Steelhands (2011) (8 page)

“I think this is it,” Laure said, holding up a crumpled piece of paper, which had a smudge of grease on the right-hand corner. She’d been eating while looking at her syllabus again, it seemed. “
Cathery
103.”

By the side of the door was a silver plate announcing that the building
we were standing in front of was, indeed, Cathery. Someone shoved past us without any word of apology and took the steps two at a time. I sighed heavily. It would be so unpleasant if this was to be standard procedure. Had all real Volstovic chivalry been lost?

“Don’t worry,” Laure said. “I’ll school that idiot later.” With her woolly-gloved fingers, she grabbed my hand and tugged me inside, where it was distressingly empty but at least very clean. The wood paneling and banisters even gleamed.

I supposed the lecture buildings were what the ’Versity institution showed off in order to give a good impression of their dealings. They certainly could not use the first-year dormitories.

It had taken a great many hours scrubbing on my hands and knees to get my room into a state that could be deemed serviceable, so much so that the cold seemed like a minor discomfort by comparison. I hadn’t been left very much time for unpacking, but then I rather appreciated the neatness of everything in my various cases and saw no need to court disaster by using the ramshackle dresser the ’Versity had provided. The lining in the drawers was stained and dirty, and there had also been a piece of brown candy melted and stuck to the underside of one of the handles.

I had no intentions of ever touching that, handkerchief protecting my fingers or no.

How I’d managed to hold on to my breakfast after that ordeal was anyone’s guess. I was being far braver than anyone would ever give me credit for. Certainly more than Mother and Father had ever been given reason to expect, and certainly more than was indicated by the look Laure leveled me when she saw the state of my room earlier that morning.

To my immense relief, we were not the first to arrive to our class. In fact, despite the relative quiet in the halls, about half the seats had already been taken. Perhaps there was simply no lingering about between lectures—a small note of etiquette that I filed away both for myself and Laure, who I knew would try to linger the first chance she got, now that we’d seen it was unacceptable. She had such a knack for contrariness.

I hesitated in choosing a seat, as I always did. The room appeared to have filled from the very back first, then forward, as there were a great
many seats available in the front rows, a moderate number in the middle, while very few remained at the back, which had the highest elevation. Of course, it didn’t matter
overly
much to me, as my suspicions were that those students who chose to sit very far in the back did so in order to sleep, and that was not a crowd I wished to become a part of. However, I also did not wish to seem too eager by sitting in the front row, either. There was a seat which might’ve been perfect—to the left and nearby a window—but to my great misfortune there was already someone sitting in it.

“Just
choose
already,” Laure said, nudging me in the back with her books. “My legs are going to start cramping from standing around.”

“All right, if you’re going to be
impatient,
” I said, casting desperately about for a halfway-decent compromise. Perhaps somewhere in the middle would do, and next day we’d come earlier so that I might be completely satisfied with my choice: a seat that I could stick to for the rest of the term. “Though I have to say, I would expect you to have more strength in your calves.”

“We’re sitting here,” Laure said, stalking past me and plopping herself down in a seat near the middle of the class.

I supposed it could’ve been a worse selection.

More students filed in after us, alone or in groups of twos and threes, filling up the empty seats and setting out their books, ink bottles, and pens. I did the same for myself as well as Laure, to keep her from getting ink on her fingers and touching her face as she had proved prone to doing in our formative schooling years. Even worse would be spilling ink down the front of her dress. Seeing as how we were not studying to become artists, such a detail would be unforgivable.

I tugged my pocket watch from its hiding place, checking the time. It was only a few minutes until half past the hour; I did hope our professor wouldn’t be late. Then I arranged my pens in order from smallest to largest on the desk in front of me before deciding it would probably be better to group them by color.

At half past, the professor entered the room. He was on the tall side, with a ferocious red mustache that looked like the brush Gaeth had used to unstop my chimney. I could feel Laure staring at him, and under any other circumstance I might have done the same, were it not for the younger man he’d approached to confer with beside his lecturer’s
podium—someone who’d been sitting there all this time, I realized, and I’d been too caught up in trying to choose a proper seat to notice him right away.

