You sneak back to the carriage and take a quick rifle through the remaining luggage, finding some of the day's luncheon still wrapped up; a couple of pork pies, half a bottle of weak cider, a piece of cheese in butcher's paper and three apples. You head outside of the tower, looking for a good hiding spot just in case your master forgets to feed you one day and you need supplies, or in case you need to run some day. Behind the tower walls is what appears to be a long-neglected hedge maze and garden, now thoroughly overgrown. You head into the maze and, taking care to memorise your route, manage to find an ideal spot; the ruins of a roofed stone pagoda in a quiet part of the maze. You are able to wedge your package under the roof where it will stay dry and hopefully unmolested by animals.
You head back in to the tower and find that dinner has indeed concluded. You get a little lost and end up in a rather impressive library as well as the kitchens, but find your way to the study. Similarly to the library, the study has books lining every wall (and not a one that you can read), a hearth with a crackling fire, the master's desk, two comfortable chairs and two hard stools, which are presently occupied by the other apprentices, including Frederick. You sit yourself down by the fireplace, and whilst the stone hearth is cool the fire is very pleasantly warm. You spread your stones out on the hearth and alternate between studying them and joining in with the conversation.
Conversation runs along the theme of your pasts, and it helps to know your confederates for at least some of the next seven years (hopefully). You talk about Duncan, and the quietness of your upbringing. Aethelwine, the eldest, a blonde boy (almost a man) with proud features and a hooked nose, comes from a family of some repute in the capital, and that they had given up their favoured childhood to the service of magic, despite all that awaited him back home. Pippin notes that as the
third child in the family, Aethelwine wasn't exactly headed back to that much, which earns a curled lip and a pointed look from Aethelwine and a laugh from yourself and Frederick.
Pip explains that he was a merchant's son (
"and still am, Father is fine, thank you") and was not initially put up for apprenticeship. He had fully intended to go on with the family business, except that whilst visiting Master Haold had noticed his knack for the art and essentially conscripted him from his father as an apprentice. He writes to them periodically about life in the tower and his studies, his father writes back with news of the family and comments about the latest fish prices. It is a sort of shared love that you have seen before with Duncan and his sons and never truly experienced.
Tostig speaks, and it is only when Tostig speaks that you realise she is a girl. Her frame is light and her features boyish, and with her hair cut short she passes acceptably as a young man. She speaks little, save to say that she grew up on a farm and that Master Harold did her family a service, for which she was offered up as repayment. She does not seem to feel strongly either way about her indentured servitude, and there is this sense of calm collectedness about her at all times, as if every word or motion she makes has been carefully judged.
Frederick, as you knew, was a baker and a scribe's son. It transpires that his mother had died three years before and plans for him to apprentice to her had never come to pass. As his father's fourth son there was no room for him to apprentice as a baker alongside his brothers, so his father had put him up for apprenticeship in the hopes of a better life. He has no place to return to, and will not be accepted on a return home.
Conversation moves to lighter things, and you ask about the stones. Aethelwine takes a look at them, snorts and provides no help. Pip suggests that you simply focus on seeing them, and once you have a clear picture of them you will be able to proceed. Tostig studies them for a moment and picks one up, rolling it in her fingers. She passes the
stone back to you.
"Look for this one elsewhere," she suggests.
"You can find it very close to home, if you know where to look."You frown and study the stones again. This time, you feel as if you can see a little more. Beyond just what you've been interpreting as colours, you pick up senses of motion or feeling.
Stones
A bubble in a very fine mesh.
A sharp, erratic flaring.
A circle of motion.
A crystalline form.
A solid sluggishness.
A mercurial, ebbing softness.
A rich and complex pulsing.
A crumbling negation.
A bolstering intensification.
Author
Topic: Apprentice [TSG] (Read 11091 times)