A College of Magics (23 page)

Read A College of Magics Online

Authors: Caroline Stevermer

BOOK: A College of Magics
3.95Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Faris closed her eyes. The ride through the pine forest had been terrible. The darkness, the need for silence, and the necessity of speed, lest the local brigands find them, made the journey seem endless. Faris had found her discomfort compounded by a private, irrational fear that she still had pursuers. Yet if her uncle wished her harm, there was no pursuit, for Copenhagen and his theoretical minions
would be content to lose her on the train, knowing very well what her destination had to be. And if there had somehow been pursuers in that black forest, they must be following her on some other enemy's behalf. Mustn't they? There was comfort in that somewhere, she had thought, if she only had the art to reason it through. In the dark, on horseback, in a hurry, logic was beyond her.
At dawn, when the clouds across the eastern sky were brindled with rose, they had come to a river, as brown as oatmeal stout in the early light. As they urged their horses into the ford, Warin had said softly to Faris, “One foot on that bank and you're back home, Faris. This is the Alewash.”
The water was icy and soaked her trousers to the knee. Faris noticed no discomfort. When her horse clambered out on the other side of the river, she was seized by an impulse about equally mixed of weariness and joy. Reining up within a few yards of the ford, she dismounted and fell to one knee on the crisp brown turf. She wanted to lie full length on the ground and breathe in the scent of the soil of Galazon. Cold and stiffness and the knowledge of her own absurd appearance prevented her. Instead she bent her head for a moment as if lost in prayer. In fact, she had no thought for devotion. Her whole heart was taken up with gratitude that she was home in Galazon again.
“Are you all right, your grace?” Tyrian had drawn rein beside her and looked down at her anxiously.
Faris nodded. She started to rise. It took longer than she thought it would.
Warin drew up and dismounted. He tossed his reins to
Tyrian and did not wait to see if he caught them. As Faris straightened, he halted before her and dropped to his knees, his slouch hat in his hand. “You have been too long away, my liege,” he said softly. “Welcome home to Galazon.”
Speechless, Faris stared down at his dark untidy head.
My liege?
Had Warin been reading three-volume novels too? Her mother had been
my liege
to the men and women who remembered the days of her exile. She had never thought to hear the words herself, least of all from her old playmate.
Reed dismounted, handing his reins to Jane. He dropped to one knee beside Warin, bowed his head before Faris. When he stood up, he looked sheepish. The early light made it hard to be sure, but Faris thought he was blushing.
One or two at a time, as they splashed across the ford, Woodrowel's men dismounted before Faris. Most contented themselves with an awkward bow. A few went to their knees before her. All remounted immediately and sat at ease, watching their leader from the safety of their saddles.
Well aware of their interest and amused at Faris's obvious discomfiture, Woodrowel made a lengthy ceremony of rising and resuming his hat.
Grateful for the chance to compose herself, Faris struggled to muster an appropriate word or two. By the time he had put his slouch hat back on at the proper rakish angle, she was able to smile at Woodrowel and say lightly, “Exiled from friends is exiled indeed. Thank you, Warin.” She looked around at his men. “Thank you all for your welcome.” She turned to Reed. “Thank you. It has been a long journey. May I have a leg up?” Reed put her in the saddle.
As she gathered her reins, Faris looked defiantly at Jane and Tyrian.
Tyrian was looking as calm and uncommunicative as ever. Jane was paler than usual but showed no other sign of her fatigue. Hood back and hair only a little disheveled despite her exertions, she regarded Faris steadily for a long moment. Then, without a trace of mockery, she gave Faris a slight respectful nod.
Speechless again, Faris nodded stiffly back.
“Come,” said Warin. “We'll be late for breakfast.”
Despite wet clothes and weary horses, the ride across the hills to Shieling had been wonderful. The weather was mild for the season. The sun even shone from time to time. Faris found it impossible to worry about brigands or advisers or uncles. Weariness left her little leisure to think of anything but the ground before her and the horse beneath her. All her attention was taken up by the effort it took to stay close on Warin's heels as he rode home across his wide holding.
The hills were just as she remembered from her youth, closely grazed pastures rising into heights patched with heather, broom, and bracken. From time to time their route took them across brooks stained brown with peat, running steeply down from the heights like narrow flights of stairs. Rarely, they came to patches of bog and had to pick their way around on turf that gave like a mattress. With every brook, every bog, every patch of broom, Faris felt her spirits rising higher. It was all still here. It was all still safe.
Shieling stopped everything to welcome them home. Dogs barked, chickens scattered, the midmorning routine shattered at their arrival. Stableboys and housemaids converged
on the open yard in front of the old, low manor house. A blonde girl in a brown dress, her cheeks pink with relief and excitement, ran out of the house shouting Warin's name. Woodrowel swung down from the saddle and gathered the girl into his arms. A stableboy took his horse away. Heedless of the racket all around them, Woodrowel and the girl embraced.
Faris watched a little wistfully. She dismounted as the others did and never noticed when one of the stableboys took her horse.
“Here, Flavia,” Woodrowel said to the blonde girl as he turned, his arm around her shoulders, “I've brought you company for breakfast.” He grinned at Faris. “Your grace, may I present my wife, Flavia.” His arm tightened very gently. “The duchess of Galazon has come home again.”
Flavia regarded Faris with wide brown eyes. “I beg your pardon, your grace,” she said, after a moment's hesitation. “I bid you welcome to Shieling.” She glanced uncertainly into her husband's smiling face, then back up at Faris. “Will you join us for breakfast? It's only pancakes, though,” she added apologetically.
For a moment, afraid to speak lest her voice crack, Faris stared at Flavia. She blinked hard to vanquish the tears that suddenly filled her eyes.
Puzzled by her guest's silence, perhaps suspecting rudeness, Flavia's color rose. She glanced at her husband, who was still smiling.
“Thank you,” said Faris, at last, in a voice that trembled, “I would rather eat pancakes in Galazon than truffles in Paris.”
Flavia beamed and stepped out of the circle of her husband's arm to beckon Faris indoors. “There's barberry syrup, too.”
Faris presented her companions. When the introductions were finished, they crossed the threshold into the house. As they entered, Faris heard Jane's soft reproachful voice at her elbow. “Easy for you to forswear them. You've never eaten truffles in Paris. I have.”
 
