The King's Guard

3

WE’RE allowed to stumble into the barracks just before dawn. Captain Mandrano orders us to stow our three possessions—which we preserved by balancing them on empty, overturned buckets while we washed the yard—and only then will we be allowed into the mess for a meal. After that, we’ll be permitted two hours’ sleep. Then our real training will begin.

The recruits’ room is a squat, low-ceilinged rectangle with earthen walls buttressed by thick wooden beams. Alejandro was right—it’s much like a dungeon, with damp, chilly air permeated by the faint scent of rat urine. I console myself with the thought that, after hard days of training in the yard, a damp chill might feel nice.

Three oil lamps hang from the ceiling’s center beam. Twelve rickety cots stretch out from the longer walls, six to a side. Beside each cot is a small chest with two drawers. Above each cot is a hanging peg.

I pick the cot nearest the doorway. No one else wants it, for it’s bound to be the noisiest. But it also might have the freshest air, and I’d rather be aware of what’s going on around me than sleep through it. I hang my brother’s plaque, stash my book in one of the drawers, and flip my quilt out over the length of the cot. The latter earns chuckles from several of the recruits, but Fernando gives it an admiring look.

“A girl back home?” he asks.

“Something like that,” I say in a tone to discourage further questions. Confessing that the queen herself made it for me is not likely to earn any good will with this group.

Once we’ve claimed our space and stowed our belongings, we stand at attention by the ends of our cots while Captain Mandrano inspects us. Tomás and Marlo are praised for their hard work and fine example.

He moves down the line. He tells another recruit that his boots are too worn, that he’ll have to go barefoot until he is outfitted with a proper pair. When I see the recruit’s callused feet, I think that he may be better off without the boots.

Mandrano reaches Lucio. Without a word, he grabs the young man’s amphora of wine and dumps it down the floor drain outside the door.

“The amphora is one thing, the wine is another,” Mandrano tells Lucio, who is almost as big as he is. “And you’re only allowed three things, not four.”

“You could have taken my medallion,” Lucio says. It’s a good luck piece, the image of a Godstone surrounded by a verse from the Scriptura Sancta that asks blessings for the bearer.

Mandrano studies it. “No, you’re going to need that.”

Lucio persists, “I would have drunk the wine and gotten rid of the amphora.”

Stop whining, you stupid oaf.

Mandrano’s contempt for him is, fortunately, beyond words. He comes to Fernando. “You can’t lean your bow against the wall—store it under your bed.”

“But that will ruin it,” Fernando says.

Mandrano’s voice fills the barracks. “Did I ask you for your opinion on weapons? Do you think a recruit knows more about a Guard’s weapons than a twenty-year veteran?”

Fernando bites his tongue for once, but it’s likely more from exhaustion than anything else. Or maybe he’s worried Mandrano will notice the state of his shoes.

Mandrano comes to me last. “That is a lovely quilt, recruit,” he says.

“Thank you, sir.”

“It’s the envy of every little girl in Brisadulce. I saw them sitting on the wall today, staring at that blanket and asking their mothers if they could join the Guard so they could have one just like it. Is that what you want, recruit? You want a Guard full of little girls?”

“If they can fight well enough to defend the king, sir.”

“Are you talking back to me?”

“No, sir.”

“Tuck every bit of that quilt under the mattress, recruit. If I see even the tiniest edge, I will confiscate it and destroy it. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

I do as he asks as quickly as possible. He inspects everything one more time while we sway unsteadily on our feet, our stomachs growling. Finally, finally, he gives us leave to seek out a meal.

We tumble from the barracks and into the mess with renewed energy, but we stop short as soon as we arrive. The place is empty.

“What did you expect?” Mandrano says. “You shouldn’t have taken so long in the training yard.”

Beside me, Fernando whimpers, and I hope with all the hope inside me that Mandrano did not hear.

“The cooks won’t arrive to begin breakfast for another half hour,” Mandrano says. “You’re free until then.” All nine of us glower at his back as he leaves.

“Now what?” Fernando says. “I guess we could go back to our room and sleep for a bit.”

“I’m not going to risk missing a meal,” says one of the others.

“I could thrash Hector now,” Lucio suggests hopefully.

I swing my legs over the nearest bench and plop my forearms onto the table. “I’m sleeping right here,” I announce. “So I can wake up as soon as the kitchen opens.” I let my head drop onto my arms. Lucio can thrash me if he wants, but I’ll probably just sleep through it.

I wake to a hand shaking my shoulder, and I jump up, reaching for a sword that isn’t there.

“Easy, my lord,” says a high voice.

“Just a recruit now,” I mumble.

A boy with curly hair backs away from me. I blink at him to clear sleep from my eyes. It’s one of the new pages. Adán or Ando or something like that.

Men are filtering into the mess hall. Easy laughter fills the air, along with the sounds of spoons against bowls and benches scraping the floor. I step away, intending to dart toward the meal line, but the page grabs my arm. “Message from the king,” he says. “You’re being summoned.”

A hush settles over the mess hall. Everyone stares at me. Everyone who isn’t glowering, that is. The page holds out a piece of folded parchment.

Alejandro, what have you done?

Captain Mandrano is at my side before I can react, snatching the king’s note from my fingertips. “What’s this about?” he says.

“How should I know?” I snap. “I haven’t read it yet.”

Mandrano’s glare is as hot as a blacksmith’s furnace. My brother Felix used to say that my knives would never be as sharp as my tongue, which was a shame. But seeing Mandrano looking at me with murder in his eyes makes me understand that my sharp tongue will be my downfall unless I learn to control it.

“You can read it, of course,” I say.

He turns it over, a tiny square in his large hands, but the seal stops him. “That’s His Majesty’s mark,” he says. “It’s addressed to you. Only you can open it.”

He means it sincerely, I can tell. The king’s seal is sacred to him.

When he hands it back to me, I tear it open at once. Come immediately is all it says in Alejandro’s fluid, elegant scrawl.

“Damn it,” I say.

A half dozen possibilities run through my mind. Chief among them is an early morning tryst. I used to deliver messages to coordinate his assignations with the court ladies—the errand I hated most. But that can’t be it; he ceased all such behavior after marrying Rosaura.

The collective stares of the Royal Guardsmen press in around me, and I realize it doesn’t matter why I’m being summoned. Everyone will see this as confirmation that I’m the king’s flunky, exempt from the usual standards and behaviors expected of a Royal Guard.

With the seal broken and the message read, Mandrano casts his reservations aside and tears it from my grasp again. “Well, then, squire,” he says, turning the title into an insult. “You’d better go at once.” He stuffs the summons back into my hand and shoves me toward the door. It feels like a permanent dismissal.

The scent of hot, honeyed porridge follows me out of the mess. I’m in the hallway heading toward the palace proper when I hear two Guardsmen talking at my back, loud enough for me to hear.

“Less than a day,” the first one retorts with a sneer.

“He hasn’t washed out yet.”

“He’s walking out the door before he’s sworn in, and that means that he’s washed out. Pay up.”

I’m only a Guard recruit because of Alejandro.

And now, because of him, I may have already failed.