The Way of the Warrior-Wizard
Chapter 3: The Warrior-Wizard Sweeps the Floor

Duncanwas so exhausted from the day's activities that he was having trouble keeping his headup. Davy the dog kept licking his face in order to keep him alert, but he was fighting a losing battle.

Dean Andrews had introduced him tothe Faculty, who had met him with far less enthusiasm than his students haddone the week before. He had talked with the Faculty togive them some “pointers” on teaching, and perhaps half of them had receivedhim with grace. The other half seemedirate if not downright hostile. Obviously, they did not want to be told what to do by a mere kid. There had been one professor who was havingan especially difficult time accepting the young “genius”: his name was Jerome Donaldson.

Donaldson had been very challenging towards him and hadlambasted him with criticism every time he made a point.

“Do you think that you know more than people who have beenteaching for thirty or more years?” he had asked disdainfully.

“No, Sir, not at all,” Duncanhad replied as respectfully as he was able, “I in fact have learned many of mymethods from people who have been teaching for thirty or more years. I incorporate the Socratic Method because ofan old professor that I knew back in Scotland, who demonstrated to methe use of it in order to keep his students awake and alert.”

“Well,” Donaldson had conceded grudgingly, “I suppose I’llaccept that answer for now...although I suspect that you’re engaging indisingenuous flattery in order to shut up us ‘oldsters’. I better not hear any arrogant commentscoming out of your mouth, youngster. Idon’t care if you are a ‘star’, youneed to mind your place at this teaching institution.”

“Of course,” Duncanhad replied in a courteous fashion, “I am honoured to be teaching here, and Idon’t expect to be treated any differently than anyone else.”

“Yes,” Donaldson had countered, “but you will be treated differently, and I thinkeveryone here knows that.”

Duncanhad felt discouraged by Donaldson’s critique of him, but Dean Andrews had toldhim not to worry.

“There are going to be those, like Donaldson, who are lessthan pleased with a young boy arriving upon the scene as their peer; but don’tlet them push you around. You have asmuch right as anyone else to be here, Duncan. We would not have hired you if we did notthink that you were capable of doing this job.”

Duncanhad thanked Dean Andrews for his support, but he felt less than reassured. He could not really blame people likeDonaldson, for they had been honing their craft years before he was evenborn. Perhaps he should not be intruding upon the adults’‘territory’ after all.

Mairi stopped the car in front of a big farmhouse,interrupting his hazy, half-awake thinking. Davy barked to let his master know that he was finally at home.

“Here we are, laddie,” Mairi announced to her somnolent brother, “I think you had best getto bed early tonight. I will be here topick you up tomorrow morning.”

“Father will expect me to do my evening chores first,” Duncan counteredsleepily, “I can’t start falling down on that or he won’t let me teach.”

“You let me deal with Father,” Mairi told him fiercely, “Thefarm will not fall apart because you have not swept the floor for one day.”

“Father has given me fewer chores than the others during thistime when I’m becoming accustomed to my new position,” Duncan countered, “I have to do the bareminimum at least.”

Mairi grunted. Sheand her father Hamish often had arguments over his rigidity when it came toimposing rules on the family. Even so,she would need to respect the fact that Duncanwas Hamish’s son and not hers.

Mairi already had her own child, a little girl who, like Duncan’s brother weeHamish, had been born with Down Sydrome. Her name was Angela, and she was waiting at home with the babysitter. Mairi would not be able to linger long at theMacGregor farm, but she did want to check in with the family to make sure allwas right with them.

When they entered the farm-house, Hamish had two plates ofsupper waiting for them, as well as a bowl of food for the dog.

“You’ll have supper before you leave, Mairi,” Hamish toldher in Gaelic, voicing it as a command rather than as an invitation.

“Angela’s waiting at home for me,” Mairi countered, “I mustnot tarry.”

“Father sent me over with a meal for Angie and the Nanny,” Duncan’sseventeen-year-old brother Glenlachlan told them, clutching a big mug ofcoffee, “I can’t believe how big she is—two years old already!”

Angela was Glenlachlan’s birth daughter, but Mairi hadadopted the girl as the parents had not been mature enough at the time to raisea child.

“The wee bairns dohave a way of growing, Glenlachlan, mo ghaol,” Mairi said to him as she relentedand sat down for a quick meal.

Duncan’s older brotherGlenlachlan was short for his age—he was even shorter at seventeen than Duncan was at fourteen—andso he had grown the wisp of a moustache to demonstrate to people that he was nolonger a boy.

“I was talking with Father about changing his title to‘Warrior-Wizard’ instead of ‘Warlock’,” Glenlachlan stated, switching toEnglish in order to emphasize the difference in the words, “‘wizard’ originally meant‘wise-man’ and I think that’s better than being a ‘cunning man’, one of theoriginal meanings of ‘warlock’. ‘Cunning’ sounds like a tricky fox-man.”

“What’s in a name?”Hamish switched to English in order to quote Shakespeare, “that which wecall a rose by any other name wouldsmell as sweet. And yet, 'The Leopard' is a wee bit old tobe changing his spots the now.”

“You’re an ageless leopard, Father,” Duncan told him as he dug in hungrily to thedelicious ham and potatoes meal, “not old.”

“Maybe you can be the ‘Warrior-Wiz’, Duncan,” Glenlachlan suggested, “after all, you’ve got the ‘rightstuff’ to be one...unlike me. I’mstruggling to keep up with just about everything at school, and here you are,younger than me and with your PhD...hey, that rhymes. Maybe I can be a Warrior-Poet.”

“I don’t want to be a ‘Warrior-anything’,” Duncan countered, “I may have studied thebattles of the past, but war is not my way.”

“Stay away from war if you can, laddies,” Hamish agreed withhis younger son, “because there’s little else in this world as bloody awful aswar...I can attest to it.”

“The word ‘warrior’ doesn’t necessarily mean someone who isin an actual war,” Glenlachlan explained, “nowadays, it can mean someone who iscourageously and vigorously involved in an activity. That would be you, Duncan. I admire you, taking on those old battle-axeprofs at all the Universities you go to.”

“They aren’t ‘battle-axes’, Glenlachlan,” Duncan corrected him, “they’re just a littleapprehensive of someone who’s different.”

“Right,” Glenlachlan conceded, “well, I guess you have to bea diplomatic warrior, then.”

After Duncanhad finished his supper and had bidden a good evening to Mairi, he began his eveningtasks of sweeping the floors and cleaning the bathrooms. He was determined not to let his father down. In the middle of scrubbing the bath-tub,however, Hamish came in and stopped his hand in mid-scrub.

“Mairi says you’ve had a difficult day, my boy,” he said tohim, abandoning the Lowland Scots brogue that he had used during his army days in favour of the softly lilting Gaelic language of his youth in the Highlands, “It is time for you to go to bed, now.”

Duncanlooked up at his father, surprised. Hamish was not normally known for being ‘soft’ on his children,especially not Duncan. He tended to beparticularly hard on the boy because of all the praise and glory that the younglecturer had received from the outside world within the past few years. He did not want Duncan to develop “too high an opinion ofhimself” and so he tended to be very strict with him.

“Yes, Father,” Duncanreplied in astonishment, “I can finish it tomorrow morning—I will rise early inorder to do so.”

“No, my son, Glenlachlan will do it. He needs to get off his backside;whereas you are constantly striving, Mairi has informed me. I am very proud of you, Duncan...perhaps you are a ‘Warrior-Wizard’, as Glenlachlanhas inadvertently named you.”

Duncanfelt a warm stirring in his heart for the elderly yet timeless man that was hisfather.