LeRoy Clary
Discovery
The Mage’s Daughter Series - 1
CHAPTER ONE
Hannah paused from her morning duties and allowed her mind to drift. The kitchen gossipers intensified their whispered stories; the rumors of the Old Mage, and how he had once rested for a few days during his travels through Casselberry. Almost a year later she was born to an unwed mother. Those who remembered the Old Mage’s last visit said she looked like him.
Of course, they said a lot of things. . . and that’s why they were gossips. Still, over the years Hannah had developed a mental shell hard enough to disregard the spurns, the nasty looks, the harsh whispers behind her back, and the assignment of the least desirable duties about the palace. Until her mother’s death over five years ago, her mother had managed to shield Hannah from the worst of them. Now the rumors intensified daily, especially in the last few days.
“Daydreaming, Hannah?”
The friendly question pulled her back from the idle thoughts. The owner of the voice leaned closer and winked in good humor, although the scars of the burned face still frightened Hannah, no matter how kindly the washerwoman treated her. Hannah sighed, “I’m just a little sleepy today.”
“No wonder. I’ve always said the Overseer should put someone older in your job, dear. Little girls your age need their sleep; not being woken before dawn to light the stoves. What are you, twelve?”
“Eleven.”
“Even worse. It’s a shame the way they treat you.”
Hannah smiled her thanks and loaded another piece of firewood into the nearest oven. The washerwoman usually had a friendly word when she delivered clean aprons and towels. Hannah remembered five years ago when she’d first taken over the fire duties in the breakfast kitchen. The job was simple: have the three brick ovens warmed and ready for cooking before the first cooks and bakers arrived near dawn.
The older boys felled hardwood trees in the Dark Forest, transported the hefty logs, and split them into firewood, then stacked it against the south wall of the kitchen in neat cords. The cedar, the best wood for kindling, came from higher up on the mountain slopes, where the boys harvested tall trees and piled that wood near the rear door of the kitchen.
“Stoke this one again, too,” a nasty-tempered woman with a sharp tongue snarled, pointing to the fire in her stove. “Getting too cold to use.” The thin woman stood aside waiting, hands on hips. She fried hard-bread for the servants in three separate shallow pans. They were small, flat, cakes with hard shells that servants ate while performing their morning duties, and they were standard morning meal for servants. People dunked them in milk, cream, or anything liquid to soften the bread enough to chew. Cooking hard-bread required a hotter fire than the other stoves. Hanna grabbed two pieces of firewood and stirred the coals until both pieces would fit through the black iron door. The fire instantly flamed higher, and she backed off from the heat.
“’Bout time you did that, worthless little beggar,” the woman growled, pushing Hannah aside with her hip. “You know I need a hot fire.”
Hannah smiled at her sweetly, and in a voice sure to carry throughout the kitchen to the other cooks said, “Maybe someday you can teach me to burn dough on a stove and call it hard-bread. It shouldn’t take long. Any fool can do it.”
“Watch yer mouth, girl.”
Hannah giggled as she moved out of reach. She ducked out the rear kitchen door where the small ax waited on the chopping block. Cedar rounds waited for splitting. Under her ax, each chunk of cedar turned into twenty or thirty smaller sticks of kindling. She followed the same routine each day, month after month. In the morning, the kindling went into the cold ovens on top of twigs she used to start the fires. A few scrapes of her fire starter usually produced enough sparks to light it. After the tinder had caught, she loaded cedar, and then the hardwood on top, and stood back while the ovens warmed the entire kitchen until the lazy morning cooks showed up.
Her thoughts returned to her past, as they had more and more, lately. The daily drudgery usually sedated her thinking enough she only needed to determine which of the three stoves needed more wood and when; a mindless task. But if she stood and idly watched the fires, someone always gave her another task. During slack times she’d learned to leave the kitchen and pretend to split kindling or other work. Quick peeks into the kitchen told her how the fires burned, and the cooks were quick enough to let her know if any burned low.
The whispers and rumors she usually ignored had caught her attention this morning. She spent more time inside, listening without showing interest. Today’s rumors said the Old Mage was arriving for a visit.
“A dozen years since his last time passing through here,” one gnarled old Cook confirmed the rumor.
Another glanced at Hannah making sure she heard, then replied, louder than necessary so all would hear, “Easy to know how long since he’d been here. Just look at how tall Hannah is and you know.”
The nasty one who made hard-bread glanced at Hannah and flashed an almost toothless smile, and said, “I wonder what he’ll leave behind for us this time? A sister or brother for Hannah?”
The poorly concealed whispers were always loud enough for Hannah’s ears, but not the Overseer who wandered about his rounds often. Today a nervous edge came with the remarks of the news that made the cooks irritable. But no matter, she wanted to hear it all. Within the harsh words were kernels of truth. Since her mother’s death, there was nobody else to ask and get the truth. But if it were true, what they said about the Old Mage and her mother, Hannah decided that the Old Mage might arrive at the palace and sweep her away in his carriage to a life of luxury and wealth. That daydream had been constant for over a year.
She also daydreamed that she was the lost daughter of a foreign prince, the offspring of a wealthy silk merchant, or the youngest daughter of a breeder of majestic dancing horses. She heard of people riding on the backs of dragons and defeating armies of trolls with flashing swords, too. But the rumors and tales of the Old Mage and her mother persisted, and now he was coming to the castle. She would manage to get a good look at him and decide for herself if they looked alike, one way or another. Of course, he was older. At least the rumors said he was old, and she would have to adjust her opinion of his looks by his age as she tried to imagine him at her age.
For the last five years, only a younger Mage-in-training had visited the Earl’s Palace and met with him for the magical needs of the castle and surrounding farms. The Young Mage handled the routine feats of magic needed to keep the vermin from the grain storage, the illnesses from the drinking water, and insects from the crops. He provided rain in summer for the crops, but not too much. Younger mages sometimes called down a deluge and could not stop the water. She’d seen him arrogantly strolling about the grounds in his black silk robe several times, a thin boy of perhaps twenty-five years, but still a boy from all appearances, youthful, pale, and weak looking. Even his beard struggled to grow.
“Wot can be so fascinating on that little ax yer looking at?” The orphan boy known as ‘Cleanup’ asked her, standing a few steps away. He leaned on his flat-bladed shovel handle. Cleanup was near her age, worked in the horse stalls, but any horse apples or spills into the streets of the palace were his concern. That job gave him the freedom to roam the entire palace yards, roads, and squares at will. As long as he carried his ‘cleanup’ bucket and shovel nobody questioned or detained him.