by Guy Antibes
Chapter Three
~
T he carriage stopped at a large, closed iron gate.
“That is far enough, driver,” Mistress Doubli said.
Ricky gawked at the high granite wall. It had to be fifteen feet high. No shanties would exist on the other side. He let Mistress Doubli exit first before he jumped out at her side.
“This is the Doubli Academy?” Ricky said. He really didn’t know the difference between an academy and any other school. He held the question tightly in his mind, relying on the woman’s conversation to give him answers to the questions that he didn’t want to ask. He was unschooled enough and didn’t want to offend Mistress Doubli and get sent to Applia.
“It is. The school has been in my family for generations.” She slapped the wall. “My great-great-great grandfather put this wall up while he served as Dean, and now it’s my turn to make the academy the best place to produce the best-educated young men and women to serve all Paranty.”
So the academy was a school for elites. That matched with what Ricky was suspecting, but he didn’t know how that was done. He shrugged his shoulders behind Mistress Doubli as she pulled on a shiny brass ball hanging on a black chain.
A man in servant’s clothes opened the smaller door inset within one side of the large gate.
“I trust your morning has been productive?”
Mistress Doubli grinned at Ricky. “It has, it has. Let us in.”
The man bowed a few times as he unlocked the door. Ricky turned back to see the man lock the door when they left. Was this a prison?
The woman laughed. “I can see by the look on your face that you might think this is a jail. Well, some of the students perceive it that way. We keep the door locked when school starts each morning. It isn’t acceptable for students to leave the grounds when attending their classes. It’s open afternoons and evenings. Our core classes are held before lunch.” She laughed and crooked her finger. “Let’s have a snack in my office.”
Mistress Doubli led Ricky across the paved courtyard to a large three-story light stone building. It looked old and…substantial, Ricky thought. In its own way, the edifice exhibited its own seriousness, much like the court building. They walked right up the front steps. He thought he’d be a servant, and here he was barging right in. He smiled.
The lobby was lined with stone with dark polished wood columns and doors. Some people that they passed climbing the long stairs to the second floor smiled and gave little bows to Mistress Doubli. If Ricky thought the woman had fooled him, such suspicions flew from his mind.
She pranced through a set of double doors, open to the corridor. A woman and a man, sitting at desks, stood as she entered. She waved them back down. It appeared that she did that all the time from the weary look on her face.
“I’ll be speaking with Master Hendrico Valian for the next hour or so. Please summon Saganet Crabacci. I don’t believe he teaches in the mornings.”
The man nodded. “Not this year, Dean. I will fetch him myself.”
“Very good,” Mistress Doubli said, waving her hand nonchalantly. She opened the door to her office and ushered Ricky inside. “I don’t want to be disturbed until Saganet arrives.” She didn’t wait for a reply, shutting the door as soon as Ricky entered the plush office.
Mistress Doubli collapsed on a dark-blue velvet-tufted chair behind the desk. She pointed to a side chair of a similar color. Ricky sat on the edge of the seat, not knowing what to do or what to say.
He looked around the room as Mistress Doubli shuffled some papers on her desk. She wrote out three notes on thick paper, not saying a thing. He looked around the book-lined office. It didn’t have a sense of Mistress Doubli about it.
“Have you been in this office long?” Ricky said.
“Six months.” Mistress Doubli leaned over and put her forearms on the desk and clasped her hands. “My Uncle died unexpectedly. I lived in Sealio at the time and had to take over running the academy. I’m no academic, I’ll be truthful with you. It has taken some time to get used to the place, but the Doubli Academy and Merry Doubli are finally seeing eye to eye,” she said.
“Are you hungry?” She looked into Ricky’s eyes. “Of course you are.” She rang a bell on her desk, and the woman outside her office knocked twice and came in. “A pot of tea for me, a pitcher of milk for the boy and some cookies for both. Enough tea for Saganet and myself, if you please.”
