Page 6 of Apt to be Suspicious
The more he spoke, the more she was aware of that cloak of genial certainty that the world was going to shine on him. She offered her own hand, more out of reflex than anything else, meeting his eyes for a moment. Then she was staring down at the paper again. “Corona.” It came out of her mouth with a slight squeak before she looked up, flushing. “Sorry. 20 across, ‘ring of sunlight’.” She couldn’t possibly explain the chain of thought that had got her there.
He didn’t ask, just nodded and hummed agreeably, a snatch of a few notes, before he stopped. “Anywhere talking it out might be a help? Or do you prefer to do them in solitary splendour, only the work of your own mind?”
“My own mind and reference books, once I get stuck,” Pen admitted, gesturing at the shelf of such things kept in the corner. “I enjoy doing them with my aunt, but she’s the one who taught me how to do them.”
“The cryptic crosswords take a particular approach, don’t they?” She’d been bracing for something disparaging. Either about doing them, or about her skills, or— well. Something. And there wasn’t that at all. It had been almost confiding, somehow drawing her in.
She hesitated, then asked, “Do you know Wales much at all? There’s one I’d have to look up.” She wasn’t sure what to make of his offer. There was a thread of something that seemed like he might be teasing. But there wasn’t anyone else around to mock her, and she did actually have a question.
“Try me.” Carillon came around to perch on the arm of one of the chairs, without crowding her.
“Great or Little in North Wales? Four letters.”
“Orme.” The word made little sense to her for a moment until he spelled it out. “O-R-M-E. Place names. Off the north coast, the name means sea serpent. That’s the English name; I forget the Welsh. It’s not one of my better languages.”
“Certainly not classical,” Pen agreed. She could reliably assume that his Latin was excellent. He’d gone through Schola, and he didn’t seem like the sort to have had one of the other ritual languages. Her Latin was decent enough. It kept coming up in a great deal of the maths discussion, older texts and all that, but her German was better, for all that was awkward now.
“Ah, but that’s the interesting part, seeing how different languages go together.” Carillon took a breath. Before he could say anything more, there was a bell ringing. “That’s the lecture. Are you attending, Miss Sterling?”
“Yes, I was planning on it, but I ought to gather up my things.” She didn’t want him to linger around her.
“A pleasant afternoon, then.” There was a hint of a movement that might have been a bow. Then he put something in his pocket and went back out the door, toward the Academy’s lecture hall. She went down the hall to the loo, and by the time she came out, she judged there was sufficient space between them.
Walking back with Audrey afterwards, arm in arm, she kept thinking about it. “Why would he know who I am?”
“It’s not as if the Academy is that large. Larger right now than at other times. There’s what, seven thousand at Oxford this year? Thirty at the Academy in our year, with people coming back as they have?” It was a large number, especially compared to Schola— that would have been half of her year, nearly. But plenty of the magical folk at the Academy hadn’t gone to Schola. Aubrey hadn’t, nor had Vesta. There were plenty of people whose brains were excellent, but who hadn’t focused on magic as strongly.
For her part, Pen had always felt a bit like a fish out of water at Schola, the metaphor particularly apt because she’d ended up in Salmon House. She’d expected Dunwich, for the maths, like her aunt. Or at least Owl House.
Aubrey shrugged. “You both went to Schola. And you’re enough older he might have noticed you from that. Do you look that much different?”
“I had schoolgirl plaits. No glasses yet, at least not where anyone would see me. And a hand-me-down uniform, even before the clothes rationing. It’s not like Mum had the coin to spare, exactly.” They’d agreed the uniform wasn’t the place to spend what they had. “And if he was in the library, it wasn’t the bits I was in.”
“So he can’t keep up with your maths. Which makes him like most men, and most women, too.” Audrey snorted. “Most people anywhere.” They walked along a little. “Does it bother you? That he noticed you?”
“I’m not used to people noticing me.” It came out of Pen’s mouth before she thought better of it, but Aubrey just patted her arm. “In school, I did my work. I didn’t stand out. I had friends; I still have friends.” Well, sort of, they were people she couldn’t talk to about her war, not in any sort of detail other than being assigned somewhere in England, and strongly implying clerical work. “And he’s...”
“What?”
“He was polite. Considerate.” Then she stopped in the middle of the pavement. “Equation. Why didn’t I see that sooner?” She was chewing on how things about Edmund Carillon didn’t quite add up. She couldn’t explain why, but she could see the patterns in her head well enough, how lines that ought to be solid connections weren’t.
“Clue?” Aubrey was at least used to her by now.
“Yes. Equations. Nine letters. The clue’s about ‘they keep a son quiet, certainly’, so looking at rearranging some of the letters.”
“There you go. See, the man has some use, if it got you an answer.” Aubrey tugged her along. “Come on. I want to get some more reading in before hall.”
Chapter 5
Tuesday, November 25th
“What did you think of Atkinson’s lecture, Bells?” Edmund’s chin jerked slightly as someone spoke directly to him. He’d been inappropriately ignorant of his surroundings. That had been, who was it? Cart. It was, because Cart went on. “I didn’t know you were interested in anything more recent than Alexander the Great. And Dorset’s not where your people are.”
That choice of historical figure made Edmund snort and lean back, pointedly putting his feet up on the footstool. A small crowd had taken over Bump’s sitting room, and someone had produced a bottle or two of wine. He considered what to say and how to put it properly. “I was interested in what he’d say.” Atkinson had just privately published a history of the Dorsetshire regiment. They’d seen some notable service in both wars, and other places besides.
“You’re reading Greats, though.” Tugs shrugged, but then he passed Edmund a refilled glass of wine.
Edmund weighed his words. “Father was at Ypres. Not with the Dorsetshire First. But there. Until June of ‘15, the first battle.” He chose his words carefully on several counts, both the mode and what he didn’t say about what Papa had done later. There was a little murmur around the room before Edmund went on. “Say, Muses, throned above the starry frame, How first the navy blazed with Trojan flame?” He added, off-handedly. “That’s Pope’s translation. Iliad, book sixteen, lines, let’s see.” He took a breath to get it right. “112 and 113 or so.” The line numbers was showing off, admittedly.
