by Guy Antibes
“When do we start?”
Mattia began walking towards the Second Building. “As soon as we arrive downstairs.”
Ricky followed Mattia. Other boys and girls, seeing them heading for the training hall ran past them. Ricky could nearly smell the fear in the air.
As Mattia and Ricky began to walk down the stairs, the inmates looked up at the pair of them. Mattia didn’t walk all the way down to the floor but addressed the hundred or so inmates by standing above them.
“We will train and train hard. Sickness, injury, laziness will not be excused. You are expected to spend the day down here from breakfast to lunch and from lunch to dinner. There are washrooms on this floor. Males and females will use the same facilities.”
Ricky heard quite a few feminine gasps.
Mattia’s face glowered. “Any improper action toward females will result in lashings. Am I understood?”
“Yes, sir!” came from the inmates who had trained previously.
“Valian here has been trained by an expert weapons master. Some of you have taken advantage of his conditioning drills. You will continue to do so. He will be the primary trainer. He is an officer in the unit, just like me. He can administer discipline, and you will follow his orders.”
Ricky gulped. The same feelings of training inmates to be killed in just a few weeks made him sick. He’d give them a chance to take a few swings before going down though, despite the fact that most of them had participated in the farm family’s murder.
Everyone looked at him expectantly. What was he to say? He took a deep breath.
“Some of you have heard this before, but conditioning will help you more on any battlefield and in any confrontation than what I can teach you about weapons in the time that we have. We will alternate conditioning with weapons training. I’ll be dividing you into smaller units in a day or two. I want you to walk around the training hall once and then jog once and then run once. Then do the same thing over again for the next hour.”
The inmates looked at one another. Ricky spotted Gil in the group. “Gil Bisacci will lead you. Raise your hand, Gil.”
Gil raised his hand and nodded to Ricky before he headed towards the outside wall and began walking. Having one hundred people walk around the hall was tight, but they would spread out as the hour wore on.
Mattia nodded. “Good start. Now, what’s this about smaller units?”
“Military units are split down to between six and twelve men led by a sergeant or someone of equivalent title. If we use ten in a group, we’ll have about ten units. We probably should have two more officers over a group of five units. I think that’s how it's done.”
Mattia nodded. “It is. Aren’t you going to join the rest of the inmates?”
“Aren’t we going to discuss the goals of our troops? What is the order of battle? What weapons do our people use? Swords may not be appropriate for all of them since the younger boys and the girls will have a hard time swinging something so heavy. They aren’t going to get the strength needed in three weeks.”
Mattia frowned. “That’s not what Pacci wants.”
“What does he want, Master Mattia?”
“I’m not ready to tell you.”
Ricky could tell that even Master Mattia was a bit leery of Antino Pacci.
“Since you can’t tell me, then I’ll put the younger inmates on staffs. If you can scare up spears or short pikes for them, at least they won’t be overwhelmed by a soldier with inches more reach.”
“I see your point. I’ll talk to Antino about it.”
Ricky grimaced. “Please do, Master Mattia. I’ve got to join the inmates now. Could you please let us know when an hour has elapsed?”
“I will.” Mattia left the hall.
The inmates stopped when Mattia closed the door at the top of the stairs.
Ricky climbed up a few steps. “Do you think you can stop when Master Mattia leaves the room? You are doing this to preserve your lives. If living doesn’t suit you, I’m sure Warden Pacci would be happy to whip you to death. Is that what you want? Get going. I’ll be leading you, now.”
Ricky nodded to Gil and began the jogging phase of their workout. He had to plan what to do in the next hour while he ran. Stationary exercises would be good.
~~~
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
~
I N THE AFTERNOON, WHILE RICKY WAS TEACHING the entire group about using a staff or spear, Antino Pacci made an entrance. Now he wore a bright green uniform of some kind. He had had a large badge made up that said, ‘Warden.' Nania Sarini never needed any identification, Ricky recalled.
