AN: Apologies again for another long, unplanned, break. I plan to be back to regularly updating ASAP, it’s just been a very busy time.
-end-
Most respected saviour of the wandering people, sweet fraterculus,
I am well and I hope you are well and I will tell you all you wanted to know (you are the beggar in the golden robe) but first:
I do not think you should be attending so many of these lessons with this language master. I don’t think he is a skola, not in any way we should recognize (eha! I know you will say, of course sister of mine, he is not a skola for a skola is a particular kind of theological teacher – bark! bark! bark! – you know that’s not what I mean). Anyway, what is your back for? Let it be beaten! Don’t go to those lessons. Or at least don’t attend to them. Your mind is infinitely more valuable as-is and he fills it with nonsense. One day perhaps they will all be as wise as you to see it.
Dominicus stood – as they all had to stand – to give his recitation, and left his stomach on the chair. He did not know why he despaired, before even the words came out of his mouth, but he knew he had not practiced this passage in this way as much as he had practiced the passage they had been asked to translate. It stood to reason he would be translating the passage they were asked to translate before class, if anything, didn’t it? He was not so foolish.
From the first syllable he knew it was wrong. A flash of the eye, so deeply subtle, the way one brow twitched in ollamh Hammerlyn’s face and he knew he was getting it wrong somehow. His sounds were too sibilant, he drew words together in a way that wasn’t meant to happen in Old Ainjir – something about the pacing was wrong, though he tried to match the tones exactly like he was whistling back to birds.
The distress made things harder, so he pushed it under, keeping his focus on reading out the passage – but then he read the complicated lettering wrong (why the scribes of the past who only had their own hand to work with chose such intricate full figures to draw he could not fathom). He knew it as he said it and cursed his tongue, but it could not be gone back over and done again. That instant, the ollamh lifted his hand, a light grunt signalling he should stop.
“As always,” ollamh Hammerlyn said, as if tired of the entire exercise, “better one should pause and alter the rhythm of the text – an adjustable measure, after all – than speak in error to maintain it. One must read carefully.”
Each of these last words were said with a different but equal emphasis, as if on the one hand, he doubted Dominicus could read, and on the other, Dominicus – literate or not – blundered like startled horse in a narrow street.
Dominicus wanted roll his head back, shut his eyes, and pretend to be dead, if such pretending would be respected and his standing corpse ignored. Not only would it not, but he was not allowed to sit and break the posture of declaimant until explicitly told.
He spent the rest of the lesson standing.
I have not let Laeta attend the spinning because Laeta loses her mind when allowed to talk and the wool sits and generates new sheep while she chatters. She would beg us all for lessons and might learn them if only she would leave time for us to speak. Even Auriol agrees she is not ready. She should have turned out with the flocks to learn the value of silence from hearing all of their constant bleating. Perhaps I can convince Mother. Father, as ever, would worry too much for her, but Spesnova went with the goats when we had them and she was never taken by fairies and she makes for a much more tempting thrall being so stupidly agreeable. I suppose goats are meaner than sheep, and more protection. She is sweet girl, your little sister, and too eager to fill the space you left. I suppose I will be kind to her but she will not spin more than one day a week or I may murder her. Then who would keep our Little Bear from murdering her brother?
Who, by the way, deserves to die, for he is arguing that as now oldest brother he should carry Mother’s chair down when he was just last week winded by the water bucket. He shall kill himself. Ursula shall not have to do it. Or the chair will crush him. And any time he mentions it Abban starts to cry for missing you and because we will not all instantly admit it is his right and proper due Paciano mentions it always. I have told the little gecko he is too old to cry and he only tells me that he isn’t crying and shoves his face in the dirt like the cat when it wants its butt scratched. The male line of our family is dying. But it will not be missed anyway.
Mother’s chair? Why hadn’t he thought of Mother’s chair?
Perhaps it was because his opponent in Swordplay had tried to break his fingers, and all ollamh Corin had to say was it might help his grip.
Why was Catillia thinking of Mother’s chair?
Instead of flinging his wooden sword at ollamh Corin’s distant head (he did not often get close to Dominicus these days, if he didn’t have to), he started the next practice bout with his opponent by slapping his sword aside and kicking him straight in the gut. Once he was on the ground, unable to cry out from the blow, Dominicus almost broke his fingers himself sitting on him and punching him in the face.
