A Dance of Chaos: Book 6 of Shadowdance (57 page)

Mealtime proved to be something of a surprise. The hall was crowded with boys and the tumult of voices engaging in the habitual ridicule and gossip of youth. The tables were arranged according to age, the youngest boys near the doors, where they would enjoy the strongest draught, and the oldest at the far end next to the masters’ table. There seemed to be about thirty masters altogether, hard-eyed, mostly silent men, many scarred, a few showing livid burns. One man, sitting at the end of the table quietly eating a plate of bread and cheese, appeared to have had his entire scalp seared away. Only Master Grealin seemed cheerful, laughing heartily, a drumstick gripped in his meaty fist. The other masters either ignored him or nodded politely at whatever witticism he had chosen to share.

Master Sollis led them to the table closest to the door and told them to sit down. There were other groups of boys about their own age already at table. They had arrived a few weeks earlier and been in training longer under other masters. Vaelin noted the sneering superiority some exhibited, the nudges and smirks, finding that he didn’t like it at all.

‘You may talk freely,’ Sollis told them. ‘Eat the food, don’t throw it. You have an hour.’ He leaned down, speaking softly to Vaelin. ‘If you fight, don’t break any bones.’ With that he left to join the other masters.

The table was crammed with plates of roasted chicken, pies, fruit, bread, cheese, even cakes. The feast was a sharp contrast with the stark austerity Vaelin had seen so far. Only once before had he seen so much food in one place, at the King’s palace, and then he had hardly been allowed to eat anything. They sat in silence for a moment, partly in awe at the amount of food on the table but mostly out of simple awkwardness; they were strangers after all.

‘How did you do it?’

Vaelin looked up to find Barkus, the hefty Nilsaelin boy, addressing him over the mound of pastries between them. ‘What?’

‘How did you parry the blow?’

The other boys were looking at him intently, Nortah dabbing a napkin at the bloody lip Sollis had given him. He couldn’t tell if they were jealous or resentful. ‘His eyes,’ he said, reaching for the water jug and pouring a measure into the plain tin goblet next to his plate.

‘What about his eyes?’ Dentos asked, he had taken a bread roll and was cramming pieces into his mouth, crumbs fountaining from his lips as he spoke. ‘Ye tellin’ us it was the Dark?’

Nortah laughed, so did Barkus, but the rest of the boys seemed chilled by the suggestion, except Caenis, who was concentrating on a modest portion of chicken and potatoes, apparently indifferent to the conversation.

Vaelin shifted in his seat, disliking the attention. ‘He fixes you with his eyes,’ he explained. ‘He stares, you stare back, you’re fixed, then he attacks while you’re still wondering what he’s planning. Don’t look at his eyes, look at his feet and his sword.’

Barkus took a bite from an apple and grunted. ‘He’s right you know. I thought he was trying to hypnotise me.’

‘What’s hypnotise?’ asked Dentos.

‘It’s looks like magic but really it’s just a trick,’ Barkus replied. ‘At last year’s Summertide Fair there was a man who could make people think they were pigs. He’d get them to root in the ground and oink and roll in shit.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know, some kind of trick. He’d wave a bauble in front of their eyes and talk quietly to them for a while, then they’d do whatever he said.’

‘Do you think Master Sollis can do such things?’ asked Jennis, the boy Sollis said looked like a donkey.

‘Faith, who knows? I’ve heard the masters of the Orders know many Dark things, especially in the Sixth Order.’ Barkus held up a drumstick appreciatively before taking a large bite. ‘It seems that they know cookery as well. They make us sleep on straw and beat us every hour of the day, but they want to feed us well.’

‘Yeh,’ Dentos agreed. ‘Like my Uncle Sim’s dog.’

There was a puzzled silence. ‘Your Uncle Sim’s dog?’ Nortah enquired.

