Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4) (40 page)

She couldn’t help wondering just how far Lord Gorham had gone to ensure his son had
experience
. Had he paid the maids extra to put out for him?

“I still felt nothing,” Rudolf said. “But I started to notice men instead. My father’s huntsman, some of the soldiers...I couldn’t help thinking and dreaming about them. And then...”

“You did it with someone,” Emily guessed.

She’d known one boy at school who’d come out of the closet – and that had been in a fairly liberal society. He’d still been teased and tormented mercilessly by his peers. In hindsight, it was easy enough to see that most of them had been worried that it was catching, but it hadn’t been easy for him.

But it would be far worse in a society where everyone expected him to get to work and produce an heir. Whoever had...done it with him would be in a position to blackmail Rudolf for the rest of his life. Or, for that matter, someone who caught them together.

“I did,” Rudolf said. He smiled, suddenly. “It took a while to learn how, but we did. And...”

Emily hastily held up her hand. She’d overheard enough boys bragging about their sexual conquests – real and imaginary – to know that she didn’t want to hear the gory details. If there was one thing the magicians of Whitehall had in common with their counterparts from Earth, it was bragging endlessly about sex. And magicians enjoyed a far greater sexual freedom than anyone else.

“So you were so fixated on men that the runes couldn’t get a grip on your mind,” Emily said. She wondered, absently, what would have happened if Lady Easter had a son. Would Rudolf have wanted to marry
him
? “And you fled, rather than tell your father the truth.”

Rudolf looked up at her. “Wouldn’t you?”

Emily winced, inwardly. That hit far too close to home.

“He’d want to take me to a healer,” Rudolf said. “Someone who could make me...normal.”

He met her eyes. “Is that even possible?”

“I don’t know,” Emily hedged. Subtle magic obviously hadn’t worked. More direct compulsion spells and charms might work, but they came with a cost. “It would be much simpler for you to marry someone, then transfer sperm without sex. You could then let her have freedom to do whatever she wants.”

Rudolf’s face reddened again. “You do realize that my wife couldn’t take a lover?”

Emily met his eyes. “Why not? Isn’t that what you want for yourself?”

Rudolf started to splutter. “It would suggest that I couldn’t control my wife,” he mumbled, embarrassed. “And if I couldn’t control her, it would suggest I couldn’t control my kingdom.”

“Oh,” Emily said, sardonically. “It’s all about
control
.”

It was, she knew. The obsession with legitimate heirs was bad enough, but few people in the mountains would be able to comprehend someone
letting
his wife look for love and romance elsewhere. He was right; they
would
take it as a sign of weakness. And the villagers weren’t much different – or were they? She’d seen battered wives and wives who were quite prepared to keep their husbands in line through force.

“Yes,” Rudolf confirmed. “It is.” He paused. “My parents grew to love one another,” he added. “Is it wrong to want such a relationship for myself?”

Emily winced in sympathy.

Rudolf looked back down at the table. “Can you make me normal?”

Emily gave him a sharp look. She had no idea if homosexuals were produced by nature or nurture, but given how far Lord Gorham had gone she suspected the former. In that case, Rudolf’s nature would be clashing with a culture that told him that homosexuality was disgusting, as well as a despised sign of weakness. If homosexuals on Earth could get twisted between two contradictory points, why not homosexuals from a far more restrained culture?

“I think it would break your mind to try,” she said, gently. Maybe he could be charmed into preferring women, but the charm would be pushing against his nature. “Do you feel nothing for women at all?”

“Nothing,” Rudolf confirmed.

On Earth, there were people who would advise a homosexual – and provide assistance, if necessary. They would even help talk to parents who were less than accepting of their son’s homosexuality. But there was no one here...and Lord Gorham had more important problems than homophobia. If his son was unable to produce a grandchild, he would have to cast around for some other solution, just to keep the succession intact.

“Then my honest advice, again, would be to marry someone who won’t mind bearing a child and then being ignored,” Emily said. Ideally, he should marry a lesbian. Oddly – or perhaps it wasn’t so odd – the guidebooks had mentioned nothing about lesbians. “And you would have to be honest with her from the start.”

