First Witch's Tale

Chapter Six

The next few weeks were the happiest of my life.

It felt as if everyone wanted to be my friend. Or my adviser. Or even friendly rival. My peers finally accepted me as one of them, while the upper students stopped pretending I didn’t exist when they saw me. This wasn’t wholly a good thing. I had previously been spared the older students using me as a servant, unlike my peers, but now they ordered me around as much as the rest. The other students grumbled about being used for labour, yet I didn’t really mind. It was proof I had been accepted, and it was also a great deal easier than life on the farm. I didn’t point that out to them. I didn’t want them thinking about harder tasks for me and my peers.

I had never really had anyone to talk to about magic, save for Hilde, and much of her advice had been confusing or contradictory. Now, I had students from a range of backgrounds who could tell me everything I needed to know and discuss magical theories with me. I practised my spells with the boys, who seem to have decided I was an honorary boy rather than a girl. Master Falladine told me, when I pointed that out, that the price for being one of the boys was actually being one of the boys. If I acted like a boy, and held my head high like a boy, they would treat me as a boy. I wasn’t sure how well that would work, but I had to admit the boys were paying much less attention to my body and more to my magic and mind. It was … different.

They also told me a great many things I had barely realised mattered. To the north, the Kingdom of Alluvia was slowly taking shape and sending students to Whitehall; to the south, several smaller kingdoms were slowly being absorbed into bigger kingdoms that would eventually be a match for Alluvia and the barely-known kingdoms further north. One student had travelled with his father, before going to Whitehall, and he told me about people far to the east who looked a little like me. It was strange to think about the man who had been my biological father, although I told myself - quite firmly - that my real father was the man who had accepted me as his own and raised me until I was old enough to decide my own path. The idea of travelling to see the east was attractive, but I doubted I would ever get the chance to go. Magic was just so fascinating. I could never give it up. And besides, I had no idea if my biological father had ever known he had sired a child.

And one of the other things they taught me left me feeling oddly sympathetic to Cemburu.

He was, apparently, a bastard. This was no surprise to me, for the obvious reason, but apparently he was a real bastard. He was not the son of a nobleman, born out of wedlock; he was the son of a noble woman. A nobleman could pretend his son wasn’t his, and pay for the mother to bring the child up, but a noblewoman could not hide behind a polite veneer of secrecy. Cemburu had been lucky to be acknowledged by his mother’s family, I was told, and it had cost her dearly. There was no prospect, now, of a good match. I couldn’t help thinking the nobility were crazy. But then, it was more important for them to ensure their children were actually theirs. It made me grateful, once again, for my father’s willingness to treat me as his own.

And I would have felt sorrier for him if he hadn’t been such a pain.

He returned to class two days after the duel, to find himself a pariah. No one had any time for a loser, not even his former cronies. They shut him out, refusing to have anything to do with him. Cemburu tried to tell everyone that I had cheated, that I had lured him into a trap, but no one believed him. Ironically, I discovered, it would have impressed people if I had. There was nothing morally wrong about setting a trap, or tricking one’s opponent into making a deadly mistake. I haven’t planned it that way, and if Cemburu hadn’t stopped to gloat he would likely have won, but it didn’t matter. I was up and he was down and that was all that mattered to our peers. The nasty part of my mind hoped he was enjoying being right at the bottom of the hierarchy. It was a taste of what he had doled out to me.

The teachers didn’t give us a break. They kept us practising magic from dawn to dusk, as well as practical skills such as swordfighting and harvesting potion ingredients from the herb gardens and wild animals. It made me smile to meet a unicorn and convince it to let us take some of its hairs, not least because unicorns could only be approached by maidens. It was clear proof I was still a virgin, embarrassing Cemburu still further. He shut up after that, save for the occasional snide remark about me still having a private room. I told him that that would change the moment another female student arrived. Who knew? One might arrive tomorrow. I couldn’t be the only girl who wanted to study magic, could I?

It pushed me to my limits and beyond. It was hard to keep up with my training as I dug further and further into advanced magic. Master Falladine was surprisingly understanding as I had to go straight to bed some nights, rather than practising with him, but I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty. I had promised I would be his assistant when the time came and not keeping that promise didn’t sit well with me. I knew I hadn’t developed the skills, not yet, but still … it bugged me. I felt embarrassed at the failure to be the person he needed. But what choice did I have?

