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Authors: Caroline Stevermer

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BOOK: A College of Magics
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Rational thought lasted as long as it took to cover the ground between them. When she met him, Faris demanded, “Are you going to follow me around this way for the rest of my life?”
“Probably.” Tyrian betrayed neither surprise nor irritation at her rudeness. Instead, as she was about to speak again, he handed her the gauntlets she'd worn on the ride from Shieling.
Faris felt something twist in her throat. Surprise, certainly. Gratitude. And something more that she did not dare to consider closely enough to put a name to. Silenced for a moment, she accepted the gloves, pulled them on, and thanked him with a stiff nod. Her mare sidled, torn between distaste for moving into the rising wind and longing for its stable. Faris urged it forward.
Tyrian said nothing. He simply turned his horse and followed her at a respectful distance.
Faris drew rein. “Ride beside me. I want to talk to you.” Tyrian obeyed but for several minutes Faris said nothing. Finally, with great reluctance, she managed to ask, “What do they say of me?”
“Who, your grace?”
“Don't—you needn't be formal. What do the servants say?”
“Nothing.”
In the north, the sky had gone solidly gray and looked
low enough to touch. Riding homeward took them into the teeth of the wind. Faris felt her face growing red and could not decide if cold or embarrassment were more to blame. She asked, “Nothing at all? No rumors?”
“I am an outsider. Reed could give you better intelligence. They are at ease with him. He banters.”
His light tone irritated Faris. “I would rather have intelligence from someone who listens than from someone who talks. Have you heard no gossip?”
“None worth repeating.”
“I'm ordering you to repeat it.”
Tyrian looked resigned. “Very well. Most recently, I have heard that you strangled your uncle and threw him from your sleigh. You then returned the sleigh and horses to the stable in good condition and went for a refreshing canter. You left without changing into riding clothes, without troubling even to ask for a pair of gloves.”
When Faris said nothing, Tyrian continued. “I think it was that, more than concern for your security, that made me follow you.”
Faris stared. “To bring me a pair of gloves?”
“I thought something might be wrong.” He waited for her denial. When it didn't come, he smiled a little. “I think I must have been mistaken.”
Faris squinted into the wind. “So they think I tried to strangle my uncle. Do they know why?”
“They don't care why. They are more concerned with why you haven't done it long since. Why
did
you try to strangle him?”
“I didn't try to strangle him. I just pushed him out of the
sleigh. Let us go on to other gossip, not so dangerously fresh. What do they say of my aunt?”
“She's a fine lady, for a foreigner. She dislikes Galazon and would be happier living in Aravis. Galazon would be happier if she were living in Aravis too. She's resolved her daughter will rule Galazon one day, if she has to kill you to bring that about. She tried in the library that first night, it's said, but you sneered at her and the bullet went astray.”
Her gloved hands tightened on the reins. “And what do they say of me?”
“Are we back to that? You are their ruler. Greenlaw gets the blame for the changes they see in you.”
“Such as?”
“You have grown. You wear fine clothes. You behave with decorum.” Tyrian cleared his throat and added, “This afternoon will ease many minds.”
“And what do they say of my companions?”
“Jane is a lady and they know it. I have no idea what they make of Reed or me. Why do you ask?”
Faris felt the words would choke her, but she got them out. “You are always with me.”
“I am.”
Faris looked at him.
“Why?”
Serenely, Tyrian returned her look. “You know why.”
His calmness steadied Faris. “I know you promised to go with me to Aravis to repay me for restoring you to your natural shape.”
Tyrian's eyes widened. “My natural shape was the least of it.”
Faris watched the memories of fear and guilt and pain cross Tyrian's face, and wondered precisely what had passed on that last evening at Greenlaw. Tyrian was looking past her, looking back into that night.
After a long pause, he continued. “As soon as I gathered some of my wits, I had to thank you. I would have given you anything in return. I think I could have fallen as far under your sway as I had under Menary's. Instead, you set me free.” He hesitated. “The Dean summoned me and she was able to restore the rest of my scattered wits. Then I understood what I had undertaken when I promised to accompany you.” He smiled. “So you may go to Paris or to Aravis or to the world's end. I'll follow.”
Faris laughed shakily. “Won't that cause gossip?”
“Is
that
why you're concerned? If you shot your uncle between his beady eyes, the talk below stairs would be that you were just having your little joke. Don't waste a thought on gossip.”
“Sound advice.” Faris tucked her chin into her collar and wished for her scarf back. The wind brought tears to her eyes, and she had trouble seeing the road before her. “I will try to take it.”
 
B
y the time they rode into the yard at Galazon Chase, the clouds had closed in completely. The wind had strengthened and gained an edge that promised more snow. At her order, Tyrian left her in the stable yard. Reluctant to return to the house despite the cold, Faris accompanied the horses to the stables. Inside, she sat on an upturned bucket and
watched the lads work. She pulled off her gauntlets and kneaded warmth back into her stiff fingers while the fierce color faded from her face.
Warm and peaceful, with smells of horses and hay and leather that were wonderfully soothing, the stables held a sense of timeless order. The horses in their stalls mulled over their feed tubs, shifted weight occasionally, blew into their water buckets, and drew deep sighing breaths that sounded like contentment. Worked together, these small sounds became no sound at all, merely the still background to a great calm. For the first time since leaving Hilarion's house, she felt some of the peace she had encountered there.
Faris took comfort from the silence and succeeded at last in thinking of nothing. She remained there long after the last horse was put away gleaming in its stall. Finally, shivering a little, she rose and left the peace of the stables behind.
