Venture rubbed his chafed knuckles. “What about my name?”
Able shook his head at him, then turned his back. Venture followed, steaming mad at Able, at the street kid, but mostly at himself.
“He’s going to see my face,” Able said, still without looking at him. “I got to tell him. And then what’s he going to do with you?”
CHAPTER TWO
Venture crouched outside the door to Master’s office. He’d taken off his noisy boots and now he dug his bare toes into the fine woolen rug and braced his palm against the plastered stone wall in order to lean his ear closer to the door without casting a shadow they’d see through the crack underneath it. Jade crept over to him and put her hand on his, but he jerked it away.
“Vent,” she whispered. “You have to stop.” She rubbed her dainty, freckled nose and sniffed back a growing sob.
“Let them send me away if that’s what they want.” He was nothing but trouble now. Nothing but shame to his mother’s memory. When he was little, he used to cause the sort of trouble that made Master laugh, but now he was half grown and squandering his opportunity for an education—the very thing his father had died trying to provide for him. Somewhere in the heavens the God of Atran was surely frowning down on him.
“They can’t,” Jade said, but she knew very well that they could. That anyone else would have, long ago.
From the other side of the door, Master said, “I’m not going to work him all day. He’s just a boy! You know I only contracted him for his mother’s sake.”
The grandson of bondsmen, but the son of free parents, at six years old, Venture had become what they’d all worked so hard for him not to be—bonded. His mother had signed a contract pledging her service to Grant Fieldstone for the rest of her life, and Venture’s until he was nineteen, in exchange for the provision of all their physical needs. Prone to chest pains she tried to hide from her boys, she had chosen this for herself and Venture. Grant had interviewed her at the resort he owned in their hometown of Calm Harbor, and brought them back home to Twin Rivers with him—a nurse and a playmate for his daughter.
“Yes,” said Mistress Rose, “and he’s the only child in this house, besides Jade. You must consider the effect he has on her.”
Venture’s face burned, and he buried it in his sleeve. It was stained with ink and blood and street grime.
“Grant, I’ve tried. I’ve done all I can do.”
“You know,” he said gently, “how much his mother would appreciate what you’re doing. Tutoring him right alongside Jade.”
“I know you hoped it would occupy him, tame him somehow. But what good is that break with custom really doing him? He’s impulsive. Reckless. And now, brawling like a street boy! This is the second fight in as many months.”
“It would only be worse otherwise.”
“Worse! Stop making excuses for him—for both of them—and start being his master.”
There was an unintelligible mumble from Master. Then Mistress replied softly, “You’ve let yourself get too attached to him. The widow Ratchet could give you a fine son. When are you going to let Jewel go?”
The last sentence was barely above a whisper, but Jade startled at the sound of her mother’s name, and her pale green eyes filled with new tears. Venture reached for her hand, and she rubbed her fingers between his the way she always did when she was anxious.
Mistress’s voice had risen again, in response to some remark Venture had missed. “Teaching them all to read a bit is one thing, but educating Venture as though he were a man of Society is going too far. And it hasn’t taught him how to behave like a proper young man, let alone a proper servant!”
“It’s only right to teach a boy that bright, no matter what the Cresteds think. Who are they to judge anyone’s potential? Every privilege they hold comes from ancestors dead and turned to dust hundreds of years ago.”
“They’ll judge whether you like it or not. Venture is getting older. More noticeable. If it gets out, what I’ve been doing—and him a troublemaker, too—the Fieldstone name will be ruined.”
Jade squeezed his hand through the long silence that followed. She smelled like warm bread and honey, not like sweat and street filth.
“Vent,” she whispered at last, “You can’t leave.”
He pulled her head onto his shoulder and kissed her hair. He was a selfish idiot. Why couldn’t he have stayed out of trouble, at least for her? It might be too late for him to do anything about that now, but— “I’ll come back,” he said, “even if I can’t ’til I’m grown.”
“I’ll be too old then. Married and long gone.”
“I guess I’ll have to make sure I’m in time to marry you first, then.”
She laughed softly and looked up at him. “Promise?”
As he opened his mouth to answer, Mrs. Bright appeared in the corridor, and Jade jolted upright.
“Aren’t you in enough trouble, Vent, without getting caught eavesdropping, too?” Mrs. Bright whispered fiercely. “Mistress Jade, you get that boy out of here this instant if you care for him at all!”
Jade scrambled to her feet, tugging Venture along with her. He barely had time to grab his boots as she pulled him away.
Venture lunged past the boulder he and Jade had made their finish line and slowed to a stop. “I win!”
She knew he needed to burn off some of what was raging inside him, so she’d challenged him to a race.
“One more time,” Jade insisted.
“Sure.”
He kicked a loose stone from the cobbled driveway to the Big House, as everyone called the Fieldstone mansion. A three-story sandstone with arched windows and doorways, it sprawled over the hill in such a way as not to loom over, but to nestle in its natural beauty. Inside, Rose and Grant Fieldstone were still arguing. Venture felt the throbbing start again, that thing inside him that kept swelling up, threatening to eat him up, and he broke into a run.
“Don’t wear yourself out! I’m going to dust you this time!” Jade called.
