20

First Seminar

The Institute so far lacked lecture rooms big enough to hold the expected attendance for Hope’s first seminar, at which news she had swallowed with some difficulty, so on the appointed day she drove to the university itself and entered a familiar building in which she had often been on the receiving end of lectures.

Rooms looked much larger when you were at the front. She’d noticed that before.

She still had a numb, tense feeling in her midriff after her mother’s revelation, and a set of thoughts chasing round and round her head that had nothing to do with her lecture.

She arranged and rearranged her notes as a diverse crowd trailed in: students, mostly older ones; professors, recognisable by their long scarves; senior mages; members of the Institute, both humans and gnomes. Several of the professors had taught her, and she had to chant a calming spell to herself.

When the room was about three-quarters full, the Master-Mage entered through the lecturer’s door and strolled over to her, looking as cheerful as usual. “Nerves all right?” he asked.

“No.”

“You’ll be fine. You know your topic, you’ve prepared well, that’s all you need. Now, I’ll introduce you just after the bell. You have the usual half a bell to talk, but I’ve allowed up to another half-bell for questions afterwards. You did provide for that?”

“Yes, Master-Mage, just as you asked.”

“Good.” He consulted the clock at the back of the room. “I’ll give them a little longer, some of the Institute people couldn’t fit on the first ferry.”

After an interminable time, during which the room filled almost to capacity, the Master-Mage rose from his seat in the front row and came to stand next to Hope.

“Greetings, everyone,” he said. “Today we will hear from one of our distinguished graduates, Mage Hope at Merrybourne, who has been working with the Realmgold’s clever man and has recently agreed to come and join our Institute. While at the Clever Man’s Works, her achievements included the creation of the farviewers and farspeakers, based, in fact, on her senior project here at the university. In my many years of teaching, I have seldom seen a young mage who possesses a comparable grasp of magical theory and also her ability at practical application. Today she will be opening to us the system of mathematics which her colleague Dignified Printer, Victory’s clever man, created, and which they have jointly used to such remarkable effect. Mage Hope.”

He sat down to polite applause, and Hope looked up the sloping rows of seats and, with a feeling much like that of diving off a cliff into the sea back in the Western Isles, began her lecture.

She stumbled and said “um” a lot to start with, but not long after she began someone in the second row asked a question which led straight on to her next point, and she picked up confidence, though she still stumbled over her words. The university had invested in some of Dignified’s erasable boards, and she sketched diagrams and figures on them, bouncing from one to another, forgetting about her notes as she became caught up in the ideas.

As she did so, she was aware of a slowly growing headache, or the promise of a headache, like a storm forming on the horizon. She ignored it.

“Excuse me, Mage Hope,” said a voice. She spun around and located the speaker, a mathematician, she thought, although there seemed to be something wrong with her vision and his face came in and out of focus.

“Yes?” she said.

“Don’t you have that backwards?”

She turned to look at the board, which seemed to be rotating slowly to the left even as it remained in the centre of her vision, as if she and the board were both on a turntable. She tried to bring the equation she had just written into focus by squinting.

Abruptly, her head seemed to split open as the promised storm arrived. Her vision flashed, and she dropped to the ground, which was now spinning rapidly. She heard a babble of voices.

Rapid footsteps approached, and someone knelt beside her. “Is there a healer in the room?” asked the voice of the Master-Mage, even as he worked a pain-spell. Her headache eased back to merely crushing. She could see nothing through a haze of tears and flashing lights.

The voices receded down a dark tunnel and everything went black.

She woke in an unfamiliar room.

After a bit, she figured out that it was in a healing house, like the one she had been put in down in Gulfport, the night of her head injury. She really did not want to make a habit of waking up in healing houses.

“Hello?” she called. “Is anyone there?”

“Ah, you’re awake,” said a healer’s assistant, striding in and giving her a smile. The young man helped her sit up and drink some water and asked her how she felt.

“As if I was hit by a cart,” she said.

“Headache?”

“Vicious.”

“I’ll get you some willow tea.”

“There are amulets in my bag, if it’s here.”

“I’ll look. Yes, here we are.”

With the amulets on, her headache receded. “Now,” said the healer’s assistant when he returned with the tea, “the Master-Mage wanted to know as soon as you woke up. I noticed one of those new farspeakers in your bag. Do you want to call him?”

“Yes, please,” she said, and he fetched the device.

The Master-Mage was solicitous, and dismissed her worries about the seminar. “Don’t give it a thought,” he said. “All sorted out. You rest and recover, now, and we’ll talk more when you feel better. I’ve sent notes to your home, and to the lab, and I’ll let them know you’re awake. Is there anyone else who should be informed? Mindhealer Lily, perhaps?”

