Chapter 18
Their first class was athletics, taught by a young man called Karl who had them running circuits outside for almost the whole morning. He was constantly shouting at them to go faster, interrupting their sprints only to order them to do a hundred squat-thrusts in the mud or fifty chin-ups on a handy tree branch.
Eleanor caught him watching her a few times, and wondered vaguely whether he was for or against her presence. It was a strange feeling, to think some people opposed her simply for her gender. She'd experienced something similar among the Magra but that was different – everyone knew foreigners did things differently. This was home.
She didn't have time to dwell on it, though, as Karl pushed them harder and harder. By the time the lunch bell rang out to tell them it was time to break off, they were all exhausted but exhilarated, and more than ready for food.
"You've had it easy today," Karl said, briefly delaying them from going inside, "but I think you get the idea. We're going to be training together every four days, and if you don't want to fall behind then you'll need to put in some extra work in your own time."
"What do you think?" Daniel asked as he walked with Eleanor, Sebastien and Mikhail back to their rooms. "Will it be enough to run five miles each day? Or must we do more?"
"Enough?" Mikhail laughed. "That sounds more than enough to me!"
Daniel glanced around to make sure the others were out of earshot before saying, "We cannot let them win."
"You're taking this all a bit seriously," Sebastien said. "We're not really competing."
"Not yet," Daniel agreed. "But we will, and they must not win."
They all needed to wash themselves clean of mud and sweat before they went to eat, and Eleanor was glad to get a moment alone with her thoughts as she locked herself in her cubicle. She turned on the tap, thankful to be back in a place where they had the staff and the facilities to keep a boiler constantly refuelled and hot water piped around the building. She filled the basin, stripped off her clothes and scrubbed herself clean. The waste water ran to a drain at the edge of the room in a system much like the one her school had employed – except that there, they hadn't had the luxury of separate cubicles. Surrounded by men this time, she was very glad of the extra privacy.
By the time she'd finished washing her hair and fastened it into a damp plait, the others had gone down to lunch without her. She glanced at the timetable on her way out; the afternoon's lesson was mysteriously titled 'Craft'.
"What do you think it means?" she asked Sebastien after she'd settled beside him and helped herself to fish and potatoes from the huge serving dishes in the middle of the table. Mikhail and Daniel had already gone off somewhere, and the others were huddled close together, deep in hushed conversation at the far end of the table.
He shrugged. "Everything that doesn't fit in anywhere else? Anyway, we'll find out soon enough."
"I suppose so." She'd been hoping for a better answer, but of course he was right. "Do you know what's going on with Daniel?"
Sebastien glanced sideways towards the others before saying, "The rivalry between Venncastle and Hess is pretty old. I don't see why everyone else should have to be caught up in it, though."
"No," she agreed. "We're all in this together."
They finished eating and headed to the classroom just in time for the start of the next lesson. There could hardly have been a sharper contrast from the morning's mindless exertion as the teacher – a middle-aged, bearded man called Robert – gave them a quick succession of puzzles to solve and codes to break. Eleanor was starting to feel that the afternoon was a waste of perfectly good practice time. It was all very well doing athletics and puzzles, but she wanted to get on with learning the skills she'd come here for.
At the end of the lesson, however, Robert gave them an overview of his plan for the year which backed up Sebastien's guess: the class would take in a variety of topics. There would be introductory language sessions; classes on disguises and constructing aliases; picking locks and setting traps; tips on negotiation and diplomacy... it sounded like an intriguing combination. Eleanor only wished they hadn't started with number puzzles that she'd struggled to solve; she was painfully conscious that the council could decide to eject her from the academy at any moment, and fearful of leaving a bad impression on any of the teachers.
The next morning was scheduled as hand-to-hand combat, and since it was pouring with rain the students were directed to the practice hall after breakfast.
"Bloody stupid if you ask me," Jorge muttered as they all settled themselves on the mats to wait for their instructor. "What's the use if you can't fight in a bit of rain?"
The man who eventually arrived to teach them was tall and lithe, stringy muscles well toned though he was white-haired and battle-scarred. The students started getting to their feet as he entered, but he waved at them to sit down again.
"Patience," he said. "My name is Bill, I'll be your teacher for this year. We'll get moving soon enough, but before we start I need to make one thing perfectly clear. This is not the military."
He paused to give the students time to think about his words, causing a number of puzzled expressions as everyone waited to find out why he was stating the obvious.
"I suspect some of you were hoping for top-flight military assignments," he continued. "So you need to change the way you think. I'm going to teach you to fight far better than any soldier, but for you, if you end up in a fight then something's already gone wrong."
Eleanor caught herself nodding slightly – it made sense – but some of the others looked more skeptical.
"And you'd better believe I know what I'm talking about," Bill said, looking straight at Jorge, whose expression still reflected mild distaste that they'd been forced to come inside. "I've been doing this job since before you were born. Now, pair up, and come and get a practice knife each."