She gave the woman a broad smile, but that only made the woman look embarrassed. “They are still getting used to me. My Uncle Radiso was a severe fellow, quite unlike my late father.” She flashed another smile at Ricky. “I inherited the academy. I always pictured deans as old men, like my uncle and my grandfather. Here I am forty-one and a female dean. I’m sure some of my forebears are rolling over in their graves, some in anger and some laughing their skulls off. Forgive my colorful language. I’ll tell you my story another time. What about you?”
Ricky sat up straighter. “You were the woman who saw me lift the jug in the market.”
Mistress Doubli nodded. “I noticed you before the effect.”
“How?”
She giggled just a bit. “I am a sorcerer of little talent. One thing you will learn is sorcerers can sometimes sense another’s use of power.” Her face turned serious. “You are a sorcerer, did you know that?”
“You mean my special trick?”
The woman nodded. “Go on.”
“I just shout and time stops.”
Marissa nodded again. “Time doesn’t stop, you speed up. I seem to be attuned to you a little bit. You drew me into your spell enough so that I could notice the moment of stillness, but then you disappeared. That’s what sorcerers do. I don’t know how you developed that spell on your own. It’s a Level Four effect, the highest. Do you have any other special techniques?”
Ricky didn’t know of any, so he just shook his head.
“Powers that are untapped and wild can be dangerous, very dangerous. It’s one of the reasons I brought you here.” She stopped when the woman entered carrying a tray. She put it on the desk. Mistress Doubli looked up at her and crinkled her eyes when she smiled at her employee. “Thank you very much. You can take a half-hour break until my noon appointment.”
“Thank you, Dean.” The woman shot a nervous glance at Ricky. He smiled at her, and surprisingly, she smiled back.
“Have some of this,” Mistress Doubli said, pouring milk into a glass and putting two frosted cookies on a napkin.
“Milk? I can’t remember when I’ve had some.”
“You’ll get used to it. We don’t deprive our people at the academy.”
Ricky didn’t know exactly what she meant, but this was much better than even fresh water. Maybe luck had finally found him. Mistress Doubli seemed honest and friendly.
Another knock at the door, and two men entered. The worker had succeeded in summoning a dark-haired man. He had a thick mustache that drooped down on both sides of his lips. Ricky looked closer and could see the white hair threading its way through his curly locks. The man was at least a decade older than Karian. He walked with a slight limp to the seat that Mistress Doubli pointed to.
“Hendrico…”
“Ricky, Mistress Dean.”
“You may call me ‘Dean’ when we are among others. When you are alone with Saganet or with me, you may call me Marissa or Merry, Ricky.”
“Thank you,” Ricky said. He felt stupid for having her have to point it out to him, but all this was outside his experience. He only hoped he didn’t offend these two people while he talked to them. He doubted if he would ever be comfortable enough with the woman to call her by a first name.
“When I’m in class it is Professor or Master Crabacci.” He looked at Marissa. “What is it? Is Ricky a new student?”
Marissa chewed on her lip for a moment. “I have a job for you. I want you to be Ricky’s guardian.”
Saganet stood, his arms straight down with fists closed. “Guardian, as
in parent? Impossible!”
She nodded and pointed back to the chair. “Ricky is an exceptional person. I just discovered him, but he isn’t ready to be a student. His parents are gone, and he lived with an abusive grandparent in Shantyboat Town. I want you to teach him to live among the rest of us.”
Saganet peered at Ricky as he sat, still red in the face. “What’s wrong with you?”
“He is illiterate but very smart. He also has talent.”
“As in sorcery?” Saganet said.
Marissa nodded. “Raw, very raw, but there is talent there.” She looked at Ricky. “You will eventually join our students, but I want you to acquire your letters and numbers, plus I want you to learn how to work. So, if Saganet is willing, you will live with him. He has room in his cottage on the academy grounds. You will be a servant for a bit, and then we’ll have you audit some classes.”
“What does that mean. Will I become Master Crabacci’s son?”
Marissa smiled a bit sadly at Saganet. “Not his son, but his young friend. He’ll watch over you. You need someone who can answer your questions, and Saganet is very knowledgeable about a lot of things.”
