The Alchemist's Other Apprentice
Chapter VII
In which Peter
gets Free Pie from a Pretty girl
and Studies Local Gossip
Tommy, with the long strap of his bag over his shoulder skipped down the steps and turned right toward the corner. Peter walked down the steps and stopped at the bottom watching the younger boy. After a moment Tommy looked back and seeing that Peter was not following, he stopped and returned to where the other boy stood waiting.
“What’s wrong,” he asked, “aren’t you coming?”
“Coming were?” Peter asked. “I have no idea where you’re going or what your doing.”
“Why not just come along and see?”
“I’m not going anywhere until I know where and why. He turned and looked both ways down the street. The whole town seemed to be milling about aimlessly, each person intent on his own little tasks. Look,” Peter said, feeling a little bad for snapping at the boy. After all none of this was his fault. “ I’m sorry kid, but I just want to know what I’m getting into. I mean like right now for instance. We are out doing something for him aren’t we? But what are we doing? I have no idea whats going on.”
Tommy looked at him quietly. “There’s nothing to worry about right now. I’m going to pick up a few things. Our supper and some groceries. Come on, you will enjoy our first stop I promise. Trust me.” Tommy turned and took a step and saw that Peter was followed along. “That’s the problem isn’t it? You don’t trust anyone.”
“Look, you seem like a nice enough guy, but I don’t know you. I don’t know you or your weird teacher so why should I just start trusting everything everyone says to me?”
“Well, you can trust me because I’ve got no reason to lie to you. Come on, I’ll show you. Lets get to our first stop and we can sit down and I will tell you anything you want to know. And I absolutly promise you that you will be glad you came along.”
“And why is that,” Peter inquired.
“You’ll see. You have to trust me.” Tommy said, and Peter saw as much mischief in his smile as he had seen in Stephens.
Two blocks down and one block over, Tommy pushed through a door ringing the bell that hung above it. The sign over the place showed a dog standing on it’s back legs and the letters under it read ‘The Dancing Dog Inn’. Peter followed Tommy across the room of empty tables and sat with him at a small corner table near what must have been a kitchen. A girls head peeked out of the kitchen door, smiled brightly lighting up her face and, it appeared to Peter, the whole room. Then she dissapeard back inside.
“Millie Blankenship,” Tommy whispered. “Prettyest girl in the whole city.”
The swinging door burst open and she came out this time with a plate in each hand. Her long curls tumbeled down around her smiling face as she walked and her breasts bounced merrily in her dotted dress. “You have brought a friend this time,” she observed as she placed two big slices of pie before them and sat down at the table with them.
Tommy opened his bag and gave her a wide stoneware jar with a heavy wire bale lid. “Yes. This is Peter, he is Master Dee’s new apprentice. He will be living with us now.”
“Oh I see,” she said, “So it’s all right to talk?”
“Yes,” Tommy replied. “Master Dee is teaching him everything.”
Peter was dimly aware that they were talking about him, but it was difficult to concentrate on anything else now that she had come so close. Her face continued to beam and her curls bounced as she spoke and she smelled like... well he didn’t know what it was that she smelled like but he liked it, and her smile was so bright that it was hard to think of anything else.
Tommy elbowed him and when he looked, Tommy pushed his fork toward him, so he picked it up and put a bite of pie in his mouth.
“Well there’s nothing much to tell anyway,” she began, her voice like soft music, “Everyone is worried about the Sarcs. Some are sure they will attack, some say it’s just talk. There was a guy who looked like a mercenary in here, he was big as a house and had swords and knives all over him and he was talking with some silk dressed aristocrat, but I couldn’t hear what they were whispering about. Other than that, it’s just been the same old stuff. How’s the pie?”
“The best in town, Millie, it always is.” Tommy said.
“Uh, yes. Very good,” said Peter, remembering now to put another bite in his mouth.
The bell over the door clanked as group of customers came in. Millie dropped off the jar from Tommies bag in the kitchen, and went to wait on them, her dotted dress swaying as she moved between the tables.
“Did I tell you the truth?” Tommy asked.
“Uh, what?” asked Peter, returning his attention to their table.
“I told you you would enjoy our first stop. Was I correct”
“Oh you were right,” Peter said, “She is beautiful.”
“And the pie’s good too,” Tommy added.
“Yes,” admitted Peter, finaly noticing the pie for the first time. “It really is good.”
“One might be tempted to admit that this is really not such a bad job to have,” Tommy prodded gently, trying not to smile openly.
“Ok, ok, I admitt that this isn’t too horrible a fate. Accepting pie from a pretty girl, but... we are doing more that that aren’t we. She was telling you things. That was a report to your master.”
“Good,” said Tommy. “I didn’t think you were paying attention. It’s not much really,” he said, picking at his pie, “We have to pick up our supper anyway, we just do it in places were we can take some time to talk with old friends. We hear the gossip and can get an idea of what’s happening among the population.”
“We?” Peter asked.
“Master Dee used to do this himself. Then he began bringing me along. When everyone got used to me he began to send me alone now and then. Now he only comes around himself once a month or so. Just to put in an appearence he says.”
“And these people all give you reports?”
“Sure. It’s nothing really. Just the local gossip. Nothing secret. It’s just the things that the people are talking about anyway. Master Dee could find out what people are talking about himself, but he would have to sit around bars and barbershops all day. He wouldn’t have time to get anything else done.”
“What else does he do?”
