A Stranger to Command

by Sherwood Smith

  So was this foolishness a matter of a sulky big boy who didn’t get the promotion he wanted? Instinct, that nasty tone when Sindan said harvald, king, hinted at more.

  He hesitated, trying to frame his question. He understood pretty much everything now, but he still had trouble expressing himself.

  Dishes clunked on the table. Everyone looked up.

  With a smirking glance Shevraeth’s way, Nermand dropped down onto the bench, Holdan and Gannan on either side. Stad began eating. Baudan turned to skinny Andaun on his other side, and started talking about the foal born that morning. Next to Stad, Vandaus pulled a grubby paper from his pocket, laid it between his and Faldred’s plates, and the two began studying.

  Shevraeth bent over his food, but his attention was not on it. He was aware, for the first time in days, of the clatter of the broad, shallow wooden dishes, the high, shrill small-boy voices at one end contrasting with the deeper, raspy burr of the teens at the others. The girls’ light voices, behind and to the left, were barely discernable. There were fewer than a hundred girls, and something like four hundred boys.

  When the meal was done, Shevraeth waited until Vandaus finished, then stepped next to him in line to clean and stack their dishes. Vandaus and the other new boy, Faldred, read all the time, either books or papers. Vandaus had said on the second day, in a matter-of-fact voice, that he meant to be a desk jockey to a Jarl. Faldred looked like a Marloven version of Shevraeth—tall, weedy, gray-eyed, with pale hair, and very quiet. He had made that palm-up gesture of agreement, and no one seemed to think anything of it. Those two, if anyone, would know the regulations binding the academy.

  “Is there a reg for hair?” Shevraeth asked Vandaus, as Faldred ran off on some errand.

  Sure enough, Vandaus didn’t look surprised. He swiped a thick swatch of rust-tinged hair out of his eyes in an absent gesture. “No.” He paused, brow wrinkling slightly as he considered. “No. I don’t think it’s ever come up. Everyone arrives with short hair, which has been the military cut since my greatfathers’ days. Though for a while a couple generations ago, and for hundreds of years much longer ago, mounted warriors wore horsetails. To mark ’em apart. But no longer. The horsetails are real ones. On the helms of cavalry.”

  “Thanks,” Shevraeth said, and Vandaus loped off in the direction Faldred had gone.

  Shevraeth walked more slowly. If anyone had asked, he would have cut his hair. He didn’t care if it was long or short. Hair grew.

  But he would not cut it at the orders of a bully.

  SIX

  The afternoon was spent first in grappling, and then Janold took their barracks to one of the empty courts hard against the wall dividing them off from the lower school. From beyond the wall came the high-pitched yells of small boys busy at some game, punctuated by laughter and insults.

  Janold set them to sparring so he could assess everyone’s progress.

  Shevraeth watched closely, aware of looks his way from some, but no one said anything outside of Nermand’s muttered, “You running to Sindan’s rein?”

  “No.”

  Shevraeth turned away, reaching for the cracked, dusty padded gear they all put on before handling wooden swords.

  Nermand glanced aside. Janold was busy watching a match between Mondar and Alrec, calling encouragements, hits, and criticisms.

  Nermand licked his lips. “Then you’re gonna take a stroll, outlander.” His usual scowl changed to a nasty grin of anticipation.

  Shevraeth knew by now that take a stroll was slang for sneaking behind the second and third-year senior barracks, where most of the scrapping took place.

  He looked at Nermand in disgust, then remembered his mother’s admonition. So he said only, “Your turn.” And he indicated Alrec and Mondar, who were just finishing.

  The rumble of thunder in the distance caused skyward glances. Clouds moved northward, making the glare especially white and intense. But there was no immediate threat of rain, so Janold shrugged and pointed at two more boys.

  Everyone was sweat-drenched, hot, thirsty, and tired when the mess bell rang for dinner. Shevraeth followed behind the others, keeping a slow pace as boys raced into the passage from various practice courts.

  He was surrounded by a swarm of ten and eleven-year- olds. Gannan did not see Shevraeth among the crowd as he bustled up to Nermand. “Sindan jumped Lennac.”

