Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4)

by Christopher Nuttall

  Emily shivered, remembering her stepfather ranting about how much she cost him. It was almost nothing, she knew, because she practically brought herself up, yet cold logic was no defense against his words. He’d told her, time and time again, that he only put a roof over her head out of the goodness of his heart. Part of her had believed him – and part of her knew that he had resented her presence.

  It would be worse, she suspected, for peasants in the mountainside. There was no social security network, apart from what the other villagers could provide...and they weren’t wealthy enough to provide much, even if they wanted to. An extra mouth could make the difference between surviving the winter and starving to death. And a young boy, barely on the edge of his teens, would be little help on the farm.

  “I don’t think it matters,” she said, pushing her thoughts aside. “We can’t send him back to them.”

  Lady Barb looked down at the sleeping child. “I don’t think we have a choice,” she admitted. “We have no legal authority to take the boy from his guardians.”

  Emily felt her mouth drop open. No words emerged.

  “We could take a magician – I have taken magicians, in the past,” Lady Barb continued, softly. “But this boy isn’t a magician.”

  Emily found her voice. “You can’t mean to say you’ll leave him here?”

  She pressed on before Lady Barb could answer. “This boy came very close to death,” she added. Her voice rose until she was almost shouting at the older woman. “If he goes back there, they’ll undo all the work we did and finish the job. We cannot send him back.”

  Lady Barb held up one hand, but Emily hadn’t finished. “We can find him somewhere else to go,” she continued. “Or we can even take him with us.”

  “And then...what?” Lady Barb said. She looked up at Emily, meeting her eyes. “Do you intend to keep picking up strays?”

  Emily remembered Jasmine and flushed. “Yes,” she said, bluntly. “If someone has to do it, I will.”

  She gritted her teeth, preparing to argue. It would be simple enough to have the boy sent to Cockatrice and given work in her castle. Or Imaiqah’s father might like an apprentice. Or...

  “I understand how you feel,” Lady Barb said. “And I understand your feelings, but we don’t have any legal power to intervene.”

  “To hell with legalities,” Emily snarled. Magic billowed around her, feeding on her anger. “We can just take him from them. Or we could buy him from them. Or we could just fake his death and say we destroyed the body. We...”

  Her entire body froze, solid.

  “I understand how you feel,” Lady Barb repeated. There was a cold edge to her voice that made Emily shiver, inwardly. “Do you think this is the worst I’ve seen up here?”

  Emily tried to break the hex holding her in place, but failed.

  “People who become cripples rarely last very long,” Lady Barb reminded her. “Old men and women are lucky to be allowed to remain in the houses over the winter months, no matter how much they did for their children. I’ve seen girls and boys forced to marry each other, no matter what they think about it. I’ve seen husbands beat their wives and wives beat their husbands; parents beating children and children turning on parents when they’re old enough to claim their inheritance. It’s a savage life up here, Emily, and you can’t help them by fixing one tiny piece of the problem.”

  She caught her breath. “The law – such as it is up here – raises no objection to beating one’s children or relatives. Even if you took this boy, you wouldn’t be able to help others...and the peasants would start to hide from us. They don’t mind us taking magical children away, but they do object to losing mundane children. And we need to be able to work with them.”

  So we compromise, Emily thought, struggling to free herself. She wanted to shout and scream at Lady Barb for allowing this to happen, then rage at herself for not realizing that she would see worse than natural injuries on the trip. She’d known – she knew enough about the past to know that peasant life was no bed of roses – and yet she hadn’t actually comprehended what it was really like. She recalled a handful of bucolic images she’d seen at school, during what had laughingly passed for history lessons, and shuddered. Life in the fields had never been fun for people who had no alternative.

  Lady Barb sighed. “I do understand how you feel,” she said, “and we will do something to try and make it better, but we cannot take the boy.”

