Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  "Herewan, this is a new student, Lavan Chitward," Master Keileth said in his brusque manner. "I have assigned him to the Third Form. Choose someone in this section to take him through his classes."

  That said, the Master left as abruptly as he had arrived, leaving Lan to face nine strangers alone.

  *

  OWYN, the boy assigned to show him around, was a serious, studious youngster with huge brown eyes, untidy dark brown hair, and an unfinished air like a young owl, who performed his duty with utmost solemnity. As Lan had expected, if he had been ranked with his age group, he should have been in Fourth or Fifth Form, and being ranked with the students his junior was a mark against him. His own classmates regarded him with a certain veiled scorn for his lack of what they considered common knowledge.

  Their lives were marked by bells which rang to signify the changing of classes and mealtimes. Pupils remained in their seats; it was the teachers who moved from room to room to impart their specialized knowledge. Lan's set began with Geography, which meant trade routes; routes whose particulars they were expected to have by rote. This knowledge was not only that of finding the way on an unmarked map, but of climate, conditions in each season, dangers on the way, and so forth. They were drilled mercilessly until every person in the class had the current route down perfectly, and only then did the class as a whole move on to the next route. This fascinated Lan; in his mind, he saw the conditions the teacher described, and he had no difficulty in memorizing the route, though he wondered if he might start to get routes mixed up when he had to recall more than one.

  At the end of the class, the pupils stood up as their teacher left the room—Owyn poking him in the back when he wasn't quick enough—and a new teacher entered.

  The next three classes were in language: Hardornen, Rethwellan, and Border dialects. Lan's head was stuffed full before the break came for lunch, and he wondered how he was ever going to keep the languages from running together.

  At the sound of the noon bell, the other students jumped up and stampeded for the door. Owyn solemnly took Lan in charge and led him down to the first floor, down a staircase packed full of strange people. Owyn didn't really have to show Lan the refectory where they all took their lunch. Every pupil in the school was headed in that direction, all of them chattering at the tops of their lungs. The two boys just went along, carried on the stream.

  When they got to the door of the refectory, though, Owyn deserted him, squirming past students who were younger than either of them, and vanishing.

  Lan got out of the traffic to have a look around. This was an enormous room, high-ceilinged and echoing, with the dark timbers of the support beams showing starkly against the white plaster of the ceiling itself. Up above the wainscoting were windows surrounded by handsome carved wood, but from head height on down there were only plain oak panels. There were four long plain oak tables running the length of the room, with chairs, plates, and silverware marking each place. That seemed a little odd to Lan; he would have expected benches, until he saw how that even with the spacing between each student enforced by the seating they managed to poke and elbow each other. There seemed to be no particular order in which people were seated, although there were obviously seats that were preferred. Those Lan's age and older had taken over the seats at the ends of the tables nearest the kitchen doors; it was obvious why, as they were already being served beef and bread and new peas while the rest were still getting seated. The seats least in favor were farthest from the kitchen, and those near the fireplaces, where stray breezes sent random puffs of smoke out into the room from the fire burning there.

  Friends sat together, forming little cliques; sideways glances and whispered comments discouraged approach. Owyn was in one of those, though his group was in a set of the less-favored seats. Lan hesitated, then took an unoccupied chair at the end of one of the tables. By the time he got started on his lukewarm meal, the students at the head of the table were already devouring their second and third portions.

  Across from Lan sat a very plain, lumpish girl who kept her head down and didn't look up from her plate. Next to him was a nervous boy much younger than Lan, eleven or twelve, perhaps, who bolted his food so quickly Lan was afraid he was going to choke, and vanished from the table, casting backward glances over his shoulder as he scuttled away.

  Shortly Lan found out why he had been in such a hurry to leave. One of the oldest boys, a square-jawed, stereotypically handsome specimen of about eighteen with crisply cut dark-blond hair and indolent dark-blue eyes, strolled down from his exalted seat and surveyed the lesser beings at the lowest end of the table with his hands clasped behind his back, looking for all the world as if he was surveying the offerings at a horse fair.

