Inda (18 page)

Tdor had only told Inda, who instead of being excited and deliciously scared had just shrugged. He had no interest in ghosts.

Now Tdor swallowed, and said, “I don’t know much, except what Joret told me. About her project. She has a lot of projects, you see, Adaluin-Dal. Ghosts were one. She said that there are only a few people who can see what most humans cannot. If someone sees a ghost at all, it’s because the ghost is tied to a place by violent death and violent emotion both. And those who see them share something with them. Like the experience, or a shared emotion, or sometimes shared blood. Then, some say that white kinthus will make some see ghosts where there are none, but of course we don’t know if those are dream-images or actual ghosts.”

“Yet kinthus makes one tell the truth,” the Adaluin murmured, the shadows now hiding his eyes. “But it can kill.”

“So I am told. At least, the Iofre said that people drinking white kinthus tell truth as they believe it. But you ought to ask Joret. Or Fareas-Iofre. They know more than I.”

“Thank you, Tdor. So I shall. The Iofre says good things of you,” he added. “You will be missed at Tenthen during your Name Day visit.”

I only get three more after this one
, Tdor thought, and didn’t feel anything. She tried the idea that she was just tired, but she really knew, though it hurt a little to put it into words, that Tenthen was her real home. That except for her mother and Mouse, no one in Marth-Davan wanted her there. And now Mouse was gone.

The Adaluin moved away to talk to the captain, who waited respectfully on the other side of the fire.

Tdor sat yawning and finally decided to climb into her bedroll, where she lay watching the fire and thinking. Presently Chelis returned and rolled up into her blanket next to Tdor just as Tdor’s thoughts were beginning to weave into dreams.

Tdor looked up, blinking tiredly. “About pleasure houses.”

Chelis gave a muffled laugh, and then said with some asperity, “Did I not say you ought to ask the Iofre, Tdor-Edli?”

“Just tell me about the first time. They tell you what to do?”

“Yes. They tell you, and even show you if you want.”

“Oh, well, then,” Tdor murmured, relieved. Of course mating required lessons, just as did riding and writing and reading and anything else. So she needn’t worry about it until the time came, and if she and Inda couldn’t figure it out, they’d just go to the pleasure house and hire some lessons.

On that comforting thought she dropped into sleep, as across the low fires, the Adaluin paced back and forth along the edge of the campfire, staring out to sea.

Chapter Twelve

T
HE slow days gradually accumulated into a week, and then weeks, until the end of the month dawned on Tdor. By afternoon she was riding southward toward Tenthen under the green and silver banner of Choraed Elgaer.

Tdor was glad to leave Marth-Davan. Her father had never troubled to hide his disappointment that she had not been born a son. He blamed her that his lands would go to a nephew. Her mother, kind but distracted, had little time for her. Her big cousin’s intended Jarlan ignored her as if she didn’t exist, and Mouse’s intended Randviar, jealous of her own rights, watched Tdor with an unfriendly eye, always anticipating presumption. She made it clear that Tdor’s last visit to Marth-Davan couldn’t be too soon.

 

 

 

Inda moved down the line at evening mess, getting his food and listening to the high-voiced chatter around him. This was the eve of the first all-academy war game of the season. Tomorrow morning they’d all ride out and camp in the field for days.

Everyone was excited. Inda hoped it would be fun, but he remembered some of Tanrid’s stories about how the older boys captured scrubs of the opposing army right off so they had to do all the camp scut work. Whatever the commanding horsetails’ grand strategy was, he and Dogpiss had decided over morning stable chores that their private strategy was to Not Get Caught.

Inda carried his tray to the scrub table and chose a new place to sit. He didn’t care whose group sat where. He wanted to sound out some of the others on his Not Get Caught strategy.

Cherry-Stripe watched Inda sit between Lan and Mouse, of all people. Who would ever
want
to sit next to Mouse? The only thing he was good at was horses.

Cherry-Stripe felt dissatisfaction boil in his gut as he got his last item, a cup of hot honey-milk, and headed over to the end of the first scrub table, where his crowd always sat. Why couldn’t he just go sit next to Inda? He reviewed the usual reasons: he was a leader, he had to set an example, his brother’s orders. He had tried it once, accidentally on purpose. Mistake. Inda joked and talked with just about everyone, but that time he didn’t laugh or talk. His face just looked distant. Wary. Like a scout in enemy territory.
That’s right,
Cherry-Stripe thought,
he’s the enemy.

