Small Magics

Chapter 4

Chapter 1

Singing, in the distance.

Thomas smiled. He had timed his arrival almost perfectly. His friends had questioned the wisdom of setting out for home so soon after the term had ended—in truth, they had called him a fool and worse. April, they had said, was the worst time for travel. Rain, mud, and desperate brigands; that’s what Thomas would have to face. And someone as small and thin as Thomas would stand no chance. The trip was certain to end in grief, they had declared between draughts of wine. Besides, what sort of an i***t would walk home when he had money for a boat?

Thomas had protested the remarks about his person—he was only slightly shorter than average, though thin was an unfortunately accurate description— and shrugged away the rest. The river may be faster, he’d said, but the walk would be far more interesting, and would give him a chance to practice his botany. There were plenty of farms to buy food from and plenty of barns to sleep in. Besides, no brigands had been reported along the river road in ten years. He would walk.

His companions had shaken their heads in drunken solemnity and continued to forecast his imminent demise.

Thomas had set out exactly as he had planned, hoping to be home for the start of the five-day May festival. There hadn’t been as many barns for sleeping as Thomas had hoped, and he spent more than a few nights curled in his cloak underneath trees by the side of the road. Twice he had slept in the stone circles that dotted the landscape.

Legend had it the stone circles were part of a religion, but it was only legend. Those who built them had disappeared long before the followers of the Four Gods had come to this country, and long, long before the Four had lost their names. Now, the circles stood abandoned and overgrown, their purpose gone with their builders. Still, they made a handy windbreak, and fed Thomas’s imagination as he lay against the great, grey stones, staring up at the stars.

None of the predicted brigands had appeared to accost Thomas on the road, but his friends had certainly been right about the rain and the mud. A solid week of rain in the middle of the journey had soaked Thomas through, made the roads into a quagmire and added three days to his journey.

Still, I made it, thought Thomas, listening to the singing. Barely, but I did.

He stopped walking and started to brush the dirt from his clothes. A moment later he gave it up as hopeless. Three weeks of travel had left his clothes ragged and dirty. His thin frame had grown thinner from the days of walking, and his black hair was a tangled mess. He should have cut it short before he left, but in his rush to leave after the term ended, he hadn’t thought of it. Now, it was almost to his shoulders and completely unruly. He rubbed a hand across his face, felt the ragged edges of a very light, very scruffy beard. Fortunately he’d had the river to wash in or he was sure he’d have smelled as bad as he looked.

Thomas turned his grey eyes to the road ahead. Excitement and nerves warred within him to see which would get the upper hand. He had been fourteen when he’d left. Thomas smiled, remembering the desperate cramming he’d done to pass the Academy entrance exams, and his breathless anticipation the day before the trip.

He also remembered his mother waving and crying, his brother grinning and cheering him on, and his father beaming with pride as he drove his son to Greenwater and the river barge that would take Thomas downstream to Hawksmouth and the Royal Academy of Learning.

Four years, Thomas mused. I wonder if it still looks the same?

Well, one way to find out. He shifted the bag on his shoulder, adjusted his rapier and dagger on his belt, and started walking again. He grinned at the thought of what his father was going to say when he saw the blades.

The weapons were strictly functional; no filigree, no gilding, no engraving, but high quality and well made. The rapier had a plain steel bell guard to protect its wielder's hand and a long, straight, wickedly sharp blade that ended in a deadly point. The dagger's blade was thick and wide and as long as his forearm, the better to parry away attacks.

Thomas had won the rapier and a matching dagger at a fencing tournament during the winter. He had entered on a dare, using a borrowed sword and padding, and had stunned himself by emerging victorious. His friends, thrilled for him, had pitched in to buy the sword belt. He had written home immediately to tell his family about the victory.

His father’s reply had been less excited than Thomas had hoped.

John Flarety had been very happy that Thomas had won the tournament. He was pleased to learn his son was studying his fencing with the same dedication as his other classes. Nonetheless, John Flarety insisted that Thomas not wear the blades. Such things were not appropriate for the son of a merchant. Noble fops carried swords. Soldiers carried swords. Rogues and ne’er-do-wells carried swords. Honest country folk had no need to carry swords, especially not merchants and their families.

Thomas had written back, explaining that, in the city, many honest folks carried swords, including every student who could afford one. Thomas’s father disagreed entirely and the written argument had been going on ever since.

The road turned down a hill, the forest gave way suddenly, and Thomas was on the edge of the Elmvale town common. The little field was filled with makeshift booths and milling bodies celebrating the May Fair. Children ran around and between the legs of the adults, playing incomprehensible games and begging money for sweets. His mouth started to water when he spotted the pastry booth. He used to stuff himself with blueberry jam tarts, and the sight of them made him realize just how hungry he was. Lunch had been several hours before, and the stale bread and dried sausage had been far less than palatable.