Spending more time with my fellow students meant going on walks with them, either in the mountains or down to the nearby town. I decided fairly quickly I didn’t like the town and I was glad - very glad - I hadn’t gone there. It was bigger than the village, bigger than the nearest town, big enough for everyone to be strangers to everyone else. The pubs and shops and brothels felt weirdly disconnected from each other, even as they served the nearby school. I suspected they were hoping the school would protect them, when the kingdom tried to take control of the town. It was just a matter of time. The town had something to lose too.

Back home, we knew how to hide crops from taxmen, I thought. The kingdom’s inspectors were easy to fool. Most of them knew nothing about farming and we had no trouble hiding our produce in plain sight. Here, it might be a little harder.

I didn’t really worry about it. The first set of exams were coming up and I needed to practice. And practice. And practice some more. The teachers had made it clear that if we failed the exams we would be going back to the start, remaining as junior students even as the rest of us went up a level. Cemburu got mocked, harshly, by students who expected him to fail, pointing out they would soon have the authority to make him fetch and carry for them. I didn’t join in. I didn’t like Cemburu, for obvious reasons, but I knew better than to count my chickens before they had hatched. I knew how easy it was to lose a crop before you could harvest, how easy it was to lose everything in a single catastrophic moment. I hoped I would pass, but I couldn’t count on it. No one could.

But at least I can practice with the others, I thought. It felt good to test my spells against my peers. None of them took me lightly any longer. What happens to those who can’t?

The thought bothered me slightly, as exams neared. I had grown up in a community where helping people who needed it was highly praised. It was self interest as much as anything else. You never knew when you might be knocked down, when you might need help yourself, and helping people who had been knocked down to get back on their feet incentivised them to help you when you needed it. Part of me thought I should reach out to Cemburu and offer assistance; the rest of me thought it was pointless to try. Cemburu was not capable of understanding the importance of helping others, even now. His peers were certainly not trying to build him up again. To them, education was a zero-sum game. For someone to win, everyone else had to lose.

I lost track of what was going on as exams started in earnest. There were no written essays, much to my relief, although the tutors interrogated us thoroughly about why we had cast the spells we had to solve the problems they posed. It was difficult, almost impossible, not to resent the interrogation as they tossed more and more questions at us, each one leading to further questions. I have never been subjected to anything like it in my entire life … and I wasn’t even in trouble! It felt as if I was on the verge of being expelled.

“You have a break tomorrow,” Bernard said, after the interrogation. “Don’t do anything important. Stay in bed, go walking, go down to town … do whatever you like, as long as it isn’t important. You need to rest before the results are announced.”

I nodded, stiffly, and staggered back to the dining hall. The kitchens were working at all hours to ensure we had enough to eat, rather than wait for lunch or dinner. I told myself not to get used to it as I took a plate of food and ate hastily, washing the dinner down with water and juice. It was only for exam season. I wondered, as I took a second plate, just how well I had done. Well enough to pass? Or would I go back to the beginning? I was uneasy aware I might have done well on the practical exams, but I might have flubbed a pair of the verbal questions. I went through it again and again, endlessly revising my answers even though I knew it was too late. There was no helping it now.

A rustle ran through the hall as Cemburu entered. I did my best to look up without making it obvious. I didn’t think he would curse me in the back, not in front of so many eyes, but it was hard to be sure. He had been under a lot of pressure and I knew all too well that such men could easily lash out without thinking of the consequences. And yet … my eyes narrowed. There was a faint, superior, smile on his face as he made his way to the counter, took some stew, and sat down. I met his eyes and tried not to blink in surprise. He looked as if he had got one over me. Ice prickled down my spine. What had he done?

I felt uneasy – and paranoid - as I finished my dinner, put the plate in the pile to be washed, and made by way back to my room. What had he done? I didn’t think Cemburu would dare to break into my room, but I could be wrong. He knew a few tricks, enough – perhaps - to leave a surprise or two on my doorknob or under my sheets. Or … my imagination ran away with me as I tested the door carefully, then pushed it open. There were spells to spy on someone from a distance. Perhaps he had put one in my room, hoping to catch me undressing. It would mean more to him than it did to me. Growing up in a farming village meant almost no privacy.

