Chapter 7: Just Desserts

Alex’s and Donna’s home wasn’t the biggest I had ever seen but it was the best maintained. I had seen plenty of captured grand homes while I was in the Empire but there was always something a bit too ostentatious about them; that made them look cheap and poorly constructed. Alex’s and Donna’s mansion was simple, elegant and beautiful. It sat in the middle of a small walled in estate within the city. While the estate would be on the small side out in the country it was very large for being within the city confines. The front lawns were beautifully manicured but the back area contained a large vegetable garden, another large fenced in area holding two cows and a chicken coop. Alex had always been a food fanatic and loved more than anything else well prepared fine meals made with the freshest of ingredients. So this home definitely suited him, a place where he could obviously grow and raise the fresh food that he desired for his table. I imagine I would be able to find a pig or two about here somewhere.

I saw at least eight servants working within the home and I recognized two of them as being former members of the Fifth Regiment. Hannah and Frank had been severely wounded just as Alex and Donna had been; and likewise had to leave the Regiment because of medical reasons. They now seemed to be healthy and whole, but they were extremely busy so I could only smile and exchange initial greetings with them. I would talk with them later.

Donna led me to a palatial bedroom that even had its own wash room. Cold water was provided from a cistern on top of the building. She told me that a series of pumps conveyed the water to the roof for the convenience of entire the household. Donna saw the state of my wardrobe, which was nonexistent because of the destruction of my room and asked one of the maids to steal some of her husband’s clothes for me, enough for the next two days. Alex was considerably larger than I was, so I would probably look like a child dressed in an adult’s shirt and pants but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

After I dropped off my ragged bag full of my salvaged belongings, Donna led me down to a luxurious sitting room where we were served tea.

“You never knew my history James. I’m two years younger than Ellen and I idolized her in the past. My father is a baron and very conscious of his social standing. When the Princess started forming the Fifth Regiment I immediately joined up. I was to be an officer because of my background but there was a lot condescending talk about the Princess and the Fifth at the time. How it wasn’t a real army unit and just the toy of a spoiled princess. My father who wanted to stay in the good graces of what he considered to be the elite of the Kingdom, put pressure on the military. He wanted to punish me for the embarrassment I caused him when I joined the Princess’s Regiment. So it was ordered by Army Command that I could never be an officer. It angered me at first but I now feel that I learned more and accomplished much more as sergeant than I ever would have as a lieutenant.

My father is now trying desperately to get back into my good graces. But his apologies are always twisted in such a way as to sound insulting to me and while making him look like a compassionate and loving parent, so I still haven’t forgiven him and it might never happen unless he changes his tone. Those formerly influential people, who used to denigrate the Princess, are now walking very small and talking very quietly when they are talking at all. So that’s my boring life story.

Alex and I have never properly thanked you for the regeneration potions that you sent to us James. How did you manage to make them during that final year of the war?”

“I spent a lot of the war in Drake’s Landing because I needed access to the swamp so that I could gather the ingredients that I required, to make the potions that both Princess Ellen and Ester’s village needed. When I saw Count Smith’s horrible wounds, I swore to myself that I would heal him one day. I had been studying on how to concoct many different potions back in my keep so while I knew the formulas and recipes, I had yet to master them. Actually, I ended up cheating on the regeneration concoction like I did with my healing potion.

A true regeneration potion should only take a single dose and should completely restore a person’s lost body parts, as long as they eat enough within the following month. How much they have to eat is dependent on the amount that needs to be regenerated. I feel that doing it that way, places too many demands on the body and can cause other complications as well. There are warnings and stories in my books, about people dying during and shortly after the regeneration process is complete.

So my concoctions are individually weaker and are divided into three to five stages which should optimally be taken fourteen to twenty days apart. Your own injuries probably only needed three of the stages but I sent you all five just in case. The first potion starts the process, the next two maintain the process and the final two stabilize and terminate the process. All that you probably already know, from the instructions I sent you along with your potions. The special couriers that the Princess arranged helped make this all possible because the ingredients in the potions are highly reactive and don’t have much of a shelf life in comparison to the other concoctions that I make.

