All is Fair (11 page)

“And power,” he said. “That’s all you care about.”

“The only reason you’ve been able to enjoy this blissful life is because of the hard work of your ancestors. You’ve never had to struggle with anything more difficult than a philosophical debate. It’s time for you to grow up and do your duty or I’ll be the first to tell the Patroon that you’re not man enough to do so.”

He stared at her, wide-eyed and childlike. “Can’t you see what this is doing to you?” he whispered. “The monsters are making you monstrous.”

She looked away from him, feeling a sting in her chest. She didn’t want to tell him that she’d thought about walking away. She had sisters in Europe she could go and live with, far away from all the memories of life with Bartholomew. But every time she decided to do that she thought of William Iris sitting where Bartholomew should have been, living the life her husband should have enjoyed. There would be no peace in her until his name was cleared.

A knock at the door made both of them jump. “Are you expecting anyone?” she asked, and Alexander shook his head.

He stood. “Come in.”

A young man walked in looking like he had just stepped out of Mundanus, wearing jeans and a jacket over a hooded top. He was carrying a large cardboard cup and something that smelled like the most awful food imaginable, sealed in a carton made of a material she didn’t recognise. He dumped them on the table and shrugged a bag off his back.

“Chancellor!” Alexander gasped and bowed as deeply as one would to a Patroon.

“Hullo, Alex, bloody cold out there. Christ on a bike, you look like shit.”

“I… I am a little unwell.”

“Well, I won’t shake your hand then. Is this your mum?”

“Yes, may I introduce you to Margritte Semper-Augustus Tulipa. Mother, this is the Chancellor of Oxenford, Sorcerer Guardian of Mercia, King of the mundane lands between the Severn and the Pennines, the Western sea and the river Ouse, holder of the pure Malvern springs and–”

“Just call me Rupert, Mrs T, pleasure to meet you.”

For the first time in over a century, Margritte was lost for words.

“Mother,” Alexander whispered.

Rupert grinned. “Not what you expected? Yeah, I’m used to that. Met many Sorcerers, have you?”

“I can’t say I have, sir,” she replied. “But I would expect the Chancellor of Oxenford to be more… formally attired.”

“Oh, I dress up for Congregation and Council meetings. I’ve even worn a tie a couple of times. I know you lot expect Sorcerers to wear top hats and capes and stuff but honestly, I’d look like a wanker dressed in all that. I wore a top hat at a Halloween party last year, but only pretentious tossers wear that gear all the time.”

Margritte found him hard to follow and even harder to take seriously. Was this a prank? She watched him sit down and open the strange container. The room was filled with a pungent meaty smell. Alexander covered his mouth with a handkerchief.

“You don’t mind if I eat, do you? I’m starving – been running round like a blue-arsed fly all day.” He looked up from the food at Margritte. “You ever had a kebab?”

She shook her head and tried her best not to look shocked as he dug his unwashed fingers into the tray and plucked out a stringy piece of meat.

“This is from the van on Broad Street. Usually I get cheesy chips from them and kebabs from the one on–” He stopped himself. “You’re not going to give a shit about that, are you?” He went back to eating.

“Are you sure he’s a Sorcerer?” she whispered to Alexander, who nodded from behind the silk. “I should leave you to your business,” she said, standing up.

“Actually,” Rupert said through a mouthful of kebab, “I’m here to see you. You don’t mind if I have a chat with your mum, do you, Alex?”

“Not at all, Chancellor. See you soon, Mother.” Alexander rushed from the room and Margritte was left with the sound of a pig eating at a trough.

“Sit down, Maggie. Do you mind if I call you that?”

She bristled as she sat back down. “No one calls me Maggie.”

“Great. Maggie it is. Sure you don’t want to try this? It’s really good.”

“No, thank you.”

She took the opportunity to get used to his savage behaviour as he wolfed down the mundane food. Surely it was an act to throw her off balance? No one as powerful as the Sorcerer of Mercia was rumoured to be could have such abominable manners. He even put Freddy Viola to shame. He wanted her to think he was a stupid, uncouth mundane when he was in fact a powerful man with the power to destroy them all on a whim. You won’t fool me, she thought.

