“Where’s Fledge?” he called. “Have you seen the stable master?”
The guards all ignored him, likely taking him for a stable boy unworthy of reply. Then Beau spotted a solitary figure on the edges of the field slipping a chest plate over his head.
“Excuse me!” Beau ran over, his nerves close to unraveling. “Have you seen Fle—” But the rest of the name evaporated on Beau’s tongue as the man lowered the armor to his chest.
“Fledge?” Beau sputtered. “Why are you wearing that? Why are you out here? I need you; you have to come with me!”
Fledge furtively scanned the area, then pulled Beau behind Striker, his dappled red gelding who was standing in wait nearby. “What’s happened?”
“I lost her, Fledge!” Beau burst. “I had a plan, but it was all wrong. Stupid. And now I don’t know what to do. You have to tell me what to do!”
“First things, slow down.” Fledge gently took Beau’s hands, calming the shaking. “Tell me everything.”
“It’s all my fault and now she’s going to be—” Beau couldn’t get himself to say the words, or even to draw a full breath.
“Beau, look at me.” Fledge cradled Beau’s face in his warm, reassuring hands. “Slowly, one breath at a time. One. Good. Now another. Two. Good. Now tell me.”
“There’s this girl. You know her. She knows you too. Cressi. She showed me Mastery House. It’s an awful place. How did I not know it existed, Fledge? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Fledge winced. “I know, I should have. I was going to, believe me, but first, what’s happened to Cressi?”
“Barger . . . Cressi . . . he has her.”
Fledge tightened his grip on Beau as if to hold himself steady. “Explain.”
“I . . . I told him she was a charmer. I mean, I didn’t say that exactly. That’s what he heard though. And she might be one too. I don’t know. My nose was . . . What do I do?”
Fledge raked his hands through the thick forest of curls clubbed messily at his neck. “I thought I’d have more time. I thought I could—”
Bugles blared, cutting him off.
“Hey, you!” a captain shouted, pointing at Fledge. “In line! We’re moving out!”
Fledge delivered a salute, then waited for the captain to ride away before turning back to Beau. “Listen to me. I’m to leave with the guard to tend to the horses. There are too many of them. I can’t refu—”
“What do you mean, ‘leave’?” Beau couldn’t make sense of what was happening. “What about Cressi? You have to help me!”
“I have no choice. You have to listen—”
“Master or not, you obey my orders while you ride with us!” the captain bellowed. “Move out!”
Fledge strapped his pack to his horse’s back. “Think of the game, Beau. If your mage was trapped, how would you free her?”
“This isn’t a game!” Beau nearly exploded. “This is real!”
“I know that. You have to trust me. You can do this, you above all others can do this.”
“I will run you through where you stand!” The captain was red faced and fast approaching, his sword unsheathed.
“Just like in the game, use your ace to free your mage,” Fledge said as he mounted his horse and took up the reins. “Find your ace, Beau. It’s the only way we can win.”
And with those few cryptic words, Fledge rode off, joining the ranks of the departing company.
Long after the regiment disappeared down the drive and away from the Manor, Fledge’s words echoed in Beau’s head: use your ace to free your mage.
What kind of advice was that? Life wasn’t a game of Fist. And even if it were, Beau was a lousy player.
Still, Fledge would never lead him astray. There had to be some sense to this.
Well, obviously Cressi was the mage. That part wasn’t cryptic. And if she was a charmer, then like the mage, she possessed powers. Under normal play, the mage functions much like the bishop in chess, but instead of guarding the king, it protects the verdigris pawn. Yet when the mage is played right, it can gain control over the king’s guards, leaving him unprotected.
The mage does have a weakness though. If the king’s guardsmen reach her first, they will claim her, and the king can use her powers to his advantage.
As for the ace, it too is unique to Fist. It operates like a field commander, organizing the guards, leading the charge into battle. When well played, the ace can shield the pawn and the mage from capture. It can lead a raid straight through the heart of the king’s ranks, capturing two guards at a time and leaving a clear path for the pawn to unseat the king. It’s also the only piece that can liberate captured pieces.
