Inda (11 page)

These boys’re like dogs,
Dogpiss thought, watching the two rows slowly break into tight knots. Scout dogs, he thought, trying to be fair. Not pugs, which were lapdogs, usually spoiled. Scout dogs, but still dogs. Those quick looks at everyone else, the mutters, even the snickers, were ear-twitching and butt-sniffing and prowling around and around, maybe showing teeth, hackles not quite up, tail tips waving warily.

What was the rest of Dad’s advice about command?
Second thing: that natural command arises less out of being strongest than out of knowing what to do and doing it.

Dogpiss decided to test it. He knew what would happen if he stepped out and began organizing people: loud hoots about frost. Marlo-Vayir would surely see it as an excuse to start pounding him.

But if he just acted? He walked to the stack of practice padding on a long table, and picked up the first jacket.

“Sure that’s a good idea?” There was Inda, looking uneasy.

“We weren’t ordered to wait,” Dogpiss said. “We were just ordered to be here at first-bell.”

Inda’s light brown eyes narrowed, then he gave a short nod. “True. But could it be a trick of some sort? Are our shoulder blades gonna kiss the willow for frost, or something?”

Dogpiss shrugged. “Aren’t we here to learn to command?”

“That’s right.” The soft voice was from Sponge, coming up on Dogpiss’ other side. “But we haven’t the authority to order the others, and wouldn’t they love to see us try?”

“So we ‘order’ us.” Inda grabbed a jacket. “I’m for it.” The three got into practice gear, followed a few moments later by small, quiet Mouse Marth-Davan, who usually lost himself inside the biggest group or else somehow managed to vanish altogether. Inda had not exchanged more than a dozen words with him so far, but for Tdor’s sake, he’d made those words friendly. And now Mouse, with a determined air, silently joined them.

Behind him came several of the others, some with furtive glances both at the open entrance to the court and at Marlo-Vayir.

Dogpiss kept his gaze on his companions, but his attention on the bullies behind him. For a time there was silence, then furtive whispering from the perimeter.
Now watch. As soon as we touch a weapon and no master appears and lands on us, Marlo-Vayir will grab a practice blade, and he won’t put on gear. He’ll say something about how only pugs use gear.

Inda and Sponge hefted some practice swords—then moved to a corner, and squared off into a familiar warm-up pattern, Dogpiss following along, but keeping Marlo-Vayir in view. Cama and Noddy, hastily fastening their gear, joined them, and for a moment they regarded one another, wondering who would signal the beginning. Sponge felt eyes turning his way, and he studied the ground.

“Hep!” Inda grunted, and weapons came up. As he counted in Marlovan under his breath, they began the double-circle swing that every boy learns first, then the blocks and thrusts.

When they began on the square form—and no master was yet in sight—Marlo-Vayir, who had been muttering insulting comments to his snickering cronies, lifted his voice. “Just follow me. Unless you’re afraid.”

He started toward the weapons. With a look of scorn the big blond boy eyed the rack, yanked out the biggest practice blade, and sent it round in so fast a circle it whooshed in the air.

Dogpiss sighed. He’d figured the Marlo-Vayirs would be well trained, though it would have been fun if the bully had turned out to be clumsy and slow. Marlo-Vayir’s thick, bony wrists showed the ease of long drill, and he handled the blade deftly.

“All right, square off,” Marlo-Vayir ordered Smartlip, who had gotten his own blade.

“But what about gear?” Smartlip asked, picking nervously at his lips.

Marlo-Vayir sneered Sponge’s way. “That’s for rabbits and pugs.”

An intense thrill burned through Dogpiss. He knew bullies. Most of ’em were predictable. The ones you feared were the smart ones, the ones who seemed to think ahead of you. Marlo-Vayir Tvei was not a smart bully.

Within moments the other boys followed, and you could divide their partisanship by how many first put on practice padding and how many didn’t.

They’d paired off and begun old routines when Master Gand and two other tutors walked through the archway, put horny old hands on their hips, and looked around with a pensive air. All three masters then strode to the padding bench and pulled out the bigger jackets and helms. They alone used real swords.

