I had to find a different way to get to the Order’s secrets.
Chapter 9
Books and Dried Apples
When I woke in the early dawn and saw Dorf pulling his robe about his shoulders and heading for the door, I was sure that Dorf was avoiding me. We hadn’t spoken since the testing the day before, which was pretty difficult, given the fact that we both shared a room. I tried once again to apologize to him for yesterday. “Dorf, I didn’t mean to embarrass you in the Protector tryouts—” But it was no good.
“Don’t worry, Torvald. You’re a Protector, you were always going to be a fighter after all,” Dorf said as he pulled open the door.
“You’re heading out this early?” I said, trying to hide my dismay. I had been hoping to make sure that Dorf understood that I was not his enemy. But after that first day of brawling, Dorf had made sure that he took his chores with Maxal Ganna, the monk’s boy, and not with me. When it came time for dinner and bed, Dorf stayed talking with Maxal for as long as possible, before returning to our dorm room and throwing himself into bed without a word. And now, here he was, trying to sneak out before I’d even gotten out of bed.
“Maxal has some interesting books from the Order that his father lent him. I’m going to ask to take a look before our Scribe testing,” Dorf said with a sad smile. I could see that he had no intention of losing at that test at all, and neither was he going to share his advantage with me.
“Oh well, good luck then,” I said, feeling a bit put out as Dorf left. I’d thought he was my friend. Father was right, I shouldn’t trust anyone here. But maybe this was an opportunity for me to do some of my own extracurricular studies as well, and so I grabbed my cloak, my small dagger for lifting locks, and my coin purse (either for bribing a monk or hiding scraps of paper inside).
I’ll find the secret of the Draconis Order and take that knowledge back for the glory of Torvald, but I couldn’t shake the glum feeling as I trudged out the door.
Out in the hall, I hurried past wooden doors where I could hear the occasional yawn, laughter, and raised voice, as I went down the stairs. I didn’t want anyone to see where I was headed, but as I pushed open the door leading to the central courtyard, I saw I needn’t have worried. Everywhere—the courtyard, the Great Hall, the stable and storehouses—looked deserted. I turned toward my destination-- the tower with the strange brass mirrors and dishes hanging from its open windows, already starting to burn red and pink from the first rays of the dawn.
Thuddud. A noise drew my eye away from the strange tower, however, to the door to the girl’s dormitory tower, straight across the courtyard. It was open, and a figure in a heavy black robe stepped out.
Immediately I ducked back into the open doorway behind me, letting the shadows cover me. The figure hesitated, looking around as if she (for it must be a girl coming from the girl’s dormitory, mustn’t it?) had seen me move, and I saw a flash of platinum-white hair and pale skin. Char. What are you doing out at this time of the morning? I wondered, watching as she took a nervous step forward, peering around her, and then hurrying under the walls to the same door near the storehouses that she had used before.
She’s hiding something, I thought, and, like the good son that I was, I set out to find out what it was. It might be something that will help the clan, and she is a Scribe, after all… Perhaps she has more access to the scrolls and libraries than I do?
I waited until her black cloak had disappeared through the small wooden door set amongst stacks of barrels and bales of hay and I followed, slipping on the ice of the stone slabs as I jogged over, panting heavily before ducking behind a bale as one of the monk Protectors above walked across the top of the wall. Once he’d passed, I slunk through the doorway, into a green world.
I was in the Kitchen Gardens. They backed onto the storerooms, and were filled with large planter boxes overflowing with every manner of vegetable and plant, growing in unruly profusion. But where was Char? I was just about to give up finding her and chalk her sneaking up to the girl stealing food, when suddenly other voices filled the garden, and I had to crouch behind a tall stand of purple kale.
“Now you see that she gets two of these joints a day, you hear me?” a familiar voice said. It was Nan Barrow, the woman who had been kind to me on my first day, and mistress of the kitchens.
