Part 9 (1/2)
SHE LAUGHED AND SWUNG ON HIS ARM LIKE A.
SMALL GIRL. ”BECAUSE IT WORRIES YOU. YOU.
DON'T LIKE JOKES, DO YOU? SOMEDAY, 'SIRE,' I'LL.
MAKE YOU LAUGH AGAIN.”.
Late that night, Moran stood brooding in the courtyard.
He had dined with Rakiel, then watched the novices from one of the Manor of the Measure's observation niches.
Moran expected hazing and abuse, but the novices seemed cruder than those in past years. To some extent, Tarli was to blame. Tarli's presence, Moran corrected himself. Novices always attacked those different from themselves, and Tarli was so different....
As if Moran had conjured him, Tarli appeared in the barracks window. ”Good evening, Sire. By the way, I did you a favor.”
”Favor?” Moran was learning, already, to be leery of Tarli's initiative.
The boy nodded. He must have been standing on tip toe to be seen from below. ”I made you more of those short lances like I used today.”
”Did you, now? Wait. Made them how?”
”From the other lances. I told you they were too long. I broke them into thirds, mostly ... some halves for the larger boys.”
”You broke the lances?” Moran gasped. Huma, pray for us all! ”All of them?”
Tarli s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably. ”I did my best. Besides those on the rack, I found just the one storeroom full - the one with the lances in colors. Was that all?”
Sweet Paladine! ”The ones in colors ... You mean red, silver, and gold? For parade dress, for the full knights?”
Moran shook his head, not wanting to believe. ”Those were locked up.”
Tarli waved a hand. ”Don't thank me. They weren't locked up that well. It was easy.” He dropped from the window; he must have been standing on a stool. ”Good night, Sire.”
Moran dashed, panic-stricken, to the weapons store. He spent the evening going through the lances and confirming that they could not be rea.s.sembled.
The treasury would cover replacing the lot, but the paperwork would be a quest in itself.
In the end, Moran gratefully accepted Rakiel's offer to write the requests to release funds. Rakiel's help almost, but not quite, made up for the cleric's sour I-told-you-so smile.
”Breaking and entering should be a handy skill for the boy's future. Tell me, can the treasury really afford to train a b.a.s.t.a.r.d AND a vandal?”
”The treasury,” Moran snapped, ”could afford to replace the entire manor.” ”Really. Just with the funds available to you?” Rakiel raised an eyebrow, not believing. ”Well, let's hope Tarli isn't that ambitious.”
Rakiel moved a spy across the grid. ”So what are they calling him?”
Moran munched a breakfast roll. ” 'Kender Stew.' They claim he's not human.” He moved a footman, casually speared the spy. ”They've hung his pack above his reach, and they call him an animal and chain him up. I'm not supposed to know.”
Rakiel stared at him, shocked.
Moran b.u.t.tered another roll. ”Oh, and the tall one, Steyan, is 'Mount Nevermind.' Night before last, they sawed partway through his bed legs and, when his bed broke, made him stay up fixing it. Maglion, the fat one, is 'Gully Gut.' They make him eat table sc.r.a.ps and pretend that he's part gully dwarf and that they're doing him a favor.”
”Aren't you going to stop them?”
Moran looked surprised. ”Why would I? I spend all day drilling them to death, then chew them up and spit them out. They're frustrated all the time. They take it out on each other at night.”
He pointed the b.u.t.ter knife at Rakiel. ”Then, one night, one of them will start to think about the Measure. Really think about it. He'll be afraid, but he'll stand up to the others and say, 'This is wrong. We shouldn't do this.' The next day they'll all be living the Oath.”
Rakiel's expression was dubious.
”It happens every year,” Moran a.s.sured him.
”And in the meantime,” Rakiel retorted, ”you let them torment each other, even when they pick on your own - ”
”My own what?” The b.u.t.ter knife was still a b.u.t.ter knife, but suddenly the blade glittered in the light from the window.
”Nothing,” Rakiel said with a nervous smile. ”I can't imagine what I was thinking.”
As with all unceremonious business of the knights, the cla.s.ses were taught in the language known as High Common. Only the beginning part was in the old tongue.
Moran took a place in the first row of novices as they said, ”EST SULARUS OTH MITHAS” and sat.
Moran stood between Tarli and Saliak, who had ended up sitting next to each other for the term. Neither boy wanted to look cowardly by moving away from the other.
Besides, Saliak often enjoyed himself by punching and prodding Tarli when the older boy thought Moran wasn't looking.
Instead of moving to the table, Moran sat on the bench and turned to Saliak after the recitation of the Oath. ”Why did you say those words?”
”You make us,” Saliak answered nervously.
Someone giggled.
”Why do I make you?” ”Because the Oath is important,” Tarli said.
Moran turned the full force of the Mask on the boy.
”What makes it important?”
Before Tarli could answer, Moran snapped his head around to the second bench. ”You, Maglion. What makes the Oath important?”
Maglion turned bright red. ”Wh-what it means ...”
”No.” Moran stood, walked to the front, slowly and deliberately.
”The Oath,” he said quietly, ”does not mean anything.