Exile's Valor v(-2

by Mercedes Lackey

  It would have been infinitely easier to do this had his students been, say, Karsite Cadets. Only physical and mental weaknesses would have to be dealt with, because emotional weaknesses literally did not matter to the Sunsguard so long as they were locked down tightly—and he could have proven those weaknesses to them with sheer, brute force, by persistently attacking them at those weak points until even a blind man could see what was wrong. Persuasion always took a lot longer than hammering something home.

  He was generally in that last stage only with those who were in the last year of their Trainee status—it was far, far easier to work with these Trainees, who were quite ready for Whites if only they had a little more experience and skill. For them, he was a mentor, not a monster.

  It had occurred to him, and more than once, that here in the Collegium the Trainees were put through a kind of forced-maturation process that sent them out into the greater world at eighteen, nineteen, or twenty with the mental and emotional skills of someone well in his thirties or older.

  Alas, most of his time was spent in being the tyrant with the heart of stone.

  This was never more true than when the energy level of those in his class was such that the students were near to bouncing off walls as they entered the door of the salle, and he turned them right around and took them outside to run their drills in the mud, the slush, the half-frozen snow, and no matter if it was too wretched out to be doing any such thing. Cold, dampness, and dirt weren’t going to harm them any; if they got too cold, he knew the signs and always sent them back into the salle to warm up at the oven. Not that there was any chance of getting cold enough to fall ill, unless something odd happened to keep them standing about soaked to the skin.

  The Blues, of course, were exempt from this if they chose. However, if they declared their unwillingness in such a way as to be insubordinate, rather than merely electing not to show up for lessons, he had a weapon to either bring them to heel or get rid of them entirely.

  Such as today—with one of the classes that was in their middle, and most difficult period of development.

  And they roared into his salle already in full antagonist mode.

  The battle lines were already drawn; Blues versus Trainees, one ringleader facing off for each side. The insults were flying. Blows would follow, in a moment.

  Except that Alberich waded right into the middle of it, and sent both of them to the floor with a blow to the ear, and the silence that descended was absolute.

  “Well,” he said crisply. “Before it begins, I care not how it started, nor who started it. You brought it into my salle. You will take it out again. There will be no second mirror to be replaced.”

  A nervous titter came from behind him. He didn’t turn to look. Neither boy had moved, and he gave them both looks that should have turned them to ice. “I said,” he enunciated carefully. “You will take it outside. You wish to fight? Well enough. Outside. It ends when I say it ends, and I will be the judge of the winner.”

  The Trainee on the floor had the sense to go pale; he, at least, must have some inkling of what Alberich meant—which was to let the fight go on until they were both too exhausted, bruised, and battered to stand. There would be no winner, short of one of the two being knocked unconscious, which, with the bare hands of a pair of boys fundamentally unskilled in bare-hand fighting, was unlikely. This was, actually, why Alberich did not teach bare-hand fighting to anyone who had not passed into that third and final stage of development. . . .

  But the Blue was one of Alberich’s personal headaches. Arrogant, assertive and, unfortunately, skilled enough to have earned the right to a part of that arrogance. Alberich would have gladly rid himself of the boy—Kadhael Corbie—if he could have. Unfortunately, that was out of his hands. Kadhael was in the class unless and until he took himself out of it.

  The boy looked him up and down, and sneered. “No,” he said.

  Someone gasped.

  Alberich did not move, and did not change his expression by so much as a hair. “I do not believe I heard you correctly,” he said evenly, trying to suppress the thrill of glee the boy’s insolent answer gave him. “What, precisely, did you say?”

  “I said, no. No, I am not going outside. No, I am not fighting by your rules. Who are you to give me orders, old man?”

  Alberich smiled—and Kadhael took one look at the smile and suddenly realized that he had made so fundamental a mistake that there was not going to be any evasion of the consequences.

  “I,” he said quietly, and with the perfect and precise control of Valdemaran grammar that came upon him in moments of stress “am the Collegium Weaponsmaster. As such, when I choose to exercise my rank, within the four walls of my salle and on its grounds, I outrank, by Valdemaran law, every man, woman, and child in Valdemar save only the Monarch. And within these four walls, the Monarch is my equal, not my superior.”

  And it was all perfectly true. How else could he properly teach the sons and daughters of the highborn? How else could he train high-ranking Guards? How could he drill the greatest warriors and nobles of the realm? How could he ever train the Heirs, if he did not outrank them? To properly train, there would be injuries. They might be serious. And the Weaponsmaster could not be held responsible for such injuries. To be trained, the Weaponsmaster must know his orders would be obeyed, and the only way to be sure of that was to see that his rank on these grounds was higher than anyone else’s in the land.

  Which was why—though he had not learned this until after Dethor had retired—he had that special status within the salle and on the grounds.

  Kadhael looked as if the blow Alberich had given him had knocked every particle of sense right out of his head. He stared, he gaped, he looked as if he could not rightly understand a word of what had been said. “But—”

  “And since you choose not to abide by the laws of this, my Kingdom,” Alberich continued, still smiling. “I banish you. Now and forever.”

