Rulia gave a slow nod. “Of course, Jess, and thank you.”
Good. She could count on her lover to keep an eye on her sister, in case things took an unexpected turn.
Jess flashed a tight smile before letting the nervous servant lead the way down into the bowels of the academy building where the disciplinarians kept their own quarters. Jess forced herself to breath slow and deep, muscles tingling, ignoring the numerous glances that students cast from their bubbles of calm as they went about their day, some gazing at Jess with looks of pity, others with almost vindictive satisfaction, until Jess smiled coldly back.
Almost before she knew it she was before the head disciplinarian's office, the young girl giving a nervous knock upon the door.
“Enter.” A cold voice, sharp with authority.
Her escort bowed once before Jess, then dashed off before Jess could say a word.
Gently, Jess placed her hand upon the wooden paneling, giving a nod of satisfaction after several moments time. No great cluster of men lay within. Yet what she did sense filled her with a growing sense of alarm. Daring to hesitate no longer, Jess boldly pushed the door open wide.
16
Jess beheld a sparsely furnished room almost intimidating in its stone starkness, bare of all ornamentation save several chairs and a fine hardwood table across from which sat a hard-eyed woman of noble bearing and obvious stature, despite the plainness of her charcoal robes, dark hair swept back in an elegant knot, gazing at Jess like a bug crushed under a boot. Jess could sense the animosity from where she stood, hitting her like a blow.
Before her, glaring at Jess, and perhaps the reason for what could only be the head disciplinarian's cold contempt, was the proctor Jess had humiliated the day before.
But that which truly held Jess's gaze, utterly and completely, was the sight of her sister, hunched up into one of the chairs like a frightened ball, gazing at Jess with desperate fear.
“This is the sorry excuse for a student that has so flagrantly violated the rules of our institution!” the proctor Jess had crossed the day before declared. “She is guilty of avoiding her responsibilities, mocking and disrespecting her betters, tarnishing her own reputation and family honor, and when she was justly reprimanded, she dared, she actually dared to lay her hands upon me! This harlot is unsalvageable. She is a menace. She should be expelled immediately!”
“Are you all right, Apple?” Jess asked, utterly ignoring the now furious proctor.
Apple gave a trembling nod.
“Have they hurt you in any way?”
She gave an abrupt shake of her head, before anxiously glancing at the steely-eyed gaze of the head disciplinarian.
"Your sister is fine," the head disciplinarian said. "You had best give me your full attention, Jessica de Calenbry. There are things we have to discuss, counsel you had better heed, for I have little time to waste on the likes of you."
Jess glared at the woman, who coldly smiled back, her contempt for Jess unmistakable. She did nothing to hide it, cold civility aside.
“My name is Lady Grimsly, and I am the head disciplinarian of this fine academy. Lady Aislin has provided a full account of your appalling behavior, your contempt for authority, your disdain for your professors, your intimidation of your fellows, and your unforgivable breach of barbarism, daring to strike a disciplinarian of this school!”
Jess coldly smiled back, her blood pounding with pent up fury the equal of the malice she felt within the room. “And a pox on you too, wench.”
Lady Grimsly's teeth flashed into a rictus of a smile. “You will pay for that, you sickly little Calenbry get.”
Jess's icy laughter mocked the woman before her. “So refreshing, Grimsly, that you dare to hate, cold and blatant, not hiding it under simpering smiles and cloaked daggers like half the sniping harridans above. Now say what you are going to say, for I have no more desire to waste my time in your foul company than you do my own.”
The head disciplinarian's eyes widened with barely checked fury. “You vile little wench!” she hissed. “How dare you speak to me that way, you lesbianic whore! Who the hell do you think you are, to cavort in this school as if it were your own brothel?” Grimsly took a deep breath, glaring at Jess, even as the object of her ire smiled coldly, ignoring Apple's whimpers.
Grimsly's lips wormed up into a chilling grin once more. “Ah, but your sister understands the true game here, don't you little Appolonia? You, at least, understand the true cost of impertinence, insubordination, and arrogant disdain for your betters. Don't you, my dear?” Cold gray eyes turned to Jess once more, her words like a curse. “I know the real reason why you are here, Jessica de Calenbry. In fact, I was the one who facilitated your... transfer, to our facility.”
