An Apprentice Without Magic, page 22
part #2 of Magic Missing Series
“Sit,” he said. Emmy sat, and he took Emmy through all of her commands in Vaarekian, and she responded with enthusiasm.
Sam grinned and scratched behind Emmy’s ears. “Come on in,” he said in Toraltian. Emmy tilted her head again, but then followed Sam into the house.
Emmy lay down at Sam’s feet after a quickly-prepared dinner. Sam lit the lamp and pulled out one of his Vaarekian textbooks. Antina had started to give him books to read. She had said he didn’t know quite enough to read fiction, but non-fiction might use Vaarekian more consistently.
Sam could recognize some common words, but he continued to concentrate on vocabulary. He grinned as he leaned down to pat Emmy. “I bought something that Antina doesn’t know about,” he said as he pulled out a slim volume. “This was more expensive than it should have been, but I guess it is priced for nobles.”
Sam opened the novel and began to read something in the printed Vaarekian alphabet. The book came from Vaarek and Sam did have some trouble with some of the words, but he had always been good with putting things in context, and he began to enjoy his language homework for the evening.
A few hours later, Tru walked through the door downstairs. Sam sighed and put the book down to greet his brother.
“I heard a noble lady schooled you in court language today,” Tru said as Sam reached the main level.
“Lady Keeta Grate,” Sam said. “Dickey and I interviewed her for a theft a few months ago.” Sam smiled. “She actually remembered me.”
“Why wouldn’t she?” Tru said.
“Nobles don’t always notice commoners. Haven’t you run into any nobles, with your designs?”
Tru laughed. “Antina handles all that. If they knew an ex-blacksmith created fine curios, they would turn right around and flee her shop.”
“It can’t be that bad…” Sam thought for a minute. “Yes, it could. She says your own clientele is steadily growing.”
Tru nodded. “It is. I have to pinch myself sometimes to see if I’m dreaming. I love what I am doing, as opposed to hating my life at Potter’s shop.”
There was an awkward silence, but Tru broke it. “Antina said you had some questions to ask me.”
Sam grimaced. “I should have never talked about it with her.”
“What?”
“Girls. I am totally inexperienced.”
Tru laughed. “It doesn’t come quite naturally. It didn’t for me,” he said. “You just need practice, and that is probably hard to do since you spend all your time at Antina’s shop or at the constabulary.”
“Where do apprentices generally find suitable girls to talk to?”
“That is the key term,” Tru said. “Suitable. The boys at Potter’s didn’t seek out suitable girls, but unsuitable ones. You should ask your apprentice mates at the constabulary. They are from better families. Surely they should be able to point you in the right direction.”
Sam clamped his lips together. “I haven’t spoken to any of them in months,” he said. Actually, none of them had spoken to him. Mark Leadback and his trainer had transferred to the dock's office. Another had graduated, and Sam sparred with him once with the regular constables. Sam thoroughly thrashed him.
“I’ll have to find a way. Practice, you say?”
Tru nodded. “Practice. It may be painful, but like anything else, the more you interact with girls, the easier it will be.”
“I’ll ask Dickey.” Sam hadn’t wanted to talk to his partner about such a thing. He didn’t like admitting weaknesses to him. It only gave Dickey another chance to make some kind of criticism; Dickey would know what he should do better than Chief Constable Bentwick.
Chapter Twenty-Five
~
S am trudged through a heavy snowfall to the constabulary. Few people walked the streets, and it seemed the horse-drawn traffic was much lighter, as well. When Sam dressed for sword practice, only two constables showed up. Even Kened Rider hadn’t arrived.
He let the other two men spar and changed back into his street clothes. When he entered the snoop office, Dickey was the only person in the room.
“Why did you come in?” Dickey asked. “You might not be able to make it home. What constables there are, are already out patrolling, but there won’t be many. On days like today, crime takes a holiday, too.”
Sam nodded and sat in his customary seat facing Dickey.
