Chapter 7

Practicals get mocked, much, by some of the schools, and Domestic Magic more than the rest of the Practicals field, but really, they are the bedrock of Fae workings. That's where the discipline has its roots. Everything we teach can be traced back to them. And you need no devices, no touchstones, wands, magic bowls, or other technology to work most of it.

Class Lecture - The Oldest of the White Circle

"So it's really true," Lady Elaine of Allynswood said, lifting her tea cup. "I know how the well-lived life is supposed to be open for enlightening and unexpected discoveries, but when I got your letter about leaving the school, it was such a surprise!"

Lady Elaine was a beautiful woman, dark of hair and blue of eye, slender and graceful, with the delicately pointed ears that marked the very best of high Fae breeding.

Everything about her emphasized that, both the faeness and the highborn status, from the elegance of her silk gown, pale as the first leaves of spring to the room she sat in. The room they were in breathed with the highest of Daoine art and sensibility, ancient and in some ways timeless. Its walls were carved out of fine white marble and decorated with dark, polished wood, tendrils of tree and leaf patterns giving an echo to natural beauty and fine craftsmanship – the country house of an ancient line that had been in place and in power for long, long years.

But to the small, fidgeting boy who sat at the table, that was just normal. He had grown up among all this and didn't give it another thought. What he did pick up on is that his mother was using her best china for tea, the teapot she only brought out when people from the king's court, or very special people from the White Island dropped by for a visit. The table linens were company best, trimmed with fine white cutwork and monogrammed with the logo of the House. But worst of all, he had been forced to put on clothes that were reserved for those times when his parents wanted him to make the very best impression.

Tam's fidgeting was in large part due to that. Nannie Edelkyn had put him into a finely embroidered doublet that was was scratchy with metal threads, even through his linen shirt. Because he was growing, the sleeves were getting a tad short and they bound at his armpits, which made him shift even more as he sat there. His feet hurt in the formal buckled shoes, too. He picked at his scone, almost afraid to touch his cup, worried that he might spill something on his clothes or the linens. Not yet well trained in the elegance his mother made look effortless, best company days made him nervous.

He would have been much happier outside playing in the fields, running away from his tutors and nanny. Sighing as he ate a bit of scone, but not too loudly, he thought about how he had almost gotten away this morning. He had been putting on his way more comfortable even if "worn out and not presentable" boots, as Nannie called them, to go check on his rock fort near the big oak when she had grabbed him and dragged him into the bath house. Despite his protestations, he didn't fight her much, because above everything else, he was a good son, again, like a proper Fae noble, even if it was uncomfortable and he found the good clothes itchy. Having his nanny sit next to him, judging his every move might have added to his behavior.

Taking a deep breath before lifting the cup up, he carefully, carefully took a sip of his tea, using this moment to study his mother's guest.

"I wonder who she really is," he said softly to himself. "Why is Mama acting like this?" To be honest, she didn't look like the type of person who would be the reason for the best china and the best behavior.

The woman her mama was chattering with so animatedly was not a woman of nobility from the looks of her. She wasn't tall, and slender and elegant like his mother or aunt. Her her ears stuck out a bit too far. In fact she was short and plump and had mousy hair, neither the true gold, red nor black of high fey nobles, and she wore pulled back in a simple bun, instead of the elaborate curls his mother favored. Still, her eyes were true Elvish blue, but blue gray, not the color of his mother's eyes, and her face was rather round. Still, he decided as he watched the two women talk, there was something about her that had caught his eye – the way she carried herself, a certain glow about her, and above all else, the way she smiled.

In fact, she was so inviting, he was fighting off the urge to get up and go sit next to her, although he knew he'd never hear the end of it, especially from his nanny, who would be incredibly jealous. So instead, he sipped his tea and listened to the talk.

