by M. A. Ray
After a long silence, the man said, very quietly: “The shame of it! Vandis beats you.”
“What?”
“I might have known he’d teach you fear before respect.”
Dingus gaped. “Vandis wouldn’t! He’d never—”
“I’m not surprised he’d attempt to instill discipline with the flat of his hand,” the man said, as if Dingus hadn’t spoken, “though clearly he’s failed, since you’re wandering about at night and offering violence to another Master.”
“I have to go!” he blurted, he didn’t care where, anywhere but here. He took a full pace back, and another.
“Don’t take another step away from me.” The tall man closed the distance Dingus had won himself. “You come along now.” He seized a fistful of Dingus’s cloak.
Dingus jerked away. “I’ll come with you! I’ll come! I’ll do what you say, I promise, just don’t fucking touch me!”
The man’s nostrils flared. He thrust his finger to Dingus’s left—not, absolutely not, the way he wanted to go. “Walk ahead. I want to be able to see that you don’t run.”
Dingus obeyed. The tall man followed him in stony silence, and the lantern threw its trembling shadows, adding to his dread. They walked toward a big, firelit hollow in the forest about a quarter-mile away, a low spot where the trees had been cleared. This was the hollow Vandis had told him he wasn’t allowed into during the Moot, where the Masters had fellowship; he knew it from the sounds of talking coming through the trees, and he stopped outside, at the edge.
“Go in,” the tall man said.
“But I’m not supposed to—”
“Do as you’re told.”
He took a shuddery breath. At least Vandis was in there. He slunk in through the trees, disgusted with himself for letting this guy push him around. Why couldn’t he just say no? The clearing was shaped like a big, shallow bowl, with a bonfire in the middle. Cups and bottles and kegs littered the long table, benches, and chairs set all around. Pipe smoke hung in the air. “Having fellowship” seemed to be code for “getting drunk and trading stories.” Or, in a few cases—he averted his eyes—swapping spit.
There, near the middle, near the big fire: Vandis, sitting with three other guys about his age on folding stools. Santo was there too. They were all talking and laughing and drinking. The sight of Vandis’s granite profile slowed his heart—but not much. He saw Vandis catch sight of him and immediately rise. His Master’s eyes flicked over his shoulder and narrowed, ever so slightly.
“Vandis, do you really intend to have this boy stand Trials?” the tall man bit off, before they’d even stopped.
“As a matter of fact, Reed, I do.” Vandis looked calm—mostly. “Dingus is seventeen, and by my standards he’s qualified to take a crack at it.”
“With all due respect,” the man said, with absolutely none, “you may need to re-evaluate your standards.”
Vandis folded his arms across his chest. “My standards are the same for every kid who stands Trials. Dingus is more than qualified in all three areas.”
“And yet he utterly lacks both respect and discipline—but I suppose I needn’t expect that you’d understand them,” Reed said. He loomed over Vandis just then, enough to make Dingus itch, even though he spoke with apparent ease. “Nor,” he went on, “would I expect you to understand that Knighthood can’t be thrashed into a boy.”
“Hey, fuck you! You’re the one went to hit me!” Dingus said, and Reed rounded on him with a frozen look.
“That’s the second time you’ve used foul language in addressing me. If you were my Squire, you’d be scrubbing bedpans for a—”
“Yeah, Dingus, this party is classy as fuck. You’d better watch that shitty language,” Vandis told him, and Dingus bit his lip to keep from laughing. “Reed, did you raise your hand to my Squire?”
Reed’s eyes dug into Dingus again. “Boy, I meant to raise your chin when you wouldn’t meet my eye, not to strike you.” He swung his look to Vandis. “A telling misinterpretation, don’t you think?”
“You did go to—”
“I am speaking to your Master,” Reed said. “I offered you no violence whatsoever, and you offered it to me.”
“That’s a flat lie! All I did was stop you fucking hitting me!”
“I can’t imagine what you think you’re doing, Vandis. If you don’t discipline him for running wild after nightfall, or his abominable cursing and lack of respect for the both of us, what in the world could you possibly be doing it for?”
