Esras knew it was coming.
Not exactly what it would be, or exactly when it would happen, but he knew it would come. And afterward, he reflected, he should have known he was setting himself up for it when he wriggled away from his company after Tactics.
Not all of it, though that wasn’t on purpose.
“Of all of them, really – Maoilin? We get stuck with fucking Maoilin.” Enda’s voice was low and conspiratorial, and he walked next to Esras down the hallway, close enough to occasionally bump shoulders as they took a wrong turn or changed direction.
“Ah, but is he also stuck with us?” Esras replied, and Enda laughed – a really quite pleasant laugh, and gratifying, of course, to have him laugh. Enda wasn’t bad looking – he had the indistinctness of the nobility, that bland brownness to him livened by little touches like a dimpled chin and that nice laugh and a quick mind. He also had no particular history of being any more terrible than anyone else at Prep – at least, not to Esras.
“Definitely,” Enda replied. “Will that save us, though? He’s such a fucking shit.” He twisted in the hall towards Esras, who had intended to check around corner to try to find some clue to their whereabouts, meaning they bumped shoulder-to-chest as he said, “Tragically, he’s smart.”
They both laughed.
“Everyone will be smart,” Esras said. “Or fit.”
“You have a great deal of faith in the selection process of random people being allowed to nominate for slots.”
“Isn’t that how inheritance works?” Esras countered.
“…True,” Enda said, dipping his head in a long, slow nod. “Well, it’s not so random. Mostly.
Enda wasn’t bad – Esras was surprised this wasn’t a sore subject. After all, if he was at Academy it meant he had lost out on his inheritance, whatever that might be. Maoilin had never been a pleasant person, but that was at least part of his problem – he, too, must have lost the lottery for land or titles or property from his family, somehow.
Maybe that was what had made him lower his standards and readjust his drive, which unfortunately was formidable. He had expected Enda to have the same bitterness and it was a relief to see much of his suspicion-poisoned personality had been because Maoilin was there. Now that they were apart, he was good company. Good enough. Not that good – well, his heart pulled a little towards him, which was the first sign that something else could pretty easily pull a little towards him, but Esras was as firmly stamping on that urge as he could.
He had sworn before the Families – he had sworn to himself – affairs of the heart had nearly destroyed him at Prep, and had royally fucked up his life afterward. Never again. His focus here was to excel, academically, physically – even casual romance was poison, love was imaginary and sex was a distraction.
So it helped that the first set of allies he made had slightly repulsive personalities. Esras just couldn’t stand it – Maoilin’s endless negativity, the other’s endless self-assertion, their need for recognition, the grating jockeying for rank and attention that had already begun – not even one day in and his skin crawled with it.
And he needed it, too: recognition, self-aggrandizement, superiority. If anything, his previous errors had taught him that he wasn’t better than that – that was the game he had signed up for, after all. But after class he had been excited in a way he hadn’t been for months, if not years, if ever. (No – he remembered being that excited about something before, but it had all turned ashen; he wouldn’t think of it. That was different).
The Tactics lesson had been invigorating. He had been thinking of things in new ways, excited to challenge himself, to be challenged. He wanted to enjoy it – to revel in it, for a just a bit – and also knew he wanted to keep such excitement to himself. He wasn’t exactly sure why; some plan was forming up, certainly, but he hadn’t put all the pieces together. Best for the time being to listen to the impulse, though.
So he weaseled away from the others and started down a random hallway in the Academy buildings. At first he had tried to put Enda off, but it was clear enough they were both somewhat heedlessly escaping the same thing – maybe even for the same reasons (that was romance sneaking in, to shine up something meaningless, make nice and fateful some stupid coincidence). Retrospectively, he knew this was a mistake, but at the time it felt like the only option.
It was a mistake not because they would get lost, or not get to their next class on time (though that was a real risk), but because it would put them out of their territory.
It was just extra bad luck that the territory they wandered into happened to be the Second Years’.
“What’s this?”
They both stopped dead, smiles fading. There were three older cadets, who had just turned a corner at the other end of the hall, now standing stock-still, facing them.
“Oh my,” said one in the center of a group of three. “They must be lost.”
“That’s a big one for its age,” said the one of the right, look at Esras, then Enda, “and that’s a funny-looking one.”
