Small Magics

Chapter 11

“I used to sneak out here at night to swim.” Eileen said. “The pond looks so black when you’re above it, but once you’re underneath, the moonlight turns everything silver.”

“What?” George leaned back and raised his eyebrows at his sister. “What would Mother say about that?”

“About the same as she would have about you and Thomas, if she’d caught you.” Eileen said tartly. She looked back at the pond. “Sometimes I’d just sit out here and watch the moon dance on the pond when the wind blew.”

Thomas took a deep breath, willing his anger and frustration down. It sank back, still lurking beneath the surface, but not so overwhelming. “Did you sneak out often?” he asked.

Eileen shook her head, smiling. “I didn’t want to get caught. Besides, if you do something special too much, it isn’t special anymore.”

Thomas nodded. Silence fell again, but not as heavily as before.

Eileen was the first to break it. “What’s the city like?”

Thomas thought about it. “Noisy,” he said. “The first thing you notice is the noise. There’s thousands of people moving around all the time, though not so much at night, and they all make noise. The people there don’t know each other well enough to care about each other, so everyone treats everyone else as a stranger.”

“And you like it there?” asked George, sounding rather unimpressed.

“Aye, I do.” He let his weight sink back and half-sat, half-fell on the ground. “It’s noisy and smelly and the sewers back up when it rains and there’s people who wouldn’t give food to a starving man, but I like it. I like getting up in the morning and buying bread from the baker and fruit from the fruit sellers and sitting by the dirty river looking at the towers of the church and watching the people go by.”

He looked out across the water of the pond and in his mind saw the city on the other side. “There’s times, when it’s been raining all day. The sun breaks through the clouds just before it goes down. Everything has been washed clean by the rain and then the sun hits it and all the grey buildings and all the dirty streets are suddenly paved in light and gold.” He remembered, then, standing on the roof of his apartment, looking out. “The palace is roofed in bronze, and so are the High Father’s church and the city hall. And when the sun comes out it hits them one at a time, lighting them like fire. And they stay that way until the sun goes down and they fade like embers.” He blinked and the city faded, leaving the dark mill pond before him. Thomas shook his head. “I talk too much when I’m drunk.”

“Aye, you do,” agreed George. “You make it sound good, though.”

“It is,” said Thomas. No matter what my father says about it.

“I’d like to visit,” Eileen said, her voice quieter than before.

George snorted. “Aye, I know. Every time Thomas’s father starts talking about it, you start going on about how you want to visit.” He waved a hand at her.

“You just want to sneak into that Academy of his.”

Thomas shook his head. “They wouldn’t let you in.”

“I know,” said Eileen. “Girls aren’t allowed to learn anything.”

Thomas heard the bitterness in her voice. “The Academy really isn’t that much to look at, you know,” he said, trying to lighten her mood. “Half the rooms haven’t been repainted in two hundred years and the other half they don’t let students into anyway.”

“What about the library?” asked Eileen. “It is really as big as your father says?”

“I don’t know how big he says it is,” said Thomas. “It’s five stories tall, and has thousands of books in it. The main floor is all tables for people to sit and read and columns to hold up the rest of the place and windows so you can see. In the afternoon, you can spend an hour just watching the dust dancing on the air.”

Eileen’s voice was wistful. “Sounds wonderful.”

“To you,” snorted George. “Me, I don’t think I could stand it there.”

“Not much for reading?” Thomas asked.

“Nor for writing,” said Eileen. “He wouldn’t have learned either if Da hadn’t made him.”

“Unlike her,” snorted George. “Ever since the nuns taught her to read, she’s had her nose in whatever books she could borrow.”

“The only one I have with me is in Perthian,” said Thomas. “Next time I come back, I’ll bring some histories. You’d like them.”

“What’s that?” said George, pointing into the woods.

Thomas turned to look and saw a thin flicker of light moving far off in the trees. “I don’t know.”

Eileen stood up to see. “Looks like a torch.”

“Shouldn’t be,” said George. “There’s nothing over there. Besides, everyone should be inside asleep, saving their energy for the Fire tomorrow night.”

“Shush,” said Thomas. “Listen.”

George c****d his head. “I don’t hear…” He stopped. The woods had fallen silent. All the night creatures had stopped their noises and everything was still, as if holding its breath. A moment later, Thomas caught a shout, faint and distant, then another. He pushed himself to his feet. “Come on.”

“Not that way,” said George, catching his arm. “There’s a path on the other side of the pond.”

The three slipped into the woods with George soundlessly leading them. Thomas was aware for the first time how much noise he made when he walked. He paid more attention to how he was stepping, and soon found himself moving, if not actually quietly, then softer, at least. Ahead, the torches began to get brighter. Thomas could hear voices, angry and demanding.

“Come out of there, you little rat!” a man yelled.

The reply was muffled, but it seemed to anger the speaker.

“You think we won’t burn you out? I’ll torch that pretty wagon and listen to you squeal.”