  “Where? When?”

  “Right after noon mess. Behind the stable.”

  Nermand gasped, and Shevraeth thought, Against both sets of rules, the visible and the invisible ones.

  “Dol says Master Blackeye found Lennac—”

  “Did Lennac rat?”

  Gannan snorted. “Of course not. Fall from a horse.”

  “Why’d Sindan jump Lennac?” Nermand asked eagerly.

  Gannan glanced around to make sure they weren’t being overheard. Nermand also turned around. When they saw Shevraeth their excitement smoothed into the usual smirk, then they ran, Gannan whispering.

  That night in their barracks Nermand stalked down the aisle between the beds and confronted Shevraeth. “You gonna cut your hair?” he asked loudly.

  Shevraeth ached all over. He knew he’d be rising all too soon for yet another grueling day. The hot flash of anger he knew was mostly tiredness, so he stayed silent as Nermand sidled glances left and right. Everybody was still.

  “Are you?”

  “No.”

  “Then you’re gonna stroll.”

  “No.” Shevraeth did not raise his voice, unlike Nermand.

  Nermand licked his chapped, chewed lips as he furtively looked to either side. Now Shevraeth could put emotion to his expression and stance. Nermand was looking for support.

  No one interfered, though they all listened.

  “You’re a coward.” Nermand poked a finger at Shevraeth, without quite touching him.

  The heat of anger flashed much hotter this time. Shevraeth maintained his breathing, concentrating on the court mask. When he could trust his voice to remain even and polite, he said, “You just go ahead and embrace that thought if it pleases you.”

  At home that would have caused the fight Nermand was obviously spoiling for, but here the others looked puzzled, except for Stad, who snickered. That broke the stillness; Baudan grinned as he undressed for bed. Others resumed motion.

  Nermand hesitated, glaring at the newcomer, who did not make any kind of sense. Was he a coward, or wasn’t he? Why was he here? What else was going to change, and for the worse?

  “You’re a coward,” he said louder. To make it absolutely clear even to a stupid foreigner, he added, “And it makes us all look bad.”

  Again the foreigner didn’t react any of the ways Nermand understood. No threats, no shoves (and he was braced, Gannan behind him, breathing hard, as support), nor did he look afraid. Or give in.

  Instead he swung around, his shirt in his hand. “Stad. Do you think you look bad?”

  Stad waggled a hand.

  Shevraeth lifted his head. “Evrec?”

  Evrec, who had the bed directly across, turned over and buried his face in his pillow.

  “Baudan?”

  Baudan wrinkled his snub nose and gave a pig-snort of disgust. “See me sweating? Shut up, Nermand.”

  Shevraeth glanced down the row of beds on his side of the aisle, and met the eyes of bony, red-haired Marec. “You?”

  Marec said, “I hate Sindan.”

  It was not an answer that Shevraeth understood, but several of the boys made little movements of involuntary agreement. Once again he’d missed a clue—but right now, the important thing was that Nermand wasn’t getting the backup he so obviously wanted.

  When Janold’s step sounded in the little hallway outside the room Nermand flung himself away.

  Janold paused in the doorway, eyes narrowing. “Lights out.”

  o0o

  Next morning, when their session was almost over, Senelac looked into Shevraeth’s tight face, and against her bette
r judgment said, “Are you—”

  He whirled around. For the first time she saw him express a normal human emotion.

  As usual, it was anger. In her experience, the first thing you saw out of stone-faces was always anger. Maybe laughter being second.

  “No.” His melodious accent was quite strong. “I am not going to cut my hair.”

  She laughed. “I was going to ask if you were aware of what’s galling Sindan’s saddle.”

  “So you know about it, too.”

  “Everyone knows everything about Sindan Hotears. He makes sure everyone knows what he wants. I want to hear your side.”

  Shevraeth let out his breath. “Then you’d know if whatever it was he did to this Lennac yesterday, whom I do not know, had anything to do with me?”

