Scholar's Plot Read Free Page B

the dark gown, with its narrow skirt and archaic ruffled collar, looked like the female version of an academic uniform. “Please, don’t scream. And don’t tell my dorm master?”
    She eyed me consideringly for a moment before she spoke. “How stupid do you think I am?” She opened her mouth and screamed.
    She went on screaming, and moments later a guard’s whistle joined in.
    There wasn’t enough time to move the furniture, and in an enclosed courtyard with an unclimbable fence there was no point in running. I backed away from her, politely, and sat down on one of the benches to await arrest. Judging by the shouts it would be soon, and there would be lots of people to do the arresting. If I didn’t alarm the professor any further — and judging by that cool speech, she wasn’t very alarmable — maybe I’d get off lightly, even if my story about a dare failed.
    I briefly considered telling the truth. It had worked for me last time, mostly due to the extremely peculiar fact that Michael and I were now regarded as heroes by all the Liege’s guardsmen.
    I discovered this when a bit of card sharping went twisty on me several weeks ago in Easton Township. It wasn’t really sharping — I was too badly out of practice for that — but a mathematical trick I induced folk to bet on. And since I never encouraged them to bet more than they could afford to lose, it was usually safe.
    But I’d been trying not to remember Michael’s appalled amusement the first time he saw me do it, and I missed the fact that some half-drunk young idiots in the back of the crowd were betting too high.
    So when half of them lost, of course they called the guard to arrest me .
    The professor had stopped screaming now. And what had she been doing in the tower, without a single candle to warn a burglar she was in there? It hardly seemed fair. The shouts were suddenly muffled, which meant the 
forces of law were now inside the tower and my life was about to get complicated. But at least the whistling had stopped, and if he had any sense Michael would use that disturbance as a distraction from whatever nefarious purpose he’d come for, instead of rushing toward the commotion.
    On the other hand, this was Michael.
    And Michael’s proclivity for getting us into trouble had paid off with the Liege Guard in Easton, as soon as they learned I was Michael Sevenson’s comrade, who had summoned the guard to take down the Rose Conspiracy. And busted Tallowsport wide open, and saved the Realm from rebellion, maybe even an all-out war.
    Myself, I remembered it more as a desperate scramble to save all our lives. The endgame had gotten ugly, too. Not to mention the quarrel after.
    But when Easton’s guardsmen learned that I was that Fisk, they were perfectly willing to listen to my side of the story, and also to the witnesses who confirmed I was telling the truth.
    The guard who now came rushing through the door behind the professor would have knocked her off the stoop if she hadn’t skipped aside, and a mob of burly students followed him.
    After one look at their eager faces and muscular shoulders, I decided to be very meek about being arrested. I was considering whether to tell the Liege’s men that I was that Fisk, one of the heroes of etc., etc., and that the man I wanted to see used to be the Rose’s jeweler. And either that I just wanted to assure myself he was all right, or maybe that I was on an errand for the High Liege, which was far too secret for me disclose.
    But as they pulled me to my feet to hustle me off, it occurred to me that my only crime was trespassing in a restricted area of the university. If I refused to pay my debt with coin, I’d probably be asked to redeem myself by working for the university, maybe even for the department I’d disturbed. I might be able to learn enough about the jeweler’s situation that I could leave without having to see him. Or maybe talk my way into his presence.
    And the more quietly I went with my