K J Parker - [BCS313 S01] Read online

  “You can—?”

  “Yes. Now, I think it would be advisable for everyone to stay in their houses for the rest of the day, if that’s at all possible. There’s no immediate danger, but it’s best to be on the safe side.”

  That got rid of them, and I sat for a while perfectly still, thinking; what the hell was all that about? A stripe hard enough to put a dent in scutum and lorica, and a twenty-year professional panicking, overriding a lifetime of training and conditioning to swipe wildly with thunderbolts. I wasn’t afraid—there’s no power on Earth, literally, that scares me any more, because I know I can beat them all—but I was bewildered and unnerved and unsettled, and I had to think to remember things that are usually part of the furniture of my mind; the Rooms, the Wards, the precepts of engagement. I felt like I was heading for a duel with a sword in one hand and a fencing text-book in the other.

  Still. The hell with it. I was able to outfight tenured professors when I was fourteen years old. I despise fighting, of course. That’s why I’m so good at it. I just want it done with and out of the way.

  Someone asked me why there aren’t any women at the Studium. I said, the same reason there aren’t any fish. She gave me a foul look and changed the subject, but it’s a valid answer.

  There are things men can do and women can’t (and vice versa, goes without saying) and what we do is one of them. To put it crudely, they don’t have the parts. We don’t actually know what the parts are—we’ve picked over God knows how many brains, looking for a particular blob of mush or twist of gristle, all to no effect. I don’t suppose we’ll ever find it until we get a chance to dissect one of the very, very few women (we figure something like one in two million) who’s got it, and that’s not likely to happen any time soon.

  No great loss, is how we see it. What we do, the power we have, is of very limited practical value. We’re theorists, pure scientists; we aren’t actually very much use to anybody, and where we could make ourselves useful—wiping out armies, destroying cities, sinking whole continents under the sea, bringing the dead back to life—we don’t allow ourselves to, for obvious reasons. Stripped of all pretences, euphemisms, justifications, and obfuscations; the main reason we do magic is because we can. Generally speaking, though, either it’s useless or it mustn’t be used. Now, why would women, who are so much more sensible and practical than us, want to bother with something so pointless?

  Witches are, of course, the exception. It’s a sad fact that, out of the tiny number of women who are born with the talent and figure out how to use it, ninety-nine out of a hundred go on to make insufferable nuisances of themselves; hurting, persecuting, terrorising the district with acts of petty spite.

  My learned colleagues say that this is because in everyday life, women are powerless and marginalised; they have no way of striking back against a society that subordinates and belittles them. Thus, when one-in-two-million suddenly finds herself powerful, her first instinct is to settle scores. Personally I dispute this. Anyone who says women are powerless never met my mother. What they really mean is, upper-class women are powerless and marginalised—which is entirely true; and of course, that’s the only sort of women my colleagues have ever had dealings with. But most witches are your basic peasant stock, simply because so are most people. There’s no higher incidence of witchcraft in the gentry, and so the oppressed-and-victimised theory doesn’t convince me. Myself, I figure that anyone, man or woman, who has the talent but isn’t identified and whisked off to the Studium at age ten to be taught polite behaviour would naturally use such powers to bully and torment others because that’s human nature for you. Let any man pick up a stick and he’ll use it to hit someone else, unless the other man’s got a stick too. And nothing will ever change that, believe you me.

  My colleagues and I, however, are civilised, educated men. We know what to do in practically every eventuality. Which is why we have nothing whatsoever to be afraid of.

  Finding her was no problem. Insignia verborum; you learn it in third year because it’s nominally a restricted Form; God only knows why, it’s harmless enough. It lights up a glowing trail, like a phosphorous snail. A tiny drop of blood, or a hair, or a nail-clipping, is all you need. I picked up one of the bloodstained rushes, and I was off.

  It was raining again, and when I opened the door I could see the trail winding away over the hills and far away. I considered requisitioning a horse, but I hate horse-riding, my back gives me hell for days afterwards. You’re not supposed to use Forms just to keep from getting wet and muddy, but who was there to see or care, and if they did, so what? It’s the Mesoge. Nothing that happens there matters worth a damn. I fortified myself discreetly and set off on my long trudge.

