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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:16:19 GMT 10
Title: Fools Rush in Where Horse Lords Tremble to Tread
Summary: In their own ways, Roald and Kel confront hazing in the pages' wing. Set in an AU where Roald is Kel's sponsor. Sequel to "Comets and Compromise" but can be read independently.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: References to bullying, hazing, racism, internalized racism, colonialism, child abuse, and corporal punishment.
Author's Note: The premise of this AU is that it is one in which Roald is Kel's sponsor (as noted in the summary) because Neal ended up remaining at the Royal University after the death of his brothers. More stories are set in this AU for those who are interested, but this fic is also designed to function effectively as a standalone.
In First Test, it is mentioned that Roald did have Kel run errands for him so I wanted to remain true to that in the beginning of this story though Roald's attitudes and perspectives on hazing will shift as events unfold so he is not locked into his view. I want to take him on a bit of a character journey in this fic and see how his thoughts and behavior evolve. So that will be a core component of this fic.
Some events will be borrowed from First Test, and some will be changed. That is the beauty and fun of AU!
“Fools rush in where horse lords tremble to tread.”--An old K’miri aphorism often quoted by Commander Buriram Tourakom in the training of Riders to discourage wild heroics.
Tired and Concerned
“You look tired.” Roald glanced up from the history essay he was composing for Sir Myles on the myriad causes of the Immortals War to eye Kel–he had discovered that was her nickname; what she preferred to be called–with worry. He had been fretting about her all day. Ever since she had shown up to breakfast with purple bags beneath her eyes. Looking as if she hadn’t slept at all. His concern had only mounted when she remained quieter than usual throughout their combat training and academic lessons.
He knew quiet, after all. Was an expert in it. Had become well-schooled in its nuances, shades, and delicate flavors of meaning by being so reserved and careful in his speech himself. Had developed a honed sense of when quiet indicated serenity and when it heralded the opposite: inner turmoil. Usually, Kel’s quiet radiated an air of calm. An aura of peace like an untroubled lake deep within herself.
Her quiet today had been different. Darker. Shadowed by uncertainty. Riddled by doubt. That concerned Roald more than her appearing exhausted. Everyone had sleepless nights after all. What mattered was why they did. What guilts and fears haunted them.
Mama, he knew, would have chided him for the insensitivity of his observation if she were present. Would have reminded him with tart disapproval that no female relished being told she looked tired. That the words made any female feel as if her appearance was being critiqued. Judged and found wanting. That her beauty was somehow diminished from some subjective standard of what it could be.
Roald, however, couldn’t think of a more delicate way to phrase his concern. Besides, by the rough-and-tumble manners of the pages’ wing, he considered his comment sensitive enough. Bordering on the refined even.
“Aren’t I supposed to look tired, Your Highness? Aren’t all pages supposed to look tired? Wouldn’t Lord Wyldon say he wasn’t training us hard enough if we didn’t look tired all the time?” Kel maintained a firm focus on the mathematics equation she was tackling. The two of them were studying together in Roald’s room after dinner.
So far, neither Cleon of Kennan or Faleron of King’s Reach had come with the boys they were sponsoring–Esmond of Nicoline and Faleron’s younger cousin Merric of Hollyrose–to join Roald and Kel in their studying though Roald had tried to politely suggest they would be welcome. That there was an open invitation extended to them.
Roald hoped that their minds would change with time as Kel continued to prove her skills on the practice court and in the classroom. That their stances would soften. He was reluctant to push too hard with two of the boys he liked and respected most in the pages’ wing. Aware that doing so might ironically produce the opposite effect to the one he intended. Might entrench Cleon and Faleron in strong views that Kel should not be allowed to train as a knight that they did not currently harbor.
At the moment, they might not be willing to defend her right to train for her shield the same as any lad, but they weren’t outright opposed to her and her presence in the pages’ wing. Roald thought, with time on his side, he could work with that.
The only problem being that time wasn’t on his side or Kel’s. Perhaps time was never on anyone’s side. Everybody died with some form of unfinished business after all. A bleak and disconcerting notion. One he wished had never occurred to him. Never crossed the path between his ears.
To distract himself from this disturbing idea (so many of the ideas that occurred to him as he grew into manhood were disturbing), he responded to Kel. Persisted with a grim good humor, “Ah, but you look more tired than usual. As if you didn’t get any sleep last night.”
He was prying. He realized that but also believed it was his duty as a sponsor and friend to do so. To press and prod her into revealing whatever was bothering her so he could aid her if he could. Guide her as far as he was able.
Kel hesitated. Gaze flicking to the door of Roald’s room, which was open, of course. As it always was when they studied together. Lord Wyldon had been explicit about that command. That a door was to remain open whenever Kel was in a room with a male page. That no greater impropriety than was absolutely necessary should attach itself to Kel’s existence in the pages’ wing.
Lord Wyldon plainly possessing a more prurient imagination than Roald had thought before Kel came. An imagination that envisioned sordid scandals and lurid affairs lurked behind every closed door where males and females happened to congregate together.
The hallway was empty of passing pages, which Kel seemed to interpret as sufficient privacy to confide in him. “Last night, before lights-out, I saw Joren’s crowd bullying one of the other first years. Telling him that pages are meant to be graceful, not clumsy, when they shoved him. Made him spill the heavy pitcher and cups of milk they’d forced him to fetch from the kitchens. They didn’t even really want the milk. They just wanted to humiliate him. Order him to mop up the spilled milk with his clothes.”
She hadn’t divulged the name of the first year thus shamed. Roald noted and approved of that discretion.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. The behavior of Joren and his ilk toward first years often provoked that reaction from him. He didn’t condone the tormenting of first years that Joren and his accomplices all too frequently indulged in, but he also couldn’t deny that hazing had been happening for centuries. Long before Joren and his crowd had been born much less set foot in the pages’ wing. It was a time-honored tradition. A rite of passage that initiated newcomers into knighthood training. A custom that could be practiced with benign intentions as well as malicious ones.
He paused. Measuring his words. Weighing them in his mind before he spoke. “Joren and his crowd take the custom of hazing too far. They become bullies. That’s why I’ve warned you to steer clear of them when you can. To stick close to me so I can protect you.”
“I know.” Kel nodded, though Roald had the distinct impression that she was more worried about the fate of the other first years than she was about her own hide. She was always more concerned with the welfare of others than her own safety. It was a noble trait, but also one that frustrated him. Made him want to bash his head against a wall because of how much it complicated looking out for her as a sponsor and friend should. “I haven’t sought them out for the pleasure of their company, believe me, Your Highness.”
He smiled slightly. Having no trouble believing that. Took a deep breath. Bracing himself to continue with the part he understood she wouldn’t like. Would disagree with and possibly even recoil from. “But hazing is a custom that can’t be entirely disrespected or discarded. It serves a purpose. That’s why it developed. It initiates newcomers into the life of the pages’ wing. Teaches them humility and obedience. Prepares them for the chores and tasks they’ll be expected to perform without complaint when their squires.”
It was easy for the justifications for hazing to pour from his tongue once he began voicing them. There was a reason behind every tradition, after all.
“I understand, and I’m not trying to change that, Your Highness.” Kel met his gaze squarely with unblinking hazel eyes. Unwavering. Unflinching. “I run your errands without argument, don’t I?”
“You do,” he allowed with gravity so that she wouldn’t suspect he was grinning on the inside.
“I recognize that you sending me on your errands is your way of welcoming me to the pages’ wing. Of declaring that you’ll treat me the same as any boy.” Kel’s eyes didn’t drop from his as she went on, “I can appreciate and respect that. What I can’t appreciate and respect is how Joren and his friends are acting. They aren’t welcoming new pages. They’re torturing them. They aren’t teaching humility and respect. Just that the big can beat on the small without consequence, and that’s the opposite of everything the Code of Chivalry is supposed to stand for, isn’t it?”
“The realm is littered with knights that don’t live up to their vows. The values they’re sworn to uphold.” Roald sighed. It was hard not to become a bit of a cynic when raised at court and instructed in politics since a young age. “Who treat the Code of Chivalry as a loose list of suggestions rather than a sacred collection of commandments. You might dream of becoming a knight because you believe in the ideals a knight should embody, but not everyone’s motives are as pure. Many are seeking power or privilege. Others only pursued knighthood because their fathers ordered it.”
“So I should abandon my ideals?” Kel arched an eyebrow. A rare expression from a typically impassive girl. “Forsake my fool’s quest for knighthood, Your Highness?”
“No. Of course not.” Roald shook his head. “I’m not saying you should stop trying to earn your shield. Just that you shouldn’t expect to solve all the kingdom’s problems. Especially not when you are only a first year page.”
Seeking to solve all the realm’s problems seemed a fool’s errand to Roald. One overarching in its ambition. Lacking all sense of balance and proportion. Even in a king or queen. Certainly in a page new to her rank.
“I’m not trying to solve all the kingdom’s problems, Your Highness.” Kel was staunch. Stubborn in her quiet, understated fashion. He admired that even when it exasperated him. “Only the ones that parade themselves before my nose.”
He didn’t know how to answer that bold declaration that reminded him of something his sister Kally might say.
She took advantage of his silence to add earnestly, “That’s why I couldn’t sleep. Because I saw an injustice and abuse of power committed, and I fled from it instead of stopping it. I realize it’ll be easier for me if I don’t push back against the hazing custom, but I don’t know how I could swear a knight’s oath if that meant becoming the kind of person who lets bullying go unpunished. Who doesn’t fight against evil when I see it. Who doesn’t stand up for my beliefs.”
She was asking herself the sort of questions Roald didn’t like to contemplate. The ones that made him wonder whether he should be opposing Joren’s crowd with more stridency and less subtlety. The ones that made him fear he was failing to abide by his own principles. Not living up to the values he ought to represent as prince. Disappointing his country and himself. Falling short of expectations. Neglecting his responsibility–his duty to see that justice was done even in the rough-and-tumble pages’ wing.
“You couldn’t sleep because you’re putting too much pressure on yourself to be perfect.” His statement designed to assure himself as much as her. Clasping her shoulder gently. Deciding that they couldn’t be accused of impropriety for that. Not when the door was open per Lord Wyldon’s stern orders on the subject. “Stop trying to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, and you’ll sleep much better.”
She bobbed her head in wordless assent. Appearing to acquiesce to his wisdom. Yield to his greater age and experience. Yet, somehow, he suspected that his advice hadn’t entirely satisfied her. Stopped the churning in her mind. Eased the guilt in her heart. Erased the ache from her conscience.
She would, no doubt, continue to mull over the question of how to address the issue of bullying in the pages’ wing according to the dictates of her conscience. He could only hope that her conclusions and the dictates of her conscience wouldn’t lead her into trouble.
He liked her and was her sponsor. Didn’t want to see her selfless heart land her in a mess. Resolved to strive to be there for her if it did.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:16:49 GMT 10
The Falling Down Lie
As if restless nights were contagious, Roald slept fitfully after his conversation with Kel. Tossing and turning beneath his blankets. Mulling over her situation and his inadequacy in handling it even though he was dimly aware that his brain was becoming increasingly addled by lack of slumber. Increasing the likelihood that any potential conclusion or solution his mind did stumble across in his exhausted state would seem utterly nonsensical when examined in the light of a new dawn.
The next day, Kel didn’t mention their discussion until they were eating dinner together. She brought it up without preamble. Barely leaving Roald the time and space to mentally chide himself for assuming that her silence on the matter indicated that she had ceased dwelling on it instead of realizing that it only meant she was ruminating more deeply on the issue.
What a fool he was. Quiet himself, he should have anticipated this. Understood better than most the hidden depths of still waters. How dangerous those hidden depths could be.
He forced his attention away from condemnations of his own stupidity. Focusing on her and her words with the care both merited.
“You told me last night that I shouldn’t push back against the hazing custom because it is traditional.” Kel speared a carrot with her fork. “That because it was tradition, I should accept it without a fuss.”
“I told you that because it’s true, Kel.” He would not lie to her. He hoped she appreciated that, Roald thought as he cut his lamb into neat, even slices.
“It’s partly true, Your Highness.” Kel paused. Chewing on carrot. “It’s also true that pages have been pushing back against the hazing custom ever since it was invented however many centuries ago. That brawling pages is so traditional a customary lie about falling down was devised to deal with it. To cover it up.”
“Who told you about the falling down lie?” Roald frowned at her. A furrow forming between his brows. He certainly hadn’t been the one to provide her with that bit of education. That insight into the traditional lie uttered by any page caught fighting and dragged before an irate training master for punishment.
The lie he had never needed to speak to Lord Wyldon. Never having been brought before the training master for engaging in a fight in all his years in the pages’ wing. Never, in fact, having engaged in such a fight at all.
He was the Crown Prince of Tortall. He could not indulge in anything so vulgar and undignified as brawling in the hallways with his fellow pages. Could imagine in cringe-inducing detail what the conservative commentary would be if he comported himself in such an unseemly fashion. They would whisper that it was his savage K’miri ancestry showing itself–that bad blood would inevitably betray itself. That his father had been wrong to marry a K’miri half-breed, however beautiful, and now the realm would suffer for it with an intemperate heir.
Nor did it require much creativity on his part to speculate how the conservatives would use any fighting–any misbehavior–he engaged in as a page to undermine his father’s legitimacy. To suggest, none too cryptically, that if King Jonathan couldn’t keep his eldest son in line, how could he expect to rule an entire country? That was the eternal analogy, after all. A king’s authority over a subject compared to that of a father’s over a child and vice versa. Roald had no desire to be the rebellious child. The troublesome subject who provoked destabilizing discussion and debate.
No, he could not solve his pagely problems with fistfights. He had to adopt a subtler, more diplomatic approach to resolve any issues that arose.
“My eldest brother, Anders.” Kel replied to his question.
Roald finally ate some of the lamb he had sliced as he considered this. Tasting the parsley, sage, rosemary, and mint that seasoned the green sauce that coated the meat. Anders of Mindelan had been a brave knight of the realm before he had been maimed and removed from the active duty roles during the Immortals War.
Roald supposed that it was only natural that Anders would teach his youngest sister about that custom before she started her page training. Would seek to prepare her in that way.
He only hoped that Anders of Mindelan had possessed the wisdom and foresight to warn her that any fights she involved herself in would be perceived in a distinctly different light than the ones Anders might have embroiled himself in as a page.
With this last idea in mind, Roald ventured with as much delicacy as he could manage, “Any fights your brother engaged in as a page would have gone unremarked upon by the broader world. You do not have the privilege of such anonymity, I’m afraid.”
“Everything I do is remarked upon, Your Highness,” Kel’s words were serene. Accepting her existence as an endless source of vicious court gossip and debate.
“Indeed.” Roald flashed her a slight, wry smile. “You are a very remarkable person, Keladry of Mindelan.”
“If I fight, do you think Lord Wyldon will use that as a reason to get rid of me?” Kel’s question was keen. Perceptive. Unflinching in the honest response it sought. “To declare me unsuitable for knighthood.”
“He has the power to get rid of you for any reason or for no reason at all.” Roald made no attempt to soften the truth of her situation as he saw it. Didn’t believe that she wanted him to do that. Her position was precarious but perhaps there was a freedom he hadn’t recognized before in that. The freedom of someone with little left to lose. “If you fight with other pages, he could use that as an excuse to get rid of you, but that’s all it would be. An excuse because other pages get into fights all the time, and he doesn’t expel them. If you breathe too loudly, he could cite that as grounds to kick you out. Yet I wouldn’t suggest that you stop breathing while you are here.”
“If I get in fights with bullies–” Kel was careful to keep her phrasing hypothetical, Roald noticed– “what will you do, Your Highness?”
“As the Crown Prince, I can’t get into fights.” Roald stared down at his plate. Chasing an errant pea that had strayed from the rest of his vegetables. Suddenly struggling to meet her steady hazel gaze. She had just reminded him of his rank, hadn’t she? Made it impossible for him to even think of brawling with other boys. However bullying they might be. “It would be wrong of me to do so.”
“You mean, you can’t or won’t take my side against bullies.” The hurt lurking behind Kel’s crisp observation made Roald’s chin jerk up. Caused him to look at her again.
“No, that’s not what I mean at all. I am on your side as far as there are sides.” Roald resisted the surging temptation to massage his temples. He hated sides. They implied arguments and headaches. Aggrieved parties that must be reconciled with each other. Opposing forces that required balancing, and he had always been rubbish at mathematics.
Instead of massaging his temples, he dropped his fork and reached across the table to clasp her arm. An impulsive gesture of friendship offered before he could even recall Master Oakbridge’s fuming criticism of anyone gauche enough to grab their dining companions across the table. Risking the upsetting of goblets and the overturning of tureens.
He didn’t pull his hand away as he continued with more passion than usual lacing his speech, “You have my support as Crown Prince as far as I can give it. That is what I mean.”
“Oh.” Kel glanced down at his fingers encircling her arm. Appearing faintly surprised at his touch. Not twisting away from it though. “How far can you support me then?”
“I don’t know,” Roald admitted. Shame-faced. Flushing for the first time that night. Withdrawing his hand from her arm. Beginning to massage his temples. Surrendering to that compulsion at last. Taking comfort and refuge in the repetitive, soothing motion of it. “I’ll have to reflect on that. I can’t make hasty promises.”
Hasty promises would be improper. Indiscreet. Papa would lecture him about that. He was a product of his parents’ lessons. More aware of that when they weren’t around than when they were because it was then that he heard their voices echoing in his head. Scolding or encouraging him as the situation demanded.
A more hot-blooded person than Kel would have scoffed. She only gave a crooked grin that was somehow calming to him. “If it’s reflection you need, Your Highness, I would be happy to help with that.”
“How?” Intrigued, Roald lifted an inquisitive eyebrow.
“Meditation is the most peaceful and true path to reflection and enlightenment. That’s what I was taught in the Yamani Islands, at any rate.” Kel’s grin blossomed into a full-fledged smile, and Roald noted inwardly how much he enjoyed it when she sprinkled hints of what she had learned in the Yamani Islands into her discourse. “Have you ever meditated before, Your Highness?”
“No.” Roald shook his head. He knew that some mages did find meditating helpful for honing or reigning in their magic, but he had never experimented with the practice himself. Nor been taught how to do it.
“I could teach you tonight in my room if you’re interested,” Kel offered.
“I’m always interested in learning new things.” Roald inclined his head at her. Grave and grateful. “Thank you.”
He was especially eager to learn anything pertaining to his betrothed’s homeland. Suspected that Kel knew that since he hadn’t gone to the bother of concealing it from her.
“Then we can meet in my room after dinner for your first meditation lesson.” Kel gave a decisive, firm nod, and Roald marveled at how she had been able to seize control of their conversation. Their plans. Without him even realizing it until now.
Not that he resented it. His was a placid demeanor. One that preferred to tread the road marked by others rather than forge his own trail and chance getting lost in the woods.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:17:21 GMT 10
Meditation and Memory
Kel continued to elaborate on the benefits of meditation as they finished their meal. Explaining how the Yamani warriors used it to rest before battles and as a way of diminishing the pain of wounds when there were no healers around to treat injuries suffered at war. How to the Yamani meditation was a source of serenity. A well of peace and inspiration that could never run dry. A path to enlightenment. To receiving guidance from within.
After dinner, Roald joined Kel in her room. Of course leaving the door open behind him. Kel lit candles that smelled of cherryblossoms and misty mountains. Evoking images of the Yamani Islands in Roald’s mind even though he had never been there. Through the scent of the candles, he traveled over the white-capped waves of the Emerald Ocean to that land where his future bride lived.
“Many Yamani have meditation gardens with flowing fountains and waterfalls, but we make do with what we have.” Kel set the candles on the floor, and Roald made a mental note not to knock them over with a careless step.
He was constantly writing such mental notes to himself. A technique to avoid potential embarrassments and unpardonable clumsinesses. A habit no doubt instilled in him by Master Oakbridge.
“Have a seat, Your Highness.” Kel gestured at the floor. Indicating that Roald should claim a spot before the burning candles.
Roald obeyed as he did almost every instruction he received.
“Cross your legs.” Kel slid smoothly to the floor beside him. Folded her own legs on top of each other. Demonstrating a posture for him to imitate. When he did, she went on, tone soft as a soothing spring wind stirring green leaves in the forest, “Straighten your spine. Picture an invisible thread running through it. Holding it up like a puppet in a street show.”
Roald straightened his spine. Surprised to discover that even this simple positioning was somehow comforting because it released his breath. Forced him to exhale.
“Good.” Kel nodded approval. “Relax your arms to your sides, and rest your wrists on your knees.”
Roald did so. Pleased to discover how it eased some deep-rooted tension to relax his arms and rest his wrists on his knees. To loosen up the stiffness so often coiled in his limbs.
“Press your index finger lightly against your thumb.” Kel showed him what she meant as she spoke. “The circle your fingers create symbolizes harmony. Oneness. Completion. The balance of opposing elements in the universe.”
For the first time since his meditation lesson began, Roald hesitated. Considering what a strange appearance he and Kel would present to any passerby in the hallway who chanced by her open door. Her scented candles burning on the floor. Them sitting cross-legged before the candles. Spines straight as marching soldiers. Index fingers pressed against the pads of their thumbs. It would probably look as if they were conducting some dark magic or attempting to resurrect the spirits of the dead.
He forced himself not to care about that. Reminded himself sternly that many mages practiced meditation. That it wasn’t any form of dark magic. Or even a form of magic at all.
He pressed his index fingers against his thumbs. Tried not to imagine what any random passing page would think of his peculiar behavior. Sought only to focus on himself and the peace–the wisdom–he needed to find through meditation with Kel as his guide on this journey.
“That’s right,” Kel murmured. The encouragement evident in her voice. Suggesting that she had noticed his momentary pause. His brief hesitation before complying. “Now close your eyes.”
Roald obeyed. Letting darkness swallow him.
“Empty your mind. Erase all your fears and questions from it as if it were a slate wiped clean with water.” Kel’s instruction rippled over Roald’s ears, and he tried to do what she said. Focused on making his brain blank of the worries and mysteries that so often plagued him. The doubts that threatened to strangle him like weeds in an overgrown garden.
“Breathe in. A long, deep breath. Let the air swirl around your nostrils and down into your lungs.” Kel’s words echoed in Roald’s mind as his body followed his commands. The breath flowing into him. Circling through his nose. Drifting down his throat into his lungs. Making him more aware of the air outside and within him than he could ever recall. Attuning him to his breath and body in a more intimate way than he had ever been in the past. “Now, slowly release that breath, and envision the tension floating out of you with that breath.”
Roald exhaled as she told him. Feeling calmer than he would have thought possible just by doing little more than shutting his eyes and regulating his breathing. What a marvelous ritual meditation was! How grateful he was to be initiated into its mysteries!
Kel guided him patiently through his next ten breaths. Then seemed to decide he was ready to progress to the next stage in the meditation rite.
“Imagine the smooth surface of a cool mountain lake.” The picture Kel painted in his head was like poetry. “Blue as an unclouded summer sky. Feel as that lake does. Believe you are that lake. Repeat as mantra, over and over to yourself, that you are that lake. That you are inseparable from that lake and as serene as that lake.”
Roald tried to do so. Strove to summon the image of a placid mountain lake. Cool and calm. Blue as a summer sky. Something soothing for him to swim in. To wash over him. Restoring body and spirit. Cleaning his mind of clutter and fear.
Failed when he found that it was memory that flooded over him in a rush like Olorun swelling with runoff after a spring rain. Threatening to drown him in its onrushing current.
(He was seven years old again. Sitting on his bed with his knees curled up against his chest. A turtle drawn tightly within a protective, shielding shell. Tears and snot streaming down his flushed cheeks in a fashion he knew was undignified. Disgusting. He should pull his handkerchief from his pocket. Use it to make his face less unsightly. Yet, it seemed like such a pointless effort to do so when there was nobody around to see his snot or his tears. When he was alone.
Alone in his room. That was what he had so desperately wanted. Why he had punched Liam on the nose, bloodying it, when his younger brother had refused to leave him in peace. Had refused all his requests and pleading to leave him in solitude. Now he regretted making his brother bleed and flee his room in tears. Discovered that he didn’t want to be alone after all. At least not if it meant being alone with his guilt.
He wasn’t, it transpired, to be alone with his guilt for very long. The door to his room swung open, and, without even having to look, Roald knew it was his father come to scold him. It would have to be his father. The nursemaids had been dismissed for the evening, and his mother was hunting bandits with the Riders.
Roald tried to be good all the time, but especially when Mama was gone. He didn’t wish for her to come back to a thousand reports of his naughty behavior. Nor did he have any desire to disappoint her. Yet, sadly, somehow, he seemed to have a knack for engaging in his worst mischief–causing his most terrible trouble–when she was away. Leaving Papa discipline him though he wished it was Mama instead. Mama could be firm and stern when scolding him, but she understood him better than Papa did. Made him feel that he was being listened to. Not just reprimanded and judged.
Papa pulled out Roald’s desk chair. Spun it around to face the bed. Ordered in the tone Roald was certain no one with the sense the gods had given a goose would dare to defy, “Come here, Roald.”
Roald had to resist the temptation to hug his legs closer to his chest. He did not particularly want to approach his father. Placing himself in arm’s reach when he fully expected to be spanked because what else was to be done with an eldest son who punched a younger brother in the face?
Papa had only ever spanked Roald once. Had apologized and cuddled with Roald afterward. Promised not to do it again. So far had not broken that promise. Still, what Roald remembered more than anything from that incident was the pain and shame of being bent over his father’s knee to receive five searing swats–one for each year of his life. The lesson, more than anything else, being that the strong hands he had relied on to protect and comfort him could and would hurt him. If he was disobedient or disrespectful. If he disappointed or angered his father.
As he had done now. Telling himself that the punishment would only be worse if he defied a direct order from his father, Roald forced himself to obey. Pushed himself off his bed with its soft blankets and piles of pillows. Walked slowly and tentatively over to the chair where his father sat. Stood on trembling knees and waited for the severe correction that would doubtlessly come.
“You bloodied Liam’s nose.” Papa hadn’t shouted, but he was frowning at Roald in a manner that made Roald bite a wobbling lip.
“I’m sorry, Papa.” Roald sniffled. Achingly aware of how he sounded like a sniveling little boy desperate to evade discipline. Perhaps that was indeed all he was. “I did offer to heal him but he ran away before I could.”
Roald might not have been as deft a healer as Kally– her magic was more powerful than his–but he was certainly adept enough to heal a bloody nose without any overstretching of his Gift.
“I healed his nose in a minute, but does it surprise you that Liam would run away from you?” Papa arched an eyebrow. Obviously not in a relenting mood. “Flee from the person who punched him in the face? Wouldn’t trust the same person who hurt him to heal him?”
“No, Papa.” Roald shook his head. Swallowing a lump, hard and unyielding as a clenched fist, that had sprung up in his throat.
“You are Liam’s older brother,” Papa reminded Roald as if Roald could possibly have forgotten. Then went on with the lecture on the responsibilities of being the eldest Roald had heard a thousand variations of a thousand times from each of his parents. “He looks up to you. You’re meant to protect him, not punch him in the face. Set him a good example, not teach him that violence is the solution to all his problems and that the big can beat on the small without consequence.”
“How can I teach Liam anything when he doesn’t listen to me, Papa?” Roald burst out in frustration. He shouldn’t have lost his temper with Liam, he knew that. But hadn’t Liam pushed and provoked him to it? Practically asked for a bloody nose? “I told him over and over to leave me alone, but he wouldn’t do it.”
“So you punched him on the nose.” Papa’s voice was quiet. Almost dangerously so, Roald thought. “Decided that would be the best way to handle the situation.”
“I lost my temper.” Roald swiped tears and snot from his cheeks with his shirt sleeve. Knew he should have fished his handkerchief out of his pocket to do so. That would have been politer. It was difficult to care about politeness in a moment like this. “He angered me, Papa.”
“When you don’t listen to me and anger me, would you like it if I hit you, son?” Papa leaned forward. Clasped Roald’s shoulders.
“You have a right to discipline me however you wish, Papa.” Roald’s chin trembled. His eyes dropped to the carpet. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so miserable. “I’ll submit to any punishment you give me.”
“That’s not what I asked, Roald.” Papa sighed. Stroked a thumb lightly along Roald’s chin. Roald felt himself relaxing slightly. An instinctual response to a tender touch. “I asked if you would like it if I hit you. Not if you would submit to my discipline.”
“No, I wouldn’t like it, Papa,” Roald admitted. Guilty boy etched into every aspect of his demeanor.
“Very good.” Papa scooped Roald up, making Roald feel very tiny indeed. Placed Roald on his lap. Sat him on his knee. “Then I must request that you refrain from treating your siblings in a manner that you would not want me to treat you.”
“Yes, Papa.” Roald nodded. Determined to demonstrate that he could be the good, obedient son after all. That he knew his duties and would fulfill them. “I’ll apologize to Liam, and I’ll never hit him or any of my other siblings again. I promise.”
“That’s what I want to hear from you.” Papa’s fingers combed through Roald’s hair. “I need you to learn to be more diplomatic, son. To solve your problems with your words and cleverness, not your fists. And, when you can’t do that, I need you to come to me for help instead of punching people on the nose. Understand?”
“Yes, Papa.” Roald gave a solemn nod. Reflective of the seriousness of the circumstances as he perceived them.
“So that you have a better idea of how to resolve problems without violence–” Papa was on the verge of pronouncing Roald’s sentence; Roald could sense it– “you will write me an essay, due this time next week, on various diplomatic and peaceful solutions leaders have found throughout history.”
“How long does the essay have to be?” Roald wanted to know the precise details of his punishment.
“Long enough to prove to me that you’ve learned something.” Papa pulled out a handkerchief. Used it to clear Roald’s face of snot and tears. Roald felt grateful to be less of a disgusting, disgraceful mess. “If you need any help with the essay, you’ll have to turn to your tutor and Godsfather Gary, not me, because…”
“You are hopeless in history.” Roald took advantage of his clean face to nuzzle it against his father’s chest. Seeking affection and reassurance. “I know, Papa.”
“Such unabashed insolence from my own son.” Papa’s chuckle rippled through his body. Roald could feel the echoes of it. “Perhaps I will end up not being so hopeless at history, after all, if you keep providing me with reasons to assign you punishment essays in the subject. Maybe I will learn as much as you do.”
“I’ll be good.” Biting back a smile, Roald offered the eternal vow of the penitent child. “I won’t make you assign me any more punishment essays. I swear.”
“Then I might be fated to remain forever ignorant of history after all.” Papa kissed Roald’s forehead.
Very aware that he was in flagrant violation of the ancient aphorism about not looking a gift horse in the mouth, Roald stuttered, “Not that I’m ungrateful, Papa, but why didn’t you spank me?”
“A fair question. One I will answer, but–” Papa shot Roald a keen glance– “only after you answer one for me, Roald.”
Roald stifled a sigh. He hated when his parents, tutor, or nursemaid insisted on a question-for-question exchange that seemed to hold their reply hostage to one of his own. Asked in as agreeable a tone as he could muster given his resentment of the question-for-question tactic, “What do you want to know, Papa?”
“Why–” Papa rested a gentle hand on Roald’s shoulder– “did you think I would spank you, son?”
“Because I punched Liam on the nose. And because when you came in you pulled out the desk chair, turned it around to face my bed, sat in it, and told me to come to you,” Roald stumbled through a jumbled, inarticulate hodgepodge of an explanation. “Why would you do that if you weren’t going to spank me?”
“So I would have a place to sit. So I wouldn’t tower over you when we talked. So we would be at eye-level when we spoke. So I would have a lap to sit you on.” Papa’s hand reached up to ruffle Roald’s hair. “Any number of reasons that don’t involve immediate peril to your backside.”
“Oh.” Roald flushed. Mortified. “I guess my thoughts were foolish.”
“Not at all.” Papa cupped Roald’s flaming cheek. “Your thoughts were those of a child. And you were very brave to approach me if you believed I was going to hit you.”
“I wasn’t brave, Papa.” Roald shook his head. Knowing himself to be a coward. Bravery wasn’t only doing something because you had to do it and were afraid of the consequences of failure. Bravery wasn’t being ruled by fear. That was cowardice. A cowardice that seemed to define Roald. A cowardice he tried to pretend was duty and obedience. Virtues extolled by parents and nursemaids alike. “You ordered me to come to you. The punishment would’ve been worse if I defied you. That’s what I thought anyway.”
“When I call you brave, you don’t have to argue with me, Roald.” Papa gave Roald’s earlobe a teasing tug. “You can just thank me.”
“Thank you, Papa.” Roald grinned crookedly.
“You’re welcome.” Papa patted Roald on the back. “Now, to answer your question from earlier. There are three reasons why I didn’t spank you. The first of them being I promised you years ago that I wouldn’t spank you again. I wouldn’t have you believe your papa an oath-breaker, son.”
Roald ducked his head. Wondered if all kings and fathers became oath-breakers in the end. Didn’t share the rumination with his father as it would be insensitive and impertinent.
Papa continued, a flash of irony lancing through his sapphire eyes like lightning, “My second reason being that I hoped to teach you a lesson about not hitting. Only think how hypocritical I would be if I attempted to teach that lesson to you by hitting you.”
Roald realized he was being taught something about justice now. Perhaps about mercy as well.
“My third reason–” Papa tapped Roald lightly on the nose– “is that a father and king should never punish with more force than necessary to make his point. Anything beyond that descends into cruelty, and I would not be a cruel father to you, Roald.”
“I love you, Papa.” Roald wrapped his arms around his father’s neck in what was, by his standards, a wild embrace. Feeling a sudden surge of affection for the man who had sired him. Who, in fact, was the opposite of a cruel father to him. Eager to prove how much of his father’s lessons in leadership he had absorbed. “I won’t hit people in anger or because they don’t listen to me. I’ll use my words, not my fists. I’ll keep my promises, and I won’t use any more force than necessary to make my points.”
“If you do all those things–” Papa returned Roald’s hug with a strong one of his own– “then I will be very proud of you.” )
Roald emerged from his trance–his memory–to Kel nudging him. “Your Highness, it’ll be lights-out in fifteen minutes.”
“Oh.” Roald was stunned at how he had lost track of time. In meditation. In memory. In a truly altered and elevated state. “Thank you for warning me. I forgot myself in my meditation.”
“I thought you might have.” There was a twinkle in Kel’s hazel eyes. “Did you find enlightenment in your meditation then?”
Roald’s forehead furrowed. Contemplating this. He felt as if his memory must have been an insight. A guide into what his father expected of him. A reminder of vows sworn to his father so long ago. Promises that, in the moment, had been so easy to make. Had rolled off his tongue sweet as honey. Promises that were much harder to remain loyal to in the time of testing when true steel was forged. He had, he mused, been so hasty with his oaths when he was young. So eager to earn his father’s approval and affection. Longing for his father’s affirmation and pride.
“I don’t know if I found enlightenment exactly,” Roald replied when he began to worry that he had been silent for too long. “But I did find some sort of guidance for how I should proceed.”
“Ah, well, that’s more than most people receive on a first meditation attempt.” Kel offered him an encouraging smile. “You must be a natural at it.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Roald laughed. Self-deprecatingly. “Most likely it was beginner’s luck.”
Then, sobering, he added, wishing that he did not have to blacken the mood and end the levity, “I remembered a conversation I had with my father. He would not approve of a brawling heir to the throne. I must honor and obey my father. Abide by his wishes and commands.”
“I would never ask you to do otherwise.” Kel inclined her head. Every inch the diplomat’s daughter.