  He took his time about it. Lan decided that discretion was the proper tactic to pursue, and quietly continued to eat, ignoring the young man's arrogant gaze. He could feel eyes burning a hole between his shoulder blades, though, and he didn't like the feeling in the least.

  The chattering at this end of the table quieted, and now Lan sensed that there were a great many more eyes on him.

  "So, this is the new one." A hand fell on Lan's shoulder, and he restrained the impulse to slap it away. "I hear they put you with the babies, boy. What do you have to say for yourself?"

  Lan kept silent, but the arrogant one was joined by three or four of his peers, lesser copies out of the same mold, who rose from their seats and gathered around him. The biggest of them grabbed Lan's chin and wrenched his head around.

  "Speak when you're spoken to, country boy," his harasser said in a deceptively pleasant voice. "Sixth Formers are the masters here; the rest of you are scum. The sooner you get that into your head, the better it will be for you."

  "Don't argue with him!" the homely girl whispered harshly, and the older boy suddenly turned on her.

  "Did you speak out of turn, Froggy?" he asked, with a savage, joyful smile.

  The girl shrank down, looking very like a frightened frog. Her olive skin went pale, and she hid her over-large eyes under the thick, coarse fringe of her dark hair. "He's new, sir," she whispered miserably. "No one's told him the rules, sir. He can't know what to do if he doesn't know the rules, sir."

  Lan's first attacker took pity on her. "Quite right, Froggy. We won't have our ladies paint you today. Must tell the new one the rules, then we can flog him if he disobeys."

  The second one pulled Lan up out of his seat by his collar, then knocked his feet out from under him with a sweep of his leg. The rest of the oldest students had gathered around by then, and they howled with laughter as Lan went to his hands and knees. Lan bit back a yelp of pain, but his eyes watered. Another grabbed a handful of Lan's hair and yanked, forcing his face up so that he looked the leader full in the face.

  "Scrawny, undersized," said the leader meditatively. "We've already got one Rabbit, so that's out of the question. But you—you're decidedly scrubby. I believe I will call you Scrub. Now listen well, Scrub."

  Lan was red with fury, his insides churning; his knees ached and his head felt as if they'd already torn his hair out. He started to say something, then bit back the words. This was not the time to get into a fight. He was dreadfully outnumbered, and he wouldn't stand a chance.

  "The Sixth Formers are the rightful rulers here. You will address us all as 'sir' and 'mistress'—unless you happen to prefer 'my lord' and 'my lady,' in which case you may use those terms instead."

  Somebody sniggered, and the leader turned a cold gaze on him; the sniggering stopped immediately.

  "You, on the other hand, will be known by the name we have chosen for you—in your case, Scrub—and you will answer to that name, or be flogged, or suffer whatever other punishment we deem appropriate." The handsome Sixth Former was obviously in his element and enjoying himself very much; Lan thought with fury about how much he wanted to blacken those blue eyes and rub mud into that beautiful blond hair. "You will give place to us, give way before us, speak only when you are spoken to, a
nd accomplish whatever task we set you, or be punished. And it is no use complaining to the Master, because if you do, we shall flog you with twice as many strokes. The Master has given Sixth Form the responsibility for maintaining discipline, and he'll assume you are a liar, a slacker, or both if you complain to him. You are nothing; we are everything. Do you understand?"

  Lan's throat was so tight with anger that he couldn't have gotten out a single word, but his second tormentor, hand still firmly buried in his hair, forced his head to nod like a puppet's while the rest laughed like madmen.

  "Very well. Scrub," the leader said genially, "You're let off this time. Just make sure you stay properly within the rules from now on."

