Chapter 19
The first batch of their new clothes was delivered while they were out at their poisons class the next morning, in time for the afternoon's combat session: a set of simple practice wear, along with some light leather armour from the tannery. But it wasn't until her smarter outfits arrived two days later that Eleanor fully understood why the Association retained its own tailor.
The most beautiful dress in her new collection was a green silk ballgown which skimmed the floor at her feet, and easily rivalled any of her old party dresses for its cut and quality. She pulled the laces tight across her chest, noting with a smile the two stiletto sheathes discretely built into the boning of the bodice, and the loops on the hem which would allow her to hitch up the skirt to a shorter length for running or climbing. She ran her hands down the folds of the fabric and then, because it seemed appropriate, she spun and threw out a cautious back-kick over her bed.
The dress was cut to perfection. As she tested further, she found herself able to move freely in every direction she might want. Yes, she realised, the tailor was as much a specialist as any of them.
She reluctantly placed the dress away in her closet, not sure when she'd have an opportunity to wear something so beautiful, and changed into loose trousers and a short tunic ready for class.
After another exhausting morning of athletics – their circuits interspersed, this time, with intervals of swimming fully clothed in the cold water of the academy's lake – Eleanor was looking forward to the afternoon's climbing class as a chance to show off one of her strongest skills. On her way outside after lunch, however, she caught sight of the schedule for the following afternoon.
Interrogation.
The word gnawed at her. Surely that could only mean one thing, and she wasn't sure she was ready to face her memories yet. Back in Taraska she'd cursed the gap in her education: why had she never been taught to resist under torture? But now the lesson was imminent she dreaded it and all the old wounds – physical as well as mental – that waited to be reopened.
She tried to push the idea out of her mind, but repeated flashbacks from the previous year denied her any chance of success; she made it only a few steps along the corridor before nausea overcame her. Fortunately she managed to rush to the basin before she was sick, but washing the bitter taste from her mouth and cleaning the flecks of vomit from her hair still made her late for class.
The group had moved outside without her, and her fellow students were attempting to demonstrate their levels of climbing ability by scaling the walls of the academy buildings. She was mortified to see that Laban was taking the class; maybe that was better than making a poor first impression on someone she'd never met before, but the withering look he gave her made her wish the ground would swallow her whole.
"So you've decided to join us after all, Eleanor."
"Sorry I'm late – what have I missed?" she asked, somewhat unnecessarily since she could see perfectly well what everybody else was doing.
"I'm just giving everyone a chance to show me their style. You'll generally have to deal with more walls and rooves than trees or cliffs in this line of work, so we've plenty of scope to practise before we have to leave the grounds... do you want to show me what you can do?"
The stones of the dormitory building were irregular sizes but it was basically an easy climb, although she struggled to focus and made some elementary mistakes, slipping a couple of times and straining her old shoulder injury in the process. Eventually she managed to pull herself up the wall to the top of the bell tower, scrambled up the roof, and stopped just short of Mack who was sitting with one leg either side of the weather vane.
"I hope you're not scared of heights, are you?" he asked, peering down to where Laban was waiting.
"Not a bit," she said, wondering if she still looked queasy. "I've been climbing as long as I can remember – trees to begin with, of course, but then mostly cliffs."
"We didn't have so many cliffs where me and Seb were at school. It's flat out in the forest."
She was almost shocked at the reminder that Mack and Sebastien had grown up together; however much she disliked Daniel's segregationist attitude, it seemed natural that everyone was spending the majority of their time with the others from the same common room. "You got up here fast enough."
"Well, we had buildings to practise on – it's Daniel I feel sorry for."
Eleanor looked down to where he was pointing. Daniel was still only a few feet from the ground, and looked distinctly uncomfortable about his position on the wall.
"He should have an advantage, being so tall," she said. "He's got better reach."
"That won't help him if he's only climbed ropes before."
They watched for a while as Laban went across to where Daniel was struggling and called out instructions on where to find plausible hand-holds, before summoning everyone back to ground level again to give out general advice based on what he'd observed.
At the end of the lesson, Eleanor was about to go back inside when Laban called her name. The sound of his voice stopped her in her tracks, and she turned to face him.
"A word, if I may."
"Okay." She didn't think refusal was an option.
He waited for the others to disperse before speaking. "Are you taking this entirely seriously, Eleanor?"
The question stunned her. "What? Of course I am!"