They got to their feet and formed pairs around the circle; Eleanor ended up with Daniel, and Paul was left as the odd one out. Bill moved across to his bag and they were stunned to watch him unpack a dozen wooden daggers.
"Wooden knives?" Eleanor whispered to Daniel. "At school we had blunted iron blades by the time we were eight, and sharpened ones at fourteen."
Daniel nodded his agreement, but unfortunately Bill had also overheard her comments.
"Do you have a problem, girl? I'm very happy for you to practise with a real dagger, but I guarantee you'll kill yourself within the month." After a brief pause, he added, "I'm yet to be convinced that would be a great loss. Besides, you don't even have your leathers yet."
She was tempted to take up the challenge inherent in his words but Daniel, seeing her muscles tense, cleared his throat quietly and brought her back to her senses. She had to hold her pride in check; it was possible Bill was right, and she didn't want to throw her life away for such a trivial thing.
"You!" Bill signalled Paul to join him at the front of the class. "What's your name?"
"Paul."
"Looks like you're working with me today."
The first couple of strikes that Bill made them practise were very simple techniques, though that didn't stop him criticizing the way everyone else executed the moves. "Sloppy!" seemed to be his favourite word, accompanied by a slap from the flat of his blade on the offending arm; Paul bore the brunt of it as he was called upon to demonstrate every time, giving everyone else at least a chance to avoid repeating his mistakes.
After he was satisfied with the way they were performing basic thrusts and slices on both sides, Bill showed them a quick way to flick the knife from one hand to the other halfway through the attack, a sleight of hand designed to fool the opponent into blocking the wrong arm.
"That's more like it!" Eleanor cried happily as she managed to get her knife past Daniel's guard for the first time of the morning.
"I will learn to block that, too," he said and redoubled his efforts on the defence, although as Eleanor got faster and more fluid at the swap he had mor
e difficulty keeping track of which hand held the knife.
When their roles were reversed, Daniel's height advantage meant that she was constantly having to extend herself to block his thrusts even when he didn't use the switch, making it much harder to find an effective angle for a riposte.
"You're not making full use of your weight," Bill chastised her after one particularly clumsy dodge.
She looked round in surprise. "I'm not heavy."
"No, you're the lightest person in this room – that should make you the most agile, but you're not using it. If you're going to survive the next two years, you need to take advantage of what you've got rather than worrying about the ways you don't match up."
His words stayed with her as she and Daniel continued sparring, but she wasn't sure how to put the theory into practice. In a hand-to-hand context like this, being small didn't feel like an advantage.
After a quick lunch she made her way back to the practice hall, hoping to have some time alone to reinforce the morning's new techniques for her mind and her muscles – but the room wasn't empty when she arrived.
She recognised the young man from the council at once; the one who looked so very much like Raf. She hesitated on the threshold, studying his profile in the light from the high windows as he sat on the floor sharpening a set of simple throwing knives. He looked up and smiled at her and she blushed, embarrassed to have been caught staring.
"You're early," he said. "I was just setting up."
"I'm sorry – I can come back later." It felt like talking to a ghost; the face was so familiar, but this man was a stranger. She had to keep reminding herself that she didn't know him.
"Oh no, don't worry, come in! I'm Ivan."
"Eleanor," she said instinctively. "But you knew that."
"Well, we sort of met earlier, right? Come on, you can help." He handed her a stack of small target boards. "I want these around the walls at that end of the room, various heights – just make sure you mix up the order."
She looked down to see what he meant, and found a number painted neatly in the middle of each target.
"New boards," she said, half to herself, as she followed his directions to the far end of the room. Not a single hole punctured the paintwork.
"They're just temps – we'll destroy them all by the end of today's session."
"Really?" She reached up to hang the first board on one of the many nails in the wall. The wood was a little thin, perhaps, but they looked like they should have more than an afternoon's life in them.
"You've got Bill for hand-to-hand, with his wooden toys, haven't you? Let's just say this is going to be a bit different."
Once he'd finished with the knives, Ivan followed her across the hall and adjusted the placement of a couple of boards, lifting them to higher spots that Eleanor couldn't have reached without climbing.
"Do you want to show me what you can do?" he asked as she straightened the last board on its nail.
She turned to see him waiting, an encouraging smile on his face, and found herself thrown again into confusing and painful memories. He was not Raf; Raf was dead.
She pulled out her Tarasanka throwing knife, wishing she'd kept the pair together and chosen a different blade to leave in the smithy. There was a limit to how impressive she could be with one knife, and for some reason it felt important to impress him. Without turning to check her aim, she threw the knife back towards the last board she'd hung; a satisfying thunk told her she'd found her target.
"Very nice. And a beautiful blade – I take it that's one of the ones you brought back from your adventures in the North?" She was about to ask how he knew, but he pre-empted her question: "Word gets around, you know. Especially here. And the rumour is you're not bad with a thrower."
"I've got a pair," she said as she went to retrieve it from the board. "But the other one's with Harold in the smithy. He's making me some new ones to match."