“I appreciate that.” Roald patted her knee. Grateful to the bone that she had understood. That she didn’t push him further. He reciprocated as best he could in the circumstances without betraying his conscience or his father. “What is forbidden to a prince does not have to be forbidden to you. I won’t judge you if you fight against the bullies, and I’ll support you however I can. I’m on your side as I said earlier.”
“I value your support,” Kel said somberly. Sincerely.
Didn’t say more than that. Didn’t pressure him to declare what form that support would take. Seemed to accept like water flowing over stone that it would take shape. Trusted implicitly that it would materialize as much as it could when it could.
He was grateful to her, too, for that implicit trust that only deepened their friendship. Made him more devoted to her and the justness of her cause.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:18:03 GMT 10
Yanking out Weeds
Still puzzling over how to handle the hazing situation, Roald returned to his room. Despite his traditionalist streak, he didn’t approve of the more violent, bullying manifestations of the custom, he thought. Scrubbing his face vigorously with the basin of warm water and soap his manservant Bennet had heated for him. The bullying–the big pages beating on the little ones–didn’t feel right. Just. Compassionate.
Nor, he knew as he changed into his nightshirt, would his parents countenance such a practice. They might even despise it more than him. Both of them not being disposed to regard traditions with much patience. Their natures far more inclined to alter than abide by customs. Smash them rather than hold them sacrosanct. They were neither of them passive. They wouldn’t want Roald to be passive either.
Yet, Roald couldn’t play the brawling boy. As if he were any other page when he was the Crown Prince. He continued to turn that over in his mind, exploring it from all angles, as he knelt by his bed to pray.
Offered the rote appeal his nursemaids had made him memorize since he made his first stumbling attempts at speech. Asking the Mother to watch over his rest. Mithros, god of light, to guard him against the dark. The Black God to claim his soul gently if he should die while he slept.
A supplication that had always made Kally shiver and shake in the nursery when they murmured it under the vigilant eyes of their maids. That had given her nightmares for years. The prospect of dying in his sleep had never tormented Roald the same way. To him, it seemed a profoundly peaceful way to go. Much better than dying in bloody battle. Though Kally had never agreed with him on that. She had a need to go down fighting. Kicking and screaming. Was more like their parents than Roald in that manner.
Roald finished reciting the ritual words. Rose from his prayer. Tucked himself beneath his blankets. Blew out his nightstand candles so Lord Wyldon couldn’t accuse him of violating curfew. Didn’t go to sleep. Continued to contemplate questions of bullying, fighting, and violence.
Years ago, Papa had told him that he needed to be diplomatic. Solving his problems with his words and not his fists. By being clever. Had made it clear that Roald should come to him for advice rather than indulge his temper with hitting if he wasn’t sure how to do that.
Papa’s advice had all been very proper in the abstract. Exactly what a father and king should say to a son and heir. The difficulty, as always, came in the details. The practical application of the theoretical. Roald was quite certain even though he had never conducted extensive research into the matter, that no twelve-year-old boy in the history of civilization had voluntarily approached his father for guidance.
Made himself vulnerable to an ever-judgmental father in that way. Dropping fragile, adolescent pride. Admitting and exposing the daunting scope and scale of his own staggering ignorance.
No, Roald decided as he burrowed into his pillows. It would be preferable to drown in a bewildered ocean than submit to that self-inflicted shame. Floundering around in this ocean of confusion, on the cusp of despairing, he frantically sought a lifeline. Found it when the image of Godsfather Gary swam to the turbulent surface of his mind.
Godsfather Gary. Yes, that was the answer to his indecision. The solution to his quandary. Godsfather Gary was Papa’s most trusted councilor. The cousin Papa had grown up with in the nursery. The closest person Papa had to a brother. The man Papa relied upon most for guidance. The one he so often looked first to for advice.
Godsfather Gary would know exactly what Papa would have done about bullies and hazing when Papa was a page. Roald could simply ask him. Get the needed answer. Receive a signposted path on how to proceed. Without having to suffer the embarrassment of directly asking Papa himself.
Pleased with his plan for sidestepping the shame of consulting his own father for guidance, Roald promised himself that he would call upon Godsfather Gary tomorrow. Ask for his advice. With this settled to his satisfaction, Roald permitted himself to drift into sleep.
The next day, after the afternoon’s academic lessons were over and dinner was finished, Roald visited the chambers where the Prime Minister and Lady Cythera, his wife, resided.
It was Lady Cythera who greeted him as he entered the parlor. Stepping through the door opened by a curtsying maidservant.
“Lady Cythera.” He greeted her with a formal bow as she glanced up from writing what he suspected was Mama’s schedule. She was his mother’s social secretary, after all.
“My dear Prince Roald!” Lady Cythera exclaimed. Rising from her upholstered chair to kiss him warmly on both cheeks. Lady Cythera was forever kissing people on the cheeks and calling them dear. It was a wonder Godsfather Gary didn’t get jealous of her affections. “It is a pleasure to see you again.”
“The pleasure is all mine, my lady.” The polite, proper words flowed from Roald’s tongue. It was so much easier for him to speak–to act–when he knew what was expected from him. When he could slot into that role. Instead of defining for himself who he should be.
“Do have a scone.” Lady Cythera scooped up a platter from the tea table before her. Waved it under his nose. He smelled strawberry and rhubarb baked into the scones. Two of Lady Cythera’s favorite flavors. She was the sort of sweet woman who couldn’t resist dispensing treats to children and teenagers whenever she saw them.
“Thank you, my lady.” Roald smiled. Accepted the scone. Not just because refusing a hostess’s food would be akin to rejecting her hospitality but also since, even after dinner, he was hungry. Twelve-year-old boys would eat anything that stayed motionless under their noses long enough. They were like toddlers in that way. A degrading thought. One he wished had not crossed his mind.
“How might I help you?” Lady Cythera sought to discover the purpose of his visit as Roald bit into his scone. Tasting the rhubarb and strawberry he had scented earlier.
Roald swallowed before replying, “I thought I might speak with Godsfather Gary. If that is not an imposition.”
He did not like to impose on anyone if he could avoid it.
“Of course it is not an imposition!” Lady Cythera flicked her palm as if the idea were ludicrous. Blue eyes twinkling merrily at him. “He is in his study. Lost amid his mountain of documents as ever, bless his heart.”
“I will find him there then. Thank you.” Roald finished his scone. Rose. Bowed to her again and then strode down the carpeted corridor to the study where Godsfather Gary often researched government issues.
The door, unsurprisingly, was shut. Godsfather Gary preferring to minimize distractions when he worked. Taking a deep, bracing breath, Roald knocked on the office door.
“Come in!” Godsfather Gary’s shout was vague. As if he were indeed buried beneath a mound of dusty scrolls and old records as Lady Cythera had suggested.
Roald obeyed. Opening the door and entering with a bow. “Prime Minister.”
“Ah.” Godsfather Gary looked up from his piles of parchment with a chuckling chestnut gaze. “My beloved godsson greets me with a bow. Not a hug. I am disconsolate.”
“Do not be.” Roald grinned. Slid behind his godsfather’s desk. Wrapped his arms around the man’s heavy chest. “I was only building up to it, sir. Adding to the dramatic tension.”
“You are a true Conte and your father’s son.” Godsfather Gary ruffled Roald’s hair. Gestured for Roald to claim an empty seat. “Now, tell me why you have come to my office.”
“There’s hazing in the pages’ wing.” Roald sat in the chair. Scooted it closer to his godsfather. “That’s traditional, and in its more benign forms, I don’t have a quarrel with it. It can be a joke. A way of welcoming newcomers into the ranks of pages. A rite of initiation.”
Roald recalled with some nostalgia how Gilmyn, Godsfather Gary’s oldest son, and Gilmyn’s best friend Blair had hazed him in a good-natured manner when he first entered the pages’ wing. Teasing him. Sending him trotting to fetch forgotten gloves and quills for lessons. There had never been any malice behind their hazing.
Gilmyn was a squire now. Away from the palace. Roaming the realm with his knightmaster. Blair was dead. A casualty of the Immortals War. One of the pages killed in the attack on the palace. The same attack where Lord Wyldon had earned his scars saving Roald’s younger siblings.
Gilmyn. Blair. Faleron. Cleon. Himself. All of them had different personalities, but none of them were mean like Joren of Stone Mountain. So hazing as they practiced it couldn’t be bad, harmful, or wicked in any way.
“And in its less benign forms?” Godsfather Gary prompted when Roald lapsed into silence for too long.
“Then it seems rotten. Like good fruit that has spoiled.” Roald wrinkled his nose. “It becomes violent. Aggressive. Downright bullying. In that guise, it feels wrong. Like something I can’t approve of or go on ignoring forever without being guilty myself. I don’t know if that makes sense, sir. My thoughts are a jumble.”
“It does make sense, lad.” Godsfather Gary nodded. Patted Roald’s knee. “Bullies are a perennial problem in the pages’ wing. Just ask my father if you don’t believe me. They are like weeds that will ruin a garden if left to grow unchecked. If not yanked out. Yet, in yanking them out, you have to be careful to remove the roots. Otherwise, they will grow back. Perhaps twice as strong.”
“Yanking them out seems violent.” Roald grimaced. “And in pulling out weeds, you wouldn’t want to confuse any flowers with weeds and remove them by mistake.”
“No,” Godsfather Gary agreed. “You would not want to do that. There would not be much point to having a garden if you ripped out the flowers.”
“And some of the weeds might blossom into flowers if you let them grow and don’t yank them out by the roots.” Roald frowned. He knew boys in the pages’ wing could change and grow year by year. That was what lads did. They went through growth spurts, however painful. It seemed cruel to chop off that growth. Cease that potential for change. End that life before it could enter the flourishing golden summer of its prime. “People are more complicated than plants, sir. With people, you might think you have a weed, but then be astonished to discover you actually have a flower.”
“There are limits to my garden analogy, of course,” Godsfather Gary conceded. “Limits to any analogy. Analogies are comparisons meant to aid thought by providing clarity. If they do not provide such clarity, it is best to abandon them all together.”
“Oh.” Roald considered this. Then posed the question that had truly brought him to his godsfather’s study. “What would my father have done about bullies in the pages’ wing if he were in my shoes, sir? At my age?”
“I think I will answer your question with a story.” Godsfather Gary leaned back in his chair. “If you do not mind.”
“Of course I don’t mind!” Roald loved Godsfather Gary’s stories. Especially if they were about the adventures he and Papa had gotten up to in their rambunctious, spirited youths.
Godsfather Gary beamed at Roald’s obvious, unhidden excitement. “Then I shall tell you about a bully named Ralon of Malven who haunted the pages’ wing when your father and I were pages. Your father and Ralon hated each other from the moment they met. Their rivalry was so intense that it turned physical. They got into a tussle. That alone might not have been such a big deal. Just hot-tempered boys letting off steam with flying fists. Except that when Ralon was hauled before Father, he said that he had been fighting.”
“He confessed he’d been fighting?” Roald gasped. “But pages are never supposed to admit to the training master they were brawling. They should say they fell down. At least, that’s the excuse they’re supposed to offer now.”
It occurred to him that perhaps the excuse had been different in Papa’s day. In Ralon’s.
“That was the line when your father and I were pages too.” Godsfather Gary’s eyes shone with amusement. “Your father and I aren’t so ancient that the tradition has changed since we were lads.”
“So it was as much a faux pas for Ralon to confess to the training master he’d been fighting then as it would be now?” Roald confirmed. Always eager to ensure he understood all relevant details.
“Most definitely,” Godsfather Gary assured him. Dry as a bone sucked of all marrow by a determined, gnawing dog. “Then Ralon proceeded to compound his offense by telling Father that it was your father with whom he’d been fighting.”
“Ralon told the training master that he’d been fighting with the training master’s nephew? The heir to the throne?” Roald blinked. Baffled. “Did he imagine that would help his cause? Was he truly that stupid?”
Stupid. Perhaps not the most diplomatic word Roald could have chosen, but he was too shocked to devise more politic phrasing.
“Ralon could be a dolt. It’s possible that he truly was stupid enough to believe such a statement would help his cause.” Godsfather Gary could rarely provide a straight, simple answer to anything. He had to complicate and confuse everything. “It’s also possible that he didn’t care about helping himself. That his loathing of your father was powerful enough that would say anything–no matter how painful to himself–if it might damage or embarrass your father. Or it might have been a combination of the two motivations that drove him. We should never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity and vice versa. However, we also shouldn’t forget that there are some gems of humanity who are both malicious and stupid.”
“You wouldn’t want to hazard a guess at which it was, sir?” Roald’s brow knotted. Sometimes Godsfather Gary gave him a headache just by elaborating on endless possibilities.
“I wouldn’t want to imagine myself in Ralon of Malven’s mind. It was a very dark, twisted place, I’m sure.” Godsfather Gary paused. Then went on with a response to a question Roald hadn’t asked, “Unlike Ralon, your father told mine he fell down.”
“Oh.” Roald tugged at his earlobe. “So he followed that tradition then?”
“Your father has always been willing to follow traditions when they are convenient to him.” Godsfather Gary’s expression could be classified as a smirk. Probably at Papa’s expense. “He’s very pragmatic that way.”
“What happened after that?” Roald was perched on the edge of his seat. Keen to hear more.
“Your father and Ralon had to spend their free time mucking out stables for two weeks.” Godsfather Gary’s smirk widened. “The moral of the story is don’t fight or at least don’t get caught. Depending on how mercenary you want to be in your interpretation.”
“That’s not what I meant, sir.” Roald was impatient with his godsfather’s teasing.
“I know, youngster.” Godsfather Gary tweaked Roald’s nose. Before obligingly resuming his tale. “Your father was seething mad at Ralon for telling Father about their fight instead of claiming to have fallen down, so he gave Ralon a royal command to never speak to him again.”
“Papa gave a royal command of that magnitude just like that?” Roald’s eyes widened in disbelief of how flippant his father had been about issuing royal commands as a page. “Just because he was angry?”
“Your father has never been shy about issuing royal commands,” remarked Godsfather Gary wryly. “As soon as he was old enough to understand what a prince was, he started spouting orders like a fountain and has never stopped. He’s always been in his element dictating to the rest of us mortals what we should do. I would know better than most. I had to spend my childhood in a nursery with him. May the Black God have mercy on my soul.”
“I can’t imagine giving another page a royal command to never speak to me again.” Roald was still appalled by his father’s audacity. “I wouldn’t want to humiliate the other page in that way. Make him hate me.”
“Ralon already hated your father, so your father had no qualms about adding to that hatred.” Godsfather Gary shrugged. “And your father wanted to humiliate Ralon. He reminded Ralon of that command whenever Ralon slipped up and spoke in his presence.”
Roald frowned. Royal commands were powerful, and power, by its very nature, was dangerous. Something that should be wielded with care. Sensitivity to its great weight. Its capacity to hurt. That was Roald’s opinion anyway.
Papa’s counter doubtlessly would be that power was pointless if it was never used. Never drawn on in an active way for good. If one became so cautious one never employed it. Roald could envision the argument enfolding inside his head. Did not need to hear it play out to its inevitable conclusion in reality.
Still, he couldn’t resist voicing some of his resentment about how Papa held him to a higher standard than Papa had ever displayed as Crown Prince. Lodging a complaint with his godsfather about his father’s unfairness. “Papa would be furious if I ordered someone like Joren of Stone Mountain to never speak to me again. Papa would make me apologize and rescind the order. Lecture me about being more diplomatic in the future. So I’d end up being the one humiliated.”
“Don’t be too hard on your father.” Godsfather Gary clasped Roald’s shoulder. “Like any father worthy of the title, he wants to raise his son to be a better man than he is himself. To give his son the benefit of his painful experience. To prevent his son from repeating the same mistakes he made. Falling into the same pitfalls where he sprained his ankles along the road.”
Godsfather Gary waved a hand. Encompassing the dusty scrolls on his desk and the overflowing bookshelves along his office walls. “Each generation will try to teach the next one that sort of wisdom. That’s why we write books. Create records. To preserve our mistakes so future generations might learn from them and not repeat them. The fact that we can learn from the mistakes of our ancestors is what makes us human, Roald. Separates us from beasts. Allows us to build civilizations. Whatever we achieve, we do it standing on the backs of our fathers.”
“The backs of their mistakes you mean.” Roald scowled. Sulking that his godsfather had taken his father’s side. He had wanted sympathy. Not a philosophy lesson. Godsfather Gary’s cleverness did not always make him comforting.
“And the things they got right as well.” Godsfather Gary gave Roald’s shoulder a squeeze before releasing it. “Because they do manage to get some things right, our fathers. Not that we should make a habit of telling them this, of course. It would only swell their heads.”
This last sentence appeased Roald enough that he moved onto another curiosity. “Was it a mistake then? Papa ordering Ralon to never speak to him again when they were pages?”
“Well, in retrospect, it wasn’t one of his most dazzling successes.” Godsfather Gary soon proved this an understatement. “A disowned Ralon of Malven became embroiled in the Coronation Day plot against your father.”
“Oh, right. A silly question.” Roald’s cheeks burned. Embarrassed that he hadn’t made the connection when Godsfather Gary had first mentioned Ralon of Malven’s name. “I learned about that in my history classes.”
“You studying events that happened in my lifetime in your history classes makes me feel old, little one.” Godsfather Gary laughed. Then sobered. “Anyway, that should be a lesson to never believe anyone who claims the politics of the pages’ wing are unimportant. Anybody who makes that argument is either ignorant or lying. We can create some of our most powerful friendships in the pages’ wing, but also some of our most enduring enemies. What happens in the pages’ wing can shape the rest of our lives.”
Roald shifted uncomfortably. Thinking about that. Then decided to bring up something else that troubled him. “Sir, I’m not trying to be rude…”
“Always so reassuring when people start sentences with that.” Godsfather Gary gave a wicked grin. “Please continue with whatever rudeness crosses your mind.”
Emboldened, Roald did indeed go on, “But why do you call me that? I’m twelve. Not that little any more.”
Roald was prepared for Godsfather Gary to insist, in predictable, painfully typical adult fashion that twelve was actually quite little, and Roald failed to appreciate that only because he was so young.
He was grateful when Godsfather Gary took a different track. “When you were a baby, you looked so much like your father–except for your nose; you had your mother’s nose–that I used to tease him about there being two of him. A big one, and–”
“A little one,” Roald murmured. Sensing and completing the drift of his godsfather’s thought.
“A little one,” Godsfather Gary confirmed. “You. Somehow the nickname stuck, but I can stop calling you that if it annoys you.”
“It doesn’t annoy me. Not now that I know the history behind it.” Roald could understand the history and affection–not only for himself, but for his father–behind the nickname. Discovered that the nickname no longer irked him. Made him want to bristle. It was so often the case for him that knowing the history behind something transformed it. Gave it new significance and value. Reframed it in his mind. Offered context and insight.
Quiet fell between them for a moment before Godsfather Gary commented, “You might consider turning to your father for advice too. He has mentioned to me that he wishes you would talk to him more.”
“He’s spoken to you about me?” Roald knew he shouldn’t have been so aghast at the notion. After all, Papa and Godsfather Gary were thick as thieves. Presumably, there was little Papa wouldn’t confide in his cousin and Prime Minister. Still, somehow it felt like a violation to Roald that Papa would discuss him with Godsfather Gary. Perhaps because he could all too easily envision Papa complaining about Roald. Expounding on all the manifold manners in which he fell short as a son and heir. Was a disappointment and a sorrow. Maybe that was what all boys feared being to their fathers. A disappointment and a sorrow grumbled about to trusted friends.
“Only with the greatest love.” Godsfather Gary tousled Roald’s hair. As if Roald’s horror were an open book he could read. “He loved you even before you were born, you know. From the moment he learned your mother was pregnant with you.”
“You can’t love someone before they’re born.” Roald shook his head. “You can’t know someone before they’re born, and you can’t love somebody until you know them.”
“It’s different for parents.” Godsfather Gary smiled. “You’ll understand one day. When you are a father yourself.”
“I’m not saying Papa doesn’t love me.” Roald bit his lip. Awkwardly and achingly aware that he was expressing himself badly. Perhaps even hurtfully. “Just that he’s not easy for me to talk to, sir.”
“Try talking to him like you would to me,” Godsfather Gary suggested. Gently for such a sharp-tongued, sharp-witted man.
“I can’t.” Roald realized that he sounded like a petulant five-year-old. Was not sure how to avoid doing so. “He’s so strict and stern with me. So quick to criticize and scold.”
“All sons think that about their fathers, Roald.” Godsfather Gary sighed. “You must strive to see the strictness, the sternness, and the scoldings as expressions of your father’s love. Because they are. If your father didn’t love you, he wouldn’t bother to correct you. To teach you anything. You wouldn’t be worth his time.”
“Yes, sir.” Roald ducked his head. Feeling chastened. Small. A little one indeed. Always in his father’s shadow. Diminished that way.
“Ah, and now you think I’m scolding.” Godsfather Gary was disconcertingly attuned to what was in Roald’s heart and mind. It wasn’t fair. Placed Roald at a considerable conversational disadvantage.
“I suppose that’s just the ‘father’ part of ‘Godsfather’ in action.” Roald cracked a crooked, half-moon grin.
“You could look at it that way.” Godsfather Gary chuckled affably.
Roald waited for his godsfather’s amusement to die before attempting to explain his perspective again. “It’s just that Papa never seems to understand me or listen to me.”
“I used to think that about my father.” Godsfather Gary’s face was reminiscent now. Lost in memory. “I was convinced we had nothing in common. I was the merry, mischievous troublemaker, and he was the uptight Prime Minister. Now, you see, I have become Prime Minister myself. Though I still do believe he could have named me something else less burdensome. Something with fewer expectations attached.”
“At least you were named after an honorable man.” Roald’s jaw clenched. His name another grievance he had against his father. “Not a cowardly suicide who couldn’t do his duty. Fulfill his responsibilities.”
“No.” Godsfather Gary’s tone was mild. Carefully so, Roald suspected. “My father only named me after himself. A very egotistical and narcissistic thing to do. I like to remind him of that whenever I want him to throw something at me. It brings me back to the wild days of my youth.”
Roald’s jaw relaxed as he felt humor bubble within him. “You win, sir. Papa doesn’t throw things at me.”
“And what a pyrrhic victory it is.” Godsfather Gary clapped Roald on the back. “We become our fathers, Roald. Whether we fight or accept that fact, it is what happens.”
“I will become king after my father, I know.” Roald spoke dolefully. As if kingship were some dreadful death sentence to be escaped at all costs. Perhaps it was. Maybe all duties were. He stood. Bowed to his godsfather. “Thank you for your counsel. I will keep it in mind.”
As he made his way to the door, he was halted by his godsfather’s voice. “Perhaps your father doesn’t tell you this often enough–maybe no father does–but he is very proud of you.”
Roald’s ears perked up like a terrier’s at this mention of his father’s pride in him. Of course they did. What boy didn’t long for his father’s pride even more than his father’s love?
“I appreciate your advice, and I will consider everything you told me, sir.” Roald bowed again. More deeply this time. “Especially what you said about Papa.”
Perhaps he would even seek out Papa. Ask for his advice. But only if he couldn’t figure out how to proceed in the pages’ wing by himself first.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:18:58 GMT 10
Customs and Commands
Kel showed up to breakfast with a shiner under her eyes, and a distinct aura of satisfaction shimmering about her.
“You fell down last night,” Roald commented. Presumably while he had been otherwise occupied visiting his godsfather, she had been busy brawling. Making her fists fly like her sparrows.
“And Lord Wyldon didn’t send me home for it.” Kel smiled as she spooned porridge speckled with raisins and cinnamon into her mouth. “Though he seemed surprised that falling down wasn’t enough to make me quit.”
Roald cracked a wry grin of his own. If the training master had believed a fight was enough to force Kel into surrendering her dream of knighthood, he had not been paying attention.
Roald’s gaze flicked along the crowded tables of the dining hall. Joren, Garvey, Vinson, and Zahir were a patchwork of purple, black, and blue bruises. Their bodies would be sore and throbbing well before combat exercises began this morning. It didn’t demand a university-educated genius to discern whom Kel had battled with last night.
“Joren, Garvey, Vinson, and Zahir seem to have fallen down at the same place and time as you.” Roald peeled a Carthaki orange. Stripping away the rind. Inhaling the sharp scent of citrus. Popped the first sliver into his mouth. Tasted the tang on his tongue.
“A happy accident, Your Highness.” Kel consumed her porridge with gusto.
Roald bit back a laugh. Munched on a second slice of orange. Suggested, “The Shang Wildcat might have some special tips for you in the fine art of falling down if you seek her out one evening.”
He thought it would be natural for the lone female page to seek out the guidance of the only female warrior on the training stagg. Therefore, he was rather bewildered when Kel gaped at him as if he had started babbling in Scanran. “Why would the Shang Wildcat want to take time out of her evening to give me special tips, Your Highness?”
“Because she is an instructor, and you are one of the pages she is supposed to be training here.” Roald frowned. “Because why wouldn’t she want to help you?”
“She might be jealous, Your Highness.” Kel seemed to have lost her appetite for she had stopped eating and was fiddling with her spoon. Stirring it about her bowl in endless circles that accomplished nothing. “Not want there to be more female warriors stealing her glory.”
“Why would she not want there to be more female warriors?” Roald chewed on an orange. Struggled in vain to grasp Kel’s logic.
“Why would Alanna the Lioness?” Kel turned the question back on him. “Why wouldn’t she want another female knight in the realm? Following in her footsteps?”
“What makes you believe that she doesn’t want that?” Roald wished his fingers weren’t sticky with orange juice. Then he could have massaged them along his aching temples.
“She hasn’t reached out to support me.” Kel’s tight jaw quavered. A betraying sign of how devastating it must be for her to have convinced herself that her idol–the woman who was in flesh the female knight Kel aspired to be–would reject her. Ignore her. “Not by word or deed. Not by letter or in person. What other conclusion am I supposed to draw, Your Highness?”
“Any but that.” Roald picked up his linen napkin from its tidy fold in his lap. Used it to wipe his fingers clear of orange juice before he smeared any on his temples in stress. “The Lioness advocated for you to be permitted to train as a page without undergoing a probationary period, but was overruled by my father when he declared in favor of Lord Wyldon. She’s been on your side from the beginning and would have reached out to you openly if she hadn’t been forbidden from contacting you in any way.”
“Forbidden by whom, Your Highness?” Kel’s forehead furrowed. “It can’t have been Lord Wyldon. He can’t make her do anything. He doesn’t have the authority to do that.”
“Indeed.” Roald hesitated. Decided if he was in for a copper, he might as well be in for a gold noble. Up the stakes of his gamble when he tossed the dice. Be impulsive for a change. See if he could find any thrill of adrenaline in living wild. Dropped a hint like a bread crumb for a duck to follow out of a garden pond. “There’s a short list of people in the realm who can order Alanna the Lioness to do anything. Lord Wyldon’s name isn’t on it.”
“But your father the king’s is.” Kel’s eyes widened. Detecting his implication.
“Yes, my father the king’s is.” Roald nodded. Confirming more than one idea in that gesture.
Papa might not approve of Roald divulging to Kel that it had been he who had prohibited the Lioness from contacting Kel. Might view such a disclosure as a betrayal. Perceive it as Roald being a disloyal son.
Roald did not see his own actions in that traitorous light. Figured that since his father’s falling out with his Champion was so public and dramatic as to dominate court gossip for at least a year, Kel would eventually discover the truth. Surely, it would be better–make the painful blow hurt less–if the information came from a member of the royal family.
Besides, Roald continued his litany of internal justifications for his treachery to his father and king, Papa hadn’t explicitly forbidden him from telling Kel that it was on the king’s command that the Lioness was eschewing contact with her. If Papa had given Roald a direct order to be quiet on the issue, as a dutiful son, Roald would, of course, have been bound to obey.
As it was, he felt he had more freedom to maneuver. More flexibility about what he revealed and concealed. More creativity and discretion in interpreting what was appropriate to disclose under the circumstances. Papa might feel differently. Might scold. That was, of course, the risk Roald was taking. The dice he was rolling.
He rolled the dice because his conscience was screaming that Kel deserved to have the knowledge that her heroine didn’t despise her. Deserved to hear that truth from his lips. Knowledge and truth were power in the mind. In the heart. In the pages’ wing. Everywhere else. He could not call himself her friend and lie to her by his silence when Alanna’s distance was so crushingly disappointing to her.
“Your father the king forbade the Lioness from contacting me?” Kel stared at him. Making it abundantly apparent that she understood his confirmation.
“Yes.” Roald nodded again. Not knowing what else to say or do. Overwhelmed. Adrift in the current.
“Why, Your Highness?” Kel’s voice was flat. Deliberately so, Roald suspected. Meant to hide anguish. Not entirely succeeding in doing so.
“Politics.” Roald wondered when the bell would ring to save him from this awkward conversation. Politics were a king’s bread and butter. “For what other reason does a king do anything?”
“Not principles?” Kel lifted an eyebrow.
“Principles are part of politics.” Roald explained what his parents and tutors had taught him. “To be weighted along and against other considerations. It’s a balancing act. A diplomacy like your father engaged in when he negotiated my marriage contract with the Yamani Islands.”
Perhaps the mention of fathers prompted Kel to ask, “Why did you tell me this about your father, Your Highness?”
“Because you would have found out eventually.” Roald shared aloud the justifications he had invented within himself. A preparation for if Papa ever required him to make an account of his behavior. Hoped the reasons he presented would be strong enough to persuade her of his faithfulness. If not to his father then to her. “Because it was the truth, and I felt that you deserved to know. That it was only fair for you to be aware of what so much of the court is.”
To Roald’s relief, Kel nodded. Accepting this. Murmured, “So the Lioness doesn’t hate me after all.”
“Of course she doesn’t hate you.” Roald reached across the table. Patted Kel’s wrist. “She doesn’t even know you. How could she hate you when she doesn’t even know you?”
“Lots of people hate me without knowing me, Your Highness.” Kel’s tone was grim. Devoid of self-pity. Resigned as a prisoner climbing the wood steps to the gallows. “Because of what I am doing. What I represent.”
That was true, Roald realized. Grimaced inwardly at how he had blundered. Put his foot in his mouth, and discovered, as ever, that it tasted terrible. Eager to rebound from his mistake, he insisted, “But Alanna the Lioness is not one of those people. She might not know you, but she doesn’t hate you. In fact, she stormed out of the room when my father ordered her not to contact you. Neither hide nor flaming hair of her has been seen in Corus since, and she hasn’t spoken to my father in all these months. They were close friends ever since they were pages. She is his Champion and sword. They’ve argued before, but this is the first time I can recall them going months without speaking to each other. She chose you over her king. Over her friend since page training. I would say the evidence indicates she doesn’t hate you, Keladry of Mindelan.”
Kel appeared too astonished by this revelation to reply to it. So it was just as well that Cleon interjected himself into the proceedings. Bustling up to the bench where Kel sat before the bell tolled, beckoning them to another day of sweating in the training yards.
“Good morning, teardrop of my heart.” The flowery language with which Cleon addressed Kel could have put the romantic verses of any courtly love poet to shame. He wore his broadest, most teasing smile. A red-headed sprite of mischief.
“How might I serve you?” Kel demanded. Dry as the Southern Desert baking beneath the high noon sun.
Cleon looked wrong-footed by Kel’s willingness to perform a task for him. Participate in this hazing ritual. This earning her way custom.
He recovered rapidly enough. Requesting with an undimmed grin–because if he could not create trouble, he could at least have fun at a first year’s expense– “My quiver, if you would, my pearl. I took it to my room to sharpen the arrowheads last night, and of course I will require it. Return soon to my side, or I will pine.”
Kel made no response to this effusive sentiment beyond rising. Rushing out of the dining hall. Hurrying to do Cleon’s bidding before she risked being late for their first lesson. Earning punishment work.
“I didn’t expect her to agree to do a chore for me.” Cleon watched Kel depart with a faintly mystified manner. Kel’s humility had flummoxed him, obviously. “I thought she would throw a tantrum. Pitch a fit. Cause a scene. That would’ve been a lark to see.”
“You shouldn’t be so shocked.” Roald stood as well. Nudged Cleon with his shoulder. “She runs my errands without argument.”
“She has to do that, Your Highness,” Cleon pointed out as they joined the river of pages trickling out of the dining hall to the practice courts. “You’re the prince. She’d be defying a royal command if she disobeyed you.”
“I wouldn’t make it a royal command.” Roald shook his head swiftly. “I’d never use a royal command with another page. You know that, Cleon. It’d be abusing my position. Taking advantage of my rank.”
“All I know is you’re the prince, and, regardless of what you claim, an order from you is a royal command.” Cleon’s words made Roald’s cheeks heat and flush. As if sensing Roald’s mounting discomfiture, Cleon went on remorselessly, “With a royal command, you could order about anyone in the pages’ wing. Even Lord Wyldon would have to do what you said if you made it a royal command.”
“Hogwash.” Roald rolled his eyes at the nonsense Cleon was spewing. There had to be taverns full to the eaves with drunkards speaking more sensibly than Cleon. “Lord Wyldon would strangle me if I attempted to order him about with a royal command like he was my manservant.”
Roald could only imagine how the training master’s face would be stained a raging crimson with popped blood vessels if Roald insulted him by directing a royal command at him. It would be a more dangerous ire even than when Roald had volunteered to sponsor Keladry of Mindelan. That had been something any page in the second year or above could do. Not a privilege and prerogative reserved for royalty.
“Oh, no, he wouldn’t kill you, Your Highness. He’d just make you wish he had. He takes his oath of fealty to the Crown much too seriously to strangle our precious Crown Prince.” Cleon chortled. “He rescued three of your siblings from death by Immortals mere months ago, didn’t he? And none of them were next in line to the throne.”
“Papa would kill me then.” Roald tried to laugh. To crack a joke at his own expense. “Liam would inherit everything, and I’d be dead. A miserable ghost haunting the palace.”
Kally was expected to forsake her claim to the throne–abandon her spot in the line of succession–once she fulfilled their father’s ambitions for her. Married herself to Emperor Kaddar and Carthak.
To distract himself from the melancholy notion of his favorite sister living an ocean away from him when she was wed to faraway Carthak, Roald pressed, “Why would you think Kel wouldn’t fetch your quiver for you?”
“Joren said she had a stick up her butt about the earning her way custom.” Cleon shrugged. Gray glance abruptly dropping from Roald’s. “That she thought she was better than everybody. That she didn’t have to participate in the hazing. That she was above it.”
“You swallowed the poisoned water from Joren’s well.” Roald couldn’t contain a derisive, disgusted snort at Cleon’s gullibility. How easily the other lad had been to deceive. To manipulate.
“Not without testing it, Your Highness,” Cleon countered as they arrived at the practice yard where they studied unarmed combat under the Shang warriors. “Or not without testing her I should say.”
As if Cleon’s last remark had summoned her, Kel trotted up to them. Thrust Cleon’s quiver into his arms. Dashed away to melt like a snowflake into a knot of first years before Cleon could dispatch her to perform any more errands on his behalf.
“Her issue with hazing isn’t that she’s better than everybody else.” Roald took a stab at articulating the motives behind Kel’s anti-bullying cruscade as he was coming to understand them. “It’s not about protecting herself. It’s about defending other people. Standing up for them and their rights. Her problem with Joren and his crowd is they are bullying other first years.”