"No need to sound so affronted. You came down late, and even then you weren't performing anywhere near your best. I know you can do much better than what you showed me today. I hope you have an explanation."
"I was sick," she admitted, though even saying the words made her feel like a failure. "That's why I was late, and I still don't feel right."
"Do you have a fever? You mustn't work if you're ill, child, that's putting yourself in unnecessary danger."
"I don't want to let you down," she said. She couldn't bring herself to explain that she knew precisely what was causing her to be sick; that would only make her seem more pathetic.
"It isn't your fault if you're ill. There are some here who'd say you can work as long as you can stand up, but skirting up bell towers when you're off-colour is only going to end badly."
"Sorry."
"No harm done, this time. But run along to the lab on your way to dinner and get the herbalist to find something to settle your stomach."
She nodded; it was probably a good idea if she wanted to get any sleep.
"And Eleanor?"
"Yes?"
"Come and see me once you're feeling well again. I want to know how you're getting along."
The herbalist gave her a thick, foul-smelling potion to drink, and she skipped dinner and went straight to her room where she spent most of the night retching into the chamber pot.
Barely rested, she rose early even by her standards – before the sun had quite broken the horizon – and helped herself to an apple from the fruit bowl in the common room. It was just about all she could face for breakfast, and she swallowed each mouthful only with difficulty.
Needing to fill the time before their morning class, she headed down to the lake for a swim, hoping to take her mind off thoughts of the afternoon. It didn't work. The water, not yet warmed by the sun, was icy against her skin as she waded into the shallows, but even as the cold numbed her skin it still failed to distract her from her worries. After only half a dozen lengths to and from the small rocky island they'd used as a marker in athletics, she gave up and dried off, frustrated with herself for letting her feelings get the better of her.
She headed back to the dining hall to force herself to eat something. She was bleary-eyed at the breakfast table, fumbling as she reached for a slice of bread and dropping a crust into her tea. She blushed as every head turned to see what had caused the splash.
"Is something wrong?" Daniel asked, studying her closely as she retrieved the soggy crust.
"I slept badly," she said, fishing more crumbs from her drink. It was true enough but she had no
wish to go into the reasons.
"You cannot afford to be clumsy in class," he said. "We have to fight this morning."
"It's unarmed – what's the worst that could happen?" Mikhail winked at her, and she managed a weak smile in return, but the morning class didn't worry her so much as what the afternoon might hold.
It was a bright, dry morning so the lesson took place outside on the lawns, the grass providing a soft surface to fall on as they practised leg sweeps and shoulder throws.
"Come on, get up!" their teacher snapped at Eleanor as she lay on her back after one particularly heavy landing. "You're not here to laze around."
"Sorry." She sat up, her head spinning from the blow. "I'm not feeling well this morning."
"Good! Lesson one: the world isn't going to wait for you to feel better again."
He extended a hand to help her to her feet, but as soon as she was upright he twisted her arm and slammed her back to the ground again.
"You have to be prepared to defend yourself however you feel," he said, then left her to get up on her own this time.
She glared at his back; she'd hoped for just a little more sympathy. "I suppose he's right," she muttered to Mikhail, who was partnering her for the morning. "But he didn't have to be like that about it."
The rest of the morning passed slowly and painfully, and she was glad when the bell rang to signal the lunch break, even though it meant the dreaded interrogation lesson was closer.
Though she went with the others to the dining hall, Eleanor managed to eat only a couple of mouthfuls.
"You really are ill, aren't you? Are you sure you're up to this afternoon?" Mikhail asked.
She took a sip of water. The temptation to say 'no' was overwhelming, but she knew she'd only be delaying the inevitable: in another eight days the class would come round again, and with all that time to think about it her nerves would only get worse.
"I'll be fine," she said. Better to get it over with today.
After lunch they went back to the classroom where they'd had their poisons lesson earlier in the week, and before long they were joined by a youthful, blond-haired man.
"My name is David," he said quietly. "I'm here to teach you something about interrogation."
He looked around the room, and after studying each of the students in turn his gaze settled on Eleanor.
"You're nervous," he said. "Why?"
Something in his piercing look told her she wouldn't get away with claiming illness this time, but she didn't know how to explain everything she was feeling.
"I'm fine," she said weakly, though in her heart she knew she couldn't deflect the question.
"Maybe I can tell you," he said. "You told the council you'd been tortured in Taraska. These things leave their marks on a person."
