The Iron Wyrm Affair

Chapter Twenty-Two They Are Not Exercised Enough

The dark green curricle was fast and light, especially with Mikal at the reins and the matched clockwork bays high-stepping. A trifle flashy, not quite the thing for a lady, but one had only to look at the witchballs spitting in their gilded cages, swinging from the swan-neck leaf springs, and the dash-charm sparking with crimson as it deflected mud and flung stones from the passenger, to know it was not just a lady but one of sorcery’s odd children being driven by a nonchalant Shield through a press of Londinium traffic rather startlingly resembling the seventh circle of Hell.

The curricle took a hard left, cutting through a sea of humanity. Shouts and curses rose. Emma paid no attention. Her eyes shut, she leaned back in her seat, fine invisible threads flashing one by one through her receptive consciousness as she held herself still. One gloved hand held tight to the loop of leather on her left, her fingers almost numb. Mikal shifted his weight, the clockhorses so matched their drumming hoofbeats sounded like one creature, Londinium’s chill fogday breath teasing at her veil. Even the strongest air-clearing charm could not make the great dozing beast of the city smell better than foul on days like this, when one of Dr Bell’s jars had descended over everything from St Paul’s Road to the Oval, and beyond. The night’s fog crouched well past daybreak, peering in windows, fingering pedestrians, cloaking whole streets with blank billowing hangings of thick yellow vapour. Some, especially the ditch-charmers and hedgerow conjurors, swore Londinium altered itself behind the fog. Outside the Black Wark, the Well, Whitchapel’s Sink or Mile End – or some other odd pockets – few believed them.

Still, those sorcery touched did not laugh at the notion. At least, not overloud, and certainly never overlong.

The avenues widened as they travelled north and west toward Regent’s Park. Traffic thinned through Marylbone, taking the great sweep of Portland Place past terraced Georgian houses standing proud-shouldered, sparkling with wards and charms. Precious few were sorcerer’s houses – no, the unsorcerous fashionable paid for defences, the flashier the better.

A sorcerer’s defences were generally likely to be less visible and more deadly.

Mikal made a short, sharp sound, shifting again, and the horses leapt forward. Pelting up the Place was certainly one way to make a statement, and she did not wonder why he had chosen this particular route. She was to be as ostentatious as possible today, so her quarry would focus on her as the larger threat – and hopefully not notice Clare’s poking about overmuch.

If they noticed too much, well, Valentinelli was the best protection she could provide, next to her own self. Ludovico might have made a fine Shield, if he’d been moulded earlier. He would have needed a light touch, though, and that was something very few sorcerers possessed.

Whoever rose to the bait of a mentath and an assassin would be interesting indeed. There was an art to preparing a hook without losing either hook or bait, and she intended to do so today.

The bay clockhorses, every inch of them gleaming now, ran like foam on crashing surf. Emma found the threads she wanted, her hands clenched before relaxing, fingers contorting and easing as she made the Gesture, and the Word shaped itself on her tongue.

“Ex-k’Ae-t!” As usual, the Word was soundless, filling her, thunder in stormclouds. The curricle jolted, sparks fountaining from clockhorse hooves, and the sudden eerie quiet as wheels and hooves bit nothing but air enfolded them.

Her eyelids fluttered, daylight spearing into her skull, the impression of Mikal standing, reins now loosely held as the clockhorses settled into a jogtrot. Emma’s own contorted fingers held finer, invisible threads, snapping and curling, fresh ones sliding into existence as the old tore.

The carriage flew.

Up they climbed, lather and sparks dripping, fog closing over Park Crescent below them, its green sickly under the pall. Still rising over Regent’s proper, the only sound the curricle’s wheels spinning freely and one of the clockhorses snorting, tossing its fine head. From the withers and haunches to the hooves, cogwheels meshed and slid, the pistons in the legs working in a simulacra of a flesh horse’s bones, its skeleton sorcerously reinforced and the russet metal melding seamlessly into bay hide lovingly tended by half-lame spine-curled Wilbur, the stable boy, who stammered so badly he could not make himself understood. The scar on his forehead perhaps showed why, but he had a charmed touch with clockhorses. Yet another indenture she was glad to have performed – her one-time kindness reaping a reward out of all proportion. Harthell, her usual coachman, was another – but she had no time to think on her collection of castaways.

