Seventeen Stones (7 page)

The
next morning the six girls, very much in favor with one another, sat down to
breakfast, ate heartily, and walked to class.  Botany was one of only three
courses that they were all taking.  The directory in front of their dorm gave
crisp, precise directions, so the girls followed the well marked paths and
signs with very little difficulty to greenhouse three.

The
professor was unusually wrinkled for a wand wielder, brown from years in the sun
with skin the consistency of withered apple.  He wore a fawn-colored leather
coat six decades out of date and an up to the minute waistcoat and breeches,
proving that his wife chose most of his clothing.  Crystal notes chimed across
the room when it was time for the class to begin.  Three boys skidded to a halt
just as the last chime rang.  The professor made a job of winding his battered
pocket watch to give the boys time to catch their breath.

“Botany”
he said as he padded across the greenhouse with less stiffness than Mia would
have predicted considering his obvious age “is the study of the natural wonders
of our world.  Over the course of the next three years we will cover the herbs
most commonly used for potion making, food plants and their proper care and
feeding, and the most dangerous specimens that you will be likely to encounter
unless you take it into your head to go traipsing off into the Western desert,
or into the heart of Forestreach.”  He chuckled a little at the implausibility
of that.       

“Furthermore,
those who possess the talent for aiding growth will learn how to help
beneficial plants” he flicked his wand and a flower burst into full bloom. 
“And kill deadly, irritating, and harmful plants.”  Another flick and an oily
looking bush in one corner withered and died.  Mia was impressed.  She hadn’t
really thought that being wanded would aid growth magic to that extent. 

“But
for now, who can tell me what these are?”  He pointed at trays of seedlings on
a wooden table.  Mia’s hand was up first.  “They’re valerian seedlings.”  She
said this with some certainty, having harvested the plant herself many times. 
The professor nodded.  She continued.  “We use them in potion making when
they’re around a year old, the roots can be dried and steeped to make a mild
tea for people who are suffering from troubled sleep, or they can be dried,
pulverized, concentrated and powdered, to be used in a sleeping potion.  The
sleeping potions have to be brewed very carefully because each plant has a
slightly different level of potency.  The brewing has to be monitored
carefully; using too much can cause the person who drinks the potion to sleep
for a couple of decades.  They’re normally not very happy when they do wake up,
since unlike a hundred year sleeping draft, an overdose of valerian sleeping
potion doesn’t retard aging.”

Professor
Cavendish beamed at her.  “Excellent my dear!  Do I know your people?  You
sound like you come from healer stock.”  Mia blushed.  “Um, I don’t know if you
knew my mother before she died, but my guardian is Emma Faithling of Forestreach
village.”  The professor seemed pleased.  “Ah, yes, I order several bundles of
rare herbs from her every year.  Troll’s Feet Mushrooms simply refuse to grow
in a greenhouse, no matter how talented or clever the gardener might be.”  He
looked at the rest of the class.  “Today we’ll just be repotting the seedlings
and adding a pre-measured amount of water.”  He grinned conspiratorially at
Mia.  “That’s one of the secrets to commercial sleeping potions; rigidly
controlling the water leads to a more even distribution of potency in the plant,
making the production of sleeping potions much less likely to have, shall we
say, dissatisfied customers…  Note that the soil is somewhat sandy…” 

They
spent the rest of the class re-potting the plants.  Mia’s well-practiced hands
managed twice as many as anyone else.  While they were washing up, the
Professor pulled her aside.  “My dear, I wonder if you would be willing to work
on special projects for me during this class.”  He was pruning a small
snapfinger plant as he asked.  “I’m afraid I have something of a dilemma this
semester.  This position entails a great deal more than teaching.  I’m
personally responsible for every nut and bulb that goes from the college
greenhouses into the City stores.”  He finished the plant, expertly pulled his
finger away before the tiny thing extended a very large set of teeth and
snapped at the air where his finger had been: he picked up the next snapfinger pot
from the rough wooden table.  “We grow many of the potion ingredients that the
City government uses here as part of the Colleges tithes, as well as the fresh
foodstuffs we use in the kitchens.  I have a great deal of ‘extra work’ in
harvesting and caring for plants outside of my teaching duties.  I normally round
up a few of my better students and ask if they would mind.  Would you be interested?”   
Mia hesitated briefly, and then agreed.  It wouldn’t do to irritate the
professor on the first day of class.

