Two Silver a Month
Chris followed David out of the Lion Pavilion.
"Mage."
David paused.
"Something else you want to know?"
There was a great deal Chris wanted to ask about the Tower's secrets, but he doubted he would get an answer, so he swallowed it and tried a different question.
"Prince Mark goes without saying, but Alex and Tony are from powerful noble houses too. Why didn't they train while they were still at home?"
"Train? What sort of training?"
"As you know, Mage David, I come from Javier Barony, a small territory out on the fringe."
"And?"
"The baron has three sons, and every one of them takes a knight as his master and trains hard. Even a country barony does that much. A royal house, a marquis's house, a count's house — they must have fine secret arts of their own. I couldn't help wondering why those three never trained in them. If they'd learned something back then, wouldn't sensing mana have come easier?"
"Let me set one thing straight before we go any further."
His face turned arrogant.
"A mage must never — not even an apprentice — take some knight as a master! The secret methods floating around outside don't match the way our Tower handles mana. More often than not, they become a hindrance when you try to climb higher later. Better to meet mana with a clean slate, having learned nothing at all. That's why they weren't taught."
His eyes narrowed.
"But how did you know they never trained at their family estates? Proud boys from noble houses wouldn't share something that private with a former slave like you."
"I guessed from their hands."
"Their hands?"
"Yes. Not a single callus."
"Sharp eyes. That's enough. Go back inside."
"Yes. Please go safely."
Chris stayed bent at the waist, seeing him off until he was out of sight. Then he tilted his head.
In the barony, and all through the journey to the Tower, David had treated the successful candidates with a coldness that bordered on frightening. At the Lion Pavilion that chill was gone. He had even answered questions.
Why the change? Had he softened because that terrifying master was no longer at his side? Or was he offering the bare minimum of courtesy because a prince was staying in the pavilion?
Hard to say.
In the Lion Pavilion, Chris was always the first to rise and the first to eat. Second place usually went to Smith or Frank. Today Smith came in second.
Smith spread butter on his bread.
"What did you and David talk about last night?"
Chris warned him, perfectly serious.
"Didn't you hear Mage David's warning yesterday?"
"What?"
"He said you can get yourself killed talking carelessly to a mage. Call him Mage. Properly."
"He's not even here. What does it matter? So what did you talk about?"
Chris pointed at the ceiling with one finger.
"I asked why the nobles up there never learned their family secrets."
"Why would you ask that?"
"I wanted to be sure they really hadn't."
"Sure?"
"From everything so far — the situation, the way they talk, their hands — it looks like they never learned a thing at home. But I could be wrong. I heard that what really matters for a knight isn't the strength in your arms and legs. It's the strength inside. Even if it doesn't show the way a callus does, they might be hiding something dangerous in there."
"And why do you care?"
"You've seen them. No manners at all. If I ever have to shove back and they turn out to have some hidden strength, I'm the one who gets broken. That's a loss I don't need."
Smith looked at him with open distaste.
"You planning to shove back?"
"Honestly... no. I'd rather keep them sweet if I can. But there's always a what-if."
Smith thumped his own chest.
"That's exactly what drives me crazy. We're not slaves anymore. We're equals. So why are you still kissing up to nobles?"
"Because I might never sense mana."
"What?"
"When I passed the test back in the territory, I thought I'd hit the jackpot. Life turned around. Misery over, happiness starting."
Chris smiled bitterly. All at once the sweet bread tasted like nothing.
"Then I got here and realized I'd only made it to the starting line. What happens if I never sense mana?"
He shook his head and answered himself.
"I'm fucked. Completely fucked."
"So?"
"I have to plan for the worst."
"Ah. So if you fail, you latch onto a noble?"
"Yeah."
"You little bastard."
For the first time in a long while, Smith knuckled him on the head.
"Think about how you're going to succeed. Why worry about failing already? That's how losers think."
Chris clicked his tongue.
"Do I look lucky to you?"
Smith had no answer.
"If I'd been lucky, would I have been born a slave?"
Smith said nothing.
"Would I have grown up an orphan?"
Still nothing.
"Would I have had not a single relative to look after me?"
Smith kept his mouth shut.
"I didn't even inherit a single coin. Do I look lucky to you?"
"They say joy comes at the end of hardship. Maybe your luck's about to break."
Chris snapped his fingers.
"Exactly. I'm hoping the same thing — that all this rotten luck was just the trial before a great fortune hits. But it could be a bust. Passing the test might have been the end of my luck."
He tore his bread and wiped the soup bowl clean with it.
"Even if I go under, I want to keep eating bread and soup. Even if I never taste meat again."
"Fine. Suck a noble's ass until it falls off."
Smith shoved the bread basket away, his appetite gone.
"So why didn't they learn the family arts?"
"Noble secrets don't sit well with the Tower's. He said they'd get in the way of growing as a mage."
"So they deliberately didn't teach them, because they meant to raise them as mages from the start."
"If not that, then they were hated and left to rot."
