Dominicus held the fat, folded sheaf of his father’s letter, comforted and anxious. Turning it over in his hands, he jostled the pack on his back to get it resettled but addressing this discomfort only delayed the next discomfort, adding frustration to anxiety. They were always let out of classes with a certain amount of time left to allow them to get their next class, but they had been let out of Ancient Languages earlier than usual. The thought that this was his fault somehow ate like a fly in his ear. The irrationality of this thought, in turn, made him even more frustrated with himself.
Holding the letter comforted him, and he had time to read it – not to consider its contents, but to at least look at his father’s handwriting and begin to hear his voice in its words – but he also didn’t want to do that.
In his last letter to his father, he had – perhaps short-sightedly, prematurely – presumed a critique of a certain matter of doctrine as he had been taught. Fired, at the time, maybe by fatigue-born-delirium, maybe by the delight of pouring himself into his learning, he now wondered if maybe he had worded it all as precisely as meant to. He wasn’t wrong – he didn’t feel wrong – but could be mistaken. And now it was so hard to have the easy conversation he might have had sitting over tea with his father.
His own disgusted grunt met his ears. He would not have presumed to put forward a position so boldly were they face to face. His father would have felt him out, and headed off his intention before he could be mistaken. He would know – his father would know – that he had been mistaken, but to actually disagree was beyond him.
No, that wasn’t right. It was unnecessary that they actually disagree. And Dominicus was not apt to do it.
Well, there he had Catillia, who never hesitated to disagree with their father, never mind Dominicus.
This thought was also frustrating, and he was no closer to opening the letter in his walk across the grounds to reach Groups. They would actually have Groups today, and not Cogadh preparations, which was a trade-off for Dominicus in whether he would be more emotionally taxed or physically taxed. Groups, at least, provided exercise though it required his attention, but Cogadh team meetings, though they asked for little, if any, of his actual involvement, drove him mad to watch.
Turning over the packet of paper in his hand, feeling it – the kind of paper, the weight, tracing the lines where it had been carefully folded – comforted him. Thinking about what was inside made his heart beat faster (It wasn’t even the whole letter – the single piece of paper that had contained his father’s personal remarks hadn’t even been filled up with words, but he sensed the cross-writing contained within the packet folded up in its heart, that now rested in his hands).
Reading this letter had been his excuse to depart from the company of his friends in their walk across the long stretch of grass between their Ancient Languages class and Groups meeting place – a walk with the herd of their classmates on similar schedules. He never left Ancient Languages feeling quite right. Though he felt very capable, he grasped the concepts, he memorized well, something was always wrong with his presentation when called upon to give answers. Perhaps if he could find some single aspect to work on, it would distress him less – it wasn’t that he did poorly, but that his work was always unsatisfactory, the corrections he offered never suitable, nothing ever seemed to improve.
So, he was upset. Letting out a breath, he turned his face to the sky – a beautiful blue, dotted with clouds, the warm air perfectly stirred by the breeze – turned the paper in his hands, and tried to tell himself that was why he was upset, and why it was so difficult to read his father’s letter, and why it seemed on even so perfect a day as this one, as if he was not at home in the world anymore.
“Hey, Dominicus!” Ruaridh jogged closer, from where he, Feichín, and few of the others walked together. “I meant to say, happy feast day.”
Dominicus had turned on being called, and now stopped.
Feichín asked, “What do you mean?”
“Yeah, there’s nothing on today, is there?” said another cadet – Ninain – hopefully.
“No, it’s a Midraeic thing,” Ruaridh said, turning back to Dominicus to check in before addressing the other cadets again. “Right? I don’t remember what for – our neighbours always brought us these seed pastries for it, stamped with special patterns. Somebody-or-other’s day, or a battle day or something. Seemed a nice holiday.”
Perhaps in another setting Dominicus would have sunk to the ground. Minus five or eight years of age, and with Catillia or Auriol there to indulge him, he might have fully thrown himself onto his back on the ground and cried out to the heavens (THEY felt it was doctrinally appropriate, HE though it set a bad example for his younger siblings, HIS FATHER simply said it wasn’t in his teaching to tell him not to (but didn’t do it himself), HIS MOTHER asked him not to knock anything over on his way down).
“Festis Vacunae,” Dominicus said, “Dia sinapi.”
“Yeah!” Ruaridh said, confused but enthusiastic, “knew it was something like that. Anyway, the little cakes are good.”
“What, is it like a… murder feast?” said another cadet, who had gotten a good look at Dominicus’ face.
“Who’s celebrating murder feasts?” objected another.
“Arguably, Founder’s Day…” said a Ninain, and they all nodded thoughtfully.
It was not a murder feast (though of course the Ainjir, barbarians that they were, had murder feasts – Midraeic murder feasts were about survival against odds, not just murder). Not a major holiday, it made sense that the occasion was more marked in the Capitol. This was the day in the stories when the fleeing companions of the Prophet overturned their empty bags of food and thought they had been abandoned by God to die of starvation, only for Vica to point out that they still had mustard seeds, which they had scattered on the ground, and which would grow into nourishing food (ignore the time it took crops to grow, the companions survived to tell the story, it was a metaphor). Its particular significance was not only persistence against hardship and the nourishment of God but remembrance of those distant or absent from the community, which Vica was the particular protector of.
