Steelhands

by Danielle Bennett

  “Should’ve locked the door,” I said, giving them a salute. I left my own blushing until I got out into the hall.

  Maybe Toverre was right about me—and the rest of the world, too, for that matter—and I was just a silly girl who couldn’t find her way about a simple lecture building.

  But then I told myself I wasn’t the one who should be embarrassed since I wasn’t the one tangled up with a man at least twenty years my senior. They ought to’ve taken that someplace private if they were going to go for it at all.

  By my fourth attempt, I’d at least started knocking, and when I heard Professor Adamo’s voice call out to me with a peremptory “Yeah?” I wondered what I was even doing there. What was he even doing there, considering he’d gone and said he didn’t even know where the place was? Well, maybe he’d made a point of finding it since exam season was coming up. It wasn’t for me to parse another man’s motivations, though; I had enough to worry about when it came to my own. What’d I plan on saying, I asked myself, and, maybe more importantly, what was the man going to think of me?

  And still, I’d come that far. Might as well see it through all the way.

  “Not interrupting anything?” I called through the door, a bit suspiciously. The ex–Chief Sergeant Professor didn’t seem like that kind of man, but then, I’d been wrong in my judgment before.

  “Enter,” was his reply.

  I turned the knob and pushed my way in to find him just sitting still and quiet behind his desk, hands folded in front of him, staring off into the air. There wasn’t anyone else in the room, at least, and I found I was a little relieved that there wasn’t anything fishy going on behind his closed door. Try as I might, I just couldn’t see Adamo doing that with one of the other boys or girls. It made me mad as anything to picture it.

  He didn’t even seem to like teaching them. Why would he bother with them outside of class on top of that?

  “Well?” he asked, when I didn’t say anything. “Take a seat. I’m figuring you’re worried about the take-home?”

  “Not worried at all,” I said, since I’d taken a glance at the copy Toverre’d gone and snatched the minute the test had become available. “There’s no answer to that first question. You’re better off skipping it altogether and spending your time on them that can be solved.”

  Adamo went silent for a second, in a way that made me near certain I’d gone and stepped in it.

  “That’s exactly right,” he said at last, not looking altogether pleased that he had to admit it. “It’s not that there’s no point to it, mind, but it’s the principle behind the question, rather than the question itself that’s so important. It’s a hard strategy for some to take to—sacrificing a lost cause so you can turn your attention toward the stuff worth salvaging. You’re the first person to figure it out if I’m not mistaken. Which I’m usually not.”

  Somewhere along the way his face had shifted from looking sour to downright approving. I couldn’t say I minded the change one bit.

  “Well, that’s something new for me, anyway,” I said. “Normally come exam time, I already know I’m not doing well on them.”

  “Why not?” Adamo asked, as I sat down. The leather chair on the other side of his desk gave out a long, guttural creak when I lowered myself into it; it was the sort of thing Toverre would have been humiliated by, but Adamo didn’t seem to notice it. That was a relief. “You’re a smart girl.”

  “Just don’t have a head for memorizing things,” I said, feeling warm and more than my fair share of proud that he’d called me smart. Sneaking a glance at that test was the best decision I’d made yet. “And I never write down what I’m supposed to.”

  Adamo snorted, the faintest twitch of a smile hiding in the corner of his mouth. “That so,” he said. “Well, me neither, when I went through schooling.”

  “Then I guess there’s hope for me,” I replied. I toyed with a piece of leather that was peeling off the arm of the chair, revealing cream-white stuffing beneath. “Not that I think I’d be riding dragons anytime soon, though maybe something similar.”

  “Guess we’re all hoping there won’t be further need for that,” Adamo said.

  “Guess so,” I agreed. “Though it seems kinda disappointing, doesn’t it? All that work on ’em, and then—poof!—nothing.”

  “It was more of a crash than a poof,” Adamo said. “But I take your meaning.”