  “What?” Kadhael stammered.

  “Out. Go. Do not ever present yourself as my pupil. You may tell your father why you are not here, or not. I care not. I will report this matter to the Queen, the Lord Marshal, and the Provost Marshal—since you are not a Trainee, I shall not trouble any of the Deans with it.”

  “You can’t do this!” Kadhael protested wildly, paling. Alberich knew why. Kadhael’s father had watched Alberich fight and train the Guards for months before the boy had been sent to the salle with a class. Kadhael’s father knew that there was not enough money in Valdemar to purchase the services of a trainer as good as Alberich.

  Kadhael’s father would be very, very unhappy about this.

  “I can. I have.” Alberich eyed the boy consideringly. Should he?

  :Oh, go ahead, do,: Kantor answered.

  He bent down, and grabbed the boy by the back of his tunic and hauled him to his feet. Without much effort, be it added—Kadhael was just about Alberich’s size and weight, but he was still an uncoordinated adolescent, not a trained, honed warrior. Alberich tightened his grip just enough that the fabric half-choked the boy, eliminating any more babble out of him.

  “I will, because you do not seem to understand your own tongue properly, repeat myself,” Alberich said, with no anger whatsoever. “You are banished from the salle and the grounds. You are no longer a student here. You are leaving now, and you will never return. If you do, I will personally thrash you until you cannot stand, and throw you off the grounds again. Training here is a privilege, not a right. You have just proved you do not deserve to enjoy that privilege.”

  And with that, he frog-marched the boy out the door, down the path, to the very edge of the training grounds. And with great care and utmost precision, he pitched the insolent brat right into the biggest, muddiest patch of slush that he thought he could reach.

  He did not even wait to see if Kadhael went headfirst into it, or managed to somehow save himself. He turned on his heel and marched back into his salle.

  No one had mo
ved. This was good. He wasn’t going to have to discipline anyone else—yet.

  He raked them all with his stony gaze. “More objections, do I hear?” he asked, raising one eyebrow.

  Silence.

  “Then outside you will go. All of you.” He turned a stern gaze on the Trainee, who was still sitting on the floor—Osberic, that was the boy’s name. “Osberic,” he continued, and the Trainee flinched. “Since no opponent you have now, yet equally of guilt you are to have brought a fight within my walls, it will be me that you face. Fetch two staves, and follow. Even practice swords, I will not ruin in this muck.”

  He would not be too hard on him. Putting him on his face or back into the mud two or three times would be enough.

  :He started the fight,: Kantor put in. :Not that Kadhael wasn’t trying to goad him into starting it, but he did start it.:

  All right. Four. Teach the boy to hold his temper.

  :Good answer. I’m going to watch.:

  Alberich smiled as he walked out into the cold again and saw that there was no sign of Kadhael, other than a vaguely human-shaped depression in the slush. :Please do.:

  The boys had formed up in a rough circle, and Osberic came up to Alberich with two fighting staffs and a hangdog look. Alberich took one without looking at it,

  “Consequences, Osberic,” he said as he squared off against the boy, who began circling him warily. “Say I will not, that a Herald loses not his temper—but aware a Herald is, that consequences there are for doing so.”

  His staff shot out at ankle-level, tripping Osberic. Down he went.

  He picked himself back up, and aimed a blow at Alberich’s head. Alberich blocked it, riposted, and let the boy block him. “So think you—had there a fight been, what consequences there would be?”

  “Uh—” Osberic tried again, was blocked again. “Lord Corbie would get me in trouble?”

  “Wrong.” Alberich flipped the staff at Osberic’s ankles; the boy dodged, and Alberich flipped the other end around to thwack him in the buttocks and send him into the slush again. “Lord Corbie would protest to the Queen, who would be forced to go to the Dean, who would have to answer to why discipline was so lax among the Trainees that a highborn fought a Trainee.”

  Osberic picked himself up, flushing. “My fight would get the Heralds in trouble?”

  “Correct.” Alberich let the boy try a few more blows; not bad, but he wasn’t going to get through Alberich’s defenses any time soon. “And who else?”

  “The Queen?” Osberic hazarded.

  “Correct. Now, why will there be no trouble for what I did with Kadhael Corbie?”

  Osberic didn’t answer, being a little too busy fending off a flurry of blows from Alberich, only to trip over a hardened lump of snow and land on his backside in an icy puddle.

  :That should count,: Kantor said from the sideline.

  :I agree.:

  “Because,” Alberich continued as Osberic picked himself back up for the third time, “A proper and correct order gave I. Insolence I was given. My proper authority I exerted—no temper, no beatings, no punishments, and only when more insolence and refusal was I given, did I remove Kadhael with prejudice. To his father he will go, yes, but his father will likely box his ears. Now, know you why I am drilling you thus?” Osberic came at Alberich yet again, Alberich let the boy drive him back.