The rest of the practice group descended to pull him away, but one shoved Dominicus sideways, and if there was anything he was not going to do it was get under foot of these wild dogs – so when his hand landed on a discarded sword he picked it up by the blade and slammed the hilt into his assailant’s side (the bruise would be an interesting shape, for sure).
Thus, in the incredibly stupid looking position of straddling his wheezing opponent, holding the sword by the blade, two-handed, like a club, with what was supposed to be an observer slowly collapsing to the ground, and the rest of his practice group huddled in fear, ollamh Corin assigned him what was becoming a routine beating by the quartermasters for breaking numerous rules of Swordplay class.
Rules which seemed to be in place mostly for him, and not the ravening wolves he now tried to learned alongside.
Though, if he was being perfectly honest with himself, it hardly mattered because the rest of the class was so far beyond his skill level in Swordplay he could weep, if he had a spare second from trying to save his own life. Performing whatever ridiculous defensive violence that got him sent out of class for a beating was a nice way to earn a break from a class he was in no way prepared for.
So (after a long, agonizing, and ultimately disappointing week of realizing no amount of reading books about swordplay was actually going to make him better at swordplay), he had taken Hal up on his offer to be taught a skill of his choosing.
But it had to be squeezed in between his extra reading, the return to regular meetings of Groups – the Cogadh was still eating much of his endweek days as even if one didn’t attend the match one had to be wary of greater numbers of disgruntled Second Years (and some First Years), freed from the burden of the tournament by their embittering loss, roaming all the usual spaces on the grounds again – and they were now being expected to compose written responses in some classes (eha, finally he understood why they were given so much pen and ink and paper), and he still must go to the rock fields, perform the class chores, study for the regular class workload...
This is the true price of your journey and, fraterculus, even I must admit I feel it. When we all kneel to give our thanks to Mother in a few days we will sorely feel your absence. If she has the vigour to knock me with the spoon for saying something inappropriate in my account of our many blessings I will be grateful, for I do think, though she bears it well, she misses you very dearly. Why, I don’t know. I have all your infuriating letters and have given dramatic readings when I see anyone too melancholy. I have told them all your secrets and made a great paper mask of your face to put upon the pig. (I have not, bulla mea, you know this. We will keep space for you without thinking of it on the Holy Mother’s Day).
Dominicus crouched and put the first finger of his left hand against the ground. It sank into the cool, wet grass.
He had missed it, of course – even if Catillia had posted her letter as she finished writing it, when it was still four days to Holy Mother’s Day, it had taken nearly a week and a half to reach him on the thin postage they could afford and with the delay engendered by the Academy’s designated days for distributing mail.
He had utterly and completely missed it.
He spread his fingers, letting them catch in the tangled grass, and tried to catch his breath. One arm instinctively curled over his ribs.
It was the first time he had ever been away from home for the Holy Mother’s Day. His sisters would have had to take over his duties. They would have to corral the younger children while finishing all the housework before their mother realized what was going on – as if she didn’t know when her holiday was.
He had forgotten it.
He wanted to cough, body tight, but stubbornly held it in. This was just a physical reaction.
He was so homesick he wanted to vomit.
Who was he kidding? Paciano would get the chair, as Catillia said – Urusula would help him, to make sure it didn’t kill him. His father’s chair became his mother’s chair and they would work together to haul the heavy thing down from his study upstairs (Dominicus’ job). Catillia had also only ever pretended to let him supervise the work and the children. She was always ready to step in the moment his attention wandered – she could handle it without him easily. They would all be fine.
He wouldn’t be there, but they would all be fine.
“Hey,” said Hal, leaning casually on his practice sword like a cane (if ollamh Corin could have seen, Hal would have been stripped of the skin on his back). “If you need to stop for the day, we can always arrange to meet again later in the week.”
“No,” Dominicus said, forcing himself to stand with as much steadiness as possible. To cover a tremor he brushed his hands against his pants as if getting the grass off.
This wasn’t some stupid, city-Midraeic seedcake day, to be forgotten.
