Lord of the White Hell Book One

Chapter Sixteen

The next month Kiram kept so busy that he could hardly remember a time when he didn't ride, train, or spend long hours poring over medical papers that Scholar Donamillo handed him in response to his many questions about Fedeles' condition.

As crisp fall winds set in and the days grew shorter and the nights long and cold, Kiram began to see certain advances.

He became familiar with Firaj's sense of humor, as well as the gelding's favorite places to be brushed, his preferences in apples, and the astonishing amount of filth he could accumulate in his hooves.

Kiram's riding skills improved as well, though it was not always obvious in Master Ignacio's classes. At times when Master Ignacio sneered at him and snapped criticisms ceaselessly, Kiram's nervousness undermined him. He tended to confuse the command for a trot with that of a prance. At least once a week he and Firaj were out of step with the other riders.

But now Kiram didn't allow small mistakes to panic him. That was the one thing he had learned from observing Javier handle Lunaluz when they went riding together each morning. No matter what happened, whether Lunaluz was obstinate or nervous, Javier remained calm and firm. His collected manner always settled his mount.

That knowledge served Kiram well. He controlled Firaj with more and more consistency each day. None of the few errors he made enraged Master Ignacio enough to strike him again.

He improved in battle practice as well.

When pitted against his fellow second-year students his focus rarely wavered and his speed gave him an edge. He managed to best both Ollivar and Ladislo two falls out of three. The week after that, Kiram even managed to pin Chilla and then Nestor, which resulted in Nestor calling him 'a wily beast' and another exchange of coins between Elezar and Javier.

Then they'd advanced from hand-to-hand combat to duels with wooden swords. Javier made every motion look easy, when he demonstrated the sword stances. In reality Kiram discovered that it was a challenge just to make himself aim his blows at his opponent's body and not his blade. The whole idea of it-that he was teaching himself to drive a sword into another man's heart-appalled him. Kiram couldn't delude himself about the nature of swordplay. Men trained with swords for the single purpose of hardening their bodies and minds to the cruelty of killing.

Kiram hated the idea, particularly when his opponent was Nestor.

He simply could not take any pleasure in exploiting Nestor's poor vision to murder him, not even when the mortal wound was no more than a tap across his chest or neck. Nestor unfailingly complimented him on his strikes and that only made Kiram more uncomfortable.

At times Kiram found it frightening to watch Javier and Elezar demonstrate techniques. They were both skilled with blades and though they were friends, when they fought neither of them held back. They had both drawn blood on more than one occasion.

Elezar struck with so much force that he often cracked the tip off of Javier's wooden blade. He charged in with a shout and always took the offensive. His raw, muscular power drove his attacks. Sometimes Kiram thought nothing could wear Elezar down.

"He's like a bull," Nestor whispered. "You hit him and it just makes him madder."

Kiram nodded, though his attention was focused on Javier.

Unlike Elezar, he rarely relied on sheer muscle and he never overextended his thrusts. He looked so relaxed and his smile was so assured that his hundreds of parries and strikes seemed effortless. But when Kiram really studied Javier's form he could see that Javier was constantly working at Elezar's defenses. He was constantly moving around him, testing and pushing him. Javier was a master of footwork. He never stood still, but always edged subtly in and out of Elezar's strike range.

He drew Elezar out, slowly wearing him down with precise blow after blow. He didn't underestimate Elezar's speed the way Atreau often did. Instead he restrained himself, patiently whittling away at Elezar's energy, waiting for him to get clumsy and make a mistake.

When that moment came, Javier's entire demeanor changed. His smile dropped. He lunged past Elezar's wide swing and punched his cracked blade into the thick padding that protected Elezar's heart. Almost instantly he jerked back out of Elezar's reach. In that moment, just as he pulled back from the killing strike all of the strain of the fight showed in his face. Javier looked both sick and stricken. Then he was smiling again.

"You're dead, my friend," Javier told Elezar.

"You barely…" Elezar looked down at the chest of his padded jacket. A thick white lump of wool protruded from the gash in the canvas. "Well, damn it. Who's going wed those six pregnant whores now?"

"I'm sure they'll manage to find some other dolt," Javier replied.

Nestor leaned a little closer to Kiram and whispered, "Mother would kill Elezar if that really happened."

"How do you know it hasn't?"