“All sorts of things. He reads a lot. He’s always running some sort of experiment. There are lots of people he has to talk to in person. Rare book merchants, herbologists, physicians, astronomers. All sorts of people come to the house and sometimes he locks himself away with them for hours.”
“What do you do then?”
“Oh don’t worry about that. There is always hundreds of things for us to do too. I’ve got about twelve books right now that I really want to read. There just isn’t enough time for it all. And I have my astronomy observations. I’ve recorded star, planet and moon positions for a year now. Master says that I can work out their organization from the information I have. He knows how it all works of course but he won’t tell me. He says that if I work it out for myself at my age then I may be able to work out something completly new when I’m older.”
“Sounds hard, what do you think he will make me study?”
“He won’t make you study anything. He only makes suggestions. He will say something like ‘You know, so and so is very interesting, there is a good book on it over there,’ or ‘you might figure it out if you did thus and thus and set up an experiment’, but he won’t tell you that you must do anything”.
“What if I don’t take any of his suggestions. What if I don’t do anything?
“Well,” Tommy paused, thinking about it. “I don’t know. I suppose he would have to replace you. No, I think he would come up with some trick to get you motivated.” He thought another moment and then said, “No, I don’t think he would do that either. He doesn’t like having to manipulate people. At least not scholors or students. I think the situation will never come up because he wouldn’t have let you stay in the first place if there was any possibility of you doing that. You are going to do very well and he knows it. That’s the only reason you are here.”
Peter rolled his eyes. He wasn’t very impressed with people who thought they could predict his actions. He wasn’t even sure what he was going to do himself, so how could they possibly know. He finished the last of his pie and watched Millie across the room, refilling mugs for the other customers.
“Did he give you all those tests like he did me?”
“No,” Tommy replied. That’s something that he just picked up last winter. He got it from a book. I know because he gave it to me to read when he was done. It was written by a soldier who served in the east and learned a lot about foreign lands. The tests were given to a boy that was beginning his training. A lot like you,” Tommy added.
“What was the book?” Peter asked.
“The name was Kim. After the boy in the book.”
Odd name, Peter thought. There was something out of time, or out of place about it. Oh well, these people probably read a lot of unusual books.
Millie returned Tommy’s stoneware jar, much heavier now, and the boys continued their rounds.
Tommy made two more stops, one at a grocer were he bought tea and butter and another at a barber shop that sold tobacco, were Tommy bought a pouch of the rum soaked scotch broom and mullen that Dee occasionaly smoked. At each place someone greeted Tommy like an old friend and ushered him off to a corner where they whispered about the local gossip. Each person questioned Tommy about the new boy and wouldn’t say a word in front of Peter until Tommy assured them that it was all right.
The Gossip was all the same. People were afraid that the Sarcs would invade. The barber in particular assured Tommy that they were a nation of ruthless villans who would love nothing better than the opportunity to sneak northward and cut the throats of their unwary neighbors. “I know what Dee always says,” the man insisted, “but he’s wrong in this. He’s far too trusting. He just doesnt realize how these Sarcs think!”
Upon their return in the evening Dee poured three bowls of thick stew from the jar that Tommy had carried from the Dancing Dog, and broke apart a loaf of bread. Dee and Tommy closed their eyes and their heads fell forward for a moment. Peter heard them both breathe in deeply and heard there breath exhale very slowly before they opened their eyes and began to eat.
As they had done with Stephen, they discussed each person they had seen that day and all the things they had been told. Dee and Tommy both stopped eating and looked at Peter when it was time for him to describe Millie Blankenship. When Peter began to blush, they both laughed. “She has that effect on everyone,” Dee assured him.
They told Peter that the fears about a Sarc invasion had been steadily increasing for weeks. Dee confided that he suspected that Lord Malachi from Gallway was behind the rumors of Sarc hostility and that his own contacts from the south could find no evidence of actual threats. He told them that Malachi had been urging the King to send armies south to prepair, but thus far, he had persuaded the King to watch and wait.
Peter pulled the blankets over himself and let his head sink into the pillow. The bed was very soft. Softer than he had ever known that a bed could be. And the blanket was very heavy and warm. He opened his eyes and could just see the window outlined in faint silver moonlight. He let himself sink down deeper into the bed. This bed was nice. It was very nice and it was very warm. Peter couldn’t remember ever sleeping without struggling to keep his feet from freezing. The pillow seemed a little too high for him. Probably because he had never had a real one before. He pushed it around and found that he could easily make it flatter. It was so soft. The blanket smelled like something sweet. Chamomile maybe. He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know blankets and pillows could smell good.
Whatever happens, he thought, whatever Dee wants with me, whatever they want me to do, I will endure it for as long as I can. I will do whatever it takes to stay here so I can sleep in this bed and be warm.
He thought of the night before: his night in jail. The jail night didn’t count; jails were supposed to be uncomfortable. On the previous night it had rained a little, and the drops had seeped through his makeshift leanto. He hadn’t minded a bit. It wasn’t a cold night and sleeping on a hard surface half wet hadn’t seemed like anything remarkable. But this... This was so nice that it seemed like another world. The heavy blanket pressed down on him all around and seemed to hold and comfort him. There was a slight fluttering far away. Maybe in his chest, but not really. Not really even in this world. It was in another time, another place. Maybe another universe. It was a kind of sobbing, but it was so far away from were he slept now that it didn’t matter at all.
|