FIFTEEN #2
And I don’t care what either of them says, there’s no way I’ll ever use the baths. There’s a perfectly good tub in the privacy of my own room, thank you very much. I’ll probably never let anyone see me naked again.
The rain has stopped, but the grounds are even muddier.
Swollen gray clouds linger in the sky, suggesting an encore shower is imminent.
But the air is crisp, and the mist has thinned enough to show the stone walkways and the training grounds beyond.
I slather my arm with the tincture, hissing slightly when it stings.
I’m wrapping it when a small voice pipes up: “Does it hurt?”
My fingers slip on the bandage. Looking down, I find a small boy on his knees nearby, drawing in the mud with a stick.
“Only my pride.” I crouch next to him. “What are you working on?”
His freckled nose wrinkles with frustration as he drags the stick through the mud. “My letters.”
“Shouldn’t you be in school? They’ll give you parchment.” He reminds me of Andry, although he’s much younger.
He rakes another line through to form a crooked F. “I’m not old enough for classes.”
But clearly still determined.
He drops back and sighs, wiping his mud-caked hands on his equally dirty pants. “I can’t remember what comes next.”
“Here. Let me show you.” I pick up another stick and drag it through the sodden dirt to form a half-decent G, then add an H.
He immediately copies it. His G loops backward, and the crossbar on his H slants. He grunts, his shoulders falling a little. “Mine don’t look like yours. I can’t do it.”
“It took me forever to get it right when I was learning.” If only I was making that up so he would feel better. “I had to go to school and use a pen. I wish I could have drawn in the mud.”
“Really?” He eyes me with a suspicion all children reserve for the claims of adults.
“Really. You’ll get it, too. Try again.”
He bites his lower lip and sets to work, eyes darting over to mine like he’s cheating off my test. The results are significantly less lopsided and facing the right direction. He looks up from his work at me for feedback. I give him a thumbs-up, and he beams.
I show him a few more letters, and he sets to work, concentrating on each like his life depends on it.
“Let me guess. You want to be a knight,” I say.
But he shakes his head and keeps working. “Nah, my sister says that if I learn all my letters and how to read the ancient tongue, I can be a vesper.”
“A vesper, huh? That’s better than a knight.” And a lot safer. “Do you like books?”
He lights up, nodding so hard I’m afraid his neck will snap. “My mother used to read to us. She said books can take you anywhere.” But then his face falls. “Do you think they can take you to the Stars?”
“The Stars?” My throat constricts. I guess that answers the question of what he’s doing here. “I suppose so.”
He smiles again, but this time it’s brittle. “Good,” he says, a slight quiver in his voice. “I want to see her again … but only after I learn how to read.”
“Well, then you’d better keep practicing.” I show him how to do another set of letters.
He works through a few more before he asks, “What’s your name?”
“Arden.” I spell it out in the mud with deliberate strokes. “Can you spell yours?”
“Yes!” He slumps forward, biting his lip in concentration as he works.
He manages to get most of a B drawn before a severe voice interrupts us.
“Breccan, what did I tell you about bugging people? And look how filthy you are.” The female conscript who won the first sparring match drops to her knees beside him.
Her red hair is still damp from the baths, but she doesn’t seem to care about getting dirty.
She glances over at me. “I’m so sorry if he was bothering you. ”
“He didn’t bother me at all,” I say, meaning it. “I was waiting for someone anyway.”
“I’m Shea.” She holds out a hand.
I start to take it before realizing mine is covered in dried mud. “Oh.” I brush it off before I shake hers. “Arden. I saw your fight earlier. Impressive.”
“Thanks,” she says with the air of someone who has long since forgotten how heavy a sword is. “I saw your fight, too.”
I shake my head. “That wasn’t a fight. It was public humiliation.”
But she laughs. “No one beats Sir Procrax, except Bishop.”
I don’t miss the reverence when she says Bishop’s name, like he’s more than a man or a commanding officer … like he’s a god.
“My sister is going to be a knight,” Breccan boasts, leaning against her.
She ruffles his hair. “And you are going to be a vesper.”
A pang hits me squarely in the chest. I push onto my feet, dusting off my pants. “I should find …” I stop short of calling the others my friends.
Shea stands up, too. “If you ever want someone to show you some moves, let me know.”
“Thanks.” She would probably be a less homicidal teacher than Taliesin, and Bishop has better things to do.
