Which was Luke-speak for “she seems weird and mean.”
“Also kind of weird and mean,” Luke continued, speaking even lower and keeping a wary gaze on Adara.
Adara was hiding behind a curtain of golden hair. This was obviously not the way she’d been hoping to get Luke’s attention.
“I just want to know where the stress should lie,” said Elliot. “Like, extra scorn on his name, or extra force behind the ‘go’? I wish only to learn. Teach me your ways, master.”
“Come on,” said Luke, and reached for his arm.
“No!” said Elliot, and batted him away. “We’ve discussed this, Luke. No using your superior physical strength unless it’s an emergency. This dumb lake is not an emergency.”
“Can’t you swim?” Luke asked. “I’ll teach you.”
“Of course I can swim!” Elliot snapped.
His father had made sure he had many lessons so he would not be underfoot all the time: Elliot could swim, ballroom dance, speak French and Italian, and play three musical instruments. He was way more accomplished than Luke.
“I can’t swim,” Adara put in. Elliot admired her tenacity.
“See, Luke?” he said. “Your expertise is needed. You go teach Adara to swim. I will sit here and read my book. Everybody’s happy.”
“Everybody?” Luke asked. “Really?”
“You don’t count.”
That came out a little meaner than Elliot had intended, so he looked up and checked on how Luke was taking it. Luke didn’t look upset exactly, but he was frowning, face slightly troubled under his sunny wet hair.
“Why do you look like an unhappy turtle?” he asked.
The problem was that Luke wasn’t stupid either. Elliot didn’t see why Luke couldn’t do him a favour and be distracted by the blonde Elliot had thoughtfully provided.
“Are you dripping on my book deliberately?” Elliot demanded. “That is just like you.”
Elliot hunched protectively farther into the neck of his dumb dress-slash-shirt and looked yearningly over at Serene and her knot of admirers. She laughed, her laugh like the ripple through leaves, and called over to them.
“What do you think, Luke?” Oh pardon, Elliot, she wasn’t calling over to them at all, but to her swordbrother. “Would I like swimming?”
“Give it a try,” Luke called back, grinning.
Luke could have literally any girl he wanted. Adara was right there, and Elliot had specially selected her as an excellent option. Why did it have to be Serene? Elliot glanced over at Adara, and she looked like she completely agreed. He felt some fellow feeling for the poor girl.
“I shall,” said Serene, laughing again.
She stretched like a young, thin birch tree swayed by a wind, pulled her tight leather top over her head, and tossed it on the ground, leaving her smooth, pale skin entirely bare from the waist up.
There was an echoing silence all around the lakeside suddenly, as jaws dropped in such perfect unison Elliot thought they should have made a tiny collective creaking sound.
It was broken by Luke snapping: “You dropped your book.”
He ran from Elliot’s side then and was with Serene in two strides. He knocked two boys away, flat on their backs in the grass, while Serene was still looking mildly puzzled.
Elliot scrambled off his sunbed and got there at the same time as Mal Wavechaser, Dale’s cousin, and one of the older boys who was on supervisory duty. So when Mal insisted that Serene was going to Commander Rayburn’s, they were both there to insist they were going too.
“You can’t say she was in a scandalous state of undress and punish her for it when she was in the exact same state of undress as more than half the people there,” Elliot shouted.
Commander Rayburn was looking fixedly at the carpet and not at Serene. Captain Woodsinger, who had come upon their procession as they headed for the commander’s cabin, had announced she was duty-bound to accompany them as the highest-ranked woman in the camp. She was looking at Serene, though very deliberately at her face. Serene was still naked from the waist up. Elliot had offered Serene his tunic, even though that meant Luke and half the censorious Border camp would see his clearly not-athletic physique, because love meant sacrifice. Serene had refused his sacrifice with obvious astonishment.
