The cunning man, p.15
The Cunning Man, page 15
The noise grew louder as they reached the centre of town. Town criers were running everywhere, shouting so loudly their words blurred into a single incoherent note; preachers, addressing the crowd, seemed unaware that their words were being lost in the racket. Adam spied a handful of young pickpockets working the crowd and put one hand firmly on his money pouch, hoping and praying the kids wouldn’t try to steal from Lilith. She wouldn’t show mercy. He was almost relieved when they slipped into a new fancy restaurant, the noise diminishing to a dull roar. The waiter showed them to a table by the window. Adam looked out onto a scene of chaos. It reminded him, suddenly, of the day everyone had realised Vesperian’s Dream had become Vesperian’s Folly. The same nervous energy was running through the streets.
“Order whatever you want,” Lilith told him. “Master Landis is paying.”
Adam frowned. “Did you think to ask him before spending his money?”
Lilith gave him a disdainful look and made no attempt to answer the question. Adam sighed, inwardly. Lilith was probably rich. She didn’t have any idea how much things cost ... he told himself it didn’t matter. If Master Landis pitched a fit, Lilith - or, more likely, her father - could repay the money and that would be that. He wondered, sourly, why Master Landis had trusted her with the money in the first place. Lilith hadn’t been his apprentice that long, had she?
He scanned the menu, trying not to wince openly at the prices, then placed an order for a hamburger and fries. The menu promised the meal would be cooked in the proper Cockatrice manner, as if there was something difficult about it. Adam tried not to roll his eyes. It might be considered unmanly for a man to cook, but his mother had made sure he knew the basics and he was certain there was nothing particularly difficult about cooking burgers. The meat might be the finest cut ... he shook his head. Finest or not, it would be ground down to mince and much of the flavour would be lost ...
Lilith said nothing, her eyes on the crowd outside. Adam almost welcomed the silence as he allowed himself to look around the chamber. There were only a handful of diners, leaving a surprising number of empty chairs and tables. He wondered if the restaurant was on the verge of collapse. The prices were so high it was unlikely they’d have a steady clientele. He silently calculated how much it must cost to keep the place running and frowned, inwardly, as he reached a disconcertingly high number. The prices were high, but profit might be surprisingly low.
The food arrived. Adam started to dig in. Lilith looked faintly disapproving. Adam hid his amusement. Everyone knew that burgers and fries had been invented by Lady Emily and spread rapidly, to the point no one could decide which social class was meant to eat them. They were too fancy for the plebs and too common for the toffs ... Adam snorted, despite himself. The whole argument was silly. Besides, the burger in front of him was definitely of higher quality than the meals he’d eaten back home. The cook had done a very good job.
Lilith quirked an eyebrow. “Is something funny?”
“My mind was wandering,” Adam said. “People can be very silly sometimes.”
“Quite,” Lilith agreed. “In particular, the mundanes who think they can be magicians.”
Adam gritted his teeth. Lilith had a knack for getting under his skin ... he kept his mouth firmly shut, killing conversation as he finished his burger and swept up the last of the sauce and mustard with his fries. Lilith had had pasta and sauce ... he wondered, idly, if her choice had been guided by a desire not to emulate Lady Emily. He’d heard stories about aristocrats who preferred to starve, rather than eat commoner foods. Lilith might be just the same. If so, he noted wryly, she was very much in the minority. Lady Emily was probably the most highly regarded magician of her generation.
Lilith paid - Adam resisted the temptation to ask who was actually paying - and led the way to the door. The fawning waiter opened it, revealing the crowd had somehow gotten bigger. Adam would have sworn it was impossible. Night was falling rapidly, the scene illuminated by torches and floating lightglobes. A speaker stood on a podium, addressing the crowd. Adam stopped to listen.
“They tell us that they have a right to rule, that they have a right to tell us what to do,” the speaker said. “But I ask you ... what is the proof of that right? What is the proof that an accident of birth gives them the right to tell us what to do? What contributions do they make that gives them their power? Why should we take their words for granted?”
