Chapter 5: The Tutor

When Saoirse was five, Nana came to Murtagh. “You'll be tutoring the young Miss.”

Murtagh preferred to nap in the afternoons after he'd had a piece of mutton pie or a large overflowing bowl of plum pudding. His was a fat belly that constantly craved food and ever more food especially sweets. He'd been less hungry when he was starving in the port prison. He had his shoes off. Gout often swelled his big toe. Since he bathed but once a month and only the angels in heaven had ever seen him comb his greasy hair, he stank. Yawning, he said in a groggy voice, “I'm sure her education can wait.”

“She is five. It was our agreement—”

“-Bring her to me when she is six. It is a much better age to begin.” He yawned a second time, stretching his arms overhead and moving his head about to ease his aching neck. “Besides, too much education oft drives the female gender insane.”

Slowly Nana backed out the turret door and closed it softly behind her. Going directly to the kitchens to Cook, she said, “Seer Murtagh backed out of his agreement with me to tutor the young Miss.”

“Why, that arrogant toad's ass.” Cook slammed down her meat cleaver.

And to the maids who dutifully washed Murtagh's clothes, she said, “I thought he would keep his word, although I know he is frightfully busy.”

“Busy?” the first said, lifting his poop-stained braies from the washing bucket.

“Much too busy to bother wiping his backside,” the second finished.

And to the groom, Nana said, “I was so confident that he was a man of his word.”

“Were you now?”

She pressed her lips together so tightly they almost disappeared. “I've been taken for a fool.”

“Fool are ya? Is that why you're here? Because you're a fool?” He raised his eyebrows as a smile twitched up the corners of his mouth.

Murtagh was soon assaulted from all sides. His chamber maids said, “Lady Saoirse is now five. You'll be keeping your promise to Nana, won't you?” When he didn't answer, they dropped his dirty clothing on the floor. “Because if you don't, we won't be washing your clothes.”

Evidently, he also wouldn't get to ride anything but the oldest of Lord Togair's horses. “A man who doesn't keep his word to an old woman and a child,” the groom said, “don't deserve a mount at all. You're lucky to ride Quester here.”

Cook didn't say anything. She simply sent up a radish for Murtagh's breakfast and a piece of moldy green bread for his lunch.

So Murtagh agreed to begin Saoirse's lessons—and Nana trembled.The day the lessons were to start, Nana and Saoirse sat in the garden under the maple tree, its young spring leaves a bright yellow green. Around Nana's head her aura had gone completely white with worry. Saoirse reached out a hand to touch Nana's face. “I won't say anything about magic,” she whispered. “I promise. Please don't worry.”

“Keep your eyes on his aura, lass.” A bright red thread of fear swirled through Nana's aura.

Saoirse quaked. “But . . .  but sometimes I can't see it. Your aura is so easy to see, but Seer Murtagh's . . . ” she looked away. “Will he hit me if he finds out I'm magic?”

Lord, help me. I've gone and made her afraid.

She took Saoirse into her arms, kissing her soft hair. “When you don't know what to do, lass, sit and say nothing.”

“Sit and say nothing.” Saoirse nodded.The turret was small. The fireplace, curved as the wall was curved, gave off a remarkable amount of heat. One window looked out to the east and the sea, and the other to the south. The southern window had been poorly placed. It revealed only a portion of the castle courtyard. Even leaning out, Saoirse could not see the patch of brown earth—nothing grew there—where the dragon had died. Near the fire sat Murtagh's comfy chair, the wide cushion fluffed up with cotton, the cover made of embroidered wool. The armrests were cushioned and covered as well and the back of the chair, too. Many a night Murtagh had fallen asleep there, his head well pillowed.

On the other side of the fireplace was a writing desk, and above it on curving shelves rested twelve books, each with an ornate leather cover. Across from the fireplace a bedroll and a straw mattress lay rolled up, no doubt to be out of the way. Next to the bedroll sat a chest that contained Murtagh’s clothing, and beside it the chamber pot, thankfully with a snug-fitting lid.

Saoirse instantly liked the room because of the sea. That day, Murtagh had both a fire lit and the shutters open, and Saoirse could hear the faint swooshes and pings of the color sound drifting in from the life that thrived beneath the waves. She had no trouble seeing Murtagh's disgusting orange/brown aura. Only if it had reeked of vomit could it have been more revolting.

Sit and say nothing. Saoirse repeated in her mind. So, she sat—in Murtagh's comfy chair— and the edges of Murtagh's aura blackened as if they were being charred by an unseen fire.