  It was well after sunset when the trail petered out, and by then I’d walked further than I had since I joined the Studium. Forms can give you strength, but they can’t stop your feet aching. But anyhow, I found myself on the wrong side of a gate set in a thick hedge; the quality live here, it said. Gates don’t hinder me much, locked or unlocked. On the other side, I saw a short drive leading to a large square black shape. I tweaked the view a bit with lux in tenebris and made out one of those fortified manor-houses that you get in the Mesoge; half farmhouse, half castle, our legacy from the Troubles three centuries ago. Curious, I thought. No reason to assume my witch was the lady of the house. Probably between fifteen and twenty women would live in a house that size, most of whom would be working for a living. My witch could just as easily be a scullerymaid or a cook.

  But she wasn’t. I looked for her—standing in the pitch dark, with rain dripping off my hood—with victrix causa and spotted her in the great hall. She was sitting on a stool by the fire, sewing a cushion. A few feet away, her husband was serving the loops on a new bowstring. He was about fifty, a fine-looking man with a neatly trimmed grey beard and broad shoulders. Two sons played chess on a low table; twins, most likely, around twenty. A greyhound slept on a bearskin rug. Your ideal picture of the country gentry at home, a beatific vision of aspiration for yeomen farmers and uppity merchants. Awkward. I had a problem.

  I was, of course, entirely within my rights to burst in, seize her by force, and blast anybody who tried to stop me. I was perfectly capable of all that. I had the power, the strength, and the authority. But you don’t do stuff like that just because you can. It’s insensitive and uncivilised, and we aren’t thugs or bullies. I was going to have to wait until they’d all gone to bed. I went and stood under a tree, from where I could watch the windows. The bedroom would be on the first floor of the big round tower; it always is. After an eternity, a faint light flared in the narrow window. I muttered victrix causa and peeped in.

  Country squires in the Mesoge are old-fashioned, and they don’t throw out good furniture just because it’s two hundred and fifty years old. The bed, therefore, was a huge thing, size of a small shed, with heavy tapestry drapes. I’m no voyeur; I cut the Form and gave them plenty of time to undress, get into bed, and blow out the candle. The window went dark. I gave them another eternity to fall asleep, then squelched in my sodden boots up the drive to the front door.

  Any fool can draw bolts with summa fides, but it takes real skill to do it quietly. There’d be servants and dogs sleeping in the hall, and anybody I woke up would have to be put back to sleep with benevolentia or some other unpleasantness. But I’m really very good at all the sneaking-about side of things. I’d have made a good thief or assassin; now there’s something to be proud of. I climbed the stairs without a sound. The bedroom door had old-fashioned leather hinges, and the floor was spread with rugs. Perfect.

  She was fast asleep, her head on one side, her hair loose. When we met at the inn, she’d had it done up in those horrible spirals, like wicker mats; it suited her much better au naturel. She was still neither particularly pretty nor particularly young, but a part of me envied the silver-haired gentleman lying with his back to her. Still; if there’s one thing I hate, it’s being made a fool of.

&nbs
p; I slipped into her mind, exactly the way she’d do it. I kept my scholar’s robe, because that’s what people see when they look at me; not the prematurely bald head or the weak chin or the silly little snub nose. I wanted to be sure she recognised me.

  You can’t take anything into someone’s dream; you have to use what you find there. In her dream, on the bedside table lay a fine old silver and amber brooch, heirloom quality—my guess is, a real brooch she’d always hankered after but never managed to acquire. I picked it up and unfolded the pin. In her dream, she was fast asleep. I stuck the pin through the lid of her closed eye, then pulled it out.

  She opened her eyes. One she couldn’t see through, the other stared at me. “Hello,” I said.

  In her dream, she yelled. I shook my head. “Nobody can hear you,” I said. “We need to talk. You’ll find me at the inn.” Then I stuck the pin in her other eye and got out fast.

