“A common delusion,” Master Rupertson said. I couldn’t tell if he meant it was a delusion peculiar to women or one shared by both men and women alike. “Magic requires more than just power. It requires understanding and insight and the ability to focus one’s mind on what one is doing. And persistence. Do you have those traits?”
“Yes, Master,” I said. “I grew up on a farm. I am no stranger to hard work.”
Master Rupertson leaned forward. “Show me your magic.”
His tone irritated me. It wasn’t until much later that I realised that might have been intentional. Thankfully, I had a great deal practice in controlling my anger and irritation and squashing at it before it became a serious problem. Being a young woman meant dealing with a great deal of men who thought you couldn’t count past ten, or couldn’t be relied upon to understand what was really going on, or that it was your parents or husband who made the real decisions. There were some advantages to being a girl in such a community, but being constantly talked down to was not one of them.
I cupped my palm, as I had done for Bernard, and channelled my magic into the air. The room grew warm rapidly, the air shimmering over my bare skin as it heated, the first flickers of flame starting to glimmer into existence. Master Rupertson showed no visible reaction as the fire grew and grew, my will shaping it into a towering fountain of flame. I was weirdly disappointed. I had spent most of my journey practising what little magic I knew and … surely it deserved some response. But he said nothing as the flames started to die.
“You have power,” Master Rupertson said. “But you have very poor control.”
I blinked in surprise. I had summoned fire! I had started a blaze and controlled it. Maybe it wasn’t as grand a feat as those attributed to Lord Whitehall, but still …
“Watch.” Master Rupertson drew a long wooden stick from his belt and held it up in front of me. “Watch and learn.”
I felt the magic sparkling around his stick – his wand - as he cast a spell. It was very different from the magic I had summoned and directed, a perfect piece of directed magic that drew on enough energy to cast a spell … and no more. I sucked in my breath, eyeing Master Rupertson with new respect. I hadn’t thought myself the greatest magician in the world, and I had known I had a great deal to learn, but it was clear I had far more to learn than I had thought. The spell produced a perfect fireball, then snapped out of existence so completely I couldn’t sense any residue tainting the air. My magic, by contrast, could still be felt. I had never felt so clumsy in my entire life.
“Your spell has two problems,” Master Rupertson told me. “The first is that you are shaping the raw power directly, rather than channelling it with your spells. Rather like using your bare hands to dig rather than finding a shovel. You are expending far too much energy to keep the spell in being, which drains you at incredible speed. The second is that your magic is slopping out of your spell, poisoning the air and - more dangerously - yourself. You have a great deal of work to do. Are you willing to work hard, now you know more about how far you have to go?”
I nodded, curtly. Hilde had never taught me anything of the sort. I don’t think she ever knew. Magic might be nothing more than power, but using it effectively required concentration and understanding. It was a fast-flowing river that could be tapped and harnessed, if you knew what you were doing. I had heard stories of communities that had tried to tap rivers without knowing quite what they were doing, stories that had ended in disaster. The old folk often cited them to keep us youngsters from pushing the limits. In hindsight, I wondered if they had had a point.
“Good.” Master Rupertson reached into a drawer and produced a handful of shorter wands. “Let us see which one suits you.”
He passed me the first wand. “Try to channel your magic into the wand.”
I waved the wand carefully. I had never tried to channel my magic into anything. I could sense faint flickers of magic within the wand, a tiny fragment of magic that somehow managed to be more focused than anything I had ever cast on my own. The wood vibrated in my hand, but otherwise nothing happened. Master Rupertson didn’t seem downcast. He simply passed me another wand. This time, my magic flowed into the fragment and triggered the spell. The tip of the wand lit up so brightly I nearly dropped it in shock.
“Interesting,” Master Rupertson observed. “You have an affinity for rowan. I suppose I should not be too surprised.”
I eyed him warily. “How so?”
“The tree is closely afflicted to various goddesses and nature spirits of a feminine bent,” Master Rupertson said. “They are often found close to places of natural power, welcoming female visitors and deterring men. Many feminine cults rowan as part of their rites and rituals. It is known for being closely linked to womanhood.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of it. There were no female-only rites and rituals in my village. The closest thing we had to it was a private gathering for women before the harvest festival began, a gathering that was really little more than a formal blessing on women who had become mothers in the last year and a prayer that rest of us would shortly be blessed with children ourselves. There was certainly no mention of goddesses or the rowan tree. I wondered, idly, if Hilde had ever used rowan in her spells. It had never occurred to me to ask.
“It will not matter as you grow more capable,” Master Rupertson told me. “You will discover that you will be able to use any wand, although some will be more resistant than others. It is apparently unwise to become completely dependent on a single wand, and many magicians swap wands regularly, but we advise students to keep their wand to themselves until they graduate. The risk of magical contamination is too great.”
I frowned, staring at the wand in my hand. “You put a spell in the wand for me?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Master Rupertson said. “The spell in question is designed to shape and channel magic, any magic. You will learn, as you proceed, how to prepare the wand yourself, how to stack up spells and channel magic into them one by one. It will not be easy to put together the spells, at least at first, but with dedication and practice you will likely become a decent spellcaster. You will also learn other arts in the next two years.”
He met my eyes. “Can you read?”
I shook my head, feeling a twinge of embarrassment even though I had never had the opportunity to learn to read. I didn’t know anyone in the village who could, save perhaps Hilde. The peddlers often left messages with us in the certain knowledge we couldn’t read them. It had never occurred to me - I kicked myself for the oversight - that I might need to learn to read to become a magician. If I had known, I might have tried to convince a passing peddler to teach me. The price might have been high, but it would be worth it if I had mastered an art as complex as reading and writing.
“We’ll teach you,” Master Rupertson said. It struck me that I could not be the only student who arrived not knowing how to read. “There are also a number of other skills you will need to master over the next few years.”
He sounded a little more reconciled to having me as a student, even as he bombarded me with questions about just what skills I had mastered on the farm. It was disconcerting to realise - again and again - just how ignorant I was, even though I was far from stupid. It might have been easier if I had studied under a blacksmith, or a carpenter, but it had never dawned on me that such skills might be useful. Even if they had, the village craftsmen would hardly take me as an apprentice. I knew how to work the farm, and how to cook and clean and sew, but little else. The sewing might come in handy, Master Rupertson told me. I wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or just trying to comfort me.