“Oh, that’s what her quarrel is about.” Cleon’s eyes drifted over to Kel. “Pity she won’t be able to wage her war against Joren and company next year. Add to the chaos and commotion in the pages’ wing in that way. That Lord Wyldon will never let her stay once her probationary period is done. Will send her packing for good.”
“You don’t know that Lord Wyldon will refuse to allow her to stay beyond this year,” Roald reminded him sternly. Folding his arms across his chest. “My father believes he might change his mind.”
“Is that what His Majesty believes?” Cleon was skeptical. Arch. “Or what you want to believe, Your Highness? Because there very well might be a difference.”
A difference that made Roald’s stomach sink to contemplate it. He was grateful when the Shang warriors shouted out the start of their drills, and he was spared the necessity of devising a witty riposte to Cleon’s too clever question.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:19:31 GMT 10
Cruelty and Truth
Roald continued to mull over the question of whether his father genuinely believed that there was a chance of Lord Wyldon changing his mind and permitting Kel to remain after her probationary year. Since his focus was centered elsewhere, he sustained more bruises than usual in the course of the morning’s training.
The consequences of his drifting attention were less immediately painful in the afternoon’s academic lessons, though he did predict that in the long term he would regret the scantiness of the notes he had taken when it came time to study for the end of year examinations. The end of year examinations did seem so far off when he had much more urgent concerns to occupy his mind, though.
That night–after dinner with the other pages–he was required to attend a council meeting. Papa desired him to attend such meetings as part of his preparation for ruling. His education in government. At all such meetings, he was expected to be a silent observer. An attentive but unobtrusive witness. Never an active participant expressing his opinions in debate or presuming to offer advice. He was supposed to see and hear. Not be seen and heard himself. To quietly watch and learn, although he might ask Papa to explain anything that confused him after the meetings.
Roald did not often seek such explanations from his father. He preferred to devise his own theories about what he witnessed. Draw his own conclusions. Shape his own thoughts and judgments in the privacy he found within himself. Keep his own counsel in the truest sense.
Nor did he object to attending such meetings. He enjoyed learning about politics, law, and government. Always had. As far back as he could remember. He did not even chafe–as some of his more outspoken siblings doubtlessly would have– against the restrictions imposed on his participation in these meetings. Being a silent observer of proceedings suited him. Appealed to his self-contained nature.
On this particular night, however, he found it hard to muster a sincere interest in taxes on grain or the prices of goods imported from Tyra. Even though he was well-aware that a Crown Prince should have a knowledge of such vital topics that were essential to the prosperity of the realm. He should not have let these important discussions form an unheard backdrop to his musings on whether Lord Wyldon would allow Kel to train as a knight after her probationary period ended and on how to handle bullies in the pages’ wing. He should not have, but he did.
When the meeting, which Roald realized he had gained almost no wisdom by attending, drew to a close, Roald swallowed. Cleared his throat that suddenly felt scratchy. Decided, on an impulse, to implement Godsfather Gary’s suggestion. Addressed his father in a voice that he hoped was soft enough for nobody else in the council chamber to hear, “Might I have a private word with you, Papa?”
“Of course, son.” Papa’s smile did little to allay Roald’s mounting nerves. Approaching his father for advice was just not easy. No matter what Godsfather Gary said on the contrary.
Roald’s hope that no one except Papa had overheard his request was dashed when Godsfather Gary laid a hand on Roald’s shoulder as he passed Roald’s chair on his path to the door. Leaned down to whisper encouragement in Roald’s ear. “Talk to him as you would to me. He will not bite off your head. I promise.”
“Yes, sir.” Roald nodded. Accepting the reminder of the suggestion his godsfather had shared in their last conversation. Trying to project a calm he didn’t feel. To act more poised than he was. “Thank you.”
“Good lad.” Godsfather Gary straightened. Delivered a hearty clap to Roald’s shoulder that made Roald stifle a wince. Sometimes Godsfather Gary forgot his own size and strength. “The gods be with you then.”
With that final benediction, Godsfather Gary resumed his journey toward the door. The rest of the council had collected their documents and left in small groups by the time Godsfather Gary departed.
Once they were alone in the chamber that now felt too large to Roald–as if it could devour him in a single bite like a hungry maw--Papa arched an eyebrow. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong with you? Why you were so distracted at tonight’s meeting?”
“I apologize for my distraction, Papa.” Roald’s cheeks flamed. He felt ashamed and resigned as he often did when Papa reproached him. Diminished before his father, who inevitably noticed all of his transgressions. Whatever courage he had possessed when he asked to speak with his father fled him as he realized he was about to receive a reprimand for once again failing to meet expectations as son and heir.
How, Roald wondered bitterly, could Papa lament to Godsfather Gary that Roald never confided in him when the first thing Papa uttered to him after he requested a private word with his father was an admonishment? How was that supposed to make Roald feel he could share anything with his father? It wasn’t fair. No matter what he said or did, Papa would find a way to view it as inadequacy on his part. To blame and lecture him for it.
“You do not need to apologize.” Papa sighed. As if he could read Roald’s thoughts and feelings. Perhaps he could. Maybe that was why Roald was such a perpetual disappointment to him. “I was not chiding you, Roald.”
“Then why bring it up at all, Papa?” Roald’s bewilderment came out as defensiveness. Misunderstanding and misinterpreting his father left him feeling lost. Uncertain of what he could possibly offer to appease Papa if not an apology. “Why mention my distraction except to scold me for it?”
“To express my concern about your uncharacteristic behavior. To show that I care about you. To invite you to confide in me.” Papa sounded weary. As tired of the miscommunication between them as Roald felt. “Not everything I say is meant as a criticism of you. I wish you wouldn’t interpret it that way.”
To Roald’s ears, this amounted to little more than a lecture about not constantly assuming that he was being scolded. He bit back a sarcastic remark to that effect. Knowing that his father already perceived him as oversensitive. Prone to childish overreaction at misconstrued comments. To bristling like a boar at slights that were a figment of his imagination. Once he had suppressed his desire to indulge in irony, Roald settled on a more placatory approach. “Forgive me for being testy with you, Papa.”
“Again, you do not need to apologize. My words were a wish. Not a reprimand.” Papa patted Roald’s knee. “Why don’t you tell me what is troubling you, Roald?”
“More than one thing is troubling me.” Emboldened by the affection behind his father’s pat on the knee, Roald went on, “The first is a question.”
“Go on.” Papa waved a hand. “Ask away then, my boy.”
Roald obliged before he could lose his newly acquired bravery. “Do you truly believe that there is a possibility Lord Wyldon will change his mind and permit Keladry of Mindelan to remain in page training once her probation is over, Papa?”
“There is a possibility almost anything could happen.” A faint, amused gleam twinkled in Papa’s blue gaze. “I sense that is not what you are asking, however. I suspect you are actually curious about the likelihood of Lord Wyldon allowing Keladry of Mindelan to stay after her probationary year is complete. Is that correct?”
“Yes, Papa.” Roald nodded. Wishing his father would get to the point. Put him out of his misery while he waited on tenterhooks for the actual answer to his question.
“In that case, I will say that I would not have agreed that Lord Wyldon could be the sole judge of whether Keladry of Mindelan could continue her page training if I did not think he could render a fair decision.” Papa’s eyes were steady and serious now as they fixed on Roald. “He is an honorable man. One who I do believe has the courage to admit when he is wrong.”
“He doesn’t like change, though.” Roald ducked his head. Tone hushed. “Allowing Keladry of Mindelan to keep training as a knight would be a massive change.”
“Yes, he’s quite vocal about his dislike of change.” Papa’s face twisted wryly. “Yet, he’s far more amenable to compromise than many conservatives, and for someone who purports to hate change, he has implemented a great many in the page training regimen. So, on a balance, I believe there is a likelihood that Lord Wyldon will be fair and honorable in judging Keladry of Mindelan, and that he will go on coping with change as he must.”
“That’s what I thought you believed, Papa.” Roald felt mildly comforted by his father’s words. “It’s just something a yearmate said had me worrying I was mistaken.”
“Yearmates are good at instilling those doubts, aren’t they?” Papa didn’t pause for an answer. Continued to Roald’s increasing unease, “I could be mistaken, of course, in my judgment of Lord Wyldon or anyone else. I have been wrong about people before. Many times. Miscalculated what they would say or do. Put too much pressure on them so they cracked. Been blind to flaws that existed or saw faults where there were none. And sometimes people just plain surprise me as you did when you volunteered to sponsor Keladry of Mindelan. Which demonstrates that, regardless of what a king may predict will happen, he cannot be certain of any outcome until it occurs.”
Roald flushed at the reference to how he had courted controversy and defied his father’s politics when he stepped forward to serve as Keladry of Mindelan’s sponsor. “I was a bad son to surprise you like that.”
“You weren’t. No more than I was a bad father to be surprised that you had done such a thing.” Papa grinned crookedly. “The Bazhir have a maxim about that. They say that he who is certain he knows the ending of all things when he is just beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish. No matter which is true, he is an unhappy man for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder.”
“You seemed unhappy that I surprised you by choosing to sponsor Keladry of Mindelan, Papa.” Roald’s smile held more than a trace of chagrin in it.
“I got over that unhappiness quickly enough.” Papa swatted Roald’s knee again. “Now tell me what else is bothering you.”
“There is–” Roald hesitated. Took a deep breath– “bullying in the pages’ wing.”
“There is always bullying in the pages’ wing.” Papa stroked his beard. His expression pensive. “That never concerned you before Keladry of Mindelan came.”
“I was wrong not to be concerned with the bullying, Papa.” Roald’s eyes sank to the council table. Drinking in how the polished wood whorls reflected the yellow candlelight. “She brought the issue to my attention. Made me realize how I shouldn’t have ignored it before. How I should have done something about it.” Determination rose in Roald. He lifted his gaze from the table. Met his father’s eyes with his own. “I want to do something now. Only I’m not sure what to do.”
“Such matters were resolved with fistfights back in my day.” Papa leaned back in his chair.
“I can’t get entangled in fistfights, Papa.” Roald gasped. Scandalized that his father would imply that he should become a brawler like a drunk in a Corus tavern.
“Why not?” Papa’s manner was serene. Bafflingly so.
Roald blinked. “Do you remember when I was seven, and I punched Liam on the nose? How you told me I needed to learn to be more diplomatic? To solve my problems with my words and cleverness, not my fists?”
“I do recall that, yes.” Papa shot Roald a keen glance. “I am somewhat astonished you remember it so clearly, though.”
“I’m supposed to remember all the lessons you teach me, Papa.” Roald bit his lip. Cheeks burning. “Besides, I did think that you were going to spank me then. That tends to sharpen the memory.”
“I guess it does.” Papa chuckled. As if Roald had cracked a joke, even though Roald wasn’t aware of saying anything particularly witty at all.
“You can laugh because it’s not your backside on the line.” A flare of resentment lanced through Roald. His ears were on fire now. “Your hands hurt when they spanked me, Papa.”
Papa might have only spanked him once, but Roald still thought of it as one of the most painful and humiliating experiences of his life. The shame he had felt in that helpless moment ingrained in him forever.
“I don’t doubt that.” Papa cupped Roald’s cheeks. “Still, you wouldn’t deny that most of the time my hands have not caused you pain when they have touched you.”
“Most of the time your hands have been gentle,” agreed Roald. Relaxing into his father’s tender touch.
“I’m sorry I ever spanked you, Roald.” Papa’s palms lingered on Roald’s face. “It seemed to fill you with the idea that I would strike you again if you angered me enough. That was a lesson I never wanted to teach you.”
“I’m not afraid that you’ll hit me, Papa.” Roald felt like a horrible son for being the creator of the guilt he glimpsed in his father’s eyes. He wasn’t a boy who lived in unabating, cringing fear of his father’s wrath. He hoped he could make Papa understand that. He didn’t want to disappoint his father, but he wasn’t terrified of Papa beating him.
“Ah, but not too many weeks ago, you were thanking me for not smacking you across the face for your disrespect.” Papa patted Roald’s cheek. “Why would you say that if you didn’t believe I would hit you?”
Roald grimaced with the recollection of the disrespect to which his father alluded. They had been arguing–more fiercely than they had ever clashed about anything–about Roald’s decision to sponsor Keladry of Mindelan. Roald had accused his father of hypocrisy when Papa reprimanded him for undermining Papa’s policies. Had pointed out in an irate tone that Papa had been guilty of a much greater defiance when he snuck behind enemy lines to rescue a friend during the war with Tusaine.
Papa had been far from impressed by that argument. Had snapped at Roald to be silent. Had insisted–in the harshest, iciest tone Roald had ever heard directed toward him–that he did not have to listen to such insolence from Roald.
Roald’s Conte stubbornness had overruled his reason and sense of self-preservation in that moment. He had retorted at what was for him top volume that he would not be silent. That he was speaking the truth about how his father expected him to be the perfect son Papa had never been and how unfair that was.
As soon as the words spilled from his bitter lips, Roald had half-expected to be slapped across the face for the sheer audacity of that insubordination. For daring to contradict his father in such a fashion. That was the traditional penalty for a son who defied a father’s order to be quiet, after all. A thick, bloody lip, or a swollen, stinging cheek. A sharp dissuasion from further debate.
Expressing as much now, however, seemed as if it would be inflicting a cruelty and a sorrow on his Papa. Stabbing the man who had sired him in the chest. Suggesting that he viewed his father more as a brute than a gentle guide and protector.
He fumbled for a reply to his father’s question that would be truthful and not hurtful. Delicacy seemed to be the watchword in this moment. “A son can be grateful to his father for not striking him. That doesn’t have to mean that he believes his father would hit him. The two ideas do not have to be in opposition to each other. They can be in harmony with one another. Balancing each other out as if on a scale.”
“A very clever and diplomatic answer.” Papa ruffled Roald’s hair. “I don’t see why you sought out my wisdom when you are capable of such insight yourself, son.”
“Most of the insights I have come from reflecting on the lessons you and Mama taught me, Papa.” Roald was abashed at his father’s praise. He craved Papa’s approval but did not know how to respond to it when he received it. One of the many paradoxes that sculpted his strange, adolescent existence.
Attempting to steer the topic back to the matter of how he should combat the bullying in the pages’ wing, he added, “Like when I punched Liam, and you told me that you’d be a hypocrite if you tried to teach me a lesson about not hitting by hitting me. And when you told me that a king and a father should never punish with more force than necessary to make his point because anything beyond that descends into cruelty.”
“You really do remember so much of what I told you that day,” Papa mused. “I am pleased that you learned so many of the lessons I was trying to teach you back then, but you must recognize that those are not the only lessons I have to teach you. Nor are those truths that I shared with you when you were seven the only truths. Now that you are a much more mature twelve, I would offer you some more truths and lessons if you will listen and not close your ears to them.”
“I always listen to you, Papa.” Roald was solemn. Earnest. “It would be disrespectful for me to do otherwise.”
“It would.” Papa squeezed Roald’s shoulder. “The first truth that I would share with you is that I never meant you had to resolve all your conflicts without violence. Violence is sometimes necessary to resolve conflicts or to protect others. If I intended you to be an absolute pacifist, son, I would never have enrolled you in page training, where most of what you learn is violence.”
“I suppose that would be a waste of time.” Roald was amazed by his own stupidity. What a dolt he could be sometimes. As if he were determined to give Vinson and Garvey a run for their foolishness money.
“Quite,” Papa confirmed dryly. “My second truth is that while it is hypocritical to hit someone to teach a lesson about not hitting, teaching a lesson may not always be the objective of hitting a bigger person who beats on a smaller one. I sought to teach you a lesson in not hitting because you are my son and heir. I would be an idiot not to teach you. To strive to prepare you for the responsibilities of ruling. To pass along what wisdom I can to you so you might be a better king than me when you inherit my crown. However, if I did not have such a duty to teach you, my only obligation might have been to protect the smaller person you were beating on, in which case hitting becomes a much more viable option.”
“The boys in the pages’ wing are young enough to learn.” Roald’s forehead furrowed. “It seems cruel to resort to hitting when they might learn in other ways.”
“Perhaps.” Papa shrugged. “Cruelty can be a matter of perspective, Roald. That is my third truth. You see, if I had been standing by while you were winding up to punch Liam, I would’ve been forced to intervene to prevent you from hitting your little brother on the nose. It would have been cruelty to Liam if I did not. If I failed to do everything in my power to prevent him from getting punched. If I passively watched it happen and made no attempt to ensure justice for him. In order to be kind to Liam, I would’ve needed to use some amount of force against you. Grabbing your wrist before you could strike Liam. Carrying you away from him.”
“That wouldn’t have hurt me, Papa.” Roald swallowed. Still not wanting to entertain the image of him punching fellow pages in a quest against bullying. He didn’t support bullying, but had no wish to promote violent impulses within himself either. “It wouldn’t have been cruel.”
“You say that now because you are twelve and far enough removed from the event to be rational about it.” Papa tapped Roald’s nose. “When you were seven and in the heat of the moment, you would’ve believed differently. You would’ve screamed, kicked, and thrown a terrible tantrum because I dared to thwart your will in punching your brother. Oh, I have no doubt seven-year-old you would’ve regarded your father as a very cruel and unfair man. A true tyrant.”
“I could never think you a tyrant, Papa.” Roald shook his head. “Anyway, I got what I wanted–or what I, in my temper, thought I wanted–but found only misery and guilt in it. You wouldn’t have been cruel to prevent me from experiencing that misery and guilt.”
“You are a good son to say that.” Papa’s voice was soft and warm. Like a blanket Roald longed to wrap himself within.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:20:17 GMT 10
A Father’s Blessing
“I did feel truly guilty about punching Liam on the nose, Papa.” Roald gnawed on his lower lip. Suddenly desperate to convince his father of that as he recalled with a surge of remorse all the excuses he had invented to justify his own violence. To blame his brutality on his victim–in this case, his own brother. Claims of Liam not listening to him. Provoking him. Deserving to be hit. Practically begging for it. The lies that bullies always told themselves and tried to persuade the world were truths. Lies Roald hadn’t even been able to believe when he was seven. Much less when he was twelve. Considering his own actions with the crisp, cruel clarity of hindsight. “Not just because you scolded me, but because I realized what I did was wrong.”
“I know. You were crying before I even said a word to you.” Papa shot Roald a piercing glance. “Besides, I can always tell when you are genuinely repentant when I chide you. You wear a remorseful expression because you understand what you did was wrong, and you deserve to be corrected. Your face is quite different when you believe you did nothing wrong, and I’m reprimanding you unjustly. Sometimes, if you are feeling very stubborn, you even get the bit between your teeth and inform me of just how unfair you think I’m being.”
“Whenever I do that, you accuse me of being disrespectful, Papa.” Roald’s spine and tone stiffened with an instinctive urge to defend himself.
“I accuse you of that because it’s a true charge.” Papa folded his arms across his chest. Every inch the implacable father who would brook no disagreement from a rebellious child. “A son presuming to lecture his father on what is unfair. I can’t think what that would be other than blatant disrespect.”
“What if the son is right, Papa?” Roald gave vent to a frustration long harbored inside him. A welled-up bitterness finally releasing itself with the fury of a flooding river. “What if the father is being unfair?”
“It’s not the son’s place to determine that, Roald.” Papa shook his head.
Roald sighed. Recited in a flat litany the ultimate duty of a child he had been taught since the nursery. The mantra that sometimes threatened to restrict his life to borderline meaninglessness. Denying him agency. Revoking his ability to choose. Even to question. “It’s the son’s place to honor and obey without question, I know.”
“I do expect you to honor and obey me, but I’ve always encouraged you to ask questions.” Papa was offering a compromise. Extending an olive branch as the Tyrans would phrase it. “Only requested that you ask your questions in private, not in public. Appearances must be maintained, after all.”
Appearances were half of politics. Roald understood that. Had understood it since he was three, in fact. That was why he was so polished in his manners. So resolved not to be found lacking in any area of decorum or deportment. So focused on projecting an air of perfect politeness. He did not want anyone imagining years of etiquette instruction under the exacting Master Oakbridge had been wasted on him.
“I know. I appreciate that.” Roald bowed his head. Accepting the compromise. Taking the proffered olive branch. Changed the topic back to the bullies blighting the pages’ wing. “I have another question, Papa. Do you want me fighting the bullies in the pages’ wing?”
“I want you to do whatever you believe is right, Roald.” Papa’s eyes locked on Roald. Unwavering and blue. “There are arguments for and against fighting in this instance. Either one could be right depending on your motives. I only wish to make you aware that I would not disapprove if you fight in this situation. Lord Wyldon would punish you, of course, but I would not add to his discipline with any of my own.”
“What would be the right motives for fighting or not fighting, Papa?” Roald squirmed even though he knew it was undignified. Seeking a comfortable spot that did not seem to exist on his chair. Not for the first time, he lamented how hard the council table seats were. As if designed to prevent dozing.
“Wrong motives for fighting would be a burning anger or desire for vengeance. A right motive would be a sense of obligation to protect others.” Papa pressed his palms together. “A wrong motive for not fighting would be fear. A right motive for not fighting would be the sincere belief that violence is not the answer to the problem.”
“I don’t know the answer to the problem.” Roald massaged his aching temples. “That’s why I came to you for advice, Papa.”
“I recognize that, son.” Papa squeezed his shoulder. “I cannot tell you what the right answer is, however. You must figure that out for yourself.”
“I feel like I have to fight back against the bullies.” Roald’s back hunched. Shoulders drooping beneath his father’s touch. “I don’t want violence to be the answer, though.”
“I respect that you’re a more diplomatically-inclined person than your mother or me.” Papa’s voice was velvet-soft. “I would not urge you to act against your nature or your conscience. Nor would I push you into brawling. Lord Wyldon would assassinate me if I did that.”
Roald’s shoulders and spirits lifted at this quip. “He’d turn himself into the axeman for justice immediately if he even contemplated such treason.”
“No doubt.” Papa chuckled. Then sobered. “I will advise you that not all fighting need be done with your fists. You can fight with your wits through cunning politicking. You also don’t have to allow the bullies to forever dictate the terms of battle. You can seize the initiative. Alter the terrain or weapons used.”
“Politicking is a weapon.” Roald felt a gleaming steeliness settle inside him. As if he were donning armor. Preparing for war like his bellicose ancestor, Jasson the Conqueror. “One princes are well-schooled in wielding.”
“Indeed.” Papa patted Roald’s knee. A glimmer in his gaze that suggested Contes weren’t to be crossed. There was a truism to that effect among the Tortallan nobility. Dating back to before the first Conte king. Never quite falling out of vogue among courtiers. The Contes being a proud lineage that ran high to fierce stubbornness that might even be regarded as ruthlessness by those imprudent enough to cast themselves as enemies to the family. To make themselves targets for destruction in that way. “Charm allies to your cause. Isolate your foes. Recruit loyal soldiers to your army. If your army becomes large enough, you may never need to deploy it. What did Jasson the Conqueror say was the only reliable method of securing peace, son?”
Papa might have been notoriously hopeless at history, but he had an uncanny knack for remembering almost every quote in King Jasson’s memoirs. Probably because he revered King Jasson far more than Roald did. King Jasson was too militaristic for Roald’s taste. It was the more measured monarchs he admired. The ones who concerned themselves with justice and the law, not endless expansion. Who did not spark conflict like blazebalm everywhere they went. Who did not set the world on fire and hope future generations could rebuild from the ashes.
Roald’s scorn for King Jasson emerged in a scoff. “Why does it matter what King Jasson said about peace? What would a conqueror know about peace, Papa?”
“A peacemaker may know a great deal about the suffering of war, and a conqueror the same about the price of peace.” There was an admonitory snap in Papa’s tone. A snap that warned Roald that compliance was the better part of valor. “Now, answer my question, Roald.”
“King Jasson wrote in his memoirs that the only way to guarantee peace is to make the cost of war so steep no enemy wants to pay it.” Roald’s lips thinned as he repeated the relevant passage. Couldn’t resist adding their own bit of defiance. “But I don’t agree with that, Papa. That sounds like tyranny and suppression to me. Not peace.”
The tyranny and suppression that propelled King Jasson on lavish progresses so that his nobles would never have the funds to revolt against him. That drove him to crush the Bazhir of the southern desert. That spurred him to steal swaths of territory from Tusaine, Galla, and Maren throughout his reign.
“Perhaps it is tyranny and suppression, or maybe it is only the price of peace and order.” Papa shrugged. “Rally an army of sufficient size around you in the pages’ wing, and you may not have to throw a single punch. You might scare your adversaries into a permanent retreat. Intimidation can be a path to peace as much as negotiation or compromise can.”
“Yes, Papa.” Roald struggled to absorb the strategy of this even though it repulsed him. Clenched his gut. Rose bile in his throat.
Silence fell between them for a moment before Roald ventured, “I really don’t think I should get into fistfights in the pages’ wing. If I do, your political enemies will use it as grounds to attack you. Question your legitimacy and authority as king.”
“How so?” Papa arched an eyebrow.
“The conservatives–” Roald scraped at his cuticles– “they’ll ask how you can expect to rule over a realm when you can’t even reign in your own son and heir.”
“I assure you I have weathered worse storms.” Papa sounded faintly amused. “I think I should be able to withstand such an assault, son.”
“I don’t want to be a weapon your enemies can deploy against you, Papa.” Roald was surprised at the tears that stung his eyes. Misted his vision. “A knife to stab you in the back. Nor do I want to be a ground on which they can attack you. I want to be above reproach so you don’t have any reason to be ashamed of me before the world.”
“Oh, Roald.” Papa appeared stunned and moved by Roald’s vehemence. Studied Roald with tender affection. “You’re my son and heir. I love you, and I’m well-pleased with you. As long as you act rightly, nothing the conservatives say could ever make me ashamed of you.”
“And if I act wrongly or make a mistake?” Roald forced himself to choke out the fear that dogged him. The fear that perhaps dogged all boys who craved their fathers’ love and approval.
“Then I would correct you, and you would grow the wiser.” Papa reached out to cup Roald’s cheek. “That would not make you any less my son or my heir, however. Nor would it mean I no longer love you or that I’m anything other than well-pleased with you.”
Roald paused. Mind reeling as he sought to cobble together some sense out of the mess of contradictions that seemed to be his father’s love and approval of him. At last, deciding that he did not understand and might never do so, he asked in a hushed, humble tone, “Might I have the favor of your blessing, Papa?”
“You always have my blessing, Roald.” Papa smiled. Continued before Roald could protest that was not what he meant. “If you would have it in a more formal fashion, however, you may kneel.”
Roald obeyed. Dropping to his knees on the cold council chamber floor before his father’s chair. He felt his father’s fingers resting, warm and strong, on his head. Tangling in his black hair.
Papa was quiet for the space of several heartbeats. Devising and shaping his blessing. There were traditional words that could be pronounced over a kneeling child’s head, of course, but Papa preferred to invent his own benedictions on such occasions. Another mark of his unconventional character.
Once he had chosen his words, Papa spoke solemnly. “May Mithros shield you in your pursuit of justice and righteousness. May the Goddess protect and guide you over every mountain. May the Black God grant you long life. May all the gods, great and small, bless you.”
A trace of humor entered Papa’s manner as he concluded, “I think that about covers it. Rise, son.”
“Thank you for the blessing, Papa.” Roald scrambled to his feet.
“You’re welcome.” Papa stood. Gathered Roald to his chest in a firm embrace. “As I told you, you always have it.”
Roald yearned to melt into his father’s hug but an abrupt flailing of a guilty conscience caused him to stumble out through a tripping tongue, “I hope you won’t be angry, Papa, but I have a confession to make.”
“As your father, I reserve the right to be angry at anything you do.” Papa scowled. Held Roald at arm’s length. “Go on with your confession.”
Far from reassured, Roald swallowed before replying in scarcely more than a whisper. “Keladry of Mindelan knows that you commanded Alanna the Lioness not to contact her in any way.”
“Does she know this because you disclosed this to her?” Papa’s inquiry was riddled with ice that froze the blood in Roald’s veins.
“Yes, Papa,” he admitted. Didn’t dare to offer any words in his own defense unless asked.
Papa did ask. Most of the time he did before passing judgment on his children. Tried to be fair in that manner.
“Why did you reveal that to her, son?” Papa demanded in the same stern tone he used when requiring Liam to explain why he had skipped lessons or calling Jasson to account for dumping the rancid contents of a chamber pot over the Maren ambassador’s wife as she strolled beneath a window, ruining her exquisite new gown. The tone that usually foreshadowed an inevitable verdict of guilt. That indicated few arguments could serve as a credible defense.
“Multiple reasons.” Roald enumerated them on trembling fingers. Mentally appealing to Mithros for courage and light as he stared into his father’s strict face. “Because it was the truth, and I felt she deserved to hear it. Because she was so devastated believing that her heroine hated her that it only seemed fair to assure her that she has the support of Alanna the Lioness after all. Because she is my friend, I am her sponsor, and you ordered me to help her however I could in the pages’ wing. Because your falling-out with your Champion is hardly a secret at court so she might very well hear the tale from someone else. So I decided it was best coming from me. A member of the royal family.”
“No, my falling-out with Alanna the Lioness was hardly a secret.” Papa laughed ruefully, and Roald relaxed. Papa would not have laughed if he was angry. “She was quite dramatic in her displeasure with me.”
“You aren’t displeased with me, though?” Roald shot his father a sidelong glance.
“I’m not,” Papa confirmed. Clapping Roald’s shoulder. “You had your reasons, and I deem them valid enough.”
“Thank you, Papa.” Roald inclined his head.
“Thank you, Roald.” Papa’s response was heartstoppingly unexpected. “For confiding in me. Seeking my advice.”
“Well, Godsfather Gary did suggest it.” Roald shuffled his feet awkwardly. Disconcerted by his father’s gratitude. “It seemed foolish to seek his counsel only to discard it.”
“I thought he might have with the way he whispered in your ear before he left.” Papa’s gaze was shrewd. “His advice is often worth listening to. That is why I chose him to be your godsfather.”
“I’m not unhappy with your choice.” Roald grinned. Godsfather Gary was quick with his jokes and generous in showering Roald with gifts. A much more indulgent godsparent than his godsmother Buri, who remained committed to the stony policy of not spoiling Roald with hugs and presents.
“Good.” Papa shepherded him toward the door. “You must have assignments to complete, and I’m certain your teachers won’t accept attending a council meeting as an excuse for unfinished work.”
“My teachers will accept nothing as an excuse.” Roald wrinkled his nose. “Not even death. If I perished overnight, they would expect me to return as a ghost to submit my assignments punctually.”
Roald was about to bow and take his leave when Papa laid a gentle hand on Roald’s arm. Stilling him. “I am the only other living person in the kingdom who has ever been Crown Prince, son. Judging your performance against my own, I would say you fulfill your responsibilities with a higher degree of devotion than I did at your age. I am proud of you for that.”
Roald’s eyes and ears danced at this praise. He lifted his father’s ring to his lips. Kissed it. A gesture of fealty and deepest respect. “You are a great king, Papa. I can only pray that I will rule as well as you when my time comes.”
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:20:50 GMT 10
What Princes are Born to Do
“The night you saw Joren and his crowd bullying another first year. The one you told me about the next day. Who was it they were tormenting?” Roald asked Kel. They were in his room. Studying together before lights-out.
His question had been softly spoken, but the very fact that he had uttered it at all was enough for Kel’s quill to pause abruptly in mid-sentence of the essay she was writing. Enough for her to eye him with sharp speculation. As if he were the cunning predator, and she the eternally wary prey. As if that were the relationship that bound them instead of a budding friendship.
“I shouldn’t like to say, Your Highness,” she answered at last with bland, inflectionless pleasantry. The sort of pleasantry one learned at a young age if one were the daughter of a diplomat posted to the Yamani Islands, Roald supposed. “It would be betraying a confidence. Breaking a trust. And I would hate to do that.”
For a moment, Roald considered this. Then quietly pressed, “Did the boy being bullied ask you to keep his name secret? Did you promise him that you would do such a thing?”
“No.” Kel shook her head. Her quill scribbling as she resumed the composition of her essay.
“Then it can’t be betraying a confidence because no confidence was requested.” Roald strove to imitate the judicious tone in which his father rendered all his most serious legal pronouncements. Boys mimicked their fathers like the rainbow parakeets of the Copper Isles. Parakeets who could be taken from their jungles and trained to repeat phrases without understanding. If the parakeets were lucky, their masters were kind and slipped them sweet bananas and kiwis as treats. If the boys were fortunate, they would not be the sons of Burchard of Stone Mountain. Not all parakeets were lucky. Nor were all boys fortunate. “Nor can it be breaking a trust since no trust was given.”
“It would be a–” Kel hesitated. Sought the right word. Found it. Continued, “Humiliation to the boy if I revealed his identity to you or anyone else.”
“It wouldn’t be you humiliating him,” Roald reminded her gravely. “It was Joren and company who humiliated him by bullying him.”
“Joren and his cronies provided the first humiliation, but I’d be offering the second if I shared his name with you or anyone else.” Kel was astute. Attuned to emotional nuances and social currents. That could be convenient or inconvenient depending on the fickleness of circumstances, Roald noted. “I prefer not to offer that second humiliation.”
“Your silence isn’t helping him.” Roald sighed. Resisted the temptation to massage his temples. There was ink on his fingertips that he didn’t want smeared anywhere else.
“Oh, and my gossiping about his shame would be of assistance to him, Your Highness?” Kel lifted an eyebrow. A gesture that almost caused Roald to blush before he remembered that he wasn’t, in fact, engaging in anything so vulgar as gossiping.
“I do not seek to gossip about his shame.” Roald forced himself to sound calm. Determined. Not affronted. “I aim only to aid you and him.”
“How do you intend to do that, Your Highness?” Kel appeared curious for more details. Not entirely satisfied with vague vows of assistance to her or the page she had seen bullied.
“What princes are best at.” Roald spread his hands. Dropping his quill on the parchment where his unfinished mathematics assignment lay largely ignored. Grinned crookedly. “What they are born to do. Politicking. Recruiting allies. Negotiating. Building bridges. Rallying people to a common cause.”
“That sounds like what my father would do.” Kel fixed bright hazel eyes on him. Eyes that suddenly seemedd all-seeing as a bird’s. That reminded him, unexpectedly, of his mother. Mama, too, had an all-encompassing, unwavering bird gaze that drank in everything, and her eyes were hazel. Like Kel’s.
“He is a great diplomat.” Roald inclined his head in a sincere compliment to the baron who had sired her. Who had arranged his marriage to a Yamani princess.
“Yes.” Kel’s features softened into a smile at the praise to her father. “One of many reasons why I love and respect him.”
Quiet fell between them, and Roald’s instincts advised him not to insist further that Kel confide in him the name of the lad she had seen targeted for abuse by Joren and his cronies. Either she would trust him or she would not. Faith was not something a person could be pressured into feeling. Nor was friendship. Papa had taught him that once.
At last, Kel seemed to decide that she could trust him. At least a little. For she said as if the name were a tooth yanked unwillingly from her bleeding gums, “It was Merric of Hollyrose I saw being bullied.”
“Thank you for your confidence, Keladry of Mindelan.” Sensing what it had cost her to reveal this information she had squirreled away inside her, Roald clapped her on the shoulder with the hand that didn’t have ink-stained fingertips. Daubing black ink all over her clothes would be a poor expression of gratitude, after all. “I will not betray it.”
“You won’t tell Merric what I said about him being bullied then?” Kel confirmed. Cheeks pink. A rare shade for her.
