“Right here, Vent,” Earnest answered him, so calm and so close beside him that it startled him.
“Can you put his thumbs back?”
“If he’ll let me. But you’ve probably torn his tissues.”
Venture and one of the other fighters held him still while Earnest popped his thumbs back into place.
The injured man looked up at Venture reproachfully, almost mournfully, as though he couldn’t understand why someone would do such a thing. But Calling looked at Venture and shook his head reassuringly.
Then Calling stepped in front of the intruder and took his chin roughly in his hand. “You barged in here looking for a fight. What did you want, a little bit of excitement? Well, you got it, and some time in the lockup too.”
If those guys had just waited for the fighters to come out on the street, and challenged them there, rather than trespassing on the center, they would have faced little or no penalty, assuming no one was seriously hurt. They were unarmed, and fist fights were seldom cause for the lockup, so long as none of the aggressors was a bondsman, and none of the assaulted Crested.
The town guards entered with their clubs and swords, too late for the action, but just in time to load the men, all too battered to flee, into a wagon fitted with a top of iron bars, a cage on wheels.
“At least they weren’t armed like the last group of thugs we had in here,” Calling said.
Venture pushed back that painful memory. He’d been here to see that incident end with a young fighter’s death.
Dasher nodded thoughtfully. “We’re going to have to get you a sword, Champ, and work on your swordsmanship, too.”
Earnest laughed humorlessly. “He’s a bonded servant, Dash. He could be thrown into the stinking lockup for carrying a sword.”
“Sorry, Champ. I wasn’t thinking.” Dasher frowned and rubbed at his ever-swelling ear. “Your master knew you were learning to use a sword when you were training to be a guard before, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, but they were only wood. I wasn’t training long enough to get to the real thing. I probably wouldn’t have been able to use real blades until I was free, but not because Grant Fieldstone would’ve objected.”
“Well then, he probably wouldn’t object to you learning to use one so you can survive in a different career, would he? You may not be able to carry a weapon now, but we can find a way for you to practice, privately, so you’ll be prepared once you can.”
Earnest nodded. “He’s got to practice. Someone’s always begging for a beating, and sometimes it’s a good spanking with a blade they need, though it’s always more fun to bury a boot in the rear, if you ask me.”
Earnest didn’t want to say it, Venture could tell, but Dasher was constantly being challenged, occasionally by armed men, drunk or foolish, wanting to prove themselves. How much worse would it be for Venture Delving, a bondsman, once he had the chance to prove himself in competition?
His friends wanted him to learn to use a sword so he’d be ready to defend himself once he was nineteen and free, but trouble with armed men was almost certain to come to him before that, just for being the training partner of the reigning champion, if for nothing else.
“I’ll need to learn to fight armed men without a sword, too,” he said.
Dasher’s expression darkened. “Cursed law! Someone ought to change it!”
“Dasher Starson,” Earnest said, “I didn’t know you were such a revolutionary.”
“Our Champ here makes me see things I didn’t notice before.”
“I’m only thinking of how I’m going to make it to where I want to be, alive.”
“We’ll get you there in one piece,” Earnest said, “One way or another.”
Venture twisted in his blanket that night, thinking about what he’d done. His straw mattress rustled and the sturdy pine boards of his dormitory bunk creaked as he tossed and turned.
At first Earnest grumbled curses at him and he apologized, but finally Earnest burst out, “What the blazes are you doing, Vent?”
Dasher wadded his down pillow into a heavy ball and walloped Venture in the head with it from his bunk, set in an
L
shape end-to-side with his. Venture grinned, plumped it up, and placed it under his head. “Thanks, Dash.”
Dasher leaped on him, straddled him with his knees tight against his ribs, pulled the pillow out from underneath him, and stuffed it over Venture’s face.
“You want my pillow, you got it!”
Venture fought him, trying to get his legs past Dasher’s knees, and punching him lightly. Laughing, Venture tapped Dasher on the shoulder. “All right, I give,” he said into the smothering softness of the pillow.