  She hadn’t moved, though her eyes were tightly screwed up. Her husband was still fast asleep, so I guess she was a restless sleeper at the best of times. I blew her a kiss and went back down the stairs. I think a servant opened one eye and saw me as I thumbed the latch of the front door. So what?

  I slept well that night. Genuine Mesoge sleep; healthy exhaustion after a hard day of useful, profitable work.

  Some fool woke me up while it was still dark outside. Just as well for him I have perfect control; there are horror stories of servants at the Studium being blasted into cinders after waking up senior faculty members who weren’t morning people. There’s a lady to see you, said whoever it was. Note the choice of noun. He sounded deeply impressed.

  I’m afraid of nothing, but I’m still capable of embarrassment. How do you start a conversation with a witch you recently blinded in her sleep, who also happens to be the local bigwig’s wife? As I pulled my hose on I decided I’d better be cruel and heartless, though I know full well I’m not very good at it. Probably she’d see through it straight away. As I stuffed my feet into my boots, which were ice-cold and clammy with last night’s rain, I thought; the hell with it, I’ll just be myself. Not a part I’ve ever been happy playing, but it’s less of a drain on my limited imaginative faculties.

  She was sitting on the chair she’d conjured up and then not known how to dissolve. I don’t think she meant anything by it; probably she didn’t recognise it. A spiteful man would’ve vanished it with her still sat in it, but I’m not like that. I had no idea how to address her, so I settled on ‘Madam’, which is usually correct in the country.

  She looked at me. Her eyes were bloodshot. Also, she had a cut on her cheek, just starting to scab over. I hadn’t noticed it the night before, so presumably she’d been lying on it. I did that, I thought guiltily, lashing out like a schoolboy. She was wearing a white lace cap and a heavy wool cloak, fastened at the shoulder with a simple silver starburst brooch.

  I cleared my throat. “The cap,” I said. “Indiscreet.”

  She shook her head. “I wear it all the time, so naturally nobody sees it any more. I assume you’ve told them.”

  I was shocked. “No, of course not. I think we ought to find somewhere a bit more private.”

  That made her grin. “Are you suggesting I go up to your room? I don’t think so.”

  “Allow me.”

  So, I wanted to impress her; of course I did, from the first moment I saw her, in the inn. So what? A show of power would terrify her, let her know she was dealing with someone infinitely stronger than herself; it would serve a useful purpose and therefore was allowed.

  I touched her shoulder with the tip of my finger and took her to the third Room.

  It’s just occurred to me that you may not know about Rooms. You’re not supposed to. Rooms are classified top secret, not to be mentioned or hinted at in front of unqualified personnel. I could get in big trouble if I were to tell you anything at all about Rooms. Basically, it’s like this.

  Imagine you’re in a big house, or a palace, or a government building. There are lots of rooms in it, but for some reason I can’t begin to imagine, you’ve lived your entire life in just one of them. The concept of a door is so weird and unnatural to you that either you dismiss it as some crazy fantasy or else it terrifies you—anathema, abomination, and other words beginning with A to convey pious disgust.

  At the beginning of second year, the class tutor shows you how to make a door. It’s the most extraordinary thing that ever happens to you, and you remember it for the rest of your life. After that, your sense of wonder gets work-hardened; miracles make you yawn, inconceivable wonders are just another day at the office. But your first door is always with you. It’s the moment when the world changed for ever.

  In theory (and if I do manage to get tenure, it’s the area of theory I intend to devote the rest of my life to) there’s an infinite number of Rooms, linked by an infinite network of doors, stairways, and passages. In theory, you could get so good at this shit that instead of going to the Rooms, you could just sit there and all the Rooms would come to you. In practice, there are seven Rooms, and if you’re really brave and incredibly skilful and outrageously lucky, you might get to visit six of them by choice before you end up in the seventh very much against your will. In everyday life, you use three. I chose the third Room on this occasion because it’s always been my favourite. If there’s anywhere in the world this Mesoge farm boy is at home, it’s the third Room. When I’m there, I’m in control.

