A Scholar of Magics Read online

  Luncheon, when they got around to serving it, made up for some of the social discomfort. After the meal, the Senior Fellows, the men in the shiniest top hats of all, took Lambert around the grounds of Glasscastle, and that was where Lambert understood the magnitude of his error. He’d been standing just here beside the bench, watching the rain drip from the brim of his hat, when his escort paused to listen to the chants from Wearyall College.

  The place was beautiful, that much Lambert had noticed at once. The bench was in a spot well sheltered from that tireless wind in winter, ordinarily basking in the sun so that even on that roughest, coldest of days, snowdrops bloomed in the grass beside the ancient foundation stones. Lambert had been admiring the snowdrops in an absentminded way when the sound of chanting transfixed him.

  Many voices raised as one, though not raised far, seemed to inhabit the trees, the grass, every mossy stone of the place—and illuminate it. The music filled Lambert’s chest and stung his eyes with tears. It opened his heart the way only the sight of home and the sound of certain voices had ever opened it before. The change occurred with a speed that frightened him. One moment he was himself, waiting patiently for the tour to move on, and the next moment he was clinging to the chant, waiting with his whole soul open, breathless to discover how it would change him next.

  Time went away for Lambert as he stood listening, but his escort did not. He stood rapt as long as his guides’ patience permitted, but at last Lambert had to yield and let himself be led away, towed along to finish the tour. As the distance from the garden grew and the intensity of the experience faded, the chant became a separate thing again, something Lambert could think about objectively.

  Afterward, Lambert couldn’t account for the power the chant held for him, couldn’t really believe it had seized him with such speed and force. When he was thinking with his head again, not his heart, it was the purpose behind the music that intrigued Lambert most. The notes held a meaning he felt he ought to understand. Lambert was sure of that, yet all the while his rational mind flipped and struggled like a trout to explain to itself how he could possibly know any such thing. How could he be so sure of something he had never encountered before, something he knew nothing about? How could he be so sure that this was the most important thing that had ever happened to him? What had happened to him?

  The spell of that oddly uncomplicated music lingered with Lambert when he walked away. Lambert agreed to stay and help the top hats of Glasscastle with their marksmanship project. He didn’t know what it was about the chanting that changed things so. He simply knew he needed to hear more. He needed to learn more. He needed to be there.

  From that day on, Lambert had adopted the manners of Glasscastle as quickly and as sincerely as possible. He wanted to fit in there as best he could. He wanted to belong, but failing that, he wanted to spend every moment he could exploring the urgency that chanting roused within him. He had to put up with the teasing reminders of his debut, which embarrassed him a little more every time he remembered it. But they let him stay.

  In two days, he was trusted to stick to the paths of the university open to him as a guest. The first chance he had, and every chance after that, he’d made his way back to the bench outside Wearyall. That was where he listened. That was where the music of the massed voices worked its way into his bones. That was where he first met Nicholas Fell.

  It had been a miserable day, not raining but just about to, and the wind was unrelenting. After his first disastrous day at Glasscastle, Lambert had worn his best, most unobtrusive clothes, and after half an hour of sitting still, even his heavy topcoat did nothing to keep the chill away.

  Lambert had been joined by a rumpled, wiry man with thick dark hair and a neatly trimmed mustache. It was hard to not stare at the dark hair, because the man was bareheaded. His voice, when the man spoke, was low, almost diffident.

  “I’m terribly sorry to interrupt you,” the newcomer said as he approached the bench, “but have you seen my hat?”

  Lambert couldn’t help taking a quick look around. There was the bench, the stone walls, the corner of garden, plenty of trees, and some snowdrops blooming. No hat. “Sorry, no.”

  The man sank down on the bench beside Lambert with a weary sigh. “Blast them. Where do they get these notions?” In reply to Lambert’s look of inquiry, he explained apologetically, “My students believe I pay them insufficient attention. In reprisal, they have taken my hat. I thought I had interpreted the ransom note correctly. Apparently not.” He thought it over. “It’s a good hat. Worth going to some inconvenience to recover. But it isn’t a remarkable hat. I may simply have to resign myself to its loss. My name is Nicholas Fell, by the way. You’re the American, are you not?”

