Ancaladis
Students. Ancaladis re mainland war.
Pleasure was a rare thing to hear in Ancaladis's voice, but there was one occasion where it was always present. "Class is dismissed."
"So ends another productive day on the hill," said Mirala tiredly from the circle next to Samara's. The mainlander was eyeing her ingredients-bag ruefully. "Reckon we'll ever get to use these?"
"I get it! I'm still sorry!" Taramyn's voice came from the back.
"She'll crack sooner or later," Deill told Mirala, struggling to haul himself up. "As soon as - ah, thanks, Torey - as soon as all the old material's done, there'll be no choice."
"You hope," put in Samara.
"Nah, it's sure as - you all right, Folley?"
Ispian Folley, a rather small young fellow from Scantless, was standing a few feet ahead with his satchel clutched like a shield to his chest, his anxious blue eyes fixed on Ancaladis where she stood and waited for them all to leave. As Deill had apparently noticed, his complexion was quite alarmingly pale.
"Um," said Folley faintly.
"What's up?"
His eyes didn't move. It was like looking at a little quail paralysed by an approaching snake. "I have to ask a question."
"What, ask her?" Mirala demanded.
"Don't do it, man," said Torey in a spooky reaper-voice. "It's suicide."
"Oh, stop that," Samara interrupted irritably before Deill could chime in - or Taramyn, perish the thought. "What did you want to ask? Perhaps one of us could help instead."
"No, I have to ask her," replied Folley. There was probably no need for stirrers like Torey - he seemed to have frightened himself into a tizzy already. "For my sister's history project."
Torey snorted. "Says who?"
"My Mum."
A moment's silence ensued. They'd all heard Folley's Mum. People could probably hear her on the mainland each morning when she dropped him off.
"Can't you make something up?" Taramyn suggested, approaching with his satchel over his shoulder and his brother at his back. "Go on, ask me the question and I'll give you an Ancaladissy answer."
Folley glanced at him nervously. "I don't think that'll work. The question is 'What were your thoughts on Loria's involvement in -'"
"I'm your instructor-under-duress, Folley, not your personal informational repository," interrupted Taramyn in a fair imitation of Ancaladis's clipped, icy voice.
"Say that a bit louder while Mistress is still standing around here, why don't you?" snorted Samara.
"She didn't hear me. I've still got all four limbs, haven't I?"
"Guys, you're not helping," Deill cut in delicately. "Look, Folley, you know it's pointless. Just tell your Mum she wouldn't answer."
"But then she'll probably come up here," said Folley miserably. "I have to ask."
"You look like the grave, Folley. How about all of us except the Ashcrofts come with you?" offered Deill. "Spread the ire, as it were."
Folley looked positively worshipful. "Would you?"
"No way," said Torey.
"Torey!"
"Oh, fine."
Samara pinned the Ashcrofts with a flat look.
"Hey, we're going," Taramyn protested. "I'm not that stupid. Come on, Spud, you're an Ashcroft too."
The potato dragon crawled onto his proffered hand - for most of the lesson he'd been nosing through Mirala's satchel - and disappeared into the folds of Taramyn's shirt.
"Have lots of fun," said Luthan, preceding them both away from the shaping-stone and down towards the sloping track to the university.
Folley looked a little heartened as the rest of them fell in around and behind him. Most were behind, in actual fact, but the gesture appeared to be appreciated anyway.
Ancaladis was watching them long before they'd finally started to shuffle, as a nervous, sheeplike huddle, in her direction. It certainly wasn't a common thing for students to linger on the hill after class. Rather than break the silence and invite them to tell her what they wanted, however, she simply continued to stare as they approached.
Small birds had probably died in the face of that stare. Samara thought longingly of the coachhouse and the biscuits waiting at home.
"Mistress?" piped Folley at last in a tiny, tiny voice.
The moon fae focussed her stare on him, waiting.
"If you don't mind ... if you have time .... I have ... a question?"