“Valian, come forward.”
“Yes, Warden Pacci,” Ricky said.
The warden began to shower blow after blow of his switch onto Ricky. He collapsed into a ball, as Saganet had taught him and endured the punishment until Pacci stopped.
“You’ve made my hand sore,” Pacci said. He put his all into the last strike across Ricky’s back.
Ricky looked up at Mattia’s emotionless face, standing at the door on the main level after closing it once Pacci left the training hall.
“Bisacci, continue to do the same drills Valian had you start.”
Gil walked up to the little platform at the far end and took off where Ricky let off.
Ricky sat, his back and hands bleeding from the beating. Kela came up with a wet towel. “Can I clean him up, Master Mattia?”
Mattia nodded and sat on his haunches. “Pisan and Pacci are good friends. You can thank your building supervisor for Pacci’s warm welcome. You must lead them for the rest of today’s session after Torris has cleaned your wounds, but you do not have to join in.”
Ricky nodded. He still could barely think through all the pain.
“How many times did he hit me?” he asked Kela.
“I lost count at twenty-eight. Perhaps forty times. He is a hateful man,” she said.
“It is clear he hates me.”
~
Mattia sent the healer to his room to apply healing salve to Ricky’s wounds after dinner.
“Were you busy today?” Ricky asked after the man finished stitching up the worst of his ravaged back.
“Why would that be?” the healer said facetiously. “I have seen to more rashes today, just like yours. Except your case is the very worst. Mattia should have sent you to the infirmary.”
“I don’t think anyone will be going there,” Ricky said. “We are to show up for training if we are sick or not.”
“I know,” the healer said, “that is why I am making cell calls. I will say that Leon Pisan has it out for you.”
“He is being paid by Lady Taranta of Tossa to make my life miserable.”
“Pisan is succeeding, by the looks of it.”
“For now,” Ricky said.
“Is that a threat?”
Ricky shook his head, but it was difficult, lying on his stomach. “Who knows what will happen on Winter’s Day?”
“You scare me, sometimes, young Valian. But, I wish you well.”
“What happened to Warden Sarini?”
“I am sworn to secrecy, but I will tell you that she didn’t leave the grounds.”
“Don’t say more,” Ricky said. “Thank you,”
“I’ll leave this salve in your top drawer. You will likely need more of it.”
Ricky didn’t need the healer to tell him that.
~
“Can we teach them to fight in units?” Ricky asked Mattia as they both watched the inmates walk, run, and jog around the hall.
“Pacci wants a massive charge.”
“They can charge in units,” Ricky said. “You’ve read more about such strategies than I have.”
Mattia looked at Ricky evenly. “I am a mercenary. I know what you are doing, and I’ve agreed to go along, even though Antino doesn’t like it.”
Ricky looked away. “Just a fighting chance. If they are trained to fight as a unit, they might not run as quickly. You are expectin
g them to break and retreat?”
“How do you figure out everything?”
“It’s not hard if you look at what you are doing objectively,” Ricky said. A year ago, he didn’t even know the word. “You must see how easy it is for me, but it’s not easy for them.” He paused to watch the running bodies pass them. “They didn’t live with a weapons master who enjoyed military histories. I learned to read scanning their pages. Some of it rubbed off.”
“Very well. We can use the time to give the inmates rest from your relentless conditioning. Except for the stitches on your back, you’d be out there now.”
“I want to be running with them,” Ricky said. He felt the mantle of responsibility reluctantly falling on his shoulders. “I don’t see Kela here today. Is she working with Siria?”
“All day. You worry about the troops, and I’ll worry about those two until the last week. Siria says you won’t need to work very hard to get some last spell she talked about.”
“I think I’ve already figured out what I need to do, thanks to Master Pisan.”
