The figure eyed her for a long moment, then rose, bowed, and slowly retreated from the chamber.
Behind him, Fulvia smiled coldly. She had been ruined, perhaps, but she would have her revenge. Lady Emily would die...
...And then, once again, power would be hers.
End of Book VI
Emily Will Return in:
Trial by Fire
Coming Soon!
Afterword
When I was first forced to read through the script to Romeo and Juliet at school – I was the Friar – it annoyed the hell out of me. Romeo and Juliet were such idiots! They meet each other, fall in love and get married within the space of a very short period of time (depending on the producer.) And they don’t tell their families, with the net result that Juliet is nearly married to someone else, Romeo loses his best friend and then kills one of his new kinsmen...and the young lovers (assisted by the Friar) stage an elaborate plot to fake their deaths, which turns tragic when they actually die. The only good thing about the whole affair is that it finally brings the feuding families to their senses.
I thought they were being stupid, as I said, for several reasons. First, they only just met; they certainly didn’t have time to know if they had anything more than lust. Romeo seems to have a habit of lusting after girls, as demonstrated by his moaning over Rosaline (which stops abruptly once he sets eyes on Juliet), while Juliet is evidently a sheltered and virginal daughter. Second, they don’t bother to tell their parents they’d married, which leads to disaster – Juliet’s parents tried to push her into marrying Paris, unaware she was already married. And third, they killed themselves.
The problem with interpreting Romeo and Juliet is that we look at the play through the lens of our society. We see Romeo and Juliet as adults, free to make their own decisions and able to decide to marry without parental permission. Nor do we see them having problems telling the truth to their parents. Maybe their families are upset at their marriage, we think, but does it really matter to their children? Romeo and Juliet had every right to arrange their own marriage, sleep with each other and build a life together. Or not. Whatever happened would be their choice.
But Romeo and Juliet is a product of its time and place.
Romeo and Juliet were young. In Elizabethan England, girls could get married as young as twelve. Romeo was almost certainly underage too, by our standards; I rather doubt he was any older than fourteen. The whole play centers around the decisions made by two very young teenagers, below what we consider to be the Age of Consent, allowing their hormones to lead them into a deadly trap. To us, this is thoroughly unpleasant at best and so modern-day producers tend to imply that Romeo and Juliet are definitely over eighteen. But how can one reasonably expect thirteen/fourteen year olds to think logically?
There were other problems. It was expected that Elizabethan parents would organize the weddings of their children, choosing husbands who would benefit the family as a whole (as Juliet’s father chose Paris). Boys got some latitude; girls were expected to remain virginal right up until the wedding night. By marrying without her father’s consent, Juliet effectively disgraced herself (as well as rendering herself unmarriageable) and sleeping with Romeo afterwards only made matters worse. Juliet could not go to her parents and tell them that she was already married without ensuring her eviction from the family. And, to some extent, Romeo would have the same problem.
Their marriage could easily have made the feud a great deal worse. What if Juliet’s father assumed that Romeo had deliberately set out to make his daughter unmarriageable? Or what if Paris had demanded satisfaction? He’d been promised a bride – and one would not be forthcoming. The two lovers might have been exiled or murdered (Juliet’s mother plotted to kill Romeo after he fled the city) and then the fighting might resume, with the eventual destruction of both families. The Prince had threatened to execute both of the family heads, after all, right in the first act.
The Friar is, in many ways, the villain of the piece. His decision to marry Romeo and Juliet (I have no idea if this was actually legal, but the young couple clearly believed it was) was a bad mistake, setting off the chain of events that eventually led to disaster. There were, I think other options than faking Juliet’s death. He may well have believed that their marriage would end the feud – either that, or he was an evil old bastard – but I honestly don’t see how he could have reasoned that to be true. It was far more likely, as I note above, that all hell would break loose. I do not consider him a holy man.
Most productions, I think, miss this point. To us, Romeo and Juliet is a story about a love affair and focuses on the romance. But the play is, in many ways, a warning about the dangers of unfettered feelings.
Your mileage may vary, of course.
Five Things That Could Have Happened To Emily
As a Christmas gift to my readers, I allowed myself to speculate on what might have happened if things had gone differently for Emily and offered five snippets giving a brief insight into five separate alternate worlds. None of them, of course, are canonically within the storyline...except one. Any guesses as to which?
One – Slave
Emily has no idea why Shadye kept her as a slave.
Certainly not for sex, or for what little she can do for him. Shadye shows no interest in her scrawny body – thinner now than she was before he took her – and she simply can’t do much for him in any other respect. His skeleton servants cook, when Shadye remembers to eat, and do most of the chores around his fortress. Emily spends her days wandering the extensive passageways, feeling her fragile clothes from Earth slowly turning into rags, and silently trying to understand the madness surrounding her.
