Which, of course, always got him into more trouble. In fact, it seemed as if ever since he’d arrived in this place, he was in trouble to one degree or another - or thought to be in trouble.
And it wasn’t fair! The other boys pulled as many pranks as he did, or more - they were just slier about it, and they didn’t get caught because no one was trying to catch them the way everyone seemed to be trying to catch him.
Hellfires! he thought rebelliously. When everyone’s watching you all the time to catch you doing something wrong, they’re going to get you, no matter how hard you’re trying to do right!
And meanwhile, just because everyone in the whole town expected Darian to be the one who made trouble, that meant they weren’t going to catch their own boys at it, and Darian would get the blame for things they did. It happened all the time, and even when he could prove he hadn’t had anything to do with the mischief, no one ever apologized to him or made things up to him. They just said that he deserved to get into trouble for all the things he did that he hadn’t gotten caught at! Now, there was a prime bit of logic!
And just suppose the beans got pecked a bit by birds, or a deer wandered in and ate some of the young corn, things that he couldn’t possibly have any control over - why, that was all the fault of his Dad and Mum. It was the Pelagiris-beasts come to take revenge on the village for the terrible trappers who had invaded the Forest. Even the most normal of beast depredations was always blamed on some monster from the Pelagiris that had followed Dalian’s parents back to Errold’s Grove. Though what self-respecting monster would pull up carrots and eat them, or trample down a hill of beans, or pick at ripe strawberries - well, that was beyond him. Must have been a monster with a singularly vegetarian appetite.
Funny how they all forget those coats and rugs and bedcoverings they all have that Dad and Mum traded for food and supplies, he thought sourly, looking up from his rock and noting one of those bedcoverings hanging out on a line to air. A soft shade of subtle cream it was, too, with markings and mottlings of a darker shade of pale brown. Quite a handsome fur, thick and warm, and probably a fine thing to have on the bed in the dead of winter. Darian even remembered what the beast had looked like when they’d caught it - a terribly dangerous beast, it was, completely unable to defend itself, much less attack anyone. It had looked like a huge hassock; with four tiny little legs and a head the size of an apple all stuck on a body easily the size of a fat cow, and certainly much wider. If anything had been born to become a tanned hide, that thing surely had been. It was a wonder it had survived long enough to be trapped in the first place.
Poor Justyn hadn’t even gotten the benefit of having furs traded to him in return for taking Darian as an apprentice. He didn’t get anything at all, not even other peoples’ cast-offs, and he was the one who probably deserved some kind of repayment the most. Widow Clay of the bad leg that kept her from hard physical labor had been appointed to make him bedcoverings, which she knitted from odds and ends of yarn that she unraveled from worn-out sweaters or scrounged from leftovers or other projects. She also made quilts of scraps that no one else wanted because they were stained, or faded and threadbare, or too drab to be desirable, even as a patch for a quilt. Poor Justyn! He always got the tag-ends of everything. He was the last person in the village to get a share of meat, of clothing, of anything. Who-ever’s turn it was to supply him always gave him what they didn’t want. Take now, for instance; there was an abundance of turnips, beans, and peas, so their meals featured either turnips, beans, or peas, depending on how the donor herself felt about those vegetables. Mostly, they got turnips, and he was not looking forward to the time when the squash ripened.
Now his mood turned to guilt, as it always did at this point, for the worst part of it was that in his heart he knew he was being treated fairly; well-housed and well-fed, and Justyn, though short-tempered and appallingly sloppy, was fundamentally kind.
He kicked his stone back and forth, from his left foot to his right, making slow progress in the direction of Justyn’s cottage. He kept his eyes down on the path and his stone, for it was just possible that if any adult saw him doing this, they would think it was some ridiculous exercise that Justyn had set him, as it certainly would look too tedious to be a game. Justyn had set him tasks that looked sillier in the past, and the one thing they all had in common was that they were tedious.
It’s not so bad with Justyn, and I wouldn‘t mind so much if I was learning something useful. It’s just that he keeps insisting that this magic stuff is good for something. I’ve heard the stories and I’ve seen the bad art on his walls. He’s talked about great mages and even one or two Hawkbrothers, and told me about their great spells and “weaings.” But so far I haven’t seen him do anything that couldn’t be done easier by plain old ordinary hands. For that matter, a lot of what Justyn did was accomplished by mundane means, and old Justyn sure didn’t get a lot of respect, wealth, or even appreciation. So why would anyone want to be a wizard in the first place? What’s the point of being a wizard if you get taken for granted and paid only in what no one else wants? If I was learning something like being a fighter, a warrior - something that was useful and got respect - well, things would be different.
The old man was good at small spells and minor healings; simple magics that made life better and safer for the villagers. But nobody really seemed to notice just how much he did for them; they acted as if he was supposed to be at their beck and call for the most minor of trivialities, and on the whole they treated him very little better than Lilly, the barmaid at the inn. Justyn just accepted that treatment, as if it was what he expected and deserved.
That isn’t doing either of us any good, if it comes right down to it. He doesn‘t get respect, so I never will either - but he also doesn’t ever do anything to make people think he was important. And any old wisewoman knows almost as much as he does about healing and medicines.
Everything Justyn did or wanted him to do seemed to involve a great deal of stupid, plodding, repetitive work. So what good was magic, when all it did was make for more hard, tedious work? He knew why the villagers didn’t respect Justyn’s magic - wasn’t magic supposed to be spectacular, instantaneous, and take one’s breath away? Wasn’t that the way magic happened in the tales? When the village was buried in snow, shouldn’t Justyn have been able to clear the snow away from the paths and the doors with a snap of his fingers? Shouldn’t he be able to hold back floodwaters with his will, or make a well by wishing it there?
Shouldn’t he have been able to keep people safe when they went into the Forest to make a living? After all, that was how the people of Errold’s Grove were supposed to make a living - shouldn’t a proper wizard be able to make sure they could still do it, no matter what those mage-storms brought? That may have been what earned their scorn - when the monsters came, Justyn wasn’t able to do things that let the village prosper despite their presence.
If they’d thought that he was going to be able to get rid of any monsters that came in from the Forest, people wouldn’t have been half as hard on Dad and Mum . . . in fact, they might have helped them out a bit that last winter, when running the traplines was so hard.