His face bloomed red, as she no doubt intended. Even though he had tried to be ready for it, for anything she might say, he could not actually believe she had said that aloud. He wanted to tell her to shut her mouth, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to stammer through it with any force.
“Give Lord Ferogin our best!” Darc said with abrupt good cheer, and he turned away, as if Edewa had already said her farewells. When the smile slipped from her face for a moment, Graegor nodded curtly and followed Darc the other way down the gallery. Sadly, it was as graceful a retreat as he’d managed from these Adelard girls so far.
After they had turned a corner and passed a group of Kroldon magi, Darc murmured, “Did she really say what I think she said?”
“Yes.” That Tabitha and I are blessing the Solstice this year.
Darc paused. “Back home, that would be a rather … crass thing for a L’Abbanist lady to say in mixed company.”
“Oh, it’s very crass here too.” Whether or not he and Tabitha were sleeping together was absolutely no one’s business but their own.
Another pause. “I’m sorry about mentioning it earlier, about Lady Serafina. I guess I thought it was something everyone knew.”
“Everyone does know.” Graegor wished his face would cool down. He should be able to talk about these realities in a matter-of-fact way. “Arundel and Ilene are doing the blessing. But they’ve been a couple since last year, and they aren’t L’Abbanists. It’s a pagan blessing, a pagan tradition.” Which was not to say that L’Abbanists didn’t take advantage of the mood it set. That he wouldn’t be taking advantage of the mood it set. His face felt even hotter. It was stupid. This shouldn’t embarrass him.
It probably wouldn’t embarrass you if you’d done it before.
He realized that they’d walked past the turn to the flight of stairs he wanted, and he muttered a curse as he redirected his steps. Darc followed silently, and Graegor pushed out a deep breath to try to erase his agitation before he opened the door at the top of the stairs.
This space was where he usually had his acrobatics training with Magus Darren. It was a big, simple square of packed dirt, set off with ropes and covered by a high ceiling with rafters built from oak logs. Jeff, Marcus, Patrick, and Logan were the only ones there, all in grey training tunics and pants, and they were standing by the weapons rack and drinking from water jugs when Graegor and Darc came in. Marcus was the first to greet Darc, with something between a bow and a magi nod; he had attended court in Chrenste before with his uncle, and as he and Darc asked after each other’s families, their small talk was polite but relaxed. When Patrick was introduced, he seemed as easy about Darc’s presence as Marcus was, but Logan stayed quiet, and Jeff—
“Care to spar, your Highness?” Jeff used the title even though Darc had asked them to call him by name. He took two wooden swords from the rack and held one out.
“Oh, no thanks.” Darc gestured toward his boots. “For one thing, I’m not dressed for it.”
“Don’t let that stop you,” Jeff said. “We train in all sorts of footwear. Helps us learn balance.”
Darc grinned. “Like snowshoes?”
Patrick and Marcus both started laughing. Jeff smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes, and he sent to Graegor, “You told him about that?”
“What? It was funny.” Jeff had put them on backwards by accident and had fallen on his face.
“You’ll be fine,” Jeff said to Darc, still holding out the sword. Then he threw an exasperated look at Patrick, who was still chuckling.
“No,” Darc shook his head. “I’m out of practice.”
“Just one or two bouts.” Now Jeff tossed the sword to him.
Darc caught it easily, but reversed his grip on it and extended it back toward Jeff. “No, really. I’d rather just watch.”
Jeff’s eyebrow went up high. But after a moment, he took back the sword. “Suit yourself. Marcus?”
Graegor raised his own eyebrow at Jeff as he and Marcus ducked under the ropes. Patrick and Logan also went out to the packed dirt, carrying quarterstaffs, and soon the ceiling echoed with rhythmic thwacks.
Darc gestured with his chin toward the rafters. “Are those handholds up there? You jump that high?”
“With the springboard and telekinesis.”
“Shit.”
“It’s fun.”
“More fun than sparring?”
“Much.”
Darc grinned at his emphasis. “You don’t like fighting?”