The
chimes rang.  She smiled at Professor Cavendish, grabbed her book bag, and rushed
to join the others.  She whispered the news to the girls as they walked to the
Alchemy building, down six flights of stairs and into a cavernous room.  If the
walls hadn’t been as smooth as glass and perfectly plumb, Mia would have been
inclined to call it a cave.  The walls were the same gray stone indigenous to
the City, and the tables sprang up like giant mushrooms, seemingly carved from
the floor itself.  Someone had done quite a bit to spruce it up: red and gold
tapestries hung at intervals along the walls, there were three enormous golden
chandlers hanging from the tall ceiling.  The girls quickly claimed an empty
table and started unpacking their heavy cauldrons, bundles of herbs, and
bottles of ingredients.

The
plump, red-headed Professor from Mia’s testing bounced in just as the chimes
rang.  She looked around and noticed that the tables were filled and clapped
her hands excitedly.  “Oh good!  It’s so nice to see all of you in my class! 
All of you have your supplies and cauldrons then?”  Head nodding ensued. 
“Excellent.  You’ll find a cubby for supplies below each table, if all of you
would take a moment and stow your ingredients neatly in the desks, we’ll get
started.”  She gestured with her wand the way some people talk with their
hands, and cubbies appeared out of the bare stone. 

One
boy started stuffing his supplies haphazardly into the space, only to have the
entire contents flung back at him with equal force.  The Professor eyed him
sharply.  “I said stow them neatly!  In Alchemy, it’s very important to be able
to find the correct ingredient at a moment’s notice.  In fact, I recommend
pulling out all the components for a potion before you begin.  That way, you
can run and go get some belladonna or extra pickled hen’s teeth if you’ve run
low.” 

After
the cacophony died down she beamed at the class again.  “Now then, I do hope
you like your seat mates because this will be your assigned seating for the
rest of the year, unless someone blows up the room again of course.”  She
absently scratched the side of her nose.  “Before we begin, let me introduce
myself: I’m Professor Ambrose, Rosy Ambrose if you happen to catch me outside
of class.”  She smiled sweetly.  “Alchemy or higher potions, is the study of
the interaction of various materials both magical and mundane under specific
circumstances.  For those who advance, we’ll be spending third year learning
how to infuse potions with magic, create an invisibility draught, flying
concoction, and a bunch other fiddly, complicated potions.”  She twisted her
fingers in a series of little arcs as she spoke.  “I can teach you how to turn
lead into gold, but 90 years ago Greatlady Winifred Quince developed the
precious metal mining charm, and since then the alchemical process to change
lead into gold has been more expensive than mining it.”

“A
word of caution:  To advance in this class requires hard work and study, as
well as attention to detail.  Fail to pass the end of year test, and you will
not be progressing to the next level.  There’s a very good reason for this. 
You absolutely must have a firm grounding in the basics of potion making before
you can advance.”  Her sweet voice took on a sharp edge.  “Students have
produced explosions and fires in this class, deadly clouds of vapors and pools
of goop that would melt through solid rock.  There hasn’t been a single
casualty since I took up the teaching post, and I expect to keep it that way.” 
She looked at each of them in turn.

“Now
if you’ll open your books to page sixty-three, I think you’ll find that we have
plenty of time to concoct a rudimentary runny nose remedy.  I find that this
potion is a good way to test everyone’s standard.  The best of them can go to
Mrs. Bennett at the infirmary to do some good, and the worst of them make
excellent plant food for Professor Cavendish’s plants.”