By breaking the regeneration potion down into five separate concoctions, I was able to make this regeneration series with a far higher success rate than is the norm for a traditional regeneration potion. The ingredients are still very rare though and difficult to find. There are many people that still require the potion but I need to wait for certain plants to re-grow in the swamp before I can make any more of the concoctions, which might sadly take a year or more. But I’ve had no luck in finding those crucial items anywhere else but in two or three areas within that great mire, however I have certainly never searched the entire swamp. It is obviously far too huge for me to do that. In addition there are areas that even I fear to go, those locations with an over abundance of swamp dragons for one thing or worse yet, those locales where one might encounter a true greater dragon.”

“James, people always know that there are risks when going off to war and that they might not come back in one piece. While the Kingdom offers some compensation for those that are maimed, it is often rather small. To the best of my knowledge you haven’t charged any of us for those regeneration potions, not even one copper coin. Don’t you need the money?”

“I’ve just missed dying in that war by only the slimmest of margins. In fact at the very end of my second year with the Fifth Regiment, I lost my left hand but it made me an excellent experimental subject for the various regeneration potions that I concocted. There is no way that I can ask payment from someone who had fought in the same war as I but who unfortunately had just a little less luck. What happened to the Count or you could very well have happened to me. On top of that since I am not a member of the Mage Guild it is illegal for me to sell magical goods or services within the Kingdom but I can give them away.”

“You know James; I still can’t get over how someone who was raised by an insane witch in a swamp and taught himself to read can speak as well as you do.”

“As I’ve said before, I learned to speak based on how I heard the Witch talk. She wasn’t one to tolerate misspoken words or bad grammar. After my attending the University for that short time and remembering certain things that Lauren had said or muttered in the past, I think that she once attended that very same school but I have no idea when. She might have been considerably older than I had originally thought; there are several potions that can extend one’s life. In fact the health potions she used to produce and I still make, can easily give you another good ten, twenty or even more years if you just drink them every year or two. They are relatively easy to concoct and the ingredients are plentiful in the swamp, if you know where to look.”

Donna’s eyes lit up with that bit of new knowledge but just then Alex entered the room, looking completely worn out. He put a finger to his lips signifying that he didn’t want to talk just yet. He stumbled over to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a large libation and then sat down heavily with a sigh. Both Donna and I sat quietly and drank our tea. Finally he spoke.

“My cousin David has fallen in with a bad crowd who are out to destroy you James. The stories they are telling about you and the Princess are ludicrous. You are an evil swamp witch, raised by crocodiles and swamp spiders. Some of your ingredients for your potions come from sacrificed human babies or can only be grown with the blood from those babies. That redheaded boy seems to be the instigator of all this and the constables are looking for him along with the other two. His name is Derrick Thomas, do you recognize his name?”

“Could he be related to Lord Thomas, the King’s advisor? I know that he doesn’t like me. He is being given credit at the University for creating Drake’s Healing Potion and the kraken tubes.”

“What?” Both Alex and Donna shouted

“That’s ridiculous, the potion is even named after you,” stated Alexander with a disbelieving look on his face.

“It’s being taught in my classes that Lord Thomas named the potion after Drake’s Swamp because he invented it there, while exploring the swamp.”

“Nonsense, I doubt he has never even stepped foot in that place,” remarked, Donna.

I shrugged my shoulders.

Alex got up. “I’m going to write letters to the Constables, the Mage Guild, the Royal University, the Minister of Justice, Princess Ellen and the King. I will not let someone else take credit for the things that you’ve done. And if that doesn’t work, there a lot of former soldiers, and not only those from the Fifth, that owe you very their lives and they know it. We’ll loudly spread the truth from one end of this Kingdom to the other! Let us see what Lord Thomas and the Mage Guild, does then!” Before I could say anything, Alex strode from the room while muttering curses about the Guild and Lord Thomas.

