by Guy Antibes
The key slid smoothly into the lock and turned just as it should. Ricky pulled the key back out just as a kitchen helper walked out.
“What are you doing here?”
Ricky smiled at the woman, thinking furiously. He knew he looked guilty. “I was wondering if there was any extra food out here.”
“Just garbage scraps.” She looked him in the eye, but her fierce gaze softened. “A moment.” She came out with a buttered roll, hot from the oven. “Don’t think you can always beg for something at the kitchen door.”
“I won’t,” Ricky said, grinning. “Thank you!”
He grabbed his bucket and hurried to the garden shed so he could make it to his next class.
~
Master Risticca droned on and on about how advances in agriculture led to fewer feudal wars. It was apparent that starving peasants were more restive than fat and happy peasants. Ricky had always lived in a city, even though Shantyboat Town wasn’t exactly a district of Tossa.
He tried to compare the plight of peasants to the citizens of his former residence and finally could see Risticca’s point. However, Ricky didn’t agree with Risticca’s conclusion that enlightened nobles could eradicate poverty. The teacher didn’t seem to realize that there were factors other than food production that might be taken into account. Ricky thought that taxes could cripple an economy and even mentioned it. His statement earned him a glare from Risticca, which only confirmed Ricky’s point of view.
The hour ended, and Ricky was one of the first to make it into Master Mattia’s class. He sat in the back and pulled out his key, turning it over in his hand.
“What do you have there?” Master Mattia said, pausing as he walked to the front of the room.
“I leveled pavers today using sand. I wondered if the sand would polish up my key. I think it worked.”
“After a fashion,” Mattia said as he made his way to his desk.
Ricky felt his face grow hot and even found his forehead a little sweaty. He looked at the key again. At first glance, it looked just as Mattia noticed, a bit brighter. His filing work seemed to blend in good enough from where Mattia stood. Ricky didn’t know if his key would fool anyone under closer examination.
He put his key away and cooled off by the time the class filled up. Mattia’s lecture was on managing logistics. He learned that an army just doesn’t march off to some distant land. It has to be more like a mobile village, or if the army is big enough, a city on the move, providing food, housing, clothing, weapons, and leadership.
The subject interested Ricky. He’d never given army life more than a few thoughts, and then it was all about fighting. The way Mattia put it, the effort to make an army travel efficiently was as important as weapons training. It made more sense than some of the other things Mattia taught.
“Young Valian, a word,” Mattia said at the end of class.
Ricky wondered if his teacher would ask to see the key.
“We have decided to set up a second-hour class for sorcery including other students that I’ve identified who have some abilities. You will assist your sorcery tutor during that period. Here is a list of students.”
Mattia handed over an envelope. “I want you to find the students on the list and give them their orders assigning them to the second-hour class. It has precedence over any other classes. Get them distributed by the end of the day tomorrow. The first class starts at the beginning of next week. That’s been confirmed. The course will be conducted in this classroom.”
Ricky took the envelope and pulled out nine pages. The top one listed the eight students in the class. Ricky spotted his name on the list along with Kela’s, the only girl listed that Ricky could see. Franken Pestella’s name appeared, as well.
So out of hundreds of inmates, Ricky had to find six people.
“I only know two people on the list.”
“Plus yourself?”
Ricky nodded.
“I’m surprised you know that many.”
~
Ricky stood at the desk of Warden Sarini’s secretary, waiting for her to return from lunch. Warden Sarini stopped on her way into her office.
“You have some business with my assistant?” she said.
Ricky nodded. “Master Mattia is starting a sorcery class next week.”
“I am all too aware of that,” the warden said. “I had no choice in the matter.”
“He assigned me to notify the attendees. I don’t know where these inmates are. I thought I could slip the sheet under their doors if I knew where their cells were.”
“Hmm. That’s a good idea. I have a roster in my office. Come in.”
Ricky walked into the warden’s office.
“Shut the door,” she said.
Ricky did as she asked. He watched her pull a thick book off her shelf.
“This is a binder,” she said. She opened it up to show three spindles coming up from one edge of the spine. Spindles ran through holes on the pages. “I have the inmates listed in alphabetical order. Give me your list again.”
She found all the names and put their cell numbers on Ricky’s sheet. “There, all of them are noted to have sorcerous talent, although none of them are like you, except for the Torris girl. Do you know how much power she has?”
“More than Franken Pestella,” Ricky said. “Her parents were performance sorcerers.”
She looked at Kela’s page. “It says, entertainers. I guess the entry is correct but incomplete. How is her Parantian coming?”
“I think she is much improved. I’ll work with her until next week when I’ll be spending my afternoons in the training hall.”
The warden looked surprised. “No one said you were going to train.”
“Master Mattia had me tested and said I’m to exercise in the afternoons.”
She pursed her lips. “Be careful. You might consider joining a gang, but be selective. A loner is never trusted, no matter how competent they may be,” she said.
“You have experience in that?” Ricky said with a sudden rush of insight.
She snorted. “I would say so. Do you want to be in my gang?”
“I’d help any friend of Effilia Asucco’s,” Ricky said.
