Free Stories 2016 Read online

  Was it a question?

  "Yes, Your Highness," he replied.

  She seemed disappointed. Or puzzled.

  At his answer? At the brothers' being here? Before he could think of what else to say, she had walked past, and lessons began.

  Every child in the room wore the pale blue and yellow of the Cohort, but they also sparkled with gemstones and chains, earrings and rings, all in the dual colors of their Houses, or bearing the motif of their families.

  Pohut felt bare. The two brothers had nothing like that.

  Well, Pohut had a rock in his pocket. He touched it to be sure it was still there.

  If Cern were puzzled as to why they were here, she was not the only one.

  Most afternoons, under a winter sun that slipped quickly behind the hills, the Cohort spent in the fenced yard. Exercises included follow-the-leader over bales and barrels, jumping to reach ropes, hanging and swinging. Then they were left to their own whims. Some crouched on the ground with marbles, others ran, played tag, threw balls, tossed disks.

  Calls and shouts. Laughter, taunting, conversation.

  Pohut huddled next to his brother, their backs to the fence, their breath like smoke in the frigid air.

  "I don't understand," Innel said plaintively.

  "I don't either," Pohut said. "So we will study and learn." So many looks and touches, nods and jokes that he didn't understand. "And watch everyone," he said. "Watch how they watch each other."

  Across the yard, the Boys' Warden's gaze flickered past a laughing Sutarnan, then back again. Sutarnan saw that he was being watched. He paused for a moment in his taunting jabs at the small boy named Putar, until the warden was looking elsewhere, then resumed. It was clear that Putar was trying to get away, but Mulack was also standing close by, blocking Putar's escape and, Pohut now noticed, the Girls' Warden's view.

  The boys smiled and laughed and talked pleasantly as if they were all friends, but it was clear Putar only wanted to get away. Finally Putar ducked, wriggled, dropped to the ground, and scrambled through legs, sprinting to a young girl who wore a small black wooden pendant that matched his own.

  "Those two," Pohut said to Innel. "The same House. House Kincel."

  This was nothing like the world in which they had grown up, the small river valley where they knew everyone, where how well you wielded a pike or halberd or understood maps, or any number of other trades, was what brought you respect. Not your name, not the house in which you were born.

  "We must fit everyone to their Houses and families," he said. "We must know it all. And soon."

  His younger brother nodded soberly.

  They were dropped into the world of the Cohort like a pine cone onto a thundering river. Classes were interspersed with small group tutoring sessions that sometimes expounded on the subject, sometimes went elsewhere entirely. The Cohort took in lectures from philosophers and scholars from places as far away as Vilaros, and as royal as the king's sister—Her Grace Lismar Anandynar, Countess Wynn, Duchess Apparent of Kastin, Commander of the Eastern Legions, and Arbiter of Anchlas—whose full title Pohut had made a point of memorizing, but did not yet understand.

  Topics were as wide-ranging as the Grandmother Queen's eastern expansion to how the treasury assayed precious metals with slate paddles upon which were scraped lines of gold. They must know these things, they were told. All of them.

  And the moment they did, there would be more.

  Geography study was a fast-paced game. The Cohort split in teams that moved rugs representing cities, regions, provinces, and tribal lands across a huge room to place them according to shifting rules. Pohut and Innel excelled at this, geography being one of the subjects that the mapmaker's sons knew well, but when the rules changed again to include political alliances and economic priorities, the brothers flailed, struggled, and were taken aside for more tutoring.

  They applied themselves to the extra sessions on subjects the others had apparently been studying since they were able to crawl. Centuries of empiric history. The royally granted House Charters. Sigils, flags, colors. The seven—or was it eight?—different types of obeisance and for whom and when they must or might be used. A bewildering array of court dances. Most importantly, the royal star dance, which required a confusing subtlety of posture and footwork that looked easy until they tried it.

  Sword-fighting practice, which meant padded, sword-shaped sticks, with blunted tips on which they were strongly advised not to become overly reliant. His arms ached.