Then, without wasted words they called names, and began to put the boys through basic drill, and then a bout. Nobody made the unpadded ones get padded, but when Dogpiss turned away from his bout, sweaty and his arms feeling like spindled wool, he stared at Marlo-Vayir, crimson with tiny cuts all over his face and arms. Smartlip had them too, though he had fewer. And each of the other unpadded boys had at least three or four cuts, tiny ones, the sort of cut that the practiced duelist inflicts as a humiliation or a goad.

One by one the scrubs went silent in shock, uneasiness.

We’re training for war, you brickheads,
Dogpiss thought.

Sponge thought,
There’s blood in all the old stories, but no pain. All you hear about is honor and courage.

Inda thought,
Master Gand is warning them.

 

 

 

Dogpiss had grown up in barracks under a father who taught him to be observant, so his assessment of his fellows’ abilities did not vary much from the masters’. But few are universally vigilant, and so it was with Dogpiss. His attention was on the other scrubs and the masters watching the scrubs. He never once looked up, and so he did not see five horsetails slip along the new walls adjoining the nearby barracks and vault lightly up to run along the rooftop. Of course the sentries could easily see them from the higher walls of the royal castle along the eastern perimeter of the academy, but they immediately recognized the Sierlaef and four of his five Sier-Danas. They’d no sooner report them than they would a passing flight of birds or the prowling cats.

The rules were that they’d be caned if they were caught, but by their second year the Sierlaef’s chosen band knew the difference between what the masters had to officially notice and act on and what they could ignore. As long as the five lay quietly and didn’t talk loud, much less hoot or throw things, the masters wouldn’t notice them. Not officially, anyway.

With dispassionate expertise the royal heir’s four friends observed and commented on the scrubs at their sword-work. The Sierlaef stayed silent, watching.

“Hoo. Your Tvei’s wilder than Peddler Antivad the Drunk when he met the wind funnel, Cassad.”

Cassad Ain snickered. “Weird. Seeing Rattooth down there.” He hid how anxious he was as he watched his buck-toothed, yellow-headed brother Rattooth busily hacking away at a hound-faced boy. The thing about brothers being here was that your own training was right there, being seen by everyone. Your own brother you never thought anyone outside of home would see—

Pause. Glances the Sierlaef’s way. All four saw the king’s second son fumbling through a practice bout with another boy. He was by far the worst. Clumsy, slow, tentative.
Untrained.

The Sierlaef felt those gazes, but kept his focus on the court below, and the others returned to their comments, keeping them general, and by unspoken agreement avoiding the subject of the red-haired boy known as Sponge.

The Sierlaef scanned the academy, both the older buildings and the new ones his father had ordered built last year, now occupied by the seniors. The academy was his own domain, for he and his companions were the leaders among the leaders. But the royal heir was impatient of this pretend command. He wore a horsetail now. He was no longer a boy, but was not yet regarded as a man, and he hated it!

He squinted against the hazy sunlight, gazing beyond the academy compound to the real world: the guard barracks commanded by his uncle. Here, it was just boys and play war, and though he was a horsetail, he was only a first-year horsetail, with two long years before he could go over to the guard side and live with men, and war would be real.

Real, and one day mine,
he thought, glancing up at the great walls surrounding the castle, and the sentries in their steady, vigilant tread.
All of it mine to command.

His gaze returned to the court, and the hated red-haired figure down there, flailing away inexpertly with the practice blade, and anger boiled in his guts.

Memory images, unwanted, of four years ago:
Your brother has already mastered the Sartoran script; why can’t you trace your name right in simple Iascan?

And just last week:

Anger forged into hatred, but of course the Sierlaef did not speak of it. His father thought him stupid when he couldn’t read a damned line of that damned Sartoran squiggle, but Uncle Anderle-Sierandael knew he wasn’t stupid.

The Sierlaef sensed the others waiting for a cue from him before they said anything about his own brother. He had no interest in their appraisal. He knew Sponge was bad because he got little training. Was it his fault if the brat was always sneaking off to the library, or hiding with cousin Barend whenever they knew he was looking for them?

It was not, and his uncle knew it. That’s what mattered, that his uncle knew. His uncle even agreed: Sponge was only good for heraldry, for grubbing in an archive, not for war.

