Chapter 48: Enduring Lessons
Somewhere upstairs, Mordred could hear Riza screaming. He glanced at the window, and saw the dark void beyond the sash. So it was one of her infantile night terrors again. Stupid little girl. Well, the boy would take care of it.
Ten days had passed since Lian's funeral, and in that time the Hawkeye house had been largely isolated. It seemed there was an outbreak of typhoid fever in one of the small hamlets some miles from the village, and Bella Greyson had relocated there temporarily, in yet another absurd charitable gesture. Mordred was glad. He didn't want her anywhere near here. She would lecture him, or worse... pity him. Worst of all, she would force him to feel.
It hurt too much, emotion. If he allowed himself to feel anything, if he made one crack in the great stone dike that he had thrust up around his heart, then everything would come flooding back. Sorrow at Lian's passing, guilt that he had not been present at the moment of her death, anger and regret for having sent Grumman away, fear for the future... a future without his wife.
No, it was better not to feel.
He had accomplished nothing since the funeral save the ordering of the headstone. Simple. Her name. Date of birth, date of death. And a snippet of verse that did not even come close to memorializing his anguish.
Anguish? What anguish? He didn't care, after all. It didn't matter.
Lian was gone, and for all his prowess and might, for all that he could command the forces of wind and fire to do his bidding, he could not bring her back. She was gone and would never return. Never. Never. Never. Never.
Never.
He looked at the papers before him. They were gathering a thin layer of dust, these meaningless sketches. What did he care about preserving his research? What did alchemy matter, if it could not restore to him the one thing he loved?
Mordred got to his feet, repulsed by the table full of hollow scribbles, and strode over to the fire. He clutched the mantle and leaned forward so that the flames cast strange shadows over his face. Dead. She was dead.
He wouldn't feel it. He couldn't feel it. He didn't care.
Confutatis maledictis flammis acribus addictis... The music, that awful, soul-stirring, terrifying, exquisite music that had so captivated and distracted him while his wife lay dying cycled through Mordred's head. Confutatis maledictis flammis acribus addictis...
When the damned are confounded and consigned to flames of woe...
He stared into the fire. Flames of woe. Flammis acribus. Oddly appropriate, he thought. He was confined to flames of woe himself: the burning torment of grief, the alchemy that at once defined him and was destroying him. Strange... all his life he had been stirred by images and by action. Now this haunting melody and its dark, ominous words were rousing in him emotions that...
No. He must not feel. He could not feel. Not anymore.
He didn't care.
discidium
Roy was doing the laundry. He had brought out the hamper full of soiled clothes – little dresses, pinafores, undergarments, his own shirts, a few random garments that Hawkeye-sensei had deigned to change over the last week – and set it in the sun. He found the pot of store-bought soap (for there was no one to make it anymore) and took the heavy glass washboard and the wooden mangler down from their pegs on the lean-to wall. He filled the tub with water from the pump... and then came the best part of all. He rolled up his sleeves, closed his eyes to focus, and then dove his hands into the liquid, activating the transmutation circle at the bottom of the washtub.
He heated the water slowly and carefully, until it was hot enough to clean the clothes well, but not so hot that he would burn himself. He lathered up his hands and went to work on the clothes.
Laundry was a hard chore. It was hard even for the strong-armed farm women who had been doing it year in and year out for all of their adult lives. For Roy, still small for his nine and a half years, with his narrow back and his skinny shoulders, it was a brutally physical task. He could wash Riza's pinnies easily enough, but the hard scrubbing necessary to beat the sweat and dirt and flecks of skin from the undergarments and from Hawkeye-sensei's large shirts was absolutely backbreaking.
It was hard on his hands, too. By the end of an afternoon of laundry, they would be sore and cracked, the knuckles raw from the constant rasping against the washboard. His knees would ache from kneeling so long on the hard ground. And the muscles between his shoulders would burn so badly that he would sometimes lay awake at night, crying softly into his pillow.
He had to do it, though, because Riza couldn't and Hawkeye-sensei wouldn't. Sometimes the doctor would take a bundle of clothes to wash for them, but she didn't always think of it. She was too busy taking care of everyone else in the village, now that she was back in town: her ability to help the small family was limited. So once a week, Roy gritted his teeth and attacked the dirty clothes with determination that would have made Hawkeye-sensei proud... had he bothered to notice it.
As it was, the adult scarcely seemed to realize that the children were in the house when he was not teaching them. That, admittedly, consumed a fair amount of his time these days. He seemed oddly determined, suddenly, that both Roy and Riza should be properly educated. In Riza's case, this meant elementary geography and history in addition to reading and ciphering. In Roy's, it meant Plato and Aristotle, increasingly complex (and intriguing) mathematics, the rudiments of Greek and Latin (which were even worse than normal reading!), and – best of all! – chemistry.
