by M. A. Ray
Then he started putting his hands up the back of her clothes, under her camisole, and she wanted him to take them off because his bare hands on her bare skin felt magical, and she knew: I have to stop this. She grabbed his arms and pulled her mouth away. “Don’t, okay?”
He took his hands out and showed them to her. “Okay. But you have to admit, that was great.”
“Oh, it completely was,” she said. “It’s just, I’m—” Thirteen, she thought about saying. “I’m not—I mean, I’m just not ready to—you know, go that far. With somebody I just met.”
“Sure.” He smiled, then leaned close and gave her another little, tiny kiss on the lips. “Let’s do that again soon,” he said, still close, really soft. “I’ll be around.” Then he moved past her and walked in among the trees, leaving her to twist her body and stare after him until he disappeared.
She wavered back to the fairground on watery knees. Before she left the forest, she paused to prop her hands on her thighs and catch her breath; she didn’t want anyone and everyone to see her thunderstruck and flushing. Then she crossed the strip of cut grass and went to find Elise and Becky, who, as a matter of fact, she was tempted to tell all about it. For the rest of the afternoon she hung around with them, only half listening to their talk about boys, distractedly pinching satin ribbons, and cooing over soft-jowled Knighthound pups. She ate supper with the girls. An exhausted-looking Dingus found her well after dark, much calmer and enjoying a fried cake drizzled with warm maple syrup. “All done?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said, and gave her a slow, tired grin. “It was easy.”
“Told ya.”
He ignored that. “You eat?”
She lifted her cake in its wastepaper cone. “Dessert. You want some?”
He took the cone and emptied it in four huge bites. “Thanks, I’m starving. Wait here while I get something?”
“Sure, but you better get me another cake.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He left, and came back in record time. He’d brought his tin plate and he had it filled: an entire haggis and a humongous pile of mashed taters. Kessa wrinkled her nose and took her fresh fried cake from him. She didn’t miss Wealaia at all, and one of the things she missed least was haggis. Dingus, though, he loved anything edible, didn’t matter what it was. When he sat at the table, he took out his knife, and she hardly had time to shudder before the over-peppered sausage vanished into his mouth.
“Hi, Dingus,” Elise offered pointedly.
Dingus grunted something that sort of resembled a greeting. He did everything but lick the plate, then stood. “Let’s get back to camp.”
“I’m not really ready yet,” she said.
He scrubbed a hand down his face. “It’s late. I got another long day tomorrow. Can we just go?”
“You can go ahead.”
“It’ll be completely okay,” Becky offered hastily. “She’ll be with us, right, ’Lise?”
“The whole time. We’ll walk back together and everything,” Elise said.
Dingus rubbed the nape of his neck. “Whatever,” he said finally, and slouched away in the direction of the campground.
“Are you sure you like that guy?” Becky asked, wrinkling her freckled nose.
“Yeah, I like him,” Kessa said, “but hell if I know why right now.”
“What do you even see in him? He’s not fit. He’s not nice. I heard he beat up a Master!”
“Oh, he did not!” She’d been hearing that more and more the past couple of days. “That’s stupid. Dingus wouldn’t do that, and if he did Vandis wouldn’t let it go.”
“Well, he sure was mouthing off to Vandis enough last night.”
“Come on, Becky, Vandis yells all the time,” Elise said. “He yelled at me last year. I cried for hours! All I did was call Martha a stupid peasant, which she is, and—”
“No wonder he yelled at you,” Kessa put in, scowling. “Vandis is a peasant! I’m one too and so’s Dingus! I’m even a No-Name! Before Dingus and Vandis found me I worked in the laundry! They saved me, you know!”
“It’s different.” Elise put her perfect little slope nose in the air. “You don’t put on airs. Martha acts like she’s better than everybody else, which is so not true. Her dad mucks privies!” She gave a delicate shudder.
“At least he works for what he’s got!” Kessa blurted, even though for sure it’d come right out of Vandis’s mouth. “What’d you do to earn the ribbons you bought?”
“My daddy sent me my allowance.”
“But you didn’t earn that money. It just got given to you!”