“Fighting is different. Sparring is frustrating.” Just as he said it, Marcus landed a painful-looking blow on Jeff’s leg.
“Because you have to pull your punches?” Darc guessed.
“Right.” It was a little surprising that Darc understood that so easily. No one else did, except Contare. “I have so much brute force, I’ll never know how skilled I am. But I want to know. My trainer, Magus Darren, says I’m too fixated on that.”
“You’ll only know if you fight another sorcerer.” Darc made a show of looking around. “Does Lord Ferogin train here too?”
Graegor barked a laugh. “Never seen him anywhere on the training grounds. Which isn’t surprising, since he disdains anything so common as physical abilities.”
“He knows you come here, though. That girl was supposed to watch for you, wasn’t she?”
Graegor nodded. “Probably.”
They watched Patrick and Logan’s quarterstaff battle for a moment. Then Darc asked, “You said in your last letter that you were worried about something happening. After your duel with him, and then after that other Adelard maga pledged to you. You thought there could be a confrontation between the Telgard and Adelard students.”
“Hasn’t happened.” Not yet, at least. Rose, Selena, and Errie still kept careful watch in the dormitory for harassment of Brigita.
“Has Lady Josselin been haunting the Academy to make sure no one does anything stupid?”
“She has, actually. Contare and Pascin have had words with some of the magi too.”
“Won’t they listen to you?” When Graegor looked at him, Darc shrugged. “I mean, Lord Contare and Lord Pascin shouldn’t have to get involved, right? The student magi are more yours than theirs.”
“They’ll listen to me.” He thought so, at least. “Ferogin won’t tell his magi not to cause trouble, though. Not without a wink.”
“Well, at least he’s having them torment you and not your magi.”
“Jeh, he knows I won’t complain about it. It’d be petty.”
“Like he’s being. Are you going to fight him again?”
“I don’t want to, but I will if I have to.”
“Hm. Interesting, how the Circle doesn’t tolerate fighting among its magi, but it does among its members.”
“For its members, I think it has to. We’re sorcerers. Formal dueling ensures that no innocent bystanders get hurt.”
“That’s what dueling’s for, everywhere.” Darc gestured to the roped-off section of the training floor. “Ritualize it and make it safer. But I wonder when the other shoe will drop.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if I were a rogue magus, I’d try to exploit those bad feelings between you and Ferogin. I’m sure they know about it.”
Great. Graegor hadn’t thought of that. He watched Logan back Patrick across the floor in a series of attacks, but when Patrick finally fell, he rolled sideways, and his dropped quarterstaff slid to his other hand as if on its own. He would have nailed Logan right in the ribs if Logan hadn’t retreated. Logan said something and they both laughed.
“So why don’t you want to spar?” he asked Darc. “No one would use magic against you.”
“I know. But I’m not very good at it.”
Obviously he was being modest, but Graegor didn’t challenge it. “No one here would care about that.”
“Yes, they would.”
Graegor glanced at him curiously. “What do you mean?”
“No
one actually believes that I’m not very good at it. Everyone thinks, he’s a prince, he’s been training his whole life, that’s probably all he does is train for war, so of course his skills are fantastic. Except they aren’t, and when I spar with somebody, pretty soon he thinks I’m stinking on purpose, and he gets angry that I’m not taking him seriously.” He folded his arms on top of one of the wooden posts holding up the ropes. “I actually lost a good friend that way. So now I only spar with Adlai and my trainers. And sometimes my father, when his leg isn’t hurting.”
Graegor felt bad for complaining about having the opposite problem. Pulling a punch was better than having no punch to pull. “Is Adlai good?”
“Unfairly so.”
“Natural talent?”
“Maybe. Actually it’s not unfair. He works really hard at it, harder than anyone I know.”
“And you don’t as much?”
“He got motivated young. When we were living with my mother’s family, when he was six or seven, he got beat up. Not bad—the rest of us got there fast enough—but I’d never seen him so mad at himself.”
“Beat up? Who’s stupid enough to beat up a prince?”
“The other boy was new in town and didn’t know who Adlai was. Anyway, Adlai went to our uncle’s swordmaster and insisted on starting his training. I’d only just started mine, and by the time we went back to Chrenste, he was winning a lot. The only reason I could beat him at all before I went to sea was because he was having a growth spurt, and it made him clumsy. Eventually he’ll be winning tournaments.” He paused. “Don’t tell him I said that.”
“Jeh, I’ll be sure to write to him today about it.”
“Don’t. Praise from me would snap his mind.”
“One of your letters a while back said you were in a tournament.”
“Just before I left Chrenste.”
“Was it fun? I’ve never done anything like that.”
“Like a tournament?”
“Anything like competing in front of other people. At home we played stickball and ran races, but no one watched us.”
Darc thought about it. “It wasn’t fun, exactly. I got eliminated when I lost my first two bouts. But I didn’t embarrass myself too much. And I admit that I liked the cheers when they announced me.”
Graegor remembered the crowds at the Hippodrome at the presentation of his Circle, and he couldn’t keep back a grin. “Jeh, that’s not bad. Was it just a sword tournament, or was there jousting and archery and all that?”
“All that. I only competed with the sword. Have you start training with the sword? You said you were going to.”
“Jeh, just this year. Have you tried the quarterstaff? You might be better at it.”
“I have, and I’m not.” Darc’s face twisted into a half-grin, half-scowl. “I would have embarrassed myself if I’d tried that in the tournament. Or jousting. Or archery. Or anything else.” Then he grunted in sympathy as Jeff landed a blow on Marcus’s midsection.
“I doubt you’re that bad.”
“I’m not bad, I’m just not nearly as good as everyone expects me to be. But you know? It’s all right. I tried to learn tennis a while back, and the trainer told me something I’ve remembered ever since. That maybe I should just learn to enjoy doing things badly.”
Graegor raised his eyebrows. “So, have you?”
“Well, tennis, of course. And singing—it’s definitely fun to sing badly.”
“I can’t sing either.”
“Well then, getting drunk and singing badly should be on our list of things to do. What else are you bad at?”
Graegor thought about it. “I can’t draw or sketch at all.”
“We’ll draw some bad pictures while I’m here too.”
“And I can’t shoot cue-ball. I cheat every time.”
Darc laughed. “I wish I could cheat. I’d cheat that way at everything if I could.”
“Everything? You’d cheat at cards?”
“I’m no good at cards either.”
“That doesn’t count. Cards are mostly just luck.”
“In my case, no luck.”
Graegor snorted. “Your face is your luck.”
Darc’s gaze had drifted to the back corner. “Should I test that theory now?”
Graegor looked toward the door and saw Rose there, leading Brigita, Errie, and Selena into the training room. He felt a rare flare of annoyance at Rose, because he hadn’t meant for the other girls to know about Darc. And what if Tabitha found out he was “socializing”? If any of her magi were in the building …
They don’t come here. There’s no reason for her to know.
The girls weren’t in training tunics, and in fact looked like they hadn’t changed clothes since the graduation breakfast at the dormitory that morning. Rose and Selena were wearing shades of blue, and Brigita’s dress was grey, while Errie’s was bright pink and close-fitting. He hadn’t actually seen Errie or Selena for weeks. Both of them now had blonde streaks in their hair.
You’re not supposed to socialize with them.
As they made their way around the roped perimeter, Logan and Patrick broke off their combat to shout greetings, but Marcus and Jeff didn’t acknowledge them in any way except by fighting harder. Graegor opened his link to Rose and sent, “Did Koren talk to you?”
“Yes.” Her dark hair was up, making her look even taller, and she hadn’t done anything to hide the cute dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks. She smiled as she approached, but Graegor really had no idea what she was thinking as he introduced her to Darc. He had no idea what Darc was thinking, either. Both of them behaved like perfect courtiers, as gracious and confident as Tabitha. Rose gently tugged Brigita forward to introduce her, but Brigita kept her eyes down and nearly stumbled when she curtseyed. Selena, like Marcus, had met Darc at court when she’d visited with her grandfather, and, like Marcus, she made easy small talk with him about their families. And Errie—
“It’s such an honor to meet you, your Highness,” Errie murmured as she rose from a deep curtsey. Her blue eyes were sparkling, actually sparkling, just like in a poem. “Lord Graegor has told us so much about you.”