"Interesting." He studied her intently for a moment, then his face relaxed into a smile again. "You're hardly going to need your graduation set at this rate."
"Graduation set?"
He slid a silver knife from his wrist sheath and handed it to her. It was a heavier design than she was used to but had a perfect balance, and the handle was engraved with intricate whorls and set with a number of small amethysts.
"Normally, you'd get a set of depressingly boring knives to use while you're at the academy," he explained. "Then you design yourself a special set for your graduation. Everyone has his own design... and it looks obvious what yours is going to be, even if you've come to it a bit early."
Eleanor held his knife next to hers, comparing the workmanship of the blades more than the aesthetics of the designs.
"Close your eyes," Ivan said suddenly, interrupting her thoughts; the instruction came as such a surprise that she obeyed before she had chance to think about it.
"Why?" she asked, but kept her eyes shut.
He didn't answer, but put his hands on her shoulders and turned her on the spot until she started to feel dizzy. "Now," he said, "keep them closed, and see if you can hit three and seven for me."
She felt a slight panic constrict her chest. What kind of test was this? She was disoriented and dizzy, with a pair of unmatched knives, and she hadn't been paying much attention to the numbers as she'd placed the boards.
He hadn't changed his position, though. As he'd spun her she hadn't felt him move, hadn't heard a single footstep to suggest he'd stepped away. From his voice, he was now behind her left shoulder; it wasn't much, but it was an anchor she could work from. Though it felt a painfully slow process, she began to slot things in to place in her mind: she'd been facing him... and facing the number nine over his shoulder, she could recall that much, while behind her the board she'd pierced with her first throw was number two. With increasing confidence she began to map out the sequence in her mind, thinking how she'd hung each board in turn as she'd moved around the room. Suddenly, she lunged to her left and flicked both knives into parallel flight through the air; only once she'd heard them both land did she dare to look.
Her own knife was wedged firmly near the centre of the seven; Ivan's heavier blade wobbled precariously, just hooked into the outer ring of board three. He stepped across to claim it back before it fell.
She watched him nervously, wondering whether her performance had been above or below his expectation. It had been a poor shot, by her normal standards, but he'd caught her off-guard and the circumstances had been difficult.
"You didn't cheat," he said as he handed her knife back to her.
It wasn't a question but she nodded anyway, her throat dry, not sure she was off the hook. Would there be more tests?
"You easily could've," he went on. "You knew I couldn't see your eyes. If you'd given me a perfect shot, how could I ever have proved it wasn't genuine?"
"It would still have been cheating."
"So? Out there..." – he gestured towards the window – "if you see an opportunity, you take it."
"Yes, of course." Several moments came to mind when she'd done just that. "But that's different – that's real. We should be able to trust each other here."
He said nothing, just turned from her and sent his knife sailing in an exaggerated arc towards a nearby board.
"Was that the real test, then?" she asked. "Not whether I could do it, but whether I'd cheat?"
"You did do it, and you didn't cheat," he said, still with his back to her. "Those facts are both interesting to me."
Her heart was still hammering, unsure whether she'd performed to his satisfaction. "Is that what you're going to report back?"
"Report?" He turned sharply to face her. "Who said anything about reporting anything?"
"Well, I just assumed, the council..."
He shook his head. "You'll waste a lot of time if you assume every teacher who's also on the council is somehow spying on you. Plenty of us teach from time to time, but we're busy enough without monitoring you especially
. No, you'll sink or swim on your own merits now."
She would have pressed him further but just then the door swung open and they both turned to see Fred and Jorge come in.
"Hey Ivan! Jon said you were teaching this year." Fred waved across the hall, then caught sight of Eleanor. "Are we interrupting something?"
"Not at all." Ivan beckoned them further into the room. "We were just warming up. You can start with some stretches while we wait for the others to get here."
One by one the remaining students trickled into the hall and joined the warm-up.
"Do you have your knives yet?" Ivan asked once they were all assembled. Aside from Eleanor, they all shook their heads; he caught her eye and smiled. "Never mind, we've plenty of spares. Form a line against that wall – come on, hurry up, you can listen and walk at the same time can't you? You'll come up one at a time, I'll give you twelve knives, there are twelve boards – you know what to do! Numerical order, of course. Right, who's first? You – what's your name?"
"Daniel."
"Great, Daniel, you're first."
Daniel took the dozen blades, walked to the centre of the practice area and paused, searching for the number 1. His aim was deliberate, but the shot was clean and accurate. He turned to find the second target and continued methodically, sending competent but inartistic shots towards each board in turn.
"Good!" Ivan encouraged him. "Maybe a bit faster next time."
Charles was next and, though he tried to be faster than Daniel, he missed nearly half of the boards; then it was Eleanor's turn.
She stepped up confidently; she'd learnt the placing of the numbers from watching the previous attempts, and fired out her twelve blades in quick succession. Every one found its mark.
"Very nice," Ivan said. "Right, who's next?"