by Ginn Hale
Kiram would have thanked him for the compliment but his words were cut short by the sound of Javier hissing his name across the infirmary. Scholar Donamillo indicated that he should go with just a wave of his hand. Kiram stepped out from behind the black blinds and picked his way between the cots of sleeping students.
Javier stood in the middle of the infirmary, still dressed in his riding clothes.
“Nestor said Scholar Donamillo had to take you to the infirmary.” As Javier closed the distance between them his gaze moved over Kiram’s body, searching for some sign of an injury.
“I was feeling nauseous,” Kiram said. “I’m better now.”
“Really.” Javier stepped closer. The deep scents of leather and sweat wafted over Kiram. When he had first arrived at the academy he had found the smell of men’s sweat overpowering, but now it was familiar, almost comforting.
“Nestor said you hurt your arm,” Javier murmured to him. “The two of you should really get your stories straight.”
“My arm hurt so badly that I felt nauseous.”
“You’re a terrible liar.” Javier still looked slightly concerned. “You really aren’t sick, are you?”
“No. I’m not. Scholar Donamillo just…” Kiram shrugged. “I guess he took pity on me and let me hide in the infirmary. I’ve been looking at his mechanical cures and we were discussing how my engine might help power them.” Kiram felt he could say that much without betraying his promise to Scholar Donamillo. “I’m really not sick at all.”
“Good, because a huge package just arrived for you and Nestor is so sure that it’s crammed with more of those candies that your mother always sends that he’s overcome all fear and is guarding it up in our room.”
When Kiram reached the tower room he discovered that Nestor was indeed there. His hair was stringy with dried sweat and he sat on the floor with his shirt hanging half open. He looked exhausted. A huge wooden crate towered up behind him.
“Nestor, I can’t believe that you came in here.” Kiram grinned at him. To his surprise Nestor shot Javier an irritated look and shoved his spectacles up on his nose imperiously.
“He made me help him carry it up. Three flights of stairs!” Nestor complained. “And once I was here what would the point be of running off? If the white hell is going to take me then at least I ought to get a few of those sweets your mother sends first. Don’t you think?”
Kiram chuckled and said, “Yes, absolutely.”
Javier might tease him for considering selling his soul for knowledge, but Nestor was obviously willing to give it up for candy. Though when Kiram considered the amount of weight Nestor had lost and how much he’d grown over the last four months, Kiram supposed he might just be desperate for anything to eat.
“Well,” Javier said, “let’s get it open and see what’s inside.”
“You don’t think that there could be one of those autumn meat pies in there, do you?” Nestor asked. He sounded almost delirious. “I’m really not going to be devoured by the white hell, am I?”
“No.” Javier began to pry the crate open. “You’re under protection as a courier.”
Kiram rolled his eyes at this.
“I don’t know if I believe that the white hell recognizes the king’s protection of couriers,” Nestor replied.
“You’d be surprised what it can recognize.” Javier wrenched a wooden crossbar off of the crate and tossed it aside.
“I’ve got a small pry bar down in the shed, you know,” Kiram informed him.
“You can’t possibly make Nestor wait that long for his reward,” Javier replied. They both glanced to where Nestor sat on the floor. Nestor still seemed lost in some mix of thought and exhaustion.
“I’ve always been curious about what it was like up here.” Nestor flopped back on the floor. “It’s nice, really. You have so much space and all this light just pours in.”
“Don’t get too settled in,” Javier said as he jerked another crossbar free. “I’m not looking for another underclassman.” He pulled a third wooden bar free. “Are either of you going to help me with this crate?”
Kiram shrugged. “I offered to get a pry bar and you turned me down.” His attention still lingered on his discussion with Scholar Donamillo. He would need to remove the roof from the shed as soon as possible. If only this damn tournament was over, he’d have some free time. As it was he’d just have to endure another week of training and then the week of the tournament itself before he could get back to work on his steam engine. His thoughts were interrupted by Javier waving a board in front of his face.
