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Daisy, Dungeon, Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeons and Dragons, fantasy, feminist fantasy, Fenric, Gies, Gurth, Insmoor, Janet, Lucette, magic, Paul Gies, Paul J Gies, Reginald Barnswallow, Shmoke, spells, Sword, sword & sorcery, Sword and Sorcery, Yanos, Zelin
VI. Three ways out
1.
I enjoy two weeks of perfect attendance at college: my wand’s intimate encounter with Yanos occurs in the middle of this stretch. Lucette seems to be losing interest in school, however. Where she used to come to all her classes and flirt with slightly older male students right through when the prof started talking and again just as soon as he or she ended, now she’s missing every other day. I’m keeping an eye on her, of course, not that I want to.
Lucette Barnswallow is short, meaning she’s about my height. She has at least twenty pounds on me, and I don’t mean that in a catty way: she wears it well, no doubt about it. She has very pretty blond hair. She has a deeper voice than I do, an alto perhaps, and she can flirt like no one’s business. But she’s no alchemist, and that’s apparently what she’s supposed to be studying. So I become a regular in Stintsing’s lab. I help her out. Hey, I want Lucette to succeed. I want her to open up a nice upscale shop in, say, Travishome or Having Hall.
While I’m helping her clean up a spill, I innocently ask what she’s going to be doing this weekend. It’s Market Day already—the weeks before Yule just fly by, don’t they? She got plans? A date with one of those older boys?
“I don’t have any plans,” she says, rather too quickly. “I’m, ah, going home for the weekend. To help. Um, Dad has a cow giving birth.”
“Really? You live on a farm?”
“Oh yes,” she says, “Manor of Angbor.”
“You take care of the cows? You milk them and stuff?”
She laughs. “Oh, yeah, all the time, except when I’m here. My sisters do a lot of the work.”
“How many sisters do you have? I’m an only child.”
“Three, and two brothers, I’m the second, Eldred’s a year older.”
“Eldred Barnswallow, huh? Where’s he live? Can’t he help out?”
“Oh, he’s, um, in the army. He’s in, oh, you never know, he might be in South Land for all we know. So that’s my weekend plan. Go home and birth a cow.”
I change the subject. And I make sure she’s got her potion well on the way to being what it’s supposed to be. And then I excuse myself down the hall and find Professor Shmoke in his office.
“Hey, Daisy,” he says, “come in! Question about the Leodian Diaspora?”
“No, actually,” I say, pushing the door shut behind me. “Your granddaughter is Lady of Angbor, right?”
“Julia,” he says. “She was running a whole province on Phumah, but she wanted to come back home. Frankly, between us, it was a bit much for her. Got in trouble with the local politics. No local politics in Angbor Manor. Just sit back and rake in the money from the export crops.”
“You know Eldred Barnswallow? He lives there, right?”
“He does,” says Shmoke. “Julia set him up with the place right next to the family holding. We’ve, ah, they’ve been expanding, the goblin wars haven’t been as bad lately, not like it used to be. Heck, when Vera and I lived on the Manor, we got besieged every stinkin’ year. One year it was so bad we called it the Year of Deprivation, we were really down to what we could scrounge. Roasted rat, it’s not that bad if you’re hungry.”
“I can imagine,” I say. “But now, with the cash crop.” The cash crop is cannabis sativa; it goes out to far off worlds. It’s said that an Insmoor stamp ups the price by ten percent, and an Angbor stamp ups that by twenty percent. “Anyone raise cattle at all?”
“There’s some who milk cows,” he says, “but mostly that’s out in the West Plantations west of Insmoor, the cash crop’s not so great there.”
“Barnswallows have cows?”
“You mean the birds, or the farmers? The Barnswallows’ land is too good to waste on pasture. Hey, Reginald Barnswallow? Lucette’s dad? The guy the Count brought in to run his team of sorcerers? Milk cows? I don’t think so.”
Fortuitously, Fenric comes into the shop that afternoon. “Your mom around?” he asks, leaning over the counter close. I am not concerned that he’s going to try and kiss me.
“Yeah, she’s out on an errand. If you know what I mean. But she swore she’d be back for dinner. If I made dinner, that is. Why?”
“Well,” he says, leaning closer and looking around.
“Lucette’s gang is going in tomorrow,” I say. “Maybe tonight, if they’re insane.”
“Um, tomorrow, I heard,” says Fenric. “How did you know?”
“I’m observant. Okay. Can we get people together tonight? Get off, oh, between midnight and dawn? Steal a march on her?”
He grins. “You’re gung ho, aren’t you?” he says. “Yes, by all means, let’s steal a march on her. If they’re not insane, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be.”