Dasher gave him another good whack with it, then settled back in his own bunk.
“Both of you are going to get it tomorrow,” Earnest said. “I’m going to run you into the ground. If you’re not tired enough at the end of the day, I must not be doing my job.”
Venture gave up trying to sleep and just lay still, but his mind wouldn’t be still. He’d done things today he hadn’t thought he could do. He held his hands up in front of his face in the darkness—bigger and stronger than he remembered. It wouldn’t be long before he was grown, before he was a man. Before that stage of wondering what he would be like came to a close.
What had his parents thought he would be, before? Before their deaths had changed everything? And what about now? Would they think he was becoming who he was supposed to be? Who he was made to be?
One thing he was sure of now, more than he’d ever been before. He was not just a simple servant boy. No one could keep him from being more than that.
CHAPTER NINE
Venture tugged at his sleeve as he picked his way through the crowd on Calling’s back patio. Calling’s new place was just outside the city, perfectly suited for a bachelor to entertain a couple dozen guests outdoors on a warm spring night. Venture gave up on his shirt and took it off, leaving just his short-sleeved undershirt. Grant had outfitted him with all new clothes, with plenty of room to grow, before he left Twin Rivers, but already everything had grown tight across the shoulders, short at the ankles and wrists. He had some money of his own put aside, the modest prizes from a point tournament he managed to hit here and there, minus the portion he insisted Earnest take. But he didn’t want to spend it on clothes if he didn’t have to.
He thought of his comfortable workout clothes, of how much more comfortable he felt on the mat, regardless of the clothes, than he did here. After all this time tagging along with Dasher and Earnest, Venture still didn’t know what to do with himself at these kinds of parties. He knew how to serve guests at a formal party and could probably fake his way through being a guest at one, but that sort of know-how was useless here.
It didn’t help that every party only reminded him of the last one he’d attended in Twin Rivers, nearly a year ago—for Jade’s sixteenth birthday. He’d done his job then, though it tore him apart, watching her dance with other men. Being there when they came seeking her courtship in the days that followed. He’d heard that her courtship with Dell Rippley had ended just a few months after he’d left town to train, but the fact that she’d accepted it at all still ate at Venture. Rippley was a handsome young man of good repute. Though not Crested, he was wealthy and considered a good match. If the two of them didn’t end up back together, there would be another like him. It was only a matter of time.
Dasher caught him as he passed by. “There you are. Am I scary? Earnest says I’m scary.”
“He is. He’s scaring away all the girls tonight.”
“Maybe it’s the ears,” Venture said.
Earnest spat his drink back into his cup and Dasher faked a jab at Venture’s ear. “Be nice, or I’ll give you a set to match.”
“I saw Lacy was over there talking to Dash, and by the time I got there, she’d already taken off, all in a hurry,” Earnest said.
“She was in a hurry to find Champ. I thought he was still inside.”
“Him? How’s that fair?” Earnest grinned and slapped Venture on the back. “Better go in and find her then. Just don’t blow it this time, all right?”
Venture shrugged and wandered off into the grass, away from the house, leaving the laughing silhouettes of the others behind. Usually, no one was much interested in the kid who tagged along with Dasher Starson, and that was the way he liked it.
Earnest, with his knack for being able to respond to a person, even a person he’d just met, in just the way that would make him—or in this case, her—more comfortable, was in his element. Parties almost always yielded him some late-night, one-on-one female entertainment. And Dasher loved a crowd, on the mat or off. He was always well-mannered and well-spoken, and he could be downright eloquent after a few drinks. Earnest played off him beautifully with his crude sense of humor.
But Venture didn’t trust himself to drink much. That was one part of Earnest’s job that he’d always made easy. He didn’t have to worry about keeping his fighter sober. Venture had worked too hard to try to gain some kind of control over himself; he was working hard for control over his future still. He’d seen enough fighters drown their dreams right along with their pains. Lose focus, lose their edge, one party at a time.
Calling had a little fire pit going, where they’d been roasting sausages hours before. It had died down to almost nothing. Venture fed it and coaxed it until the flames leaped up again. And then Lacy found him.