“Merry, don’t burden me with this,” Saganet said to the Dean. It was a very familiar way to address Marissa, Ricky thought. “I’ll not be adopting a child. My child-rearing days are over.”
The Dean looked indignant. “I didn’t ask you to be a nursemaid. Ricky is not a baby, but I can’t personally mind a teenage boy. I can rely on you. I have done favors for you.”
Saganet glared at Mistress Doubli. “I hadn’t thought you’d actually call in your debt.” He glanced at Ricky again. “No more than six months, and then he can be a ward of the academy.”
“Two years, and then we will consider what to do going forward,” the Dean said.
Saganet ground his teeth. “One year, and then we are square.” He stared at Marissa.
“We re-evaluate after one year. We will decide based on whatever is best for the boy.”
After folding his arms, Saganet gave Marissa a curt nod.
Marissa adjusted her dress as if she had fought a battle with Saganet and Ricky realized that she just had. She rubbed her hands together and grinned at Ricky.
“Sorry, you had to witness our horse-trading. I assure you neither of us perceives you to be a horse, but you must realize that you are a bit of a project. We have some scholarship students who haven’t mastered their literacy when they arrive. I think we will put you in those classes as an auditor.”
“What’s an auditor?”
Saganet finally seemed to soften just a bit. “Someone who attends class, but doesn’t get credit for it.”
“You mean school for me, for free?”
Marissa nodded. “That is one way of looking at it. Auditing a class isn’t easy. The other students won’t take you seriously, so you’ll have to put up with a certain amount of disapproval.”
Ricky took a determined breath. “I’m experienced at disapproval, Mistress Doubli.” It seemed appropriate to call her that.
~
Saganet looked at Ricky standing in front of him, wearing old servant clothes. “Cinch up your belt a bit.” Ricky’s guardian glanced at the dark blue robe on the bed. “The robe will cover up most of this, but everyone will know you’re auditing, so it’s just to make you feel a bit better.”
He said it as if Ricky had a weakness and that wasn’t the fact. Ricky would show them that he could succeed even if they didn’t think he could. He grabbed the robe and thought. He really didn’t know who ‘they’ were. Ricky wouldn’t trust any of the students and probably the teachers either if they were all like Saganet.
“Time to take you to Jock.”
“Who is he?” Ricky said.
“The Head Gardener. It seems we are friends.” Saganet twisted his mouth as if the notion surprised him. “You will start working in the gardens of the academy. There are five gardeners, and Jock is the leader. You have some work to do before Merry lets you go to classes full-time. What did you do to deserve punishment?”
Ricky pursed his lips. If Saganet were his guardian, he’d have to know, even if it was for just one year. “I stole something from a vendor at Market Square.”
Saganet narrowed his eyes. “No, that’s not correct. You were caught stealing, but you’ve done thievery before, haven’t you?”
Ricky rubbed his lips, reluctant to admit his guilt. His response made him feel guilty. “Yes. I told the Magistrate that I wouldn’t steal anymore.”
“Is that going to be a hard promise to keep?”
“I don’t know,” Ricky said impulsively. “If I live a life filled with milk and cookies, maybe not.”
Saganet snorted. “At least you are honest with your thoughts.” He ran his hand through his thick hair. “I suppose that’s a start. No thieving within the walls of the academy, or I’ll make sure you are tossed out on your ear. What happens if I do that?”
Ricky wondered if Mistress Doubli would let him. “I go to the Juvenile Home in Applia.”
“I imagine that is a fate worse than death?”
“At least as bad as death,” Ricky said. “They starve and torture you there.”
“Just like what your grandfather did to you?”
“How did you know?” Ricky said. He hadn’t told the man his full story.
“Merry talked to me before she left for the Court House.”
“You knew about being my guardian?”
Saganet frowned and shook his head. “I did not. She sprung that on me in her office right in front of you.”
Ricky thought for a bit. “I won’t steal within the academy walls, and I’ll try my utmost not to steal outside them.”