“I won’t,” Roald agreed. Squeezing her shoulder. Sensitive to her need for reassurance after her leap of faith. “I won’t talk to him about being bullied at all, in fact. It’s his sponsor and cousin, Faleron of King’s Reach, I’ll speak to about how we can better defend Merric and other first years.”
Faleron was a fair-minded person. Loyal to his cousin. Surely, he could be convinced to join a campaign against bullying in the pages’ wing if it might spare Merric more tormenting? If it might end the abuse for his cousin.
“Oh, I see your strategy now,” remarked Kel with all the sagacity of a seasoned general admiring another’s shrewd tactics. “You think sponsors will feel obligated to protect their charges. The lads they volunteered to sponsor. And they will have more clout when it comes to standing up against Joren and his cronies.”
“I think decent sponsors will feel that way.” Roald was sure that some lads like Quinden of Marti’s Hill experienced bullying from their sponsors who would perceive it as more of their duty to break the boy into the pages’ wing than guide them through the thickets of its thorniest aspects.
“I saw Joren and his crowd abusing Seaver of Tasride as well.” Kel offered the confidence unprompted. A clear sign of her growing faith in him. “That’s how I got into my first fistfight with them. I wanted to stick up for Seaver and express my disdain for bullying.”
“Seaver’s sponsor is Balduin of Disart.” Roald consulted his mental files of the ties that knotted the various boys of the pages’ wing together. Balduin of Disart was independent-minded. A boy who had started his page training a year late and never been targeted by Joren and his accomplices for abuse because that extra year of maturity made them unsettled around him. Uncertain of how he should be regarded in the pecking order of pages. “He is a decent sort. I will speak to him as well.”
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:21:18 GMT 10
Blood Betrayal
The next morning, Roald artfully manuevered so that Balduin of Disart was his partner during staff practice. Wood clacking against wood as the pages’ weapons clashed in rhythmmic obedience to Sergeant Ezeko’s barked “high, middle, and low” commands. Forming an ideal amount of noise to cover any discussion. A trick Roald had discovered long ago when he first began page training. One that came in useful when he wished to speak discreetly with a fellow page.
As long as he and his conversational companion didn’t permit their attention to wander too far from the cadence proscribed in Sergeant Ezeko’s strident tones–didn’t fall out of step with the ordered sequences of attacks and blocks–they could talk without too much fear of discovery by the sharp-gazed Sergeant Ezeko and the even more eagle-eyed Lord Wyldon.
Road came to his point quickly. Not wanting to waste any precious air on the practice courts. “I hear Seaver is being targeted for bullying by Joren and his cronies.”
“His henchmen, you mean.” Balduin swung his staff in a low blow as dictated by Sergeant Ezeko’s chant. “And how did you hear Seaver was being targeted?”
“I have my sources,” Roald replied vaguely. Parrying Balduin’s strike. He had assumed the passive role for the first part of this drill. Would have a chance at playing the active, striking one in the second half of the drill. He preferred to parry first. Strike second. Was not sure what that said about him. If it said anything at all. If any significance could be ascribed to that tendency. Uncertain what trait he would attribute it to if he witnessed it in another. Cunning? Cowardice? Discretion? Slyness? Shyness? So many qualities, and he seemed to possess them all in different moments. Changing like quicksilver with each heartbeat. “I do not need to disclose them.”
“Were your sources unaware that Joren and his crowd bully everyone?” Balduin’s assault was launched from above now.
“I suspect Joren and his henchmen–as you like to call them–are singling Seaver out for special abuse.” Roald defended against Balduin’s high strike. Indulging in his own bit of shrewd speculation. Venturing beyond the confines of what Kel had told him.
“He’s quiet.” Balduin’s glance flicked along the line of practicing pages. Seeking out Seaver, who looked sweat-soaked and overwhelmed as he deflected the attacks of the always red-faced Merric of Hollyrose. “Joren and his henchmen equate quiet with weakness.”
Roald swallowed as he blocked another blow from Balduin. Wondered if Joren and his followers viewed Roald as weak. Thought he was too quiet to lead. To be a threat to them and their attempts to stake out power–carve out their own vicious sphere of influence–in the eternally competitive environment of the pages’ wing. If Joren and company would have targeted him for bullying if he hadn’t been born the Crown Prince.
“Their mistake.” Roald’s eyes drifted from Balduin. Traveling along the lines of pages until it rested on Joren swinging his staff at the agile, ever-graceful Zahir who never seemed to miss a step in any drill. Glaring at them for a long moment before fixing the intensity of his disapproval on Vinson and Garvey, who were practicing beside Joren and Zahir. “They underestimate quiet people at their own peril.”
“Perhaps.” Balduin lapsed into a strategic silence as Lord Wyldon approached. Inspecting and correcting the technique of every page he passed. His stern scrutiny detecting fault in everybody.
Lips thin, Lord Wyldon shifted Balduin’s grip on his staff. Sliding it slightly downward. Then crossed over to Roald. Adjusted Roald’s stance with firm, impersonal hands. It felt like Lord Wyldon was constantly correcting his footwork or some other failing, Roald thought with a trace of chagrin.
Satisfied with the improvements he had made to their techniques, Lord Wyldon continued his critical progress along the twin lines of pages. Once he was far enough away to be deemed as out of earshot, Balduin went on as if there had been no interruption. “Seaver being half-Bazhir doesn’t help his case with Joren and his crowd either, I bet.”
“Zahir is Bazhir.” Roald frowned. Forehead furrowing as Sergeant Ezeko hollered for them to switch roles. For the attacking partner to become the defending one. For the tables to turn. As they always, inevitably, did. “Why would he let someone be picked on just for being a Bazhir?”
There was so much in the world he didn’t understand. So much in the human mind and heart that he couldn’t fathom. Was Zahir reflecting like a bitter, broken mirror the hatred he had received for his Bazhir blood onto Seaver? Could hatred seep that deeply into a person?
Considering the dark depths of his own self-doubts and self-loathings, the shadow portions of himself that he kept carefully concealed from others, Roald decided that was a foolish question. Of course hate could seep that deeply into a person. It had sunk that far in him, hadn’t it? A disturbing notion, but not an untrue one.
“Seaver is half-Bazhir.” Balduin blocked the middle strike Roald had delivered reflexively. Following the shouted order without truly hearing it. His mind a million miles away from training. “Not a full-blooded Bazhir like Zahir. I think that makes Zahir’s hatred of Seaver all the stronger. Because Seaver isn’t like him. Not really. Seaver must embody the northern conquest to him. The swallowing of his people’s blood by northerners. Their assimiliation into a larger Tortallan identity. Seaver represents what he fears to be the future of the Bazhir, and people always hate what they fear.”
“Especially if they are pages.” Roald bit his lip. Tasting blood. Not Bazhir blood. Northern blood. Mixed and mingled with that of the proud steppes and lowlands of Sarain. An inheritance from his mother, who was herself half-K’mir and half Sarain lowlander. “Pages don’t know how else to respond to fear than with hatred.”
“Zahir will never show mercy on Seaver.” Balduin’s voice was grim. “He’ll see it as a betrayal of his blood. A forsaking of his family.”
“Seaver can’t expect kindness from Zahir.” Roald nodded. “He might find protection in numbers, however.”
“Protection in numbers?” Balduin’s eyebrow arched. “Like an alliance?”
Roald felt as if he were approaching a wary doe who would flee if he made any sudden movements. Betrayed too much eagerness or excitement. He kept his tone level. Prevented his blood from pounding in his veins. Remained calm. Impassive. “Nothing so formal as that. We are pages, after all. Just dining with Keladry and me. Joining us for study sessions in the evening. Making a larger group less attractive for Joren to attack.”
“I will think about it.” Balduin was independent-minded. A loner. Roald couldn’t expect a greater concession than that from a first conversation. Would be a fool to press for more than that. “Speak with Seaver. See what he wants to do. How he wants to play the situation.”
“He does not have to rush to a decision.” Roald inclined his head. “The offer will remain open.”
Balduin grunted an acknowledgement, and they finished their staff practice in silence.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:21:47 GMT 10
Jokes and Justifications
In that afternoon’s history class, Sir Myles divided the pages into pairs. Announced that they were to discuss with their partners the various reasons why the blossoming wealth of the merchant families who governed the repubican city-states of Tyra, where trade rather than royalty ruled, had led to a corresponding flowering of the arts–of sculpture, poetry, and painting. Then, at the end of the period, they were to report the insights gleaned from their analysis to the rest of the class.
Sir Myles, Roald had noticed in his years as a page, favored discussions–whether in pairs or in the large group that was the entire class–as an instructional method. Seemed to relish the debate it stirred in his students. How it kindled their curiosity and critical thinking.
On this occasion, Roald was pleased to find himself paired with Faleron of King’s Reach. Once Faleron had settled into the seat beside Roald–placing his parchment, quill, and inkwell on the shared desk in front of them–Roald asked as if it were a polite question. As if he didn’t have any information that indicated Merric being hazed to an inordinate degree by the gang of bullies headed by Joren of Stone Mountain. “Does page training agree with your cousin?”
“Doesn’t matter whether it agrees with him or not.” Faleron shrugged. “His mother and father ordered him to come to the palace to train as a knight. Expect him to do so until he is knighted. His mother and mine are sisters. Both the imperious sort who expect to be obeyed without question or argument. And his father angers easily. Not someone who should be crossed lightly. Merric had to get his hot hair and temper from somewhere, didn’t he?”
Roald had met domineering Countess of King’s Reach at court functions and couldn’t dispute Faleron’s depiction of her haughty–borderline imperial–manner. He assumed that Faleron must have likewise hit the bull’s eye in describing the natures of Merric’s mother and father.
“But does he like page training?” Roald persisted quietly.
“He enjoys the yard work well enough.” Faleron toyed idly with his quill. “The classwork bores and frustrates him by turns. He should be grateful his mother and father didn’t dream of him becoming a great scholar. He’d have failed out of university in spectacular fashion after his very first semester.”
“He’s not being hazed by Joren and his crowd then?” Roald posed the question to which he was really interested in learning the answer. The question that everything else had been leading up to. At least in his mind.
“Everyone gets hazed by Joren and his crowd.” Faleron’s lips pressed together. Almost as if he had swallowed something sour. “It’s a rite of passage for first years.”
A horrible rite of passage, Roald thought. Gaze flicking over to the desk where Merric sat, flaming red head bent toward the soft-spoken Seaver of Tasride as they presumably explored the development of art alongside the accumulation of wealth and power in Tyra’s richest families. “But some people get hazed worse than others, and that’s not fair.”
“Life’s not fair,” Faleron reminded him. Calm. Composed. The opposite of his fiery cousin. “Some people are born princes. Others--most people, in fact–are born peasants. No sense raging against what cannot be changed. That would be like trying to stop a flooding river. Just inviting worse disaster.”
Roald flushed at the mention of princes. Recalled his rank and its myriad, dizzying implications. The power to which he had been born. That he had inherited from his parents before he could understand any of its weight. Its import. Maybe it was the spirit of his mother and father infusing him. Urging him to observe. “Maybe things can be changed. Perhaps the river doesn’t have to flood after all.”
“Merric brings much of the abuse on himself.” Faleron sighed. “Whenever Joren and his cronies haze him, he loses his temper. Turns bright red. That makes him an attractive person for them to torment. If he would just keep his cool–not show his fury or embarrassment–there wouldn’t be nearly as much fun in hazing him. The bullies would move on to someone else. That’s what I tell him over and over, but either he doesn’t listen to my advice–closes his ears to it–or he can’t follow it.”
“You expect him to lay down and accept being bullied without a fight?” Even as the words poured out of his astonished, appalled mouth Roald realized with a guilty stomach squirm that a month ago–even a week ago–he would have expected Merric to do the same. Would have encouraged, with no malice intended, for Merric to adopt such a meek posture before the bullies of the pages’ wing, because it was not worth courting the trouble of doing otherwise.
That assuming a policy of appeasement was, under the circumstances, the wiser course. The better part of valor. It was disconcerting to reflect on how wrong his past self could be while regarding himself as right. How cruel while considering himself to be kind. Was everyone prone to such misconceptions and misperceptions of themselves?
“It’s the tradition, isn’t it?” There was the trace of a sharp edge to Faleron’s tone for the first time. “First years are to accept the hazing that initiates them into the pages’ wing and teaches them humility. A trait a person as temperamental as my cousin could stand to learn. Might I add.”
“The tradition isn’t meant to be an excuse for bullying.” Roald shook his head. Decisvie. Unusually so, in fact. “Any custom can be taken too far. Perverted into something it was never intended to be. Any good can become bad if it is allowed to swell without any sense of proportion. That’s what Joren and his followers do. Turn what is supposed to be friendly hazing into abuse that’s meant to cause nothing but pain and shame for the victims. When people twist a custom into something it was never designed to be, surely we have to push back against that. Can’t let them steal and ruin the custom.”
“You say Joren and his friends take the hazing custom too far. Distort it into something it was never intended to be.” Faleron had begun to doodle what appeared to be a castle in the clouds on a stray sheaf of parchment. “Joren and his ilk would sing a tune from a different hymnal. That they are only following tradition. That they aren’t doing anything that wasn’t done to them first.”
A pattern of hurt inflicted over and over on generation after generation of pages. Roald flinched. Imagining that. Picturing himself as part of it. Aiding and abetting it. Tacitly endorsing it by his silence. His refusal to raise his voice in protest against it. “It doesn’t matter what was done to them. Sometimes we have to be better than what was done to us. Otherwise, the world never changes. Nothing ever improves. Injustices endure forever.”
“Joren and company are staunch conservatives.” Faleron’s comment was wry. Arch. “They don’t want anything to change. Ever. The less things change, the better as far as Joren and his allies are concerned.”
Roald smiled slightly. An acknowledgement of the keen point Faleron made. “Then maybe the rest of us have to pressure them into changing.”
“They’ll claim they’re joking.” Faleron’s eyes drifted over to Joren and Zahir. Two handsome boys–one a Bazhir; the other with the cold blood of the far north flowing in his veins–talking indolently about what was probably anything other than the topic Sir Myles had assigned. Not that Roald was in a position to critique them about that. Given that he and Faleron had yet to exchange a word about Tyra. “That anyone who has an issue with what they’re doing is taking it too seriously. Missing the joke. Spoiling the fun.”
Missing the joke and spoiling the fun. The twin kisses of social death in the pages’ wing. Anything else could be survived, but not taking in earnest what was meant as a jest. Not ruining what little levity was allowed to permeate the harsh discipline that pervaded their lives.
“My understanding.” Roald kept his tone bland. Light. Pleasant. Trying to be perfectly princely. “Was that jokes were supposed to be funny to both parties. The one who tells it and the one who hears it. If the recipient is not amused, the joke dies. Ceases to be a joke.”
At least that was what Master Oakbridge had taught him in endless etiquette lessons. Warning him about the dangers jokes represented for princes. About the need to be careful when wielding them lest he wound the delicate feelings and sensibilities of his nobles. Lest he offend those it would be wiser not to affront.
Master Oakbridge, it occurred to him, was very knowledgeable in nuances of protocol. Much less acquainted with the wit and thrusts of jokes. Seeming to have no sense of humor beneath his abiding fear that manners would not be properly adhered to in every situation. Certainly Roald had never heard him offer a clever quip or even crack a faint, crooked grin at another’s wisecrack. Even shield-stiff Lord Wyldon had a more developed sense of humor than Master Oakbridge. Lord Wyldon’s wit might be limited to dryly poking fun at the ineptititudes of pages, but at least it existed. Which was more than could be said of Master Oakbridge’s utterly absent sense of humor.
So, perhaps Roald should not take his guidance on jokes from Master Oakbridge. Who was very likely to steer him astray in the matter. Maybe it would be more prudent to consult with a prankster like Cleon for advice.
“It’s enough that they can claim that.” Faleron’s quill continued to dart across his parchment. Sketching turrets and towers. “It doesn’t have to be true. They just have to convince enough people that it is true or could be true. If they can create even a flicker of doubt about them being wrong, that is enough for them to win. To override any objection. To keep acting as they are.”
“Then we can’t let them create that flicker of doubt,” Roald said. As if he could dictate the thoughts and doubts of others. As if life in the pages’ wing had ever been that simple. That straightforward. That blissfully uncomplicated.
“That’s not all they’ll say.” The scratching of Faleron’s quill halted. A sign a crucial observation was forthcoming. “They’ll accuse you of being a hypocrite, Your Highness. Point out that you engage in the ‘earn your way custom’ yourself. Send first years to fetch and carry things for you. Ask how that’s so different from what they’re doing when they clout first years about the ear for not running their errands fast enough.”
“I’ve never clouted a first year on the ear.” Roald could feel the color draining from his face. Doubtlessly leaving him pale as a sheet. “Do you think I’m being a hypocrite about this, Faleron?”
The charge of hypocrisy. Of unfairness and convenient, self-serving bias. That was the one he feared the most. The one that cut to the core of his identity. His ideal image of himself. His vision of whom he would like to be. What he wished to represent to the world. Embody amidst his fellow pages.
Faleron was silent for a long moment before replying. “No, I don’t believe you’re a hypocrite, Your Highness, but you’ll have an uphill battle through mud convincing Joren and many others that you aren’t. Distinguishing how your form of hazing is acceptable and his isn’t. Drawing a clear line between what you do and what he does. Labeling what he does as evil, and what you do as good. Because the rules about hazing–what is permissible and what is going too far–have never been written down. They’ve just been debated by generations of pages. With flying fists far more often than whirling words.”
Roald frowned. Forehead furrowing as he contemplated this. Flying fists were not his forte. Wars of words far more his strength, but the pages’ wing had always been a tumultuous place that favored violence over reason, and it was unlikely to alter itself solely to suit Roald’s inclinations. Territory governed by unwritten rules also often seemed treacherous and tenuously held to Roald, who much preferred when affairs were ordered by written rules. The ones in dusty legal codes that could always be referenced whenever there was a question of justice.
Unwritten rules only produced chaos, he was certain, but did not have time to ruminate further on this matter, because Sir Myles called the class’s attention with a ringing clap of his hands. Inviting them to share the discoveries they had made in the course their conversations with their partners.
Roald hoped Sir Myles would not ask him to offer such a report. He thought he could cobble together some explanation about people in power always wanting to demonstrate their sophistication–promote themselves as cultured and support the skilled artists in their dominions–but he would still rather not risk humiliating himself.
He was luckly. Sir Myles did not call on him, and when the bell tolled, Roald could resume mulling over the very astute points Faleron had made from every angle. Considering how he could convince his fellow pages that he wasn’t a hypocrite. That Joren and his friends weren’t joking. Were taking the hazing custom too far. Warping it into something that it had never been intended to be. Distorting it into something unrecognizable like a familiar object glimpsed through clouded glass.
This was something his conversation with his father hadn’t prepared him for. The possibility that he would be regarded as a hypocrite if he dared to oppose what Joren and his friends were doing in the pages’ wing. Was this feeling like a sword strike to the heart how Papa felt whenever Roald accused him of hypocrisy during their arguments?
It probably was, he decided with a surge of guilt as he joined the stream of pages exiting the classroom. Continuing down the corridor to their next lesson. A surge of guilt he knew wouldn’t be enough to stay his tongue from unleashing another accusation of hypocrisy whenever he believed his father was being unjust. He had his stubborn, dark side after all. Perhaps all sons did when their wills clashed with their fathers. Especially if those fathers and sons happened to be Contes.
Maybe he was a hypocrite. Perhaps it was a trait that could be passed from father to son like stubbornness. A poison pounding through the veins. An inherited corruption.
But maybe it was worth being a hypocrite–or being perceived as such--to end bullying in the pages’ wing. Perhaps hypocrisy was nothing more than a matter of flawed perception. Not a true charge at all despite the bitterness that always underlay it.
Or perhaps that was just him attempting–feebly–to justify his own hypocrisy to himself. An effort to preserve his sanity. To protect himself from the excessive self-doubt to which he was prone.
A failed effort if that was the case, he thought grimly as he came to his next class. Sat down in his chair. Prepared to endure a long lecture on some excruciatingly dull subject. His self-doubt was plaguing him again. His mind a garden overrun with weeds.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:22:21 GMT 10
Beauty and Blind Hatred
“My mama is half K’mir.” Roald had sought out Buri in the stables where the Riders kept their ponies when stationed at the palace to puzzle over matters of blood and bullying. He had gone to his godsfather for advice, and so saw no reason why he shouldn’t consult with his godsmother as well. Drawing wisdom from all sources like a river soaking in water from multiple tributaries seemed to be the most prudent course open to him as he appeared incapable of generating insights and solutions for himself. He was but a mirror for reflecting the brightness of others. “You are a full-blooded K’mir. Yet you do not hate her.”
“She is my best friend, and I have been her guardian since we were children.” Buri gave a short, sharp laugh as she brushed her pony’s proud mane. “Why should I hate her?”
“Because she is the daughter of Adigun jin Wilima.” Roald stroked at the pony’s long nose. Soothing himself more than the four-legged creature. “Who oppressed the K’mir and made it illegal for them–a people defined by their clans–to meet in large groups.”
“She and her mother begged him not to do that. Got down on her knees with folded hands and begged from the bottom of her heart. Only time she ever begged her stone-hearted father for anything, and he refused her with laughter in his eyes.” Buri untangled a knot in the pony’s hair as she told Roald something he had never known. Something he found impossible to imagine. His mother was the epitome of elegance, poise, and strength to him. It was unfathomable to him that she should fall on her knees and plead with anyone for anything. A portrait his mind couldn’t paint. Didn’t want to paint. “Should I hate the innocent child for the crimes of her father when she did all she could to renounce those crimes?”
“Being half lowlander didn’t she embody everything evil the lowlanders had done to the K’mir, though?” Roald persisted. Recalling what Balduin had claimed about Zahir’s burning resentment of Seaver of Tasride. “Doesn’t she represent how the lowlanders tried to subjugate the highlanders and force them to assimilate into the lowlander culture? Doesn’t she symbolize that attempt to eradicate the K’miri?”
“That attempt was unsuccessful.” Buri shook her head. Lips thin. “K’miri blood flows on in your mother. In you. In your siblings. She is not ashamed of her K’miri blood. Are you of yours?”
Her question was too keen. So keen that Roald ran a finger along his nose. The single feature on his face that indicated his K’miri heritage. The only sign–apart from a deep affection for horses inherited from his mother–of the K’miri blood in his veins. “No. Of course not.”
He had spoken quickly. Rather too quickly if Buri’s hawk-eyed observation was any manner of judging. “You rub your nose just like your mother.”
“I know.” Roald nodded. Continuing to rub at his nose. A gesture repeated from his mother, because what was he except a strange amalgamation of his parents’ traits and tendencies?
“You have her nose too.” Buri’s brush had dropped to the pony’s lean, agile body now. “Her father mocked her for her nose. Called it and her ugly. Claimed that it marked her as a savage. Betrayed her vile K’mir blood.”
Roald’s stomach churned. He remembered being six-years-old. Approaching his father with his fears about his nose being ugly after Joren of Stone Mountain had stated in no uncertain and none too polite terms that it wasn’t truly Tortallan. His papa assuring him that it was handsome and Tortallan because he was Tortallan.
He had a father who loved him enough to comfort him in that way. How terrible and lonely would it have felt to have a father who called you ugly? Tried to hammer at the fissures in your confidence until your self-esteem cracked? Until you broke along with your ability to value yourself?
His mother had grown up with a father like that. It made Roald sick to contemplate that.
“She’s the most beautiful woman in the world.” Roald’s chin lifted. He supposed any son decently schooled in chivalry would be fierce in the defense of his mother’s beauty, but most sons did not have a mother called the Peerless. For most sons, it would be exaggeration. For him, it was simply truth. “How could anyone call her ugly?”
“Your grandfather hated the K’mir with every bitter bone in his body.” Buri’s tone was brusque. She was a woman who never yielded to sentiment. “Your mother is the most beautiful woman in the world but when your grandfather looked at her, all he could see was her ugly K’mir nose. That is how much hatred blinded him from the truth because people see only what they want to see. If all they want to see is ugliness, they see it everywhere. In everyone and everything. Your grandfather hated the K’mir blindly and without reason. If I hated lowlanders in the same way, how would I be different from him?”
“The lowlanders were brutal. Inflicting much suffering on the K’mir.” Roald bit his lip. Thinking of what northerners–and Contes–had done to the Bazhir. Things that never should have happened in any history, but all too often did. A grief that crossed borders. “Committed many grave injustices.”
“Yes, but the K’miri survived them.” Buri was combing through the pony’s sleek tail now. “Every culture that wishes to endure must adapt and assimilate with others. None of us can afford to be blinded by our hatred.”
Roald considered this. Pulled a carrot from his pocket. Offered it to the pony, who nudged at his palm, despite Buri’s clucked admonishment that he was spoiling her pony. Turning the animal into a lazy pet who lived by begging for treats.
He switched to another avenue of inquiry that would not seem connected on the surface but was linked in his mind and the beating heart of his experience. “You lead the Riders. Do you often have to deal with trainees bullying one another?”
“I do not.” Buri’s response was dry as the hay strewn across the stable’s wooden plank floor. “I leave that sort of mothering to Sarge. Once I am commanding them in the field, they are usually broken to bridle and understand the difference between good-natured ribbing between comrades-at-arms and unacceptable bullying. The sort of bullying I never tolerate from my Riders.”
“The difference between good-natured ribbing and bullying.” Roald squirmed and tried to pretend he did so only because the pony was licking at his fingers in search of another carrot. Not because he was awkwardly aware of how he could be accused of being a bully for making first years run errands for him. Even if he had only meant it as a welcoming ritual. An honored tradition in which he had partaken himself as a first year. “That can be hard to determine sometimes, can’t it?”
So hard to determine that maybe someone could be a bully without realizing it. Perhaps he had done that. Become a bully without ever setting out to be.
“Not to the victim.” Buri’s gaze was stern. Firm and unwavering. “The victim almost always knows whether it is a friendly joke or bullying.”
“If it’s bullying–” Roald tugged his hand away from the pony’s incessant licking– “those with power act to stop it, don’t they?”
His last, desperate hope. That adults would intervene and stop the bullying if they saw it. So he wouldn’t have to act. Take a stand for himself. Risk rocking the boat in that way. Perhaps causing it to sink.
“Not always.” Buri shook her head. “Sometimes they condone it or engage in it themselves. Other times, they don’t seek to end it, which is just as bad.”
Roald swallowed. He could try to delude himself that he possessed no power in the pages’ wing–that all authority resided with Lord Wyldon and the masters appointed to teach them–but that would be nothing more than a flattering lie. He was the Crown Prince. He had power in the pages’ wing. Wherever he went in Tortall.
He had been born to power. He was sensitive to the double-edged blade of that. A scything sword that he couldn’t always control. The reason why he constantly strove to be judicious in his use of the power and privilege that came with his rank.
Yet, denying a power and privilege did not make it disappear, and sometimes abdication was a betrayal to those who expected you to draw on your power to shield them. To ensure that justice was done to them. It wasn’t always a mercy to refrain from acting. Papa had tried to teach him that. Sometimes it was a cruelty and a treachery. A cruelty and a treachery he might have been guilty of unintentionally in the pages’ wing but what did intent matter to those who had suffered from his negligence?
He now understood why his parents so often felt they could not wait to change the realm. Why they sometimes seemed to burst with impatience. To lack moderation and be dominated by passionate muleheadedness.
“There’s bullying in the pages’ wing.” Roald wished he could massage his temples without smearing pony saliva all over his face. “I want to stop it, but I don’t know how. Should I get into fistfights? Violently oppose the bullies?”
Buri was silent for a minute before saying, “I am just a commander and bloody-minded warrior. You are a prince who will one day be king. I’m not fit to advise you.”
“You advise my mother.” Roald’s forehead furrowed. “And she is a queen who was once a princess.”
“I advise her in archery. Riding. Military matters.” Buri waved a dismissive hand. “Not political affairs.”
“Fistfights in the pages’ wing are a political affair now?” Roald asked. A question to which he knew the answer. Sometimes he couldn’t resist feigning ignorance. Ignorance could be so much easier than knowledge. At twelve, he was just beginning to comprehend that. The weight of knowledge and power gathering like thunderclouds about his shoulders.
“For you they are.” Buri shot him a severe look. Piercing as any arrow fired from her bow. “You know that. You are already more politically astute than I am. You can conduct yourself appropriately at banquets and everything.”
“I could conduct myself appropriately at banquets since I was five-years-old.” Roald noted inwardly that there was no way he could have avoided developing this knowledge under the strict, unstinting tutelage of Master Oakbridge since the moment he could walk.
“And I never could.” Buri smirked, flashing white teeth, as if this cinched the issue. “So there you are.”
“Only because you don’t want to learn.” Roald grinned crookedly. Having heard his mother venture more than one remark to this effect.
“See. You are very politically shrewd. Just like your mother.” Content as a cat who had lapped up a bowl of warm milk, Buri leaned back against the wall of her pony’s stall. “You are a cautious, considering type, Roald. Not one to charge heedlessly into a situation without measuring and calculating all the angles first. That is not a bad thing. Hot blood can get people killed on and off the battlefield. I always tell my more impetuous young Riders that fools rush in where Horse Lords tremble to tread to discourage their wildly heroic impulses.”
“Lord Wyldon wouldn’t approve of that advice,” Roald commented. Thinking of how the training master had raced by himself into a nursery invaded by hurrocks and stormwings to rescue Liam, Jasson, and Lianne.
“No, he would not,” Buri agreed. Her broad face with high cheekbones and square chin alight with humor. “That is because he is a hero of the realm. Fools and heroes are always cut from the same cloth. Both tend to die in dramatic ways and not live very long.”
“And you aren’t a hero?” Roald arched a skeptical eyebrow.
“I am a commander.” Buri huffed. Lifting her short, snub nose in the air. “We are much less reckless than heroes and have a much better chance of dying of old age in our creaky beds.”
“Whatever you say.” Roald inclined his head though he wasn’t entirely convinced by her protestations. Ever since he was a small boy, he had always regarded Buri as one of his personal heroes and a hero of the realm. Someone he could admire for her courage and resilience against even the most daunting opposition.
“Your mother is a queen. You should ask her for advice on how to handle bullies in the pages’ wing.” Buri switched the topic back to his earlier question so swiftly that Roald almost felt dizzy.
“My godsfather tells me to consult with my father. My godsmother with my mother.” Roald couldn’t resist grumbling. “What is the point of having godsparents who refuse to advise me for themselves when I seek their counsel?”
“To clout your ears when you get too big for your breeches because your indulgent parents fail to do that.” Buri aimed a teasing cuff at Roald’s ear, which he ducked. Not particularly wanting his ear to ring like a bell. His godsmother had hard hands. Something he should remember to complain to his mother about. Except his mother would probably just scold him for irritating her best friend. “And to make you talk to your parents because, like all young people, you are apparently too thick-headed to think of speaking to them for yourself no matter how much you would benefit from their guidance.”
“Godsfather Gary doesn’t clout my ears.” Roald pouted. Aware that he was risking another clout to the ear with this impertinence.
“Then he spoils you rotten as your parents and isn’t half as smart as he thinks he is.” Buri’s brisk tone suggested that concluded the matter. “Run along and leave me in peace with the ponies now. If I had wanted a child, I would’ve given birth to one myself.”
Roald suspected that Buri’s children were all of the four-legged variety but didn’t venture to share the notion aloud. Not wanting to try Buri’s scant reserves of patience more than he already had with his questions and impudence.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:23:31 GMT 10
Cornered
“Mama.” Roald came to his mother’s solar on Sunday morning after the dawn rites to Mithros in the palace chapel that Lord Wyldon forced all pages to attend under threat of his punishment and displeasure had concluded. Bowed to her and kissed her formally on the fingers and cheeks. The portrait of a dutiful son respectfully greeting a beloved and revered mother. Master Oakbridge would’ve been proud that the seeds of his etiquette instruction had not fallen on barren soil, Roald was sure. “I humbly beseech your counsel about a matter in the pages’ wing.”
“You may go.” Mama dismissed her ladies with a hand wave. She always preferred to advise her children alone when she could. One of many things Roald had taken a careful note of over the years. As the curtsying ladies streamed out of the solar, Mama patted the cushion–a colorful, thick fabric that looked imported from Maren–beside her on the windowseat where she perched in a golden river of sunlight.
As Roald slipped into the seat beside her, Mama asked with a wry arch to her tone, “You humbly beseech my counsel in a matter pertaining to the pages’ wing even though I have never been a page and have no knowledge of the pages’ wing as Lord Wyldon so bluntly put it?”
“He said that to you?” Roald blinked. Astonished by the audacity of the training master. He had known Lord Wyldon was fearless–only a very bold man would have confronted a knot of enraged hurrocks and stormwings by himself after all–but there was a difference between bravery and offending royalty. It was hard to imagine the stiff, severe training master being so insubordinate to the Crown he had sworn to serve. Perhaps proved that Lord Wyldon was human–with all the fallibility that entailed–and that there were no true, uncomplicated and unquestionable, heroes of the realm.
“He did.” Mama had a certain smile like the thin, slicing edge of a razor blade. She gave it now. “Seemed to think I was too obtuse to comprehend the rather straightforward rules of the pages’ wing all because I dared to defend you when he was in a towering temper about you sponsoring Keladry of Mindelan.”
“Oh.” Roald flushed to the roots of his black hair. Torn between gratitude that his mother had advocated on his behalf and chagrin that it had been necessary for her to do so. Fools and heroes rushed in where Horse Lords trembled to tread. Buri had told him that in the stables. Did that mean Roald was a hero? Or a fool? Or both? Were heroes always fools because they were cut from the same cloth as Buri had remarked?
Were princes even allowed to be heroes? He knew they could be fools–usually when excessive royal inbreeding produced disastrous results–and their lands invariably suffered when they did, but could they be heroes without making their realms bleed for their hotheadnesses? Did their countries always pay the price for their lack of moderation? For their failure to consider the consequences of their actions before charging headlong into the fray? As Roald had arguably done when he volunteered to sponsor Kel. Offending Lord Wyldon and upsetting the eternally sensitive balance of the pages’ wing.
Roald couldn’t puzzle out the answers to any of those questions. Probably that was part of being young and foolish in a world that had little patience for either. He did know, however, that his mother was a formidable ally to have in his corner in any fight, and that she deserved his appreciation for her staunch defense of what Buri would doubtlessly term his wildly heroic impulses. Wildly heroic impulses that she would wish to snuff out of a Rider trainee. But he wasn’t a Rider trainee. He was a prince and a page. Whatever those two warring identities meant.
“Thank you, Mama.” Roald expressed the gratitude he did feel with every bone in his body.
“No need to thank me.” Mama’s smile softened into something less sharp. Something more affectionate. “You are my son, you broke no rules, and you did the right thing. It’s my duty to defend you when you break no rules and do the right thing. Now, what is it you need my counsel about in the pages’ wing?”
“There’s bullying in the pages’ wing.” Roald tried to describe the convuluted situation as succinctly and accurately as possible. “Boys who take the earning your way custom too far. Who pervert it into something it was never meant to be. Who turn it into an excuse to beat on younger pages instead of making them run tiny, harmless errands.”
“If there’s bullying in the pages’ wing, then you must oppose it,” Mama declared. As if it were that simple. Maybe it always was that simple to an outsider, and Mama was an outsider to the pages’ wing after all. As Lord Wyldon had most ungraciously pointed out to her before.
