Arillia by Illuminati Architect

Chapter Six, The Tutor

“I already got you and Elizabeth. I don’t need another tutor!”

“Carnel, that’s have, not got.”

“Don’t they mean the same thing?”

“And Sage Reltuc isn’t your tutor. He’s your assistant. Just like the maids who wash your clothes.”

“I don’t want an old man touching my clothes!” Carnel wrapped her arms around herself and glared at Sage Reltuc across the library table.

I silently noted that her gesture wasn’t crossing her arms in defiance but rather an attempt to cover herself, as if a male glancing at her clothing threatened her. “And that’s not his job. He’s here on a vital mission to help you keep me safe.”

“How’s he going to do that?”

“Do you know what sages do?”

“They write stuff down.”

“Writing down exactly what they read is a job for a scribe. Sages write down less than they read.”

“Why would they bother reading more stuff than they write?”

“Because the job of the sage is to extract the most important parts of what they learn to save time for others.”

“How’s that going to help me?”

“I’m about to travel on a very important mission, but I need you here at the castle to relay messages back and forth for me. When I need more information, or in case I need to call for help, you’re the only one I can rely on. Now, can you maintain Telepathy all day long, every day?”

“No, I can maybe hold it for half a minute with all my wand and all my strength.”

“So in that very short amount of time, you need to ensure you send me the most important details. And that’s why Sage Reltuc is here. He’ll help you say everything you need to say in the time you have available.”

“How will that work?”

“Let’s try this out. First, write down everything you did yesterday that you’d tell me if we had time. Then Sage Reltuc will help you rewrite everything you feel is the most important in only two sentences. Finally, cast Telepathy and think just those two sentences to me.”

“I left your spellbook in my room.”

“Go get that, and have the maids bring a pillow and blanket so you can rest on the library sofa between castings. Ensure you always have a maid available here in case you need anything.”

“Why can’t I cast from my room? And can’t Elizabeth bring me everything I need?”

“I will need Sage Reltuc to read new things from this library for me while I’m away. Also, I’ll need Elizabeth to protect me because I’ll be traveling to a very scary place.”

“Don’t take Elizabeth, don’t go.”

“I absolutely must, and therefore, I’m absolutely dependent on you to help keep me, Elizabeth, and everyone safe by finding answers here and getting them to me way over there. If you are very brave, I’ll promise to bring her and everyone else safely back with me.”

“Okay, I’ll try, just this once.”

Why did you promise that? You’re going to lose Alice on this mission.

I hopefully did not let the shock show on my face and waited until I left the library to whisper my reply. “Why?”

In the game, she’s only needed for this one quest. So, in a cut scene after the tomb, she loses her footing at a cliff’s edge and falls to her death.

“You play very rotten games, Greg.”

What does that make you, Your Highness?

“Apparently a much better person ‘In Real Life’ as you say. Now, how do I change this?”

You can’t change cut scenes. They just happen in a fixed way.

“Just like with Uncle Gustav?”

Oh, that’s right. You’ve already broken the game.

“He would have had his way with me if you hadn’t warned me. Now, let’s break this game some more.”

I looked up and saw Rebecka watching me with a confused expression.

“Exactly the person I need to see right now. Follow me, please.”

“Something not for the others?”

“This is a secret between us. One moment you must watch out for in the future.”

Back in my room, she silently listened to my explanation of the ‘Vision’ with clenched lips. Then, when I fell silent, she spoke. “Don’t bring Alice.”

“Will you have her teach you everything she knows about runes from centuries ago in the next two weeks?”

“Return by the valley instead of the mountains.”

“A small group of women in the middle of the Suskan Valley fanatics? And after you just saved me from being sold out into slavery? No, we will face and thwart this cruel hand of fate. Change of marching order, myself, Elizabeth, Alice, then you. I’ll add a mule to carry our supplies and get Alice to lead that with both hands on the reins, given how sure-footed those are. Keep one eye on her and another eye behind us. Keep her safe.”

“I will, Your Highness.”

“And another thing, you must not show affection in public. Just because I don’t think someone is a threat doesn’t mean they will be as accepting of a woman-to-woman relationship as Alice’s father is. He’s well-read and philosophical about these things. So let’s bring Alice back alive so you can take her with you when you assume the duchy. And when you marry some man for diplomatic reasons, then I’m sure you’ll be able to talk him into letting her share the bed with you two, given the vanity and hypocrisy of all men.”

“Doesn’t your family make the laws?”

“I can’t ask the King to change the law for me, and I won’t change it for myself. The ‘law’ is just the traditions and conventions handed down and changes little in each generation. Our role is to maintain what we are given as best we can. I will carefully choose as honest and trustworthy a man as I can find and will have as many children as he desires with him. So that they, or the next generation after them, can squander the peace I will have fought so very hard for. I don’t dream of some unreachable eternal happiness, just one happy generation. Will you help me achieve this?”

