Guild Mage: Apprentice

It would have been nice, Liv decided, to have a bit more in the way of journeymen to work with.

Gamel would have been ideal. After all, he'd spent years helping Jurian manage basic combat courses at Coral Bay, so he knew exactly what was needed. Liv could have trusted him to run herd on just over two dozen students as they careened down The Hill, through the Lower Banks, and out of the Whitehill gates. Unfortunately, he was now entirely responsible for unarmed combat training, having been thrust into a role normally filled by a professor.

Her only other two options would have been Brom and Elenda, but both of them were unavailable, as well. Elenda, like Gamel, had stepped into a teaching position, and was responsible for instructing their new crop of students in the basics of enchanting.

Brom had essentially fled the city at the first sign of being assigned responsibilities. He'd fought at the pass, and remained there with the soldiers stationed to hold the wall on the flimsy pretext that 'someone from the guild needed to be present.' Liv had half a mind to drag him back by one ear, but she couldn't afford to leave Whitehill for the length of a trip there and back - not when she had a list longer than her arm of things that needed to be handled.

Instead, she sat down on a disc of coherent blue mana, raised it to about the height of a second story window, and sent it skimming above the mob as they ran. It didn't take long for the students to straggle out into a line. There was such a wide variety of age and experience among them that some - like Molly, the little blonde scullion who'd been tested at Liv's recommendation - struggled the most. She was the youngest, and her short legs clearly made it difficult for her to keep up.

At the other extreme, an Elden woman with her blue hair bound back in a tight ponytail charged forward at the front of the group, giving off the clear impression that this was little more than light exercise. Liv had been surprised when she saw Aura of House Däivi standing among the ranks of students - not because the woman had recovered from losing an eye rather quickly. No, Liv had enough experience of healing words and channeling her mana to accelerate her own body's recovery that didn't surpass her expectations. She was surprised that an Elden warrior who was probably – no, certainly – older than she was would be the first of her father's people to join the new college.

Semilla did somewhat better - probably because she'd had at least the beginning of a Coral Bay education, before she'd left. The dark-haired girl steadily moved up from the middle of the pack to the upper third, by the time the line of running students had left the city and begun circling north around the walls.

The other person Liv was surprised to see was Albert Butcher, who'd been manning the waystone beneath Bald Peak the last time she'd seen him. She hadn't realized that Guild Mistress Every's efforts to test everyone in the valley had extended to the guards in service to House Summerset, as well. She wondered when that particular negotiation had been sorted out, and whether it had been between Lia Every and Julianne, or Matthew. In any event, Liv approved of the result: a man who could learn to use magic to the guild's standards was more valuable doing that than simply shooting a crossbow.

Other than that, Liv had to admit that she didn't recognize any of the others. Between refugees from Ashford, and the fact she'd been mostly absent from Whitehill for a year and a half while all sorts of people poured into the valley from the south, fleeing Benedict's rule, it shouldn't have been surprising. Still, her eyes lingered on one boy, who couldn't have been a day older than fourteen. Something about his nose looked familiar, but she couldn't place it.

By the time her students had made a loop north and then east around the city, to the bank of the Aspen River, just above where the sulfur springs beneath Castle Whitehill emptied into the water, and then back again to the gate and uphill to the cast courtyard, only four were still running. The others, Liv carried along behind her on a larger plane of mana. Bodies were strewn across the striated blue and gold surface, sprawling in every direction, panting for air and pouring sweat.

She lowered the mana platform down on the ground and let it dissolve into motes of mana, flexing her Authority to reclaim what she could. "You four," Liv called to Albert, Aura, Semilla and the boy with the distinctive nose, "good job. What's your name?"

"Rande, Your Majesty," the boy shouted back. "My father went with you to Bald Peak, before you left for Coral Bay."

Liv blinked, and it all came together. "Your father is Sir Randal," she guessed, and the young man nodded. "The rest of you," she said, glancing over to the mob of students dragging themselves to their feet, "are going to make this run every class, rain or shine, whether I'm here or not. I imagine Journeyman Gamel will soon have you doing much the same, if he isn't doing it already. Now. Do any of you besides Aura have a word of power?"

There was much shuffling of feet, and shaking of heads.

"Wands it is, then," Liv said. "We've only got half a dozen, so we'll have three pairs at a time practicing. You six," she counted off those who looked best able to stand, "go and grab something from the barrel. Today you're going to learn how to duel."

