by James Comins
Nuncle, who to my discomfort has been standing not too far from any of us as the fight went on--why he didn't intervene I don't know--has admiration plastered across his face, and claps, slowly, filling the void where we are all speechless.
Dag punches Malcolm remarkably hard, and Malcolm's head hits the stone with a wet sound and he goes down, his shoes sliding out ahead of him. Dag goes to his room, which is across the hall from ours, and shuts the door.
Nuncle says, "That's enough socializing today, Tom. Take Malcolm to his room."
And I do.
* * *
It is well past nightfall, and I wait the hazy wait as sleep descends but before consciousness is gone, there are bulging faces in my closed eyes, a swimmy brown-red field like diseased . . . something . . . and I am shaken awake by Nuncle, whose face is black in the lightlessness, only a flame of cancerous nose and half an eyebrow.
"I've forgotten something," he says, and I am an icicle. "Admission to the Fool School is far from free, boyos. Four marks from each, or get out."
I am lucky that Papa prepared me for this. He spoke of the fools' famous greed, of the costs, and he set aside the rare gold mark for me whenever he found one, and created a place to hide it. I have no doubt that the money is still there. I open my case and peel back the vellum paper that lines it. A metal frame looks to the casual thief like any case's brass frame, but to one who knows, there is a double catch that one opens by squeezing here and here, Papa showed me--
Four pieces of gold fall from the opened compartment. My heart stops and I let myself breathe again. I take the coins and give them to Nuncle, and I wake Malcolm and he reaches into his pouch and produces a pair of gold mancuses, a simply enormous piece of money, I have no idea who Malcolm is to own two mancuses to his name, that's nearly a hundred shillings, that would buy a dozen jester's uniforms made all of purple cloth and sewn of gold thread. And Malcolm sleepily asks for change.
"I'll bring change in the morning," says Nuncle, and he is gone.
* * *
I fall, rolling onto the floor, and there is green light everywhere and I blink, astonished that so much light could fill the underground room in the middle of the night, I imagine a goblin has clapped its hands and poured green energy from its mouth, but it's morning. The light comes from a skylight of glass, set at a strange angle in the prison cell's ceiling. The green glass is lit by the sun, filling us with sickly light that's already fading as the sun moves on, and I think: prison. They meant to wake the prisoners early each morning.
My back is as sore as it's ever been in my life, and I believe I'll learn to hate this pebble bed. It's unwholesome. Malcolm's face is swelling, I see--we've elected to share a room, I don't know if I explained that before--and he looks in considerable pain. So I go to him, I'll be his nurse, but no, he gestures for me to come near, he wraps himself around me, he looks in unusual pain, he says it hurts him and he wants to die, he whispers in my ear, he's crying and I don't know why and he says he feels that nothing will go right again, and he says he's been putting something off but he doesn't know if I know about it, and I ask what.
"God gave us each a way to feel joy in times of pain," he says, and I don't know what he means.
Malcolm unties his breeches. There is a moment rushing toward me, something like noise and fury, and my red-haired master holds my hand and pulls me down and I wonder if the devil's in him a second time, I just don't know, and I do something I've never done before, Malcolm guides me, and I can't tell you what it is, it can't be watched, maybe I'll talk about it later. I feel like it's best for me to keep Malcolm's privacy. I'm his. We smile at each other and Malcolm grimaces as his smile moves his swelling face in a way he can't manage. I hold him around the waist and he lies back to rest and I'm afraid of letting him get up to go to classes, which I imagine will start right away.
Eventually we dress and move out the door. I insist on keeping Malcolm close to me as we traverse the long wide cold hall to the bathrooms. The guardrobe is a series of stone circles with lead piping beneath, it looks cold, and there're a pair of levers that pour hot or cold water into a bath basin, which drains out right away. The water seems to be good for washing, drinking, and bathing. I feel reassured by this room. It's a place where relaxation is allowed. Later I may take a hot bath, since such a thing is possible. In the meanwhile, I wash Malcolm's arms and legs, touch his face with a towel--there are towels in here, clean--and try to sop up the swelling with a patch of cold water on the towel, making Malcolm wince. I wonder if he hates this place already. I don't ask.
