Inda (15 page)

“Just before I reached our home gates I received a Runner,” the Adaluin said. “From Standas on the coast watch. There is word of a pirate ship having been seen. I must depart again tomorrow. But my route will take me close to Marth-Davan, so if you wish, I will escort Tdor there for her Name Day visit.”

Tdor’s mouth rounded in surprise. Pride mixed with dismay.

The Iofre turned her way, and smiled. “Should you like a royal Honor Guard, my dear?”

Tdor rose and saluted. “Thank you, Adaluin-Dal.” There could be no other answer.

“That means you must be prepared to travel tomorrow,” the Iofre said. “We had better see to your arrangements.”

The Adaluin said, “I will leave you to it. I must rotate the ridings for our journey.” There would be no leave for the Adaluin, of course, but it would never occur to him to complain. The purpose of his life was to ride his lands all year long, defending, inspecting, judging, his household ready in case the pirates ever returned.

Tdor, still watching, saw the Iofre look distracted, but not at all upset. Tdor wondered if she someday would feel just distracted, and not upset, if Tanrid were to send Inda away to inspect the coast. She couldn’t imagine not being upset, nor could she imagine Inda not being upset. Though he was excited to go to the academy, she remembered the quiver of his mouth as they said their farewells.

She wondered what was missing in adults that was there for children. Maybe she had it backward, that something was missing in children which made adults so difficult to understand.

“Come child,” the Iofre said softly. “This is not the time to stand over our studies.”

Tdor realized she’d been staring at the scroll that now she would not get to read for an entire month, until her return. She followed the Iofre out, while the Adaluin crossed the castle to his own private rooms, unchanged for twenty-five years.

He passed through his workroom and the small room he used for a bedroom, then opened the door to the grand and princely bedroom that everyone thought permanently closed, the chamber untouched by his command. Unlike his own rooms, which were as clean as they were austere, this room lay under a twenty-five-year film of dust, the bedding rumpled, his dead wife’s night robe crumpled on the brown-stained rug; the room smelled of dust and faintly of mildew, for even the mold-spells had not been renewed. No one had been permitted in the room at all except himself.

The windows let in long, golden shafts of light. Jarend-Adaluin’s single step to the threshold was enough to stir the dust motes upward in lazy swirls. They floated, tiny points of fire in the light; out of the light they extinguished to the softness of ash.

But the light, the dust, were not what held his attention. They only enabled him to see the form limned in gold luminosity, the young shoulders, the exqisite line of brow and jaw and neck, the soft fall of black hair a shadow-contrast to the shimmering, ghostly form of Joret, his beloved first wife, as she stood near the spot where she had bled to death, gazing through the windows into eternity.

Chapter Ten

T
HE scrubs’ first Restday finally arrived.

“Beginning with Firstday tomorrow, you will revert to academy schedule: callover once a day, weekly inspections.”

Master Gand ignored the whoop for one breath; then, he tapped against his boot the willow wand that all the masters either carried or wore at their belts. The voices stilled.

Master Gand said, “After breakfast you still have your stable duties. There is no Restday for those under our care.”

Meaning animals, a few thought, those few who had listened past the word “duties.” Sponge was the only one who heard the underlying message, though as usual he gave no discernable sign.

“You will also,” Gand said, “beginning with the midday meal, be permitted to speak in the mess hall. All that is, except Lassad.” Pause, several smirking looks sent Smartlip’s way.

“See that you do not lose the privilege again. Next time will be at least a month. You have liberty from noon to sundown bells, when you’ll report back for drums. Dismissed.”

The boys stampeded from the parade ground.

One good thing about morning stable work was seeing all the new foals. The scrubs all managed to find business at that end of the stable, and Master Olin smiled at tender strokes from small, grubby hands, the covert kisses on the velvety-soft newborn muzzles. The sooner humans and horses accustomed themselves to one another, the better for each.

Midday meal, their first with the gag lifted, added their treble voices to the adolescent uproar in the mess hall, amid the clatter of wooden spoons against wooden bowls used by three hundred ravenous boys.

