“It isn’t so bad,” Julianne called back. “Is it?”
Emily shrugged.
She would have enjoyed the trip, she admitted privately, if it hadn’t been on horseback. They found a campsite when the sun started to set and stopped for the night, sleeping under the stars, but when she awoke her body was aching so badly that she had to swallow one of Julianne’s potions before she could climb back on the horse. She was all too aware that she was sweaty and unclean—and she’d slept in her clothes, which hadn’t helped—but the stream they’d found was nowhere near large enough for a proper wash. Indeed, she found herself wishing she’d remained at the castle, even though Master Chambers had been left in charge. It couldn’t have been worse ...
Don’t be silly, she told herself, as the horses started to gallop again. Of course it could have been worse.
The countryside blurred into a mixture of trees, cropland and tiny villages that looked little different to the villages she recalled from her own time. None of them were bigger than a dozen or so houses—she had the impression that Whitehall was deliberately skirting the larger towns—and the peasants seemed worn down and tired by their constant backbreaking labor. Their masters, whoever they were, would be just as greedy and rapacious as any of the aristocrats she’d met in her own time, although the handful of bigger houses didn’t look strong enough to resist a determined assault. No doubt the peasants were too tired and worn to revolt.
Castles are still in their infancy, she thought, dully. Which leads to the question of just who built Whitehall?
She frowned as she contemplated the problem, using it to distract herself from the trip. No one in the commune knew who’d built the castle; indeed, they hadn’t even known about the castle until Lord Alfred’s demon had pointed them in its direction. Emily would have wondered at such ignorance, if she hadn’t known that a combination of concealment spells and sheer isolation—and the slow spread of news—would have made it harder for anyone more than a few miles away to know the castle existed. Dragon’s Den certainly didn’t exist, not now. There might be no settlements for hundreds of miles on the other side of the Craggy Mountains.
But that raises the question of just how they built it, she thought, and why?
It was possible, she supposed, that something had been forgotten in the last few hundred years. Lord Alfred was the oldest member of the commune, but she doubted he was any older than seventy—and there wouldn’t be many others who reached his age. For all she knew, the area surrounding the castle had been heavily populated a mere couple of hundred years ago, before something had caused the population to flee. Perhaps there had been a violent surge of raw magic from the nexus point. The villages she’d seen wouldn’t last long without constant maintenance, even if they survived whatever had happened to their inhabitants. There might be hundreds of villages buried under the forest.
They stopped at another campsite for the night, then proceeded onwards the following morning. Emily rapidly found herself growing bored with the monotony, although none of the others seemed to share her feelings. Julianne didn’t get to make many trips away from the commune, while Bernard was enjoying Whitehall’s undivided attention. Emily felt a stab of envy when he was sent to the nearest town to buy supplies, but her attempt to convince Whitehall that she should accompany him fell on deaf ears. She found herself seriously considering sneaking away from the campsite, just out of boredom. Only the very real risk of getting lost kept her from following Bernard to the town.
And Whitehall would be angry, she thought, privately. And he’d have a point.
“We’ll be there tomorrow,” Whitehall said, as they reached the final campsite, five days after leaving the castle. “I want all of you to be on your very best behavior.”
Lord Alfred chuckled. “Even me?”
“Yes, even you,” Whitehall said. “I would have thought you were too old to cause trouble.”
“There’s no such thing,” Lord Alfred said.
Whitehall scowled, then reached into his pouch and produced a handful of coins. “I want you and Julianne to stay together,” he said, passing the coins to Emily. “Purchase a couple of things for yourself, if you wish, but stay together.”
“I don’t get pocket money?” Lord Alfred asked. He struck a shocked pose as Whitehall laughed. “Horrors!”
“You might also want to go for a bath,” Lord Whitehall added. “There’s usually a communal bathhouse for women as well as for men. If not ... we’ll have to make other arrangements.”
Emily nodded. “What do you want us to do after that?”