“Little lambs,” the one who had first spoken, who was on the far left almost ran – it was like a prance of some kind, and would have been funny had the tension not doused the walls like blood – so even if Esras or Enda had decided to just turn and flee, they would be caught.
The other two walked up, neither so quick, nor slowly. Esras supposed there must be some kind of joy, to get to inflict on others what had been inflicted upon you. So he understood, or so he thought – at least, he expected.
He would never.
Esras hadn’t flinched, but it was hard not to see his stillness as anything other than having frozen. And maybe it was, a little bit. He was startled, but running would do him no good.
Enda had flinched, but unlike Esras, who blanked, his expression fell into anger. One thing Esras was sure of was that anger would get them a worse beating.
“I think we took a wrong turn,” Esras said, keeping his voice at a pleasant, only slightly apologetic tone. It didn’t really matter – not what he said or how he said it – but he didn’t trust Enda to speak first. And it felt better to have said something, even if it meant nothing.
“You’ve got to expect some to get lost in the first days,” the Middle said.
Esras heard Enda let out his long-held breath quietly. Of all three, the Middle seemed least interested, but Esras wasn’t fooled. Behind his eyes was fury.
“Yeah, but what a treat!” the Right said, taking up position flanking them in the hall. He just seemed strangely, genuinely happy to be here. He was probably very stupid (they all seemed stupid, to Esras, at least in this moment). “You know, Tess caught a couple yesterday but the fucking Fourth Years were all over the place. I think he barely got a shot in.”
“So you get to be our little canary,” Left said, having not quite given up the pseudo-sympathetic simpering to his tone. “Go and warn all the others.”
“Canary?” said the Middle, having very carefully positioned himself exactly astride the hallway, his moving to dead center and his friends’ flanking positions crowding them towards an inevitable position dead-center as well, facing him.
“Canaries die in the mines,” said Right. He sounded a little sad.
“Yeah, well,” said Left, with a shrug, “I’ll think of something better next time. We’ve got to get to class, you know.”
“There are a few rules you should follow, First Years,” said Middle, “and we can give you some tips. All you have to do is ask.”
“Ask you?” Enda said, his previous tension having returned – as it should – at the ‘canary’ comment.
Esras wet his lips reflexively, but said nothing, hoping Enda wouldn’t be tempted to try anything. Three-on-two weren’t terrible odds, but Enda, he hoped, though more often on the other side of things, had spent long enough at Prep to know that it wasn’t about one fight. It was about a year of fights.
“Ask,” Middle commanded, jovially. “Beg.”
Esras started to open his mouth, to say something – anything, really – but with a sharp crack of pain his left knee gave out. The one on the left had kicked it out from under him, which made Esras stumble into Middle, who shoved him back towards the one on the right, who caught him and (still painfully but much less violently) collapsed his other knee so Esras now kneeled on the ground.
The minute Esras was down, Enda had started – he had a chance to try running, but wasn’t fast enough to make the call, even had he wanted to. The one on the right, as soon as he was done with Esras, threw himself on Enda’s shoulders, arm looped around his throat, and forced him down as well. Enda at least had the benefit of being able to cooperate, but in exchange got patronizingly manhandled by Right after he was forced to his knees.
“We’ve got class,” Left said insistently.
Middle bent down and seized the front of Esras’ jacket, holding him up so their faces were inches apart. “Maybe you should start begging.”
“I don’t think we have time for begging,” Right said.
“We have some time,” Middle replied, then pulled one of his hands back and, with as much force as he could muster, slapped Esras across the face, to the appreciative ‘oooohs’ of the other two.
“I guess we’ll just stick to the basics then,” Middle said. He pulled Esras back up so they were facing one another again, then glanced up at his companion.
Left gripped then ruffled Esras’ hair, pushing him back onto his heels. “Stay on your side of things.”
Middle’s eyes shifted again, and Right bunched his fist in Enda’s hair, the pain causing reflexive tears to spring up in Enda’s eyes as he slowly drew Enda’s head back, making his body arch uncomfortably.
Middle looked back the other way, and Left put a foot up on Esras’ thigh, letting just enough of his weight rest on it to uncomfortably grind Esras’ shin into the floor. “Listen to your elders.”