“I am mystified by everyone’s behaviour!” Serene exclaimed. “My breasts are not so large as to need supporting garments, so why should I wear anything on my upper half? Don’t worry,” she added. “I’m not self-conscious about the size of my bosom at this time. I am still very young, and I will develop further. Besides which, I do not subscribe to the superstition that says the larger a woman’s breasts, the greater her courage on the battlefield and prowess in the bedchamber.”
She saw everyone’s startled looks.
“I beg your pardon,” she said. “Obviously that is an elven superstition, and besides which you are, in the main, men. You do not have any masculine attributes that could be compared to other men’s: it would be ridiculous if you did, since you could have only the most minuscule difference between one man’s attribute and the other.”
“What do you mean by miniscule?” burst out Commander Rayburn, and at Captain Woodsinger’s sharp look he said: “Ahem. No. Sorry, sorry. Totally inappropriate question for a student. But I’ll have you know, young lady, those rumours aren’t true.”
“I don’t understand,” said Serene.
“You know, she makes a good point,” Elliot said. “Generally and without specifically thinking of anybody in particular at all.”
“Is there some kind of taboo against seeing a woman’s breasts in human culture?” asked Serene. “Breasts are functional. They feed children. Whereas I know many men cultivate their shoulder and abdominal muscles merely to attract the opposite sex. Their chests are the ones that are more decorative and which it is less modest to display!”
“You know, she’s making another good point,” said Elliot.
“Both of you stop,” Luke urged, his arms now wrapped as tight around his chest as Serene’s were about hers. “The commander is going to think you’re crazy.”
“Sing it, cadet,” Commander Rayburn muttered. “Sing it loud.” Captain Woodsinger coughed, and he looked guiltily at her. “Don’t let this happen again,” he said. “Your job is not to question orders but to obey, and we have already permitted Cadet Chaos-of-Battle enormous liberties in her studies.”
“I strongly object on principle,” said Elliot, and Luke elbowed him viciously.
Elliot understood why, even: the threat that they could take back last year’s leniency and force Serene to choose between war and council training was fairly obvious. But these people were meant to guide them and teach them, were meant to be fair and not show obvious double standards because it was easier to do that than to question what they were thinking and change how they behaved.
“If you do not obey, there will be consequences. There should be consequences for your behaviour today, but”—Commander Rayburn again caught Captain Woodsinger’s eye—“I’m prepared to be lenient this once,” he finished feebly.
“I will obey,” said Serene, pale and determined.
“Yeah,” said Luke, just as determined. “We’ll obey. None of us will go down to the lake again, and none of us will appear in a—in a scandalous state of undress again.”
“That’s right!” Elliot exclaimed. “We’ll have a lake boycott.”
The commander and the captain did not seem to care about the lake boycott. They were sent away, and once they were out Serene stopped abruptly in the dark outside Commander Rayburn’s cabin and sat down on a dank grassy hillock. Elliot sat down beside her, and Luke sat on her other side. Luke put his arm around her, and Elliot rested his cheek against her naked back.
“The way,” Serene said, after a pause, her voice fierce so it would not shake, “they looked at me. As if my skin were sin, and theirs never could be, and I should have known.”
“They’re jerks,”
said Luke.
“I’m sorry,” Elliot whispered.
He meant more than sorry for the others: he meant sorry for himself as well. He’d looked too. Stared, for an instant forgetting who she was and what she meant to him. He’d been a jerk as well, and Serene was so unhappy.
“Told you the lake sucked,” Elliot muttered, and Serene laughed a small broken laugh.
“It’s the eppy tomb of suck,” Luke said.
There was a pause. “The what?” Elliot asked.
“The eppy tomb,” said Luke. “I read it in a book. It means, like, the very definition of—”
“I know what it means,” said Elliot. “And it’s pronounced epitome.”
“Leave it out,” Serene said. “I know you men must squabble, but not right now, okay?”
“Yeah,” Elliot sighed, oddly comfortable even though he was sitting out on the grass at night, already chilly, and still angry. “Okay.”
They all sat together in the cool darkness of the night, silent for a little while. Serene’s hair blew into Elliot’s eyes, black ribbons against a black sky.