Catherine appeared third, a cloth bundle stuffed full of clothes.
"Take these to the village and have them washed."
When Chris reached for the bundle, she clamped down and wouldn't let go.
"It has to go to a professional launderer who's handled expensive clothes. Don't just hand it to anyone."
"I know."
She still didn't let go.
"Remember what I said."
"I said I know."
Chris took the bundle and held out his palm. At that moment the rest of the squad poured into the dining room.
Alex saw the hand extended toward Catherine and jutted his chin.
"What's this? Don't tell me you're asking her to dance."
Chris shot him a glance.
"I'm collecting for an errand."
"What errand?"
"Laundry."
"Do mine too."
Alex went upstairs, and Mark and Tony headed for their rooms as well. The three came back down with armfuls of clothes.
Chris stared at the heap in front of him, at a loss.
"There's too much. I can't carry it all at once."
"I'll lend you a bag," Catherine said, and went to fetch it.
"One bag won't even come close."
Chris tilted his head. Even with a pack on his back and a bag in each hand, it didn't look like enough. A moment later Catherine held one out to him.
"Put it all in here."
He let his bafflement show.
"How am I supposed to fit all these clothes in one bag?"
Alex laughed in his face.
"Right. A lowborn like you wouldn't know what a spatial bag is."
"A spatial bag! What's that?"
Catherine slid her own bundle into the bag as she answered.
"The space inside is much larger than it looks."
The bundle was bigger than the bag, and it went in without a hitch.
"Oh. I see."
So that was how Catherine managed to change clothes every day. She had a spatial bag, and far more garments than anything that showed on the outside.
Prince Mark wrapped his clothes separately and put them in. Alex and Tony followed.
"Now we just have to settle the fee," Chris said, taking the bag.
"Fine. How much?"
Chris held up one finger.
"A gold coin..."
He was only testing the water. All three glared at him as if they meant to eat him alive, and he flinched and corrected himself.
"Silver."
Then, ever so casually, he unfolded two more fingers.
"Three ought to be fair, don't you think?"
"Three silver to cross one mountain? This guy's insane."
Tony picked up where Alex left off.
"Not insane. A bandit. A bandit. You know what my father did to the bandits who showed up on our land?"
"What did he do?" Alex asked.
"Tore them limb from limb."
"Good," Mark added.
Chris folded one finger.
"Two, then."
Still no encouraging response.
"Not two for one load. Two for the whole month."
No one agreed, and Chris had no intention of giving any more ground.
"Going down to the village, dropping the laundry off, and coming back will take four or five hours. Picking it up later will take another four or five. That's two days wasted on a single wash."
He pressed the point again.
"Two days thrown away, at a time this critical, when every hour matters if we're going to sense mana."
Alice slipped in to back him up.
"Chris, don't. Two loads a month and you lose four days. The opportunity cost is huge."
"You're right. I got so greedy for coin I forgot my real duty."
Alex sneered.
"Like you'd ever sense mana. Just go make your money."
Chris shook his head.
"I can't risk my future for pocket change. Taking the opportunity cost into account, the way Alice says..."
The third finger he had folded rose again, and Alex spoke in a hurry.
"Fine. Two a month."
"I'm in," Tony said.
Chris pretended to accept only with great reluctance.
"Payment up front."
Alex hated paying for something a slave ought to do as a matter of course, but this wasn't his territory. It was the Tower. He had no choice. He held out two silver coins and made no effort to hide his displeasure.
"If this were our land..."
Chris cut him off at once.
"Yes, I know. I'd be torn limb from limb."
Mark, Tony, and Catherine paid as well. Chris took out the map David had drawn and stood.
"I'll drop off the laundry and be back."
The map was absurdly simple. It showed only the road from the Lion Pavilion down to the lower village, and there were plenty of places to get turned around. Grass had grown over stretches of the path, and unmarked forks forced him through more than a few wrong turns. He wandered for four hours. It was a mercy he hadn't lost the way entirely.
He had only just found the right road and started down when a sound came out of the empty air.
Eeeee.
It wasn't loud, and yet his ears ached strangely. At the same time a chill ran down his spine. Move carelessly, and he had the feeling some calamity would find him.
What is this?
David's warning came back to him, too late: do not cross the boundary without a pass.
So this is the boundary.
Chris grumbled to himself.
Would it have killed him to explain properly?
He pulled out the pass David had given him and raised it over his head the way a man lifts a shield against a falling arrow. Something swept across the pass. Then it went quiet. No birds. No insects. Even the sound of the wind seemed to have vanished.
After a while the birdsong returned. Only then did Chris's head, sunk as if buried between his shoulders, inch back up.
"May I go?"
No answer.
"I'm going."
He took one step, then drew it back.
"I'm really going."
Silence.
"I am allowed to go, right?"
No response.
Chris bit down on the map, thrust the pass in his right hand out in front of him, and lifted the bag in his left over his head like an umbrella. Slowly, he walked forward. Cold sweat beaded on the back of his neck.