For there, drifting as lightly as a soap bubble, the great Collegia stood on empty air. The lattices of support and transferral cradling the massive tiered white-stone edifice were clearly visible to Sight, but to the ordinary it seemed that the Collegia simply … floated. It drifted in a slow, majestic pattern above the Park, confined there to keep the Londinium rabble from rioting at the idea that it could fall on their slums and tenements – or vent its waste onto their heads.

Though they merrily shovelled excrement over each other, a sorcerer’s dung was another thing entirely. None saw fit to tell them the waste was shunted into the Themis, just like their own.

The horses high-stepped up an invisible grade, turned as Mikal flicked the reins, and the Gates were open. Sharp black stone dully polished and sculpted with flowing fantastical animal shapes, running with bloody-hued charter symbols, the Gates had been the first thing built for the Collegia. They had stood open since the first stone had been laid by Mordred the Black, who had claimed descent from Arthur’s left-hand line. Whether that was true, who could say?

The Lost Times were lost for a reason. Much as the records of the Age of Flame and the Age of Bronze were only fragmentary, or the records of the time during Cramwelle’s Inquisition. Britannia, her physical vessel murdered and the shock of that murder reverberating through the Isle, had surfaced finally in a fresh vessel and halted Cramwelle’s violent hatred of his sorcerous betters.

As the historial Lord Bewell had remarked, a little ambition could make even a hedge-charmer dangerous.

The most difficult part of entering the Collegia was landing on the slick marble paving. Even the cracking sound of transferring force away into empty air was to be avoided. Difficult, delicate, dexterous work; clockhorse hooves touched down soft as feathers, the curricle’s wheels given a preparatory spin to match speed, and the gradually rising volume of hooves and wheels until every step rang on the cold white stone was a small triumph. The silver rings on Emma’s left hand were warm, her attention rushed back firmly into her body and she cautiously opened her eyes.

The heavy veil took some sting from the foggy sunlight, much brighter here above the thicker soup of ground-level fog. Still, she squinted most unbecomingly before she half lidded her eyes languidly as a lady should. The curricle raced up the long circular drive; the massive fountain in the middle of the round garden played a sonorous greeting as multicoloured streams of light and prismatic water laved its surfaces. A half-nude Leda reclined under Jove in the form of a swan, blinding white; she chucked the snake-necked creature under its chin and for a moment the wings moved as her limbs did, dreamily. The light and water caressing them both made it far more indecent than the worst of the gentlemen’s flash press.

It was, Emma reflected as Mikal steered the horses past the chill-white, massive Great Staircase, a very good metaphor for sorcerers in general.

The Library’s white dome was low compared to the jabbing snowy enamel spires of the rest of the Collegia, but it was still large enough to swallow the Leather Market whole and ask for seconds. Mikal pulled the horses to a stop and a Collegia indentured appeared to take charge of them; her Shield leapt down from the curricle and Emma gathered her skirts.

This should prove interesting.

The Library’s dome glowed, stone scraped thin enough to let sunshine through. In that drenching, directionless light, flapping shadows moved. They circled in small flocks, sometimes lighting on the tops of high shelves, other times fluttering toward the gigantic nautilus-curled circulation counter. A vast central well, five storeys of bookshelves rising around it and raying out in long spiralling stacks, was enough to make one dizzy. Balustrades of ivory and mother-of-pearl, the carpeting rich blue; the Library glowed with nacre, the smell of paper mixing with a faint breath of salt and sand. Thin cries could be heard as some of the books fluttered aloft, gaining altitude and swooping with gawky grace.

Mikal followed, perhaps more closely than was strictly necessary. But then, his life was forfeit here. A Shield could not be taken from a Prime’s service and put to death, no matter the crime he had committed. The law was very clear on that point – even if the Shield in question had done the unthinkable and murdered his own sorcerer.

No other sorcerer was willing to run the risk of taking him in. None of her fellow Primes – indeed, no sorcerer, and no other person – knew precisely what had happened in that small room in the bowels of Crawford’s palatial home, because she had steadfastly maintained her silence. As far as she could tell, so had Mikal. Yet the fact of his survival in her service, and Crawford’s demise, could not be ignored; it shouted to the heavens what had most likely occurred.

It is you, or the chopping block, he had said, his jaw iron-hard and his eyes glowing venomously. I prefer you. If you will not take my service, do me the courtesy of killing me yourself. I will let you.

