Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4) (20 page)

“That isn’t uncommon,” Lady Barb said. “You’d think he’d know better than to try it on a sorceress.”

Emily looked up, surprised. Hodge
had
been an idiot; Emily could have done a lot worse than turn him into a pig. If she’d panicked, she might have accidentally blown him into atoms – and no magic could bring someone back from the dead. What had made him think he could succeed? And he hadn’t even been smart enough to knock her out when he had the opportunity.

“You...do not present the appearance of being able to defend yourself,” Lady Barb added, warningly. “I’ve watched you ever since I first knew you; you flinch from men. I think Jade was the only boy near your own age you even talked to, if it could be avoided. Every other man in your life is much older than you.”

Emily knew that Lady Barb was right. The Grandmaster and Void were ancient – Void was over a hundred years old – while Sergeant Miles, Professor Thande and even Master Tor were all in their forties, at the very least. It had been impossible to estimate Sergeant Harkin’s age, before he’d died, but he’d probably been in his late thirties at the very youngest. And even Jade was several years older than her.

Which didn’t stop him proposing to me
, she thought. It had honestly never occurred to her that he might be interested. There was at least five or six years between them.
But just how serious was he at the time
?

And yet, why had she been scared of boys her own age?

She looked down at the ground, then at the running river. Memories rose up in her mind, memories of her growth into a young woman...and how her stepfather had watched her, almost constantly. And of what he’d said to her...She didn’t want to face those memories again, yet she suspected she no longer had a choice. Lady Barb wouldn’t let her avoid them any longer.

“I don’t know,” she burst out. “Is there something wrong with me?”

Lady Barb lifted her eyebrows. “
Is
there something wrong with you?”

Emily found her hands twisting together and angrily told them to stay still. “I don’t know,” she said. “I...don’t even know what I felt for Jade. If I felt
anything
for Jade.”

She hesitated, then pushed on. “He kissed me, last year,” she admitted. “I liked it. And yet I didn’t like it. And now...he feels like my brother, rather than anything else. Is that wrong?”

“Probably a good thing you didn’t agree to his proposal,” Lady Barb said. “It might have ruined both of your lives.”

Emily swallowed, feeling tears prickling at the corner of her eye. She’d never looked at any boy with interest. Part of her felt that no boy would be interested in her, even though Jade had clearly wanted her. But she also wondered if his proposal had been made out of misplaced pity rather than anything else. Emily had been isolated at the end of First Year, feared by many of the other students. She had had no reason to expect anything better than Jade’s proposal.

Lady Barb reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder, steadying her. “Are you interested in girls instead?”

“I don’t think so,” Emily said, after a moment’s thought. She’d been careful to try to undress when no one else was around, but her roommates hadn’t been so careful. She’d seen almost all of them naked. But she hadn’t felt anything beyond abstract admiration for the sheer perfection of Alassa’s body. “I’m not interested in anyone.”

“It isn’t uncommon for it to take time before someone develops an interest in the other sex,” Lady Barb said, dryly. “What happened to you on...where you came from?”

Emily swallowed. “Do we have to talk about it now?”

“This is the best place for it,” Lady Barb said. She gave Emily an encouraging smile. “Or would you like to sit down?”

Emily looked down at the muddy path, then shook her head. “No, thank you,” she said. “Will you keep it to yourself?”

“As long as you wish me to,” Lady Barb said. Her smile grew wider. “You still have to listen to my advice.”

Emily hesitated, organizing her thoughts. The hell of it was that her stepfather’s treatment of her had been nothing like as overt as the treatment of the poor boy in the village. There had been days when she was sure that he meant her nothing but harm and days when she had been able to convince herself that she was imagining it. It might have been easier if he had beaten her, she reflected. She could have taken that to her teachers and asked for help.

“My father left us when I was very young,” she said. Her memories of him were faded and worn, leaving her wondering if they were just the product of her imagination. “I don’t know why. My mother never talked about him.”

Lady Barb nodded, inviting her to continue.

“She married again, soon afterwards,” Emily said. “My stepfather ignored me as much as possible. I don’t know what he was thinking. My mum crawled into a bottle soon afterwards and never really emerged long enough to look after me. I had to cook my own food and sort out my own clothes.”

