Seventeen Stones (4 page)

Her
first glimpse of the college came the next day when she picked up her course
schedule.  It was a sprawling complex totaling over fifty buildings.  If asked,
a student of architecture could trace the various styles to every major period
in City history.  Some were showpieces of flamboyant carving and glasswork;
others were models of more subtle craftsmanship.  There were spiraling towers,
domes, arches, and flying buttresses: occasionally all on the same building.    

Mia walked
hesitantly up the stair of the man office, and queried the busy woman behind
the first desk.  The woman mutely pointed to a desk with a sign that read
“schedules” without looking up from the strange machine she was working on.  It
took up the whole working area, with hundreds of individual brass buttons set
up like an organ.  She was pressing those buttons at a rapid rate, making a
soft clicking noise with each tap.  The sound was at once irritating and
vaguely appealing, assuming as Mia did, that the quick taps were accomplishing
a great deal.  She was inclined to linger and watch this fascinating procedure,
but Emma steered her to the desk.

A
plump woman with three pencils sticking out of her hair at odd angles handed
Mia a slip of parchment containing a rather full schedule.  Mia took the slip
and counted the classes.  She was surprised to see that she’d been assigned
thirteen.  She glanced up and noticed that the lady was watching her intently:
she blushed and thanked her, and walked outside with Emma.

Another
bout of shopping ensued.  Mia bought three additional dresses and matching
slippers to wear on rest days, a sky blue, a deep purple, and an emerald silk
that was too fancy for anything she was likely to be doing.  But it was such a
lovely color and cut in the popular mermaid style!  It brought to mind old
daydreams from when she was a very little girl: days when a ragged shawl tied
around her waist became a fashionable gown and she danced away the night in the
arms of a handsome Greatlord at a fabulous party.  So she’d bought the emerald
dress, however impractical it might have been. 

The
seamstresses weren’t the only place to spend gold in the City.  Each class had
a list of supplies to purchase.  The trip to the bookshop shouldn’t have taken
a full day to complete, except that Mia was hopelessly addicted to books and
her fingers itched when she saw the tightly-packed rows in the store.  They
left only as the shop was closing: the sales clerk turned the lock after he
walked them out.  Mia could barely see over the stack of books she was carrying
to the boarding house. 

She
felt a greedy glee as she contemplated the pristine covers of her purchases. 
She’d never bought so many books at once before in her life.  They were new;
some of them were newly published.  They were fascinating, even if they were mostly
background material for her classes.  The shop was sending the actual course
books on to the boarding house tomorrow.  She felt like dancing, like only the
heavy load of books kept her from floating off the pavement.  That night she
read until the book fell out of her hands, when the boardinghouse was
completely quiet.  Emma woke up at some point in the night and forced her into
bed.   

Mia
had a long list of potion-making ingredients…about half of them were already
scratched off, thanks to Emma.  “No reason to buy Troll’s Foot Mushrooms in the
City…most of them come from Forestreach anyway!”  

That didn’t keep Mia from
compiling a copious list of products to purchase.  

Emma
hurried along a little side street, passing several large apothecaries with
shining displays of state-of-the art gizmos that Mia couldn’t wait to see. 
“Emma!  Did you see…?”

Emma
snorted.  “Tourist traps.  Arm-chair potion makers and dabblers.  They’d load
your arms so full of ‘time savers’ so that you won’t notice that their potion
ingredients are sub-par.   We’re going to see someone who actually knows his
business…I know he does…he orders a lot of it from me.”   Mia rolled her eyes
as her guardian winked and hurried along the narrow side street.

The
faded sign outside the shop advertized it simply as ‘Apothecary’ in neat black
lettering.  The windows were wavy amber glass…impossible to see through.  Emma
walked in without a backward glance.  

The
interior of the shop was rather dark after the bright light outside.  A dumpy
little shop keeper was speaking with a man by the register in low tones.   Emma
ignored the pair and went down an aisle that was marked “Fins-Frankincense”.  
Mia walked over to a tall stack of copper boilers near the counter.