☙

It actually would have been easier, Liv reflected, once the class was finished, if they'd all been uniformly terrible. In that case, she'd have at least been teaching every one of her students the same thing. But Semilla wasn't terrible: before she'd gotten frustrated enough to leave Coral Bay, she'd clearly applied herself. She wasn't ready to be an apprentice yet, but she had quite a leg up on people like Molly, who not only had no experience casting a spell, but no combat training either.

Albert and Rande, for all their lack of exposure to magic, at least grasped the concept of fighting to win. Neither of them showed any hesitation in going on the attack, which put all of the students who'd never so much as held a sword on their back foot.

And then there was Aura, who Liv asked to remain behind while the others limped off. Liv summoned an enormous hand of coherent mana, used it to grasp the barrel of wands and scoop it up, and then carried it through the air at about waist level toward the armory while the other Elden woman followed her.

"I hope this doesn't come off the wrong way," Liv began. "But why are you here? You might not know Lucanian dueling customs, but you know how to fight, and I'd bet you've been casting spells longer than I have. I'm not sure what I can teach you."

The blue-haired woman smiled, and responded in Vakansa, rather than Lucanian. "I doubt that is true, Lady of Winter. I haven't defeated an archmagus, after all."

Liv frowned at that: she couldn't really claim to have actually beaten Genevieve Arundell. She'd completely, catastrophically failed to cast an archmage spell, and gotten lucky to come out of the resulting explosion better off than the older woman. Once she'd handed off the barrel of wands to two of the Whitehill guards, she turned away and responded.

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"That doesn't answer my question."

Aura shrugged, and raised a hand to the bandage over her missing eye. "I can't shoot a longbow anymore," she said. "Not well, at any rate. And I have a blind spot that an enemy could use to slip by me. It would seem that Sitia has decided my life needs to go in a different direction. I don't think another full-blooded Eld has ever attended a Lucanian college of magic, and I am here while you are founding one. It seems like… serendipity. Does it not?"

"I suppose I can understand that," Liv said, folding her arms across her chest as she regarded the other woman. Aura was taller than she was, of course, in addition to being older. "But basic classes aren't the place for you. Except for Guild Law and History, perhaps."

"The guild mistress indicated that, if we had more teachers, she would have placed me in advanced classes," Aura admitted.

"We'll do as close to that as we can," Liv said. "You'll help me teach, if you're willing. And you and I will find an hour a day to meet and see what you can do with Dā. Maybe I can get my cousin Miina to come help. If you're intending to take the guild oath –"

"I am," the other woman confirmed.

"Then we can use wands to help get you used to Aluth, as well," Liv promised. "I'll give you as much time as I can. And when I leave for Varuna, I'm going to ask you to take over the basic class until I get back."

"Acceptable," Aura said, and inclined her head. Then, she turned and walked away, leaving Liv alone – or at least, as alone as she ever got, with Kaija planted in one corner of the practice yard, watching for danger.

☙

In comparison to the rest of her day, teaching her class was, Liv realized, the one time that she was utterly confident that she knew what she was doing. Even before her time at Coral Bay, she'd spent years learning from Master Grenfell in preparation for what the guild demanded of its apprentices. If she knew anything - other than her own magic - it was how to help mages at the very beginning of their journey.

Compared to dealing with the Most Noble Bankers' Guild, it felt downright comforting and familiar. It was the only part of the plan, really, that hadn't changed from the day she'd convinced the Eld to help Whitehill.

"You don't actually want us to give other people access to your personal account," Edwin Teller said, leaning back in his chair and shaking his head. "Not until you're wed, perhaps, or have a child. Even then I wouldn't particularly recommend it." He was a fastidiously neat man, with not a speck out of place on his clothing, and his dark hair looked as if he'd spent as much time on it as Thora spent on Liv each morning.

"I don't have plans to be wed in the near future," Liv said, through gritted teeth. "I need to be able to leave someone behind with access to my funds when I go to Varuna. Anytime, I'm away, really."

"Yes, I understand," Teller said. "What you actually want is an account for the crown. You want a place for taxes to be deposited to, as well as payments from other kingdoms, such as Lendh ka Dakruim or Lucania – or even the Elden houses. You want those who hold the appropriate positions in service to the crown to be able to draw funds. Your councillors, for instance. A Lord Commander of your armed forces. You see?"

Liv opened her mouth, and then stopped, as her brain caught up to what the banker was telling her. "That's – yes, that's actually exactly what I want," she admitted. "And I want to move some of the funds sitting in my personal account – the ransoms paid by Duke Falkenrath – into that account."

"That, we can do," Teller told her, with a smile. "Thirty-thousand odd golden crowns is a bit small for such an account, but it is early days of your kingdom, yet. Have you decided on a name, by the way?"