Donna spoke up, “that’s my husband. We grew up together and played with one another as children. He was sweet on me from the very beginning. I almost made a bad mistake before the war and went off with someone else; at the time I didn’t see Alex’s true inner strength. The war and how he handled his wounds clearly showed that to me. I wake up thankful every day that I married him.”

The next four days were filled with Alex attending meetings both in and out of his home. During that time, Donna took me shopping so that I could replace some of my destroyed belongings. I tried to go to the less expensive stores and pay for things myself but she wouldn’t even consider it and she got quite fierce about it too.

“James you gave us potions that should have cost a hundred gold pieces or more. Let us give you back something in return, especially since we can easily afford it.”

Finally one night, Alex called me into his den, along with his wife. “We finally figured out what was going on. We still have some details to fill in but we have the general outline. Lord Thomas was the King’s Advisor on magic. James, whenever Princess Ellen’s reports delved into magic or your part in the war, the King would have Lord Thomas read those portions in the hopes that the Kingdom’s Magical Advisor could then better explain those things to him. Apparently Lord Thomas was quite jealous of the brilliant discoveries made by a young boy, a boy with no family and who was raised in Drake’s Swamp by a witch. So he did not fully convey your accomplishments to the King when elucidating upon Ellen’s letters.

We don’t know when exactly it started but he went back to the Guild and began claiming your inventions as his own. Now the Guild doesn’t trumpet the achievements of individual members outside of the Guild but instead claims those accomplishments on behalf of the whole organization to better improve their image with the public and the nobility. However inside the Guild, that is another matter and this afforded Lord Thomas a great rise in status. Furthermore the Guild started making financial claims against the Royal Treasury for their new inventions and the Treasury has already paid out great sums of money to them.

From talking to Derrick, we’ve learned that his much older brother expected you to die during the war and a time or two; he might have even sent assassins after you. But the war ended and you didn’t conveniently die. So Lord Thomas then conspired to limit your ability to practice as a mage within the Kingdom but Princess Ellen put up a fight and the King supported her. Evidently Lord Thomas was hoping that you would fade into obscurity, perhaps with the help of a blade in the back. Suddenly he found that the King was sending you to the University and the only hope that he saw was to take control of the situation. He enlisted his youngest brother but we’re sure that he didn’t tell Derrick the complete truth. Derrick being quite charismatic rallied the students and many of the staff against you.

Since this most recent failed attack against you, Lord Thomas has apparently fled the country; which is most alarming since he knows the runes we use on the kraken spears. So that is what we know so far. The King will never make an official or formal apology to you but something is in the works to make amends for this situation.

The Guild is most humiliated, over this entire incident and they will probably attempt to talk with you sometime in the near future. Right now they are scrambling to repay the gold that they already received, from the Royal Treasury for your inventions.

The Dean of the Royal University would like to speak with you too but he probably won’t be the Dean for very much longer and neither will any of the proctors be holding on to their jobs there.”

“Unbelievable, so can I go home to the swamp now? I’ve enjoyed staying here with you and Donna but Ester’s village needs me to make their fall health potions for them. They can’t afford the ones from the Guild. I had the ingredients to make their concoctions and actually had some of them finished, but before I could send them off to the village, my room was vandalized and the completed potions and ingredients to make more of them were ruined. I like the swamp but it seems to breed diseases and the people who live near it, need those concoctions to remain healthy. For that matter, some of the soldiers at Drake‘s Landing might need a dose too.”

“Let me talk more with the others that are involved first. It might not be a good idea for you to leave just yet. We still haven’t exactly learned where that death bolt came from but we have some suspicions.”

I looked at him suspiciously. “Alex, I think I’ve done right by a lot of people. I don’t mean to offend you but after everything that’s recently happened to me, I only really care if my leaving for my home is a good idea to me.”

Two days later a meeting was being held at the palace, in attendance was King Rivers, General Paul Howard, Admiral Samuel Taylor, High Mage Philip Wright, Minister of the Treasury Walter Cooper, Minister of Justice Clarence Robinson, Count Alexander Smith and the new Dean of the Royal University; Greta Marks.

