"Thank you," answers the Professor, dropping creakily into the chair. "How have you been, Peter? Have you got any surprises to share? I must have been talking to Lucy for quite half an hour before she informed me that she was married, and to a King of Narnia, no less."
"Speaking philosophically, I imagine that the knowledge might cause difficulties when the future arises," replies Kirke calmly. "Speaking practically, both Edmund and Lucy have rather subtly suggested to me that there are things I ought not to know about the next year or thereabouts."
"I am glad to hear that," answers the Professor. "I am also quite well, but I imagine that you know that already. Although Mrs Macready does seem to think I should be spending less time at work these days."
"Currently? I realised the other day that a certain passage in book VI of Plato's Republic might be better understood if we assume a slight error in transcription altered the case of one of the words. I am writing a brief piece for Notes and Queries to suggest an emendation, and a longer article to explain the relevance of the change."
Kirke leans back into his chair. "And you, Peter? How do you fill your time?"
"It's always a strange feeling when one's students leave one for new levels of scholarship," observes the Professor. "I still find it odd even now. What were you teaching?"
"Quite a variety of things, really," he says. "A young lad who will have charge of his own fiefdom one day was orphaned, and taken in by the House of Arch. I've been trying to prepare him, as I could."
"Diplomacy, then, and strategy, and all the things a lord must know? A set of subjects in which you are peculiarly qualified. I expect you were a good teacher."
Since, after all, there are things Edmund and Lucy have not told him about their lives, the Professor asks, "What is the House of Arch?"
"Oh--it's both a noble house, and a particular dwelling. The family there is of great importance in the Underside, which is...well, in a way it's another world, and in a way it isn't." He smiles wryly. "Not quite like Narnia."
"It's--old bits of London that have been lost and forgotten to the darkness. In places it's still the Dark Ages, in places it's quite modern. Full of cast-off and lost people forming their own societies and nobility."
"The Openers of the House of Arch have been quite hospitable to us."
"Those ages were hardly dark," Kirke protests in passing. "When one thinks of all the writing that survives, and how much of it has been lost over the centuries... never mind all that. Your Underside sounds quite fascinating. Do you mean to tell me that you all have been living there? I thought I understood from your siblings that you hadn't left Milliways."
"It's a bit odd, really--the house is connected to Milliways. We don't go out into the Underside much at all. It's a dangerous and complex sort of place to live, which is why I had to turn Clement over to another master--I just don't know the specifics of his world well enough."
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Kirke leans back into his chair. "And you, Peter? How do you fill your time?"
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Since, after all, there are things Edmund and Lucy have not told him about their lives, the Professor asks, "What is the House of Arch?"
Reply
"It's--old bits of London that have been lost and forgotten to the darkness. In places it's still the Dark Ages, in places it's quite modern. Full of cast-off and lost people forming their own societies and nobility."
"The Openers of the House of Arch have been quite hospitable to us."
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment