“Perhaps you should ask your Sister-Sergeant for some pointers?”
“Perhaps. Would you accompany me if I did?”
“Why would you need me to accompany you?”
“Sister-Sergeant Morwenna would do anything to avoid being in a yard alone with me, lest she wake up to find her own skin marked,” Eder said, but the bitterness had largely gone from his voice. “If I had an escort, or a witness to testify that no heresy was conducted but the proper shooting of bows, she might actually listen to me and not run away like hornets were chasing her. Probably not, though.”
“It’s worth a try,” Kane said, scratching at the wounds on the back of his hand.
“Is that still stinging?” Eder’s voice was sympathetic. “Come on, I’m taking you to the healers.”
Kane tried to protest but Eder was having none of it, and ushered him, and a very surprised Terrell, who had just arrived, along the corridors which honeycombed the Citadel, into the light, airy Hall of Healing. After walking through so much dull red rock, the whitewashed walls of the Hall of Healing, reflecting the sunlight from above, almost blinded Kane, and he blinked tears from his eyes.
Kane had not been in the Hall of Healing since he was tiny, preferring to tough it out through various bouts of illness or injury instead of taking the easy road of lying between starched sheets for a day or two, tended to by healers. As he looked around, he saw the healers were all in fact Immaculatii from the inner Citadel, some girls, some boys, all looking very small and young next to their Child Guard patients. There was a boy with his arm in a sling, a whey-faced girl who seemed to be asleep, and someone Kane couldn’t see, bundled up in sheets. There were three healers gathered around the latter patient, who seemed to be quite vocally upset about something.
“Can I help you three?” a girl strode up to them on short, chubby legs. She wore a bright blue tunic under a white nurse’s apron, and her fair hair was so light as to be almost grey.
“Healer Davena,” Eder said with a smile. “It’s only a small injury, but I don’t want my friend’s hands getting infected.”
“And he couldn’t bring himself, Eder?” Davena asked, but she was smiling.
“More like wouldn’t,” Eder said, moving deftly out of the way to put Kane at the forefront of the group. “But I didn’t want him to miss any of his lessons tomorrow.”
“And do you have a name, Novice?” Davena asked gently, taking Kane’s hands and laying them flat in front of her.
“Novice Kane, ma’am,” he said. “It’s only a scratch, really nothing to worry about.”
“You’d be amazed the number of times someone says that and ends up losing a hand,” Davena said, and as she saw his expression of horror she chuckled slightly. “Not that that’s likely in your case, no, although if you hadn’t come to me you’d have had some pretty nasty scabs and pus to contend with at your next sword drill, which I can’t imagine being pleasant. Considering they’re ‘just scratches’ they’re surprisingly deep.”
As she spoke, she reached into an apron pocket and drew out a couple of small jars, which she laid on a nearby trolley. The first, she rubbed into her own hands, then sealed it and opened the second, which smelled cloying, herbal and altogether medicinal. She dabbed it onto the wounds on the backs of Kane’s hands, and his breath hissed through his teeth as the stinging sensation intensified, seeming to burn right down to his hand-bones, before vanishing in its entirety. By the time she started applying the poultice to his right hand, the pain in the left had all but gone.
“That’s amazing,” he said. “What’s it made from?”
“Healer’s secret recipe,” Davena grinned. “All you need to know is it’ll sort you out nicely and stop you missing any of your valuable lessons and studies, or more importantly the Enlistment Ceremony tomorrow.”
Kane had been trying to make himself forget about the Enlistment Ceremony for weeks, but every time he succeeded someone else would bring it up and his head would buzz around with thoughts of it again. He had put in his application again this year, signed off by Brother-Captain Erik of the Seventh battalion, who had been impressed with Kane’s tidy disarming of him in one-on-one combat earlier in the year. He’d been trying to avoid thinking of it ever since, lest he race to the board in high excitement, as he had done for the past four years, and the crushing disappointment of not seeing his name be too much to bear.
“Is that tomorrow?” he forced himself to speak calmly. “The list will be going up shortly, then.”
