Second Guard (13 page)

She shuffled off to breakfast, where she pretended to eat for her friends, though she had no appetite. It did not go unnoticed.

“Tali, you must go to the infirmary,” Zarif said, looking at her in concern. “You cannot ignore pain. It is a message to slow down.”

“You know that’s not an option,” Tali said. “Warriors don’t stay in bed every time they suffer a bump.”

“At least go visit our new friend, Saavedra,” Chey offered. “Perhaps he can lessen your pain again with another poultice.”

Tali stood, dismissing their remarks with a wave. “There’s no time,” she said as the bells summoned them to training. “I’ll be
fine
,” she added, upon
seeing her friends exchange worried glances.

As they neared the lake, Tali saw that Jaden had returned to the Alcazar, and judging by his demeanor, his venture had not been a good one. His face looked pinched and distant, his mind
obviously on matters more important than pledges. Tali could not help wonder what distracted him. Could the rumors about him be true? Could someone who looked like the portrait of confidence and
courage be rotten within? Tali was determined to unlock the truth somehow. For now, however, it was laps around the grounds.

“Faster!” Jaden barked, after the first ten minutes. “You move like sloths!”

From the start it had become clear that Tali could not keep up the pace. Chey and Zarif hung back, offering their encouragement, but it only made Tali’s head hurt worse to hear them.

“Go, you two,” Tali said. “Do not get into trouble on my account.”

“Are you certain?” Zarif asked politely, though she could tell he itched to put on speed.

“I’m not sure you should be left alone,” Chey said, putting a hand on her shoulder. Tali shrugged it off, annoyed by their fussing.

“I’ll be fine, I’m just slow. Now, go.”

Chey nodded and picked up his pace, Zarif falling in beside him.

When they made the first turn around the bend and she was certain they would not see her, Tali stopped and leaned face first into a tree, arms extended over her head. Her vision felt fractured,
her balance threatening to topple her. She would have to walk; nothing else was an option.

By the time she made it back to Jaden, the others were long gone, rowing out to one of the small islands in Lake Chibcha. A solitary boat sat waiting in the docks, a large pledge standing by it
impatiently. Drayvon. Could this day get any worse?

“About time!” Drayvon said with a look on his face as if he smelled something putrid. “Jaden made me wait for you. You’re going to make us look like fools.”

“You do that without any help from me,” Tali said.

“You’re the sorriest pledge in the Alcazar,” Drayvon said over his shoulder as he climbed into the waiting boat.

“You shame yourself and our guild,” Tali answered, trying to hide the pain and nausea she felt as she picked her way down the narrow path to the water.

“Enough!” Jaden’s voice rang out behind them. “If you wish to bicker like children, then go do it in the kitchens. It’s time you learn what waits for you if you
fail to earn a place in the Guard.”

Drayvon stood at attention at the sound of Jaden’s voice. “But sir, I didn’t—”

“I’ll hear none of it. Report at once for kitchen duty. Both of you.”

Tali took a full ten minutes more than Drayvon to arrive at the kitchens, where the head steward waited for her. Though his girth doubled that of most people, there was nothing soft about the
man, whose thick arms looked like slabs of meat, his scowl permanent.

“Taking your time, pledge? I’ll see you do extra for me. Small as you are, you’ll be under my supervision in no time anyway.”

“Sorry, sir.”

The large man turned from Tali and she followed obediently into a back room, where servants bustled in a hundred directions, each with their arms loaded with some type of ingredient or pot to
cook it in.

“You don’t know what sorry is yet. Centurio Jaden has me save the best tasks for pledges such as yourself,” he said, motioning Tali through another hallway and into a small,
dark room. Her head pounded with each step but she tried not to wince as she headed after him.

“Yacón roots,” he said, pointing to the piles of small tubers inside the room. “You will peel and slice enough to fill ten pots.”

Tali nodded as the Steward gave one final grunt and left the room. In the back corner, Drayvon sat on a low stool with a pot between his knees, peeling one of the irregularly shaped vegetables.
His large hands looked ridiculous trying to wield the small knife to any effect, and his output seemed pitiful.

Tali looked around and found her own knife and stool, then pulled up a pot and began to work. Though the task ahead would be as tedious as it was humiliating, she had to admit that it felt good
to sit in the cool, dark room and give her aching body a rest.

She picked up the first brownish vegetable and began peeling away dirty skin to uncover the pale yellow flesh inside. The yacón roots felt familiar in her hand; Nel called them ground
apples. Though Tali was no cook, she had often helped Nel peel potatoes and yucca and the other humble ingredients that her sister always managed to turn into meals worth remembering.

Across from her, Drayvon slashed at the root in his hand. He wasted as much as he cut. It would take him more than a day to fill five pots since most of the flesh landed on the floor. Tali
thought of offering him some advice, but quickly decided against it. No doubt he would take her offer badly, and right now she needed silence, not a fight. The only sound besides the soft scraping
of their blades was an occasional burst of laughter or snippet of song from other, more lively parts of the kitchen as the servants went about their work.

For the first couple of hours the two exchanged no words. To occupy her mind, Tali pretended she was back on her family’s tradeboat, preparing for an evening meal. Her father would
undoubtedly tell a story to amuse her, or even pull his small vihuela from its hiding spot under the cushioned bench and pluck out a tune as Tali counted the day’s coins and Nel performed her
magic at the stove. Oh, how Tali missed them both! And how foolish of her to have taken for granted the thousands of simple meals shared in their company, the quiet evenings of warmth and story and
song. She could almost feel the gentle sway of the tradeboat beneath her, the smell of coffee on the small stove, the plink of her father’s instrument in his worn hands.

