by Wayne Meyers
“Sure, he’s expecting you.” Herthel poked a finger at my chest. “I’ll bet he has the tea pot and biscuits out for a nice little snack. Well, we wouldn’t want you to be late now, would we? We’ve learned a new knee-break technique here today. You wouldn’t mind helping me with my practice, would you? You might have to crawl to reach High-Master Chendor on time, though, but that wouldn’t matter, would it? As long as you get there eventually, I mean.”
I didn’t know if he was serious or joking, but when his leg lifted to strike me, I shifted to the side and kicked down on his supporting leg as Journeyman Krellus had shown me. When Herthel’s kicking leg extended into the spot where I had just stood my own foot slammed downwards upon his knee from the side. There was a loud cracking sound, and I don’t know whose face looked more surprised, mine or his. A general intake of breath from the other boys preceded the end to this game, and the human barrier melted away like snowflakes beneath the summer’s sun.
Swallowing my surprise because High-Master Chendor was still waiting, I mumbled an apology and hurried off. Herthel writhed on the ground clutching his knee. I wondered uneasily if there would be punishment for this. Apprentices were not supposed to injure each other, though normally it would have been a higher level attacking a lower. After I entered the administration building and hurried up the stairs to the third floor, I forgot about it, more concerned with why the High-Master wanted to see me.
Journeyman Themptus sat at his desk hunched over some papers before the High-Master’s office door and glanced up at my approach. “You may go in, Hofen.” He waved me along before returning to his paperwork.
Swallowing hard, I wrapped my clammy hands around the large silver knob and hesitated. It had been a long time since I’d last seen the High-Master up close, perhaps as long ago as when Col had killed himself. What could he possibly want with me?
Journeyman Themptus said over his shoulder, “Go on now. You know he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
Pressing my lips together I twisted the knob with both hands, remembering how hard it had been to open when I’d first met High-Master Chendor two years prior. It turned a bit easier, but the hinges shrieked as painfully loud now as they had then as I pushed the door open.
Wincing as I closed the door behind me, I then turned around to face his desk.
Breath fled my body.
She was beautiful. I was still young yet, true, but when I saw her face my stomach churned, and my heartbeat quickened. Blood rushed to my cheeks. She had grown her hair out over the past two years, and the honey-blonde locks cascaded about her bare shoulders like sea foam. Her arms and face were tanned dark. She wore the barest hint of a mischievous smile that tugged at the corners of her lips, and her cute little sun-burned nose turned up perfectly at the tip. She wore a simple dress of pink and white with matching leather shoes. Her feet fidgeted on the floor. My gaze rose back to her sky-blue eyes which widened when they fell upon me, and then a full smile consumed her face.
Frozen in place, I was struck dumb and stupid by that grin, and her realization of this effect upon me deepened her dimples.
“Stop gawking,” chided High-Master Chendor. “Have you never seen a girl before?”
I straightened and turned toward him, struggling to free the vice from my throat. “Sorry, High-Master. I recognize her from school.”
He nodded. “A small world, indeed. Then, as you undoubtedly already know, this is Babette. She shall be our newest apprentice.”
Her voice rang out as clear and melodious as a bell. “Hello, again, Hofen.”
Turning back toward her I bowed my head. “Welcome to the peacekeeper’s guild, Babette.” We exchanged smiles and through her air of polite sincerity, I perceived a bubbling undercurrent of mischievousness and something else I could not understand. Anticipation? Well, that made sense. She was looking forward to her peacekeeper training. I could relate to that.
And then it struck me like a blacksmith’s hammer sparking against an anvil.
I whirled back to High-Master Chendor. “She is to be an apprentice here? A girl?”
His eyebrows raised. “Indeed. Since Babette comes to us as part of the arrangement to keep you out of school, which I’m sure you recall, I am entrusting you to look out for her protection and welfare. There will be a special announcement tomorrow when we introduce her to everyone as our first and only guild-sister. All the journeymen and masters will keep a close watch on her, but it is to you I give the responsibility of keeping her safe. Is that acceptable?”
“Of course, High-Master Chendor.” My reply came without hesitation, but inside I finally understood the weight of responsibility Journeyman Krellus had imposed upon Marcos two years earlier when he’d asked him to do the same for me. Keeping a new apprentice safe from the antics of the older ones, which I was incapable of doing to even protect myself, seemed a daunting and untenable task.
There came a knock on the door, and at High-Master Chendor’s prompt, a journeyman entered the room with a troubled look upon his face. When he saw me standing there he seemed surprised. “Oh, do you already know about it, High-Master?”
The High-Master’s eyebrows rose. “I know about many things, Iztek, but how am I to answer your question without details? There are many wondrous and exotic techniques I have mastered over the course of my lifetime, but reading minds is not among them.”
Journeyman Iztek bowed. “I thought Hofen may have already told you.”
“Told me what?” High-Master Chendor eyed me curiously.
The journeyman glanced over to me, then explained that I had harassed one of his students when he left the courtyard for a moment. Apparently, when the other apprentice wasn’t looking, I had swung a club at his knee and broke it. I opened my mouth to protest, but High-Master Chendor stopped me by raising a finger.