“Even if I oppose it, I won’t be able to stop all the bullying.” Roald struggled to make his mother see that it wasn’t that simple. That straightforward. No matter what she might believe from outside the pages’ wing.
“You won’t.” She agreed, and Roald gaped at this admission. At how swiftly he had drawn a concession from one of his notoriously stubborn parents. Only for her to continue, smooth as water rippling over a stone, “But at least you will know that you did everything you could to end it. Everything in your power to stamp it out.”
She seemed to take pity on his obvious confusion. “Ever since your father and I took our thrones, Roald, there have been naysayers quick to cast doubt on the feasibility of any change we wish to make. To suggest that it is some lofty ideal that will never work in the ugliness of the real world we are apparently supposed to never try to make any better. They insist at great length that because we cannot change everything–that we can’t right every wrong or fix every injustice–that we must therefore be content with doing nothing. This is, of course, the great deception and distortion of our enemies that would trick us into inaction and ineffectiveness. A distortion and deception that conveniently misses that our efforts are less scattered and more strategic than this lie claims. There is a method to our madness as the saying goes.”
“We are only mad when the wind blows north-northwest, but when it is southerly, we know a hawk from a handsaw.” Roald finished the well-worn quote first written by a celebrated Tusaine poet centuries ago.
“Indeed.” His mother nodded. Evidently pleased he recognized the line.
He cut through her pleasure when he continued, “But things aren’t that simple for me in the pages’ wing, Mama. They’re more complicated than that.”
“Living in the pages’ wing is more complicated than ruling an entire kingdom?” Mama arched an eyebrow. Tone dry but not quite mocking in a manner only she could manage. “Do tell.”
“If I oppose bullying in the pages’ wing too stridently–” Roald took a deep breath. Bracing himself for a confession that would likely earn his mother’s censure– “I will be accused of being a hypocrite.”
The one charge he couldn’t stand to have leveled against him. Even if it was true. Perhaps especially if it was true? Was there any weapon more painful to have deployed against you than the merciless, unvarnished, and unflattering truth?
“Why would you be accused of being a hypocrite, son?” Mama’s question was soft. Dangerously so under the circumstances, Roald thought.
“Because–” Roald’s cheeks flamed and his fingers tugged anxiously at his britches– “I’ve sent first years on minor errands and some will pretend that’s the same as beating on first years when it’s not.”
“You mean.” Mama’s nostrils flared. “That when you spoke of bullying in the pages’ wing, you referred to your own as well.”
“I did not!” Roald’s voice had risen. Frustrated beyond the bounds of courtesy by his mother’s infuriating implacability and imperiousness. “I’ve never been a bully. Never!”
“Don’t shout at me, Roald!” Mama snapped. Her hazel eyes narrow as the slits in a rampart from which arrows were fired when a castle was under siege. “I am your mother, and you owe me the respect of not shouting at me.”
He did, in fact, owe her that respect. Every Mithran priest and priestess of the Goddess from the City of the Gods in the far north to Pearlsmouth in the distant south would swear to that until they were blue in the face.
“I wasn’t shouting, Mama.” Roald bowed his head. Indulging in a falsehood or at least stretching the truth because it was useful for him to do so. “It’s just you weren’t listening to me so I had to speak up so you could hear me.”
He realized, belatedly, that came too close to blaming his mother for his own rudeness. What an idiot he was. It was a marvel that he could last a moment without putting his foot in his mouth.
“I do not have to listen to your impudence or your clumsy attempts to excuse your bullying.” Mama’s eyes were hard as the granite peaks of the northern mountains. She gestured sharply at the corner beside the marble fireplace where crimson-tongued flames burned against the crisp chill of an autumn morning as the season steadily progressed toward the frigid gray of winter.
A stone corner devoid of the tapestries–embroidered with heroic and romantic scenes from ballads–that plastered the rest of the room’s walls. A corner to which her children were often banished when they were in disgrace. A corner to which Roald hadn’t been relegated in years. Not since he had begun his page training. A corner which he had rather naively hoped he had outgrown.
His mother apparently felt differently. For she ordered, crisp and chilly as the autumn air whipping against the window, “Go stand in the corner and think about everything you have done wrong. I can’t remember the last time I was so disappointed in your behavior.”
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:24:11 GMT 10
A Clean Slate
“Mama,” Roald reflexively protested the command. Striving to sound rational and mature. Far too rational and mature to be banished to a boring corner to contemplate how much of a disappointment he was. “I’m not six. I’m twelve.”
Maybe Mama had taken temporary leave of her senses and confused him with Vania. Or else had forgotten how old he was.
“Yes, you are.” Mama was cool as a glacier. Icily unaffected by what he considered to be his very logical and convincing appeal. “So I think it would be appropriate for you to stand in the corner for twelve minutes.”
A moment in the corner for each year the child in question had been alive. That was Mama’s rule. A policy she apparently felt no need to modify despite Roald’s increasing age and maturity. Obviously being determined to humiliate him as much as possible.
“I’m too old to stand in the corner, Mama.” Roald was starting to crack. To whine like a spoiled toddler denied a treat after a temper tantrum. Heard it. Hated it.
“You’re my son, and you’ll never be too old to be sent to the corner as long as I think you can learn from it.” Mama pointed at the corner again. “Nose to the wall. No moving and no talking.”
Roald decided that further argument was futile. Akin to screaming against the wind in a rainstorm. None too graciously, he surrendered to the inevitable. Emitting a long-suffering sigh, he pushed himself off the cushioned windowseat. Suppressed the urge to stomp his feet into the thick, muffling carpet on the grounds that it would only enhance his resemblance to a petulant toddler and would probably earn him extra minutes in the corner. Provoke his mother into punishing him more.
When his nose was planted in the corner–his face obscured from her view–he did permit himself the rebellion of an eye roll. With a cresting surge of bitterness in his chest, he wished his nature was as violent and volatile as Liam’s. When Liam was seven and sentenced to corner time by their mother, he had smashed his forehead against the stone wall until it bruised. Until Mama summoned Papa to heal it. Liam had never been exiled to the corner again after that. Been disciplined in different, less shameful ways ever since that long ago day.
Perhaps Roald, too, could have escaped the ignominy of corner time if he were the type to bash his head against a stone wall when feeling defiant. Angry at confronting an obstacle to his will. Yet, his was a less fiery, more sneaky temperament. He preferred to address challenges less directly. More obliquely. Slithering through the cracks where he could find them. Slipping through the chinks in armor. Discovering the loopholes in rules. His was almost always the subtle approach.
He couldn’t fathom being another way. Found himself unable to imagine how his younger brother could bear to bash his own head against a stone wall until it bruised no matter how obstinate Liam might have felt. He simply was not capable of being that obdurate.
His reward for that–for being the tractable, obedient son–was that he continued to be banished to the corner of shame Liam had escaped years ago. It wasn’t fair. The injustice rankled. Adding to the sense of insult and injury he felt. Persuading him that his present predicament was by far the most embarrassing one he could be expected to endure.
As if the indifferent universe or some cruel deity had decided to test him on this, the situation became even more humiliating when the door to the solar swung open. Morbidly curious to see who had arrived to witness his disgrace, Roald twisted his neck around to realize with a clenching of his stomach that it was his father who had entered.
Roald stifled a grimace as he watched his father step over to a wooden table to retrieve some document he must have forgotten. No doubt Papa would wish to know Roald’s offense so he could scold Roald thoroughly for it.
“My apologies for the intrusion, my dear.” Papa nodded to Mama as he gathered up the document from the table and strode toward the door. Before he departed, he added tersely to Roald, “Come to my study when your mother is done speaking with you, son.”
“Yes, Papa.” Roald hid his scowl by turning back to the concealing corner. Deciding that it was the safest place to channel his resentment.
Once the door had shut behind Papa, Roald took a deep breath. Let it swirl through his nostrils and down into his lungs. Held his breath for a moment. Almost as if he were meditating as Kel had taught him. Tried to soothe himself by picturing himself as a serene mountain lake or garden pond undisturbed by tossed pebbles.
He shouldn’t have been disrespectful of his mother, he told himself. Shouldn’t have raised his voice at her or argued with her. Should have accepted her correction gracefully and gratefully like a proper son. Meekly absorbed the counsel he had claimed to humbly ask for at the outset of their conversation. Apologized for disappointing her. Resolved to do better going forward.
He might not have been banished to the corner if he had been able to swallow his pride enough to do that. If he hadn’t bristled instinctively at the implication that he and some of the people he respected the most and counted true friends–Gilmyn, the dead Blair, Faleron, and Cleon–were in their bullies. Who, after all, would want to view himself and his most trusted friends as bullies? Probably even Joren of Stone Mountain and his ilk did not like to envision themselves as bullies. Preferred to regard themselves as behaving within the bounds of tradition. Acting according to prescribed custom.
Twelve minutes must have passed while he reigned in his temper and considered thus for his mother’s voice, gentler now, interrupted his musings, “You may come out of the corner, Roald, and we will continue our conversation.”
When he was little, he would have run to her. Apologies tripping from his tongue in an incoherent babble. Arms open wide so they could fling about her in a hug as soon as he reached her. As a child, he could never bear to have her angry at him for long. Her disapproval broke something inside him. Shattered his resistance like a rock hurled through stained glass.
Now that he was older, he felt less bold and more awkward in his repentance. He came to her. Bowed. “Forgive me, Mama. I should not have argued with you or shouted at you. It was disrespectful of me to do so.”
“You are forgiven, of course, Roald.” Mama patted the windowseat in an invitation for him to sit beside her again. When he accepted the invitation, sinking down beside her, she cupped her palms around his heated cheeks. “Your disrespect–your shouting at me and arguing with me–wasn’t what upset me the most, though. Wasn’t the main reason I sent you to the corner.”
“I know.” Roald sighed raggedly. “You were upset because you believed I was being a bully in the pages’ wing, but I never thought I was being a bully when I ordered first-years to run stupid little errands for me.”
“I understand you didn’t.” Mama pinched the bridge of her nose. The K’miri nose he had inherited from her. The nose she hated. The nose her father had made her hate. Bullying her for it. Calling it and her ugly, Buri had said. No wonder Mama had such a fierce loathing of bullies. Fierce as Keladry of Mindelan’s. “But you can be a bully without intending to be. Especially if you are Crown Prince and people don’t dare risk offending you.”
An echo in his mother’s words of what Cleon had pointed out to him earlier about how even Lord Wyldon would feel compelled to heed a royal command. Why hadn’t he listened to Cleon?
“I didn’t mean to pull rank.” Roald yanked at his earlobe until it hurt. If there was one thing Mama didn’t have much patience for in her children, it was them taking advantage of their privileges. Acting entitled instead of as if they owed the realm and everyone in it their service. “To draw on royal privilege or any of that.”
What he did and what he intended could be leagues apart. He was having that lesson hammered into his thick skull over and over again lately. He had the best of intentions and not the best of results all too often to his sorrow and chagrin.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” he finished feebly. Feeling that apologies were becoming something of a miserable refrain for him.
“Be at peace, and do not worry too much about it, Roald.” Mama patted his cheek. “Good people may make mistakes. Misjudgments. Miscalculations. That does not make them wicked. Especially once they acknowledge their errors and resolve to do better in the future.”
“Gilmyn, Blair, Faleron, and Cleon all sent first-years fetching things.” Roald bit his lip. Not liking to think of the dead Blair in particular as less than perfect. As human and flawed. Fallible even though trying to be good. “None of them are evil.”
“No, none of them are,” his mother agreed. “It is all too easy for people to perpetuate what they think are harmless traditions without noticing the damage they do. That does not make them bad people. Just occasionally oblivious ones.”
“Now I’m aware of the damage I did.” Roald swallowed. His stint in the corner combined with his mother’s lecture had driven that home to him. “I just can’t figure out how to fix it. How to move forward when any change I try to make will just get me slapped with the label of hypocrite.”
“Your way forward is clear.” Mama smiled crookedly at him as if he were getting bogged down in a misty marsh that didn’t exist. “You must do in the pages’ wing what you have done with me.”
“Argue and raise my voice?” Roald’s forehead knotted. Recalling with bewilderment what had banished him to the corner.
“No.” Mama chuckled. Her laughter flowing from her like a rich, warm river. “Apologize. That is how you wipe a dirty slate clean. How you begin again twice as wise.”
“Admit I am wrong.” Roald’s eyes widened as he understood what his mother was telling him. Teaching him. “Give my opponents’ attacks less sting by confessing my mistakes and misjudgments. Being open about how I plan to improve in the future.”
“Yes, and do the right thing morally as well.” Mama tapped his chin affectionately. “Don’t forget that in your pursuit of strategy.”
“I won’t.” Earnestly Roald wrapped his arms around her as he had done when he was little. Still seeking the comfort that only she could provide. The solid, beautiful assurance that was his mother. “I love you, Mama, and I’m grateful for your counsel.”
Something he should have said much earlier in the conversation.
“I love you too.” Mama kissed his forehead in what felt like a benediction and a farewell. “Now go speak with your father.”
“Go get thoroughly chastised by him, you mean.” Roald groaned inwardly. Resigned to the daunting prospect of a paternal tongue-lashing.
“Not so thoroughly as you fear.” Mama ruffled his hair. Black as midnight. Black as hers. Then nudged him off the windowseat toward what felt like his doom. “He’s never as fearsome a monster as you build him up to be in your head.”
It was, Roald thought as he made his way toward his papa’s study with all the excitement of a convict climbing the gallows to be greeted by the eternal embrace of the hangman’s noose, in the nature of sons to fear their fathers. To sculpt and shape them into monsters in their minds. Didn’t share this notion with his mother, however. His mother whose own father had beaten her.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:24:39 GMT 10
Too Big and Too Old
Roald reached his father’s study rather too quickly for his liking. The hallway separating his mama’s solar from his papa’s study not nearly long enough to suit his current tastes and purposes. Feeling like a general contemplating an assault on an enemy fortification, he stared at the study’s closed door. A barrier that now looked as intimidating and impenetrable as any castle drawbridge locked against invasion.
Standing before the door to his father’s study, Roald realized how much he had come to be wary of this room. To dread the lectures he inevitably received within its walls. Papa apparently finding it a convenient, private place to reprimand him.
The study hadn’t always provoked that sense of mounting apprehension in him whenever he approached it, Roald recalled with sorrow-tinged nostalgia as he took a steeling breath and knocked on the door. Once the study had been the place where Papa taught him chess. Where he had sat on Papa’s lap when he came to hug and kiss his father good night. Before he had grown too big to sit on anyone’s lap. Or decided that he had.
That hadn’t been that long ago, he tried to tell himself, but couldn’t quite make himself believe it. It felt as if it had happened to some other boy–a stranger–a million years ago.
“Come in!” Papa’s shouted command cut through Roald’s musings like a knife through flesh and blood.
Bracing himself for the impending scolding, Roald obeyed. Opening the door. Stepping through it with the caution associated with trespassing upon a spidren’s well-guarded lair. Shutting the door because he knew that would be the next order even if it made him feel even more trapped. Confined in a tight space where he existed only to be condemned.
“Have a seat, Roald.” Papa crossed over to a sunlit sofa by a window overlooking a garden where the last hardy fall flowers bloomed vibrant orange, crimson, and yellow in defiance of oncoming winter. The same sofa where Roald had learned to play chess. Where Papa had often let him win without making it obvious that he was doing so. A subtle kindness Roald could only appreciate now that he was older. Grown bigger.
Silently, Roald joined his father on the couch. Leaving as much of a gap between them as he could without being considered rude.
“You are twelve,” Papa reminded Roald. As if he could’ve forgotten his age. How many years he had been alive. “Far too old to be sent to the corner.”
“That’s what I told Mama.” Roald made an exasperated noise. “She wouldn’t listen to me.”
His parents rarely seemed to listen to him, he thought. The eternal plight of the unheard adolescent.
“Far too old to behave in ways that get you sent to the corner, I should’ve said,” Papa amended. Steepled his fingers and glanced sternly over them at Roald as if he suspected Roald was trying to wriggle out of trouble.
That strictly speaking, did not require a response. Roald didn’t give one. Choosing to remain quiet. Almost sulkily so. Figuring that he couldn’t regret words that he had never said. Pressing his lips together in a thin, unhappy line.
Papa went on into the silence dividing them. Pronouncing as if it were an extended mercy, “I won’t ask for the details of what banished you to the corner, son. I will only order you not to repeat the transgression.”
Papa might have seen that failure to inquire into specifics as grace shown, but Roald could only perceive it as an unfairness. Another injustice committed against him that made his resentment of his father swell like an infected wound that could kill.
“You don’t ask, but you do judge and condemn,” Roald muttered under his breath. Tongue stinging with a vinegar bitterness. “You take Mama’s side without knowing what happened.”
“She’s my wife and your mother.” Papa arched an eyebrow. “Does it truly shock you that I would take her side in all things?”
Roald scowled. Papa didn’t take Mama’s side in all things. Roald had heard enough arguments waged between his parents over the years to recognize that wasn’t the case no matter what rosy picture his father painted on the contrary. His parents did, however, present a united front when it came to disciplining the children. Never letting their offspring witness any disagreements about that.
“You aren’t fair, and you’re a hypocrite.” The spiteful words hissed from Roald’s mouth like serpent’s venom before he could stop them. “Mama sent me to the corner because she thought I was bullying first years when I had them run errands for me as part of the earning-your-way custom, but you did worse when you were a page. You ordered Ralon of Malven not to speak in your presence.”
Papa looked rather stunned by the torrent of resentment that had spilled from Roald. Clasped Roald’s shoulders firmly. “Have I yelled at you at all during this discussion, son?”
“No, Papa.” Roald swallowed a remorseful lump in his throat. Shaking his head. Feeling miserable and ashamed of the accusations he had hurled at his father. Wondered what kind of son dared to think and say such horrid things about the man who had sired him. Who had raised him with love. “You haven’t.”
“Then–” Papa gave Roald’s shoulders a light shake– “I would appreciate it if you didn’t speak so harshly to me.”
A very reasonable and mild request for a father to make of an insubordinate son under the circumstances, Roald knew and almost wished that his papa had unleashed a scathing rebuke that would have rendered Roald’s outburst more justified in hindsight. His insides felt twisted as his confused mind.
“Yes, Papa.” Roald bit his lip. Piercing the tender skin. Tasting the copper tang of blood. “Forgive my impertinence.”
“I forgive you.” Papa sighed. “I suppose you heard that Ralon of Malven story from your dear Godsfather Gary?”
“Yes, Papa.” Roald’s gaze dropped to the carpet covering the stone floor. Depicting a wild hunt where Roald was definitely represented by the speared boar. He felt skewered by his father’s question. Driven to ground. Trapped and tricked into betraying the godsfather from whom he had sought counsel. Who had always been kind to him. Showering him with gifts and affection. Making him laugh at witty jokes and stories. Lifting appealing eyes to his father, he added earnestly, “Please don’t be angry at Godsfather Gary. He was only trying to advise me. To help me.”
“I’m not angry at your godsfather or you.” Papa’s lips quirked into a crooked smile. “You both only spoke the truth as you saw it. It’s a grave injustice to be angry at a man for speaking the truth as he sees it, and I do try to be fair with you, Roald, because I understand you value justice above all else.”
“I know you try to treat me fairly, Papa.” Roald’s cheeks flamed. Desperate to atone for his insolence, he continued, “I wouldn’t value fairness as much as I do if you hadn’t taught me the importance of justice. We become what our parents teach us. What they value.”
He thought that was a rather profound insight for a lad of twelve. Perhaps Papa believed the same for he ruffled Roald’s hair. Rippling it through his fingers like weeds drifting in a soft river current. “A very gracious and judicious perspective, but not an entirely true one. How highly you esteem justice is something innate to you. A value you were born with and cultivated yourself to a degree I did not. You value justice above everything else. I do not.”
“What–” Roald risked the question. Trying to scale part of the chasm between him and his father. “Do you value most, Papa?”
“Greatness.” Papa’s eyes were alight with the vision of some bright future only he could see. “The shining vision of what this realm could be if I can transform it into everything I believe it could be.”
“Spinning straw into gold like the miller’s daughter,” Roald murmured. Remembering and alluding to a traditional bedtime story his nursemaid Anwen had wove for him when she tucked him beneath his blankets at night. Back when he had been young enough to believe in fairy tales and happily ever afters.
His father’s fingers suddenly felt heavy in his hair as the weight of his birth settled over his shoulders. He was the vessel into which his father’s ambitions were poured. The channel into which all his father’s dreams streamed. The firstborn who was expected to be the living legacy of a great king. It was a blessing and a curse to be the heir of a man who would be remembered by history for centuries. To try to be a golden child worthy of that inheritance. To not be cast into shadow by its all-encompassing brilliance.
“Sometimes I make a botch of it.” Papa was wry. As he often was in his most honest moments. Roald had noticed that with the keenness of a son eager to please his father. “As I did when I ordered Ralon of Malven not to speak in my presence when we were pages. It incited a deep loathing in him that eventually gave rise to treason on my coronation day.”
“Mama thinks I should apologize for making first years run errands.” Roald ducked his head. Offering his own reciprocal admission. “I intend to do so.”
“Your mama is wise to give you such advice, and you are wise to take it.” The pearls of Papa’s teeth flashed in a grin.
Attempting to close still more of the gulf that so often yawned between them, Roald followed Godsfather Gary’s counsel about opening up to his papa. Confiding in him as he might to Godsfather Gary. “Tweleve is a hard age to be. Too old to act in ways that get you banished to the corner, but not too big to be sent there if your mama thinks you deserve it.”
“It is hard.” Papa chuckled. A sound that pleased Roald. That washed over him like warm water. “Because you are journeying on the long road from boy to man, and being a man isn’t easy.”
“Being a boy isn’t easy either.” Roald couldn’t resist the petulant observation.
“Being a boy can have its difficult moments,” Papa agreed. Amiably enough. “And twelve can feel caught between the worst of both worlds sometimes.”
Roald felt grateful for that concession. That flicker of understanding and empathy. Determined to prove worthy of that understanding and empathy, he offered a combination of a vow and an apology. “I’m sorry for disappointing you and Mama. I will do my best to make you both proud in the pages’ wing and everywhere else.”
“Your mama and I love you very much.” Papa pulled Roald into a tight embrace against his chest. So Roald could hear the beating drum of his heart. The love that pulsed a steady rhythm there. “We see how great you can be and only wish to guide you on that path to greatness.”
“I love you and Mama too.” Roald snuggled against his father’s chest. Appreciating the affection. “That’s why I don’t want to disappoint either of you. Why I want to make both of you proud.”
“We are proud of you already.” Papa kissed Roald’s forehead. “Even when we scold and send you sulking to a corner.”
Roald’s nose wrinkled at the reference to scolding and corners. His eyes roved over the hundreds of books lining his father’s shelves. Fixed on the collection describing the development of self-government in the republic of the Old Ones and more recently in the city-states of Tyra.
To change the topic from his shame and because the titles in that collection did look interesting–sparking an idea of how he might resolve some of the conflict around bullying in the pages’ wing–he asked as illumination struck like lightning, “May I borrow some books from your study, Papa?”
“Of course.” Papa waved his hands in an inviting gesture around the numerous shelves of his study. “You are always welcome to borrow anything you’d like.”
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:25:09 GMT 10
Well-Worn Battle Lines
Late that afternoon, after Kel had completed punishment work from Lord Wyldon for fighting, she joined Roald in his room for what free time was left before dinner.
“I owe you an apology,” Roald told her as soon as she had settled herself. The words revererbated strangely in his ears. As if they were part of a foreign language seldom spoken in the pages’ wing. Apologies were rarer than gold in the pages’ wing. Not because pages never made mistakes, but because they were too proud and prickly to explicitly repent their wrongdoings. Preferring to stubbornly persist in their errors until the cry of doom ended the world, and it was lights-out for everyone.
“You don’t have to apologize to me.” Kel shook her head. “You’ve been the only one in the pages’ wing to be consistently kind to me. You volunteered to sponsor me when most wouldn’t, and anyone else who would do so would just use it as an opportunity to bully me. You’re also still the only one who will talk to me at meals or study with me outside the classroom. The only one who is constantly snubbing me in ways big and small.”
Roald grimaced. He was still trying to get some of the more open-minded pages to eat meals with him and Kel. To study with them before lights-out. So far, his efforts had yielded nothing that could be constituted as a success by even the most generous reckoning. He was a diplomatic failure in this regard.
Not feeling half so chivalrous as she painted him to be, he sighed. Pinched the bridge of his nose. A gesture inherited from his mother and father. “I haven’t always been kind to you, nor have I always been fair to you, and perhaps that is even worse. That’s why I’m apologizing to you. I never should’ve sent you on those pointless little errands as part of that ridiculous and cruel earning your way custom.”
“I didn’t mind running errands for you.” Kel’s hazel eyes were level. Unblinking. Like his mother’s. Almost disconcertingly so. Except Kel’s eyes had a dreamy cast to them. Unlike his mother’s. His mother was never dreamy. Neither was Kel. Her eyes could be deceiving. So could his mother’s. Perhaps the eyes of all women could be. All people. Maybe they all went about wearing their masks and disguises as if attending a fancy court masque. Except the moment of unmasking–of revelation–never came. “I knew it was your way of honoring tradition. Of making me feel accepted in the pages’ wing.”
“It’s a rotten tradition.” Roald bit his lip. Remembering his mother’s stern words in the solar. “One I never should’ve had the poor judgement to be party to. To support and condone by my actions and words. And it was a lousy manner of going about making you feel accepted in the pages’ wing. Asking you to run useless errands for me as if your time couldn’t be better spent in other ways.”
“You judge yourself more harshly than I do.” Kel’s quiet remark somehow only increased Roald’s guilt.
Made him feel that if she wasn’t going to judge him harshly, he had to be the one to throw stones at himself. Otherwise, he would not have earned any absolution she gave him. “I didn’t mean to be a bully to you or anyone else, but somehow I became one. Just by copying tradition without being aware of what I was doing. Not caring enough to be aware.”
“I told you that you don’t need to apologize to me, and that is true. It is also true that I forgive you for any wrong you think you’ve done me.” Kel hesitated. Then added what she doubtlessly considered to be the more inflammatory portion of her comments. “I never saw you as a bully to me or to anyone else, but I did sometimes wish that you would oppose the bullies more stridently. That you would stand up for the victims more clearly.”
“That’s fair.” Roald inclined his head in humble, grave acknowledgement. “In hindsight, I too wish I had done more to oppose the bullies and defend the victims. Goig forward, I would like to be more involved in your anti-bullying cruscade if you would have me.”
“You’re willing to get into fights now?” Kel asked. Surprised.
“No, I’m not.” Firmly, Roald shook his head. Trying not to let his frustration at how quickly she resorted to flying fists show. “Pages have been brawling amongst themselves for centuries, and it hasn’t resolved anything as far as I can see. Only made the problems worse, and the pages’ wing a more violent place than it has to be.”
“Ignoring the problem–refusing to fight it–hasn’t worked wonders either,” Kel reminded him. Rather tartly by her standards.
He could feel them taking up their well-worn battle lines even though they were supposed to be allies in this anti-bullying endeavor. It was as if their enemies were dividing and conquering them more than they were dividing and conquering their enemies. Possibly because Roald did not like to think in terms of immutable enemies. Foes that had to be vanquished at all costs. Preferred to imagine them as people who could be convinced into sharing a common cause. Potential allies if he could only be shrewd enough in his diplomacy. But he was only tweleve. How shrewd could he be in his diplomacy?
“I don’t believe violence is the answer, Kel.” Roald struggled to express the depths of what he was thinking. What he was feeling. “It always just seems to breed more violence. Whether that’s people repeating the same violence they received when they were first-years, or people continually needing to escalate the level of force to discourage others from bullying.”
“You are training to be a knight,” Kel reminded him. Quietly adamant. “Violence is part of that, because knights fight to protect the realm and its people. That’s their duty.”
“I’m only training to be a knight because it’s expected of me.” He had never been the sort to resist what was expected of him. Was different from his parents and his siblings in that way. He did not chafe and scrape against expectations as they did. Instead allowed the rough edges of himself to be smoothed over so that he could be shaped into a creature perfectly capable of meeting those expectations. “Because it’s my duty. Not because I have any deep desire to fight. Peace and diplomatic solutions have far more appeal to me.”
Maybe there was a bit of defiance in that declaration–in that sentiment and in him–after all. Peace and justice. Those were his two passions. The twin motivating principles at the core of who he was. The ideals that shaped and defined him even more than the expectations of others. He was his own person. More than just the sum of the expectations of others. Even if he sometimes forgot that truth himself. It was easy to forget that truth when he was still discovering who he was. Unraveling the mystery of what his place and purpose in the world truly was beyond the clouding vagueness of prince and future king.
In his bones, he felt that every fight was a failure to communiate. Emblematic of an obstinate refusal to listen and understand. To find common ground and reach a shared solution.
He was as the gods had made him. A creature born for diplomacy and politics. Incapable of changing that fundamentally for Kel or anyone else.
“What is your peaceful, diplomatic solution then?” Kel’s tone was polite. Pleasant. Not mocking as it could have been under the circumstances. He was grateful for that much understanding at least. That much grace shown to him.
“I’m still figuring it out,” he admitted. Though he suspected that the answer might be found in the books on self-government he had borrowed from his father’s library. Tomes daunting in their scope that he would have to read diligently if he hoped to find any enlightenment–any illumination for the rugged path ahead of him–within their inked pages.
“Very well.” Kel addressed him as if he were some ivory tower intellectual from the university his father had built. Descending from lofty heights of contemplation. Condescending to briefly interact with mere mortals. “Just keep in mind when you are figuring it out that thinking and studying isn’t the same as acting. Neither accomplish anything for themselves and shouldn’t be their own ends.”
Roald knew that many of the scholars at his father’s university–buried in their ancient scroll mountains and dusty parchment piles–would argue otherwise. Would insist at great, florid length that the joy of learning was its own pure, transcendent purpose. Its own shining end. They would describe that joy of learning as if it were something divine. Something holy to be sought after in its own right and for its own sake. Speaking of it as a cloistered monk or priestess might wax poetic about Mithros or the Goddess. Learning placed on an altar. Exalted into its own religion with heretics and true believers.
A learning that could only be profaned by banal questions of utility. Of petty obsessions over the application of knowledge. Of focusing on dirty–almost blasphemous–practice when theory was so much more fascinating. Far more inspiring and intriguing to any true scholar.
Roald was not a true scholar. He was a political creature who was interested in knowledge only insofar as it advanced his own objectives. Aided him in the achievement of his goals. Like Kel, he was bogged down by questions of practicality when he read. When he studied. When he sought answers in old books that were not really written for him but for scholars who loved learning for its own sake.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:25:40 GMT 10
Chess Games
“Do you want to play chess?” Roald asked Kel when she visited his room after supper and before lights-out. Pulling out the checkered board and its accompanying ivory and obsidian pieces. Assuming she would agree. A presumption but not a great one. She was a very agreeable person, after all.
“Very well.” Kel favored him with a faint grin. “Though you have the advantage, Your Highness. I haven’t played chess in many years.”
“You haven’t?” Roald echoed. Astonished that someone as obsessed with strategy and tactics did not make a habit of indulging in the game that to him was the pinnacle of those things.
“No.” Kel sounded almost amused by his surprise. “They don’t play chess in the Yamani Islands. Many other games but not chess.”
“Oh.” Roald absorbed this. Recording a mental note that might help him better understand and relate to his betrothed when she arrived from the Yamani Islands. Gesturing at the board he had set up, he added courteously, “You may be white if you like. White has the advantage of going first.”
“That’s supposed to be an advantage?” Kel surveyed the board like a general studying strange terrain before a battle. “This going first?”
“Many find it to be.” Roald eyed her with some curiosity. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“You were quick to yield it to me.” Kel inched a pawn forward one space. “As if it weren’t an advantage at all.”
“Only because I am a gracious host.” Roald smiled and mirrored her movement on the board. Nudging one of his own pawns up a space. The battlefield beginning to take its form.
Some time later, when it was Kel’s turn again, Roald pointed out as she paused to consider her move, “If you slide your rook horizontally along that path, you can capture one of my knights.”
“Hmm.” Kel tapped her cheek thoughtfully. Still exploring her options. “Why would you help me?”
“Because I’m your friend,” Roald burst out earnestly. Somewhat frustrated by how often she failed to notice and appreciate that simple fact. “Because I’m not trying to trick or trap you. Because I’m not seeking to undermine you. Because I mean you well and want to see you succeed.”
“Then you aren’t playing to win,” Kel observed. Sliding her rook along the board as he advised. Capturing his knight. Leaving him with a lone knight to protect his king and serve his queen.
“Maybe I’m not,” he allowed amiably. Noting inwardly that he wasn’t playing to win the chess game. He was playing to win her trust and friendship. Her belief that she could rely on his counsel and depend on him to support her. That was far more important to him than any chess game. It did not matter if he lost at chess if he gained her friendship and faith. He had his strategy even in this.
“I do not like to be pitied.” Kel frowned at him. As if sensing some of the drama unfolding between his ears.
“I don’t pity you.” He shook his head. Reminding himself that he could never forget her pride. “I can assure you of that.”
The game progressed awhile in companionable silence before Kel spoke in what seemed to be gallant repayment of Roald’s earlier guidance. Kel being a person who did not enjoy being in anyone’s debt. “If you advance your queen there, you could have my king in check.”
“I could.” Roald nodded at her gravely. Remembering something his father had told him years ago when he was first learning chess. When it was so often a baffling maze and mystery to him. When a crestfallen Roald had recognized that his father was once again on the cusp of defeating him and there was nothing he could do to prevent or delay the inevitable. A lesson that he had failed to grasp at the time but now believed he comprehended on a deep level. “But then the game would be over, and we would have barely plumbed each other’s strategies. Where would the joy in that be?”
“You would’ve won.” Kel’s tone suggested he was missing the painfully self-evident. Being agonizingly obtuse. “The joy would be in the thrill of your triumph.”
“Ah.” Roald lifted a finger. “But we have already established that I am not playing to win.” He moved his lone knight instead. “I prefer to play on.”
They did indeed play on until they were interrupted by the unexpected manifestation of Cleon and the boy he was sponsoring–the freckled Esmond of Nicoline–in Roald’s doorway.
“Is this a private party or can any clown come in uninvited?” Cleon crowed. Drumming his fingers against Roald’s door. As if to announce his appearance in the absence of a herald.
“An open invitation was extended to you and Esmond long ago.” Roald waved his arm in a welcoming, expansive manner. Indicating that the pair of new arrivals should claim seats and make themselves comfortable. Pleased that somebody besides him was finally willing to share a leisure activity with Keladry of Mindelan. Two somebodies in fact. “I’m glad you both took me up on it.”
The two newcomers settled themselves and any awkwardness in the air melted like spring snow as they started sharing their advice on how the chess players should march to victory. Cleon elected to impart his questionable wisdom on Roald; Esmond, perhaps out of some fellow first-year solidarity, offered his tips to Kel.
Cleon had the mind of a jokester. Not serious enough for strategy, and so his tactics more resembled jests of varying degrees of intricacy. He treated the game only as another opportunity for fun.
Esmond, on the other hand, embraced the competitive nature of the game. He was intensely focused on winning the game and only on winning the game. Nothing else. He was a decent strategist, Roald thought, but limited by his own fixation on victory. It narrowed and blinkered his vision. He saw the game but not what went on beyond and behind it.
With Cleon on his side, it didn’t take Roald long to lose. Especially because he didn’t care about winning the chess game.