“I’m starving,” Drayvon finally said, pulling Tali back from her reverie of home.

“I suppose you could eat a ground apple,” Tali said, motioning to the endless pile that had not seemed to diminish at all despite their efforts.

“They’re bitter without boiling them first,” he said.

Tali was surprised he knew this. As much as his company annoyed her, the thought of spending six more hours in silence seemed even worse. Perhaps she could learn something from Drayvon while
they whittled away the hours together.

“So, what do you know of the dead pledge last year?” she asked.

“What about him?” Drayvon answered, his knife paused above a ground apple, almost menacingly.

“I’ve heard rumors going around about him, that’s all,” Tali said, trying to make her voice sound casual, almost bored, as if she were merely trying to make conversation.
“I just wondered if you’d heard anything.”

Drayvon shrugged. “Sure. Pledges love to talk. Some say it looked more like a push than a fall.”

“How could anyone possibly tell? The boy fell from such a height.”

Drayvon raised an eyebrow, then continued peeling the root in his hand. “A body that accidentally slipped down the ravine would be damaged, scraped on all sides like this ground
apple.”

“Not this pledge?”

“Not at all. They say his head was crushed, his body splayed in a wide X as if he’d free-fallen off the cliff.”

Tali wished she hadn’t asked. That was an image she’d rather replace with almost anything else.

“But there was no inquiry?”

“No. Why should there be? Pledges die each year, you know,” he said, as if he were commenting on the weather instead of someone’s life. “Training accidents aren’t
that uncommon.”

“But if it wasn’t an accident?” Tali asked. “And why would someone want to kill a pledge anyway? We’re powerless.”

“That’s why the rumors are bunk. I say the dirt killed himself, flung himself into the ravine because he knew he wasn’t going to make the Guard.”

“Why do you always do that?”

“What?” Drayvon asked.

“Use that word. ‘Dirt.’ It’s ugly.”

“It’s not ugly. It’s what they are. It’s what they do.”

“It’s not like any of us is given a choice of guilds, Drayvon,” Tali said. Could he really be so ignorant? “There’s no shame in their work just because it requires
getting dirty. Besides, would you want to be called a ‘peeler,’ since that’s all you are today?”

The room emptied of talk for a few minutes. Tali busied herself with a few more ground apples. Their raw smell was earthy, tangy, though not as strong now as when she’d first entered the
room. Her fingers felt numb from handling the cold vegetables and she wasn’t sure she’d ever want to eat one again.

“They have words for the rest of us, too, you know,” said Drayvon, grabbing another root from the pile on the floor.

“What? You mean ‘coiners’ for Sun Guilders and ‘inkers’ for the Moon? Pretty mild words in comparison to ‘dirts.’”

“It’s not the words but the way they’re spoken.”

“Well, we Sun Guilders do focus on coins. And ‘ink’ for the Moon Guild is almost a compliment.”

“No. It means they don’t do any real work. Their hands show only the mar of ink as they read and write.”

“And ours the grubby pursuit of money?”

“Exactly.”

“So why do you care? Your father and grandfather were centurios, weren’t they, and maestros now? It’s not like trade is your life’s work.”

“My mother’s family. Don’t pretend ignorance, Tali,” he said, pointing at her with the blade in his hand. “It’s the implication that we don’t earn the
money. That we always cheat or swindle for it.”

“And there
are
people who cheat and swindle in the Sun Guild. As I’m sure there
are
people in the Moon Guild who do precious little actual work.
But…”

“There
are
mostly ignorant people in the Earth Guild,” Drayvon shot back at her, mimicking her emphasis on words. Then he added, “They don’t want to achieve
more. They don’t educate themselves.”

“They have precious little time for school, Drayvon. They’re too busy tending and harvesting their crops and stock. They don’t
want
to be ignorant.” Tali sliced
off a rotten part of a ground apple with vengeance, nicking her thumb with the blade. She sucked a drop of blood from the wound before she continued. “You seem to choose it.”

Drayvon snorted in either amusement or disgust, Tali wasn’t sure. “You’re the one with your eyes closed, Tali. The dirts aren’t like the rest of us.”

“I resent the word ‘dirts,’ Drayvon. Chey is my friend.”

“Why don’t you stick with your own people? You don’t belong with that ink stick Zarif, either.”

“We’re supposed to shed our guilds in the Guard, Drayvon.”

“So what do we go back to after four years, then?”

“To our homes. Knowing more than the small-minded things we learned in the playfields of our childhoods.”

“This realm works because the guilds remain true. Crossing guilds taints our way of life.”

“I don’t agree with you.”

“You river rats are a different breed of Sun Guilder, that’s certain,” he said.

“Thank you,” Tali answered.

“It was meant as no compliment.”

“But from you it is.”

They worked the rest of the day in a bubble of silence. When the light disappeared and they could no longer see their hands, the Head Steward released them. Tali could barely straighten her
back. She was as sore as she would have been if she’d fought in the arena all day. And without the intensity of training to distract her, her mind had gone wild trying to sort out the bits of
information she knew, the rumors she’d heard. She
would
find out if someone had pushed that pledge. And if there were no answers to be had from other pledges, then maybe there were
other people to prod. Like those with power. The centurios.