“I realize this is hypocritical, and I do apologize. I have been struggling against it and trying to keep my composure as a lady should,” Serene said at last. “But I am in an emotional state, and I must admit I do find myself somewhat uncomfortable in such close proximity to an unclothed gentleman.”
“Yeah, Luke, you shameless hussy,” said Elliot, and cackled.
They did not go down to the lake again. Instead on their days off they spent time in the fields around the Border training camp. Sometimes Luke and Serene wanted to do weapons practise or a sport, and Elliot sat in the grass and read a book. Sometimes Luke made Elliot do exercise, which was simply bullying and he should be reported. Sometimes Elliot told stories or read aloud or sang to Serene and Luke, and sometimes they lay in the long grass and got into vicious arguments about the shape of clouds. Nobody ever took their shirt off, by silent mutual agreement. The others would come back from the lake wet and flushed and happy. Elliot wasn’t the least bit jealous, but he wondered if Serene and Luke were.
Fourteen wasn’t horrible, but it was more complicated, and sometimes that felt like the same thing.
Naturally the authorities, in their infinite wisdom, had decided that now they were all tiny pressure cookers of hormones it meant they were “ready to become men.” Or in Serene’s and Adara’s and Delia Winterchild’s and the other girls’ case, women.
The way to do that was apparently more military manuevers and weapons training, with a view to taking the second years on their “first skirmish” soon. “You know,” Elliot said loudly and often, “just a mini battle.”
So all the fourteen-year-olds could be just a tiny bit killed.
The first step was a foray to mining land in which the Border humans hoped to find gold, and which the Border guard thus planned to claim as human territory.
A troop of those in war training was sent, but since Serene was going Elliot petitioned to be allowed to go as well. Elliot presumed he was permitted to go because he had made such a powerful and inarguable case for himself, though he also heard Commander Rayburn mutter “the brat will just stow away again or do some other awful thing, why not just let him go and shut him up? Can nobody shut him up!”
So the trip started off pretty well and went dramatically downhill, or rather uphill, from there. The first day, they climbed a mountain. The plan was to then go down a mountain and go up another mountain, and then repeat the process. On the second day, when Elliot was on watch, he left Luke sleeping as a hilarious prank to enliven the mountainous monotony, and laughed and laughed when they saw Luke’s furious face peering over at them from the mountain path miles above them.
Then Luke jumped. The moment in which he was outlined against the blue sky, making an impossible leap, burned itself into Elliot’s vision even when he shut his eyes in horror.
He opened them to see Luke landed, safe and sound and with Dale Wavechaser clapping him on the back.
“Oh my God,” said Elliot, and sat down abruptly on a rock with his head in his hands. “Oh my God, your whole life just flashed before my eyes. Blond annoying smugness, weapons, weapons, annoying smugness, little kiddy weapons, right back until you were a fat smug baby. Oh my God.”
Luke cleared his throat and gave Elliot a brief pat between the shoulderblades. “I’m okay.”
Elliot thought Luke might be pleased that Elliot was upset. Elliot found this outrageous.
“I don’t care!” said Elliot. “I care about gravity and how it doesn’t work that way! Does nobody else care about gravity? Why isn’t your leg broken? Why aren’t both your legs broken?”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Luke said dryly.
“I’ve seen Luke jump from many similar heights before,” said Serene. Elliot thought he might actually have a heart attack. “Is that an abnormal ability for humans?”
“Yes, you heedless elven wretch!” Elliot exclaimed. “No, Serene. Forgive me, Serene, I didn’t mean that, I’m overwrought. But seriously, are none of the rest of you the least bit concerned? Do you think people can defy gravity through, like, being awesome? Do you not know that’s ridiculous?”
Elliot kept demanding answers until the entire troop, apparently finding the subject of Luke defying the actual laws of nature very dull, demanded he switch conversational topics.
