Chapter Sixteen
“Please.”
Ang Shi looked at me. We were in his office even though we had both finished our official hours for the day. He shifted in his chair. His discomfort was clear, and I understood why.
“Look, I know I’ve been …” This wasn’t as easy to say as I needed it to be. “Less than grateful.”
His eyebrows went up. He stood and padded across to the window over the inner courtyard, and the pigs that had made a lasting change to life here on the island. His back was to me. Though with the way he didn’t emote, it made no difference to my understanding of his reactions.
“Ang, please. I’ve tried my best to do the right thing, but I fail at every turn. It’s not a skill of mine. I barely made it through the course in college and that was with a lot of assistance. Please, I need your help now.”
His shoulders expanded as he drew in a breath. I listened to the slow expiration, but he didn’t speak. I moved over to him and went down on my knees. “If you want me to beg, I will.”
He turned only his head to look at me, my head at his hip. I put my hands up in supplication.
“Please, Ang. I need you.”
He blinked. Licked his lips. Gods, that was … What was that? The shift of his jacket had to be the interplay with the windowsill. He dragged another breath in. “Stand up, Flight Sergeant.”
I did. We were closer than I’d intended, but I wouldn’t move away. Almost eye to eye but he was a little taller than I.
“There is no need to beg anything from me,” he said. “If you are sure that it is what you want?”
“I am.” I nodded.
“And you won’t complain I am pushing too hard?”
I swallowed and shook my head.
“Then I will be happy to help.”
* * *
Fin and I sat down to a private dinner. It was the first time in ages that we’d had the chance to eat together just the two of us.
But that wasn’t my sole purpose in spending the evening with him.
We had just finished eating when the knock at the door surprised Fin. I answered and let our visitor in.
“Flight Captain Shi,” Fin said, getting to his feet.
Ang Shi looked at me. “The boy seems surprised by my presence. Have you not spoken with him?”
“It’s maths,” I said. “Thought it best to spring it on him.” I turned to Fin.
“One of the toughest courses in college is going to be aerial ballistics and the mathematics of falling. It is all, as the title implies, mathematics and calculation.” Something Fin was more than capable of, he just didn’t enjoy.
“And if you don’t pass, you don’t get to flight class.
Since I am not good at teaching mathematics, I thought it might be useful for you to get help from someone who flew through it. Literally.”
I hoped Fin was okay with this, because if not, I didn’t have another option for helping him.
“That’s great,” Fin said, with less enthusiasm in his tone than the words implied. “It’s a part of the course I was dreading, so starting now would be really useful.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Go get your notebooks, I’ll sort this lot out.” As I reached for the dirty plates, Ang leaned forward and took my hand.
“Are you sure about this?”
My eyes lingered on his golden skin, the contrast with my own much darker tones. I had to be better than this. So I met his gaze. “He needs the help, and I can’t give it. I barely remember most of it. You, on the other hand, can help him. So please do.”
He nodded once. I moved the dirty dishes aside as Fin came back in.
“What are you wearing?” Fin’s question surprised me, so I turned and looked at Ang. He was wearing an embroidered kimono shirt in black with gold filigree stitched around the cuffs. It was something that we’d seen him wear off duty before, so I looked again at his long, shapely legs.
“They are called jeans,” he said. He pulled up the shirt to show the top of the trousers. A placket covered the fly, but I could see the buttons from where I stood at the side. I could also see how the material hugged his butt, and my hand twitched to feel that curve.
What was wrong with me? I looked away.
“The material is a thick cotton,” Ang went on. “Hard wearing and surprisingly comfortable. Apparently, they are much favoured by farmers and those working in heavy manual roles. I can see them catching on with Riders too. They are at least the right colour.”
“I like those,” Fin said as he came to the table. “I might try some next time I get to the mainland.”
“I can recommend them.”
It was a struggle to concentrate on the washing up and I berated myself for thoughts that I shouldn’t be having. Behind me, they sat down at the table.