  And then, also: which cups and prickers to use with which dinner courses, which made no sense at all.

  Head swimming from a lecture on the House Charters, Pohut stood outside Oak Hall during a short break. Sutarnan stepped up next to him.

  "This must all be so strange for you," the other boy said, staring intently at Pohut, "Are we strange to you, too?"

  "Yes," Pohut admitted, wondering if the other boy were mocking him or genuinely curious.

  "Why are you here, then?"

  It was an excellent question, but as he pondered possible answers—his father's death, the king's words—he still did not know. In the Cohort, though, uncertainty was weakness. That he knew.

  "To study alongside the princess," he said, summoning what he hoped was an arrogant, confident tone. "Isn't that why we're all here?"

  "That's what you think? It's so much more. The possibility of marriage. Then children. She's expected to choose a mate from among the Cohort."

  A mate? Marriage? Pohut's mind spun. "You mean we could…? I could…?"

  Sutarnan barked a loud laugh. "Well, no. Not you. Not mongrels. You understand. She couldn't."

  Of course not them. Pohut felt foolish and angry at once. "Then—" why were they there? He could not ask that, not of Sutarnan, who he knew would be happy to see them fail "— then why are there girls in the Cohort?"

  Sutarnan gave him a pitying look. "Because she'll be the monarch, you idiot. Remember the Grandmother Queen? Her highness will need advisers, ministers, military leaders. People she knows. Who she can rely on."

  "Oh."

  "You really don't know much, do you?"

  Anger quickened his breath. Hand in his pocket, he gripped the stone, felt himself ease.

  "The king put us here. It wasn't our choice."

  "Well then, ask to be released from your vows. Tell the Cohort Master you don't want to be here. When the Cohort started last year, there were fifty of us. Now there are barely forty. That's what happened to the others."

  It had not occurred to Pohut that it could be easy to leave. Then they could go back to how things had been before.

  No, they could never go back. Their father was dead.

  "And in truth, that would be good," Sutarnan continued, "because no one wants you here."

  Make me proud.

  Pohut drew himself up, met Sutarnan's unpleasant smile. "But we are here, and we are not leaving."

  For a long moment, they stared at each other. Sutarnan broke the look first, laughed, and danced away.

  Pohut rubbed the stone in his pocket and watched him go.

  Every day brought some new unpleasantness on top of the insults and threats. Torn sheets and missing blankets. Eviscerated rats, their entrails spread across their beds. The two boys gave up the lower bed entirely.

  Tonight, as they returned from the play yard and evening meal, the stink reached them many steps away. Not the scent of horse or cow dung, either, but the excrement of a predator.

  Dog, most probably.

  Brown was smeared across every step of the ladder, and Pohut did not want to guess at how bad it would be up top. For a moment they simply stared. Then he took Innel's trembling hand and went to the Master.

  "Thought I smelled something," he said when the brothers told them. "What are you going to do about it?"

  This Pohut had not expected. "We thought you would tell us, ser."

  "Not for me to say, boy. You're the Cohort. Studying to be leaders of the Empire. Ma
ke decisions."

  Retribution was tempting, if he were certain who had done it. Mulack? Probably.

  But even so, what to do? Pohut suspected that if it came to blows with the children of the Houses, he'd be hit harder than all the play fighting he'd done in his home village had prepared him for.

  "Are we going to have to actually fight them, ser?" Pohut asked the Master.

  "Probably, sooner or later." His look at the brothers turned sympathetic. "Be sure you can win a thing before you start it."

  That sounded like wisdom.

  "We'll need water and soap," Innel said, and Pohut's heart warmed at this show of practicality. He might tremble and cry, but Innel thought things through.

  "I'll have it sent for," the Master said, instructing servants.

  Innel spoke again. "Ser, it doesn't seem fair that we should have to clean up a mess someone else made."

  The Master sucked air through the gap in his lips and looked thoughtful. "Let's give you some company, then."