“The dwarves say that this area is both barren for mining purposes and, get this, structurally unstable,” said Elliot obligingly. “Isn’t that amazing? I’m so glad we’re going on this life-threatening field trip.”
“Nobody asked you to come,” muttered Darius Winterchild, Delia’s twin.
“Nobody asked you to breathe out IQ-lowering air in my vicinity,” said Elliot, and glared at him until he went away.
“Yeah,” Luke said, ignoring this byplay. “But come on, you can’t always trust dwarves.”
Elliot gave him a look of withering scorn. Luke, used to it at this point, did not seem unduly affected.
“You’re from the human world and maybe you don’t know,” he said. “But they’re—I mean, some of them are nice, obviously, I’ve met some very nice dwarves, but there’s a tendency to be a bit cunning? My dad says so.”
“It’s true,” said Captain Briarwind, who was really young for a captain, a bit spotty, and had a distressing tendency to look heroworshipfully at Luke. “They’re a low and cunning folk.” He did not seem to be making a pun. “They’d lie, cheat, and steal for gold.”
Elliot could not believe that idiots like Captain Briarwind and Captain Whiteleaf got missions while Captain Woodsinger hardly ever did.
Both Luke and Captain Briarwind seemed blissfully unaware that one of Elliot’s friends from council-training course, Myra, had dwarf blood.
“Don’t either of you talk to me,” said Elliot, and stormed off.
Serene went with him. “The dwarves were our allies once before humans were,” she remarked. “And perchance will be so again. Moreover, I have observed that humans speak of elves in a similar fashion.”
“Perchance they’re total idiots,” said Elliot. “Well, at least this is a fool’s mission.”
“Not necessarily,” said Serene. “Trolls often occupy the territories dwarves have deserted. They eat sediment, you see.” She reached back and gave her bow a slow, disturbing caress. “I think there is an excellent chance of a good fight.”
“I’m sure trolls are also lovely and misunderstood,” said Elliot, and started violently when the rushes to the non-cliff-edge side of the mountain path rustled. “Luke!”
The rushes parted to reveal that their opponent was very small, but definitely not a dwarf.
“Oh dear, a child,” said Serene, moving backward with more alacrity than elven grace. “Could someone fetch a man to see to it?”
The group stared at her, as one.
“In elven society caring for the children is considered a task for the menfolk,” said Elliot, sigh
ing and wondering why nobody else ever bothered to read a book.
“Of course it is,” said Serene. “The woman goes through the physically taxing and bloody experience of childbirth. A woman’s experience of blood and pain is, naturally, what makes womenkind particularly suited for the battlefield. Whereas men are the softer sex, squeamish about blood in the main. I know it’s the same for human men, Luke was extremely disinclined to discuss my first experience of a woman’s menses.”
Luke stared ferociously into the middle distance, obviously trying to visualize himself somewhere else, having an entirely different conversation. Serene patted him on the back.
“Perfectly all right, I should have had more respect for your delicate masculine sensibilities.”
“Thank you,” said Luke, sounding very far away.
“What, you people expect women to tear apart their bodies and then go to all the bother of raising the children? That takes years, you know,” Serene remarked sternly. “The women’s labour is brief and agonizing, and the man’s is long and arduous. This seems only just. What on earth are men contributing to their children’s lives in the human world? Why would any human woman agree to have a child?”
“The more she talks the more sense it all makes,” said Elliot. “Has anyone else discovered that?”
“No,” said several of the cadets in unison.
Elliot wanted to please Serene, so he looked to the child. Her hair was sticking up in tufts, and her face was stained with the juice of berries. She seemed altogether a sticky proposition. Elliot was not accustomed to the company of any children younger than himself, but he’d read that you were supposed to praise them and pat them on the head.
“Well done for not eating any poisonous berries,” he said, gingerly patting. “Unless they were slow-acting poison, of course.”
The child opened her mouth and gave an earsplitting howl. Elliot snatched his hand back and jumped away.
“Elliot,” said Luke. “You’re not supposed to pat children on the face and ear.”