Chapter 11
“One more time, in Arabic, please.” Uncle Alexander stood outside the ritual circle, allowing him to hear precisely what Edmund was doing without being subject to the results.
Edmund stood facing east and toward a tailor’s dummy made of fabric, stuffing, and a wood frame.
He took a breath, then commanded it to come closer.
There was a long pause, the sort that had Edmund wracking his brain for what part he’d done wrong. The language was right, the conjugation and mood correct. He adjusted himself, both his stance and his magic, and tried again, another sentence stuffed full of enticement.
The figure took one uneven step forward.
Edmund offered a little encouragement, the way he’d cluck to soothe and encourage a horse.
Then the dummy took another, and another, until Edmund asked it to stop.
The modes he was choosing were about desire, not about command, even though desire was far harder to wield.
Uncle Alexander coughed, just once, and Edmund gave the command to rest, returning the dummy to a far less mobile state.
He picked it up under the arms and set it back on its stand.
Then, and only then, did he undo the steps of the protective ritual circle.
He’d done that entire process four times in a row, once in Latin, once in English, once in Greek, and finally in Arabic.
“Your command of the jussive is improving.” Uncle Alexander nodded once.
“Tidy up, we can sit more comfortably as we talk. I’ll see about the kettle.
” That was an acknowledgement of Edmund’s effort.
Tidying up would give him a minute to gather himself, and an excuse to wash his hands and face after.
Uncle Alexander disappeared through the door, and Edmund went about the work of resetting his ritual workroom.
They had done this in Edmund’s actual flat, rather than the Academy workroom as they usually did.
The first reason was that here, there were fewer varied magical influences, and certainly less in the way of background sounds.
At the Academy, the sound charms and such were good but not perfect.
The second reason was that while it was more of a walk for Uncle Alexander, it meant Edmund could press himself to his limits in his magic and not need to get home after.
He was terribly grateful for that now. He’d not have been able to get home on his own two feet.
Not without at least a nap on the bench in the Academy workroom.
He’d already planned not to eat in Hall, thanks to a small hamper from home that had come through that morning.
The basket was waiting for Uncle Alexander to take back to Ytene with him.
Setting his workroom to rights took him about ten minutes.
The dummy went into a wardrobe with other ritual materials, always locked unless they were in use.
He tucked the four small tables that had stood at each direction into the corners of the room.
The rest of the room got swept, cleaned with a charm, and swept again.
Then he locked it up, and checked twice for good measure.
Once that was done, he went through the conservatory straight to the bathing room to wash his hands and face.
Edmund took his time at it, murmuring the ritual phrases that were half prayer and half charm and entirely habit.
Only when that was done did he come back out and turn left into the sitting room.
Uncle Alexander had encouraged the fire in the fireplace, and he’d laid out food on the low table.
He’d claimed the more comfortable easy chair, of course, leaving Edmund the small sofa.
There were half a dozen plates, including a bowl of apples poached in wine, a hearty vegetable soup, and some chicken.
Along with a couple of the precious biscuits Edmund always yearned for.
“Eat, please. And there’s the tea. Your stamina is improving, but doing that four times in a row is a stretch for anyone. Even me.” Uncle Alexander said it in good humour, though, comfortably teasing.
Edmund managed a smile, though now the exhaustion was in fact hitting him hard. “Tea, Uncle Alexander? Or one of the biscuits? Something else?”
“I am fine, thank you, other than the tea. I am looking forward to supper with your parents.” Uncle Alexander looked him up and down, opened his mouth, then shook his head.
Edmund settled himself more comfortably, tucking his ankles under the sofa and reaching for the plate. He was in fact starving now. “You were about to say something?”
“I do not need to remind you to tend your body. You are eating, you will not stay up all night over your books. You know better than that.” Uncle Alexander waved a hand. “It continues to be a pleasure to have the time and scope to train you.” He poured the tea, then offered a cup to Edmund.
The way it was framed presented a number of questions, some more obvious than others. “May I ask why you say so right now?”
“You have your father’s touch with the magic.
His approach. I suppose that makes sense, but it is—” Uncle Alexander hesitated.
“There are ways you are exceedingly like Perry, and ways in which you are not.” He left that sentence unexplained for the moment.
“I will have some new exercises for you, but it might be a week. I want to explore some of my less used library.”
That was a fascinating comment, and also a compliment, but Edmund was not entirely sure how to take it.
Perry Judson had been Uncle Alexander’s previous apprentice and chosen heir.
He’d been killed in the Great War. Edmund had known, as soon as Uncle Alexander had made the offer for this apprenticeship, that he’d be dancing delicately with some of those memories.
Perry had been bright and shining in all the stories Edmund had sought out.
He had been the quintessential flame that burst with brilliance, far too briefly.
Arcane magic had flocked to him like eager puppies.
But he’d also been inventive, finding new applications.
Edmund aspired to that, even while he wasn’t sure he was up to that particular self-imposed task.
He kept looking at the generation before him, his parents and their friends, and finding himself wanting.
He was like Telemachus, eternally behind, unable to become an adult because of circumstance and timing.
He sipped his tea, which provided both a pause and refreshment. Then he cleared his throat. “Is that a problem, Uncle Alexander? Is there an area I should focus on instead?”
“No problem.” That was immediate and also reassuring.
“Perry was interested in, hmm. The range of grammatical scope. He never used half of it, not in reality, but the idea of it? You, however, shape what you do around a particular approach. Obvious, given the horses and the hawks and Geoffrey’s approach to both.
Training and encouraging, rather than commanding. ”
Edmund’s papa was indeed known for coaxing horse or falcon to do what he wanted, rather than training by punishment or fear.
Not that it worked with falconry. A hawk abused so would just fly away given the chance.
Uncle Alexander went on, though he was feeling his way through choosing his words, Edmund could hear that.
“Collaborating, trading what is known. It’s an interesting trick to do with an inanimate object that begins without intrinsic desire. ”
“I am uncertain how well it would work on a person,” Edmund admitted. “Command is simpler there, yes?” Humans had their own will. That was the trick of it. Also, something he’d been thinking about rather a lot recently.
“Oh yes. That’s the principle of the Word of Command or the Word of Silence.
” Edmund knew the theory of those. Some people had particular options as a gift.
Several of Uncle Alexander’s colleagues on the Council.
Those were a single word, deeply and intricately coded magic, that worked much like Naming did, only for an extremely limited range of action.
One could command someone to stop, or be quiet, or anything else that could be said in a word, maybe two.
What Edmund was doing his best to learn was far more expansive and thus far more difficult.
Uncle Alexander gave him a minute to think about it, then said, “Will you share your thoughts? I’m quite certain you’re contemplating at least three topics.
I do know you. And various influences on you, including my humble self. ”
“Uncle Alexander, you are often reticent, but rarely humble,” Edmund pointed out. “Or do I need to repeat back the lecture you gave me on how Naming magic relies on an understanding of the truth, unvarnished and unpadded?”
It got Edmund a warm chuckle of a laugh.
“You needn’t. I know you have the lecture down.
Something is on your mind, though, and not just your coming exams.” Edmund was, in fact, entirely aware of his Honour Mods looming next month, but Uncle Alexander was correct.
That was a rumble in the background, constant but not currently the loudest. He considered which topic he wanted to bring up first.
“At the moment, I am thinking about what people have been saying— and not saying. And I can’t decide whether my last few years make me unreasonably paranoid or not. Perhaps you might help me work through it?”
“If it is a matter of actual espionage— or concern about it— surely Lap is a better choice?” Uncle Alexander, unlike Edmund, could entirely be informal about Major Manse.