A Stranger to Command

by Sherwood Smith

  The ink was about to drip. He used it to scribble out the line he’d written, though the exertion made his ribs ache. He shoved the pen and paper down into his open trunk, lay flat for three breaths, then forced himself upright again. He capped the ink bottle, dropped it into the trunk and flipped the lid shut. Time to rest again.

  Next he’d force himself out of bed to shove the trunk back under, though he still had sweat on his forehead from the effort it had taken to pull it out.

  “Nothing broken,” the healer had said, that first night.

  “Sindan! That Norsundrian soulsucker’s always known exactly how far he can run,” Baudan had said after the man’s departure. “Never breaks bones. Trouble in that. Always barely short of it.”

  Shevraeth’s jaw had been tingling too much for him to speak, or he would have said, “You could have fooled me.” But the healer had done some kind of sealing spell to hold his loose teeth in his jaw so they could heal naturally. The ache didn’t lessen any, unless he drank hot, extra-strong brewed listerblossom, but at least he wouldn’t be gap-mouthed when he returned home.

  He’d slept through two days and two nights.

  Shevraeth waggled his jaw experimentally, then closed his teeth. Yes, much better, even if his ribs still ached. Ribs and arms and legs and skull.

  But they weren’t broken, he reminded himself. So next day he’d ride.

  Having resolved that, he wondered if he should try to sleep again when he heard noise outside the open windows, the racket of footsteps and yelling voices. The boys in his barracks ran in, smelling of grass, sweat, and clammy cotton. They took turns dashing through the cleaning frame. Shevraeth watched the faint scintillation of magic as each boy shot through, and some flung themselves on their bunks. Others went for the water pitcher and mugs, chattering about classes. All except Gannan and Nermand, who were generally ignored. Several others crowded around Shevraeth’s bunk.

  “Bored?” Stad asked, sitting on his own bunk. As far as Shevraeth could remember, it was the first time Stad had ever addressed him first.

  “Oh, no,” Evrec retorted, flinging his thin, pale hair out of his eyes. “Everyone loves being stuck flat with nothing to do.”

  “I wouldn’t mind three days of rack time.” Alrec yawned.

  “Apply to the Watch House. They’ll dust your togs.” Stad whacked his arm in a brushing gesture. “As long as you are small and alone, of course.” The emendation caused general laughter.

  Watch House. Shevraeth had paid little attention to the ever-changing references to the various barracks, other than learning that his was officially known as Southeast, and their grubby flag featured a brown square at the southeast corner of the gray squares. Nicknames for the barracks had changed rapidly over the first few days.

  But it seemed like Watch House was settling in as permanent nickname for Sindan’s barracks, which was officially termed Senior South. If three days could be a sign of permanence. It was a typically Marloven sort of joke, too. Shevraeth had been informed by a gleeful Marec the day after Sindan’s attack, “At morning callover Zheirban said that since the academy is getting so clumsy it cannot seem to get from one place to another at night without falling down, there will be roaming sentry duty for a month, from night bells to dawn, and Senior South will serve all the watches.”

  Baudan had added triumphantly, “They get to divide up the time, but everyone to serve. Every night.”

  “You know what that means,” Stad had added, chortling. “That means no one, not one single one of ’em, is gonna get a full night’s sleep for a whole month.”

  “The entire House,” Vandaus said, with his quiet, pensive smile.

  “Won’t they love that,” Stad had drawled, causing a general gloat: high, hooting laughter.

  Then the four boys glared at the other end of the dormitory, where Nermand and Gannan sat on the latter’s bunk playing cards. The two were apparently unaware of everyone else ignoring them—even Holdan. Gannan and Nermand hadn’t told Holdan beforehand that they’d agreed to be Sindan’s messenger boys for the scrag. Holdan hadn’t said anything to anyone, but they all had seen how he utterly ignored Nermand and Gannan.

  Stad gave Shevraeth an uncharacteristic look, uncertain. Tentative. “You’re sitting up,” he observed, an obvious statement that Shevraeth figured had to be prelude to something else.