Vandis shook his head, slowly, and when he spoke again it was his cold, mean voice, his Vandis-fucking-Vail voice. “I hear you, Reed, and what I’m hearing is full of shit. Do you seriously think seven years with Old Man Dingus taught me nothing about how to treat my own Squire?”
“On the contrary. I think Old Man Dingus taught you everything you know.”
Swelling, Vandis stared at Reed, his most terrible gaze. Quietly, he said, “You’re lucky, Reed. If this were twenty years ago, I’d be thrashing your ass this very minute.”
“Typical!” Reed threw his hands up. “Typical Vandis! Your Squire was wandering after nightfall. I called him to account and you’re angry with me.”
“All right,” Vandis ground out, and he turned to Dingus. “Where were you?”
“Up Baldhead, Vandis.”
“I didn’t know you’d gone outside the valley.” Dingus looked at the ground, and Vandis went on. “You didn’t ask my permission to do that, and I suspect it’s because you knew I’d tell you no. I appreciate your desire for space, but I want your word that you won’t do it again unless you’re told to.”
“Yes, Vandis, you have it.”
Vandis nodded at him, and then turned back to Reed. “See?” he demanded. “It’s that fucking easy, Reed. No hitting. No yelling—and I know Dingus won’t go back on his word to me, because despite the fact that he’s as common as I am, despite the fact that he’s a jumpy kid because of a past a dog wouldn’t envy, at the very core Dingus is a Knight, and he doesn’t break faith.”
“If we coddle children because of their pasts, if we deny correct discipline based on—”
“Dingus is about as far from ‘coddled’ as you can get and still be alive, and I think you’ve made it your business to dig that up. If you’d come here more interested in speaking up for him than you were in using him to get at me, I might’ve been a little more willing to listen to you.” Vandis leaned down and picked up a bottle from next to his folding stool. “As it is, either you have a drink with me and we’ll put it behind us, or you take your judgmental bullshit out of my sight.”
For a heartbeat, Reed stared down his nose at Vandis. “And if neither of those is acceptable to me?”
“Then I’ll tell you to fuck off. We’re too old for this.”
Reed spun on his heel and stalked out of the clearing.
Santo snorted. “You oughtta hand him his ass again, Vandis, you wanna know what I think.”
“Don’t tempt me, Santo.” Vandis laughed slightly and sat down, uncorking his bottle. “We’re not sixteen anymore, or even twenty-five. It’d be inappropriate. Besides, we need him. I don’t care if he runs down Temple Row nude singing ‘hey nonny nonny’! He’s a damned fine physician.”
Santo snorted again. “You can’t defend a guy runs around scaring the pants off Squires.”
“Hard to blame him,” Vandis said, and took a long swig. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Never met a kid who looked so much like trouble.”
“I’m sorry, Vandis,” Dingus mumbled, feeling as stupid as Reed probably thought he was. “Good night.”
Vandis grinned, full and devious. “I didn’t say you were trouble. I just said you look like it. Stay away from him if you can. He hates me.”
“I didn’t mean to cause trouble. I just didn’t want him to hit me.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Vandis waved it away. “If you run across him again, make it yes, Sir Reed, no, Sir Reed.”
> “Yes, Vandis. Is there anything else?”
“No, you—”
“You haven’t introduced us,” said the small man on Vandis’s right, with his hair caught back in a gray horsetail. He was only a little taller, and a lot slimmer, than Vandis. Vandis shook his head, chuckling again, and started to drink steadily and seriously.
“I know him,” Santo said smugly from Vandis’s left.
“And me and Evan are out in the cold,” said the man next to Santo, beaming a smile out of a neat, grizzled blond beard. He reached out his hand, and Dingus leaned over to clasp wrists. “It’s Dingus, right? I’m Jack Jackowsky, and that there is Evan Grady, and we all go way back with Vandis.”
“Hi.” Dingus clasped wrists with Evan Grady, too, and straightened.
“Come, lad, won’t you sit for a while?” Evan asked.
“I thought—”
“That’s only if you’ve not been invited.” The small Master grinned broadly. “Sit.”
“Cup,” Santo said, sloshing a clay bottle of his own. He waggled his bushy eyebrows.
Vandis held up a hand. “Santo. Come on.”