“Oh!” she said. “What day is it?”

“Still Threeday.”

“What time?”

“It’s still morning, just,” said the mage.

“Then I’ve got time to call Patient before he comes up. No, no, I want to do it. But could you send a note to Lily to cancel our session?”

Hope called Patient, then lay back, exhausted. The young healer’s assistant wandered by again, gave her more tea and something to eat, and bustled out again.

Hope must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew Briar was beside her bed.

“I’m going to start calling you Mistress Goodluck,” said her friend.

“Why is that?” said Hope in a fuzzy voice.

“You collapsed in a room with four healers and three mindhealers.”

“Oh.”

“Which also means that they’ve checked you very thoroughly, and the original healers did a good job on you, but you’re not all the way healed yet and you should avoid overstressing yourself.” Briar said the last three words with a firm emphasis, and frowned at her.

“All right,” said Hope. “I don’t exactly feel like taking on the world right now anyway.”

“I daresay.” Briar took her hand. “Is Patient on his way?”

“First ferry he could get. What time is it?”

Briar told her, but Hope couldn’t do the simple calculation needed to tell her when Patient might arrive. “Can you get me some water?” she said.

Water provided, she slumped back in the bed, exhausted. “B,” she said.

“Here.”

“I’m scared.”

“You’ll be all right. The healers have checked you over six different ways.”

“Yes, but… B, I can’t think properly. If I can’t think, who am I?”

“You’re the woman I love,” said Patient’s gentle baritone from the door. Briar rose, but he said, “No, don’t go, Briar, not on my account.” She settled back into the chair, but perched on the edge. Patient came over and leaned in to kiss Hope gently.

“How are you feeling?”

“Terrible. But Briar tells me I’m lucky.”

Patient glanced inquiringly at Briar.

“I’m just repeating what I got from the healers’ assistant,” she said.

“Aren’t you supposed to go to Gulfport?” said Hope suddenly.

“I’m going on a later ferry. Wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“Good,” said Hope, in a vague voice, and drifted out again.

She wasn’t allowed to go home that night. Patient stayed in her room, sleeping in a chair. In the morning, she felt, if not well, at least able to carry on a coherent conversation. She was doing so with Patient when the Master-Mage walked in.

Patient stood respectfully, but the Master-Mage gestured him back down. “How is she?” he asked.

“Better,” Hope answered for herself. He looked at her closely, and an unaccustomed frown crossed his usually cheerful face. “You must not have been very well, then,” he said. “In fact, I know you weren’t.”

Hope nodded, and winced as her headache twinged.

“Once you can get out of here, I want someone staying with you until you’re better. I’ll arrange it.”

“Master-Mage, you don’t have to…”

“No, but I am going to, so no more argument. I consider myself partly at fault, here, so let me do this for you.”

Hope, with limited capacity to argue, subsided.

“Oh, and don’t worry about your seminar,” the Master-Mage said. “I had Professor Strength from the mathematics department continue, using your notes, and she said it went very well. She was extremely impressed, in fact, but she also suggested that it’s a bit advanced for a general audience and perhaps you could start with a smaller group, just mathematicians, and get them familiar with the new notation, so they can explain it to the magical theorists, and then the theorists can teach it to the practitioners. Only when you’re well enough, though.”

“That would certainly be a lot less stressful,” said Hope. “Thank you, Master-Mage.”

The Master-Mage disappeared for a while and, when he came back, reported that he had arranged a healer’s assistant to stay with her in the flat during the day. “You’re not to push yourself or hurry anything,” he said.

“But… the teaching. I know you wanted that to start as soon as possible…”

“Yes, but not at the cost of your health.”

By the time Threeday rolled round again, Hope, while still unwell, was bored rigid. Patient offered to read to her, and since the only non-technical books in the house were Briar’s country-house romances, he soon found himself spouting dialogue which managed to be both stilted and suggestive simultaneously. It got them laughing together, which helped Hope, and they spent Fourday taking short walks, indulging in some light kissing, and continuing the reading.

By the following Threeday, Hope was able to have a couple of brief sessions with the mathematicians. They came up with a list of questions that she needed to ask Dignified, so she dropped around to the lab to ask if he could be available to come and talk to them the following Oneday.

She ran straight into a Rosewall family row.

“Hope!” said Rosie, with desperate cheerfulness, as she came through the door of the kitchen in search of Dignified and found it crowded, with five people seated round the little table and Bucket attempting to serve them tea. “These are my brothers and my sister. Constant, Punctual, Opportunity, my friend and colleague Hope.”