"Oh, I'd know," Nestor assured him and Kiram took his word for it. After all, Nestor had a knack for collecting all the whispers and rumors that circulated around the academy. He had kept Kiram apprised of all of the love letters that Atreau received, as well as the rumors of Holy Father Habalan's affair with a milkmaid.

And surprisingly, he was also one of the only reliable sources that Kiram could find for information concerning the curse that plagued the Tornesal family.

Later, when they sat side by side in the library studying, Kiram decided Nestor's insights might be just as good as anyone else's.

Kiram had expected to uncover dozens of references to the curse in academy diaries and biographies. Certainly every other minor affliction of the powerful Tornesal family had been noted. Letters and journals abounded with mentions of fever passions, congenital cruelty, and bloodlust. But until the most recent writings there wasn't a single suggestion of a curse destroying the Tornesals.

The curse was apparently a new phenomenon. According to Nestor, it had first struck one of Javier's uncles eighteen years ago. The curse never afflicted the Sagradas or the Fueres despite the fact that they had intermarried with the Tornesals extensively. At the same time it hunted down inheriting women like Fedeles' mother even when they had married out of the family.

"It's like it knows which of them could inherit the dukedom and goes after them. Doesn't that seem suspicious?" Kiram studied a painting of the Tornesal family tree. The vast branches narrowed to a single line bearing Javier's name.

"Maybe the dukedom is what really makes them Tornesals. You know, like cured ham and goose fat makes a prince's pie. Without them, it's just bean stew in a crust." Nestor turned a page of his own book and Kiram caught sight of the title: One Thousand Royal Feasts and Banquets. "I overheard Holy Father Habalan saying that if Javier would only turn the power of the white hell over to the royal bishop then the curse would be lifted."

"What do you think he meant by that exactly?" Kiram wondered. "It sounds almost like blackmail or a threat."

Nestor blanched and then shook his head.

"I'm sure that's not the way he meant it. He probably thinks, like a lot of people do, that the white hell has gotten a taste for Tornesal blood and now it wants them all."

"Why would it wait eighty-two years for that?"

"Maybe Tornesals are an acquired taste, like tomatoes," Nestor had replied. "I used to hate tomatoes when I was young but just yesterday I had one and I thought it didn't taste so bad."

"I'll take that into consideration," Kiram replied.

"Doesn't sound likely?" Nestor asked.

"Not from what I've read."

Kiram had dredged through hundreds of Cadeleonian texts searching for mentions of curses. All the descriptions bore striking similarities. They were dated from the time of King Nazario Sagrada or earlier, and curses were always described as Haldiim in origin. They were always acts of retaliation for a wrong done.

One fragile text described how the souls of two murdered Haldiim children had become a curse and ravaged the house and lands of the baron who killed them until a Haldiim witch-Kiram recognized the description as a Bahiim-had trapped the curse and bound its fury into the wood of a great oak tree where it could do no more harm.

The mention of a Bahiim dispelling the curse had offered Kiram some hope that he could, at last, get accurate information regarding curses. He'd immediately written to his uncle's husband, Alizadeh, to ask what he knew, but he'd not yet received a response.

The next two weeks offered Kiram no time at all to contemplate curses or even mechanisms. In addition to riding with Javier, constant battle training, and learning the formal rules of engagement, his time had recently been taken up by fittings for the leather cuirass, byrnie, and gauntlets he would be wearing for his fights; he was also drilling on horseback for the opening parade through the city of Zancoda.

The last two weeks before the tournament the majority of scholars had given up their class times to allow Master Ignacio to keep the students in constant training. Only Scholar Blasio and Scholar Donamillo refused. Scholar Blasio gave extensive lectures, but also tolerated a great deal of napping. Kiram guessed that it was just to spite Master Ignacio and he warmed to Scholar Blasio more for it.

However the last week before the autumn tournament Scholar Donamillo also excused his class. Though he asked Kiram to help him carry several books from his classroom to the infirmary.

The air smelled of liniment and sweat. Dozens of young men sprawled across the medical cots. Most sported ugly bruises and cuts or wore bandages over their various sprains. Many seemed to be sleeping, though one fourth- year student looked perfectly healthy and seemed to be using the time to read. Kiram felt a little awed that Donamillo had managed to teach his classes for so long and still treat all the bumped, bruised, and sprained youths in his infirmary.