My unease only deepened as I searched the room from top to bottom. There was nothing, save for the ever-present background magic. It was hard to tell if Cemburu had forced his way inside or if I was just being paranoid. Perhaps the exhaustion was getting to me. I was so tired I could barely force myself to check the bed before I locked the door and went to sleep. But again, there was nothing.

Perhaps he thinks I failed, I thought, as I woke up the following morning. The gods know I wasn’t trained in debate.

The tutors, I decided after breakfast, had found a new way to torture students. The exams were largely over, but there were no hints of who had passed and who had failed. Most of my peers decided to head down to town, to lose themselves in drink and debauchery; I stayed behind, if only because it wasn’t something I felt comfortable doing. I had seen too many men - and a few women - turn into monsters, after drinking themselves silly, for me to risk getting drunk myself. Cemburu didn’t go down to town either. I saw him walk into the forest and vanish into the trees. I was tempted to follow him, but I had better things to do. I went back to the practice chambers and started revising my spells. Even if I failed the exam, I told myself, I had still made incredible progress.

It wasn’t until the following morning that we finally got our results - and I realised why Cemburu had been so pleased with himself. He had passed! More than that, I noted sourly; he had passed with flying colours. The ranking system was simple, very easy to understand. As impossible as it was to believe, Cemburu had done better than me and everyone else in the class. I couldn’t believe it!

I was still goggling at the ranking when I felt a hard swat on my bottom. “I beat you,” Cemburu jeered. “I beat you! I beat everyone!”

My wand was in my hand a second later. “Do you want me to kick your arse in front of everyone again?”

Cemburu’s smile grew wider. “Do you think you can?”

I glared. I knew I had come close to losing the challenge. I would have lost if he hadn’t made a tiny, but fatal, mistake. I had practised more since then, and gone through every last step of the duel with Master Falladine, yet I wasn’t wholly confident of victory. I wanted to knock him down hard, with all the magic I could muster, but … I couldn’t take the thought of becoming the class outcast again. I tried to tell myself that I should be happy for him, that I should be impressed yet done so well, but …

It grew worse, as classes resumed. Cemburu was practically a different person. He jumped ahead by leaps and bounds, putting together spells in ways I hadn’t thought possible. I had no idea how he was doing it. I hadn’t fallen down all the way to the bottom, not again, but Cemburu was catching up. The question nagged at me - how was he doing it? Had he found a tutor? There was no rule against it or he would have cited it when he had realised Master Falladine had been giving me private lessons. Or … or what?

His behaviour didn’t improve either. He made snide remarks to me that brought me to inches of hitting him again, or challenging him to a second duel, all the while being cheeky and disrespectful to the tutors. I wondered if he was insane. The tutors would have no trouble dealing with him if he pushed them too far. I didn’t think anyone would go out of his way to get a thrashing and yet … Cemburu seem to be doing just that. The other boys noticed something was wrong - and boys, in my experience, were incredibly obtuse when it came to such things. Cemburu might be working his way back up to the top, but his former cronies had not gone back to him. The rest of the boys kept their distance too. It was … weird. They had welcomed me as one of them, when I had proved myself, but not Cemburu. I didn’t pretend to understand it.

I kept a wary eye on him as he swanned around the school. His behaviour was bizarre. He would talk to some of the tutors as an equal, all the while pushing the younger students around. He had the right to tell the juniors to fetch and carry for him, as had I, but he took it too far. I didn’t know if they were allowed to complain - I haven’t, when I had been a junior - yet I thought it was just a matter of time before he crossed the line. I couldn’t understand why the staff hadn’t done anything. It was one thing to make the juniors work, but quite another to push them into doing things they really shouldn’t. I wrestled with my conscience. I didn’t want a reputation as a tattletale, or a sneak, but this was going too far. Perhaps I could have a quiet word with Master Falladine, ask him if he had noticed something. Or …

But no one would ever trust me again, I thought. It was a bitter realisation. Being alone would be a thousand times worse, now that I had had the experience of having friends and peers. If I tell the staff …

I didn’t. I couldn’t. But when I saw Cemburu going into the woods, again, I followed.