apostatised | [log] but no one can assume the higher ground

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[log] but no one can assume the higher ground

Potentially against his better judgement, Martel's recently taken on another student - Anna, a sharp-eyed little thing from the nexus, plotting murder she's calling justice and he's calling vengeance in his head - and today he expects to see her, in the afternoon. There's a full morning's work that requires him before he can bathe and change his clothes (it's very physical work), and tell Ewar to collect the girl from the nexus doorway to see him in his study.

With the castle's required renovations more or less complete (the warding waits for Master Snape; Martel has more patience than some people realise), it's not an unimpressive place, and the casual touch of magic is fairly plain about it. If only because the unnatural choice in lighting is impossible to miss. On time, Martel doesn't wait; he works. (It's fascinating how much paperwork is actually manufactured by his endeavours, but he'd been aiming for Vanion's own desk once upon a time - he's not unprepared.)

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Anna has taken pains with her appearance, when she does appear, though not in the way her mother taught her. The gown today is plain linen, the dark hair braided back as tightly as it will go (not very, alas) -- no frills and no frivolity.

It was easy enough to get away -- even canny Uther doesn't think Anna needs a great deal of watching, unlike her sister the hellion -- but even so she's slightly out of breath when she presents herself, punctually, with a basket of flowers over her arm.

Ewar escorts her past the guardsmen at the nexus door and up to Martel's tower study, encompassing the entire space on the top floor. "Anna, welcome," he greets, briefly, dismissing his Arum right-hand with a brief 'thank you, Ewar'.

"You had no difficulties getting here?"

"My lord Martel." She drops a curtsey, graceful and brief. "Very little. The worst of it was convincing Elaine she might not come too."

Martel's brief amusement at that is just a chuffed breath and he offers her a seat, absent-minded in his practise at manners. "Good. Sit, first of all we'll discuss what you want to learn and what I can teach you." He's matter of fact, brisk, professional - there are, after all, many faces of Martel. (Why.)

"Sir." She sets the basket on the floor beside the chair, tucking her skirts under her as she sits.

Martel observes, it's this thing he does where he commits the feel of someone's presence to memory for future unnerving. "I want to know two things, first - your goals, after this man is dead, and your understanding of magic."

Anna sits back a little, not relaxing so much as grounding herself. She thinks it over for a minute, in that way she has of silent and rapid concentration, and then tackles first things first. "To find my brother. And then to go home. All of us." Maybe not Morgan.

"What do you need to secure this?" Martel prompts, patiently. It's a curious blend of teacher and mercenary in his approach, here. "What stands in your way that will still be there with this man dead?"

There's always something.

"I do not know what they have done with him." This is an anger almost as deep as her anger at the death of Gorlois; though she keeps her face bland and her tone level, it's evident in her intensity. "They took him when he was no more than a day old."

"And you lack allies to help you," Martel continues, like he's laying it out on the table to look at and work with. Which is, in fact, more or less what he's doing here. "'They' who?"

"My stepfather's men, and Dame Sebile to keep him quiet. I was there, I was behind the door and I heard them. They took him to Merlin, and what became of him I do not know."

When she speaks of Uther it's cold, almost contemptuous, but in this speech there is venom.

"Your access to these people?" That could almost be casual.

"Sebile is in Cornwall; she is past seventy now. Two are dead. Ulfius is my stepfather's right hand, and he knows I love him little."

"Mmmm." No use working out plans, yet, not when he's only got a vague idea of her actual capability. (What he can see is a clever, manipulative young woman with an incredibly strong will. This could be interesting! Or Candice will sigh at him.)

Changing track, he says smoothly, "Tell me your knowledge of magic."

Anna studies him. "What I know about it, what I know how to do, or what I am able to do?"

"All of the above."

She takes a breath, and folds her hands in her lap neatly. "What I know -- I learned of an old woman in Tintagel; and what she taught me is the use of will and the senses. I know charms for finding and for hiding. I know how to cast a glamour. I know how to turn aside pain, and mend wounds, and how to bespeak the air and the earth so that they open, as I did to come to you."

Another breath, and she adds, watching him slantwise, "I know how to bargain with the Folk -- but I have not dared that."

"Don't," he says, flatly, of the 'Folk'. ...Martel has very special issues, and if Anna pursues why he reacted so sharply he will tell her.

Aside from that- "Show me your glamour," he 'invites'.

In a way she's pleased by the sharpness, since it validates her judgment (cocky child). She inclines her head, politely. "It will take a moment."

"Of course." The purpose if this exercise is to see her grasp of the power and how she uses it - if there's any point to teaching her sorcery himself or if she'll need entirely separate tutelage.

Anna stays as she is for perhaps a minute, studying her cupped hands in concentration. At the end of it she raises her head to look up, not at Martel, but at the ceiling -- which has apparently vanished in favor of a night sky, complete with a cloud drifting across the moon. (There's even the hint of a breeze, although that may just be a convenient draft.)

"Very good," he murmurs, rising to have a better look at what she's done - if Anna can tell, Martel nudges at the edges of her glamour with his mind, testing its strength and craftsmanship.

