Venture
Untamed
by R.H. Russell
Smashwords Edition
This electronic edition Copyright 2011, R.H. Russell
Original Copyright 2005
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For J.,
My Champion
Venture Unleashed, CHAPTER ONE
Venture Unleashed, CHAPTER TWO
Part One
Twin Rivers, Richland, 648 after the Founding
Venture knew enough about death. Enough to recognize the distinctive coldness, the terrifying stillness. His master rushed into the room, to Venture’s mother’s bedside. Venture looked up, and what he saw in Grant Fieldstone’s eyes brought a fresh cry to his aching throat. Master Fieldstone flung his candle onto the bedside table, causing its pewter base to wobble. Hot beeswax spattered over his hand. He grabbed Venture roughly under the arms and hoisted him aside.
“Jade!” Master said. “Wake your grandmother. Tell her to send for the healer. Wake everyone. Hurry!”
The next moments may have been minutes or hours, for time meant nothing to Venture in the blur of whispers, shadows, and candlelight. He huddled in a corner watching and yet not watching, his tears falling steady and silent while Jade leaned on him and held his clenched hand in both of hers. She nervously unfolded his fingers, rubbed them flat.
Master, still in his rumpled nightshirt, motioned Jade’s grandmother to take her.
“But I want to stay here with Vent.” Jade squeezed his hand with a strength that made him feel the pain of her love for him.
His own hand was limp, his body too separated from what was going on to move, to do what he wanted it to do, but his heart squeezed back, pleaded, Don’t go, Jadie. You’re keeping me here.
“Come with me now, dear, just for a moment,” Mistress Rose Fieldstone said to her granddaughter. In a low whisper she added, as though he couldn’t hear, “Come now, Jade, be good and calm. Don’t upset Venture.”
Jade’s fingers slowly loosened. He couldn’t say her name. Look at me, Jadie, his heart begged, for he knew that if she did, his eyes would pull her back. But she looked away to hide her tears.
Mistress led her away, and the emptiness, the sheer aloneness, swelled and swelled. Master knelt down in front of him, and it grew so that he thought he might never breathe again; it pounded in his head so that he almost didn’t hear him whisper, “Venture, I’m so sorry. There’s nothing we can do. Your mother has died. Venture?”
Venture’s head lolled to the side, then jerked back up. Someone was shaking him. He gasped, eyes flashing open.
“Venture!”
“There now, Vent. Come here.” Though she struggled with his size, Mrs. Bright, the cook, scooped him up as if he were a baby and not a very big eight-year-old boy. She sat down with him in her lap, in the plain wooden chair next to his mother’s bedside table. “Breathe in and out. Just keep breathing in and out.”
He breathed in and out and he watched Master pace the room, his hands held to his head.
“He’s all right, sir. He was just holding his breath.”
“He was blue. He was so blue,” Master said almost to himself, his voice faltering.
“I’ll watch him tonight, sir.”
“Vent,” Master said, “promise me you won’t do that again. We all care for you. I care for you, and I would be pleased to keep you in my house. We’re going to take care of you. And Miss Jadie, she wants to know that you’re okay. And your brother, Justice. He’s been sent for already. Won’t he want to find you safe?”
Venture nodded numbly.
Master carried his mother’s body downstairs himself, and Mistress Rose put Jade back to bed, then went to help supervise the care of the body.
When Venture was alone with Mrs. Bright, she pulled something out of the deep pocket of her robe—a small, simple shape carved out of wood, worn smooth with age, pierced and strung with a thin black ribbon. It was his mother’s; he’d never seen her without this symbol of the Faith of Atran. He bowed his head and, without a word, she slipped it onto him. Mrs. Bright wiped a tear from her cheek, put him in his bed, covered him snugly, and patted his hair.
“Vent, are you wanting anything?”
“Jade.” His lips barely moved. It was so hard to make them move.
“I’ll get her. Don’t you worry.”
In a moment Jade was there, diving onto the mattress beside him, plunging her little feet under the covers, wiggling her toes against his legs. She still smelled of the rose water bath his mother had given her hours before.
“He wants me to stay with him. Don’t you, Vent?”
“You stay as long as he wants you.”
“Grandmother won’t like it. She’ll be angry with you.”
Young ladies of Richland did not sleep on the floor as even the princesses did in barbaric Trytlo, and they certainly did not sleep next to little servant boys.