Venture forced out a laugh. He stopped at the front walk and waited for her to get back to the starting line. She was taking her sweet time, picking little blue bits off the grape hyacinths along the way. Pretending she wasn’t tired.
She frowned and rubbed at her nose. “I might not be as fast as you, but I know I can outlast you. What we need is a longer distance.”
“Like what?”
“Down the road, all the way to the bend and back.”
“That’s halfway to town!”
“I know.” Jade tossed her blond hair back with a smirk. “You’ll never make it. Too bad.”
“All right, let’s do it then. Just don’t expect me to carry you back up the hill when your legs give out.”
She gave him a shove and gathered the long waves of her hair together at the nape of her neck, then took a bit of cord she kept around her wrist and tightened it around it. “Let’s go.”
“Aren’t you going to get some shoes first?”
Her plain blue linen dress belied her status, as did its dusty calf-length hem and her dustier bare feet, their soles so thickened by long, shoeless days that they didn’t mind hard, stony earth. She looked more common than he did.
“You know perfectly well my shoes are useless, and I don’t have time for riding boots. You might lose your nerve if I take too long.”
Venture rolled his eyes. He pulled off his sweater and tossed it onto the boulder, next to her cloak.
It had been dry, but not particularly sunny this first week of the new year, and the dirt road was hard and cool. He kept a steady pace right beside Jade. It was a long way, and he was breathless and sweaty by the time the bend came into view. He caught Jade eyeing him, measuring him up, and he gave her a confident smile. Her cheeks were bright red and her smile looked more like a grimace. She stuck her tongue out at him and he let her sprint ahead. She was only ten and it took two of her strides to match one of his.
He could see the valley below,
where the Swift and the Sweet Rivers met. Twin Rivers Town had grown from a village into an important center of trade and transport, filling that valley. In Twin Rivers goods were brought in and sent out by keelboat, and the vessels of the locals, from little two-man rowboats to elaborate pleasure boats, lingered on the riverbanks. From downtown a cobblestone street narrowed into a dirt road and threaded its way up a green hillside to the Fieldstone family property.
The blue-gray of the sky was deepening and Venture’s stomach was aching for supper. Going back uphill was going to wear him out, but it was going to kill her. He’d be lucky to drag her back home before dark, and then he’d be in even more trouble. Unless Master already had Able packing his things for him.
Venture pushed out a burst of speed and reached out to grab the back of Jade’s dress and pull her back a step.
“Ha! Now who’s ahead?”
“Let go!”
He did, and she fell right on her rear. Venture collapsed next to her, laughing. When he looked up, they weren’t alone. Three older boys, about thirteen or fourteen, skulked around the bend. They glanced from Jade and him to each other and smiled the sort of smiles that weren’t really smiles at all.
Venture stood up quick and, without taking his eyes off them, held out a hand to help Jade up. He didn’t like the looks of them, but Jade didn’t seem to notice. She was still laughing as she brushed off her skirt, still calling him a dirty cheater. Once she was on her feet, she moved to pull her hand away, but he squeezed it hard.
He gave the boys a polite nod and whispered to Jade, “Let’s walk back.”
She glanced from him to the boys and nodded. They looked like the drifters that stowed away on barges and popped up around the river. What would bring them up the hillside, unless they were looking for trouble? Livestock and tools to steal. He’d warn Master about them, make sure the outbuildings were locked tonight.
He and Jade turned to head back up the hill, and the boys split up. One moved swiftly behind them, the other two in front, between them and the way home.
“I don’t know.” One of them shoved his hands into too-big pockets. “She’s pretty enough, but she’s still a scrawny little thing.”
“You take care of him, then. We’ll take care of her.”
Before he could think, Jade pulled away from Venture and broke into a run, but one of the boys caught her arm, twisting it so that she cried out. Venture tried to run after her, but a shock of pain stopped him mid-step as knuckles slammed into the base of his back. A hand grabbed the back of his collar, and he felt a hot, reeking breath of laughter on his neck.
“Get your hands off me,” Jade screamed. “What are you—stop! Vent! Please!”
Venture pivoted around and buried a fist in the older boy’s gut and he doubled over, but as he tried to run for Jade again, the boy recovered and kicked his feet out from underneath him, sending him sprawling onto the road. Venture scrambled on the ground, trying to stand, but the boy kicked him in the side and called out to the others, “Help me out here. This one wants to fight.”
“Does he?” Another of the boys joined him and shoved Venture back down into the biting rock and dirt as soon as he found his feet.
Every time he got up, they punished him for it with a fist or a foot. But worse than the pounding of their blows, than the taste of the dirt and the blood in his mouth, was the sting of Jade’s screams.
“Stay down,” one of the boys told him, “and it’ll be over soon enough. You and your little friend can go on your way and we’ll go on ours.”
“No!” Venture screamed. “No!”
Someone shoved his face back into the dirt. When he lifted it, there was his mother’s pendant, lying on the ground beside him, the ribbon snapped. He scraped it into his fist along with a clump of dirt. He hurt like he never had in all his life, but he hated those boys even more. With his eye swelling shut and his head spinning, he rose and took a swing at the closest boy, the pendant pressing into his hand.
