An Apprentice Without Magic, page 24
part #2 of Magic Missing Series
“You don’t mind?”
Winnie raised her eyebrows. “Should I?”
Sam frowned, but then quickly erased the expression from his face. “You shouldn’t, but some people think less of me for it.”
“I can see that. It is something that makes you unique,” Winnie said.
Addy had told him something similar enough times when he was growing up, but he hadn’t taken it to heart like he did when the same words came from Winnie Bentwick.
“Is Jenna here?” Sam said. He pulled the invitation from his pocket. “I wanted to thank her for this.”
Winnie frowned a bit. “You like her?”
Sam smiled. “I don’t know what I like.” He sensed dipping his toes into a lake with treacherous depths. “I misspoke. I like lots of people.”
That seemed to erase the frown. “Good,” she said. “I like lots of people, too.”
More people entered the dance hall while Winnie talked about what preparatory school was like. It sounded a lot like Sam’s educational experience, except there were teachers for each subject. The boys headed straight to the refreshment tables, while the girls gathered into little groups.
Jenna Pot walked up with another girl. “I see you kept Sam warm for me,” she said.
Winnie smiled at Jenna, but Sam could easily see that it was a frosty smile. The two girls were not the best of friends, it seemed.
“It seems he can keep warm all by himself,” Winnie said. She smiled at Sam. “I will see you later.”
Jenna narrowed her eyes as she looked at Winnie depart. Her lips were still turned up into a smile, so Sam didn’t know how the girl really felt, but he was sure Jenna was glad Winnie had retreated. What surprised him was that the little scene might have been over him.
“You really impressed my father,” Jenna said, slipping her hand through his arm.
Sam wanted to pull away, thinking the move too familiar. She didn’t even ask. “He seems like a well-read, nice sort of man.”
“Well-read and nice? Is that an actual snoop description?” Jenna asked, coyly.
“No. A snoop description would strip out nice. He is smart, up-to-date, and is fluent in court language, and is a principal in Red Marine Shipping. That would be it, as far as I know.”
Jenna worked her lips into a bit of a pout. “Surely you can be more creative about him. How would you describe me?”
Sam wanted to sigh but didn’t. He still remembered how Addy acted around her boyfriends, and Jenna was doing much the same thing. He was treading on thin ice.
“A nice sort of girl,” Sam said with a smile. “If I were describing you as a snoop, I would say Jenna, daughter of Hander Pot, a principal of Red Marine Shipping.”
Jenna hit him playfully on his upper arm. “You are toying with me!”
“We are toying with each other, aren’t we?” Sam said.
That brought a frown. Sam should have expected it. Saying that they were playing some game probably made it less fun. He wasn’t really having any fun.
A man dressed in fancy clothes called the hall to silence and welcomed the students and the visitors.
“For the first dance, we will impose on those who are invited guests to take a partner and get everything started.” The man nodded to the musicians and the dance formally began.
Jenna tugged on Sam’s arm. “I get the first dance,” she said.
He thought it was only fair that she did, since she had invited him. He let her drag him out to the floor. Only five other couples were dancing. Sam observed what they did. The steps were close enough to one of the dances that Addy had taught him.
Sam knew he was stumbling to keep up with the music. Every few steps, he went one way, and Jenna went another. Other dancers soon flooded the floor, and the crowds hid Sam’s missteps.
Mercifully, the dance ended, and Jenna took Sam by the hand towards a group of girls. Sam noticed that one of them was the girl who had accompanied Jenna into the hall.
“Constables don’t get out much,” Jenna said to her friends, who all giggled.
The musicians began again. The song was totally unfamiliar, and Sam had no idea what the dancers were doing. They formed lines and then split off one way and another into some pattern that was lost to Sam.
“What are they doing? I can’t recognize the dance,” Sam finally admitted to Jenna who clapped to the music.
“It’s the latest thing. We follow lines on the floor. It’s really quite easy once you get going. There will be four or five of these dances tonight.”