Thomas left the road and crossed the common. It was buzzing with activity. He had hoped to spot his parents or his brother in the crowd, but there was no sign of them. Nearly everyone else from the village was there, though. There were men testing their skill at throwing knives or shooting arrows or wrestling—and wasn’t that Liam, standing victorious in the wrestling ring? It had to be; no one else was that tall. The women were laughing at their husbands, and in some cases, showing off their own skills. Thomas stopped to watch Mary Findley put three knives dead centre into one of the targets. The sight made him smile. She’d been beating men at the knife throw as long as Thomas could remember. On the far side of the common, a small man was standing on a stage, juggling five clubs and singing a bawdy song that kept his audience bawling with laughter.

Thomas found himself grinning like an i***t. Compared to any market day in the city, the crowd was tiny. Compared to the May festival in the city, this was hardly an event at all. There were only a few hundred people here, and the entire fair took up only half the common. Thomas didn’t care. There was an energy among the people here that he’d missed at the May festivals in the city. There, the festivals had been too large for any one person to take in. Here, the festival was small, intimate, and filled with the joy that comes from living through a cold country winter.

“Thomas!”

The bellow was deep and loud enough to fill the entire common. Thomas turned and saw a mountain of a man detach himself from the crowd around the juggler’s stage and charge across the common. Thomas barely had time to identify the giant before he was grabbed, squeezed, and lifted off the ground.

“Thomas! I didn’t think to see you before June!”

“You didn’t believe I’d miss the fair, did you?” gasped Thomas between squeezes. “Now let me down, George, before you crack all my ribs.”

George Gobhann, son of Lionel Gobhann, the village smith, was brown-eyed, brown-haired, and far bigger than Thomas remembered. He had always been larger than Thomas, even though they were of an age. Now, though, he stood head and shoulders taller, and was easily as big as four of him. His arms were thick and sinewy and both of Thomas’s legs could have fit into one leg of George’s breeches with room to spare. The chest against which Thomas was currently being crushed would certainly have over-stretched any number of normal men’s shirts. George brought Thomas down with a force that rocked him to his boots and held him at arm’s length. “Look at you!”

Thomas heaved in a breath. “Me? What about you?”

“You’re skinny as a rake! Didn’t they feed you at the Academy?”

“Not as much as they fed you. Are you a smith now?”

“As if there was ever any doubt. How did you get home?”

“Walked.”

“Hawksmouth to here? No wonder you’re a mess.” George stood back and inspected Thomas head to foot. “What are you doing wearing a sword?”

Thomas put his hand on the hilt, turning it so George could see. “Like it? I won it at a tournament.”

George shook his head in mock-disapproval. “No one wears swords, Thomas.”

“No one here wears swords,” corrected Thomas. “Everyone in the city does.”

“Well, you’re in the country now, and you’ll look silly being the only one.”

Thomas rolled his eyes. “You sound like my father.” He scanned the crowd around them again. “Speaking of whom, is he here?”

“Not since this morning.”

“George!” a new, female, and slightly annoyed voice called. “Who’s that you have there?”

They both turned, and Thomas barely managed to keep his jaw from dropping open. “Eileen?”

The girl came closer, peering at him as she did. Her eyes widened. “Thomas?”

Thomas was stunned. The last he had seen, Eileen was a skinny, gangly twelve-year old pest who took great delight in throwing stones at him. Now though, she was a trim young woman. Her red hair, always a tangled mess before, flowed cleanly down her back and her blue eyes sparkled as she watched him taking her in. Thomas was suddenly much more aware of how much of a mess he truly was.

Eileen found her tongue first. “Well, stop staring. People will talk.”

“I wasn’t staring,” Thomas protested.

“Oh, nay,” she said, putting her hands on her hips and doing her best to look offended, “your eyes just locked onto my bodice without your brain taking any part of it.”

Thomas felt a flush begin to rise, and forced it down. “Actually, I was wondering how the same family that produced such a hulking monster could create someone as lovely as you.”

“Listen to you!” Eileen said, keeping her tone the same but starting to flush herself. “Is that what they taught you at that Academy? How to charm girls?”

Thomas smiled. “There are entire courses dedicated to it.”

“Don’t bother,” said George. “The lass spends all her time up at the nunnery. I hear they’re planning to keep her for their own.”

“A nun?” Thomas felt a twinge of disappointment, followed immediately by a larger twinge of embarrassment. He hadn’t even seen the girl in four years, he had no right to be thinking of her that way. “And you not even dressed as a novice.”

“I’ll not be a nun,” protested Eileen. “They’re just the only ones who’ll teach a girl to read and write around here.”

George snorted. “If she had her way, she’d run off and join you lot at the Academy.”

“Thomas?” a very familiar and very nasal voice called out. “Thomas!”

The voice belonged to a long-limbed man riding a short-limbed donkey. So short, in fact, that Thomas was certain the man could touch the ground without dismounting. Thomas waved. “Gavin!”

Gavin, his long, cadaverous frame making him look like a spider riding a beetle, turned the donkey and rode towards them. He had been tutor to Thomas and his brother, Neal, from childhood, and had helped Thomas prepare for the Academy’s rigorous entry exams. When Thomas had gone and Neal was finished his schooling, Gavin had stayed on to handle the family’s business accounts. He was, Thomas recalled, quick and clever, polite to the point of obsequiousness, and his nose dripped incessantly.