“You will sit here.” Murtagh pointed to the stool in front of the writing desk.

Saoirse dutifully tried to sit on the stool. But it was tall and a bit wobbly, and as she scrambled up, it tilted. Stool and child crashed to the floor. Quickly Saoirse glanced upward. Now his aura was almost entirely black.

With a kick he righted the stool, and then lifted her, plopping her down on top of it. “Write your name.” He pointed to the piece of parchment in front of her. It was old and worn, and much of its surface already contained writing. She lifted the quill, dripping ink onto the paper. With small jabbing motions, as she'd seen Nana do, she repeatedly touched its tip to the paper. Then she put the quill back in the ink well.

Murtagh looked at the mess on the paper that somewhat resembled a large mass of thunder clouds.

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“Have you had no instruction?”

And so began the lessons.

First, Murtagh demonstrated the proper way to form the letter “S.”

Saoirse, holding the quill as he demanded, with her little fingers all squished together, moved the quill as he had moved it making an “S” in a single, long stroke. Yet when she looked up, Murtagh's aura remained an awful orange/brown, black at the edges, with swirls of ominous black in the middle, too. After several tries, she made an “S” that looked almost exactly like Murtagh's. Hopeful, she again looked up. His aura was even more black!

“Ah, yes,” he said. “So obedient.”

His next words were mumbled. Saoirse strained to hear them, as he turned away, speaking under his breath. “You've probably never had an independent thought in your head. You nobility, you're the most stupid of all, because you're arrogantly stupid. You’re stupid with your heads lifted, never questioning, always conforming. And everyone must be just like you. And everything done exactly as it was done yesterday.”

A confused look wrinkled Saoirse’s brow. However, though she was befuddled by his words, Saoirse did understand his aura. Hour after hour, she sat at the desk forming letters, an “a,” an “o,” an “i,” covering every blank bit of space on the parchment, while Murtagh's aura grew ever uglier, ever more revolting, ever blacker.

“You don't like me.” It wasn't an accusation. Saoirse was simply stating a fact.

“Nonsense. Continue.” He pointed to the parchment.

“No.” In truth, she hadn't meant her reply to sound so belligerent. She simply couldn't continue because the parchment was completely covered with writing.

Murtagh looked up from where he sat in his comfy chair. “I said, continue.” His tone was forbidding. It might have made her tremble if she hadn't seen the single strand of light blue that now wove its way through his aura. That thread, the color of a summer sky, popped an idea into her head.

“No,” she repeated.

He rose, standing with his feet spread apart and his arms folded across his chest. Some other five-year-old child might have trembled; she watched the blue threads. Now there were three, swirling; the only beauty in the ugly orange/brown-with black-swirls-blob of his aura. Her quick mind darted about like a hummingbird. This game was far more interesting than writing boring letters and having to be oh, so careful that she didn't blot. She slid off the stool and stood with her arms crossed over her chest, perfectly mimicking the short, proud man in front of her.

“If you do not wish to learn, leave.” He pointed to the door.

Fear tried to make her quake. But Murtagh’s aura sparkled all the more. Again, her mind flitted from thought to thought.

When you don't know what to do, lass, sit and say nothing.

So, she sat on the cold stone floor, and stared up at Murtagh—and said absolutely nothing.

More blue threads and now a silver one, too, wove themselves through his aura. Why it was almost pretty.

As the colors of his aura brightened, Murtagh looked away, hiding his face from her. Of course, his aura wasn't hidden. The colors in it lost their grayed-brown ugliness, the black began to disappear, and the orange brightened until it was the color of a tangerine.

Saoirse put a fierce look on her face, unknowingly looking exactly like her father when he held court.

Murtagh sat back down in his comfy chair. He picked up a piece of parchment, and as the fire popped and crackled, he appeared to read it. A log fell. A shower of sparks traveled up the chimney. The shadows on the floor moved. And all the while his aura grew shinier.

“Child, we cannot sit here all day.”

This was a game without dice or playing pieces. So, what was the next move? Saoirse clenched her hands into fists and said the words every child says when they are playing for time, “Tell me a story.”

“About what?”

She searched his aura, but it was his eyes that told her the answer. They wandered up to the books on the shelf above her head, as if his thoughts were always there.

“About those.” She pointed to the twelve books of the seers.

And so, Murtagh, grudgingly beginning to like the stubborn little thing sitting on the floor, told Saoirse the tale of Seer Blackwell.

 

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