Levellers, Adam realised. His eyes swept the crowd. Young men and women, mainly craftsmen and their apprentices ... he asked himself, suddenly, if Arnold and Taffy were amongst the crowd. This is a Leveller meeting.
Lilith caught his hand and tried to pull him away. Adam resisted as the speaker continued, asking why anyone should tolerate the aristocracy. He made a convincing case. The ancestors might have done remarkable things, but that didn’t grant their descendents the right to rest on their ancestors’ laurels. The speaker continued, pointing out the fact that aristocrats refused to debate their position. It was clear proof, he argued, that they knew their position was weak, almost non-existent.
“They beat us and put us in jail and execute us for daring to question their power,” the speaker thundered. “They refuse to let us speak, even amongst ourselves. They are so afraid of what we might say that they tread on all decency, just to silence us. And, in doing so, they prove they have no right to their power.”
His words hung in the air. “If they had a good answer, why would they not offer it?”
There was a flash of light. Adam glanced up, just in time to see a fireball streak through the air and crash into the podium. It collapsed, the speaker jumping free just in time. More spells followed, lashing at the crowd. He saw a bunch of sorcerers, their faces hidden behind cowls, hurling magic through the air. The crowd roared in pain, men and women trying to flee and yet unable to escape ... Adam saw a row of people become pigs and cows, lashing around in panic as they found themselves grappling with inhuman forms. Horror washed through him. He’d been hexed himself, and he knew anyone who walked through the magical quarter without permission might find themselves transfigured without warning, but this ...
Lilith dragged him away as the crowd panicked. Adam saw a swarm of bees wash over the crowd, stinging exposed faces ... he realised, numbly, that it was yet another spell. Lilith kept pulling him - he supposed he should be relieved she wasn’t firing hexes herself - even though he wanted to stay and ... and do what? He wasn’t a coward, or so he told himself, but what could he do? He’d just add another name to the list of victims. And yet, he felt like he was running away. Shame boiled through him.
“Well, well,” a voice said, as they reached the edge of town. “What have we here?”
Adam looked up. Jasper was standing there, magic crackling around his fingers. Adam tensed, bracing himself to jump even though he knew it was futile. Humiliation roared through him, again, as Jasper raised his fingers ...
Lilith pulled back her hood. “Get lost.”
Jasper stared at her, then turned and vanished into the crowd. Adam swallowed hard, torn between relief and the shame of being saved by a girl. He tried to tell himself that the rules really were different for sorceresses, that Lilith was hardly a weakling, that ... it was hard, so hard, to convince himself he hadn’t let the side down badly. If he’d stayed and fought ...
“Thanks,” he managed, sourly.
“Master Landis would not have been pleased if I’d left you back there,” Lilith said, her lips wrinkling with distaste. “Such problems are inevitable, when mundanes and magicians mix.”
Adam blinked. “Inevitable?”
“Yes.” Lilith shrugged, unrepentantly. “The Levellers believe we are all born equal, right? They certainly say as much. Except they’re wrong. We are not born equal. Some of us have magic.”
“I ...” Adam heard another scream from behind him and shuddered. He didn’t dare look to see what might be coming towards them. “I ...”
“They want a say in things, without the power to demand a say in things,” Lilith said. “They want power, without the power to claim power. They want ...” - she shrugged again - “sometimes, people just need to be reminded they don’t have power. And that they exist at our sufferance.”
Adam gritted his teeth. “Lady Emily would not agree.”
“And how do you think Lady Emily founded this university?” Lilith turned to look at him. “She couldn’t have done anything, anything at all, without the power to make herself heard.”
She looked away, just for a second. “Or else they would just have patted her on the back and told her to take her dreams somewhere else.”
Adam said nothing as they reached the university. He hated to admit it, but Lilith had a point. What was the good of being intelligent if someone could just force you to step into line? What was the point ... he scowled, his heart sinking. He probably knew more magical theory than Lilith, but so what? He couldn’t put it into practice ...
