A Stranger to Command

by Sherwood Smith

  The Marlovens’ metaphor was more literal, the closing of a gate or door on one. The ‘cut’—meaning a sword—in court culture was centuries away from actual steel, but as inimical in effect.

  “You were there,” she persisted. “You were the only other rad. You must have seen or heard something.”

  He wondered why instinct prompted him not to tell her. They had shared many academy confidences, and nothing untoward had happened. “I was almost always on the other side of the camp, or perimeter, or asleep when Stad and Master Askan were on guard,” he said.

  She sighed. “And you and Stad never, ever talk, though you live in the same House. All right, shut me out.”

  “Stad is not talking about that to anyone,” Shevraeth said. “In fact, he’s not talking at all. His liberty time comes, he disappears.”

  Senelac’s torchlit profile was sober, gold-limned against the stone of the tower next to their rooftop vantage. “You know something?” She clasped her hands around her knees. “In the olden days, this whole section all belonged to the women. It was they who guarded the city. Not the men, who rode around, guarding the country.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what it all means, except maybe we’ve gone backward.”

  He was silent.

  She gazed at him, narrow-eyed, “And you’re thinking... what, that war with anyone, men or women, is backward. Right?”

  “Right,” he admitted, his tone apologetic.

  She pursed her lips, and then laughed softly. “I wish you could convince Norsunder of that.” The end-of-mission signal, a single trumpet-blare, echoed down the stone streets, and Senelac said in a different voice, “The runner was Lis Kasrec. She obviously got caught. Come on, the night is still young. Let’s go to the park.” She gripped the front of his tunic and gave him a smacking kiss.

  THIRTY-NINE

  . . . Galdran watched us like a hawk watches a mouse while riding the air currents above. It was so obvious to us all that the princess did not like him. She even seemed a little afraid of him, and if so, who could blame her? There were no wagers on whether or not there would be royal wedding negotiations. Then the king glowered around, Deric’s grandmother saying he was looking for someone to blame if the princess goes home without accepting his suit. Both Olervecs insist that old Countess of Orbanith muttered over iced fruit that even when the Merindars were teens, everyone preferred Canardan, who was only a second son, to Galdran, future crown or no. Tamara backed it up. She said half the table heard, but the Countess seems too old, and too tough, to care.

  But here’s the worst thing, Danric. The marquise is back from Sartor, and has been ever-present during this royal visit, arranging all Galdran’s entertainments herself. All of them splendid, even spectacular. And she is so deft a host she earns your mother’s respect. Galdran stamps and glowers. The marquise drifts about and smiles on everyone. How can so large a woman move so quick, and more to the point, so silent? She scares me as much as the king does. I can’t tell you why. But I’ll show you. Just last night I slipped out for some water during a concert. It was far too hot in that hall. On my return, suddenly there’s the marquise, right there before the door. She takes my arm and invites me for a night walk in her garden, and while we’re looking at her roses, which look like ghostly blobs in the moonlight—I’ll never like roses again—she’s going on about her dear daughter and how difficult it is to find young men whose tastes are as delicate and refined as hers, and I think I’m dancing around all those pitfalls without committing myself when she comes out with: “Have you had opportunity to correspond with your young friend, the Marquis of Shevraeth?”

  I almost fell into the fishpond with surprise. I galloped mentally back, wondering what we’ve said, and she waited, so I ventured what I thought was a safe comment, “I believe he occasionally writes to his father.”

  She smiled. I will go before any court of inquiry and attest upon my honor she was calling me a liar in her head, and Danric, much as I embrace you as my brother and friend, your letters will now be burned as soon as I read them. Almost before! Though the only ones I kept were the ones about your lady friend—and sparse enough have you been with detail—(unlike Your Obedient Servant to Command) she smirked like she knew everything. I did burn those letters before going to bed. And since then I cannot go into my rooms without that sense that her fingers have been everywhere. Like an army of invisible slugs have left their trail over every one of my things, discernible only in the realm of the mind.

  Anyway, she was not done with me.

  “I shall have to put my question to Prince Alaerec, then,” she says to me. “Fialma has expressed a wish to correspond with the young Marquis—wherever he is. It might be quite illuminating to discover faraway places through his eyes, and they might practice their Court Sartoran with one another.”

  Warm as it was, I make my earnest vow I felt the chill of mid-winter!

  o0o

  Ndand Maddar and Fenis Senelac watched from inside the barn as Fath led several of the younger girls across the stable’s outer court toward the two pale blond heads visible among all the horses left by the seniors.

  “Fath is after Shevraeth?” Mad asked in disbelief. “Or is she on morning retrieval?”

  Senelac crossed her arms, her profile scornful. “If she twiddles her hair, she’s after him, not sweaty horses.”

  As the seniors dismounted subsequent to their dawn lance practice, the younger girls obediently led away their mounts by their halters. They left a clear field of view to where Shem leaned against the gate talking to Shevraeth, who, Mad was quite aware, had grown amazingly tall. His head bent courteously as he listened to Shem, but she couldn’t tell if his smile was one of pleasure or politeness.

  Then came Fath, running her fingers through her loose curls. They did not hear what she said, they only heard her fluting voice, but Mad saw the change in Shevraeth’s expression, and thought, yes, he was talking to Shem in pleasure because this one is his polite touch-me-not face.

  Senelac said, “I hate it when he does that.”

  Mad jerked round, staring at her friend in mute amazement.

  Senelac’s cheeks reddened. “I mean when he turns that look on me. He’s quite welcome to use it on Fath, and the more the better.”

  “He uses it on you?”

  Senelac grimaced. “Oh, sometimes I ask for it, no mistake. I cut him off as rudely as I can if he talks about wherever-it-is. And I’ve got him fairly well trained by now. But if he slips up and I frost him, he’s never impolite, never insists, never calls me on it. Just gives me that look.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder.

  Mad glanced back. Shem had squared off with Fath, both girls trying to outtalk the other.

  Mad chuckled. “Why is it that everyone wants his attention? He’s not half so handsome as Van Stad. I mean, he’s easy on the eyes, but so are most of the seniors. You think it’s that he’s a foreigner?” Or is it that whatever you want, the other girls want?

  But Mad knew Fenis Senelac did not think that way. Fath might wish she was the leader of the girls, but Senelac just was. And whatever interested her became interesting to everyone else.

  Senelac’s shoulder jerked up. “He moves like a foreigner, still. Elegant, that’s what Sartora called it. She said it’s taught to nobles in foreign courts. Who needs ‘elegant’ in the field? Yet it does look good, especially when it’s not done to swank, and he doesn’t do it to swank. It’s him. And he still has that accent. It gets stronger when he’s—” She tipped a hand. “Feelings get past that blank face of his.”

  “Yes. And every girl here considers it adorable. You did, too, as I recall. So why the sour face? Familiarity made him contemptible?”

  Senelac flicked a look at Mad, and took in the mocking quirk to her mouth. That was why they were best friends. They had exactly the same sense of the absurd. Especially about themselves, Senelac thought.

  “No.” Then added as two more senior girls joined Fath and Shem, one flicking he
r hair absently, the other letting loose with a look-at-me trilling laugh that Mad and Senelac considered loud and shrill. “He wears this medallion under his clothes. All the time.”

  “I know, you told me that on our last day, last year. You said it was probably from some girl back in his old country, and so you weren’t going to let yourself get close. But you wouldn’t actually ask him the truth of that,” Mad added, her sarcasm now trenchant.

  Senelac watched Shevraeth lift his eyes, ever so briefly, and yes—his gaze found her even though she stood in the shadows, and she felt the impact, as always. She saw his breath catch, and knew he felt it as well.

