Noble Savages
It was just as well that explanations like excuses were forbidden to pages, because Roald could never have explained exactly how he ended up in the brawl. He was intent on practicing his sword work with Neal when abruptly he found himself swinging at air where Neal should have been. Glancing down the rows of pages, he saw a cluster had formed around Kel and Zahir. The fact that the knot consisted of Kel's enemies—Joren, Vinson, and Garvey among others—argued that they were trying to isolate Kel while Zahir beat her up, but Roald had no time to process this since Neal was attempting to cut through the knot like a knife to rally around Kel.
Roald hurried over to join the fray, though he hadn't figured out whether he planned to pull Neal out of the madness before he broke his nose or if he would surrender to the temptation of throwing his own punches. His decision was made for him when Vinson hit Neal's head from behind, and pure pages' wing instincts took over. The rules governing the pages' wing were as simple as they were savage: you stuck up for your friends and they would stick by you; if someone messed with your friend, they were messing with you too; and you didn't just call anyone your friend, because it took a pound of heart, flesh, sweat, and blood to earn a friendship.
Neal was his friend, so when he was attacked, Roald had to defend him. He yanked Vinson off Neal in one sharp motion and might have left it at that if Vinson, swearing like a sailor, hadn't lobbed a fist at his head. Ducking the blow, Roald swung his own punch, which he was satisfied to see split Vinson's lip.
Blood painted Vinson's teeth as skirmishes waged all around them—Merric tackling Joren, while Faleron and Seaver joined Kel's fight against Zahir—and spat, "You try to put on a civilized face, but bad blood will out, and you're nothing but a Sarain savage."
For the first time in his life, Roald saw red behind his eyes and not just under Vinson's after he bruised them. He might have done his best to smash in Vinson's nose to complete Vinson's battered features but Sergeant Ezeko was tugging Vinson away from him just as he had forcibly separated the other fights.
Lord Wyldon, clench-jawed with fury, was standing over them, fists planted on his hips as he surveyed them with an expression that suggest they were dung dumped into his saddle. "Disgraceful. You may wash your hands of this shameful display with a bell of laundry duty every evening for a week. Now get back in line so we may resume our drill without any more unseemly displays."
Roald was about to follow Neal, who was grumbling something indistinct but unmistakably sardonic under his breath, back to their position in the re-forming rows when Lord Wyldon grabbed his shoulder and said tersely, "A word, Your Highness."
Roald braced himself for the reprimand—because it had to be truly cutting if Lord Wyldon was trying to avoid embarrassing royalty by delivering it in relative privacy—but that didn't prevent his body from freezing at the cold in the training master's tone and eyes. "I am especially disappointed in you. I expected better behavior from the Crown Prince. When you are king, you can't brawl like a drunkard in a tavern whenever someone says something that displeases you."
Roald was tempted to point out that was what the King's Champion was for, but thought better of it since Lord Wyldon was right. It wasn't kingly to lose control over childish insults. He hated to admit it but he had probably looked more like the savage Vinson had accused him of being than a prince. The realm expected the heir apparent to conduct himself with more dignity, and, at that moment, the realm was speaking forcefully in Lord Wyldon's voice.
"I apologize for disappointing you, my lord." Roald met Lord Wyldon's frigid gaze earnestly.
That was not enough to mollify Lord Wyldon, whose eyes narrowed suspiciously as he pronounced tightly, "His Majesty will hear about this from me, I assure you. Get back in line."
Happy the lecture was over but nervous about what his father's reaction to his fight would be, Roald slipped into the row across from Neal.
As they lifted their swords to continue the drill Sergeant Ezeko was barking, Neal asked, "What great wisdom did the Stump have to impart upon you?"
"He wanted to make sure that I understood how disappointed he was in me in case I was as slow as Vinson and didn't grasp that when he yelled at us." Roald wrinkled his nose. "Worse still, he said he would tell Papa about my fight."
"He acts as if he's got a sword shoved up his ass." Neal scowled and rubbed at his ear, which was bleeding from where Vinson had punched it. "Does he really think your father will be angry at you for sticking up for your friends against bullies?"
"Papa probably will be mad." Roald emitted a ragged sigh. "A king can't just punch anyone who offends him."
"False." Neal was plainly in a pedantic mood. "History is littered with kings who made a habit of going much further than that and beheading anyone who displeased them."
"That's not the kind of king I want to be, Neal." Roald blanched.
"You won't be." Neal's green eyes softened. "You'll be the sort of king who doesn't accept people punching one another, and the country will be very boring and polite throughout your peaceful reign."
Roald felt slightly cheered after Neal's assurance, but his outlook blackened again in history class, which he ordinarily enjoyed. He sat down at the desk he shared with Cleon just as he had every day since he had begun page training and grinned when he realized that Cleon had scrawled him a note on their slate: All of our year mates deserve to be eaten by spidrens.
Seizing the slate, Roald scribbled back: We were born in the wrong time.
When he heard the sound of the door shutting behind Sir Myles, Roald quickly erased the messages before there was a chance of Sir Myles seeing and maybe referring them to Lord Wyldon for punishment work Roald didn't have a prayer of cramming into his schedule.