He felt the bitter jaws of his fate, ever closing, bouncing him from the pain of one to the pain of the other. He had recalled his Duty, rededicated himself to his Father’s purpose, forgot Holy Mother’s Day.
Today Hal’s face was unreadable, mostly because it was so far distant from the faces he wanted to see his eyeballs hardly took it in. Irritation still rose, spreading out from the back of his neck like a thousand stares beat into his back, instead of one (probably) friendly face standing right in front of him.
Ainjir faces were always hard to read. They didn’t quite move the same way, the same shake of the head that meant yes could mean no, the eyes – even the dark ones, like Hal’s – paler and somehow less certain in their emotion, as if the soul (that they didn’t believe in) where held somewhere other than behind them.
So Hal had somewhat rolled his eyes, but did that mean he had noticed Dominicus' moment of weakness and scorned it, or that his mistakes were so obvious they became tiresome, or that Hal did not truly want to continue sparring? Dominicus picked up his own practice sword warily.
“You know,” Hal said, “it isn't going to bother me if you need a break. I connected much harder than I meant to – I wouldn't want to keep going right away...”
“No,” Dominicus said, mentally chanting, reminding himself Hal was here to help, trying to stay focused...
Hal blew out a breath like a horse, shaking his head, but also raised his sword.
“All right, so I'm going to come at you with the cross-cut–
“Do it,” Dominicus said, because his mind had begun to fill again with his siblings' jests, little Abban's laughter, his mother's patient, hiding smile, the smell of the house, infused with cinnamon...
His sisters would be making their famous cinnamon balls to deliver to their mother, painstaking refined by twenty-some Holy-Mother's-Days-past into something like perfection topped with butter. They melted in your mouth into a sandy-sweet nothing, perfect with thick tea so stuffed with cream it could hardly be drunk rather than chewed. Catillia and Laeta would cajole their mother into their father's chair, because Spesnova had soon mastered the recipes. Spesnova would put the enormous tray of cinnamon balls on her lap like a pile of weights, to keep her from working on her holy day. Abban and the twins would have to be corralled away from taking some treats before their mother had any, but he supposed Auriol could do it, instead of him.
Hal approached with quick steps and swung, and Dominicus dodged and countered, the breeze of the swords passing one another a distant chill.
Their mother – his mother – would cry. She always cried a little, being so proud, so easily moved to affection. His father, too, would be late coming down, pretending to be busily working on his lesson on the Prophet’s Holy Mother – which hardly changed from year to year – when really he just didn’t want to do too much crying in front of his children, of whom he was proud, and his wife, whom he loved in the wordless way he loved things.
Dominicus could remember the taste, so poignant after the cinanmon and sweets, a slightly salty cheek, as beginning with Catillia and moving down, he and his sisters and brothers would kiss her cheeks and thank her and the Prophet, and the twins always forgot to also thank God. As always, he would tell her not to cry.
How much would she cry, that he wasn't there to tell her to stop?
He almost, but not quite, didn't hear the noise of an awkward blow of the swords, but he definitely felt the twist of his wrist as Hal's strike and his terrible grip turned it against its natural bent. Hal, face comic in surprise, dropped his follow-through abruptly in order to prevent another accidental blow to Dominicus' body.
Preoccupied with pain and frustration, Dominicus couldn't think of the proper reaction, and stood stupidly crippled as Hal crashed into him. Dominicus stumbled back, dropped point of his sword scissored out of his hands by Hals' legs. Hal got an arm over his neck, dragging both their heads down, other arm – thank God the sword was turned away – inadvertently punching Dominicus in the stomach. Knees shaking from the second blow, Dominicus bowed under Hal's weight, and for moment, they waited uncertainly, both taking deep sucking breaths for markedly different reasons.
But they didn't fall.
“Bollocks, Galen...” Hal managed to say. Abruptly he patted Dominicus' back, pushing himself upright. He didn't let go or walk away, though.
“You know, I know I said I would do this, but I’m really not the best teacher – I know that you’ve got a bit of a thing going, but I really do think Cole is a much better teacher than I am, and if I asked him–”
“No,” Dominicus said, trying to pretend he wasn't wheezing.