Count Smith was speaking. “James would like to return to Drake’s Swamp and I don’t think he ever intends on leaving there again. What we would find to be a horrible place he finds to be a place of safety with abundant natural food resources. As for practicing magic, he’ll probably continue his own studies and research. I know that he plans on gifting others that have been left damaged by the war, with potions that will repair their bodies just as he did for my wife and me. The only reason he hasn’t done it yet is that the ingredients are rare and he’s waiting for them to naturally restock themselves in the swamp. He considers all of those injured in the war to be his brothers and sisters in arms and he will not leave them lame.”

General Howard remarked. “That’s a good man there; I don’t care about the circumstances of his upbringing. His potions, and General Ellen’s imagination and leadership have won us that damn war that the Empire started.”

“I concur,” spoke Admiral Taylor.

The King was feeling awfully embarrassed by the entire situation, he had let Lord Thomas do this right under his very nose. Bartholomew Thomas had long been in Prince Edwards’s group of supporters. The King had finally reached a decision about Ellen especially since Edward had turned to drinking and slapping his own children about. During his campaign against the Empire, the Prince had not once ventured into the mountains himself to see the actual conditions there but instead he had stayed at a specially constructed and luxurious estate several miles within the Kingdom’s borders. What was worse was that Edward had repeatedly ordered his younger bookish brother forward, to the very tip of the spear and got him killed while doing it.

No, it was past time for Prince Edward to retire to a quiet country estate for medical reasons. The King already had the support of the majority of the Dukes and Duchesses that truly mattered for making such a drastic change. If the group in this meeting supported his change in the Royal Heir, then all would run smoothly once the entire Kingdom learned of his decision.

High Mage Wright began to speak. “I can’t say that I’m not jealous of the boy, because I am. The simple idea of putting a rune marked spear with fletching in a tube allows for the smooth and accurate launching of the projectile. Without the tube and the fletching there is no telling where the damn things would go. His healing potion is another wonder and I would like to speak to him about it. As for his regeneration potion that strains my mind and I would call it a fable if not for Count Smith being here with all four of his limbs. Speaking for the Guild we must establish a cordial and respectful relationship with the boy or we face being discredited with the public. To do that, we need time to establish such a relationship but if he goes back to the swamp that will never happen or happen far too late for us.

May I remind you all, that up until this latest mess, that the Guild has been one of the staunchest supporters of this Kingdom. We have protected both it and the public from threats both mundane and magical. We ask the Kingdom’s help in forming a relationship with the lad. It won’t be easy on either of our parts. We have jealous members who will have difficulty looking at a boy of only sixteen years who was raised in a swamp as a slave. He probably has many preconceived notions about us as well. But there is much that we can teach him. There is no doubting the fact that he is a skilled potion mixer, rune engraver and ward maker but he knows little of spell casting. Just think of what he might do for the Kingdom if he gains more knowledge. From what I’ve learned of the boy he only cares about a full belly, a comfortable place to sleep, happy neighbors and the study of magic. He is not the sort to become power mad and seek to enforce his will on other people. We would be making a grave mistake in letting such a person drift away from us. The next magical genius might be of another sort altogether just look at some of the Imperial Wizards.”

The new Dean of the Royal University spoke next. “Morale at the University is abysmally low, especially amongst the students who were duped by Derrick Thomas. Many of the staff; are in fear of losing their jobs though I’ve told them that those needing to go have already left. It will be years before we can recover our reputation unless we get James Drake to return. The fact that we had the inventor of Drake’s Healing Potion, the Kraken Tubes and Drake’s Regeneration Potion attending our very own school and we didn’t know it is making us look like fools and incompetents.

Worse yet, he was publicly harassed by the staff, students and teachers. Princess Ellen, in her letters to my predecessor, clearly told him about young Drake’s accomplishments but the fool discounted all of her words as embellishments, exaggerations and lies. Dean Reynolds made token promises to the Princess and then promptly forgot them, not caring if he failed in living up to his word. If Drake does return, that will of course cause its own problems but they will be short term ones unlike the long term setback that we will have to face if he stays away.”