He looked young, not much older than she did, and she had hardly spent any of her adult life in Mundanus. He seemed very relaxed about popping out of the Nether for food, suggesting he wasn’t concerned about ageing as she would be. As far as she knew he’d been the Sorcerer for hundreds of years; certainly Bartholomew’s father had talked about a Rupert. Had he mastered youth as part of his sorcerous arts? He wasn’t unattractive; at least he would polish up well after a shave and a haircut.

He licked his fingers, guzzled down the contents of the cup and then belched as loudly as a braying donkey. Slapping his stomach he slouched back in the chair and grinned. His lips were shining with grease and a sliver of meat was stuck between his front teeth. “That’s better. I heard about what happened, by the way. I’m sorry you lost your husband.”

“I didn’t misplace him,” she replied. “He was murdered.”

“Right. Yeah.” He opened his bag and pulled something out which at first glance looked like a book. He lifted its cover and tucked it underneath, revealing a slab of black glass. Margritte clenched her teeth. It was the first sorcerous artefact she’d ever seen.

He pressed its side and it lit up like an incredibly powerful scrying glass. It was looking into a forest at night, but there were arcane symbols arranged in rows on top of the image. He tapped one and the scene changed into a grid of boxes containing text and different background colours.

“I bet you’ve never seen one of these before,” he said, tilting it to show her more. “Good battery life, killer display. Sucks I can’t get the internet in the Nether but I’m working on that. I just got this zombie game and it’s so addictive.”

She had no idea what he was talking about but didn’t want to look too enchanted by it. He was only showing off.

“Is this why you wanted to see me? To show me your artefact?”

He sniggered. “Oh, you guys, you’re priceless. No. You see this?” He waved a finger over the grid. “It shows when we have Convocation, Hebdomadal and sub-committee meetings, the monthly piss-up and all the other stuff that keeps the university ticking over. You see all the red? That shows when people – important people like your son, for instance – have sent apologies in advance for not being able to attend.” He swiped a finger across the glass and the grid moved in the same direction. There were a lot of red squares. “The thing is, all the messages came in over the last two days. So I think to myself, what the fuck is going on? So I go and have a chat with these people and the same name keeps coming up again and again. Margritte. Semper-Augustus. Tulipa.” He slapped the cover back over the artefact and tossed it onto his bag. “You don’t normally live here, I know, so I thought I’d explain why this is a pain in the arse. It’s Michaelmas Term. There are Freshers fucking up left, right and centre, new bright young things to scope out, and the university is running at full steam. I don’t appreciate it when most of my college heads decide they have to take time off en masse, especially when the death of the Roses has shafted us good and proper.
Comprende
?”

It took Margritte a moment to filter out what she could from his horrendous speech. “Chancellor–”

“Rupert, please.”

She smiled. “Rupert. I’m sorry this has inconvenienced you but I’m sure you can understand that these are extraordinary circumstances. My husband was wrongfully accused and murdered in the Londinium Court. My family needs to take action and to do so I only require a few old friends from Oxenford for a couple of weeks at the very most.”

“Alex sent me a note saying he might be leaving.”

“Might? I told him to resign. He will be taking the throne of Londinium and won’t have time for college duties.”

Rupert scratched his chin. “Oh, will he? He didn’t look so happy just now.”

“He’s struggling to adjust, but he will.”

“Look, Maggie, I’m pretty fucking impressed by you. I want to lay that out on the table because, between you and me, if anyone else tried to pull this off I’d make a pocket realm just for them and a pack of hungry wolves. I understand that your family is upset–”

“Not just my family. Lord Tulip himself.”

“Now I couldn’t give a flying fuck what Lord Tulip is upset about. What I do give a fuck about is my university and your antics are screwing with it. I don’t want to force my people to choose between their duties here and whatever debts they have to you, but if I have to, I will.”

Margritte smiled. She would be willing to bet her jewels that he’d already applied that pressure and lost. “It seems we have a problem, then,” she said. “Do you have a solution?”

“I do actually.” He grinned again. The sliver of meat was still lodged in place. “You’re pissed off that there’s this Iris lad on the throne instead of your husband, right?”

“That’s part of it,” she replied coolly.