  She turned her back on him, though it took all her strength. “I wasn’t going to tell you. Wasn’t going to tell anyone. I... mentioned it, never mind the rest of the conversation, when Sartora was here last. She might have the powerful mind of an Old Sartoran. If such really did exist the way the stories go. But she’s a little scrub in all the ways that count. She looked at me with the innocent surprise of a first-year in the Puppy Pit and said, But Senrid gave him that to wear. It’s a transfer token. To take him home if Norsunder invades.”

  Mad opened her hand. “All right. That makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is why you’re still sending him dirty looks.”

  Senelac gritted her teeth, then said with an exasperated sigh, “Oh, Mad, are you ten years old, too? Because one day he’s going to use it. He’s going to go home.”

  Mad whistled under her breath. “But I thought—”

  “What, that he’d stay? Give up his life wherever?” Senelac asked derisively.

  “So you’re angry because you think he’s trifling with you?” Mad asked in complete disbelief.

  “No. I’m trifling with him. And he knows it. I told him so from the start.”

  The mess bell clanged then.

  Senelac turned away. “Go get your breakfast,” she muttered, and ran out to the corral where the experienced trainers were dealing with the I-dare-you antics of the seven month olds, whose lunges, bites, and kicks could kill you before they learned the boundaries of horse and human personal space.

  Leaving Mad to walk soberly toward the mess hall alone. You said it but you don’t believe it. I don’t think you ever did. You thought he’d stay.

  No, you thought he’d stay for you.

  When Maddar reached the gate she stopped in front of Fath and said in a field command voice that cut effectively through the chatter, “Breakfast! Scat!”

  Shevraeth, trained to be polite, turned away in relief. He could not quite bring himself to abruptly leave when people, especially girls, were talking to him.

  They ran off, and his dilemma shifted. He did not want to call attention to himself by being late to mess. Why had all those girls come crowding up? He liked Shem. She gave him excellent advice on which of the seniors’ mounts was best for which terrain and fighting style. But lately they all seemed to want to come up and chat, always about horses or food or exercises, all academy things, all well within the rules. And he liked talking to girls, he liked looking at them, and no one ever said or did anything that would cause trouble... but they didn’t crowd around the other fellows. Maybe some new unspoken rule was forming? And he broke it by answering back?

  He’d looked for a single heartbeat toward Senelac—surely that was not a problem as these others were all blattering away—and she’d turned her back on him.

  Grimacing, he cut across the parade ground, where he passed a forlorn figure busy with a broom. It was Tevac, his wrists protruding bonily from his shapeless tunic as he stolidly whisked the broom over the flagstones. Particularly aggravated rads were fond of the late summer winds and drifts of leaves, which combined to make this particular punishment for an abundance of personal defaulters a brisk and entertaining exercise. Entertaining for aggravated rads and gloating classmates, that is, as the winds scattered the leaves hither and yon.

  “Bell rang,” he said to Tevac. “Didn’t you hear it?”

  “Have to finish.” Tevac sighed.

  Shevraeth paused, taking in the size of the court. It seemed exponentially larger without the entire academy gathered in it.

  He whistled. “Alone?”

  Tevac thumped the broom on the stones, the other hand out wide.

  “Must have been some sting!”

  Tevac tried for carelessness as he said, “Pepper in Jump House’s drawers.”

  Shevraeth let out a surprised laugh. “That was you? Of course that was you.”

  Tevac tried not to grin, then gave up. He knew Shevraeth wouldn’t be impressed by his victim pose. Not after all those stings last year. “Think they are so hot—” He smacked his own behind.

  Shevraeth did not ask for the reasoning behind this thinking. He wasn’t certain he wanted to know the eleven-year-old logic behind pepper in underclothes. The second-year colts had already had enough trouble, in Shevraeth’s private opinion. Since the two-night campout he’d seen them mending horse gear, scrubbing, sweeping, and doing the most tedious drill when others had rec time. So he shook his head, took a step, paused, then turned back. “I have to ask. And I don’t know why, as I am certain the answer will be a piece of knowledge I will never put to use. But. Does pepper in your drawers really make your parts hot?”

  Tevac snickered. “Itches.”