“It is hard to argue with Your Highness’ unflinching honesty.”

“Please do. Finding the answers is easy for me. It’s missing the right questions that bothers me. I didn’t even know that Alice’s life would be in such peril an hour ago, and now there is so much that must be replaned.”

Oh wow. Great speech. You should write these down so you can use them when you run for office. Oh, wait, you’re born into your office. You’ll be going into the Suskan Valley after the tomb, though. That’s why you’re in such a hurry while fleeing back into the mountains.

“What!”

“Your Highness?”

“Please excuse me one moment, Rebecka. I will seem a bit weird to you, but there’s no point whispering around you. So I shall reveal to you now that I have the spirit of a man named Greg with me. And that’s another reason you should never display to me anything you wouldn’t want to show to some random man.”

“Was Greg there with us at the lake?”

“Yes.”

“That’s why you were so embarrassed then. Continue on, Your Highness.”

I turned away from her and looked out my window. “Greg, why are we going into the valley?”

To rescue the Blessed Girl, of course. That’s why we’re going to the tomb on Sunday, 25th Meceder, the night before the full moon. You’ll really need her help later without the Jewel of Koching.

“Why would a priestess with the sight need to be rescued from the valley people? Don’t they revere and cherish these girls and depend on them for protection from the undead?”

She’ll have turned down the advances of their bishop, and he will then have put her on trial for ‘falsely’ accusing him of attempted rape.

“Why would she do that? What was she thinking?”

The fanfic consensus is that she doesn’t like men that way.

“I suppose she’ll find her happy place embraced by my merry maids then. With any luck, she’ll be able to exorcise you, Greg.” I turned back towards Rebecka. “Apparently, we’ll pick up another girl on this trip.”

“What will she look like?”

“I would guess that as a Blessed Girl, she’ll be from the Bluetress tribe. What’s her name, Greg?”

Polly Posgort.

“Rebecka, her name will apparently be Polly Posgort. Hold me to that when we see her.”

“You Highness won’t change Posgort to your own Angleland?”

“I don’t care what a beauty this purple-eyed, blue-haired, buxom lass may be. I’m not changing the law for my own comfort. Another consideration for my future husband will be that he likes being the only man in a big, crowded bed. But if this Polly finds all men repugnant, then I will arrange for a place to keep her blue thatch safe from their gaze, if not my own hypocrisy.”

“And what of the preference of Your Highness?”

“Rebecka, there are many women (including all three of you) and a very few men who have drawn my eye, but all of those men were either unsuitable for my hand or had drawn the eyes of other women first. I do not steal, conspire, or swoop down like a vulture on widowers.”

“Your Highness is welcome to join us two.”

“I will not attempt to betray, steal, or confuse Alice’s heart further. I look forward to the night when she cries out your name rather than mine. Do you find her a burden that you would toss aside?”

“Not at all. She is very dear to me.”

“And the way she snores?”

“The forest is only silent on the approach of danger. To me she sounds like the wind through the trees, and sometimes I will wake just to watch her sleep.”

“I have heard that snoring is unhealthy, so perhaps you could flip her over and just listen to her heartbeat. Will she be in shape for the trip this month?”

“When Alice is not sleeping or reading, I have her in vigorous exercise day and night, as your keen hearing no doubt notices. One sign of public affection we have avoided is taking all meals in our shared room so that I can restrict her diet to just the things I feed her. Give me another week, and I’ll have her final form to tailor her field clothing to. She can already be fitted for boots today.”

“And for combat?”

“I have had to be imaginative in the grappling training for she longs to be held, and during the day, she is learning to use a knife. The hardest part will be to keep the calculation out of her eyes so that she appears to still be harmless until the moment she strikes.”

Please, please, cast a Clairvoyance spell to spy in on this nighttime grappling training!

“Thank you for your time, Rebecka. Can I leave picking out a suitable mule from the stables to you two?”

“We will take care of it this afternoon, Your Highness.”

Reminded of the clothing issue, I met with the royal tailor to take measurements for my new field clothing, as anything I had that was suitable for fieldwork was now Rebecka’s entire wardrobe. I brought along the main gauche, saber, and their scabbards that had belonged to Sir Hoofblack’s son. I took the look in Sir Hoofblack’s eyes when he handed these over as a challenge to protect all the families of Ioa against such losses in the future and silently nodded back at him. Hoofblack Jr’s main gauche had a bigger blade than my usual dagger and an actual guard that could catch a sword, but hiding this in my clothing wasn’t feasible.

I settled on a configuration of a belt that held the saber on my left hip, a pouch in the front, and the main gauche on my right hip. In case I was forced to drop the swordbelt, I would still have dagger and wand in hidden pockets in my jacket. The jacket would be of leather lined with a dozen quilted layers of linen. This should provide adequate protection against slashes (and the cold of the mountains in winter), but it was no brigandine and hence would be almost useless against stabs and arrows. The cotton pants also had a few layers of quilted linen lining, and with leather gloves, woolen scarf, and socks under my new boots, a simple cotton shirt, and my usual underwear, my outfit would be complete, with two sets of spares for shirt, socks, and underwear in my backpack.