He removed his foot as Middle again reached forward and this time, one-handed, pulled Esras back up to his knees. He gestured for Right to let Enda go, and did the same to him. Maybe something showed on Enda’s face, maybe he had just already decided, but this time the slap echoed from Enda’s cheek.
“Know your place.”
He seemed to consider, and that consideration was terrifying, though Esras tried to ensure nothing showed on his face. It was hard not to feel like Middle had somehow read it there, or pulled it out of the air, because he pushed Right aside so he could drag Esras a few steps down the hallway past him, back the way they had come down. Using the steps to gain momentum he flung Esras forward, so he had to catch himself on hands and knees, then put a foot against his side and shoved him down and over, so he banged his shoulder hard into the wall on the way down.
Without looking up from Esras, he stretched an arm down the hall to gesture at his companions, who each seized one of Enda’s arms and dragged him down the hall as well. They threw him down to hands and knees only a little further down the hall from Esras.
“Know your place, or learn it.”
Neither of the others moved to continue, so after a moment’s wait, eyes fixed on Middle, Esras started to get to his feet.
Middle moved fast – very fast, at least a year’s worth of training giving him a little extra to put into stepping in and slapping Esras down again.
“Crawl away,” he said, over his friends’ slightly shocked, slightly amused exclamations. “Be grateful.”
So, on hands and knees, Esras moved the few feet back down the hallway. As he passed Enda, they caught one another’s eyes and then dropped them; they crawled together.
Esras could feel the eyes of all three burning into his back like the stone of the floor rasping against his knees, even as he heard them start up their conversations again. At the corner, he glanced over his shoulder to only see Middle still watching, just to make sure he completed the task of getting out of sight before he stood up.
Maybe if Enda hadn’t been there… he wanted to heave himself around the corner, to sit and press his back to the wall, to catch his breath and calm his nerves and kill his fury. Then again, if Enda hadn’t been there, it would have been three-on-one, and probably ended much worse.
Instead, he stood, refusing to look up but feeling every sound of Enda doing the same beside him. He could feel his face burning, not from the blows but from the blood pumping in his cheeks, surely turning them even redder. If Enda looked at him, he refused to notice it. He shoved his hands into his pockets as if by mimicking calm he could call it to him.
They said nothing to each other, the silence a weighty bubble that seemed to close around them in the hall. Even when they had to stop to make choices about which turn to take, or brushed into one another when the disagreed about direction by surprised, they said nothing. Esras watched their route carefully to take them back to the First Years’ side of the buildings, feeling his eyes just a little too wide for the gravity of the task, as if he could dry them of pain-forced tears by holding them open.
It was stupid, the whole situation – not least of which was his own stupidity at letting it happen, inviting this upon himself, giving the just-declared Second Years a chance to feel their newfound power for the first time. As Maoilin had said, maybe he was too idealistic, but he hadn’t known that he hoped things would be different here until confronted with the fact that they weren’t. That he hadn’t known, that he had hoped, that he had fallen into the situation at all, infuriated him.
He could only count himself lucky that Enda seemed to feel the same – furious, wounded, silent. They would all be subject to it, at some point, unless they were extraordinarily lucky, but neither of them wanted to be the first. At least for the time being, as long as they could pretend it hadn’t happened, then it hadn’t.
“Boots, wasn’t that something?” Feichín said from where he trailed behind them, once they were clear of the imposing stone of the classroom building.
“Boots?” Ruaridh said, from slightly ahead. “Who says ‘Boots’ anymore? Are you three?”
Dominicus didn’t know why they were talking about shoes, but was too tired to be truly curious. Or, it wasn’t tired – or not just tired. Strange class though it had been, ‘Foundations’ had gone well enough, but the ends of his nerves still thrummed. He felt like an egg tart, firm at the edges and soft inside, as something deeply animal at his edges fought a fatigued calm at his center (‘fatigued calm’, ‘capitulation to mortality’, whatever). He didn’t even want to think about it.