“Kir-Zaki, you have absolutely no enthusiasm. Look at this crate. It could have anything in it. Aren’t you desperate to tear it open?”
“I am,” Nestor moaned from the floor, “but I’m just so sore from carrying the damn thing up the stairs.”
“Why didn’t you use the gear lift?” Kiram asked.
“The gear lift is only for scholars’ use,” Nestor grumbled. Javier smiled at that and then ripped the last cross bar free. One entire side of the crate fell aside. Javier caught it before it hit the floor and leaned it up against the wall.
“I smell honey cakes,” Nestor said. “Honey cakes and roast pheasant.”
“He’s out of his mind,” Javier commented to Kiram.
Kiram helped Javier unpack the individual wooden boxes from inside the crate. They stacked them on the floor around Nestor. Outside the bells sounded from the chapel. It would be time for dinner in an hour.
“Isn’t Master Ignacio going to notice that the three of us are missing?” Kiram asked.
“You’re in the infirmary and Nestor is assisting me,” Javier replied. “Master Ignacio won’t expect any of us back today.”
“What’s Nestor supposed to be assisting you with?” Kiram eyed Nestor’s prone body. Then he picked up one of the smallest boxes and cut through the cord that held it closed.
“Cleaning my armor. Bringing it up to a high polish,” Javier said. “I finished it myself last night.”
“I don’t remember you polishing any armor.” Kiram frowned at Javier.
“You wouldn’t. You sleep like a log.”
“I do not—”
“I definitely smell a honey cake!” Nestor sat up suddenly and leaned over the box Kiram had just opened. His delighted grin collapsed as Kiram lifted out a dozen beeswax candles.
“Sorry,” Kiram said. He unpacked five deep-red cakes of sealing wax and then fished out a linen satchel.
“I’m going to starve to death,” Nestor said. “I really am.”
Kiram opened the satchel. Nestled among countless dried rose petals were six marzipan pears. Kiram guessed that each of the boxes would have similar treats hidden in it. He could be generous.
“Here.” Kiram handed the satchel to Nestor. “Leave one for me and Javier.”
Nestor’s face lit up as he discovered the pears.
“One each or to split?” Nestor bit into a marzipan pear and closed his eyes as if he were in a kind of ecstasy.
“One each,” Kiram told him.
“Oh God,” Nestor murmured. “These are so good. Oh God.” He let out a low moan.
“Damn, Nestor, you sound like you’re ten inches down some trollop’s throat.” Javier shook his head and he took out his penknife.
“I don’t care.” Nestor sighed. He bit into another pear and gave another groan of pleasure.
Kiram wasn’t sure if it was Javier’s crude language or Nestor’s moaning but he could feel his cheeks growing warmer. Javier crouched down beside him with a rectangular box. He cut through a cord holding a box shut but didn’t open it. Instead he pushed it over to Kiram.
Kiram lifted the lid and gazed at the contents. For a moment he thought it was some kind of amazingly embroidered winter blanket. Then he lifted the silky yellow cloth out and realized that his mother had sent him a formal jupon to wear over his leather armor. Simple leaf designs embroidered in red thread decorated the collar and hem of the
long jupon. But a single black silk sun blazed across the back. Kiram stared at it. The black sun was the Tornesal crest.
How had she known? He hadn’t mentioned the tournament in any of his letters for fear that she’d worry about him. His letters were always unfailingly happy, concerned with his classes and often verged on being entirely fictional.
“I assured your mother that since you are under my protection it would be appropriate for you to wear my emblem,” Javier said.
“You assured my mother…” Kiram thought about this for a moment. “You wrote to my mother?”
“She wrote to me, actually.” Javier glanced down at the empty box. Kiram imagined that he was attempting to appear sheepish, but it wasn’t working. Javier looked as smug as ever. “I’ve just been replying to her letters.”
“You—how long? What did you tell her?” Kiram cut himself short despite his sense of outrage, remembering Nestor’s presence.