"This way, to my office." Donamillo led Kiram past the cots and between two huge black screens into the space where he kept not only his hulking mechanical cures but also a desk and shelves overflowing with books and medical instruments. Light glinted off the glass panes of his mechanical cure, lending a radiance to the scholar's deeply lined face.

"I hope you're managing to find time for the Crown Challenge." Scholar Donamillo laid several tomes down on his already cluttered desk. He indicated with a wave of his hand that Kiram ought to rest the books he carried anywhere on the wooden shelves.

"Not so much right now." Kiram glanced away. He hadn't worked on his steam engine for nearly a month. The Tornesal curse was just so much more important than winning a challenge. People had died because of the curse. Fedeles was going mad because of it.

"I know it isn't a classroom subject, but I was wondering if you could tell me a little more about your mechanical cures?" Kiram asked.

Scholar Donamillo offered him only the hint of a smile.

"Hoping to get out of Master Ignacio's grip for several hours?"

"No, sir. I really do want to know more. I've been trying to work it out on my own, reading all the texts you've recommended but-"

"I think it might be allowable. Just this once, you understand." Scholar Donamillo gave him a stern look.

"Yes, sir." Kiram almost bowed and Scholar Donamillo's countenance softened slightly. When he relaxed, Scholar Donamillo's resemblance to Scholar Blasio increased. For a moment Kiram imagined that he could see just what Scholar Blasio would be like fifteen years from now: far less permissive, but still intelligent and kind.

"Look here." Scholar Donamillo beckoned Kiram closer to the two huge mechanical cures. "Study them and tell me what you can."

Kiram spent the next two hours with Scholar Donamillo, examining the faceted spheres of the mechanical cures and studying the stacks of copper plates that generated the mechanisms' charges.

While both mechanisms were very similar Kiram noticed that one of them contained a harness while the other had none. The thick panes of glass that made up one of the spheres seemed darker than the other. The edges looked sooty and black. The glass of the other mechanical cure looked milky. Kiram also noticed that the markings etched into the metal supports of the two mechanisms differed greatly.

At first Kiram had thought that they were marks to aid in the assembly of the mechanisms, but as he looked closer he realized that they resembled the symbols drawn across Javier's floor.

"What are these?" Kiram asked at last.

"Prayers," Scholar Donamillo replied, as if it were a perfectly reasonable response.

Kiram stared at him. "Prayers?"

Scholar Donamillo nodded.

"That's completely contrary to the philosophy of mechanism." Kiram frowned at the black lines. "It's turning science back into superstition."

"Half of medicine is faith, Kiram. I have immense admiration for mechanism. It's a great achievement to create tools that will serve all people regardless of their breed or religion. But these mechanical cures must do more than be admirable." Scholar Donamillo traced a sinuous black symbol. "These mechanisms keep Fedeles Quemanor alive. That's all that matters in the end."

"I didn't mean to criticize." Kiram gazed at the fine, flowing black symbols and the thin copper wires that threaded through the harnesses.

Now he couldn't help but feel a little excited and curious about why this particular union of science and faith had proved so effective when previous mechanical cures had done nothing for the Tornesals. But then neither had other prayers. Even holy invocations issued by bishops had failed to stop the curse.

"What do these prayers say?" Kiram asked.

"It would be easier to tell you what they do than what they say."

"What do they do, then?"

Scholar Donamillo stepped a little closer to Kiram, his expression grave.

"Are you willing to keep a secret, Kiram Kir-Zaki? Can I trust you?"

Kiram nodded. Scholar Donamillo smiled just a little.

"Do you know anything about transfusions?" Scholar Donamillo asked in a whisper.

"I read a mention of a physician who tried to treat a dying boy by siphoning blood from his mother and father down into his veins. The boy lived for a short while but eventually died of blood poisoning."

"This is a different kind of transfusion, but similar in concept. Every month or so, I give a little of my life to Fedeles. I believe it disguises his Tornesal blood and keeps the curse at bay. It isn't a cure…not yet. He still has an extreme reaction but I have seen improvements in him over the last three years. He's talking more now and he even has moments of rational thought."

