Squire of War

by M. H. Johnson

  The gentle healer shook his head, soft white curls bobbing in the draft. “It is a weapon of torture. I have argued it before and will argue it again. It has no business being used anywhere outside a royal interrogation chamber. To find that the head proctor not only felt at liberty to carry such an item as a means of intimidation, but to actually strike a student, and one of named noble blood at that, is beyond outrageous. Absolutely unforgivable.”

  Jess shook her head, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. “I have fallen from grace, Master Jevons. Shamed myself utterly before my mentor’s eyes, endangered the lives of my friends. It is what I deserve. No more, no less.”

  “Balderdash!” The healer roared. “Do you think I’m a fool, Jessica?” He winced, shaking his head in apology when Jess trembled. “I am sorry. For me, your healer, to raise his voice, when you so vulnerable, so exhausted. Beaten after seeing live combat, forced to run to the point of collapse. Don’t deny it, I recognize the signs. To then be so ill used when rest and recuperation are the only burdens a soldier who has fought for his life should be forced to endure. It is unthinkable!”

  He gently lifted away her blanked, fingers delicately touching the areas where she had received bruises in the engagement the night before, careful to touch her back with only the gentlest of caresses which she still flinched from, for all that she rested on her side, back free of contact with the bedding.

  “Josie is my student, Jessica, as you well know. None of us are fools, and she couldn’t stand for even one assistant healer to gaze at you askance, you injured and vulnerable, after risking your life to save your friends.”

  Jess squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to cry.

  “I don’t know the details, but I know enough to appreciate the call of a noble soul, one who would risk her life to save another. I can only assume you broke some unspoken Squire mandate in doing so, and now you are forced to pay a most bitter price. And for that, I am truly sorry.”

  A soft cotton cloth dabbed her tears, cool spring water given for her parched throat to sip.

  “I don’t envy you what awaits, once you leave this wing, wearing that scratchy penitent’s robe of white wool. But I can tell you this. For so long as you are under my care, you will be treated with the same courtesy as any of my other patients. I have also insisted upon you being given permission to wear an undertunic of cotton, so your wounds are not tormented by that rough wool.”

  “Thank you, Master Jevons,” Jess whispered, even as the gentle healer pulled up her blankets once more.

  “Rest, Jessica. Rest and regain your strength for the days ahead."

  And falling into the deepest of slumbers, Jess did just that.

  28

  So high and mighty, now wearing the penitent's robe. Fitting. I always knew you were pathetic, Calenbry, and now the whole world knows."

  Her cheeks burned from the mocking laughter she was greeted by the first girl to catch her gaze since leaving the Healers Wing, her coterie tittering right behind her.

  Jess blinked, almost certain she had seen her before. Lizbet, that was her name. A first name, all anyone had bothered with during the revels, fastening warm brown eyes upon Jess, laughing at Jess's botched jokes, chestnut hair so soft as Jess had leaned into their kiss before Lizbet had been swept away by a laughing Lucas. She had seemed to like Jess just fine back then, before her world had turned upside down.

  Jess hung her head in shame, hobbling away as fast as she could.

  She would show no weakness. She swore that when first she left the Healers Wing just moments ago, wearing nothing but the cotton shift and penitent robe she had been handed, doing her best not wince and grimace as she hobbled to her quarters, solemn stares and mocking jests hounding her from students who before had done all they could to avoid her proud gaze.

  Bitter students, uncertain and overwhelmed, happy to see a star that had shone so brightly extinguished at last, now no better than they. Jess had shuddered to see it written so clearly in the first young man to spit at her feet.

  “Not so high and mighty are you, wench? Thought you were all that, the equal of any man, til your idiocy got students killed! You should have been the one to fall, Calenbry. You’re worthless.”

  Jess shuddered at the depth of the insult, fists trembling. She did naught but hang her head and try to pass.

  Only to be shoved to the ground, gasping in sudden pain, her back ablaze with the jolt, legs still wobbly and sore with exhaustion and the scars of whips having lost the exquisite power and grace that had been hers but a handful of hours ago.

  Laughter and jeers met her hot gaze.

  Her attacker bent down and spat in her face. “Not so high and mighty now, are you, wench?”

  “Leave her, Duggin. She’s still a Squire. They’re a bloody bunch, killers every one of them.” This from a shorter student, gazing at Jess not with malice, just fear.

  His sandy haired friend shook him off. “I’m done with her anyway. Not worth my time. If she had any sense, she’d leave this place, and never return.”

  Mocking laughter had hounded her then, no one caring an iota that she had been physically shoved, even spat upon. And she too shaken to fight back, not even knowing if she should. He had not struck to kill, he was just a young hothead.

  And his contempt of her burned her heart.

  Getting up on shaky feet, Jess hissed as she straightened her back, plodding to her quarters, black whispers and pointed glares spearing her with ever shaky step.

  She trembled to see the pig’s blood smeared on her door, ‘murderer’ spelled out bold and ugly.

