new grave, oozing into the dirt around Miv wrapped up in white cloth, rising and filling the grave, washing him away with the dirt and the leaves, the white cloth trailing in the current like smoke. Sallo took my hand and I pressed close to her side. Everything was washing and drifting and trailing away with the water, except my sister Sallo, except her. She was here. With me.
We went back to the House and to work. Everra did not hold class that day. Sallo and I did our sweeping. When we were sweeping the silk-room court she came and took hold of my hand suddenly. She was in tears. She said, “Oh, Gav, I keep thinking about Oco—If I lost my little brother I would die!” She hugged me fiercely, and then seeing I was crying too, she hugged me again, whispering, “You won’t ever go away, will you, Gav?”
I said, “Never. I promise.”
“I hear,” she said, trying to smile.
We both knew well enough what a slave’s promise is worth, but still it comforted us both.
When we finished sweeping, she went with Ris to the spinning room, I went to the pantry and found Tib, and we loitered out to the back court. Some of the big boys were there. I held back—I had never been sure which ones had helped Hoby dunk me—but they spoke to us mildly. They were playing toss, and one of them lobbed the ball to me. I only had one hand to catch with, but caught and passed it creditably, and then stood back and watched them throw and catch. One of them asked, “Where’s Hoby?” and another, Tan, said, “In trouble.”
“What for?”
“Sucking up,” Tan said, with a high loft of the ball to Tib. Tib fumbled it, another boy retrieved it and lobbed it back to Tan. He caught it, tossed it high and caught it, and turned to me. Tan was a stableboy, sixteen or seventeen years old, a short, thin fellow almost as dark-skinned as me. “You had the right idea, young Gav,” he said. “Stick to your own. Don’t go looking for gratitude up there.” He glanced at the windowed wall of Arcamand towering over the courtyard and back at me, and winked. He had a keen, bright face. I’d always liked Tan, and was flattered by his notice. As the older boys left, another of them slapped me lightly on the shoulder, the kind of comradely notice that looks like nothing and means a lot. It brought a warmth to me I needed. I’d been down at the river in my head all morning, in the grey rain and the silence and the cold.
Tib ran off to the kitchen to his work. I had nothing to do. I went to the schoolroom because there was nowhere else to go. And because if any room in Arcamand was my room, it was that one. It was dear to me, with its four high north windows, its carved and grimy benches and desks and tables, the teacher’s lectern, the bookshelves and stacked-up copybooks and slates, the big glass ink jug from which we filled our inkwells. Sallo and I were in charge of keeping it swept, dusted, and orderly, and though it looked quite neat and peaceful, I set to sorting and straightening out the books on the long shelves. All work was made awkward by the splint on my finger. Often I stopped and had a look into a book I hadn’t read yet. Sitting on the floor by the shelves, I opened Saltoc Asper’s
I leapt up and reverenced him and apologised. He smiled. “What’s the book?”
I showed him.
“Read it if you like,” he said, “though it might be better to read Asham first. Asper is political. Asham is above opinion.” He went over to his lectern and looked through some papers, then sat on the long-legged stool and looked at me again. I was rearranging books.
“This is a heavy day,” he said.
I nodded.
“I attended on Father Altan-di this morning. I have some news that may lighten the day for you a little.” He rubbed his hand over his mouth and jaw. “The Family will be going to the country early this year, at the beginning of May, I will go with them, and all my pupils, except for Hoby. He is henceforth excused from school and will serve under Haster. And Torm-di has been granted leave to stay in the city and learn swordsmanship from a master teacher. He will join us in the country only at the end of summer.”
This was a lot of news to absorb all at once, and at first I saw only the promise of a long country summer at the farm in the Ventine Hills. Then I saw the bonus—without Hoby! without Torm!—That was a moment of bliss. It was quite a while before I began to think about it in any other terms.
Tan and the other boys had already known it, this morning in the courtyard—news always got all over the House immediately:
On the other hand, Torm hadn’t been punished for killing little Miv, but rewarded for it. Studying the arts of war was the dream of his heart.
It burst out of me—“It’s not fair!”
“Gavir,” the teacher said,
“But its not, Teacher-di! Torm killed Miv!”
“He did not mean to, Gavir, Yet he is being made to do penance. He is not allowed to come with the Mother and the rest of us to Vente. He will live with his teacher and be subjected to a very severe discipline. Swordmaster Attec’s pupils lead a hard, bare life of constant training, with no reward but their increase of skill The Father spoke of it to Torm-di while I was there. He said, ‘You must learn self-restraint, my son, and with Attec you will learn it.’ And Torm-di bowed his head.”
“But then Hoby—what did he do to be punished?”
The teacher was taken aback. “What did he do?” he repeated, looking at my scabs and swellings and splinted finger.
“But that—that didn’t hurt the Family,” I said, not knowing how to say what I felt. I meant that if Hoby was punished for what he’d done to me, it should be by his and my people, the slaves. That’s why I hadn’t said who hurt me. It was between us. It was beneath the Family’s notice. But if Hoby was being punished for his attempt to defend Torm, clumsy as it had been, then it was so unfair that it must be a mistake—a misunderstanding.
“What happened to you was no accident,” Everra said, “though in your loyalty to your schoolmate you say it was. But Hoby was insolent to me. And through me the authority of the Father acts in this classroom. That cannot be tolerated, Gavir. Listen now; come sit here.”
He went to sit at the reading table, and I went to sit by him, as I would when reading with him. “Loyalty is a great thing, but loyalty misplaced is troublesome and dangerous. I know you’re troubled. Everyone in the House is troubled. The death of a child is a pitiable thing. You’re hearing wild, angry talk, maybe, in the barrack and the dormitory. When you hear such talk, you must think what this household is: Is it a wilderness? Is it a battlefield? Is it an endless, hidden war of sullen rage against implacable force? Is that the truth of your life here? Or have you lived here as a member of a family blessed by its ancestors,
where each person has his part to play, always striving to act with justice?”
He let me think that over a minute, and went on, “When in doubt, Gavir, look up. Not down. Look up for guidance. Strength comes from above. Your part is with the highest in this House. Born wild as you were, a slave as you are, as I am, without family, yet you’ve been taken into the heart of a great household and given all you need —shelter and food, great Ancestors and a kindly Father to guide you. And as well as all that, nourishment for your spirit—the learning I was given and can pass on to you. You have been given trust. The sacred gift. Our Family trusts us, Gavir. They entrust their sons and daughters to me! How can I earn that honor? By my loyal effort to deserve it, I wish when I die it might be said of me, He never betrayed those who trusted him.’”
His dry voice had become gentle, and he looked at me a while before he went on. “You know, Gavir, behind you, in the wilderness you came from, there’s nothing for you. In the shifting sands beneath you, there’s nothing for you to build on. But look up! Above you, in the power that sustains you and the wisdom offered to you—there you can set your heart, there you can put your trust. There you will find treasure. And justice. And a mother’s mercy, which you never knew.”
It was as if he talked of the house I had dreamed of, that sunlit house where I was safe and welcome and free. He restored it to me in waking life.
I couldn’t say anything, of course. He saw what comfort he had given me, though, and he reached out to pat my shoulder, as the boy in the courtyard had, a light, brotherly touch.
