Corps of Recovery: Part 9

Like Axel had warned, the days before the Autumnal Equinox Ball were the worst he’d ever had. They cleaned the palace again and again until it was spick and spam, shining brighter than a new knight’s armor. Mopping sweat from his brow, Rudi wondered how in the world Axel had managed to survive nearly five years here. He waited in line for formalwear fittings, rocking on his heels at the very end. The boys had arranged themselves from tallest to shortest, and there was very little debate over who the short one might be.

Peering down the line, Rudi spotted Simon telling a bad joke, which earned several groans from the other pages. If the girls had been around, Simon would have gotten a beating from Vinnia. With the boys, however, he just received a fist-grinding in his messy brown hair.

When the line finally worked its way down to just him and the twins—Chem was absent as he had his own set of formalwear to mark him as a dignitary from Selim—the girls began filing in. They had already sorted themselves, but their order was only clear if Rudi really thought about it. Fifth-years at the front, and since Elizabeth was second in line, they probably had themselves arranged by first name. Vinnia was last, just like him.

“If that’s pity in your eyes, Rudolph,” she yelled from far down the hall, “then you’d better be ready to get your butt kicked in swordplay tomorrow!”

In surprise, Rudi stepped backwards into one of the twins. “Oh, sorry Wolfgang,” he tried to say.

The twin stuck out his tongue. “I’m not Wolfgang, I’m Wolfram. Get it right.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Even from here, Rudi could see the quivering of Vinnia’s snickers. He wished she wasn’t his friend, or even his mentor’s mentor’s friend.

It was a good twenty minutes before the twins finished their measuring, and both ran out of the tailoring room whooping with demonic laughter. Hopefully they hadn’t done something rude. Nervous, Rudi stepped into the room.

The tailoring room looked very different from its appearance during the spring. Bolts upon bolts of fabric had been laid out across several tables. In a far corner, ladies spun and dyed wool, and in another, a gigantic loom threaded and ran itself. Rudi glimpsed the magic of at least ten people powering it. He wondered what sort of transmutation or spell could do that.

“Ah, hello Rudi,” said a tailoring lady. She towered over everyone, probably even the second prince, who was very tall already. “If you’ll just stand here, arms out wide, please.” Rudi obliged, flinching at the lady’s use of magic. She’d measured him with a very strange spell, and Rudi did not like the static-electricity shock of it.

“Thank you. Now, if I recall correctly, you’re to wear the colors of your father’s honorary coat of arms somewhere.” The tailoring lady began muttering under her breath, while Rudi tried to remember if his Pa even had a coat of arms. Suddenly, the lady yelled, her tidy, graying hair appearing to loose from its bun. “Genevieve? Do we have orange satin?”

“No, Ma’am!” someone shouted. Where that someone was, Rudi couldn’t discern.

“Then weave some more and dye it! We can’t have Hero Fluss’s son going without orange trim!”

“Can’t, Ma’am!” the Genevieve person replied, “Shep hasn’t delivered the fine wool we use for silkier weaves yet!”

Fuming, the tailor lady hurriedly ushered Rudi out of the tailoring room, the din of yelling and activity dying down behind her. With a gentle push on Rudi’s shoulder, she called for the first girl in line. “Melina, please come with me.” Then, the woman leaned to half-whisper in Rudi’s ears. “You’re to spend the rest of the afternoon in the dormitories studying.”

That sounded pleasant enough to Rudi. Practically skipping, he made his way through the pastel-painted halls of the palace. If Vinnia was occupied, then no one would come into Rudi’s room to bother him while he struggled. No teasing, no hurt feelings. The moment he flung open the door to his room, however, Rudi’s hopes were dashed.

“There you are,” Axel said. His voice had the quivery tone he got whenever Elizabeth was involved. “I need your help with something.”

Slowly, Rudi nodded.

“Oh, thank you,” Axel breathed. His eyes focused on the bare desk against Rudi’s left wall, and he took a few more deep breaths before speaking again. “Well, Elizabeth and I have agreed on our challenge rules. We’ll each get to propose one challenge, and then we’ll have a neutral party, such as a knight or someone, decide on the third.”

Flopping over to lay on Rudi’s bed, Simon continued the story. “Thing is, Rudi, Axel’s worried that Elizabeth’ll pick a knight who’s going to favor her strengths. Your job is to sort of eavesdrop on the knights that start arriving tomorrow so we can get a fair challenge.”

“Sort of eavesdrop?” Rudi asked.

“Yeah. Sort of. You only have to hang around them while you play porter like all the pages do. And don’t worry; Vinnia and I will be in on this too.”

Somehow, Rudi didn’t get the feeling that Elizabeth would try tipping the challenge to her favor. She’d been so generous as to ask Vinnia to judge an Alten challenge before, so why be unfair now? Nonetheless, Rudi agreed to Simon and Axel’s plan.

The next day, Rudi watched in horror as all the hard work he and the other pages had put into cleaning went to waste. Knights tracked in all sorts of dirt and grime, leaving trails of mud and dust on the newly polished floors. Their squires were slightly neater, since they seemed to better remember the effort of scrubbing an entire palace.