When the game was over, Cleon challenged Kel. She agreed readily enough as Roald had predicted she would. She was not the sort to flinch from any hurled challenge.
Esmond seemed to grow bored of watching a game in which he wasn’t a participant and so had no true stakes in or else decided that Kel did not need his advice. He rose and crossed over to the windowsill.
The windowsill where Roald kept the glass figurines that were a miniature imitation of some of his favorite animals from the palace menagerie. The exotic, tusked elephant. The spotted giraffe with its neck that soared to touch the treetops where it foraged for leaves. The regal lion with its fanning mane.
All of them Roald displayed on his windowsill where they could reflect the sun’s radiance. Their glass glittering golden in the sunbeams that streamed and streaked through the window.
Even when the sun wasn’t shining on them, they were impressive. Impressive enough to spark Esmond’s admiration. To prompt him to stare at them as if yearning to stroke them. To cup them between his fingers.
“You can pick them up if you wish.” Roald walked up behind Esmond. Causing Esmond to start and flush. Apparently having forgotten that he wasn’t alone with the figurines.
“Oh, no.” Esmond managed to stammer out the words. “I wouldn’t want to break them, Your Highness.”
Before Roald could reply that he doubted Esmond would break them, Esmond went on, “Are they all animals from the royal menagerie?”
“Yes.” Roald nodded. “Some of my favorite animals from there. My parents had them made for me as gifts over the years.”
They were some of his most treasured possessions. Trinkets given to him in love because it would make him happy. Cause him to smile when his glance fell upon them. As if reading what was written in his heart at that moment, Esmond murmured, “Then I definitely wouldn’t want to break anything so precious.”
“An understandable fear. Glass breaks easily. So do people.” Roald placed a gentle hand on Esmond’s shoulder. “How has your first year in the pages’ wing been so far?”
“Better than the first years of some I could name.” Esmond shrugged, and Roald could imagine the names he wasn’t saying. Seaver. Merric. Kel. “My sponsor is one of the good ones. He doesn’t beat me up or anything. Just sends me on silly errands.”
“I’m sorry I’ve sent you on silly errands in the past.” Roald found that it was becoming less difficult to issue apologies as he was becoming better practiced at them. What a pathetic art in which to be skilled. The shameful mark of a lad who made many mistakes. “I shouldn’t have done that. It was bullying and taking advantage of my rank.”
“You’re royalty.” Esmond shot Roald a sidelong look. As if worried he might have forgotten that he was Crown Prince. “You don’t have to apologize to me.”
“Nevertheless,” Roald insisted quietly, “I hope you will forgive me.”
“Of course I forgive you. Far be it from me to bear grudges against royalty.” Esmond’s gaze was locked on Roald’s now. Any reticence he had earlier possessed vanishing. “You should know, Your Highness, that I always thought you were one of the good ones too.”
One of the good ones too. The words resounded in Roald’s head. Making him feel more guilty than ever. He had believed until his mother called him a bully–accused him of taking advantage of his rank–that he was one of the good ones in the pages’ wing. He realized now what a self-flattering delusion that had been. He hadn’t been one of the good ones after all. He had never lifted a finger against bullying nor raised his voice against it. He had condoned it by his silence and inaction. Worse still, he had engaged in hazing himself. Becoming a bully and a hypocrite.
He had not been one of the good ones. He had been so bad that he had been oblivious to his own rottenness. So accustomed to the smell of his hypocrisy that he hadn’t even noticed its stench. Now he could only apologize for the wrongs he had done and strive to become one of the good ones. Because maybe there had never been anyone good in the pages’ wing before Keladry of Mindelan arrived. Or perhaps that was just a pitiful excuse to plaster over his own inequity.
“I appreciate your faith in me.” Roald squeezed Esmond’s shoulder. Then released it. “I will try to prove worthy of that trust.”
Solemn, stiff words but he didn’t know what else to say when someone placed their faith in his unworthy person.
The game between Kel and Cleon had drawn to a close and lights-out was approaching with Lord Wyldon eager as ever to heap punishment duty on any page caught violating it. Cleon lingered in Roald’s room as Kel and Esmond drifted back to their quarters. Setting out together along the torchlit corridor. The fact that they were walking beside each other for much of the journey enough to discourage harassment from potential bullies, Roald hoped.
“I wanted to talk with you,” Cleon stated though Roald had sensed as much when Cleon had stuck around after Kel and Esmond departed. “I’ve decided that if you’re going to oppose the bullies of the pages’ wing, I ought to join you in your valiant fight against the embodiment of evil.”
“Thank you.” Roald inclined his head. Seeing past the mockery to the sincerity and loyalty undergirding Cleon’s declaration. Cleon was a prankster, but push come to shove, he was staunch as steel. Someone Roald could trust to have his back in battle if it came to war. Which Roald was still aiming to avoid with cleverness. “What made you decide that?”
“It was simple enough once I realized that you’d be leading one side and Joren the other.” Cleon could never swallow a snicker. Probably never even tried to do so unless Lord Wyldon was around to reprimand him. “Call me a fool, but I’d rather serve in your army any day of the week and twice on Sunday.”
“I’m happy to have you as a recruit.” Roald hesitated. Then went on, “Under one condition.”
“Oh?” Cleon arched an eyebrow. Amazed that Roald would put conditions on such a thing. “Do I have to kneel before you and swear eternal fealty to Your Highness?”
“No.” Roald couldn’t keep a terse edge from creeping into his tone at Cleon’s perennially irreverent attitude toward everyone and everything. “But you do have to promise that you won’t partake in any more hazing when we are speaking out against the bullying done by Joren and his crowd. We have to maintain the clear moral high ground so we don’t look like hypocrites in the court of public opinion. That means no more sending first-years on pointless errands to fetch your gloves and whatnot.”
“Very well.” Cleon waved an indolent palm. As if the matter were a trivial one to him. A fly to be brushed away on a sunny afternoon. “I can fetch my own gloves. Lord Wyldon would say I need the exercise after all. And that sending first-years on stupid errands joke is getting stale. I should get creative and invent some new material.”
“Getting stale?” Roald chuckled. Pleased to have a prankster on his side. Someone to tease him and be teased in turn. To bait and banter with as a test of his wits. “It’s moldier than last week’s bread.”
“Best to toss it on the midden heap with all the other rubbish then?” Cleon laughed. Never shy about doing so at his own quips.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:26:23 GMT 10
Not Innocent and Not Guilty
Alliances shifted subtly and slowly in the pages’ wing. A few days after Cleon and Esmond joined Roald and Kel for evening studying in Roald’s room, Faleron and Merric began attending as well. Spottily at first. Then more steadily.
During this time, Roald did his research. Reading determinedly through the dense tomes he had borrowed from his father’s library. Books that were so difficult to weed through that he sometimes wondered if they were meant to be read at all. If they weren’t written to be some sort of seemingly intelligent decoration instead.
If they were designed to be impenetrable. Intended to be impossible to understand rather than to enlighten and elucidate. Or perhaps he was just wading into water too deep for him to fathom. At risk of being dragged into drowning darkness by the undertow. Lost to its cold clutches.
He tried to be clever about when he did his reading. Hiding the volumes he had borrowed from his father’s study behind the pile of the ones he used for his academic classes. Reading them and recording careful notes on his rolls of parchment in lessons where he felt it was safe to let his attention wander from the instruction.
Magic lessons with Master Numair–who was notoriously absentminded and prone to following curious flights of fancy himself–and so rarely came down too harshly on a lad caught with his focus drifting elsewhere.
Etiquette lessons with Master Oakbridge because while the prickly deportment expert was far less forgiving of the rudeness of such woolgathering, most of the instruction Master Oakbridge provided was familiar ground to Roald. Rules of politeness that had been pounded into his head since he was a toddler. Since he had first learned to walk and talk. If Master Oakbridge did spring a sudden question on him, therefore, he was confident that he could answer satisfactorily. That there wouldn’t be any proof of his inattentiveness.
History classes with Sir Myles. A far from demanding taskmaster who was generally kind and courteous to only call on students who volunteered to speak in class. Who raised their hands. Indicating they had an answer, question, or comment to add to the free-flowing discussion that often comprised a majority of his instruction.
It might have been reading an unassigned text in this last class that was Roald’s miscalculation. After all, Sir Myles might have been lenient, but he was by no means as oblivious as Master Numair in his pleasant fog of absentmindedness or as Master Oakbridge in his far less pleasant cloud of ego.
At any rate, it was Sir Myles who asked Roald to stay after class–a lesson exploring the civil war sparked when King Roger emancipated Tortall’s slaves, a kindness of a king ending in bloodshed, chaos, and rebellion–as the bell rang. As his classmates gathered up their books, parchment, and quills. Preparing to race out of the room. Eager as only pages released from a lesson could be.
“You’re in trouble now.” Cleon, whom Roald had made the mistake of sitting beside for this lesson, nudged Roald with his shoulder as he rose and collected his things. “And nobody ever gets in trouble with Sir Myles. Well done, Your Highness. You’ve surpassed yourself.”
Roald ignored this mix of jest and jibe. Having the suspicion that sticking out his tongue would seem very juvenile. Only heaping further indignity on him when he was already conscious of being in disgrace.
As the room emptied, boys exiting in a jostling river like salmon jumping upstream, Roald strode to the front where Sir Myles waited behind his desk. Trying to walk with sufficient pride that he maintained his composure and calm–didn’t appear weak in the lion’s den that was the pages’ wing–but also the appropriate degree of contrition. Projecting an aura of humility and genuine penitence that would hopefully convince Sir Myles it was unnecessary to punish him. It was a delicate balancing act he was attempting, he knew. One where a single misstep could send him plummeting into trouble.
“What”--Sir Myles arched an inquisitive eyebrow as Roald approached– “were you reading, Your Highness?”
Roald hesitated. Considering his answer. Wondering what would be the most prudent reply. The one most likely to appease his history teacher.
He was quiet too long. Sir Myles sighed. Shook his head. “If you’re going to lie to me, Your Highness, at least don’t pause so tellingly first. It makes it far too clear that you are going to attempt to pull the wool over my eyes. Rendering it all the more insulting to my intelligence were I to even pretend to fall for the lie.”
“I wasn’t going to lie.” Roald flushed at the rebuke. At the insult to his honor. “I was only considering how best to present the truth.”
“How to craft it to your advantage.” Sir Myles’s remark was shrewd. “A different sort of lie.”
“One all people with any sense of politics and diplomacy engage in.” The flush in Roald’s cheeks was deepening. Entrenching its crimsonness into his features. Mounting a full-blown assault on his face as he pulled out the tome he had been reading during the history class. Dropped it with an unceremonious thud on Sir Myles’s desk. A loud sound that echoed almost disrespectfully in the room. Making Roald flinch at its wild, uncontrolled sharpness. In a more subdued tone, he added, “This was what I was reading, sir.”
“Hmm.” Sir Myles picked up the book. Flicked through the first pages. “An analysis of the nature and evolution of the court systems in the Tyran city-states. Interesting reading for a lad your age.”
“Is it true that Tyrans accused of committing crimes–even ones as grevious as murder and treason–are judged by a jury of their peers?” The curious question burst from Roald’s lips. The book in its elegant black ink had proclaimed this was so. That a jury of twelve peers drawn from the same class as the citizen charged with the crime would listen to evidence presented by the prosecuting and defense advocates before reaching a verdict.
This seemed such a bizarre and unreliable method by which to mete out justice that Roald couldn’t help but be skeptical of its authenticity even when described in copious detail in a thick tome. It would do away with the point of having magistrates trained in the law. Render them inconsequential and irrelevant. Leave the clucking chickens in charge of the entire farm. It was a marvel that the Tyran justice system hadn’t collapsed completely if it was built on such shaky foundations.
“It’s written in a book by an esteemed scholar.” It was often hard for Roald to discern whether Sir Myles was expressing a dry truth or indulging in cynical mockery. Maybe there was scant difference between the two. Doubtlessly Neal and many of those enrolled in the royal university would argue that. “It must be true.”
“It seems strange.” Roald’s forehead furrowed.
“The truth is often strange.” Sir Myles smiled slightly. “Especially where cultures and governments foreign to ours are concerned. That is one of the many lessons history teaches us.”
“Does that mean every jury truly is comprised of twelve members?” Roald pressed on with something else he found baffling about the Tyran justice system. “And that each member of the jury has a vote about whether the accused is innocent or guilty, and that a person can only be convicted of a crime if a majority of the jury votes he is guilty?”
“That is true and not true.” The wry edge to Sir Myles’s smile grew. “As most things are.”
“I don’t suppose you could elaborate on what precisely is true and not true in this instance, sir,” Roald prompted when Sir Myles did not expand on this notion.
“I certainly can.” An amused twinkle gleamed from Sir Myles’ green-brown eyes. “The portrait you paint of the Tyran justice system is accurate in its broad portions. Accused Tyrans are judged by a jury of their peers as you say. A jury that is indeed compromised of twelve members. However, the Tyran jury never finds anyone innocent for that is a term that does not exist in their legal codes. A Tyran jury can only find an accused not guilty of all charges. That is the highest form of exoneration a Tyran court can offer.”
“Innocent or not guilty.” Roald felt mildly irked at being corrected over such a minor detail. “That’s splitting hairs, isn’t it, sir? Don’t innocent and not guilty mean the same thing?”
“Not at all.” Sir Myles chuckled. The sound echoing deeply in his plump belly. The belly that attested to years of drinking too much wine and ale. “The Tyrans are certainly too wily and worldly to believe that. Their cities are loci of political intrigue as much as thriving trade. Centers of sophistication and backstabbing. They know nobody is innocent except perhaps a suckling babe. The Tyrans are aware that we are all guilty. Just perhaps not of the precise charges laid against us in court.”
“With twelve members, a jury could have a tie vote.” Roald was still puzzling over the intricacies of the Tyran justice system. “What happens then? Is the accused declared guilty or not?”
“When a jury is tied in such a way, they cannot reach a verdict.” Sir Myles stopped chuckling. Folded his palms over the abundant girth of his belly. A contemplative pose Roald recognized from years studying under the graying knight. “That is called a hung jury.”
“A hung jury?” Roald was aghast. His confusion swelling into a crescendo of horror. This was by far the strangest and most sinister Tyran legal custom. “They hang the jury if the jury can’t reach a verdict?”
“Not at all. I said a hung jury, not a hanged jury, Your Highness.” Sir Myles fixed him with a gently admonitory look. “Proper verb forms can occasionally be a matter of life and death, which is why we endeavor to teach you pages some of the nuances of grammar.”
“Oh.” Roald felt somewhat reassured but no less bewildered than before. As if he were lost in the mire of the muddy Tyran swamps. “What occurs when there is a hanged jury then, sir?”
“Not a hanging.” Sir Myles cracked a crooked grin. “Or at least not right away, and not of the jury. In the case of a hung jury, a mistrial will be announced, and a new trial begun with a fresh jury to determine whether the accused party is guilty or not guilty of the charges.”
“I understand.” Roald swallowed. Tugged at his earlobe. An anxious habit he had never been able to abandon no matter how he tried to leave it in the dust behind him. A frequent betrayer of guilt and unease broiling within him. A testament to inner turmoil beneath the serene surface he strove to cultivate. “Speaking of guilt, are you going to tell my father what I was doing in your class, sir? That I wasn’t paying attention?”
He asked about his transgression being reported to his father. Not to Lord Wyldon. Lord Wyldon would administer punishment work if he learned of Roald’s lapse. Icily. Indifferently. Impartially. Papa could be disapproving. Disappointed. Might withdraw the warm affection Roald didn’t like to admit he needed to grow in confidence. It didn’t take even a moment’s thought to figure out which was worse. Which deserved to be feared more.
“I knew your father when he was your age.” Sir Myles rested a hand on Roald’s tensed shoulder. “I was his teacher as I am yours. He had a knack for getting into trouble, and he would often let his mind wander at will in lessons. I did not report his every bit of mischief to his father. I will do the same for you.”
“Thank you.” Roald inclined his head. Gravely appreciative of this mercy. “May I go then, sir?”
“Once I have written a pass to excuse your lateness to your next lesson.” Sir Myles grabbed a quill and a scrap of parchment. Started scribbling on it. “We don’t want you getting into any more trouble today do we, lad?”
“No, sir.” Roald provided the proper, expected reply but couldn’t resist an investigatory kick at the wasp’s nest. Aware that if he got stung it was very much his own fault. A painful consequence of his impulsive folly. “Why did you ask me to stay back after class if you didn’t want me to get into trouble?”
“To talk to you.” Sir Myles glanced up from the pass he was scrawling. “If I do not angle for an opportunity to speak with you one-on-one, I seldom hear your voice otherwise.”
“I prefer to watch and listen rather than to speak.” There was a power in speaking, Roald thought, but also in quiet watching and careful listening. A power that those quick to speak–to share every idea that crossed their minds with any company among whom they chanced to be assembled–often forgot. His was more of the power that came from watching and listening than from speaking, and his watching and listening, he believed, lent a certain weight–an understated gravity–to his words when he did speak.
“I have noticed.” Sir Myles finished writing the pass. Offered it to Roald with an outstretched hand. “Your father was not so when he was a boy. He was charming. Charismatic. Commanding. The bright sun around which every planet in the pages’ wing orbited.”
Some planets had not remained peacefully in their appointed orbits, Roald noted inwardly. Some like Ralon of Malven had revolted against their assigned positions. Committed treason. Sought to overthrow his father in what became a coronation day massacre. An earthquake that rattled the world.
“I am my father’s son.” Roald couldn’t help but bristling at the comparison to his father. Perhaps no son could subdue that instinctual spine stiffening. That fear of being judged and found wanting next to the man that had created him. That soul-crushing sense of standing forever in a superior sire’s shadow. He accepted the pass from Sir Myles with trembling fingers. Fingers that he hated for showing too much emotion. “But I am not like my father in every way.”
“You are not,” Sir Myles agreed. Amiable despite Roald’s testiness. “Your father has no qualm about setting the whole world on its ear. It may not be a bad thing that you wish to tread more carefully.”
“Yes, sir.” Roald bowed. Yet, as he left the history classroom, he found himself thinking that he might not have been as different from his father as he had pretended. As he had insisted to Sir Myles to avoid a comparison that always made him feel small. A little one unworthy of following in his father’s shoes.
Because there were times that Roald did feel driven to set the whole world on its ear. Times like when he stepped forward to volunteer to sponsor Keladry of Mindelan, risking the realm’s gossip and Lord Wyldon’s ire. Times like when he plotted how to rewrite the unwritten rules that governed hazing in the pages’ wing. Debating with himself how best to replace revered custom–timeless tradition–with a new law.
Times when all his reading and questions were geared toward that end. Fixed on that quiet revolution that could set the whole world on its ear. At least if one considered the pages’ wing to be the whole world. Which many of its occupants, trapped in its petty wars that came to feel all-encompassing and all-consuming, did. It was hard to have a life beyond the pages’ wing, and so the pages’ wing became their whole world. Defining and shaping them.
But perhaps they could define and shape it as well. Leave a different legacy for the pages coming after them. At least it was worth a try. An experiment with law and politics to see what new order could be imposed on the old traditions of the pages’ wing.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:26:59 GMT 10
A New Precedent
Roald wrote by a blue globe of his magic after light’s out. It would’ve been better if he could have composed the words before curfew by some stronger light. Before his brain became fuzzy and tired. Yet, he hadn’t dared to risk it. If he had wrote these words during one of his lessons, there was the chance that a curious teacher might investigate what he was scribbling. Perhaps share it with an entire room full of chortling classmates before Roald was ready to reveal it. Before he had honed and edited it to his satisfaction.
Working on the document during the study time he had with those he considered to be his friends seemed almost equally risky. Almost as likely to result in a premature discovery that would have its own disasters and dangers.
So, he labored alone–in the dark save for the lone blue glow of his Gift–over a piece of parchment that filled painfully slowly as he debated how best to phrase the vision he sought to make reality. His brow beetled as his quill inched across the page. Creating what he saw as a foundational charter for pages. A contract that would be mutually binding for all signatories. A compromise between the various factors, factions, and forces competing in the pages’ wing as they always and everywhere did.
He tried to draw on the facts from the books on self-government he had borrowed from his father’s study. Learning from their strengths and weaknesses. Their soaring successes and crushing failures. Modifying their structures to suit the politics and customs of the pages’ wing.
Proposing a system where pages governed themselves apart from the order imposed by the training master and teachers. A system where they judged and disciplined themselves. Held each other accountable to certain standards that prohibited the bullying and hazing of junior pages by more senior ones.
In his system, nobody could be punished for an offense that took place prior to that individual’s signing the document. That was a pragmatic gesture and a nod to Sir Myles’s observation that no one was ever truly innocent. After signing, an accused party would be tried by a jury of their peers who would hear and weigh evidence much as in a Tyran court. The main alteration he made from the Tyran model was establishing an odd number for the jury to ignore the messiness that were hung juries at least as he understood them after Sir Myles’ enlightening statement that these juries were not in fact executed.
His jury dropped in number from twelve to nine. A majority of the jury had to vote that the accused was guilty for the accused to face any penalty. The penalties in question ranged from formal apologies to the hazed to punishment work similar to that assigned by Lord Wyldon to fines owed to the bullied. A senior page–one in the third or fourth year–could request that the jury have as much as a third of its members pulled from the year of which he was a part.
Roald was not thrilled with the privilege that still lurked behind that specification but knew that it was necessary to sweeten the deal. To induce his fellow senior pages to sign the document. A certain amount of familiar privilege had to be preserved for those in power to consent to yielding any of it. To be amenable to change. He had learned that watching his parents fight to reform Tortall.
At last, his eyes starting to blur, he finished. Wrote his signature in neat, painstakingly perfect cursive at the bottom of the document. Then furled up the parchment. Placed it on his desk and collapsed onto his bed. Burrowing beneath his covers like a badger retreating into its cozy den.
The next day Roald set about gathering more signatures. Kel was the first person with whom he shared his charter. She read it at breakfast between bites of sausage. Her face blank as ever though he thought–or maybe merely imagined–that her lips got thinner as she reached a certain section. Remarking levelly, “I do not know if I agree with senior pages being able to have as much as a third of their juries drawn from their own years. That doesn’t seem fair.”
“It doesn’t seem fair because it isn’t.” Roald shifted on his bench. Seeking a comfortable spot that likely didn’t exist on furniture that seemed to be carved as hard as possible. As if special ordered by the training master to make sitting undesirable even while eating. “It’s a compromise. Compromises are rarely fair. Or at least both sides tend to think they are unfair.”
“If it’s not fair–” Kel was calm and unconvinced– “I don’t see why I should agree with it. Why I should sign it.”
“You don’t have to agree with everything you sign.” That was a nuance, a wiggle room, her diplomat father should’ve explained to her, Roald thought. Perhaps Baron Piers had attempted to do so, it occurred to him a second later. He was, to his chagrin, discovering that she had little interest in or tolerance for the vagaries of politics. The delicacies and graceful dance of diplomacy and compromise. “You just have to accept it and be willing to abide by it.”
“I should accept this?” Kel waved her fork at the parchment spread on the table below her. “Be willing to abide by it?”
“Yes.” Roald sipped at his juice. Moistening a dry throat. “It’s an improvement on the current situation. Providing an avenue for formal redress in cases of hazing. A potentially non-violent solution to the problem of bullying. Much more effective in the long term than flying fists.”
“You might be my only ally in the pages’ wing.” Kel studied him with an unblinking hazel gaze. Then scooped up the quill he had offered her along with the document. Signed her name beside his. Where it should be. So they were arrayed next to each other. “I will trust your counsel and you.”
“Thank you.” With a grave nod, Roald took back the parchment and quill she extended to him. “I will not disappoint you.”
Merric, when Roald sought his signature, was no more enthusiastic about the charter than Kel was. Scoffing, “This is supposed to protect me from bullies better than throwing my own punches, Your Highness? This piece of easily crumpled parchment?”
“You don’t throw your own punches,” Roald commented quietly. Remembering what Kel had told him about how Merric hadn’t fought back when Joren and cronies pounded into him.
“Because it’s tradition that I don’t,” snapped Merric. Cheeks blazing. Temper burning hot enough to raze Corus to ashes. “It’s custom that I prove I’m strong enough to be a knight by putting up with the hazing. Otherwise, I’d fight back, Your Highness.”
“This–” Roald tapped the parchment– “is how we change the custom so that you don’t have to put up with being bullied to prove you’re strong enough to be a knight. This is how tradition is altered. How a new precedent is established.”
“You really want me to trust words to change anything.” Merric shook his head. Snorting like an irritable mount on the cusp of tossing its unlucky rider into a patch of brambles. “To believe parchment will protect me from the vengeance of Joren and his crowd?”
“You already trust words written on parchment to protect you from harm.” Roald battled to keep his cool. To not allow his anger to match Merric’s. Tempting as it was to indulge in some shouting of his own. Clenching his fists to force his tone to remain steady as a rock. “That is all laws–even those against murder–are. Mere words written on parchment.”
“Say whatever you like, Your Highness.” Merric was obstinate as a mule. “I’m not signing anything without consulting my cousin first.”
Then he stalked off before Roald could argue that Faleron would surely advise him to sign the document. Trying not to be too daunted by his failure with Merric, Roald turned his focus to Seaver.
Seaver proved to be less hostile but equally skeptical in a subdued way. An abashed manner that testified to how little confidence the pages’ wing had managed to imbue him with thus far. “I don’t want to offend anyone, Your Highness. Add fuel to any fire. Signing this might do that.”
“It might protect you too,” Roald pointed out.
“It might.” Seaver nibbled his lip. An undeniably nervous gesture. “But I don’t want to take that chance. Roll that dice.”
“It wouldn’t be taking a chance.” Roald reached out to squeeze Seaver’s trembling shoulder with a firm yet gentle hand. “I wouldn’t let Joren and his crowd retaliate against you if you signed this document.”
A promise and proclamation of a prince. He thought that might have meant something, but it didn’t. Not in comparison to the threat Joren and company represented.
“I don’t want to risk it,” Seaver stammered. Twisting out of Roald’s grasp like a flailing fish escaping a fisher’s net. “Not without checking with Balduin first.”
Watching Seaver almost flee from him as if he were a troll or some other dreadful monster, Roald swallowed. His stomach swirling. Joren and his cronies seemed to truly have conquered the pages’ wing. Ruling it by fear and brute force rather than consensus and law.
Roald had let that happen–had allowed that tyranny to grow–as much as Lord Wyldon or any other master. He had failed.
He didn’t have to accept that failure. He could continue to fight. Refuse to yield. Yet, he still felt stymied. Stonewalled. As if even those he had believed would be easy to rally to his cause were reluctant to join or follow him. He wondered if his parents ever felt this way. If they ever struggled to lead. Or if their innate charisma prevented that. Forcing people to follow where they lead. Drawing people to them like magnets.
He was in this low mood when Faleron, Balduin, and Cleon approached him. Confronted him. Demanded to know what document he was asking first years to sign.
He managed to placate them. To put them off with a promise of a meeting later that evening where he would answer all their questions.
When they walked away, appeased for the moment, he pinched the bridge of his nose. Massaged his temples that ached from staying up too late penning a document his fellow pages were too stubborn or scared to sign. Stifled the urge to scream out his frustration. To vent it into the world so that it did not continue to churn ceaselessly within himself.
He wished his parents were beside him. To guide him. Probably by telling him everything he was doing wrong. As parents were wont to do.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:27:33 GMT 10
Painted in Chiaroscuro
“This is what I asked Seaver and Merric to sign.” Roald unfurled the charter he had so carefully written last night onto the polished center of the table where he, Cleon, Faleron, and Balduin sat in a square. Offering it up to their inspection while he watched their faces for flickers of their thoughts and feelings. Studying them with a scholar’s keen curiosity. Reading them as they read his words.
Libraries were places set aside for study and reading, he thought. Though that didn’t mean that this one was easy to study or read in. At least at this hour. It was after dinner, which meant that the windows of the shadowy alcove where their table was situated were black as a widow’s veil. The wavering yellow-orange circles cast by the candles lit at every occupied table and the sconces that claimed the scant territories of stone wall that had yet to be conquered by encroaching bookshelves danced. Painting the shelves and tables in chiaroscuro.
The sun set early this late in the autumn. The nights becoming long and chilly even beneath thick blankets. Soon winter would descend. The nights growing still longer, darker, and colder. Snow falling to mantle the barren ground and bare trees in a mantle of white. The sky would cloud with a perpetual, oppressive gray even at high noon. Frost would swirl the wind-rattled windows. The Olorun would freeze. Icing over from bank to bank.
He had been born and raised here at the Royal Palace overlooking the hustle and bustle of Corus. Knew the cycle and rhythm of its seasons surely as the palm of his hand. The ugliness and beauty of each of those seasons. The ugliness and beauty often being the same depending on his perspective. His view from day to day. Month to month. Year to year. Season to season.
“Senior pages won’t want to sign this,” Faleron remarked as he read. “They’ll worry about being punished for hazing crimes they committed long ago. Little errands they sent younger pages on–fetching forgotten items from their rooms before lessons start and that sort of thing.”
“That’s why this clause exists.” Roald had been prepared for that objection. Was ready to point to the relevant passage that allayed that concern. “It guarantees that nobody can face discipline for any offenses committed prior to signing the document. A grandfather clause, I believe it’s called..”
“Senior pages still lose privilege and prestige if they sign.” Balduin had taken up the threads of Faleron’s argument. Weaving it into his own. “Long term, I see how your scheme could work. Short term, I don’t. First years sign now in the hope that this piece of parchment can protect them and in theory are later bound by their promise. Their signatures on this contract. For the current batch of senior pages, there’s no incentive for them to sign. No reason for them to sacrifice the perks of their position at the top of the pecking order of the pages’ wing. To surrender the hard-won status they earned by being hazed themselves.”
“The first years aren’t even that eager to sign,” Roald admitted. Recalling how Kel had hesitated to affix her name to the charter and had ultimately only done so because she trusted him. Because they were friends, and she had chosen to have faith in his judgment therefore. Remembering how Merric and Seaver had outright refused to sign the document. Wanting to speak to their sponsors before doing so. Obtain guidance from them. That was how little authority Roald had. How powerless his words and promises were. His gaze drifted from Balduin to Faleron as he finished, “That’s why Merric and Seaver wanted to talk to you two before they signed.”
“They don’t trust a piece of parchment to shield them from the vengeance and bullying of Joren and his crowd,” Faleron explained grimly. “As bad as the hazing situation is for them, they realize it can get much worse if they kick up too much of a fuss about it. Are seen as throwing a tantrum about a tradition everyone in the pages’ wing has been subject to. Has endured without complaint. Becoming stronger.”
“This parchment–” Balduin tapped it– “only has any power at all because your signature is on it.”
“That is the way with all legal documents. They only become binding once they are signed into law.” Roald could feel his patience starting to fray. His temper starting to climb as though scaling a rugged northern mountain. “Even a king’s proclamation only has any power because the king signs it. Before then, it’s just another worthless piece of parchment.”
“The king,” Cleon pointed out with cutting simplicity, “can sign anything he likes into law. Can draw up any proclamation he wishes and force everybody in the land to follow it.”
“The king can’t do that.” Roald’s jaw clenched around a desire to snap at Cleon’s insolent ignorance. He was far more familiar with the limitations of royalty than Cleon. His father having taught him about everything a king couldn’t do since his days in the nursery. “The king can’t just sign whatever he likes into law. He has to negotiate and compromise with his nobles, his priests and priestesses in their temples, his merchants with their city guilds, and his generals with their armies. Everything he signs represents negotiation and compromise–the balancing of opposing forces–because Tortall isn’t an absolute monarchy. Unlike Maren, for example.”
“This document certainly has lots of compromise in it.” Faleron waved a hand at the charter spread before them. “A senior page can request that the jury have as much as a third of its members pulled from the year of which he was a part. That is quite the concession.”
“It does sweeten the pot,” Balduin chimed in again with an incisive question. “But does it do so enough to make senior pages want to sign it? To swallow the bitter along with the sweet?”
“Senior pages have no reason to sign the document,” concluded Cleon bluntly. “You haven’t given them a cause to do so. Convinced them that it would be in their own self-interest to do so.”
“Self-interest.” Roald’s lip curled with disdain. Contes, he was discovering, were not courteous when their wills were thwarted. A truth that burned through their blood. Scorching in their veins. Nothing more frustrating to them than bulked desire. Failed passion. “Is that all that matters to senior pages?”
“Self-interest is very motivational.” Cleon shrugged. Unabashed by Roald’s scowl. “It’s the most dominant instinct especially among teenage boys clamoring for power and survival in the savage wilds of the pages’ wing.”
“I thought they might attach some value to doing what is right.” Roald glared at Cleon. “You seemed to for a moment when you promised you’d support me in my fight against bullying in the pages’ wing.”
“I do care about what is right.” Cleon gave a long-suffering sigh as if he suspected he was being roped into the ultimate folly before picking up his quill, dipping it in ink, and signing his name beneath Roald’s. “That’s why I’ll put my name to this and suggest Esmond do the same.”
“But you can’t expect Joren and his band of bullies will give a fig about what is right.” Faleron’s face remained in shadow as he too signed the charter. His mien that of a magistrate signing his own death warrant. Roald tried to hope that the fact that Faleron was signing with however much an air of doom might mean that Merric would do so as well. Following his cousin’s lead.
“Right and Joren are polar opposites.” Gravely, Balduin bent to sign his name below Faleron’s. Perhaps Seaver’s name would end up on the parchment beside his.
“Some pages like Yancen might be persuaded to care about what is right.” Roald felt torn between seriousness and the urge to smile. Compromised by schooling his expression to a stoic blankness of which Lord Wyldon would be proud. “And perhaps Joren and his crowd might be inspired by our example to start caring about what is right after all. Stranger things have happened in the history of the realm.”
“You jest.” Cleon let out a startled laugh that provoked a reproaching glower from the archivist in charge of the pages’ library. The archivist who would no doubt expel them from this scholarly sanctuary the next time Cleon emitted such a loud, amused noise that might distract the study of other, more diligent lads. “That’ll happen the day after pigs are inspired to grow wings by the flight of birds.”
“Pigs flying is such a cliche.” Roald rolled his eyes. Happy to ease the tension welling inside him by trading quips with his jokester of a friend. “Altering the phrasing slightly does not make it less so.”
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:28:02 GMT 10
Three Loves
“Godsfather.” Roald had sought out Godsfather Gary in his study for another one of their chats. Wrapping his arms around the man’s broad shoulders. Remembering how his godfather had good-naturedly mocked him for bowing in a formal greeting before hugging him last time he had come to his father’s prime minister for counsel. Deciding to preemptively forfend that criticism with this display of open affection.
“Godsson.” Godsfather Gary patted his wrist with one hand while the other dug in a desk drawer. “Close your eyes and open your mouth.”
Roald obeyed. Recalling a thousand times when his godsfather had slipped treats onto his tongue as he stood in such a posture. A wave of what the Tusaine would call deja vu washing over him like saltwater. The grooves his life fell into. The patterns of his existence that his body and brain were primed to recognize. The sense that he had been here before lingering in his mind and in his limbs. Because it never took anyone too long to wind up back where they had been. They were all creatures of habit. Their steps marked out for them by fate and destiny no matter what they would have liked to believe otherwise.
“Taste.” Godsfather Gary plopped the predicted treat into Roald’s waiting mouth. “Guess what it is.”