He has her under a spell, she knows from bitter experience. His merest words to her have the force of law, commands she must obey. There are times when he makes her pose for him, or dance, or humiliate herself...and times when he says a word the spell takes as an order, forcing her to obey. She has tried to escape twice, only to discover that her body simply won’t walk more than an hour away from the fortress. Not that there’s any real hope of escape. Even if she could break the spell, where would she go?
She tries to read his books, to study the power he uses so freely, but she can’t parse out a single word. Shadye merely laughed when she asked him to teach her magic, then told her never to ask again. His power makes him unstoppable. She tries to kill him once, in sheer desperation, and her body does as she wants...but it doesn’t matter. Shadye calmly plucked the knife out of his chest, then tossed it to one side. The lack of punishment for her act only makes it worse. There is no hope of escape.
Shadye mumbles and rages, muttering to himself in languages she doesn’t understand. There are times when he seems to see her as a pet, something to be petted, and times when he seems angry at her for reasons she cannot understand. One day, she is sure, he will kill her...or command her to kill herself.
And if he doesn’t, she knows she will end her days in the dark fortress; lonely, starving, helpless, naked...and enslaved.
Two – Apprentice
Perhaps it is the stricken look in her eyes that makes Void think twice, after telling her she needs to go to school. Or perhaps it is the challenge she presents to him, the chance to teach magic to someone who did not even know it existed two days ago. But he changes his mind and tells Emily she can study with him.
Void is a stern taskmaster, Emily discovers. He expects her to rise with the sun, eat a small breakfast, and then study until the sun starts to set behind the distant mountains. But it doesn’t matter, because she is learning magic! Within the first few days, she casts her first spells; within the first two weeks, she learns how to string concepts together to cast several spells in quick succession. Power sparkles over her fingertips as she moves from spell to spell, learning how to use them and open the next layer of magic.
Two months after her arrival, she accidentally turns one of the maids into a toad. She calls for Void, expecting punishment, but he
only praises her for her achievement. The fear in the maid’s eyes daunts her for a second, yet it fades behind the praise of the first true father figure she has ever known. They’re there to serve, Void says, and it is true.
Later, perhaps two years after her arrival, Void takes her to Zangaria. There, she sees the Queen, ruling the country with an iron hand. And yet, one look tells Emily that Queen Alassa is under a spell, keeping her nothing more than a helpless puppet.
But it isn’t important to them, so they walk on.
Three – Friend
Emily had always hated and feared girls like Melissa - and, when she was honest with herself, envied them too. Melissa is popular, the queen of first year; Emily has always been a loner and a freak. But she has no choice, Madame Razz says; she has to share a room with Melissa. All of the other rooms are taken.
She grits her teeth, expecting to have her study time interrupted constantly. But she is completely unprepared for Melissa welcoming Emily into her circle of friends. Beauty and wit are important, true, but so is magical prowess. There, Emily can do well...and, slowly but surely, she begins to come out of her shell.
It takes time for her to build up the confidence to seek out new friends, but Melissa is with her every step of the way. By the time she completes First Year, she has a whole circle of friends of her own; by the time she graduates from Whitehall, she is one of the most accomplished students in the school. And, a year after her graduation, she marries Melissa’s cousin.
And, at last, she has a family of her own.
Four – Murderer
Emily offers no resistance when they come for her.
There’s no point, she knows, as they bind her hands and march her through Whitehall, down towards the portal chamber. She is a murderer, a killer...no, a mass murderer. Alassa is dead, Zangaria will have a civil war, millions of people will die ...and it is all her fault.
The blood of the murdered princess will never leave her hands, she thinks. She was told, time and time again, not to combine her spells, not to risk something that could have fatal effects. The image of Alassa’s face, half-frozen in stone, will never fade from her mind, no matter how long she lives. Magic is a deadly weapon, not a game. She killed...and she knows that, even if she could run, she wouldn’t. She must face justice for what she has done.
It is an hour before she faces the court, nine magicians garbed in black and red. They ask her if she has anything she wishes to say, before they pass judgement. She hesitates, then shakes her head silently. The verdict is unanimous, as she expects. Guilty.
“This is the fate of a murderer,” they say, as they cast the spell.
She wants to scream as her flesh hardens into stone, but it is already too late. This is the punishment for murder, for magical crime; to remain trapped in stone forever, one of the stoned philosophers. They carry the statue to the garden, then leave her there, helpless and alone. It will be centuries, she thinks, before the statue erodes to the point she dies, her thoughts and soul released to an uncertain future. By then, she may well be completely insane ...
But what other fate, she asks herself, does a murderer deserve?
Five - Necromancer
They find her, the sole survivor, in the ruins of the Great Hall, lying on top of the bodies.
It is a week before she is able to talk, to tell them that Sergeant Miles did something that disrupted Shadye’s power. (It’s a lie.) She tells them there was a flash of white light, that he did something else to shield her, that in the end he saved the school. (It’s a lie.) And she tells them that she can’t remember anything else, save for the light. (It’s a lie.)