High-Master Chendor placed his hands on the desk and leaned forward. “You mean to tell me you are training apprentices who allow people to come at them from behind with a club, breaking their kneecaps at will?”
“No!” He glanced back and forth between me and the High-Master. “I didn’t think it could be so.”
“Did you check with the other apprentices to confirm accounts of the incident?”
“Yes, but they all looked very confused, like something had happened they didn’t wish to admit.”
High-Master Chendor turned toward me. “Hofen, what took place before you arrived here?”
I explained the student had detained me and then he had attempted to do a knee break upon me, so I had countered by breaking his knee first. As I unfolded the story, I saw the journeyman grow paler and paler.
“I swear to you; my students are well trained! There is no way a mere low-apprentice could do that to one of my charges.”
“Enough. Hofen has been studying with Journeyman Krellus, and so would have the knowledge to do what he did. There is no dishonor for you.”
Journeyman Iztek’s face now flushed bright red. “But that isn’t fair! How is a higher apprentice to know that a lower one has more knowledge than expected?”
“Exactly so.” High-Master Chendor smiled coldly. “There has been too much of that around here of late, so now the higher apprentice had better think twice before acting against the lower, lest the hunter becomes the hunted. It is never a good thing to expect an easy victory, no matter how certain one believes the circumstances to be. While we were training our low-apprentices to expect an attack at any time, were we also training our higher apprentices the false confidence of easy victory? When one is out patrolling the streets of Solace, who knows what you might come up against? We do them no favors by encouraging over-confidence.”
Journeyman Iztek puffed up his chest. “I must protest this alteration of custom. It is not right that a lower apprentice should study such things.”
He sounded jealous, but I held my tongue.
High-Master Chendor did not. “Who judges what is right and wrong at my guild but me? Would you also
protest our newest apprentice standing before you here, as well?”
Journeyman Iztek looked around in confusion, because he had only seen two children, Babette and me, in the room. Then his eyes nearly popped from his head as he focused on her. “High-Master! Surely this rumor cannot be so?”
“It is, and you will abide by it,” High-Master Chendor said, his voice deepening. “Your loyalty should be to the guild, not to how you think things should be. It is thinking such as yours that has perpetuated stagnation in Bellisprodus.”
Journeyman Iztek bowed low, and his voice turned humble. “I am loyal to the guild. Please forgive my outburst.”
He sounded contrite, but I noticed a rebellious gleam as his eyes swept the floor.
“Why did you leave your class alone, Journeyman?” High-Master Chendor's sharp tone indicated he was unappeased by this show of submission.
Journeyman Iztek straightened, and he folded his arms across his body. “I went to talk to Orison just for a moment.”
The High-Master tugged on his moustache so hard, I thought he would pull it out. “For such gross negligence to your class, you are removed from teaching duties at once. What example do we wish to impress upon our apprentices? We preach discipline on the one hand, yet shirk our duties to them on the other. See Master Voralius today for a new assignment.”
“But—”
High-Master Chendor squarely met Journeyman Iztek’s outraged eyes until they lowered. The journeyman bowed and left. The door creaked as loudly for him as it had for me.
The High-Master turned toward me with a tired smile. “Well, now, where were we, then?”
“Am I to be punished for what I did?” I asked.
“You should be.” High-Master Chendor still smiled at me, but the weariness reflecting from his eyes gave me pause. “It is one thing to callously beat upon a younger apprentice, but quite another to educate a jackass who would disgrace the guild were he to be unleashed without an appropriate adjustment to his manner. I should reward you for saving me the trouble in the future.”
“Yes, High-Master.”
His voice turned stern. “You must learn how to restrain your strikes. We can’t have you crippling other apprentices. I shall have a word with Krellus about teaching you control as well as technique.”
My eyes turn downward. “Yes, sir.”
“Leave me now. At breakfast tomorrow we shall introduce Babette and assign her to your care. She will help Spaldeer and yourself with the kitchen chores. Show her around the guild as well.”
I bowed. “As you wish, High-Master.” I turned to Babette with a ready smile and was surprised to see her watching me intently. I wondered if she was considering me breaking someone’s knee then casually speaking about it like a shopping list. “I will see you in the morning.”
Her voice rang out clear and untroubled. “I look forward to it.” She bowed to me gracefully, but her eyes were laughing into mine, as though she knew even then my heart belonged to her.
Chapter Three—A Girl Peacekeeper
Life became…interesting.
There were ten new apprentices in all, but it was the breakfast announcement of Babette’s arrival among the others that stirred the rustling dining hall into a full-blown maelstrom. It took the masters fifteen minutes to restore order, with Master Banton refusing to step in and help quiet everyone down. Several journeymen, including Orison and Iztek, stormed out. Even quieted, many of the apprentices glared at Babette with open hostility, while others appeared genuinely pleased. Others still didn’t seem to care one way or the other and went about finishing their breakfast.
I turned to Babette to reassure her things would settle down, but she looked more amused than concerned. “They don’t care for any change in routine, that’s a certainty.”