  Emily cursed, mentally. The story about the boy being possessed was just an excuse, just something to give them justification for beating the tiny child to within an inch of his life. And yet, here, it might be believed...Lady Barb had even said that there were traces of strange magic on him. She silently promised herself that there would be laws in Cockatrice against child abuse as soon as she had a chance to write them. And those laws would be damn well enforced.

  But childhood isn’t the same here, she reminded herself. Earth decided that a person moved from childhood to adulthood at eighteen – or thereabouts – while Zangaria tended to have a far more flexible definition of adulthood. Some children were counted as adults from the moment they took up adult responsibilities, while girls were considered adults the moment they started their first periods. Imaiqah had effectively been an adult before she’d gone to Whitehall, while Alassa had remained an immature brat. No wonder Imaiqah had always been the most mature of the three of them.

  “The aristocrats are far more genteel, but they can be just as bad,” Lady Barb said. “I wish I could show King Randor and his barons what it is like to live as a peasant, but they would never understand. They might as well come from different countries.”

  Emily understood. The aristocracy in Zangaria believed – genuinely believed – that it was superior to the commoners, almost a different race. It was absurd, if only because Imaiqah’s father had been ennobled after the attempted coup in Zangaria, yet they believed that nobility was something separate. But then, there had been cultures on Earth that believed that knighting someone automatically gave them knightly characteristics. And yet they should have known better.

  She staggered as Lady Barb released the hex. “I...”

  “Just sit down,” Lady Barb advised, tartly. “Are you going to shout at me again?”

  Emily gritted her teeth. Lady Barb was her mistress, at least for the summer months. She’d read enough about the role of an apprentice to know that she’d broken several rules, starting with always being polite to one’s master. If Lady Barb decided to punish her...

  “No,” she bit out. “What are you going to do with him?”

  “Have a few words with his guardians,” Lady Barb said. “And then see what we can do to make it better.”

  Emily watched as she turned and started to dress the young boy with practiced ease. “Can you threaten their lives?”

  “I can do worse than that,” Lady Barb said, quietly. “But there are limits to what we can do.”

  Emily nodded, feeling helpless. She’d understood, intellectually, just how brutal life could be in the countryside and the mountains, but she’d never really understood what it meant. And she hated feeling helpless...

  “This isn’t going to be allowed to happen in Cockatrice,” she said. “I won’t let it happen.”

  “Good luck,” Lady Barb said. She sounded perfectly serious. “But it won’t be easy. How do you tell the difference between justified punishment and excessive punishment?”

  “I’ll know it when I see it,” Emily said.

  Lady Barb snorted. “And how do you plan to write that into law?”

  Emily flushed. If excessive punishment depended on the eye of the beholder, she would either have to write laws in great detail, describing precisely what was acceptable and what wasn’t, or rely on the common sense of her underlings. But common sense was rare; besides, her underlings might well take bribes to interpret the law in a particular direction. The former baron had been deeply corrupt and so had his underlings, ensuring that no o
ne with any sense placed trust in the law.

  “Something else,” Lady Barb added. “Was there ever a time at Whitehall when you were punished unjustly?”

  “Master Tor’s werewolf essay,” Emily said, after a moment’s thought. “He didn’t like me asking too many questions.”

  “Which betrayed your ignorance,” Lady Barb pointed out. “I’m sure the essay taught you something useful.”

  She picked up the boy and looked down at him for a long moment. Emily saw a hint of wistfulness in her gaze, as if the older woman was feeling maternal. Did Lady Barb have any children? Or a lover? Sorceresses enjoyed a freedom unknown to mundanes – she knew that some of her classmates were in relationships, which she assumed were sexual – but she knew almost nothing about Lady Barb’s private life. It wasn’t something she wanted to ask about.

  “He’s too thin,” Lady Barb said, softly. She looked over at Emily. “So were you, when you came to Whitehall.”

  Emily nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She’d had to fend for herself from a very early age, buying her own food and cooking her own meals. And she’d been an indifferent cook at best. If it hadn’t been for meals at school, she suspected that she would have been far thinner – or dead – by the time Shadye kidnapped her. She’d filled out considerably since coming to Whitehall.

