Hunting (5 page)

"I'm not talking harm," Marriston
replied, the faintest hint of deference in his voice confirming
Ash's conclusion. "Just making things unpleasant for the scut,
nothing that would even leave a bruise he didn't deserve. And it's
not, you must admit, as if he could ever be a true seruilis."

"You'll treat him as any newcomer," the
first seruilis said firmly. "If he errs, correct him and he will
learn. More, you will remember that he is alone in an unfamiliar
place, with no family to support him."

Ash debated changing her approach,
seeing whether a little humour would break the tension, but decided
against a parody of this gutter seruilis they feared. Arranging her
face to be clear of anything resembling arrogance, she stepped into
the doorway.

Five out of nine boys were facing her.
One, facing away from the door, hadn't yet registered their changes
of expression.

"Correct him? When he like as not
cannot even read? His failings will reflect on all of us. How shall
we correct him when he trips flat on his face serving at
table?"

"I'll do my best not to, Ser," Ash
said, and could not resist adding self-deprecatingly: "Not even if
there's ham hocks."

That brought a titter of laughter, and
a startled glare from the speaker. Ignoring his reaction, Ash
walked calmly across the room to place herself before the one she
marked as first seruilis. He had been one of the older boys
instructing at swordplay and was one of two who wore the Rhoi's
shield embroidered in gold on the breast of his otherwise stark
black clothing. More than good-looking, with dark, faintly waving
auburn hair and vivid hazel eyes, he was oddly familiar, though Ash
could not place the resemblance.

"Ser," Ash began, hitting the exact
note of unassuming obedience she'd hoped for, "my name is Ash
Lenthard. Master Humboldt ordered me to report to you." Her voice
held the faintest hint of a Khanteck accent, but otherwise fit well
with their own.

The young man nodded, showing no
flicker of surprise at her changed accent, then indicated a boy
sitting at his left. "Vendarri."

Vendarri, with a spark of laughter in
his eyes, nodded. He was wearing sky blue and silver, and was
darkly handsome.

"Vicardie."

Freckles, large nose, pale blue eyes
and shaggy blond hair. Tall as a stork and gawky in his green on
green uniform. He grinned at her.

"Kittahar."

A narrow-chested boy, perhaps eighteen,
whose features would forever be condemned with a description of
'average', wearing red and mid-blue, glancing at Ash and then
anxiously at his neighbour.

"Marriston."

White-blond, handsome features marred
by a smouldering glare. Ash judged him to be a eighteen or
nineteen, and recognised his colours, rich blue and dark purple, as
being those of Decsel Enderhay, a most respected man. The name
Marriston was also the family name of the Setsel of Strathaden.

"Lirindar."

A boy with warm brown skin, his hard
expression and position by Marriston's side proclaiming his
loyalty. Yellow and red did not quite suit him.

"Pelandis."

Only child of Decsel Pelandis, he wore
black and white, along with a jittery, permanently miserable
look.

"Gibrace."

Slightly shortsighted, she would guess,
from the way he peered at her. A washed-out sort of boy, mousy and
mild, but he reminded her of one of her Huntsmen, Melar, who they
used as bait when it was necessary. He looked a complete pushover,
but was deadly with a close-quarters knife. She wouldn't be
surprised to find that Gibrace, in dark green and red-brown, was
much the same.

"Nemator."

The Veirhoi. Like the first seruilis he
wore stark black embroidered with gold in the shield of his
brother, the only device she would see among the seruilisi's garb.
Gold-topped, violet-eyed, and the youngest boy in the room, his
eyes were both serious and cautious, but he looked at her without
any hostility. Ash thought about bowing, but all seruilisi were,
theoretically, equal, so she just smiled slightly, as she had for
the others and turned back to the first seruilis.

"Carlyon."

Ash recoiled. Almost comically, just
managing to control herself so that a leap backward became no more
than an exaggerated flinch. It was such a disproportionate response
that for a moment they simply goggled at her.

Then Marriston said: "Looks like he's
mistaken you for your father, Carlyon," and laughed as the other
seruilisi murmured in disapproval at the comment and Ash both.

