Venture pushed his plate back and smiled apologetically at Grace. “Nerves,” he said.
“It’s all right.” She kissed his cheek. “I’ll wrap it up. You’ll be hungry enough by the end of the day. Better get going now.”
“I can’t believe this, Vent,” Lance said. “I’ve been waiting a year for you to be old enough to be with us in the elite class. I’ve had to handle Colt without you for long enough.”
“I’m sure you and Nick have it covered.” Venture reached out with his arms and pulled himself farther along the mat. “Besides, somebody has to keep Border in check.”
“You can beat him with your eyes shut now. You belong with the elites.”
Beamer ran morning warm-ups with all the fourteen to sixteen-year-old boys together, the elites and all the rest. It was Venture’s first day being with them. Why did it have to be like this? Venture did his best not to meet Beamer’s eyes as he finished the exercise, pulling himself across the mat, using only his upper body. Then he stood against the wall to wait for the stragglers.
Lance got up beside him, put his hands on his hips, and shook his head. “The weenie class? Really, Vent? I don’t understand you.”
Beamer blew his whistle, and the elite fighters followed him to their own training room, without Venture. They would have Beamer’s full attention while he taught them how to best their opponents in the arena, how to be champion prize fighters. Venture would stay here with this larger but less spirited group and learn how to defend a successful merchant, or to patrol Richland’s towns through uneventful days and nights as town guards, or to serve in a warforce that hadn’t seen battle in three hundred years.
Venture found Earnest at the matside. “Hey,” he said.
Earnest nodded back, then took a glance at a sheet of instructions. At least Earnest was here. In addition to being a trainer for the younger, recreational fighters, he had a group of combat trainees, boys training to be guards and warriors.
“Vent,” Earnest said, setting his paper aside, “and Border, you’ve got me.”
Border? Venture opened his mouth to protest, but Border beat him to it.
“What are you doing here?”
“Training to be a guard. What are you doing here?”
“Taking the first steps toward becoming an officer in the greatest warforce in the world, as is fitting for the first son of a man in my father’s position. What’s your father’s position again?”
Venture took a quick step toward him, but Earnest put a hand on his chest. “Vent. He’s my job, not yours.”
“He’s making himself my job.”
Earnest pulled Venture aside. “Can’t you see he’s just trying to get you kicked out of here? Don’t let him in your head.”
“Why’s he in your group?”
“I had the only opening. You’re just going to have to deal with it.”
“Earnest!” Border’s black hair bounced as he gestured. “Beamer can’t do this. Teach him swordplay. Armed combat. It’s against the law for a bondsman to be armed!”
“It’s his center. If you have a problem, you’ll have to take it up with Beamer. Now let’s get to work.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Venture pulled off his stiff boots, stripped off layers of long clothes, and peeled off his warm wool socks. He tucked these neatly into his battered leather bag, set it on a shelf, stepped onto the cold mat, and jumped up and down beside the other boys. He clapped his hands together, then sat down and massaged his half-numb toes. Until this week, he’d never realized how cold it was in the center in the morning. When he’d come to train as a recreational fighter, it had always been in the afternoon. Even in Winter’s Second Month, it had been warmed up by the time he got there.
Earnest clamped a hand on his shoulder.
“Good morning,” Venture said, through chattering teeth.
“Tell that to my frostbitten fingers. Who taught you guys how to make a fire? That’s pathetic!” Still wearing his coat and knitted cap, Earnest chastised the younger trainers, who poked haplessly at the logs in the hearth at the end of the training room.
Before long the training rooms would be steaming with the heat of their exercises, but a fire helped take the edge off on a day like this. Venture took the poker from one of the trainers and crouched down. He prodded the embers, then cupped his hands to blow some life into them and took the bits of crumpled paper Earnest handed him and stuffed them into the center. Tending the fire was the first thing he’d learned to do well, when he was a little boy. The last thing his dad had taught him how to do.
“Vent!” Lance ran up to him. “Look!” he whispered.
Venture looked. At the door, Hunter Longlake, crisp and perfect, brushed past a handful of rumpled boys and approached the mat.
“River,” Nick whispered, “isn’t that the Crested guy that got your sister in trouble?”