“As long as I’m here, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”
Dickey sniffed himself. “Yes, I did take a bath this week,” he said.
“Not that,” Sam said. “Where can a fifteen-year-old apprentice meet suitable girls?”
“What is a suitable girl? The marrying kind?”
Sam furrowed his brows. “No. I’m too young to court,” Sam said. “I feel that I am. I asked Antina, and she asked me to ask Tru. I asked Tru, but he couldn’t help me. He suggested I talk to the apprentices, but the only one I can speak to is now working at the docks.”
“Leadback?”
Sam nodded.
“What brought this on?” Dickey asked.
“Lady Grate sat in on yesterday’s session with Antina. She invited me to visit her as long as I brought you along.”
Dickey’s complexion colored imperceptibly. He coughed. “She is a crazy woman, for a noble. The pair of us could ruin her reputation in Baskin.”
“She could say we were on duty,” Sam said. “Anyway, it got me to wondering about me. I don’t have any friends outside of the constabulary.”
“And few enough inside,” Dickey said.
Sam narrowed his eyes at Dickey. “Thank you. Where can I meet decent girls?”
“What do you define as decent?”
“Uh, I’m not sure. Not boy-crazy like my sister. Sort of like Lady Grate, but my age.”
“Independent?”
Sam thought for a bit. “They would have to be to associate with a person who has no magic.”
“A school, perhaps? The apprentices might frequent preparatory schools.”
“Preparatory schools? What are they?”
“There aren’t very many outside of Baskin. It is where students go after they have graduated from their compulsory education. Fifteen and up,” Dickey said.
“For boys, it is further study to qualify them for university and higher paying jobs, like a banker or an educator. For girls, it gives them more time to find better husbands.”
“Apprentices don’t make good husbands?” Sam asked.
“Apprentices don’t make the same kind of money that an educated man does, that’s all,” Dickey said.
“And constables don’t make that much money?”
Dickey laughed. “Captains do,” he said, “but you aren’t a captain.”
“So back to my original question, how can I meet a girl that goes to one of these preparatory schools?” He picked at a callus on his palm.
Dickey sat back. “I’ll think about it. When do you want to visit Lady Grate?”
Sam’s head shot up. “Really?”
Dickey chuckled. It was his signature rough chuckle that went with his smirky smile. “Let’s make sure we have everyone’s paperwork up to date,” he said.
They spent the rest of the morning scouring the desks of the absent snoops and found a few unfinished reports, accompanied by sufficient notes to complete the paperwork. Sam stepped to the door to see snow up to his waist in the middle of the road.
The cooks still hadn’t shown up in the commissary, so it was make do rummaging around in the kitchen for scraps of edible food.
Chief Constable Bentwick walked in and stopped. “The cooks are out?”
Dickey looked surprised to see him. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“I came early thinking I could leave in the afternoon.” Bentwick turned towards the entrance. “That’s not going to happen. Can I join you?”
“You have the run of the kitchen, Chief,” Dickey said.
Bentwick returned with a plate stacked high with meat. “My wife likes me to take it easy,” he said grinning. “I think we have to eat this before it spoils. Don’t you agree, Nail?”
“Most assuredly.”
Sam had noticed much the same culinary strategy on his partner’s plate.
Bentwick attacked his food with a flurry and then sat back to dab his face with his napkin. “What is new with you, Sam?”
“He’s looking for a girlfriend.”
“Do you have anyone in mind?” Bentwick asked.
Sam groaned inside. “It’s just that I have a very limited circle of friends.”
“And none of them female,” Dickey added.
Bentwick put more food in his mouth, and he urged his table companions to do the same with hand gestures. He finally swallowed. “I might be able to help. My youngest daughter is nearly seventeen, and she attends a preparatory school. She says they have dances and literary soirees. Some of them are in court language. None of them speak it very well, including Winnie, my daughter. I’ll talk to her. Can’t promise anything, of course. Eat up. You are going to need to keep up your strength through all this boredom.”
