Saga of Menyoral: The Service (8 page)

It was late afternoon when Vandis finished with the book and stowed it in his pack, removing at the same time a big packet of incense and another of charcoal. After he drank the last swallow of coffee, he shaved, combed his hair, stuffed the packets in his breeches, and left the camp. The scent of pork cooked with apples and onions filled his fear-dry mouth with saliva; he guessed he was hungry again after all, though he didn’t feel it. When he passed the cooking pits he responded to hails from this Knight or that one: chatting, smiling, nodding, and all the while thinking of how Lech Valitchka might try to raze it all to the ground. The hogs already lay out on tables, resting, ready to be cut for the feast.

He walked down onto the beach. Kessa waved at him from the edge of a clot of first- and second-year Squires, most of whose names he hadn’t yet had time to learn.
I will, though,
he promised himself.
Fuck Lech. He’s not getting even one of these, not if I can help it.
He lifted a hand in return and crunched his way over the pebbles to the incense stone near the center of the beach.

You can, My own,
She said.
You’ll save My Knights. I believe it.

Thanks for the vote of confidence,
he said, smiling down at the burner. It was a beautiful thing, carved into the image of the white oak, the granite leaves concealing a dish cut into the top. A woodpile stood next to it, arranged for a bonfire and ready for the lighting. Vandis took out the packet of charcoal.

He took a deep, steadying breath, and She sent a thrill down to his toes.
I can’t wait to smell what you have for Me this year.

It’s not like You don’t already know
,
he told Her with another smile, laying the black bricks out in the dish.

Well, I suppose I do, but knowing it and smelling it are two different things!

When he looked up, there was Dingus, holding a brand, the flame translucent in the fading daylight. “Thanks,” he said, taking it. Dingus nodded and went back to sit in a clump with all Evan’s, Pearl’s, and Santo’s people.

For You,
Vandis thought, and lit the charcoal. As the gray swept across the black, Vandis stuck the brand in the gravel so it would stand up and pulled out his packet of incense, spreading it on the ground and opening each of the little pouches inside so they were ready.

He stood and tossed a handful of sandalwood onto the glowing coals.
Sharp, clean-smelling smoke poured from the burner and curled skyward.
Oh, I like that one, good start,
She said. Quiet blanketed the beach, and Vandis cleared his throat.

“Now hear this!” he called, not shouting, but projecting so that his voice rang off the valley walls. The sandalwood began to burn itself out. “For over three thousand years, the Knights of the Air have gathered at Longday, to test our young people and to eat and drink in fellowship with one another. This year, our numbers are smaller than they have been in two centuries, but that’s no reason to knuckle under. Through bad times and good times, our Lady tells us to learn from the past so there’s hope for the future, and just now that’s more important than ever. Let’s have a minute of silence for the faces we won’t see this year.” While the silence stretched, Vandis threw chunks of cedar and knots of pine sap and myrrh onto the coals. She hummed quiet approbation, but She didn’t distract him.

“Lady, remember our dead, who died in Your service,” he said. Next, once the death incense burned out, was the sage. “Lady, let all that we do, here and everywhere, be of savor to You.” Then the beads of frankincense: “Lady, remember and guard our Squires. Let them be dear to Your heart as they are to ours.” Last of all, Vandis put on a big handful of dried patchouli. The smoke exploded, yellow-white against the dusk. “Lady, remember and guide Your Knights, that we might ever serve You in this world.”

Always,
She promised.

Vandis waited for the last of the patchoul
i to drift skyward, then turned to take up the brand. “Enough! Let’s eat!” He thrust the brand into the waiting woodpile and the kindling caught, to a cheer from the assembled Knights. The Moot was officially open.

They all
moved toward the food as one creature—all but Dingus, who stood on the beach with his hands in his pockets. “Thought you’d be first in line,” Vandis said. Dingus shrugged and fell into step with him. “Aren’t you having a good time?”

“It
’s all right.”

“So who’ve you been hanging around with?” Vandis asked,
as if he didn’t know.

“
Wallace and Tony. Francine, some.”

“See? I told you not everyone would be an asshole.”

“There’s a couple.”

“There’s always at least one,” Vandis admitted.

“I guess there’s got to be.”

“When I was a kid, I think it was me. I beat the living shit out of Reed my first year—did I tell you that?”

Dingus’s mouth turned up at the corners as they got in line for the food. “I guess you
were
the asshole,” he said, and then frowned. “Did you get in trouble?”

“Only with Old Man Dingus,” Vandis said. “Why?”

Skinny shoulders rose and fell. “Just wondering.”

“Did you beat the shit out of someone?”

“No,” Dingus said after a moment.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Vandis said.

Dingus kicked at a pebble. His feet were bare. “There might’ve been a punch. Or a couple. But, you know, deserved.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Pretty soon they got up to the food and took a bread trencher each. Vandis filled his with pork, apples, and potatoes; Dingus heaped his with everything, right down to the onions and crooked purple carrots. They took the food back to the beach.

“S
it with me for a while,” Vandis suggested. He hadn’t spent much time around Dingus for—it had to be a fortnight, and now that the kid was nearby, Vandis didn’t want to let him run off quite yet.

They edged among
the people already tucking in. Vandis made for his friends: Santo, Evan, Pearl, and Jack. “Where’s Kessa, anyway? I was hoping to introduce her.”

“I barely know,” Dingus said. “She’s got a shitload of friends already. I can’t keep up.”

“Girls or boys?”

“Both.”

“At least there’s that,” Vandis said sourly. “I thought you were keeping an eye on her.”

Dingus sounded equally sour. “I’m doing my best.”

“I’ll talk to her. I want you to have your own fun, anyway.”