“I will, ma’am, and thank you, it means so much,” Char whispered.
“And fruit as well, mind. Here, take some of those store apples – they’re not good for much other than pie anyway,” Nan said brusquely. “Normally she’d be able to forage and hunt for food, but seeing as…”
“I know,” Char said, a touch of that more familiar defiance that I was used to hearing from her. “But don’t worry, it won’t be long now.”
“Long now before what, I wonder though!” Nan sighed heavily. “Actually, I don’t want to know. It’s better that I don’t. Now get away with you – I can delay breakfast by a little while perhaps, but you’ll have to be back by then or the Quartermaster will know. He notices everything with that little black book of his!”
Char groaned. “That man is a tyrant.”
“Och, shush with you, and mind who you say such things too as well,” Nan scolded. “He’s not the nicest man, but he’s not the worst here by a long way. Now get, before I land myself into trouble as well.”
I peered out from behind the fronds of purple to see Char clutching a hessian sack to her chest, and taking her leave. The Kitchen Mistress watched her go through a door that I hadn’t seen before, hidden as it was under a large spray of trellised tomatoes growing up against the wall. As soon as Char was gone, the woman shook her head, muttering, “That girl will be the doom of me, I swear,” before stomping back into the kitchens. I waited for a count of ten before carefully creeping out of my hiding place and towards the tomato-door.
So, Char was stealing food from the kitchens, that much was sure. Although it probably couldn’t be classified as stealing if the Kitchen Mistress was also in on it. It had sounded like she was taking the food to somebody, somebody who needed fruit and meat, I mused. But just who could she be feeding? And why?
I was about to push aside the trellis and reach for the door handle myself to find out, when I heard a noise coming from behind me. Damn! Out of time! I turned toward the kale, only to find it was too far away.
“Ooh!” one of the serving girls said, startled from where I was lurking by the winter potatoes.
“Ah, sorry, I uh…”
“Nan!” the girl shouted, looking cross. “We got one of the students in ‘ere trying to pilfer some food again!”
“No, really, I was just passing through…” I tried to explain, but Nan’s large white apron was already flashing through the doorway to the bustling kitchens beyond.
“Torvald? I should have known it would be you sneaking around,” she said loudly and fiercely, adding to the girl, “go back inside Elsa, I’ll deal with this one.” The girl flung me an annoyed look before bobbing a curtsey to the Kitchen Mistress, and heading back inside.
“I wasn’t stealing food, honestly,” I said emphatically to the woman, but she just tutted and pointed back the way I had come.
“I’m sure you weren’t, Torvald,” she said with a smirk. “But you’d still do well to mind your own business, and let others mind theirs!”
What does that mean? Does she know I was following Char?
“The monastery can be more dangerous than it looks, Torvald,” she said, echoing almost exactly the same words that Jodreth the monk had said to me what seemed like ages ago. She halted at the main courtyard door as I was turned out, saying in almost the same whisper that she had used with Char. “All of you students are testing out for Mages, Scribes, and Protectors today, aren’t you? Have you ever wondered how many Mages have we ended up graduating from the Order? One? Any at all?” And with that, she shut the door to the Kitchen Gardens in my face before I could ask her what she meant.
But that was what all
of this was about, wasn’t it? I thought, remembering what the Abbot Ansall had told us. That the Draconis Monastery trained Protectors, Scribes, and Mages. Was Nan trying to tell me that it had only succeeded once so far?
The first bells for breakfast started to chime, and I realized that I was out of time. I would have to visit the Abbot’s Tower another time. I might be able to go later. Or I could find out what that Nefrette girl was up to. All information is good information, as my father might say – and speaking of information, and of Char – could I use the fact that I saw her sneaking around to ask her to give me access to the Library? She was a Scribe, right? So, she had to know where they kept the juiciest information.