~
Ricky woke up in the middle of the night. He looked outside to see a thin blanket of snow on the ground. It rarely snowed in Tossa, but evidently, Applia wasn’t Tossa. He didn’t hear a thing inside and nothing outside.
He lit a sorcerous light and examined the wooden plug that obstructed the keys of his cell and every cell. Pacci’s visitations didn’t result in another beating in the training hall, but he’d been more active beating up the inmates in the other units training outside.
He could burn the wood out, but he couldn’t rely on Pisan not checking the doors when they trained. Ricky used two spells in combination. It took him half an hour of work to find the right resonances, but he finally succeeded. The first vibrated the plug and the second teleported it a few inches from the door.
Ricky padded along the hallway in his stockinged feet, heading for the library. He slipped past a few sleeping guards and had to make one guard faint since he seemed to be waking up. No guards monitored the basement level. He finally stood in front of the library doors, ready to open them when he heard something down the corridor towards the old cell.
Ricky saw the glimmer of candlelight underneath a door. He hadn’t heard of Antino Pacci torturing any students. Ricky pulled out his master key after he verified that the sound that drew him was a person snoring.
He turned the lock and opened the door. Warden Sarini slept on an ancient couch, covered with a blanket. Her candle had just about burned down to a nub. Ricky produced a sorcerous light and shook the woman awake.
“Quiet,” Ricky said as she opened her eyes and gasped. “Pacci didn’t trust you to keep your mouth shut?”
She nodded. “How did you get in here?”
“I have my ways,” Ricky said. “Is Pacci treating you decently?”
She snorted, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Nothing the man says or does is decent. I’ve hardly eaten. Perhaps he wants to starve me to death.”
“You know what he has planned?”
“Not exactly, but it looks like he’s raising an army of boys and girls. I just heard about the conscription of all children above fourteen because Pacci can’t help but gloat. The only thing an inmate army could do adequately is to plug up the battlefield before they get slaughtered.”
“Close enough,” Ricky said. “Is there anything I can get you? Do you want to escape?”
She shook her head. “Pacci made it very clear that children would lose their lives if I didn’t stay here until after Winter’s Day.”
“Maybe if I got word to Henni,” Ricky said. He’d risk escaping to save the warden.
“Henni?” Her face fell. “Oh, Hendrico, the library guard. Pacci killed all the guards they let go that were loyal to me. Your friend Henni is dead.”
Ricky collapsed to the floor. “Can any man be more evil than Pacci?”
“There are a few,” the warden said. “Pisan is Pacci’s man. Doesn’t he hate you?”
“Pacci personally beat me with his switch. Forty stripes in front of more than a hundred inmates. I survived. I won’t let him defeat me.”
Warden Sarini snorted. “Look at how easy he got me to walk into my cell.”
“Can I get you food or drink?”
“A little of both would give me the strength Pacci wants me to lose. But it’s such a risk. Everything is locked up tight, I’m sure.”
Ricky grinned. “Not tight enough,” Ricky said. “I’ll get something, and then I’ll head back to my cell. I’ll have to lock you back up.”
“Of course,” she said. “You don’t need to do this for my sake.”
“We’re on the same team, right?”
“Oh. Right.” She must have remembered her words to him in her office.
Ricky gave her a little wave and locked her back up. He slipped through the main building and unlocked the food storage and appropriated a collection of food that wouldn’t spoil immediately and a few candles. He then rearranged everything so the cooks wouldn’t notice someone pilfered their pantry.
He made sure the guards were down by administering a few more fainting spells and deposited his collection to Warden Sarini’s cell.
“You shouldn’t risk—”
“I’m volunteering, warden. Don’t waste this. Hide it well and don’t eat it all at once. I’ve starved before. I know.”
“Thank you.”
“I have one question that has been bothering me. Who is Kela Torris? I can’t tell you where I heard it from, but the real Kela returned to Fisttia.”