The enemy who always had the good ideas. Not just once or twice, but always. That was the only thing you could predict about him. He never showed any strut or frost, he never insisted on being riding captain when they were put in ridings. In fact, the two times Inda and Cherry-Stripe had been teamed, Inda had said, right away, “Of course you’ll lead, Cherry-Stripe, but I hope you saw ...” And he’d point out something Cherry-Stripe
hadn’t
seen. It was all very well for Kepa and Smartlip and Biscuit to scoff, but they always lost. Then Smartlip would whine and lay blame, and Kepa would want to gang up and scrag someone, but Cherry-Stripe knew the truth. They were pugs. Licks. Followers. Inda was a leader.

While he brooded, the rest of his group thumped their trays down next to and across from him.

Behind them came big Cama Tya-Vayir, ignoring the older pigtails heading for their tables. Scrubs were supposed to be last and least, but pigtails got out of Cama’s way.

Cherry-Stripe fought another hot surge of anger. He so wanted Cama as an ally.
No one
was stronger or fought as well, not Tuft, not even Flash, whose temper, changeable as a summer storm, made him the scrubs’ hastiest scrapper.

Cama gave him a surly glare, then banged down his tray across from Mouse, who jumped, his thin shoulders hitching close to his ears. His small face flushed when he dropped his bread onto the table. Everyone saw his wince and compressed lips when he bent forward slightly to retrieve it.

Kepa chortled, a smug, mean sound.

Cherry-Stripe realized what must have happened, but the urge to laugh vanished when Flash and Fij gave him sour looks and sat with their backs to him. Cherry-Stripe grimaced. He couldn’t really say Flash was part of his gang. He sometimes joined the scrapping—he liked any excuse for a dust-up. But unlike Kepa, who seemed to really like everyone scragging a single victim, Flash hated scrags. He liked scraps and scraps only, loud with scorn if the numbers weren’t fair.

Cherry-Stripe sidled a glance at Inda, who was busy talking to Lan, hands gesturing, while Sponge, across from him, listened.

Cherry-Stripe said to Kepa, “You and Smartlip scragged Mouse?”

Kepa smirked, and Smartlip sniggered.

Cama sent an angry look their way and leaned forward to say something to Inda. His voice was far too low to hear.

Tuft frowned. “Not the rules, scragging Mouse. Two on one. He wasn’t even with Sponge.”

“He was with him just after chores,” Kepa protested, as if that explained everything.

“Teach ’em something,” Smartlip said. He sniggered again, an irritating sound. “You shoulda heard him squeak. Eek! Eek!”

Biscuit Tlen smeared jam on his fifth bun. “But the rules—”

“ ‘Rules,’ ” Kepa sneered. “Are there rules in war? Don’t we want to
win?
”

Win what?
Cherry-Stripe thought, for the first time. Then he stared down into his tomato soup, appalled.

Noddy sent a quick glance down the table. Those in the middle, Dogpiss included, were mostly involved in a foot-shoving contest under the table, judging from their unnaturally still bodies, their sudden jerks, and their smothered laughter. At the other end, Cherry-Stripe glowered at his dishes, Tuft glowered at Kepa, and Biscuit looked at the pigtails as if he was sitting out on a field somewhere.

Cama said to Inda and Noddy, “Kepa needs a rein. Guard me?”

The “guarding” being to watch for beaks.

Inda stirred his soup around, then said, “Bad idea.” Noddy and Sponge both noticed how people wanted Inda’s approval of schemes.

“Good idea,” Cama started, and as usual so hated the high squeak of his own voice—higher than Mouse’s!—that he shut up.

Noddy sighed. “Kepa broke the rules in jumping Mouse.”

“Rules,” Inda breathed, thinking how strange it was that even in covert warfare the beaks would punish them if they got caught breaking the rules. There were spoken and unspoken rules that were understood by everyone. Almost everyone.

He leaned back and glanced down at the end of the table. Cherry-Stripe’s face was flushed as he said something to Kepa, who just laughed.

Cherry-Stripe understood rules. Kepa didn’t. Smartlip didn’t either, but he seemed uneasy at times, was always watching the others, and then reacting the way they reacted. Kepa would show a friendly face; his words were usually friendly, but they all could see the only time he showed his real feelings was when he scragged someone. Or watched a scrag. Or during a beating. Cherry-Stripe loathed the way he licked his lips over and over.