"Today we will be working on timelines of King Jasson's reign in pairs." Sir Myles walked to the front of the room as the boys began eyeing prospective partners. Roald was assuming that he would work with Cleon, who was a jokester but Roald could use the laughs today, when Sir Myles added briskly, "You will be assigned partners."
A collective groan echoed through the classroom but Sir Myles merely arched his eyebrows and began dividing the class into pairs. Roald suppressed a scowl as he and Cleon were broken up—Cleon to work with Joren while Roald himself was assigned to Zahir—and shifted away from Zahir as the Bazhir slid into the seat next to him.
"You should write." Zahir thrust a roll of parchment and a quill at Roald. "Your hand is neater than mine."
That was true enough—since the Bazhir had no written language, Zahir had shown up at the Royal Palace with little writing experience and had never quite caught up with the rest of their year—so Roald picked up the the quill and began filling in the important events and years of his great-grandfather's reign with Zahir's input.
Roald had believed that they were dealing with firm fact and that no disputes except over dates might arise but discovered he had been quite naive. When he suggested labeling 378 as the year of Jasson's conquest of the Southern Desert, Zahir had bristled and demanded, "Do you mean the year he attacked Barzun without justification and took our land?"
"He had the blood of Barzun in his veins." Roald had to defend the campaign of his ancestor even if he didn't necessarily agree with it. "He thought that was sufficient justification."
"He just wanted an empire." Zahir snorted disdainfully. "He stole our land to glorify himself."
"You seem to have forgotten that a number of tribes willingly accepted his rule to get revenge on rival tribes and to consolidate their own power." Roald's fingers tightened around his quill. "My great-grandfather wasn't the only leader with ambitions."
"No, but he lied to the tribes he allied with." Zahir crossed his arms. "He tricked them into joining his cause and then he took their land once he used them to defeat the other Bazhir."
"That's why people need to be united behind a single, strong ruler, so they don't destroy one another." Realizing they needed to reach an agreement or they would never finish the assignment, Roald decided to propose a compromise. "What if I write this: 'Jasson gained control of the Southern Desert by conquering some tribes and forging alliances with others that the Bazhir to this day claim were not honored'?"
"Write what you want. That's what northerners always do." Despite his dismissive words, Zahir must have been appeased, because he remarked in what was a considerable concession for him, "Vinson shouldn't have called you a savage earlier."
"I don't know why you are friends with him, Zahir." Roald shook his head, since Zahir choosing to be friends with the pages most prone to voicing intolerant views about the roles of Bazhir in Tortallan society was what he found most inexplicable about the inscrutable Zahir. "He, Joren, and Garvey say horrible things about the Bazhir."
"Yes." Zahir's mouth twisted. "At least they are honest in their hatred unlike people who pretend to be polite to my face but call me a savage behind my back."
"Nobody calls you a savage behind your back," Roald insisted.
"You know that's not true, Your Highness." Zahir shot Roald a glance that made him rub the K'miri nose he had inherited from his mother, the only trait that was visibly not Conte. "That's why you are fingering your nose."
Before Roald could stutter out a reply, Myles announced the end of the lesson. As he watched the rest of the class surge to their feet and turn in their projects, Roald's stomach churned. There was no way that the timeline he and Zahir had to turn in would be deemed adequate even by the lenient Sir Myles, which meant that Roald would likely be reported to Lord Wyldon twice in a day, a record for him.
"We would've completed the assignment if you hadn't argued every point." Roald shot Zahir an accusatory look, deciding that Zahir was to blame for all his present woes.
"Funny you should say that," retorted Zahir. "I'm not the one arguing right now."
"Is there a problem?" Myles' tone as he approached their desk implied that he was aware they were squabbling.
"Zahir and I had difficulty finishing the assignment, sir, but we could complete it this evening and turn it in tomorrow," answered Roald quietly. With any other instructor, he wouldn't have even tried to get an extension, but Myles was easygoing enough that Roald figured it was worth the attempt.
"Why did you have difficulty, Your Highness?" Sir Myles asked mildly, and Roald started to hope that he and Zahir wouldn't be disciplined after all.
"We had trouble seeing eye-to-eye on the meaning of some historical events, sir." Roald's response must have been diplomatic enough because Zahir didn't glower at him.
"Ah, yes, of course." Myles nodded as if he were pleased with Roald's reply, although Roald couldn't fathom why, and, apparently, neither could Zahir for he shot Roald a baffled look. "History can be interpreted in so many different ways depending on our perspective, and yet how we define our history shapes us fundamentally as people. It's hard work to reconcile contradictory views of history. It requires debate and compromise, but that is the challenge Tortall will face in your generation. You began to learn that today, boys." Myles scooped up their scroll and examined it. "Full marks for both of you. Now run along to your next lesson before you're late."
As he and Roald piled up their books and exited the classroom, Zahir muttered under his breath to Roald, "Full marks for a timeline that wasn't even halfway done. He must have sand between his ears."