W
incing at the thought of Jane's probable opinion of Galazon so far, Faris got up, washed, and dressed. In addition to the clothes he'd sold her in the forest, Warin had rummaged industriously for Faris at Shieling. He had loaned her a pair of boots only a little too big for her, gloves so long they were almost gauntlets, a few rounds of ammunition, an old but serviceable revolver, and a sash to tuck it in. She left the gloves and loaded revolver in her room but put on everything else and opened the door.
Outside the best guest bedchamber, the corridor was empty. Literally. Though almost as wide and fully as long as the gallery in Galazon Chase, the gallery at Shieling held no portraits, no carpets, and no furniture. It served only to connect Shieling's many rooms. Indeed, its best guest bedchamber was nearly its only guest bedchamber, for though blessed with dozens of chambers, Shieling had only a few proper beds.
More than the pale light of morning, the silence of the house told Faris how early it was. Moving as softly as she could in borrowed boots, she crossed the corridor and listened
at the door directly opposite. She could just hear Jane humming. It was difficult to be certain through oak. She thought it might have been Gilbert and Sullivan. Faris scratched at the door.
Jane, flawlessly groomed in her borrowed clothing, resplendent in well worn boots that reached her knees and folded rakishly down again, let Faris into the second-best guest bedchamber. “I was so hoping you were the early morning tea.”
“As a rule we don't do early morning tea in Galazon,” Faris said regretfully. “If you like, I'll send for a tray. How is your headache?”
“Quite gone, thanks to Flavia's home remedies. No need to send for tea. I'll wait for breakfast. Will it be pancakes again, do you think?”
“Probably. Those are nice boots.” Faris took a chair near the window and looked out into the yard. Below, housemaids and stableboys were starting to emerge. The day's work was just beginning.
Jane regarded her feet with great satisfaction. “They are, aren't they? Flavia is letting me borrow them. We wear the same size, isn't that fortunate? Why didn't you tell me that all your gentry dress this way? I would have felt much less absurd.”
“Well, Warin and Flavia aren't precisely what you British think of as gentry,” Faris replied. “They're farmers.” She crossed her ankles and stared glumly at her toes. “I just came in to apologize.”
Jane looked astonished. “Whatever for?”
“For the diligence,” Faris answered, eyes still lowered. “For making you leave your luggage. For the pine tree. For making you ride across the border in the dark—”
“In fancy dress,” Jane added cheerfully. “For soaking my feet in the icy river. For pancakes at breakfast, galettes at dinner, and crepes at supper. For letting Flavia Woodrowel cure my headache with barberry tea—your point is taken. Very well. I accept your apology. Now, Tell All. Warin Woodrowel was your youthful beau, I take it?”
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.”
 
 
A
fter 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.”

Other books

Apologies to My Censor by Mitch Moxley
Beauty Bites by Mary Hughes
His Captive Mortal by Renee Rose
City of Mirrors by Melodie Johnson-Howe
Butter by Erin Jade Lange
Nøtteknekkeren by Felicitas Ivey
Knave of Hearts by Anton, Shari
Mistletoe and Holly by Janet Dailey