Fence

by Sarah Rees Brennan

  17 SEIJI

  It was soothing to be around fencers of his own caliber again. Seiji loved seeing other fencers’ strengths that he could replicate and improve upon. He liked the hard work and intense rhythms of the fencing drills, the sense of pushing himself and his body over and over again. He relished that drills created muscle memory, so that movements could be perfected and then made effortless.

  But Seiji was, of course, aware of the looks and stares Kings Row got every time they were singled out and sent to run suicides.

  “Sorry,” panted Nicholas.

  Seiji blinked. “For what?”

  “Because we have to run all these suicides,” said Nicholas.

  Seiji didn’t particularly enjoy running suicides, but he saw their value. They improved speed, stamina, and—most important for a fencer—explosiveness, the ability to harness muscle power in a burst, which was essential for lunges. That was what he told himself as he felt Jesse’s eyes on him. He forced his mind back to the task at hand.

  The first lap of suicides, on the tracks marked out through the lemon trees, was a race among all the fencers at Camp Menton. To Seiji’s total lack of surprise, Kings Row came last.

  Then they had to run more suicides. Their team had a record number of suicides to run. From this day forth, Seiji had the suspicion Kings Row would be considered unforgettable at Camp Menton.

  It was better to run suicides at a steady pace and not make them a race, but Nicholas never listened when Seiji told him this.

  “I won!” Nicholas panted when they finally finished.

  “You can’t win at suicides,” Seiji replied.

  “Well, I just did!” Nicholas leaned against a lemon tree and gulped for air.

  Seiji regulated his own breathing. “You did not. If anyone won, I won, because I did it correctly and paced myself.”

  “I beat you at suicides, and now I’m going to rock this match with Bastien.”

  “You did not beat me, and now you must hydrate.”

  He produced the extra water he carried for Nicholas and forced it on him, flicking a few drops of water at Nicholas to emphasize his point. Nicholas tipped the water bottle over his own head.

  When they headed back toward the salle d’armes, the Exton team was standing outside the chapel door: Jesse; Marcel; and the Leventis twins, Thomas and Aster, who made up the rest of the team. Aster was on the team and Thomas the reserve, which was surprising to Seiji as last year Thomas had been by far the stronger fencer, but Seiji didn’t have much attention to spare for the twins. Jesse was already staring in their direction, and from Jesse’s expression, something had upset him terribly.

  Seiji had no idea what that could be. Jesse wasn’t running suicides. Jesse wasn’t about to watch his fencing partner be decimated in front of the entire training camp.

  Seiji had to witness Nicholas’s match despite the reluctant feeling in his chest, as if there were a stone inside his rib cage that he had to drag around. Friends had to watch other friends’ matches. Nicholas had taught him that. Even though Jesse would be there.

  To Seiji’s relief, Nicholas went through the chapel doors without a word to Jesse. Seiji had noticed Nicholas was strange around Jesse. Perhaps Nicholas was intimidated by him.

  Nicholas went to change into his whites, and Seiji went to join the audience. He decided not to sit with the rest of the Kings Row people, because Bobby disliked Seiji and would go all quiet and not enjoy himself. Instead, he stood alone, ready to watch the disaster.

  His heart sank as Nicholas and Bastien moved into position on the piste. Jesse entered the salle d’armes without his Exton teammates, making a beeline for Seiji immediately. Seiji stared straight ahead at Nicholas and Bastien. The sky through the stained-glass windows was the same bright, pale blue as the sea past the trees, and the sunlight transformed the steel strips into a molten yellow. Nicholas and Bastien, en garde facing each other, looked like the illustrated tableau from a storybook. Seiji knew how this story would end.

  “Care to do some training together later?” Jesse asked carelessly.

  “No,” said Seiji.

  He didn’t know how Jesse could bear to think of training when they were watching a tragedy unfold before their very eyes. Bastien was being showy to what Seiji considered an unnecessary degree, his flawlessly displayed technique highlighting how rough Nicholas’s technique was in contrast.

  There were particular idiosyncrasies displayed in fencing techniques that could be distinguished by nationality, reflecting the prevailing training in those countries. Seiji found this a fascinating area of study. Each strength he observed provided him an opportunity to learn and excel. Italians favored saber work, and Hungarians foils. Korean teams were trained for speed, each move lightning fast, and the generally superb French teams relied on a strong parry.

  Seiji recalled that Bastien’s parry was especially strong. That was why Seiji used to train with him.

  Seiji had never accepted an inadequate fencing partner until Nicholas.

  For Nicholas, whose training was so scanty and whose only chance was to strike fast and get past someone’s guard, fencing someone whose main strategy focused on defending against a strike was a disaster.

  Seiji winced as Bastien blocked Nicholas without even having to try.

  “Wow,” murmured Jesse, sounding almost awed. “He is terrible.”

  “He wasn’t trained!” Seiji snapped.

  Jesse’s eyes narrowed, like shutters snapping shut on blue sky. “I don’t care about why he’s terrible. I only care that he’s terrible.”

  Nicholas, fearless as usual, tried an attack by disengage. Bastien hesitated for an instant, caught off guard by how quickly Nicholas could move, but it was only an instant. The next moment, Bastien used a parry one, and Nicholas was blocked and blinking as though not sure what Bastien had done.

  Nicholas had the nerve and he had the speed, but athletes were made, not born. If he’d had a trainer from the age of seven like Seiji had, it might have been different. But nobody had shaped Nicholas’s potential.

  Jesse was right. Facts were facts. You had to accept them, no matter how sad they might be. Seiji was used to accepting Jesse’s evaluation of fencers, and Jesse could see Nicholas’s every weakness in the same way Seiji could.

  At that moment, Bastien deflected Nicholas’s blade with a strong, sharp grazing movement along it, beat and pressure at once. Nicholas actually dropped his épée on the ground, totally disarmed. A scandalized, horror-struck murmur rose from the crowd. They’d come to see the American get beaten, but they hadn’t realized he would be destroyed like this.

  The memory of losing his final point to Jesse made Seiji close his eyes in a brief cold flash of shame.

  “Poor kid,” said Bastien, stopping by Seiji once the match was concluded, and speaking too low for Nicholas to hear. “Nicholas is nowhere near your level.”

  “This isn’t like you, Seiji,” added Jesse, loud enough for Nicholas to hear. “You know you’re a better fencer than everyone at Kings Row. You don’t belong there. You belong at Exton. With me.”

  His eyes were clear and cool blue, the eyes Seiji had measured himself in all his life. Seiji kept telling himself to endure and win, but what if Jesse was right?

  Seiji turned on his heel and left the salle d’armes. He caught up with Nicholas by the door to the armory.

  Before Nicholas could speak, Seiji snapped, “You think that you can win just by wanting to. You can’t. The only way to win is to be better than your opponent. If you can’t do that, you’re just embarrassing yourself.”

  Under his fading summer tan, Nicholas went pale.

  18 NICHOLAS

  At the end of training on their first day, Nicholas lay flat on his back in the grass and in a state of despair.

  “Wow, your match did not go well,” murmured Bobby. “Even Dante could tell it went badly.”

  Dante nodded.

  “Yep, Bobby. Thanks, I know,” said Nicholas.
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br />   “The whole camp saw you drop your épée on the floor.”

  “I know that, too,” said Nicholas.

  Far worse than the whole camp seeing, Seiji had seen. Jesse Coste had seen while standing beside Seiji. And Seiji had been embarrassed by Nicholas.

  That hurt to think about, far worse than Nicholas feeling embarrassed himself. Nicholas would never have made it to Kings Row if he’d let embarrassment stop him. The phrase like water off a duck’s back suited Nicholas, he thought. Water fell on you, and you shook it off, and that was that.

  If Seiji had expectations of Nicholas, and Nicholas had let him down, then that wasn’t water. That burned.

  His mom had never been impressed with him. She’d always been disappointed. His dad probably would be, too. It was pretty clear what someone used to Jesse would think of Nicholas.

  Today Nicholas was being forced to confront a lot of truths he hadn’t wanted to admit to himself. Watching the drills he’d realized with a sinking feeling how much better Exton was than Kings Row. Exton had outperformed them on every level. Even MLC, who they’d beaten before, hadn’t made a show of themselves like Kings Row had. The overall level of the Camp Menton trainees was far higher than any of the American teams. Nicholas knew good fencing when he saw it. From the moment he’d seen Seiji fence, Nicholas had known what real excellence looked like.