The door to the bathroom opens. I brace for combat. A boy smaller than I am enters and pulls his pants down and uses the guardrobe. The boy is a fawn, his legs so thin I can see bones trying to burst through the skin. His cheeks have green-yellow bruises on the edges, beside the ears. Someone has been boxing them. His eyes are too big for him, they're liable to fall out of his head, and he doesn't raise them to us, nor his head above shoulder-height. His head hangs like he's lost a parent. Malcolm looks up at the boy and rises. He sits on the adjacent guardrobe without pulling his hose down, I hope it was clean, and he says:
"Have you been here lang, Skinny Malenk?"
"Don't call me that," the boy mutters.
"Aye," says Malcolm softly, nodding. "Aye."
There is no further conversation forthcoming from the little boy.
"What do they call ye here?" Malcolm says, very quietly.
"Shitbreath."
"That's nae what we'll call you," Malcolm says, and raises his red eyebrows to me. I nod. "If ye could have any moniker the world'd allow," he says, "what'd et be?"
"Hero," says the boy, and I am touched, I desire bravery for this boy, I desire to see him slay a dragon. He will not, I know, but I desire it.
"Then that's what your name is with us," I say.
The boy takes a wiping-cloth and takes care of himself, pulls his pants up and waddles over to us on duck legs. "You have to get me some breakfast," he says.
Malcolm and I look at each other. "A bit strident, that," Malcolm says. "Why can't you get it yourself?"
Hero says, "They won't let me have any."
He's so skinny. I wonder if they'll let him die. I wonder if all the others here have died of starvation, and that's why there're so few students.
Malcolm and I will protect this boy. That's what we'll do. We three travel through the bathroom doors toward the opposite end of the hall, where the cafeteria is, but Dag is waiting in his open doorway for us.
"Shitbreath's got hisself a mummy and daddy," he says.
Malcolm tenses at the sound of Dag's voice. "I'll be your daddy, too, before long, Dag," he says, "and give you the whipping you deserve."
Dag's coming. His fists are stones, his face is fury, and he gets three fingers on Malcolm's swollen face and twists. Malcolm crumples. I try not to imagine his pain. I decide I need to defend Malcolm, so I work on Dag's hair, wrenching it and getting his neck around, trying to bend him backwards where he can't see what he's doing. Hero--I'm trying not to call him Shitbreath, even though I admit it's a catchier name--Hero bites Dag's fingers, bravely I feel, trying to keep him from giving Malcolm any scars or any more pain.
Dag spins fast and I'm left with his hair in my hand, it's torn out, but now he's facing me and snarling and I jab his puff of straight brown hair back at him, because I'm hopeless, and he socks me really, really hard in the bone under my chest, and what's strange is that it doesn't actually hurt, I feel no real pain, but I suddenly feel as though my skeleton inside my body is dancing on the fingertip of Death, that my heart might stop, that my body is failing and fragile and a glass filigree balanced on its tip, wobbling, and my fingertips go to my neck, where the beating of your heart may be felt, and I feel a mess of slippery hair there, because my hand still holds the lock I tore out, and I toss it away and press to locate my heartbeat and there it is, it's just fine, but I feel maybe I should be lying down anyways, maybe yes, that's the right c
hoice, my breath feels sullied and bony, I know that doesn't make sense, but I flap my hands behind me and let myself recline and Dag goes back to pounding on Malcolm, who is essentially helpless, I see Malcolm dead in my mind's eyes and I work on rising to help, but my whole being is in need of respite, I fear for myself, but I fear for Malcolm more, so I stand, shaky, and in my frightened vision there is Nuncle and a professor I don't know, they stand a few lengths away with their arms folded and observe, and they will not intervene, they are testing our mettle, maybe, or else they enjoy watching teenage cruelty, I don't know, and unsteadily I tip toward where Dag is hitting Malcolm and it seems like he's only managed a few hits, so I launch myself, a human arrow, and I take a goodly patch of Dag's flank and I do what he did to Malcolm, I hold the soft skin through the shirt and I twist and twist and I wonder whether I'll detach a patch of skin from him like harvesting mushrooms, Dag goes limp and he's unhappy and Hero is scampering back and forth a few feet away, leaping from foot to foot like a hobgoblin, celebrating each blow against Dag, and now it seems my flank-twisting has turned the tables and Dag seems to want to stop the fight now, but I won't let him, I unscrew his skin as hard as I can and Malcolm rises and throws a big punch at Dag's jaw and that'll be a sturdy bruise, didn't break the bone I think, and I hear Dag's voice begging me to release his flesh, and I twist, and I twist, until I can feel a sudden burst of wounding and I feel disgusted at the sensation and let go and run across the hall to a wall and press myself against it.