The first seruilis did not respond
immediately, then, the neutrality gone from his eyes, said: "I am
told you will not be instructed in sword with us. Why is that?"

The mood of the room now entirely
against her, Ash slapped herself mentally, told herself that this
was
not
the Decsel, not Eward Carlyon. But it was hard to
ignore the resemblance, so obvious now, despite the first seruilis'
slim youth and undissipated vitality. And she did not know quite
how to be, because this was her stepson.

"I've never held a sword, Ser." Unable
to apologise, she would simply speak as if her misstep hadn't
happened.

"You have no weapons at all?"

"I've never been instructed, Ser," she
replied, cursing the damnable irony of his identity and hers,
retaining an air of quiet obedience through sheer force of will,
and refusing to let any more of her true emotions skip haphazard
across her face.

Someone whispered behind her, probably
Marriston and his cronies. Damn, she was losing. It wasn't critical
to make any friends in the Mern – the Kinsel were far from the only
source of palace gossip – but she had no desire to endure a
campaign of persecution. Beyond tedious, and it would hinder her
investigation.

"Listening at doors is poor behaviour
on the part of a seruilis," Carlyon commented, placing the worst
possible light on her entrance. "It breaches our code of conduct.
Breaches of the Code of the Mern are punishable by five strokes of
the switch."

Beginning to dislike him heartily, Ash
kept her features under control. He might set a precedent to make
her into the group's whipping boy, but she would not give them
further reason.

"Come now, Carlyon," interrupted
Vicardie, and she recognised his voice as the one who had been
parodying the gutter seruilis. "Can you breach the Code if you
don't know it? And, before you make the obvious answer, he's hardly
had a chance to learn it."

The pair must be friends, because the
stony chill in Carlyon's eyes faded. "Well, Frog, you may spend the
rest of the afternoon ensuring that he knows its every sub
rule."

There was a disappointed murmur behind
her, but Vicardie took charge of Ash and led her from the room
without incident.

"Thank you, Ser," she said, as they
passed beyond the range of the others' hearing. "That was kindly
done."

"Oh, call me Frog," he said, shrugging
off her thanks. "Everyone does. And you're Ash?"

"Yes."

"Did Visel Thornaster truly find you
covered in blood? I've heard a hundred different rumours today,
none of them particularly likely."

"No. Just...without a place to be."

"And so Thornaster has dropped you in
the Mern? On the same day as your – as you lost someone? Harsh. Do
you want to postpone this lesson? I could meet you tomorrow
morning, when you've had a little more time to adjust."

"I–" She blinked. "I guess I'd rather
think about this than my aunt right now anyway."

"Well, if you're sure. Here we go." He
veered into a small room filled with an oddment of things like
cups, books and banners. Questing through a pile of books, he
pulled out a slim volume with a cry of satisfaction.

"Right!" said Frog, striking a
proclamatory pose. "Rule number one!"

"I can read, you know," Ash said,
mildly.

"Can you? That'll make things easier.
But if Carlyon said I was to teach you, then it means I'm to teach
you and be certain you can recite the entire thing back to me
before we're done. So you just hush. Now, where was I? Ah, yes!
Rule number one..."

Since there were no chairs Ash sat down
on the floor and watched as Frog strode dramatically about the
room, making a game of reading an unsurprising list of
prohibitions. The rule against carrying weapons without the
Master's leave was an irritant, but she could improvise something
in a pinch.

When he'd finally exhausted the book,
Frog dropped it on one of the piles, and gave her a sympathetic
grin. "Got all that?"

Ash obligingly began to recount
everything he had read her, earning a look of open admiration.

"Wonderful! You're one of those people
who don't forget, are you? Well, you're certainly nothing like the
fumble-footed street urchin we'd been expecting. I suppose we'll
have you medicking us all within a week, and wonder what we ever
did without you."

"Medicking? Oh, no – unless it was to
do with horses, I didn't pay much attention to my aunt's trade.
I've been earning my keep as a stable hand."

"I guess that means you can at least
ride, which will save a lot of lessons. No chance you're a deadly
master of the sword, I suppose? That really would set the cat among
the pigeons."