  Baudan smacked Stad in the arm, jerking his chin toward Shevraeth. “Want one of us to even it up in back?”

  “It?” Shevraeth realized they meant his hair. He almost laughed, but it hurt too much. “I don’t care. I don’t have to see it.”

  “We do,” Evrec said, pulling a face.

  They laughed more than the stupid joke warranted, their manners a little too off-hand, or too intent, and Shevraeth understood that he’d changed status. Even though he’d lost a fight. No, it didn’t even get far enough to be a fight. He’d been scragged, like the untrained foreigner he was.

  His head hurt too much to think it out, but again he followed instinct, and said, “Sure. May as well.”

  And saw the corresponding relief in their faces. Not that anyone spoke. In fact the group broke up, the boys except for Stad going about their business. Stad had found a very sharp knife somewhere, against the rules. Unless again there was complicit permission from on high.

  Shevraeth was seeing his second Marloven dagger. It was beautifully made, slightly curved at the tip, as if to be used from horseback. Stad reached behind Shevraeth and tugged a little, making quick, even saws that testified to the extreme sharpness of that blade. Then he stood back, Marec made a flat-handed sign of approval, and Stad took away hair and knife. Now Shevraeth’s hair was orderly and flat, making him look like everyone else.

  The mess bell rang, and the boys clattered out again, leaving Shevraeth alone.

  Janold himself brought a tray of food, his manner slightly less grim than it had been the first few days.

  Seeing that Shevraeth was awake (which he hadn’t been the first three days Janold brought in food) the radlav set down the tray at the foot of the bed then squatted down beside it. “I’m sorry I got blindsided.”

  Shevraeth thought back. “You were gone.”

  Janold grimaced. “False message. Should have smoked a ruse as soon as Nermand spoke, but I didn’t stop to think. Just ran all the way to the first barn, to discover that Master Voln hadn’t sent for me. There was no alarm. He wasn’t even there.”

  Shevraeth was intensely relieved that the radlav had brought up the subject. So talking about it couldn’t be breaking some unbroken rule, as he’d feared. “What happened in here? I heard noise.”

  He’d waited for the others to bring it up, and they’d waited for him. Though they’d done what they could, in fumbling, furtive ways, to make up for their having been tricked by Sindan, Shevraeth did not know them well enough to see the signs. Nor could they understand his foreign mannerisms.

  Janold rubbed his chin, his regret plain. Most of the time he seemed so old and tough, but right now the three years’ difference in their ages diminished to nothing.

  The barracks was Janold’s responsibility, and he knew he’d failed Shevraeth. If he’d said something to the foreigner at the outset, Sindan wouldn’t have found him so easy a target in his quarrel with the king. “Sindan sent five of his pals in here to hold the House when you went out. Baudan got sat on. Stad tried to run to your aid. Got knocked on his butt. Though I’m told Hunker Rand took a kick in the crackers first.” He laughed briefly. “Ventdor and Marec also tried to run to your aid, and got turfed. The rest stayed put.” His tone lowered, and Shevraeth realized he was apologizing for them.

  Shevraeth drew in a slow breath. He was still far from understanding everything, but he sensed that more had changed than he’d first assumed. So he turned his palm up in the Marloven gesture that he was pretty sure meant assent, then picked up his spoon.

  That seemed to be the right response. Janold looked relieved, and stood up. “Need anythi
ng else?”

  “I wouldn’t mind one of your history books.” Shevraeth carefully took a bite. His jaw still ached.

  Janold said in a lower, gruffer voice, “About Nermand. Gannan. It’s up to you, when we ungate ’em from Norsunder.”

  Norsunder? At home, you didn’t make such light reference to Norsunder, it was considered at the very least impolite. Some said it was dangerous, that the Host of Lords, the mysterious and powerful mages who lived beyond time in Norsunder, were always on the watch. You never wanted to draw their unsleeping eyes.

  What was polite and not polite seemed to be different here, but one thing was clear: Norsunder was still the timeless enemy.

  And so ‘gating to Norsunder’ had to be slang for being shunned by community will. Not physically, but by a deliberate silence. Not only did everyone avoid Nermand and Gannan, they didn’t seem to hear if the two spoke.