  Trembling with bitter rage, she touched her door, and felt it vibrate to her touch, taking deep breaths as she opened it, slamming the thick door shut as hard as she could. Her eyes flitted from her inviting bed her body cried out to slip into, to the three day old pitcher of water on her bedside table, carefully held with shaking hands as she drunk it down, having neither heart nor energy to risk the dining hall below.

  She thought back upon memory of a trembling girl forced to wear the penitent's robe, what seemed a lifetime ago. Once an aspiring mage, Jess understood, until her attempts to synergize and harmonize various arts alien to the elementalist paradigm, a grand unification, Alex had called it, had resulted in a catastrophic explosion that had left three of her fellows injured, one dead.

  Jess had only needed to catch the poor girl’s gaze once to know she had been dying inside, crushed by her own guilt, compounded by the sanctioned mockery she endured, compliments of the entire school, the lords table alone refusing to bait the poor girl. Jess knew she had long since dropped out and left. She wondered if the girl would ever have the heart to cast a spell again, or if searing shame would forever freeze her in her tracks.

  Jess furiously wiped away her tears. She just hoped the girl had the heart not to surrender her life to regret, no matter how bitter her mistake, how horrific the tragedy she had been a part of.

  “How, how am I to endure this for days, for months on end? To see such contempt, simply limping back from the healers, and why do they think I’m a murderer?” Soft words murmured to empty air, her familiar on his own mission at her request, she utterly alone.

  But of course, it was her own fault. She had confessed to three lost lives. No matter that she had only fought to save them. Her band had been put in dire peril, her horrific dereliction of duty no less egregious than if she had killed those three herself.

  Only by sheerest luck did almost all of them survive. She sobbed, thinking of a sweet freckled smile, gazing at her so impishly, so playfully, but days ago, and how she had sobbed and cried out as those bastards tore into her with their bloody knives.

  And Jess too late to save her, even as she risked her entire band. All their lives. Because she refused to give up.

  At least she was able to spare Alex, Jera, and all their surviving friends the shaming she herself was forced to endure. At least she could do that for them, even if it encouraged others to th
ink those missing lives were her burden to bear alone.

  So be it.

  She would never wish the horror she felt upon anyone. She could only imagine what Alex and Jera were going through in any case, being kidnapped, bound, forced to watch their friend writhing in agony before dying at last, knowing that horror had been in store for them as well. And now the shame of survival, after poor Abella had perished. And Eloquin's piercing gaze, castigating them utterly for having made the expedition without going through proper channels. As if it was their fault, the vile trap that had been sprung.

  But who had set it? Were schemes in play even now within her school? Was anything being done?

  Wounded, shunned, exhausted, Jess let the questions slip away from her as she lost herself at last to deepest sleep.

  When she got up the next day, it was to find a list of her assigned classes and their times slid through her door. A single tray of food had been left for her as well, she saw upon opening the door. Knocked over, of course. Crockery smashed, lukewarm gruel clotting as she blinked at the mess.

  She sighed, deciding to forgo breakfast altogether, simply trying to find her first assigned class, doing all she could to ignore the hooded stares, the mocking smiles that were all too often the only response she got, the few times she had dared to ask a fellow student for directions.

  “Get out of my way, penitent. We don’t have to answer to the likes of you.” A cold glare, lips curled. What her fellows truly thought of Jess and her fellow Squires, when not fearing their potency. Or perhaps it was the reaction to be expected, a school full of frustrated noble scions desperate to keep afloat, and she fallen lower than a serf in their mind.

  29

  It was late when she finally arrived at her first class, seeing before her a young lady not much older than Jess herself, dressed in a sober version of the Highrock uniform with a thin linen cape over it marked with a professor’s pin. The instructor's eyes narrowed upon catching sight of her newest student.

  “Ah, Jessica de Calenbry. Attending her assigned classes at last. And all it took was to be stripped of your insufferable pride, your baseless arrogance, and humbled before your betters. Welcome, penitent one. Have a seat. Perhaps you will actually learn something useful, before you flee this school in shame.”

  Over a dozen students laughed aloud as Jess slid into one of the many seats in the back of the classroom not taken. Which was not at all surprising, really, as all the Squires whose ranks she had once been a part of were currently savoring sweet revels well-earned for their mission recently survived.

  All save her and her shieldbrother, missing even now, yet another source of regret and dread.

  She rubbed her head, gazing at the diagrams of triangles and squares on display before them, finding them simple enough to copy, not really understanding what the degrees meant, afraid to ask a soul, lest derision and laughter were her only response.

  “Penitent one,” the professor asked. “Give me the combined angles for the third problem, and explain to me how one would use the equations discussed to calculate the trajectory of a catapult’s fire."

  Jess gazed at the professor, speechless, her stomach twisting in horrified knots as she saw her professor’s lips curl up in a contemptuous smile that correlated perfectly with the increasingly snide remarks burning Jess’s ears.

  “But, of course, you would have no idea how to answer that question, for all that you were once a Squire, before your fall from grace. And it is no wonder you fell, really, if you were this slipshod in your military lessons. For this class is mandatory, Jessica, even for the vaunted would-be knights of this school, and how dare you think you can skip my class for months on end, free of consequence!”