Dominicus wasn't looking, but the noise that Hal made was one of frustration. He looked up to find Hal glaring back down at him with an expression remarkably clear: as if not sure whether he was daft or simply idiotic. It made Dominicus frown.
To Hal's credit, he kept looking. Most other cadets had started to flinch when he frowned. Dominicus couldn't quite bring himself to regret it. Switching classes had once again made him a stranger, and ultimately Ainjir here were like Ainjir at home were like Ainjir everywhere: in desperate need of humility. That his new class section discounted or disdained his learning from the other class section only increased his sense of this, and his anger at it. Dominicus had nothing to gain from being merciful.
Hal was different, though, he reminded himself. Hal was trying to help. Hal was also fucking Second – one of many Second was fucking, apparently – and so while that made his offer uniquely genuine it also made his opinion of Second deeply suspect according to most of their mutual friends.
Hard to say, really, what Dominicus thought because he had never really considered one’s opinion of a person might alter just because you were...
“No,” Dominicus said, deeply conscious of the hand on his back and feeling the tang of cinnamon in the back of his throat, “and there is not ‘a thing’.”
That was stupid to say, but he wasn’t thinking well. This wasn’t the first time Hal had made such a recommendation and while Dominicus had been very clear he would not be considering such a proposition, even he couldn’t deny that today’s practice was going uniquely badly.
Dominicus could have attributed it to punishment from God, but it was so clearly all his own damn fault.
“Whatever,” Hal said, “but you should seriously consider it, whatever your... dilemma is. I promise he doesn’t still think about you beating him at practice that one time or whatever.”
“No,” Dominicus said, even more firmly, yet while his intention had fully been to somehow justify the firmness of his refusal and deny that he still thought about his bouts with Second, ever, he hadn’t the breath or the wit for it.
“No,” Hal said, staunch in imitation, and Dominicus thought about killing him.
Eha, little brother, Catillia’s mocking voice echoed in his head, and what would you do with a corpse instead of a friend? You need friends, bulla mea, you have plenty of enemies for making corpses later.
“We... compete,” he finally said, lamely, in part to get Hal to stop staring at him that way, from that close.
Throwing up his arms, Hal cried out, “We all compete, for fuck’s sake!”
Dominicus grunted.
“Look,” Hal went on, “unlike some of the other morons here, Cole knows we're all going to end up fighting for the same thing. And he believes it. Don't let his ruse with those assholes from Prep fool you. He’s a good person, beneath all that...”
Hal said it strongly enough but the way he trailed off uncertainly damned his own point.
“Fine, well, maybe not ‘good’ – like, not Midraeic ‘good’ certainly – I don’t think any of us are, are we?”
Doiminicus grunted at him again. Better he not answer that.
“That’s not the point, anyway,” Hal said, face reddening. “This isn’t even about that. Everyone thinks I can’t be impartial because we fuck every now and then, but that’s not even relevant. The fact of the matter is that we can fuck around and I can show you some things with Swordplay, and we can practice, but it’s just jerking off – I’m not good enough to make up for the bollocksing that Corin’s been giving you for weeks now.”
That was... there were a lot of words... well, and images, because he did get images... strongly sometimes...
“And yeah, maybe I like him,” Hal said, now fully invested in his own narrative, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t recognize what he is. And what I am. It’s just for-fun fucking. I don’t think it can even be anything but for-fun fucking. For one I couldn’t keep up – Tits, you know, I could hardly walk straight that week after we were sorted, he just doesn’t have to study as much as the rest of us, as much as we all might like to fuck at that pace on the regular – anyway, sorry, that’s all besides the point–”
Then Hal did something terrible. He had never backed away (terrible in itself) while Dominicus recovered – and Dominicus, rather than risk upright participation in such a conversation, had stayed hunched – now Hal reached down and grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him upright. Hands sliding to his upper arms – bare, because even with the chill in the wind vigorous exercise in the sun was hot work – Hal faced him earnestly, making sure to meet his eyes.
“Just let me ask – Blood, I’ll even say it’s just for me,” he chuckled, glancing down at Dominicus standing before him, “but you’re half bruise already, and I’m not helping. You can watch from the bushes or whatever, and I’ll do my best to keep his attention on teaching. No guarantees it’ll work – it all has a bad tendency to end up with fucking no matter what.”