She beamed as she looked out at the dancers. Sam could see Jenna wanted to get out on the dance floor.
“You can dance with someone else for a while. I’d just make a fool of myself, but I promise I’ll observe everything very closely,” Sam said.
“Really?” Jenna said. “I’ll be sure to grab you later.” She walked across the floor and asked a boy to dance.
Sam didn’t see any lines on the floor, and then he pulled out his spectacles and saw the lines that the dancers followed. There were three colors for three different paths. Everything made much more sense.
He knew it would be impolite to wear his spectacles at the dance, so he tucked them back in his coat. Jenna’s friends studiously ignored him, so he sauntered over to the refreshment table. Winnie was there before he was.
“That happened more quickly than I thought,” Winnie said.
“What did?” Sam asked.
“Jenna finding another partner. I suppose she didn’t like the way you danced. You did stumble around quite a bit.” Winnie giggled after she said it. “No offense. I could see the steps you learned were a bit different.”
“I couldn’t make sense out of the dance until I put on my spectacles.”
Winnie smiled and nodded her head. “Ah, you didn’t see the patterns on the floor.”
“I didn’t. Jenna looked itching to dance, so I suggested she find another partner.”
Winnie looked at Jenna enjoying herself in the dance line. “That was kind of you. Personally, I don’t like pattern dances,” she said. “I like more freedom. Less convention.”
“I’m all about less convention. I have to be, I’m afraid. Freedom? I’m not so sure what that is for a fifteen-year-old. You might have a better perspective.”
“As an older woman of nearly seventeen?” Winnie said. She smiled. “We have led different kinds of lives, but how did you feel once you were on your way out of Cherryton with Harrison Dimple? Didn’t you feel freer?”
Sam had to think about that. Winnie obviously knew more about him than what he had spoken of at the soiree. “Maybe a bit freer. I felt more lonely and less lonely at the same time,” he said. “I was cut off from my family and the town I grew up in, and I wasn’t exactly on my own while under the care of Harrison.”
Winnie giggled. “I’m surprised you can be so casual about traveling with a prince.”
“I didn’t know he was one until recently. I knew something happened, and he was banished. Harrison tried to be useful as he made his rounds, and he was diligent about reporting his observations. No one else treated him like a prince, so he was a healer with a past.” Sam shrugged.
“And you soaked it all in. That’s what Father said. Harrison told him you were like a sponge.”
“I didn’t have anything else to do but learn.”
“Like mastering court language?”
“I’m hardly a master, and what I do know has taken a lot of effort.”
She laughed. “Of course, it has,” she said in court language.
A couple of girls looked at Winnie strangely.
Winnie hunched her shoulders and then relaxed. “We aren’t supposed to flaunt our fluency in public,” she said. “Some people are touchy about speaking our version of Vaarekian when we aren’t nobles.”
“But servants do,” Sam said.
Winnie nodded. “And they are servants.”
Sam thought he understood.
“What if Jenna spoke in court language?”
“She would get as dirty looks as I did. They think I put on airs, and she is rubbing her noble blood in their faces.”
Sam realized his court language was tolerated at the Piper Club because he was a servant. When Dickey went to the mansions, he was tolerated as long as he behaved like a servant, except inside Lady Grate’s residence, of course.
“So court language is for members of the noble club. It is not polite to speak it in public unless you are a member,” Sam said.
“You do understand. We commoners learn it at the academy, so we can function as intermediaries. A little higher-class servant, but a servant, nevertheless.”
“It allows you a little more freedom?” Sam asked.
“A little. Father can do quite a bit on his own, but the Minister of Justice, for example, can redirect Father’s effort if he chooses, although that is frowned upon by certain noble factions.”
“Noble factions. Hander Pot is part of a noble faction, isn’t he?”