“Master won’t mind. He’s worried sick about Vent.”
“Tell him I’m sorry. I just forgot to breathe.”
“I know, Vent,” Mrs. Bright said. “I’ll tell him. No one’s mad at you.”
Mrs. Bright settled onto the floor in the corner, drew a blanket over her round shoulders, and stared into her lap.
Under the blankets, Jade’s hand found Venture’s, and he held it tight this time. She cried quietly against his shoulder for a long while. Cried for his mother and for hers, until her breathing slowed and her hand relaxed in his, and he knew that she was asleep.
From the corner, Mrs. Bright began to hum a song his mother had often sung to him and Jade, a song about the God of the Faith of Atran, a song about love. He squeezed his mother’s little wooden pendant in his free hand. She had always told him that God had a reason for everything, that he was always with him. God be with you. That’s what she’d said as she tucked him in. His mother loved her maker. Maybe that was how she knew that God was with him. Maybe that was why God had been with him. Now that she was gone—now what?
As he lay there in the endless hours of darkness, Venture had his own words for God. I’m mad at you. I think I even hate you. But don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me all alone.
Spring’s First Month, 652 after the Founding
Venture plopped his pen carelessly into the ink pot and eyed the heavy oak book cabinet, by far the dominant piece of furniture in Mistress Rose’s study. Could he reach the top of it yet? It was taller than Master, but Venture was tall for eleven, growing every day.
Jade kicked him under the table, her usual method of prompting him to get his eyes and his mind back on his work. He’d managed to finish his morning chores on time, even with her yapping in his ear all the while, and now it was time for their lessons. Jade was busy writing a comparison of Atranian and Richlandian government, an assignment Venture had finished yesterday—only Mistress Rose refused to read it until he copied it over. All she’d commented on was his penmanship—Abominable! Indecipherable scrawlings! At this rate he’d never find out what she thought of his ideas or how he’d articulated them, for every attempt at penning them neatly looked more blotchy and tangled than the last. So much for spring and the fresh start Jade had made him promise to attempt. It was only a few weeks into the new year, and he wished he could start it over again.
Venture kicked the pile of crumpled-up failures that littered the floor around his chair, got up, stood at the end of the book cabinet, and extended his arms. He grabbed the top of the cabinet, no problem. When he stood on tiptoe, he could even curl his fingers all the way over the molding along the top. He smiled to himself, then glanced at Jade. She shot him a reproachful look, took a stained rag from his place at the table, and made a show of blotting the ink he’d splashed around the pot.
He gripped tighter and started to do a pull-up.
“Vent! Get down from there! Grandmother will be back any minute.”
“How many do you think I can do?”
He pulled harder, until his chin was all the way up and he was inhaling the thick layer of dust that coated the top of the book cabinet. He sneezed violently, and the cabinet began to tip. He tried to shift his weight, to tilt it back, but it was too late. He threw himself backward in the air and yelled a desperate warning to Jade as the cabinet crashed down over the study table where she was sitting, shattering the legs and crushing it flat, to the floor. The walls shook. Books flew and wood split, then groaned and settled.
“Jade!” Venture scrambled to his feet, ready to dig her out of the wreckage.
“I’m here, Vent,” she said weakly. She stood just clear of the mess, ashen-faced but unscathed.
“Venture Delving!” Mistress’s voice was shaky, frighteningly quiet, her hands braced against the open doorway as though she needed it to hold her up after the shock.
Jade looked at her grandmother, then back at Venture with that expression of utter disappointment in him that made him feel like he’d shrunk to almost nothing.
“Pull-ups on the book cabinet?”
Venture blinked at Mistress. Oh, God. She’d seen that. She’d seen enough to know that it was entirely his fault, that it was absolutely inexcusable. It wasn’t the first time he’d broken a seemingly unbreakable piece of furniture, but it was the first time he’d nearly killed the only heir to the Fieldstone fortune—and his best friend—Jade.
“I’m sorry. I’ll—I’ll clean it up.”
Several of the other servants ran in to see what the commotion was, and Venture felt even smaller.
“No,” Mistress said. “Just go.”
Go? Go where? Venture felt a deeper pang of panic. This was it. They were going to get rid of him now. His brother, Justice was in Calm Harbor, trying to finish his apprenticeship. He couldn’t take him on, even if he had the means to compensate his master for him. But Grant Fieldstone could sell his contract, or at least send him to the orphans’ home until he was old enough to be more useful. Until someone else had beaten some sense into him.