“Shut up,” River hissed.
“No offense. It’s not like she’s the only one.”
“Nick!” Pike smacked him on the arm. “You’re an idiot.”
Venture pushed past all of them, working his way across the mat.
Beamer met Hunter at the matside, and Hunter said, “I have come on behalf of my father, Prowess—”
“I know who your father is. In my office. Delving, you come too. I have a feeling this concerns you.”
“I don’t think—” said Hunter.
“I insist.”
“Very well.” Hunter shrugged as though it didn’t really matter.
Earnest gave Venture a reassuring nod as he left the mat to follow Beamer and their uninvited guest, but it did nothing for his nerves. He should have known this wouldn’t be so simple.
While Grant Fieldstone’s office offered such pretty distractions as paintings of the countryside and an expansive picture window, Beamer’s was windowless; its plastered walls, though coated with peeling blue paint, were adorned with utilitarian, unfinished wooden shelves, piled with dusty manuals, training logs, and competition records.
The only decoration, if it could be called that, was two dull iron bars welded together to form a crude emblem of the Faith of Atran. Beamer wasn’t the type to clutter his space with meaningless gestures, in the form of idols and symbols of every god known to Richland, as many men did, in an effort to please every possible sort of visitor, or to make a statement of national unity. Venture had often wondered if that emblem was a nod to Beamer’s ancestors or a statement of true faith. Certainly looking at it had pricked Venture’s conscience every time he’d been called in here to answer for his behavior.
Beamer settled himself in his chair behind the single desk, which blocked off the better part of the small room.
“Sit down.” He pointed at the pair of plain wooden chairs, the only other furnishings, opposite his desk.
“Yes, sir,” Venture said.
Hunter said nothing, but shifted his scabbard and sat just the same.
“Now, what’s the problem?”
Hunter squared his shoulders and lifted his freshly shaved chin. “You are training a bondsman in armed combat.” He gave Venture a disapproving sideways glance.
“A bondsman, who has no intention of renewing his contract when he’s of age. Who will then have the same rights as any other Uncrested.”
“But he is bonded now and—”
“And training with wooden swords and knives. The law says he can’t be armed. It says nothing about a piece of wood.”
“You are teaching him to use weapons.”
“I’m not violating the law, and you know it.”
Hunter broke his perfect posture and leaned forward in his chair. “My ancestors came here and built this nation. They made these laws—”
“They made these laws because they made sense at the time. Your ancestors were great warriors. They were also men with common sense, who set the Code of Laws in place so that everyone who wanted to be part of Richland could participate in its government. Those laws reserving certain positions for Cresteds, limiting the rights of bondsmen, come from a time of war. Not this time of peace.”
“Peace? When I look at our streets I hardly see a time of peace. When I walk into your center,” he said, gesturing toward the training rooms, “I don’t see peaceful citizens. Your center, and every one like it, is a danger to Richland! This bondsman being here proves it!”
“My center is part of why Richland hasn’t been attacked in three hundred years. Our men are still strong, willing to fight, and the world knows it. Springriver County knows it, too, and that’s why your friend Grover Wisecarver’s legislation banning fighting centers failed.”
Longlake waved his hand. “Merely a matter of timing. Timing and persistence. Of course it seemed a shocking idea the first time it was brought up. People have gotten entirely too used to ignoring the natural order of things, to their misguided ideas of what is in their best interest. The Crested class has has not failed yet in protecting the people of Richland. It may take some time, but we will not fail in steering them off this destructive path either.”
“The natural order of things? It seems to me nature speaks for itself, in the inborn inclinations and abilities of the boys here. Including this one, whose master has the sense to recognize that.”
“Grant Fieldstone is a fool, and so are you.” Hunter pointed his finger at Beamer as though he were a child and not a man twice his age. “The judgment and the character of one of his kind cannot be trusted. Particularly one who lacks the common sense or decency to stay in his place and spend his time doing the work he owes his master.”
Beamer jerked open a drawer and pulled out a sheet of paper. “Here’s what his master has to say about that.” He slapped the letter, signed by Grant Fieldstone, on the desk and pushed it toward Hunter.
