Lessons in Etiquette (Schooled in Magic series) (9 page)

Of course, trying and failing would have been a pretty good sign too
, she thought.

“She can,” Alassa said. “But tell me–isn’t protection
your
responsibility?”

Lady Barb gazed at her evenly, keeping her eyes fixed on Alassa until the princess lowered her eyes. “It is not easy to protect someone from their friends,” she said, finally. “Or, for that matter, from their own foolishness.”

She had a point, Emily had to admit. A husband–or a friend–would be able to get into position to hurt Alassa far more easily than someone from the outside. And it would be harder to tell if Alassa was actually in danger…Emily had a sudden vision of someone hitting Alassa, while her guards on the outside of her chambers had no idea that she was in deadly danger. Alassa would have to be
very
careful who she married. It would be easy to marry someone because of their political connections, without realizing that he was also a complete sadistic bastard. Or someone who allowed being king to go to his head.

The grandmaster cleared his throat. “Lady Emily has earned our trust,” he said, his sightless eyes peering at Lady Barb. “And she is free of the taint of necromancy.”

“I trust your judgement,” Lady Barb said, flatly. “Your Highness–are you ready to depart?”

“There are two trunks, both sealed with protective charms,” Alassa said. She looked over at Emily and winked. “Emily has a chest too, also sealed.”

Lady Barb’s lips twitched. “I shall inform the staff,” she said. “They shouldn’t go prying into your possessions in any case, but the warning should help.”

She turned and strode off, leaving Emily staring after her. Lady Barb
did
look and act like Sergeant Harkin, if infinitely more attractive than the sergeant, who had been heavily scarred a long time before he’d come to Whitehall. Could she be his sister? The records hadn’t mentioned her family, but Sergeant Harkin hadn’t been a magician. Whitehall might not have considered his existence important enough to record.

But it was impossible to tell. Harkin’s face had been so badly scarred that any family resemblance had been destroyed.

She could have been his student
, Emily wondered.
He was certainly at Whitehall during her last year…

“This will be your first holiday away from the school,” the grandmaster said. “If you wish to return earlier, we will accept you.”

Emily nodded. She’d been to Dragon’s Den, and the Martial Magic class had been hiking around the nearby mountains, but she’d never been further away from Whitehall. The thought threatened to bring on another bout of premature homesickness, even though she knew that she could return to the school simply by using a portal. Void, of course, could teleport…but apparently the spell needed years of effort to master, to the point where only a handful of sorcerers could perform it reliably. She had no idea if the grandmaster could teleport.

“Thank you,” she said, looking down at the little man.
That
was something she should know better than to think, even in the privacy of her own head. The ‘little man’ in question could turn her into a toad without even needing to think about it. “I’ll come back if I need to.”

On Earth, she hadn’t really traveled very far. Her stepfather hadn’t seen the value in family holidays and refused to waste money on camping trips, let alone exotic foreign holidays. And yet it could take less than a day to travel around the entire planet. Here, travel times were much greater, even with portals involved. Maybe the Allied Lands
did
have a good excuse for near-constant bickering, after all. Even the smaller kingdoms were large by their own standards. And the necromancers were a very long way away.

One of the ideas that she’d mentioned to Imaiqah’s father was bicycles. What would that do, she wondered, when they were introduced? The last letter she’d had from him had said that there were problems with producing the first experimental models, although he had gone on to say that the artisans expected to overcome them fairly quickly. Emily possessed a great deal of theoretical knowledge, but it had surprised them both to realize that her practical knowledge was very limited. Even when she knew what she was talking about in great detail, it took months of experimentation before they had a working model.

“And take care of the princess,” the grandmaster added. “She
is
quite important to us.”

Emily surprised herself by giving the grandmaster a hug, before turning and following Alassa towards the main entrance. She’d never actually
used
the entrance hall herself; from what she’d picked up, it was rarely opened except when students were entering or leaving the school at the start and finish of term. Now, it opened out onto a courtyard, where a dozen carriages were waiting for them. Dozens of brightly-clad footmen bowed in unison when they saw Alassa, while armed soldiers raised their spears in salute. There didn’t seem to be more than thirty soldiers, which seemed remarkably light until Emily realized that the only people who would risk an all-out attack on the princess’s escort were the necromancers. Thirty soldiers or three hundred…they’d just be giving the necromancers more targets.

One of the carriages was painted gold, shimmering as the rays of sunlight struck it. The vehicle seemed like something out of a fantasy movie, perhaps one with a genie or fairy godmother who had turned a scullery maid into a princess for the night. Lady Barb nodded to Alassa and pointed them towards a different carriage, one that seemed far simpler than the golden coach. Emily had to smile; Sergeant Harkin had lectured them on the value of concealment and deception in war–and anyone who was targeting the princess would expect her to be in the golden carriage.

“Just for us,” Alassa said, as Nightingale started to climb into the carriage. The Master of the Princess’s Bedchamber–whatever that meant–looked rather discomforted, but stepped away from the vehicle. “Emily, make sure you have a book with you.”

Emily nodded and held up one of the tomes she’d borrowed from the library. Alassa grinned at her and scrambled up into the carriage, without waiting for anyone to set up a proper set of steps. Emily followed her; after the endless obstacle courses the sergeants had put her though, climbing into the carriage was easy. Inside, it was light and airy, charmed to keep them both relatively cool. The glass windows - a sign of great wealth, as glass was hugely expensive–were also charmed, allowing them to see out without letting anyone else see in.

“I thought you would prefer not to ride with anyone else,” Alassa said. Her face twisted into a grimace. “If you were a man, we would have had a chaperone just to make sure we didn’t do anything stupid.”