“I forgot,” Dominicus said.
“Ah, well,” Ruaridh said, “it’s not like we’re ticking days off a calendar here. There was a lot of seeded bread at breakfast and it put me in mind of those little cakes, so I checked the day. I was hoping they might let the cooks make some for dinner. We had to pinch so much to save for sugar that I never forgot an opportunity for a free cake in my life.”
This set off a debate over the expense of honey, which some called not worth buying because you could just raise your own bees, while others pointed out that raising massive amounts of bees in the city was frowned upon.
Dominicus descended into Hell. Flipping his backpack around to the front, he tucked his father’s doctrinal missive, which he was not worthy to read, safely inside, and indulged in misery, following the others in order to stay safely on the path to class instead of, say, flinging himself in to the nearest abyssal hole in the earth.
“You should really get another bag when you can,” Feichín said, patting his own, much slimmer, side-slung bag at his hip. Many students had such bags now, much better suited to classwork than their campaign-sized backpacks. “Lucky I could ask for one to be sent from home.”
It was a nice, soft, worn leather from the sheep his family raised, though if Dominicus could not mention they were directly involved in the raising of the sheep he would be much obliged.
Feichín prattled pleasantly until they reached a location in which they could all dump their bags in a pile while the Groups class was in session. If he was unusually quiet, no one noticed, or at least, chose not to comment.
The beginning of class was a relief; they were instructed on the exercises they were to focus on in particular, and separated into sparring circles. Facing Teä once again was ameliorated by the fact that both Ruaridh and Feichín were in the rather large group they were working in today. They were meant to be actually sparring to some degree – mostly grappling manoeuvres, as they were not trusted yet to spar with even practice weapons without permanently injuring one another. Dominicus’ malaise fled, his attention sharped to a point, when one of the cadets who had tried to kill him on his first day found his place in the circle of cadets.
Any hope that this cadet might choose not to continue the feud died when he smiled across the circle at Dominicus, and passed his turn in the rotation.
“Why is Brahn,” Ruaridh asked, admirable disdain in his pronunciation of the name, “smiling at you like a cat?”
“I would not buy his buns.”
“What?”
“Oh, my,” Feichín said, startled, “I thought he was affianced? To a woman?”
“Does that matter in this place? It’s the market that gets me…” Ruaridh scoffed, but checked himself. “Oh, but wait – when?”
“Outside the gates, first day,” Dominicus said, keeping his eyes fixed on Brahn. “Thought I was… eh…” he mentally cursed the way Ancient Languages made him feel like he had a grasp on no language, “errand person.”
Feichín and Ruaridh in concert leaned back to catch each other’s eye over Dominicus’ head and nod knowingly.
“Well, that’s no good enemy to have,” Feichín commented. “You know he went to Prep?”
“We would not be enemies,” Dominicus grumbled. “He made enemies.”
“Yeah, but he’s picked you.” Ruaridh said. Seeming to realize, after Feichín’s reproachful look, that this was not supportive, he gamely offered, “It’s actually good that he went to Prep then. I mean, we’re all expected to lose to the Prep cadets. You can try a couple of things and take a bit a beating and cry gaellem before it gets too bad.”
“A few rounds of that and whatever the grudge is should be satisfied,” Feichín said, nodding.
“A bit humiliating, but no real loss of face, there,” Ruaridh added. “Probably wouldn’t win a straight bout anyway, no use getting beat up over it.”
For reasons he could not adequately explain, and had no wish to try explaining to Feichín and Ruaridh, hot anger welled up in Dominicus’ chest. It didn’t surprise him, but he also didn’t think he could, with his words, put into conjunction the series of things that made him particularly furious in this moment in a way that would make sense to them. This was not just the lasting effect of Ancient Languages muddling his words, but rather, the primality of the emotion, the culminating knot of disparate strands of thought long held carefully separate, and the sheer effrontery of the expectation that he should lose to that pompous asshole.
He was expecting it, when his turn came around and he stepped into the ring, that Brahn would finally take his own long-delayed turn, and that was precisely what happened.
It was a mark of recognition to both fighters that as they faced one another, the ring of cadets pulled back, to give them space.
“About time, kneeler,” Brahn said, cracking his knuckles performatively. “This lot haven’t been keeping you in your place.”
The slur had caused a stirring on Dominicus’ side of the circle with cries of ‘no need for that language’ quickly laughed down, and the whole disturbance shushed lest the ollamh intervene before anything interesting had happened.
His sisters would have had something clever to say. Dominicus’ brain was busy sizing up his opponent, who was indeed not only better fed than him but much of that feed had gone into building muscle. Brahn might have been soft on arrival but he was not coasting on his longer experience.
“What place is that?”
“How about I show you?”
