The Fall of The Kings (Riverside) (22 page)

“Doctor St Cloud sends his thanks,” he said, “but begs that you leave your food with me.” He grinned, showing a large gap in his discolored teeth. “He’s mortal indisposed to see company right now.”

“We’re not company,” explained Lindley, elaborately patient. “We’re students. If he’s sick, we want to take care of him.”

“So you just step aside, son,” said Justis.

“He’s mortal indisposed,” said the boy rather desperately.

“It’s all right,” said Blake, kindly. “We’ll tell him you delivered his message just as he told you. He won’t be angry, I promise.” And, gently but inexorably, he pushed past the boy and led the little procession up the carved stairs to their magister’s door.

On the landing, Blake suffered a crisis of confidence and had to remind himself that when a sick sheep hides, it’s a shepherd’s duty to seek him out. He knocked briskly on the door. “Doctor St Cloud?”

“He’s sick,” snapped a male voice within. “Go away.”

“It’s Justis Blake, sir, and Lindley and Fremont. We’ve brought you a chicken.”

A murmur of voices within, a sharp creak of ancient floorboards, and the door opened a crack.

“Chicken,” said Theron Campion unsteadily. “How kind of you. It’s precisely what he needs. He’s very run-down, I’m afraid. I had a terrible time with him, up half the night.” His lips trembled and puckered. “He’s better this morning,” he went on, “but very tired. This should set him up nicely. Thank you.”

Justis stared at Theron’s hand, outstretched for the basket, at the wrinkled scholar’s gown he was holding closed around himself, at his dark hair tangled over his shoulders, at his heavy eyes and bare feet and legs. It seemed that Doctor St Cloud wasn’t a sick sheep after all, just a randy ram.

“We were worried,” said Justis flatly. A faint color rose to Theron’s throat and stubbled cheeks.

“There’s soup, too. And a bottle of porter,” said Lindley, choking on the words.

“I gather he doesn’t need the blanket?” Fremont inquired nastily. “Or a soothing syrup? Or a physician?”

Theron’s fingers tightened on the gown and his chin came up. “I’m taking care of him,” he said. “If he needs a physician, I’ll send for one.” He held out his free hand. “Thank you for the food. He’ll be very grateful.”

“Here.” Lindley thrust his bundles at Theron, who received them reflexively, allowing his gown to swing open on his nakedness. Lindley turned and fled down the stairs.

“Not bad,” said Fremont, leering appreciatively. “Will you nurse me next time I get sick?”

Theron and Justis said, “Shut up, Henry,” in disgusted chorus. Theron’s mouth trembled again, clearly on the edge of laughter, and Justis lost his temper.

“Tell Doctor St Cloud,” he bellowed in the voice he’d used to call his mother’s pigs, “that his students eagerly await his return to full health. Tell him that we are worried about him.”

Theron was biting his lips, struggling with rage and laughter and parcels. The door opened fully, revealing Basil St Cloud in shirt and breeches.

“Thank you, Fremont, Blake,” he said. “I accept your good wishes and your offerings. Please inform your fellows that I will take up my lectures in two days’ time—two days, Blake, neither more nor less.” He took Theron’s arm, pulled him back into the room, pushed the door half shut. “Go away, Justis,” he said wearily. “Two days. I promise.” Then the door closed, not entirely cutting off the sound of Theron’s bright, helpless laughter.

THEY FOUND LINDLEY WAITING FOR THEM JUST INSIDE THE street door. The skin around his eyes was taut; his lips were pressed into invisibility.

“It’s not worth crying over,” said Fremont. “You’re clearly not to his taste.”

“One of these days,” said Justis, “someone is going to kill you, Henry.”

Fremont bridled. “Come now. We live in enlightened times. Swordsmen are just for show, these days. Besides, what student could afford a death challenge on me?”

“Theron Campion could,” said Lindley tightly.

“Thinking of calling one on him?” Fremont’s voice was taunting. “I didn’t know your father was a noble, Lindley. Unless there’s something you’ve been keeping from us. Something other than lusting after Doctor St Cloud, I mean.”

In the common run of things, Anthony Lindley was a gentle soul, but even the gentlest soul will turn violent when pricked in its most vulnerable part. With a howl of fury, Lindley leapt on Fremont, fists flailing. They tumbled out the door into the mud and trampled snow. Neither of them was any sort of fighter, but they made enough noise about it to attract an interested crowd of shopkeepers and idlers.