And Emma had believed him. Her fingers still tingled with the feel of his chest underneath her touch, the rasp of subtle scaling—

Stop it. You are not here to daydream. She stalked for the circulation desk, shaking herself out of memory with a sharp disciplined mental effort. It would be easy to believe Mikal felt … what?

Nothing she could trust. It was best to remember that.

Behind the desk, a tangle-haired witch in no-nonsense grey wool glanced up, startled by her approach. Of course, any livre-witch would feel a Prime’s approach like a storm bearing down on a small sloop. Especially here at the Collegia, where sorcery vied for air as the most common medium.

This livrewitch was plump, her hazel eyes unfocused, and she swayed slightly as she gripped the desk’s edge until she adjusted to the disturbance Emma represented. “Title?” she chirped, in a colourless little voice. Her dishwater hair was a rat’s nest, matted locks hanging and others piled high with a collection of bones, small shiny bits of metal, and feathers. “Author? Catalogue number? Cover colour? Subject?”

“Principia Draconis.” Emma fought back a curling lip. Witches. Male and female both specialised young, and by the time they reached twenty their brains were capable of holding only their Discipline. Theirs were not the deep Disciplines of the Inexhaustible – fire, water, magnetism, creation, destruction – but the tiny niches. Swallows nesting in a cliffside, and never straying far from their tiny holes.

Do not pity the witches, a teacher had once intoned. They are not less than sorcerers. They are far happier than you shall ever be – for they lack ambition. They find their joy in their Discipline, not their danger.

“Principia Draconis,” the livrewitch repeated, slowly. A shuffling movement went through the flocks of books, shelves moving as the Library sought inside itself. “De Baronis, originally, 1533. Amberforth updated and glossed in 1746; James Wilson in 1801. Eight hundred pages, folio, cover is—”

“Bannon.” The sneering behind Emma could only come from one man. “Still bringing trash into hallowed halls, I see.”

“Lord Huston.” She inclined her head, but did not turn. “Still unacquainted with basic etiquette, I see.”

“Ladies are due etiquette, Bannon.” The Headmaster’s cane – an affectation, of course, with its silver mallard’s head – hit the carpeting. He must have forgotten he wasn’t in one of the stone-floored halls, where the tapping of his progress would send a wave of dread through the sensitised fabric of reality.

Mikal moved, a susurrus of cloth as he faced the Headmaster. Emma kept her gaze on the livrewitch, who was mumbling. At any moment the book would appear, and she could give the Headmaster short shrift before taking herself to a study table to do some quiet digging.

“And the trash seems to have ideas.” Mock-surprised. “When are you going to take a proper Shield, Bannon? If any will serve with that murdering apostate behind you.”

“Be careful, little man.” Bannon allowed her right toe to lift and tap the carpet precisely once. Her skirts would cover it, but she was still annoyed at the movement. He was Prime, yes – but just barely. Had he not been extraordinarily lucky, he would be merely an Adept, or even a Master Sorcerer, since his Examination scores had been dreadful. “I am not a student.”

“A sorcerer who ceases to learn ceases to thrive,” he intoned piously. “Whatever are you doing here, then, if you are no longer learning?”

“The Library is open to every Adept and above, at every hour.” It was her turn to sound pious. “Or perhaps you’d forgotten that Law?”

A direct hit. “I forget no Laws,” he hissed. “You are the one who has a Shield who no doubt murdered his charge. You should hand him over to justice.”

Her temper stretched. “If you challenge me for one of my possessions, Huston, I might almost think you’ve grown tired of breathing.”

The Library’s rustling silence took on a sonorous, uneasy depth. I do not have time for a duel today, Alfred, Lord Huston. Take advantage of that. For a moment she considered how easy it would be to see him as a conspirator and administer appropriate justice.

The thought almost managed to soothe her.

“The Principia Draconis is not here.” The livrewitch cocked her tangled head, the words a thin reedy murmur as she clasped her hands. Her gaze was already sliding away, uninterested in the drama before her. “It has been borrowed.”

“That is quite impossible.” Emma’s temper rose afresh; she bottled it. Today was already unpleasant, and it was early for her to be so irritated. “It is one of the Great Texts; it is not to leave the Library.”