She glanced over at the wooden walls as the vehicle shook, before the horses started to pull it out of the courtyard. “Can you check the privacy wards? I don’t trust them to have made the wards airtight.”

Emily nodded and started to work. Most magicians had a specific affinity for one area of magic and hers, it seemed, was charms. Alassa had finally learned enough to qualify for second-year–mainly because Emily had been tutoring her–but Emily was still much better than her at charms. She studied the charms for a long moment, then scowled and added a further charm of her own. Why did Nightingale–or perhaps Lady Barb–think that they could spy on their princess?

“They’d say that it was their job,” Alassa explained. She sounded irked, unsurprisingly. “And Nightingale takes his job very seriously.”

Emily listened to the explanation, shaking her head in disbelief. She would never have imagined that anyone would appoint a
man
to supervise their daughter’s bedchamber, but apparently it ran in the family. The Master of the Princess’s Bedchamber held control over appointments
within
the bedchamber, which provided all sorts of opportunities for patronage, if not outright corruption. Emily could only hope that his duties didn’t include watching as the princess prepared for bed.

“Each of these people need money,” she said, remembering one of the reasons the French Revolution had destroyed the French Monarchy. “They must be an immense drain on your father’s money.”

“He grumbles about it every year,” Alassa said. “They
all
claim a salary, even the Keeper of the Royal Privies, who never comes closer to Alexis than his castle on the edge of the mountains…”

Emily stared at her. “You really have a Keeper of the Royal Privies?”

Alassa giggled. “There’s a position for everything,” she admitted. Her face sobered, suddenly. “Blame it on Bryon the Weak. If it hadn’t been for him, we wouldn’t be in this mess. But he never could say no to anyone with a title.”

E
MILY HAD RATHER MIXED FEELINGS ABOUT
Dragon’s Den. On one hand, it was the closest settlement to Whitehall and a place she could go to visit every month with her classmates. And it was where she and Alassa had first become true friends. On the other hand, the first time she’d visited she’d been kidnapped by a dark magician and the next few times–after Shadye had been defeated–the city fathers had insisted on fawning over her. She’d had to go under a glamor to be sure of not being recognized.

The city was independent, at least in theory; no monarch ruled in Dragon’s Den. It allowed a greater degree of social mobility than any of the kingdoms, even the most progressive ones. But there
were
monarchical kingdoms nearby and they
could
have threatened Dragon’s Den, if necessary. Dragon’s Den would be difficult to take outright–there were a number of sorcerers living within the city, who would certainly lend their weight to the defense–but raiding parties could easily destroy most of the farms surrounding the city. It existed in a rather precarious relationship with its neighbors, which might have been why part of the city turned out to cheer as Alassa’s convoy poured through the streets. Or they might just have been glad of the break from their labors.

Emily shook her head as the carriage finally pulled clear of the city and headed northwards, up a solid stone road that had been created in the days of the Empire. From what she’d read, part of the infrastructure the Empire had gifted its successor states was rotting away, despite everything the White Council could do to convince the kingdoms to maintain them. Emily couldn’t help wondering if the kingdoms were merely trying to save a few gold coins, or if they were worried that the White Council might try to rebuild the Empire. Having the roads to move troops around without needing portals would be very helpful.

And besides
, she thought grimly,
the necromancer armies don’t really need roads
.

She turned her attention back to her book, silently cursing the writer for his reluctance to say certain things bluntly. A history book should include at least the bare outline of events, but this one–written by someone who lived in Zangaria–either fawned on the Royal Family, or barely touched on questions that Emily wanted answered. The books written by the History Monks were much more dispassionate, but they couldn’t be taken out of the library. And besides, they were banned in most of the kingdoms. Possession of them was an instant jail sentence.

“This book is stupid,” she exploded, finally. “What
was
the Glorious Laying of the Stone?”

“House Alexis had a gem–they called it the Soul Stone–that had been passed down from the time of legends,” Alassa said. “When they became the rulers of Zangaria, they laid the Soul Stone in the foundations of the castle–my birthplace. It’s been there ever since.”

She shrugged as she saw the book’s title. “That writer fawns even more than Nightingale,” she added, rather sarcastically. “You’ll notice that he skims over Bryon.”

Emily flicked through a few pages and nodded. Bryon, who had apparently ruled for
forty-five years
, didn’t seem to have done anything of interest. The three pages covering his period as king barely listed anything, beyond a handful of facts and figures. Emily shook her head in disbelief, unsure of just what to read into it. Few kings on Earth had ruled for so long without doing at least
something
of historical interest, even if it was just surviving on the throne.

“You called him Bryon the Weak,” she remembered. “What did he actually do?”

Alassa grinned and assumed a pose that reminded Emily of Professor Locke, their history tutor. “My father insisted that I memorize it all,” she admitted. “Bryon lost control over the noble families. They started raising their own armies of guardsmen, hiring combat sorcerers and other magicians, then they started pushing Byron to allow them to tighten their grip. My father said that he would have made a good scholar, but he was a poor King. He just didn’t have the nerve to confront his nobles before it was too late.”

Emily listened with interest. The medieval kings on Earth had faced similar problems. At worst, the king became first-among-equals, unable to impose his will on his noblemen. It hadn’t been until the invention of gunpowder and heavy cannons that a monarch had been able to cow his aristocrats, even though many had maintained a limited form of independence for years. Bryon, it seemed, had disliked confrontation. His aristocrats had taken ruthless advantage of it.

She looked down at the book. All of a sudden, the silence covering forty-five years of history made much more sense.