“Some handle it better than others,” I said.
Her face turned solemn. “Boys are always overly dramatic. I’m sure they’ll forget their outraged manhood by suppertime. Most of my friends at school were boys—the nicer ones—and they approached everything with the most excited attitude.”
I stared down at her for a moment, unsure if I should take this as an insult or not.
She patted my arm. “I’m sure you’re not like that.”
My eyes narrowed while I scrutinized her sweet, innocent face, noting the sparkle of mischief glistening in her eyes. Her lips curved upward, showing brilliant white teeth, and she laughed.
As though held by a puppeteer’s strings, my own lips rose in unison. The vice had my throat again, and I had to clear it several times before I could speak. “Well, then, as you’ve learned your chores earlier, I’ll show you around the grounds next. We’re both excused from classes for the day.”
“Why is that? I want to start fighting like the other newbies.”
I shrugged. “Perhaps to give everyone a little time to get used to the idea of you being here.”
Babette tossed her hair. “Well, hopefully they won’t treat me any differently than the boys or it will only become worse. Let’s go.”
What a stroll we had! Although the dining hall announcement had stirred up immediate resentment, they had not counted on Babette’s charm and enthusiasm. Everywhere we went peacekeepers of all levels expressed their dissatisfaction with her enrollment. Classes stopped, journeymen of advanced rank paused in between shifts, and non-peacekeeper guildsmen such as the seamstresses and hospitality workers in the kitchen gawked without restraint.
For me, it was an education in miracles because every disgruntled, irritated, outraged person who met her walked away smiling. Some also looked dazed and confused, others surprised, but all were won over.
She tailored her responses for each specific person even if their questions mirrored someone we’d already spoken with a few minutes earlier. She possessed an innate instinct to match her reply to what the requestor most wanted to hear.
“Can I learn to fight as well as a man? Of course not, I’m just a girl, but I’ll try really hard.”
“Why did I come here? So I could get to know you, silly.”
“How long do I think I’ll last? Well, give a girl a moment and we’ll find out, won’t we?”
As though watching a stage performance by an artisan drama master, I saw her meet and conquer every malcontent who took the opportunity to tell her exactly what they thought of having a female peacekeeper. She agreed with all of them, then redirected their malice and left herself exposed as an innocent victim of forces beyond anyone’s control.
Later that day, I overheard some conversations about how they all needed to work together in order to help Babette make it through the harsh and unforgiving peacekeeper training program. She batted her eyes, made her voice sound blameless and younger even than her ten years projecting helplessness and vulnerability, and then moved on to the next. She had become our guild sister without seeming to try, simply by enforcing the stereotypes they already believed, and furthermore, had previously used as justification to protest her enrollment.
Comments from the morning like, “…she’s just a girl. She’ll never keep up with the rest of us, and worse, she’ll slow us all down!” became “…poor little thing! What were they thinking, letting her become a peacekeeper?”
Most unsettling, after every encounter, every flurry of flustered exchanges and appeals to the hearts of their manhood, Babette turned to me and smiled like a conquering hero. Her eyes brimmed with smoldering fury, their blueness sharper and clearer than before, with a seething whirlwind of purpose repressed just beneath their surface. She was stubborn and strong-willed, no wilting flower, and would push herself beyond her strength rather than let anyone see her fail.
Without speaking a word aloud, she let me know she was nothing like what she projected to the rest of them, and I trembled in awe of her. I could not understand why she neglected to offer me the same smokescreen, but she made no effort to restrain her caustic comments after each encounter with others, safely out of earshot of the one she’d just p
raised and supposedly confided in. Babette trusted me implicitly to keep her secret. In doing so, I became her reluctant co-conspirator in perpetuating the greatest ruse on my guild-brothers they had ever known.
She tossed her hair as they stumbled out of earshot, placed her hands on her hips, and looked up at me to share her latest insight.
“Pompous jackass.”
“Oh please. In a year’s time, I shall knock him on his ass every chance I get.”
“Like he actually has anything worthwhile to teach me.”
I shook my head, concerned for her disrespect to our elder brothers, while at the same time aware of her need to do so in order to survive. “You must not speak of your brothers that way.”
At last, we completed our walk about the grounds where I had pointed out the different buildings, from the masters’ suites to the journeymen’s dorms, and pointing out the sculptures and gardens I found most appealing. It was almost time for lunch, and so I decided to give her a moment to catch her breath, and then join our book study classes after we ate.
We sat on a carved stone bench not far from the dining hall but well away from several knots of training classes in the nearby courtyard. I was still in shock from the contrasting personalities Babette had displayed throughout the morning and unsure what to say. I realized I knew nothing at all about her, save that she had attended my school before they pulled me out for private tutoring after the bullying incidents.
Her legs swung back and forth beneath the bench. In fact, she was never completely still for a moment. She turned toward me exuding vibrant energy, projecting her conviction with decisive emphasis and a slight nod of her head with every word. “Girls are certainly a rarity around here, aren’t they?”
I nodded. “Except for an occasional high-ranking visitor from another guild to High-Master Chendor’s office or seamstresses who handle the laundry, that is true.”