Jess blinked, choking down a swallow, even as her heart began to pound.
Lady Grimsly nodded in bleak satisfaction. “So I see you understand now, you little harlot. Good. You are here to be judged. To see if you could be tamed into something useful for the king's pleasure, or if you are naught but a half-mad wild thing, best put down for the good of all.”
Jess froze where she stood, every iota of focus upon the visibly gloating woman before her.
“So now you see, cur, that it is not just you who will pay for your insolence, should I continue to find you wanting. Your entire clan, Jessica de Calenbry, will pay a fierce reckoning, should you be judged unfit for the unholy power you have been vested with!” Coldly, Grimsly stood up from her desk, glaring with hate even as she approached. “Resist me, little harlot, resist my discipline, and I shall see that your whole family pays for your insolence!”
And with every ounce of her strength, Lady Grimsly whipped her hand around in a vicious smack, cracking against Jess's cheek.
“Jess, please, don't do anything!” Apple wailed, even as the head disciplinarian gasped and spat, squeezing her hand like she had struck stone.
Jess's cheek had stung with the blow, yet she held her cold fury in absolute check, knowing her family's well-being depended on her absolute control.
“By all that is holy, I will break you!” Lady Grimsly shouted, turning to her fellow. “Aislin, your paddle!”
Coldly, the proctor Jess had humiliated the day before fished out a corded piece of leather, a baton, in truth, for all that the far end spread out a bit like a flexible paddle, and Jess understood instantly its purpose.
To beat unruly students into a broken, quivering pulp, without any risk of permanently scarring noble flesh. Jess couldn't help wondering how many girls, far more vulnerable than she, had suffered at the hands of that tool of torture. In gentle hands, it could elicit soft pain, and no worse. In brutal hands trained just where to strike, it could kill.
Lady Grimsly turned her gaze to a suddenly trembling Apple.
Apple's features paled, she raised her hands up placatingly. “No, mistress Grimsly. Please. No...”
“If you touch one hair on her head, I will end you.” Jess's words were cold as death, and she meant every one of them.
Lady Grimsly stiffened. Glaring daggers of hate. Her snarl turned to a cold smile. “Oh, you don't need to worry about your precious little sister. She, unlike you, has been an exemplary student. Her only purpose here is to remind you of the consequences you shall pay, your whole family shall pay, should you dare to defy me again, you twisted excuse for a noble!”
She jabbed the baton at Jess like a sword. "Your entire clan exists at my sufferance, wench! Should I declare you unfit, I shall make sure every damned lord in the Council hears my verdict, and rest assured, with so many lords hungry for your father's ill-gotten gains, they shall clamor for the king to take your damned head, and execute you all for treason!" Slowly, she circled Jess, even as the cold horror of just how precarious her clan's position was, sunk into Jess.
“I am going to strike you, bitch, and you will do nothing, nothing! To stop my blows!” The weapon whistled through the air. The leather baton smashed against the back of Jess's knees. Her
thighs. She felt the head disciplinarian rip open the back of her shirt before delivering furious blows to her back.
Jess sunk into herself, forcing herself to icy stillness, imagining it, somehow, as one of Eloquin's lessons in pain and perseverance. And how her mentor would be glaring at her even now, Jess having been so foolish as to bait an unknown adversary, without getting full measure of the resources at her enemy's disposal, so thrown off and outraged by the vile hatred she had sensed. Now forced to accept that her entire family's fate rested not only upon Jess showing deference to the king, but on her jumping through every hoop Grimsly and her disciplinarians would place before her; women who were openly hostile to Jess and, she was suddenly certain, in league with her family's enemies to bring the Calenbry clan down. And Jess, like the fool she was, had almost given them the perfect excuse.
She could imagine all too well Eloquin's scathing condemnation, a bitter and just counterpoint to the sharp sting of constant blows rained down upon her by the furious head disciplinarian.