Roald bit down. Cocoa, the perfect melding of bitter and sweet, melting against his teeth and tongue. Flooding his tastebuds with decadent dark chocolate. Godsfather Gary, Roald remembered, preferred the sharpness of dark chocolate to the creamy lightness of the milk variety.
“The purest dark chocolate.” Roald licked the traces of chocolate from his mouth. Wanting to savor every remnant of it. Longing for more. “Imported from the jungles of the Copper Isles.”
“Fresh off the boat,” his godsfather confirmed. Tweaking his nose. “You have impeccable taste.”
“Papa would say you spoil me, sir,” Roald remarked by way of gratitude as his godsfather offered him another piece of dark chocolate, which he devoured with what Master Oakbridge would doubtlessly regard as unseemly enthusiasm. He would soon end up plump as a Midwinter goose stuffed with herbs, quinces, and pears if he continued on his indulgent path.
“A father does not like to spoil his own sons.” Godsfather Gary assumed a philosophical air. “Therefore, he must content himself with spoiling the sons of other men.”
“If you say so, sir.” Roald grinned. Then continued, more gravely, with the reason he had come to his godsfather’s study. “I need your advice on a political matter.”
“I am Prime Minister.” Godsfather Gary gestured for Roald to pull up a chair and sit beside him. “Providing advice on political matters is my reason to be.”
“It’s more of a question, I suppose.” Roald claimed the seat his godsfather had indicated he should take. “Why do people do anything? Politically speaking?”
“A simple question with a complicated answer.” Godsfather Gary could no more resist a riddle than he could breathing, Roald thought. “You could argue it all goes back to the three loves, however.”
“The three loves.” Roald gave his earlobe a bemused tug. Wondering if more than a fraction of the words that emerged from his godsfather’s mouth would ever make sense to him without requiring further–often equally confusing–explication. His godsfather’s cleverness so keen that it often eluded Roald’s understanding. “Sounds like something a Tusaine romantic poet would write about in a sonnet, sir.”
“The first love is a digestive love.” Godsfather Gary leaned back into his chair. Warming to his topic like honey dissolving into hot tea. “Digestive love consumes what it loves the way a body does food. Using what it loves as a means to either its own pleasure or utility.”
“Self-interested love.” Roald wrinkled his nose. “The sort of love that would grow fat while others starve.”
“Digestive love is greedy, yes,” Godsfather Gary agreed. Nodding. “Centered entirely in the self. In the gratification of insatiable urges. Hungers and thirsts that can never be satisfied. Even when the beloved is completely devoured. It is a love that often destroys what it claims to love, which is why many enlightened souls do not define it as a type of love at all. Only as a domineering desire. It is the sort of love a suckling babe has for a nursemaid’s teat. The suckling babe does not love the nursemaid but rather her teat. If the girl was replaced by a goat, the suckling babe would neither notice nor care as long as the steady supply of milk remained flowing.”
“Or like a lad–” Roald flushed to the roots of his black hair as he reflected on the chocolate he had so eagerly consumed from his godfather’s generous hand– “gobbling down sweets until his stomach becomes sick.”
“Well.” Godsfather Gary rumpled Roald’s hair as if he could sense the guilt beginning to cloud Roald’s conscience. “We mustn’t be too hard on our suckling babes or our growing boys. They love in a way appropriate to their age and moral development, and we must provide for their needs. It is only when a man or a woman is grown that this love can become truly dangerous. Turning the one who feels it into a monster.”
“A monster?” Roald repeated. Dreading and desiring the answer in equal measure.
“Yes.” Godsfather Gary nodded grimly. “If you see a man rich or powerful determined to gorge himself on more treasures or titles, it is repugnant on a far deeper level. Like watching a drunkard continue to guzzle ale to the brink of unconsciousness.”
“I suppose that is disgusting. More disgusting than a suckling babe or a lad with a soft spot for sweets.” Roald could think of no grounds on which to debate his godsfather’s point. “Though such people must be easy to entice into anything by the equivalent of slipping them treats. What’s the second type of love?”
“Ah.” Godsfather Gary smiled. “The second type of love is far nobler. It is principled love. The love of virtues such as fairness, duty, and honor. A love where those virtues are more beloved than people. In its basest form, which is still higher than any digestive love, it can be satisfied with what the Old Ones would call a quid pro quo arrangement.”
“An ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine, and both our itches vanish’ deal.” Roald spoke with world weary matter-of-factness. Feeling cynical. Unable to regard this type of love as much less selfish than the previously discussed digested love. Wondering why Godsfather Gary would consider it on a significantly higher moral plane.
“In its loftier, more distilled form, it cares only for what is right, honorable, and just without considering a reward.” Godsfather Gary’s elaboration shed some light on why he would hold this type of love in greater esteem than mere digestive love. “It does its duty without complaint. It renders impartial judgments. Often only demanding and desiring to be treated with such fairness and honor in return. At risk of becoming bitter and feeling scorned if such fairness and honor is not reciprocated. Transforming into the jilted lover. The lover who perceives himself as betrayed by his beloved.”
Roald’s forehead furrowed. Thinking of Kel. How honorable and fair she was. How his father had not treating her with fairness and honor when consenting to her probation. Wondering how bitter that would make her because she seemed to love justice as much or more than he did.
He was sometimes willing to compromise his principles for what could be deemed as political expediency–a trait inherited from his father perhaps–but she didn’t seem capable of doing. He ruminated over whether that meant he had the base, quid pro quo version of this type of love, and she the more elevated variety. Or if he was still stuck in the digestive love. Shamelessly scarfing down sweets with an appalling lack of moderation.
“What about the third type of love?” he asked. Curious if he would recognize any of himself in its mirror.
“The third type of love is the most exalted love. Rarer and more precious than diamonds.” Godsfather Gary’s tone had gone hushed. Heavy with portent. “It is a selfless, sacrificial love. In which the lover thinks only of the beloved. Acts only for the beloved. Does not think of himself or act according to what might be regarded as his own interest. This is the love that motivates a man to sacrifice himself for his country or for a fellow soldier. This is the love that makes a mother risk a blow to shield her child. The love that makes a man heal another or offer charity to the poor.”
“Oh.” Roald chewed on his lower lip. Embarrassed and humbled. Deciding this was the sort of love that Kel embodied. The sort of love he wished he possessed. “I don’t know if I have the strength for that sort of love.”
“You’ve already shown that you do.” Godsfather Gary chuckled quietly. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, little one. The most endearing and exasperating trait of those who love selflessly. Sacrificially.”
“What do you mean, sir?” Roald was flummoxed. A common enough experience and emotion in Godsfather Gary’s presence.
“Why–” Godsfather Gary arched an eyebrow– “did you agree to marry a princess from the Yamani Islands whom you had never met?”
“My parents, through their appointed diplomat, arranged and commanded it.” Roald couldn’t fathom how that could even be a question that arose in his shrewd godfather’s mind. How the answer wasn’t immediately self-evident. “The Mithran priests would say it is my duty to honor and obey my parents in all things, and your duty as my godsfather to remind me of that when I forget.”
“The Mithran priests are a joyless bunch, aren’t they?” Godsfather Gary was a soul more prone to irreverence than piety, Roald had observed long ago. That lack of a devout spirit should have been a shortcoming in a godsfather, but somehow Roald had never found it to be so. Godsfather Gary had so many other excellent qualities to atone for it, after all. “Yammering on about our religious duties from sunrise to sunset. Yet men do not always heed their strictures. Twelve-year-old boys certainly don’t. Are you certain it is only a matter of obedience and duty for you?”
“I love my parents, so I must obey them.” There were many Mithran verses about that. Roald’s tutors had made him memorize them before he was five. Schooling him in the duty a loving son owed his parents. “At least in major matters. In something major like who I marry, I couldn’t defy them as I might with something minor like sneaking into the crypts when I was younger.”
He had done such exploring in the cold crypts where his ancestors were buried beneath the palace against his parents’ orders when he was small. Remembered getting a stern scolding from his father for that bit of adventuring when it haunted him with a nightmare from which he awoke sweaty and screaming. Sobbing into his father’s chest and encircling arms. He hadn’t received any punishment more severe than that reprimand though. His father deeming the nightmare far harsher than any punishment he would’ve imposed on Roald for such minor disobedience.
“What makes your marriage a major matter?” Godsfather Gary was definitely putting on the paint to play the fool for some reason Roald couldn’t understand.
“My marriage to a Yamani princess is needed to secure our alliance with the Yamani Islands.” Roald’s voice was soft but firm. Not at all shaky. “If I reneged, it would at best cost Tortall an ally and trading partner we need. At worst, it could provoke a war. Wars have been caused over lesser affronts.”
“They have many times over the centuries.” Godsfather Gary squeezed Roald’s shoulder. “So, you see, you love your parents and your country too much to risk a war. You sacrifice yourself for your parents and for the realm.”
“It’s a small sacrifice to make. Not marrying according to one’s choice or pleasure.” Roald felt abashed at the praise for doing what he saw as his duty rather than a great sacrifice. Thinking of the arranged marriages of many of his fellow pages like Cleon, he added, “One that most royalty and nobility–even minor nobility–expect to make. For the good of their families and their lands.”
“Thus–” Godsfather Gary clapped Roald’s knee, suddenly brisk– “do we see how people are moved to sacrifice by love. So, in politics, we have those motivated by self-interest. Those motivated by the principles of justice, duty, and honor. As well as those motivated by those who are willing to sacrifice themselves for the welfare of others. Those who are selfless in their desire to protect and serve others.”
“I have a friend who lives and breathes that.” Roald cracked a crooked smile as an image of Kelabry of Mindelan climbed into his mind and refused to be dislodged. Quietly stubborn as the girl herself was. “Thank you for reminding me of how many people are capable of doing the right thing for the right reasons. It’s easy to become cynical in the pages’ wing surrounded by jokesters and troublemakers.”
“Just because it is easy to be cynical doesn’t mean it is correct to be so.” Godsfather Gary’s manner was wry. “Not that I have any right to say so since I’m the greatest cynic of them all.”
“You are not.” Roald hugged his godsfather. “You love Tortall with the third kind of love. The self-sacrificing kind. Don’t you?”
“Of course I do.” Godsfather Gary wore a mischievous smirk. Not at all befitting the sort of serious conversation in which Roald aimed to engage. “It’s the sad consequence of being a Naxen. Excessive loyalty flows through our veins like insanity runs through other lineages. Probably too much interbreeding with the Contes is to blame.”
“And you love my father with the third type of love too,” Roald persisted. Undaunted by his godsfather’s flippancy. “That’s why you are his Prime Minister and like a brother to him.”
“We were bonded since we shared a nursery.” Godsfather Gary returned Roald’s embrace. “I love you that way too. Since before you were born. Since your father asked me to be your godsfather. That was the greatest honor he ever gave me. More than when he asked me to be his Prime Minister. Because he trusted me to help raise his firstborn.”
“He loves you in the third kind of way.” Roald gave his godsfather a final squeeze. Then pulled away. “So do I.”
He rose. About to bow and take his leave when his godsfather’s next words halted him. Freezing him in his tracks despite how casually they were uttered. “Your father often says you have a sharper political mind than he did at your age. I agree.”
“Papa taught me much about politics.” And chess, Roald thought. Remembering the many games he had played against his father. Lessons in a different sort of strategy. He shifted from foot to foot. Discomfited by any compliment that seemed to place him above the man who had sired him in any way. “It’s like you said in our last conversation about how whatever we achieve, we do so standing on the backs of our fathers. Though I guess Papa must have received the same sort of lessons from his father when he was a boy.”
He was prying slightly. Curious as ever to hear more about his father’s childhood from a man who had grown up beside Papa. Papa not being inclined to share too many stories about his own childhood. Especially those tales that touched on his relationship with his own father–Roald’s namesake. There was a pain there for Papa, Roald had decided long ago. A tragic love that had ended in a fatal plunge into a ravine. A hunting accident that might not have been an accident. What could a son say about a father who might have done that?
“Not as much as you might think.” Godsfather Gary shook his head.
“Oh?” Roald was intrigued. His mother, he knew, hadn’t been educated in politics by her father, who had never intended for her to rule. The political insights and intuitions she had were entirely the products of her hard-won research and experience. He had assumed that his father would’ve been raised in much the same way he had. Brought up as Tortall’s heir.
“Your grandfather was a good man and a loving father, but he wasn’t the most astute politician.” Godsfather Gary sighed. “He tried to pass along what wisdom he had to your papa, but I’m afraid it wasn’t very much.”
“He was called the Peacemaker, wasn’t he?” Roald’s brows knotted. “Surely, he must have known something of the art of diplomacy to earn that epithet?”
“His father was Jasson the Conqueror,” Godsfather Gary reminded him tartly. “In order to earn his epithet, your grandfather had only to stop engaging in your great-grandfather’s wars. He didn’t understand much about successfully deploying diplomacy to prevent wars and maintain Tortall’s standing in the world, however. That’s why war broke out with Tusaine late in his reign. His intention was always for peace, but he had no idea how to secure it.”
“There’s worse things for a monarch to be motivated by.” Roald’s lip curled. Contempt for Jasson the Conqueror seeping out of him before he could stop it. “Like endless war and conquest.”
“Hmm.” Godsfather Gary leaned back in his chair. Considering this. Scrutinizing Roald with a keen chestnut gaze. “You do detest Jasson the Conqueror, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Roald saw no point in lying when the truth was plain to anyone with ears. “Not that it would matter to him, would it? His motto was that it was better to be feared than loved, wasn’t it?”
“The people of Tortall did fear him, but they often loved him just as much.” Godsfather Gary offered this statement as if it weren’t a blatant self-contradiction.
“How do you know?” Roald was dubious.
“My father was his squire.” Godsfather Gary ignored Roald’s gasp of astonishment as he went on, “Despite King Jasson’s mercurial temper, my father was very devoted to him. As was the whole Tortallan army. King Jasson was fierce and fearless on the battlefield, and that earned the enduring love of his troops. Tortall had lost much land to Tusaine in the years when King Jasson’s father ruled, so it invigorated the country to see a monarch determined to reclaim what had been stolen from Tortall with a little interest. Everyone was thirsting for revenge. Eager for the humiliation at Tusaine’s hands to end. For Tortallan honor to be restored. For Tortall to become something glorious. For a reason to be proud to be Tortallan again. King Jasson had his flaws, but he also had a shining vision of the empire Tortall could be, and people were willing to forgive him a great deal because of that vision after so much uncertainty and shame.”
“Am I too hard on my great-grandfather then?” Roald didn’t want to be merciless, even though it sometimes felt that justice required him to be.
“Your great-grandfather was quite a ruthless man.” Godsfather Gary’s eyes twinkled. A lightning flash of the wit for which he was known. “I do not think he could complain about others being too hard toward him even if he weren’t lying unfeeling in his grave. Love is a complicated thing. So are hatred, honor, and fear. Yet most of what we do is motivated by the interplay of those emotions. That is all I’m saying, Roald.”
Roald wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Settled for commenting, “My father enjoys talking to me about politics. As does yours.”
Nobody, he noted inwardly, who had ever seen the Duke of Naxen with his white head pressed close to the Prime Minister’s as they animatedly discussed some affair of state could doubt that. It had been, he knew, a quip dating back to his grandfather’s reign that the Naxens were the true power behind the throne. When one saw the Naxen father and son conversing in such a fashion, one understood how that jest had arisen.
“Oh, I know.” Godsfather Gary laughed. “It’s one of the few ways in which we know how to bond.”
Politics as bonding. He supposed that was the essence of what it meant to be a Naxen or a Conte.
Bowing, he did at last take his leave. Disappearing back to the pages’ wing where he would try to use some of what his godsfather had taught him about political motivation to convince more boys to sign the contract he had created. The one he hoped would end hazing or at least ensure that it was properly punished. That victims of bullying would have a channel beyond their own fists for pursuing justice and restitution.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 12:28:34 GMT 10
Changing Winds and Tides
The next few weeks of life in the pages’ wing were characterized by Roald’s efforts to increase the number of signatories to his contract.
Yancen, happily, proved fairly amenable to persuasion. He shrugged when Roald presented the document for his perusal over a lunch of vegetable and barley stew. Commenting, “I always thought all the hazing and brawling it produced was nonsense. A bad business. A waste of time and energy that could be better spent elsewhere.”
“Will you sign then?” Roald allowed himself to feel a flicker of hope. Demonstrate a flash of excitement.
“Why not?” Yancen picked up the quill Roald had handed him. About to sign his name beneath Esmond’s. Esmond, Seaver, and Merric had all signed the charter at the urging of their sponsors.
“Well.” Roald hesitated. Deciding to be honest even though he was aware it might cost him an ally. At least in the short-term. In the long run, the distance marathon that was the only one of value, nobody trusted a liar, and negotiations could never be brokered without trust. Besides, Yancen might not be motivated by self-interest. He might be driven by higher principles like the ones Godsfather Gary had alluded to in their last conversation. “It would require you to stop sending first-years on minor errands and that sort of thing. Would make you liable to penalties if you engaged in that sort of behavior after signing the document. You would not face any discipline for anything you did prior to signing, however.”
“I’m quite capable of fetching my own stuff.” With a decisive flourish, Yancen added his name below Esmond’s. Then returned the parchment and quill to Roald. “I’m a very independent person, after all.”
“You are indeed.” Roald inclined his head politely at a departing Yancen. “Thank you for signing.”
Signatories from other second and third years continued to trickle in over the next few days until the only pages who had not affixed their names to the charter were Joren, Garvey, Vinson, Zahir, and the boy Zahir was sponsoring. A blond first-year called Quinden of Marti’s Hill who seemed to obey Zahir’s every order out of the eminently understandable desire not to get thrashed.
Roald began to nurture the hope that Joren and his cronies were starting to feel isolated. A small force trapped–outflanked and outmaneuvered–by a much larger army that kept on swelling in numbers. Adding to its already impressive ranks.
Confirmation of just how isolated Joren and his crowd felt–how adrift in the changing winds and tides of the pages’ wing–came when Faleron, dragging a Merric who looked as if he would rather have a tooth removed in tow, visited Roald’s room before lights-out one evening.
“Merric has something important to tell you,” Faleron remarked gravely as he and Merric claimed the chairs Roald had indicated. Merric squirming in his seat far more than his older, steadier cousin.
“Why do I have to repeat it?” Merric was red and angry as a wild boar hunted in the royal forest. “I told it once already. To you. Why do I have to relive the humiliation yet again?”
“Because–” Faleron was unruffled in the face of his kinsman’s ire– “His Highness will want to hear the truth straight from your lips.”
“What happened, Merric?” Roald leaned forward in his chair. Sensing that something pivotal had transpired and that the other lad had been part of it in some way. Could testify and bear witness to it.
Merric’s jaw tightened. Radiating a defiant silence rooted in deep shame.
“Merric.” Faleron sighed. “You trust me, don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t have come to you about what happened otherwise.” Merric flared. Burning like a candle.
“Then fill the prince in on what occurred.” Faleron gave his cousin’s knee an encouraging swat. “I’m telling you that you can trust him.”
“Very well.” Merric paused as if gathering the scattered pieces of his story together before he continued, “I was in the pages’ library where I had gone to research an essay for Sir Myles. Joren and his friends were there. They asked me to fetch a book on Tyran mercantile law. I went searching in the stacks, and when I returned with one, they threw it on the floor. Snapped at me that they had requested a different book on wheat farming in Maren and that the book I’d grabbed for them wasn’t it. Suggested that my hearing was impaired by wax they should thump out of my ears.”
“Those clowns.” Roald shook his head. Though that didn’t sound as scathing a condemnation of Joren’s band of bullies as they deserved. An appropriately vivid and vehement condemnation would have encompassed vulgar, colorful phrases learned from Baron George that would have gotten his mouth thoroughly scrubbed by his unamused and unrelenting Mithran tutors before he had started page training. Habits of self-censorship imposed by a healthy fear of foul-smelling soap died hard. “How are your ears?”
He was not a healer on par with Duke Baird, but Roald’s amateur eye detected no trace of bruising or bleeding.
“They didn’t thump me on the ears after all.” Merric swallowed. Then went on in a rush, “Zahir challenged Joren. Said maybe Joren was stupid enough to pick a fight with the entire pages’ wing about hazing but he–Zahir–wasn’t. That he could calculate the odds better than that. Told Joren cool as a winter blizzard that he had more profitable and less painful ways to spend his evenings.”
“What happened next?” Roald prompted when Merric again sank into silence.
“I don’t know.” Merric buried his head in his hands as if ashamed to look up. As if fearing judgment for cowardice. The disgrace and dishonor that could only befall those deemed too weak to survive the pages’ wing. “Zahir and Joren could’ve started pounding into each other after that for all I know. Joren was shocked by Zahir’s objection so I took advantage of his distraction to flee from the library without even grabbing what I needed to write the essay for Sir Myles. I didn’t see or hear anything else except my own feet running away fast as they could carry me.”
“Nothing wrong with beating a strategic retreat.” Faleron clapped his cousin on the shoulder.
“Definitely not,” Roald agreed. Nodding somberly. “Fools rush in where Horse Lords tremble to tread. That’s what my godsmother Buri says, and she’s an expert on tactics. The Commander of the Queen’s Riders.”
“Err.” Merric appeared bewildered. As if the thread tying their discussion together had been cut. “Horse Lords, Your Highness?”
“K’miri deities.” Roald explained the reference. Clarifying it. Translating it from one culture to another. “Commander Buri is K’miri.”
“Well, I don’t know much about these Horse Lords.” Merric grunted. Rather like a speared boar. “But if they trample over Joren and his minions for me, I’m willing to worship them too. I’m a broad-minded fellow when it comes to my religious devotions.”
“By broad-minded, you mean you would rather sleep late on Sundays than awaken before the sun god himself to attend dawn services to Mithros as Lord Wyldon requires,” quipped Faleron. Chuckling.
“The Horse Lords–” Roald’s mouth quirked into a faint, wry grin– “do not demand their followers attend dawn services.”
The Horse Lords, Roald had been informed by his godsmother on more than one occasion, were not so rigid and joyless deities as Mithros. Or at least Mithros as he was presented and preached to the world through his austere priesthood.
“In that case, they have a new follower in me.” Merric folded his hands in a pious imitation of prayer. “All praise to the Horse Lords. No offense to Mithros but he could have been more reasonable in his expectations of sleepy teenage boys.”
“We should go.” Faleron intruded on Merric’s mirth with a sharp yank on the elbow. “It’ll be lights-out soon, and we don’t want to receive punishment duty for being up after curfew.”
As his guests left, disappearing into the hallway and closing the door behind them, Roald contemplated the report he had received from Merric. Stroking his nose meditatively, he mused that a crack seemed to have developed in Joren and Zahir’s friendship. Friendships were always fragile in politics and the pages’ wing. It might be worth talking to Zahir. Seeing if he could hammer that crack into a deep canyon.
As he pulled on his nightclothes, slid beneath his covers, and blew out his bedside candle, Roald remembered what Godsfather Gary had told him about the second type of love. The principled type of love. The love of fairness and honor.
He wondered if he could convince Zahir to sign the contract out of fairness and honor. Or at the very least be persuaded to accede to some sort of quid pro quo arrangement as Godsfather Gary had termed it.
It was definitely on his agenda to pay a social call to Zahir’s room the next evening, Roald decided as he burrowed deeper into his warm blankets. He would speak with Zahir face to face. Discover if they could see eye to eye on some crucial things. Reach a common understanding through delicate and honest negotiation. With that ambition and hope floating foremost in his mind, he drifted off to sleep. Dropping into peaceful, black oblivion.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 20, 2022 10:01:17 GMT 10
Survival and Truce
“What a surprise.” Zahir opened his door only wide enough to study Roald through a single, wary dark eye the next evening when Roald knocked in an attempt to pay a social call. “A royal visit from Your Highness.”
“May I–” Roald hated himself for faltering. For having allowed himself to believe that the haughty, hard-nosed Zahir ibn Alhaz would be anything other than sarcastic and suspicious if Roald tried to meet with him for an earnest dialogue. For being daunted–feeling stonewalled– by that entirely predictable suspicion now. “Come in?”
“If you wish.” Zahir stepped back. Pulling the door open just far enough for Roald to slip through it into a painstakingly tidy room. Closing the door firmly behind Roald. Leaving Roald feeling somehow trapped in a place he knew he was unwelcome as lung rot. “It’s your father’s palace.”
“And your room.” Roald’s gaze flicked around this room he had never entered before. There were no pillows and blankets in the thickly woven patterns of the Bazhir lining the floor. Furnishing the room as if it were a desert tent. No knick-knacks or other personal artifacts beyond a washbasin, a pitcher of water, and some cups cluttered the windowsill and nightstand. Assigned reading for classes were the only books piled on the desk beside quills, inkwells, and rolls of parchment. Zahir, Roald recalled, had never been much of a reader. Arriving at the palace for page training unable to read and write. Mistrustful of the written word. Perceiving it as an agency of deceit and injustice rather than a bastion of impartial truth and fairness.
There was nothing to indicate the room’s inhabitant was a proud, prickly Bazhir. Nothing to suggest any interest in music or art. Nothing that offered or betrayed any insight into Zahir’s heart or mind. The decor was so sparse as to border on the non-existent and everything so neatly arranged that even Lord Wyldon wouldn’t have found much to nitpick.
The only objects that appeared to be out of place were a dagger and a polishing cloth on the floor. A supple polishing cloth with the distinctive crest of Raven Armory embroidered into a corner. A symbol of prestige and power. Subtly but unmistakably there.
“I was polishing my dagger.” Zahir had detected where Roald’s glance had fallen. Seemed determine to assert that the only items not stored properly were engaged in an interrupted act of cleaning. “Before you knocked.”
“My apologies for the disruption.” Roald inclined his head.
“Water.” Zahir reached for the pitcher of water on his nightstand. Poured two glasses. Handed one to Roald. “After your journey.”
Ritual words and gestures of greeting among the Bazhir, Roald knew. Had been taught that by his father on his trips to the Southern Desert to introduce the Bazhir to the realm’s heir. Water was the most precious resource and commodity among the Bazhir. The most generous gift they could bestow on the weary traveler.
“Thank you.” Roald accepted the glass. Gave what he hoped would be regarded as a politely self-depracating grin. “But my journey was only a very short one down the hallway.”
“Unpoisoned water.” Zahir sipped from his cup. “You see?”
“I didn’t think it would be otherwise.” Roald lifted his glass to his lips. Drank. “Poison isn’t your style.”
“No.” Zahir arched an eyebrow. “What is my style then?”
“Full-on frontal assault.” Roald grinned. “An arrow to the chest or a sword slash to the throat.”
“Not very sneaky of me.” Zahir’s mouth twisted into the snide shadow of a smile. “I thought we Bazhir were supposed to be sneaky and shifty. Treacherous. Unable to be relied upon. Forever ready to stab anyone in the back.”
“That’s ignorant prejudice. My father doesn’t believe that.” Roald spoke more hotly than he’d intended. “Nor do I.”
“Yet I can be sneaky when I want.” Zahir, Roald noted, could be a maddeningly enigmatic individual with which to converse. Straightforward and yet not so at the same time. The only constant seeming to be Zahir’s endless need to prove himself. To win some argument Roald didn’t even realize they were having.
Before Roald could reply to this strange assertion, Zahir bent over. Rifled under his bed. Withdrew a box. Remarking as he opened it with a flourish, “My hidden cache of dried dates if you want one.”
A secret treasure trove revealed there, and another hint of Zahir’s Bazhir ancestry. Because dried dates were prized among the Bazhir. A token of welcome–along with water–extended to guests and weary travelers. Another lesson taught to him by Papa during a visit to the Southern Desert when he was very young.
It was tradition, too, for Bazhir warriors to survive off dried dates and water for weeks on end if necessary. Roald remembered back in their first year when they were preparing provisions for the spring camping trip Lord Wyldon asking Zahir what food he would pack for such a journey. Recalled how Zahir had answered dried dates. How that response had provoked gales of laughter from northerners who had hastened to suggest salted meat jerky and hard cheeses instead. Foods that only would have enhanced thirst.
Thinking of the mocking amusement Zahir had faced that day, Roald thought it was no wonder that Zahir had become such a master of masking his Bazhir identity. It would’ve been a matter of survival to him. As much as dates and water were matters of survival to Bazhir living in the Southern Desert. With changes in terrain, there came changes in survival strategies. Roald suspected Zahir would understand that better than most pages. Would have been forced to do so by changes in terrain thrust upon him.
With a murmur of thanks, Roald selected a dried date. Bit into it. Tasted the sweetness, and the rich, caramel texture. A flavor and texture he had not experienced since his last trip to the Southern Desert.
Once he had finished his dried date, Roald remarked, “You don’t want to pick a fight with the entire pages’ wing about hazing.”
“Hollyrose tell you that?” Zahir’s lips thinned.
“I can neither confirm nor deny that.” Roald’s sources of information would surely dry up if he divulged their identity too easily and openly.
“That is confirmation enough.” Zahir snorted. Then gave a sharp shrug of his shoulders. “When he chooses his battle ground, a warrior has to decide if it is a hill he’s prepared to die on. I wasn’t prepared to die on the hazing hill.”
“That was wise of you.” Roald’s compliment was sincere.
Still, it drew forth another derisive noise from Zahir. “You only say that because you agree with my choice, Your Highness. If you disagreed, you’d call me a fool. So it is really only your own cleverness you credit.”
Somewhat daunted by this cynical reply to his genuine compliment, Roald took a moment to recover his poise before continuing as if Zahir hadn’t spoken at all. Pressing on with the true reason and hope for which he had come to Zahir’s room this evening. “Would you consider signing the contract against hazing?”
“Why–” Zahir stared at Roald as if he had suddenly transformed into a three-headed monster– “would I do such a thing?”
“Why wouldn’t you?” Roald countered. Striving for steadiness. Seeking to understand Zahir’s objections so he could better overcome and dismiss them.
“Because–” Zahir’s jaw tightened– “when has signing a treaty with a northerner, especially a Conte, worked out in favor of the Bazhir? Or even fairly for the Bazhir?”
Roald swallowed. Uncertain how to respond deftly and sensitively to this bitter demand that had a horrible ring of painful truth ungirding it.
Zahir plunged on as if he hadn’t expected a reply. As if he knew there was no satisfactory one Roald could give. “Your great-grandfather came to the desert with parchment promises as well as swords and spears. The parchment promises were all lies. Lies he tricked our headmen into signing. Lies that forced us to surrender our land. Your precious contracts stole our land from us. Bazhir have long memories. We can’t forgive or forget that. Maybe we don’t record our histories in big books like northerners, but we do something better. We pass our memories from generation to generation through campfire stories. Campfire stories we share every night.”
“It was wrong for the northerners under my great-grandfather to take your people’s land.” Roald decided he couldn’t dispute that. Didn’t want to dispute that. Valued justice too much to wish to pretend that what had happened to the Bazhir was fair in any way. Recalling what Godsfather Gary had said about why Duke Gareth had loved the mercurial King Jasson and what that suggested about King Jasson’s initial motivations for conquest, he felt his throat constrict. “We northerners didn’t like Tusaine poaching what we saw as our land. That’s why King Jasson first went to war. To take back what was ours, but then it grew from a reclaiming to a conquest of territory that had never been ours before. We hated the Tusaine for shaming us and stealing what we saw as rightfully ours. We shouldn’t have done the same to the Bazhir. It was a mistake. A misjustice.”
Looking at Zahir–trying to truly see his yearmate for what felt like the first time–Roald found himself wondering about King Jasson as well. Had his conquering ancestor been like Zahir? Fiercely proud? All rough edges with no softness underneath? Determined to maintain a stoic face when his people were mocked? Resolved that shame shouldn’t last forever?
“A misjustice.” Zahir finally spoke after a long moment of silence between them. “I don’t believe any northerner–certainly never any Conte–has admitted the conquest of the Southern Desert was that.”
“My father has not been a bad king to the Bazhir.” Roald felt himself bristling. His spine instinctively stiffening as if his father had been insulted. Or, worse still, judged and found wanting.
“He’s not been a bad king to the Bazhir.” Zahir’s tone was lofty. Impassive. “But that’s not the same as being a good king to the Bazhir.”
“And what would make a good king to the Bazhir?” Roald struggled not to grind his teeth. Knowing it was an unhealthy habit.
“There can be no good king to the Bazhir.” Zahir gave a brusque shake of his head. “We Bazhir are not a feudal, cringing people like the northerners. It’s not in our nature to bow and kneel. Our blood burns for our independence. A good king to us would grant us our freedom. Let us go forever.”
Roald stroked his chin. Considering this. He was quite certain that when his father rode down to the Southern Desert to train as Voice under Ali Mukhtab it had not been with any intention to free the Bazhir. Only to better understand them so he could more effectively rule over them. Rule over them peacefully and benevolently, but still rule over them. His father was a man born to rule. Leading coming as naturally to him as breathing. Godsfather Gary had claimed he was issuing commands in the nursery, hadn’t he? That was not the sort of man who would let the Bazhir have their freedom.
It was hard to fathom the Bazhir wanting their freedom. Wishing to be something other than Tortallan after Papa had tried so hard to integrate them into the fabric of the rest of the country. To make them feel accepted and respected. Longing for a life without any sort of monarchy and the order that imposed.
“What would you do?” Roald frowned. Mystified. “How would you govern yourselves without a king?”
“We managed to govern ourselves just fine before the northerners came and messed everything up.” Zahir’s words blazed hot as his cheeks. “Before they decimated us and put our tents to the torch.”
Decimated. Roald flinched from the term though he knew it was fair. Was, if anything, an understatement as some scholars suggested that it had been more than one in ten Bazhir who were slaughtered during King Jasson’s conquest of the Southern Desert.
“If you do not want a king–” Roald’s forehead furrowed– “why are you in page training? Learning to be a knight in my father’s service?”
“For the same reason you are, I imagine.” The fire in Zahir seemed to have been banked again. Leaving only embers behind. “Because my father ordered it and threatened to beat me with a rod if I did not obey.”
“My father doesn’t beat me.” Roald shook his head in a swift, appalled denial. Again feeling an abrupt need to defend his father from an unexpected charge.
“No.” Zahir’s gaze was cool. Assessing. “I don’t suppose he has to. You probably do what you are told without him having to whip you into submission.”
“My father doesn’t whip his children into submission.” Roald felt a surge of anger. Papa might have been stern and strict, but he wasn’t violent. Even his sternness and strictness was often accompanied by some sign of affection. A squeeze on the shoulder or a ruffle of hair. A flash of wit or a charming smile. Some gesture to make a child feel loved even after a scolding. “It’s not his style.”
“No.” Zahir shifted his angle of attack. “His style is more to charm people into submission. No whipping necessary.”
“Hazing is all about whipping younger pages into submission.” Roald tried to restore the original thread of their conversation before it was lost completely. “It’s the same as what the northerners did to the Bazhir during the desert conquest. That’s why you should sign the contract.”
“You compare hazing to the conquest of the Bazhir?” Zahir emitted an incredulous laugh. All the humor in it hollowed out by resentment.
Roald became increasingly aware of just how badly he had misstepped–just how grave his verbal blunder had been–as Zahir went on witheringly, “Two can play at that game, Your Highness. Did you know that when I first came to the palace I was bullied relentlessly by the older pages? Constantly called a sand scut and pounded into?”