Cama leaned forward, breaking Inda’s thoughts. “Kepa wants his own war. Let him have it. Start with him.” He crossed his arms, waiting for agreement.

Noddy, Lan, Mouse, Inda, and even Cama looked Sponge’s way, but as usual Sponge looked down, mouth tight.

Inda said, “I know. I saw it comin’. When Kepa got Biscuit and Flash and the others to chase Noddy, after the shooting practice.” He twiddled three fingers, meaning three days before. Sponge and Noddy had been dismissed early. “Look. We get worse, you know what will happen? They get worse. Where’s it stop?”

At his end, Cherry-Stripe repeated, “Don’t do it again.”

Kepa just grinned. When Biscuit and Flash finished, Kepa followed them, whispering. All three looked back.

Cherry-Stripe sat there hating Smartlip’s snicker, hating Kepa’s grin, hating the fact that he was losing his command.

He did not see Cama get up and follow Kepa.

 

 

 

When Secondnight bells rang, Cherry-Stripe lurked under the archway to the horsetail pit. He peered across the new stones of their court, past the slanted wide bars of golden light from the long row of windows to those windows themselves.

Cherry-Stripe knew what would happen if any of the horsetails caught him even here, on the extreme edge of their turf, but he had to talk to Buck. He hoped the darkness, and the general liberty—customary the night before an overnight field game—would protect him until his brother emerged.

They had to come out. Surely they’d be going off to Daggers, or more likely (being horsetails, with more freedom) one of the town pleasure pits that the older boys called Heat Street. But all he heard was horsetail laughter and talk, their voices lower than boys’ but not yet men’s, and from one of the windows drifted the soft, sinister thump of a war drum.

The echo of Secondnight bells faded. A heavy hand clapped onto his shoulder and spun him around, leaving him gasping.

“Well, what have we here?” drawled one of the horsetails.

Not one of the Sier-Danas, either.

Cherry-Stripe backed up against the wall and gaped in dismay at not one but three assailants, teeth and eyes fire-lit by the torchlight from the castle walls, stable gear needing repair slung over their shoulders, hands still strapped in the steel-studded wrist-and-palm guards that were given as horsetail training began. Apprehension gripped his gut when he recognized the heavy face, the almost-white hair of Horsebutt Tya-Vayir. Cama’s Ain! He hoped they didn’t bother learning who the individual scrubs were.

They knew who he was. But they were not going to let Cherry-Stripe know that. These three were second-year horsetails, and they remembered quite well last year when the Sierlaef and his gang had been mere ponies. And Horsebutt resented how the Sier-Danas strutted as if they ruled everyone, and how they had gotten their Tveis to bully the rest of the scrub pit.

Not that anything was said directly to the king’s heir, who would one day rule. His strutting friends, that was different. So here was a tasty opportunity to get in an oblique strike at the Sier-Danas, maybe melt a little of their frost.

“Came to wash our floors?” A hand thumped into Cherry-Stripe’s chest.

“Naw. He wants our stable chores.” A shove, and Cherry-Stripe stumbled into the court. Now he was in their territory, and therefore their legal prey.

“What are you doing here, scrub?” Shove.

“Spying?”

“No, he wants a duel.”
Smack!

“A thrashing.”

Back and forth they slapped him, their easy strength bringing tears of pain to Cherry-Stripe’s eyes. They were still laughing when a voice from the doorway stopped them. “Scrub.”

The Sierlaef.

The horsetails backed away from Cherry-Stripe, picked up their gear, and flowed around the Sierlaef, who stood unmoving in the doorway. They vanished inside, leaving the two alone.

Cherry-Stripe blinked, the light revealing his terrified face. He could not see the Sierlaef’s expression, for he stood backlit in the door.

But the Sierlaef did not address him. He turned his head, motioned at someone. “Tvei,” he said.

Buck appeared a moment later, dressed in his war coat, sashed, his boots polished. He stood there arms crossed, surveying Cherry-Stripe with no welcome in his countenance. The Sierlaef and the other four Sier-Danas filed past, the royal heir waving a hand around in a circle, meaning
Get rid of him and come along.
Their high-heeled cavalry-booted stride drummed down the stone alley toward the city gates: horsetails were silent as cats only when it suited them.