  “To punish me!” Osberic shouted, his cheeks burning with humiliation. “To make me look stupid in front of everyone!”

  “No, that would the act of a bully be,” Alberich told him. “So that, should Lord Corbie protest it was you who began the fight, I can tell the Queen that you were punished, and all here will swear to that. This is not for you, it is for the Heralds, that all know that we tend to the misdeeds of our own in proper measure.” He then neatly sidestepped the last rush and tripped Osberic as he went past. Once again, Osberic measured his length in the mud. “A Herald cannot merely right be, Osberic. A Herald must guided by the law be. He cannot dispense the law, if he follows it not himself. He cannot dispense the law, if he thinks himself immune from it. He cannot dispense the law, if he will not deal it to his fellows in the same measure as he does to those whom he has in charge.”

  “Yessir, Herald Alberich,” Osberic groaned from the ground.

  “And that is why, for fighting, you have also been punished in this way,” Alberich continued. “Now, back into the salle. There is work to be done.”

  They were all quick to follow the order, but none so quick as Osberic.

  10

  Kadhael Corbie disappeared from the Court and Collegia entirely. Not that Alberich would have noticed his absence, having banned the boy from the salle, but it wasn’t long before there were murmurs and speculations among his students and the Court—and being that it was his business to know things, he heard every one of them. Rumor had it that the boy’s father was so enraged that he had gotten himself thrown out of Alberich’s class and forbidden to enter the salle that he’d sent the boy straight down to the family manor, there to languish in what the young lords and ladies called “rustification.” Since it was said to be a particularly dull and cheerless place, lacking in anything that a young man might find amusing, and since rumor also had it that Lord Corbie had sent orders for his son to be confined to the house and grounds until further notice, Alberich was perfectly satisfied that the punishment fit the crime.

  On the other side of the table, Lord Corbie went to Selenay and also demanded the punishment of “the Trainee who started it,” and allegedly was nonplussed to learn that “the Trainee” had already been punished. And that the punishment fit his crime, since all he had done was to bring a fight into the salle and after being reprimanded, had behaved with the proper respect for the Weaponsmaster. The trouncing—with lecture—at the hands of the Weaponsmaster in front of his peers was deemed both painful and humiliating enough, even for Lord Corbie.

  And Lord Corbie had been quite taken aback to learn that it had all happened within moments of Kadhael’s expulsion.

  Without knowing much about the man, but intuiting a great deal from the behavior of his son, Alberich doubted that humiliation of Kadhael at the hands of “that foreigner” would ever be forgotten or forgiven, but at least there was nothing overt that Lord Corbie could do about the incident. Alberich had exercised precisely the correct amount of authority: he’d been defied, he banished the offender. Not from any other classes at any other part of the three Collegia, only from his own. He had indeed ejected the boy by force—because the boy would have gone on defying him if Alberich hadn’t physically thrown him off the premises. He had not exceeded his authority, and in point of fact, Alberich could have given the boy a taste of what Osberic had gotten, and hadn’t. In fact, Kadhael had gotten off lightly at Alberich’s hands, and not only was there no denying it, but both the Lord Marshal and the Provost Marshal (who was in charge of discipline on and off the Collegia grounds) said loudly and publicly that they would have boxed both his ears until he was deaf.

  Nevertheless, Lord Corbie would not like the man who had rejected his son; he would not like the Collegium nor the organization that had given him the authority to do so.

  One more enemy . . . but Alberich was used to those by now. He would have to watch his back, but when had he ever done anything else? And sure enough, within days, there were rumors in the Court about how the Weaponsmaster was abusing his pupils, abusing his authority, treating Heraldic Trainees with indulgence and punishing Blues arbitrarily. A few Blues were quietly absent from his class after that. But there was not a great deal that he could do about that—nor, truth to be told, wished to do.

  As for Osberic—according to Kantor, that very evening, when the Trainee’s bruises started aching and he started feeling particularly sorry for himself, his Companion had given him a good talking-to. Whether this was delivered in the form of a lecture or with sympathy, Kantor didn’t say—but one thing was certain: when Companions took it upon themselves to correct their C
hosen, the lesson tended to stick. Osberic was certainly properly contrite the next day, and if there was still a great deal of moaning about Alberich’s hardheartedness, at least no one among the Heraldic Trainees was claiming he was a bully or a sadist. Hardhearted, he could live with. In fact, the more hardhearted they thought him, the better off they would be in the long run.

  Though shortly after the Kadhael incident, there was one little lad who would not have agreed with that estimation.

  He was one of the “Tedrel orphans,” brought in by the Companion Cheric the very same day as Osberic and Kadhael’s chastisement. It took a day or two to get him settled into the Collegium, so Alberich didn’t see him until his mentor, Trainee Rotherven, brought him by himself to the salle, shortly after the last class of the day.

  Alberich was overseeing a set of Guards working out with maces, when the door to the salle opened and a final-year Trainee came in with a very small boy at his side. Alberich left the two to continue their bout, and walked over to the door where they waited politely.