“What? You were just, not even, I mean, ten minutes ago bragging on him. Don’t that make him old enough? You gimme your cup now, Dingus, and don’t you listen to this old fart.”
“We’re the same age!”
“You’re old at heart,” Santo shot back, and Vandis shook his head and went back to his drinking. Dingus folded his legs under him and handed over the tin cup he’d had hanging from his belt.
“I’ll bet you think Vandis is a five-pound sack of assholes,” Jack Jackowsky said, grinning at him, while Santo poured out a little of whatever they’d been drinking.
“No, sir,” Dingus said.
“Jack.”
“No, Jack. He’s pretty good to me and he don’t, I mean, he doesn’t hit me, never once.”
“I remember when—”
“That fucking Reed,” Vandis said angrily, staring down at the bottle in his hands. “That pomade-smelling piece of shit. I ought to thrash him. Raised his hand to you.”
“Well,” Dingus said. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Looking back on it, I don’t know that he was really gonna—”
“He made you think he would. And then, then he jumped right to the conclusion that I’d been smacking you around!” Vandis’s hard face twisted. His fingers tightened over the clay bottle and for a moment Dingus thought he’d throw it. “I’d never do to you what was done to me. Never. That’s a hell I couldn’t visit on any kid.”
“Old Man Dingus,” Santo explained, when Vandis trailed off. “You think Vandis got a bad temper, hell no, that guy’s legendary. He’s older than dirt, Old Man Dingus, and he’s got a mouth like a sewer, and a chip on his shoulder weighs about ten tons, and pal, he’d work that stick of his over little bitty Vandis like there wasn’t no tomorrow.”
“I wasn’t ‘little bitty’.”
“Yeah, you was. You was a little guy, you still are. But you was littler then. My Master, Fernando was his name. He was the nicest old guy I ever met and you best believe I loved him as much as any boy can love. He always told me, ‘Stay away from that Old Man Dingus, Santo, you stay away from him now.’”
“Shea always told me the same,” Evan said. “She’d give me the back of her hand sharpish if I messed about, but it wasn’t that way.”
Jack grinned again. “And I figured it out on my own after he gave me a taste my second year.”
“Vandis came in late,” Santo went on, handing the cup to Dingus. “We was sixteen then, about sixteen, when the old man picked him up. He don’t always show up for Moot, but when he had Vandis he came. Surprised everybody coming in with this—there wasn’t too much of Vandis back then—he was just this little tobacco plug, moving like an old man himself. Well, he comes on Evan and me. We was playing some dice and we thought we was in for it, but he hooks Vandis with his stick and knocks him down right in front of us.”
“Come on, Santo,” Vandis said, but his heart wasn’t in it. He sounded tired.
“‘This is Vandis,’ he says,” Santo went on, “and then he says, ‘Act right, dumbfuck.’ Well Vandis, he goes, ‘Fuck you,’ and the old man laughs and walks away. And I says to Vandis, ‘Hi.’ I mean, what else was I supposed to say? And he looks at me, and I’m thinking of all the alley cats I ever seen, and then he picks himself up and says, ‘Well that was bullshit, I didn’t even do nothing.’ And he gets this look in his eye and he grins—and then he says, ‘Yet. Listen, I got this idea, you guys up for it?’”
Vandis shook his head and drank again, deeply. “Still don’t know how I convinced you guys to go along with that.”
“Nor do I,” Evan said, “but Lady fair! It was funny. Hieronymus went ’round the rest of the Moot looking surprised on account of us burning his eyebrows off! Though you could’ve let us help you later on, you know.”
“It was my idea. It wasn’t right for you to get punished.”
“We did it, too. You ought to have let us help you build all those bonfires.”
“Everyone was a little cold that year,” Jack said, snickering. Vandis half smiled, staring at nothing and running his thumb around the lip of the clay bottle.
“What about Reed, though?” Dingus asked. He was dying to know, and also to change the subject, because the talk about Old Man Dingus—and wasn’t that a fucked-up coincidence—seemed to depress his Master. “Why’s he hate you so much?”
“I kicked his ass. Twice,” Vandis told him. “Once when I was sixteen, and once when I first got my leaf, right after the old man disappeared over the horizon. He’d hit me if I fought—but Reed. That was the only time he ever beat me in public.”