“Honorable folk who don’t like to be vulgar,” Feichín replied in a haughty tone, causing Ruaridh to roll his eyes so expansively his whole head moved. Ignoring this, Feichín trotted up to be at Dominicus’ side. “But what I want to know is…”
Except he didn’t say anything. He shoved his hands in his pockets, having become instantly comfortable in his cadets’ clothes in a way that Dominicus could only envy. The undershirt was itchy. The pants constructed for some creature that had limbs which approximated, but weren’t quite, legs. He alternatively felt naked and pinched in very important places. The jacket was stiff and cumbersome, even to him, and he came from a much colder place. It would be garbage in winter, but wasn’t light enough for summer.
Boots – well, maybe that was why they said it. He didn’t want to think about the boots, either. What were feet to them, but things for squashing, stretching, and rubbing raw?
“You don’t have a single bloody idea what–”
“I don’t know how you knew half the answers to those questions!” Feichín drowned Ruaridh out even though he had dropped back to walk beside them.
“They were easy questions,” Dominicus said, hoping something would draw him out of both his feelings and let him feel normal, instead. Or at least something like normal. As close to normal as he could get in this place.
“I didn’t know at least a third of the answers.”
“Neither did anyone else,” Ruaridh said, glancing at Dominicus. It was hard to say what was in his eyes.
“I don’t like the trick questions,” Dominicus said, trying to work his way – mentally – to his companions (clearly a different place, he just wasn’t sure where). “Some of those were trick questions.”
“Trick questions?” Feichín asked.
“Hm.” Dominicus both wasn’t sure how to explain, and wasn’t sure he had the energy to try. He had long since developed a headache that had gone from actively splitting to the continual thwacking of a dull axe in his skull – coming up with the right word to answer a question was like practicing vocabulary, but complex explanations might be beyond him at the moment.
“They weren’t trick questions,” Ruaridh said. “They were stupid questions.”
“Fine, but – well,” Feichín, like Dominicus had, turned his eyes to the late afternoon sky, searching for the right phrasing. “You said you didn’t know the answers either…”
“Yeah, because…” except Ruaridh didn’t seem able to articulate exactly what the issue was. Bringing his arms up as if to stretch, it was his turn to look skyward as he folded them over his head and fell silent.
“Some were in the Guide,” Dominicus said.
“The Guide?” Feichín said as if he had never heard of such a thing, about the same time Ruaridh said, “You’ve had time to look in the Guide?”
Between them, Dominicus just nodded and shrugged. “Useless.”
“I guess not,” Feichín said at the same time Ruaridgh groaned and sighed, peeling off from their trio for a moment to grieve.
“I don’t understand the class,” Dominicus said, rubbing the spot between his eyebrows to try to ease the pain behind it.
“I do,” said a bright voice coming up behind them (they weren’t the only ones leaving that class, nor the only ones headed off towards ‘Groups’, whatever that was). The cadet who jogged up to them was tall (fuck, he had other features, too. He looked Ainjir. Maybe a little red-haired, like Ruaridh).
“‘Foundations’ is a class for evening out everyone. Some cadets will have come in with some education, like working numbers for a family shop or managing fields or taken a few years of a trade. Some cadets come in without having been taught to read. Foundations tries to make sure everyone has the same basic skills – it’s why everyone has Groups or Foundations at the same times, so you can be moved around to other classes if you need other skills.”
“That sounds like something that would be in the Guide,” Ruaridh said, and this time Dominicus could recognize that he asked suspiciously. Ruaridh, he thought, was a strangely suspicious person.
The new cadet laughed, which was weird, though, so may Ruaridh was right.
“Oh, I quizzed the dorm warden,” he didn’t seem to hold on to his mirth, and watched Ruaridh as he added, “About everything on the schedule. Everything he could tell me.”
“Well, that’s one way to do it, I suppose,” Feichín said, with what Dominicus was coming to realize was, like Ruaridh’s suspicion, equally-usual affability. He wanted desperately to get along – desperately in the sense that he didn’t want to see difficulties between people, rather than that he was desperate for it to happen. This was an entirely alien attitude to Dominicus, who was already composing a description of it for his first letter home to his siblings. Which would be in Midraeic, thank God – even thinking about it felt like soothing butter on his brain.
Fuck – they were allowed to write letters, weren’t they?!
“Something shocking in that?” Ruaridh asked, peering into Dominicus’ face (Dominicus hated it).
“We send mail?” Dominicus asked.