“You never offer to teach me how to fight,” Breccan whines at our feet.
“Because you are too smart to fight. Mom wouldn’t have wanted you to join the army,” she adds, but he’s already digging in the dirt again.
“Won’t he have to?” I ask her in a low voice. “Once he’s old enough to attend classes, I mean.”
Her eyes shine as she watches him. “Not if I become a knight,” she says fiercely. “He stays with the other children now, but knights get their own lodgings. They can have families there. I promised my mom I’d keep him safe.”
I know a thing or two about family responsibility.
For a heartbeat, it isn’t Breccan sitting in the dirt. It’s a younger Andry. If we weren’t patrons, this could have been my family’s fate when Dad died. How many people’s futures hinge on Bishop, because they have nowhere else to go?
“What about you?” I ask. “Is this what your mom would want?”
She’s quiet for a moment. “It’s safe here.”
Something in her voice twists my stomach. “You weren’t safe at home?”
“Not anymore. Not after Mom died. Not after …” She shakes her head like she’s clearing out cobwebs, then smiles brightly. “We didn’t have anywhere to go. We had to leave our village. Thankfully, we made it here.”
“But Bishop won’t make him join?” My eyes stray toward the stairs to see if he’s coming.
Her brows knit together. “He doesn’t make any of us join.”
“Okay.” I’m not sure preying on children without other options constitutes much of a choice.
“Really,” she insists. “Half the kids who show up here leave with only an education. I guess that doesn’t sound like much.”
Taliesin said they needed to be literate, to know why they were fighting before they joined the ranks. He failed to mention they’re given a choice.
“Actually, it seems like a lot … I’m just surprised.” I can admit it, even if I don’t quite understand the economics behind it. “And knights get to learn magic.”
She grins. “There’s that, too.”
And that’s the real difference between us. Shea wants magic. I’m dreading the day mine finally stirs in my blood.
The bathhouse door slams open, and Bishop storms out, eyes sweeping across the grounds. They stop on me, his forehead creasing when he spots who I’m with. I brace for whatever sin I’ve committed now. But when he makes his way over, he kneels down to look at Breccan’s handiwork.
“Not bad, but you’re missing the tail on that G.” He points to the letter, and Breccan bends to fix it hastily.
“I’m sorry that—” Shea begins apologizing again, but Bishop waves it off.
“It’s not a problem. I’ve been meaning to check up on you. Things have been busy. I’ve had my hands full.”
With assassinations and omens of war—and dealing with me in general.
“Arden helped me,” Breccan pipes up. He glances down at my name in the mud. “Will you come back if I learn to write your name?”
I can’t help smiling as I nod. “Yes, but only if you keep working on all your letters.”
“I will.” He chews on his lip, eyes darting between Bishop and me. “If I do, will you bring me a real book next time?”
Before I can answer, Bishop tousles his hair. “You learn all of your letters, and I’ll bring you a whole stack.”
Breccan beams, and even Shea looks grateful. For a second, I see Bishop as they do: not as a patron or a commanding officer but as a hero.
Bishop stands, brushing mud off his knees.
“Are you ready to get out of here?” he asks me.
I nod, but not before glancing back to Shea. “You take care of him,” I say to her, and she nods solemnly.
The rain begins again as we start back toward Miradores, but Bishop doesn’t bother to ask if I want to take a postern. I wonder if he’s thinking about the little boy or if he’s already moved on to brooding about something else.
My thoughts stay on what Shea said about giving those kids an education.
“Why do you do it?” I finally ask. “Why help them?”
He shrugs, staring into the distance ahead of us. “Someone helped me once. I figure I owe the universe.”
He doesn’t elaborate, and I don’t press.
The rain turns to a steady mist by the time we reach the bridge, fog shrouding the manor from sight. “I’m surprised they didn’t build the Bellatorum here,” I say, trying to make conversation. “Shouldn’t it be defending your estate?”
“That’s not how it works.” Bishop shakes his head. “Miradores is the shield between Antares and the rest of the world.”
I might have laughed at the idea that the nearly empty estate is the kingdom’s first line of defense, but the heaviness in his voice calls to the weight I carry in my own heart.
“Miradores or you?” I ask softly.
“There’s no difference. The estate is wood and stone, but my family’s blood built it. There is no Miradores without Order Marius.”
Spoken like a man who’s worn duty like armor his whole life.