Chapter 386: Correspondence of a Different Kind

The first love letter arrived inside a book about drainage.

Cassia discovered it at supper.

She had opened the book to show Mary a diagram and instead unfolded a sheet of cream paper covered in handwriting too elaborate to concern the proper depth of a ditch.

Lysandra recognized what it was before anyone else.

“Another one?”

Cassia looked at her sharply.

Several people stopped eating.

“Another what?” Adriana asked.

“Nothing.”

Lysandra reached for her cup.

“That answer didn't work when we were planning the birthdays either.”

Cassia folded the letter.

“Someone left me a note.”

“Concerning drainage?” I asked.

“No.”

“A pity,” Mary said. “The illustration was promising.”

Across the table, Mirelle's expression became carefully neutral.

Cassia noticed.

“Mother.”

“I haven't said anything.”

“You're looking.”

“I generally do.”

Lysandra laughed.

Then a second folded page slipped out of her own notebook and landed beside her plate.

Cassia looked at it.

Slowly, she smiled.

“Concerning languages?”

Lysandra covered the paper with one hand.

“A translation exercise.”

Lexander leaned back in his chair.

“Is it?”

“I haven't translated it yet.”

The attention had begun during their first few days at college.

We learned that afterward, once the younger children had been persuaded to stop asking what was in the letters.

Garrick Grey believed all correspondence should be read aloud. Ignatius thought the folded paper might contain a map. Carol wanted to know whether anyone had sent cake.

When told they had not, she lost interest.

Cassia and Lysandra remained beside the sitting-room fire with Mirelle, Adriana, Evelyn, Lexander, Io, and me.

Neither appeared particularly frightened.

Both appeared tired.

“Someone asked me to walk in the garden after our first lesson,” Cassia said. “I thought he meant with the others.”

“He didn't,” Lysandra added.

“I discovered that when he asked whether I had ever considered what sort of husband I wanted.”

Adriana lowered her cup.

“After one lesson?”

“Before lunch.”

Io pressed her lips together.

Cassia saw the effort and laughed despite herself.

“It wasn't funny at the time.”

“No,” Io agreed. “I imagine it was startling.”

Lysandra stretched her feet toward the hearth.

“The next day, someone asked me to hear him recite a poem.”

“Did you?” Lexander asked.

“I thought he'd written it for the music gathering.”

“Had he?”

“He'd written it about my eyes.”

“A short subject,” I said.

“Seven verses.”

Evelyn began to laugh.

Lysandra nodded grimly.

“I know.”

By the end of the week, the invitations had become difficult to count.

Walks along the river. Tea after lessons. A visit to a bookshop. A musical evening. A private tour of a workshop Cassia had already visited with her class.

There were flowers tied with string, poems folded into tiny squares, and a drawing of Lysandra in which she apparently possessed considerably more hair than she had brought to college.

Some students approached them directly.

Others sent friends, creating conversations in which nobody seemed certain who was asking whom to go where.

“One boy asked whether Cassia might have supper with his friend,” Lysandra said.

“And when I said I didn't know his friend, he offered to come too.”

“Then he asked whether I would come.”

“Then neither of us knew which one wanted to ask which one.”

Mirelle put a hand over her eyes.

Lexander looked as though he had just received a complicated troop report.

“Names?”

Lysandra pointed at him.

“No.”

“I only asked—”

“We know how to answer an invitation.”

“Apparently several dozen,” I observed.

She looked at me too.

I reconsidered contributing.

Io touched Lexander's knee.

“Let them tell us what they need before you assemble an inquiry.”

He exhaled.

“All right.”

Cassia looked down at the unopened letter in her hands.

“I don't think they mean any harm. Most of them.”

“But?” Evelyn asked.

“Yesterday I spent the whole break thanking people for things I hadn't asked for. I didn't have time to eat.”

That quieted the room more effectively than the poems had.

I saw it for myself two mornings later.

Lexander and I had business in Concordia. Cassia and Lysandra had agreed to meet us for lunch near the college, provided we did not arrive with enough people to turn a meal into a procession.

We managed four chairs and one table beneath an awning.

Io joined us after her own meeting, making five.

Cassia arrived with two books, a paper parcel, and the expression of someone who had already had a long morning.