“Vandis gave you money!”
“And he works damn hard to get it, and then ends up spending it on Dingus and me! Masters pay for Squires’ upkeep with their own money, didn’t you know that? What does your dad do? Sits on some dumb land in a big ugly castle, which the King gave him, and gets paid rent and taxes!”
“That’s how it works!”
“You’re stupid,” Kessa said, getting up. “That stupid system would’ve put me on my back spreading for soldiers the rest of my life. You’re stupid and I’m leaving!”
“Jumped-up bitch,” Elise muttered at her back.
Kessa whirled, hot-faced. “You just bet I am! When I needed help, no noble shithead sitting his fat ass in the high seat noticed me! It was Dingus! He’s not fit, and he’s not always nice, but you guys got no call to trash him, or Vandis neither! If I hear anything like that again I’m gonna kick you right in the cunt, just see if I don’t!” She stomped away before either girl could say another word. Why’d she even hang around with them in the first place? They were so damn dumb, the both of ’em.
“Hey, Kessa!”
She turned. It was Skerne, a boy from Rodansk she’d made friends with a couple weeks ago, when he and his Master Hjaldi came in. He was the only one of the younger Squires taller than her—as tall as Dingus, but built solid. They had a Junior, Guthlaf was his name, another big guy with tons of freckles and pimples. Skerne was a No-Name, too, and he had a smile that overwhelmed his unfortunate case of spots. “Hi,” she said, waving.
“Want to play hedball with us? We don’t have even sides ’cause Guthlaf didn’t want to.”
“Do I ever!” She forgot about Elise and Becky and ran off after Skerne, dodging booths and Knights. Hedball was way more fun than gossip anyway.
Test
Knightsvalley
Dingus took a breath. His face was smooth and unworried, but he chewed over the horrific question Reed had just put to him before he opened his mouth. “Lightsbridge,” he said. “Oasis. Muscoda. Brightwater. And Dreamport.”
Vandis carefully kept his mouth from twitching. He wanted to grin like a fool, but the rules were as clear as the lake: no Squire could know the results of his or her oral exams until Vandis read all the results on Longday. You showed him, he thought. You rubbed his face right in it, kid. He was sure he could not be more proud.
The Assembly Hall sat quiet. Vandis’s boy stood, waiting, at scrupulous parade rest.
Reed didn’t speak. Finally, Vandis said, “Thank you, Dingus. That’ll be all tonight.”
“Thank you,” Dingus said, and inclined his head to the Masters before he walked to the door. It snapped shut behind him. He left a ringing silence in his soft wake.
Kirsten spoke first. Her nephew Lukas had done well for himself earlier in the day. “What the hell, Reed? The five richest states in Rothganar in ascending order based on gross national product? Who knows that crap at seventeen?”
I did, Vandis thought. Dingus does.
“Apparently,” Reed snapped, “Dingus Xavier does—though I still feel he ought to undertake another Trial, without Vandis present.”
“No way!” That was Tania, another of the younger Masters. She had her first, twin Squires standing this year. “If you’re not satisfied, that’s on you. There’s no way Vandis could’ve been giving him answers to those questions.”
Reed gave a delicate sniff. “As you
say, I’m sure, Tania. Nevertheless, the lad spent a goodly portion of the exam looking in Vandis’s direction…” He let it trail off, suggestively.
“He’s Vandis’s Squire!” Tania shouted, throwing up her hands. “Of course he was looking at him! Isobel spent half her exam looking at me—so did Finbar! They all do that!”
Vandis sat quietly on the Head’s bench. It wasn’t separate from the others in any way; it was just where the Head always sat, alone. Vandis stayed where he was, caught between rage and elation. That Reed should try again to get at him through Dingus—that Dingus had ground even his high expectations into the dust under a disproportionately large boot. That was my boy just now, he thought.
“You wanted that kid to fail,” Santo said from the bench next to his, dangerously.
“Now, Santo—” Hjaldi began, but Reed cut him off.
“I don’t care for your insinuations, Santo. How can you assume a bias? I assure you, if I had been the one to set the other exams, all the Squires would have been held to the same high standard that Vandis seems to have required of Dingus.”
