Small Magics

Chapter 8

Chapter 2

What, in the names of the Four, is going on here?

Thomas had stumbled down the back stairs and out of the house without seeing anyone, which was just as well. He wasn’t sure he could manage to be civil if he did. Now, brooding his way down the road back to the village, Thomas tried to make sense of what had just happened.

There had been nothing in his father’s letters to suggest a greeting like this. The man had practically begged him to come home. He had been full of praise for Thomas’s success, as well he should be. Thomas had gotten top marks in all his classes. The reviews from his professors had all been glowing, and Thomas had sent them all home. It was exactly what his father had wanted from him.

True, he had walked when he had the money to ride and he was wearing a sword, but those should have been the subject of a little good-natured scolding. Instead, his father had treated him like a servant caught stealing money.

It doesn’t make any sense.

Certainly he was not dressed appropriately for guests, but he had better clothes in his bag. A bath and a shave for him and a quick press for the clothes and he would have been more than prepared to greet the guests. As it was, the clothes were still in his bag, the bag was still on his shoulder, and a bath was nowhere to be found.

His mind kept going in circles all the way to the village. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t written. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t told them how he was living. His family probably knew more about his life than his friends at the Academy. He had described nearly everything that was fit to share, and would have told his older brother the rest had he not been certain that his mother would read the letters as well. And now, his father was complaining about him doing what he had been sent away to do? It wasn’t fair.

The tailor shop was closed.

Of course, Thomas thought, staring at the locked door. Now what?

Common sense told him the tailor would be at the fair, and that’s where Thomas headed. It was only when he reached the edge of the town common and looked at the crowd that Thomas realized that he had no idea what the tailor looked like. For a moment he felt completely at a loss. He shook it off. Someone would know where the tailor was. All he had to do was ask.

Eileen’s voice, yelling words of encouragement, grabbed his attention. He cast about and spotted her standing beside the wrestling pit, shouting at the top of her lungs. Thomas, guessing what the shouting was about, went over to stand beside her.

The pit was fifteen feet square, surrounded by a transplanted pig-fence, and had a thick layer of hay on the ground for the contestants to land on. In the middle of it, George was struggling with Liam. They were in a tight wrestler’s clinch, bodies straining against one another. Liam was taller than George, and had once made his living from wrestling. He had even wrestled at the royal court some fifteen years before. He was attempting to use his height to lever George backwards and while he was succeeding, he was not having an easy time. From the look of it, what George gave the other man in height, he took back in strength.

“Come on, George!” shouted Eileen, trying to rally her brother as the taller man slowly forced him to his knees.

“You can’t think he’ll win,” said Thomas. “No one beats Liam.”

“He nearly beat him last year,” Eileen said without looking. A moment later she turned, mouth open in surprise. “Thomas! What are you doing here?”

Thomas couldn’t even begin a reply to that, and a roar from the crowd saved him from the need. George, moving faster than seemed possible for a man of his bulk, had dropped down to one knee and, with a quick thrust of his hand through the other man’s legs, lifted. The small crowd cheered lustily as George raised Liam high into the air. “Get him!” screamed Eileen. “Get him, George!”

George grunted loudly and shifted his grip, obviously meaning to throw Liam to the ground. It wasn’t to be, though. Liam, upside down though he was, secured a tight grip around George’s waist. With a mighty pull, Liam slipped off George’s shoulders, got his feet on the ground and with a quick twist, threw George across the pit. George cried out in surprise then hit the ground with a solid THUD that made those around the pen wince. Liam jumped on him and pinned him. Cheers erupted and Liam was declared the winner.

Eileen and Thomas looked on as Liam pulled the gasping George into a sitting position. “You’ll be fine, laddie,” he said. “You did well this year. Had me worried there for a bit, you did.”

George gasped a little longer then relaxed as the air flowed back into his lungs. “Nearly had you down, I did.”

Liam laughed. “Don’t fool yourself, laddie. It’ll be a few years more before you beat old Liam at his own game. Why I once—”

“Wrestled in front of the king,” George finished for him “Aye, I know.” Liam grinned and held out his hand. George took it, and Liam pulled him to his feet and gave him a clap on the back. The young smith hopped over the fence as Liam called, “Right, who’s next?”

“Good match!” said Eileen. “You nearly had him!”

“Nearly,” agreed George. He looked at Thomas. “What are you doing here? You should be at home eating supper.”

“My father didn’t think so.” said Thomas. “I hardly got in the door before he sent me out again.”

“Sent you out?” repeated Eileen. “What for?”

“A better wardrobe.”

George looked him up and down. “You are a little scruffy,” he said. “In fact, I wouldn’t wear those clothes digging for clay. Still you’d have thought he’d have fed you first.”

“Why wouldn’t he let you stay?” asked Eileen.

“I don’t know!” Anger bubbled into the words and Thomas took a deep breath to control it. “I didn’t even get a ‘welcome home.’ Just ‘aren’t you a mess’ and ‘how could you waste all your time and money on books and school?’ ”

Eileen looked confused. “I thought he was proud of you.”

“Me too,” said George. “Why, you can hardly get a word in when your father comes into the tavern for all the chattering he does about his son at the Academy.”