  More invisible rules.

  How to answer the question? Impulse formed words: As long as my teeth ache. Then he remembered his promise to his mother. He struggled internally, not believing that any act of kindness at all toward bullies, random or not, would do any good in the world.

  But a promise was a promise.

  “Don’t gate ’em on my account,” he muttered.

  Surprise widened Janold’s eyes. He opened one hand in a brief gesture. “See what I can do about a suitable book.” Five quick steps and he was gone.

  o0o

  Shevraeth made it to the barn before dawn.

  Senelac was there, overseeing the longe-line training of some young horses. She stopped, and with furrowed brow took one look at his slow, stiff walk. Then she ran to him, making shooing motions with her hands. “Don’t even think you’re getting onto the back of one of my—of our horses. You’ll upset ’em all.”

  He let out his breath. “Mostly came. To see if I could do it. Get out of the rack for a time, without—” He groped.

  “Fuss,” she finished, giving him a wry smile. “Well, I can understand that. Here. Come inside. Sit. I happen to have some listerblossom all fresh-brewed for one of the girls who took a bad fall yesterday.”

  He followed her to a small room adjacent the tack room, where there were some comfortable old chairs, a table, a tiny fireplace. The listerblossom was still warm, faintly steaming, and the morning was not yet hot enough to make that an unpleasant sight.

  She poured out a mug, then sat opposite Shevraeth. “They evened it up nice.” She flicked a curling black lock of her hair that lay against her cheekbone. “You look like one of us now.” She chortled. “Trade for trade. Sindan is gated. Whole academy.”

  “Would have cut my hair the first day, if someone had told me I should.”

  “Then it would have been something else. But hair was easy. You stood out.” She turned her hand over, a gesture he’d seen a few times, but as yet could not quite interpret. “No one knew if you had some kind of toff custom, wearing your hair long.”

  “Toff meaning it was assumed I was...” He hesitated, then used some of their slang. “I was on the swank? Even though I’ve been doing everything everyone else does.”

  “Meaning maybe it was for the king or Commander Keriam to pass down word.” Her smile went wry again. “As for you, well, you dress like us, and you even look a lot like us, but you don’t...” She twitched, hands shaping air. “Don’t move like us,” she finished. “And you’re that accent.”

  He drank more, not wanting to ask what he moved like. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, especially after he’d been trying so hard to fit in.

  He lowered the cup, and jerked his head irritably, despite how much it hurt. Already he hated short hair, how the top part would fall in his eyes if he leaned forward. But he knew it would train back eventually. Everyone else’s did. “I didn’t know I stood out. No mirrors here. At least in our barracks.”

  “Mirrors?” Senelac tipped her head to the side, and Shevraeth wondered if the girls didn’t have mirrors any more than the boys did. Well, it made sense. In this kingdom everyone seemed to dress alike, either in uniforms or similar garments. She shrugged, then grinned. “I’ll bet the others haven’t told you what they’re calling your barracks.”

  Shevraeth said, “No.”

  “Ponytail House.”

  He looked puzzled.

  She laughed, seeing the unhidden confusion in his face. “It’s partly a snap of the fingers under the seniors’ noses, see. Because they didn’t rein in Sindan. But it’s also a ref to the past.” She paused and when he shook his head, she said, “Way, way back. In our empire days, you see. The warriors wore their hair in what was called horsetails. The senior boys were ponytails. But when you first came to the academy, they cut your hair, and you were in.... Well, maybe it still doesn’t make sense. Especially if long hair has some kind of meaning where you come from.”

  “Fashion. And habit.” With two fingers he made a quick, airy arc in matter-no-meaning mode.

  She smiled; those movements of his were impossible to interpret, but they were kind of pretty. “The boys might not have understood you, but they did understand your back of the hand at orders from Sindan Hotears.” She laughed as she held up the back of her hand in the direction of the boys’ senior barracks.

  The subject was not only old, it made him uneasy. What could he shift to? History? As yet he’d only parsed a single paragraph in the one Janold brought for him, as he’d first had to get Vandaus to write out the Marloven alphabet for him. Leffain had not taught him to read it.