“I’m assuming a bias ’cause you got one!” Santo came to his feet and turned to face Reed. “We all saw how you was using Dingus—”
“Using him! Why, I—”
“Yeah, you heard me!” Santo flung his arms wide. “You fuckin’ bullshitter! We all saw you drag him in front of Vandis and accuse him!”
“Dingus was wandering. He was outside the valley well after dark. Do you think I ought to have let that pass?”
“Beside the point!”
Not helping, Vandis thought, glancing at Santo’s red, sweaty face.
“That wasn’t why you brought him over! You brought him ’cause you thought you’d convince us Vandis was beating on him! You think anybody’s really gonna buy that load? And just now you was doin’ it again! Don’t fuck with Squires, Reed! You do that again and I’m gonna take it real personal!”
Reed folded his hands in his lap and said coolly, “Santo, this has nothing whatever to do with you. I respect your loyal defense of a friend, of course, but fail to see—”
“This ain’t about Vandis! Willing to bet he could still hand you your sorry ass in ten flat heartbeats—and wouldn’t nobody blame him for it, way you’re acting. Dingus is a Squire, he can’t defend himself against you and you know it! So you’re ripping at him—don’t care why, don’t care what you think you got against Vandis—you fuck off that kid or I’ll mess you up myself!”
“Santo, please don’t—” Hjaldi tried again, but nobody listened.
“I’m with you!” Evan shouted, and the Hall erupted in shouts, some backing Reed, some backing Santo, some going on about Vandis’s integrity, about Dingus, about the exam standards.
Vandis rubbed his temples and let them yell at each other for a couple of minutes. Best to get it all into the air, or at least most of it. At last he rose from his bench and walked over to Santo, who shook his finger at Reed, bellowing something the physician probably couldn’t hear. He clapped a hand on Santo’s shoulder. “Easy now,” he said, loudly. “Easy! Everybody take it easy.”
“Vandis, you—”
“Stop!” he yelled, thrusting his palms out. “Everybody shut the fuck up!”
Bar a few mutters, they did.
“First things first; Dingus hasn’t been scored yet, and we need to hear his numbers.” There was a little muttering: how it shouldn’t matter, the exam had been so hard, or how it shouldn’t matter, Vandis must’ve given him the answers. “Or—all right—Adeon,” he said, choosing a Knight who’d been nearby, and who wasn’t a particular Vandis partisan. “Did you, at any point, see me indicate answers to my Squire in any way? Did I move my mouth or signal to him?”
“I saw nothing of the kind,” Adeon said. “Vandis remained remarkably still throughout Dingus’s Quiz, did he not?”
A mutter of assent. Vandis wasn’t surprised he’d been still; in fact, he’d been frozen solid with anxiety when he heard Reed’s idea of an exam. “Is everyone satisfied that I in no way influenced the exam Reed set, or the responses Dingus gave?”
“You couldn’t have,” Tania said, and there was assent again; Evan shouted his.
“Good. Now may I please hear my Squire’s scores?” Vandis gave the lot of them his most sheepish grin: you know how it is. “Reed, how about it? I trust you here. How did Dingus do?”
“Dingus gave forty out of forty possible correct responses,” Reed said, his posture stiff, his face pale. “To the extra-credit items, he responded correctly twenty times out of twenty possible.”
Of course he did, Vandis thought, and never mind that less than an hour ago he’d been horrified, positive that Dingus wouldn’t know how many new titles Calphen IV of Dreamport had bestowed during his reign (forty-two), or the precise name of the Act of the Hetman that outlawed slavery in Oasis (The Decree of the Rights of All People).
“Really, an excellent performance for a lad who, this time last year, was rotting in Wealaia. You must share your methods for instilling such a high standard.”
I don’t like your face, Vandis thought, looking at the supercilious smirk Reed wore, but damned if he could wipe off his own stupid grin. “I won’t take a scrap of credit for that one,” he said. “That, right there, that was all Dingus. He studied a hell of a lot harder than I asked him to. He wants this, Reed. Apparently, even I had better get out of his way.”