Dag lifts his shirt.
There is a line where the twisted flesh tore. It's black beneath the skin, and blood starts pouring out of the wound, opaque brown dripping out.
Dag drops to the ground and pulls himself toward the bath. Nuncle and the other professor move to stop him. They pick him up and take the him up the staircase. I touch the bone under my chest and I think I haven't been injured in a way that will kill me.
Here is breakfast. Long low tables of stone, benches of stone lying on the floor, shrieking if you try to move them. I hold a coldwater towel to Malcolm's face. Hero eats not one but two whole pottages, all by himself. I wonder who the fourth student here is. I find breath wheezing through my body between mouthfuls of oats and cabbage. I don't know whether it's from exertion or injury.
A shadow cast over us. Nuncle holds in his hands a bowl of small wild strawberries. He places it on the table between we three. I wonder whether he picked them for us himself. I desire to ask him for the change for Malcolm's mancus coins, but I don't. It would be churlish just now. Nuncle departs.
The other professor takes his place. I look up at the man and he's dressed outlandishly, like a Saracen, in a flowing white blouse, green scarves, weird baggy trousers, no hose or breeches, his sleeves and trousers secured to his wrists and ankles by webs of strands woven around his fingers and bare toes. He doesn't wear shoes.
"Proff Ab'ly," whispers Hero, taking a strawberry. I don't know what tone of voice he's using, afraid or in awe or just quiet.
Ab'ly--Aberly? I wonder--slaps Malcolm very hard on the back, not a pat of approval but a strike of harsh Levantine discipline. Malcolm doubles over and curls himself up like an injured spider.
Before I know what's happening, I am struck in the back, between the shoulder blades, and I freeze, clenching my eyes shut, expecting my brittle bones to shatter. I hear: "Ouch!" in Hero's voice soon after.
"Brownboy," and Ab'ly has an accent I can't place. I look up and he's looking down at me. "You report to acrobat room each day each morning. Pink," and now he looks at Malcolm, "I give one week to heal your wounds, and then acrobat training begins. Legs." He stares down at Hero. "You go with Brown today. Show him the way up the stairs." He smiles with thin lips, as if he's made a joke. "Ten minutes. Be late and I make you both look like him." He gestures to Malcolm. "Nuncle and Sparky will expect Pink at Prime bell in sounds room. Don't be late for them, eidder."
Gone.
My education has begun.
* * *
"New boy. Brownhair. First lesson in acrobatics. Catch."
A stone the size of my two fists together hurtles through the air and knocks me in the shoulder.
"Not good enough."
I've just stepped through the doorway from the spiral stairs. The last thing I expected was a new injury. Clearly the pillows on the floor are not going to protect me from this foreign madman.
"Throw back and try again."
Perille and what I would swear is a girl but who is dressed in men's hose and long tunic and short hair sit side by side on mats inside. Hero ducks in under my arm and sits on the opposite side of the room. Reluctantly, still out of breath from the fight, I pick up the rock and throw it back to Ab'ly.