"You give him your life?" The magnitude of it stunned Kiram. Wasn't that what Javier had said a month ago? The only way he could save Fedeles was to sacrifice his own life? Kiram would never have expected anything like this from Scholar Donamillo. He'd always seemed so reserved and distant.

"It's the best I can offer him for the time being." Scholar Donamillo kept his voice low. "At first I had thought that Javier might be a better match for him but Javier isn't. compatible with the mechanical cures. Needless to say, what I'm doing is not something that Holy Father Habalan or many of my colleagues would approve of. So you must keep this a secret. They may tolerate the white hell when it's wielded by a duke, but here in the northern counties they still hang common men for witchcraft."

Kiram blanched at the thought of Scholar Donamillo being dragged to a scaffold and hanged.

"I won't tell anyone. I swear on my life," Kiram whispered.

Scholar Donamillo seemed amused by Kiram's unsolicited oath and he felt suddenly embarrassed. It was something a little boy would have said.

"Do you think there's any way I could help you, sir?"

"In fact I have been thinking about that for some time now. That mechanism that you're building, it's an engine of some kind, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir."

Scholar Donamillo pointed to the large hand cranks at the bases of the mechanical cures.

"Right now I have to crank these mechanical cures by hand or have Genimo do it for me. But if I had an engine, that might make all the difference. I might be able to maintain the treatment long enough to actually drive the curse out of Fedeles." Scholar Donamillo gazed intently at Kiram. "Would you be willing to become my accomplice, Kiram? I will understand if you aren't willing to take the risk."

"I'd be honored to help, in any way I can, sir."

"Good." Scholar Donamillo patted Kiram's shoulder and when he smiled at Kiram the deep wrinkles at the corners of his mouth lifted so that he looked much younger. "I knew I'd made the right decision about you."

Kiram would have thanked him for the compliment but his words were cut short by the sound of Javier hissing his name across the infirmary. Scholar Donamillo indicated that he should go with just a wave of his hand. Kiram stepped out from behind the black blinds and picked his way between the cots of sleeping students.

Javier stood in the middle of the infirmary, still dressed in his riding clothes.

"Nestor said Scholar Donamillo had to take you to the infirmary." As Javier closed the distance between them his gaze moved over Kiram's body, searching for some sign of an injury.

"I was feeling nauseous," Kiram said. "I'm better now."

"Really." Javier stepped closer. The deep scents of leather and sweat wafted over Kiram. When he had first arrived at the academy he had found the smell of men's sweat overpowering, but now it was familiar, almost comforting.

"Nestor said you hurt your arm," Javier murmured to him. "The two of you should really get your stories straight."

"My arm hurt so badly that I felt nauseous."

"You're a terrible liar." Javier still looked slightly concerned. "You really aren't sick, are you?"

"No. I'm not. Scholar Donamillo just." Kiram shrugged. "I guess he took pity on me and let me hide in the infirmary. I've been looking at his mechanical cures and we were discussing how my engine might help power them." Kiram felt he could say that much without betraying his promise to Scholar Donamillo. "I'm really not sick at all."

"Good, because a huge package just arrived for you and Nestor is so sure that it's crammed with more of those candies that your mother always sends that he's overcome all fear and is guarding it up in our room."

When Kiram reached the tower room he discovered that Nestor was indeed there. His hair was stringy with dried sweat and he sat on the floor with his shirt hanging half open. He looked exhausted. A huge wooden crate towered up behind him.

"Nestor, I can't believe that you came in here." Kiram grinned at him. To his surprise Nestor shot Javier an irritated look and shoved his spectacles up on his nose imperiously.

"He made me help him carry it up. Three flights of stairs!" Nestor complained. "And once I was here what would the point be of running off? If the white hell is going to take me then at least I ought to get a few of those sweets your mother sends first. Don't you think?"

Kiram chuckled and said, "Yes, absolutely."

Javier might tease him for considering selling his soul for knowledge, but Nestor was obviously willing to give it up for candy. Though when Kiram considered the amount of weight Nestor had lost and how much he'd grown over the last four months, Kiram supposed he might just be desperate for anything to eat.

"Well," Javier said, "let's get it open and see what's inside."

"You don't think that there could be one of those autumn meat pies in there, do you?" Nestor asked. He sounded almost delirious. "I'm really not going to be devoured by the white hell, am I?"