As Rudi dragged along the extra suitcase of a knight named Sir Thorsten, he listened to the man ramble on about the wonderful squires he’d seen at that year’s summer boot camp.

“Especially young Jens,” Sir Thorsten boomed, jauntily striding through the halls. Rudi had to jog to keep up with him. “That boy shows such good judgment, and he’s very good at abstaining from telling entire truths. I’m thinking of taking him on as my squire this year, though I’d have to enter the drawing to have a shot at it. Jens would be a lovely spy—just like me!”

Rudi was unsure if he ought to say anything back. He did recognize Jens’s name though; Axel had mentioned him on occasion. As they passed by Vinnia and a honey-haired lady, who were both fussing over a piece of decorative china, Rudi heard Sir Thorsten mention the Tessella fellow.

“Sir Tessella?” Rudi asked, his interest piqued, “Who’s he?”

Contorting his face into one of confusion, Sir Thorsten stroked his black-brown goatee. “I think he’s a new member of the aristocracy? I remember he was only just given his lands, right after the Alten royal family was murdered by myself and Hero Fluss six years ago.”

Eyes widening, Rudi tried to remember if his Pa had ever mentioned that before. A few more steps forward and he realized that his Pa had never told him anything about the Alten royal family, especially not how they died.

Sir Thorsten suddenly stopped in the middle of a yellow-walled hallway. He turned to Rudi, mouth taut with concern. “You can keep what I said about the Alten royal family a secret, right?”

Rudi nodded earnestly.

“Oh good. You kids aren’t supposed to know that old Hero Fluss did the dirty work.” Patting Rudi’s head, Sir Thorsten began walking again, veering left towards an open door. “You may leave the suitcase right outside the door for now,” the knight called as he peered into the room, “Thank you for carrying it here for me.”

After plopping Sir Thorsten’s leather suitcase by the door, Rudi began the long trek back to the entrance hall. By this time, Vinnia and the honey-haired lady had moved on to a vase of dried flowers that, according to Vinnia, only grew in high altitudes.

Once back in the entrance hall, Rudi surveyed the room for a knight to assist. The room was even louder than it had been on the first day of pagehood, and the tapping of feet was so scrambled that everything blended together. In the center of the room, looking regal as a queen, was a lady knight. Everyone gave her a wide berth, though Rudi wasn’t sure why. Curious, he approached her from the front.

“Um, hello?” he said.

The lady knight snapped her gaze to Rudi. Her brown eyes seemed cold and heartless—a perfect match for her meter-stick-straight sun-bleached blonde hair.

“You are the page sent to assist me with my bags?” she asked, sounding very unpleased, “I expected someone older.”

As Rudi debated whether or not to say sorry, the lady knight gestured to a small wagon of things next to her. It was covered by a plain white cloth, but Rudi could plainly see lumps underneath it.

“If you’ll just follow me,” the lady knight said, “I must go see Count Stephan before putting away my things. Don’t worry. I won’t make you climb the stairs with all this.” With that, she set a brisk pace across the entrance hall floor.

Rudi followed her through a blue-walled hallway, admiring the hanging portraits as they went. He didn’t come this way often, as it led to the teachers’ quarters, but when he did come, it was hard not to stop and stare at the elegant whorls carved into the stone near the floor and ceiling.

They stopped at the first door on the left, one that Rudi knew belonged to the count and Lady Fey. With an unexpectedly calloused hand, the lady knight knocked on the door and stepped back to wait patiently.

A few moments later, Count Stephan’s voice rang from behind the white door. “Come in!” he said, “And bring whichever page is with you!”

With the wagon trailing behind him, Rudi followed the lady knight into Count Stephan’s room. It was a nice place, much nicer than the pages’ dorms. Tapestries hung from unplastered stone walls, and open floor space was covered by ornate carpets from Selim.

The count emerged from an adjoining room, a bright smile on his face. “Lady Tamara! Good to see you. I hope the journey wasn’t too rough?”

“It was pleasant enough,” Lady Tamara said. She picked up a glass bowl full of candied fruit from a small decorative table near the door and took one for herself before holding it in front of Rudi. He took a small piece as well, muttering “thank you” before he popped it in his mouth.

Count Stephan seemed amused by the interaction, chuckling for a moment before he continued the conversation. “I’m glad. Now then, how was the place I arranged for you to stay at? I assume it met up to your standards.”

“It did. Although I was caught off-guard by the fact that Ritterlich’s half-Alten spawn wasn’t darting underfoot like she did last time. I still can’t believe he had an affair with an Alten noblewoman while he was spying! He fell head-over-heels for filth!”

Rudi momentarily stopped chewing on his candied apple. Was she talking about Vinnia?

“I’ll have you know,” the count said, seething through his teeth, “that Ritterlich’s spawn is here at this palace, learning to be a lady knight. If you can’t teach one or two Alten students, then I might as well send you back to Altland to spy on the ‘filth’, as you called them.”

(Author's note: 'Shep' is hyperlinked as it is part of a challenge to reference fellow competitors in Tenyo's LMS contest.)