“What’s it about?” the potboy of the Ink Pot inquired aloud.

A chorus of voices answered him: “A woman, of course. —A whore at Mother Betty’s. —Ginger, probably: all the students are in love with her. —Idiot! It’s a matter of honor. —It’s money, I tell you. —Gambling. —Drink . . .”

“Students don’t need a reason to fight.” A large, ruddy man in a red shawl and white apron shook his head angrily. “They fall to as naturally as stags in autumn. Not a week ago now, I had a fight break out over god-knows-what, two long tables cracked before I knew it, a bench splintered into matchsticks, and half my tankards bent into scrap.” He tweaked the potboy’s ear. “Run find the Watch, boy, tell them there’s a riot brewing in Minchin Street.”

Justis, who’d been inclined to let his friends fight it out, seized Lindley, who was temporarily uppermost, by the slack of his robe.

“Watch, Tony!” he shouted. “They’re calling the Watch. Kill Henry later, if you like. I’ll help.”

Lindley scrambled to his feet, pulling Fremont up with him. Fremont, under the impression that the fight had reached some sort of climax, windmilled at him until Justis shook him from behind, shouting “Watch!” in his ear. By now, whistling could be heard at the bottom of the street, and cries of “Ho, there! Halt!”

The three young men took to their heels, bolting between two buildings into the web of alleys that netted the University together. Fremont slipped on some ice and fell heavily. Justis pulled him up, thrust his shoulder under his arm, and hauled him along. A mangy dog tied up behind a shed began to bark hysterically. Sounds of pursuit grew louder; the three swarmed over a wall into a snow-drifted garden.

As soon as he was safely on the ground, Fremont shook Lindley’s supporting hands away. “Don’t touch me,” he hissed. “You tried to kill me.”

Justis put a large and gritty hand over Fremont’s mouth, jerking his chin significantly toward the wall they’d just scaled, on the other side of which the dog yammered and the Watch cast about for the scent. They shouted to one another and to the heads that popped out back windows, banged on a few doors with their brass-headed truncheons, and finally went away again.

Justis surveyed the damage. Fremont’s gown was torn and filthy, and his bony cheek was beginning to swell and darken. Lindley’s lip was split, and he’d gotten dung in his red hair. They were all three muddy and soaked and cold as fresh-caught fish.

“They’ll never let you into the Nest looking like that,” said Justis. “We’d better find a pump you can stick your heads under.”

AS IT TURNED OUT, NO ONE EVEN NOTICED THEIR ARRIVAL at the Nest. Vandeleur and Godwin had relieved their anxiety over Doctor St Cloud’s perilous state by knocking back a pitcher of beer, and from there had quite naturally fallen into a violent argument about magic. Quotes from Hollis and Delgardie flashed like swords, drawing the amused attention of several onlookers.

“Are you calling the author of
The Fall of the Kings
a fool?” Godwin was demanding. “I don’t care how ill he is, Doctor Tortua’s read more books than you’ve had hangnails, Vandeleur, and if he says the kings and the wizards got together and made magic, then there’s something in it.”

“What’s ‘in it,’ as you so elegantly put it, is not for children.”

“Oh, shut up, you newts.” It was a quiet voice, a muttered comment, but it happened to fall into a moment when both debaters were simply glaring at each other, so everyone heard it. The students turned as one to see the man who had spoken. It was the Northerner, Alaric Finn, sitting up on a nearby table with his feet on the bench.

“I beg your pardon?” Peter Godwin said.

“Ever the gentleman, eh?” Finn sneered. “Well, my little lord, how would you like me to settle this argument for you right now? I’m about up to here with your endless babbling about things you know nothing about.”

“And you do, I suppose?” Vandeleur demanded truculently.

“In fact, yes. And not from books, either. We know, up in the North, we’ve always known; about the Sacred Grove and the Deer Hunt and the Royal Sacrifice.”

“The Royal Sacrifice, or the King’s Night Out,” drawled Fremont into the silence. “It sounds like a bad play.”

“Shut up, Henry.” The chorus was general.