“Didn’t Mother say she was your flatmate?” asked Opportunity, who wore a dark-tan Victory suit as if she had been born in it. She shared Rosie’s height, as they all did, but her hair was managed into a fashionable style and her face was softer, almost to the point of being pretty.

“Oh, ah, yes, of course,” said Rosie, flustered. Opportunity narrowed her eyes sceptically.

“Mage,” said Punctual, the older brother, noting her bracelet. He wore a masculine version of Opportunity’s suit, and sat like a man who was used to dominating the room. He bore a striking resemblance to his father of the same name.

“Pleased to meet you all,” said Hope. “Can I talk to Dignified for a minute?” The inventor was sitting beside Rosie, looking as if he wished he was anywhere else, and leapt up the moment she said his name.

They found a space behind some erasable boards to talk, and Hope put her request to him. He looked into the distance.

“I don’t see why not,” he said.

“You don’t mind coming out to the Institute?”

“No. Will be going there anyway soon.”

“What do you mean?”

“The works is being combined with the Institute. They’re building us a new building across the road.”

“Wheel said there were rumours, but the Master-Mage never mentioned anything.”

“Only just approved,” said Dignified.

“Wheel and the gnomes too?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that will be easier for access, and having the prototyping manufactory right there will be useful, too. Are they making you proper quarters?”

“Yes. For me and Rosie.”

“Dignified, what about that? Are you and Rosie setting up house together?”

“Yes.”

“Are you planning to oathbond?”

“Yes. I want to.”

“She doesn’t?”

“She doesn’t feel any hurry.”

“Do her family know she’s living here with you?”

“No.”

“Dignified, do you understand why they’d be upset if they found out?”

“No.”

Hope contemplated trying to explain social expectations and mores to Dignified, and decided that she’d probably get on better trying to explain magical mathematics to Briar.

“But you know she doesn’t want you to tell them?”

“Yes.”

“All right. Let’s go back and see what we can do.”

Bucket emerged from the kitchen as they approached, looking back over his shoulder. He was muttering in Dwarvish, something about being dismissed like a servant, and hadn’t they heard about Gnome Day? He retreated to his quarters and slammed the door.

“Hope!” said Rosie, again with a hint of desperation. “All settled?”

“Yes. I’m going to need Dignified over at the Institute on Oneday morning, if you can spare him.”

“Yes, I’m sure that will be fine,” said Rosie, in the tone of someone who hasn’t really listened to what was just said and will later deny being told any such thing. “Join us, won’t you?”

“Of course,” said Hope, fetching a stool from a nearby lab bench and placing herself behind Rosie’s sister. The table was sized for four people, and with five seated around it on ill-assorted chairs, Rosie and Dignified were practically in each other’s laps. Rather unfortunate, in the context.

Rosie picked up her tea with her left hand, since her right was trapped behind Dignified, and sipped nervously.

“I must say,” said Constant, the youngest, “I had expected rather better premises than this.” He looked round the shabby kitchen with haughty disapproval.

“Dignified is not overly concerned with appearances,” said Rosie, and her brother visibly swallowed a remark.

“Dignified has just informed me, in fact,” said Hope, “that the Clever Man’s Works will be moving across the river, to become part of the Master-Mage’s Research Institute, for which I have the honour to work. As part of that move, entirely new quarters will be constructed.” She had listened to Rosie’s parents, and decided to imitate the style in the hope that it would help her credibility with the other Rosewalls.

“Quarters?” said Punctual. “You live here?” He directed the question to Dignified. Rosie flinched.

“Mister Dignified often works unusual hours,” said Hope smoothly. “Demands of the job. It was simpler to provide quarters for him on site.”

Rosie shot her a look of thanks, which dropped off her face as if pushed over a cliff when Opportunity asked, “What about you, Industry? Do you work these ‘unusual hours’ too?”

“Sometimes,” she said, her voice squeaking.

“And when you do, how do you get home safely? Or do you…” she gazed around as if looking for rats, and expecting to find them… “stay here?”

A heavy silence ensued for about five heartbeats before Rosie broke.

“All right,” she said, squaring her chin. She had a good chin for squaring. “All right. I don’t flat with Hope. I live here at the lab. With Dignified.”

This announcement was succeeded by a silence of an entirely different texture.

“I see,” said Opportunity, finally.

“When you say live with…” began Constant.

“Yes,” said Rosie, speaking over him. She didn’t blush, Hope noted, but Constant did. They were a very pale-skinned family.

“Well,” said Punctual. “I… well.” He didn’t give the impression of a man who was often at a loss, and didn’t appear to relish this new experience.