  A tencount and more of servants poured into the hall, toting buckets, soap, and linen rags. The Master walked the length of the long room, repeatedly dipping a wand into a large jar held by an assistant, dribbling honey onto the steps of each loft bed, over increasingly loud objections.

  "All this cleaned up," he said as he went, smiling as if he were enjoying himself, "by the next meal, or there won't be one."

  When he arrived at Mulack's bunk, Mulack stood in front of his ladder, scowling.

  "No."

  All grumbling and outrage fell silent. The Master smiled wider, made a gesture, and the Cohort guardians lifted Mulack and set him down to the side.

  "My father is the Eparch of House Murice," Mulack shouted, "and I will not scrub and wash like some scullery boy."

  The Master stared at him a moment, then turned slowly, meeting the gazes of the boys clustered around. "Consider," he said, "the history of the Cohort. The previous one, as I'm sure you know, included his Royal Majesty and his royal siblings. You might not know that I was privileged to serve as warden. I'm sure you don't know that I have endured every threat you can imagine, and many you can't." He held his arms out and smiled widely. "Behold, I remain."

  He let that sink in before he continued.

  "You are entirely correct, ser House Murice," he said to Mulack, "that I can't force you to comply with my instructions. But." He stepped up very close to Mulack. "I can send you back to your parents."

  With that, the Master sauntered on, applying the honeyed wand more liberally. When he was done, every ladder excepting the brothers' was pasted with sticky honey, and some of the beds as well.

  But the looks the two of them were getting now were far from friendly. Despite that this was not their doing, they were being blamed. Next time, Pohut resolved, they would find their own justice.

  While the honey was nothing like the dog dung the brothers now set to addressing, Pohut felt some satisfaction in sharing the work.

  And, he realized, it wasn't anything they hadn't done before, tending to their own animals and livestock. He chuckled at the thought that one of the few things the brothers knew how to do that the others did not was to clean up shit. He gave a wry smile to his brother, who smiled back.

  The Cohort assembled in the large ballroom, waiting for something to begin. Rhetoric, knot-poetry, dance—Pohut wasn't sure.

  "Her Royal Highness," the Cohort Master announced loudly, standing aside from the door. "Princess Cern Anandynar of Arunkel, Pinnacle of the Karmarn and Pelapa, High Consul of Mirsda, and Ur-Kacika of Gotar."

  By now Pohut had very nearly memorized Cern's titles. Heads dipped and raised as she passed by. When she was near, Mulack held something out to her: a small, red lacquered horse. She took it with an expressionless nod and handed it to one of the many attendants who always surrounded her.

  Next was Sutarnan who held out a small box from which she drew a wreath of tiny, cleverly woven red and black roses, to which she responded similarly.

  "Tok," Pohut whispered. "Were we supposed to have a gift?"

  "Everyone's parents sent messengers yesterday. Not yours, I guess?"

  Child by child, Cern moved down the line, collecting small items.

  "You simply spin it, Your Highness, like a top." A boy named Fadrel now dropped to the floor and gave a sharp twist to a small object. "Do you see how the black and white turns to colors?"

  An audible inhale from the princess. "Red. Blue. But how is this done? It is not magery, surely?"

  "No, of course not, Your Highness," said the Cohort Master sharply, snatching the spinner from the ground and thrusting it backward into the hands of one of his own aides. "But we will have it checked, just to be sure." He gave Fadrel a harsh look.

  "It's only a trick," Fadrel muttered hastily, backing away.

  More gifts came to Cern as she made her way into the room. A pale pink-and-gray seashell from Taba. From Sachare, a set of cherrywood wands fastened with silk that, shaken, produced a sonorous tinkling.

  The princess paused in front of the brothers, stared at them. "You are still here," she said.

  Their heads dipped. "Yes, Your Highness."

  She looked them up and down, as if trying to figure something out.

  Or perhaps she was waiting for a gift.

  Pohut felt himself redden. "We didn't know. We don't have anything." Didn't have a family to give them what they needed, to tell them when they needed it.

  She nodded, walked on.

