Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4) (7 page)

“Go tomorrow,” Lady Barb said, firmly. “Not tonight.”

Emily opened her mouth to argue – the longer she delayed, the easier it would be to have second thoughts – but she saw the glint in Lady Barb’s eye and nodded in submission. She would have to send Jade a message, she knew, or call after him...but she didn’t know where to find either Jade or Master Grey. Lady Barb caught her shoulder and steered her towards the open air, then out past the tents. Emily realized, as they made their way around the edge of the Faire, that they were heading back towards Lady Barb’s house.

“There are things I need to show you,” Lady Barb said, shortly. “And you may not be in any fit state for anything tonight.”

Emily swallowed. What did Lady Barb have in mind? She had warned Emily that they would be keeping up with her lessons in unarmed combat, training her to fight without magic or blades, but she didn’t mean to do it today, surely? Or had Master Grey annoyed her to the point where she wanted to work it out somehow? But Emily knew, without false modesty, that she was no match for the older woman.

Lady Barb said nothing else until they were back inside her house. She led the way into a living room, which looked oddly informal. The chairs scattered around in front of the fire were old, but comfortable. Emily liked the room on sight. It might not be anywhere near as elegant as the aristocratic chambers she’d seen, but it seemed more suited to Lady Barb somehow.

“Take a seat,” Lady Barb ordered. She perched on a cushion, folding her hands in her lap. “Do you want something to drink?”

Emily shook her head as she sat down facing her tutor. Lady Barb seemed tense, unsure – for once – of what to do. It bothered Emily more than she cared to admit. The Mimic might have left them all a little unsure of what was happening, but Lady Barb had recovered from that experience quicker than anyone else. But now she was unsure again...

“My father was the youngest son of the family patriarch,” Lady Barb said. “He wasn’t a powerful sorcerer, so he tended to spend most of his time in the library. Not that he was incompetent, of course. Given time, he could still beat his older brothers.”

Emily nodded. Stupid and incompetent magicians didn’t tend to last very long – and a magician lacking in raw power wasn’t necessarily a pushover. Someone with enough knowledge and skill could make up for a shortage in power, particularly if he or she had time to prepare the battleground in advance. Sergeant Miles had taught her more than a few tricks she could use against a stronger opponent, if she was forced to fight against her will.

But she had no idea why Lady Barb was telling her this,
now
.

“One day, he met a Traveller witch in the woods,” Lady Barb added. “They became lovers – and she became pregnant. Nine months later, she left me on the doorstep and ran off.”

Emily stared at her. “Why?”

“There are different...traditions in magic, as you know,” Lady Barb said. “My mother believed that I should be raised by my father, which I was. His family weren’t too pleased at first, but when they discovered I was quite powerful they changed their tune.” She rolled her eyes. “I grew up here until I was twelve, when my mother returned and asked to take custody of me for a few years. My father exploded with rage.”

“I’m not surprised,” Emily said. She could imagine exactly how Lady Barb’s father had felt. He’d raised his daughter, taught her everything from magic to letters and numbers, and then her mother had come back into his life and demanded custody, if only for a short while. It was utterly outrageous. “What happened?”

“There was a big shouting match,” Lady Barb said. Her lips twitched. “I overheard most of it, particularly when my grandfather joined in. In the end, I was allowed to go stay with my mother for the summer months.”

She shrugged. “The Travellers have a very light existence, but it isn’t an unpleasant one,” she added. “I rather enjoyed it, once I got used to living in a wagon and moving from place to place. My mother wasn’t a powerful witch, but she knew how to brew potions and use small magic. I learned a great deal from her.”

Emily remembered all the times she’d fantasized about her father – her biological father – coming back to take her away and shivered. Lady Barb hadn’t been unhappy, growing up with her father; if there had been a real custody battle it might easily have torn the family apart. But things were different for magical families...who knew? Perhaps they would just have booted Barb’s mother out of the house and told her never to come back.

“When I was sixteen, they offered me the chance to choose between Whitehall, Mountaintop or homeschooling,” Lady Barb continued. “I chose Whitehall. Most of my relatives were homeschooled, but I didn’t want to go straight into the family. Mountaintop seemed more ominous to me, for some reason. Most magical families send their children there.”