"And a chorus line, it appears," said Ancaladis. "Are you all going to perform the question together in interpretive dance?"
Habitually they all braced themselves for one of those dreaded 'With all due respect ...' remarks, but of course Luthan wasn't there.
"I wonder if you'd mind terribly much -"
"I don't answer questions out of class, Ispian. You should have asked while everyone else was expressing their usual bewilderment."
"Um ... it's not about dragonmaking ..."
"Then I hope it's not about algebra."
Folley looked ready to jump into his satchel and buckle it shut. "My sister's doing a history assignment and if it's quite all right if it isn't of course that's completely fine but if it's quite all right could I ask you what your -"
Ancaladis held up a long finger. Folley shut up.
"Slowly," she said. "Though not too slowly. You have ten seconds to capture my attention."
"May I ask you what your thoughts were on Loria's involvement in the mainland wars just prior to the Age of Iron?" he asked hastily. "Because it's all right if you're too busy or anything like that, but it's just that it's not the sort of question you find an answer to in books and my sister - well, my mother, really - was sort of hoping for extra credit ..."
"Time is up," interrupted Ancaladis.
"Okay, no problem, thank you anyway for -"
"Do you have a pencil and paper? Or does your brain deal with dictation better than the sigils in class?"
Folley stared at her for a moment or two, then started groping in mad panic at his satchel.
Deill handed him the pencil. Samara provided the paper.
"I wasn't very interested in politics at that time," Ancaladis said, ignoring all the fumbling. "My opinion was very much in line with the general opinion of Loria's Makers. I didn't agree with the ideology of the mainland war."
As Folley scribbled on the paper against Torey's obliging back, Samara struggled to fit the idea into her head. The others' expressions suggested they were facing a similar dilemma. Under what kind of circumstances could Ancaladis disagree with human extermination? She'd irritably wished for it just this morning.
"So you thought Yurahaina and Arathalian were in the wrong?" ventured Folley in a mouse-voice.
"Yes, of course. Arathalian especially."
Apparently their blank stares were a little too obvious. "The Lorian Makers followed very strict beliefs," the moon fae elaborated somewhat impatiently. "Harm nothing living. Even those who might not have been quite so upset to bend the rules for humans found the ruling fae's treatment of other creatures abhorrent. Those war-beasts had to come from somewhere."
Another instinctive tense-up went through the apprentices. That juncture simply begged for an Ashcroftian 'never mind the people - there are birds suffering here!' remark.
"And so that's why most of Loria didn't help the mainland fae?" Folley queried.
"Yes."
"What about now?" asked Deill unexpectedly. Everyone else looked at him in silent discouragement.
"Oh, there was plenty of regret later," Ancaladis replied. "That's when it always comes, of course. Later."
"Um, last question." Folley glanced around Torey's back. "Do you think the mainland fae would have won with Loria's help?"
"Definitely. Arathalian came close even without us. But that's an academic question, and not only because it's history. Under no circumstances would the majority of Loria's Makers have lent their assistance. Certainly not to him."
"You mentioned people regretting it ..."
"There was no regret prior to the defeat, Ispian. And even with all the present regret, there are some circumstances under which it's simply not worth winning."
"You really mean to say that knowing everything you know now, you wouldn't help Arathalian?" asked Deill incredulously. They glared at him again, but Samara only did it out of habit. She was more than curious herself.
Ancaladis didn't answer at once. She blinked a few times, slowly, like a monk in meditation.
"I hope not," she said at last.
The apprentices stood on the spot, sneaking an occasional glance at each other.
"Well?"
They jumped at the suddenness of the question.
"Um ..." was all Folley managed, given that her eyes were on him.
"You said that was the last question," she said shortly. "You said that two questions ago, in fact. If it's pure boredom that keeps you here, there's plenty of work I can give you."
"Um, that's all, Mistress, goodbye!"
As a flock they fled, not feeling particularly strengthened in numbers.
"Tea's on you, Folley," Torey informed the smaller boy on the steep, hasty road back to the university.