“That was bad,” Jack said.
“It was, but I gave Reed the business.” The fleeting smile sneaked onto Vandis’s face, and then off again. “I don’t know. He didn’t take after me like that very often. He’d mostly just give me a smack or two, which I deserved, but if I pissed him off enough he’d beat me pretty badly. It wasn’t like what happened to you.” Vandis looked up, right into Dingus’s eyes. “More often than not he’d teach me with the back of his hand, but I’d work hard and he’d say to me, ‘Same again tomorrow, Vandis,’ at night. I liked the work.”
“So do I,” Dingus said, and Vandis laughed.
“I know you do. You’re better by a long mile than I was, too. You’re nothing like me at your age.” His wish that he was like Vandis must’ve shown on his face, because Vandis laughed again, louder. “Trust me. It’s a good thing.”
“He really was a five-pound sack of assholes,” Jack said.
Evan laughed, too. “I never met such a mouthy little prick as Vandis. On and on he’d go, and never stop cracking wise. You were essentially a giant mouth on two short legs—so nothing’s actually changed!”
Vandis sat back on his stool and made a muscle. “Is that so?”
“Oh, it’s so.”
“Hey, I’ve got dirt on you, too, Grady. Most of the dumb shit I did, all three of you were right there doing it with me.”
“Yeah, but it was all your idea,” Santo said. “It got so people’d just yell ‘Vandis Vail, front and center!’ every time something went wrong.”
“Damn, we had fun, though. Remember the itching powder in every piece of Reed’s clothing? He danced divinely,” Vandis said, sweeping an arm out in a courtly gesture.
“What about the firecrackers under the charcoal in the incense burner?”
“I particularly enjoyed the one when we gathered all those bushels of frogs and let them go during the opening feast,” Evan said. “Pearly helped with that one.”
“Dingus, you’re not drinking your drink,” Santo pointed out. “Pearly helped with most of ’em, following Vandis everywhere how she did.”
“The frogs, that was the year after we three had the leaf, and there we were Juniors and we’d have followed a mere Squire to the end of the world, provided he was Vandis.” Ev
an nodded sagely. “We sneaked him into our party and slipped him drinks under the table.”
“He sat there and made noises all night,” Jack said, rolling his eyes. “Ghost noises. Pig noises. Pig-fucking-a-ghost noises, oh Lady.”
Vandis oinked, and all the old guys doubled over laughing. “This is—ha ha!” Vandis lifted a finger as if to shake it at Dingus, and then dissolved again. “Hmm. Ahem. This is not a list of things to try, by the way. This is a cautionary tale. How Not To Behave.”
“You already done it all, what’s the point?” Dingus asked, making his eyes as wide and innocent as he could. “I’d have to come up with something new.”
Evan poured himself another healthy measure. “Good luck, lad! We did it all and then some.”
“Throwing all those boots in the latrine might’ve taken it a little too far, though.” They all cracked up again, and drank. Vandis smiled at Dingus from his stool. “Kid, you’re a lot of great, great things, but devious isn’t one of them. You’re my vengeance on the old man, you know that? He used to wish me a Squire just like I was, but I got you.”
Dingus smiled back. “And I don’t got a lot of reasons to whoop it up.”
“Who needed a reason?” Santo said. “Ferdie was the best Master a guy could ask for and I was still right along with Vandis every time. C’mon, Dingus, drink that.”
“You don’t have to,” Vandis told him.
He looked down into the cup. There wasn’t much in there, but it smelled strong. “What is it?”
Santo tapped his bottle. “Rum. Straight up from Broadriver, best there is. Angus gave me a good deal.”
“What’s Broadriver?” It wasn’t in Dingus’s book.
All the Masters but Vandis grinned; Vandis grimaced. “It’s your dad’s place,” he said.
“Well, but—”
“Booze, whores, and gambling,” Jack said, still wearing his big grin. “Vandis’s kind of place for sure.”
Vandis pulled another face. “With Anus—excuse me, Angus—ruling over it all like a damn autocrat and raking in the cash.”
“Oh,” Dingus said, thinking, No wonder he didn’t want me around.