Warden Sarini blinked hard. “The real Kela. I don’t know how you found out, but she lives with her father’s brother. The Kela that you know is here working for the King of Paranty. She is Kela’s cousin, daughter of the uncle who took the real Kela in. She isn’t what I would call a spy, but she was here to observe things when Pacci’s people were forced on me by the Duke. Wardens don’t hear about everything the inmates do. Her contact was one of the murdered guards. Now she is as much an inmate as you are, or even as I am.”
“You knew about Baco Poppi’s death?”
“All the details I got were from Kela. I don’t know her real name.”
“Pacci doesn’t know about her then. Why didn’t he just kill you like he did the guards?”
The warden smiled. “I am too well-known. If I go missing, warnings will go off. I am still required to complete correspondence from this cell.”
“You don’t know any codes or anything?”
The warden managed a laugh. “No one thought that Pacci would make such a bold stroke. You need to leave. We shouldn’t be talking at all.”
“You solved one of my mysteries,” Ricky said.
“You thought that Kela had betrayed you?”
“The girl known as Kela? Yes. I still don’t know what I can do, but I will try to protect her as I had originally intended, and I’ll protect you, too. We three, at least, are a team.”
Ricky slipped past the sleeping guards. He paused at Master Pisan’s door, tempted to take a little revenge, but continued on his way. He replaced the plug in his door and went to bed, feeling his stitches pull and his bruises complain.
His isolated feeling had disappeared. It seemed he had a lot to do and little time to do it. He clenched both his fists. He would make sure Antino Pacci would be made responsible for Henni’s death. He produced a great, shuddering sigh. Henni was a true, true friend, and he would be missed.
~~~
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
~
A FTER LITTLE SLEEP, RICKY DRAGGED HIMSELF DOWNSTAIRS to the basement after breakfast. He looked forward to the exercise. When he was halfway through the running, jogging, and walking, Mattia pulled him out of the constant flow of inmates.
“Pacci wants to talk. Report to the warden’s office.” Mattia didn’t give Ricky any encouragement.
Ricky passed Pisan’s little office. The man was busy with some paperwork. Ricky guessed his
work didn’t stop with the change of the guard. Guard. Ricky sniffed at the thought of Henni’s demise.
He stood for half-an-hour in front of Pacci’s office.
“Over here,” Pacci said, walking from the direction of Building Three and stopping about ten paces away. Three guards stood around the new warden.
Ricky walked to the little group. None wore a friendly face, but then Ricky didn’t expect anyone who associated with Pacci to smile.
“Come with us.”
Menace filled Pacci’s words. Ricky nearly stopped when Pacci walked to the stairs leading down to the basement. Did someone see him visit Warden Sarini? A guard lit a lantern. They passed the library. At least it looked like his secret library was still a secret.
“I’m assigning you to a new cell,” Pacci said. He threw a punch in Ricky’s stomach and then the other guards joined in, kicking Ricky while he curled up into a ball. “That’s enough,” Pacci said. “Toss him in.”
One of the guards opened the door as the two others tossed Ricky’s bruised body inside.
Ricky hit an old table, which shattered into pieces from the impact.
“Mattia is too impressed with your work with his unit. I won’t have a prisoner show up my other trainers.”
Ricky looked at Pacci’s body silhouetted by the lantern out in the corridor. There was no light in the room. “See if your sorcery can get you out of this room.” Pacci turned to a guard that Ricky couldn’t see. “Lock him up. I’m considering throwing away the key.”
They left Ricky in total darkness. Was Pacci so petty? Ricky would have to ask Warden Sarini when he was able. He lit a sorcerous light, a bright one and surveyed the room. He lacked the fancy furniture, but everything was decades newer than what he remembered in Warden Sarini’s cell.
He found an old bed, the mattress stained and soiled, pushed up against one corner. He would need bedding.
The cell was about the same size as the practice room he cleared out with Kela. He could still train, but that might have to wait until later in the day when his bruises didn’t protest quite so violently.