“Go on, Finn,” said Justis Blake. He was just as glad they’d found something to distract them from the question of what might be ailing Doctor St Cloud. “You’ve been hinting about this since term began. Now it’s time to tell us about it.”

Finn eyed the group suspiciously. “You’ll laugh. Or tell me it’s treason.”

“Not a bit of it,” said Vandeleur expansively. “Speak all the treason you like. We won’t say a word.”

“Of course we’ll say a word,” said Justis. “But we won’t run to tell the Council. And we won’t laugh.”

“I will,” said Fremont. “I’ll laugh all I like. Magic! I’m not surprised Lindley and Godwin here are panting to hear Finn’s fairy tales—they’re barely out of the nursery, after all—but I’d credited Vandeleur and Blake with more sense. I’ve got better things to do.” And he limped away.

“Well,” said Vandeleur. “That’s him gone.”

“Can’t say I’m sorry,” muttered Lindley.

“Peevy bastard,” agreed Finn. “Now, are you going to hear me out or not?”

“Have at it, Finn,” Vandeleur said graciously. “We’re all ears.”

Finn gaped. Blake’s mother would have said he looked like he’d asked for a drink of milk and been given a cow. The boy looked to be seventeen or so, of old Northern stock, proud as a peacock and poor as a charcoal-burner in summer, sent South to the City to mend the family fortunes. Blake wondered what his parents thought he was studying. Law, probably, or Natural Science.

Finn collected himself and began. “The kings came down from the North, to mingle their seed with the Southern stock, and their sons became kings in their turn.”

“My little sister knows that,” one of the young nobles jeered.

“You know it,” Finn countered. “But you haven’t thought about it. It also means that their children and their brothers married with the Southern noble families. So you’ve royal Northern blood in your veins, all you Southron nobles—you, Godwin, and you, too, Hemmynge. There’s not a one of you doesn’t carry the old magic in his blood.”

“You’ve no call to be insulting,” said Hemmynge, aggrieved. “Damned if I don’t ask you to step outside.”

Vandeleur put his hand on the young noble’s shoulder and kept it there. “What’s your point, Finn?”

“My point,” said Finn impatiently, “is that you’re all part of the magic of the land whether you believe in it or not.”

Everyone was getting restless and annoyed, a fatal combination. Finn had no more idea how to lay out an argument than a frog had how to fly. Blake, prey to the uncomfortable feeling that he was responsible for the Northern boy’s predicament, said, “Begin at the beginning, man. You need to persuade us first that the kings were magic.”

Finn nodded, pulled himself together, and began. “It all starts with the Land.” Justis could hear the capital letter in his voice: Land. The title of a personage, like Green God. “This is the Northern Land I’m talking about, not your soft South. It was a hungry land and dry and unfriendly to man.”

“Cow dung, man.” It was Hemmynge again. “That’ll fix it, and clover plowed under in the fall. Or so m’father’s steward says.”

Finn’s jaw bunched at the corners and his narrow eyes sank beneath his brows. “There were no cows,” he said through his teeth. “And even the clover withered among the rocks. If you don’t hold your tongue, Hemmynge, I swear I’ll hold it for you.”

“I’d like to see you try,” sneered Hemmynge inaccurately.

This was too much. Blake exchanged a speaking look with Vandeleur, who shrugged helplessly. Vandeleur was only Middle City; Godwin was too young; everyone else would be perfectly happy if a fight broke out. It was up to him. He touched the young noble’s sleeve and said, “Come on, Hemmynge. You’re bored, and who would blame you; ancient history’s not even your subject. Let the poor boy tell his old wives’ tales in peace. I’ll buy you ale.”

Looking from the interested faces around him to Blake’s wide, muscular hand on his gown sleeve, Hemmynge shrugged ungraciously, muttered, “Don’t mind if I do,” and slouched off unresisting. By the time Justis had delivered him and his tankard to a sympathetic group of nobles and returned to the historians, Finn had overcome his initial awkwardness and hit his stride. He spoke fluently, his nasal Northern accent oddly suited to the formal cadences of his story, his bitten hands underscoring, emphasizing, guiding, his narrow features animated, his deep-set eyes glittering. Blake shoved onto the end of a bench next to Lindley, who was listening with rapture.

“So the wizards chose their candidates from among all the Companions, called the Little Kings, each wizard a candidate, and taught them and loved them and filled their bodies with magic.”