~
The freak snowstorm didn’t ease up until late afternoon. Everyone in the constabulary stayed the night. Sam climbed up to the apprentice loft along with Dickey. Constables, still chatting in the dim lamplight, had already taken most of the beds.
Sam hadn’t expected it, but Bentwick was right about keeping his strength up. He put his head on the pillow and woke up to the sound of rain pattering on the window. The weather had turned, and Sam went to the window. The snow wasn’t gone, but the rain was doing a better job than anyone with a shovel could.
More constables showed up for sword practice in the morning. Sam dreaded sparring with the constable Kened had paired him with. The man fought in a similar style to Sam, and that made for long matches that drained him, but he ended up enjoying the diversion from the day before and conversation that was too personal.
Dickey conversed with another snoop when he finally reached the Investigative Division offices. Sam could tell they were talking business, rather than idly talking so he joined them.
“You can go home,” Dickey said. “I’ll be doing the same, soon enough. See how your mutt is doing.”
“I can stay today.”
“Captain’s orders,” Dickey said.
The other snoop laughed.
Sam nodded and retrieved his coat. The walkways were slushy, and the butcher shop was closed, so Sam had to buy Emmy’s food from a restaurant that had just opened when he passed.
He arrived home to an empty house. Emmy was curled up in her shed. When Sam opened the door, the dog scurried out to do her business and then followed Sam into the kitchen.
“Here you are,” Sam said, opening the paper packet of food. Emmy didn’t take long to finish it.
He heard a knock on the door.
“Yes?” Sam said to a messenger.
“I have a letter for you.”
Sam reached in his pocket for a coin to give the man, just like he had seen Tru do before.
The man tipped his cap to Sam and left.
A letter thought Sam. Why would anyone write to me?
He opened the envelope and picked up a hint of some flowery scent. A letter from a girl?
Dear Apprentice Constable Smith,
My father has enlisted me as an agent to provide a lonely apprentice with some kind of diversion. It may seem forward of me to invite you to a literary soiree, but my father, Chief Constable Bentwick, has informed me that you have a command of court language.
My school encourages outside gatherings for various purposes, and he has asked me to invite you to join us. It would be rather exciting to have someone my father thinks highly of talk to us about the kind of work he does.
If you would be so kind as to join us at 722 Gem Street in the Northeast Quarter four days hence at seven after noon, I would be honored. If you wore a uniform, it would even be better.
You are under no obligation, but if you choose to come, please let my father know at the soonest.
I look forward to meeting you.
Sincerely yours,
Winnie Bentwick
Sam didn’t know what to think. He couldn’t very well back out, since the Chief Constable had engineered a social engagement for him. He went back to the kitchen and found Emmy asleep on the floor.
He sat next to his dog and wondered what the soiree would be like. Sam took a deep breath. He would be prepared to be identified as a curiosity. He was to wear his uniform, something he had rarely done in the months during his apprenticeship. This wasn’t what he wanted or expected, but a social event of any kind would be better than a lonely life learning Vaarekian from Antina and learning how to be a proper snoop from Dickey.
~
Sam had thought the next four days would drag by, but he looked at himself in the mirror, straightening out his uniform. It looked new and felt stiff and uncomfortable for the same reason.
Tru had arranged a hired-carriage, so Sam soon found himself at the front door of a much nicer and larger townhouse that the one he shared with his brother. The Northeast Quarter snuggled next to where the nobles lived in their mansions.
Sam carried the letter in his pocket, in case he was about to be rejected at the door. He pulled on the doorbell, and a woman answered the door.
“Oh, you are the snoop!” the woman said.
That wasn’t a particularly encouraging start, Sam thought. ‘The snoop’ had arrived. Sam was to be a curiosity, as expected. He managed a smile.
“I am Sam Smith, Apprentice Constable.”
She opened the door wider and let Sam in. “Follow me, please. Everyone has not yet arrived.”