Lysandra followed carrying flowers.

“From the same person?” Io asked.

“No.”

“The parcel?”

“Also no.”

They sat.

Before anyone could ask what they wanted to eat, a young man stopped beside the table.

He had evidently approached without noticing who else was there.

“Lady Cassia, I wondered whether—”

He saw Lexander.

Then Io.

Then me.

For a heartbeat, I thought he might retreat into the awning.

Cassia saved him.

“Good afternoon. Was it about the notes from yesterday?”

“No. I mean, I have those. I hoped you might walk with me after the afternoon lecture.”

She set her books beside her chair.

“Thank you, but I won't be able to.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I don't want to arrange a walk. I'm sorry.”

He flushed.

Then he nodded.

“Of course.”

He wished us a good afternoon and left.

Cassia watched him go, looking uncomfortable.

“That was the third time,” she said quietly.

“You were clear,” Io told her.

“I thought I was clear the second time.”

Lysandra put the flowers in an empty water jug.

“Sometimes they decide we're only busy.”

“Sometimes,” Cassia admitted, “I say I'm busy because it feels kinder.”

Io nodded without reproach.

“It's difficult when you can see someone hoping.”

Cassia looked relieved to have the difficulty understood.

The second interruption came with our food.

A student from Lysandra's history lesson stopped to return a borrowed page, then asked whether she would attend a concert with him.

She thanked him and declined.

He accepted it politely, took the page she offered in exchange, and went back to his friends.

The third arrived before we finished eating.

This one brought Cassia a little wooden bird.

It was beautifully carved.

He held it toward her with both hands.

“I made this for you.”

She hesitated.

I could almost hear her trying to calculate how much work had gone into it.

“It's lovely,” she said. “But I can't accept it.”

His face fell.

“You don't like it?”

“I do. But I don't want you to think—”

Lysandra rested her hand near Cassia's on the table without interrupting.

Cassia took a breath.

“I don't want to begin a courtship. And I think that's why you made it.”

The young man looked at the bird.

Then back at her.

“I hoped we might.”

“I'm sorry.”

He remained there for a moment, gathering himself.

Then he put the carving carefully into his bag.

“Thank you for telling me.”

When he had gone, Cassia stared at her plate.

Nobody congratulated her as though she had won a battle.

After a while, Lysandra nudged the bread basket closer.

“Eat before someone declares devotion over the soup.”

Cassia laughed.

Then she did.

Mistress Teren knew about the letters.

She knew about most things that happened in the college corridors, including several I suspected the students thought impressively secret.

Lysandra and Cassia spoke to her themselves.

They told us about it that evening while removing books from their cases.

“We didn't ask her to forbid anyone from speaking to us,” Cassia said.

“Good,” Mirelle replied.

“We asked whether people could stop putting things inside our books and leaving gifts on our seats.”

Lysandra held up a page.

“I nearly submitted someone's poem with my history work.”

“Was it historically accurate?” I asked.

“It compared me to a queen who died three centuries before the city in the next line was founded.”

Lexander made a sound into his cup.

Lysandra looked pleased with herself.

“I noticed.”

“Your lessons are already proving useful,” Io said.

Teren had listened, asked whether anyone was refusing to leave them alone after a clear answer, and arranged for the teachers to address interruptions without making a public spectacle of the two women.

Papers left in other people's books would be removed. Classroom seats were for students, not offerings. Lessons would begin on time even if someone felt inspired to describe Lysandra's eyes again.

“She said affection has survived worse things than waiting until after a lecture,” Cassia told us.

Mary nodded approvingly.

“A sensible woman.”

The confessions continued anyway.

Most came between lessons, when the courtyards filled and Cassia and Lysandra could scarcely cross from one building to another without someone finding courage.

One student told Lysandra that he had admired her from the moment he saw her.

“You first saw me arguing with a door,” she replied.

“I remember.”

“It wouldn't open.”

“You were very determined.”

She told us that account with such bewilderment that even Mirelle laughed.

Another approached Cassia after mathematics and confessed that he could think of nothing else whenever she was in the room.

“That may explain his arithmetic,” Cassia said.

Then she covered her mouth.

“That was unkind.”

