Captive Magics

36 - Nutte

Lissy was so delighted by his news that she jumped up from where she sat idly swirling the dregs of her tea at the kitchen table to fling her arms around his neck.

"I knew you would find something! You're so resourceful." In the sink a bar of laundry soap was beating fabrics into a lather with a rhythmic thud, thud, thud. He flicked his gaze away from her face directly below his, and focussed on the dignified tower of bubbles which slowly rose and turned, sculpting itself above the washing.

"Me? Resourceful?" Thud. Thud.

"Always! Who knows, but you may find out all sorts. Maybe you'll find a way to pin down Sir Quislin." With a jolt Leander realised he had, in his worry over how they were to live, completely forgotten the purpose of them being there.

"Ah, well. Maybe," he replied awkwardly. Lissy twirled away from him, plucking a jewellery box from the surface of the kitchen table.

"At least now we don't have to worry about money and it is of no matter that all I'm good for is fixing jewellery boxes which, I can confidently tell you, never had any magical protection on them in the first place. I don't know what they expect me to fix. I can come up with my own spells easily enough, but they aren't paying me for that..."

"Don't say that's all you're good for." He frowned at her and put the kettle on the stove for more tea. "I'll be sorting books. What will I be good for?"

"You're the one with a salary now. I think that speaks volumes. Interviewed by Lord Gorstanley himself, my..." she sighed.

"You know who he is?"

"Of course," she said. "He's the head of the College of magics here, one of the King's ministers. The Avarti equivalent to Arthur, but they give the head of the College a Lordship too." There was a ringing in Leander's ears as his heartrate accelerated with the delayed fear of an interview with the chief sorcerer and King's minister of the enemy nation. "I bet Arthur would love to be given a lordship," she added, then gave Leander an odd look. "I say, are you alright? You've gone an awfully funny colour."

"Fine, I'm fine. I've met the head of the College?" He did not feel at all fine about this, but there must be a positive in it somewhere. He had got the job, hadn't he? "Maybe it's an opportunity," he said without thinking, but Lissy had a look in her eye like this thought had already wedged itself in her mind, and ideas were beginning to form. He tried to tell himself it could only end well, but it just worried him more.

"Nutte."

"I'm sorry?" Leander had just arrived for his first day at work and hung his coat up, and his colleague had appeared suddenly behind him. The eyebrows performed a strange and complex dance like two tiny undulating bears. It could have conveyed disdain or rage or maybe even amusement, but the true meaning was lost to Leander. He doubted he would be able to decipher them any time soon.

"Edgar Nutte. That's my name."

"Oh, er, Leander St. Baudeliensis." They shook hands, Nutte gripping his with an intensity that matched his eyes.

"You got the tour yesterday?"

"Yes, yes, I did. I'm sure I'll still get lost, haha..."

"Spell your way out again, can't you?"

"Well, no, I'm not actually a sorcerer..." Leander trailed off awkwardly but Nutte nodded in apparent triumph and began walking into the first room of the library. Leander followed him, hoping he was supposed to.

"Me neither. Mostly. They can't employ anyone who is, see, because they firstly don't want to be here, and secondly are needed in the College. So it was just me for the last five years."

"Five!"

"Only more recently we've needed a second person for the job."

"Why is that?"

"Had a big discovery a few months back." He nodded significantly. Leander was clueless as to his meaning, but got no chance to ask. "All these books still need ordering and cataloguing though," Nutte continued. "You can start on that today."

He explained the library system rapidly and showed Leander the huge catalogues. They were mostly empty, the columns denoting titles and authors sometimes filled with spidery writing, but larger spaces to describe subject matter left blank. The books, Nutte explained, had been found in the collection of an elderly scholar in the Berrel colonies. They were bought wholesale by the Avarti government for the war effort, seen as too-good an opportunity to pass up on, but it was such a jumble and such an unstudied form of magic for most in the College that the collection was useless until properly organised and understood.

Before Leander realised the lecture was over, he was alone, Nutte having vanished upstairs somewhere to do goodness-knows-what, and he stared at the incomprehensible assortment of books, wondering where to start.

Nutte loomed suddenly by his shoulder again at lunch, making him jump.

"Brought you lunch."

"Oh! Ah. Thank you." He straightened his glasses and turned to look at Nutte, who still looked menacing. There was a wiggle in the letter y he had just been writing in the catalogue, but he hadn't flinched enough to spill ink everywhere, which seemed a positive. Nutte handed him a paper bag and he peered into it. "Excellent, thank you."

"There's an apple."

"Yes, I can see it."

"I have a friend at the campus market. I get apples from him."

"That...that must be useful. Having a friend who does that."

"Do you know what you're doing?" he changed tack drastically.

"W-with the catalogues? And everything else?"

"Yes. Has to be done properly."

"I think I've got the hang of it," Leander said cautiously. There was no need to mention how he had spent a hair-pulling hour trying to work out the ordering system only to realise he was in a room for as-yet-unsorted books. Or the twenty minutes he had spent after that understanding how the system worked when he wasn't just looking at a random jumble. Nutte leaned over him and they were both very still as he stared at Leander's work.

"Huh," he grunted. "Haven't read that one. I'll show you how you sign out books later. For visitors. Only the right books, mind you. Only to card-holding visitors."

"Do you get many?" Leander asked.

"What?"

"Visitors?"

"Nobody respects runes like they should. Too complicated." The twin bristles of his eyebrows took on an attitude Leander guessed as pride. "We'll have visitors tomorrow though. Third day of the week, same as usual. Enjoy your apple."