  Lambert blinked. “I’m an American,” he admitted cautiously.

  “Around here, that means you’re the American.” Fell tugged at the corner of his mustache. “Beastly boys. I don’t know where they get the time, let alone the energy.”

  “I thought the students of Glasscastle led an ascetic life.” Lambert nodded toward the sound of chanting. “Rituals and all.”

  “Up at five o’clock in the morning to chant for hours, scrub the floors for a quick diversion, a cup of gruel and a good gossip for breakfast, and then off to attend their lectures?” Fell made a derisive sound. “That still leaves them hours to spend getting into trouble, the young animals. I liked that hat, damn it.”

  “If I find it, I’ll be sure to report it.”

  Fell gave Lambert a long look. It was a piercing look, and Lambert wanted to squirm under the close scrutiny. “You are cold.” Fell rose. “Come to my rooms with me and I’ll give you a drink. Brandy all right?”

  Lambert got to his feet. He was inches taller than Fell, but he didn’t feel it, for all he loomed over him. Fell seemed to consider him an equal, someone of merit not for what he could do or where he was from, but just for who he was. “You’re very kind. I’m not supposed to drink anything stronger than tea, though.”

  “Sorry. Tea it is, then. Come along.” Fell beckoned Lambert and the pair of them walked together along the winding paths to Holythorn. By the time they finished tea, Lambert knew he liked Fell. Over the next few days, Fell made it clear that he liked Lambert well enough to solve the problem of housing by letting him share his rooms at Holythorn.

  Six months now, Lambert had been at Glasscastle. Six months of working at whatever job he was given, trying to fit in. The work they wanted him for was simplicity itself, firing every kind of weapon they handed him as accurately as possible. The hard part was fitting in when he wasn’t working. Fell was far from the usual mold of Glasscastle scholars.

  At first the whole atmosphere of Glasscastle had seemed foreign to Lambert, more foreign at times than the places he’d visited in France and Germany. There was no chance of forgetting he was foreign in countries where he didn’t speak the language at all. At Glasscastle, after the first weeks, similarities lulled him. In some ways, it seemed more like home to him than Wyoming had. The serenity and the seriousness of Glasscastle made Lambert feel as if he belonged there. Yet sooner or later, he was always yanked back to reality. He was a guest, a wayfaring stranger, where left was right and right was left. Even the accents in words fell in strange places, so that in speaking the same language, Lambert could sometimes hardly understand, let alone be understood. It was the people who made him feel foreign. Some of the people. Fell didn’t seem to care if Lambert were an American or not. Amy seemed to revel in any symptom of cowboy colorfulness that Lambert could think of.

  People like Yardley, on the other hand, made Lambert feel foreign. Yardley was a Senior Fellow of Holythorn. That Lambert spoke English was something Yardley seemed unwilling to concede. He would often cock his head and ask Lambert to repeat what he’d said, as if his accent were too thick to understand. Some words, such as “reckon,” Yardley treated as if they were not merely unfamiliar but profane. When Yardley was gatekeeper, the spectacle of Lambert writing his
name in the visitors’ book all by himself made Yardley marvel aloud.

  Yardley was in Vienna for the summer. Lambert wished the Austrians joy of him. If there were any justice in the world, Yardley would be treated as rudely as he treated others. Lambert held no hope of such a thing. He knew the people of Vienna were far more polite than Yardley. Wayfaring strangers there were much better off.

  Although he was a stranger, Lambert had set himself to learn everything he could about Glasscastle. There was no method to his study. He picked up facts at random, like seashells at the shore.

  Chants at Glasscastle were in Latin. Even the least promising student, fresh faced and new to the university, was able to memorize the words and music that powered the wards of Glasscastle. As the day moved on, so did the chants. The words and music changed throughout the day and night, with students chanting in shifts according to their schedules. The timing of the changes in the chants was drawn from the bells.