Unless my plan works, he thought. He resolved to try, despite the risks. And that means I need some help.
Chapter Fifteen
“It was not a good time,” Arnold said, the following morning. He was sporting a nasty-looking black eye. “But we held our own.”
Taffy didn’t look so impressed as she slowly ate her breakfast. Adam felt his heart twist. Taffy was harmless, completely harmless. She didn’t deserve whatever humiliations had been inflicted on her by Jasper and his cronies ... Adam’s blood boiled as he remembered Jasper threatening to hex him, again, only to be blocked by Lilith. Jasper had fled a girl ... it would have been amusing, he reflected sourly, if he’d been raised in a society that viewed women as lesser. Jasper’s pride wouldn’t be dented because he thought sorceresses were his social equals ...
Adam forced himself to take a sip of his drink, then leaned forward. “I have an idea,” he said, slowly. “And I need the help of a craftsman.”
“I’m a craftsman.” Arnold struck a dramatic pose. “Can I help? Can I?”
“I hope so.” Adam wasn’t in the mood for clowning around. “Can you come back to my room after breakfast?”
“Me and Taffy?” Arnold grinned. “By the gods, you think you can satisfy us both?”
Taffy elbowed him. “Behave.”
Adam tried not to show his embarrassment. People would probably talk if he invited them both into his room, even though Arnold was very obviously a young man. Taffy certainly wasn’t. Her reputation would be at risk, no matter that she’d had Adam and Arnold chaperoning each other. Adam asked himself, silently, if they should look for a study room instead. It wasn’t as if they were in heavy use. The majority of the students spent the weekend sleeping in or heading down to the town, rather than attending lectures and suchlike. His lips thinned. After last night, it was unlikely many students would leave the university.
His heart clenched in frustration. There had been no announcements from the staff. Nothing at all. The bulletin boards outside the dining hall had been as bland and boring as ever. There’d been no suggestion that Jasper and his friends were being punished in any way, from a thrashing to simple expulsion. Jasper had claimed to be from a well-connected family, Adam recalled. The staff might be reluctant to risk punishing him. Even sending him to the corner like a toddler would be a step too far, if his family complained. It would be different, he was sure, if Jasper had tried to hex Lilith. If nothing else, it would have created a problem the staff could not ignore.
He cleared his throat, looking at Taffy. “My room or a study,” he said. “You decide.”
Taffy lowered her eyes, demurely. “Your room would probably be better, if you want to be sure of a private discussion,” she said. “And there’d be less chance of someone coming along and kicking us out.”
Which is supposed to be forbidden, Adam reminded himself. He wouldn’t be particularly surprised, any longer, if the rule was honoured more in the breach than the observance. What about the rule that bans spying on the dorms and private bedrooms?
He kept that thought to himself as he finished his breakfast, then led them up the stairs and into his bedroom. Taffy took the chair and sat, while Arnold sat on the bed. Adam dug through his set of notes, looking for the designs he’d sketched out after he’d read the textbooks. They were relatively simple, but ... his fingers tingled as he picked them out and placed them on the bed. If he was right, they’d change everything.
“I want something forged for me,” he explained. He wasn’t sure how much magical theory they knew. “Tiles, with iron runes carved into the metal.”
Arnold took the diagram and studied it thoughtfully. “It shouldn’t be hard to turn this into a reality,” he said. His voice was artfully blank. “But what does it actually do?”
Adam took a breath. “I want to channel magic in a specific direction.”
“I thought you didn’t have magic.” Taffy looked wary, as if she was on the verge of jumping to her feet and running. “What’s the point?”
“I don’t.” Adam cringed, inwardly, at her expression. “But there’s ... magic in the air, for want of a better term, and it can be ... directed. Magicians call it subtle magic. There’s no reason we can’t use it, too.”
“I suppose ...” Arnold sounded doubtful. “I don’t know much about magic, but it strikes me the charge would be very low.”