“We’ll see how things go,” Whitehall said, thoughtfully. He looked from one to the other, his eyes grim. “And do try to stay out of trouble.”
“Of course, Father,” Julianne said. Her father passed her a handful of coins, too. “We’ll do our very best.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
AS SHE RODE UP TO THE gate with the others, Emily couldn’t help thinking that the Gathering was very much the predecessor of the Faire. A number of tents scattered around a large field, surrounded by a wooden fence that was decorated with a dozen protective and concealment runes; hundreds of men and women milling around, the former wearing fancy outfits while the latter wore either long dresses or servant clothing. She tensed, despite herself, as the horses cantered to a stop outside a guardhouse, where a trio of men carrying swords eyed them nervously. None of the men looked very pleasant.
But they’re not even looking at Julianne or me, she thought, torn between astonishment and amusement. The sellswords—she couldn’t detect any magic surrounding them—probably thought she and Julianne were both Whitehall’s daughters. They’re actually trying to behave themselves.
She pushed the thought out of her mind as Whitehall spoke briefly to the guards, then to a grim-faced man who looked as if he were pushed to the limits of his endurance. The organizer, Emily guessed; he looked too tired to be surprised when Emily and Julianne were introduced as magicians too, rather than relatives or servants. She couldn’t help wondering if telling the entire Gathering that Julianne and she were both magicians was a mistake, but she thought Whitehall knew what he was doing. And yet ... far too many of the men in front of them were not inclined to accept female magicians.
“You’ve got Tent Seventeen,” the organizer said, after some coins had changed hands. “I’ll have the boys take care of your horses.”
Whitehall scrambled down. Julianne followed him, then helped Emily down to the muddy ground too. Bernard and Lord Alfred looked more reluctant to dismount, but joined Whitehall as a trio of stable boys appeared to take charge of the horses. Emily was surprised that Whitehall was prepared to just let them take the beasts, yet she had to admit it made a certain kind of sense. No one in their right mind would try to steal from a magician, certainly not in the middle of a Gathering. Whitehall could do whatever he liked to the thieves and the rest of the crowd would only cheer him on.
“This way,” Whitehall said. “We’ll leave our bags in the tent before you can go exploring.”
Emily couldn’t help thinking, as they walked through the crowd, that the atmosphere was distinctly nervous. There was no way to know just how many magicians were in attendance, but there were definitely enough to make a very tempting target for the Manavores. She wasn’t sure just how far the rumors had spread—getting from the castle to the Gathering hadn’t been easy—yet the magicians had to know they were being hunted. A nasty undertone of fear echoed in the air; hundreds of sellswords manned the fence, ready to sell their lives dearly in defense of their masters.
And they won’t stand a chance, Emily thought, if the Manavores attack.
“I’ve been in better places,” Julianne said, as they stepped into the tent. “Father ...”
“I’ve been in worse,” Lord Alfred said.
“So have I,” Whitehall agreed. “You did want to come.”
Emily couldn’t help agreeing with Julianne. The tent was hot, stuffy and dark; t
he bedding was nothing more than a pile of blankets on the ground. Were they all expected to sleep together? Probably, her own thoughts reminded her. No one in the Nameless World would bat an eyelid at Whitehall and Lord Alfred—and Bernard—sharing a bed. They certainly wouldn’t see anything sexual—or wrong—with it. She would have expected better ...
There isn’t better, she told herself, numbly. We’ll just have to cope with it.
“You can find the bathhouse, if you wish,” Whitehall said, once they’d stowed away their knapsacks. “Meet us in the cooking pits at sunset for dinner.”
“Yes, Father,” Julianne said.
There were two bathhouses, they discovered as they walked towards the handful of permanent buildings: one for men and one for women. The female section—and she assumed the male as well—actually had three baths, each one large enough to pass for a small swimming pool. They undressed and washed themselves clean in the first one, then moved to the second pool for a long soak. Emily was so relieved just to be clean again—the servants had even taken their clothes to be hastily washed and dried—that she didn’t find it embarrassing to be naked in front of Julianne and several other women, even though the women eyed her oddly.
