by Ray, M. A.
“Well?”
“You’re not gonna go first?”
“No,” Vandis said, laughing a little. “I’ll get my own later. Go on—I’ve got some things to deal with anyway. I’ll be back in a bit to help you bandage.”
“Wow.” Dingus padded across the gleaming tiled floor. He remembered to glance back and say “Thank you,” before Vandis left. The green curtain pulled around the stool, too, and he put his other new stuff on it before he stripped down and eased into the tub.
It was Paradise. He slid down in the hot water. If he folded his knees to one side he could fit his whole body underneath, all but his face, and he let out a sigh of relief as the heat soaked into his aching bones. Even when other people came in to take baths, nobody bothered him. He listened to them talk about Brightwater, where they were headed, and the Moot, though he didn’t know what that was. After a while, dirt and dried blood started coming off him, and he sat up and washed, gingerly. He wanted to scrub Thundering Hills right off him—but it was a worse thrashing than usual he took the other night, and he didn’t feel quite clean afterward.
He sighed again and got out. The clothes didn’t fit him very well; they were the right length, but much too broad, and he had to pull the lacings on the smallclothes real tight so they wouldn’t slide right down. He was getting his legs into the breeches when someone else came in, right up to his curtain: he saw Vandis’s blocky outline. “Are you decent?”
“Just about.” Dingus pulled up the breeches and tugged out at least a foot of drawstring before he could tie it. He drew the curtain aside.
Vandis had taken off his cloak and gloves. He stood there holding a mug of something hot in his thick hands, and he passed it over to Dingus. “Get around that. You’ll feel better.”
“Don’t smell like willow bark.”
“It doesn’t smell like willow bark, because it isn’t. Drink it,” he added, when Dingus opened his mouth to argue. “You need sleep, and this will help. Besides, this is going to hurt.” He stooped to pick up the rolls of bandages.
Dingus drank the tea—it was tea, and about half honey, too. There was something else in it, something flowery. “What do I do with the water?”
Vandis rolled up his tunic sleeve and reached down into the disgusting water before Dingus could stop him. Something popped, and it all started to drain out.
“Where’s it go?” Dingus asked.
“I’m not sure. Probably down into the river, since that’s nearby.”
“That’s nasty.”
“Fairly, yes. Sit down and let’s get this over with.”
He sat down and clutched the edge of the tub, gnashing his teeth down over any kind of sound while Vandis wrapped the bandages tight around his ribs. By the time it was over he had tears in his eyes, and when Vandis squeezed his shoulder, he jumped.
“We’re through,” Vandis said. “You’re tough as rawhide, kid. You know you’re allowed to complain, right?”
“What for?” Bitching and moaning wouldn’t make it hurt less.
“To let people know you’re in pain.”
“You already know that. What’s the point?”
“It—” Vandis stopped and thought about it. “Well, I suppose there isn’t much of one.”
Dingus put his tunic on, wincing a little. “It does hurt though,” he allowed, to make Vandis happy.
“Oh, I do know. I’ve seen grown men cry when they get their ribs bound.”
He shuffled his shoulders by way of a shrug.
“Get your jerkin and let’s go up to the dormitories. In a few minutes, you’re going to want to sleep.”
“I’m okay.” He was pretty tired, but what he wanted was to see more of the way station. They hadn’t looked at half the stuff that was here yet. He slid into the jerkin and slung his satchel over his shoulder.
Vandis shook his head. “You’ve trusted me this far. Trust me on this, too.”
What else could he do? He went with Vandis back to the main station building, but this time they went in a different door and down a different corridor that looked the same. There was a room that looked a lot smaller than the rest in the way station, but to Dingus’s eyes was still huge, with two real beds inside. They smelled clean, like everything else, except for Vandis’s kit sitting next to the washstand, which smelled of sweat and smoke.
Dingus went to the bed farthest from the door and sat down on the end with his satchel on his lap. There was a knot in one of the floorboards that reminded him of an onion. He gazed at it, blinking slowly, until Vandis came over, lifted off his satchel, and set it on the floor.