Now that the scrubs could talk, the pigtails lost interest in teasing them by sign and grin, and the scrubs, left to themselves at last, squeezed onto one table instead of their usual two, ten to a side, in a rival-free merriment that they had never before experienced. The mess hall was the same: the hard butt-worn benches, the ubiquitous smell of baked rice balls and cabbage, slow-roasted garlic-and-onion rubbed chicken, and rye bread, but now that they could talk everything seemed new.

But after all, only nineteen added to the general noise. Smartlip still had to sit in silence. And no one paid him the least attention. He attacked his food in a rage, sploshing his water and clacking his spoon against his bowl until he saw the glances of ill-concealed mirth sent his way.

Oh, he expected frost from Cama (he was going to start calling him Meow) and Noddy the Slacker (another nickname Smartlip was trying to generate), but Kepa and Rattooth and Cherry-Stripe were supposed to be on
his
side.

Cherry-Stripe never noticed Smartlip’s inward agonies. He was too busy fuming over his own problems.

At least you were captain of your riding,
his brother Buck had said, catching him on the way to the baths last night and slapping him two or three times to emphasize his words.
But that Mouse Marth-Davan getting the enemy flags? You should have gotten at least one! Don’t disgrace me again
.

And then he’d vanished into the night, without even letting Cherry-Stripe have a chance to explain that Mouse had been a decoy, sneaking around to grab the flags while he, Cherry-Stripe, fought valiantly against Cama. Of course, then his brother might ask who made that plan, because it wasn’t like any plan they’d ever made at home. He’d have to admit it had been Inda’s.

Cherry-Stripe rubbed his arm where his brother had gripped him, staring at the others. Cama’s face was puffy on one side and showed a new bruise under his unruly black hair. New bruises, from last night: Horsebutt had obviously thrashed him as well, probably for the same reason.

Cherry-Stripe sighed. He didn’t want to sympathize with anyone who had to be related to Horsebutt, not when Cama stubbornly stayed friends with Sponge. Cherry-Stripe had his orders. Once Cama decided Sponge was no good to be around, Cherry-Stripe could take him into his own group.

Sponge. Where was he? Sitting with Rattooth, talking quietly at the other end. That was another thing. Sponge was, everyone said, a rabbit, but Cherry-Stripe hadn’t seen any sign of it. Bad training, yes. He was the worst of the scrubs. Not that it mattered. He had his orders.

What did matter was when people acted, well, like you didn’t expect them to act. How could you plan against that?

Like that Inda. Truth was, he’d really been the leader yesterday, but he wasn’t strutting. In Cherry-Stripe’s experience, if you won, you strutted. Most likely it was all accident. Yes, that was it. Accident.

Assigning motivations that he understood eased Cherry-Stripe’s inner debate, until noise broke into his brooding. He looked up, saw them all laughing—all except Noddy, who never changed expression, and Cama, who laughed soundlessly.

“. . . and so we put an egg in each of their boots, see, and then—” Dogpiss’ face was crimson as he wheezed for breath.

“C’mon.” Tuft smacked the table. “What happened?”

Dogpiss shook his head, still wheezing with laughter.

Inda reached over and pounded him on the back.

“M-me . . . mmmm . . .” Dogpiss gasped, tears squeezing between his eyes, and he waved a helpless hand at Inda.

“Here’s what he told me in the baths the other night,” Inda said, grinning down the table. “Whipstick slipped into the bell tower and rang the alarm. So the guards ran out of the barracks.” He paused to snicker.

“Th . . .” Dogpiss whimpered. “The . . . b-boots . . . oh!”

Inda said, “Patrol jumped straight into their boots. Ran out. Or started. Some of ’em got four, five steps. Slowed down. Then they started dancing like their feet were on fire—”

“Wailing!” Dogpiss forced the word out. “Howling!”

“By the time they all got out to the parade court, they were all hopping around—” Inda said, then he caught sight of Dogpiss’ sweaty, snotty face, and he too succumbed to paroxysms.

“What? What? What?” Ndarga demanded.

Noddy sighed. “His Ain laughed so hard he fell off the bell tower. Broke his arm.”

The listeners whooped. Noddy, of course, looked resigned.

When the laughter had died down, Kepa asked, “So they found you out, huh?” And at Dogpiss’ nod, he bent forward, his freckled face eager. “Did you catch the willow?”

“Oh, something fearful.” Dogpiss snickered. “M’ father whupped us himself.”