  The one holding Lan's hair suddenly shoved him forward and let go of his head, so that he sprawled at the leader's feet, invoking more peals of laughter. "Now Scrub," the leader said tenderly, "it isn't necessary to kiss my feet, but that was a good thought and the proper attitude."

  The Sixth Formers dispersed and went back to their chairs as Lan got slowly and angrily to his feet. He made no move to dust himself off, but dropped down into his seat with his head aching from all the anger he was holding in.

  "Just do what they say, 'specially what Tyron and Derwit say," the girl they had called "Froggy" whispered urgently, with a sidelong glance at the retreating backs. "They'll leave you alone, mostly, if you do."

  Now they were turning their attention to Owyn and his friends; Tyron addressed Owyn as "Owly" and demanded "the work." A moment later, and Tyron was accepting sheaves of paper from Owyn and his friends. "They have the smart ones do their sums and sometimes other schoolwork for them," Froggy explained, her eyes watering. "But if you aren't smart, they make you do other things for them."

  The Sixth Formers had returned to their seats, where they distributed the papers among themselves and sipped small ale poured by the servants, who ignored the rest of the table. Froggy's eyes burned as she gazed on them.

  "Just two more years," she said, as if to herself, with the longing of a starving man in her voice. "Just two more years, then it will be my turn!"

  But Lan, as he looked more closely at the Sixth Form group, saw that there was a central core of the group who were the true masters of the rest. These numbered about twenty, enough to give them enough muscle to have their way, so long as the less fortunate remained disorganized. The rest hung about the periphery of the group, ignored for the most part, but occasionally tendered an abusive or scornful comment, occasioning much laughter among the rest. When Tyron or one of the others of his clique gave a careless order, it was one of these hangers-on who jumped to execute it just as quickly as if they were not of the Sixth Form themselves.

  Somehow, Lan doubted that it would ever be Froggy's "turn" to be one of the select few.

  *

  LAN had the sense to finish his now-cold lunch and retreat to his classroom as soon as the Sixth Form turned their attention elsewhere. He did notice that there were several more girls besides the two in his class and poor down-trodden Froggy among the students. There were even some among the ruling elite, and not all of them looked old enough to properly qualify as being in the Sixth Form. All the girls sitting with Tyron and his clique were among the prettiest in the room, which seemed to be their qualification for belonging there. The girls weren't any better than their boyfriends, though; they didn't initiate any cruel "jokes," but they laughed just as hard as any of the boys, and were perfectly willing to participate once something was begun.

  The rest of the afternoon passed without incident, much to Lan's relief—four more classes, in mathematics, reading comprehension, writing and calligraphy, and accounting. Once or twice one of the boldest of his class addressed him as "Scrub," but he felt safe in ignoring the insult.

  When class was dismissed for the end of the day, however, Lan faced another problem: how to get out without being singled out for more abuse. He felt instinctively that after having been identified by Tyron, others of the Sixth Form would try to impress their superiority on him. When the final bell rang for dismissal, and the rest of the class ran for the door, Lan stayed behind, pretending to read. The teacher said nothing as he left, so Lan supposed such an action was permissible. It would be easier for someone who lived in a large, busy household to study in a quiet room at the school than at home.

  So since reading comprehension was clearly one of his weaker points, and it was a great deal easier to feign reading than any other subject, he remained at his desk, slowly turning pages, as the noise from the hall faded and died away. Only then did he rise and move cautiously to the window, which gave a limited view of the courtyard within the school walls.

  He saw at once that his guess was correct. As Tyron and his closest friends lounged and watched critically, others of the Sixth Form intercepted selected students and belabored them with insults, shoves, and kicks. Owyn's group was allowed to slip by relatively unmolested except for a chorus of catcalls, but others were not so fortunate.

  As the stream of students exiting the building thinned, Tyron laughed and stood up. Lan heard him clearly from the open window where he sheltered, taking care that he couldn't be seen.

  "That's enough for today, lads," he said in that deceptively genial voice. "Who's for a game of court tennis? I'll lay two to three that none of you can play a game without being scored against."