A soldier would have worn much heavier armor, but as a wizard, I had to reserve my fatigue for spellcasting. The only metal armor I would wear would be well hidden as small steel plates in my boots over my toes and a steel skullcap in my leather cap.

I also checked into the outfits for the others. Rebecka and Alice (final size to be determined later) would have the same level of protection as myself, while Elizabeth would copy our best-protected foot soldiers with gambeson, hauberk, brigandine, helm, shield, and longsword, all in my Angleland family coat of arms. The rest of us would have such patches on our jackets. In case we were captured I wanted there to be some chance that our captors would recognize these and ransom us all back, rather than dispose of us out of hand.

Thankfully, Alice, Rebecka, and I all wore the same boot size, so I had no problem agreeing with Greg’s suggestion to pack on the mule a spare pair of boots and an extra set of clothes for Alice.

Yesterday, Elizabeth taught me how to escape from grapples. We had plum pudding for dessert.

I reached into my vest and yanked out my wand to power my response. That’s very good, Carnel. You can drop the link now.

Where are you now, big sister?

At the tailor for a fitting.

I want to see. I’ll be right down.

No. I’m heading to the library right now.

I put the wand away, reassured the tailor that nothing was wrong, and made my way up the stairs.

What did you use the wand for? I saw the wandstone glowing.

I stopped at an arrow slit and whispered back. “Magic doesn’t work on or for you, Greg? Did you study it back in your world?”

The only magic we knew was a fantasy in games and remote-viewed theater. If I were designing a character for your world, I’d make a Blessed Girl wizard.

“That would never happen. No responsible wizard would take a six-year-old blue-haired girl as an apprentice. Even blue-haired boys need to have their gender confirmed to be accepted.”

Why?

“Oh, it’s been tried, and there are a few blue-haired women who are fully competent ordinary wizards, but the tiny number of those who awakened to the powers of a Blessed Girl at puberty were driven into gibbering insanity at that point. I admit that the instinctive magics of the Blessed Girls are more efficient than mine at what they do and that it would be nice to have their rough equivalent of Magescan active all the time (hence, I am a little bit tempted by the Jewel of Koching, but not enough to lose a real eye over it), but on the other hand they do everything from their own strength and instinct. They hence can’t use our wands, teachings, books, and other toys. No, I’d rather have another wizard of my Fireblood tribe (man or woman), even if they weren’t a genius like Carnel or myself. But I trust you enough to make what seems a very foolish detour to pick up this Polly. I hope she’s worth the risk.”

If you can’t combine special powers with wizardry, then what about Lady Mildred?

“Her Witch Sight gave her glimpses of the future, not the Magescan-like abilities of the Blessed Girls, and she was far from the most stable person in the kingdom.”

As I entered the library, Sage Reltuc stood and put on his jacket.

He made a slight bow to me. “I tried, Your Highness.”

“Yeah, he can go.” Carnel waved her fingers at him from where she lay on the couch. “He’s useless.”

“Carnel, was plum pudding really the most important thing that happened to you yesterday?”

“I’ll get better at it. I don’t need him.”

“What happens when I ask you to find the second-best path from Sailock to Blanchland after an avalanche has blocked the usual path? What page on which book will you find that answer?”

“I’ll just ask a maid.”

“None of our maids have ever set foot in Suskan. They will not know where to look.”

“Has he been in Suskan?”

“Sage Reltuc can call on the experience of hundreds of people who have been there.”

“If he’s so good, then why doesn’t he answer your question?”

“Sage Reltuc?”

“For a winter trek, I would suggest the account of James Gotham.” He walked over and pulled the book from the shelf, checked its index, read a few pages, and then looked over to me. “His account suggests that the best course of action would be to go back north a half-mile and go south through the valley to the east, climbing back west over a saddleback ridge ten miles south.” Then he put the book back into place.

“Well, you could just take that book with you.”

“I can’t take our entire library with me, and I don’t have Sage Reltuc’s extensive knowledge of the source materials. Carnel, if you don’t work efficiently with this man, then you probably won’t see me alive again. Is that what you want?”

“But why this man?”

“Carnel, do you like how I can silently cast very complex spells?”

“He couldn’t have taught you that. He doesn’t know spells.”

“Sage Reltuc taught me something even more important: How to think things through clearly and concisely. Because of that I can skip a lot of the song and dance of wizardry and just channel my mana into the right patterns without all that preparation every time. If you want to cast spells like I do then he is a better tutor than I am. Also, he’s written a book on the Nordisle sagas.”

At this, Carnel sat up on the sofa. “Really?”

“Your Young Highness, my maternal grandmother was from Nordisle. Shall I bring that book tomorrow?”

“Sure, see you then.”