  They did not belong here, that was clear. Pohut turned Sutarnan's words over in his mind. Could they really leave? Could leaving the Cohort be as easy as asking? Somehow he doubted it.

  The Cohort Master spoke. "The winter solstice is nearly upon us. Who knows the tradition of the king's solstice cakes?"

  "My mother the Eparch had one last year," said Larmna proudly.

  "It is a rare privilege, reserved for the king's most favored. The cakes, made by the king's own chef, are thick with the finest wine-soaked fruits from Apapur-Selsane, encrusted with pecans from the Spice Islands. Half the cake is heavily glazed with bright, sweet orange, the other side dusted with the dark Perripin cacao. You could eat at the palace your entire life and taste nothing so wondrous as a solstice cake."

  The Master had fallen silent, his lips opening and closing with a soft smacking sound. It seemed that he had forgotten he was talking to a room full of children. After a long moment, the Girls' Warden pointedly cleared her throat.

  "Truly magnificent," the Master said, still working his mouth. "In a gesture of extraordinary generosity, the king has informed me that the members of the Cohort shall each be given a solstice cake."

  Sounds of delight, whispered exultations.

  "And here they are."

  Two servants entered, carrying a crate, out of which the wardens began to distribute small, square wooden boxes.

  "You are being treated as adults in this. The cake is not to be eaten until midnight on the solstice, demonstrating your ability to stand the privations of winter and thus to be worthy of the bounty of the coming seasons. Hence the coloration of the cake itself, you see? I advise you to treat this honor with the faith that the king vests in you. Restraint is a test of your growing maturity."

  The small box Pohut now held was of finely crafted rosewood with the monarchy's sigil carved into it, sealed with wax and the king's mark. The box alone was a treasure.

  Across the room, the children were unusually quiet as they each examined their cake boxes.

  As he ran a fingertip over the king's seal, Pohut found in himself in a sort of growing awe. He now owned something rare. Priceless, even. He felt more important, merely by holding it.

  As he looked around at the children of the Houses and families, eyes sparkling and grinning, he felt something like kinship.

  "Today begins the next game," The Cohort Master said at the end of the morning meal. "I shall explain the rules."

  "We know the rules," interrupted Mulack. "Ju
st tell us the prizes."

  Pohut was no longer shocked at this rudeness to an elder, but it still felt wrong. The Master seemed unperturbed.

  "The rules change, ser House Murice, as do the players." Glances at the brothers. "The Cohort would not, typically, be invited to the great solstice feast. The princess will be there, of course, as well as most of your families. But not you."

  Not the brothers' family, Pohut was certain.

  Whispers around the room faded to silence as, one by one, children realized what he was about to say.

  "Have your attention now, do I?" He grinned widely, yellowing teeth unevenly revealed where his scar tugged his lip upward. The smile vanished. "Four teams of no fewer than nine. The team that finds the iron bell will sit at the far end of the hall with the captains. The bronze bell places you in the middle, with the aristo families. And whoever finds the silver bell will sit at the royal table, with His Majesty and Her Highness the Princess, in full view of the entire hall."

  "I will have that prize," whispered Tokerae fiercely.

  "How long do we have?" Fadrel asked.

  "The game is over at noon on solstice day, bells found or not," said the Master.

  Six days hence.

  "Then…lessons are suspended?"

  The Master turned a sneer on the asker. "Nothing is suspended. Life does not pause to make way for your opportunity. All lessons, practices, and tutoring sessions continue. You may sleep and eat, though others will doubtless be searching while you do."

  "But the palace is huge! It will take forever!"

  "Limit yourself to the old palace only. The bells are not behind locked doors. If you break into anywhere, you will have solstice dinner with the pigs."

  "You wouldn't," said Mulack.

  "Ah, ser House Murice. Shall we find out? " Mulack did not answer. "And a new rule: you will decide your teams. Beginning now."

  Barely a blink passed for this to be absorbed by the elder children. A flurry of motion filled the room. By the time Pohut understood, an instant later, children were launching themselves across the room toward each other. Shouts and hisses, angry threats, reminders of debts owed.