  These fencers were Seiji’s natural companions, with skill so finely honed their movements seemed like instincts. Seiji belonged among them, in a way he didn’t at Kings Row.

  Admitting this burned like fire, but of all the Americans, only Seiji and Jesse could compare to the best at Camp Menton. That boy Bastien, who’d taken him apart on the piste, called this the Old World, but defeat had felt like realizing the real world was huge and terrifying beyond Nicholas’s dreams. It was as though he’d believed he was climbing a mountain, that he could see the peak far above him but within his reach someday, then the dark clouds parted, and Nicholas realized he had a sheer, towering cliff to scale.

  He levered himself up on one elbow in determination and stopped contemplating the lemons of despair. Instead, he looked at his friends. Bobby and Dante were here for him. Well, Dante was probably just here for Bobby, but it was still so nice.

  “This is actually great,” he told Bobby energetically.

  Bobby blinked at him. “Um… how?”

  “It’s only up from here. Every fencer that I face here gets me one step closer to being able to beat Exton.”

  Nicholas nodded to himself with resolve. He was at a training camp, so this was clearly the ideal time to train.

  Bobby nodded, too. “All the fencers here are so good. I’d love to be able to fence like them someday.”

  Bobby’s attitude was the only possible attitude to have. Sure, Kings Row didn’t do great today, but the team could use the opportunity of this training camp to get better. Thinking of the team made Nicholas look around.

  “Where’s Eugene?” he asked.

  “He had to stop by the infirmary for a checkup after he saw your match,” Bobby explained. “Um! I’m sure it wasn’t that he felt ill after seeing your match. Tell him, Dante!”

  Dante shrugged.

  “I’m sure he only wanted to have Melodie, like, smooth his pillow and pat his hand.” Bobby laughed.

  Nicholas stared off into the hazy blue among the trees. “Yeah, they seem like very good friends.”

  Dante was suddenly struck by a violent coughing fit. Nothing was going right today.

  Nicholas, Bobby, and Dante picked themselves up off the ground and wandered over toward the infirmary to see if they could help out Eugene, but the nurse told them Eugene already had guests and that they should come back later. The infirmary was a small brown brick building beneath the shadow of an olive tree. One of Nicholas’s few allies was in there.

  Unfriendly strangers were all around. Somebody snickered as they went by, and mimed Nicholas dropping his épée. Whatever. Nicholas didn’t know why they had to point out what everybody had seen.

  Bobby took hold of Nicholas’s arm so that he could be the bright link between Nicholas and Dante. Nicholas grinned down at Bobby’s beribboned head.

  Nicholas couldn’t spot Seiji anywhere, but at least he was with his next-most-favorite person. Bobby could always cheer him up.

  “Listen, I have an idea for an activity before dinner. And after dinner, Melodie says people hang out in the orchard,” Bobby said. “Everyone says the French are a fashionable people. Let’s try to look cool.”

  Normally, Nicholas felt pretty fancy if he tucked in his shirt. But perhaps Bobby was right. They were in France.

  Time to look cool.

  19 HARVARD

  Harvard had given a lot of thought to what made someone a good captain. A captain had to lead by example. A captain had to be the first person to laugh when things weren’t going well. Sometimes you were losing so badly, you had to lean into it and make light of the disaster.

  Above all else, a captain had to be there for his team. So Harvard swung by the infirmary to check in on Eugene. He found Eugene being fussed over by the blond girl who had first greeted the Kings Row team, and looking delighted about life.

  “Hey, Labao, I was worried about you,” said Harvard. “But I see there was no reason to be.”

  “Hey, Captain!” Eugene beamed. “Nah, I’m beasting it up as usual. And yourself?”

  “Can’t complain.”

  A captain shouldn’t.

  Harvard laid out his offerings, fruit and chocolate and—since this was Eugene—protein bars and energy drinks. Eugene murmured thanks, then nodded, not subtly, toward the door. Harvard cast an amused eye toward the hovering girl.