"No." Javier began to pry the crate open. "You're under protection as a courier."

Kiram rolled his eyes at this.

"I don't know if I believe that the white hell recognizes the king's protection of couriers," Nestor replied.

"You'd be surprised what it can recognize." Javier wrenched a wooden crossbar off of the crate and tossed it aside.

"I've got a small pry bar down in the shed, you know," Kiram informed him.

"You can't possibly make Nestor wait that long for his reward," Javier replied. They both glanced to where Nestor sat on the floor. Nestor still seemed lost in some mix of thought and exhaustion.

"I've always been curious about what it was like up here." Nestor flopped back on the floor. "It's nice, really. You have so much space and all this light just pours in."

"Don't get too settled in," Javier said as he jerked another crossbar free. "I'm not looking for another underclassman." He pulled a third wooden bar free. "Are either of you going to help me with this crate?"

Kiram shrugged. "I offered to get a pry bar and you turned me down." His attention still lingered on his discussion with Scholar Donamillo. He would need to remove the roof from the shed as soon as possible. If only this damn tournament was over, he'd have some free time. As it was he'd just have to endure another week of training and then the week of the tournament itself before he could get back to work on his steam engine. His thoughts were interrupted by Javier waving a board in front of his face.

"Kir-Zaki, you have absolutely no enthusiasm. Look at this crate. It could have anything in it. Aren't you desperate to tear it open?"

"I am," Nestor moaned from the floor, "but I'm just so sore from carrying the damn thing up the stairs."

"Why didn't you use the gear lift?" Kiram asked.

"The gear lift is only for scholars' use," Nestor grumbled. Javier smiled at that and then ripped the last cross bar free. One entire side of the crate fell aside. Javier caught it before it hit the floor and leaned it up against the wall.

"I smell honey cakes," Nestor said. "Honey cakes and roast pheasant."

"He's out of his mind," Javier commented to Kiram.

Kiram helped Javier unpack the individual wooden boxes from inside the crate. They stacked them on the floor around Nestor. Outside the bells sounded from the chapel. It would be time for dinner in an hour.

"Isn't Master Ignacio going to notice that the three of us are missing?" Kiram asked.

"You're in the infirmary and Nestor is assisting me," Javier replied. "Master Ignacio won't expect any of us back today."

"What's Nestor supposed to be assisting you with?" Kiram eyed Nestor's prone body. Then he picked up one of the smallest boxes and cut through the cord that held it closed.

"Cleaning my armor. Bringing it up to a high polish," Javier said. "I finished it myself last night."

"I don't remember you polishing any armor." Kiram frowned at Javier.

"You wouldn't. You sleep like a log."

"I do not-"

"I definitely smell a honey cake!" Nestor sat up suddenly and leaned over the box Kiram had just opened. His delighted grin collapsed as Kiram lifted out a dozen beeswax candles.

"Sorry," Kiram said. He unpacked five deep-red cakes of sealing wax and then fished out a linen satchel.

"I'm going to starve to death," Nestor said. "I really am."

Kiram opened the satchel. Nestled among countless dried rose petals were six marzipan pears. Kiram guessed that each of the boxes would have similar treats hidden in it. He could be generous.

"Here." Kiram handed the satchel to Nestor. "Leave one for me and Javier."

Nestor's face lit up as he discovered the pears.

"One each or to split?" Nestor bit into a marzipan pear and closed his eyes as if he were in a kind of ecstasy.

"One each," Kiram told him.

"Oh God," Nestor murmured. "These are so good. Oh God." He let out a low moan.

"Damn, Nestor, you sound like you're ten inches down some trollop's throat." Javier shook his head and he took out his penknife.

"I don't care." Nestor sighed. He bit into another pear and gave another groan of pleasure.

Kiram wasn't sure if it was Javier's crude language or Nestor's moaning but he could feel his cheeks growing warmer. Javier crouched down beside him with a rectangular box. He cut through a cord holding a box shut but didn't open it. Instead he pushed it over to Kiram.

Kiram lifted the lid and gazed at the contents. For a moment he thought it was some kind of amazingly embroidered winter blanket. Then he lifted the silky yellow cloth out and realized that his mother had sent him a formal jupon to wear over his leather armor. Simple leaf designs embroidered in red thread decorated the collar and hem of the long jupon. But a single black silk sun blazed across the back. Kiram stared at it. The black sun was the Tornesal crest.