"There's not much call for deadly
masters of the sword in the Commons. Can I ask why you're called
Frog?" He did look just a little like one, with his skinny arms and
legs, but not so much it deserved a nickname.

"Frog-shaped birthmark," he said
briefly, and Ash wondered if, despite his apparent acceptance of
it, he disliked the name.

"What are the unofficial rules?"

"What unofficial rules?" Frog asked,
folding his long-limbed body down onto the floor beside her.

"There are always unofficial rules. The
ones that change from year to year along with people, the ones
which are constant but not things which are written down."

"I guess it would help if you avoided a
few things. Let's see, there's standard stuff, like never gossiping
about what you hear in the Mern with your kin. '
The Mern is not
a breeding ground for espionage
'," he added, in a deepened
voice.

"No tattle-tales," Ash said,
nodding.

"Always pass on messages, no matter
what personal reasons you may have for not doing so. Don't, for
your life's sake, go disturbing the Master in his office for
anything other than official business or an emergency. Don't start
fights. That's an important one. If we're caught scrapping, there's
hell to pay."

"Have I offended Carlyon very badly?"
she asked.

"Well, acting like he was the Black
Carlyon himself wasn't the best start I've seen. But you needn't
worry. Lauren isn't one to put grudges over duty. He won't be
granting you any favours, I'd suspect, but you'll not find yourself
on scrub duty for no reason at all."

"Lauren," Ash said, mostly to herself.
She looked down at her hands. Lauren Carlyon was Eward Carlyon's
youngest son.

"Ash, do you have some particular
problem with the Carlyon family? If you do, don't even think of
pursuing it. You won't achieve anything more than getting yourself
banned from the Mern." There was more than a hint of steel in
Frog's voice. It sounded so out-of-place she blinked up at him. He
could look remarkably severe, this clownish Kinsel. Vicardie was
the family name of the Setsel of Bychester. She wondered which of
his sons Frog was.

"Ash?"

Which particular should she start with?
The forced marriage? Astenar's inexplicable failure to reject the
bond? Or her hastily staged suicide? The whole tale of how she'd
run away from herself and become someone she liked better?

"No," Ash said, decisively. "I don't
have any problems with the Carlyons. The name caught me
off-guard."

"Well, you'd do well to get over it,
then. Whatever Lauren's family might be, he's solid, and you'd get
nowhere in a war with him."

"Believe me, Frog," she said, standing
up. "I have no wish to start any wars. The only person I hold any
grudge toward is the one who brought about my eviction, and I don't
think that was a Carlyon." She hoped it wasn't a Carlyon.

A bell sounded, deep and hollow.

"That's the signal to return to our
respective Luinsel," Frog told her, scrambling to his feet. "Be
back in the common room a decem after noon tomorrow, when Carlyon
gives us the day's tasks. Don't be late, and remember what I
said."

Ash detoured to the kitchens on the way
back, frowning as she realised how difficult the distinctive
clothing of a seruilis were going to make wandering about. And how
easy it would be to identify her by her colours. That held her back
from simply wandering into the kitchens, as she might have done if
she had not her new "master's" name to worry about. Instead she
took hold of a harassed-looking boy, greasy and well fed. "Do you
know a woman by the name of Mirramar?" she asked.

The boy nodded.

"Good. Go find her and tell her that
Ash is here and would like to speak to her."

The boy pulled free and disappeared
inside the kitchens without responding, and Ash loitered, hoping he
would do as she asked, her stomach pinching her painfully.

"It
is
you!" A woman some years
Ash's senior had appeared, wiping floury hands on her apron.
Pleasant features and tight blonde braids wound close to a round
skull. "Stars, look at how you're dressed! You...Ash, are
you
Thornaster's gutter seruilis?"

"I see I've become notorious."

"Ash, you little wretch, what's
happened? How did you come here?" Mirramar, who had treated Ash
with exasperated indulgence since Ash had befriended her brother
Larkin, gave her an admonitory shake. "However did you get involved
with Visel Thornaster?"