The Tattered Banner (Society of the Sword Volume 1) (6 page)

He encountered his first major obstacle almost right away. A steward knocked on his door and left a pile of papers for him. Soren took them and returned to his cot, sitting with them on his lap. He looked at the sheet on top and felt a wave of panic run through his insides. He stared at the markings on the page with all of the concentration he could muster, but nothing would cause them to make sense to him. He looked at the next sheet, but with the grim certainty that it too would be completely unintelligible. He had never needed to read anything while living on the street, and wouldn’t have been able to find anyone to teach him even if he had. There were cursory lessons given in the cathedral orphanage he had lived in as a child, but little if any had stuck as it had just never seemed that important.

It was difficult to suppress the feeling of desperation that was welling within him. For a large portion of the day at the Academy he would be entirely unable to function. As soon as he was found out, he was certain that he would be thrown out on the street. He could not allow this opportunity to be taken from him so easily.

What was worse was that he had no one to go to for help. Anyone at the Academy would surely make it known that he was illiterate, and that would achieve the exact result that he was trying to avoid. As despair became realisation that his first day at the Academy could also be his last, it occurred to him that perhaps he did have someone he could ask.

It was not particularly difficult to find where Amero dal Moreno lived. All Soren had to do was wander around Highgarden for a little while until he spotted a servant wearing the arms of the House of Moreno, an emblem that was familiar to any fan of the arena. His plan was not quite as efficient as he had hoped however; the servant he chose to follow was on his way out on an errand rather than returning from one, but he eventually led Soren back to the mansion that was the Count of Moreno’s town house.

He didn’t bother going up to the front door, going instead directly for the staff entrance to the side. He knocked and waited for a moment before a middle-aged man in the same navy and gold coloured waistcoat that the servant he had followed had been wearing opened the door.

‘How may I help you, sir?’ asked the servant. Soren was somewhat taken aback by this. In particularly hard winters he had begged door to door, but the reception had usually been harsh and unpleasant. He had never been called ‘sir’ before. The clothes. It was the clothes. What a difference they made!

‘Emeric, I need to see Emeric,’ Soren said. ‘Please,’ he added as an after thought.

‘Might I ask who is calling on him?’

‘Yes. Soren. My name is Soren.’

‘Very good, sir, I shall fetch him. For future reference, gentlemen usually call at the main door, to the front of the building. If you wouldn’t mind waiting a moment.’ The servant went back into the building and Soren felt his nerves mounting up as he waited. Would Emeric be able to help him? Would he even be bothered to? He certainly had no reason to, although he had been kind to Soren thus far despite his gruff appearance. It wasn’t long before he appeared at the door, a quizzical expression on his hard face.

As soon as he saw him, Soren blurted out what he had been trying conceal up to that point. ‘I can’t read,’ he said, feeling ashamed of the fact for the first time in his life.

Emeric nodded and remained in contemplative silence for a moment. ‘Should’ve thought of that I suppose, can’t rightly expect a lad off the streets to be able to read. I gather you’re not too keen on them finding that out at the Academy though?’

Soren shook his head. ‘I don’t want to miss out on this chance over something as stupid as reading.’

Emeric smiled, which made his face even less congenial, if possible. ‘Well, we can’t have that, but you’ll learn soon enough that reading ain’t stupid. Come in and we’ll have a think about how we can fix this.’

Emeric led him into the house, at first passing through narrow, undecorated corridors, then into wider, high ceilinged ones that were lavishly decorated. He brought him into a room of plush wooden framed sofas that were intricately carved and upholstered with the softest material Soren had ever felt.

‘His Lordship is out, so if you wait here, I’ll see what we can organise,’ said Emeric. He left Soren alone in the room for some time before returning.

‘Come back here tomorrow and every day after at four bells. Tell your masters that the Count needs you on house business for an hour a day; they shouldn’t have a problem with that.

‘For the time being, pick out someone you recognise and follow them to all their classes, you shouldn’t go too far wrong doing that. Keep your mouth shut and try to stay invisible in class. If you’re asked anything, just say you don’t know. You’ll look like a thicko for a while, but better that than the alternative, and hopefully you’ll sort the reading out quickly enough. Now off with you, and don’t forget, four bells sharp. I’ll tan your hide if you’re even a minute late,’ said Emeric.

Soren’s first proper day at the Academy began shortly before dawn. A horn sounded somewhere on the campus and Soren could hear movement beginning on the floors below his room. As he had been instructed the previous day, he made his way straight to the training hall. He was among the first of the students to arrive, although three masters stood in the centre of the room talking quietly. Almost empty of people, even the slightest sound made an echo in the enormous hall. Soren tried not to draw any attention to himself as he entered the room, but each step on the polished floorboards boomed out like a bass drum.

By the time he had gone a few steps, all of the masters were looking at him. He recognised one of them as Banneret of the Blue, Bryn. All of the instructors were graduates of the highest level of the Academy, the Collegium, which was reserved for only the very best. Being asked to teach at the Academy was a mark of honour that was almost impossible to match anywhere else in the Duchy, at least in times of peace.