Winnie nodded. Sam could see her eyes sought out Jenna, still out on the dance floor. “You have been established as a friend of Harrison Dimple. That makes you valuable to him. And if you are valuable to him, you are valuable to Jenna Pot.”
Sam didn’t know what to think about that, but no one seemed to be using him as a pawn, except for Jenna, and maybe even Winnie Bentwick. He was still confused a bit by how language defined one’s class. He shouldn’t be thinking about such things at a social event, he thought. The music started. It sounded more like a dance Sam could manage.
“Would you like to dance?” Sam said.
Winnie pursed her lips, but it hid a smile. “I would be delighted.”
Sam did a better job this time, but Winnie seemed to be skilled at helping him make fewer mistakes.
The flow of the dancers took him closer to Jenna, fanning herself from the exertions of the pattern dance. She glared at Winnie, who seemed to ignore her.
“Are you an enemy of Jenna Pot?”
Winnie laughed. “Of course. Well, maybe not enemy, but rival is a better word.”
“May I ask you why?”
“It isn’t solely because of you, but I’m sorry to say, you are a possession she wants, and I’d prefer that you weren’t.”
Sam wondered if she meant that Winnie wanted Sam as a possession. It didn’t seem feasible for a girl two years…no, a year-and-a-half or so older to care about a mere apprentice. But then why would a very minor noble girl want him as her own, either? Having someone not want to strike out against him was a foreign feeling.
He laughed in the middle of the dance.
Winnie drew back to look at him. “Are you having that good of a time?”
Sam shook his head. “No. Life takes strange turns, sometimes.”
“For you, it will probably continue,” Winnie said.
The dance ended ,and Winnie told Sam it was proper to escort the lady to her friends.
“Who are your friends?”
She pointed to the mixed group she was mingling with before.
“Why is Jenna’s group girls only?” Sam asked, but he wondered if he had probed too far.
“They are younger. In a few years, the more sophisticated ones will seek to include young men in their group. Some girls want to cluster with other females, so they can gossip about who is dancing with whom. Same thing for boys, but they don’t care about the partners as much.”
Sam could see the different groups. Such things were new to him, and as a snoop, they shouldn’t be. He needed to understand human nature more, and spending all his time with Antina and with Dickey and the other constables didn’t make for a varied view of Baskin’s citizens.
Sam left Winnie with her friends after she had made introductions that Sam, to his dismay, quickly forgot. He asked Jenna for the next dance. It was a pattern dance, so he had to put on his spectacles to make out the pollen lines on the floor.
“Show off!” Jenna said. “Wearing such things in public. Those should only be for reading.”
“I can’t see pollen without them,” he said. He noticed that Jenna wore pollen jewelry for the first time.
She stopped on the dance floor. “You can’t?”
Sam shook his head. “A childhood accident. It stripped me of all pollen capabilities and being able to see pollen. I found that gold-washed spectacles cures the sight issue when I wear them, but I can’t create anything out of pollen.”
Her jaw fell. “You are disabled. A freak, that’s what you are. How could Harrison Dimple bear to have you with him?”
Sam could see the old familiar hatred of his disability. “He managed quite well.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Does Winnie Bentwick know of this? I must tell her immediately.”
“Go ahead,” Sam said. He suddenly wanted to see Jenna’s face when Winnie told her that she knew, so he followed her as she stalked over to where Winnie spoke with her friends.
Jenna pulled Winnie aside and spoke in her ear, looking daggers at Sam. It was obvious she wouldn’t want to possess him any longer.
Winnie winked at Sam as she spoke in Jenna’s ear. The Pot girl’s mouth dropped open, and she made an ugly face like she had bitten into an apple to find half a worm.
“He’s all yours,” she said as she lifted her chin and marched across the dance hall to her friends.
Winnie looked amused as she gazed at Jenna’s retreating back.
“You told her?”
“We were talking about the pattern dance,” Sam said. He shrugged. “I needed to wear my spectacles in order not to bump into everyone. You can see how most people react to my disability.”