  Senelac rubbed her hand across her grimy brow. “It’s more that everything has to do with the academy. Or more like, the king. See, promotion is supposed to be on merit. Not on family. Sindan’s family, which is an old one, was tight with the Regent. Sindan was named for him. In the Regent’s day, they pretended it was merit, but it wasn’t. Now it is. The king made Ret Forthan, whose family’s mostly farm people, Thanar Valdlav. Everyone including Sindan knows Forthan is smart, fast, strong. A leader. But—” She shook her head, aware she was saying too much to this foreigner. It was one thing to be ashamed of the way things used to be under the Regent, and it was quite another to expose those things to outsiders.

  Shevraeth said, “Tell me this. Did Lennac really fall off a horse?”

  Her face changed. “No. Of course not. That’s what—”

  “Tell me. Please. Nothing makes sense.” Again his emotions—his frustration—was clear.

  It was that plain human emotion that prompted her to say, “It’s what we say when the masters ask. Because we try to solve our problems ourselves. Aren’t we here to learn to command?”

  Shevraeth looked pained. “So let me get this straight. Lennac did not tell the authorities, an action that protected a bully. Who broke the rules. Not only the real rules, your regs, as you call them. But these w—” He bit off the word weird. “These unwritten other rules, concerning the fist fights behind the upper level senior barracks, which incidentally are also against regs. But no one does anything about them, and that’s part of learning command?”

  His long-suppressed feelings made him sarcastic, and he saw as soon as it was out that sarcasm was a mistake. Senelac’s expression tightened from interest to reserve.

  “I don’t know,” she said, pleasantly enough. But her tone, her face, her entire countenance made it clear the subject was closed. “Wasn’t there. See you tomorrow.”

  Shevraeth turned away, feeling a sudden brief, violent urge to smash something.

  No one would talk, that was clear enough. Well, he thought as he ran toward the mess for breakfast, he supposedly was to have an interview with the king. Who was just another boy. I’ll ask him. Anger flaring through him once more, he vowed, And the next idiot who asks if I’m cutting my hair will get a fist for his pains. Not behind the barracks, or behind anywhere. Right then and there, and see if he tells anyone he fell off a horse.

  o0o

  But no one asked him anything over the next three days.

  The last of the storms departed, leaving summer weather upon them at last, with an unrelenting strength that left them all limp and weary at day’s end, grateful if Janold let them go to the baths. These were like baths anywhere else, huge stone pools fed by diverted spring water, only there was no magic heating them. The cold water was refreshing. Houses only got to visit the baths if they did not earn House defaulters for the day.

  Gradually Shevraeth found himself closing inside his own head, so that third night he was not particularly wary or even interested when Gannan, Nermand’s other crony, muttered before lights out, “Messenger for you in the court.”

  Messenger? Maybe it was the king. At last was Shevraeth’s first thought, and his hand fell away from his sash, which he’d been about to untie. He shoved his feet into his boots and dashed for the door.

  Stad called, “Shevraeth! Wait, Janold’s not—”

  But by then it was too late.

  Before he’d gone five paces into the darkness beyond the door hard hands seized him. He started to fight, to be yanked off balance by someone much bigger and stronger. From inside the barracks behind him came a confusion of muffled yells that abruptly stopped.

  The rough hands shoved him out of the barracks courtyard and into the stone passage. He resisted with all his strength. The only sounds were the scrape of heels on stone, and heavy breathing. He smelled the sharp sweat of older boys.

  Someone flung him against a wall. Stars flared across his vision, leaving him gasping. He was propelled farther into the passage. He fell painfully to his hands and knees, rolled to his feet as he’d been so recently trained, and glared at Sindan, who was faintly lit by the ruddy, beating light of the torches high on the castle walls.

  Sindan pulled a knife from his sash, its steel shining blue in the moonlight, watermarks rippling. “Kneel. I’m going to cut your hair. Free to all foreigners.”

  Muffled snickers from the circle: five, six voices. No chance, no chance at all.

  “No,” Shevraeth said.

  The fist seemed to come out of nowhere. Again sparks flared across his vision, but he launched himself, with all his pent-up anger, emotion, even isolation, taking his assailant by surprise.