Yet while the ace’s purpose in the game was clear, Fledge was the only person who could remotely fit the description. But then why would he have told Beau to find the ace?
“This makes no sense!” Beau picked up a rock and hurled it as hard as he could.
As he watched the rock land, he realized how far he’d walked. He’d crossed clear through the parade grounds into the barrier fields and all the way to the outer cow pasture, a place he’d never ventured before. This far from the Manor the air was sour and starchy, pungent and heavy, yet ineffably alive. Cows quietly lowed, birds sang, bees hummed. Their lives uncomplicated by malice, their only concerns were eating, building nests, collecting pollen.
Lucky them to simply be what they were.
Beau tried again to untangle Fledge’s meaning, but he couldn’t shut out the echo of Cressi’s muffled cries as the guards carried her away. He was trying to shake it off, make room for ideas to blossom, when he realized the sound wasn’t in his imagination. Something—or someone—was calling out from beyond a hedge of tall grass.
Beau raced toward the noise, part of him hoping it might be Cressi, only to find three calves tethered to poles outside a roughly hewn lean-to. Tied so tight, the sweet, young creatures could barely stand, let alone move.
“Poor things,” Beau said, petting them each on the nose. “Who would do this to you?”
The calves strained at the end of their ropes, trying to nuzzle Beau.
“Let me untie you first, then you can thank me,” Beau laughed.
After untangling the first of several tightly wound loops, Beau had just begun working on the second level of knots when something poked at his back.
“Stop that.” Beau laughed. “How am I going to get you and your friends untied if you keep trying to get me to play?”
“I dunno, boy,” came the sharp reply. “That depends on who told you to undo the beasts?”
Beau dropped the rope.
“Turn around,” came the warning.
Beau raised his hands and slowly turned until he came face-to-face with two hulking guards, a pair of towering mountains.
“Looks to be a stable rat, Keb,” one guard said to the other. “Why you out here touching them ropes, rat?”
“I . . . they were tied too tight” was the only reply Beau could manage.
“You hear that, Keb?” the guard asked his companion.
Keb eyed Beau as if trying to decide how he might taste. “I did, Boz.”
“I meant no trouble. I’ll be on my way.” Beau nodded politely and moved to step away when Keb stopped him with a meaty hand on the chest.
“You’re not going anywhere without our say-so,” Boz growled. “You one of ours?”
Beau flushed. He couldn’t afford Barger to find out he’d snuck out. “I . . . I’m allowed to be out here if that’s what you’re asking.”
“We decide what you’re allowed,” Keb snarled, primed to pounce. “Answer him—you one of ours or not?”
There were only two choices here, and Beau was an awful liar. He’d have to try the riskier path.
“Fine. You found me out. Take me back to my apartments. I’m sure Barger will reward you handsomely for returning the heir, but I will see the sum doubled if you don’t tell him.”
“The heir?” Boz scoffed. “You?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so.”
At that, both guards broke out into the ugliest laughs imaginable, something between a cackle and the sound of someone choking on their own spit.
“I seen the heir, plenty of times. Guarded him even. He ain’t you,” Boz boasted. “I took him out hunting. Big, tall kid, hair black as tar. He was training a falcon to hunt. Laughed when it snatched him a big rabbit.”
“You never did saw him!” Keb snapped. “If you did, you’d know he’s got gold hair and a big scar across his cheek from battling a mad boar that got into the Manor one night! He said he’s gonna put me in his private reserves after he’s made the next Himself.”
“Fffffff,” Boz sprayed as he poked Keb in the chest. “The only reserve guard you’re fit to serve in are down by the pits.”
“No, that’s you!” Keb poked back, spraying Boz in a shower of spittle of his own.
As Boz and Keb argued, Beau slowly began backing away. He’d been intimidated countless times by his father’s personal guards, but he’d never seen any as stupid as these two.