“Do Mother and Father know?” asked Opportunity.

“I haven’t told them in so many words, no,” said Rosie.

“They did hint that the two of you were… involved,” said Punctual. “I didn’t think, however, that…”

“Have you considered the family’s reputation?” asked Opportunity abruptly.

“Not really,” said Rosie, in a tone that attempted to be carefree and very nearly pulled it off.

“Industry,” said Punctual, “we have to do business with people. They have to respect…”

“What possessed you to…” began Opportunity. Her brother rounded on her.

“Will you stop interrupting me?” he snapped. “Industry, we’re respectable people. If we lose that…”

“Really?” said Rosie. “What about your ‘club’?”

Punctual’s face went still.

“What would your business contacts say if they knew you went to a place like that?”

“Actually,” said Punctual, in a strangled voice, “many of them go there as well.”

“How lovely,” said Rosie. “Well, in that case, I think you have a… a Nine-cursed face lecturing me about respectability, Punctual of Rosewall. And frankly, since I’ve separated myself from the family fortunes and am making my own way in the world, my interest in your reputation has severely diminished. You’re wealthy enough, brother. It might even do you good to have less money, though I can’t see that happening, realistically. And you all have my portion to split as well, now.”

“This pacifist foolishness…” said Opportunity.

“Cowardly,” muttered Punctual. Rosie leapt up from her chair, to Dignified’s startlement. She put a hand on his shoulder.

“Cowardly? Hardly! It takes real courage to stand up to other people’s expectations and make a stand on a matter of principle, not that you would know. Dignified works for the Realmgold, you realise that? The Realmgold, who has the best military for six realms round in all directions. You think he hasn’t faced pressure to invent things for military applications? But he sticks with his principles. Look me in the face and tell me that you have one principle that you haven’t already sold.”

“Now see here…” said Punctual.

“Industry of Rosewall!” said Opportunity, in a voice of shock. Constant just watched, his eyes bulging.

“No,” said Rosie, putting her hands on her bony hips, and almost taking Dignified’s eye out with her right elbow. “Do you know what? This is my home. You don’t come in here and insult my, my, my man with your… Oh, just get out!”

“Industry…”

“Out!” she shouted. Constant’s jaw was hanging open, now. He closed it and pushed himself to his feet.

“Come on,” he said, “we’d better go.” He took his older sister’s arm, and she rose with as much dignity as she could manage.

“I shall be speaking with our lawyers,” she said.

“What about?” said Rosie. “I’m an adult. Nobody’s compelled me to do anything. I’ve handed over my holdings, you’ve had a financial gain, not a loss. I owe you nothing, Opportunity of Rosewall, and until you’re prepared to open your mind a little I don’t want to see you back here again. You either, Punctual.”

Constant almost said something, but closed his mouth on it. That, Hope thought, was a young man who knew when to keep a remark to himself and not draw attention. He showed potential.

The Rosewall siblings stalked out in what attempted to be good order, but failed rather badly.

“That’s it,” said Rosie. “I’m changing my name.”

“Rosie…” said Hope.

“Ask Briar how that’s done, will you?”

“What to?” asked Dignified.

“Rosie Printer,” she said. “You said you wanted me to be your family. Well, I want you to be my family.”

An unaccustomed grin spread across Dignified’s face.

“Does that mean you two are going to get oathbound?”

“Why not? I was only holding off to defy my family, and now that I don’t care what they think… What do you need for a legal oathbond?”

“Two adult witnesses, and a person of standing to conduct the ceremony,” said Hope. She had helped Briar study for her law exams a time or two, and remembered quizzing her on this question.

“Does a mage count as a person of standing?”

“You want me to…?”

“Will you?”

“Um, Rosie, perhaps you should think this through a little…”

“Hope,” she said, “I am not going to leave Dignified, nor he me. We have a bond. I’d like it to be official.”

“All right,” said Hope. “But does it have to be right this instant?”

“Can gnomes be legal witnesses?” said Rosie.

“That’s not what I mean. I’m meeting Patient at the ferry wharf in…” she checked the watch hanging from her belt. “Ten minutes ago.”

“Oh,” said Rosie. “All right, then. Tomorrow. But I’m not going to have changed my mind by then.”

“All right,” said Hope. “Tomorrow. I’ll bring Patient round, and he and Mill can be witnesses, if you want. Expect me around mid-morning.”

“Thank you,” said Rosie.

As Hope let herself out of the lab, she heard Rosie say behind her, “That means we can have illicit relations one more time, Dignified. Perhaps two.”