His uncle would be the real leader, if the Venn made war.

Down in the court Sponge flailed grimly away, taking hit after hit without flinching. The Sierlaef, watching, felt beneath the anger a pool of cold fear, but he refused to accept it. Sponge was
not
smarter, that was all. And he’d prove it.

He took a deep breath, watching Sponge’s partner, a small, brown-haired boy who looked a lot like Tanrid Algara-Vayir. The voices around him resolved into words again.

“Tlen, your Tvei’s not bad on defense,” Cassad said. “Gand seems to like him.”

Hawkeye Yvana-Vayir sat back, powerful arms crossed. He spoke for the first time. “All of ’em look solid.”

Tlen, whose chunky little brother was already being called Biscuit, flicked a look at Hawkeye. The latter alone didn’t have a brother in the scrubs, as his twin brothers were nine. Tlen got a wild grin in return.

The Sierlaef watched that exchange, quick as it was. His uncle had warned him when he was a pigtail that the Tlens and the Sindan-Ans were as tight as they were ancient clans, along with the Tlennens that his father was named for. And the Marlo-Vayir family was allying with them through a complicated series of intermarriages.

Hawkeye Yvana-Vayir alone of all his companions didn’t care about power alliances, though his mother had been the Sierlaef’s aunt.
My uncle picked the clan heirs for my friends,
the Sierlaef thought, his mood shifting from anger to approval.
And he was right, and I like them well enough, and I know they will back me in my future wars, but Hawkeye I chose myself.

Not because he was a royal cousin, but because he was wild. His nickname was the result of his getting drunk his first week at the academy and walking straight into a door. All he cared about was fast horses, good drink, and being the best in a fight.

“Montrei-Vayir!”

Hearing his name snapped the heir out of his reverie. It was Sponge’s turn to be tried by Master Gand. He got an idea.

The others saw his shift in focus and watched as the Sierlaef pointed down at the scrub court and said, “Coward.”

The surprised companions snapped their attention down onto that red-haired boy. A coward? That was the worst thing you could accuse anyone of—even worse than being thief! Sponge was a
coward!
Was that why he was so slow?

But he stood right up to the master, not flinching, nor crying, or cringing. He took the blows—and he earned a lot—with no change of face at all.

The seeming contradiction struck all the Sier-Danas, one by one. They turned assessing gazes from the boy on the court to his royal brother, and with practice the Sierlaef’s companions gauged his thin, bony face. Most of the time the royal heir listened to their opinions, but rare was the mood that permitted contradiction. The jut of his jaw, the narrowed hazel eyes, those were the signal flags for Agreement Only.

The Sierlaef’s Sier-Danas read the signals with the ease of long habit. Sponge was to be considered a coward, then. They shrugged, then returned their attention to the court.

“Who’s the tall butterhead with all the cuts?” The quietest Sier-Danas, Manther Jaya-Vayir, spoke up. His brother, too, was nine and would be in the next Tvei group.

“That butterhead’s Buck’s brother,” Tlen said.

“Best start calling him Cherry-Stripe,” Cassad said, looking at all those tiny sword cuts.

“He shows promise,” Manther said agreeably.

A grunt of agreement came from the Sierlaef, who never spoke if he could help it; single words and sometimes phrases he could manage without stuttering, but rarely a whole sentence, unless he practiced it over and over.

“Three lefties altogether,” Tlen observed. “No. Four. That last one there switched to left.”

Approval. Lefthanders were usually faster with a sword, because they had to be, and they were unexpected; also, the Sierlaef was left-handed.

“Algara-Vayir Tvei’s solid,” Cassad said, eying Inda with judicious interest.

“Slow,” the Sierlaef said. “Like his Ain.”

Tanrid Algara-Vayir of Choraed Elgaer might be considered slow by some, but he was fearless, strong, tenacious, and could be vicious when crossed. He was also the son of a prince, the highest rank after the king’s own family. The Algara-Vayirs had, by marriage and treaty, acquired their title even before the Montrei-Vayirs had taken the throne from the Montredavan-An family. Everyone knew that old history, but they didn’t know why the Sierandael hated the Algara-Vayirs.