“So.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “Are you a fighter?”
“You know I am. You know my name, too.”
“Yes, Venture Delving.” She stepped closer and brushed a bit of ash off his shoulder. “I know your name. I heard about what happened the other day in training. About how you saved that boy. What you did to that guy. Is it true?”
Venture shrugged and turned away. Where had he left his shirt? He felt a tug on his belt loop. He turned back around, but she didn’t let go.
“And,” she continued, “I’ve heard—”
“That I’m a bondsman? Have you heard about that?”
He watched her face—the surprise, the doubt, then the realization that he wasn’t joking, that he wasn’t making it up. She blinked and let go of his pants.
“Well, Venture Delving, you have quite a name for a bonded man.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Only that it’s strange for a bonded family to decide to name their son Venture.”
“My parents weren’t bonded when I was given my name. Neither was I.”
“Oh.” She frowned, her soft features pinching together in concern. “I’m so sorry. How disappointing for them.”
He stared at her, every muscle tensing. The fire popped loudly, and she jumped. He stood firm. The reflection of the flames wasn’t the only fire in his eyes. “They’re dead. And I won’t disappoint them.”
She backed away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . .” She shook her head, then turned to go.
It was just a harmless remark. A stupid slip-up, with no harsh intentions behind it. She wasn’t Jade. Whatever was going on with him wasn’t her fault, and he needed to get Jade Fieldstone out of his head.
He reached for Lacy, laying his hand on her bare arm. “Wait,” he said.
Venture woke in the middle of the night, sweating. Trying to shake off his dream, he rose and set his feet on the cold pine floor, careful not to wake Dasher and Earnest, who were still asleep in the same room. The dream had started out pleasant enough. Dahlia, the girl he’d met dancing at the Well last week, the one with the legs, had thrown her arms around him, and, being very tall and then face to face with him, she’d only needed to lift her head the slightest bit in order to kiss him. The warmth of her lips against his was so shockingly sweet in the dream, just as it had been that night, only better. But then, he’d turned around, and there was Jade, watching them.
It was just a dream. A ridiculous dream. Why should he feel bad about Dahlia, about anyone? Jade Fieldstone was a lady of Society, and he was as far from a gentleman as he could get. She’d made that clear enough. He was no “ladies’ man,” as the gossip column of the
Capital Crier
made him out. He seemed to have captured their columnist’s attention with a whole lot of nothing over the last couple of months.
A few among the serious fighters and their coaches had considered him someone to watch for a while now, but as for the public, he’d gone from being an absolute nobody to being called a rising star in Richland’s biggest paper. He’d had no idea that Lacy worked for the
Crier.
That she’d make him a story at all, let alone spin it that way. And then came her subsequent story about the “discovery” that he was a bondsman, timed perfectly to shock those who’d gotten excited about him. He couldn’t bring himself to go further with another girl than he had with Jade, but the gossip told a much juicier tale, made all the more tantalizing to some, more appalling to others, because of his class.
Now his dreams had him thinking about Jade again, feeling that hole yawning inside him. He groped on the floor for his sweater, pulled it over his head, opened the door of the one-room cabin, then tiptoed down the creaky wooden steps until his feet met the sand.
The foaming and crashing of the surf and the salty ocean mist, stirred up by a restless wind, helped to whip up the storm within him. He’d missed the All Richland Youth Championship the last two years because it conflicted with Dasher’s schedule, but he would be participating in his first one this year, in nearby Bayside three weeks from now. He’d been looking forward to his stay here, thinking it would be nice to be back near the sea, back among pleasant memories of his early childhood, but instead he was plagued each night by one strange dream after another. This wasn’t the first time he’d crept out from their rented cabin on the beach, into the late summer night, among the sand and piles of kelp, the moonlight bouncing off the glossy black deep onto his face.
He ran toward the water, scooped up handfuls of wet sand, and hurled them into the tide. He shouted all sorts of things in his head, and one word made its way to his voice and became an audible cry.