"I – no," Liv admitted. "You can do it, just like that? I expected this to be more difficult."

"I have you here," the man explained. "The funds are in your personal account and you, at least for the moment, have been accepted as queen of an independent kingdom by both your own subsidiary nobles, and by tenuous terms negotiated with Lucania. I don't see any reason why there need be a problem. The difficulty will be, rather, in you giving me a list of who you want to have access – by position, not by name – and setting limits to their ability to draw funds. You may wish to take a few days and consult with your advisors to get it all in order, but I can have the funds transferred before you leave today."

"I can tell you one right away," Liv said. "Permit the captain of my –" she restrained a shudder – "royal guard to draw up to a sum of fifty crowns annually, beginning today. The position is currently filled by Kaija tär Anssi, of House Syvä. Anything in excess of that amount will need approval from – someone. I'll let you know when I decide who."

Edwin Teller scribbled a few notes with his pen. "If you use the Lucanian system, it would be something like a first minister," he explained. "But yes, that can come later. You'll want a clerk of some sort to draw up your lists of wages, as well. That way your captain of the guard won't need to worry about paying out her subordinates directly."

Liv reached up a hand to rub her temples before she could stop herself. "You – know a lot more about this than I do," she admitted.

"I worked at our guildhall in Freeport for over a decade," Teller explained. "I have more experience dealing with crown accounts than you might expect."

"Why are you all the way up here in Whitehill, then?" Liv asked him. "I don't mean to offend you, but – if things had gone differently, this city might be burnt to the ground right now. It doesn't exactly seem like the safe decision to come here from Freeport."

Teller tapped his fingers against the desk before him. "She never told you her family name, I take it?"

"Who?" Liv frowned.

"My daughter. Semilla."

At the sound of the name, everything made sense. "That's how she had the money to room at High Hall," Liv reasoned aloud. "And she wanted to come here."

"So I put in to the guild for a transfer," Edwin Teller confirmed. "It was about as easy as you might imagine; our former representative in Whitehill wanted as far away from impending war as she could get. So you see, Your Majesty, I have a vested interest in your success. My daughter is determined to learn from your new college."

Liv couldn't help but laugh. "I wish she'd told me. I suspect that you and I are going to have quite a bit of business with each other in the future, Master Teller."

"I should hope so," the banker said. "You have considered, I hope, that the taxes which would have formerly been paid to the Lucanian crown by the Summersets, the Crosbies, and now the Grenfells – not to mention that new Barony Duchess Julianne set up – will now make their way to your coffers?"

"I don't suppose I can name you a minister of coin, can I?" Liv asked, only half-joking.

"I would recommend against it," Teller said. "You want someone who will be able to negotiate with me on your behalf. And not only me – at some point, the guild may choose to replace me in this position. Prepare for that now."

"Well, if they replace you, I can hire you," Liv pointed out.

Edwin Teller laughed, and then they got down to work.

☙

When Aira tär Keria and Liv's grandmother arrived at the gates of Whitehill just before sunset, they came with a dozen riders each, warriors of both Elden houses, and all mounted and armored. Matthew, at Liv's request, had made certain that the guards were well aware of who to expect in advance.

At the first sight of the approaching riders, coming south along the mine road from the waystone, a messenger was sent to the castle to alert Liv of their coming. By the time the two women had climbed The Hill, the castle was turned out as if to welcome visiting royalty. Which was, Liv reflected, not far from the truth. Should the Eld once again meet at the Hall of Ancestors, all the houses together, she had no doubt that both women would be there.

The Whitehill guards, their pikes polished and gleaming in the light of the lanterns, stood at attention in their jack of plate. The kitchen staff and all the other servants made another row opposite them, now absent any face with which Liv was familiar. Even Molly, the scullion, now stood with the students, rather than as a scullion.

In a cluster to either side of Liv stood her Great Uncle Eilis, her cousin Miina, Soile, the commander of the House Keria soldiers who had not yet departed back to Al'Fenthia, and Matthew, with others, such as Arjun and Vivek Sharma farther back. Wren lingered a step behind Liv, now that she'd woken and replaced Kaija for the evening.

It was Soile and Miina who rushed forward to help the old women down from their saddles, which, at least on Elder Aira's part, was only accomplished with a great many complaints.

"Well, child," the Daughter of Thorns said, once she'd shuffled forward and taken a look around at her reception. "I'm told you've gone and caused quite a fuss. I hope you aren't expecting me to call you a queen."

"You can call me whatever you like," Liv said, glancing at Matthew for a moment. "So long as you help me save my sister and her child."