The Minister of the Treasury spoke next. “Now that I know what the lad has done for us and seen his modest bills for the mountain of work that he has accomplished. I must acknowledge that we owe him quite a bit of gold but not an unreasonable sum by any means. In fact he was quite the bargain. With the permission of the King, I would like to transfer some funds to an account at the Royal Bank set up in his name. Apologies are good but if they are backed up by gold that is better, especially since he has rightfully earned those sums. I think we should also include payment for his destroyed possessions and a bonus because of our late payment. The Kingdom can certainly afford both. I was thinking a bonus of fifteen percent over his base sum.”

King Richard spoke. “We do have a problem with the legality of paying him since by the laws of this land, only the Guild can sell magical goods or services.”

The Minister of Justice replied. “But your Majesty the bulk of his work occurred in Drake’s Swamp and lands of the Empire. At that time, neither was a part of this Kingdom. I learned from Count Smith that Mister Drake even deliberately setup a shop, off shore in the swamp, so he wouldn’t be breaking our laws. Nor has he been charging us for those marvelous regeneration potions that he has been giving to our injured soldiers, including my youngest daughter Lucille. He has at all times sought to stay within the law once he has learned about those laws. Admittedly, for his first year or two he was selling in Ester’s Village but we at the Ministry will not seek to prosecute him for those actions.”

Mage Wright spoke again. “Certainly your Majesty, the Guild has no objection to seeing Mister Drake paid since as Baron Robinson explained the lad did his work outside of the then existing Kingdom.”

“Alright, take care of it Baron Cooper. As you said, set up and account for him and transfer those monies you think that we owe him. I will sign off on it. Count Smith I would like for you to talk with the boy and try to convince him to stay in Sweet Port and return to the University. I think you can promise him that his accommodations will drastically improve. In fact I know that there are suites there with private kitchens for the upper nobility. With Dean Marks’ permission offer him one of those. Since I’m paying his tuition, I will provide him a personal servant or two that can do his cooking and assist him in other ways. Inform him of his new account with the bank as well.”

“I can do that your Majesty but what about the potions that Ester’s Village and our soldiers need. He has no more ingredients. Also you all here have repeatedly referred to him as a lad or boy. I know that you mean no insult to him but after his experiences; man or young man is a far better term for him.

The King was slightly taken aback by Count Smith’s observation regarding the proper way to refer to young Drake but he had to concede the point that was made, however he decided not to do so out loud. “The crown will buy Drake the needed ingredients so long as he doesn’t charge for the finished potions. We will also make sure that they get to where they are needed.

On to another important subject; I have decided to call back Princess Ellen and make her my heir instead of Prince Edward. I think it would be better if he retired to an estate in the country. Can I have your thoughts and any objections that you might have?”

There were no objections regarding the Princess, but sadly High Mage Philip Wright felt he had something else to point out. “Your Majesty finding all of the potion ingredients that Young Drake will need; will prove to be difficult if not impossible. There are very few places where those concoction components can be found and very few carefully tended gardens where they can be grown.

While Drake’s Swamp has perhaps an abundance of such components it remains a perilous place. Young Drake has established a marked trail of sorts through the swamp, but it is only safe for people who move swiftly along the trail, in powerfully warded boats which don’t stop until they reach a designated safe resting area. General Howard can confirm my following words, while it is true that the Army has had few casualties while crossing the swamp there were some and on two occasions, convoys of consisting of two mages and over a hundred soldiers have been lost in their entirety. That is a rather significant fighting force to completely disappear without a trace and because of sightings made by returning convoys, we know that those two convoys did not even make it to the Great Kraken Lake in the center of Drake’s Swamp. So it was something else, besides a giant kraken that killed them.

Since the establishment of Drake’s Trail through the swamp, attempts have been made at gathering rare plants and such along its edges but most of those attempts have ended in failure and all of those people that have participated in such attempts have refused to ever try again. We all know that as soon as the blockade was lifted and General Ellen secured a port in the Empire for us, that we ceased using that highly dangerous trail.

