14. Sam The Armor Removed
Sam: The Armor Removed
In the United States I had positive verification of portals in Providence, Woodstock, New Orleans, Charleston, Springfield, and Newark.
They would offer no details as to the locations, saying that their Society had grave penalties for such disclosures.
They are entirely without the conception of the public good that I found in Istanbul, for example, or Havana.
I experienced a burst of satisfaction, followed by a flush of sympathy.
I’d suspected for some days now that Clem and I were two of a kind, both of us impostors and dissemblers!
Not because I’d managed to catch Quinn without her tokens, and not because of the vicious message that hardly seemed inspired by the presence of an underaged interloper, but because of Vera.
Even a very daring kitchen maid would have thought twice about undressing a male student in her place of work.
Instead, she felt easy with Quinn. I’d perceived a conspiratorial solidarity between them and guessed at the cause.
Quinn sat motionless. For a moment, I wondered if Cassandra or Mead or the two of them had cast an enchantment upon her, immobilizing her on the spot. But no, I realized, as a slow breath made its way out of her lungs; she was entirely in command of herself.
Every eye was upon her. I found it amusing that a potential fratricide stirred less interest among the students than a woman in man’s dress, but clearly no one else cared to think about such ironies.
She rose slowly to her feet and stood looking gravely across the room.
She didn’t speak. In quick succession, she removed the spectacles from her coat pocket and pulled the fox pin from her lapel, placing them on her desk.
As she withdrew her hand from the tokens, Quinn’s mustache and beard vanished. There was a collective gasp.
The tokens had been expertly made, exaggerating her person without entirely transforming it.
Her shoulders shrank; her face rounded and softened; her eyes and eyebrows shifted, becoming respectively larger and thinner than they’d been a moment before.
But these were not the greatest changes.
The greatest change was in Quinn’s expression.
Gone was the wide-eyed innocent who bounded to class and blinked at insults.
I didn’t recognize the face that gazed out onto the classroom.
It was calm and composed, without a trace of laughter.
I couldn’t tell if Quinn was angry, or disappointed, or embarrassed, or none of these.
She held the silence with complete composure, simply waiting to see what the room would do.
The students around her were not so dispassionate.
While moments earlier they’d responded to Cassandra’s transformation with awe, their reactions now were decisively contrary.
I saw ample disgust, hostility, indignation, and disdain.
Professor Selwyn Mead seemed less astonished than his students, but no less offended.
“I am appalled,” he began coldly, “to realize that all of Commonwealth has already been subjected to this outrageous deceit for an entire week. You, young lady, are an intruder.”
Quinn spoke slowly, in a level voice, slightly higher in pitch than before. Had the token altered her voice as well as her appearance? I’d never heard of a token that could do such a thing. “Massachusetts Commonwealth University is a public institution. It is open and free to all.”
Mead stared at her for several seconds without speaking, and then he chuckled.
It had the effect of uncorking a bottle.
The silence broke, and laughter erupted all around her.
The bristly student sitting near Quinn who had spoken so crudely about the role of Cassandra chortled loudly, his crooked teeth opened wide.
“It may be a public institution, young lady,” Mead said, once the laughter had died down somewhat, “but it is open and free to all men. I should have thought”—he waved his arm around the room—“that this was obvious. Indeed, the fact appears to have penetrated even your thick skull, since it seems that you have, in a rather unconvincing way, attempted to conceal your feminine weaknesses in masculine garb.” He pronounced “weaknesses” with unmistakable emphasis.
This was met with more chuckles, and they were harsher now—less ridiculing and more predatory.
I did not like this, and I sent her a strong surge of bolstering strength.
She needed to leave at once. Quinn waited until the laughter had passed.
“None of the rules of the university forbid the admission of women,” she said, keeping her eyes trained on Mead, “and the laws of the commonwealth don’t bar them either. ”
Mead narrowed his eyes, drawing his owlish eyebrows down until they almost met the sallow skin of his cheeks. “What is your name, young lady?”
An ordinary person would have considered the wisdom of giving a false name or not giving a name at all.
But Quinn merely paused to wait for silence, as some in the room jeeringly echoed Mead’s question.
I believe this was the moment when I first felt a spark of affection for Quinn: her chin held high, her eyes hard and unyielding, she was the very picture of resistance. It warmed my heart.
“My name,” she began evenly, “is Clem—”
“Clementine Quinn, daughter of Robert and Lydia Quinn, and my cousin.” It was Simeon Trench who had interrupted her in acid tones.
Under ordinary circumstances I would have enjoyed watching Simeon worked up into such a lather of indignant fury, his reddened face apparently on the verge of bursting from the pressure of his injured pride.
In these circumstances, however, I feared for the person who had provoked such fury.
His cousin. His cousin! “This is unconscionable, Clementine,” Simeon hissed.
Clementine didn’t reply. She considered him dispassionately for a moment before returning her attention to Mead.
The students who had first responded with stunned silence to Simeon’s declaration now began to murmur with growing outrage, and I found it entirely possible that one or several of them would seize the occasion to perform some malicious enchantment.
Only the presence of a senior professor kept them in check.
Mead was making a brief penciled note on his papers, and now he frowned.
“You will be receiving a summons, Miss Quinn, and I suggest that you do not ignore it. And now”—he gestured toward the door—“you may go.”
“Very well,” Clementine replied coolly. “I look forward to demonstrating that Commonwealth is open to all.”
With unhurried movements, she dropped her tokens and notebook into her satchel.
The entire room seemed to hold its breath.
Simeon was still staring at Clementine with undisguised rage, and now his mood had contaminated every man in the room.
I could feel the weight of the hostility against her and the slim ribbon of decorum held in place by Mead’s cold stare.
And yet, somehow, Clementine seemed completely calm, as if she had all the time in the world.
She walked carefully through the desks until she reached the door.
In the deserted hallway, she replaced the fox pin and the spectacles.
Outside, she walked steadily down the stone steps and onto the brick walkway that cut across the green toward the Brig. She didn’t look back at the building where her studies of enchantment had so unexpectedly come to an end.