  “Not that I’m one of those lunatics who thinks we should be back at war with somebody, not caring who it is,” I added quickly, in case he took the wrong meaning. There was one of those in our class. It seemed to me like he’d only taken it so he could try to talk Adamo around to his way of thinking, which was that the entire Ke-Han Empire needed to be wiped off the map. That type of plan didn’t have a lot to do with thinking at all, in my opinion, just some kind of dark spite. As I saw it, he wasn’t any better than those in the room who acted like the Ke-Han hadn’t done any wrong, and we should just leave them alone to build up their forces again and try us a second time.

  But those kinds of talks gave me headaches, mostly since nobody seemed to believe they could be of two minds about a thing—didn’t have enough to go around to be of one mind about something, I suspected—so I tended to stay out of ’em, unless something in particular really got my goat.

  “You can appreciate some of the things that came out of the war without disrespecting those who sacrificed themselves during,” Adamo said. Unfortunately for me, he didn’t have anything interesting on his desk that I could stare at—no trinkets or portraits of any sweethearts or anything like that for me to focus on instead of him—so that I ended up staring right at his face while he was talking. It wasn’t the worst thing that could’ve happened to a girl. He had a nice face, even when he wasn’t yelling at anyone. “But that depends on who you talk to, and not everyone’s gonna agree, of course.”

  “That’d be nice, but I’m not holding my breath,” I said.

  “You’d go purple waiting,” Adamo agreed.

  “And then there’s them that’d say I can’t understand all of it anyhow, on account of how it’s got nothing to do with me,” I agreed, picking out a long tuft of the chair’s stuffing before I caught myself; he was watching me do it. Even though he hadn’t said anything to stop me, I had a feeling Adamo didn’t want me to leave his office looking like I’d used it for shearing sheep. “Although there’s some lady diplomats, aren’t there? Some of ’em famous, even.”

  “Not too many of ’em, though,” Adamo confirmed, leaning back in his chair. “Though it seems to me the grades come out about even between the boys and girls. Only difference between ’em in my experience is that the boys usually smell worse.”

  “You’re just saying that because you’ve never gotten a whiff of me after mucking out our stables,” I said, then immediately wished I hadn’t. As great as my new boots from Toverre were, they didn’t come with magical properties and never stopped me from sticking my foot right in my mouth.

  Adamo gave me a hard look, like he was trying to decide whether I was putting one over on him or not.

  “Actually, on the grand scale of horrible stink I could live without, horse manure’s not as bad as you’d expect,” he said, after a moment.

  “Yeah, but chicken shit’s just awful,” I said, before I could stop myself. “For a small animal like that, you wouldn’t expect it to be so much worse.”

  Adamo pressed his hands against his face, but I could tell I’d made him laugh. So talking about these things with people wasn’t always the big disaster Toverre wanted to pretend it was. Adamo seemed like the kind of man who needed a good laugh every now and then; made his whole face look different. Younger.

  “I was always thankful that was one thing we missed out on,” Adamo said, once he’d gotten control of himself again. “Stables in the Airman always smelled like metal and fire, though I guess that’s its own stink once you get right down to it. But I never had to worry about putting my boot down in fresh dra
gon spoor, so I guess that’s something.”

  “I bet it’d be huge,” I said, then had to clap my hands right over my mouth to keep from saying anything more.

  Despite what Toverre said, I did have some sense of propriety, and sitting up in Adamo’s office chatting about shit just wasn’t cutting it. Even if we were having a grand old time.

  Adamo did laugh then, but I didn’t know if it was because of what I’d said or just the trapped look on my face.

  “So,” Adamo said, but he couldn’t get past it, and his eyes looked a little leaky, like he was holding a big chuckle in. He had to stop and try again. “Sorry about that, something caught in my throat.”

  “Wish I could say the same,” I said, feeling my cheeks getting all hot for no reason. It was right about then I realized that I’d ripped a hunk of stuffing out of the chair between my finger and thumb, and I quickly went about trying to shove it back into the chair again. “Might keep me from saying the things I shouldn’t, if there was.”

