“What do you think you’re doing?” Earnest snatched the bag away from him.
“You try to pick up another thing, kid, and I’m going to leave you behind,” Dasher said.
Venture let out a sulky breath. He’d healed enough to travel, though not enough to run, let alone fight. And, apparently, in their opinions, not enough to load the carriage. Dasher had arranged for one of his servants from back home to come and be their driver, since they were going to be doing a lot of traveling. Venture watched him arrange the baggage the other men tossed to him, and felt completely useless.
While Dasher and Earnest went back inside to get the last of their things, he tried to make conversation with the driver, a husky man in his thirties whose name was Glad, though he had a naturally somber countenance and didn’t like to waste words.
“Have you ever been to Three Ponds?”
“Yes, sir.”
Venture waited, but Glad didn’t elaborate. Thinking it might help Glad to warm up to him, Venture told him, “I’m from Twin Rivers. At home I serve Grant Fieldstone.”
Glad looked him up and down disdainfully. “I know who you are. I know your place, whether you do or not.”
“What?”
“You’d better keep your business to yourself, if you’re to be Mr. Starson’s training partner.”
“I don’t have a problem with my ‘business’ and neither does Dasher. Why should you?”
“Someday you’ll know—his place, and yours, and it won’t be pretty.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Glad climbed down, onto the cobblestone road. He leaned close to Venture. In a low voice, he warned, “A servant is nothing but a servant, and he shouldn’t pretend not to be. Especially a bonded one, one of the lowest class on earth. You aren’t worthy to so much as watch him fight, let alone learn from him.”
Venture was flexing his hands and debating whether or not to use them, when Dasher appeared, right behind his driver.
“Glad,” he said, “you’re done here.”
Glad jumped, then turned toward Dasher with his head bowed.
Dasher pulled a leather bag of coins from his pocket and tossed it at the stunned driver. “This should get you back home.”
Glad caught it clumsily, then reached into the carriage to fetch the small bundle of his possessions.
“Dash—”
“We’ll be fine without him.”
“Ready to take off?” Earnest said from the doorway of the building. Then, as Glad brushed past him, “Where’s he going?”
“He’s not coming. I’ll drive.” Dasher climbed deftly onto the driver’s seat and took the reins. “Vent, why don’t you ride up here with me for a while?”
Venture joined him on the driver’s seat, and Earnest muttered, “Whatever,” and clambered into the carriage.
The carriage began to roll forward in small, regular bumps over the cobblestone driveway that led from this wing of the complex, across the grounds, to the road.
“You think I was too hard on him?”
Venture hesitated. He would’ve thought yes, but for the size of that purse, that bundle of money that Dasher hadn’t even counted.
Dasher broke Venture’s silence himself. “Well, we’re capable of driving this thing ourselves, aren’t we? It isn’t worth his foul mood to drag that man along.”
“Dasher, why—”
“You’re my friend, that’s why. And if he weren’t my servant, I would have roughed him up for that.”
“If you go roughing up everyone who looks down on me for being a bondsman, you’re going to get yourself in a lot of trouble.”
“You’re worth the trouble, and I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Venture spread his blankets over the gray-white canvas. He silently said his prayers, then lay down, arranged his bag for a pillow, and breathed deeply, contentedly. He could feel the heat of the flames on his heavy eyelids. Dasher and Earnest sprawled nearby with blankets around their shoulders, playing cards. It was their first evening at Mountain Center, clear off in the Northern Quarter. They’d had to board the horses and carriage in nearby Twin Pines and hike the last few miles to this austere log camp in the wooded, hard-to-reach foothills of the Great Mountains. The small dormitory was full, so the only place for them to sleep was on the mat by the training room hearth. Venture, who slept on the hearth at home when the nights were especially cold, found it familiar and comforting. Maybe here, he’d finally be able to sleep right.
Behind him, Earnest laughed.
“Give me those!” Dasher demanded. “I think you forgot to shuffle.”