When they made it to the others, t
he conversation got lost in greetings. Vandis claimed a seat on a stone bench between Santo and Jack; Pearl and Evan sat on another, with pretty Francine on the end. Dingus folded his long legs and sat tailor-fashion on the pebbles, next to Tony, who budged up for him, and across from Wally, who sat as near to Francine as he could.

“I need to talk to you about something, Vandis,” Jack said. “My family’s still—”

“Not now.” Vandis tilted his head very slightly toward the kids. Some things even almost-Juniors didn’t need to hear, and never mind that his own boy noticed the motion and came alert, listening—even as the other three Squires talked around him.

“You can’t protect them from this. They killed kids a lot younger than they are.”

“I don’t have to justify myself to you. Let me eat. Then we’ll go talk, but I’m not promising anything. After the Moot I might have a few answers.”

“After the Moot could be too late. Tomorrow could be too late. I’ve got grandkids stuck behind that border!”

Vandis dropped the piece of meat he was pulling apart back into the trencher. “Jack. What do you want me to do?”

“Send someone in.”

“I can’t do that. Don’t you think I would if I could? In case you’ve forgotten, anyone with a leaf on his hand gets staked out to die in the sun! I’m not sending anyone else to that! End of—”

“Send someone without a leaf then. Hire someone. Send a Squire. Hell, send yours, if he’s so—”

“Jack. Stop and think. I know you want what’s best for your family, but I need to consider the bigger picture here.”

“For them, there’s no picture bigger! It’s life and death! They could be taken up as sympathizers any minute! My son and his family need help!”

Vandis rubbed his forehead. What he wanted to say—“Let’s go and get them”—and what he needed to say weren’t even on the same continent.

“I’ll go,” Dingus said quietly from his spot on the ground, and the other boys were nodding. When had he met Wally? Yesterday? And already they looked at him that way, that follow-you-anywhere way. Francine, silent, unmoving, sat next to Pear
l, gazing into her trencher as if it held the secrets of the universe.

“No.” It was reflex, pure and simple, but he wouldn’t change his mind. Not Dingus. Not these kids. Vandis lost his appetite even thinking of it. “You don’t realize what they—”

“I know better than most.”

“Well, I can’t deny that, but no, Dingus, absolutely not. You don’t understand. Exposure would look easy compared to what they’d do to you.”

“They’d have to see me. Then they’d have to catch me.” The hell of it was, Vandis knew he wasn’t bragging, and he wasn’t thinking of the other Squires following him, either. When Dingus said
I,
when he said
me,
he meant himself alone—and as ill as it made Vandis to admit it, Dingus was absolutely capable of doing this thing. The other two, from what he understood, were equally serious about their work. If any Squires could, these three could.

“So you don’t want your leaf.”

Dingus let out a barely audible sigh. “’Course I do. Some stuff is more important than what I want.”

“Yeah!” said Tony Scalietti, breaking the mood somewhat, and Wally nodded again. They had no idea what they were asking of him, no concept of the tempting moral compromise they were trying so hard
to hand him—and Dingus, with his ten miles of skinny leg and round kid face, was at the head of them, offering himself to Jack’s cause on a silver charger.

Why are you doing this to me?
Vandis thought. “I’m still telling you no.”

Jack stood
. “You were right,” he said, looking back at Vandis. “He’s nothing like you.” He stalked off into the dark.

Without quite realizing it, Vandis was on his feet. “Don’t walk away from me!” he yelled. “Jack! Dammit, get back here!”

Jack didn’t stop. As the night swallowed him he threw up a dismissive hand. Vandis felt his face work into a heavy scowl, felt his temper slipping from his grasp as his eyes fell on Dingus, who almost—not quite—cringed.

“What in the hell did you think you were doing?” he bit out.

“Trying to help!”

“Not. Helpful!”

Dingus started to say something, but Vandis had no interest.

“I thought you knew when to keep your fucking mouth shut!” he roared.

The kid’s eyes narrowed. “So I’m not supposed to tell you when I think you’re wrong?”

“I don’t care how far off my ass you think I am! Your opinion does not fucking rate! I am the Master. You are the Squire.  And if you can’t respect that, maybe you should be one for a few more years!”

“All I said was I could do it!”

“I made a decision, and you tried to contradict it! In public! Who do you think you are? If even Squires can tell me how to do my job, it’s the end of the world! If you offer me one more word on the subject, you will
not
stand Trials, and you will instead spend the rest of the Moot digging latrines—that is a
promise!
Have I made myself perfectly clear?”

Dingus stood. His
jawline hardened, and he stared at Vandis, through Vandis, taut from head to toe. Suddenly Vandis was disinclined to push it, but he couldn’t back down with all these people around.

“I asked you a question. Answer it! Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Dingus said, between his teeth. “Can I go now?”

“Go on! Get out of my sight.”

Dingus bolted in a scatter of gravel.

Vandis glared down at the other two boys. “What about you two chuckleheads? Think I forgot you? Are you ready to tell me I’m wrong?”

“Nae, Vandis,” Wally said, so quietly it was almost a whisper, and Tony shook his head. “May we go, too?”

He leaned over and said, “Get.”

The boys scuttled away and Vandis shut his eyes, breathing hard, thinking,
I should not have done that
.

“You might as well turn him over your knee and spank him next time,” Pearl said. “It’d probably be less humiliating.”

“What? Do you have a problem with me?” Vandis turned, arms flung wide. “Step the fuck up! Want the job? What I said to him goes for every last Knight! This is not business as usual! They’re making war on us, and the quicker everybody realizes that, the better!”

Pearl shook her head, raising a palm.
A pond on a windless day, that was her face. “I didn’t say you were wrong. You’re good at your job, and I don’t think there’s anyone better to help us face this. I’m saying that, as a Master, you have a lot to learn.”