So getting back to my original thought, I think at best, that we might be able to provide a quarter of the potion ingredients that Drake needs. For the rest, I think that we should gift him with finished health potions but they will be of an inferior quality because of their ingredients. I’ve heard that young Drake typically charges two silver coins for a five dose flask of potions. Even an inferior health potion from most other potion concocters will cost at least a gold piece. So for the Crown to make good on Drake’s losses will cost no less than forty gold coins and more probably one hundred gold pieces and give him an inferior product when compared to his own work.”

King looked morosely at the High Mage. “Please, do the best that you can. It was at my insistence that certain things happened. If my daughter returns here and finds her protégé, a boy who has saved her life on more than one occasion, has returned to Drake’s Swamp because of the deplorable treatment he has received here in Sweet Port, none of us will be happy.”

On that depressing note the meeting ended.

“Donna, I was promised by Princess Ellen and by the King that I would be treated fairly here. I was promised by the Princess during the war that I would be paid as soon as the money was available; neither of those two things happened, have they? I’m through being a sucker. I’m going home, even if I have to walk the entire way and eat weeds.”

James you wouldn’t have to do something like that. I’ve told you, you’re rich now. The crown has opened an account for you in the Royal Bank and even paid you the estimated value of all of your belongings that were destroyed plus a bonus because they delayed in paying you. I know that the Princess will be devastated once she learns how terribly you have been treated. She’s already been sent for and she should be back in no more than six weeks and probably much less. Please wait for her return. She thinks of you as her little brother, a brother that she actually likes. But, if you do return home, Alex and I will take you. I know he would insist on doing that and his county is on the way to Ester’s Village. You go to bed and we’ll talk more about it in the morning. Our chef will be preparing crepes, sausage and fruit for breakfast.”

I thanked Donna and went off to my room. She knew my weak spot; good food was always an excellent way to bribe me. When I got to my room, I found my nightly snack already there waiting for me. Beginning my second night in Alex’s and Donna’s home; Hannah who was a former soldier with the Fifth and now a servant working in this house, had started making sure that I had a snack in my room every night just in case I got hungry while the household was asleep. Sometimes it was sliced smoked sausage, cheese and bread; other times it might be several pieces of fried fowl. I lifted the cover from the tray. Tonight, it was half of a cherry pie and some white holey cheese; I didn’t like the orange stuff.

Alex, Donna, Hannah and Frank sat around the dining table. It was late but they had a problem. James wanted to go home and they couldn’t blame him. While Alex and Donna were nobles and Hannah and Frank their servants, all four of them were former soldiers with the Fifth Regiment and all four of them had their limbs and bodies restored to them by James. On the other hand they liked Crown Princess Ellen too and they recognized how much help James could be for her and the Kingdom. They all thought that Ellen would be a talented monarch since she was so much more intelligent and compassionate than her own father. They just knew that if they could get James to give the Kingdom and Ellen one more chance that she would make things right for the young man, but how to convince him?

I reclined in my bed and debated whether I wanted to get up and eat some pie and cheese. I had been thinking about my situation. I decided to get up and write my thoughts down on paper.

“Why am I so angry?

Number 1; I wasn’t paid promptly. But now I’ve been paid and they’ve given me a bonus as well.

Number 2; The Crown has told me that I can no longer work as mage, not even in Drake’s Swamp, until I become a member of the Mage Guild, which will mean attending the Royal University for the next two years.

Number 3; Lord Thomas was taking credit for my inventions and until recently, nobody did anything about it. Even though there had to have been a lot of mages that knew the truth. On the other hand, those mages might have been afraid of challenging Lord Thomas because of his position within the Guild and his association with the King.

Number 4; Despite promises made by the Dean of the Royal University and the senior teachers there, I was treated unfairly from the first day I arrived.