  “You weren’t there,” she said, suddenly. “How do you know...?”

  “Your records,” Lady Barb said, dryly. “I read them very carefully when you selected me as your Advisor.”

  Emily mentally kicked herself. That was obvious. “What did they say?”

  “I believe you were given a full medical scan after your escapade in Dragon’s Den,” Lady Barb said. “Underfed, underweight and potentially at risk was the general opinion. The healer was rather puzzled by some issues with your body, but the Grandmaster vetoed asking you any questions. Instead, they just gave the sergeants potions and told them to make sure you took them.”

  “I never realized,” Emily said. The thought that Whitehall’s staff had cared enough to take care of her health was staggering, even though rationally it shouldn’t have been a surprise. She wasn’t unwanted at Whitehall. “I thought those potions were for Martial Magic.”

  “Some of them were,” Lady Barb said. “A handful to help build muscle, a potion to help limit your menstrual cycle, a couple more. Others...were specifically brewed for you.”

  She turned and walked towards the door, carrying the boy in her arms. “Stay here,” she added. “If someone comes, tell them to wait for me unless it’s a real emergency. In that case, summon me at once.”

  Emily watched her go, still trying to process the revelation. She’d honestly never realized that anyone cared enough to help her, even at Whitehall. No one on Earth had noticed her second-hand clothes, her isolationist habits, the showers she took at school...and anything else that might have suggested that her home life was less than ideal. God knew her mother had never visited the school, even to discuss Emily’s progress. No one seemed to have cared about the children who weren’t either brilliant or bullies.

  But Whitehall had cared. An unaccustomed sense of warmth spread through her body as she realized just how much they’d cared. Even if the Grandmaster had vetoed the healers speaking directly to Emily – she wondered, absently, just what the scan had found – they’d still tried to help. She pulled back her sleeve and looked down at her arm, watching as her muscles flexed. Thanks to them, she was stronger and healthier than she’d ever been on Earth.

  And yet there was nothing she could do for the boy.

  She walked back over to where she’d left her bag and produced a sheet of parchment, then started to scribble out a letter to Imaiqah. Alassa, for all of her intelligence, wouldn’t really comprehend Emily’s feelings...but then, she’d grown up feeling superior to anyone apart from her parents. No, it went beyond feelings; she’d known she was superior. Even Emily hadn’t managed to convince her to question her fundamental worldview.

  There was a knock at the door. Emily stood, walked over to the door and opened it – and scowled inwardly when she saw Hodge. The young man smiled at her, rather unpleasantly, and then looked past her, searching for Lady Barb. Emily felt an odd twinge of irritation as he looked back at her. What was he looking for?

  “My father wishes to invite you both to the dance,” Hodge said. His smile seemed to widen, as if he were thinking of the punchline to a joke. “Will you come?”

  It was the last thing Emily wanted to do, but she suspected that Lady Barb would insist they went. “I will ask my Mistress,” she said, trying hard to convey the impression that she couldn’t tie her own shoelaces without instructions. “She will decide for us both.”

  Hodge nodded, then stood on the doorstep and waited. Emily wondered, absurdly, what the etiquette for this situation actually was. Should she invite him in? She took another look at him and decided that would be a bad idea. Instead, she promised to inform Lady Barb as soon as she returned and closed the door in his face. It was rude, she knew, but she just didn’t want to talk to anyone. Walking back to the table, she resumed work on her letter.

  “I talked them into swearing an oath,” Lady Barb said, when she returned. “They won’t punish him excessively in the future.”

  Emily’s eyes narrowed. “I thought mundanes couldn’t swear oaths,” she said. “How...?”

  “I used a compulsion curse,” Lady Barb said, shortly. “The results of hurting him will not be pleasant.”

  “Good,” Emily said.