“That’s
a rather large fee for a permit Greatlord…”  The little man behind the counter
was almost trembling, Mia could hear it in his voice.  She snuck a peek at the
Greatlord…all she could really see was his large back in a dark coat.   “The
new fees are necessary after that terrible mess with the potion maker’s guild
last month.   Since the guild has been incompetent in the management of potion
making, it is my duty to regulate it…for the good of the City, of course.”  
The little old man handed over three large gold coins, and the Greatlord passed
him a slip of paper.   “Display this in the store window so that it can be seen
from the outside.  The guards will avoid your shop while conducting raids for
faulty potions.”  The little man’s eyes widened, as the Greatlord smiled
toothily.   “You’ve made the right decision Dobbs.   I’d hate to see this place
after a raid.  The guard is only human, and they do tend to get a bit overzealous
when the health and welfare of the community is in question.”  He walked a few
feet toward the door and turned back.  “You can give your monthly renewal fee
to any guard who comes in to check up as the month wears on.   Save you a trip
to City Hall.”   

The
little man let his head sink into his hands for a moment, then turned his eyes
to Mia as she tried to look engrossed by the simple double boiler in front of
her.   Thankfully Emma chose that moment to walk up to the counter. 

“Emma!”  
The little man shed the look of despair instantly as he clutched Emma’s hand
(the one that wasn’t holding a deep red root and two baggies of herbs).  
“Dobbs.”  Emma grinned.   “How is business?”

The
little man hustled around the counter and pulled out a large basket.  “It’s
always good when you are in town!”   He grinned and Emma threw back her head
and laughed.   “You know me too well.”  She put the root and herbs in the
basket and extended her hand to Mia.  “Dobbs, I want you to meet Amelia
Rusticov, the child I’ve fostered all these years.”   The little man nodded
pleasantly.  “I suppose you’ll be going to college this year Miss?  All to the
good.   Once we get you settled, you can just send me lists of ingredients
through the year and I’ll have them sent up for you…you’ll be needing the full
starter pack then?”   He started down an aisle but Emma grinned at him.

“Don’t
be silly Dobbs.   I made sure Mia had plenty of herbs from Forestreach.  But
she isn’t your typical first year Alchemy student.”  Dobbs snorted.  “I should
hope not.” 

Emma
grinned.  “Quite right.  No my girl has been helping me gather rare herbs since
she was knee high.”  She pulled out the long list that Mia had made.  Dobbs’
eyes widened in delight.   “She’s got her school list of course, but I have a
few items myself.”   Emma grinned and Dobbs went to get the hand cart.

An
hour later Mia was debating cauldrons while Dobbs and Emma were chatting over
tea.    “I just prefer the cold-pressed oil for my most temperamental brews. 
It wouldn’t matter if I put the solvent extracted hippopotamus oil in a tummy
tantrum tonic but it might cause teal colored warts to pop up if I used it in a
sound amplification philter.”  Dobbs rolled his eyes.  “That’s what was causing
the warts!  I wish I’d know that a few weeks ago.”  He looked around the store
nervously.  “Greatlord Strathorne shut down three of my best customers last
month.” 

He
shook his head as he measured out powdered eel toes.  “The regulations for
potion-making in the City have really tightened up in the past year.”  He
looked around nervously.  “Not that I blame the Greatlord, mind.”  He seemed
much too eager to get that point across in Mia’s opinion.  “Some of these local
people were accused of putting the most appalling things in their potions,
trying to stretch them so they could sell less for more as it were…at least,
that’s what the Greatlord was claiming.”  There was something in his tone that
alerted Mia.  Emma crooked a brow.  “You don’t think they were actually doing
it?”   Dobbs adjusted his scale.  