“I’m going to kill you! You hurt her, and I’m going to kill you!”
He missed, and all three boys laughed.
The boy who had Jade let go of her arms. “Let me have a crack at him.”
Run, Jade, Venture wanted to say. Please. Just run. But he didn’t dare call their attention back to her. He cursed at the boys instead, swung wildly, and managed to make contact with one of their noses, but then he took a boot right in the gut for it. He had to get up before they noticed her again. Had to. He breathed in dirt and he coughed it out and he kept getting up, and they kept pounding on him.
Then one of them said, “Hey! She’s gone!”
“Never mind her. Let’s finish him.”
Thank God, she’d gotten away, disappeared into the roadside brush. He imagined her slipping through the weeds and into the trees, soundless and quick like the rabbits she liked to help him track. When the time was right, she’d get up and run, taking the shortcut home.
But he was still here, still breathing dirt, still going to die with the pounding of their fists and the roaring of their laughter like the throbbing triumph of darkness itself in his ears. Even the ground shook with their blows—no, that wasn’t it. It was the pounding of hooves. Someone was coming.
The boys backed away, and he rose again with renewed fury, spat out a mouthful of grit and blood, and hurled himself at them, screaming and swinging.
CHAPTER THREE
Venture had never thought he’d be standing here, on the front steps of Beamer’s Center, that his master would bring him here. But things were different now. His hand went to his arm, and he felt a phantom flash of pain, though it was healed well enough. It had been nearly six months since it had been broken, along with several of his ribs. But Jade had gotten away in time, before they could do what they wanted with her, and now those boys were rotting in the lockup.
“Listen to me, Vent.” Master rested a steady hand on his shoulder.
Venture tried to listen, tried not to attempt to peer through the fogged-up windows instead. The windows were high up on the walls, right up under the eaves, presumably so that no one would go crashing through them. This complex of plastered stone buildings and wooden add-ons was the best center for training boys in the fighting arts in all of Richland. Vale Beamer, the center’s director and head coach, even had a female instructor at the center to teach girls self-defense and swordplay, and Jade had started taking lessons here shortly after the attack.
“This isn’t just about what happened to you and Jade. It isn’t just about you learning how to fight.”
Venture shoved his hands into his pockets and lowered his head. “It’s about me messing up all the time, isn’t it, sir?”
Master pulled him in closer, against his fine linen shirt, just for a second. And just for a second, Venture allowed himself to imagine that it was coarse, homespun wool. Master had hugged him, really hugged him, after he and the other men had chased down those boys who’d attacked him and Jade. Hugged him like he was a son and not a servant.
“It’s about what’s going on with you, yes.” Master pulled away a bit. “It’s either this, or . . .”
Master’s hand left his shoulder. Venture looked back at him and watched him rub at his temples. He seemed to do that a lot lately.
“This needs to work out.”
Work out? How could bringing him here possibly work out? He wanted to learn to fight properly more than anything now, but this was crazy.
“I know you’ve heard things about Vale Beamer.”
Venture had heard that he’d been Champion of All Richland back in 632 and again in Thirty-Five. What would a great fighter like him want with an out-of-line bonded boy, other than to remind him that his place was elsewhere? Had Master told him about the things he’d done? Did Beamer enjoy beating the trouble out of troublemakers?
“The other boys might not make this easy for you, but Beamer is a fair man, and you’re strong. And there are no Cresteds in there.” He pointed to the heavy
wooden doors, painted bright red. “There never will be, because they think they’re above it. Do you know what that means?”
Of course Cresteds would never stoop to come here. They were the descendants of renowned warriors, called Crested for the family emblems their ancestors had marked themselves and their men with in the Wartimes. They now held the highest positions of power in Richland. The Cresteds had training rooms in their homes, and practiced their fighting arts there, away from the unworthy eyes of the common.
“I don’t know, sir,” Venture replied.
A muffled bang came from the building. Venture glanced at the windows again, but could make nothing out. There may not be any Cresteds in there, but there certainly weren’t any bondsmen either. Surely Master knew better than to expect anyone to want to teach him how to fight.
“Beamer only cares what you can do. He’s not like the others. It’s a different world in there, as much as he can make it. He’s agreed to give you a try, but only you can convince him to keep you here.” Master’s eyes filled with something that could be desperation, that could be hope. “It’s the last thing I can think of to do for you.”
He led Venture inside, into the foyer, and through another door, whose window was clouded over with steam. A dark-haired, sinewy teenage boy whose clothes clung to him with sweat shut it behind them.
He shook Master’s hand and said his name was Earnest Goodview. “So this is Venture. Beamer’s expecting you.”
The plastered walls of the training room, stained with the greasy marks of sweaty bodies that had brushed and slammed against them, were marked here and there with blood-brown smudges. Except for a narrow strip of wooden planks, the floor of the long room was covered in canvas-covered straw mats, and those mats were covered with boys, right around Venture’s age, some on their feet, some on the ground, all in pairs, grappling, struggling to gain the upper hand. The room throbbed with their energy, with effort and impact, with frustration and victory.
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