“I’ll be around,” Vandis said, going to the door. “I have things to do. Get some sleep.”
Dingus looked up. “Vandis?”
“Yes?”
“What was in the tea?”
“Milk of the poppy—why?”
“Because,” he said, “I don’t like it.”
“I’ll take it under consideration,” Vandis said, and left. Dingus lay back on the soft woolen blanket and looked at the plastered ceiling. He didn’t remember falling asleep, but it didn’t take long.
A Jury of His Peers
Three days later, Dingus thought anyways, he sat next to Vandis under the canvas roof of the chapel with no idea what he was supposed to be meditating on. It was late for devotions, apparently, almost dinnertime, but Dingus woke up and Vandis told him to comb his hair, then dragged him down here. He didn’t feel so bad anymore, that was something. He thanked the Lady for it, and then glanced at Vandis.
The man’s eyes were still shut, and he wore a little smile.
Dingus suppressed a sigh. He remembered to thank the Lady for Vandis, too. And that he hadn’t died outside Thundering Hills. He guessed that was about it. Then he sat quietly, watching flies spiral around each other, the squirrels fighting, and the people who passed on the path while he waited for Vandis to finish.
Finally, Vandis stood up. “Ready for dinner?”
“Yeah.” Dingus was well past ready. He was starving. The last three days—he thought—all he’d done was sleep, under the heavy blanket of the milk of the poppy Vandis gave him. He didn’t much like it, no, not really, but after he woke up the first time with his entire body in a throbbing howl, he wanted it. Now it was easier to push the pain into a little corner of his mind and forget about it.
Now he walked faster than Vandis. He had to slow himself down, and when Vandis caught up, he complained, “Your legs are too long.”
“Maybe your legs are too short,” Dingus blurted. The smack he should’ve expected never came. When he turned back, Vandis wore a big grin.
“I’m always exactly right, and don’t you forget it,” he said, still grinning. They didn’t quite fall into step, but close enough. “Listen, I need to go to Dreamport for a few days, maybe a week. I’m going to fly, so it won’t take me long to get there, but that means I need you to stay here. You’ll be okay without me?”
“I’ll be fine.” Actually, he wasn’t too sure about that, but he’d made it through sixteen years of Thundering Hills. He could make it through a week of the way station—right?
Vandis nodded. “Good, that’s good. Santo was going to move on right away, but I asked him to stick around until I get back. He’s an old friend of mine, so don’t worry about going to him if you need anything—that’s why he’ll be here.”
“You didn’t have to—”
“I know, but I want you to have someone to go to. You’ll sleep in the same room we have been and eat in the mess hall here.” Vandis stopped in front of the double doors, gesturing to the hall. “Try not to go off the grounds, okay? I don’t want you to get into something you can’t handle with some racist prick in town. You’ll be safe here.”
“Sure,” Dingus said. A week ago he wouldn’t have known what a racist was, but Vandis had given him a few earfuls about it.
“Take it easy. Meet some people, make some friends. I’ll see you in about a week.”
&n
bsp; “See you, Vandis.”
Vandis walked a few steps away. His whole body tensed; his hair ruffled a little bit, like in a breeze, and he sort of—lifted off the ground, checking all the buckles up the front of his cloak. It was something to see, for sure, Vandis’s blocky little form rising higher and higher, ten feet, twenty feet. He gave Dingus a grin and a wave, then tucked his arms down by his sides and went off in a rush of wind like an arrow from a bow, exactly that fast, leaving a wide ring of fog that settled slowly toward the ground, and a trail like a cloud, higher, higher, before streaking off to the north.
After that, Dingus kind of had to wonder what Vandis wanted with him. Steeling himself to go inside the mess hall when even from out here he heard the dinnertime noise, he touched the Squire badge pinned to the front of his jerkin. However long it’d been, everything blurred together dreamlike in his mind, and the only thing the same was Vandis, solid as rocks since the minute they met. Now he’d have to get along without. I been alone before, he thought. I can do it again.