She snorted. “It turned out that I had a natural talent for healing,” she admitted. “Or so they said. My mother forced me to learn how to take care of patients while I was studying with her. It was simple to add magic to the mix once my powers developed properly. I don’t think it was a real talent. And I had to fight tooth and nail to convince them that I could become a combat sorceress. They didn’t want to risk a skilled healer.”

Emily heard the cold ice in Lady Barb’s voice and shivered. She’d been told, more than once, that careers in magic were often determined by a person’s talents...and if Lady Barb had looked like a skilled healer, Whitehall wouldn’t have wanted to steer her away from healing.

She looked up at the older woman. “Why did you want to become a Combat Sorceress?”

Lady Barb looked at her for a long chilling moment. “I grew up here,” she said, waving her hand around to indicate the house. “It was safe and warm, particularly for children. The worst danger was accidentally picking up something magical and we were taught, almost as soon as we could walk, to be careful what we touched. And my father was a decent man.

“Spending time with my mother was an eye-opener. I learned that people outside weren’t safe, that they were preyed on by those stronger than themselves...I had the idea that I could protect the weak and powerless, if I learned how to fight. And I was good at it.”

Emily nodded. “Why didn’t you apply to replace Sergeant Bane?”

Lady Barb scowled. “It’s untraditional for training officers to be women,” she said, darkly. “Young men tend to need more thumping before they learn to respect women as warriors – and most trainees are young men. Most of them are idiotic enough to convince themselves that they must’ve held back when they faced a woman on the training field, no matter how convincingly they were thrashed. But I may well return for Third or Fourth Year to give you additional training.”

Emily considered it. She hadn’t noticed any of the male students at Whitehall giving the female teachers grief, but most of the teachers – even Master Tor – knew their subjects well enough to convince their students not to mess with them. But Martial Magic, which was half physical exercise, might be a harder class for a woman to teach. There were only a handful of girls in the class and all of them were worked to the bone. The sergeants didn’t hold back for them.

“Stupid,” she said, finally.

“Very stupid,” Lady Barb agreed. “After I graduated from Whitehall, I was apprenticed to a sorcerer, learned the ropes and gained my mastery. And then I met Void.”

Emily nodded, remembering what she’d been told.

“Master Grey doesn’t seem to like me,” she said, changing the subject hastily. “What did I do to him?”

“Distracted Jade, I imagine,” Lady Barb said. “It isn’t customary for apprentices to maintain relationships outside of the apprenticeship. Most apprentices cut themselves off from everyone else during their training. Master Grey is enough of a traditionalist to be irked at you distracting his student.”

Emily flushed. “I didn’t mean to distract his student!”

Lady Barb laughed, not unkindly. “I wouldn’t worry about it,” she advised. “Here, in the Faire, there will be time for you and Jade to talk properly, without interruption.”

“Thank you,” Emily said. “Can I ask a question?”

“You just did,” Lady Barb pointed out. She smirked, then grinned at Emily. “Go ahead.”

Emily braced herself. “Are you married?”

Lady Barb lifted her eyebrows. “Tell me,” she said, “do you see a husband around here?”

Emily felt her cheeks heat, but she pressed on. “It’s just...you’re...your family will want you to get married, won’t it?”

“I never found the right person,” Lady Barb said, taking pity on her. “There was a Combat Sorcerer I met once, but he died in battle against the necromancers. Since then, no one has really managed to impress me. And my family knows better than to try to push me into anything.”

“That’s good,” Emily said. “Where are they?”

“My father died a long time ago,” Lady Barb admitted. There was a bitterness in her tone that made Emily sit up and take notice. “My mother...I haven’t seen her in years. She might well be dead by now too. I inherited the house and little else. My uncles sometimes try to talk me into spending more time with the family, but I don’t listen to them very often. They weren’t always kind to my father.”

She shrugged. “We may meet some of them over the coming week,” she added. “It would probably be best to make sure they don’t know who you are, Millie.”