Hunter’s jaw tensed more and more with each line of the letter he read.
“You are wasting the boy’s time,” Hunter said, pushing the letter aside, “and his master’s money. As soon as he is of age, he will get himself into trouble, and that will be the end of it. His rights will be revoked. There will not be a career as a guard for a former bondsman.”
“Sir.” Venture looked at Beamer, not Hunter. Now, more than ever, he regretted all the stupid things he’d ever done. “I’ve been in some trouble. But I’m doing better. By the time I’m grown—”
“There will be trouble,” Hunter interrupted. “My father, Prowess Longlake, High Judge of Springriver County, is certain of it. A simple hearing. The testimony of a few trustworthy witnesses. That is all it will take. Do you understand?”
Venture understood. He understood that he wanted to strangle Hunter and Prowess Longlake, the so-called judge, who would dig up his own witnesses to made-up trouble. Venture scraped his chair back, hands clenched into fists, teetering on the edge of rage and reason. Hunter adjusted his sword and glanced at him purposefully.
“Delving,” Beamer said, “Will you excuse us, please?
Venture
.”
“Yes, sir.”
Back in the training room, Venture headed straight for the striking bag in the corner and put everything he had into trying to knock the beans out of it. Even Earnest left him alone.
Once Beamer had returned to the training room without Hunter, he took Venture aside. “I know Border’s involved in this. I’ll keep an eye on him, but that’s all I can do for now. If I kick him out of my center on a hunch, he’ll only find a way to make things worse for you. For all of us. You’re going to have to . . .” Beamer stopped and shook his head.
“Just take it?” Venture felt utterly sick.
Beamer frowned and rubbed his swollen knuckles. “You’ve got find that place between your sense of outrage, your sense of pride, and your sense of honor. You’ve got to be careful. There’s no honor in proving them right, understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How many times have you been disciplined for fighting?”
It had been months since he’d been in trouble, but still—“Too many, sir.”
“I can’t defend you if you can’t stay out of trouble. One more fight, and you’re out of here.”
Earnest was careful not to pair Venture and Border up for swordplay, and so he made it through the rest of training without getting into trouble. It was a shame though, for it was Jade’s day for her weekly self-defense lesson, and she’d shown up matside. She would have liked to see Venture give Border a few nice welts.
“Vent,” she said when he came to greet her and to retrieve his bag, “I had Able bring me a few minutes early so I could see your new class.”
“What’d you think?”
“As usual, you outshone them all,” she said dramatically.
“Ha, ha.” Venture resisted the urge to give her a gentle shove.
She leaned in close. “Seriously, some of the boys outside said Hunter Longlake showed up, trying to get you kicked out of here.”
“Beamer says I’m fine as long as I stay out of trouble.”
She gave him a skeptical look.
“What?”
“Well, that’s not exactly your strong-point, is it? It’s true the only kind of trouble you get into lately is with Border and his friends, but then that’s exactly the kind of trouble you’re talking about, isn’t it?”
Before Venture could respond, Web, a boy who’d recently arrived from the Eastern Quarter, smiled self-consciously at Jade and said, “Vent, who’s your friend?”
He was a nice enough kid, but still, Venture wanted to give him a good whack and warn him that the next time he looked at her, he’d better make sure she stayed all the way dressed in his head.
“His friend?” Border came up to them, his face all grin. “That’s funny. I thought she was his master’s daughter.”
Jade caught Venture’s eye. Her look pleaded with him,
Please Vent, be careful. Calm down
.
“That too,” he said cooly, putting a hand on Jade’s elbow and moving past Border, toward the doorway, before Border could say anything else.
But a tall, broad-shouldered frame filled that doorway, ending Venture’s hope for a dignified exit. Justice. His mouth was set in a disapproving line.
“Hello.” Jade gave Justice a polite smile, and Venture another warning look.
“Hey,” Venture said grudgingly.
“Miss Jade,” Flora called from the hallway, “We’ll be late!” Flora was just as tall as Venture, and, as a result of working alongside her father, the bladesmith, she was nearly as sturdy. On the surface, the girls seemed to have nothing in common, but Flora was one of Jade’s few classmates, and her only true friend outside the Fieldstone household.