  She put her chin on her hands. “What are you thinking?”

  He looked up in muted surprise. “About your alphabet.”

  “Ah. It’s your stone face... reminds me of someone.” She laughed softly. “Like him, you look human first when you get mad. And when you laugh. But you’re a little more expressive now.”

  The conversation had turned strange, or maybe it was his light-headedness from his first walk, and the strong listerblossom brew. “I don’t even know the words in your language. It’s how we’re raised. We call it at home the court mask.”

  Senelac shook her head. “I don’t know any other languages. Though the king speaks a bundle of ’em.”

  And Shevraeth said, “Is he your other stone face? Your king?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Oh yes. How did you know that? It probably saved his life—but it also got him into trouble.” She paused, dropped her hands onto the table, and gazed down at her palms, her straight brows furrowed. “I used to be a stable runner. In the Regent’s day. He wouldn’t let girls here. All we could be was servants and runners. But we all had to assemble for punishments. Once he had the entire castle assemble when he had the king caned. Not just welters, but weepers.” She rubbed her fingers together, and Shevraeth realized, with intense revulsion, that she meant blood. “Kept trying to break him, but he kept that face right to—” Abruptly she stopped, and stood up. “Here I am blabbing away, and work is a-waiting. Don’t come back until you can sit a horse.”

  She walked out.

  Puzzle-clues. Everything was a clue, but as yet he didn’t have the pieces to give him the sense of the entire puzzle.

  One thing was clear. He had somehow slipped in, as Senelac had put it. That meant inside the community. Before he’d been outside. Not shunned—‘gated to Norsunder’—not when he’d been invited by their king. But the king had not intervened since that very first day, which meant that aura of royal protection no longer held him apart. Instead his own actions had brought him in, whereas Sindan, who officially had done nothing and so officially could not be punished, was apparently being shunned by everyone else for stepping outside of those invisible rules. The particular verb for scrag the others used (only once in his hearing) he would translate as slang for several against one.

  So the rules worked. Visible—and invisible.

  He shook his head over the world’s strangeness, then his thoughts moved to what Senelac had told him about King Senrid. In Marloven, Senrid-Harval
dar—the ‘ar’ being added when used more formally. This king was his own age, or near, wore the court mask, and spoke a bundle of languages.

  Shevraeth very much wanted to meet him.

  EIGHT

  But as time picked up its normal rhythm again, Shevraeth wondered if he was ever going to have that interview with Senrid-Harvaldar.

  The others now included him in general talk. It wasn’t obvious. He hadn’t been gated, before. Gating was deliberate. The others had sort of lived around him, as if he was a tree on the path, or a rock in the stream. Now he found himself part of the constant flow.

  Vandaus, the serious, scholarly boy, looked about one evening. Stad wasn’t present. He said, “I think Stad’s in command class.”

  Scoffing noises filled the air. “He’s over at the stable, nights, is all. Half the new stock were from his family’s horse stud.” Baudan jerked a vague thumb. “He knows most of the horses. I bet you anything he’s over there with the girls, longe-lining the yearlings.”

  Vidanric said, “Command class?”

  “It’s hand picked,” Marec explained. “You have to be invited. We think it’s held at night, when everyone has rec, so nobody knows who really goes and who doesn’t. Only the seniors get invited.”

  “Ri-i-i-i-ight.” Holdan drew the word out. “No first-year colt’s ever gone to command class.”

  “So you say,” Baudan retorted. He didn’t believe that Stad was at the castle with the seniors, but he was annoyed with Holdan’s derision. “Everyone says Forthan was in it his very first year here.”

  “Wait.” Shevraeth put down his cup. “Isn’t learning command the purpose of this academy?”

  Everyone looked blank. Then Faldred, the other new boy, said seriously, “There is a command class above the academy, you could say. It’s by invitation from Commander Keriam, and you’re not allowed to talk about it if they have you in. But it’s only for those they think will be wing commanders and above. The rest of us will be desk jockeys, like me and Baudan here, or garrison commanders. They’ll be at the top.”