An
hour later, Mia decocted her potion into a large blue bottle and put it on the
Professor’s desk.  Professor Ambrose smiled and did a complicated twist with
her wand.  “You infused the potion with just a tiny bit of magic!  I normally
start my third year students with that.  When we spoke at your testing, I
believe you mentioned that your guardian was the healer for Forestreach?”  Mia
nodded.  The professor continued.  “Did you help with the potion making at
all?” 

Mia
grinned.  “Since I was old enough to see over the cauldron; at least I think
she waited until I could see over it.  We made potions to sell on market days, Cough
potions, runny nose remedy, eye opener potion for the older people in the
village.  Everything from scented, milk-based soap for weddings to the heavy
lye stuff we used for cleaning out the cauldron between potions.  She even has
a special recipe for a hair regeneration potion that’s a perennial favorite
with the men in Forestreach.” 

Rosy
Ambrose laughed.  “I may have to order a bottle of that.  My father is as bald
as an egg now but he used to have a full head of hair in this exact shade.” 
She twirled a short curl around her fingertip.  “In fact, I sometimes wonder if
he might not have had some help going bald.  He hated this color.” 

One
of the boys brought his phial up and she did the same complicated twist with
her wand.  A pained expression crossed her face and she held the bottle with
two fingers, carefully away from her body.  She wrinkled her nose at the
offending brew and looked back at Mia as she cautiously put the bottle on the
furthest corner of her desk.  “Tell you what.  You take that book, and this one,”
she said, nodding at the first year text Mia was clutching to her chest and handing
her a second year text “and go through and find anything you haven’t tried
before or would like to try again.”  She eyed the boy’s glutinous potion with
distaste.  “It’s going to take a lot of work to get the others up to standard. 
No reason you can’t learn something in the meantime.”

Vivian
practically crowed with triumph as they left the class.  “I can’t believe it! 
Special lessons in the first two classes!  Is your father the Magus or something?” 
Mia laughed a little uneasily, realizing that she hadn’t told her friends that
her mother had been a Greatlady.  She’d been silent while they talked about
their families.  With six girls in the room, no one had seemed to notice.  She
opened her mouth to remind the others that helping Professor Cavendish wasn’t
exactly a ‘special’ class for her benefit.   Sarah rescued her.  “Of course
not, for once it’s not about bloodlines.  Mia’s been gathering herbs and making
potions every day of her life until a few weeks ago.  We would see her every market
day, sitting at the booth with piles of dried herbs and mysterious bottles.  I
always thought it was much more interesting than endless art lessons and
embroidery.”  Mia shrugged.  “I’ve been gathering herbs since I was three, and
making potions for sale at least four years, without supervision.  I guess I’ve
been taking Botany and Alchemy most of my life.” 

Ella
smiled as they headed toward the dorm for lunch.  “Botany wasn’t bad, I grew up
on a farm so I can tell one plant from another, even though Mum didn’t keep a
lot of herbs, but I’ll be glad to have your help with Alchemy.  My father
brewed most of the potions we used, most of them were also horse cures, but
they worked pretty well on humans too.  He let my brother John help sometimes,
but I never did.”  She dimpled the way she always did when she was talking
about her family. 

“All
of those green leafy things look alike to me.” Sarah growled with evident
dislike.  “I doubt I could tell the difference between grass and flowers if we
hadn’t covered it in art class.”  Lizzy nodded and glanced down at her nails. 
She obviously didn’t care for getting dirt under them. 

Mia
raised her eyebrows. “I always wondered what they had all of you doing in the
Home.  I didn’t want to ask…”  Sarah grinned.  “Nothing useful.  Art lessons,
dance instruction, embroidery, and worst of all, a class called charm.  It had
nothing at all to do with wand work.”  She gave a terribly un-lady-like snort
and a theatrical shudder.  “They barely allowed the girls outside to paint
insipid watercolors, and mine were more insipid than most.”  That explained why
she’d seen Martin so frequently and Sarah so rarely.