For General Eloquin's one time favored protege, she had been acting the fool. Too furious about her confinement, too willing to toe the limits before first ascertaining just how powerful the hand against her was, just how hungry others were to see her fall.
And the bottom line, Jess admitted to herself, was that she couldn't stand the thought of being utterly trapped and helpless before her enemies. Forced to beg and grovel for their condescending pleasure, her entire family held hostage to their every malicious whim. But in the end, that's exactly what it was. Those were the cards she had been dealt. The forces at her enemy's disposal were just what they were.
It was time, Jess furiously thought to herself, even as the heaving noblewoman pounded into Jess with renewed fury and curses, for her to accept the bitter truth of the matter. She was a pawn who had been stripped of all power, forced to dance to the tune of her de facto masters, and she had damned well better accept and deal with that, with the same furious discipline she had used to master three years of training so grueling that only a fraction of the brightest and boldest had what it took to become Squires of War.
She could so imagine Eloquin's caustic words. Her first duty was to her clan, and from there, the nation as a whole. She must do whatever she could to protect it. No indignity was too great, no sacrifice too arduous.
Jess suddenly stiffened as with a final, furious grunt, the head disciplinarian cracked the ridge of her baton against the back of Jess's neck.
A killing blow.
The jolt of pain surprised Jess such that she lurched forward before collecting herself. Jess understood in that instant that all her darkest fears about this institution, the woman furiously trying to break her, were absolutely true. And in that instant, Eloquin on a training field littered with corpses grinned back at her, his smile fierce and cold. “You play the meek kitten for just as long as you must, Jessica de Calenbry. And when the time is right, you know exactly what you must do. For you are the king's blade, honed to a killing edge, and in the end, all our enemies shall fall before you.”
The final play. All cards on the table. Mutually assured destruction.
But it was not time for that.
Not yet.
Strangely, Lady Aislin looked at Jess with something close to horrified wonder. She turned her gaze to her superior. “My lady...”
“Silence!” Grimsly hissed, breathing harshly, collecting herself. “Very good, beast. At least you know how to take a beating. No doubt your former masters were quite fond of striking you, and for good reason.”
Panting, the head disciplinarian collapsed back into her chair. She tilted her head consideringly. "Perhaps there is some use for you, after all. Not as a lady, of course. You shall never be that. But as a simple beast, the lowest of the low who would dare ape a noble title. That, I think, is your destiny. Very well then, Calenbry mule. Perhaps, if you can follow simple instructions, you will show yourself to be the docile and obedient creature the Crown expects me to whip you into being."
Her smile was mocking. “Perhaps you will show yourself fit to live, after all.”
Jess gazed coldly at the vile woman gazing up at her, utterly silent, showing no reaction.
Lady Grimsly's lips tightened together. "Silence, then. So be it. You wished to be free of the burdens of classes, etiquette, manners, and good breeding? You wished to be free of the opportunity to better yourself? Very well. It is only fitting, after all, that such a mule as yourself knows her place!” She glared at Jess. “From this moment forward you are not to attend any classes, wear any dresses, or attempt to socialize with any student who does not want to find themselves a social outcast! You shall speak to ladies of rank only when spoken to. To the common dregs of this institution alone are you permitted to engage with freely, beasts much like yourself!”
The head disciplinarian chuckled softly. “Admit it, Calenbry mule. Such a penance actually suits you. You would far rather herd with your beastly brethren than trouble yourself with the doings of your betters.” Her gaze turned hard once more. “And that is the only reprieve I shall give you. If you dare to flee these lands, I shall have the king declare you outcast. Your family's lands forfeit to your betters, and you to be killed on sight as a threat to the Crown. Tasks I shall have for you as well, creature. You may expect various academy servants to knock upon your quarters with a list of duties for you to discharge before your tasks are done for the day.”
Her smile turned cold. “Should you shirk in any of them, you may rest assured, I shall make this session seem like sweet foreplay compared to the next beating you shall receive. Am I clear, you pathetic excuse for a noble wench?”
If her smile had been chill with contempt, Jess's was icy as a winter gale. “Perfectly clear.”