“Good,” she said, while she put the binder away. “Do you have any other friends?”
“Kela and Hendrico, the library guard.”
“Henni?” She nodded. “He’s down there because he is a loner and likes it.”
“We’ve gotten along well enough,” Ricky said. “I consider him a friend, and if you ever want someone you can trust, I think he is a candidate. Kela is a friend, too, but I have to admit, I trust Henni more.”
“All I can say is watch yourself in that basement training hall. Mattia is training the inmates to be soldiers. He hasn’t been as demanding as Antino Pacci. In fact, he has been nothing but courteous, but I don’t support his activities.”
“You have no choice.”
She nodded and gave Ricky a wry smile. “I have no choice. If I call you, will you help me?”
Ricky bowed. “I’ve already said yes.”
“You have. Let me know if something alarms you, otherwise, you are free to go. Just be wary.”
“I will, Warden Sarini.”
Ricky took his annotated list and left. He thought the warden must be worried to have asked him twice for his help in the future. He didn’t think Henni would mind helping Ricky help the warden, if needed.
He quickly returned to the library to see Kela and Henni talking.
“Did you tell her?” Ricky asked.
Henni nodded. “She knows other languages better than Parantian.”
“Let’s take a look.”
Kela’s face glowed with excitement. “A mystery,” she said rubbing her palms together.
Ricky nodded as the three of them cleared the shelf and moved it aside. Kela gave out a little gasp when she saw the door.
“You worked hard.”
Ricky used his finger to open the latch an
d pulled the door open.
“We clean it first.”
“Books,” Kela said. “Old dusty books.”
“I think it is a treasure trove of knowledge,” Ricky said.
Ricky and Kela spent the rest of the afternoon dusting off the shelves and removing the spiderwebs caked with dust. They cleaned out a shelf of books and then moved some of the old newly-dusted volumes into the library and the library books onto the hidden room’s shelves.
“Now we can do some examination of the books without uncovering the door every time,” Ricky said.
She nodded and helped Ricky load the piles of dust into sacks that Henni had brought down from the kitchen. After they hid the door, Ricky sat down with a few books and leafed through them.
“Pearls before pigs,” Ricky said.
“What do you mean?” Kela asked.
“There had to be a reason why someone hid these books. I don’t know enough to figure how they value. Pearls before pigs means that pigs have no idea that pearls are gems of high worth.”
“So you have to learn more so you won’t be a pig,” Kela said. “I am still a pig learning Parantian. I have to learn more. You have to learn more.”
Ricky smiled. “Wise words. I’ll write down what I have to learn in the library so I can evaluate the old stuff.”
“Good,” she said.
“I have something to give you,” Ricky said. He went to Henni’s desk and returned with Kela’s ‘invitation’ to her new class.
“We learn together?”
Ricky nodded. “I don’t know what the sorcerer will teach us, but I think it will be battle sorcery.”
Kela laughed. “Me? I can’t fight.”
“You have plenty of power to do quite a few things. I don’t think we can avoid attending the class.”
“You will help me understand?” Kela frowned. Ricky had a good idea what thoughts ran through the girl’s head.
“I will.”
~~~
CHAPTER TWELVE
~
R ICKY DISTRIBUTED THE ORDERS right after dinner. Two of the five inmates were already in their rooms. They weren’t very sad about leaving their current classes. Another wasn’t in, so Ricky put the order on the nail that held announcements on the door.
He ran into Frank walking with his gang in a corridor on the way to his cell.
“I have something for you,” Ricky said. “It’s from Master Mattia.”
Frank gave Ricky a dirty look. His eyes had hardened during his time at the Home, and his choice of friends matched his new look. “Why you?”
Ricky shrugged. “I’m in his science class, and I’m on the list, too,” Ricky said.
“I’ll not be shown up by you again,” Frank said.
Ricky didn’t say that Mattia had asked him to assist in the class. “I don’t think you have a choice.”
“We always have choices,” Frank said. “Sometimes the choice we want to take includes some negative consequences. I’ll take the consequences.” He coiled his fist.
Ricky stepped back as Frank’s three compatriots approached him. Frank struck first, but Ricky twisted and took his blow on his upper arm.
“Please. Stop this. We don’t have to fight.”
“You might not, but I do,” Frank said. “I wouldn’t be in here if it wasn’t for you.”
“You wouldn’t be in here if it wasn’t for Victor Taranta. He’s gone, and his father is, too,” Ricky said.
“We know,” all the boys said, nearly in unison.
Ricky had to do something before they grabbed him. He sang his special spell and left them motionless. Ricky ran down the corridor. His last two deliveries were in the other dormitory building.
The time finally returned to normal as he passed his room and entered the main building. Ricky knew he’d have to face Frank again, but not on this day. The last two inmates were a bit older and just nodded when Ricky presented them with their orders. One of them was in Master Mattia’s class.
He slipped into his room and locked the door. He expected an attack during the night, but perhaps the doors were stout enough to keep Frank and his gang out of his cell.