Number 5; Every time I went to the school cafeteria for a meal, I was prevented by the students, cafeteria workers, cooks, staff members, proctors and even teachers from eating any of the well prepared foods served in the dining hall. That is the one thing that really bites my butt! Everybody else was eating delicious smelling meals, while I was stuck eating the same old bland stuff day after day. I know for a fact that the cooks and servants were deliberately making extra bland and disgusting foods for the only buffet table that I could ever get to.

Number 6; The Princess said I would be ennobled. I’m not sure I want to be a noble! And if I’m given Drake’s Swamp, won’t I have to pay yearly taxes on it? How in the heck am I supposed to do that? I guess I can always turn it down.

If I didn’t like Donna and Alex so much, I wouldn’t even consider staying here in Sweet Port. I also like seeing new places, going out to nice restaurants and eating wonderful meals. But all of those jerks at the Royal University treated me like I was swamp muck that they needed to wipe off of their shoes and they’re not going to be inconvenienced one bit because of what they did to me. How would they like it if……….? Now there’s an idea. Heh, heh, they would never do it. But I just might mention it to Alex tomorrow; he would understand if anyone would.

The next morning I sat down for a wonderful breakfast with Alex and Donna. The meals here, was a big part of why I hadn’t already left. Alex began speaking. “James, is there anything that we can do to get you to return to the University?

“Alex, I was treated shabbily by most of the people there. There are two things; that really bothers me about this situation that I’m currently in. First, the Crown telling me that I can no longer work as mage in Drake’s Swamp or the New Territories. When I am the only true inhabitant of that swamp as far as I know; and for months, I was the only mage fighting alongside the Fifth Regiment in the Eastern Empire. Now they tell me that I can’t legally work in either place! They should have told me that before I joined up with Princess Ellen.

The second thing that gets me angry is what I was forced to eat while I was attending the University. Students, teachers, cooks and others there, conspired to arrange that the only buffet table that I could ever reach was the one with only the blandest and worst cooked foods. I swear, at the end of my stay at the University, that the cooks were competing to see who could make the most appalling food for that table.”

Alex loved fine meals and he was enraged. “The Royal University is famed for the excellence of their kitchen and they fed you garbage!” He was getting red in the face. “I don’t blame you for leaving. I’ll bring this to Greta Marks’s personal attention and she had better take some steps to rectify things and punish the guilty or she won’t be Dean for very long. I’d like to round up some fellow veterans from the Fifth, kidnap all of those who are working at or attending the Royal University and dump them in your swamp. Let’s see how they would like that. They would probably be crocodile food in short order. Feeding you trash while they ate gourmet meals! The cooks should be boiled in their own cooking oils. Hanging is too good for them!”

Donna was trying to get him to quiet down. He was starting to draw the attention of the household servants. While a lieutenant, Alex had been forced to eat Army rations and he hadn’t liked that one bit. He was a man that would go to almost any extreme to eat a fine meal. He was the only one from the Fifth that would try eating anything that I ate. Afterwards he had agreed with me that those exotic and unusual foods were certainly much better than the rations that he was normally stuck with eating.

I decided to distract him. “Tell you what Alex. I will return to the University on two conditions. If the Crown restores my rights, to work as a mage in Drake’s Swamp and the New Territories. And if, for six weeks after I return to the University, that all of the people who were working or attending the school while I was being so humiliated there, have to eat what I was forced to eat; while I on the other hand, get to eat fine meals.”

Alex stopped his rant, looked at me and began to grin. I could see no way that the University would go for something like that but it was worth a shot.

A week later I found myself back at school. How was I supposed to know that the King was even a bigger food nut than Alex was? His Majesty had come to the University and had personally issued a Royal Command to everyone there. That wasn’t counting the chefs and servants that he had dismissed. How dare they deliberately serve inferior food to someone that was attending the school under his patronage!

Things were much better in most ways and only slightly worse in couple of minor areas. I now had a wonderful suite of six rooms which was normally only assigned to Dukes, their heirs or the extremely wealthy. I had two servants and one was a fantastic chef. But I am not a person skilled at socializing and I had a hard time relating to the upper crust students attending the University and who were now quite apologetic about their past behavior, particularly the female students. I would rather be back with the Army or in Ester’s village if not my swamp.