Rudolf blinked. “Honest?”

“Women are told that men are sex-mad fiends,” Emily said, remembering drunken remarks by her mother. “If you don’t
act
like you’re interested, she’ll
know
you’re not interested and start wondering why. And then she would be in a position to embarrass you.”

Or
, she thought silently,
would you lock her up to keep her from talking
?

Could a wife be kept as a prisoner? The culture of the mountains insisted that a bride moved from her father’s house to her husband’s, who assumed complete responsibility for her. There were few aristocratic fathers who would challenge a lord over the treatment of his daughter. Why not? Daughters existed to forge ties of blood, not wield power...

“You could marry me,” Rudolf said. “As a magician, you would be a social equal.”

Emily gaped at him, then shook her head. “Millie” could marry him – a common-born apprentice could hardly hope to do better, if she wanted to marry into the local aristocracy – but Baroness Emily had more lands and money than Lord Gorham. At the very least, it would cause all sorts of problems; King Randor would probably have to approve the match, which he wouldn’t unless he benefited in some way. And it was hard to see how he could.

“I think you want someone who already knows,” she said. “But it wouldn’t be a very satisfying relationship for me.”

It had its advantages, she had to admit...but she shoved the thought back into the back of her mind. Maybe, if she’d been so totally repulsed by men, she would have considered it. But she had been friends with Jade...

“I did,” Rudolf said, shamefaced. “Do you know any magician who would be interested?”

Emily remembered Hodge’s claim that magicians – female magicians – had no restraints on their activities. She wondered, briefly, if she
did
know any lesbians. Statistically, there was a good chance that there were more than a handful at Whitehall. But she didn’t know who they were...and even if she did, would they be interested in spending the rest of their lives in a cold castle in the middle of nowhere?

“I don’t think so,” she said. “What are you going to do now?”

“I think I need to speak with your mistress, then go home,” Rudolf said. “Can I stay here?”

Emily nodded, relieved. It was easier for him to stay willingly than doing something to keep him prisoner. Besides, they could chat about something else.

“Tell me,” she said. “Why did you come here?”

“I had the idea that I could talk Lady Easter out of accepting me as a husband for her daughter,” Rudolf said. “But then I realized just how hard it would be to get into the castle and decided to wait for an opportunity.”

“Your father knows better now,” Emily reassured him. “But you really should talk to him more openly, before he arranges a match with someone less...provocative.”

Rudolf nodded and changed the subject. He was smarter and more knowledgeable than the princes who’d tried to court Alassa, Emily decided, although there were some curious gaps in his knowledge. Rudolf could recite family relationships for every aristocrat within the mountains, but knew almost nothing about the other aristocracies in the Allied Lands, even though they were prospective marriage partners. But somehow Emily doubted that a king’s younger son – assuming he had one – would be interested in marrying into the mountain families.

“Father always said that reading too much was bad,” Rudolf said, at one point. “Is that actually true?”

“Depends what you read,” Emily grunted. Her stepfather had said the same thing, which had only spurred her determination to read every book she could find. “You have to keep an open mind – but not too open. Or bad ideas might come crawling in.”

Rudolf laughed. “But how do you tell a bad idea?”

Emily shrugged.
Anything
could be made to sound convincing with a little effort, particularly if the reader didn’t know enough to notice the omissions. Politicians on Earth had specialized in making two plus two equal five, with a little careful dancing.

She found herself enjoying the discussion more than she’d expected, but a nagging worry slowly grew stronger in her breast. Where
was
Lady Barb? Emily stood and made dinner for both of them, silently thanking God that Lady Barb had brought enough food for several days, then left some of it on the stove. When Lady Barb returned, she’d want food...

But, by nightfall, Lady Barb had not returned.

E
MILY HALF-EXPECTED TO SEE LADY BARB
when she opened her eyes the following morning, as soon as a rooster outside began to welcome the sun. But the blankets by the side of the bed were untouched, as were the wards she’d erected to protect the bedroom. Pulling herself to her feet, she stumbled through the wards and peered towards the fire. Perhaps Lady Barb was there...