He had dark hair that fell into his eyes, and
freckles
all over his cheeks and nose—something I had always been disappointed that Laure had never exhibited, not even in the height of summer. (Laure did not freckle; instead, she burned.) The young man in question was clearly older than the rest of the first-years, though not so old as to be a professor, and when he turned his head to pick up a sheaf of notes I could see a darling thumbprint of ink against his pale neck.

Somehow, it was more endearing to me on him than it ever was on Laure. I could imagine him resting his hand there dreamily, and I tugged at the collar around my own neck at the very thought.

“Well, I see that most of you are here already, so why don’t we get started?” the professor with the red mustache said, wringing his large, meaty hands together and leaning back against his podium instead of taking his place behind it. “This here’s theory and history of the magicians, so if you’re in the wrong place, feel free to leave now. No harm done; I won’t take it personally. Nor will I even remember your faces as you file out, I’m sure. I’m Professor Ducante, and this is my lecturer’s assistant, Hal, and the answer to the question that’s burning in your fresh little minds is
yes
, I
will
be requiring you to take notes. I don’t care how good your mind is; memory’s no match for a pen and paper. I’d best hear you all scratching away mightily for the next hour and a half, and if your hand’s not cramping by the end of each session, you’re just not doing it right. I hope that’s clear.”

Hal
, I repeated privately to myself, the name thoroughly unremarkable and somehow perfect all the same. He’d given a shy little wave upon being introduced, and I’d felt my pulse speed up in reply. It was a reaction he’d never know he’d inspired, of course, but it was there all the same, unmistakable to
me
. I drew in a deep breath, no longer prepared or even listening remotely to what the professor was saying, outlining the basics of the course we were to be taking, no doubt.

And I usually so enjoyed outlines.

I was in the middle of observing the way Hal drew his thumb nervously up and down a crease in one of his papers when Laure elbowed me sharply in the ribs.

I turned to her, distraught and also a little indignant. She couldn’t have known
already
what I was thinking. It was just too unfair.

“That’s
Hal,
” she whispered, eyes wide as though she thought that meant something to me. A little of what I was thinking must’ve shown on my face, too, since she rolled her eyes and looked as though she wished to elbow me much harder. “The Hal. Are you even listening? The one who came here and saved the city, not to mention all the magicians?”

The gears in my brain began to click and whir once more—clogged as they’d been by Hal’s freckles and the gentle manner in which he stood to one side observing the rest of us, even making his own notes from time to time.
This
simple soul was the man who’d saved Thremedon? That made him a hero, on top of being everything else, which added up to a great deal in my eyes.

It was almost too much to bear, really.

“I just want to say that I’m looking forward to getting to know you, and that if you ever have any problems, I’m … that’s what I’m here for,” Hal was in the midst of saying, obviously picking up on a cue from the professor that I’d missed simply because I hadn’t been paying attention to him. His voice was gentle. If Laure had made me miss some of his speech with her gossip, I would—well, I wouldn’t be able to do anything to her in revenge, but oh, how I would sulk! “Other than that, I hope that you enjoy the class and—if you don’t mind my saying so—welcome to Thremedon.”

Something loosened in my chest, like a whole host of doves being set free at a king’s coronation, when Hal finally smiled at the class. He was a far cry from the statues outside, a thin coating of snow now frosting their austere features—hard men carved from hard stone and ranged together like the Cobalt Mountains themselves to ward against any invading danger. Hal was small, his nature warm and inviting. His wrists were delicate, and he was the first person to welcome us to Thremedon
without
also trying to relieve us of our valuables. Besides which, it was thanks to him we were even here in the first place.