At this, Darc threw a mock glare over his shoulder at Graegor. “You ruin everything.”
He actually hadn’t talked about Darc very much to his magi friends. But he said, “I just gave fair warning.”
“As you say, Lord Sorcerer,” Errie murmured, her eyes still on Darc.
Graegor couldn’t remember the last time Errie had called him by title. Darc grinned at her and said, “He gave me fair warning as well.”
“How so, your Highness?”
“He told me all about the charms of magi ladies.”
Errie groaned at the common pun, more than it deserved, and behind her, Rose rolled her eyes. Patrick and Logan reached them then, and Logan immediately squeezed Selena around the waist and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She made a face and said, “Get a towel. You’re sweaty.”
“Could you get it for me? Behind you, on the bench.”
Selena did, but she looked annoyed. Graegor was too, a bit. Logan was obviously sending a message to Darc that Selena was taken—a message that wasn’t at all necessary, and hadn’t even been received, since Darc was still talking and laughing with Errie. “Relax,” he sent to Logan.
It was the wrong thing to say. Logan threw him a quick glare as he toweled off his face, and Graegor looked away, suppressing the urge to apologize because it would probably make things worse. Who was he to tell Logan to relax, anyway? He suddenly wondered if he’d been just as blatant earlier about staking his claim on his girl.
That made him wince a little. Errie’s continued flirting with Darc was making him wince a little too, since it was Rose that Darc was supposed to be getting to know. And besides that, this was the sort of attention Errie normally gave him, despite his lack of encouragement.
But why should that bother him? He wanted her to focus on someone else, didn’t he?
Patrick suddenly laughed loudly in response to something that Graegor hadn’t caught, and he pounded the butt of his quarterstaff against the ground a few times. “Hear, hear!” he shouted. “Let’s go drink. I’m buying.”
“You’re buying?” Marcus said as he and Jeff returned to the rack to put away their wooden swords. Both of them were red-faced with exertion. “That’s a first.” Then he glanced at Brigita and smiled at her, and to Graegor’s surprise, she actually smiled back, a little.
“Lies and slander,” Patrick declared, pushing through the entire group to get to the bench. “I demand satisfaction.” He scrubbed his shaggy hair with a towel and then pointed at Marcus. “Drinking contest, you and me. Loser buys.”
“See, that’s how you get out of buying.”
Patrick shook his head, sighing in disappointment. “No, my friend. That’s how you get out of drinking.”
“Don’t listen to them, your Highness,” Errie said to Darc, leaning to touch his arm. Her hair fell forward to lie in loose curls across her bodice. “The Lord Sorcerer never lets either of them pay. Or any of the rest of us.”
This was true, but for some reason, her words irritated Jeff enough that Graegor could clearly sense it. “And by the sorcerer,” Graegor said quickly, giving extra emphasis to the title, “she means Lord Contare.” The money he spent wasn’t his yet, after all.
“He and Lady Josselin are both very generous,” Rose said with a smile. “We try to be careful with the privilege.”
Darc smiled back at her. “Ale instead of whiskey?”
“Actually, that depends on where you go. There’s a Khenroxan tavern near the north wall that makes a really authentic whiskey and doesn’t charge much for it. In my opinion, they don’t charge enough for it.”
“That is just her opinion,” Patrick put in. “Mine differs.”
Rose waved dismissively. “You like the sweeter stuff.”
“I might agree with him,” Darc said. “Is there a place that has smokier stuff and sweeter stuff?”
“Definitely,” Rose nodded. “Most of the Khenroxan students like to go to Morag’s. But there’s also the Runt Pig, and the Paronnere has a great row of whiskeys too.”
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