I do look odd here, Emily thought. She was easily the tallest woman in the pool, her skin practically unblemished. And I don’t look half-starved either.
She could have stayed in the pool for hours, allowing the warm water to work the kinks out of her body, but Julianne insisted on leaving after an hour. They splashed quickly through the third pool, then dressed hurriedly and stepped back into the outside world. She glanced around and saw a line of young men waiting outside another building, but Julianne grabbed her arm and led her away before she could ask what they were doing. Emily guessed, as they made their way over to the stalls, that they were waiting to enter the brothel. It couldn’t be anything else.
“Yeah,” Julianne confirmed, when she asked. “And if I see Bernard going there, I’ll cut off his balls.”
Emily kept her thoughts to herself as they moved from stall to stall, inspecting the merchandise. There was very little she wanted, she had to admit; the only items of interest were a handful of parchment scrolls and bound manuscripts, all priced so highly that she couldn’t even begin to afford them. She dreaded to think just how hard a common laborer would have to work, just to make the down payment ... if there was such a thing. She rather doubted it. And there was no way to check if the spells were actually genuine without paying hard cash first.
“Father might buy one, if you convinced him it was worth his while,” Julianne said, after the stallkeeper flatly refused to allow Emily to examine one of his books. “It wouldn’t be easy to fake the spells.”
“I suppose,” Emily said. The seller would have to be insane to try to con a magician, but a couple of his books were advertised as being written in an unknown language. There were no translation spells yet. “But I don’t think he’d buy one for me.”
She followed Julianne as she moved from stall to stall, picking up a handful of rare ingredients and chatting to some of her fellow brewers. They were all women, Emily noted; Tama and his friends weren’t the only ones, it seemed, who considered brewing to be women’s work. And they all looked remarkably sane, even though Emily could sense flickers of magic surrounding them. Julianne told them a little about what they’d discovered at the castle and promised to tell more later, if they agreed to listen to her. Emily couldn’t help wondering just what would happen when they heard the truth.
Will they be pleased to hear that they have been doing magic all along, she asked herself, or will they be worried about the curse?
Bernard joined them, holding Julianne’s hand as they slowly made their way towards the cooking pits. Emily couldn’t help comparing it to a barbeque, although it was much larger, smokier and smellier than anything she’d seen on TV—or, for that matter, in the Nameless World. A giant ox was roasting over an open fire, dozens of pigs and chickens being roasted or fried next to it; vast barrels of beer and bottles of juice were being distributed to all and sundry. She couldn’t help noticing that there was no water, although that made a certain kind of sense. The water in such a place wouldn’t be very safe to drink.
They don’t know spells to purify it yet, she thought. Do they even know to boil water before they drink it?
They took their food—bread and meat, without a trace of vegetables—and walked over to join Whitehall and Lord Alfred. Whitehall was chatting to an older man who eyed Emily and Julianne disdainfully, then obstinately ignored them for the remainder of the meal. Emily was tempted to join in the conversation, but instead she merely listened as Whitehall explained what they’d discovered at the castle and how they planned to proceed. When he’d finished, the older man stood and walked away. He didn’t look pleased.
“The younger magicians are interested,” Whitehall commented. “But the older magicians are too wedded to demons.”
Emily glanced at Lord Alfred. “What do you think?”
“I think that the old rarely want to change,” Lord Alfred said.
“You want to change,” Bernard said.
“I’m old,” Lord Alfred pointed out. “It’s quite likely I won’t see the next summer.”
Emily frowned. “So you don’t care?”
“Emily,” Whitehall said, warningly.
“It’s quite all right,” Lord Alfred said. “I have never settled down, never chosen to stay in one place and build a reputation. Being in the commune ... that’s the longest I’ve stayed anywhere. It doesn’t matter to me if things change or not.”