  Bells were almost as common as snowdrops at Glasscastle. Full sets of bells hung in the spires of St. Mary’s and St. Joseph’s. They were augmented by individual bells in each college. Every day was divided by bells, simple music to mark the hours. Every night was bordered by bells, from the curfew that rang stray undergraduates home at midnight to the vigorous changes that welcomed every day at Prime, a joyous cascade of sound that began in the last moments of darkness and spilled over into the first gray shades of morning.

  Lambert learned the trees of Glasscastle as well as he learned the bells. Every tree gave a hint to the direction of the prevailing wind, for even the noblest beech tree, straight and proud and silver, held itself at a slight angle, leaning south. Glasscastle was well endowed with trees, great old cedars and limes and oaks as well as the beeches. The famous thorn tree that had given its image to the Glasscastle university seal and its name to Holythorn College grew beside the church of St. Mary’s, sheltered in its cloistered courtyard. If, as legend insisted, the tree was nearly nineteen centuries old, it did not look it. It had bloomed exuberantly at Easter and Lambert hoped he’d still be around when the tree bloomed again. Folks told him it bloomed at Christmas as well as Easter but he didn’t see how that was possible. A tree could blossom once a year, not twice.

  The year at Glasscastle was divided as carefully as the days. The first term of the year began in mid-January and had been well under way by the time Lambert arrived. The next term began after Whitsuntide and lasted well into the summer. The third term didn’t begin for more than a month. At first, Lambert had enjoyed the relative peace and quiet of the days between terms. Now holiday sleepiness made the days seem uncomfortably long.

  There were older universities in England than Glasscastle. Oxford and Cambridge had been granting degrees long before Glasscastle admitted students to St. Joseph’s, the first of its three colleges, in the late fourteenth century. There were larger universities and richer universities, but no other institution in the country was devoted to the study of magic. In the wake of the pestilence, all the resources of Glasscastle’s great library had been turned to research in hope of preventing the return of the plague.

  Down the centuries, the focus had changed. Glasscastle still prided itself on the research done within its walls. But the walls themselves had taken on a greater significance. Glasscastle was protected by its own and in turn it protected the knowledge stored in its archives. Wisdom, or at least knowledge, had found refuge there almost as long as the thorn tree had grown and blossomed.

  In some ways, a student of Glasscastle led a monastic life. Every student who matriculated as an undergraduate devoted himself for a set number of hours each day to the chants that gave strength to the protective spells around Glasscastle. The first-year students took it in turn to chant the wards. In his first days at Glasscastle, Lambert had dared to picture himself among them, rising before dawn to join the chanting, dividing his day between study, devotion, and simple physical chores, as an undergraduate of St. Joseph’s or Wearyall, he didn’t care which. Students retired early, in theory at least, and they did not indulge in the intoxications common in the world outside. In theory. It was all theory as far as Lambert was concerned. He had dared to picture himself as a second-year student, increasing the time spent in study as his place in the chants was taken by newer students. He had even dared to imagine himself passing the tests administered at the end of the ninth term, three years on, to earn the robes of a scholar of Glasscastle. Anyone could dream. In theory.

  Lambert let the sway of the treetops lull him into a doze. Only a deep voice speaking almost in his ear brought him back to full attention.

  “You. I might have known. You do know you aren’t supposed to be here without an escort, don’t you?” The voice belonged to Jack Meredith, like Fell and Voysey a Fellow of Holythorn, the man who administered the tests of marksmanship Lambert was given. Meredith was tall and strong enough to make his words sound like something of a threat, even to someone Lambert’s size.

  “I stay on the gravel path.” Lambert was in no hurry to sit up. If Meredith had ever felt inclined to exercise the authority vested in him as a member of the university, Lambert had never detected a sign of it. “Were you looking for me?”

  As soon as there was room on the bench, Meredith sat down next to Lambert. “Not you in particular, no. When I see someone sleeping on a garden bench between terms, I feel obliged to ask if he needs some sort of assistance. During the term, of course, I assume it is an exhausted undergraduate.”

  “What kind of help do they get?”