  Shevraeth paused, contemplating the horror of itching while standing still on parade—trying to concentrate on wooden weapons whistling past your ears—riding practice. Especially riding practice.

  “That,” he said, “is lethal. Keriam is more merciful than I; you would have been sweeping the entire city if you’d tried that last year.”

  Tevac snickered again, clearly regarding this threat as a high compliment. Shevraeth ran on, thinking about how unpopular Marlovair and his riding-mates had managed to make themselves from masters and rads to scrubs.

  He was stopped again, this time by Gannan, who bustled round a corner, flung out a long arm, and when Shevraeth came to an abrupt halt, said, “Stad and Landeth Elder were looking for you. They need you to run as senior rad on a pup overnight. Andaun broke his arm on the way in from lance practice.”

  “Horse all right?”

  “Not the least hurt. Andaun dropped his point, caught it in a vine he didn’t see, and—” Gannan wrenched his arm up in dramatic demonstration. “Since it’s the pups going, you wouldn’t have afternoon knife classes, and Ventdor is going to cover the colts.”

  Shevraeth brushed his hand over his tunic in salute and continued on. Now he’d have to eat fast.

  He rode out not long after Landeth and the two Houses of pups had marched out, easily catching up. The fields used for the smallest boys were very close to the academy, which was why a master was seldom assigned to the overnights after the very first one or two. The neat lines of small boys had long since straggled into shoving, hopping, chattering clumps, their high voices and energy boundless despite the summery heat.

  By now Shevraeth was long familiar with all the regular campsites. The lower academy seldom was taken anywhere new. That remained for the all-academy summer game at the end of the year.

  “Where to?” he asked Landeth, who was a second-year senior Shevraeth knew by sight. They’d never exchanged more than a few words, always on the practice field.

  Landeth grimaced. “Dish Field.”

  Of course. That was probably why Landeth hadn’t found any volunteers, and so the first available rad who knew scrubs had to be ordered out. This was the very first overnight practice field to which Shevraeth had been taken two years before. It was the field used most often for the lower Houses, and the games were pretty much always related to the latest drills. Not a problem for the boys—who would do fine—but who would also be saving up that boundless energy for sneak attacks on one another during what would surely be a star night, which meant night guard would be long and tedious.

  They arrived shortly before sunset, and supervised the boys in setting up the tents. Shevraeth h
ad forgotten how terrible the smallest boys were at that—even by their second year, they had improved considerably. The sun had finally sunk into the west, closing a simmering day, when at last the tents and bedrolls passed inspection, and it was time for cook duties. The rads had to closely supervise boys this young, inexperienced, and determined at the slightest opportunity to turn chores into mayhem.

  Always simple food for the smallest boys. This first night, slices of travel bread and cheese, the bread heavily studded with currants to make it a little more savory. The boys tore into it with the uncomplicated hunger of the very young.

  “Plan?” Shevraeth asked Landeth.

  Landeth watched the boys chomping away with the steady scrutiny of experience as he talked. “Usual. Ridings, emphasis on scouting and flank guarding.”

  “Flag game for tomorrow,” Shevraeth said, hand out in acknowledgement of the expected. “Why not a night game to wear ’em out tonight?”

  Landeth tipped his head. “You haven’t been with the first-year pups much, have you?”

  “Marec and I were Pit rads last year. I know well that they are looking for any opportunity to sting us, one another, the tents, probably the grass and sky, if they can get outside of the light. I came up with this idea too late in the year to use it—”

  “Of course.” Landeth flashed an ironic grin.

  “—but why not use it now? The problem seems to be keeping them within the torch perimeter, but away from the campsite.”

  Landeth snorted. “If you can do that—well, let’s hear it.”

  Shevraeth had played seek-the-treasure with the other court children when young, memories he’d dredged up while working on the command class communications problems. Though none of his solutions had helped with command class, he’d wondered if one of the oldest favorites might appeal to scrubs. “Suppose we make up messages. In code. And hide them. But only one is the real one—and they have to break the codes...”