“Isn’t that a peculiar turn,” Feichín remarked, affably.
“There’ll be a collection and distribution, once a week – like laundry,” the new cadet said.
“Dorm Warden,” Ruaridh said, as if this confirmed his worst suspicions (suspicions of what?!).
“Anyway,” the new cadet said, looking between them, “on trick questions…”
“Maybe they were stupid questions,” Dominicus conceded, still internally reeling from his whole being having been temporarily alight with the fear that he wouldn’t be able to write letters (ludicrous – not even this place would be that cruel – except he almost felt shaky and knew at this moment that it was like twisting open a leaking tap; he was still so horribly tense from this morning the lightest touch threw him into panic. Which was also stupid, like being suspicious of everyone all the time).
“Well, but what, potentially, was the trick?” the new cadet asked.
“Excuse me,” Ruaridh intervened, temporarily walking backwards between Dominicus and the new cadet, which Dominicus fervently hoped he would continue to do. “Who are you?”
“Oh, pardon – Fachtna,” like the others, he held out his hand for grasping, first to Ruaridh, then to the others.
“Oh, Boots,” Feichín said reflexively, though he looked apologetic as he grasped the new cadet’s arm.
“Yes, well,” the new cadet said. “It’s a family name. For better or worse. Actually very much for worse.”
“I can’t believe you say ‘Boots’ seriously,” Ruaridh sighed in the background.
“I say other things, too, obviously,” Feichín said. “I am just more judicious about vulgarity than the usual person.”
While Feichín and Ruaridh argued, Fachtna turned to Dominicus, smiling, hands now clasped behind his back. “I noticed you were able to handle quite a few of those questions quite ably.”
He smiled, but Dominicus didn’t like his smile, either. The smile made Dominicus bunch up his shoulders, try to shake away some of the creeping tingles that moved under his skin – there was nothing wrong with this person, and they had done nothing wrong. He wasn’t even being particularly rude, though he was staring as if waiting, though for what, Dominicus had no idea.
Fachtna let out a little chuckle (not REAL, was all Dominicus could think), looking away (thank God) for a moment before returning his gaze. “I just wonder, you know, where you learned it all? If you would share?”
“Books,” Dominicus said, because it was true, but at almost the same moment Ruaridh turned back to them, weaving away from his walking argument with Feichín to say, “Share what?”
Fachtna looked between them, with only the lightest glance to Feichín who was ambling back to their little crowd. He seemed to settle on keeping his attention between Dominicus and Ruaridh.
“Your sources. You know,” he paused and gestured to himself, all long, thin limbs under an ill-fitting uniform, “I’m not going to be at any particular advantage when we get to the martial rankings. Not to put too fine a point on it but I expect I’ll do rather poorly. Maybe I’ll catch up – the Academy is certainly famous for its transformations – but not any time soon. I had rather planned to do well at the mental exercises, and maybe escape some of the trials of being low-ranked otherwise. I thought perhaps some of you planned similarly?”
Ruaridh had become a blank as a wall, while Feichín shrugged and said, “No point worrying about it now, I should think. We’re quite a bit away from the first rankings.”
Rather rudely, however, Fachtna was looking at Dominicus, as if Feichín’s answer didn’t matter. Dominicus grunted noncommittally and shrugged, neither wanting to get deeply into conversation with Fachtna nor reveal how many questions he had just come up with (he recalled vaguely, way back when the Baron’s advocate first visited, he had also said things about martial fitness versus academic performance and schedules of ranking, but none of it had been said to Dominicus and none of it had seemed very important or relevant, at the time. More fool him. If he thought too much about how long it had taken him to really understand they were serious about sending him here, he started to feel so stupid and if he felt any more stupid at the moment it would make him sad).
Reluctantly, Fachtna seemed to accept Dominicus’ noncommittal grunt answer, but wasn’t willing to give up whatever it was he was trying to do.
“Of course, I wouldn’t expect something for nothing – I’ve done all I could to learn more about what to expect from this place going forward, and I would be happy to share. It just seems appropriate to work together – it’s not like the physical contests, where any secrecy can be of benefit. I wouldn’t expect to share plans for the Cogadh, for example. But in terms of the intellectual angle we can all do a little bit better working together.”