He took a breath and pushed open the door. He hadn’t been in here yet, and it was huge, bigger than any room he’d ever seen. It was all full of tables—and people. He thought probably there were more people in this room than there were in all Thundering Hills, and as soon as he thought it, his stomach started jumping around. It was noisier than a Longday feast, and he saw not one familiar face. He would’ve been glad to see even Rogen. At least with Rogen he knew where he stood.
Dingus fell into a hunch without even thinking about it. He’d always tried to make himself look as small as possible and the old habit took over in less than a heartbeat, especially because he knew he probably looked like hell with all his old bruises. He walked slowly to the line of people waiting to get their food and huddled as best he could at the end of it, eyes on the floor, shoulders tight to his ears. Nobody talked to him in the line, and at last he got to take a tray of food away. He found a deserted table and sat down at the end.
He poked at mutton stew and crumbled his bannock. After a little while his stomach felt emptier than it did jumpy, and he started eating. He was working on his seconds when some other kids about his age, two boys and three girls, came in on a blast of conversation and settled around his end of the table. Dingus hunched farther in on himself and ate methodically now, trying to get it over with. They all gossiped like a bunch of old ladies carding wool, dropping names he didn’t know, and spent more time talking than eating.
“Hey, I’ve never seen you before,” said one of them suddenly, and it took Dingus a minute to realize the dark boy with the shaved, shiny head was talking to him. He looked up at a nose bigger than Vandis’s, and almost as hooked. “What’s your—whoa! You get in a fight or something?”
“Yeah, or something.” It sure hadn’t been what he’d call a fight.
“He lost,” said the other boy, with brown hair in a horsetail down his back, and laughed. He was extremely good-looking, so of course all the girls laughed, too, like they did at Aust’s jokes.
Dingus kept on eating. He didn’t say a word, but he thought, See how good you look after what happened to me, asshole.
“No way,” the first boy returned. To Dingus he said, “Man, if you lost, you’d be dead.”
“Well,” Dingus said thoughtfully, “yeah.” That much was true. And he guessed in a way he could chalk it up as a win, because he did survive, and he was going to range with Vandis.
The table was silent so long that he finally looked around, and saw all five of them on the edge of the bench, staring expectantly. “What?”
“Aren’t you going to tell us the story?” a sunburned blonde girl asked eagerly.
“Uh, no.”
“Because he lost,” Horsetail said smugly, at the same time as the girl said, “Why not?”
“Sooner not talk about it.” Dingus pushed his bowl away. He’d lost his appetite thinking about it. The helping and a half he already ate sat like an anvil on his guts.
“Oh, my gods!” cried another of the girls, the prettiest of the three, with smooth maiden braids in her gleaming dark hair. “Your neck—what happened?”
His hand jumped right up to his throat to cover the ligature mark. “It’s fine, it’s nothing.”
“You got hanged,” said the boy with the shaved head, sort of horrified, definitely impressed.
Dingus shrugged again, stiffly. He hadn’t been this uncomfortable—well, ever.
“I guess if you lost you would be dead. How’d you even live?”
He shook his head. They kept on asking him questions, why he’d got hanged, what he did and all. They were the worst kind of assholes, the kind that wasn’t even trying to be assholes, except maybe that horsetail kid. When another girl came rushing over with her food, he let out a little sigh of relief for the distraction. “Cashlin, hey,” said the dark boy with the shaved head. The two boys slid over on their bench so she could sit down. She was right across from Dingus and he glanced at her before he went back to staring at the table. She was wearing a huge, eager smile and out of the corner of his eye he saw her push back her straight, shiny black hair.
“Hey you guys, oh my gods, guess what! You are never going to guess what I heard.” She didn’t wait for anyone to try to guess; she didn’t hardly pause for breath before she said, “Vandis picked a Squire!” In the middle of all the no-ways and the you’re-kiddings, Dingus wished like crazy he was short enough to slide under the table.