“I knew.” Roald longed to drop his gaze to the floor because that was easier than looking at the boy he had failed years ago. Gathering his courage about him like a cloak, he remembered his mother’s words about apologies being the only way forward. Being how dirty slates were wiped clean. He needed a way forward and a clean slate with Zahir. A restart to their relationship. “I should’ve had the strength and conviction to stop it at the time. I’m sorry.”
“Joren was the only one to try to protect me by saying I should hang out with him all the time.” Zahir’s eyes were dark and narrow. Dangerous. “The only one to offer me friendship, and now you want me to betray him? To stab him in the back by signing your little charter?”
“Any friendship Joren offered wasn’t true friendship.” Roald felt as if all his attempts at delicacy had disintegrated in this conversation. As if Zahir’s brutal bluntness had rubbed off on him. At least temporarily. “He hates the Bazhir. You know that.”
“Oh, he’s made no effort to conceal his disdain for my people from me.” Zahir’s lips twitched into a faint smirk. “He likes to tell me I’m a good sand scut. Unlike all the other nasty, filthy sand scuts infecting Tortall.”
“Then how can you be friends with him?” Roald burst out with his ultimate bafflement about Zahir. “You don’t need his protection any longer. You can emerge from his shadow. You have that freedom.”
“Most northerners distrust and despise the Bazhir.” Zahir’s face was inscrutable stone. “Joren at least has the virtue of being utterly honest about his hatred. He doesn’t even try to hide it behind polite lies of tolerance and respect. I weary of charades and appreciate his transparency.”
“You’ll have more respect in the pages’ wing if you carve your own path apart from Joren,” Roald insisted. “If you prove you aren’t Joren’s creature.”
“If I show myself to be your creature instead, you mean?” Zahir was dubious.
“Not my creature. Your own person.” Roald hesitated. Then finished, “Governed by the dictates of your own conscience.”
“My own conscience.” Zahir steepled his fingers. Looking very leonine. “No doubt you believe my conscience should lead me to sign your contract.”
“You could at least review it.” Roald took a deep breath. Sensing the pivotal moment had come. Offered the parchment now bearing so many signatures of pages for Zahir’s inspection. “Decide if it feels right and honorable for you to sign it.”
Zahir accepted the document. Unfurled it. Scrutinized it with a tightly drawn brow. Examining every word with the care of someone whose people had been burned by unfair treaties in the past. Pointed at a paragraph. “This clause. It means I cannot be held accountable for any offense committed prior to signing this contract if I were to do so, correct?”
“Yes.” Roald nodded. Fighting to keep his eagerness at bay. Too not seem too excited and desperate. “That’s exactly what it means in plain language.”
“And this?” Zahir’s finger slid down the parchment to Roald’s signature. “This means you are bound by these words as much as anyone else who puts their name on this document?”
“Yes.” Roald’s answer felt like a somber vow on his tongue. He hoped Zahir heard it as such and would believe him. Would see that he meant to be fair and honorable. Someone worthy of trust. “I am bound by the words as much as anyone else. That’s what my signature means.”
“Then–” Zahir picked up a quill. Signed the parchment with dignified deliberation. “I will add my name to the others.”
“You are better than most pages at reading northern contracts.” Roald was impressed. Decided not to hide it.
“Not a skill I wished to learn.” Zahir’s jaw clenched. “But a skill I learned nonetheless.”
A jagged quiet slipped between them for a long moment before Zahir announced tersely, “I won’t be able to induce Garvey or Vinson to sign your contract. They won’t part ways with Joren. Not about hazing.”
“I didn’t think they would.” Roald fixed unfaltering eyes on Zahir. “You were the only one I saw as independent-minded enough to go against Joren. The only one with the bravery and honor to be your own man.”
“A fair analysis.” Zahir replied after a pause. “You are fairer than most northerners. A reason I respect you.” He held out his right hand. “A truce then? Sealed in your northern fashion?”
“We do not need a truce.” Roald took Zahir’s hand. Shook it firmly. “Only enemies need truces, and we were never enemies. Not really.”
Still, as he left Zahir’s room, Roald couldn’t help hating himself for the lightning flare of triumph that coursed through his veins. He wondered if King Jasson had felt the same thrill of victory when he conquered the Southern Desert and forced the Bazhir into unfair treaties.
The contract Zahir signed wasn’t unfair, Roald told himself, but it didn’t prove to be as soothing a balm for his unquiet conscience as he had hoped. Perhaps King Jasson had also believed he was doing the right thing after all. Maybe Roald was more like his great-grandfather than he wanted to acknowledge. Isolating his enemies to destroy them. As his papa–often compared to King Jasson–had suggested.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Jan 4, 2023 8:07:02 GMT 10
Remembered Lessons
Joren seemed more bitter about Zahir signing the contract than he did about all the other pages combined putting their names to it. He hissed to Roald as they stood in line to grab their dinner trays, “You twisted my best friend against me. Wormed your way into his brain and made him sign that wretched piece of parchment against his will.”
“Zahir is independent-minded.” Roald kept his voice calm and cool. Telling himself that this backlash from Joren could not be regarded as surprising. That of course Joren would feel provoked by Zahir being persuaded to sign the document Joren loathed. The piece of parchment that would be the undoing of all Joren’s precious hazing practices. “Nobody can convince him to do anything he doesn’t want to do, I assure you.”
“Sand scut minds are weak. Inferior to northern brains.” Joren snorted derisively. “No doubt you magicked him.”
Accusations of magicking were the oldest trick in the conservative playbook it sometimes seemed to Roald, who had grown up at court. Hearing all the predictable conservative claptrap objections to his parents’ numerous reforms.
“You haven’t the foggiest idea how magic works. You don’t have the Gift.” Not the most diplomatic or placatory reply Roald could have offered under the circumstances. He did not feel particularly diplomatic or placatory. Felt hot-blooded. Uncaring if he ruffled feathers. Caused affront. Rather hoping that he did. Wondered if this had been how Papa felt all those years ago when he drew the lifelong enmity of Ralon of Malven. If this was part of his Conte legacy.
“You can’t weasel out of this.” Joren had reached the front of the line. Snatched up a tray laden with a plate of venison and root vegetables alongside a glass of milk. His clenched knuckles bone-white as the milk. “I’ll never forget this, Your Highness.”
“Good.” Roald picked up his own tray. Recalled what Godsfather Gary had said about Papa wanting Ralon to stew in his own humiliation. Found that he couldn’t resist emulating this behavior. Satisfying this vindictive urge that felt like justice but was probably darker than that. “I want you to remember it forever as a lesson learned.”
What was the point of a lesson, after all, if it wasn’t remembered forever?
Joren’s cheeks flushed crimson with fury, and he stalked off to join Vinson and Garvey, the two dull-witted henchmen whose admiration for him would never flounder or fail. The ones who would remain eternally his vile creatures. Forever in his thrall.
As Roald slipped onto the bench across from Kel, Zahir, who was seated a few spots along the table with Yancen, leaned forward to comment, “You should be careful poking the bear that is Joren of Stone Mountain, Your Highness. He has claws and will want bloody vengeance if you bait him.”
“I’m not surprised he’ll want revenge.” Roald refused to be intimidated by Joren any longer. He was the Crown Prince, and that had to be made to mean something when it came to standing in the shadow of other pages. He had to stop being afraid to start shaping the world to his will as his parents did. “He’s a venomous viper, and it’s no wonder that he’d seek to strike at my heel when I aim to crush his head with it.”
Zahir, forehead furrowed, opened his mouth to respond with some concern about this sentiment but was interrupted before he could begin by Lord Wyldon’s arrival. The training master’s curt gesture for them all to rise for the evening prayer to Mithros was followed by a scraping of benches as everyone stood. Bowed their heads. Recited the ritual, “So mote it be,” after Lord Wyldon’s appeal to the god of warriors and truth to bless them. Once they had honored the Goddess as well at these mealtime prayers, but that had been before Keladry of Mindelan’s tenure as a probationary page. The training master being determined to make a statement in that way.
Because, even in the midst of his newfound pride, he was not a complete fool, Roald mulled over Zahir’s cautionary words as he ate his dinner. Chewing on the gamey venison sweetened with a wild berry sauce that tasted of the Royal Forest. He decided that it would at least be prudent for him to pay a visit to his parents tonight before lights-out.
To inform them about the charter he had written and the pages he had convinced to sign it. In case Joren snitched about it to Lord Wyldon, and an incensed Lord Wyldon complained to his parents about it as he had done when Roald stepped forward to volunteer to be Kel’s sponsor.
Not that Joren or Lord Wyldon had any solid proof or indisputable evidence that such a document existed beyond the confines of their slighted fancy. Still, Roald decided that he didn’t want to roll the dice with his father’s anger in particular. His mother, he was reasonably certain, would approve. His father was more of a question mark. Especially when he remembered how irate his father had been about the shock of Roald volunteering to sponsor Kel without consulting with Papa first. Obtaining Papa’s permission first. How he seemed to feel that as a snub.
Papa would not want to be surprised by the existence of such a contract. To have the first inkling of it come from an aggrieved Lord Wyldon seeking redress. No, Roald should do him the courtesy of telling him first even if his knees did begin to shake nervously at the thought. Wondering if his father would be stern and disapproving.
Returning to his room after supper, Roald scooped up the volumes he had borrowed from his father’s private collection. It was about time he brought back the tomes since he had finished his research with them, and their return would provide a useful pretext for his visit should his courage in telling his parents about the contract he had created flag at the crucial moment.
With trembling fingers, he tucked that charter into a folio that would conceal its contents until he was ready to reveal them. Then, wrapping what valor he could muster about himself like a cloak on a frosty night, he left for the royal quarters.
Once there, he decided he should first return his father’s books. Approaching the open door of his father’s study, he saw Papa behind a desk, drafting some letter or piece of legislation. As Roald paused at the threshold, reluctant to enter without an invitation, Papa smiled. Set down his quill. “Roald. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Your books.” Roald hoped he sounded normal. Not nervous. “I thought I should return them.”
“Only if you’ve finished with them.” Papa continued to smile benevolently. “Do you need help finding where they belong on the shelves?”
“No, thank you.” Roald shook his head. “I remember where I pulled them from, Papa.”
Even if he hadn’t, he’d been in his father’s study and gazed often enough at the array of tomes on the shelves to figure out how the books were filed. He was just restoring the final volume to its proper place, his back to his father, when he found himself asking, “Is it true, Papa, that your father didn’t teach you much about politics? Didn’t explain the nuances of diplomacy and negotiation to you?”
He didn’t know what prompted the question. A burning curiosity about what Godsfather Gary had shared with him about his father’s childhood? A desire to stall? To take advantage of a moment of peace and lowered tension before he had to risk Papa’s censure?
“Did your Godsfather Gary spin you that tale?” Papa rose. Crossed the study to clasp Roald’s shoulder. To turn him away from the bookshelves so they stood face-to-face.
“Yes, Papa.” Roald had a sudden, sharp compulsion to duck his head that he barely managed to subdue. “Was he lying?”
More likely, knowing Godsfather Gary’s keen wit and boundless capacity for mischief, he had been pulling Roald’s leg. Godsfather Gary had always loved his pranks and clever tricks, Roald thought with a rueful flicker of embarrassment. It seemed that Roald had become the unfortunate butt of his latest joke.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Jan 15, 2023 8:13:59 GMT 10
A Good Son
“Lying?” Papa shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t say that your Godsfather Gary was lying. He was telling the truth from his point of view, but the truths of even the cleverest men can be tainted and tinged by their biases. And your Godsfather Gary, bless him, is almost always biased in my favor.”
“What’s the real truth then?” Roald felt more confused than ever. As if every time some clarity started to emerge in his life, a new fog made a mystery of everything he thought he had figured out. More answers just seemed to lead to more questions in an unending loop. “Or the truth as you see it? Or as your father saw it?”
Roald really didn’t understand what his father was saying. Making it difficult to frame a coherent question.
“The truth is from the moment I was born, I was quite headstrong. Very willful and assured of myself. Some might even say too willful and assured of myself.” Papa cracked a crooked grin, and Roald wondered, not for the first time, how it would feel to be that confident. To be that comfortable in his own skin. To not constantly worry about placating and pleasing others. To not care about earning and maintaining their approval. To not fret about offending them. It seemed an enviable and unimaginable freedom.
Papa went on in a quieter, graver tone, the smile fading from his face, “I did not always heed my father’s counsel, and I often disobeyed him. Even in major policy matters. There must have been many times that he tried to give me some lesson or piece of advice when I refused, in my pride, to listen to him. Yes, it must have been frustrating for my father to deal with such a stubborn son whose ears were so often closed to his words and wisdom. His guidance.”
“No son can listen to his father all the time.” Roald felt the need to advocate on behalf of all sons. Even if the son in this instance was his father. His father who was speaking about his childhood. A rare occurrence indeed. Rarer than a January thaw. “Or obey him all the time. Boys are not made that way.”
Knowing his sisters, Roald didn’t think girls were made that way either. The only difference seemed to be that fathers found the defiances of their daughters more charming. Less threatening.
“They are not,” Papa agreed. A trace of humor entered his voice then faded as he continued, “But some are better at listening and obeying than others. I did not listen and obey my father as well as I should’ve when he was alive. Now that he is dead, I regret that. He died when there was this distance between us. This gap I couldn’t close. No matter how hard I tried though I probably should’ve tried harder.”
Roald wondered why the burden and guilt of closing or failing to close such chasms always fell on sons and not fathers. Didn’t share this burning question with his father whom he could see was in pain. Reluctant to cause his father any further distress, he said instead, “You don’t have to tell me anything more, Papa. I shouldn’t have asked. It was an idle curiosity.”
“Not so idle a curiosity.” Papa squeezed Roald’s shoulder gently. “You wanted to understand your father. That is your right as a son. To understand your father. I sought to do the same–understand my father–after his death. You just had the commendable foresight to seek to understand me before I departed this mortal realm.”
“I don’t want to think of you dying, Papa.” Roald bit his lip. Then asked because it seemed to be the secret to understanding his own father, unraveling the impossible knot of how the generations were tied together in unfathomable fashions, “What’d you learn about your father after he died?”
“That his relationship with his own father was very fraught. That King Jasson would beat him for any compassion or softness that he showed. Calling it an unmanly weakness unacceptable in a future king. That he would slap my father across the face whenever he tried to speak of peace or diplomacy.” Papa sighed. Exhaling a heaviness. “At least that is what my uncle Gareth told me when I asked.”
“Oh.” Roald absorbed this. Supposing that it shouldn’t be surprising that the mercurial King Jasson was the type to slap his own son across the face for daring to speak of peace. That the ruthless Conqueror would beat his heir for any perceived weakness. Yet he was still shocked. Appalled. Shaken by that familial violence whose consequences seemed to ripple through the generations. Impacting how father treated son to this present moment he was breathing and reeling in. He could imagine King Jasson approving of Papa’s stubborn strength. Dismissing and deriding Roald as a weakling carved in his namesake’s image. Remembering what Godsfather Gary had told him, he ventured, “Great-Uncle Gareth was King Jasson’s squire, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.” Papa nodded. Added nothing beyond that.
“Do you think–” Roald faltered– “King Jasson hit him too?”
“Perhaps.” Papa’s expression was grim as he answered. “It wouldn’t surprise me. But it wouldn’t have broken Uncle Gareth to be struck the way it did my father. My father was very sensitive, I think. He never had Uncle Gareth’s resiliency.”
“Nor yours,” Roald observed in a small voice. Papa was resilient. Not able to be shattered by any adversity. Not even his enemies could deny his resilience. His unbreakability.
“Nor mine, but I might not have grown to be as resilient as I am if my father hadn’t been so tender to me in my formative years.” Papa’s words were soft. Reflective. Almost musing. “He never hit me and rarely raised his voice to me even when I was in my most obstinate moods. He tried to be a good father to me. Better than his own father was to him. I can’t say that I was always a good son to him.”
“But if you tried to be a good son, to listen and obey him, to please him–” Roald burst out, feeling as if he were speaking more for himself than for the headstrong boy his father had been– “then you were a good son just by trying to be even if you weren’t perfect, weren’t you?”
“I didn’t try to be a good son. Not nearly as much as you do anyway.” Papa pulled Roald into an unexpected but appreciated one-armed embrace. “You listen and obey me so well that I get used to it. Take it for granted. Get quite angry and offended when you do otherwise.”
“It’s your right to get angry when I don’t listen or obey. Otherwise, I’d never learn to listen and obey.” Roald recited the sentiment Mithran priests had hammered into his head. It was circular logic but there was no other form of reasoning where Mithran priests and obedience were concerned.
“That’s what the Mithran priests teach.” Papa had identified the source of Roald’s expressed idea. Roald supposed that every lad who had ever drawn breath in Tortall would have been schooled in this stern stricture that left little room for youthful mischief at least once by an austere, orange-robed priest. Whether in the chapel or in the classroom. “Still, my father would’ve been disappointed that I struck you.”
“Only on one occasion.” The urge to minimize and excuse washed over Roald. His cheeks flamed like fort beacons warning of imminent invasion. He stared at the carpet because it was suddenly easier than looking at his father. Gazing up into the blue eyes that were so like his. “And not on my face.”
“No, not on your face.” Papa cupped Roald’s cheek. “Never on your face.”
“Only on my bottom.” Roald wondered if Papa could feel his cheek blazing with embarrassment. “I’d disobeyed you in a major matter. I wasn’t trying to be a good son. At least not in that moment. And the Mithran priests say the bottom was made for such paternal correction.”
The Mithran priests, it turned out, had many views on fatherly discipline. Few of which favored the sons in Roald’s experience.
“The healers do not agree.” Papa gathered Roald into a hug. It involved two arms this time. “And I’m inclined to side with the healers in this regard especially given that Mithran priests are not, strictly speaking, allowed to father children of their own.”
“I’m grateful.” Roald pressed closer to his father’s chest. Seeking affection but also unable to resist voicing a grievance nursed by the tiny boy he had been. Hauled over his father’s knee for a spanking that cut through all dignity and pride. “You have a hard hand, Papa.”
“I did not hit you hard as I could’ve, son.” Papa ruffled Roald’s hair. The words not as reassuring as the accompanying gesture. If Papa had intended them to be reassuring at all. He could be aggravatingly enigmatic, Roald thought. Never providing the precise reply Roald wanted to hear. The comfort and approval he craved like a drowning sailor longed for shore. “You were so small. I never would’ve struck you with my full strength.”
The spanks had been more like firm pats on his bared bottom than solid blows, Roald recognized that with the benefit of increased maturity and hindsight. His father had been measured in delivering the discipline even if he had seemed furious at the time. Almost out of control.
“I know that now.” Roald struggled to explain how he had felt to his papa. Papa who couldn’t understand because he had never been smacked by his father. An injustice that was starting to rankle with Roald. Festering in him like lung rot. “But I didn’t know it then. Then it felt like you were hitting me with your full strength. That you were holding nothing back, and I had no idea when or if you’d stop. I was afraid it would go on forever, Papa. That you’d never stop.”
“You were meant to feel that way.” A chuckle echoed through Papa’s chest, and Roald couldn’t figure out if his father was amused at Roald’s present or past self. Perhaps both. Being reduced to laughter fodder only heightened Roald’s vexation. He had never enjoyed being treated like a joke. An object of levity to anyone. Even his parents. “I was trying to give you a stinging shock. A sharp, smarting lesson in obedience.”
“You did that.” Roald yanked away from his father’s embrace. Not caring if he seemed petulant. Abrasive. “I’m the most obedient of your children, aren’t I?”
That had been the verdict of the assorted cast of nursemaids, tutors, and governesses who had served the Conte family over the years. That he was the least willful and most compliant of the six Conte children. The parents of such an array of headstrong children could have been pitied if they didn’t happen to be two of the most stubborn people the world had ever seen. Then it could only be regarded as a natural, inevitable consequence of the fact that they had chosen to mate together.
“It’s not a competition, Roald.” Papa frowned in the manner he always did when he believed Roald was engaging in unconstructive comparisons with his siblings.
“It’s not.” Roald folded his arms. More defensive gesture than a defiant one. Not that he expected his father to know that. To recognize that. “At least not one I ever wanted to win.”
Papa paused. Pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry if I haven’t been as gentle or as fair a father as you wanted, son.”
Apologies that was all their relationship seemed to boil down to in the end, Roald noted inwardly. Weary to the bone of the apologies that never spanned the gulf that divided him and his papa. Leaving each unable to truly reach the other.
“And I’m sorry if I’m not as good a son as you wanted, Papa.” Roald dropped his arms.
“You are a good son.” Papa clasped Roald’s shoulder. “I never said otherwise. Never thought or felt otherwise.”
“That could change at any moment.” Roald couldn’t take comfort in his father’s touch or words. Not when he remembered the folio with the contract he had written. The contract he still had to show to his parents.
“It’s not going to change.” Papa shook his head. “That’s not how a father’s love works, Roald. It doesn’t change. Except perhaps to grow deeper.”
“I have something to tell you. To show you.” Roald couldn’t bear to keep the charter he had created a secret any longer. Felt the compulsion to confess. To come clean. To take the plunge into what could be a bottomless pit. “Something I hope won’t make you mad.”
“Very well.” Papa waved the hand that didn’t clutch Roald’s shoulder. “Tell me. Show me.”
“I want to tell and show you and Mama at the same time.” Roald was aware that he was in a poor position to negotiate but couldn’t prevent himself from attempting to do so. He was as the gods had made him to be. A diplomat to the last.
“Ah. You want your bulwark in place to protect you from my ire.” Papa’s lips quirked. “Let’s go pay a visit to your mother in her solar. Then you can share whatever wild card you have tucked up your sleeve.”
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Post by devilinthedetails on Jan 25, 2023 10:31:52 GMT 10
Blood Memory
“Roald has something he wants to tell us, my dear,” Papa announced as he and Roald stepped into Mama’s solar. Papa’s arm draped around Roald’s shoulders in what was doubtlessly intended as an affectionate gesture but felt more trapping to Roald. As if what was designed as a haven had been transformed into a prison.
“Oh?” Mama glanced up from the household accounts she was contemplating. Hazel eyes riveting on Roald. “What would that be?”
“You might want to sit down,” Roald suggested hesitantly. Recalling the healers’ wisdom of having patients who had endured a recent shock sit down. Stopping just short of proposing they have smelling salts at the ready in case anyone fainted. That seemed a tad dramatic. Especially with how resilient to the slings and arrows of life his parents had proved to be. Moderation was the key to everything, after all.
Mama was already seated on an upholstered sofa. Papa claimed the cushion beside her as she shut the leather ledger containing her household accounts with a snap. Placed it on a tiny table beside the sofa with an upraised eyebrow that urged Roald to continue.
He obeyed. Pulling the charter from the portfolio he clutched with trembling fingers. Unable to ignore the concern etched on his parents’ faces, he shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. Cleared his throat with an awful scratching noise like nails on chalkboard. Then said, appealing to his mother because he sensed he had better odds of convincing her to be sympathetic to his cause, “Mama, you told me that the hazing in the pages’ wing was wrong. That I had to do something to oppose it. To attempt to bring a halt to it.”
He took a deep breath. Then the plunge. The wild dive into the unknown. “So I did. I wrote this.”
He offered the contract to his parents. Deciding they could read it for themselves. Could form their own opinions and understandings. Didn’t need him clumsily explaining it to them. Tripping over his tied tongue. His mouth had gone too drought-dry for explanations anyway.
They took the document from him. Leaned closer together–so their black hair was almost touching–to study it at the same time.
Since he had nowhere else to look, Roald watched his parents read the charter. Their eyes gliding from line to line. Flowing over the words he had so painstakingly written–feeling as if he were extracting blood from the stone of his brain–and the signatures he had tirelessly negotiated to amass. Starting with his own at the top.
Mama read the document only once. Remarked as Papa’s blue eyes began a second journey along the parchment, “This is well-written. Cleverly and carefully composed. In time, it could change much in the pages’ wing.”
She paused. Cupped his chin between her palms. Kissed his forehead. Added, “I’m proud of you, Roald.”
“Thank you, Mama.” Roald tried to drink in the tenderness of her touch. The warmth of her praise. Not to worry about what Papa would say. Refrain from fretting about how Papa had remained rock-quiet since he started reading the charter. A reaction that could foreshadow the sharpest wrath or the sternest disapproval. The most severe condemnation.
As if she could sense seeping through his skin the fear Roald was fighting to suppress, Mama swatted Papa on the knee in light reproach. “Speak, Jon. You’re scaring our son.”
“I’m thinking before I speak, my love.” Papa set the parchment down on the table. Resting it beside Mama’s ledger. Roald couldn’t figure out if that was a positive, negative, or neutral omen. He would have been terrible at reading tea leaves. “You’re always saying I don’t do enough of that.”
“Think faster then.” Mama appeared distinctly unimpressed with this excuse. This dallying before providing an opinion.
“You don’t have to be scared, son.” Papa reached out. Rumpled Roald’s hair. “I’m not mad. I remember I gave you my blessing to respond to the hazing how you deemed best.”
Roald strove not to sag with relief as his father went on, “Certainly your solution was more dignified than my own would’ve been as a page. Your charter was well-written as your mother said. I wouldn’t have been able to compose a document of such complexity and nuance at your age.”
“I consulted the books I borrowed from your study.” Roald’s cheeks flamed. Somehow it was more difficult to accept the compliment from his father than his mother. “When they baffled me, I referred to Sir Myles for guidance.”
“You were wise enough to make clever use of your resources then.” Papa moved away from Mama. Patted the space he had created in a plain invitation that Roald should fill it. “Not everyone is. So, tell me, how did you persuade Zahir ibn Alhaz to sign this contract of yours? I always had the impression that he was mistrustful of the written word.”
“The written word was used to imprison and deceive the Bazhir for generations.” Roald sank into the spot Papa had indicated. “At least that’s how Zahir made it sound.”
“There is a great deal of truth in that perception.” Papa sighed. The sorrow of the Voice of the Tribes who remembered in blood and bone that northern oppression and every other trauma inflicted on the Bazhir in the thousands of years that comprised the rich and vivid history. Because Bazhir history wasn’t just preserved through oral tradition. Stories passed along by orange blazing campfires. It was also maintained through the blood memory of the unbroken chain of Voices that stretched back to the bright dawn of the Bazhir. The latest link of whom was Roald’s own father. The king of Tortall. “Thus, the question of how you convinced Zahir to sign becomes all the more pertinent.”
“With diplomacy. By being respectful and opening my ears to what he said.” Roald leaned against his father’s side. Feeling Papa’s arms wrap around his shoulders. “By remembering what you taught me about the Bazhir when we traveled to the desert together. By keeping in mind what Godsfather Gary told me about what motivates people to do anything. Politically speaking.”
“Ah. You truly did draw wisdom from all available sources then.” Again, Papa’s fingers ruffled like a spring breeze through Roald’s hair.
Something in his father’s gentle touch made Roald murmur, “Zahir’s father beats him. I’ve seen the scars when we bathe.”
Livid red stripes–evidence of a rod wielded with brutal efficacy against yielding young flesh–crisscrossed Zahir’s back. Zahir hadn’t bothered to hide them. Seemed unashamed of them. Bore them with the unflinching pride of a seasoned warrior who had sustained countless wounds in brave battle.
“It’s not uncommon for Bazhir to beat their children.” Papa’s arms tightened around Roald’s shoulders. “Nor is it rare for northerners to do the same.”
“You’re the Voice.” Roald fixed earnest, entreating eyes upon his father. “It might mean a good deal to Zahir if you went out of your way to speak with him. To guide him here in the north.”
“I always thought of Zahir as the independent, prickly type. He hasn’t partaken in the Communion of the Voice since he arrived at the palace to begin his page training.” Papa shot Roald a considering glance. “Moreover, I’ve often been led to believe that you find me overbearing. Now you would have me impose my insufferable advice on another lad your age?”
“I don’t find you overbearing or your advice insufferable, Papa.” Roald squirmed. Seeking what freedom he could find. “I only want some freedom as well. Is that so wrong?”
“Not unless it ends in open revolt.” Papa’s tone was wry. “Blatant rebellion.”
“Some Bazhir want their freedom as well,” Roald muttered. Not adding that Zahir might have been among those Bazhir longing for freedom.
“The Bazhir are not a monolith.” Papa lifted a finger. Correcting Roald on a fact he hadn’t gotten wrong. Quibbling over a detail to summarily dismiss Roald’s larger point. Vexing Roald.
“I know that!” Roald bristled. Temper flaring. “I didn’t claim they were!”
“Don’t snap at your father, Roald.” Mama delivered a chiding slap to Roald’s knee. It didn’t sting but communicated her displeasure quite clearly nevertheless.
“Yes, Mama.” Roald bit his lip. Unable to resist the impulse to sulk that his mother had taken his father’s side rather than his. “Sorry.”
“Apologize to your father for your disrespect.” Mama tapped his knee again. Slightly lighter this time. “Not to me.”
The only thing more humiliating than apologizing to his father was being prompted to do so by his mother. Still, Roald forced himself to say with all the grace he could muster, “I was impertinent. Forgive me, Papa.”
“You are forgiven.” Papa pinched the bridge of his nose as if Roald’s apology gave him a headache. “I know you didn’t claim that the Bazhir were a monolith. That you said only some Bazhir want their freedom. My point is merely that some Bazhir don’t wish to be independent. Some Bazhir wish to be a part of Tortall. To contribute to its greatness. To participate in its future.”
“You became Voice because you wanted them to wish for that.” Roald sought his father’s gaze. Feeling both lost and found. Heard and unheard. “Didn’t you?”
“I became Voice because Ali Mukhtab, a man I respected immensely, requested it of me as his death neared.” Papa’s face was grave. His tone grim. “I didn’t understand the magnitude of what I was agreeing to at the time. The weight of the position I was assuming. No man can until he becomes Voice and then it is too late to go back.”
Roald had no notion how to reply to the raw honesty of that. Settled for changing the subject instead. “Lord Wyldon might be angry if he learns of the contract I wrote. Might come to you and Mama in a towering temper if he is offended.”
“Then–” Mama declared. Ice in her manner. “We will tell him to jump in the Olorun to cool himself.”
“It’s coming on winter, Mama!” Roald gasped. Scandalized.
“That makes it all the more cooling to jump into the Olorun.” Mama did not sound as if she were thawing.
“We will tell him we approve of the contract. But–” Papa arched an eyebrow– “there’s no reason he should find out about the contract, is there?”
“I might’ve tweaked Joren’s tail about Zahir signing the document,” Roald mumbled. Ducking his head in anticipation of a reproof he knew he deserved for being woefully undiplomatic. “So he might go crying to Lord Wyldon in revenge.”
“The truth emerges at last.” Papa chuckled. “That’s why you felt you had to tell us about the contract when usually it’s like pulling teeth to get you to share your secrets, and sadly, I am a king, not a barber.”
“Are you mad?” Roald risked raising his head to look at his father.
“No.” Papa clapped Roald on the back. “If I’d gone through page training with Joren of Stone Mountain, I would’ve done worse than tweak his arrogant tail. Knocked out a few of his teeth when he smirked at me. Pounded in his head when he tried to outsmart me.”
“Joren’s father beat him too,” Roald ventured as if that could explain his lack of violence toward Joren.
“That doesn’t excuse his behavior.” Mama shook her head. The voice of a queen who had been beaten herself as a child. “No amount of abuse suffered justifies inflicting it on someone else.”
“I wasn’t trying to justify his bullying, Mama.” Roald massaged his temples. Struggling to articulate the confused whirl of emotions inside him. “It’s just beneath all my loathing of him, I pity him.”
“Hmm.” Papa stroked his beard. Mulling over Roald’s confession. “Did you know Lord Burchard beat Joren when you were small and Joren taunted you about your nose? Was that why you refused to admit he’d done it? You didn’t want him to get in trouble? To be beaten?”
“Joren had said things about his father tanning his hide when he was naughty.” Roald felt a sword stab of humiliation for the naive boy he had been. “But I thought he meant spanking, not beating. I didn’t realize there was a difference until I was older.”
Until he had seen the stark scars marching along the backs of his fellow pages in the palace baths.
“Your father and I didn’t want you to realize there was a difference until you were older.” Mama’s fingers combed through Roald’s hair. Hopefully restoring some order after all Papa’s rumpling. “We wanted to protect you from that knowledge for as long as we could.”
“I was a fool.” Roald couldn’t choke down his embarrassment.
“No.” This time it was Papa who spoke. Firm. Brooking no argument. “You were compassionate. Merciful. Able to relate to even an enemy’s pain. That is nothing to be ashamed of, son.”
Suddenly, Roald felt a surge of pride even though Jasson the Conqueror would likely be rolling in his grave at the idea of such softness being encouraged in a descendent.
“Yes, Papa.” Roald nodded. Absorbing his father’s words. Then asked, “May I talk to Mama alone for a bit?”
“Of course.” Papa kissed Roald on the forehead. Stood. “Good night, Roald.”
Roald echoed the well-wish.
Once Papa had left, closing the door behind him, Roald turned his focus to his mother. “Mama, do you regret not taking the Dominion Jewel? Using it to rule Sarain?”
“Your father caused a famine when he drew on the Jewel’s power on his coronation day,” Mama reminded him.
“Yes.” Roald had the snaking suspicion his mother was dodging the question. “But you didn’t know that when Alanna found the Jewel.”
“I didn’t know that but I understood well enough that the Jewel contained a magic I could never fathom or wield, and that its magic would be stronger in the hands of a leader with the Gift.” Mama’s stare was distant. Lost in memory. “A leader like your father. I also knew that Alanna had sought the Jewel for him. That she was his friend and sworn vassal long before she was mine. That she owed her allegiance to him. That I shouldn’t come between them.”
“Oh.” Roald puzzled this over. Not entirely satisfied with this answer but reluctant to chance the rudeness of pressing the matter further.
“Your father was born to rule,” Mama went on. As if she could read what was in Roald’s heart. “That’s all he ever wanted. To rule to the best of his abilities.”
“Godsfather Gary told me he was issuing commands in the nursery.” Roald’s lips quirked as he imagined the precocious youngster his father must once have been. Charming and demanding in equal measure. “Ever since he learned what a prince was.”
“Nobody would be a more reliable authority than your godsfather Gary.” Mama laughed. Then sobered. “Your father wanted to rule more than anything. My greatest dream was to be a teacher. To share what lessons I could with the next generation. With the world. Shaping the future in that way.”
“Then why’d you marry Papa?” Roald frowned. Only noticing the impudence of his words after they departed his mouth. “Become his queen?”
“Because–” Mama tugged his ear gently– “there is no greater teacher than a queen and a mother.”
Roald couldn’t dispute that. Moved onto his next question. Posed more tentatively. “Were you disappointed when I tried to touch the Dominion Jewel as a boy?”
He realized now that he and his mother had never discussed that particular act of youthful disobedience. The one that had led his father to spank him.
“I was not best pleased with you.” Mama clucked her tongue as if scolding an obstinate horse. “But I figured I would not burden you with an additional reprimand. Believed your father had conveyed his disapproval strongly enough.”
“Strongly enough indeed.” Roald cracked a crooked grin. Reflecting ruefully on how most of his father’s disapproval had been conveyed to his unfortunate backside on that occasion.
“Your father and I know you will be a good ruler one day.” Mama hugged Roald. Then ordered briskly, “Run along now. That’s more than enough questions asked and answered for one night.”
For a lifetime, Roald thought though he knew that wasn’t true. That he would keep asking and answering questions until he died. Until the sun set on his life and the Black God claimed his soul. That this questioning and answering was all part of the uneasy process of growing and living.
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