She nodded, aware that everyone was watching her. She'd carefully avoided mentioning the torture episode to her classmates, not ready to face their questions, but there would be no escaping that now.
"Fear is a very appropriate response," he said. "But it will be months before this class considers torture, and we'll put pressure on you only to show you the strength and manner of your own reactions... and in this you have an advantage over your colleagues. Does that go some way towards allaying your fears?"
She nodded again, still not quite daring to open her mouth for fear of the emotions that could flood from her if she let her guard down.
"Like every other discipline you'll study at the academy, we'll be looking at attack and defence together," David continued, turning his attention from Eleanor back to the rest of the group again. "We'll begin with appropriate questioning. To stand any chance of getting the information you want, you'll need to frame appropriate, unambiguous questions. You must give your adversary no opportunity to mislead you unless he chooses to lie – lies can be spotted more easily than misdirection."
He continued in this vein for some time before asking the students to share their ideas on what methods they could use to ensure their questions were sufficiently precise, and moving on to discuss ways of trapping a liar.
Eleanor kept quiet throughout, still reeling from the flood of memories, and no-one pressed her to contribute. At the end of the lesson she almost ran to her room, determined to avoid the others for as long as possible, but it was only delaying the inevitable.
"You were tortured?" Daniel asked her as they sat down for dinner.
"Yes."
Fred leaned across the table towards them. "I suppose you think that makes you special."
She shook her head, but had no chance to think of an appropriate response before Daniel intervened: "Leave her alone. Eleanor, we will talk about this later."
"I don't want to talk about it at all," she protested, but she was glad of the momentary deflection, and finished her meal in silence.
Once she'd eaten she hurried back to her room, but the others weren't far behind. There were no locks or bolts on the bedroom doors, and though Daniel knocked at her door before opening it he seemed to give no regard to her privacy.
"Get out! You can't just walk in here like that."
She waved at him to leave but he stayed in the doorway, a motionless silhouette against the light of the common room lanterns. Sebastien and Mikhail hovered behind him.
"Seriously, Daniel, get out of my room."
"You cannot hide forever."
"I can try."
"You must tell us what happened," Daniel insisted. "If this is something which affects how you behave and makes you ill, we are entitled to know."
"Entitled?" She thought with dismay how much this was just like school all over again – trapped with a group of people who thought they owned some portion of her life just because she happened to share their living quarters. "I don't think so."
"You said we're all in this together," Sebastien added. "We need to know when something's troubling you this much."
She sighed and got to her feet. "If I try to answer your questions, will you let me sleep? It's been a long day."
"So what happened?" Mikhail asked as they all sat down in the common room.
"I'm not sure what you want to know. I was in Taraska, I was locked up and then they tortured us... I'm not going to talk you through every way they hurt us."
"But why you?"
"They wanted to know more about the Association and how to get into the academy – it wasn't just me, it was everyone they could get their hands on. All of last year's students except Jon and Victor."
"Venncastle scum," Daniel muttered.
With Raf in her thoughts more than usual, Eleanor wasn't prepared to let his comments slide. "Can't you leave your school rivalries out of this? We're all on the same side now."
He shook his head. "Not them. Venncastle have loyalty only to Venncastle."
"We're not at school any more!" She looked to the others for support but somehow they both managed to avoid her gaze, Mikhail adjusting his shirt and Sebastien suddenly very interested in his fingernails. "Look, I'd never have got out of there alive if it wasn't for Raf, so I don't really care what you think."
"I would not expect you to understand."
"No?" She got to her feet. "Well I don't expect you to understand what we went through in Taraska, either, so we're having a pointless conversation."
"We have not finished, Eleanor," Daniel called after her, but no-one followed her into her room this time.
She fished out her emerald pendant from under the mattress and sat with it clutched tightly in her fingers, eyes squeezed shut against the tears which threatened to flow, forcing herself to concentrate only on the way the sharp corners of the metal dug into her skin.
She woke when the first rays of sunlight filtered through her window, surprised to find herself still sitting on the edge of the bed, a crick in her neck from the awkward way she'd slept. She tucked the pendant safely out of sight and eased into a few gentle stretches to warm up her stiff muscles.
She wondered whether there would be more awkwar
d questions this morning, but she saw no-one at breakfast, and when the bell rang to summon them outside they were faced with a sight which demanded their attention completely.