Dentos nodded, chewing busily on a mouthful of pie. ‘Growler. Best fightin’ hound in the western counties. Ten victories ’fore he ’ad ’is throat torn out last winter. Uncle Sim loved that dog, ’ad four kids of ’is own, to three diff ’rent women mind, but he loved that dog better’n any of ’em, feed Growler ’fore the kids he would. Best of stuff too, mind. Give the kids gruel and the dog beefsteak.’ He chuckled wryly. ‘Rotten old bastard.’

Nortah was unenlightened. ‘What does it matter what some Renfaelin peasant feeds his dog?’

‘So it would fight better,’ Vaelin said. ‘Good food builds strong muscles. That’s why warhorses are fed best corn and oats and not set to grazing pasture.’ He nodded at the food on the table. ‘The better they feed us, the better we’ll fight.’ He met Nortah’s eyes. ‘And I don’t think you should call him a peasant. We’re all peasants here.’

Nortah stared back coldly. ‘You have no right to lead, Al Sorna. You may be the Battle Lord’s son…’

‘I’m no-one’s son and neither are you.’ Vaelin took a bread roll, his stomach was growling. ‘Not any more.’

They lapsed into silence, concentrating on the meal. After a while a fight broke out at one of the other tables, plates and food scattering amidst a flurry of fists and kicks. Some boys joined in right away, others stood by shouting encouragement, most simply stayed at their tables, some not even glancing up. The fight raged for a few minutes before one of the masters, the large man with the seared scalp, came over to break it up, swinging a hefty stick with grim efficiency. The boys who had been in the thick of the fight were checked for serious injury, blood mopped from noses and lips, and sent back to the table. One had been knocked unconscious and two boys were ordered to carry him to the infirmary. Before long the din of conversation returned to the hall as if nothing had happened.

‘I wonder how many battles we’ll be in,’ Barkus said.

‘Lots and lots,’ Dentos responded. ‘You ’eard what the fat master said.’

‘They say war in the Realm is a thing of the past,’ said Caenis. It was the first time he had spoken and he seemed wary of offering an opinion. ‘Maybe there won’t be any battles for us to fight.’

‘There’s always another war,’ Vaelin said. It was something he had heard his mother say, actually she shouted it at his father during one of their arguments. It was before the last time his father went away, before she got sick. The King’s Messenger had arrived in the morning with a sealed letter. After reading it, his father began to pack his weapons and ordered the groom to saddle his best charger. Vaelin’s mother had cried and they went into her drawing room to argue out of Vaelin’s sight. He couldn’t hear his father’s words, he spoke softly, soothingly. His mother would have none of it. ‘Do not come to my bed when you return!’ she spat. ‘Your stench of blood sickens me.’

His father said something else, still maintaining the same soothing tone.

‘You said that last time. And the time before that,’ his mother replied. ‘And you’ll say it again. There’s always another war.’

After a while she began to cry again and there was silence in the house before his father emerged, patted Vaelin briefly on the head and went out to mount his waiting horse. After his return, four long months later, Vaelin noted that his parents slept in separate rooms.

After the meal it was time for observance. The plates were cleared away and they sat in silence as the Aspect recited the articles of the Faith in a clear, ringing voice that filled the hall. Despite his dark mood, Vaelin found the Aspect’s words oddly uplifting, making him think of his mother and the strength of her belief, which had never wavered throughout her long illness. He wondered briefly if he would have been sent here if she were still alive, and knew with absolute certainty she would never have allowed it.

When the Aspect had finished his recitation he told them to take a moment for private contemplation and offer thanks for their blessings to the Departed. Vaelin sent his love to his mother and asked her guidance for the trials to come, fighting tears as he did so.

The first rule of the Order seemed to be that the youngest boys got the worst chores. Accordingly, after observance Sollis trooped them to the stables, where they spent several foul hours mucking out the stalls. They then had to cart the dung over to the manure mounds in Master Smentil’s gardens. He was a very tall man who seemed incapable of speech, directing them with frantic gestures of his earth-darkened hands and strange, guttural grunts, the varying pitch of which would indicate if they were doing something right or not. His communication with Sollis was different, consisting of intricate hand gestures that the master seemed to understand instantly. The gardens were large, covering at least two acres of the land outside the walls, comprising long, orderly rows of cabbages, turnips and other vegetables. He also kept a small orchard surrounded by a stone wall. It being late winter he was busily engaged in pruning and one of their chores was gathering up the pruned branches for use as kindling.