  “Not at all,” Adamo said. “Too many people mince words. Gives me a headache trying to figure out what they’re saying.”

  “No wonder you’re so suspicious about a simple student’s motives,” I replied.

  “So you’re really not here about exams, then,” Adamo said, like it’d taken a whole conversation such as this one to convince him I really wasn’t playing coy.

  I had to think about how to answer him since I’d already proved my on-the-spot tactics needed a little polishing. Now that I’d come all the way up there and I was sitting in Adamo’s office with its sensible leather chairs and good, hard lighting, I didn’t know how to start saying what I needed to say. Even Toverre didn’t really believe me about those voices, though I couldn’t much blame him for that. That kind of madness was for madmen; some of the beggars Da chased out of our barn in the winter were always yammering on to people who weren’t there.

  Maybe you were only crazy once you started talking back, but either way I really didn’t want to find out.

  At the same time, I wasn’t the sort to weasel out of something when I could face it head-on, and I didn’t want the professor to think I was some delicate winter blossom who couldn’t stomach the idea of a physician’s visit.

  I didn’t know how, but it seemed like I’d done something to earn Adamo’s good opinion, and I didn’t want to up and prove him wrong.

  “Just … a lot of things been getting under my skin lately,” I said, still working out how much I wanted to say, and how much I wanted to keep a lid on. “Guess I don’t have so many people here in Thremedon I can talk to. And I know none of that’s your problem, so I guess you can kick me out if you want—except when I came in, you were just sitting here by yourself not doing anything. So it seems to me like you must not have that many people to talk to either.”

  “Did that start out as an apology before it came around to insulting me at the end, there?” Adamo asked.

  “Maybe,” I said, realizing that was what it must’ve sounded like. “But I’m pretty sure I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Doesn’t make all that much difference,” Adamo said, and just like that I knew he wasn’t mad at me. That was a relief. For some reason, the idea made me even more uncomfortable than the idea of sitting crosswise from a dragon as it breathed steam at you. “Shouldn’t punish someone when they’re right, should you?”

  “Just helps me think, having someone to talk to,” I said, easing back into the chair again. At least he hadn’t kicked me out, but I didn’t need Toverre around to tell me I was being impertinent.

  “It’s Laurence, right?” Adamo asked.

  “Laure’s fine,” I told him. I figured if I’d come to him to talk about my problems, then I could let him be a little more familiar.

  “All right, then, Laure,” Adamo said, looking the way he did right before he stood up to make a big speech in class. “I’m not gonna pretend that I’m the kind of professor who sits around after lecture just waiting for students to come to me with their troubles, though. Most times I don’t even know what to do with my own troubles ’cept for make them worse. On top of that, I don’t have a lot of what you might call patience for the things these kids consider real trouble, anyway. Do you see what I’m saying? It all adds up to this: I don’t like being asked too many questions, and I’m a piss-poor candidate for a mentor.”

  “So you’re crap with advice,” I said, once he’d finished. “That’s all right. I never said I wanted someone to tell me what to do, just someone to listen when I open my mouth, that’s all.”

  Adamo blinked, looking like I’d cut the wind straight out of his sails. He’d been expecting one thing, and I’d gone and given him another.

  “Well, fine,” he muttered. “So long as you’re forewarned.”

  “Think my da’d lock me up in the stables if he knew I was bothering someone like you with my problems, anyway,” I told him. “So I won’t trouble you for too much longer. I think I’ve already decided what I want to do for now—see? Just talking things through with somebody listening really can help.”

  Even though I hadn’t told Adamo about half the stuff I’d wanted to, I wasn’t lying when I said I felt more confident about my prospects—rambling on had given me time to clear my head and put all my thoughts in order. I’d told Toverre I couldn’t put off the appointment, but I was starting to wonder what exactly might happen if I did. The worst they could do would be show up at school, and then I could ask ’em in front of everyone what’d happened to Gaeth.

  The plan still needed a little fine-tuning, but putting it off would at least give me some more time to prepare.