Ivan was waiting in the middle of the lawn, surrounded by such a vast array of weaponry that it seemed he must have laid out the entire contents of the Association's armoury.
"I brought you a few things to play with," he said as the students gathered round, grinning at their awed expressions. "This is a practice session, not a lesson, so you're free to ignore me – but I wanted you to have chance to try your hand at a few different styles. Help yourselves. And those of you who aren't already wearing your leathers might want to reconsider."
Eleanor picked up a light, elegantly curved sword from the grass near her feet, and made a couple of experimental slices through the air.
"Of course you don't need to be perfect at everything," Ivan went on. "But don't limit yourself to your favourites, either – if something ever goes wrong, you need to be competent with whatever you can lay your hands on."
Sebastien had chosen a rapier, and Eleanor found herself sparring with him, falling into an easy rhythm of block-and-riposte until Ivan interrupted them.
"You're too comfortable with those," he said, taking the swords from their hands. "You'll have to make mistakes sooner or later, and now is safer than later."
He handed Eleanor a triplet and gave Sebastien a short hook-blade. Eleanor's grip tightened as she considered her next move; there was no chance of scoring an easy point with such close-combat weapons. She wasn't even confident of getting the best out of the triplet, with its three stubby blades extending from evenly-spaced points around the central wooden handle, but she knew Ivan was right – it was better to try unfamilar weapons in this safe environment. And at least the leather armour would protect her from scratches.
Fortunately Sebastien proved to be just as uncomfortable with the sharp curve of the hook-blade, never quite able to position the sharp inner edge where he wanted it, and eventually she managed to trip him and bring one point of the triplet to rest against his throat.
By the end of the session she'd tried out a butterfly knife and a small axe as well as practising with the triplet, and was happily exhausted.
After the exhilaration of fighting the idea of a quiet afternoon studying tracking and stealth felt like a bit of a disappointment, and Eleanor wasn't encouraged to see that their instructor, a lean young man with a shaved head, had an uneven gait which made him appear anything but stealthy as he first approached them.
"We're going to play a game," he announced before even introducing himself. "You must have played hide-and-seek as children?"
The students all nodded, wondering what a childhood game could possibly contribute to their current education.
"This is similar... we call it hunter. Everyone will hide, except for–" He scanned their faces, and pointed sharply at Mack. "You. You'll be the first hunter. And once you find someone, they'll become the next hunter while you find a new hiding place."
He threw a small jar towards Mack, who caught it smartly.
"That's how you'll keep score," he continued. "When you catch someone, you'll use that paste to mark their arm. Obviously, when we finish, the people who've done best will be the ones with fewest marks. The only other rule is that you can't catch whoever's just found you... besides that, do what you can, run away if you can. You have until the count of fifty to find your first hiding place."
Mack closed his eyes and began to count under his breath while the others all scattered, running in different directions, conditioned by the way they'd played as children to pay more attention to finding a good hiding place than to covering their tracks.
Eleanor spied a crack in a dead tree trunk, just wide enough for her to slip inside, but found she arrived there at the same moment as Fred skidded across from the other side of the path. They eyed one another for a moment, then he waved her towards the opening and sprinted away. Surprised by his generosity, she squeezed through the gap and into the hollow of the trunk where the dead wood had rotted away to leave a comfortable amount of space. A damp, musty smell filled her nostrils, a familiar scent that reminded her of the woods where she'd spent so much time as a child. She held herself still, listening for any sound in the forest to indicate the 'hunter' was on the move, sure that Mack must have reached the end of his count by now.
It was a long wait before anyone came close, and she allowed herself to relax until she heard movement just outside her tree. She held her breath, determined not to give herself away. Maybe he'd move on without spotting her hiding place. Moments later, though, a hand came towards her through the crack in the trunk.
She tried to climb clear of her pursuer but the soft, rotten wood dissolved as she tried to pull herself up and she could find no way to support her weight. Thin fingers closed around her wrist and he daubed a thick line of red paste onto her arm.
She slid out of the tree and was surprised to see who it was who'd found her.
"But you knew where I was!"
Fred looked thoroughly unconcerned. "So?"
"That's cheating."
"It's not cheating, it's winning. Not my fault you couldn't be bothered to find anywhere else."
He threw the small pot of paste towards her, and ran off before she could object. She considered chasing after him but there seemed little point wasting her energy in following him just to continue the argument, particularly since the rules prohibited her from catching him.