“Well, today he thinks his son is a ruffian, who isn’t up to the standard for sitting at his table.”

George was appalled. “You’re joking.”

“He took one look and sent me packing to get new clothes and eat at the tavern.” Thomas pulled out the pouch and showed it to his friends. “I walked for three weeks so I could save this. He didn’t care.”

“Thomas—” began George.

“I say we drink in the tavern all night then rouse the tailor at dawn, since that’s what he expects.” He adjusted the bag on his shoulder with an angry shrug. “Coming?”

George and Eileen exchanged a worried glance, but said nothing as they followed him through the fair. The juggler’s stage was between Thomas and the tavern, and the gathered crowd was blocking the path. He started skirting around them when the juggler bellowed, “Scholar! Come to me, Scholar!”

Thomas stopped in surprise. The juggler was a short man, with clothes as worn as Thomas’s own, and pale hair poking out in all directions from under his many-coloured cap. The smile he turned on Thomas looked to be infectious, judging from the number of people in the crowd who were wearing it. “Aye, I’m talking to you, Scholar. Come to me.”

Thomas spared a glance for his friends then started walking closer. “How did you know I’m a scholar?”

The juggler’s grin grew wider. “It’s the talk of the town, Scholar! The young man come home, clothes in tatters, sword on hip, and mind full of ideas and learning! Tell us, Scholar, where did you study?”

“The Royal Academy of Learning.”

“The Royal Academy!” The juggler’s voice dripped mock-admiration, even as his smile took the sting from it. “A true seat of learning, that!” He paused, leaned forward, dropping his voice to a stage whisper. “You did learn something there, didn’t you?”

Thomas, still rankling from his father’s comments, managed a stiff, “Aye, I did.”

“Anything useful?”

Not according to my father. “Some would say so.”

“Meaning some would not.” The juggler grinned at the crowd. “Well, we shall see what you have learned.” His voice grew louder, filling the fair. “I challenge you to the greatest test of learning! I challenge you… to riddles!”

Oh, by the Four, thought Thomas as the audience applauded. The juggler had been out to snare someone and Thomas had walked right into it. He really did not want to begin a game of anything. “I don’t suppose we could do this tomorrow?” he asked. “I have an errand at the tailor’s shop.”

“The tailor’s is shut!” called a well-dressed man from the crowd—the tailor, at a guess. “But if you beat him, I’ll open it for you!”

The crowd cheered, and Thomas knew he was sunk.

“Good luck,” said George from the side of his mouth. “He riddled Mayor Tomson into the ground.”

“I really don’t want to do this,” muttered Thomas.

“Surely you can beat him,” said Eileen. “After all, you’re a scholar.”

Thomas fixed a glare on her, and was met with a pair of blue eyes glittering with mischief.

Oh, why not. Raising his voice for the whole crowd to hear, he called back, “Fine. Challenge accepted!”

The crowd clapped loud and the juggler called over them, “And who do I have the honour of challenging?”

“Thomas Flarety.”

“Timothy, at your service!” The juggler gave a florid bow. “And because you accepted the challenge, you may begin!”

Thomas thought hard. Riddle games were not common at the Academy— drinking games involving obscure quotations or laws or mathematical formula, certainly, but no one did riddles. It was beneath them. Unable to think of anything else, Thomas pulled out a riddle from his childhood:

“I saw a creature, carrying plunder, From a raiding foray, to his home, To set up a bower at the top of a tower, In a fortress tall, he would go.

Then came a creature, from over the tower, Familiar to all in the world, It snatched away his plunder, and drove the wretch yonder Far from his path he was hurled.”

The audience turned almost as one back towards the juggler. Timothy stood centre stage, legs wide, arms crossed, with one hand holding his chin. “A good one, that!” he said, scratching at his beard. “Though hardly a difficult one.”

“Then answer it!” called someone from the crowd.

Timothy grinned. “I will! It is a bird and the wind!”

Thomas nodded. “It is.”

The crowd applauded and cheered. Timothy took another bow. “Well, then,” he said, “I am not so scholarly, but I have one that will stump you. Tell me:

“A strange thing hangs by the thigh of a man, Under its master’s cloak, Stiff and hard and pierced through the front, It waits for the man to raise up his robe, For then the head of the hanging thing Will be poked into a hole of matching length, Where it has often been poked before!”

Catcalls and chuckles followed the juggler’s riddle, and all eyes went to Thomas. “Well, Scholar?” the juggler asked, “What could this strange thing be?”

Thomas looked at his friends. Eileen was blushing and giggling. George was laughing. Thomas shook his head, and smiled at Eileen. “Well, there is only one thing that rises up in my mind—” The crowd roared and Eileen looked at the ground, her blush turning bright red. “—and that would be a key.”

“Aye! That it is!” the juggler crowed. He shook a finger at his audience. “And shame on the rest of you!” The crowd laughed louder. “Your turn, Scholar, if you can come up with another one!”

Thomas struggled to think of another riddle; something Timothy wouldn’t know. The problem was that the juggler probably knew every riddle ever told by the hearth and some that weren’t. The chances of Thomas thinking of something the little man had not heard before were slim indeed.