“They really do.” She put her hands on her hips. “You’ve led a harder life than I thought. Do you want to finish the dance you abandoned?”
Sam smiled. It might even make Jenna madder, not that it really mattered anymore. “Sure.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
~
S am skipped sword practice. Since he slept in, he had to scurry to get dressed, get Emmy water, and take a hired carriage to arrive at the constabulary late enough to still miss breakfast. He sat down at Dickey’s empty desk and pulled out a hard roll he had shoved in his pocket when he raced out of his house. No one had arrived, so Sam tore into the roll.
“A little bleary-eyed?” Dickey said from behind him.
Sam jerked to his feet, roll in hand moving behind his back. “A late night.”
“Ah, the dance. How was it?”
Sam shook his head. “More of an education than I imagined.”
Dickey chuckled, sort of.
“I learned more about the edges between nobles and commoners. Unfortunately, I also experienced girls a little too much.”
“Bentwick says Winnie is quite taken with you.”
Sam felt his cheeks burn. “She is nice enough to ignore my disability, something Jenna Pot, who invited me in the first place, couldn’t bear to do.”
“I’m getting the picture. Are you satisfied with the results of your penetration into Baskin society?”
“Satisfied? I guess so. I didn’t have any expectations. I learned positive things and negative things, so they probably balance out,” Sam said. “Two girls now know of my disability, one understands, and one is appalled.”
Dickey smirked and took his seat.
A few political questions had been rolling around in Sam’s head. “Are there fringes of relationships between nobles and commoners? Hander Pot seems to be a noble that lives like a rich commoner. Chief Constable Bentwick seems to be a commoner who lives more like poorer noble.”
Dickey pursed his lips. “We haven’t gotten very deeply into the political and social structures that drive the upper classes of Baskin, have we?”
“I’ve visited noble mansions, but they definitely act like aristocrats, if that is the right word. Hander works for a living. Even Issak Bolt makes decisions and runs the judiciary and the constabulary.”
“Not to mention the City Guard,” Dickey said. “I think you have a good idea since you called the difference fringes and edges. The upper class of commoners interfaces with nobles more than the lower classes. Hardstone is fringe, so it isn’t surprising that you noticed that there is a mix of upper-class commoners and lower level nobility attending. Sometimes the edge is more abrupt for some things and less for others.”
“The attitude toward court language is a determinant, I found. If Winnie speaks court language, she is perceived as uppity, but if Jenna Pot uses it, she is flaunting her elevated status. That seemed to be a hard edge,” Sam said.
“Very good. That is the kind of insight that snoops need when working with both kinds of folk.”
“Can a commoner become a noble?” Sam asked, “or is it strictly by bloodline?”
“Bloodline, except under unusual circumstances,” Dickey said. “Look at me. I am an exception.”
Sam nodded. “Noble by blood, but common by upbringing.”
“Did someone tell you that?”
Sam nodded. “It fits, doesn’t it?”
Dickey snorted. “You don’t know me, at all, but you can generalize about my life?” He ground his teeth for a moment. “But it is true, and common by inclination.”
“Your captaincy?” Sam asked.
Dickey sat back in his chair and assumed a pose of introspection. “I would like to think I earned it, but my noble blood certainly stains the title. You’ll note I don’t throw it around unless I have to use it as leverage,” he said. “I would do as well being a noble as you would, Sam.”
The statement seemed to be deeply felt, Sam thought. He guessed that Lennard Lager, the town lord of Mountain View last summer, was of noble blood, but his lineage did nothing to qualify him for the position.
Two more snoops entered the office, effectively ending the conversation. Dickey looked relieved and began to shuffle through a little pile of papers.
Sam sighed and retrieved his roll and finished it off before getting up to get a cup of water from the commissary. He ran into one of the apprentices doing the same thing.
“I saw you last night,” Minson Mat, the apprentice, said. “What are you doing mixing with Hardstone kids?”
