ she answered Mari. ‘What was that essay of yours last year? ‘The Augmentation of Incantation: Brythonic, Ogham, and a Choir of Seven,’ I believe it was called. You certainly convinced our old Mistress of your familiarity with both language and cipher. She gave you a prize, as I recall.’
‘Swot,’ said Clairmore venomously, almost spitting at Mari.
‘Read it,’ commanded Diadem.
Mari tried not to, but she had no choice. Diadem had her in the grip of a geas, which was bane-witch territory for certain, not that any of the others would ever testify against her, and Mari’s word alone would not count for anything. She regretted that she had not thought to equip herself with a defensive charm, as she usually did when called to Diadem’s rooms. But she had not considered that the inoffensive Miss Englesham would be recruited to Diadem’s flock of harpies.
She started to read, roughly translating the Brythonic in her head as she spoke aloud. Most of the words were harmless enough in themselves, but they were joined by words of power in such a way that the totality of the phrase became a very powerful spell.
Scholar-servants of low estate
/> brought into learning, of this date
Shall with ashes adorn their face
And must not be adorned with lace
Their coats shall be—
The fragment was torn there, and ended.
‘What does that mean?’ asked Englesham anxiously. Lannisa and Clairmore did not ask, but looked to Diadem, who was certainly the only other person in the room who had understood the Brythonic original of this small evocation of the Original By-Laws.
‘You’ll see in a moment,’ said Diadem. She pointed the wand at Mari.
‘You will find you cannot speak of this wand. But you are otherwise released.’
She slid her wand up her sleeve, and Mari felt the geas lift. Her arms fell, boneless for a second, till she got control.
But even though she was no longer under Diadem’s spell, Mari still felt a strong compulsion. It was different, more inside her head than physically controlling, but she could not resist it any more than she had the geas. She ran to the fireplace, knelt down and in lieu of immediately available wood-ash, ran her finger along the grate and smeared the resulting sticky black coal residue across her face, two messy tiger-stripes down each cheek.
A slight smile curled up one corner of Diadem’s mouth. Lannisa and Clairmore shrieked with laughter. Englesham bit her lip and looked away.
Mari stood up and returned to the door.
‘Will that be all, miss?’ she asked calmly. Inwardly she was suppressing a fierce rage. If she’d had a bone wand like Diadem’s, four … or perhaps three … lady undergraduates would be smoking corpses, and Mari would be a murderer and a bane-witch, to be hunted across the Protectorate and all the civilized lands beyond.
So it was probably just as well she hadn’t had an evil wand, thought Mari as she ran furiously along the Agstood-Oozery Lane. She would have to find another way to be revenged upon Diadem that did not involve banecraft and outlawry. And more pressingly, she needed to find out how to nullify or overcome the Original Law that even now was sharp inside her mind, insisting that the black coal stripes on her face must be replaced with fine gray wood ash, in the approved pattern that hadn’t even been mentioned in the fragment but that she somehow now knew.