Salamander by David D. Friedman

were shown to a private upper room and seated at a big table with room for twice as many guests. A waiter brought a bottle of wine, bowls of soup, and a first course, a made dish of eels. Mari gave Jon a stern look across the table:
    "And if you know anything unpleasant about eels, please leave it until after dinner."
    He shook his head. "Don’t know a thing about eels. Never grew any."
    Alys smothered a giggle and turned to Edwin. "I am going home for the break and have a place reserved in tomorrow morning's coach. Will you be keeping me company?"
    "It will be my pleasure. What are the rest of you planning?"
    Jon was the first to answer:
    "Home’s a long trip. This time of year , don't much need an extra pair of hands on the farm. Plan to stay in the College , catch up on my sleep."
    Alys gave him a sideways look. "Won't it be very dull here, all by yourself, with nobody but the magisters? Or do you know something I don't about who else is staying?" She looked around the table.
    Mari shook her head. "Not I. The family is spending midwinter a few days north of here, and I will be joining them. Ellen?"
    "I am going home, with my head full of things to tell Mother about. I've arranged to rent a horse from the Inn stable."
    "Isn't it terribly dangerous, riding all that way by yourself?" Alys looked almost alarmed.
    Ellen shook her head. "I’ve ridden the horse they are lending me before, and it seems safe enough."
    "I didn't mean the horse. Who knows what could happen to a girl riding across the countryside with nobody to protect her?"
    For a moment there was silence. Mari started to speak, but didn't. At last Ellen broke it. "I got here safely enough on a borrowed horse; I expect I can get home the same way. It isn't as if there were a war going on, or a plague of bandits. It will be royal road most of the way, and the last bit is country I know. "
    She turned to Jon. "It will be quiet here by yourself, but there is always the library. I expect they keep it open for the magisters. I gather that some of them stay through the break."
    Jon nodded. "Yes. Between library and bed, expect to fill the hours catching up —e verything during term that I didn’t understand.
    He paused a moment, continued. "Spent part of last Seventhday reading about history of the College. Did you know place was originally a monastery?"
    Alys looked up from her plate. "I expect it's still haunted by the ghosts of the monks the mages murdered. I will have to stay awake tonight to listen."
    Jon shook his head. " N o monks murdered, least not by mages. Monastery belonged to a faction one of the Doray sects, back when they were losing out to the orthodox. A bandoned twenty or thirty years before the founders took it over. Durilil and Feremund showed up with a plan for a college, moved in with apprentices, magery, mops and brooms. Must've been a job to get it cleaned up and put back together. Started in front with only two magisters, eight or ten students."
    Alys interrupted him. "Our wing is in the front; I wonder if it's where the Magisters lived at the beginning. I might have been sleeping in Durilil's bed, for all I know."
    Mari put down her glass, took a moment to prepare a suitable response. "I’ve heard plenty of rumors about students in magisters' beds, but that’s a new one."
    "Don't be silly; he's been dead for hundreds of years. Besides, most of the magisters are too old. The only one who might be interesting is Coelus, and the only student he is interested in …" She stopped, in response to Mari's glare.
    Jon stepped into the conversational breach. "Hundreds of years take s you back to Breakup, when Theodrick tore Esland out of the Dorayan League , made himself king. Durilil and Feremund died maybe fifty years ago. Think Olver is still alive, though he must be very old. One of the magisters told me , back when he was a student, painting of Durilil used t o hang in the lecture hall."
    Alys would not be diverted: "According to the rumors,