Professor Marks was the new Dean but she was still teaching her classes. Constable Victoria Ridge who had arrested David was the new Head Proctor. I probably got along with those two the best. Dean Marks was very interested in how I had developed some of my potions. We got out some old potion books from the library and I showed her how I had combined certain elements from two health potions and one healing potion to make my weaker version of a healing concoction. I think I lost some of my luster with her when she realized how simple my discovery truly was.

Greta Marks returned to her own rooms, sighing with frustration. James’s healing potion was truly a marvel of efficiency and simplicity. She couldn’t believe that no one else had ever put it together before. It would revolutionize health care in the Kingdom and other lands. But his regeneration potion was his masterpiece. He had broken down one cumbersome killer of a potion into three parts, and then he added other ingredients to stabilize, improve, and bolster those three new potions. Traditional regeneration potions must be used within a week of their manufacture or they will lose their effectiveness. James’s version was completely stable for five months and was still partially effective for another two beyond that, it was simply astonishing.

Successful use of the regeneration series, required potions two and three to be administered twice but those two concoctions had the least expensive and easiest to find ingredients when compared to the first potion. It was the ingredients in potion one that were the most rare and difficult to find over all, although few of the components in all three of the potions were exactly common fare.

What ruined the other regeneration potions was their immense cost because of the wastage of precious and rare ingredients generated in failed attempts to make the concoction. With Drake’s version there were hardly any failures, if you were careful when making it. In fact James hadn’t had a failure since the fourth time he had made that particular concoction.

She was at times jealous of him, in awe of him and then stunned by his ignorance about the simplest of things. For example he was an extremely poor spell caster, when it was the easiest of the magical arts. She wondered if that was his problem, it was so simple that it bored him and thus he didn’t practice it enough, which was the key to being a good spell caster. Then too, spell casters normally learned and practiced the art by competing in games with other spell casters. Recalling how James was treated when he first arrived at the University, she imagined that none of his fellow magic students were interested, at the time, in playing any magic spell practice games with him. She made a mental note to speak to Drake’s spell casting instructor.

Greta sadly made her way to the University dining hall, for another meal of beans, rice, potatoes, and water. The food was guaranteed to be poorly cooked, burned, or unseasoned; but most times it was all three. She mentally made a check mark, only thirty-two more days to go. The Dean passed many students who had similar looks of depression and disgust on their faces while on their own walks to the cafeteria.

I was getting quite frustrated with my Spell Casting Instructor today. Professor Sara Sanchez kept on interrupting my thoughts. I nearly had a new combination of runes figured out and she wants me to cast that idiotic fireball spell again.

“James you must concentrate. What will you do if an enemy mage attacks you with a magic spell?”

“Trust in my shield amulets and stab the spell slinging moron with an enchanted short spear. It’s worked plenty of times for me in the past, why should I change my tactics now? Let me tell you, their eyes get really big just before you gut them with a spear. It’s almost like you can hear their thoughts. It’s like, ‘Oh no, I’m a great Eastern Empire Wizard and this little punk is immune to my magic however I don’t have to worry because my own shields will stop his spear. But why do I suddenly hurt so much and why is there a spear running through my stomach?’ I tell you it’s a laugh riot every time.”

Professor Sanchez sighed; it was going to be another one of those days.

I was working in the University conservatory with Professor Julia King, she taught both botany and potions. Some of the ingredients I had found in her greenhouses were superior to what was in the swamp and some were inferior. Most of the time that was due to the fact the there were different variants of the plants here. The superior plants had been bred up to be better and at other times it was probably due to the nutrients provided. There were many plants though that for some unexplainable reasons could not be cultivated and could only grow naturally. I was hoping to learn more about plants so that I could make substitutions for the rarer potion ingredients.

Professor King watched James walk out of the University Conservatory. She thought of him as a joy to work with. Looking around carefully, she didn’t see anyone and she snuck the small apple that she had been hiding out of her jacket pocket and hurriedly devoured it. She sighed, twenty-one more days to go.