“Thank you,” Traven said. “I’ll remember that.”
Mr. Kiscin left the room, shutting the door behind him. Traven sat down on his bed to think. Showing up a week late was not going to help him blend in with the other students, but he was sure that they all weren’t as bad as Mr. Kiscin had made them out to be. Besides, he was here to learn how to become a successful merchant not to find a bunch of friends. He did hope, though, that he would get along with the other students. He got up from the bed and unpacked his saddlebag. When he had transferred his possessions into the wardrobe and around the room, he thought about changing back into his other clothes but decided against it. They were too dirty for him to wear around. He decided that since tomorrow was the day off for the students he would have time to get them washed. When he was done getting himself situated in his new room, he unbuckled his sword belt, set it down next to the bed and fell down onto his bed to get some much needed rest.
No sooner had he closed his eyes than he heard whoops of excitement as people rushed into the hall outside of his room. He figured that the classes must be over. He thought about going out of his room to introduce himself, but he was tired and decided to rest a little longer. The bed was actually quite soft, and it didn’t take Traven very long to get comfortable. As he lay there with his eyes closed, he thought about the journey to get to Calyn and how it was now over. After all of his long awaited anticipation for the time when he would actually be at the merchant school, he was finally here. It would be interesting to see what his new schedule would be like. He wondered when he might have time to go through his sword exercises. Soon the noise in the hall died down, and he drifted off to sleep.
“Riiinnnnggggggg!”
Traven bolted upright in his bed at the piercing sound that had invaded his rest. As he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, he realized that what he had just heard was the dinner bell. He climbed off of his bed and tidied up his rumpled clothes. It was then that he realized he had no idea where the dining hall was. He quickly dashed out of his room, hoping that some of the students were still in the halls and could show him where the dining hall was. To his disappointment, the hall outside was completely empty. He shut his door and slowly began to walk towards the end of the hall. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, and now he was going to be late for dinner if he even found the dining hall. His dismal thoughts were interrupted as one of the doors behind him opened and closed. Turning around he saw a fellow about his age, maybe a little older, heading down the hall towards him. He was almost as tall as Traven and was very skinny. He had red hair and his face was covered with freckles. He was wearing well cut clothes made of cotton and had on spectacles. What Traven noticed most, however, was that the fellow was wearing a shy smile. Traven was about to ask him how to get to the dining hall, but the fellow spoke up first.
“We better hurry up if we don’t want to be late. I don’t think I have met you yet. My name is Thadius, but most people call me Thad.”
Traven shook Thad’s outstretched hand.
“Nice to meet you. My name’s Traven. You haven’t seen me around because I just arrived a couple of hours ago.”
“A late comer are you? Here, we can talk while we’re walking to the dining hall. We’re definitely going to be the last in line by now.” Traven followed Thad as he took the stairs down at the end of the hall. “So, Traven, why did you get here so late? You don’t want to get on the bad side of Headmaster Brock.”
“Well, it wasn’t my fault. I was never informed that the term was starting a week early,” Traven explained.
“Really! You mean they never told you? The staff here prides itself on never making a mistake.”
“Oh, I think they probably sent me a notice, but I was already on my way here before it got to my home.”
Thad led Traven through the front room and into a smaller one. From there he could hear the clatter of silverware and the noise of hungry young men dishing up and eating food. When they stepped into the large dining hall, the noise was even louder. Traven followed Thad to the end of a long line and looked out over the room. The dining room consisted of three long tables down the center and a raised platform at the end with a podium. The back, where they were at, consisted of a serving bar where chefs were busy slapping food onto the young men’s plates.
“So where are you from then,” Thad asked while they waited at the end of the line to get their food. “If you had to leave before you got the notice, then you must be from quite a ways away.”
“I’m from Oak Tree.” When Thad just looked back at him questioningly, Traven elaborated. “It’s a few days southeast of Kavar.”
“Okay. I know about where that is. Wow, you have come pretty far. Most of us are from right around here.”
Thad then became distracted by a spot on his spectacles and became engrossed in wiping it off and making his glasses perfectly clean. Traven just smiled as he resumed looking out over the room. The first table was already halfway full. All of the people who were sitting at it were older and appeared to be instructors and so forth. The second and third tables were quickly beginning to fill up as people got their food and sat down. The line was actually moving fairly swiftly, and soon Traven was up to the serving bar. He followed Thad’s example and picked up a rectangular wooden tray. He then placed a tin platter along with eating utensils onto the wooden tray and set it up on top of the serving bar. As he slid the tray along, the chefs slopped down food onto his plate. The meal consisted of some carrots, mashed potatoes, several slices of roast beef, and a chunk of dry looking bread. At the end of the bar a chef poured a thick brown sauce over his potatoes and slapped a tin cup full of cider onto his platter.