With the whole of the academy's grounds to search, Eleanor began to understand why tracking would be an essential skill to succeed at this game – well, unless you cheated by already knowing where someone else was hiding. And in contrast to when she'd played with the other girls at school, she couldn't rely on noisy mistakes to give her a clue.
She returned to the clearing where they'd all started, and followed an easy trail of freshly-disturbed leaves where one of the others had sprinted carelessly between the trees. The tracks ended abruptly and Eleanor looked up, scanning the branches above her head for any sign of movement; there was nothing obvious, but one of the trees nearby was clearly an easy climb so she scrambled up to take a look.
Charles had flattened himself against one of the thicker branches; he was hidden from the ground, but up here there was nowhere to hide and he had nowhere to run to, and he accepted his loss with good grace.
Eleanor followed him down, not wanting to stay where the same clear tracks would give away her position, and moved carefully through the trees until she found another suitable tree – a trunk which was by no means an obvious climb, but well within her abilities, and with several places to hide in the canopy. She sat astride a high branch and waited, listening for any sounds of movement below, and it seemed almost no time before the end of the lesson. When the students gathered to compare their scores she found herself in the middle of the field; Daniel and Paul had avoided capture completely, while Charles had been discovered twice.
Eleanor was half way through her dinner when she remembered she'd been supposed to go and see Laban. She finished her meal quickly, made her excuses to the others, and retraced her earlier steps to find her way to his rooms.
He opened the door with a dagger in each hand, flushed with exertion, but smiled when he saw her. "Ah, Eleanor, at last. Tea?"
She accepted, and perched herself on the sofa to wait as he tidied away his weapons and added some tea-leaves to a pan of water bubbling on the stove.
"Talk to me," he said, fetching a couple of mugs. "Tell me how everything's going."
"Fine, I think." She wondered what he wanted her to say. "Aside from people not wanting me here... but I can't do much about that. What's the council said?"
"Oh, no-one's mentioned you since you arrived. I think they're waiting to see if you'll get yourself killed." He brought her tea across to her, and settled himself cross-legged on the floor. "Which, naturally, you won't."
"I hope not."
"Y
ou'll be fine. Just don't do anything stupid."
"Stupid like throwing in a perfectly respectable job to come here and get myself killed, you mean?"
He looked sternly at her, and she blushed and sipped at her tea. The words had slipped out of her without a second thought, but she told herself she didn't really mean it. Not really.
"You know it was the right decision," he said. "You'd have been bored to death as some inconsequential servant of the Empire."
"I suppose so."
"Anyway, I take it you've had no problems with your lessons? They usually start off gently, but it'll pick up – nothing you can't handle, though." He pulled a dagger from his belt and offered it to her. "Show me what you've got, then."
"I'd rather use my own knife."
"As you please. I wasn't sure you'd have yours yet."
"Well, we haven't got our new kit from the smithy, but I've a nice dagger I picked up in Taraska." She unsheathed it as she spoke and got to her feet, dropping into a relaxed and ready stance. "What do you want me to demonstrate?"
"Show me what they've been teaching you." He motioned her towards the stuffed practice dummy, a vaguely human shape with red dots painted at critical strike points.
She thought for a moment then launched herself towards the dummy, focusing her attention on one target spot at its throat, and sliding her knife from right hand to left mid-thrust as they'd practised. The tip of the dagger punctured the dummy's fabric.
"Not bad," he said. "Now see if you can get past me."
She turned towards him and made an attempt, with a double switch to try and confound him, but he blocked her confidently and twisted the dagger from her hand.
"What should I have done differently?" she asked as he returned her knife to her.
"It's not that you did it wrong. But watch."
He lunged towards her and she moved her dagger to parry, slicing into empty air as he flicked his knife across to the other side. He stopped the blade a hair's breadth from her skin, then stepped back.
"Let's do that again," he said. "Only this time, make sure you really watch the knife."
She did as he instructed and found the switch easy to spot when she was concentrating; she turned to block the new angle of attack and was satisfied to hear the clink of metal on metal this time.
"Look round."
She obeyed, and found he suddenly had a second blade in the 'empty' hand, a hair's breadth from her skin.
"Wrist sheath," she muttered as she realised what he'd done. "One more try?"
"No." He sat down and put his feet up on the table. "You'll get onto that in a week or two."
"Why show me, then?"
"So you don't think it's too easy. There's always another trick – or ten – beyond the one you've thought of."