Mistress Gan, his mother had called her. Gan Thistleberry. It was a short name, with no family honors in it, but somehow, as he watched her talk, sit, and gesture, he felt it fit her. Practical. No pretension. But something about Thistleberry – he didn't think there was such a thing. Thistles were prickly and their seeds blew away. Berries could be prickly, but their fruit was there for the picking. Maybe it was like how her mother treated Mistress Gan...looked like a weed on the outside, but something lovely on the inside? It made his head ache to think about it, so he decided to focus on how she was dressed. Just like the clothes she was wearing - a simple dress, a laced up vest. No embroidery except a little at the wrist. Clothes people can move in, he thought as he shifted once again in his uncomfortable formal wear. Already he liked her, and had a glimpse of why her mother found her special.

As he listened, Tam realized that the two women had known each other since they were girls. Schoolmates.

"What are they going to call it now?" his mother asked. Her voice sounded irritated "If Master Gwaher is gone, can they really call our old school Gwaher's School of Grammarie, Magick, and Practical Rhetoric?" She sighed and looked down into her tea cup. "Some days, I miss that old place. I wanted to bring Tam to meet Master Gwaher but never got around to it. And now..."

Mistress Gan squeezed her hand.

"Comrie? That's a long, long way from here," Tam said, finding his voice at last. "I've never been further than Waterford-by-Glint."

"Indeed, young sir. If you walked it, it would take about two weeks." Mistress Gan gave the young boy a careful look.

"My father says it takes a week to get to Ynys Afal to see the High King, and that's not far from Comrie."

His nanny gave him a kick under the table.

"By horse, young sir. Horses go faster than feet."

"I know that." he asked.

"Tam," his mother said. "You shouldn't bother Mistress Gan with a bunch of questions."

Tam, feeling a bit abashed, not so much by his nanny's kick as at his mother's reaction stared down at his cup and nodded.

Mistress Gan gave a laugh. "It's all right, Ellie. You've got a bright sprout here. And it wasn't for not liking the questions of young people that I'm leaving that place." She turned to Tam, and gave him her best "Teacher respects you" smile. "Thankfully, I didn't have to walk or take a horse all the way here, just the bit from Goblin Market to your house. It didn't take me long at all. I came by the Dragon Web. I got to Goblin Market faster from Comrie than I got from Goblin Market to Allynswood. It took maybe half an hour."

Tam's eyes grew big at that information, but as he pondered that, she turned back to Lady Elaine. "I hope you weren't planning on sending him to the old school," Gan said, looking at him thoughtfully. "Grendal's nothing like Gwaher. He won't get the education we got. It wouldn't be the same. "

Elaine shook her head. "His father wants to send him to his old school, in Cader Rhys."

"Willow Heights? That's a good school if Rhys Longbeard's still master."

"Hale and hearty, and still pouring learning into young heads, from all reports," Elaine said. She looked fondly at her son. "He seems to have done well by Gweir. And so many of their students end up at Ynys Afel." At that, Gan lifted an eyebrow. "I'm loathe to let him go – Tam is such a dear, but there comes a time..."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"Like it did for you and me," Gan said. "Are you ready for your deep schooling, Master Tam?"

Tam put his cup down very carefully, and looked up at the two women with a touch of worry in his eyes. "Must I?"

"Eventually, son. There's no school near here, and your father has said so." Elaine turned back to her friend. "So what happened to Master Gwaher?"

"We're not exactly sure," said Mistress Gan. She bit her bottom lip. "You know how he never could stop doing magical research."

Elaine nodded. "That's one of the things that made the school attractive to my father. 'No child of mine is going to a school where they don't stay on top of things,' he used to say when Mama would bring up sending me to the White Isle or Rutherton."

"Rutherton is rather….well, old fashioned," Gan said, nodding. "Everything's done in the old ways. That's not so true on the White Isle."

"Mama used to try to tell him that. It broke his heart when she decided to work there full time after Gweir and I got married."

"How are your parents?" Gan asked.

"Oh, Mama's busy with the Alder Branches, still busy administering their free school program across the kingdom. There's a branch of it in Goblin Market, and I'm sure she had something to do with that. Papa is off in the Grey Mountains at Aspenheight most summers. He comes home sometimes in the winter, and catches up with Mama in between. He's been writing, I think. History. He likes it there, he says. Fewer distractions."

"Too dry for me there, but good for him. Keeping busy is important," Gan said, nodding.