  “So I didn’t have to do anything at all,” Adamo said.

  “Except for grunt a reply now and then,” I agreed.

  “But you’ve decided what you’re gonna do for a problem you didn’t even tell me about?” he asked.

  “Righto,” I said, getting out of my chair. I probably should’ve given him a curtsy or something, but he seemed like the kind of man who would’ve preferred a salute. I fixed the uneven buttons on my coat instead. “That’s the one. You’ve been a real help.”

  “Are you trying to be difficult?” Adamo asked. “I mean, this can’t all be by accident. Now you’ve gone and made me curious—so if you were looking to make me feel like a liar, consider your plan successful.”

  “When I was little, Da’s champion racing horse kicked me in the head,” I told him, allowing my eyes to cross, just for further effect. “And me? I’ve been a little funny ever since.”

  “That explains everything,” Adamo said, but I caught him looking at my face like he wasn’t quite sure if I’d been joking or not. He got up after me, shouldering into a coat that looked like it’d been made from at least forty cows all dead and stitched together. I didn’t ask if he meant to walk me back to my dorms, just did up the collar of my coat and slowly made my way out of his office.

  I was pretty relieved when he followed me anyway, turning out the lamp and locking the door behind us. Some dumb joke about me getting kicked in the head was no proper way to say good-bye, even by my standards. Besides, it’d be nice to have the company.

  The walk downstairs through Cathery was mostly quiet at that hour, all the classrooms locked up and darkened; even the last of the brown-nosers and stragglers had already gone home. When we passed by the door with that professor and his student I thought about telling Adamo what I’d seen, but something made me stop, and it wasn’t because of the delicacy of the situation, either. He just didn’t seem like the kind of man who’d enjoy random gossip. I’d have to save that tidbit for Toverre, who’d probably eat it up.

  At least the hallway wasn’t completely silent, since Adamo kept clearing his throat like he had something to say, but couldn’t quite get around to saying it.

  “You want a lozenge?” I asked finally, once we got to the bottom of the steps.

  “No, thanks,” Adamo said.

  “ ’Cause it’s possib
le you might have some kind of cold,” I added. “Hot bath with steam in the room’ll fix it pretty quick.”

  “Or a lozenge,” Adamo said.

  “I don’t even have one, anyway,” I replied. “I just thought you might know it sounded like you need one.”

  It was colder than an old stallion’s lonely balls outside, and it would’ve been dark as pitch if it weren’t for the lanterns lining the ’Versity Stretch. I wished I’d thought to bring my gloves, or maybe even a hat; at least I could comfort myself that it wasn’t a very long walk back to the dorms.

  There was even a little kiosk set up along the walkway, selling hot drinks and stale pastries and the like. I couldn’t even imagine how frozen the poor bastard inside must’ve been, with his breath puffing out in front of him like he was having a smoke.

  “Hot drink’ll help your throat, too,” I suggested.

  “You wouldn’t know this, ’cause you’re still young,” Adamo told me, “but when you get to a certain age and you have a cup of coffee after sundown, you don’t sleep a lick all night.”

  “What about hot chocolate?” I asked.

  Adamo considered it, face looking craggy with all the nighttime shadows. Then he strode away from me. “Two hot chocolates,” he said when he returned, handing me a steaming cup.

  “Can’t accept that,” I said, poking around in my own pockets for some of my allowance.

  “Why not?” he asked. “It’s already done.”

  “Well,” I replied, trying to remember how Toverre had phrased it, “because it’s just not proper for a young girl to let a man buy her anything, unless it’s with intentions of leading him on. Or something like that, anyway.”

  “Then maybe I’ll have you buy me a coffee some other time,” Adamo said.

  “When it’s still light out,” I added, feeling uncharacteristically buoyant. It was strange—I’d spent so much time thinking about the dragons themselves that there’d never been any space in my head for their riders, but now that I was spending time with one of ’em, it was nearly as exhilarating as I’d always imagined it might be to ride a dragon.