How had she known? He hadn't mentioned the tournament in any of his letters for fear that she'd worry about him. His letters were always unfailingly happy, concerned with his classes and often verged on being entirely fictional.

"I assured your mother that since you are under my protection it would be appropriate for you to wear my emblem," Javier said.

"You assured my mother." Kiram thought about this for a moment. "You wrote to my mother?"

"She wrote to me, actually." Javier glanced down at the empty box. Kiram imagined that he was attempting to appear sheepish, but it wasn't working. Javier looked as smug as ever. "I've just been replying to her letters."

"You-how long? What did you tell her?" Kiram cut himself short despite his sense of outrage, remembering Nestor's presence.

"Her first letter arrived a week after you did. She thanked me in advance for looking after you and asked me to write to her should you need anything. She's only written four more times since then, but she's always very polite. Very refined. Even her script." Javier smiled a little and Kiram suddenly realized that Javier wasn't trying to disguise an arrogant grin, but to hide a look of fondness.

"Don't worry. I didn't give her anything to fret about." Javier pulled the jupon from Kiram's loose grip and held it up to the late afternoon light. Tiny gold threads glinted all along the length of the yellow silk.

"You don't think Atreau writes to my mother, do you?" Nestor suddenly asked. "That isn't something all upperclassmen do, is it?"

"What on earth could Atreau tell your mother that she doesn't already know?" Javier asked.

"She doesn't know I beat off," Nestor furtively replied.

"She's married to your father and has eleven sons, Nestor. She knows men beat off." Javier laughed. "How could she avoid it, with Timoteo in her house?"

"I thought that was what he was doing up in his room," Nestor said. "But then he always claims that he's praying."

"Praying his pillow grows a cunt, maybe," Javier replied. "Hopefully he'll be able to get his fingers off his dick long enough to take his holy vows for the priesthood. I imagine the sacred chalice might be a little sticky after he hands it off, though."

Nestor seemed both scandalized and thrilled. Kiram imagined that he was trying to memorize the offhanded way that Javier tossed out obscene words like "cunt."

Javier held the jupon up against Kiram's chest and nodded as though what he saw pleased him.

"You'll look like you're made entirely of gold." Javier's tone was soft and Kiram imagined that if Javier's hands hadn't been full he would have reached out and touched Kiram's hair, as he often did when they were alone. But Nestor was with them and Javier simply dropped the jupon back into its box.

"No candy in that one," Javier said to Nestor. "Let's try another."

The three of went through the boxes, unpacking winter clothes, mechanist tools, one of Kiram's bows, a clay talisman Kiram's little nephews and nieces had made for him, rounds of waxed cheese, dried figs, and to Nestor's utter delight, honey cakes and four dry-cured sausages.

"Do you mind if I have a little of it?" Nestor asked.

"Help yourself. You should have some of the cheese as well." Kiram opened a last box, which contained several Haldiim books and his mother's sheaf of correspondence.

While Kiram read the letter, Nestor devoured slices of sausage and cheese and Javier considered several of the tools Kiram's father had sent with a look of uncertainty that almost bordered on suspicion.

The news from home was comfortingly normal. Two more of his cousins had become fathers and thus assured their places in their wives' houses. His brother Majdi on the other hand had once again failed to find a woman willing to take him and had again set sail aboard the Red Witch. Kiram's mother wondered if she hadn't made a terrible mistake purchasing the ship for Majdi, as she now feared he would never settle into a secure marriage.

At home his sisters, Siamak and Dauhd, were attempting to entice his mother to offer Cadeleonian cookies in the candy shop. His father was still tinkering with designs for mechanical birds. Most of them were very pretty and few of them could remain airborne for more than a few moments. Several had crashed into the henhouse and the cook was eyeing Kiram's father with annoyance.

Kiram smiled at his mother's obvious affection for his father despite his eccentricities. He was disappointed to find that the questions he had written to his uncle's husband had gone unanswered. Both his uncle Rafie and Alizadeh were traveling. She didn't expect them back until midwinter, weather permitting.

Kiram glanced down to the stack of books in front of him and then to Javier.

"She says she sent the books you asked about," Kiram said. "Though she doesn't want you to think that we're all so superstitious as these Bahiim writings would make you think."