Venture’s sleep had been fitful ever since he’d stopped taking the tonic for his pain. On top of that, his training during the weeks of waiting for his injuries to fully heal hadn’t come close to burning up enough of his energy. He’d spent their stay at Three Ponds confined to repeating techniques over and over again on Earnest, with more finesse than force, to the point of near perfection. When it came time for sparring, he couldn’t participate. He had to make do with practicing some more on Earnest. And Earnest had an annoying habit of deciding, much too soon for Venture’s liking, that his body had done enough work. While he gave his body the rest Earnest insisted on, his mind continued to work. He watched Dasher intently and tried to learn from what he did.
It had been a full six weeks after they left Champions before Earnest allowed Venture to do any sparring, and then it was only with lighter, weaker boys. A month of this had passed, and no amount of resentful scowls, none of his matside pleading that he wanted a challenge, that he needed more, had swayed Earnest. All his old troubles, all his new worries, swirled around him and within him. When he wasn’t allowed to really fight, Venture was denied the freedom, the release that always came when it all faded away on the mat. In the thick of the battle, he was a fighter, nothing more and nothing less.
Tomorrow that terrible restlessness, the fear of becoming what he’d once been—a boy on the verge of being overcome by his own troubles—would end. Tomorrow Earnest would let him unleash his full capabilities on the fighters of Mountain Center. They were a tough bunch of competitors, isolated, with nothing to do but practice. If he could show Earnest he was ready, not just to push his body all the way again, but to take on these fighters, maybe Earnest would help him write Justice and ask him to apply to the Fighting Commission for an exemption to the age limit of nineteen, so he could participate in absolute fighting tournaments with the men.
Tomorrow, too, he’d have the chance to show Dasher that he was worthy of all the time he’d taken to teach him. Knowing this, and feeling more comfortable than he had since he left home, Venture said his prayers, then fell asleep hard and fast. He dreamed of the willow tree, of Jade’s hand in his, of the lightness of her laughter, of the dark, sweet hope of her lips meeting his.
“Should we wake him up?” Dasher said to Earnest.
Venture lay still on the mat with his back to them, willing the sun not to rise.
“Give him a few more minutes. He’s finally sleeping well.”
Venture was about to answer that he was awake, and would get himself upright in a minute, when Dasher spoke again. “Something bothering your boy, Earnest?”
Venture could hear Earnest stuffing things into his bag as he replied, “He’s always been like that—restless.”
“What’s on his mind?”
As Dasher spoke, Venture felt the flap of the blanket he was folding.
“He’s had a lot happen to him, and I’m sure I don’t know the half of it. One of these days he’ll tell me, I think. But in the meantime, he does all right in spite of it.”
“Everybody has his secrets,” Dasher said. Then he turned away from Earnest. Venture barely made out his whisper, “I know I do.”
Venture was up and seated in the dining hall for breakfast in no time. He longed to get to the mat, but he knew he needed to fuel up for it, too. And the biscuits and eggs were hot and the company was good.
Forty or so of the Mountain Center residents sat together on benches at long, rough pine tables. Being so isolated, the whole group was much like a family. The head coach’s young sons trained here. His wife and older daughters, along with two hired girls, kept the kitchen and the dormitory. The little ones squirmed in their seats and ducked under the tables to tie knots in the fighters’ boot strings and giggle at their mock outrage. Venture scooped up a little boy about the same age as his niece, Tory, and threatened to toss him into the rafters. Would she even remember him by the time he got back?
A path was shoveled through the snow to the training room, and as they made their way, the Mountains fighters looked to the sky above the clearing in the pines and debated whether they were due a fresh batch. But Venture headed straight for the training hall door. The log structure, a single training room, was much longer than it was wide. Inside, the walls were dark and unplastered, the windows heavily shuttered against the cold. Venture wasted no time in removing his boots and stripping down to his workout clothes. But there was over an hour of instruction to suffer through while they waited for their breakfast to digest.