Emily nodded. She couldn’t help wondering if Lady Barb had an ulterior motive for chatting about her past, although Emily
had
been curious. Lady Barb was an intensely private person in many ways, rarely telling anyone much about herself. For her to open up so much...either she wanted Emily to know or she had something else in mind.

“I have something to teach you,” Lady Barb said, standing up. “But I think we should eat lunch first. You will need energy for this.”

Emily stood and followed her into the kitchen. Lady Barb opened a set of cabinets, canceled a series of stasis spells and produced bread, cheese and ham, which she placed on the table. Emily started to carve up the bread to make sandwiches, while Lady Barb boiled soup. It was a simple meal, certainly compared to the aristocratic feasts, but Emily didn’t mind. Besides, the aristocracy often seemed to be competing to win a prize for worst table manners in the world.

“Good work,” Lady Barb said, as she placed a bowl of chicken soup in front of Emily. “The last person I brought here didn’t know how to help at all.”

Emily felt an odd flicker of jealousy. “Who was he?”

“He suffered a nasty accident and I found myself detailed to look after him for a few months,” Lady Barb said. “If you’re cooped up with someone, you either get very close or you wind up hating each other. I definitely ended up hating him, even though it wasn’t entirely fair.”

She shrugged. “Eat up,” she ordered. “You are going to need your strength.”

Emily nodded and tucked into the food. The prospect of learning new magic always gave her an appetite. Besides, she’d learned from the sergeants that she should always eat when she had the chance. She might not have the chance again.

“W
HAT I’M ABOUT TO SHOW YOU
,” Lady Barb said, as they walked back to the library, “is rarely shown to anyone beneath Fifth Year. In fact, the senior tutors can decide that a certain pupil should
never
be told about this kind of magic, let alone taught how to do it safely. You must not discuss it with your friends, ever.”

Emily gave her a sharp look. “So why are you teaching it to me?”

“Because you will probably wind up rediscovering it for yourself,” Lady Barb said, as she stopped in front of a bookshelf. “And because it has been decided to push your education forward as fast as possible. And because you should be able to handle it now.”

Emily hesitated. “Will you get in trouble for teaching me?”

“I’d prefer not to discuss it with anyone,” Lady Barb admitted. “The Grandmaster is the only other person who knows and he gave his approval.”

She pressed her hand against the bookshelf. There was a dull rumbling sound and the entire bookshelf retreated backwards and to the side, revealing a darkened stairwell leading down into the bowels of the earth. Lady Barb cast a light-spell, illuminating the stone stairs, then started to walk down into the darkness. Emily hesitated again, then followed her, pressing one hand against the stone wall. It reminded her uncomfortably of Shadye’s fortress in the Blighted Land, but now she could sense the magic running through the stone. Something – or someone – was constrained down below.

“You are free to back out at any time,” Lady Barb called back, as she reached the bottom of the stairs. “There are magicians, including some quite powerful ones, who cannot commit themselves to any form of ritual. Their own doubts and fears make it impossible. If you want to back out, just say so. I won’t be upset.”

Emily swallowed as she stepped into the stone chamber. It was dark, so dark that the darkness seemed to absorb the light from the spell. A moment later, the spell flickered out completely and Emily froze, trapped in the darkness. It took her several seconds to realize that there was a faint blue glow from the floor...and several seconds more to realize that the glow emanated from runes carved into the stone. Some of them she recognized, others were completely unfamiliar. They surrounded a glowing blue circle in the center of the room.

She found her voice. “What is this place?”

“A modified spellchamber,” Lady Barb said. There was a grim note to her voice that suggested that she, too, had doubts. “My great-grandfather built it, back before he was shipped off to an isolated island to carry out his research in private. It’s been tested extensively since then, but I haven’t used it very often.”

Emily nodded. A spellchamber was nothing more than a safe place to practice spells...looking around, she could see that most of the runes were designed to channel magic away from the circle, allowing the spell to be cast without interference. But this chamber was far stronger than the chambers she’d used at Whitehall. The closer she stepped to the circle, the harder it was to sense any ambient magic in the air at all.