“Her first letter arrived a week after you did. She thanked me in advance for looking after you and asked me to write to her should you need anything. She’s only written four more times since then, but she’s always very polite. Very refined. Even her script.” Javier smiled a little and Kiram suddenly realized that Javier wasn’t trying to disguise an arrogant grin, but to hide a look of fondness.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t give her anything to fret about.” Javier pulled the jupon from Kiram’s loose grip and held it up to the late afternoon light. Tiny gold threads glinted all along the length of the yellow silk.
“You don’t think Atreau writes to my mother, do you?” Nestor suddenly asked. “That isn’t something all upperclassmen do, is it?”
“What on earth could Atreau tell your mother that she doesn’t already know?” Javier asked.
“She doesn’t know I beat off,” Nestor furtively replied.
“She’s married to your father and has eleven sons, Nestor. She knows men beat off.” Javier laughed. “How could she avoid it, with Timoteo in her house?”
“I thought that was what he was doing up in his room,” Nestor said. “But then he always claims that he’s praying.”
“Praying his pillow grows a cunt, maybe,” Javier replied. “Hopefully he’ll be able to get his fingers off his dick long enough to take his holy vows for the priesthood. I imagine the sacred chalice might be a little sticky after he hands it off, though.”
Nestor seemed both scandalized and thrilled. Kiram imagined that he was trying to memorize the offhanded way that Javier tossed out obscene words like “cunt.”
Javier held the jupon up against Kiram’s chest and nodded as though what he saw pleased him.
“You’ll look like you’re made entirely of gold.” Javier’s tone was soft and Kiram imagined that if Javier’s hands hadn’t been full he would have reached out and touched Kiram’s hair, as he often did when they were alone. But Nestor was with them and Javier simply dropped the jupon back into its box.
“No candy in that one,” Javier said to Nestor. “Let’s try another.”
The three of went through the boxes, unpacking winter clothes, mechanist tools, one of Kiram’s bows, a clay talisman Kiram’s little nephews and nieces had made for him, rounds of waxed cheese, dried figs, and to Nestor’s utter delight, honey cakes and four dry-cured sausages.
“Do you mind if I have a little of it?” Nestor asked.
“Help yourself. You should have some of the cheese as well.” Kiram opened a last box, which contained several Haldiim books and his mother’s sheaf of correspondence.
While Kiram read the letter, Nestor devoured slices of sausage and cheese and Javier considered several of the tools Kiram’s father had sent with a look of uncertainty that almost bordered on suspicion.
The news from home was comfortingly normal. Two more of his cousins had become fathers and thus assured their places in their wives’ houses. His brother Majdi on the other hand had once again failed to find a woman willing to take him and had again set sail aboard the Red Witch. Kiram’s mother wondered if she hadn’t made a terrible mistake purchasing the ship for Majdi, as she now feared he would never settle into a secure marriage.
At home his sisters, Siamak and Dauhd, were attempting to entice his mother to offer Cadeleonian cookies in the candy shop. His father was still tinkering with designs for mechanical birds. Most of them were very pretty and few of them could remain airborne for more than a few moments. Several had crashed into the henhouse and the cook was eyeing Kiram’s father with annoyance.
Kiram smiled at his mother’s obvious affection for his father despite his eccentricities. He was disappointed to find that the questions he had written to his uncle’s husband had gone unanswered. Both his uncle Rafie and Alizadeh were traveling. She didn’t expect them back until midwinter, weather permitting.
Kiram glanced down to the stack of books in front of him and then to Javier.
“She says she sent the books you asked about,” Kiram said. “Though she doesn’t want you to think that we’re all so superstitious as these Bahiim writings would make you think.”
Javier looked pleased and Nestor squinted at the books.
“What do they say? I can’t read them at all,” Nestor complained.
“This one is called Red Blossoms from a Fallen Tree and this one is A Beast Cries in the Sacred Heart of the Night and the last is called A Longing That My Bones Will Remember.” Kiram pointed out each of the books as he spoke. “They’re poems written by two famous Bahiim mystics. They talk quite a lot about the sacredness of all aspects of life, even those that seem base and animalistic.”