Brahn set himself, bending his knees to lower his body and mitigate some of Dominicus’ advantage as the more grounded (shorter) fighter. In a grapple like the ones they were practicing, Brahn had undoubted superiority, in that he had muscle, weight, and reach and the wit the use them. Dominicus’ advantage was that he knew this would not be practice; if he dropped the pretense, Brahn would be happy to follow the example.
Dominicus, instead of setting himself for a grapple, turned so his right side faced Brahn, knees bent and ready but not enough to lower his stance, fists held loosely, not like a boxing match, lest they get spotted as clearly not following instructions.
The crowd of cadets was reacting; Dominicus registered it, registered excitement, shifting, careful attention given to how to best let the match continue, but it was outside of his notice.
Brahn started to rotate, first a few steps one direction, then another, to see if Dominicus would engage on his terms, but Dominicus held his side-presenting posture. Still smirking, Brahn laughed as he pulled himself back up to stand, in the process demonstrating that he knew he still had the advantage in this format, through the rise of his chest and the stretch of his long limbs. He also had no qualms putting his fists up about his face, elbows out, the way of an experienced boxer from Preparatory.
Dominicus was not an experienced boxer from Preparatory. Few challenged Prep cadets on this front. In direct fights, Prep cadets held unmitigated advantage over their peers for sheer practice.
Slowly, they closed, Brahn keeping a slight rotation to their steps. Dominicus didn’t bring his fists up – mimicking Preparatory form was unproductive – but kept his arms ready, hands in those loose fists, eyes fixed on Brahn.
“Let’s start,” Brahn said, watching to see if his words unsteadied his opponent, “with on the ground.”
He didn’t strike as the last words fell, but stopped, a slight feint, then slung one fist at Dominicus’ face, wickedly fast. He had his right side back, and struck from that side; Dominicus was right-handed, too, but with his right foot forward, was able to duck below the punch while bringing his left foot swinging around with all his strength to kick Brahn in the stomach.
This strength was considerable, for all it wasn’t his dominant side, and Brahn had expected a boxing match. Smart enough to keep his middle tight, he at least didn’t throw up, though he stumbled back and bent over as the breath was knocked from his body. Dominicus, who had no illusion he was the better boxer, followed up by flinging himself bodily at Brahn’s midsection and barrelling him to the ground.
The uproar from the watching cadets was enormous enough to break through his focus, but Dominicus now knew he had spoiled surprise and advantage, and the fight was on for real. Stupid in many ways, one didn’t survive Prep by not knowing how to handle a fight, and Brahn at once seized Dominicus’ arms and used his greater weight to roll them, so he was once again on top.
This was Bad, but Brahn was tall. Straddling Dominicus and leaning forward, preoccupied with forcing his arms down, Dominicus could pivot his hips in the considerable space between their bodies, draw his legs up under Brahn’s crotch, put a foot in his stomach and shove. It wasn’t as powerful as the first blow, but a second blow to the same sensitive area (as in, important for breathing) had double the effect.
Brahn lost his grip on one of Dominicus’ arm and spun off to the side, still holding the other by sheer reflex. Dominicus returned this grip and used it to pull himself up to his knees, and now – both unsteadily on their knees, facing one another – he pulled back his left fist and punched Brahn straight in the face.
Once again, the power of the blow mattered less than the pain that shot through Brahn’s nose and the tears it raised in his eyes. He was able to return the blow with his right hand, but aimed at Dominicus’ mid-section, where preparation mitigated its power.
“You fucking cretin, you little fucking bug, you bloody…!”
On and on, truly furious, but at this point, Dominicus was out of real ideas except that he needed to get Brahn on the ground, and unable to keep fighting. It was much harder to force a compact body down, so Dominicus aimed for control.
Pushing himself up off his knees as much as he could, he kept the hold of Brahn’s left arm to his right and pushed forward. It took some twisting of his own arm, and seizing the next right-handed punch that landed on his side, but he was able to get Brahn’s own arm around his neck in a kind of dance turn. Throwing his body weight completely into the effort, ended up with Brahn face down in the dirt, Dominicus’ arm and his own wrapped around his neck, other arm pinned under his body, and Dominicus sitting monkey-like on his back.
Where to go from here was a complete mystery. But for the moment, there was nothing Brahn could do about it.
So Dominicus said, “My place is the top.”
The cheers from one side of the circle and groans from the other – not to mention Brahn’s increasingly weak cursing – fell abruptly quiet as the ollamh pushed through the circle.
He stood looking down at the two combatants for a moment. Perhaps he expected Dominicus to get up, but until his opponent conceded, Dominicus wasn’t going anywhere. So they just stared at one another for a moment while Brahn struggled.
“Innrachtig, you’re done,” the ollamh said. Stepping forward, he seized Dominicus’ collar as he stood. “Galen, you’re supposed to be practicing throws. Chokes aren’t allowed at this stage. Get to the Quartermaster. Innrachtig, go to the Medics. You two go with them and witness.”
The randomly selected cadets to accompany looked more excited than dismayed by this prospect, for reasons Dominicus couldn’t currently discern in his fight-fogged mind. He did manage to get a glimpse of Feichín, who looked concerned, and Ruaridh, who looked horrified, before the ollamh shoved him on his way.