Corps of Recovery: Part 2

Vinnia stood beside him, still curling hair around her fingers and looking at the ground. “I hope my mentor is the short one,” she whispered, pointing. Even with that gesture, she still faced the floor.

Rudi scanned the six older pages who walked down the stairs. They all followed a middle-aged man who wore his hair just like Rudi’s Pa’s, except he also had a mustache and faint stubble carved neatly along his jaw line. That had to be either the dorm head or the headmaster. The short one Vinnia had pointed out was a scrawny boy with a bird’s nest of brown hair. He laughed a lot, joking around with an older boy. Everyone wore the green tunic and brown trousers of a page, the letter ‘P’ emblazoned on their chests.

When the group reached the bottom step, the man out front started to introduce himself. Vinnia, however, spoiled the moment by loudly telling him that he ought to be managing his lands instead of leaving her family to do the work for him.

“That was from Papa,” she finished, putting her hands on her hips. She looked ridiculous. “He is very cross with you, Count Stephan.”

“Yes, but I am paying him for it, and Reysa needs all the help it can get. Tourism is not a reliable source of income.” He gestured to the pages behind him and restarted his introduction. “Like Vinnia here said, I am Count Stephan of East Elevair. It appears that this year’s group of pages is considerably smaller than normal, but it assures you all that you’ll have the very best mentors possible.”

Bridget snorted, earning her a hard look from the Count.

“Elizabeth of Luxom,” he said, “you will mentor Bridget of Glasserow.” A slender girl with her wavy blonde hair cut to her ears stepped towards Bridget and held out her hand. She smiled as Bridget shook it.

“Axel of Baden.” The boy who had been joking with Vinnia’s choice mentor stepped forward. He looked the same age as Elizabeth, probably ten or eleven, and his chestnut hair was neat and well-kept. “You will mentor Vinnia of Reysa.”

Beside Rudi, Vinnia stopped twirling her hair. She kept her eyes on the floor even as she shook hands with Axel. They looked like siblings who were being forced to apologize to each other, especially when both had hazel eyes and average builds. As Axel took a spot beside Vinnia, the Count placed the Norden twins with a pair of siblings from the eastern part of the Stadt. Rudi found it hard to look at them, especially since the mentors looked as similar to each other as the twins.

“Prince Simon of Sturmburg,” the Count called next, “you will be mentoring Rudolph Fluß.”

The room echoed with the end of Count Stephan’s words. Vinnia twirled her hair and started whistling, obviously bored.

Abruptly, the short boy Vinnia had pointed out laughed. “Me? The failure sixth prince with the son of the Stadt’s hero? You aren’t making fun of me, are you, Count Stephan?”

The Count was stone-faced. “I am not. You are going to mentor Rudolph Fluß, and that is the last I will hear of this.”

Shrugging, the prince descended the stairs and shook Rudi’s hand excitedly. “I hope you’re better at math than I am,” he whispered, “I might need your help one of these days!” On the other side of Vinnia, Axel of Baden rolled his eyes and glared at Prince Simon until he stopped looking so smug. Rudi just hoped his mentor wasn’t that bad at math.

Once Chem was paired up with a sleepy-looking girl, the Count sent all of the groups off to tour the palace. He warned them that the Royal family would be in residence soon, and that they mustn’t touch anything that might be easily broken. Replacing things was a pain when the men in charge of inventory were not around, and everything had to stay perfect at least until next month. Then the family would come with their young children and those young ones would break everything imaginable, leaving all the pages to go off blame-free.

Prince Simon leaned over Rudi to mention that he’d broken a massive thirty-two vases before he began his training. After a stern glare from the Count though, he quieted down and led Rudi to the classrooms. Rudi noticed that Axel and Vinnia were eager to rush ahead of them while Bridget and her mentor went the other way.

“Playing it safe this round?” Simon called, watching the older boy pull Vinnia away.

“We are not talking about that, Simon!” Axel shouted, disappearing into a branch hallway. Vinnia shrieked a moment later, and Axel was still trying fervently to calm her when Rudi and Simon caught up. The younger pair hurried past, and Rudi assumed it was because they did not want to be around to listen to Vinnia complaining about wet floors.

He was wrong, in fact. The moment they were out of earshot, Simon whispered in Rudi’s ear, “according to the older boys, Elizabeth gave Axel two black eyes and a broken wrist all in one fight during their first year. But don’t mention it around him. He’ll get really mad.”

Rudi nodded, wanting to stay out of such fights. His Pa would be disappointed if Rudi let his magic go wild while he roughhoused. As Simon walked down the hall, he mentioned the names of all the teachers and what to look out for in their classes.

Though he couldn’t remember the teachers’ names, Rudi learned that he should never slack off in history because that teacher had eyes in the back of his head. Then was the mathematics class, and supposedly that was the most boring one in existence. They peeked into Count Stephan’s classroom next, where they saw the man drawing a circle on the ground with chalk and a giant compass.