The memories mocked her. Cooking hadn’t been easy, not when she was still a child. She’d lost count of the number of near-disasters she’d had trying to cook with an oversized pan, learning the hard way. And then she’d had to buy clothes on her own...and manage what little money her stepfather had given her. Most of her clothes had come from charity shops and second-hand stores. She simply hadn’t been able to afford anything else. She had never understood why so many other poor children could afford expensive cell phones and fancy clothes.

Lady Barb said nothing, merely listened.

“I could never bring other children to the house,” Emily confessed. “They started to mock me because of my clothing, so I retreated into myself once I learned to read. Books were my friends; most people simply ignored me as much as possible. When I grew older...”

She swallowed, feeling her throat constrict. “I started to grow breasts,” she admitted. “And I grew up, despite the food.”

Lady Barb tilted her head. “And people started to take an interest in you?”

“It took me a long time to notice,” Emily said. “My stepfather was
looking
at me. He would watch me from time to time...and he’d never showed any interest in me before. I used to think he didn’t even know that I existed.”

“You could have been tapping into your magic, without knowing it,” Lady Barb said. “Some very young magicians do it. Remaining hidden isn’t difficult if you’re not trying to hide from a magician.”

Emily shook her head. Outside rumors, Earth had no magic...at least as far as she knew. It was vaguely possible, she supposed, that Hogwarts really existed and Harry Potter was a genuine person, but it seemed unlikely. The existence of cell phones with video cameras and orbital satellites would inevitably lead to the end of the masquerade. Besides, she’d never managed to cast a spell until she’d reached Whitehall. But then, she’d never even tried.

“I don’t think so,” she said, finally. “I think he just didn’t care.”

She looked down at the ground. “He kept staring at me...and I kept trying to avoid him,” she explained. “Sometimes he would say things, disturbing things. I wore shapeless clothes, showered at school and spent as much time as I could away from home. He...just kept looking at me.”

“And you were afraid that, one day, he would rape you,” Lady Barb said. There was no condemnation in her voice, only quiet understanding. “Did you not have anyone else?”

Emily shook her head. Her mother had been an only child, as far as she knew, and she had no idea what had happened to her father. She wouldn’t have asked her stepfather’s family for water if she was dying from thirst. And she’d never trusted her teachers enough to ask for help.

“Then Shadye kidnapped me,” Emily added. “I’ve never looked back.”

“Nor should you,” Lady Barb said, simply. She hesitated, then pushed on. “It’s no consolation, Emily, but I have seen worse.”

“I know,” Emily said, quietly.
She’d
seen worse now, too. “But I still felt vulnerable.”

“Which is why you froze in Zangaria,” Lady Barb said, thoughtfully. “It isn’t everyone who can take lessons learned during training and apply them to the real world.”

Emily nodded. Once, she’d looked up military training, thinking that it might provide a way out of her dead end existence. Soldiers on Earth were pushed to the limits during boot camp, trained extensively by men who’d been there and done that, but even they sometimes froze when faced with real combat. Training was made as realistic as possible to hammer it out of them, but it wasn’t perfect. It couldn’t be perfect.

“So tell me,” Lady Barb added. “How do you feel now?”

Emily hesitated, trying to parse out her own feelings. The sense of fear had faded, somehow, after watching Hodge run for his piggy life. She knew she could have taken him even without magic, after spending two years practicing with the sergeants and boys who were bigger and stronger than Hodge – and better trained too. But she still wasn’t sure how she felt about men.

“Strange,” she said. “I don’t feel so scared anymore.”

Lady Barb smiled. “He’s the one who’s scared,” she said. “You taught him a lesson.”

Emily looked up. “You’re not mad at me?”

“Should I be?”

“I don’t know,” Emily said. Lady Barb
had
told her to try to avoid using magic where possible, but she hadn’t told Emily not to defend herself. “Did I do the right thing?”

“Tell me something,” Lady Barb said. She placed a hand on Emily’s shoulder, making it impossible for Emily to look away. “How many girls do you think he’s forced into opening their legs for him?”

