Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4) (16 page)

The path broadened as it led down into the village. Emily wrinkled her nose as the smell hit her, a combination of dirty animals and filthy humans that reminded her of some of the smaller hamlets she’d seen on the trip to Zangaria. Basic sanitation, it seemed, had never reached this village. The handful of locals she saw looked filthy, wearing clothes that wouldn’t even have been used as rags in Whitehall. A handful of children, too young to be put to any proper work, were gathered outside one of the houses, listening to a lecture from a man who looked old enough to be Emily’s great-grandfather.

The houses looked strange to her eyes. Most of them were built out of wood – there was no shortage of wood in the mountains – a handful were built using stone. She guessed they belonged to the handful of important men in the village; if they followed the same pattern as villages in Zangaria, there would be a headman who served as the village boss. But there would also be some degree of discussion among the older villagers, she suspected. The headman wasn’t powerful enough to keep
everyone
in line if they decided they wanted to get rid of him.

Lady Barb strode directly into the village, heading straight for a large stone house. A door opened and a man strode out, followed by a teenage boy. Emily found herself disliking both of them on sight; the older man had a greedy fleshy face, half-concealed behind a short reddish beard, while the boy made no attempt to hide the fact he was staring at her chest, even though her shirt was largely shapeless. She fought the urge to hide behind Lady Barb as the older man came to a halt in front of her and bowed, politely. Lady Barb nodded in return.

“My Lady Sorceress,” the older man said. “I bid you welcome to my village.”

Emily studied him thoughtfully. His clothes were obviously homemade, but they were slightly better than the clothes worn by the other villagers—they looked almost new, lacking the patched holes the other villagers showed on their clothes. He wore a thin gold chain around his neck, an oddly girlish decoration that – she suspected – marked him out as the headman.

“We thank you,” Lady Barb said. She indicated Emily with a nod. “This is my apprentice, Millie.”

“Charmed,” the younger man said.

His father gave him an indulgent smile. “My son, Hodge,” he said. “A fine young man.”

Emily kept her face expressionless, somehow. Hodge was a younger version of his father, save for not having a beard. She didn’t like the look in his eyes at all, or the way his gaze kept dropping to her chest and below. When he looked up again, she looked away, unwilling to meet his stare. It was a relief when the headman turned and led the way towards another stone building right in the center of the village.

“I will have food and drink sent to you,” the headman assured Lady Barb. “How long will you be staying?”

“Two to three days,” Lady Barb said. “We will start seeing people tomorrow.”

Her voice hardened. “And I trust there will be no delays this time?”

Emily gave her an enquiring look, but Lady Barb said nothing.

The guesthouse was larger than Emily had expected, yet it was all one room. There were two beds placed against one wall, a large pail of water and an empty bucket. It took her a moment to realize, with a shudder, that it was intended to serve as a chamberpot. At least they weren’t expected to go outside to do their business, she told herself. It wasn’t very reassuring.

“Set up the cauldron, then start brewing all of the potions, one by one,” Lady Barb ordered, as she erected wards around the guesthouse. “There should be ingredients in the cupboard. Make a list of everything you take and use. Someone will have to replace them, sooner or later.”

Emily nodded. “I will,” she said. “What was the delay?”

“Some people didn’t want their relatives to seek treatment,” Lady Barb told her. “The mountainfolk can be very secretive at times. And they often have things they want to hide.”

T
HE BED WAS UNCOMFORTABLE AND ITCHY
. Emily tossed and turned frantically for a couple of hours, despite her exhaustion, before giving up and taking a swig of sleeping potion. She still felt tired when Lady Barb poked her in the ribs, snapping her awake. Muttering curses under her breath, Emily rolled out of bed and glared down at her body. There were tiny insect bites covering her legs.

“Next time, set wards against them,” Lady Barb reminded her.

Emily groaned. She knew how to cast an insect-repelling ward, but she’d forgotten to set one before she went to bed.

“Rub a potion on them,” Lady Barb suggested. Her voice lightened. “There’s an anti-itching potion in my bag. Then get into your working robes.”