He followed the woman toward the back of the house and entered a glass-walled room. Braziers were glowing, lending warmth to what should have been a chilly space. Four girls and two boys stopped their conversation when Sam walked in.
One of the girls rose from her chair. She looked to be one of the oldest in the group.
“Sam? I am Winnie Bentwick. I invited you and am so glad you came.”
“Thank you for inviting me,” Sam countered. He had nothing else to say.
“Sit here, Constable,” one of the other girls said, patting the seat at her side.
“What is your full name?”
“Sam Smith.”
“A real smith?” she asked.
“Not really. My brothers are. I’m a constable’s apprentice,” Sam said.
“Of course,” she giggled. “How obtuse of me. You are wearing a uniform. My name is Jenna Pot. Welcome to our little group. Be prepared to talk. You do know a little court language, don’t you? Winnie told us that you did.”
Sam nodded.
A man entered the room along with another girl. “We are all here.” He nodded to Sam. “For the benefit of our guest, I am Hander Pot. This is my house, and I am hosting this month’s court language soiree for the Hardstone Preparatory School. Welcome. I assure you we will have excellent refreshments later.”
Sam rubbed his sweaty palms on his trousers, relieved that he didn’t leave wet streaks on his legs.
Winnie rose. “I am the coordinator and have invited Sam Smith. He is unique in Baskin and probably in all Toraltia, being a snoop apprentice. You may not know, but apprentices to the Investigative Division in the Royal Constabulary are almost unheard of, but I’ve heard of Sam Smith. My father says he fought bravely and intelligently in the mountain revolt last summer and worked closely with him.” She paused and clapped her hands.
The little group applauded Sam, who awkwardly acknowledged their appreciation.
“Since this is a court language soiree, would you please tell us a little of your adventure using court language where you can.”
Sam blinked in surprise. He hadn’t expected to tell them about his adventures. If Winnie had told him in advance, he could have practiced.
One of the boys looked at Sam with the same skeptical eyes the apprentices had. Sam vowed to surprise him.
He began with Harrison Dimple asking him to join his healing tour. Harrison was a familiar name to some of the youths and certainly to Hander Pot, who stood up straighter and began to pay attention when he heard Harrison’s name.
Sam gave a brief description of their visits but didn’t mention his disability. He ended with a watered-down version of the final battles and the futile pursuit of Banna Plunk, not mentioning her by name.
“For my help, Chief Constable Bentwick rewarded me with an apprenticeship, and here I am,” Sam concluded. “I hope I spoke well enough for you to get most of what I said.”
Hander Pot clapped his hands, and the rest followed. “You have a very good command for a young man. Your accent is impeccable.”
Winnie looked a bit perplexed. “Perhaps we can ask you questions in Toraltian? I didn’t catch some of what you said, but what I did understand was astounding. It matches my father’s recollection, which is different from what I read.”
Sam smiled. “There are different versions,” he said, shrugging. “We all have our own personal perspectives.” He already knew General Torrent, the commander of the Royal Army, had published a very flattering account of himself and hadn’t mentioned Harrison Dimple’s contribution in the conflict.
The girls were more inquisitive than the two young men. Hander Pot asked more questions on Harrison Dimple’s activities, talking in Vaarekian. Sam was impressed the man was so fluent.
Finally, Sam’s presentation ended, and he returned to his seat, flanked by Winnie Bentwick and Jenna Pot.
“You spent the entirety of last summer with Harrison Dimple? What is he like?” Winnie asked.
“He is a good healer with many hidden talents,” Sam said. “He is excellent with a sword and taught me enough of the rudiments that I didn’t get myself killed.”
“Many people think he is biding his time and then he will start his own revolt,” one of the boys said.
“I don’t think so,” Sam said. “He enjoys healing and living a simple life. I think he gets enough excitement during his summer tours of the mountain villages. He was very concerned about the revolt and did everything he could to make sure Baskin knew what was happening.”