“He teaches magic,” Simon said, “and you’re going to be tested before dinner tonight. Power levels and whatnot.”

Rudi mostly wondered how a man could handle both being headmaster and the magics teacher at the same time. He followed Simon diligently to the next class, which happened to be taught by the Count Stephan’s wife, Lady Fey. The Prince said that Lady Fey’s class was the most interesting one he’d ever have, except maybe for the Baroness of Sonnenberg’s. And not just that, but her natural philosophy was actually quite helpful with magic.

At the end of the hallway was Baroness Sonnenberg’s room. Standing outside the doorway, Simon asked Rudi if he knew any Alten.

Rudi shook his head. He had heard others speak it before, but never learned it.

“Ah, that’s unfortunate. I suggest asking Vinnia for help in the Baroness’s class then. Being from Reysa I’d assume she’s already fluent, and I’m not very good.”

“You like to say you’re not good at things,” Rudi pointed out.

The prince paused for a moment. “That’s because I’m not good at anything. I don’t need to be. It’s not like anyone expects me to be good at things. I’m tenth in line, you know. Five older brothers and four sisters. Plus, all my younger siblings are showing genius already.”

“If you tried, maybe you’d be good at something.”

Simon laughed. “That’s exactly what Axel told me last year. He was my mentor, you know, and he’s in his last year already, so maybe I should listen, but…”

“But what?”

“But I think he might be wrong just this once,” the prince admitted. He smiled, but Rudi could tell it wasn’t genuine. “I tried so hard during my first year, but no one ever thought I was good. I could beat every other page in my year and no one would think I was worth anything.”

“How could anyone think you’re not worth anything?”

“Because my older siblings were just better. It’s hard to outshine nine people, one of whom is going to be king someday. Sometimes it’s better to just give up.”

Nothing Simon said about his worth made any sense to Rudi, but he knew that the prince wasn’t feeling too good. He left the subject alone while Simon quickly pushed on towards the practice rooms. They could already hear Axel and Vinnia catching up, discussing the unique architecture of the palace.

As Rudi listened to their voices, he started noticing all the traits they pointed out. He looked up to see that the ceiling really was arched, and a careful examination of the walls showed that they had once been bare stone. They were plastered over and painted pastel green now, but Rudi could see the impressions if he looked.

“You’re being quiet,” Simon noted as soon as they reached the white door of the first practice room. He looked backwards at Axel and Vinnia. “You’re not actually listening to them, are you?”

Rudi nodded. “I was listening.”

The Prince whistled before pushing the door open. “All of the practice rooms look exactly like this one,” he said, “pink tile floors, mirrors on all the walls, ceilings with naked angels painted on them. You know how it goes.”

Rudi looked up as soon as it was mentioned, only to see a field of painted clouds and chubby babies floating around the ceiling. They looked grotesque in Rudi’s opinion, so he went back to staring at the endless repetition of his reflections.

“Make sure you wear shoes with traction when fencing in one of these rooms,” Simon said, “the floors are slick.” He shut the door quietly, and the two boys fell in beside Axel and Vinnia. They had decided to skip actually looking in the practice rooms, and were deep in discussion about remodeled castles.

“Right, right,” Vinnia said excitedly, “I actually heard that a lot of the nobles here still live in real castles. Is plaster that expensive?”

“It’s not that, Vin,” Axel replied, “it’s just that some people are less eager to get rid of their Gothic pieces, and not many men want to scale four-meter-tall walls just to paint and plaster them.”

As the group walked down a set of shallow, white stairs, Vinnia pointed out the gargoyles in the nooks beside the stained-glass windows. “They don’t have to though. If the Royalty keeps their Gothic stuff, why doesn’t anyone else? I think it looks good, anyway.”

“That’s because the Queen is always complaining about how out-of-place their gargoyles look. She’s very jealous of the Altens, you know. It’s part of why the King even bothered invading Altland.”

“That and he wanted the secret of tomatoes, but no one would give it to him,” Simon broke in. Axel shot the younger mentor a dirty look before leading the group through a wooden door. It opened into a courtyard of sorts, except one end was dotted with bright red targets, and the other side was inhabited by older pages. Rudi gawked at them, noticing that a few of them were only a year older than him. He watched, spellbound as they strung their bows, then let his gaze follow their arrows to the targets.

Suddenly, Simon elbowed Rudi and whispered, “You should see Axel shoot. He can hit dead center from one-hundred meters.”

Rudi glanced at the older page. Already, Axel was guiding Vinnia towards the archers, pointing out the good and bad in their technique.

“Don’t worry,” Simon said, “you’ll get to shoot tomorrow morning.” The prince craned his neck to see past the archers before breaking into a grin. “I see Elizabeth. Let’s go hide somewhere so we can watch her and Axel fight.” With that, Simon pulled Rudi back into the palace. They needed some higher ground to spy from.