Adam nodded. Subtle magic, the books had insisted, was very subtle. It blended so perfectly into the background magic that it could influence victims without them ever truly being aware they were being manipulated. Adam had no trouble understanding why the magical community had done their best to keep knowledge of subtle magic from leaking into the outside world. It was hard for anyone, even a fully trained magician, to detect its presence. A mundane could use the runes to influence a target, craft a curse, or simply project an aversion field to ensure their privacy ... Arnold was right. The charge would be very low indeed. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t be used.
“Yes,” he said. “It will take time for the charge to build up to a usable level. But I think I may have a way to store the magic long enough for that to happen.”
“You do?” Arnold stroked his chin. “How?”
“Lady Emily came up with something, if the rumours are to be believed,” Taffy put in. “Adam could have done the same.”
Adam hesitated. “I have an idea,” he said. He didn’t want to discuss using his blood with them. Not yet. If the experiment ended in disaster, they’d be blamed for not talking him out of it or tattling on him. “It should work. But I need to focus and channel the magic into the storage medium.”
Arnold gave him a long, considering look. “Is this the sort of experiment that would incur their displeasure?”
“Yes.” Adam wasn’t sure how Master Landis would react, if Adam proposed the experiment. Or Lilith. She’d tattle just for the pleasure of seeing him kicked out in disgrace. “If it works ... it’ll excuse everything. If it doesn’t ...”
“Then you need a political patron,” Arnold said. “I could produce these for you - I have access to the Foundry - but you’d be better taking them to Senior Craftswoman Yvonne and asking her to help. I’ll introduce you. She might be willing to make them and, even if she isn’t, she can speak for you to the council.”
Adam wasn’t so sure. “Master Landis will not thank me for going behind his back.”
Arnold snorted. “And what, precisely, do you think you are doing by asking me to make them?”
It wasn’t quite the same, Adam was sure, although he had trouble putting his feelings into words. Arnold and he were social equals, both apprentices ... both magicless mundanes. Senior Craftswoman Yvonne was a council member, someone who was - technically - Master Landis’s superior. Going to her would be going over Master Landis’s head. Adam had no doubt he wouldn’t be pleased. And yet, Arnold had a point. It might be a good idea to enlist someone on their side before they carried out the experiment, just in case it worked.
Taffy cleared her throat. “Go now, before something else happens,” she urged. “If we can use magic, even without having magic ourselves, it will show those bastards ...”
Her face reddened. She lowered her eyes. Adam winced, again. Jasper and his friends could have - would have - done anything to her, from making her clothes vanish to casting lust spells on her and watching as she blighted her reputation beyond hope of repair. He’d heard all the horror stories of what happened when young male magicians came to town ... he shuddered, suddenly very aware it could be a great deal worse. He wasn’t sure what he could do with his new concept - he wasn’t sure if it would even work - but he owed it to himself and all the others like him to try.
“Okay,” he said, collecting his papers. “Let’s go.”
“I’ll see you two later,” Taffy said. “We’ll have to go back to town before they start thinking we’re scared.”
Adam watched her go, impressed. “She’s brave.”
“Of course,” Arnold said, dryly. “She ran away from home, into the unknown. She’s one of the bravest people I know.”
Adam said nothing as they left the room, then walked down a long series of corridors and stairs that led into the basement. Taffy was ... sweet, although he was fairly certain there was a hard core of iron within her soul. It couldn’t have been easy to run away, not when she could have been raped and murdered, or enslaved and sold to a brothel, or ... he shook his head. It didn’t matter. He was lucky to know her.
Arnold kept up a running commentary as they passed through a set of iron doors and into the engineering section. The air smelt of molten iron and oil. Adam looked around, feeling a thrill as they walked through a set of workshops, each larger than the last. Craftsmen and their apprentices worked on all sorts of machines, from guns to steam engines and things Adam couldn’t even begin to understand. The din was deafening. Adam saw young women working with the men, wearing the same clothes ... he wondered, suddenly, just how well they worked together. Female apprentices were rare, outside the magical community ... he shook his head in irritation. It wasn’t his problem, not now.