Dominicus knew he made a face, but maybe not for the reason Fachtna expected; he didn’t know the word ‘Cogadh’ and the way Fachtna had said it… well, it sounded a bit rude.
He was saved from looking foolish and replying to what he thought Fachtna had said by the fact that when Ruaridh said it, it sounded a lot less like ‘cock’ (which was a word Dominicus knew in Ainjir, not for any particularly good reasons except that little Ainjir futa’massa liked to shout it at them growing up – well, once Catillia had lobbed it back at one of the village boys, and that was a good reason. He had accused her of sexual impropriety, and she said something like, since they both knew what cocks looked like, then, she wanted to know why he hadn’t asked for a different haircut – it was funny, in context, and he had been too embarrassed to continue hassling them, so that was a pretty good reason).
Anyway, Ruaridh pushed forward again, to ask, “What’s the Cogadh?”
But Fachtna only looked back at him, and Ruaridh’s frown returned. “Ah, I see – a hand for a hand.”
“It only makes sense,” Fachtna said evenly.
“Sure,” Ruaridh continued, but Dominicus had stopped listening to them.
Neither had noticed the way Feichín gave a little sigh, eyes rolling just slightly, when Fachtna mentioned the Cogadh. And now he watched the two discuss it, clearly half-listening while he let himself contemplate other things.
He knew what it was. It was just that nobody had asked him.
“…it really rests on him,” Fachtna was saying, calling Dominicus’ attention again.
Ruaridh’s ears were red, but his face blank, as it had been before. Both he and Fachtna were looking at him.
“What?” Dominicus asked.
“An alliance,” Fachtna said, some of the weasely friendliness having gone out of his demeanor. “At least, temporarily.”
“All alliances are temporary,” Ruaridh said, coolly, hands again resting folded on his head as if he had no cares, though his ears still burned red.
“Alliance?” Dominicus asked.
“Nothing more,” Fachtna said, staring down through eyes half-closed, like a master reviewing apprentice work and trying not to give anything away, “but nothing less. Look, I’m at least not going to offer friendship when I know we’ll end up in competition eventually – I’ll offer my terms and you can offer yours and we can negotiate as we go in complete honesty. It’s a good deal, in this place.”
“Can friends not compete and remain friends?” Dominicus said, more than asked, looking at their little group.
Ruaridh had set his mouth into a line, staring back with splotches of red of his cheeks, as if determined to make it so.
Feichín, if he was still listening at all, had resorted to staring off towards where their ‘Groups’ class would meet, made obvious by the gaggle of new cadets ranged carefully, neither too near nor too far from each other, in a staked-off chunk of the verge ahead. He must at least have some ear for the conversation, for his usual cheerfulness dimmed, expression dancing with a light frown, especially when Fachtna said:
“Allies are of more use than friends. Who knows, at this point, how much of a liability associating with you might turn out to be. It may not be obvious, but there must already be those who have discussed it, among themselves. So, I can only advise you to accept whatever advantages are offered. And I, at least, am not going to lie to you about it.”
This, Fachtna said directly to Dominicus, brown eyes hard, cold, and focused, as if they could pin him down more effectively than a physical grasp.
Dominicus thought about whether a physical grasp was on the table. Fachtna had neither the imposing personality, nor the intellectual formidability, nor the physical strength to in any way dominate Dominicus, no matter how hard he pretended in offering his ‘good deal.’
To be honest to himself, though, it wasn’t really that he thought about matching Fachtna’s intimidating glance; he thought first about punching Fachtna in the face, and then tried to consider more delicately what his response should be. And, once he thought about it for a moment, Dominicus didn’t care about him – not enough to punch him, anyway. And he wasn’t wrong, which if not among the virtues was at least not a sin.
“Yes,” Dominicus said, watching Feichín’s glance over to him, the way slight disappointment weighed his shoulders down as they walked.
But he could also see Ruaridh’s relief.
Fachtna kept up his imposing glare for a moment, as if waiting for Dominicus to say more, then stuck out his hand for grasping, just the way the others had yesterday. Dominicus grabbed his arm, and they shook, and Dominicus wondered if he could somehow with his grip convey that Fachtna didn’t know what he was getting into.
He might not like it, but Fachtna probably needed friends more than allies, whether he knew it or not.