Corambis (45 page)

Tamsen was as bourgeois as Breadoven. Everything clean and respectable and flower boxes everywhere, even by the doors of the fathom station, and it turned out the Society for the Advancement of Universal Education was right across the street. Nice big sign over the door, black letters on white and easy to read.

And of course staring it in the face like that, I got cold feet and had to go walk up and down Smiling Angel Street until I’d got over wanting to bail. I found the smiling angel, too, standing right in the middle of the intersection with its hands spread, twice life- size—assuming an angel’s the same size as a man—and smiling like it was trying to tell the whole world not to be assholes.

Turned out, at the other end of the block there was a real school: Tamsen Dominion Practicum School, the windows open on account of it being a nice day and a bunch of kids around their second septad all learning arithmetic from a stern- faced lady in a green dress. I thought about what I’d been learning when I was their age, and turned around to head back for the fathom station and home.

You ain’t fooling nobody, Milly- Fox, and all the book learning in the world ain’t gonna change what you are.
But I stopped by them stupid flower boxes. Felix would know what the flowers were. I didn’t. I knew what I was, and what I’d been— what I’d done— but I also remembered Mehitabel telling me that we don’t have to stay where the past puts us, even if we can’t get rid of it. And me telling Felix the same exact fucking thing.
Yeah, I knew what I’d been. But I had to believe I could be more than that if I tried. I turned around and walked across the street to the Society for the Advancement of Universal Education. Opened the door and went in before I had a chance to talk myself out of it.
It was nice inside. I mean, not fancy or nothing, but all the stuff that could be polished was shining, and there wasn’t a speck of dirt anywhere, and the gal behind the desk had a beautiful smile.
“May I help you, sir?” she said, and she even sounded like she meant it.
And of course I’d been working so hard on getting myself through the door, I hadn’t stopped to think about what I was going to do once I got there.
“I, um. Is Miss Leverick around?”
“Miss . . . ?”
“Leverick,” I said, as slow and clear as I could, and her smile came back.
“Yes, of course. Just a minute— and may I tell her who’s asking for her?”
“Mildmay Foxe,” I said and hoped her not asking me to repeat it was because she’d got it, and not just because she didn’t want to be bothered.
On the other hand, it wasn’t like I was hard to describe.
There were chairs, so I sat on one. It was most of a septad- minute before the gal came back, but when she did, she gave me another beautiful smile and said, “Frances says you should come up to her office. Up the stairs, second door on the left. It’s open.” Then she went back to what ever she’d been doing, and I went out the door and up the stairs and found Miss Leverick’s office. Seemed like you weren’t nobody in Esmer if you didn’t have an office.
Miss Leverick’s office wasn’t as clean and shiny as the rest of the place. There were stacks of paper everywhere, plus a half- finished quilt in a lap- frame draped over the extra chair and a skinny brown cat with blue eyes looking at me like I was everything wrong with the world and then some. Didn’t budge off the windowsill though.
Miss Leverick looked up from her papers and smiled like she was glad to see me. We shook hands, and she told me to dump the quilt on the floor, although I was more careful with it than that, and when I was sat down, I said, “I never seen a cat with blue eyes before,” along of really not wanting to get into me and what I thought I was doing here yet.
“She’s Ygressine,” Miss Leverick said. “They’re the most fantastic mousers. There was quite the little dustup a few indictions ago, when the newspapers discovered that all the navy’s cats are Ygressine instead of honest, hardworking Corambin tabbies. Sailors apparently believe that blue eyes are good luck.”
“She’s a long way from the sea.”
“Many of our students are retired sailors. A Ygressine cat was probably the inevitable solution to our mouse problem. And we’ve all become very fond of Edmund. She’s much friendlier than most of the Corambin cats I’ve met.” She reached back to pet the cat. The cat, obviously knowing a good thing when it saw one, stood up, stretched, and kind of flowed over Miss Leverick’s shoulder and down into her lap, where it curled itself up again and, as far as I could tell, went straight to sleep.
“Edmund? You did say ‘she,’ right?”
“She’s named for her ship. The
Edmund Libby
?”
She said it like she expected me to recognize the name, and I shook my head.
“There are ballads about the wreck of the
Edmund Libby
now. It wrecked— oh, it must be a full wheel ago— on Old Sadie’s Teeth. The worst storm on record, and in the morning, when the rescue boats could finally put out from Grimglass, there were only three survivors. Two men and the cat.”
“
This
cat?”
“This cat. And now her children are populating Esmer. We have a waiting list for her kittens. She’s quite famous.”
Well, me and Felix had survived the
Morskaiakrov
going down, and I felt all kinds of respect for the cat.
“But you can’t have come to talk about either cats or famous shipwrecks,” said Miss Leverick. “Or is this just a social visit?”