  He bore Sindan backward. They crashed to the worn stone ground in a tangle of arms and legs, to the sound of muffled whoops from the watchers. But that was the last good blow he got in.

  Sindan might not be the best in the academy but he was stronger, faster, and far better trained than Shevraeth, not to mention much bigger. Blow after blow sent red flowers of pain blooming through Shevraeth’s body, punctuated by Sindan’s breathless, husky voice: “Kneel.”

  “No.”

  After five or six repetitions, Shevraeth’s lips were too numb and he couldn’t speak.

  “Kneel.”

  He shook his head. Mistake. Shards of bright color blinded him, followed by floating black spots. He staggered to his feet, though the world reeled so violently he wasn’t quite sure he was standing any longer. His teeth all felt loose, he couldn’t seem to move his left arm. But he made it to his feet.

  Smash! He didn’t even feel himself landing on the stones again.

  “Kneel.”

  Anger alone enabled him to roll over, get one foot under him, his one good hand on the ground. His body shivered; the world tilted and whirled.

  Distant noise. Buzzing, keening in his head. Nothing made sense, nothing except the whisper, “They’re coming.”

  “Get him down.”

  He was trying again to stand when the hands gripped his arms and legs and flung him face down to the stones. Then pressed him flat. Still he fought, though his movements were little more than wriggles, and the grip on him far less severe.

  One vicious hand yanked his head back by his ponytail, and the other sawed hard at his hair next to his scalp. Then the tail of hair gave and his chin struck the stones.

  The hands lifted away from his arms and legs, and he was aware of the urgent need to pee. He had enough consciousness left to whisper the Waste Spell that everyone learns at age two, and the pressure in his bladder eased. Then darkness took away all the pain.

  Not for long. Not nearly for long enough. Hands gripped him again, but not cruel. He was sick, dizzy, couldn’t get his feet to move, wanted to be left alone, but hands insistently bore him somewhere, until at last, oh, at last he lay flat on a bed. Voices buzzed, whispered, whirling slowly with the world.

  Whispers, a cool cloth on his face, and someone else gave him a gift more precious than kingdoms, trickling cold water between his bruised lips. He sucked it down, choked, and the water withdrew.

  The voices withdrew.

  No. The voices silenced.

  Light pressed against his eyelids, a
nd he heard breathing. A man’s low voice. Low. Kind. But urgent. “What happened?”

  A man? So far, men had never entered the barracks. They stayed in the training courts and fields.

  Shevraeth made the greatest effort of his life and opened his eyes. Despite the slowly revolving world he made out Stad standing at attention, a water mug in his hand. A bruise was forming on his temple and his clothes were all awry. Next to him stood Baudan with the cloth. Ventdor wiped a cut on his own cheek; Vandaus held the water pitcher. All at attention, all looking at Shevraeth with the same expression of shock and anxiety.

  Seated on Stad’s bed was an older man. Graying. In a black uniform with a thin gold stripe down the trouser seam that vanished into high blackweave boots. “I am Commander Keriam,” this man said slowly, leaning toward Shevraeth. “Can you speak? Tell me what happened to you?”

  When Shevraeth tried to lift his head, more black spots swam across his vision, but he still saw details: Stad’s white knuckles gripping the mug. Baudan’s flickering glance of apprehension at the commander.

  Shevraeth worked his lips. The water had helped, at least enough for him to draw a shallow breath. What could he say? Try asking Sindan.

  Or You people are savages.

  Or, most compelling of all, I want to go home.

  But my father sent me here. There is something I must learn.

  He heard Senelac’s low, soft voice: We try to solve our problems ourselves. Aren’t we here to learn to command?

  He said, “Fell. Off. Horse.”

  SEVEN

  Three days later, Shevraeth painfully retrieved pen and paper.

  Russav: It’s Restday at the end of my third week, and I’m alone here, with plenty of time—

  Shevraeth dipped his pen, hesitated, and while the ink slowly beaded on the end into a tiny black tear, he thought, Plenty of time, but I don’t want to write. Rather tell you. What I come back to is that my father sent me here for a reason. Two reasons—training and statecraft. The second is a wash, but the first—