First Witch's Tale

Chapter Two

The magician and I stared at each other for a long moment.

He was a tall man, taller than me, with short blond hair and a simple neatly trimmed moustache that would have made my father and his peers chuckle and ask - perhaps not to his face - if he couldn’t raise a beard. His eyes were bright blue, meeting mine with surprising equanimity; his body lacked the scars of a lifetime on the farm, but had marks of its own that suggested magic was far from a safe occupation. He leaned on a battered wooden staff that had clearly seen better days - I suspected, from the way he was slouching against the staff, that he didn’t really need it. His clothes were a strange mixture of practical and fanciful. He wore a loose shirt and trousers, the kind of garb that would be worn by any apprentice craftsman, but they were of finer quality than anything I’d seen in my entire life. It was hard, almost impossible, to guess his age. I thought he was younger than my father, but appearances could be deceptive. I learnt, later, that he was a couple of years older than my father.

“Good morning,” the magician said. His voice was oddly accented, and he spoke like a well-born craftsman, but I had no trouble understanding him. “I am Bernard De Born. Might I enquire as to your name?”

I swallowed hard, suddenly all too aware of my lack of education. I knew how I should present myself, if I ever came to the attention of the local nobility, but I had no idea how I should address a magician. He seemed friendly, yet … I cursed under my breath. Should I bow? Should I knew? Prostrate myself? Or what?

“I am Janis, my Lord,” I managed. Was that the right approach? Or was I about to blasted for being cheeky? I had heard stories of young boys crippled by passing noblemen for not getting out of the way quickly enough, if they even bothered with an excuse. “Is this Whitehall?”

The magician smiled, as if I had asked a very stupid question. “This is Whitehall, Janis,” he said. “You must have come a very long way.”

I nodded, suddenly aware – too - of just how terrible I looked. My clothes were torn and tattered, my hair dripping out of my scarf and spilling around my shoulders. I should have donned male guise, but I doubted it would have fooled anyone … and it might have been worse for me if it had. I didn’t look like a prospective apprentice. I looked like someone who had been living in the forest for the last year.

“I came from Bramble Fire,” I said. I knew even as I spoke that he would never have heard of my home village. It was one of many such villages that were barely known outside the district. “I … My Lord, I … I heard Whitehall was taking female students.”

“Did you now?” Bernard De Born’s expression gave nothing away. “And where did you hear that?”

I felt a sudden terrible fear that my entire journey had been for nothing. “A peddler passed through the village. He told us that the school was accepting students, people willing to be educated in the new way of magic. He said there were female students already and that … and that any who went would be welcome. I …”

My legs buckled. “I have nowhere else to go.”

“It is true the risks of teaching magic to women, and encouraging them to use it, have been much reduced,” he said. His tone was flat, his face unreadable. “But we have no female students. Julianne … is not precisely a student.”

My heart sank. “Then let me be the first!”

He smiled, just for a second. “You have nerve. I’ll grant you that, if nothing else. But do you have the stubbornness, and determination, to succeed in magic? To learn the trade without shortcuts, the kind of shortcuts that are explicitly forbidden within the school? To bear the burden of knowledge, knowledge that will cut you off from your relatives … perhaps forever? If you step through these doors, your life will never be the same again.”

“My relatives don’t want to see me again,” I said. I feared it was true, even though my father hadn’t actually kicked me out and disowned me. “I really don’t have anywhere else to go.”

The magician pointed north. “There’s a small town on the other side of the mountains,” he said. “You could go there and live there, if you wish. You will be safe.”

“I don’t want to be safe,” I said. The magic bubbled within me. “I want to learn magic.”

“I see.” Bernard De Born met my eyes. “What happened?”

I hesitated, unsure what - if anything - I should say. I knew what he was asking. He wanted to know how I had discovered I had magic, why my family might have disowned me. I didn’t want to talk about it, but I feared I had no choice. Lying wasn’t an option. I had the feeling the magician would spot a lie as quickly as my father. And if I lied to him …

“There was a young man,” I said, finally. My heart twisted. I would have been happy with David, if things had been different. “We went walking out together. He … he tried to kiss me and I panicked and my magic sparked … and I hurt him. I didn’t mean to hurt him and yet … since then, I’ve been practising, but … I want to learn how to use magic. My magic.”

“You’ve been practising,” Bernard De Born said. “What can you do?”