Dominicus forced a “No,” from a dry mouth, and a painfully taut and scratchy throat.
Hal sighed heavily, flow of it moving down Dominicus’ chest – which Dominicus felt very much and felt the reaction to very much, even though the general coldness of the air had already done its work – as he dramatically let his head fall. But soon he lifted it again and brightly moved on, slapping Dominicus’ arm before he let go.
“I’ll admit that was not a very tempting offer. It’s hard as fuck to keep him focused on anything if he wants something else. Either way, though, I’m going to quit for today before I fucking break something – on you or me. Maybe we’re both just tired, but it’s not worth it today.”
Easily, with a graceful faux-martial spin, he swung down to pick up their swords, and his jacket and shirt, long ago tossed aside.
Then Hal approached again, and though he didn’t reach out, thank God, he leaned in, again letting his pale eyes look sincerely into Dominicus’, as he said, “Don’t be an idiot for the sake of pride. You’re a good cadet, even if they don’t want you to be – don’t let the stupid contest over rank distract you. You really should ask Cole for help.”
“In the meantime,” he went on, smiling as he stepped away, “I’ll see you next time, when maybe we’re both a little more focused. I guess I shouldn’t just blame Cole for it, after all.”
He waved his goodbye behind his back.
Dominicus stood still – completely still – and watched him go.
His upper arm tingled, skin alive in a thousand pricking points as if being dragged through a hedge. His chest and stomach hurt from the unintentional blows, but also because every muscle in them seized, organs inside twisting and stinging. His mouth, having run dry, now flooded with saliva as if he were about to vomit, and he wished desperately he could, but he would not unfreeze the muscles of his torso even to breathe, much less vomit.
Only when Hal was completely out of sight did he let himself sink to ground, face burning, pain of his stomach moving irrevocably and distinctly downward. The insides of his thighs ached, but in that very particular, unpainful way – he crouched, wanting nothing more than to stretch out to give his body air but stuck in the torturous middle of knowing it would kill what he was feeling and wanting and not-wanting that at the same time.
Why the fuck had Hal decided to get so close to him? Why could he just rub away the feeling on his arms, call it so easily the distraction it was.
Flooding into his mind came every curve of Hal’s lips as he spoke, the arc of his neck as he turned his head, his imagination supplying the sensation of Hal’s hand moving up to the side of his own neck, even though nothing of the sort had happened. Every part of their crashing together in the misshapen bout rose out of his mind as well, putting touches he hadn’t conceived of noticing – and maybe hadn’t happened – at the front of his imagining in rapid flashes of heat and texture.
God help him, it hurt so badly.
He curled tighter in his crouch, squeezing his eyes shut, begging for darkness, spreading out the sense of it until it erased all notion of the grounds around him in the hopes the obliteration might reach his body soon.
It took far too long.
Finally, he breathed and opened his eyes to the incongruously bright green of the grass.
The Ainjir were a licentious people. He knew this.
There were things permitted to them that were not permitted to the followers of Midras.
Of great importance to their God was the recognition of the moment. The taken breath, the finite present, was all that He had given them – not wisdom of the past nor knowledge of the future, but the living moment. With it came the ecstasy and despair it might convey. As they lived, they died; the People were not creatures of the infinite or given eternal life, or all-encompassing understanding, or even the surety of the next breath. All of that was for God, and to a lesser degree, His Prophet, and to an even lesser degree, His Prophet’s Students, and finally to all those who lived and followed Him.
To Followers of Midras was given the Words, the Task – the window into All that was encountering Divinity and finding its favor. They were given contemplation of such divine and incomprehensible truths, not their True Feeling or Total Understanding except when gifted such directly by God or the Prophet. To See but not Have, To Reach but not Grasp, it was the place of the followers of Midras to live in balance – to be open should the Hand of God reach for them but to be grounded in their fundamental separation from divinity.