"One – hydrogen. Two – helium," Roy chanted as he scrubbed Riza's green striped dress. "Three – lithium. Four – beryllium. Five – boron."
He was expected to know the whole of the periodic table. At first he had been apprehensive, but then Hawkeye-sensei had explained that chemistry was the basis of alchemy, as elements were the basis of all matter. Soon, he would be expected to know the molar masses of each element, too, and to be able to estimate the number of molecules in a sample just by holding it in his hand. Then, when he could do that, he would be ready to undertake more complex transmutations.
"Ten – neon," he grunted. "Eleven – sodium. Twelve – magnesium. Thirteen – aluminum."
Riza was inside, washing the dinner dishes. Roy had recently let her take on this responsibility, because he thought that it hurt her feelings that her father never considered her useful enough to undertake the household chores that he heaped on the boy. Roy knew the sense of accomplishment that came from doing what one was told, and doing it well, and he wanted to share that with Riza. She seemed to like washing the dishes, and after a few days of doing so under his supervision, he had decided that she was ready to try it by herself. Besides, the sooner he got the laundry started, the more likely everything would be dry by sundown.
"Seventeen – chlorine. Eighteen – argon. Nineteen – potassium. Twenty – calcium. Twenty-one – scandium. Twenty-two – titanium."
The back door opened, and a tearful little face peered out. Roy stopped his recitation, wiping his brow with the crook of his elbow while his hands dripped soapy water into the grass.
"Riza?" he panted, a little breathless from the exertion. "What's wrong?"
"I br-broke your plate!" Riza confessed, her voice quavering with terror. "P-Papa will be a-a-angry..."
Roy got to his feet, wiping his hands on an as yet unwashed shirt. "Let me see," he said, taking her shoulder and guiding her into the kitchen.
Sure enough, the earthenware dish was in several pieces, scattered around the kitchen floor. Roy bit his lip. If Hawkeye-sensei found out, he would be angry: both at Riza for breaking the dish, and at Roy, for letting her wash it when her father obviously thought she was too little. His options, then were to bury the shards in the midden and hope that the alchemist would not miss the plate, or...
"Go and fetch your slate pencil," Roy said. "Quietly."
Sometimes, when Hawkeye-sensei was dozing with his head on his desk, or bent over his all-important research that made him look like a man possessed, Roy would take down a book from the shelves upon shelves of texts, and look at it. He couldn't always read the commentary, but he could see the circles, and he could usually piece together enough of the accompanying text that he could figure out what they were used for. He had been aching to try one, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.
Carefully, he gathered the pieces of broken pottery. He made sure to find every last one, even the thin little sliver no bigger than a piece of fingernail. If he didn't find them all, he wouldn't be able to reproduce the whole. An alchemist could not create matter, but only manipulate existing matter. To obtain, something of equal value must be given. It was the cardinal law of alchemy.
Riza came back with the slate pencil. "What are you going to do?" she asked nervously. "Don't you need paste?"
"I'm not going to paste it," Roy said. "I'm going to mend it."
Closing his eyes, he visualized the array that he had see in the book. Then he carefully, carefully drew it on the floor, keeping his circle perfectly round, each character centred precisely where it belonged. Then he set the shards of the plate carefully in the hub of the circle.
"Stand back," he said, just in case something should go wrong. Then he flexed his fingers and activated the array. There was the familiar surge of energy, that nanosecond of clarity... and Roy laughed triumphantly.
"You did it," Riza said softly, her eyes wide with wonder.
"Yup," Roy said. He picked up the plate and got to his feet, then climbed onto the chair that was pushed up to the sink, and set it carefully in the cupboard.
The door to Hawkeye-sensei's study opened with a bang! The alchemist burst into the kitchen.
"What are you doing?" he demanded.
Roy swallowed hard. He had forgotten that the alchemist seemed to have a sixth sense: an uncanny ability to tell that he was performing a transmutation in the house.
"Well?" Hawkeye-sensei demanded.
"I... I fixed a plate," Roy said, pointing at the circle on the floor.
The alchemist strode forward, looked at the array, then frowned at the boy. "Where is the plate?" he asked.
Roy took it from the counter and climbed off the chair, handing the dish to the man. The adult took it and studied it.
"I see," he said. He set the dish on the counter, and then with the speed of a cat batting at a mouse, struck out with his cupped palm and boxed Roy's right ear.
The boy flinched, clutching at the side of his head while his eardrum began to ring.