I hesitated again. No one had caught me practising magic in the village. If they had … I would be lucky if they had only beat me halfway to death and thrown whatever was left of me out to die. Father would have had no choice but to kick me out – or worse. I would have sooner undressed in front of an audience, than performed magic in front of a stranger. And yet … I had to prove I was worth taking on as a student and apprentice. I held out my hand, cupping my palm, and concentrated. A flame appeared, dancing above my skin without ever quite touching it, and grew rapidly. Bernard looked impressed, just for a second. I hoped that was a good sign.

“Crude,” he said. “But effective.”

I nodded, the flames flickering and dying as I lost my grip on the power. My legs wobbled unsteadily as the last of the flames vanished, a grim reminder that pushing myself too far was dangerous. I had discovered the hard way that trying to experiment too much was asking for trouble. I had been very lucky not to faint in the forest, so far from the village that it was unlikely anyone would find me before I died of exposure. Or worse. If they realised what had been doing …

“You have potential,” Bernard De Born said. “Come with me.”

He turned and led the way through the gap in the wall. I hesitated, then forced my wobbly legs to follow him. Magic sparkled around me, growing stronger as we made our way towards the castle. It towered over us, so large I had difficulty believing it was even real. The largest building I had seen in my entire life was a longhouse belonging to an extended family, with room for over forty men, women, and children, but the castle made it look tiny. I got dizzy just looking up at the sheer immensity of the building. It was difficult, if not impossible, to believe it was made by human hands. I learnt, later, that no one knew who had really built the castle. It had been deserted when Lord Whitehall arrived to lay claim to the nexus point and name the castle after himself.

Bernard kept walking, but reduced his pace so I could look around. It was just too big. The hallway was immense, the stone corridors large enough for three or four men to walk abreast comfortably, the handful of teaching halls seemingly big enough for much bigger classes. I spotted a number of young men practising their spells, watched carefully by older magicians. There were no women. I wondered, suddenly, if Bernard was going to get into trouble bringing me into the castle. It was unusual for women to be allowed to enter the headman’s hut when he was passing judgement, after extensive consultation with the village elders. I had certainly never been allowed to enter myself, even after what had happened to David.

I swallowed, then asked. “Will your master be angry if you bring me to him?”

The magician chuckled, as if I had said something funny. “I shall have a few sharp words with myself later,” he said. “I am the master of the school.”

My complexion, thankfully, hid my embarrassment. And confusion. Lord Bernard was the master of the school? What had happened to Lord Whitehall? And what … I pushed the thought out of my head as Lord Bernard led me into an office and pointed me at a chair. My stomach growled uncomfortably as I sat, reminding me it had been too long since I had eaten something. Anything. Lord Bernard shot me a sympathetic look, then snapped his fingers. A young woman entered a moment later, bearing a tray of food. I hesitated, even as the food was placed in front of me. I had been cautioned never to eat food without a clear invitation.

“Please, eat,” Lord Bernard said. The servant retreated and returned a moment later the second tray, which she placed in front of her master. “A magician has to eat to power his spells. We discovered that a long time ago.”

“I never knew,” I muttered. The stew in front of me looked and smelled delicious. The bread was clearly new, baked only a few short hours ago. I was very familiar with stews intended to use up the last of the slaughtered animal, but this … I shook my head as I started to eat, hoping I wasn’t making a bad impression. “No one ever told me …”

“No one told me either, until …” Bernard shook his head. “What else do you know about magic?”

I took a bite of bread, trying to compose an answer. “Very little. I was told magic was inherently dangerous, that men who practised magic could be very dangerous and women shouldn’t practice magic at all. The hedge witch couldn’t give me much instruction. I thought … that’s why I came here.”

Bernard leaned back in his chair. “Magic is … complicated. In the olden days, using magic damaged the body and mind alike. Men who used magic risked going insane, a problem made worse by … well, we’ll talk about that later, if you stay. Women who used magic lost their ability to have children, for various reasons. It took us years to determine ways to cast spells that limited the damage to the human body. There are still issues, for reasons we have never been able to determine, but it is much safer – now - for both men and women.”

He met my eyes. “It is true we sent out messages inviting magicians to Whitehall. It is also true that we have had no female candidates, until now. Many of us are unsure about accepting young women as students, even after … perhaps because of … well, that’s something else we’ll talk about later. If you joined us, you would be the first female student and you would be very much isolated from the rest of the student body. It would take time for them to accept you as a peer. My wife is old enough to be your mother, more or less, and she was the daughter of Lord Whitehall himself. You are much younger and much less prepared, in many ways, to be a student. On the other hand, you do have rare potential and you are obviously willing to work hard to succeed.”