Emily nodded and did as she was told. Lady Barb didn’t seem fazed by their living conditions, but as a combat sorceress she’d seen much worse. The sergeants hadn’t insisted on camping in the middle of an insect nest, no matter how hard they’d made her march from Whitehall to a camping site and then back again. She wiped her body with cold water, then pulled on her robes. Thankfully, the charms on the robe would help keep other insects away.

“There’s food on the table,” Lady Barb added. “I let you sleep in a little. You needed it.”

The food turned out to be bread, milk and cheese. All three tasted stronger than anything she’d eaten at Whitehall, the cheese powerful enough to make her breathe through her mouth while she ate it. She guessed that they were all produced locally, rather than obtained from a larger town. The villagers would have to support themselves.

“They do,” Lady Barb confirmed, when Emily asked. “They have cows and sheep, as well as whatever they can hunt and kill in the forest. The real problems come in wintertime.”

Emily shivered. Snow hadn’t been a problem for Whitehall, but it would be murderous for isolated villages on mountainsides. She could imagine the snow pressing down until the villages were completely buried, their inhabitants frozen to death. They’d have to store enough food to keep themselves alive over the winter. And if they didn’t have enough, they would starve even if they didn’t freeze. Or have their hovels collapse in on them when the snow piled high on the roofs.

“Ouch,” she said, as she finished her meal. “Do the lords let them keep enough to live?”

Lady Barb smirked. “The villagers are very good at hiding food,” she said. “But if you should happen to notice a cache, keep your mouth shut.”

“Understood,” Emily said. If the local lords were anything like the Barons of Zangaria, the question wasn’t how much they took, but how much they let their peasants
keep
. “I won’t say a word.”

She cleaned up the table, then watched as Lady Barb filled the cauldron with water and boiled it with a simple spell. “We’ll be seeing people as soon as we open until dusk,” Lady Barb predicted. “I know you haven’t taken the oaths, but I suggest that you keep your mouth shut about anything you see here. If someone asks, point them to me.”

Emily nodded. Students who became healers took complex oaths, some binding them to secrecy and others preventing them from claiming obligations from their work. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be a healer, even though she’d mastered most of the basic healing spells, and no one had asked her to take the oaths. But she promised herself she’d keep her mouth shut anyway. No one would talk to a doctor if they thought the doctor would broadcast the news to the entire world.

There was already a small queue of people outside when Lady Barb opened the door. Emily watched as the first one, an elderly woman, was shown into the room and the door firmly shut behind her. The woman gave Emily a droll smile, then removed her skirt and sat down on the table without being asked. Her legs were marred with dark marks, as if she was bleeding under the skin.

“Old age,” Lady Barb said, very quietly to Emily. To the patient, she remarked; “It’s a wonder you’re still alive.”

“Too stubborn to die,” the old woman said. Her voice was cracked and broken, but Emily could hear grim determination in her tone. “I’ve outlived four lords and I would like to outlive a fifth.”

Emily watched as Lady Barb cast a healing spell, doing what she could. “Your body is slowly breaking down,” she said. “I don’t think it can stay active for much longer.”

The woman shrugged, stood upright and pulled her skirt back on. Emily felt an odd sense of queasy fascination as the woman nodded to her and hobbled towards the door. Lady Barb opened it, allowed her to leave and then invited the next person inside. He was a young boy, holding his arm as though it pained him.

“See what you make of it,” Lady Barb said, addressing Emily. She looked at the boy and smiled at him. “Don’t worry. My assistant will take care of it.”

Emily gulped. Healing was complex; she might not be
bad
at it, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to test her skills on a young boy. He couldn’t be older than ten, she decided, as she placed her fingertips on his arm – he gasped in pain – and cast the first spell. Sensations flooded through her mind, telling her that he’d broken his arm and then had it badly set by a mundane doctor. He’d been incredibly lucky not to wind up a cripple, which would have ensured an early death. The villagers wouldn’t be able to provide for a cripple.

“Good work,” Lady Barb said, when Emily explained what she’d found. “Now...fix it.”