Now that my gratitude had become more personal in nature, it was stronger than ever before. All the awfulness of my cramped little room, the dust in every corner, the taffy on the dresser handle, the pot in the chimney, and the foul man who had attempted to steal my things seemed insignificant in the face of this new life I was starting.

Something dropped against my desk and I looked over at it to find a crumpled ball of paper. Its inelegance told me at once it was a present of some sort from Laure, and I nervously unfolded it, spreading it out beside the rest of my notepaper, attempting to smooth the wrinkles.

CUT IT OUT!!! it read in Laure’s unmistakable hand. To emphasize her point, she had even underscored “out” three times, and employed a matching three exclamation marks.

“You up there,” the professor said, pausing midlecture, with a voice so sharp it commanded all our attention. I swallowed miserably, stomach swooping in terror. Was it possible he had noticed Laure’s indiscretion, and we were in trouble on our very first day, not even halfway into our very first hour?

I waited for the blade to fall, but somehow, it did not.

“I’d like to see your pens
moving,
” Ducante continued. “That goes for all of you. Since this is
history
of the magicians, I daresay the
history
I’m giving you might just be the most important part.”

My fingers twitched and began moving of their own accord, neatly marking down the date in the top right corner of my paper before I began to copy down, word for word, everything our professor was saying. At that moment, somehow, Hal looked up into the audience of the lecture hall and met my eyes—as though he had sensed my fear and sought to ease it somehow.

Only a bare moment later he looked away, but I was content in knowing he had seen my face even if he would not remember it.

That evening, when I pulled out my notes to look them over just before tucking the sheets around myself in bed, I would not remember a single word written there, in my spindly writing, as it had been said. My mind—and my heart—were far too full of other things for that, I was afraid.

And so began my first love in Thremedon.

I wasn’t in a good mood at all that morning. Part of it was because it was the start of a new term, and, even though I hated leaving a job unfinished, I hadn’t managed to teach my class from the previous term anything worth a damn. I guessed that was weighing on my conscience
just a little bit, not to mention how much the idea of doing it for another two months was sticking in my throat like a fish bone.

Another part of it was the dream I’d had in that weird part of dawn when dreaming gets a little too keen and a little too detailed for a man’s liking—about the day we’d received word from whatever lackey was in charge that day that the dragons,
our
dragons, were being disassembled, and no, we wouldn’t be seeing what remained of them again.

But never let it be said Owen Adamo spent his time lingering over
dreams
. He just took his crankiness out on the poor cannon fodder first-years in his lecture room, instead.

My lecturer’s assistant was a Margrave’s son who’d gotten out of joining up for the war effort because of some loophole about the importance of his studies meaning he was needed more at home than out there on the field. It’d worked out well for him to exploit it because it was doubtful he’d have been able to find the balls to actually kill a man in real combat. He was obsessed with strategy nonetheless and considered himself something of an expert on the matter, which meant he didn’t like my style of teaching one bit. His name was Radomir—not Radimor, as I’d called him for the first two-thirds of our first term together because I didn’t have room in my head for the names of people I didn’t like
or
trust—and I found that ignoring him worked best.

I cleared my throat. It was one minute before the lecture was supposed to start, and the last of the lost, lonely little stragglers were filing in and taking their seats. I could feel a few of them staring at me, no doubt taking this class so they could gossip about the man teaching it rather than discuss the fine art of war or anything. Anyway, it was obvious that near to none of them had the head for any decent thinking. There was one in the back who was already asleep, and I didn’t know if I was more or less disposed to liking him than I was to the few who’d crowded around the front row, leaning forward like so many carrion birds, ready to eat up what I said and never once question any of it.

But it wasn’t too fair-minded of me to judge them before they proved they were the idiots I suspected, now was it? There were a few keen faces among the rabble—a girl with red hair and sharp green eyes and some ink on her nose being one of them, as well as a towhead who might’ve served himself none too bad in the war itself if he hadn’t
clearly missed the age of conscription by a year. Maybe these ones could prove me wrong, and I welcomed the challenge.
If
you could call it that.