He sighed. “But for someone who has built a reputation, young lady, it can matter a great deal.”
“A reputation based on a fundamental misunderstanding of magic,” Whitehall said.
“Yeah,” Lord Alfred said. He rose, slowly and ponderously. “But do you think that matters to them?”
Emily watched him stride away into the darkness, remembering all the stories that had been told about Lord Alfred. She was almost sure that none of them were true, although it was clear that he was neither a super-magician nor a charlatan. Perhaps his travels—she recalled him bragging about sleeping with girls from all over the world—had given him an odd reputation that had only grown in the telling. She knew, all too well, just how rapidly rumors could change until they were almost unrecognizable.
And history gets retold by the winners, she thought. It might have suited them, later on, to portray Lord Alfred as a freakishly powerful magician—or a fraud.
“I’ve organized a meet for tomorrow morning,” Whitehall said, as they finished eating. He was drinking from a tankard of ale, although he’d banned Julianne and Bernard from touching a drop. “I will expect all three of you to attend.”
“Yes, Father,” Julianne said.
“Master,” Bernard said. “Will they not raise eyebrows?”
“Probably,” Whitehall said. “But I’ve spoken to enough magicians to know that nothing has really changed. I don’t know if the Gathering will even last the full ten days.”
“We came all this way,” Julianne protested.
“Others came from further away,” Whitehall pointed out. He rose, too. “I expect you to behave yourselves, tonight. Don’t go wandering off alone.”
“We’d better get to bed,” Julianne said, once her father had gone. “Tomorrow is probably going to be a very long day.”
Emily was surprised that Bernard didn’t object, as they slowly made their way back to the tent, but he said nothing. Perhaps he was tired too. They evaded a handful of spluttering light globes, walking around fires lit in front of a number of tents. Emily couldn’t help noticing the shadows flickering around the edges of some of the tents, casting jagged shapes that flickered and flared at the corner of her eyes. Protective wards, she speculated, or protective demons. She hadn’t sensed many demons in the Gathering itself, but Lord Alfred was hardly the only DemonMaster in the vicinity. They wouldn’t be too pl
eased when they heard what Whitehall had to say.
“I’ll be sleeping on the far side of the tent,” Bernard said, as Emily covertly cast a handful of anti-vermin spells. “That should satisfy decency, I think.”
He gave Julianne a quick kiss which rapidly developed into something more. Emily pretended not to see it until Bernard’s hands started wandering, whereupon she cleared her throat loudly. She found it hard to hide her amusement as they both stared at her nastily. If Bernard had asked for Julianne’s hand ...
“Goodnight,” Emily said. She lay down next to Julianne, realizing she was going to have Whitehall or Lord Alfred on her other side. She’d just have to endure it. “See you in the morning.”
The blankets were scratchy and the ground was uncomfortable, but she surprised herself by falling asleep almost at once. She remembered nothing more until a gentle hand shook her awake what felt like seconds later. But bright sunlight was streaming in through the flap and Lord Alfred was snoring loudly. Emily allowed herself a moment of relief at having fallen asleep before Lord Alfred returned, then followed Julianne out of the tent. Whitehall and Bernard were standing outside, drinking something that smelled like spiced tea.
“Get some tarik for yourself, then get changed,” Whitehall ordered. “We’ll be meeting in the big tent in two hours.”
Bernard nodded. “Have you thought about what you’re going to tell them?”
Whitehall looked grimly determined. “The truth,” he said.
He grew quieter as the minutes ticked away, even though Bernard tried to distract him by asking questions about magic and Lord Alfred told tall tales about crazy adventures on the other side of the continent. Emily realized, to her shock, that Whitehall was nervous. He knew he was right, but he also knew he wasn’t going to make himself popular. And here ... he only had Bernard and Lord Alfred for support.
Past Tense (Schooled in Magic Book 10) Page 26