"I told you, you are not to perform any transmutations but the ones I have taught you!" Hawkeye-sensei snapped. "Talent is not enough! You must have discipline! Furthermore, alchemy is not a tool for covering up your mistakes or evading punishment. Who broke the plate?"
Riza's eyes widened with terror.
"I did, sir," Roy said. The little girl looked shocked, but she should not have been. Roy had told her to wash the dishes, and as a result the plate had been broken. Because he was the one who had put her in that position in the first place, he was the one responsible for the incident. It was only logical.
"In future, I will not tolerate disobedience or cowardice," the alchemist growled. "If you do something stupid, admit to it and ask for help."
"But I didn't need help," Roy protested. "I fixed it."
The alchemist struck his left ear. "You fixed it by disobeying me," he said. "I do not want you reading my books. I do not want you experimenting. You will learn only what I teach you, understood?"
Roy hung his head. "Yes, sir," he mumbled.
The man's expression softened marginally. "As you are now my pupil," he said; "it is fitting that you call me 'sensei', not 'sir'. I'm your teacher, not your master."
Roy looked up, surprised. In a vague way, he was aware that his status in the household had just changed drastically. "Yes, si – yes, sensei," he said.
"Good," the alchemist said bluntly. "Now get back to the laundry: the sunlight won't last forever."
He strode away, leaving the two children alone. Roy watched him go, momentarily surprised that Hawkeye-sensei knew what he had been doing. Then he remembered that he had heated the water. So not all autonomous transmutation was forbidden, he thought. Only the use of new arrays. Well, he would be more careful from now on... but he would still study the books when he had the chance. After all, someday he would be able to use them.
discidium
Roy was struggling to hang the last undershirt on the clothesline. To do this, he had to stand on an apple box, and get as far up onto his toes as he could manage. Even then, he couldn't quite reach half the time. He overbalanced, arms flailing in an attempt to save himself from another fall, then tried to stretch up towards the line again.
A long, bony hand plucked the shirt from his fingers, swung it over the line, then produced a clothespin out of nowhere, and clipped it into place. Startled, Roy turned around. He was met with a sight that filled his heart with unspeakable jubilation: an enormous grin, an unruly head of black hair, and two moss-green eyes twinkling mischievously from behind a pair of round spectacles.
"Whaddaya think?" Maes Hughes asked. "I've grown since last year, huh?"
discidium
"Very good," Hawkeye-sensei said coolly, closing the text against which he had been checking Roy's recitation. "But it is 'scandium', not 'scanadium'."
"Yes, sensei," Roy said. "My tongue slipped—"
"Do not make excuses!" the alchemist said sharply. Irately. "Admit your mistake, learn from it, and resolve never to repeat it. You must be accountable for what you have done, not what you meant to do."
"Accountable for what I have done, not what I meant to do. Yes, sensei," Roy said.
"Fine. You can go now. Are you finished with the washing?"
"Yes, sensei. Yesterday."
"And the dinner dishes?"
"Clean, sensei." Roy didn't add that it was Riza who had cleaned them. The little girl was astonished that he still trusted her after yesterday's incident, but Roy saw no reason not to. She'd be more careful now.
"The kitchen floor?"
"Scrubbed, sensei."
"And the parlour dusted?"
"Yes, sensei."
"Then make me a pot of tea," said the alchemist.
"I already did, sensei," Roy said, pointing at the tray that he had set on the corner of the desk when he had come back from giving Riza her dinner.
Hawkeye-sensei looked at it suspiciously, then touched the side to see that it was warm. He grunted. "Very well, then. Your time is your own for the rest of the day. Tell Riza she may come in and bring her reader."
"Yes, sensei." Roy turned to go, but then stopped. The alchemist seemed in such a reasonable mood. Did he dare... "Sensei?"
"What?"
Oh, dear. He sounded irate again now. There had been no display of unbridled choler since the day of the funeral, two months ago, but the memory of Hawkeye-sensei's wrath was still fresh. Roy shook his head. "Nothing, I'm sorry..." he mumbled.
"Speak up. What do you want?"
Roy swallowed hard. It took more courage than he thought he had, but he spoke anyway.
"The tinkers, sensei. They're back in town."
The alchemist's eyes narrowed. "And you want to know if you can run off and play with that no-good rapscallion you're so fond of?" he sneered.
Roy hung his head. "Yes, sensei," he whispered.
"The bespectacled good-for-nothing who very nearly got himself killed last year, and would have taken you with him to hell if I'd let him?"
"We were only pla—"
"Don't make excuses!" the alchemist snapped. "Haven't you been listening to what I've been saying to you?"