“Aye,” Davena said, and there was a sadness in her eyes as she looked up at Kane. For a brief second, he wondered if he had his four failed attempts written on his forehead, then his train of thought was interrupted by a wail from across the room.
Davena winced.
“That guy doesn’t sound like he’s doing too good,” Terrell said, as bluntly as Kane and Eder had been deftly avoiding drawing attention to it.
“That’s the first time he’s been awake in four days,” Davena said quietly, busying herself with wiping her hands and stowing her jars safely away. “There was some kind of an accident with a ballista, I don’t know the specifics but I know he came in to us with a leg shattered from ankle to hip. While we worked overnight to save his life, we couldn’t save his leg, unfortunately.”
Through the crowd of small healers an officer rose from a stool by the distraught patient’s bedside. She wore the uniform of a Sister-Sergeant, her ash-blonde hair pulled away from her face in a tight braid, and her youthful face bore a pained expression. Whatever business she had had with the patient, it had not been pleasant.
There was a moment, as she turned to face them, when she seemed to do a double-take at the presence of Kane, Eder and Terrell, but it was over as soon as it began, and from then on she did not seem to even see them at all.
“Sister-Sergeant Morwenna,” Davena bowed her head as the young woman approached.
“His discharge papers are on his bedside,” Morwenna said. She spoke in clipped tones, measuring out her words to avoid being overly generous with them. “When he is recovered sufficiently there is work for him in town, he will need to have his dose of Elixir tapered off beginning immediately for his retirement to the citizenry.”
She looked back over her shoulder at the patient, still shrouded and howling. “He is… not pleased with this outcome,” she said to Davena. “I am sorry to leave this burden on your healers but I have a great deal of work to attend to.”
“It is no burden,” Davena said. “We will care for him until the day he steps out of the Citadel. Thank you for visiting him, Sister-Sergeant.”
Morwenna looked surprised at being thanked, but her blank expression clanged down again, and she clicked her heels smartly and left the Hall, without so much as glancing towards the cluster of novices.
Davena sighed, and took hold of Kane’s hands again, examining them, although she could not really see anything through the thick poultice she’d applied.
“These should be healed by morning,” she said. “Just to be on the safe side, I’ll wrap them so you don’t smear any of this around, it has a tendency to stain. Just wash it off in the morning. If you still have any problems with it, which I highly doubt, come and see me tomorrow. I make this myself so there’s a plentiful supply.”
She tied a bandage around each of Kane’s knuckles with a neat, practised hand, and patted them once in a maternal manner which Kane found very unfamiliar.
“Now, do you think your escort will let you be about your business,” Davena asked, her habitual smile returning, “or will they keep you from checking the list until it’s absolutely necessary?”
“It may not be necessary at all,” Kane said.
“You never know your luck,” Davena smiled. “Now, be off with you before someone accuses you of malingering.”
“Thank you, Healer Davena,” Kane said, and the three of them left the Hall. The sobs of the wounded boy followed them far longer than they expected.
3. Enlistment
“They say, right, that the Dawn Reapers found a Sidhe with ten kids all trussed up like geese on market day, and they were sharpening the knives to gut and eat ‘em, and then Cathan steps up with his big ol’ sword and is like ‘Not with me and my boys around’, and he kills the Sidhe and brings back its head with all the kids kicking it like a ball. Least, that’s how I heard it, and the Brother-Tutor wouldn’t lie.”
Garrick, Fifth Battalion Quartermaster
Kane’s name had not been on the list.
He had seriously considered staying in bed the next morning, and to hell with Bevan and to hell with prayers and to hell with the Enlistment Ceremony. There had been no reason, as usual, for his rejection, not even an acknowledgement he had applied and had been unsuccessful. The Child Guard was not the kind of place to publish a list of those who had failed to make the cut, which in a way he supposed was a mercy, because he would be followed by the taunts of younger novices for days if his name appeared on such a document.