But my stomach turned over, and I knew that it felt bad – using the Nefrette girl like that. It was something that my brothers would do without a second’s thought… But she had been one of the few people (along with Dorf) who had seemed to not care that I was a half-Gypsy. With my heart in turmoil, I hurried to the breakfast hall, although I didn’t feel hungry at all.
The rest of the day was given over to the more esoteric of tests; scribing lessons. It turned out that although I could read as well as any, I was terrible at learning languages.
“Ugh.” I groaned, having to prop myself up once more on my elbows to keep my head from drooping into slumber.
“Come on, Torvald,” Terrence whispered with a sneer beside me. “Or do the Gypsies not bother with reading?”
I found my jaw tightening and my fists clenching as I turned, only for the table to reverberate with the sharp slap of the Quartermaster’s cane.
“Concentrate, Torvald!” he shouted, making me flinch.
“Yes, sir.” I ducked my head back to the book, trying to translate and transcribe one set of words written in the Old Delian Age tongue to the different languages of North Wildman, Southern Raider Tongue, March Dialect…. It made my head whirl.
What made it all worse was that I was forced to sit at the same table as the other ‘victors’ of the Protector match at the front of the class (why, I had no idea, because being good at fighting was nothing to do with being good at scribing). But it was something that the Quartermaster insisted, and so I found myself squeezed at the end of a table that housed Terrence, Archibald, Lila and a few other of the boys. Lila frowned at the word list herself, and ignored all of us boys as she worked.
I wish I had the same dedication, I thought glumly, as I heard a stool scraping further behind us.
“Sir?” It was Dorf’s voice, and I turned with a broad grin to see him standing up from his seat, holding his pen in the air. “I’ve finished, sir,” he said.
“What? Already, Lesser? Are you sure that you did the second exercises as well?” The Quartermaster marched to where Dorf sat, while Dorf, to his credit, said nothing as Quartermaster picked up his collection of papers and worked through them one at a time.
“Simple verbs.” Greer nodded. “Double-clauses, tenses…”
“And I’ve included the Western Islander dialect variants, sir, at the back,” Dorf pointed.
The Quartermaster flinched as if poked, before raising his eyebrows. “Well, master Lesser, it seems that we have found something that you are finally good at after all. Here, to the Scribe’s table.” He pointed to a bare table with a flagon of honey mead and a number of glasses.
The second to join him was, not surprisingly, Sigrid Fenn, and I managed to give her a grin and a thumb’s up as she took her place at the table. She smiled momentarily, as if pleased that her skills had been recognized at least. Good for you, I thought, having to admit that not only was I glad that I had more friends with access to the Library, but also that I was glad for her as well. The Quartermaster seemed so intent on putting the women down, that it was good to see them succeeding. Greer had forced both Sigrid and Char to go through the testing procedure again, as ‘there were so many other students here now.’ I took it as another pointless cruelty on the part of Greer against the girls of the class.
Maybe I could ask Char and Sigrid about the secrets they might be uncovering about the Order, if I can’t ask Dorf. Then came Maxal Ganna, after which Greer clapped his hands that we were done, and the rest would be decided on how many we had gotten right, and how many mistakes that we might have made. Char did well, as did Terrence, but both of them had a few blotches on their copybooks and words which they had spelled or translated wrong. Lila did surprisingly better, which actually made her look alarmed, I assumed because she feared she was closer to being chosen for the Scribe’s table rather than staying with us Protectors.
“And you, Torvald? What is this mess on a page – it looks like a drunk spider has crawled across it and had a heart attack,” the Quartermaster berated me in front of the whole class. I felt small and ashamed of my work. There were other students here who had more wrong answers than me, but my copy work and penmanship was truly awful, even to my own eyes. Dorf’s, on the other hand, was clear and even had flowing curlicues and swirls to emphasize the capitals and the pauses. The ink didn’t seem to want to obey my quill the way that it had with the others, and I couldn’t stop the end of the feather from making me sneeze as I leaned too close to the page. Of course, father had raised his sons to be fighters, after all – even if that meant I only knew my way around a brawl. He made sure that we could read and write battle reports, but not much else.