Traven pulled down his tray and followed Thad as he made his way to the third table. He noticed that Thad only had carrots, mashed potatoes, and bread on his platter. He asked him about it while they were walking. Thad explained that he did not eat meat. When Traven asked him why, he replied that meat was not healthy for the body and that he did not think that it was right to kill animals to eat them. Traven just shook his head. He had never heard of anyone who didn’t eat meat. The third table was pretty full, so he suggested that they eat at one of the other tables instead.
“We can’t do that,” Thad quickly said as Traven began to turn.
“Why not?”
“The first table is for the faculty, and you can’t eat there unless you’re invited to. The second table is only for second year students. The third table is for all of us first year students.”
Traven squeezed in next to Thad at the very end of the bench on the third table and immediately joined in eating with the rest of the people in the room. The food was not the best he had ever tasted and was definitely not even close to the quality of food he had eaten earlier in the day. But it was edible, and he was hungry, so he ate it without complaint. He could hear others at the table grumbling about the food, but they were also eating it just as hungrily. The bread was really dry, but it was not that bad after Traven dipped it in his extra sauce. As he was finishing up his food, the room slowly began to quiet down. He looked up and found that one of the faculty had positioned himself behind the podium at the front of the room and was preparing to speak. Traven quietly asked Thad who it was.
“That’s Headmaster Brock,” Thad whispered back. “He always addresses us after dinner.”
Traven turned back and looked up at the man. Headmaster Brock was middle aged going on old and had short, grey streaked black hair. He was wearing a scowl, and from the look of his face it seemed as though that must be his regular expression. He was wearing a long black robe made of silk over his clothes like the rest of the instructors. The headmaster, however, also had a picture of a gold wagon embroidered on the front of his cloak. After waiting for the entire dining hall to become completely silent, he began his address.
“Good evening my young scholars,” he began in a surprisingly deep voice. “I am glad to see that you have learned how to get quiet when a speaker a
pproaches the podium. This has been a good first week, but now that all of the orientating is done with, you will begin to get a real taste of what it will be like for you here at the academy. Those of you who are here for your second year already know that the courses of study are difficult but that they are rewarding. Tomorrow you will be free to do whatever you would like, but remember that you are students of this academy. Make sure you act responsibly.
“Now that I have said that, I would like to make you aware of some of your shortcomings that I have noticed. You still run to the dinner hall like a pack of savages, and the way you behaved at the end of classes today was despicable. At this academy we will behave like gentlemen. From now on we will walk from room to room like civilized people, and we will not yell in the halls. Is this understood? Good. I am looking forward to the remainder of the year. Overall this was a good first week, and we will work to improve upon it. Thank you for allowing me to speak with you this evening, and enjoy your day off tomorrow because next week the real lessons start.”
Traven watched as Headmaster Brock stepped down from the platform and left the dining hall. He was immediately followed by the other instructors, including Mr. Kiscin. After all of the faculty had left, the other students began to rise and leave. Traven saw that everyone else was leaving their dishes on the table, so he gratefully left his also. He talked to Thad as they made their way back upstairs to their rooms. Most of the other students went out the front of the school to go have some fun, but Traven was still tired from getting up so early and fighting Blaize. He decided he would rather just go to bed early and told Thad he was tired and was going to sleep. Thad was going up to his room as well to read. Traven could tell that Thad was not the type who liked to party. When they reached the top of the stairs, they ran into four fellows who were heading back down from their rooms.
“Hey, Thaddy,” one of them said as he put his arm around his shoulders. “Who is this loser you’re talking to? I thought I told you that you could only talk if I gave you permission to.”
“I’m sorry, Rudy, but . . .”
“Thaddy, did I say you could talk?” Thad shook his head. “That’s what I thought,” Rudy said as he squeezed his arm tighter around Thad’s neck, causing his face to turn red. “Now if you ever . . .”
Traven did not know what this Rudy was going to do to Thad, but he decided to stop it before things got out of hand.
“Leave him alone,” Traven said.
“And who is going to make me, you?” Rudy said as he pushed Thad away and started towards Traven.
“Yes, me,” Traven said with a smile.
19
Kalista sat quietly while her chamber servants undid her long braid and proceeded to brush out her hair. She listened to them silently as they talked about how her hair was just like gold and how it was so long and beautiful and so on. She sometimes grew tired of having so much hair and had thought of getting it cut shorter more than once but could never bring herself to do it. It reached all the way down to her lower back, and she somehow could never go through with getting it cut any shorter. She wondered if it was because her mother had had long golden hair too or if she was just afraid of doing something so permanent without knowing what she would end up looking like. Once her personal chamber servants had finished brushing out her hair, they braided part of it in a crown around her head before combining the two braids into a larger one that stretched down her back. The rest of her hair was left to flow loose down her back also. Kalista turned and looked herself over in the mirror and found that as usual her servants had done a perfect job with her hair.