  Normally, wherever and whoever you are, you aren’t in control. You may think you are, but you’re not. If you’re the Great King of the Sashan, brother of the Sun and bridegroom of the Moon, and you happen to let your favourite crystal goblet slip through your fingers, it’ll fall on the marble floor and smash into a thousand pieces, and if you cut yourself on one of the pieces and get blood poisoning, you’ll die. But when I’m in the third Room, if I drop something, it needs my permission to fall. Don’t get the idea that it’s like that for everyone in the third Room, by the way. I know a tenured professor of applied metaphysics who wouldn’t go in there if you paid him, because there are monsters under the bed. I know how he feels. You wouldn’t get me in the fifth Room if the rest of the world was on fire; yet my friend the professor goes there to relax and hide from his married sister when she calls for a visit.

  I’m a bit of an old fusspot when it comes to décor. I know what I like. My small-r rooms in the West cloister of the Old Building are small, cold, and damp so I can’t really be bothered with them, but I’ve fixed up the third Room exactly how I like it. The walls are panelled oak, sort of a dark honey colour, with genuine late Mannerist tapestries depicting scenes from Chloris and Sorabel. On the floor I’ve got a rattan mat, because I love the smell and the way it cushions your feet. The ceiling is plaster mouldings with the details—birds nesting among the acanthus leaves, that sort of thing—picked out in gold leaf, because what is life without a few restrained splashes of vulgarity? The furniture is dark oak, almost black; two carved chairs, a table, a bookcase which only occupies half a wall but which somehow manages to hold all the books I ever want to read; three brass lamps; my grandfather’s sword on the wall just above my head, nice and handy if ever I need it; a footstool. And the nice thing is, I can go there for a whole afternoon and when I get back, I’ve only just left.

  “What the hell?” I said.

  I don’t usually swear in front of women, especially upper-class ones. I stared at her. She smiled.

  It was the third Room, because I’d brought us here, up the second staircase, across the dark landing. I’d opened the door, my thumb on the old-fashioned wooden latch. More to the point, I was in front of her. It’s different when someone gets into a Room ahead of you, or you go in and it’s already occupied. I’m always very careful about that, believe me. But no, I’d opened the door and walked in, and then she followed me. “What have you done?” I said.

  She pushed past me and sat down. There was only one chair. I had to make do with a low three-legged stool by the fir
e. She picked up her embroidery and carried on where she’d left off the night before. The boarhound lifted its head and growled at me.

  “You can’t bring dogs into the third Room,” I objected.

  “Can’t you?”

  “It’s against the rules.”

  “Then the rules are silly,” she said, licking the end of her silk before threading her needle. “You wanted to talk to me about something.”

  I stood up. This wasn’t right. I headed for the door, which wasn’t there.

  Father Anthemius taught me how to make a door. The shameful fact is, I was a slow beginner. All the other kids could do it, I couldn’t. Not for want of trying; but it’s one of those things where effort is useless, bordering on counter-productive; like falling asleep, the more you try, the less you succeed. It’s easy, they all told me, you just think of a door and there it is.

  So I thought of a door, and there one wasn’t. All right, they said, try this. Think of a door, but you can only see it out of the corner of your eye. Didn’t work. So they explained to me about peripheral vision, and how you can see things without looking straight at them. Made no difference. I was ashamed and desperate. If I couldn’t make a door, I couldn’t learn anything else, they’d have to send me home, back to a two-room shack in the Mesoge. I wasn’t having that. In all other respects I was well in advance of the rest of my year and I’d already sneaked a look at the basic military Forms in the textbook. I reckoned ruans in defectum standing in front of a mirror would do the trick nicely, and there wouldn’t be enough of a body left to be worth shipping home.

  Enter Father Anthemius. He had retired from the teaching staff the year before I arrived and nobody was sorry to see him go. He was a miserable old bastard who hated kids, and he’d only got into teaching because he couldn’t make the field grades, which was all he’d ever wanted to do. His students had hated him, partly because he was hypercritical, judgemental, and mean, partly because of his habit of farting loudly during tutorials; the smell, they told me, had to be experienced to be believed. He found me in a corner of the cloister, crying my eyes out. He looked at me.