It's well-constructed, though simple -- Anna has not dealt much in illusion, considering what happened to her mother. She bites her lip. The moon flickers, then resolves in finer detail.

"You certainly have sufficient aptitude," he notes. "Banish it."

"Sir." She sits back, and the moon blinks out. The rest blurs, then shreds into nothing.

"We'll leave that aside today. You read, Anna?" Martel rises, indicating with a short gesture that she should accompany him - to the library, more than likely. (This castle half seems to revolve around ~~his pride and joy~~ ~~his baby~~ that library.)

She stands promptly, smoothing her skirts -- compensating for her hair, which is already coming loose. "Ay, sir, passably."

"Language? The date for it, please." Arrangements can always be made, of course, but it's useful to know exactly what they'll need to be, if any.

"...Latin." Because what else would people write in? (Oh, honey.) "Date, sir?"

"The year," he says; 'patiently' would be a stretch, but he's not impatient with her, just matter of fact. "A century, if you can."

There probably is Latin in his library, mixed in with the Elenic, English and Spanish - but he's been a little busy to learn it himself just yet. Hm. Things to bother Candice about: probably this.

Anna blinks, absorbing this. "Five hundred." ...Give or take a few years ~~and, you know, the entire course of factual history~~. Details!

"Sufficient." Probably. (As a note: only one or two torches are lit at a time as they walk through the inner hallways down from his tower, but that particular light seems to be following him like a puppy. So.)

She glances back once, to confirm this impression. Her mouth tucks in at the corners; she did know what she was getting into, after all. (Sort of.)

It snuffs itself out at the library doors when they're opened - easily the most impressively restored part of the castle, and clearly already well lived in. (Don't think too hard about what Martel and Candice may or may not have done on some of the tables. ...and that arm chair.)

"Myself," he says, finally getting toward divulging anything about him, "I was trained from childhood as a knight of the Church - no church you'll know of - and the last decade or so I spent as a mercenary. I train the young men of my neighbour's clan here in the castle, presently; not in sorcery, they're a feet-on-the-ground people."

Anna is duly impressed, though not demonstrative about it; libraries are not much of a thing, where she comes from, and certainly not on any great scale. She looks around thoughtfully, while she considers what to do with this information. "And not of your own?"

"I came here from exile," he says, briefly and vaguely, privately amused. Granted, he's vastly simplifying matters - but it's technically accurate. "I didn't enjoy dying so much I'd risk doing it again."

That gets him a startled look, unguarded wide eyes. She glances down quickly. "Forgive me, sir."

"Bringing back the dead is an unfortunate habit of the nexus, and I'm not offended." He offers her a seat - by the fire, it's cold in Arum this time of year - and considers how to explain. Most of the details are unpleasant or simply best not discussed in polite company, but if she's going to be his student, there are some matters it's simpler to get out of the way first.

Still not sitting - there's a book or two he wants for this, there was a purpose to coming down here - he starts, "Let's say I have intimate experience with mixing politics, religion and personal feud."

Anna sits, obedient, and watches him closely, her face open and serious. Listening is one thing she's good at -- at least when there's something she wants.

"There are types of magic-" his voice is deep and steady, halfway between professorial and someone about to strike, "-that are intrinsically damaging to the psyche of the practitioner. I misjudged; betrayed my family, King, country and two separate pantheons in the process."

...look, when Martel does something, he doesn't do shit halfway.

She draws breath to answer; and shuts her mouth. Old Tregereth said much the same thing, repeatedly -- you don't want to meddle with that, lady dear -- but he's clearly leading up to something, and she's here to learn, not to brag. She clasps her hands again, tightly.

In that same semi-dangerous conversational tone, Martel does go on, "As I was stripped of the more significant of my powers, my knighthood and my titles, I was furthermore banished - which I flouted some years later, after establishing myself as the best of the best as far as mercenaries on the continent go." It would be bragging if he hadn't turned almost clinical in his recount.

"There was a war - a god whose pay I was in for the opportunity to punish who'd wronged me - and my brother, presently Prince Consort to the Queen, killed me, killed the god, more than likely destroyed the city we were in and rather efficiently got his own vengeance for who I'd destroyed rather negligently on my way."

Martel pauses, briefly. "I'm reforming. There isn't redemption for that, and certainly none after death. What I'm saying to you is there are lines in the sand, whatever your cause. Learn where they are. If you cross one I don't like, you will learn not to. If you cross one there's no coming back from, I'll kill you myself." Not something he'd ordinarily say to a student, but Anna reminds him ... incredibly worryingly of himself. "You have your option to leave, if you'd prefer."

(Surely she's imagining the mild note of challenge.)

Well. That got her attention.

Anna lifts her folded hands to her mouth for a moment, watching him with sober dark eyes; then lowers them again, still unhurriedly. Her expression has not altered, but she's a little paler now. "I understand you, my lord."

"Good," Martel says, whatever that was sliding behind the blinds again and just leaving genuinely unsettling intensity in its place.

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[log] but no one can assume the higher ground

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