Hart still never talked about himself, Will thought. He’d watched Hart at court. He seemed to answer questions freely enough, but he was always more interested in you, whichever you he was talking with; he listened with a concentrated attention that worked better than any verbal flattery. And it left people to build up a background for him from their own minds, made of his court accent and excellent manners and social consideration, uncontradicted by anything he actually said.
He’d first seen Hart upside-down, across the playground, while getting the shit beat of him by Parry Winzek. He’d let Parry get to him again, listening to him insult his father until he couldn’t take it anymore and jumped on Parry like an awkward sack of potatoes, pummeling and pummeling. Some people fought better when they were crazy-angry; Will was not one of them. This was the third time Parry Winzek had bloodied Will’s face on the playground floor.
He’d looked through blurry eyes when Parry got up, and saw the light-haired lad in the neat tan pants and white shirt smile at him quizzically from across the yard. Will lay there for a few seconds, tasting the blood from his nose, then carefully started to get up. Parry walked around him and raised one foot very slowly, aiming for a final kick.
“You already won,” said the new kid in the tan pants. He didn’t say it like a challenge, or as if he were disagreeing with Parry. He just said it.
“That’s right,” called one of the circle of kids who were watching Will’s latest humiliation. “You’re not supposed to do that when you already won.”
“He didn’t say it,” said Parry.
Willie closed his mouth, swallowing the thick, salty stuff that must be blood. No doubt his face proclaimed him the loser he was. He wasn’t going to say anything.
Then he met the new kid’s eyes. The kid jerked his head to one side, a look of contempt going briefly across his face as his glance ran over Parry. His eyes met Willie’s. Say it, asshole. Why give this shit another chance to hurt you? And for about a second Willie saw the code of the playground in a whole new light.
“You win,” he said. Parry’s mouth turned up in a smug smile. And yet Willie felt superior, for the first time. Parry wasn’t worth being truthful to. Willie hugged that look he’d seen on the new kid’s face to his heart. He’d never seen anyone look at Parry with contempt, but it matched something Will realized he’d been feeling himself, somewhere underneath the code and the confusion of what everybody else told him was right. Parry was barely aware that two and two were four, and his taunts were pretty lame, too, when you got away long enough to consider it. And more importantly than anything else, Will wasn’t alone in thinking so.
Parry walked away to be congratulated by his friends. Will heard them praise Parry and talk about how Will “just jumped you, without any reason.” The new kid came over and stood by Will as he got up. Then he handed Will a handkerchief, white and neatly folded.
“You’re messing up your shirt,” he said.
Will looked down to see spots of red on the white material. “Oh, hell. My father’s going to kill me.” His tone was calm, but to Willie this was literal.
“Cold water’s good for bloodstains,” said the kid, conveying the first piece of information he bestowed on Will. “There’s leakage over in the recycling tunnel. Come on and we’ll soak it now. I’m Hartley Quince.” He turned around and began making his way past the knots of ballplayers toward the edge of the yard, and Willie followed him.
Will stood in the dimness by the Blessed Sacrifice dormitories, and wondered what his life would have been like if Hart had been assigned to some other comer of the Opal. Would he himself ever have made that breakthrough, that twist of mind that made him see the codes of Sangaree differently? You couldn’t escape them completely, and he didn’t really want to; but if not for that day in the playground would he ever have chosen to go into the Guard, instead of waiting to be drafted to the radiation levels? Would he be laboring now with the work teams, or released for a slow death at home, tended by Bernadette?
In a lot of ways he owed Hart far too much. Will started to cross the courtyard, heading for the skinny alleyway he knew ran along the other side, that led by some torturous twistings and climbings to Duquesne Street, just ten minutes’ walk from home. A movement in the gray dimness by the entranceway made him freeze, then drop down behind the broken statue of Saint Adrian the First.
Some teacher, bored and restless and out for a stroll? The courtyard was a little small for that, but it was safer than the outer streets. Will pushed his back against the statue’s pedestal, minimizing his visibility. He heard footsteps go back and forth, first faint, then near, then faint again. What were the trespassing penalties these days? The last time he’d been here was as a child. What were the penalties for adults? Would they come down hard on a City Guard sergeant? The inevitable and hateful thought followed: Could Hart get him off?… He had before.
The bloodstains never did come out completely, but his father had been too drunk to notice for several days; and meanwhile, Will had garnered enough triumph in the playground to see him through one more beating at home. It was Hart who advised him through this new campaign. He suggested that Will pick a fight