Finally, they warmed up in preparation for a sparring session. At last there was an opponent across from him, there was the nod of acknowledgment, there was the feel of his weight, his balance on the ball of his foot as he stood poised. There were the men who must wait to rotate in next round, backs to the wall, arms crossed, eyes on them, prepared to move out of their way in an instant; men took little note of walls or bystanders in the midst of sparring. There was the hollow sound of the whistle, shrill and inviting like the space left waiting in him all this time.
Venture made good use of his new technical skills, and went five rounds in a row, beating each challenger soundly. He looked to the others close to his age, questioned with his eyes,
You, next round? No
, they shook their heads. Their chests heaved and their eyes pleaded,
No more.
“You want to go?” he said to one of the men.
But Earnest said, “Not yet. That’s enough for today.”
Venture frowned at him and went to the wall, drenched in sweat, his muscles alive with that tired but strong feeling they got from hard work, that different-from-anything-else hard work of fighting. He was tired and hungry and thirsty in the way that he missed, in the exhilarating way that he craved.
Dasher persuaded one of the best fighters to give him another round, and the two of them had the whole mat to themselves. The rest of the fighters were done, every one of them exhausted. Not Dasher. Never Dasher. Venture watched Dasher—feeling, after his own performance—almost worthy of the honor of being his tag-along.
Dasher set up his opponent and threw him, once, twice, three times, each time with exactly the same foot sweep. It was a new variation he was working on, and this was one of the ways Dasher practiced and improved his technique. He limited himself to just that one technique so that he could learn to execute it no matter what his opponent did to prevent it. It was also one of the ways Dasher, with his distinctive brand of confidence, flirted at the line between showing his stuff and showing off.
No one could resist watching Dasher Starson at work. Dash knew it and loved it, and that was clear, though he didn’t glance at them, didn’t cry out triumphantly and draw attention to each successful throw. As his audience grew, as their attention increased, so did the passion with which Dasher fought. The calm, controlled joy was evident on his face and in the way he moved.
The round wore on, and his opponent grew tired, but Dasher’s exuberance expanded until it completely overwhelmed the other fighter. Dasher foot-swept him again, one last time, as the whistle blew. He stood patiently before the fallen man and waited for him to rise, his hands resting on his hips, his shoulders squared. He didn’t smile, but his dark eyes danced under his heavy brows. Venture shook his head and thought,
Now that’s a great fighter. No, I’m not even close to worthy, not even to be his tag-along. Not yet.
Venture toweled off his sweaty head and pulled on a sweater. It was going to be a cold walk to lunch.
“Hey, Champ!” Dasher called out.
Venture hesitated, glancing around.
Champ?
“Yes, you.” Dasher came up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You looked great today.”
CHAPTER SIX
Autumn’s Second Month, 656 After the Founding
The door of the print shop Venture’s brother managed was open to the midmorning breeze. Venture stood there, resting his hands on either side of the door frame. A bit of the peeling green paint flaked away at the touch of his fingers. It was the first of Autumn’s Second Month. He and Earnest were taking a week off from training. Dasher had gone on to see his family and would join them in Twin Rivers later, to train at Beamer’s for a while, just the three of them.
Earnest had gone his way, and so Venture stood there alone, watching Justice, bent over a sectioned drawer of lead type. A tray of set characters was on the table beside him, and he was plucking freshly cleaned letters from it, sorting them into the right compartments.
“Hello, Justice.”
Justice started at the sound of his voice, then leaped up, bumped the tray, and sent an entire paragraph of letters and lead spaces flying and clattering onto the stone floor.
“Vent!”
Justice ignored the mess and the potential damage to the type, even though his apprentice gasped and swore and dove down to rescue it with such desperation that Venture apologized and was about to bend down and help him. But Justice rushed over to embrace him first.
“Look at you!” Justice squeezed him and kissed his head and laughed and thumped him on the back.
“Come on, it’s only been eight months.”
“I know, I know. But it seems like longer. We’ve really missed you, Vent. Come on.” He grabbed a broom and swished the tiny pieces of type swiftly from under the counters and into a pile while the apprentice stood there gaping at him. “Let’s go home right now and surprise the girls.”