Huston’s sneer was absolutely audible. “Oh, the Principia? I believe Lord Sellwyth wished to peruse it at leisure; I gave my approval. Since he is such a special friend to the Collegia.”

For a moment, Emma Bannon literally could not believe her ears. Books fluttered nervously, several taking wing from the carved banisters. Shadows darted, and she turned on her heel, the cameo at her throat warming dangerously. Her skirts belled, and Mikal took a half-step to the side, his broad back tense under green velvet. No blades were visible yet – of course, if he drew, she would be hard pressed to calm the layers of ancient stifling protection meant to safeguard students from misfired lessons.

Even the simplest spell could kill, here. Bloodlust on Collegia grounds carried a heavy price.

Huston, his scarecrow form in an antiquated black suit, collar tied high and snowy cravat under his chin as if Georgus IV was still Britannia’s vessel, actually paled and stepped back. Thin strings of bootblack hair crossed his domed cranium, and if Emma had been a devotee of phrenologomancy she might well have decided to examine his skull for an organ of Cowardice and one of Idiocy to boot.

With a hammer, or another suitably blunt bludgeoning tool.

His breeches were spotless, and a perfumed handkerchief frothed in his free hand. The man even wore dandy boots, the toe pointed and heel arched. The clicking of his cane was usually followed by the soft tapping of his heels, a sound that featured in student nightmares. Long bony strangler’s fingers, his right hand bearing the heavy carnelian Collegia Seal, spasmed on the silver duck’s head.

The light in here was too damnably bright, but it was Emma’s stinging eyes that reminded her of her priorities. The veil, thankfully, might hide her expression. “You …” She did not cough, but she did pause. “You allowed Llewellyn Gwynnfud to take a Great Text from the Collegia Library? The Principia Draconis?” She congratulated herself on only sounding mildly surprised. “When was this? I ask, Lord Huston, only to be quite accurate when I make my report.”

“Report?” Now Huston was positively chalky. He would have no idea to whom she would make such a report, but the creeping cowardice of petty officialdom ran to his very marrow. The Seal made a scratching noise, the carnelian shifting from a carving of Pegasus to the double serpents of Mordred’s time. It was, she reflected, far too large for his fingers.

“Yes.” She also wondered – and not for the first time – precisely which charm he used to colour his hair. The dual thoughts bled her anger away. A dangerous calm closed over her. “When was it, sir?”

“Well, let’s see … hmmm … that is …” He tapped the head of his cane with one manicured index finger. “You know, I cannot quite—”

“Principia Draconis. Checked out. A fortnight ago exactly,” the livrewitch said dreamily. “The Psychometry books were restless that day. So was the Bestiary section. It took some work to calm them. They are not exercised enough.”

Huston’s expression was priceless. Emma smoothed her gloves. “Thank you. That will be all. Come, Mikal.” Dismissive, she set off for the entrance. Well. A mostly wasted trip. But now I know you are to be mistrusted to an even greater degree than I did before.

And that is very valuable knowledge.

Her Shield fell into step behind her. There was a sound from above – a student perhaps, witnessing the exchange. This would be round meat indeed for them. Only the almost randomness of Huston’s malignancy made a revolt in the student ranks unlikely. Besides, he largely allowed the professors to do as they pleased, and they liked the power so much they kept him firmly seated at the helm of the Collegia.

Or what he believed was the helm.

“Harlot.” Whispered just loud enough to be an insult. “Whore.”

It was the oldest insult hurled at a sorceress – or indeed, at any woman who did not do what a small man wished. Did he expect it to sting?

If only you knew, you bastard bureaucrat. Other words rose; she considered each one and decided a lady would not speak them, so she certainly would not.

Her back was alive with Mikal’s nearness. She swept out of the Library with rushing blood filling her ears. Outside, the sorcerously cleansed air still reeked of Londinium’s disease. Nevertheless, she stopped and took a deep breath.

“Prima?” Mikal, his tone promising vengeance, should she want it. She would be well within her rights to call Huston to the duelling ground – but she would have only Mikal and a livrewitch for witnesses. It would not do.

She would merely remember this, as she remembered so much else. A Prime’s life was long, and she would see Huston falter one day. “Leave it.” She did not have to try very hard to sound weary. “He is of little account. Besides, there is another copy of the Principia.”

“Indeed? Where?”

“At Childe’s. Fetch the curricle.”