But the only person in the room was Rudolf, snoring so loudly that Emily was surprised he hadn’t kept her awake.

She checked the outside wards and discovered that no one had passed through them since Rudolf, yesterday afternoon. Lady Barb hadn’t returned, then; she might have left Emily’s wards alone, but not chosen to stay outside the house all night. Emily put the cauldron over the kitchen fire and started to boil water, thinking hard. Lady Barb hadn’t returned and that meant...what?

There’s a necromancer – a suspected necromancer – out there
, Emily thought.

Yes, Lady Barb was good at hiding, but if she got caught she would have to fight a necromancer at knife-range, making it almost impossible to escape. What if she’d been killed – or captured? An adult combat sorceress would be a tempting source of magic for any necromancer, while no one else would take the risk of keeping Lady Barb alive.

I should have taken the full master-apprentice link
, she thought, bitterly. She would have been able to find Lady Barb with ease – or know she was dead – if she’d taken the bond. But she hadn’t been planning to stay an apprentice for longer than two months, instead of the full two-year period. And dissolving the bond ahead of time tended to cause unforeseen repercussions.

She finished boiling the water, then prepared two mugs of Kava out of habit. Rudolf snorted, then sat upright, looking around as if he wasn’t quite sure where he was. Emily winked at him, then used a spell to levitate the first mug over towards where he was sitting. Rudolf’s eyes went wide, then he took the drink and sipped it. She had to smile at his expression. It was rare for anyone to drink Kava in the mountains, according to Lady Barb.

“Thank you,” Rudolf said, doubtfully. “Didn’t she come back?”

Emily shook her head, more worried than she cared to admit. If Lady Barb had been killed...what should she do? What
could
she do? Part of her wanted to head out of the mountains and summon help, but the other part of her wanted to go after the older woman and avenge her death. If she were dead, that is…it was possible to hold a magician helpless, if you knew how to do it. Emily had been stripped of her magic once and found it disconcerting, even though she’d spent her first sixteen years without magic.

“Eat the rest of the stew,” she said, feeling a twinge of guilt. There was no way she could abandon Lady Barb, at least as long as she didn’t
know
the older woman was dead. “Then we need to go talk to the headman.”

The air was cold as they stepped out of the guesthouse and started to walk towards the center of town. Emily couldn’t help noticing that there were only a handful of people on the streets, glancing around as though they expected something nasty to be following them. They gave Emily and Rudolf a wide berth, making signs to ward off evil when they thought Emily wasn’t looking.

Do they think,
she asked herself,
that Lady Barb is responsible for stealing their children? Or are they just fearful of magicians?

She gritted her teeth as she walked past the guards and into the headman’s hut.
This
headman looked alarmingly like Imaiqah’s father, complete with the pleasant expression that masked a very sharp mind. His wife looked bigger, with a gleam in her eye that suggested she was just as cool and calculating as some of Zangaria’s noblewomen. An equal, Emily realized, feeling oddly relieved. This woman wouldn’t hesitate to tell her husband when he was making a mistake.

“Lady Sorceress,” the headman said. His gaze shifted to Rudolf. “And...?”

“A wandering minstrel, I,” Rudolf said, with practiced ease. “And sometimes a guide.”

Emily fought to keep her face expressionless. Minstrels were common in Zangaria – some of them were very good, some of them were so appallingly bad that she’d wanted to turn them into birds – but rather less common in the mountains. But they also wandered from place to place, bringing news and rumors. As covers went, she had to admit that it wasn’t a bad one. Like most noblemen, Rudolf had been taught how to sing.

The headman didn’t seem too pleased – and his wife looked worried. Emily remembered how Reginald had seduced a girl in the last village and realized that they thought that Rudolf would do the same. The thought made her smile. Rudolf wouldn’t be interested in any of the girls in the village, but would any of them think to chaperone him with the men?

“My mistress has not returned,” Emily said shortly, pushing the thought aside. There was no time for politeness. “Do you know where she went?”