‘I’m glad to see you here so punctually, Tyro Soren. You can begin your day with twenty laps of the hall. Run!’ shouted Bryn, giving Soren a start. His body responded to the command before his sleepy brain had even fully registered it and he found himself breaking into a slow run before he even realised what he was doing. The other instructors chuckled amongst themselves as they watched Soren make his way to the wall and begin his laps.

Five laps in, he was beginning to wonder if this was some sort of punishment for being the new boy. However, when what appeared to be the full complement of the class had arrived, they too were sent off on a run. Bryn’s sending him off as soon as he had arrived made sense to him now, as the other students seemed to be able to maintain a much quicker pace than Soren. So much so that most of them had finished their twenty laps before he had his, despite his earlier start.

With the laps completed, one of the other instructors had them file out across the floor for what seemed to be some form of torture. Press-ups, jumps, sprinting on the spot, handstands and dozens of other exercises were repeated in sets of twenty until every joint in his body ached and his muscles burned. Sweat poured down the bridge of his nose, dripping off onto the floor each time he reached the bottom part of an exercise. By the time they finished, he had created an impressively large stain of sweat on the wooden floor.

The relief he felt when the instructor called an end to the exercises was overwhelming. He had never before understood how relaxing it could be just to stand normally. The respite was not to last long however. They were broken up into smaller groups, each group being assigned an instructor and a different task. The first task assigned to Soren’s group was rope climbing. A dozen thick ropes were suspended from the beams of the roof above, but how anyone had gotten up there to attach them was beyond Soren. The challenge was for the tyros to race one another to the top and back down in smaller groups of four, each rest lasting until the other three members of the group had completed their climb and the exercise was repeated.

By the time it came to actually getting a sword in his hand, Soren did not think he would be able to lift his arms. He had been concerned that the other boys would show him a cold shoulder, but thus far they had all been far too busy for any kind of social interaction beyond the shouts of encouragement during the rope climbing races. As before with the exercises, all of the students lined up in file, but this time with a blunted rapier in their hands. Master Bryn stood at the head of the assembled class and guided them through a series of moves, both attacks and defences. Soren felt like a clumsy idiot at first, but soon found that he was able to follow the movements well enough. For the first time that day, he began to feel as though he was capable of keeping his place there.

Another hour was spent on this exercise, ‘doing the positions’ as it was called. At one point Soren was even rewarded with an approving nod from one of the instructors. Soren was amazed at the effect such a small mark of recognition had on his morale. Once that was finished, and all of the swords were returned to the weapon racks, they were released from the class to go for breakfast.

As he walked toward the dining hall, Soren found himself questioning how he could go on. He had never been more exhausted in his life, and it was still morning. His stomach rumbled, which was something he was very used to. What he was not used to however, was having the prospect of a near limitless supply of delicious food only a few steps away. The thought filled him with a little excitement that gave him the energy to pick up his pace enough to get into the dining hall ahead of the crowd.

He loaded his tray with porridge, toasted bread and fruit jams, as well as a full plate of sausages, eggs and bacon. To wash it down he had a large tumbler full of orange juice and a mug of something dark and steaming that he was not able to readily identify.

As he turned away from the food counter, the question of where to sit cropped up. It occurred to him that there would probably be some kind of hierarchy in terms of where students sat when they ate. It had certainly been present during the exercises; the students who appeared to be the best all lined up at the front, and the weaker students were towards the back. Needless to say Soren had been right at the back, and although he would grudgingly admit that his performance during the physical exercises warranted it, he was determined that his sword play would have him to the front in short order.

Nonetheless, it did not answer the question of where he should sit. It was ridiculous to be standing there with a tray loaded with hot food growing colder and not being able to eat it for not knowing where to sit. He hovered awkwardly until he saw some of the tyros from his morning training session sit and then went over to the long table that they were at. He sat next to one of the tyros who had not been too far ahead of him in the training line, but his welcome was less than warm. In fact, Soren doubted he would have been made any less welcome had he jumped up on the table and urinated in the other boy’s porridge. Never one to miss a subtle hint, Soren slid down the bench to the end of the table, where he sat and ate his breakfast alone.

After breakfast, he left the dining hall before the others and waited outside for someone he recognised. As chance would have it, Ranph, the student he had sparred against on the previous day and who took pride of place at the front during all of their training exercises, came out not too long afterward and walked briskly back to his house, Stornado. Soren assumed that he was returning to collect materials for class. Soren tried to remain unseen as he waited for him and when he emerged, with conspiratorial glee, Soren followed him to his first class.

All of the academic classes were held in two buildings that abutted either end of the front building of the Academy. Students dashed between the two in the break between each class to get to the next. In the bustle, it was difficult for Soren to keep track of his classmates, but somehow, he just about managed it. A further complication was that it seemed his year was broken up into smaller academic groups of twenty-five students. He had to be careful not to follow the first face that he recognised as opposed to someone on the class schedule that he was following. He supposed that it did not matter too much as Ranph might not have even been in the group that he was assigned to and he could be going to the wrong classes anyway, but at least there was some consistency in his method.

Emeric’s plan was successful for the better part of the day. He had taken desks at the back of the lecture rooms, and hunched down as much as he could behind those in front of him, which was made difficult by the fact that he was taller than all of them. When the lecturer was speaking, he listened intently without ever making eye contact, and when they were directed to their books, he scrutinised the text furiously, without ever being able to understand a single word.