Scholar's Plot by Hilari Bell Page B

friend. Tipple isn’t the companion to me that Chant is, but I can’t deny that giving her to Fisk had wrenched my heart.
    Though not as much as losing Fisk had.
    What else could I have done? He’d freed a criminal, a man who’d probably earned hanging. A man who’d continue preying on others — and didn’t that make all his future victims Fisk’s, as well? And he’d done it without consulting me, because he knew I’d forbid it, because I’d have stopped him. He should have been stopped! ’Twas an outrageous, wicked, criminal…
    ’Twas mayhap as well that Fisk came out of the inn shortly, wearing a hangdog face that told me he’d not won his point. We strapped his luggage onto Tipple’s saddle and set off for Benton’s lodging.
    By the time he’d stowed his gear the day was so warm we shed our coats before setting off for the university, but the distance was short enough that the silence hadn’t grown too uncomfortable by the time we approached the gates.
    They looked different in the daylight, tall enough to admit a man on horseback, with the great blank wall rising around it, both smaller and more formidable, despite the intricate wrought iron. Mayhap because this time there was no crowd to shield me.
    I reflected once more on the utter uselessness of the magic Lady Ceciel’s potions had given me. I could see magic, as a living glow around the animals and plants that had it, instead of feeling it as a tingling warmth against my skin. And sometimes it welled up within me, and performed prodigies of … well, magic.
    But it seemed to answer to its own will, and never to mine.
    I had lately come to believe that Fisk had been right about this, at least, and been trying to learn to make it answer to me. I had yet to succeed in any way.
    ’Twas quite exasperating. Last night, for instance. The magic that had once built a pillow of air beneath me as I fell from a high cliff wouldn’t boost me over a twenty foot wall. Which left me no choice now but to approach the gates, whose nearly blind keeper had tipped the guards off to my last excursion here.
    He looked up as the sound of our footsteps reached him.
    “Good day, sirs. You’ve business at the university?”
    Up close I could see the white film over his eyes. His expression was pleasant and helpful, so I answered readily.
    “I’m Benton Sevenson’s brother, here about his business. This is my … associate.”
    As soon as I spoke the murky eyes widened. “You’re the one who came in with Scholar Benton last night! The guard, they came asking about you.”
    “Yes,” I said. “I’ve spoken to them, and answered all their questions. So if we might pass?”
    “Of course, of course. I’m not surprised he left some things behind, poor lad, hauled straight up before those old … ah, fired so sudden, like he was. Your associate, he has a name?”
    His dim gaze turned to Fisk, clearly wanting to hear his voice, so I said nothing.
    “I’m Fisk,” my erstwhile squire said. “Did you know Master Sevenson well?”
    “Since he was a student here. I was just getting used to calling him Professor when he lost the job, poor lad.”
    “Were you surprised,” Fisk asked, “that he plagiarized his thesis?”
    “I wasn’t just surprised,” the gatekeeper said. “I don’t believe it, not for a minute, no matter what papers that Hotchkiss found.”
    Then he remembered “that Hotchkiss” was dead, and his mouth tightened. But he didn’t take the words back.
    “Professor Sevenson, he was in the scholar’s guard when he was a student.” The man lifted the copper whistle that hung around his neck on an embossed strap. “I work with everyone who volunteers for the guard, so’s I’ll know their voices and can’t be fooled. And I’m not fooled, for all my eyes have gone, not easily. Professor Sevenson would never cheat.”
    He used the title deliberately, defiantly.
    “Thank you,” I said. “I’ll tell my brother you believe in him.”
    “You do