Ricky slept fitfully, dreaming about Frank and Victor chasing him all over the Home, which turned into the academy buildings, ending up on Gobble’s shantyboat. He woke up before any climax to knocking at the door. Ricky didn’t answer, but he didn’t want to go back to sleep, so he waited for some time and went to wash up.
As he walked out of the washroom, something hit him on the head. He woke up in the Home’s infirmary to ghastly pains in one hand and in the wrist on the other. Ricky was sure they were broken. A healer had them bound, and he could hardly breathe due to the pain in his chest, but he could think clearly enough through the pain.
“I am to fetch Master Pisan,” the healer said.
Ricky drifted back off but was shaken awake.
“Who did this?” Pisan said. “The warden wants to know.”
“Frank Pestella and his three friends.”
“It couldn’t be Franken. I’m sure he was asleep at the time,” Pisan said.
“I’m sure he wasn’t. He threatened me last night. I evaded them, but they caught up with me while I washed up. They knocked on my door, first.”
Ricky looked closely at Pisan. “You knew about the fight, didn’t you?”
Pisan’s eyes narrowed. “You were lucky no one killed you,” Pisan said. “Some other boys chased off the masked attackers.”
Ricky doubted if Frank and his gang wore masks, but Pisan held all the power at that moment. Ricky already knew Taranta had paid him. “I am lucky.”
“I forbid you to get revenge,” Pisan said.
“What will happen if I try?” Ricky tried to sit up, but the pain kept him down.
“The warden will put you into our punishment cell. No food, no water, and regular beatings.”
That sounded like the part of the Juvenile Home Ricky always dreaded. “I don’t want that,” Ricky said. What did Frank say? Can choices come with consequences? Ricky didn’t want that as a consequence. He didn’t know when he’d be able to get back down to the library. Frank might have destroyed his plans to learn more about the books. Ricky didn’t know if his injuries would heal enough to start the sorcery class in the next week.
Pisan left him. After lunch, fed to him by the healer’s assistant, Warden Sarini walked in.
“Did you pick a fight?”
Ricky shook his head. “Lord Taranta has spoken from his grave,” he said. “He hired people to hurt or kill me while I was in the Home. This was their people’s first real attempt, and they nearly succeeded. I’m certain it was Franken Pestella. He threatened me last night.”
“Did you see your assailants?”
Ricky shook his head. His neck wasn’t too painful. “They woke me by knocking on my door early this morning. I didn’t answer, but I got up and went to the washroom. They ambushed me there. All I remember was being hit on the head and waking up here.”
“A few boys chased your attackers off. No one will ever admit who attacks other inmates. It isn’t healthy,” she said.
Ricky nodded. “I assumed as much. Someone paid off Pisan, too, I think.”
Sarini pursed her lips. “Perhaps. You’ll have to watch yourself, Valian. There may be severe consequences if you seek revenge. Perhaps your best approach would be to assume as low a profile as possible. A smaller target is harder to hit.”
“But what if they attack again? I’m not dead, yet.” Ricky asked. “Can’t I even reveal my enemies?”
“Unless you have witnesses, your attackers will claim to know nothing, even if you have pointed them out to me,” the warden said. “Under the current circumstances, there is little I can do unless someone comes forward as a witness. That is a remote possibility in this institution.”
“But they are taking Lady Taranta’s revenge.”
“That means nothing inside the walls of the Home,” the warden said. “I
haven’t been able to change too many unwritten rules like I have the written ones. It is frustrating at times.”
“Then why don’t you quit?”
Warden Sarini looked around. “Not until I find out what is going on,” she said. “If you want me to quit, tell me what Mattia wants to use the inmates for.”
“An army,” Ricky said. “It’s plain enough to see. He’s training boys to be soldiers. You already know that.”
“I do, but what specifically? I can’t work with suspicions, and soon I might not even be able to work with facts.”
“And where does that leave me?”
“I have the power to pardon for good behavior when this is all over,” Warden Sarini said.
“Is that a bribe?”
“Take it for what you wish. We are in the same gang, aren’t we?” She nearly smiled.
“And I was attacked, and you’ve admitted I have no protection.”
The warden frowned. “I didn’t say that.” She put a hand to her chin and thought for a moment. “Maybe I did.”
Ricky nodded.
She pursed her lips. “If you have the opportunity for revenge, be discreet about it.”
Ricky raised his eyebrows. “Separate the retribution from Frank’s attack by a good length of time?”
She nodded her head. “Perhaps. I didn’t say that, right?”
“Right,” Ricky said. He knew how to plan and could wait.
“I have to go. I’ll make sure you get the care you need.”
Ricky put his head back on the pillow. “Thank you.”
She patted Ricky on his unwrapped hand and left.
Later in the afternoon, Henni and Kela showed up, his first visitors since the warden left.
“Henni and I brought you some old books from the library,” she said. “I selected some that were newer and some on the same subject that are older. Maybe you can learn something from them once you feel good enough to read. The healer said you'd be in bed for a week, at least.”
They talked about the attack, and Ricky gave them a watered down version of his conversation with the warden. As they were about to leave, Henni slipped something in the bag of books.