“Thank you. You may leave now,” she said, dismissing them with a wave of her hand.
“As you say, Princess,” they each chimed as they curtsied and left her bedroom, shutting the door behind them.
Kalista opened up one of her jewelry boxes to find a necklace to wear for dinner. She picked out a simple pearl necklace with a hanging firedrop in the middle and fastened it around her neck. With a last look at herself in the mirror, she left the room and walked through her sitting chamber. Her servants were already back to chatting softly as they embroidered. She wondered if they ever did anything else as she walked out into the hall. She continued slowly towards the back of the palace where her father’s private dining chamber was located. This was the one time of the day where she was sure to see her father. The High King always made sure that he had time to eat dinner with her.
Kalista had always looked forward to dinner when her mother was still alive. All three of them would eat together and talk about how their days had been. After dinner they would sometimes go into the library and play a game or two of Sharks and Dolphins or just sit and read by the fireplace. But after her mother died, evenings were never the same. She was glad that her father still made a point to leave time so they could eat together, but most of their dinners were now spent in an awkward silence. After dinner he would just wish her sweet dreams before retiring to his own chambers. She was then left to read alone in the library or play Sharks and Dolphins with Nanny Frieda. Sometimes she just followed her father’s example and went straight to bed. She knew her father had taken the loss of her mother much harder than she had, but he wouldn’t talk about it and never had showed any public emotion except at her burial. He hadn’t been the same since then, though most people probably couldn’t tell the difference. Kalista wished she could do something to make her father happier but didn’t know what.
When she reached the dinning chamber, a servant held the door open for her, and she walked gracefully into the room. Her father was not there yet, so she sat down next to the head of the table to wait for him. She looked down the length of the table and wondered as she often had what it would be like if the table was actually full. It could probably fit twenty people. The only reason she thought it was strange was that this was her father’s private dining chamber, and he only allowed family to eat there. She moved on to wondering what would be served this evening for dinner when her father came in and sat down at the head of the table next to her. After they had given each other welcoming smiles, the High King clapped his hands and the servants swiftly brought in the first course of the meal. It was a lite salad with leaves of seaweed. Kalista and her father began to eat in silence after the servants splashed a zesty dressing over the salads.
“How was your day, my dear?” the High King suddenly asked.
“Fine,” Kalista answered back quickly.
“Did anything exciting happen today?”
Kalista thought about her day before answering.
“My lessons were boring as usual, father, but I did do well at archery. Pegwin moved the target back, and I was still able to hit the bull’s-eye without any problem.”
“That is nice to hear,” the High King said as the second course was brought in.
They again began to eat in silence. Kalista remembered fondly that when her mother was still alive there had rarely been a pause in the conversation all through dinner. Of course that was probably on the account that there were three people to keep it going instead of just two, but she still wished it could be more like it used to be. The second course was consumed in silence and then the main course also. The awkward silence lasted all the way until dessert was served. She tried to think of something to say to break the silence, but her father spoke up first.
“Kalista, have you thought anymore about marriage?” he asked, trying to hold back a grin.
“Father, I told you that I do not know if I want to get married yet,” Kalista replied.
“Do not become so defensive. I was simply wondering because Baron Mikel from Candus is bringing his son along to the winter ball.”
Kalista felt butterflies in her stomach.
“Why did you not tell me about this sooner?” she said, eyeing her father. “I did not know that you had invited them.”
“I did not exactly invite Barron Mikel for the ball. We need to talk about what is going on over in the borders of Balth
us, and since he was going to be here around the time of the ball, I told him to bring his son along.” The High King paused, taking on a mischievous grin. “You did know that he is looking to get married soon. I thought maybe he could be your escort for the ball.”
Kalista tried to hide her excitement with a mask of disapproval.
“Father, you know that I am old enough to choose my own escort.”
“I was just making a suggestion, my dear,” he said with a knowing smile.
Kalista waited a few more seconds before she said anything.
“I guess I will take your suggestion and allow Baron Mikel’s son to escort me to the ball,” she stated, trying to hide her smile. “But only to make you happy.”
“I am sure that is the only reason,” the High King said as he rose from the table smiling. “I think I am going to retire for the night. Sweet dreams, Kalista.”
“Sweet dreams to you too, father,” Kalista replied as her father walked out of the room. She watched as the door closed behind him. That was one of the longest conversations they had had in a long time. Maybe things would finally change back to the way they used to be.
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