Bevan had left him relatively to his own devices today, apart from a few barbed mutters about how he was looking forward to seeing Peter and Albert, two of the other novices in the dormitory, being inducted into the ranks of the Eighth and Tenth battalions, respectively. Kane dressed in a fresh, clean uniform with leaden limbs and a hollow sort of ache in the pit of his stomach as he contemplated a fifth year as the oldest novice in the Citadel, never permitted to wear the surcoat of a full Child Guard, the scarlet fabric trimmed with shining gold braid. He supposed he could leave, but then nobody ever left. They were either dismissed as unfit, invalided out like the poor soul in the Hall of Healing, or they went into the Halls of Correction and never came out. Nobody had ever decided it wasn’t for them and walked out of the doors with a wave and a goodbye.
The empty feeling stayed with him through dawn prayers, where he sang the same hymns and recited along with the same prayers, but there was nothing behind it. He had prayed to the twin gods for a chance, for someone to recognise his yearning to be a Child Guard and listen to the Brother-Captains who thought him a perfect fit, year after year and they had ignored him. He wondered if it was some kind of penance for sins in a previous life.
He had no appetite for breakfast but took his allotted amount of food anyway and took his place with Eder and Terrell. They had been with him yesterday, when he had elbowed his way to the front of the chattering novices and seen a list of neatly written names, none of them his own. Eder and Terrell hadn’t been on the list either, but then Eder never really expected to and Terrell hadn’t bothered to apply this year after a fight with a fellow novice just before the application cycle started had landed both of them with black eyes and black marks against their names. Neither of them had been at this game of rejection as long as Kane had, and he felt the wasted years keenly.
He gave up on his food after a few mouthfuls, and slid it over to Terrell, who had a vast appetite that was never satisfied by the Citadel’s meagre portions. He buried his head in his hands and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes.
“I see Davena’s poultice did a good job,” Eder said, carefully.
Kane hadn’t even checked this morning, he’d washed the sticky, smelly stuff off without even thinking about it and hadn’t bothered to check whether the wounds underneath had healed. And they had, perfectly, with no trace of scabbing and the very faintest difference in skin colour to show where they had been. There was no itch, no pain, nothing out of the ordinary to suggest he had ever hurt himself.
“Yeah I suppose,” he said, flexing his fingers absently.
“She’s very good at that sort of thing,” Eder continued, glad of a course to divert the conversation down. “I suppose that’s why she’s one of the head healers in the Citadel.”
“I don’t get it,” Kane said, and he didn’t miss the glance exchanged between Eder and Terrell. “Is there something wrong with my face, do you think?”
“There’s plenty wrong with your face,” Terrell said through a mouthful of cheese, “but I’ve seen uglier out on the parade ground.”
Kane’s answering smile was thin and forced.
“It’s been five years now,” he said, quietly, fearful of bringing down a merciless mocking from the novices at the other end of the table. “Five applications, testimonials from five Brother-Captains, what is it I’m doing wrong?”
“There’s always next year,” Eder said evenly.
Kane’s fist hit the table, upsetting several cups of water and earning him dirty looks from further down the bench. He uncurled his fingers, and awkwardly covered his right hand with his left, ashamed of the violent reaction to Eder’s calm words. “So everyone keeps telling me,” he said. “And the last four times I even believed it. I thought the gods might be trying to teach me a lesson, but I’m failing to see what it is I’m meant to be learning.”
“The gods move in mysterious ways,” Eder said, shooting a sharp glare in the direction of Terrell’s answering scoff. “Whatever happens, you’re doing your best and I’m sure it won’t be much longer before that gets recognised. There were no vacancies in the Reapers this year, after all, so perhaps someone is waiting until there’s room for you to join them.”
“Do you really think so?” Kane asked, and Eder’s answering smile held no guile or sarcasm.
“Absolutely.”
The wave of hope Kane felt from his friends’ genuine and heartfelt belief in him managed to buoy him up for most of the morning. He set about his chores with gusto, and even found himself whistling as he shovelled manure in the stables.