  Meredith looked surprised by the question. “None. Anyone too weak to sustain our academic rigors is welcome to find more congenial surroundings.”

  “Right. I should have seen that one coming.”

  “Where’s your Fell friend?” Meredith looked around as if he expected Nicholas Fell to spring up from the path before him. “I suppose Voysey and Stowe and Stewart have wheeled him out to impress the visiting ministry. All ancient and legendary glories of Glasscastle to report on the double.”

  Lambert took his time about deciphering Meredith’s words. Fell was older than Meredith, but he didn’t think Fell qualified as ancient any more than Meredith did. Meredith might be using slang to mean just the opposite of what he actually said. He often did. “I don’t think Fell’s off drinking fine old brandy with Voysey and the boys. I haven’t seen him at all today. Or even yesterday. Doesn’t seem likely that he’d impress any of the government bigwigs. Or vice versa. Voysey should probably keep Fell at a safe distance from anyone he wants to butter up.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. Fell wouldn’t impress my maiden aunt. That doesn’t mean the Provosts would leave him out of it, though. Perhaps that’s why Fell’s playing least in sight. To keep out of their way.”

  “Lying low, you mean? You’re probably right. Well, if you see him before I do, tell him to write home, will you? I miss him.”

  Meredith said, “There’s no accounting for taste. If Voysey ever offered me some of that fine old brandy, I’d be there early and often. It’s a pity they make a point of keeping the likes of us well away from the dignitaries.”

  “Next time, maybe.”

  “Cold comfort, Samuel. By next time, they’ll have finished all the brandy. Mind you, I’ve no doubt they need the brandy to get through the whole agenda. Wiston is the world’s biggest bore and Fyvie’s not much better. Voysey will be lucky if he doesn’t doze off between speeches.”

  “What’s it all about, do you know?” Lambert asked.

  “Of course I know. Nobody gossips like an undergraduate, except perhaps a Senior Fellow. Voysey doesn’t want old Wistful or Lord Fiver interfering with the project, but come next budget season, he doesn’t want them to neglect us either. He invites them here so he can wine them and dine them on the premises. A reminder of what it means to have your research done in the true Glasscastle style.”

  “Wouldn’t it work the other way?” Lambert protested. “If you let on to the ministers ho
w comfortable we are here, they’ll cut the budget. Won’t they?”

  Meredith’s scorn was cheerful. “Not those two. They don’t mind the hospitality a bit, but what really matters to them is the deference. Their support for the Agincourt Project lets them come here and soak up some gracious living.”

  “Surely they have plenty of that wherever they come from?”

  “Oh, they do. They do. But the Agincourt Project isn’t competing with their clubs. It’s competing with Sopwith, Roe, and Cody and the other mad aviators. There’s talk of a military air trial with a cash prize for the designer of the winning aeroplane. Wiston and Fyvie might well be carried away by the glamour of mankind in flight, so Voysey means to remind them that air trials are likely to involve hours of standing fetlock-deep in a muddy pasture somewhere. Much more comfortable to support the tireless efforts of Glasscastle.”

  “They can’t take funding away from us—” Lambert caught himself and rephrased his thought. “They wouldn’t take funding away from the Agincourt Project before the device is designed and built, would they? That’s just throwing money away, to cut the budget before the project is done.” If the ministers did cut the funding, would they be cutting him too? Lambert wondered.

  “You’re right. But there are a lot of other projects out there competing for the money, and ministers are notoriously fickle beasts. Watch and see.” Meredith sprang to his feet. “Now, do stop cluttering up the place. I can’t just walk off and leave you here. Come along.”

  Lambert rose slowly. “You’re wasted in this job, Meredith. You’d make a wonderful mother hen.”

  Meredith struck a pose and adopted what he obviously considered to be an accent right out of the wild west. “‘When you call me that, smile.’”

  Lambert just shook his head despairingly. “Just about everyone’s read that book, haven’t they?”

  “They have now.” Meredith laughed a little to himself.

  Lambert came quietly. The popularity of Owen Wister’s novel The Virginian never ceased to amaze him.