But Beau only got a few steps away when Boz spotted him. The guard’s legs, thick as tree trunks and fit to bursting through the gray leggings of his uniform, carried him farther in one step than Beau could travel in three. Boz grabbed Beau up by the collar like a weed to be plucked and pressed his pock-riddled face inches from Beau’s. “You try to untie them calves again and you’ll leave as pig food. Now get back to work mucking them pens.”
And with that, Boz threw Beau down, sending him skittering to the ground.
“Yeah, and you try and pass as the heir again and we’ll come find you and see you gutted!” Keb added as the pair stalked away.
Beau sat stunned where he fell. His hands and knees were skinned, his clothes covered in dust and dung, and his head was spinning.
What just happened?
An obstacle as large as a team of oxen standing in his path had simply melted away.
What kind of magic was this?
Or was this what luck looked like?
Whatever it was, Beau wasn’t about to question it. Where hesitation had resided, a new kind of determination took up residence. He’d find his ace, he knew it.
But first he had to get up, a feat that was proving to be a slow process of coaxing his head to stop spinning and his ankles to stop buckling under his weight.
Beau took a deep breath and tried to push himself up, but he was still too dizzy to see straight. He closed his eyes and was waiting for his vision to clear when someone grabbed him from behind.
Chapter Eight
Crafty
Jolted into action, Beau lashed out at his attacker, wildly swinging his fists. But rather than landing a blow, he only managed to lose his footing and went stumbling backward.
“Whoa! Steady. I’ve got you,” came a voice from behind.
Willing his legs to hold, Beau turned to face his rescuer. While he had no idea who he’d find behind him, he never would’ve guessed it would be a boy. And although he stood taller and was closer to manhood than Beau—the beginnings of a fine fuzz having started to bloom above his upper lip—he looked to be around the same age.
“Oh. I thought you were Pervis.” The boy’s disappointment was palpable.
All Beau could offer in return was a quiet “Sorry.”
The boy pushed back the fringe of hair hanging over his eyes—a gesture that proved futile for longer than a few seconds. “Pervis is the only one around here besides me with the guts to tangle with those two devils. I thought he finally decided to . . . Anyway, you did good.”
Beau waved the compliment off. “Getting tossed to the ground like a bale of hay hardly takes guts.”
“True, but even I never thought to tell them I was the heir. That brain-boiled pair are witless enough to fall for almost anything. But you should’ve considered your clothes when you came up with your plan.” The boy thumbed Beau’s filthy jacket. “Nice togs, but not nearly fine enough for the mighty heir. And I doubt he smells like cow dung.”
“Don’t be so certain,” Beau muttered, brushing himself off.
“You’re not from here,” the boy said, his thick eyebrows disappearing under that fringe of hair. “Who do you belong to?”
“I . . .” Beau had no answer at hand, but thankfully the boy didn’t leave him time to reply.
“Wait, let me guess.” The boy circled Beau. “The tailor maybe? No, your buttons wouldn’t be hanging like that. Not blacksmith, either, your hands are too clean. Probably not the cooper either. Okay, I give up. Who?”
Still quite uncertain how to reply, Beau asked, “What do you mean ‘belong to’?”
“You’re right.” The boy nodded sagely. “They may think they own us. They don’t. We’re our own people, and the day is coming when they’ll pay the price. You apprentices deserve your freedom, too, even if you do have it far better than us here on the Manor. So, who you training with?”
Understanding finally dawned on Beau. Like Cressi, the boy mistook him for an apprentice.
“Cordwainer.” The lie slipped out with ease.
“There’s worse places than a cordwainer’s shop. At least you got those nice boots.”
Beau looked down at his feet. Even covered in dust and splattered with dung, the fine craftsmanship of Beau’s riding boots was glaringly obvious, especially when compared to the boy’s own ragged and frayed boots.
“I should’ve been trained in one of the fine crafts,” the boy continued. “I’ve got a good eye, clever hands. Matron almost said as much, too, but she also said I was a rancid minnow and she’d rather eat house sparrows for a month than see me move up.”
The boy paused, a kind of faraway look clouding his eyes before he cleared it with a laugh. “I would have told her she was a nasty, old pillock if I’d been in the mood for eating grass that day.”