So I was not to be a Scribe, and my friend Dorf was. I was glad for him, and told him so.
“You did well, congratulations.” I gave him a pat on the back.
“Yes, I did, didn’t I?” Dorf grinned, as the dinner gong rang and I gratefully slid from my seat. It seemed that his success had eased the feelings of hurt between us a little as it had boosted his confidence.
“Well, all I can say is thank the stones that is over.” I laughed to myself, but the laugh died in my throat when the Quartermaster barked, “Light dinners tonight, students!”
It seemed that our trials were very far from over indeed, I thought as he continued, “Because your lessons will not be ending so soon today. Tonight, his holiness the Abbot himself will be taking you out to the mountain for your first exercise and selection for magic.” He caused an excited whisper to spread through the room. “If any of you are remarkable enough to show great ability at magic – despite how you have placed in other groups before – then you will be forwarded to the Mage training immediately. But I don’t want you falling asleep or acting up for his holiness tonight – if I find out that any of you have failed him and me in any way, then it’ll be mucking out the stables from here to midsummer,” he warned, his eyes sweeping the room and alighting on me with what seemed a particular zeal.
Chapter 10
Candles, Rocks and Stones
The Abbot came for us just after dinner, drifting into the Banqueting Hall as quiet as a ghost, and making the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. There was something that I didn’t like about the man, but it was an instinct that I couldn’t put my finger on. Was I just spooked by this place, and that man? The few times that my brother Rubin was ever cordial to me, he would talk about ‘the warrior’s sense’ of being able to know when someone was tracking you in the wilds, or when an opponent tipped over from sizing you up to getting ready to strike. At the time, I dismissed it as my brother pretending to be wiser, smarter, and tougher than he really was. But now I wasn’t so sure. My nerves are a jangle, that must be it, I told myself as I put down the cup of clear mountain water I had been drinking and looked around, over the heads of the other arguing and laughing students. To my surprise I found both Char and Maxal doing the same. Our eyes connected briefly, but I could not read what the other two were thinking, before the Abbot cleared his throat.
“Students,” he said gently, in a tone that nonetheless sent chills through my chest. For some reason, I found myself wondering if he knew what I was up to, why I was here. I suddenly felt like an imposter. “Tonight,” he continued and he didn’t have to tell us to be still or be quiet,
the imperative filled us up of its own accord. We all stopped eating, drinking, and making merry, and turned to see the black-clad, austere man standing in the corner of the room, with his finely made black cane. “I will begin teaching you magic—magic no one else in all of the Three Kingdoms can do. Dragon-magic.”
And I would take that secret back to Father, I thought. At that instant, I felt a flush of cold as the Abbot’s eyes sought me out, and both Char and Maxal flinched as they too, were noticed by his holiness. Or maybe I was just imagining it. It felt like the time when my father had taken me to stand on the edge of a hill to look down on a battle of clan troops against our foes. It was terrible and too large to all take in at once. But why would the Abbot seek me out? I wondered. Could it be that the prickling feeling I got whenever he looked at me meant something greater, meant that the Abbot recognized—not that I might be a traitor—but something else? Could it be that I, Neill Torvald, really did have a touch of magic in me after all? The sudden hope filled my heart, but it wasn’t because of what learning magic might mean for the mission my father had sent me on. It was because of what possessing magic might mean for me. What would it be like to have something which was my own, that brought me closer to the dragons and called upon the strength of the Gypsy blood that coursed my veins? What would I give to have a power that had nothing to do with wars or politics or anyone else? But then the likelihood of it came crashing down on me. Of course, I didn’t have dragon magic. Why should I? There had been no sign of me possessing magical tendencies even once in my life.
Dragon God (The First Dragon Rider Book 1) Page 8