"I'm sorry, sensei," Roy said, drawing in a deep breath and squaring his narrow shoulders. Hawkeye-sensei hated his cringing timidity. An alchemist should speak with confidence: an alchemist spoke with the voice of authority, the voice of knowledge. "I should take responsibility for what I have done," he recited again, firmly. "What I meant to do doesn't matter."
"That's right! Don't forget it." The alchemist turned back to the book he had been studying.
Roy wondered if that meant that he had been dismissed. As a minute dragged by, and then two, he decided that this must be the case. He turned to go.
"Roy," Hawkeye-sensei said, just as the boy reached the door. "Be back by nightfall. I won't keep supper for you if you're late."
Roy froze. "Sensei?"
"Go and play with your wretched little friend if you must, but be back by nightfall," the alchemist repeated.
A small laugh of disbelief spilled out before Roy could stop it. "With Maes, sir? Sensei..." he corrected himself. Calling the alchemist by that title was a privilege, and not one that the boy was about to forfeit.
"Yes, of course. Unless you have another ragtag wandering urchin you'd rather spend time with." The man looked up and fixed his steely gaze on Roy. "But if I find you've been up in that treehouse, you won't have a shred of skin left on that skinny back of yours, do you hear me?"
"Yes, sensei!" Roy exclaimed. He was so rapturous with excitement that the threat couldn't touch him. "Thank you, sensei!"
Hawkeye frowned. "Get out of here before I change my mind," he said gruffly.
Roy didn't need to be told twice. Three minutes later, he was running jubilantly along the road into the village, having only just remembered to tell Riza that it was time for her to go in to recite for her father.
discidium
"School?" Maes laughed. "Naw, I'm done! I've been trying my hand at tinkering instead. I mean, the actual tinsmithing. I've always been a natural-born salesman."
He smiled innocently, and Roy grinned. That was true, he thought, remembering the marbles his friend had used to peddle at recess and dinner break. "So what have you made?" he asked, eager to show a lively interest.
The older boy's expression darkened. "Leave it to you to find the only raincloud in the sky," he said. He reached into the smaller caravan and brought out a shallow basket. He thrust it into Roy's hands.
Inside were several malformed pieces of tinplate. The sheets of metal had been cut into strips and tacked together clumsily with little metal pins. They formed outlines of dented, abstract, vaguely unattractive shapes.
"What are they?" Roy asked, bewildered.
"They're cookie cutters," Maes said morosely, picking one up. "I've made dozens, and not one of them would make a cookie that I'd want to eat. Look, this one's shaped like a liver."
It sort of was, but Roy didn't want to hurt his friend's feelings. He sifted through the ugly shapes, trying to find one that he could say something nice about.
"Here, I like this one," he said at last, lifting another one up. "It's a leaf, right?"
Maes groaned. "It's supposed to be a bear!" he said.
Roy slipped it sheepishly back into the basket. "Well, maybe you shouldn't be a tinker," he said.
"Maybe?" Maes laughed. "I'd make a better milkmaid!" He shrugged. "But I promised I'd give it at least eight months, and I've only served five. I don't want the guys to think I'm a quitter."
Roy nodded sympathetically. "You're not," he assured his friend.
"Enough about me!" Maes said. "Eli heard you've been learning alchemy: is it true?"
discidium
That spring was the happiest one Roy could remember. Every morning, he worked on his lessons with Hawkeye-sensei. In the afternoons, if his chores were done and Riza adequately provided for, he was allowed to head down to the bluffs to spend time with Maes. They explored the countryside together, laughing and teasing and outwitting one another. Maes taught him how to climb trees – though never, never the elm in the Hawkeyes' back yard; and how to tie knots and carve whistles out of willow twigs. There were games and adventures (and one or two minor misadventures...) and stories around the campfire, and Maes' family was always cheerful and welcoming – except Ben, who when he was around was not particularly cheerful.
If it hadn't been for worries about Riza's persistent night terrors; and the instinctive wariness of Hawkeye-sensei's quick disciplining hand, life would have been perfect. But then the six weeks drew to an end, and the tinkers packed up to move on. The summer waned, and autumn came, and then the snow. Riza was quiet, and the weather was ugly, and Hawkeye-sensei was engrossed in his work, reading books that he had ordered from East City and Central and as far away as Aerugo. But money was plentiful that winter, and the children didn't want for food (though at times they did want for someone to cook it), and when Riza started to outgrow her shoes, Hawkeye-sensei gave Roy two hundred sens and told him to buy some from the "damned dry goods store", and not to bother him with details like that.
So, inexorably, the year drew to a close.