Emily braced herself and cast the second spell. Most healing spells tended to deal with the immediate problem, but in this case there were other problems that might only be made worse if she sealed the bone back into place. The body
wanted
to heal, she’d been told, yet if the damage remained untended long enough the body might come to believe that was the natural state of affairs. Emily slowly returned the bone to where it should be before carefully repairing the rest of the damage.

She settled backwards with a sigh, feeling tired and exhausted. And to think that was only her first patient!

“Stay still,” Lady Barb said. She checked Emily’s work, and nodded in approval. “Good work.”

Emily flushed in relief.

“Take this potion for now,” Lady Barb directed the boy, “then come back this evening if you are still sore.”

The boy nodded, sat upright and scurried towards the door. Emily watched him go, silently praying she hadn’t missed anything.

Lady Barb reached out and squeezed her hand gently, then called for the next patient. An alarmingly thin woman, obviously pregnant, crept in as if she expected to be attacked at any moment. Lady Barb stood, helped her to sit down, and checked on the baby with practiced ease.

“I think he’ll be coming out in a few more days,” she said. The woman relaxed with obvious relief. “But you need to eat more and avoid heavy activity.”

The woman snorted. Emily saw her point. The villagers might make some allowances for a pregnant woman, but they couldn’t afford to have anyone just doing nothing. For all she knew, the woman was expected to go straight back to housework and the other endless chores village women did. They were expected to do everything from cook to sewing new clothes for their families. No peasant woman could afford to laze around like a lady aristocrat.

“It could easily be worse,” Lady Barb said, as the woman left the room, closing the door behind her. “I’ve seen children strangled in the womb when the umbilical cord wraps around their neck, suffocating them. They’re often still in the womb until delivery, but when they are delivered they’re dead. Even magic can’t bring them back to life.”

Emily shuddered. Pregnancy wasn’t something she’d thought much about, even though she knew it was her duty to deliver an heir for Cockatrice. On Earth, there were midwives to help with the birth and technology that could tell a baby was in trouble before it was too late. But here...death in childbirth was far from uncommon.

If the woman had needed emergency help, could they have helped her? She’d never practiced helping someone to give birth.

The next few patients were simpler, thankfully. Lady Barb inspected them, used some magic to heal their damage and then lectured her patients on being more careful next time. Some of the damage reminded Emily of battered students after Martial Magic, although Sergeant Miles had normally healed any damage as soon as the class had finished. Here...if there was fighting, there would be no one to help the injured. One man had even lost an eye.

“I can’t repair your damaged eye,” Lady Barb told him, tartly. “What
happened
to it?”

The man shrugged. He’d been in the pub, he explained, and a fight had broken out. He didn’t remember what the fight had actually been about, only that he’d enjoyed himself and wanted to do it again. Emily looked at him and shook her head. What was the point of battering one’s fellow villagers to a pulp, then doing it again and again?

“They don’t have much else to do with their lives,” Lady Barb told her, once the patient had departed. “They work with the animals, grow their small crops, sing and dance...and drink alcohol they produce themselves. None of them can read or write and they’d be suspicious of anyone who could, even us. Readers and writers work for the lords.”

Emily nodded. Zangaria might have avoided the stifling bureaucracies of Earth, but it
did
have a network of educated men who kept careful tabs on what the peasants
should
be able to produce each year. They were intensely hated, if only because their predictions didn’t always jibe with reality – and, naturally, their predictions were never wrong. Banishing them from Cockatrice had been one of Emily’s first decisions, when she’d finally worked out just how baleful an influence they were. It had made her very popular with her subjects.

They paused for lunch, then handled the next set of patients. Most of them had minor injuries – she guessed that the headman had done some organizing – but a couple seemed reluctant to talk to either of the magicians. Lady Barb had to point out, sardonically, that they could hardly heal someone if they didn’t know what was wrong before the men confessed to having problems with their private parts. Emily looked away, embarrassed, as Lady Barb inspected the damage, then promised to brew potions to handle the problem. She washed her hands thoroughly as soon as the men went out the door.