Javier looked pleased and Nestor squinted at the books.

"What do they say? I can't read them at all," Nestor complained.

"This one is called Red Blossoms from a Fallen Tree and this one is A Beast Cries in the Sacred Heart of the Night and the last is called A Longing That My Bones Will Remember." Kiram pointed out each of the books as he spoke. "They're poems written by two famous Bahiim mystics. They talk quite a lot about the sacredness of all aspects of life, even those that seem base and animalistic."

Kiram hadn't read any of the books all the way through but he knew the more famous poems, as most Haldiim did. They were quite old and Kiram could only guess that Javier had gotten the titles from Calixto's diary.

"Thank her for me, will you?" Javier picked up the three books and took them to his desk. Kiram nodded and continued to skim the gossip from Anacleto. There was news of his friend Musni. Kiram took it in with a sense of loss, frowning at the letter.

"What's wrong?" Nestor asked.

"What?" Kiram looked up at him. "Nothing. Nothing at all. It's just that one of my close friends has decided to marry a girl." Kiram realized how this sounded and quickly added, "I liked her as well, so I'm happy for him but sad about the marriage."

"Did he know you fancied her?" Nestor asked.

"Yes, he knew." Kiram accepted a slice of sausage from Nestor. It was spicy and tasted of juniper and cloves. For a moment he couldn't keep from wondering whether Musni would have refused to marry if he hadn't left for the academy. He sighed again, realizing that he would have left even if he had known that he would lose Musni.

"Not much of a friend if you ask me," Nestor grumbled. "It's pretty low to steal a man's girl while he's gone away to school."

"He didn't steal her," Kiram replied. Nestor handed him a piece of cheese. He ate it and felt better. He couldn't have cared that much about Musni, he supposed, if a slice of sausage and a bite of cheese could console him so easily.

"She liked him and he comes from a poor family, so taking a wife is a good choice for him. Her mother owns two mills. Musni will be well taken care of."

"Still doesn't make it right," Nestor said, frowning.

Kiram shrugged. He glanced down to the box and realized that he'd missed a satchel. He opened it and discovered his favorite taffy, packed with mint leaves. He shared a piece with Nestor and then turned to offer one to Javier.

He didn't know why, but Javier's expression seemed almost stricken. Then he gave Kiram a quick smile.

"You have an entirely different life waiting for you back in Anacleto, don't you?" Javier accepted the taffy but didn't eat it.

"We all have other lives outside of the academy," Kiram replied.

"Not really." Nestor's expression turned thoughtful. "Not like you do. I never considered it before, but all of us Cadeleonians are going to be dealing with each other like this for the rest of our lives. Not with upperclassmen and all that but we do the same things here as we do at home, eat the same food, know the same people. You come from an entirely different place." Nestor spoke as if this idea just occurred to him and he found it somehow troubling. "When you're done with academy you're not just going to disappear back behind the Haldiim wall to your other life, are you?"

"I have to go home sometime."

"But you're going to write to me and come visit and invite me to visit you, aren't you? My family house is in Anacleto, less than an hour from the Haldiim district."

"Of course." Kiram smiled at Nestor. "After a few days back at my mother's house I'll be desperate to get out. I'll be visiting you everyday. Honestly, escaping from home was half of why I came here in the first place. I wanted to see something new and meet different people."

"Well, you've certainly met different people, I'll bet!" Relief rang through Nestor's voice. "And you've ridden horses and learned to fence, and you're going to win dozens of ribbons in the tournament. When that girl sees you she's going to break down in tears because she missed her chance at you."

Kiram laughed at the thought of any girl crying over him, much less Musni's new wife. Briefly Kiram wondered what would happen when they were both back in Anacleto. If he ever did find a husband, how would he introduce the man to Nestor?

Nestor nodded happily. "You won't care because by then you will have had your fill of women from the Goldenrod and half of them will be writing you love letters the way they write to Atreau."

"Yes," Javier said tiredly. "It will be a glorious future for all. But for now I think we ought to go down for dinner."

"The bell hasn't-" Nestor began but then the seventh bell sounded from the chapel.

The three of them joined the flood of other students filing down to the dining room and Kiram's brief, troubled thoughts of his future were forgotten as the smell of beef and fresh bread beckoned him.