“The
Greatlord certainly does, and I suppose that
has
to be good enough for
the rest of us.  There was certainly no open court so the rest of us could hear
the evidence…”  Emma frowned.  “There should have been.   And since when does
Strathorne regulate potion-making ingredients?   Where was the Guild?”  The
apothecary twitched.   “Greatlord Hudson is the current Guildmaster, and he
actually protested, but Greatlord Strathorne told him it was a matter of City
security, making it his problem.  Hudson backed off.”  The little man
shrugged.  “Who wouldn’t have?”  Dobbs added another pouch to the growing
stack.   “Aside from the Greatlord’s rather unsavory reputation…” he glanced at
Mia and looked back to Emma.  “Well…Strathorne has quite the reputation on the
dueling ground…and enough clout that they say he doesn’t always have to deal
with the normal regulations…”  Dobbs cleared his throat nervously.  “But apart
from all that, we have had several deaths due to faulty potions in the last
year alone.  And the rumors are that the potion makers were knowingly adding
rat pellets and pigeon droppings to their brews….”  He shook his head again.  
“We had a lot of sick people and the potions were certainly bought from those
potion makers…”  Emma’s eyes flashed to Mia’s face.  As always there was a
slight contraction around Mia’s heart when she thought about faulty potions…it
was how her mother died, after all.

Emma’s
tone became fierce.  “Serves them right then.  What sort of sentence did they
get?”  The apothecary nodded.  “The worst offender was banished; the other two
were ruined, paying damages to their ex-customers.”   He measured out a pint of
snake oil in an amber bottle.  “That should ride just fine back to Forestreach
if we wrap it in cloth.”  In between Emma and Mia, they bought so much that the
little apothecary offered to send the supplies on to their rooms free of
charge. 

Seven
days before the term began Mia received a note at breakfast.  Mrs. Sullivan’s serving
girl announced a footman dressed in College livery and wearing an antiquated
powdered wig.  He handed a heavy parchment note to Mia, who broke the seal with
no little surprise.  Who would be writing to her? 

She
mutely handed the note to Emma after reading it.  Emma respectfully told the
footman that they would be very pleased to have tea with Headmistress Villanova
this afternoon.  The man nodded his powdered head and left.  The wig didn’t
move an inch on his head.  A small portion of her mind wondered if he used a
spell or an adhesive. 

Mia picked
the heavy parchment up from the table and stammered “Why does she need to talk
to me?”  Emma glanced at her charge cryptically and then started buttering a
scone.   “You’ll never know until you go, though I expect it might have
something to do with all those stones you raised.”  She took a large bite and a
quick sip of tea.  “Now, we’d best be off if we’re going to do any shopping
today at all, and we need to buy the supplies for your music class.”

They
arrived back at the boarding house right before luncheon with newly purchased sheets
of piano and vocal music.  Mia put them in a corner in the growing pile of
school supplies.  If they bought much more the supplies were going to need
their own room.  Class began in three days.  Mia was looking forward to it, and
dreading Emma’s departure.

She
and Emma sat down to a quick luncheon.  Mia wished they’d caught a bite with a
street vender.  Mrs. Sullivan’s ideas about lady’s lunches ran heavy to cress
and cucumber sandwiches.  They tasted alright, but didn’t give one a lot to run
on.  The landlady’s teas and dinners were more satisfactory to Mia’s way of
thinking. 

After
they finished their light meal, they readied themselves for the upcoming
ordeal.  Dressed in one of her new school uniforms, Mia anxiously waited for
the hired cab to take them to the college.  Emma declared that three miles was
too far to walk, eyeing the shoes she’d chosen to wear this afternoon with some
dislike.  “These shoes were made for sitting.”  The healer’s black half boots
were neither fashionable nor comfortable, but they were in better shape than
the brown leather shoes she’d worn most of the summer.  Those comfortable moccasins
were little more than soft leather socks with a slightly thicker sole
attached.  Without doubt, they were the shoes of a country dweller.  They were
most often sported by woodsmen and hunters.