  But she wasn’t sure if it was good. Oaths couldn’t be broken deliberately, but there were loopholes that could be used to avoid punishment if the oath wasn’t written carefully. A curse might just be easier to wriggle around, if the person hadn’t chosen to have the curse imposed on him.

  And just what was defined as excessive punishment?

  “Anything they do to him will hurt them too,” Lady Barb explained. “Beating him to death will take them with him.”

  Emily nodded. It might work, she told herself.

  “We’ve been invited to the dance,” she said. “Do we have to go?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Lady Barb said. “It’s part of the job. But you can bow out early, if you wish. Just remember to take an anti-alcohol potion before we go.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  EMILY HEARD THE MUSIC ECHOING OVER the village as she followed Lady Barb towards the barn, trying hard to look like a determined and untouchable magician. Lady Barb walked with a steady confidence that suggested she wouldn’t give way to anyone, but Emily had to fight to keep from slouching. Nothing, not even Alassa’s patient lessons in proper comportment, had managed to have her walking upright in the same stiff posture without effort. It just wasn’t something that she’d mastered.

  She blinked in surprise as she saw a haystack shivering, although there was no wind. Lady Barb looked back, smirked and motioned for Emily to hurry along behind her. Emily took one last look and obeyed, wondering just what was happening inside. Was there an animal caught in the hay?

  “The beast with two backs,” Lady Barb whispered, when Emily asked. “There will be a young couple in there, enjoying themselves.”

  Emily flushed, then stared at the nearby barn. “Don’t they know?”

  “Of course they know,” Lady Barb said. She shrugged. “But as long as the happy couple remains out of sight, their elders will pretend not to notice.”

  Just like Zangaria, Emily thought. Aristocrats seemed to care more for appearance than reality. The rules could be broken as long as they weren’t broken too often, while the formalities were often nothing more than shadow plays. But maybe they were also part of the social glue holding society together. Politeness did help prevent outright conflict between lords and ladies.

  The music grew louder as they reached the open barn and looked inside. A makeshift band, composed of a pair of accordions, a guitar-like instrument and a set of drums was playing a merry tune, although it see
med somewhat unfocused. Behind them, several couples were moving in the center of the barn, dancing. Emily frowned as she studied their movements. Unlike the dances at Whitehall and Zangaria, the dancers seemed to be making it up as they went along. There was no formal structure at all.

  She scowled, inwardly. It had taken her months to get used to the elegant formal dances of Whitehall, which had prepared her for Zangaria. But this was different...she looked at a middle-aged woman with a pleasant smile, whirling her husband around the dance floor, and knew she couldn’t join them. The handful of younger girls seemed to be talking to the younger boys, watched by a gimlet-eyed lady who seemed to be in charge of making sure they behaved. Beyond them, a handful of children were tossing a ball around in one corner of the room.

  “Welcome,” the headman called. “Come and join us.”

  Emily fought to keep her expression blank. The headman and a number of other men were sitting next to several barrels, drinking heavily. Two of them looked to be well on the way to drunkenness already, but they were still drinking from wooden mugs. Emily grimaced as Hodge pushed a mug into her hand, then took a sniff. It smelled worse than the cheap wine and beer her mother used to drink.

  It wasn’t just the men who were drinking, she realized, looking around the massive barn. A number of women were drinking too, gathered on the other side of the room. Even some of the children were drinking alcohol...

  “One mug only,” Lady Barb said, warningly.

  Emily nodded as she checked the drink for poison. They’d make fun of her for drinking too little, she’d been warned, but they wouldn’t say a word if she was ordered not to drink too much. She shuddered inwardly and took a sip. She might have taken a potion to ensure she couldn’t get drunk, but it still tasted thoroughly unpleasant.

  She held the mug in her hand and listened as Lady Barb chatted to the headman, collecting rumors. There were some odd stories about missing children, passed from village to village, and concerns that a pack of slavers were hunting for victims. Then the headman was interrupted by another man, who sneered at the whole suggestion of slavers. It was more likely, he insisted, that the children had been eaten by werewolves.