Powers. “I, um. Well, you said y’all taught classes, and I was just wondering about them.”
Oh very eloquent, Milly- Fox. I knew I was blushing, but Miss Leverick just said, “Did you have any par tic u lar class in mind?”
“I don’t even know. What all do you teach?”
“Let’s start from the beginning, then,” she said and reached— careful not to disturb the cat— for the top of a stack of paper that turned out to be little booklets. She handed one to me. “These are the classes we’re offering next month. I can tell you, of course, about the classes for Illa and Pella, but we haven’t gotten those printed up yet.”
“Sure,” I said, kind of on reflex, and looked at the booklet to keep from saying something really dumb.
Me not knowing nothing about it, that booklet looked pretty good. They had a bunch of different classes. Arithmetic like the kids were learning down the street, grammar and composition and I knew Felix would be after me to take that one. A class on Corambin poetry. A class on Corambin history. And a class on something I had to say to myself twice before I was sure I was reading it right.
“Labyrinths?”
“Oh dear,” said Miss Leverick, looking embarrassed. “Mrs. Weatherby has a bit of a hobby horse on the subject, and since she and her husband are among our principal donors . . .”
“You can’t tell her no.” I got that part. “But what does she have to say about ’em? Labyrinths, I mean.”
“Ah,” said Miss Leverick, looking even more embarrassed. “There are labyrinths all over Corambis, you see, and nobody knows what they’re for. And Mrs. Weatherby’s theory is— oh dear. Mrs. Weatherby believes that the labyrinths, all of them, were placed at sites of par tic u lar spiritual importance by King Edward, the last king of Corambis who could claim direct descent from Agramant the Navigator, and that he knew where to put them because, the people of those days being so much purer and holier than we are, he was in direct communication with at least one and possibly several angels.”
“Okay,” I said after a moment. “So when you say she has a hobby horse, what you mean is she’s batfuck crazy?”
Miss Leverick absolutely cracked up. The cat opened her eyes and gave me a disgusted look, then jumped off Miss Leverick’s lap and stalked out the door. That just made Miss Leverick laugh harder, but finally she took a deep breath and got herself settled again. She said, “Really, Mrs. Weatherby’s class is very pop u lar. She teaches them about the importance of the labyrinth in Cymellunar culture, and the names of all the Cymellunid kings of Corambis, and they take day trips on Domenicas with picnic lunches and such like.”
“To look at labyrinths?” Because, why would you want to?
“There are several near enough to Esmer for train excursions. And we convinced the Company to offer a special fare.”
“Huh,” I said, although I could sort of see the part where getting out of the city for a day might be worth having to listen to a crazy lady yap about labyrinths. “So what
was
the importance of the labyrinth in Cymellunar culture?”
Which I know Miss Leverick only understood because it was her words. “Well, there are several conflicting theories—”
“Figures. But what does Mrs. Weatherby think?”
“Purification. Something about clarifying and channeling one’s vi, I think, but honestly I try not to listen to her.” She stopped and sort of squinted at me. “You weren’t thinking about attending her class, were you?”
“Powers, no,” I said. “Just curious.”
“Good. Because I couldn’t in all honesty
recommend
it.” But she looked like she wasn’t entirely satisfied. “Are there labyrinths in Mélusine?”
“Um. Well, there’s curtain- mazes at the Trials, but—”
“The Trials?”
“Of Heth- Eskaladen. He’s the god of . . .” She was eyeing me like she was a hungry dog and I was a side of beef. “What?” I said, although I didn’t think I was going to like it.
“A class about Mélusine would be
very
pop u lar.”
“Not with me teaching it, it wouldn’t,” I said. “And Felix is pretty busy.”
“It’s only one night a week. And I admit our honorarium isn’t much, but it’s
something
.”
“Felix has a job.”
“And you?” She added quickly, “Many of our students are from the working classes, and I think they would appreciate having a teacher who was more like them than we well- to- do, well- meaning ladies.”
“Powers and saints, lady, I ain’t no teacher.” I waved a hand at my face, at my ugly fucking scar. “Nobody’s gonna pay to come and listen to me when they can’t understand half the fucking things I say.”
“But how long ago were you injured?” she said. “The physicians of Bernatha can do truly astonishing things—”
“Too fucking long.” I shoved myself to my feet. “I been taking up too much of your time anyway. Thanks for the booklet.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, standing up. “I’m sorry I upset you— it wasn’t my intent. But do think about it. I don’t think it would be nearly as bad as you believe.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said.
But I was thinking about it all right, thinking about it all the way back to Ingry Dominion. I was thinking about it so hard I went out and did the thing I’d gone over to Smiling Angel Street just exactly so I wouldn’t do it. Went out and found the game in the cellar of the Blooming Turtle where I’d been real careful about not looking for it for a decad and a half.