“Aerial ballistics concerns itself with what happens after a thing leaves your control. The mathematics of falling determines whether that loss of control results in precision or failure.”
That was typical Ang, not pulling his punches.
I washed up as they got down to the business of studying.
When done, I moved over to sit by the fire and read the latest newssheet that had come in.
Only three weeks out of date, this one. And one sheet missing.
After reading the same paragraph four times, I just put the thing aside.
Ang’s hair glowed like midnight and flowed down his back. Unusually, it wasn’t caught back at the sides. Every now and then a skein of it would fall forward as he looked at the work Fin was doing. I had to cross my legs to trap my hands, which itched to reach out and push his hair back.
So much had happened since that night of the thundersnow, and also nothing at all.
We never spoke again of my resigning. I noticed how much more often he would wear the red scarf.
Openly too, as if it had been some kind of secret and now people knew about it, he could wear it.
Though no one knew I had bought it for him.
When I looked back at that day, I still couldn’t divine my thoughts on why I bought it. But the absolute conviction that I should buy it for him had been there. Perhaps my intuition had recognised something I’d been too stubborn to see. How important Ang Shi was to me.
Sasha had been dead for three years before we got here.
I was used to being a single parent, and I wasn’t interested in sharing that burden with anyone.
Also, I had arrived under a cloud. A cloud that was clearly not going away, or that reassignment might have been possible.
Only it wasn’t, it never would be, and watching Ang with Fin, I wasn’t sure I cared anymore.
I sat and watched them together. Fin was an eager student and Ang a natural teacher.
Warmth seeped through me, and I closed my eyes, listening to the gentle ebb and flow of their conversation.
The mathematical concepts Ang was going through were basic at that point, but it was important to get the basics right, then the rest would be built on good foundations that would become instincts in the air.
Like this fortress. It was solid, it hadn’t cracked under the pressure of that thundersnow. We’d battened down the hatches, sat it out. Fin and Fenwick had tended the dragons. Boutros had tended us. But more importantly, he’d given us that time to just be together.
Together. That sounded good.
“Dad!”
Fin’s call jerked me out of my sleep. Blinking, I looked up to see Ang behind my son, his expression largely neutral, but those lips had a slight uptilt that suggested a smile.
“Finished already?” I asked.
“For tonight,” Ang said. “Mister Segast will require more tuition to grasp all that is necessary.”
I nodded as I stood. “Yeah, walking a mountain takes more than one step.” By the Gods, I hadn’t heard that one trotted out for a while.
“Dad, you are so old!” Fin headed for his room.
“Cheeky!” I moved over to stand by Ang at the door. “Thank you for this, it’s not a subject I could much help with.”
“You are welcome,” he said. “I will come again soon, we must not let Fin slip on this. It is an important element in the course of his future.”
I nodded and reached for the door as he did. All we achieved was to find our hands entwined. He pulled back, and that left me cold.
* * *
“Gravity is not an enemy, Fin. It is a constant.”
Those words made me smile. Ang was so patient with Fin.
“Understanding that can be the difference between striking a target and becoming one.”
“Don’t sugarcoat it,” I said from my place by the fire, smiling at the way two set of eyes turned to berate me.
Fin was struggling with the calculations of the acceleration within freefall.
And I couldn’t blame him on that. I found it rather mind-bending.
But while the experience of it could be sickening, it was also exhilarating.
I rather envied those who rode purple dragons, who could use that acceleration to dive into water and propel them through that different medium.
As long as it was deep water, otherwise it all got a little too messy to discuss.
“Okay, sir, I’ll be quiet,” I said.
“Thank you, Initiate Segast.”
I watched Fin turn to Ang. “Why do you call him that?”
Ang regarded the boy very seriously. “Because that is the correct form of address in the college. You are, or you will be, there as a student, an Initiate, and you will be addressed as such. The form is always the same, rank and surname. If a first name is used, then the surname will also be used, and woe betide you if you get it wrong.” A small smile crept onto his lips and his eyes sparkled.