It was as they carried the baskets of kindling back to the main keep that Vaelin dared ask a question of Master Sollis. ‘Why can’t Master Smentil speak, Master?’

He was prepared for a caning but Sollis confined his rebuke to a sharp glance. They trudged on in silence for a few moments before Sollis muttered, ‘The Lonak cut his tongue out.’

Vaelin shivered involuntarily. He had heard of the Lonak, everyone had. At least one of the swords in his father’s collection had been carried through a campaign against the Lonak. They were wild men of the mountains to the far north who loved to raid the farms and villages of Renfael, raping, stealing and killing with gleeful savagery. Some called them wolfmen because it was said they grew fur and teeth and ate the flesh of their enemies.

‘How come he’s still livin’, Master?’ Dentos enquired. ‘My Uncle Tam fought agin the Lonak an’ said they never let a man live once they got him captured.’

Sollis’s glance at Dentos was markedly sharper than the one he had turned on Vaelin. ‘He escaped. He is a brave and resourceful man and a credit to the Order. We’ve talked of this enough.’ He lashed his cane against Nortah’s legs. ‘Pick your feet up, Sendahl.’

After chores it was more sword practice. This time Sollis would perform a series of moves they had to copy. If any of them got it wrong, he made them run full pelt around the practice ground. At first they seemed to make a mistake at every attempt and they did a lot of running, but eventually they got it right more than they got it wrong.

Sollis called an end when the sky began to darken and they returned to the dining hall for an evening meal of bread and milk. There was little talk; they were too tired. Barkus made a few jokes and Dentos told a story about another of his uncles but there was little interest. Following the meal Sollis forced them to run up the stairs to their room, then lined them up, panting, drained, exhausted.

‘Your first day in the Order is over,’ he told them. ‘It is a rule of the Order that you can leave in the morning if you wish. It will only get harder from now on so think carefully.’

He left them there, panting in the candlelight, thinking of the morning.

‘Do ye think they’ll give us eggs for breakfast?’ Dentos wondered.

Later, as Vaelin squirmed in his bed of straw, he found he couldn’t sleep despite his exhaustion. Barkus was snoring but it wasn’t this that kept him awake. His head was full of the enormity of the change in his life over the course of a single day. His father had given him away, pushed him into this place of beatings and lessons in death. It was clear his father hated him, he was a reminder of his dead wife best kept out of sight. Well he could hate too, hate was easy, hate would fuel him if his mother’s love could not.
Loyalty is our strength.
He snorted a silent laugh of derision.
Let loyalty be your strength, Father. My hate for you will be mine.

Someone was crying in the dark, shedding tears on his straw pillow. Was it Nortah? Dentos? Caenis? There was no way to tell. The sobs were a forlorn, deeply lonely counterpoint to the regular woodsaw rhythm of Barkus’s snoring. Vaelin wanted to cry too, wanted to shed tears and wallow in self-pity, but the tears wouldn’t come. He lay awake, restless, heart thumping so hard with alternating hatred and anger that he wondered if it would burst through his ribs. Panic made it beat even faster, sweat beaded his forehead and bathed his chest. It was terrible, unbearable, he had to get out, get away from this place …

‘Vaelin.’

A voice. A word spoken in darkness. Clear and real and true. His racing heart slowed instantly as he sat up, eyes searching the shadowed room. There was no fear for he knew the voice. The voice of his mother. Her shade had come to him, come to offer comfort, come to save him.

She didn’t come again, although he strained his ears for another hour, no further words were spoken. But he knew he had heard it. She had come.

He settled back into the needle discomfort of the mattress, tiredness finally overtaking him. The sobs had ceased and even Barkus’s snores seemed softer. He drifted into a dreamless, untroubled sleep.