“Too many,” Emily said. It was the only possible answer. “Even if it wasn’t the girls in the village...”

“The headman was appointed by the local lord,” Lady Barb told her. “I doubt the morals of his son were considered when the man was given the job. All that mattered was squeezing as many taxes from the village as possible – and the headman is very good at that. As long as he keeps the taxes and tithes coming, the lord wouldn’t care if every girl in the village was attacked by Hodge. I’d bet good money that he forced himself on most of them.”

Emily shuddered. If she’d grown up in such a place...

“Not just him,” Lady Barb added. “There are places where it is traditional for the husband’s father to have...access to his daughter-in-law, if he feels like it. Or where a widow can be pushed into marrying a man who already has a wife, if she wants someone to help take care of the kids. Or...there are countless horrors hidden here.”

“So you said,” Emily said, feeling sick. She didn’t want to know, but she thought she should ask. “What happened to him?”

“Hodge?” Lady Barb smiled. “I turned him back, told him that the curse would snap back if he ever tried to force himself on someone else, then gave his father a stern warning. If nothing else, the lord wouldn’t have objected if I’d killed him – and he knew it. But I think he’s a changed man.”

Emily shook her head, doubtfully.

“Oh, he is,” Lady Barb assured her. “He spent several hours as a pig, without any mental defenses or prior experience. What do you think that did to his mind?”

“I used a prank spell,” Emily said. “Didn’t I?”

“You didn’t cast it perfectly,” Lady Barb said, reprovingly. “Let’s just say that parts of him are still convinced he’s a pig.”

Emily snickered. She knew it was wrong, yet she couldn’t help it. The thought of Hodge eating at the trough instead of at the table, convinced it was where he belonged, was darkly amusing. She recalled the struggle to recall who and what she was when she’d turned herself into a rat and snickered again. Hodge would have absolutely no preparation for the transformation at all. Somehow, it was hard to feel any pity for him.

“You need practice,” Lady Barb added. “We’re going to work on that once we get back to Whitehall.”

She shrugged. “I also told him that he was lucky that I hadn’t turned him into dinner,” she said. “I think the lesson will have sunk in – and if it hasn’t, the next time he transforms will leave him stuck that way.”

Emily nodded, wondering if a girl in the village would be brave enough to manipulate Hodge into trying something. The thought of leaving someone – anyone – stuck as a pig forever was nightmarish, but it would be worse in Zangaria. She still shuddered when she thought about the wild boar Alassa and her suitors had hunted, wild boar that had actually been transformed humans. It had horrified her at the time – executions would have been kinder – and she’d banned the practice in Cockatrice.

Lady Barb clapped a hand on her shoulder. “You made a good stride forward today,” she said, as she turned to lead the way further down the path. “All you have to do is build on that success.”

Emily hesitated, then asked the question that had nagged at her mind earlier. “Did you...did you take a lover?”

“I was a little older than you when I fell in love for the first time,” Lady Barb said. She didn’t seem offended by the question. “It didn’t last. He was a little too much like my father and wasn’t too keen on the idea of marrying a combat sorceress. We parted reasonably, kindly.”

She looked back at Emily. “Is there a reason you asked?”

Emily looked down at the ground. “Is it normal to be so conflicted?”

Lady Barb laughed. “Welcome to the wonderful world of adulthood,” she said. “People mature at different speeds, Emily. You may be physically seventeen, old enough to be a mother, but you may not be mentally ready to have a relationship with anyone. And, unlike most of the boys and girls in the Allied Lands, you will have all the time you need to make your choice.”

“I don’t,” Emily said, miserably. “I have to provide an heir for Cockatrice.”

“True enough,” Lady Barb agreed. “And it
would
have to be your child. You couldn’t simply adopt someone and declare him your heir.”

She looked back along the path. “What sort of man do you
want
?”

Emily shook her head. Once, she’d dreamed of Prince Charming...but that had been part of her childhood. After she’d started to mature, she’d become too unsure of herself to dream of a prince – or even a princess – coming to take her away. It struck her suddenly that she
could
get a prince now and she giggled, despite herself. But if the princes who had courted Alassa were any indication, she wouldn’t want any of them.