His words hung on the air. “If you want to stay, after everything I have said, you will be welcome. If not, I will understand. Not every student has chosen to remain after discovering how difficult it can be or the absence of certain shortcuts” - his lips twisted as if he couldn’t decide if he wanted to smile or grimace - “although you do have that advantage of having less to unlearn. There are other options for young women in the nearby town.”

I doubted those options would be very pleasant. The villagers had often claimed that the larger towns were hot springs of debauchery, laden with pitfalls for young men - and women – who visited without taking care not to fall in. I was a farm girl … I supposed I knew enough to be a farmhand, but it was unlikely anyone would take me on unless they were desperately short of manpower. I had worked hard, like my sisters and stepsisters, yet my brothers and stepbrothers had done far more than us. It was galling, but it was true.

“I want to stay,” I said. I pulled out the pouch and held out the coins. “I can pay …”

Bernard shook his head, a faint hint of pity crossing his face. It struck me, too late, that the Lord and Master of Whitehall had to be rolling in cash. He could have students from the very richest families, the sons of kings and princes and wealthy merchants, all of whom would pay through the nose to have their children taught to use their magic safely. I had no idea how much my coins were actually worth, but there was no way I was wealthy as a single merchant. Even showing him the coins might have been a mistake. He might think I had more.

“You will have to do some work to help maintain the school, like all the other students,” he said. “It’s an important part of your education.”

I nodded, relieved. I wasn’t afraid of hard work. I knew girls who complained about housework, about spending most of their days cooking and cleaning, but they had an easy time of it compared to a farmhand. Whatever they wanted me to do, I’d do it gladly.

He met my eyes. “You also have to take a modified apprenticeship oath,” he added. “If you are caught breaking the oath, afterwards, you will be expelled.”

I felt a hot flash of irritation. Everyone knew that when you gave your word you kept it, even if you discovered, too late, that you’d agreed to do something you shouldn’t. Or was just bigger than you had realised, before you gave your word. If you broke your word, no one would ever trust you again.

“I know,” I said. I’d heard terrible tales about magical oaths - and what they did to oathbreakers. “What is the oath?”

Bernard talked me through it, line by line. It wasn’t – precisely, although I didn’t understand the difference at the time – a magically-binding oath, but I suspected it wouldn’t matter. I stumbled through the words, feeling unsure of myself. It wasn’t an oath of blind obedience to my new teachers, not precisely, but it did oblige me to leave if I felt unable or unwilling to follow their instruction. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I graduated and then left Whitehall, yet I would always have an obligation to protect the school. I wondered, absently, if all the students took the same oath.

“Welcome to Whitehall,” Bernard said, when I had finished stumbling through the oath. It felt as if my life had just changed beyond all recognition. My father and the village were just distant memories, while I was hovering between my old life and the new. “Julianne - my wife - will show you to your room.”

The door opened, on cue. I looked up into the eyes of a powerful woman, wearing a dress that looked very much like a feminine version of Bernard’s outfit. She looked brisk and competent and … there was something in her eyes that told me not to take her lightly. I couldn’t help being reminded of David’s mother, and the cool assessing gaze she had given me before he had asked me to walk out with him. It made me wonder when he had told his mother he intended to ask me, and what she had said in response. And what she had felt after …

“Welcome to Whitehall,” Julianne said. “I hope you’ll enjoy your time here.”

“Good luck,” Bernard said.

I stood and followed Julianne out of the room and through a maze of corridors. She walked briskly, giving me no time to look around. I thought there was a logic to how the building was laid out, but it was impossible to figure it out. I thought I saw things lurking at the corner of my eye, things that vanished when I tried to look at them properly. It made me feel uneasy, as if I was somewhere I didn’t belong. But I did. I told myself, very firmly, that I belonged.

“It would be improper to put you in the student dorms,” Julianne said, flatly. “If we had more female students, we could put you together, but we don’t. I’m going to give you a room near mine, close enough for you to come to me if you have trouble. Is that acceptable?”

I hesitated. Something was bothering her. But what?

“Yes, thank you,” I said. I wasn’t sure quite what to say. “When do I start lessons?”

“Try not to run before you can walk,” Julianne advised. “You will be assessed tomorrow and then sorted into a proper class, depending on how much you know and how much you have to unlearn.”

I nodded, torn between excitement and trepidation. “I can’t wait!”

Julianne smiled, but there was a hard edge to it.