  Others took up his challenge, and the lot of them moved off and out of the gates in a group. From here, Lan could see the street beyond the gates, and he watched to make certain they actually left the vicinity of the school before he made his own way down the quiet halls and stairways and out the door.

  Feeling very much the coward, and angry with himself, he peeked around the gates before he ventured into the street. By this time, it was growing dark, and he was getting uncomfortably hungry. He hadn't had much appetite for his cold meal at lunch, and it had been a very long time since then.

  The street held plenty of others hurrying home to their meals, and Lan let out a sigh of relief as he melted into the crowd.

  Half of him wanted a confrontation; he kept thinking of all the clever things he should have said, or how he should have stood up for himself. They wouldn't have dared start a fight in the middle of the school, would they? Surely the teachers would have stepped in—

  Or would they?

  The Sixth Formers seemed very, very confident that no one would stop them. Maybe the teachers already knew about this petty tyranny and didn't care.

  After all, they could very well feel that their responsibilities toward the students ended at the classroom door.

  That only made Lan angry all over again, and finally he took the only outlet he had for his emotions. He broke into a run, and much to the astonishment of those making their decorous or weary way home, he ran all the way to his own front door.

  He paused long enough to catch his breath, then opened the door. One of the servants met him there and took his bag of books; the family was already at dinner, and Lan joined them without a word.

  Sam had been in the midst of describing some experiments with new dyes, and took up the thread that Lan's entrance had interrupted. Lan was grateful to Sam for once, for taking all of the family's attention away from him. He concentrated completely on his food, driving all the anger and tension of the day out of his mind. And perhaps that was the only reason why, when he excused himself from the table and his mother asked him how his first day of lessons had been, he was able to look her in the face, and say calmly, "All right."

  And before she could continue questioning him, he retreated upstairs to his room. Books had never been his friends, but tonight they were better and safer company than any other alternative.

  THREE

  LAN wondered if highborn children were as arrogant as Tyron and his coterie. The Sixth Formers certainly couldn't possibly be any more arrogant.

  Now in the second week of his attendance at the school, Lan's strategy of avoiding his tormentors was having mixed s
uccess. By slipping into the Hall behind a clot of taller boys and keeping his head hunched over his food, he had managed to keep from being spotted at meals while the Sixth Form was busy stuffing their own faces. But in order to get out before they got bored and started really looking for amusement, he had to bolt his own lunch like a starving badger, which made for an uneasy stomach during the next class. They usually got bored with hanging about and left the entrance before he ventured out to go home, but he couldn't avoid them on coming in, without taking the risk of being seriously late. Tardiness brought its own set of problems, not the least of which was the humiliation and pain of having his hand caned by the teacher.

  Lavan had made another major mistake in his first week; he'd tried, shyly, to make up to one of the pretty girls in Fifth Form. How was he to know that she was the girlfriend of one of Tyron's hangers-on?

  She'd rejected him quite out of hand, and he'd overreacted by withdrawing from all the girls. Now the Sixth Formers had another name for him.

  Shaych.

  When he'd found out what it meant, he'd tried to disprove it, but of course by then it was too late. Now there was another reason for Tyron and his friends to bully him.

  After being shoved around like a game ball and then thrown sprawling for three mornings in a row, he decided that his best protection was the presence of the other persecuted. So for the past week, he'd waited for a group of the underdogs to arrive for classes, and ducked into their midst. With so many available targets, no one person got excessive abuse. At least, that was the case so far.

  But the whole situation made him so angry he sometimes thought he was going to choke. It didn't help that he always turned a brilliant scarlet with suppressed rage whenever one of the bullies so much as looked at him. They seemed to find that terribly amusing, and went out of their way to put him in that state.

  This very morning he had arrived at his desk with his face still flaming, his skin feeling slightly sunburned and tender—and all from his own anger.