Kepa giggled, wide-eyed and avid. “Didya get welters?”

“We couldn’t lie on our backs for a month, and Whipstick with a broken arm.” Dogpiss wriggled his shoulder blades, and two or three boys twitched shoulders in unconscious empathy. “ ’Twas worth it. We started calling the captain Dancing Tderga.”

“To his face?” Basna asked, looking skeptical, impatiently tossing a drift of pale hair out of his eyes.

Dogpiss looked at him like he’d grown another ear. “Of course not! You think we’re stupid?” He poked Inda. “Tell ’em the one about the paint soup.”

Inda shrugged, grinning. “Not as good as the Egg Dance.”

Kepa sniggered. “Just don’t try that here. Or
you
can, Inda. But not Dogpiss, unless you want to get flogged before the entire school.”

“It’s not a real flogging,” Tuft said, waving a hand. “Just a dusting with a willow wand.”

Kepa leaned forward. “Hundred dusters’ll raise weepers.”

Most of the boys grimaced. Cherry-Stripe scoffed, “Oh, nobody gets a century unless it’s theft, or cowardice. Something big. Not stings.”

“You Vayirs wouldn’t get it anyway,” Kepa said, still with that avid grin. “At least, you have to agree. Or your father does. So, Dogpiss, if you want to run a sting, better let Inda do it. Or Cassad. Or Sponge.”

All the fun had gone from the talk, despite Kepa’s big grin.

Sponge looked away; Inda said, “It’s a matter of honor. Not a matter of refusing to stand up to a punishment you earned just because of your rank. Read the histories. That rule came in the early days of the academy, when it was just Vayirs here, and there were accusations against boys for political reasons—”

“No history! No history,” Dogpiss said, waving a hand. “If I think of a sting, I run it myself, Vayir or no Vayir.”

Inda looked around the table, saw disgust, unease, even anger. “Look, everyone’s done! And now we got our first real liberty. Who wants to waste it blabbing?”

They all remembered that it was really Restday, and yelling with joy—with relief—they grabbed up their dishes and fled.

Inda followed more slowly. He didn’t like the way Cherry-Stripe had been watching him, before Kepa started that hare about flogging and the rules governing Vayirs. It had to either mean another scrag or else something worse.

He dropped his dish into the barrel and ran out, looking for Sponge so he could find out how to get to Hadand.

A rough hand on Inda’s shoulder made him jump. He whirled around and stared up into his brother’s face. Tanrid looked taller than ever, and old, and hard, with his hair pulled up in back, and his gray war coat outlining the shape of his arms.

“Took you long enough to eat,” Tanrid snapped. “What did you do, go back for fifths?”

Inda knew better than to answer, of course—and Tanrid didn’t wait for an answer anyway. “Come on, we’re going to Daggers,” he snarled, as if Inda had somehow resisted.

Once Tanrid hadn’t shown up in the first three days, when everyone else had gotten sponsored—everyone, that is, except Sponge—Inda had accustomed himself to the idea that Tanrid would not come. He was now amazed, and it showed.

Tanrid glowered around, chin jutting and eyes narrowed. Not angry, even if he looked it. Inda knew to a nicety all the gradations of his brother’s temper, but this mood was a new one.

Tanrid let Inda go and struck off through byways Inda was just beginning to master, his pace so fast Inda had to skip-walk in order to keep up.

As they emerged from the stable-scented austerity of the academy, Inda wondered if, like Cherry-Stripe and Cama, he too was going to catch it for not having personally snatched flags.

They passed through the high gates and into the city itself. To one side was the outer boundary of the king’s castle, the honey-stone walls smooth, the windows so lofty nothing of the inside could be seen. To the right, little streets opened off here and there, narrow gaps between ivy-covered stone buildings.

The weather was fine, so windows were open; Inda, rounding a corner, passed a low one at his own height and he glanced inside to see a snug room with bunk beds, a worktable, and steps leading down into some room on a lower level. The houses, though made of stone, were far more adaptable than castles, with walls pulled down or built up, rooms added onto rooms not just adjacent to them, but below or above.

Then they were past, and he turned his attention to the Restday revelers in their best clothing, all except for the sentries. After a week of Marlovan it was strange to hear Iascan again.