Corbie appeared in my office with a wad of scribbled- on papers and some unkind things to say about the University librarians. But then, rather than launching into a report on what she had— or hadn’t— found, she fidgeted around my office and finally burst out with “Do you think it’s wrong for women to be magicians?”

“Could you stop if you tried?”
She went red. “I . . . No.”
I nodded. Because that was how it was, for wizards. When I was her age,

I would have starved my magic out of my body if I’d been able— anything, if it would make Malkar lose interest in me. But I couldn’t deny it, couldn’t ignore it. Even now, with the binding- by- obedience wrapped about me as tight and airless as a winding sheet, my magic was still struggling for light and freedom, still struggling to be known. “Then I think, for the sake of every female wizard in the world, we’d better assume it’s not wrong. Has someone been giving you grief?”

“Not more than usual, really,” she said. Another interval of fidgeting, and she said, “Did you know most of the Mulkist warlocks were women?”
“Were they?”
“Yeah. And people are saying,” with a wave of her hand to indicate the general populace of the Institution and University, “that maybe it’s a
sign
, that maybe women can’t be trusted with power. That it’s
unnatural
and
wrong
and—”
“Corbie.” She grinned lopsidedly and said it with me, “Shut up.”
“I don’t think any of that is true,” I said gently. “Women who hold power can be good or evil, just exactly as men who hold power can be. So tell me about rachenants instead.”
“Well,” said Corbie, sitting down finally. “I ain’t found much yet. Because it’s like people just dumped boxes of books up there. Some of them aren’t even on shelves. Although”— and she looked sheepish—“I’ve been fixing that, a little.”
“Good girl,” I said, and she blushed like a fire.
“So rachenants are a class of ghost, and lumme, there’s more classes of ghost than I would’ve thought. But they’re ghosts of magicians and they’re ghosts called up for revenge, and they’re ghosts—” She frowned at her notes. “The word the Mulkists use is
vorticant
, which seems to sort of mean unstable and sort of mean hungry and I ain’t sure what all else. So it’s like a fire that has to be contained by the one who builds it or it’ll devour everything it finds.”
“Yes,” I said; that certainly matched with my experience.
“I ain’t found anything about calling ’em up or making ’em go back, although I did find this list of places and times where you should never try to deal with one.”
“Unlikely to be helpful,” I said.
“Yeah, I know. The books
do
say that you can’t ever give in to one and expect to make it out alive. They talk a lot about the Sacrifice of the Caster. That’s opposed to other sacrifices, which there’s also a list of.” She gave me a grimace. “The Mulkists liked lists.”
“And with such charming topics, too,” I said.
“Yeah. That’s all I have so far.”
“You’ve made excellent progress,” I said, and because it was true, added, “I’m proud of you.”
And the smile she gave me would have lit all Esmer on a moonless night.

In Esmer, they play this game called Caterwaul, which is like a second step- cousin of Long Tiffany— meaning it’s pretty much straightforward and not full of girly shit like Horned Menelan is. Or Griffin and Pegasus, for that matter, which I also hate. No, Caterwaul is all about the cards. What you have and what the other guys have and what you can do with it. And some cleverdick things like where you can take a fucking lousy hand and sweep the table with it if the other guys ain’t paying attention quite as hard as they should. Or just get that littlest bit unlucky. Lots of bluffing in Caterwaul. And the more you can keep all the cards in your head— who’s discarded what and played what and what all that means everybody has to have left— the better you do.