  “Just came to bring gifts and go.”

  “Thank you!” Eugene told him. “You’re a man of discernment and good judgment, Captain. Unlike some, naming no names, obviously I’m talking about Nicholas.”

  “Tact and good shoulders,” confirmed the blonde. “Exactly what one wishes for in a captain.”

  “Ah, thanks,” said Harvard. “And thank you for taking care of our Eugene.”

  “I have a beautiful, giving nature,” announced Melodie. “Many have remarked upon it.”

  “Also, you lift.” Eugene beamed again as he bestowed this accolade, and Melodie beamed back at him.

  “Free weights are such an essential part of fitness.”

  Harvard had noticed Melodie hanging out with her friends yesterday. Melodie, Marcel from Exton, and the boy who’d just humiliated Nicholas in front of the whole camp.

  “Your friend Bastien won a match against our teammate earlier.” Harvard frowned. “He made quite a show of it.”

  Melodie bristled in defense of her friend. “Bastien was led astray. That boy Aiden told him to achieve a crushing victory and win a date!”

  A date. Harvard forced away the familiar and horrible idea of Aiden on a date with someone else, and focused on Melodie’s accusation. It couldn’t be true. Aiden wouldn’t ask a stranger to crush Nicholas. He would never be that cruel. Bastien must’ve been overly dazzled by Aiden’s presence, just as everyone else was. Just as Harvard was. Bastien was another in a long line of boys who fell all over themselves trying to please Aiden, who Aiden casually picked up and as casually threw aside. Because it amused Aiden to play around with other people.

  But Aiden wouldn’t do this.

  Against all the evidence Harvard’s heart said, Aiden couldn’t possibly.

  Harvard didn’t want to listen to his stupid, treacherous heart anymore. It was always wanting to soften toward Aiden, believe the best of him, tricking Harvard by going uneven in his chest when Aiden was near. Harvard resented his heart more than Aiden, and then resented Aiden for that, too.

  Aiden could sometimes be cruel when he was hurt. But why would Aiden want to humiliate Nicholas, who was one of his teammates?

  Harvard felt that the more he tried to hold on to Aiden, the more Aiden was slipping away. He was hiding
behind his facade, his smiles, the version of Aiden everyone else saw. Harvard had always believed he had the key to the secret door, to Aiden’s true self, but now it was as if that door had closed forever.

  Eugene, a born team player, looked torn between his impulse to be loyal to a teammate—and his impulse to be loyal to a teammate.

  “I’m sure Aiden was only messing around. He didn’t mean any harm.” He hesitated. “Aren’t you sure of Aiden, Captain?”

  Harvard paused for too long, then spoke at last, to drown out the protesting thumps of his own treacherous, hopeful heart.

  “I always was.”

  Eugene, who truly was a brocean, frowned. “And now?”

  Harvard hesitated. They were interrupted by a nurse, who informed them Eugene appeared to be doing great and had a strong constitution. Harvard translated the French to Eugene, and they fist-bumped, then Harvard tactfully left Eugene and Melodie alone.

  He had the impulse to pull out his phone and text Aiden. No matter what he was doing, Aiden would always drop everything to come cheer Harvard up. But he couldn’t do that anymore.

  He’d always been sure of Aiden before. It was different now. He could barely look at Aiden, doing drills under the blue dome of the Camp Menton salle d’armes with easy grace, as if Aiden were wind or light made flesh. When he did look, he was torn between these new intense feelings and the urge to shout at Aiden because he wasn’t trying.

  Harvard shouldn’t let his heart get in the way of his responsibilities.

  This hadn’t been a great day for the Kings Row team. Harvard was the captain. It was his job to keep up morale. He had to find his team and find the right words to cheer them. He had to make things right with Aiden.

  This was all such a mess. He didn’t know how to get back to normal. But he had to keep trying.

  20 SEIJI

  The rules of Camp Menton forbade the younger trainees going off grounds, so Seiji went to the farthest point that was permitted, at the edge of the trees by the sea. He stood there alone for a while. Once it got dark, Seiji trailed back through the lemon trees. Then Seiji’s first stroke of luck of the day occurred, and he ran into his captain.