The noise of spurred boots interrupted his jolly tune, one of the more rambunctious hymns that the Child Guard enjoyed singing, and he turned to find himself face to face with General Marcellina, head of the Border Patrol, the dust fresh on her boots and her dark skin shining with sweat.
Kane scooted out of the way as quickly as he could, offering an untidy salute which in ordinary circumstances would have earned him a lecture and doubtless another humiliating punishment. Marcellina didn’t even seem to notice, trudging past him as though he were furniture. Her horse followed, its bridle held by the Western Border Lieutenant, Rosamund, who bore a fresh cut on her cheek, leading to a blossoming black eye above it. She scowled as she caught Kane staring, and he returned his attention to his work, as the General’s horse was stabled by more capable hands than his.
“Go to Cathan,” Marcellina addressed one of her soldiers, in her rough, throaty voice. She pulled her thick dreadlocks, peppered with iron grey, away from her face. “Get me a meeting with him, and don’t let those nannying lieutenants of his fob you off with excuses.”
“Yes, General,” the boy bustled off into the complex proper.
“General, if it’s such work to get hold of Cathan, then perhaps General Valens or Lysistrata would be best to speak to about the matter?” Rosamund suggested.
Marcellina’s grim smile was bright in the dim shadows of the stables. “Oh no,” she said bitterly. “This is right up Cathan’s alley, it’s been a while since he’s had a new chapter in the books, maybe this girl will get him one.”
“As you say, ma’am.”
“Right, let’s get some victuals in us, these troops aren’t going to enlist themselves and I’d rather not do it on an empty stomach.”
The stables felt emptier after their passage, even with the General’s magnificent steed munching away on a bag of oats and threatening to undo some of Kane’s hard work. Thankfully, his energy was still enough that by the time he finished his work he had plenty of time to saunter back to his dormitory to change before the Enlistment Ceremony began at noon.
Attired in a fresh tunic and feeling almost fully back to normal, Kane allowed the wave of novices heading into the parade ground stalls to pull him along, like a tide. When he got into the shaded area, segregated from the parade ground proper by a low, wooden wall, he sought out Eder and Terrell, standing at the front in a pool of silence and stillness, and wad
ed through smaller boys and girls to join them. Before him, to the right, the ranks of the companies which had accepted new recruits this year stood, in perfect rectangles, ranks broken only by the vacancies which would soon be filled. To his left, the lucky applicants who had been selected, kitted out in full uniform, looking swelteringly hot in the noonday sun. He washed up on a tide of chattering children to stand next to his friends. Despite being taller than the rest of the children, and standing at the front, nobody asked them to move.
“He’s not here yet,” Terrell said before Kane had even opened his mouth. “That being said, neither are his lieutenants, so you never know.”
The Enlistment Ceremony was one of the rare occasions on which General Cathan was guaranteed to emerge from his solitary rooms to be gawked and goggled at by novices and soldiers alike. Most other, more minor, events he had begun to send one of his two lieutenants, Tomas and Eachann, both former members of the Dawn Reapers and his most trusted officers, to act in his stead. But he had never missed an Enlistment Ceremony yet, even if it was only to recite the words required and then limp up and down before the ranks, glaring at them with his good eye.
Generals Lysistrata, Valens and Priscus were there, in their full dress uniforms. Priscus looked extremely uncomfortable in his plumed helmet and gold-braid-bedecked surcoat, and he fidgeted nervously with his swordbelt, never actually touching the hilt of the weapon itself. Valens was immaculately turned out, his uniform straining at the seams to accommodate his massive shoulders, and Lysistrata fanned herself uncomfortably with her hand in the scorching late summer heat.
There was movement towards the rear of the dais, and Kane craned his neck to see Cathan, but instead the tall, rangy form of General Marcellina ascended the small steps and took her place on the dais with the others. She had not bothered with dress uniform, instead preferring to remain in her standard gear, still crusted with dust from the road. Her expression was slightly sour, and Kane wondered if she had got her meeting with Cathan as she had wished.
The Child Guard Page 3