“When I was at the Murmaberg College of Riders, there was a Professor Thomas Jason. No one was ever sure which was his first and which was his surname, and he took delight in playing initiates so that would get it wrong. Then punishing them. I wonder if he’s still there. ”
If it were possible for Ang to be wistful, he was wistful in that moment. Then he looked at Fin. “Perhaps you can tell me when you are accepted there.”
Fin’s face fell slightly. He glanced at me.
“Fin?” I asked. “What is it?”
“I er…” He stopped and swallowed. Looking between Ang and I, never quite meeting our gaze. “Well, it’s just that I was hoping to go to the Five Colleges in Rhastac.”
Silence fell.
The Five Colleges in Rhastac? But that was literally on the far side of Gultima. As far from here as he could get.
“Why are you keen to go there?” Ang asked the question as I tried to gather my guts, which seemed to have been sliced open and spread around the floor. My wits had fled even further.
If Fin went to Rhastac, I wouldn’t see him for three years.
It was a fifteen-day journey overland. A dragon could get there in six days, but he didn’t have a dragon and wouldn’t be allowed to take one from the Riders force.
I wouldn’t be able to take the necessary time off work to travel there with him.
Or see him during the inter-term breaks, most of which were only ten days long.
“It’s the best college in all Gultima,” Fin said with conviction. “My mother studied there.”
That was true, she had. We had both been posted to Pasaocea after graduating, her from Rhastac and me from Frango, a city a long way south of Rhastac on the western seaboard of Gultima. We had met in Pasaocea, married there, had Fin there… And Sasha had died there.
“Dad has told me so many of her stories, and I don’t know how true they are, but I’ve always wondered what the place would be like.
Besides, we’ve had men here from all over, and I’ve listened to what they had to say about where they studied, and I think Rhastac is for me.
Rhastac and Fonsenva are the only colleges where all of the disciplines are taught under the same roof.
And I think that is valuable. You—” He looked at Ang.
“—have always said that the Riders can’t do everything alone.
We need the Tidewardens at sea and the Infantry on land.
So I think it’s valuable to attend a college which has a mix of disciplines which can help to train them all to work together. ”
“I cannot fault your logic,” Ang said. “But why Rhastac and not Fonsenva? It’s half the distance away.”
“Fonsenva is the seat of power for the Church. The Church overruns the streets and the colleges. I am told it’s the only place in the world where the Church Guard outnumbers the Infantry.
In Rhastac, the Seminary is so big that its members outnumber the combined size of all the other colleges, but it still doesn’t overrun them.
That’s what I want. Besides, Fonsenva is in the tropics.
It’s always hot and I’m not sure I could cope with having every day hot. ”
“Would be nice if we had even one hot day a year here,” Ang joked.
“Then you would not object to my going to Rhastac?” Fin asked Ang.
Ang reached out and rubbed his head. “I would prefer you to be closer to home, so we might see you occasionally, but it is not for me to object to your choices. I am not your father.”
They both turned to look at me.
“Dad?” Fin asked, his hands tight on the edge of his chair. “What do you think?”
I thought someone had stolen the air from my lungs and I wasn’t sure I could get it back. “I think,” the words came out measured, which was a relief, “that I would like more time to think about it before I say one way or the other.” A statement that was in direct contradiction to my feelings.
“And I think we have studied enough for tonight,” Ang said.
As had become the norm, Fin took that as his signal to retire to his room. I sat feeling numb and was somehow surprised when I looked up to see Ang standing before me.
“He does not make the choice to hurt you.”
Understanding that and feeling it were two different things.
Ang’s questions came back to me. What would I do without Fin?
What would I do without being a Rider? But Fin was going to leave me, he had to.
He had to grow up, be a man, live his own life.
Even if I left the service, I couldn’t be watching over Fin forever.
He wouldn’t thank me for that. Being a Rider, being in the military, these were the only things I knew.
I wouldn’t know where to start if I had to start again.
At least here, I had support from people who understood.
“I know.” I rose from the chair to faced Ang. “What would I do without you?”