Coin gave him a long, freezing stare.
‘I saw you last night,’ he said. ‘Are you puissant?’
‘Only mildly,’ said Carding, hurriedly recalling the boy’s tendency to treat wizardry as a terminal game of corkers. ‘But not so puissant as you, I’m sure.’
‘I am to be made Archchancellor, as is my destiny?’
‘Oh, absolutely,’ said Carding. ‘No doubt about it. May I have a look at your staff? Such an interesting design-’
He reached out a pudgy hand.
It was a shocking breach of etiquette in any case; no wizard should even think of touching another’s staff without his express permission. But there are people who can’t quite believe that children are fully human, and think that the operation of normal good manners doesn’t apply to them.
Carding’s fingers curled around the black staff.
There was a noise that Spelter felt rather than heard, and Carding bounced across the gallery and struck the opposite wall with a sound like a sack of lard hitting a pavement.
‘Don’t do that,’ said Coin. He turned and looked through Spelter, who had gone pale, and added: ‘Help him up. He is probably not badly hurt.’
The bursar scuttled hurriedly across the floor and bent over Carding, who was breathing heavily and had gone an odd colour. He patted the wizard’s hand until Carding opened one eye.
‘Did you see what happened?’ he whispered.
‘I’m not sure. Um. What did happen?’ hissed Spelter.
‘It bit me.’
‘The next time you touch the staff,’ said Coin, matteroffactly, ‘you will die. Do you understand?’
Carding raised his head gently, in case bits of it fell off.
‘Absolutely,’ he said.
‘And now I would like to see the University,’ the boy continued. ‘I have heard a great deal about it…’
Spelter helped Carding to his unsteady feet and supported him as they trotted obediently after the boy.
‘Don’t touch his staff,’ muttered Carding.
‘I’ll remember, um, not to,’ said Spelter firmly. ‘What did it feel like?’
‘Have you ever been bitten by a viper?’
‘No.’
‘In that case you’ll understand exactly what it felt like.’
‘Hmmm?’
‘It wasn’t like a snake bite at all.’
They hurried after the determined figure as Coin marched down the stairs and through the ravished doorway of the Great Hall.
Spelter dodged in front, anxious to make a good impression.
‘This is the Great Hall,’ he said. Coin turned his golden gaze towards him, and the wizard felt his mouth dry up. ‘It’s called that because it’s a hall, dyou see. And big.’
He swallowed. ‘It’s a big hall,’ he said, fighting to stop the last of his coherence being burned away by the searchlight of that stare. ‘A great big hall, which is why it’s called-’ >‘Hard to disobey, isn’t it?’ said Conina.