“So I propose this. You tell your friends here they don’t have to run off to Londinium on some crusade. Instead, you write to your old friends back home in the big smoke and invite them to come to Oxenford. There are several colleges here that could do with some trustworthy family friends to look after them and I’m sure you’re capable of identifying which of your Londinium allies would be willing to join us here.”

“That would solve
your
problem. What about mine?”

“Well, that’s the beauty of it.” Rupert dug a fingernail in between his teeth, frowned at what he winkled out and then put it back in his mouth. “The new Duke, unpopular already, starts losing the best people from his Court.”

“And their tithes,” Margritte said.

“That too. ‘Holy shit!’ he says, and issues a formal apology to you and your family, begging people to come back. Then his patron sees what a royal mess of it he’s made and drags him off to Exilium for a life of slavery.”

“Leaving Alexander to take the throne,” Margritte finished.

Rupert frowned. “Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. So, we got a deal? You don’t fuck up Michaelmas Term for me and I give your old friends a whole lot more power and influence than they’ll ever have in Londinium, plus you get to screw over the Iris boy.”

Margritte sat back and looked at the marble bust on the mantelpiece behind him. She thought of Bartholomew’s kiss and the ache in her chest. Even if it didn’t work out the way Rupert said it would, it was better to play the long game and have a Sorcerer on her side. She nodded. “We have a deal, Rupert.”

Will fiddled with his new mobile phone as he waited at the café. The sun had almost set and the mundanes were hurrying past in the rush hour. The cappuccino was nothing like the one he’d had in Rome on his Grand Tour but it was warming at least.

He was hungry, but too tense to eat. He stirred the coffee, looked out of the window and tried not to think about what the corruption of the Arbiters could mean. He would get information first, then draw his conclusions. It was the first rule of managing anxiety: don’t speculate.

At least he’d come to a decision about Cathy and her secret life: to leave it well alone. He’d considered challenging her about it but she would only dig her heels in and be stubborn. She’d close herself off from him again and the little progress he’d made before the attack would be lost. The mundane had been warned off her, Carter was going to keep her out of Mundanus anyway and, besides, if he told her he knew, she’d replace the flat and the rest of the arrangements with new ones he knew nothing about. This way, if she did run off, he’d know where to look. If things deteriorated between them he would send one of his people to watch the property, and the Agency were already monitoring the phone line and bank account for any activity. He didn’t like having to rely on them but he didn’t have anyone in Mundanus with whom he could share such sensitive information.

He just hoped he could win her over and render all the precautions unnecessary. He needed an ally and he needed her to be his wife. And he wanted her to be someone he could trust, no matter how unlikely that seemed.

A couple walked in holding hands and Will felt a pang of jealousy until he spotted a familiar man behind them. Will raised a hand to catch his attention.

The Arbiter approached slowly, scanning the other people in the café. “Let’s sit over there,” he said, pointing to a corner table at the back.

Will picked up his coffee and followed.

“I was the one who came to the hospital,” the Arbiter said.

“Yes, I remember you.” When a man had a face like a frog it was hard to forget.

“My name is Faulkner.”

Will remembered Cornelius saying his name. Why hadn’t he noticed at the time? “Thank you for coming so promptly. Would you like something to drink?”

The Arbiter shook his head and sat down with his back to the wall. His wide-set eyes scanned the other customers again, the door, the barista and then Will. He studied Will’s mundane garb, what he was drinking and the wedding ring on his finger. “What did you want to see me about?”

Will suppressed the urge to approach the conversation gently. There was no need to win this man over, nor to take any interest in his feelings. He’d been told the Arbiters had none, though he didn’t know why. It was unnerving sitting in a coffee shop with one. It was like looking at a copy of a man, rather than a real person.

“I understand you effectively work for me now.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“Is there another?”

“I work for you
too
. You’re not the only person I’ll take orders from.”

Will nodded. He suspected that if he asked Faulkner to do something that a Sorcerer disapproved of, the order would be ignored. He wondered what the Arbiter made of it. Wasn’t he effectively doing the exact opposite to what he should? Perhaps he was nothing more than a soldier, happy to follow orders without questioning why. “This is a new situation for me,” he continued. “I wanted to know if this is new for you.”