“Then leave!” Lady Grimsly snarled. “No, don't you dare curtsy. Such actions are for a lady of refinement, acknowledging her betters. And you, creature, have shown yourself to be nothing but a beast!”
17
“Oh by the gods, Jess, why did you have to push her? Why?”
Jess gazed into her sister's tear-streaked, terrified face, once more overwhelmed by a sick feeling of dread, afraid she had pushed too far, imperiling her whole family.
“She hated me at first sight, Apple. That rage was simmering within her. It was refreshing for her to lay out her cards, without hiding her contempt under games and a smile.”
Her sister gazed at Jess with sickened disbelief. “So that explains goading her to the point she feels justified beating you to a bloody pulp? With our entire family's future at the mercy of her sufferance, her tolerance of us? Why, Jess, why couldn't you just listen to Mother? Why couldn't you play the dutiful, obedient daughter for once? Was it really so hard to smile at girls who mocked us, for just one year?”
Apple shook with fury, dainty fists clenched and shaking. “No, you arrogant fool! You couldn't even chain up your pride long enough to abase yourself before the woman who could destroy us all!” Her outrage broke into sobs. “Oh Jess, just look at you! She bold as brass threatened our entire family. What are we going to do?”
Jess ignored the ache of skin scraped raw with abuse, gazing calmly at her sister. "And did we know that Lady Grimsly had herself maneuvered for us to be under her power, expressly to render her verdict as to my tractability before king and Council?" Jess flashed a cold smile. "You understand this game better than I, Apple. For even one moment do you think she was involved in those maneuverings for the betterment of our clan? For the good of the king? What do you think?"
Apple paled and swallowed. “Oh gods, Jess. In this school?” She trembled, tears flowing freely down her cheeks. “She seeks power over us. She must. She and the headmistress as well. They must be in on it together, for without the headmistress's consent, you wouldn't even be here.”
Jess shrugged. "I don't know about the headmistress yet, but for certain mercenary backroom meetings were held between Grimsly and someone or a group of someones who have
an interest in us as pawns. The important thing is that we now know that it wasn't Mother or the king who had arranged for us to come here, but Grimsly and any allies she has, petitioning the Crown to facilitate the transfer."
Apple closed her eyes. “And you just had to antagonize her all to hell, didn't you Jess? By the gods.”
Jess flashed a smile that was almost apologetic. "Yes, Apple, I do feel a bit of the fool. I felt it important that I push back, that I show that I am no one's puppet, but you are right. It was the height of folly to not force myself to humility, at least until I was able to piece together just how much power the key players of this school have over our family." Jess gave a rueful shake of her head, gently easing herself onto her bed. “Well, at least now we know where we stand, without spending months furtively digging for the answer.”
“Oh gods, Jess! How can you even bear to lie down?” Apple's gaze, so filled with anger and despair, was now mixed with pity. “That bloody bitch. How dare she do that to you? She could have killed you, Jess!” Apple shuddered. “I saw it, Jess. I saw the hate burning in her eyes, every time she struck you. And far less with the flat of that baton than the edge! She wasn't just trying to cause you pain, she was trying to break you.”
Jess chuckled softly. “Oh, I know, Apple. I know. But don't worry. The pain only goes skin deep.” She flashed her sister a wry smile. “The humiliation? Perhaps that goes a little bit deeper.”
For it had been a grueling return back to quarters, dozens of beautifully made up faces, hair perfectly coiffed, miniature seductresses all hoping to net a powerful man for a future husband all gazing raptly back at Jess, more than a few lips curving into cruel grins at seeing her beaten and broken.
Or so they thought.
"So I see the obnoxious upstart has finally been put in her place," Angelica had simpered through her icy smile, beautiful eyes glinting wickedly at Jess's expense. "I do hope it doesn't hurt too much, Jessica. We wouldn't want you to humiliate yourself and cry in front of all of us, now would we?" Cold laughter followed her down the hallway as Jess slowly made her way along the corridor, ignoring the jackals behind her, even as the hallway filled with mocking jeers.
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