“No need to torch it,” said a second man. “It’s a waste of a good wagon. I say we smoke him out. He’ll beg us to let him come out into the air.”

“There’s no time,” a third one said. “Bash in the door.”

The three friends reached the edge of a small clearing with a wagon path running through it. On the far side of the clearing a dark horse jerked nervously back and forth on its tether. There were three men standing in the clearing, all with rough faces that showed clearly the fights and privations they had survived. Their clothes were plain and dark, but not travel-worn or ragged as one would expect of bandits. Two held torches and daggers in their hands, the third had an axe. They were surrounding a large box wagon covered in colourful, swirling designs that the flickering yellow light made ugly and garish.

“We’re about a mile from the common,” George whispered. “That’s the juggler’s wagon.”

“What do they want with him, do you think?” asked Eileen, speaking no louder than George.

“Nothing good.” He looked around, “Never a stick around when you need one.”

“Last chance!” called the shorter of the two torch-bearers. “Come out. His Grace is waiting for you.”

“I’ll die before I go near him!” shouted Timothy from inside the wagon.

“No, but you’ll wish you had, I’ll bet. Billy, start on the door.”

“We have to stop them,” whispered Thomas.

“Three on two,” mused George. “I think we can do it.”

“Three on three,” hissed Eileen.

“Two,” said George, glaring at his sister. “I’ll not be risking your life.”

The axe sunk into the wagon’s door with a dull thud.

Thomas looked closer at the three men. “There’s only the one axe,” he said. “The other two just have daggers. Come on.”

“One moment.” George looked around him, then reached up and grabbed a low, thick tree branch some six feet long. The branch bent in his hand, then split from the tree with a loud “CRACK!”

“By the Four,” said Thomas. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.”

George grinned, and Thomas turned his attention back to the men in the clearing. The three men had all spun around, and were now peering into the woods. Thomas took the moment to step out of the woods and into the light of the torches, his hands on the grips of his rapier and dagger.

“Well,” Thomas said, raising his voice to fill the clearing, “here’s a bunch up to no good!”

No one moved for a moment, then the biggest of the men stepped forward. “Run off, lad, before—”

The metallic hiss of blade leaving scabbard stopped him. Thomas’s rapier and dagger gleamed yellow in the flickering light. “I think not.”

The other two men in the clearing shuffled nervously, looking to the big one. George stepped casually out of the woods beside Thomas, using his knife to strip the last twigs from the branch. Eileen stepped out beside him, doing her best to look defiant. George took his time looking over the three rough men before saying, “And what do you think you’re doing disturbing a guest of our village, then?”

“Leave,” Thomas said, “or my friend and I will keep you busy while the young lady runs back to town and fetches the watch.”

The big man sneered. “They’ll not reach here in time.”

“To save your lives?” Thomas asked. “Probably not. Want to find out?”

The man frowned, his face crushing in on itself. His two companions were not at all happy with the idea of a fight, to judge from the way they were shifting their feet. George finished stripping the twigs from the branch and, after examining it a moment, snapped off the thinnest two feet from it, leaving him a four foot club. He swung it experimentally.

The biggest of the men stepped forward and threw his torch at Thomas. Thomas ducked to one side, and when he straightened the man was already running into the woods. His companions followed, dropping their torches on the ground before vanishing into the trees. Thomas grabbed up the torch that the first man had thrown, stomping out the small blazes it had left on the ground. George ran forward and grabbed up the other two.

“City folk,” snorted George as he stomped out the small licks of flame on the ground. “No country man tosses a lit torch to the ground in the woods.”

“Well, they can’t all be smart,” Thomas said. He sheathed his blades, realizing he was grinning like an i***t. Alcohol was said to make men both brave and foolish, and he’d been a prime example of that tonight.

“It worked!” Eileen crowed. “They ran off! I can’t believe it!”

“They weren’t ready for a fight,” Thomas felt breathless. “They just wanted to get at Timothy.”

“You were sure of that, were you?” George asked.

Thomas’s grin grew wider. “No.”

“Fool of a scholar,” said George, punching him lightly in the shoulder.

“Aye.” Thomas took a deep breath, releasing tension he hadn’t known was there as the air came out. “But it worked.”

George walked up to the wagon, examined the axe marks on the door. He whistled. “Nearly got through, there.” He raised a big hand and knocked at the door. “Juggler? Juggler! It’s safe to come out now.”

“Go away!” shouted Timothy.

“It’s all right,” said Eileen, going to stand beside her brother. “They’re gone!”

“Just go!”

Thomas went to the wagon and knocked on the door. “Timothy? It’s Thomas, the scholar. Are you all right?”

“If you’re still scared, we can take you into town,” George offered. “We’ll hook up your horse to the wagon, and move you into our back yard.”

“I don’t want to be in your back yard!” Timothy yelled. “I want to be left alone!”

“At least come to the door so we can see you’re all right,” said Thomas. “After that we’ll leave you alone.”