“I know, I completely can’t believe it, but it’s true.” She had her spoon in her hand, but she was waving it around, not eating with it, while she chirped on and on. “Adalia was in the hospital to get her hand set, and I heard her and Kirsten talking. I guess he tapped some guy from way out in the sticks. He’s way too old, Kirsten said, like our age, and,” she said with relish, like it was real juicy gossip instead of Dingus’s life, “he was really messed up on account of Vandis saved him from getting lynched. They had the rope around his neck and everything!”
Five pairs of eyes, round as Grandma’s fancy saucers, came swinging around to stare at him. He cringed; he wanted to cover his face with his hands, even though he didn’t. He was used to getting stared at, even used to getting talked about like he wasn’t there, but that was back home and these were total strangers. The black-haired girl must’ve felt like she was losing her audience because she said, “What? What is it?”
Horsetail scowled. “It’s you.”
“So what?” Dingus blurted.
“Vandis picked you?”
Not like he had much of a choice, he thought, since he thought he had to take me away. “Yeah,” he said out loud. “Vandis picked me.”
“Huh!” said Horsetail, disgusted.
“Now you have to tell us the story,” said the girl with the fat brown braids.
“Why ask me? She already knows everything.” Can’t believe Vandis told about it! He swung his legs around to get up.
“Stay,” said the black-haired girl, touching the back of his hand. He flinched away from her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was you. It must’ve been really horrible, but you’ll feel better if you talk about it.”
“No,” Dingus said. “I won’t.” He stood up, about to head for the wide double doors, when a man came over to the table, carrying a tray.
“Everybody, how’s everything?” he asked in a cheerful voice, sitting down next to the boy with the shaved head. He was as dark as the boy, but instead of having a shaved head he’d gone bald up top.
A chorus of, “Hi, Santo,” went around the end of the table. Dingus mouthed along and then picked up his tray.
“Hey, pal, where ya goin’?” Santo asked. He scooped up a spoonful of mutton stew and stuffed it in his mouth; he looked like he didn’t miss meals, for sure, but like he worked, too: the kind of guy Dingus knew to watch out for, because muscle lay under the pudge.
“He was just leaving,” said Horsetail, like Dingus better leave.
“Nah,” Sir Santo said wit
h his mouth full. “Sit a minute longer.” He waved his spoon at Dingus and shoved it back into his bowl.
It sounded friendly enough, but Dingus didn’t dare disobey, no matter how much he’d rather go outside and be alone. He sat back down. The kid with the shaved head rolled his eyes wildly and mouthed “I’m sorry” in Dingus’s direction. Dingus almost liked him right then.
“So you’re Vandis’s Squire,” said Santo.
“Yes sir.”
“So what’s your name?”
“Dingus, sir,” he said quietly, and got a burning flash of anger when Horsetail snickered.
“Shut up, Arkady!” hissed the black-haired girl, elbowing Horsetail hard in the side. Dingus could almost like her, too.
“Yeah, shut up, Arkady.” Santo winked at Dingus, who sat there stunned. The black-haired girl blushed; Arkady scowled; Santo went on. “I’ve known Vandis a long time, a real long time, you can bet. We was Squires together, me and Vandis. Vandis,” he said, looking sharply at Dingus, “hates kids, or he says he hates kids, which isn’t always the same thing, but there you go. Tony here, he’s my fourth Squire, aren’t ya, pal?”
“Yeah, Santo,” said the boy with the shaved head. “Leonardo, Benito, Serafino, and now me.”
“In all that time, all the time Vandis coulda had a Squire, you know how many he’s had?”
“No, sir,” Dingus said.
“One,” Sir Santo said. “You.”
“Oh.” The word popped out of Dingus’s mouth, sounding small.
“I always feel for the first ones. Got no Junior to help ’em out, show ’em the ropes, keep ’em outta trouble with the Master. Nope, it’s just you and him.” Sir Santo rubbed his smooth, double chin in thought. “Maybe I oughtta lend you Serafino.”
“Uh,” Dingus said, fidgeting with his hands under the table, “that’s okay. I mean—I like Vandis.”
“Oh yeah?” Santo had impressive, grizzled eyebrows that completely made up for his lack of hair. He lifted them high.