"Speaking of Master Gwaher….Remember the time he did a summoning spell that went wrong and pulled up one of the teachers from the Dragonkin schools?"

Gan chuckled. "That was a day. I thought she was going to burn down the entire third level. Master Gwaher had to pay for her transport all the way back to Willowick on Sunderland That's a long way from Comrie."

"Well, at least he managed to get a few lectures from her. We'd never gotten that much information about Dragonkin from Mistress Airen."

"True, true," Gan said, taking a sip of her tea. She smiled at the memory, but then her face became sober. "After I started teaching there, there wasn't anything nearly as exciting for the staff to deal with, but he never stopped researching. We knew Master Gwaher was doing some tricky magic up in the tower, probably more work on portable transportation. You know how he was fixated at that. I never met a man who was more resentful of the Dragon Web. No one knows what happened, exactly. A huge wind blew up, and the tower glowed for two days. When we dared enter, there was no sign of him."

Elaine shuddered. "Please, try one of the scones. They're blueberry."

Gan's look brightened at that. "Oh, Ellie, you remembered," she said. "I'm impressed."

"I like blueberries," Tam said. "Almost as much as peaches."

"You have good taste, son," Gan said, nodding, as she took the proffered treat, "I'm rather fond of peaches myself." She took a bite. "Oh, so good," she said approvingly.

"Nannie makes the best scones," Tam said. "Nannie made these."

"She does indeed," Gan said, beaming at Tam's companion. The older woman seemed pleased.

"Your boy looks so much like his father," she said, turning back to Elaine. "Where is he, by the way?"

Elaine took a sip of her tea. "Back on Borderland duty. Again. They stationed him at Greshold's Keep. As commander! He doesn't tell me much in his letters. But one thing keeps happening. The Hawk keeps calling him, and he keeps going." Her face dropped. "I am rather proud of him, but…" She put down her cup and sighed. "To be honest, I wish he'd give it up, but I don't think he'll ever do it."

Gan sighed. "There's always something about the Boundary Lands. I don't know why they just don't build another wall around the whole place and bind the Bullrush clan and all the smugglers in there forever."

"If only! So tell me more about Master Gwaher," Elaine said.

Gan took a deep breath. "Grendal thinks he got transported somewhere, maybe to the Lost Lands."

"The Lost Lands? If he ended up there, he might never get back. His type of magic doesn't work very well there. If at all." Elaine shuddered. "My great uncle Owen would go there sometimes, but always went on foot. The Dragon Web only takes you to the boundary. They say there's a hole in no space in that region that cancels out their magic. So much magic is crippled there, especially transportation magic."

"I know, I know." Gan paused and took a bite of her scone. "It's been three years now, and not a message or a hint. Still, even if he had to walk the whole width of the Gray Lands we should have heard something by now. The school gave up and the board of directors decided to make Grendal the acting master of the school." She crossed her arms and made a bitter face.

Ellaine shook her head. "Grendal? Has he gotten any better? He was always rather pompous."

"Not in the least. He's exactly the same sort of person we knew when we all were in school together. He was good at his field, Deep Mana Syncretics, but thought all the rest of us were..well, not up for the big stuff. I was hoping they'd pick Robin Wayford - you never met him, but he's smart, a good teacher and has the mind of an administrator. But no, they went for clan connections. The Redwing clan is a big supporter of the school. We were all so disappointed. I met with the board, but they just sat their in their Redwing smugness, and wouldn't hear a word I said. They graciously told me I could accept it or leave. The next day, Grendal demanded my resignation. I gave it to him happily." She took a sip of her tea. "I wasn't the only one."

"My poor Gan. I'm so sorry." Elaine picked up her hand. "I can't imagine what's going to happen to the old school."

"Unless the board of directors gets some spine, it's going to become the Redwing clan's private school. That'll be the only ones who'll be willing to send their children there. But the standards are going to go way down. You should have seen what he wanted to do to the Practical Magic courses. I just wouldn't, couldn't do it."

"He never did think much of practical magic." Elaine said. "I remember that time when it was the magic fair..."

"No he didn't. Only the big theoretical type, the stuff that doesn't have much use until the rest of us get hold of it." She shook her head.