"Wrongo!" he exclaims, lets the rock do some flips from hand to hand, spinning it around nimbly through the air like a bucket on a string, and sends it back to me at high speed. I put my hands out in front of it, and it strikes my sore palm with great force.
"Now throw at Legs," Ab'ly tells me.
Lightly, underhand, for fear of killing the little thing, I toss the rock to Hero. He catches easily, with a nest of hands.
"See how he does it? Now to Demi."
Hero throws remarkably hard at the girl who's dressed as a boy. I wonder what her real name is. She catches the same way and the stone does acrobatics as she redirects its path upwards, letting it land on an outstretched palm.
"Now back to Brown."
Again I defend myself from a hurled rock. My hand has a network of almost bloody cracks from the strikes, and hurts pretty bad. I wonder how Malcolm is doing. He's in bed.
"Pick up and throw at Hairstyle."
I presume he means Perille, who has quite elegant long frizzy hair in a circle around his head. I chuck the rock. Perille catches it badly and fumbles it. A cane appears in Ab'ly's hand and reaches the distance between the teacher and the student and slaps Perille's shoulder. I see fury rise, and wonder whether Perille will react, but instead the boy picks up the stone and throws it back to me, not hard, and this time I catch it easily, with both hands, like Hero did. Ab'ly nods to me, and the cane has vanished. I imagine it's up his baggy sleeves. I imagine Perille will pound me later.
Ab'ly's hand moves back and front, like a snake, and a second rock identical to the first appears from the aether and flies at me. I try to scoop it out of the air, bobble the first rock, jam my finger and drop both.
"Up!"
I pick them up.
"To Hairstyle!"
I throw one, but Ab'ly adds, "Both!" and I throw the other. Perille catches them.
"Legs!"
The stones fly.
"Demi! Hairstyle! Brown!" The two stones impact us like stones and go skipping between our sore hands like stones.
A third appears.
Thus our morning.
After acrobatics, I find it easy to know where to go; it's the floor above, and we all travel together. My estimation of Perille has decreased. He's not as slick or as terrifying when he's in the presence of authority, and I have trouble imagining the king or duke who would be delighted by his service. This is a better feeling than abject terror, I think, this feeling of superiority. I like to feel superior. I am superior to Dag anyways, and so is Malcolm, but I will have to develop strategies to conquer Perille. I must understand him. Maybe among his belongings is a secret that will allow me to crack the code. I feel like a crook, thinking this way. This is how thieves think. Ah, my train of thought has led me to a strategy . . .
I am downstairs now, and everyone is upstairs.
The bathroom, I have told them.
Here is a door, none too sturdy. I have devious thoughts. Do Perille and Dag share a room, I wonder? I pull the door open. No, this room is partly unoccupied. There are chests not entirely unlike my own. It isn't Dag's room, I saw him enter his own room earlier. I remember now. There are two pebble beds, but only one has blankets on it. Six students and probably no more than eight grown-ups in a prison built for fifty
or more. I realize I won't have time to pee after this, and they won't let me go twice before luncheon, so I'll need to hold it.
I open Perille's chest. What can I steal or destroy? I will conquer this Perille. Quills and ink, some parchment, clothes, several semi-cured pelts of wild animals that I feel certain he caught himself, a bag of coins with some evil-looking mechanism of springs at the top, a small rectangle guarding the opening, I don't know the secret to getting at the coins, and I value my fingers, so I leave it right alone--
A potion bottle, perfume inside, smelling strongly of musk and ambergris. Perille must be rich. There are several polished rods of different sizes, I don't know what they do . . . there are images of nude women drawn on parchment, I think Perille did them himself . . . A cameo sketch of a man and woman's face, probably Perille's parents . . .
The door bangs shut.
I have been in a fugue state, not fully aware that I was here, placing myself in danger impulsively, and now I've been caught. I am in Perille's room. Why? I want to know who he is, so I can survive him. Can I explain this to Nuncle? And who is outside the door? Will I be able to outsmart them?