“Good enough for me, right now,” Saganet said. “Enough of this talk. It’s time to put you to work.”
“What do you teach?”
“Military history, and I am the academy’s Weapons Master.”
“Students learn that here?”
“They do. The academy prepares youth to fend for themselves in a few worthy disciplines. My area is a little more literal than the others.”
“I guess!” Ricky said. Maybe Saganet could teach him how to swing a sword! Suddenly the man’s unfriendly demeanor seemed something worth enduring.
~~~
Chapter Four
~
“J ockal Forbasca is my name,” the Head Gardener said. “Everyone calls me Jock, so I suppose you can, too.”
Jock was a short brown man, brown hair, brown eyes, brown skin, and brown clothes. Ricky thought he could just crumble and become part of the soil on the academy grounds. The man’s eyes crinkled with a reluctant smile. Ricky expected tiny dirt particles to fall from the cracks in his weathered face.
“My name is Hendrico Valian, but you can call me Ricky.” He put out his hand and Jock took it. Ricky could feel the dirt on Jock’s hand grind its way into his own. Dirt and grime didn’t bother Ricky, but he hadn’t expected it inside the walls of the academy.
“He’ll be yours in the mornings when he doesn’t have classes to attend and in the afternoons. Make good use of him,” Saganet said. “He needs to work off his debt to Mistress Doubli. Today, you’ve got him until lunchtime.”
“Sure thing, Saggy.”
Ricky watched Saganet walk off. He looked up at Jock. “You called him Saggy.”
“That’s what his friends call him.”
So, Ricky wasn’t his friend? He didn’t know how he felt about that, even if he had just met his new guardian. Saganet didn’t appear to be a bad person, just a bit aloof, Ricky thought. Jock was the salt of the earth. The thought made Ricky smile since dirt seemed to make up most of the Head Gardener.
“I see you changed into your work clothes.”
Ricky looked down at the old servant clothes. They didn’t look that bad to him, but if Jock called them work clothes, then they were work clothes. Jock ducked his head into the large shack where Saganet had taken Ricky and thre
w a dark gray apron at him and a pair of gloves the same color.
“You wouldn’t believe those were white once, would you?” Jock said.
Ricky looked at the gloves, trying to picture them lighter.
“Well don’t believe that. They came to us that color,” Jock said, his face wrinkling into a faint smile. “That’s a joke from Jock, lad. Lighten up and laugh a little,” the gardener dead-panned.
The man said it with such a straight face that Ricky had to blink before he chanced a smile.
“You know how to weed?”
Ricky nodded. “One just pulls the wrong kind of plants from the soil.”
“Then that’s where you will start. You’ll graduate to watering and fertilizing soon enough, and then the end of autumn will come, and all the little plants will have to be put to bed for the winter.”
Jock rummaged around in the shack and pulled out a tool that looked like an unsharpened knife except it had a flat chisel-shaped tip, along with a ratty basket.
“You’ll put the weeds in that pile.” Jock pointed to a hump of dead and dying vegetation. “Let’s get to it.”
Jock led him across a grassy quadrangle, through an archway and out to a playing field. Ricky had seen other youth kicking a ball in an organized game, but he’d never actually seen a field dedicated to that purpose. The gardener continued on to a long line of bushes outlining the turf. Weeds of all kinds grew within the bushes.
“This is something I didn’t get to this summer, but that doesn’t mean it won’t get done before fall grabs my plants. The bushes are the only greenery allowed to grow between the paths and the field. You get to begin by pulling the weeds all around the perimeter.”
Ricky wanted to gasp at the enormity of the task, but he kept quiet. “I will do my best, sir. Surely I can’t get this done before lunch.”
“I’ll give you a week. Sometimes it helps to sing a tune or hum a melody as you work. It keeps down the boredom. Stack the weeds in a big pile right here, and Lalo will haul what you pull to our compost pile. Shake the dirt off the roots and make sure you level the soil. You should be able to figure out the rest. You look like a smart lad.”