She lies, but she knows what will happen if she tells them the truth. Shadye told her to kill Sergeant Miles, to drain his magic and life...and compelled her obedience when she refused. She pressed the knife into his flesh and felt a surge of magic, so powerful that even to touch it risked madness; she grasped the magic and hurled it at Shadye, feeling her thoughts burning even as the necromancer exploded into a blaze of light. And now....
It pulses through her thoughts, as if the back of her mind is constantly on fire. She knows that something isn’t right, but she tells herself that she can handle it. (It’s a lie.) Her thoughts seem to be twisted, yet she is still the same person. She snickers cruelly when someone suffers, when someone is in pain, when someone is the victim of a practical joke...something that would have horrified her, once upon a time, is now amusing. And she pranks people too, herself, merely because she’s bored. It’s just a joke, she tells herself... (It’s a lie.)
Jade likes her, she knows; she can use him, twist him until he is bent around her little finger. Alassa owes Emily her life; Imaiqah owes Emily her freedom...they can both be used, perhaps without ever knowing they were being used. And she has so many ideas...once, it would have bothered her to introduce so much so quickly, but now she doesn’t care. Change is coming, she tells herself, and the Nameless World can cope. (It’s a lie.) She will steer the Nameless World’s development for its own good. (It’s a lie.)
And sometimes, when she looks into a mirror, she sees a pair of red eyes looking back.
About the author
Christopher G. Nuttall is thirty-two years old and has been reading science fiction since he was five when someone introduced him to children’s SF. Born in Scotland, Chris attended schools in Edinburgh, Fife and University in Manchester before moving to Malaysia to live with his wife Aisha.
Chris has been involved in the online Alternate History community since 1998; in particular, he was the original founder of Changing The Times, an online alternate history website that brought in submissions from all over the community. Later, Chris took up writing and eventually became a full-time writer.
Current and forthcoming titles published by Twilight Times Books:
Schooled in Magic YA fantasy series
Schooled in Magic—book 1
Lessons in Etiquette —book 2
A Study in Slaughter —book 3
Work Experience —book 4
The School of Hard Knocks —book 5
Love’s Labor’s Won—book 6
Trial by Fire—book 7
The Decline and Fall of the Galactic Empire military SF series
Barbarians at the Gates—book 1
The Shadow of Cincinnatus —book 2
The Barbarian Bride—book 3
Chris has also produced The Empire’s Corps series, the Outside Context Problem series and many others. He is also responsible for two fan-made Posleen novels, both set in John Ringo’s famous Posleen universe. They can both be downloaded from his site.
Website: http://www.chrishanger.net/
Blog: http://chrishanger.wordpress.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChristopherGNuttall
CURRENT RELEASES BY
Christopher G. Nuttall
What people are saying
Schooled in Magic
“...Schooled in Magic is a fun new take on an otherworld fantasy that brings magic to life. By the end of this book, the reader will feel as if he has been schooled in magic himself. Yet the story has clearly only begun. More please!” ~ Christine Amsden, award-winning author of the Cassie Scot series
Lessons in Etiquette
“...Emily and Alassa are strong female heroes, remaining composed in the face of danger and asserting themselves when necessary. The book speaks to those who wonder how much developed nations should interfere in the cultivation of a developing society. Lessons in Etiquette is a simple story with strong characters and big ideas.” ~ San Francisco Book Review
Schooled in Magic series by Christopher G. Nuttall
SCHOOLED IN MAGIC by Christopher G. Nuttall
Emily is a teenage girl pulled from our world into a world of magic and mystery by a necromancer who intends to sacrifice her to the dark gods for power. Rescued by an enigmatic sorcerer, she discovers that she possesses strange magical powers and must learn how to master them. Book 1.
♦ Amazon Kindle
LESSONS In ETIQUETTE by Christopher G. Nuttall
After completing her first year of learning magic at Whitehall School, Emily accepts an invitation from Princess Alassa to accompany her on her progress back to her home country of Zangaria, where the princess may meet her future husband. But dark forces are at work, plotting to capture the princess ... and undo all of Emily’s work. Book 2.
Print ISBN: 1-60619-300-6. YA Fantasy
♦ Amazon Kindle
STUDY IN SLAUGHTER by Christopher G. Nuttall
After the events in Zangaria, Emily returns to Whitehall School for her second year of magical education. But with new teachers, new classes, a murderer running loose and a spy in the school, her second year will be far more adventurous than her first. Book 3.
Print ISBN: 1-60619-302-3. YA Fantasy
♦ Amazon Kindle
WORK EXPERIENCE by Christopher G. Nuttall
In the summer between Second and Third Year at Whitehall, Emily accompanies Lady Barb on her rounds of the Cairngorm Mountains bringing magical help to the locals and searching for new magicians. But when they stumble across a deadly plot, they discover that the entire country is in grave danger. Book 4
Love's Labor's Won Page 40