"Still, I am so sad. To be uprooted like that." Elaine crumbled a bit of scone into her plate.

"Thank you, Ellie. It was probably time for me to move on anyway." Gan sighed, leaned back in her chair, staring off into space. "I had been teaching there ever since I finished my studies with the Goosequills. And to be honest, I'm ready to get out of the classroom for a while. Time for a sabbatical. Do some more research in Domestic Magic."

"So what will you do now? They'd take you in at the White Island. The Eldest of the Goosequills speaks well of you. You know plenty of people there. My mother and Arriane are there."

"Me?" Gan shook her head. "I don't think so….my style...well it just doesn't fit in with high-minded Daoine ways. Even with the Goosequills. I'm uncomfortable with the formality."

"You have the right blood, even for all that you try to pretend you don't." Ellie said. "I peeked at your records once when Master Gamgee had me in to help with the filing. You're half Daoine yourself. Your mother was Red Maple! You can't get any more Daoine than that."

"You always were a rascal," Gan said, laughing. She took a sip of her tea. "No, I am sure I could learn the ways of the White Island….but I don't want to. I'm too set in my ways to change now, I'm afraid."

"So..." Elaine said.

"I was wondering if you knew of a place nearby. I'm not looking for charity. I have a nice bit saved after all these years, but you know I grew up not far from these parts. I bet Cullin the Tree Shepherd is still throwing mud at people who get too near his precious trees."

"Oh, don't get me started about the Tree Shepherd." Elaine frowned, and then smiled. "You know, the magistrate from Waterford goes by every new moon to make sure he remembers the regulations."

"He always was a hard head," Gan said. "Still, my dad's people had a good relationship with him before Thistleberry Place got caught in the big fire. I think I could deal with him as a neighbor. It doesn't need to be much of a place, a small house in the countryside, a bit of a garden, not too far from the road, maybe. I'm sure I'll have business at Waterford and Goblin Market. But I'd like some solitude. I have far too many years of teaching to get out of my system. All those children, all those administrators and spineless boards of directors. Some peace and quiet would be nice. At least for a while. Maybe I'll write. Or even start my own little school, done right."

"You could stay here, you know," Elaine said. "I would love to put you up. We have a guest house on the property. And you could tutor Tam."

The boy looked up expectantly at that. "No going away?"

Gan shook her head. "I'd just get underfoot," she said. "And I'd probably embarrass you. Gweir never did approve of what he called my hedge witch ways." When Elaine started to protest, Gan held up a hand. "I know he never said anything to my face, but I have ears and friends in Ynys Afal."

Elaine covered her face with her hands, then dropped them, looking apologetic. "I'm sorry that got to you."

"I believe you!" She gave Elaine's hand a little pat. Then looking at how crestfallen Tam was, she added, "Not that I can't come over and tutor you, young man. If your mother wants."

He looked up, giving her a small wisp of a smile.

Elaine rubbed her chin. "Let me think a moment. I don't think you want to move into one of the farming villages, correct?"

"I'd take it, but..."

Elaine tapped her fingers on the table as she thought. "I wouldn't want to kick any of the tenants out."

"Please don't do that!" Gan said. "I'd feel horrible knowing that."

"How do you feel about pixies?" Elaine asked, hesitantly. "People will think I'm awful for offering this place to a friend, but if you want solitude, I have one place that might be perfect. If it doesn't work out we can always arrange something else."

"I'm immune to pixie dust," Gan said, intrigued.

"I might know just the place. It's a small farmstead right next to Cullin's Forest. It's a bit of a drive to the nearest village, but you could get to Goblin Market and back in one day by carriage. It'll need a little work...Last tenant was a sad little hermit of a man who let the place run down."

"You must mean Pixie Hollow." Gan took another bite of her scone, amused. "I've heard stories about that place. Your parents always had trouble keeping tenants there."

Elaine suddenly looked embarrassed. "No, let me look around a little more. I shouldn't do that to a friend." she said, clasping her hand over Gan's.

"Don't do that," the schoolmistress said. "It sounds perfect." She put her teacup down. "I wonder how soon I can get moved in."