Beau had no idea what a rancid minnow or a pillock might be, or why anyone should have to eat grass, but he did know enough not to ask.
“So when did the Manor remand you from the cordwainer’s service?” the boy asked. “How’d he take that? I’d have thought they’d put a boy with skills like yours in the horse stable, not out here. That’s just like them. Putting people down, never giving them a chance to show what they got. Why do they do that?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Beau replied.
“Me neither. But I’ll tell you what it is—it’s a waste.” The boy picked something off the tip of his tongue, then flicked it away. “What do they call you, anyway? I’m Nate.”
“Beau,” Beau’s mouth replied before his mind could stop him. Where was a lie when he needed one? Beau recoiled, ready for Nate to hit him.
But Nate simply shook his head in pity.
“Sorry to hear it. Lots of others over at Mastery House were named after him too.” Nate turned and started walking toward the cow barn. “The heir be hung. You won’t hear me saying that name, not ’til I’ve got him pinned to the ground begging for mercy.”
Beau stopped. “Mercy?”
“You don’t think that goat-livered heir deserves any, do you? Wait, you’re not one of those apprentices who thinks you’re better than us lowly orphans, are you?”
“No,” Beau vowed. “And you’re absolutely right, the heir deserves no mercy.”
“Exactly!” Nate flung a rock the size of his fist across the field, watching as it flew off into the tree line. “All that’s done in his name, leaving us to starve while he stuffs his face, ordering servants around to do his every bidding. It’s not right, it’s not fair. Why’s he get so much, when we get so little?”
“I honestly don’t know.” The weight of that truth was almost too heavy for Beau to carry. “And now it’s even worse over at Mastery House.”
Nate halted in his tracks. “What do you mean?”
“Uh . . .” Beau hesitated. “I heard someone say Matron was making them do double duty and taking away half their rations.”
“Wh
y?” Nate pressed.
“Something about someone who’d run away and . . .” Beau let the words trail off as the pieces fell into place.
Nate.
This was the boy who’d run away.
“The pig-snouted snipe!” Nate kicked at the ground, sending dirt and grass flying. “She threatened to do it more times than I can count. I never thought she would.”
“Maybe she’ll change her mind when you go back?” Beau suggested.
Nate stopped kicking up the grass and looked at Beau as if he’d just suggested he cut off his own nose. “Would you willingly go back there?”
“Never.”
“Exactly.” Nate bobbed his head, a cocky kind of acknowledgment that of course he was right. “The only way for me to help them now is to go . . . Wait, how do I know you’re not one of Barger’s maggot peepers?”
“On my bond, I am the furthest thing from one of his spies,” Beau vowed. “I’m the exact opposite.”
Wholly unconvinced, Nate crossed his arms and planted himself inches from Beau. “Prove it.”
Part of Beau wanted to run away, fleeing this boy’s scrutiny. But there was something about him, his confidence, even his hatred for the Manor, that against all reason, Beau felt a kinship with.
“I’m not supposed to be out here. I should be back . . . at the stables, but I’m looking for someone. Someone who can . . . help.”
A strange look overtook Nate, something between a glare and a dare as a new kind of interest in Beau ignited behind his eyes. “Help with what?”
“Free . . . people.”
Nate narrowed his eyes, searching Beau’s face for something. Then finally, after having reached some kind of a decision, he abruptly turned and walked away, the smallest nod of his head indicating Beau should follow him.
This was a boy who seemed to know things—things about the world that Beau wanted and needed to know. He trailed after Nate, propelled forward by the hope that maybe one of those things was where to find his ace.
Beau followed Nate into the cow barn and up a rickety ladder to the hayloft. Only after they were safely ensconced in a far back corner did Nate look at Beau again. There was something at once both wide open and closed off about him now. “This isn’t like me. Still . . . I’ve got a feeling. But just in case I’ve got you wrong, this someone you’re looking for, describe them. What would they be like?”
The Verdigris Pawn Page 5