“Did you say it to him?” Evelyn asked.

“No.”

“Then perhaps keep it here.”

They did not read the private notes aloud to entertain us.

I was glad of that.

Some were awkward enough, from the little they mentioned, to suggest their writers had spent an entire night struggling over a single sentence. Others were plainly attempts to find favor with a princess.

The difference was not always easy to judge.

Lysandra became particularly suspicious of anyone who mentioned Lexander before asking her a question about herself.

Cassia noticed those who spoke of Lyradon as though its loss were the beginning of a romantic ballad written for their convenience.

She had less patience with them.

“One told me he wished he had been there to save me,” she said quietly.

Mirelle's expression changed.

“What did you say?”

“That there were people still missing, if he wished to help with something real.”

Adriana reached for her hand.

Cassia let her hold it.

On the morning Lysandra received two invitations before reaching her first classroom, Cassia proposed an experiment.

They would spend the break in the library.

“Quiet,” Cassia explained afterward. “Books. A place where nobody is supposed to make declarations.”

It worked for almost twenty minutes.

Then a folded note slid across the table.

Lysandra looked up.

A young man two seats away gave her a hopeful smile.

She unfolded the paper.

It contained an invitation to tea.

Beneath that was a line apologizing for approaching her in the library, followed by three more explaining why he had done so anyway.

Lysandra wrote a polite refusal at the bottom and slid it back.

Cassia stared very hard at her book.

“Don't laugh,” Lysandra whispered.

“I'm not.”

“Your shoulders disagree.”

The librarian looked over.

Both returned to reading.

By the time they told the story at home, they could hardly get through it.

For all the exasperation, they were beginning to find their footing.

They could be flattered without being obliged.

They could be annoyed without deciding the whole college was impossible.

They could laugh together after an uncomfortable conversation and still return to their lessons the next morning.

I liked seeing that more than I enjoyed any of the stories.

Not all the attention displeased them.

Cassia admitted that one evening while she and Lysandra sat with Adriana beside the open window.

I was at the nearby desk, pretending a supply account required less concentration than it did.

“Sometimes it's nice,” she said.

Adriana smiled.

“You're allowed to think so.”

“Even when I don't want to go anywhere with them?”

“Yes.”

Lysandra turned a pen between her fingers.

“There is one person I might say yes to.”

Cassia sat upright.

“You didn't tell me.”

“I'm telling you now.”

“Who?”

“Renwick. From the language lesson.”

Cassia thought for a moment.

“The one who lent you his notes?”

“Yes.”

“He hasn't asked you.”

“I noticed.”

Adriana laughed softly.

Lysandra looked at her.

“That isn't the attractive part.”

“I didn't say it was.”

“He listens. And when I got something wrong, he explained why instead of assuring me I must be right because I looked certain.”

Cassia nodded with surprising seriousness.

“That does sound pleasant.”

“He also asked what I thought of the book, then disagreed with me for half the break.”

“A promising beginning,” I murmured.

All three looked toward the desk.

I returned to the supply account.

The next afternoon, Cassia came home carrying no flowers.

This attracted more notice than the flowers had.

Lysandra followed her into the sitting room looking openly delighted.

Cassia pointed at her before anyone asked a question.

“Let me tell it.”

“Please do.”

Mirelle lowered her sewing.

“Tell what?”

“Davren asked whether I'd like to walk along the river after lessons next week.”

There was a small pause.

“The student interested in bridges?” Evelyn asked.

“Yes.”

“And?”

Cassia twisted the strap of her case.

“I said I would.”

Mirelle smiled.

Adriana smiled more widely.

I concentrated on keeping my expression ordinary.

It was evidently not ordinary enough.

“It's a walk,” Cassia told me.

“I understand.”

“Not a marriage negotiation.”

“I hadn't brought any papers.”

Lysandra sat down, laughing.

Mirelle waited until the laughter subsided.

“Would you like to tell us about him?”

Cassia relaxed a little.

Davren was the student they had begun eating with after their first lessons. He had asked about the work at Westmere and listened when she described how the families organized their classes. He remembered that she had a younger brother who built things.

He disagreed with her about the bridge exercise.

He continued disagreeing after discovering she was a princess.