  Jess swallowed, trembling, surprised at the depth of venom in the young professor’s voice.

  “I have been instructing your fellows for months, Calenbry, doing my part to educate them, perhaps one day to save their lives! Imagine my surprise, or lack thereof, to find the one girl who flaunts my class entirely, who cares not a fig for my lessons, my concerns, manages to screw things up so royally that students die, because she had to play the fool!”

  Her voice cracked at the last, glaring at Jess, one hand clenched in fury, the other clearly maimed, her vitriol so caustic that it left the class speechless.

  She knew she could do better as a student, but this? Never in a million years had she expected this.

  “Well, Calenbry, answer the question! How would you calculate a catapult’s range if you are too good for formulas that have served our commanders for centuries? Tell me, girl. Tell me or get out of this class, get out of this school, before anyone else suffers for your folly!”

  Jess grimaced, closing her eyes tight as her heart roared in her ears, drowning her in a horrific maelstrom of shame.

  A fist slammed upon her table.

  “Answer the question, Calenbry!”

  Heart racing, she kept her hands rigid, afraid of what she might do in that state. “I just know, professor.”

  Her teacher scowled. “You just know. You just know? What does that even mean? You draw a guess based on the length of the arm? Do you even factor in whether or not it uses a torsion bundle or counter-weight? What about the slope of the bucket, the weight of the payload? What if it uses a sling? How do you know, Penitent?”

  “If I see it, I know.” There was nothing else she could say.

  Dark hair tightly bound in a bun, her instructor leaned down to glare into Jess’s eyes.

  Graceful and fair, loose attire held a deceptively powerful frame. Jess blinked, understanding at once. This professor whose name she didn’t even know had once fought, or aspired to fight herself.

  “Pathetic answer, Calenbry. But then again, seeing as you are too good for my lessons, no matter that I have devoted my career to helping military students who actually want to avoid enemy fire and return the same as effectively as possible, I have no reason to expect anything but delusional dribble to pass through your lips.”

  She shook her head. “You would have found my lessons useful, had you the wit to appreciate them. But you have made your choice, and it has cost three students their lives, has it not?”

  Jess shuddered, stomach roiling, hands trembling in shame, wondering if perhaps she had earned that ugly assertion, somehow. Earned, or as good as earned.

  She hung her head and denied nothing.

  “Duggin!”

  “Yes, professor.”

  “You take excellent notes. I am giving you a specific task. You will slip a daily copy of your notes under the Penitent’s door. Do you understand?”

  The young man frowned, glaring at Jess. Jess shuddered, sickened to recognize the boy who had spit on her before, staring at her now with such furious contempt.

  “Why must I do this, professor?”

  The professor actually spat at Jess’s feet. “Because I don’t ever want to lay eyes on this arrogant piece of filth again.”

  She turned to glare at a speechless Jess. “Do you understand, Calenbry? You will receive your notes from my class copied by Duggin here. Be grateful. You will take whatever chastisement he has for you as just reward for the trouble of your very existence. Who knows? Perhaps in some far-off future, when you are other than the pathetic wretch you are now, you will find it useful. Perhaps it will save the lives of whatever fools actually serve under you.”

  Her angry gaze hardened. “Had you even bothered to attend my lectures before your fall, you would know that I teach military doctrine as well. Hyve and Eloquin are not the only professors of tactics and military history at this school, and most of the king’s men depend upon a cautious approach. A disciplined approach. One that saves lives from folly. Much like the lives lost on your latest ill-fated mission.” She shook her head. “Your entire band put in jeopardy thanks to the actions of one hot-headed girl. You didn’t think to even grace me with your presence but once, when so many lives depended upon you. Don’t expect me to have anything but contempt
for a creature that only comes crawling for aid when she is finally laid humble and low, too arrogant to learn, and so much blood lost for her folly.”

  She abruptly spun about, a warrior’s grace, striding to the front of the classroom, projecting her voice loud enough for the class entire to hear. “And don’t worry about appearing for the finals, Calenbry. You and I both know you will be leaving this school in richly deserved tears long before that day ever arrives.”

  Hoots and laughter followed those words, Jess shaking so badly she had to hold the desk, never having felt so humiliated in her entire life.

  A shame well-deserved, if memories of her commander’s furious gaze was anything to go by.

  So she sat as her teacher spoke on, unable to move, silent tears streaking her cheeks as she stared at her desktop, unable to bear the teacher’s contemptuous stare a moment longer.

  It was a struggle just to get up and face the hostile glares as she stumbled out of the classroom, too crushed even to resist when abrupt shoves sent her sprawling, smirks sent her way as she crashed to the ground yet again.

  And the day had just begun.

  It was dark at last, the bustle of the keep long past, and Jess lay curled up in her bed, too exhausted to do anything about the painful throb of her tortured back, reliving every degradation, every caustic comment, every derisive laugh sent her way.

  Never in all her days had she thought she would be the butt of such scorn, such derision.

  Remarkably, not all her professors were as awful as Lady Chevalier, but more than one had made it clear that they found her presence a distasteful stain upon the king’s honor.

  A few professors had actually surprised her.