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“Yes, that's it,” said Trestle. “Alma mater, gaudy armours eagle tour and so on. Of course, it's a lot bigger inside than out, like an iceberg or so I'm given to understand, I've never seen the things. Unseen University, only of course a lot of it is unseen. Just go in the back and fetch Simon, will you?”
Esk pushed aside the heavy curtains and peered into the back of the wagon. Simon was lying on a pile of rugs, reading a very large book and making notes on scraps of paper.
He looked up, and gave her a worried smile.
“Is that you?” he said.
“Yes,” said Esk, with conviction.
“We thought you'd left us. Everyone thought you were riding with everyone else and then wwwwhen we stopped -”
“I sort of caught up. I think Mr Trestle wants you to come and look at the University.”
“We're here?” he said, and gave her an odd look: “You're here?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Mr Treatle invited me in, he said everyone would be astounded to meet me.” Uncertainty flashed a fin in the depths of her eyes. “Was he right?”
Simon looked down at his book, and dabbed at his running eyes with a red handkerchief.
“He has t-these little f-fancies”, he muttered, “bbbut he's not a bad person.”
Bewildered, Esk looked down at the yellowed pages open in front of the boy. They were full of complicated red and black symbols which in some inexplicable way were as potent and unpleasant as a ticking parcel, but which nevertheless drew the eye in the same way that a really bad accident does. One felt that one would like to know their purpose, while at the same time suspecting that if you found out you would really prefer not to have done.
Simon saw her expression and hastily shut the book.
“Just some magic,” he mumbled. “Something I'm wwwww-”
“- working -”said Esk, automatically.
“Thank you. On.”
“It must be quite interesting, reading books,” said Esk.
“Sort of. Can't you read, Esk?”
The astonishment in his voice stung her.
“I expect so,” she said defiantly. “I've never tried.”
Esk wouldn't have known what a collective noun was if it had spat in her eye, but she knew there was a herd of goats and a coven of witches. She didn't know what you called a lot of wizards. An order of wizards? A conspiracy? A circle?
Whatever it was, it filled the University. Wizards strolled among the cloisters and sat on benches under the trees. Young wizards scuttled along pathways as bells rang, with their arms full of books or - in the case of senior students - with their books flapping through the air after them. The air had the greasy feel of magic and tasted of tin.
Esk walked along between Trestle and Simon and drank it all in. It wasn't just that there was magic in the air, but it was tamed and working, like a millrace. It was power, but it was harnessed.
Simon was as excited as she was, but it showed only because his eyes watered more and his stutter got worse. He kept stopping to point out the various colleges and research buildings.
One was quite low and brooding, with high narrow windows.
“T-that's the l-l-library,” said Simon, his voice bursting with wonder and respect. “Can I have a l-l-look?”
“Plenty of time for that later,” said Treatle. Simon gave the building a wistful look.
“All the b-books of magic ever written,” he whispered.