“A thing of beauty, that was,” Evan said, as proudly as if Dingus had been one of his own—poor Wally’s nerves had gotten the better of him a little, but he’d done far and away well enough to stay in Trials.
“I, for one, am pleased to see a reasonable exam,” said Agnes, and everyone fell quiet to hear her quavering voice. At seventy-nine, she was the oldest human of the active Masters, and her age slowed her mind not a bit. “Standards have fallen considerably since I stood Trials. It was heartening, also, to note that however far testing standards have fallen, at least one of our Masters teaches to the criteria of old.” She cleared her throat. “Well done, the both of you boys, and Dingus too.”
Into the silence after she’d finished, Vandis said, “Thank you, Agnes. It’s been a long day, and tomorrow’s going to be longer. Let’s adjourn, shall we?”
“Capital,” Agnes said, struggling to lever herself to her feet. Nobody wanted to suggest she sit back down, so the Knights started to file out. Vandis moved to help Agnes, but when he reached her he found Hjaldi had beaten him to it. “Two of you!” she complained. “I’m not helpless, you know. Get off, Hjaldi, I say, get off!” Hjaldi backed up and she stabbed her walking stick in Vandis’s direction. “Don’t even think of it!”
“Okay,” Vandis said, and made a show of sticking his hands in his armpits. Hjaldi covered his mouth, but his eyes laughed.
“Wise-ass.” Agnes tried again and made it to a standing position, then stormed out as best she could, given that she couldn’t move quickly, a bent old lady with a white bun leaning on a stick half again as tall as she was. The door swung shut behind her.
Vandis and Hjaldi looked at each other. It wasn’t that funny, really, but they both cracked up.
“It won’t be the same when she’s gone,” Hjaldi said.
Vandis shook his head, grinning. “She’ll outlive everyone but Old Man Dingus and Adeon.”
Hjaldi laughed again, and together they left the Assembly Hall. “You know, you ought to be ashamed,” Hjaldi said, while they walked down the hill to the fairgrounds.
“Excuse me?”
“You haven’t stopped talking about your lad since we all came in, and you’re guilty of a terrible crime here.” Vandis opened his mouth to demand an explanation, but for once, Hjaldi got in with it first. “You’ve egregiously undersold him.”
Vandis blinked. “Oh.” Tucking his thumbs over his belt, he said, “Would it help if I said he’s really quiet and he knocked my stockings off with everyone else’s?”
“Some.” Hjaldi sent a rock tum
bling down the slope ahead of them. He was taller than he looked—full six feet—as tall as Reed, but he didn’t walk tall. His quiet voice and shy manner usually tricked Vandis into thinking of him as a small man. “That Reed,” he said. “He’s awfully persuasive sometimes. But I’m glad I didn’t let him convince me to vote for him. I was right to vote the way I did.” He darted a smile over at Vandis.
“Who, me?”
“Of course, you. Who’d you vote for?”
“That’s supposed to be a secret, you know.” Vandis had never told anyone whose name he’d written on his ballot.
“It’s been twenty years. Come on, who would I tell?”
“You.”
“Me?” Hjaldi could hardly get the word out around his laughter. “Oh no, Vandis, no, no! Nobody listens to me.”
“Well, they should,” Vandis said.
“You always do, when you get the chance. It’s a nice change. I don’t understand why everyone says you were such a bully. You were never unkind to me when we were lads, and you know how it was.”
He remembered moon-faced Hjaldi, almost always alone, almost always a target, and felt a sting of guilt. If he’d been a little more aware of anything but his own bruises and desperate need for devilry, he probably would’ve—something. Hjaldi just hadn’t seemed worth his time. He hadn’t been unkind, no, but he hadn’t made an effort to be actually kind, either; and besides, Hjaldi hadn’t been around the Moot many times. Adeon liked to travel, and he’d been Hjaldi’s Master. “The Knights would be different if it had been you.”
“Oh, my, yes.” Hjaldi grimaced. “Worse than we were when all of us old boys were young. I don’t imagine I could handle everything. I’m not as aggressive as you. And you’ve done wonderful things for us.”