Kiram hadn’t read any of the books all the way through but he knew the more famous poems, as most Haldiim did. They were quite old and Kiram could only guess that Javier had gotten the titles from Calixto’s diary.
“Thank her for me, will you?” Javier picked up the three books and took them to his desk. Kiram nodded and continued to skim the gossip from Anacleto. There was news of his friend Musni. Kiram took it in with a sense of loss, frowning at the letter.
“What’s wrong?” Nestor asked.
“What?” Kiram looked up at him. “Nothing. Nothing at all. It’s just that one of my close friends has decided to marry a girl.” Kiram realized how this sounded and quickly added, “I liked her as well, so I’m happy for him but sad about the marriage.”
“Did he know you fancied her?” Nestor asked.
“Yes, he knew.” Kiram accepted a slice of sausage from Nestor. It was spicy and tasted of juniper and cloves. For a moment he couldn’t keep from wondering whether Musni would have refused to marry if he hadn’t left for the academy. He sighed again, realizing that he would have left even if he had known that he would lose Musni.
“Not much of a friend if you ask me,” Nestor grumbled. “It’s pretty low to steal a man’s girl while he’s gone away to school.”
“He didn’t steal her,” Kiram replied. Nestor handed him a piece of cheese. He ate it and felt better. He couldn’t have cared that much about Musni, he supposed, if a slice of sausage and a bite of cheese could console him so easily.
“She liked him and he comes from a poor family, so taking a wife is a good choice for him. Her mother owns two mills. Musni will be well taken care of.”
“Still doesn’t make it right,” Nestor said, frowning.
Kiram shrugged. He glanced down to the box and realized that he’d missed a satchel. He opened it and discovered his favorite taffy, packed with mint leaves. He shared a piece with Nestor and then turned to offer one to Javier.
He didn’t know why, but Javier’s expression seemed almost stricken. Then he gave Kiram a quick smile.
“You have an entirely different life waiting for you back in Anacleto, don’t you?” Javier accepted the taffy but didn’t eat it.
“We all have other lives outside of the academy,” Kiram replied.
“Not really.” Nestor’s expression turned thoughtful. “Not like you do. I never considered it before, but all
of us Cadeleonians are going to be dealing with each other like this for the rest of our lives. Not with upperclassmen and all that but we do the same things here as we do at home, eat the same food, know the same people. You come from an entirely different place…” Nestor spoke as if this idea just occurred to him and he found it somehow troubling. “When you’re done with academy you’re not just going to disappear back behind the Haldiim wall to your other life, are you?”
“I have to go home sometime.”
“But you’re going to write to me and come visit and invite me to visit you, aren’t you? My family house is in Anacleto, less than an hour from the Haldiim district.”
“Of course.” Kiram smiled at Nestor. “After a few days back at my mother’s house I’ll be desperate to get out. I’ll be visiting you everyday. Honestly, escaping from home was half of why I came here in the first place. I wanted to see something new and meet different people.”
“Well, you’ve certainly met different people, I’ll bet!” Relief rang through Nestor’s voice. “And you’ve ridden horses and learned to fence, and you’re going to win dozens of ribbons in the tournament. When that girl sees you she’s going to break down in tears because she missed her chance at you.”
Kiram laughed at the thought of any girl crying over him, much less Musni’s new wife. Briefly Kiram wondered what would happen when they were both back in Anacleto. If he ever did find a husband, how would he introduce the man to Nestor?
Nestor nodded happily. “You won’t care because by then you will have had your fill of women from the Goldenrod and half of them will be writing you love letters the way they write to Atreau.”
“Yes,” Javier said tiredly. “It will be a glorious future for all. But for now I think we ought to go down for dinner.”
“The bell hasn’t—” Nestor began but then the seventh bell sounded from the chapel.
The three of them joined the flood of other students filing down to the dining room and Kiram’s brief, troubled thoughts of his future were forgotten as the smell of beef and fresh bread beckoned him.