As Dominicus’ father taught him, closeness to God was to be achieved through contemplation; ecstasy was His gift and not to be pursued for its own sake. The love of the everyday – the moments, the continuance of life – was the truer expression of his faith, and that was expressed in Duty. Pleasure was not absent from Duty, but it was a thing granted in the course of fulfilling Duty, not an end in itself. His Duty was to his God, the Prophet who gifted them the Word of God, his People who had been chosen by God, and his family, who in the pursuance of their Duty to God gave and sustained his life. The pleasure, the love, that came with this was a gift granted, not a selfish pursuit.
Thus, for all of their infinite appreciation for the complex emotions that came with life, their ecstatic celebrations, their keening prayers: there were things permitted to Ainjir that were not permitted to a good, Midraeic son.
And where usually his homesickness in its milder forms would bring to him images of the little ones or the smell of his mother’s cooking or quite of his father’s study, for some reason, perhaps because he had been reading her letter so closely, this time he could hear Catillia’s wild laughter in his head. Probably because Catillia frequently laughed at his serious theological contemplations.
That was unhelpful. But so, often, was Catillia. Catillia had never once in her life worried what might make her a good, Midraeic daughter. The very question would seem ludicrous.
And yet, as he thought of the chair, the cinnamon balls, the tracking of their siblings of many Holy Mother’s Days past, anyone who accused her of being a bad Midraeic daughter he would have easily and relatively guiltlessly killed (a corpse worth collecting).
Hal was right: Dominicus was not learning very much from their practice sessions. Except things he already knew and did not want to know more of.
Thank God they weren’t working on Grappling. (Catillia would also have found that funny).
Hal was also wrong. Even were he not suspicious of the very notion – suspecting Cadet Cole was someone he would deeply dislike, if only for his gleeful immorality and spineless refusal to not be a complete dickhead if someone more influential than he asked for it – asking Cadet Cole would not help.
(‘And why not, fraterculus?’ Catillia would ask, in that irritating way she did only when she had decided he needed to learn something (was he not learning enough these days))?
Yes, he had been relieved to discover he was not exactly... angry or resentful of Cadet Cole now that they were meeting regularly in class (except when Cadet Cole was being deliberately stupid or lazy, which infuriated him for some reason – perhaps because it was so obvious). Less relieved to discover he just... got excited whenever they were about to fight (intellectually or physically).
Not Ainjir excited, just... normal(?) excitement.
Didn’t like that. Had a firm desire to grab him and make him be serious when he saw Cadet Cole slacking off. Felt like it was somehow wasting his time.
Didn’t like that either. Couldn’t explain it. (‘Could you not, my wee skola?’ Catillia would ask, even though he would have told her to fuck off by now (she wouldn’t, of course – since when did she listen to him?)).
But really, even that wasn’t it. Dominicus had no problem raising up someone he thought could handle more. The problem was, more or less, exactly what Hal had said it was (‘and what was that he called it?’ Catillia would have mused, ‘lack of....focus’) just... not on Hal’s part.
Misery struck him like it had dropped a curtain over the sun. He should simply have appealed to misery to end his earlier agonies, as it was very effective.
Miserably, he swept up his shirt and jacket and took the letter from Catillia out of his pocket for the hundredth time today, and sat in the shade of a tree to read its final paragraphs over again:
...And now that I have passed on all the tiresome news you so exhaustively demanded, I am due my own demands.
You are being very coy, my brother, but do not think I have not noticed – or, rather, have you noticed? You have not asked, but do a good job of asking. Do you know the question already, or must I ask it for you? If you are asking it, must you not already know the answer? For if you are asking me, then you have not found it in your books, and if you haven’t found it in your books, and you’re asking me, then you should already know what I’m going to say. Bulla mea, you must find out! Quit being a coward! It does not become you. I raised you better.
I want to know more of this lazy cadet you hate so much and his strange blue eyes. I think they’re lucky – blue is the Holy Mother’s colour, you know, and that of tragedy. Perhaps if they fix on you so often to be annoying, you should look back – to be annoying, too, of course, my little thistle.
Your many unmarried sisters await your news,
Your best-beloved sister, though we no longer say that in front of Abban,
Catillia
He stared at her signature. The wind blew. The leaves rustled. Shadows moved and deepened and lightened again.
He stuffed the letter back into his jacket, got up, and stalked for the Library.
He hadn’t quite looked for everything in his books yet.