“He says my crossing needs too much work on the southern bank,” Cassia explained.

“Does it?” I asked.

“Possibly.”

Lysandra leaned back.

“She's been reconsidering the drawing for two days.”

“Because he may be right.”

“Of course.”

Cassia threw a cushion at her.

Lysandra asked Renwick to tea the following day.

We learned that from Lysandra, who told us before Cassia could embellish the account.

“He said yes,” she announced.

Lexander looked up from a letter.

“Who did?”

“Renwick.”

“To what?”

“Tea. Try to keep up.”

Io laughed.

Lexander glanced at me as though I might offer some useful experience.

I had recently become a thunderbolt for the length of a practice yard. Nothing about that qualified me to advise him.

“Have a pleasant time,” he said at last.

Lysandra's expression softened.

“Thank you.”

Then she added, “And no arriving at the next table.”

“I wasn't going to.”

Io studied him.

He set down the letter.

“I wasn't.”

Their plans did not end the invitations from everyone else.

If anything, word that they might actually accept one seemed to encourage several students who had previously admired them from a distance.

Cassia was asked to a musical gathering while collecting her mathematics exercises. Lysandra received a carefully written confession from a student who had managed three full conversations with her and remembered every one.

She answered him privately and kindly.

Another note arrived for Cassia at the end of a lecture.

This one remained outside her books, which she considered a modest improvement.

By then, their friends had learned to protect an ordinary lunch without making it a confrontation. If someone approached while they were eating, the girl who worked in her aunt's shop simply pointed to the occupied plates and suggested later.

Most accepted it.

One did not.

He began telling Cassia that she should at least give him a chance after all the trouble he had taken.

“I didn't ask you to take it,” she replied.

Lysandra went still beside her.

The student opened his mouth, looked at Cassia's face, and closed it again.

He left.

When she told Mirelle that evening, Cassia looked troubled but not uncertain.

“I wasn't polite.”

“Were you cruel?”

“No.”

“Then perhaps you were sufficiently polite.”

Cassia considered that for a while.

Then she took out her mathematics work.

Through all of it, they kept studying.

This seemed important to both of them.

Cassia's first corrected account came back with fewer marks than she expected. Lysandra finally wrote a historical argument in which everyone remained in the correct century.

They celebrated those achievements with considerably more enthusiasm than they showed over most of the letters.

Julian listened to Cassia explain her arithmetic, then asked whether it would help him work out how much water the wheel needed.

She looked at the page.

“Perhaps.”

“Can we try?”

“After I finish this.”

He nodded and brought his own notebook to the table.

Beside them, Lysandra read the book she intended to discuss with Renwick and wrote several objections in the margin of a separate sheet.

Adriana noticed.

“Preparing for tea?”

“Preparing to be right.”

Cassia looked over.

“Try letting him finish a sentence.”

“You should let Davren finish his bridge.”

Julian lifted his head.

“Is he building a bridge?”

Both women stopped.

“Not yet,” Cassia said.

Julian looked disappointed.

Then he asked whether Davren knew anything about waterwheels.

Cassia covered her face while Lysandra laughed so hard she had to put down her pen.

That night, I found them near the garden doors, comparing the arrangements for their afternoons in Concordia.

Their guards would remain at a discreet distance, as they did for other outings. Neither intended to leave the city. Both had informed the people who needed to know when to expect them home.

The practical details occupied less than a page.

The question of what to wear had apparently taken much longer.

“You wear that blue dress to lessons,” Lysandra was saying.

“I like it.”

“Then wear it.”

“You said it as though I shouldn't.”

“I said it because you asked whether he'd seen it before.”

Cassia sighed.

“This was easier when nobody asked me anywhere.”

“No, it wasn't. You wondered whether anyone ever would.”

She looked at her friend.

Lysandra's smile gentled.

“You did.”

After a moment, Cassia nodded.

“A little.”

They noticed me then.

“I came for the book,” I said, indicating the volume on the small table.

Lysandra handed it over.

“You heard nothing.”

“I heard two students discussing a very demanding curriculum.”

Cassia laughed.

I left them there beneath the warm lamps, with their books, their plans, and the wonderfully ordinary problem of liking someone enough to wonder what might happen next.