It was only four in the afternoon when Faris had washed and changed and was finally ready to go down for tea, but from Queen Matilda's window it looked like nine at night.
The wind sounded as if it was trying to blow half a gale. As it raked snow this way and that around the courtyard, it murmured ominously against the windows. On the keep stairs, the great wind outside had fostered many little winds within, icy drafts that stirred Faris's skirts as she descended.
The weather matched Faris's frame of mind precisely, she decided. It would be far easier to race around the courtyard, rattling all the window panes, than to settle down for a quiet cup of tea as if nothing were troubling her.
Faris joined Jane, Agnes, and Brinker for tea in the drawing room, glad her cheeks were still scarlet from the cold. It helped to conceal her blush as she greeted Brinker. With irony veiled by courtesy, he showed her to a chair beside the fire, and asked after her health.
Faris answered politely and returned the inquiry. She looked closely at his eye but could see no sign of her handiwork. “I hope you enjoyed your stroll home this afternoon.”
Brinker regarded her with genuine amusement. “I did. There is nothing like a brisk walk in the fresh air to clear one's mind.” He glanced around to be sure Agnes and Jane were listening. “I've had an inspiration.”
“Bread and butter?” Agnes offered a plate.
Gently, Brinker took the plate away from her. When she glanced at him inquiringly, he repeated, “An inspiration, my dear,” and smiled at her. “We are going to Aravis.”
Agnes did not smile back. “Don't tease me about going home, I beg you. I am so ready to leave this frozen place, I would gladly walk twice the distance.”
“I am quite serious.” Brinker offered Faris bread and butter. “Your credentials should be here any day now. I never felt it right to send you to Aravis unsupervised. While I was—strolling—this afternoon, it came to me that we should accompany you. Prosperian can be presented to her grandfather, too.”
“Such an honor for her,” murmured Jane into her teacup, as Agnes expressed her rapturous surprise and gratitude.
Faris demanded, “Who will look after Galazon if we both go?”
“Galazon will do perfectly well while you're away,” Agnes said. “It's cold enough to keep nicely.”
“Lord Seaforth made a very capable steward while I was in Aravis to sue for my bride's hand.”
Faris frowned. “Lord Seaforth. Is he the one who enclosed three hundred acres of river bottom and turned it over to sheep?”
Brinker looked pained. “He may be. I don't know his idea of what constitutes good grazing land. But he is trustworthy. The tax money he collects will be turned over in its entirety. Which is more than could be said for most of your acquaintance. Young Woodrowel paid a call here this afternoon. It was a pity you were out.”
“Warin! Here? Did he say why?”
“In fact, he did.” Enjoying her impatience, Brinker finished his cup of tea before he continued. “He came to Galazon Ducis to pay his taxes. He said as long as he was so near, he thought he'd stop in on the way home—to see if you had managed to kill me yet, was the way he put it.”
“I'm sorry to have missed him.”
“I told him you would be. He wouldn't stay. I invited him, but he said he had to return home. No doubt he could see his visit was premature. Perhaps he'll be back.”
Faris met his eyes and held them. “Perhaps. Warin has moments of rare perception.”
“I would have said that he had moments of perception rarely,” Agnes observed.
Before she could stop herself, Faris replied, “You'd be the judge of that, wouldn't you?” Then, alarmed at her lack of self-control, she retreated behind the barriers of etiquette.
As teatime wore on, she put all her trust in civility. Faris practiced every art and grace Dame Brachet had drilled into her. When the meal was over at last, she accepted Jane's suggestion of a walk in the gallery. She even kept up a lively narrative of the portraits until they were alone at the far end of the long hall. Then Jane seized her wrist.
“We're out of earshot now. It's safe to Tell All. Just what the dickens happened this afternoon?”
Faris freed her wrist and rubbed it. “Brinker and I had a little argument, that's all.”
“That's not what I heard.”
“What did you hear?”
“That Brinker tried to push you out of the sleigh and you strangled him for his pains.”
“Who told you that?”
“The maid who brings my hot water.”
“What's her name, do you recall?” Faris inquired. “Does she have very blue eyes? That's Ismena, Gavren's niece.”
“Stop that. I won't be distracted with nieces I want to know what happened.”
Faris blushed painfully. “He made me angry and I lost my temper. Then I went for a ride to recover my wits. That's all.”
“You'd better tell me all about it.”
Softly, Faris gave Jane an exact account of what she and Brinker had said to one another. When she finished, Jane was frowning. “I suppose you
had
to clout him one? You couldn't just stubbornly refuse to catch his meaning?”
“What meaning?”
“Yes, like that.”
Faris blinked. “What are you talking about?”
Jane studied her for a moment. “I suppose we'd better go back to Queen Matilda's tomb. I have no desire to be overheard.”
Faris let Jane lead her back up the drafty staircase to her room. With the door locked and the keyhole stopped, Jane steered Faris into the chair beside the writing desk. While Jane stoked the fire, Faris eyed the neatly docketed report that topped the stack of books on the desk. Apparently Jane had been unpacking. “Brinker said my credentials should be here any day. Will you be ready to leave for Aravis when they arrive? For that matter, how are we ever going to mend the rift if Brinker insists on coming along with us?”
“Don't change the subject.” Jane put the poker down and stood with her back to the hearth. Her voice was crisp. “I ought to have asked you this long ago, I suppose, as I am here
in loco Decanis.
It's absolutely none of my business, of course, but you know it's important, or I wouldn't ask.”
BOOK: A College of Magics
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