"I'm just glad we passed." Roald wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. "I was certain that he was going to fail us, and we'd find ourselves buried under even more punishment work."
"So was I." Zahir flashed him what might have been a slight smile as they arrived at their next class and he plopped into the seat Joren had been saving for him.
As Roald settled next to Cleon, Cleon gave him a clap on the shoulder. "I see you survived working with Zahir. I shall try to overcome my desolation at your continued existence."
"You are an extremely disagreeable soul." Roald rolled his eyes at Cleon's teasing. "I'm starting to think you deserved to be paired with Joren."
"If there's any lesson to be Joren's partner in, it's history." Cleon chuckled. "Joren loves the good old days so much that he was delighted to fill in all the dates without any input from me. In fact, he probably would prefer living in his precious timeline instead of the present, the idiot."
Roald laughed, but he definitely didn't laugh later that evening when he washed laundry until the skin in his hands cracked from the harsh soap. His whole body ached—muscles he didn't even know he had hurting—and his eyelids felt as if they had been replaced by stones. All he wanted was to sink into his bed and fade into the oblivion of sleep, so naturally fate continued to have fun at his expense in the form of a servant who informed him that his father wished to see him at once in his study.
He said farewell to his friends, and, feet as heavy as if he were climbing a gallows to be hanged, trudged to the royal wing, where he gave a desultory knock on the door to his father's study.
When Papa called for him to enter, Roald took a deep breath and then opened the door. As he stepped inside, he saw his father, forehead furrowed, reading a report on his mahogany desk by the flickering light cast by a dozen silver candlesticks.
"Your Majesty." Roald bowed because he knew better than to risk informality when he had been summoned to his father's study for a scolding. He just hoped that it wasn't a report on his bad behavior that was making Papa's forehead crinkle, though he suspected that it was.
"Have a seat, Roald." Papa indicated a sofa by the window overlooking a garden where some court children had erected a family of snowmen. As Roald folded into the cushions, Papa joined him, carrying the letter Roald was now positive pertained to his morning misadventure. "I've received a note from Lord Wyldon about you. Would you care to read it?"
"No, Your Majesty." Roald's eyes dropped to the carpet, which depicted a hunt, where Roald was definitely represented by the speared boar. "I can guess what it's about without the need to read private correspondence."
"Your fighting has distressed Lord Wyldon very much." Papa hadn't raised his voice—he rarely did when he was talking to his children—but Roald winced. He hated disappointing his father and being another problem on the long list that the king had to resolve in a day. Any discipline Papa had to give to his children was a distraction from ruling, and that usually made Roald feel more guilty than any stern words from his father. "He says you normally hold yourself above the petty brawls of the pages' wing. He doesn't want that to change. I assured him I would speak to you about it."
"I'm sorry, Papa." Roald bit his lip because he wanted to protest that his fighting had been justified—he had been sticking up for his friends in the battle against bullies, and Vinson had called him (and by implication Mama) a savage so he deserved every punch Roald had thrown at him and more—but that would involve talking about reasons for fighting, which was forbidden in the pages' wing. If he couldn't insist what he had done was right, he could at least admit to the only aspect of the fight for which he felt remorse. "Lord Wyldon told me that when I'm king, I can't punch people who displease me. He's right about that."
"Yes, he is." Papa cupped Roald's chin between his palms and Roald was astonished at the affectionate gesture when he had anticipated a reprimand. "However, you aren't a king yet. You are just a prince."
Roald was on the verge of saying that he doubted Lord Wyldon approved of fighting princes any more than he did brawling kings when Papa gave a broad smile, which Roald couldn't resist responding to with one of his own as Papa went on, "Let me tell you a secret about princes and kings, son. There are some things that princes can do that kings can't. One of those is get into the occasional satisfying scuffle without sparking a civil war. I would recommend that you refrain from fistfights for awhile, though, and please don't share this knowledge with Lord Wyldon, as it may encourage him to contemplate the benefits of regicide."
"My lips are sealed, Papa." Roald's eyes sparkled with a mixture of relief at not being reproached and humor.
"Excellent." Papa ruffled his hair.
Roald took advantage of the tender moment to ask a question that had been burning in his mind all day. "Am I a savage?"
"You are a Conte." Papa bent to kiss his forehead. "Some would say all Contes are savages since it takes a savage to establish and maintain a dynasty, but most of those people have skeletons in their own family closets."
Suddenly Roald felt pride swell inside him. He was a Conte, the son of a passionate, stubborn, and ambitious line that had left its mark on history. A family that stretched back centuries to Jonathan I—the first Conte king—and beyond that to nobility who could only have dreamed of being crowned. Nobility that had dealt with the snubs that came with not being blue-blooded enough in the contemptuous eyes of the families whose names were etched into the Book of Gold, while the Contes, who had just missed the cut-off by years, were carved into the early pages of the Book of Silver. Their blood had always been sneered at as too new, and now it had been mingled with the blood of the warlords and the K'miri tribes of Sarain. Roald was proud to have his father's Conte blue eyes and his mother's strong K'miri nose.