Mistress wouldn’t even look at him now, and Jade’s face had the sort of crinkle to it that threatened to turn into a full-blown crumple.
Able, the quiet, thirty-something servant Venture had been rooming with since his mother died, hurried forward and took Venture by the elbow. “I got some errands in town,” he said. “I could use Vent’s help.”
Mistress nodded. Looking at Able, not Venture, she said stonily, “Grant and I will deal with this when he gets home this afternoon.”
Able had gone into the blacksmith’s, but Venture, in no mood to be sociable, paced outside, hands in his pockets, eyes on his boots, thinking about what was going to happen when Master came home. Maybe he’d finally take a willow switch to him. Make him sting. Dad would’ve beat the snot out of him, and not with a switch. He’d done so for far less.
Venture was too absorbed in contemplating his grim future to notice another boy approaching, until he stumbled right into him. Venture caught his arm to steady him and was about to advise him to watch where he was going, when he felt a hand slide into the inside pocket of his open jacket. Venture grabbed him at the wrist, just above the offending hand, and held him out far enough to punch him in the face.
The street kid yelped, wrenched away, and took off with his fist full of a very important piece of paper. Venture sprinted after him, caught him by the arm, and shoved him into the stone wall.
“Give it back,” he said through gritted teeth. “It’s no use to you.”
“Oh, I think I can find a use for a nice bank note.”
Venture was on him, trying to hold him down with one hand and take swings with the other—he’d get the paper back after he punished him—when a hand, wiry and tough from decades of servants’ labor, gripped him around the neck. Able.
“Venture Delving!”
“He took my papers.”
The alley rat scowled his disappointment at the revelation that he hadn’t gotten hold of anything valuable after all, then quickly turned the expression into a sneer. He flapped the pages open and pretended to read. “Venture—” He paused to recall the rest of the name Able had just pronounced. “Delving—is hereby declared a bonded boot-licker.”
Able snatched the letter giving Venture permission to be in town without his master from the kid’s grimy hand, at the same time anticipating Venture’s reaction and tightening his grip on his neck.
“Vent! He ain’t worth it. He’s mad ’cause he don’t belong to no one. Don’t have no one.”
Venture didn’t care why even a kid who’d either been born in the gutter or escaped the orphan’s home in order to live on rot and rubbish and thievery thought he was better than him, just because he was a bonded servant. Venture didn’t care that he was bonded. But nobody called Venture Delving a boot-licker and got away with it. Venture tried to twist free and pull his arm back to take another swing at the rat, but in the struggle, as he drew his arm back, his elbow struck something, hard.
Able’s face. Able gave a startled cry, then shoved Venture roughly against the wall of the smithy. The rat laughed. Venture sagged against the wall, staring at Able’s lip. It was busted wide open.
“Get!” Able shouted, spattering the boys with blood. “Before I call the lawmen on you!”
The kid scuttled away, hocking up a blob of phlegm and spitting at Able over his shoulder.
Able sidestepped the wad of spit. He wiped at his lip with his sleeve, but it was really gushing. Venture fumbled in his coat pocket for a handkerchief and offered it to Able, who snatched it and pressed it to his swelling mouth.
“Let’s go,” he said, quaking with anger. “People are watching.”
Venture glanced at a well-dressed woman, who clutched her little daughter closer to her side and veered away.
“I’m sorry. I—”
“Shut up! You just shut up and listen to me, Vent.”
Venture stopped talking. Able had never spoken to him like that, but then he’d never split his lip wide open either.
Able shoved the papers back at him. “Master would’ve wrote you another one and you know it. You got no idea how good you got it, belonging to Grant Fieldstone.”
He certainly did know, but Venture knew better than to say it. There was no one he admired more than Grant Fieldstone, who’d risked what was left of his family’s dwindling fortune years ago in order to build it back up; Grant had shocked his peers and gone against his mother’s wishes and sold off much of the family land. Now they had just enough fields and livestock to feed the household, just enough woodland to enjoy a good hunt. And Grant Fieldstone had three successful luxury resorts, in key locations around the Western Quarter, businesses he’d conceived and built up himself.
But that wasn’t what Able meant. Able was a free servant who’d come to the household about four years ago. While Grant Fieldstone managed his household and his business with an uncommon combination of shrewdness and compassion, Able’s previous master had been pretty bad, and the one before that, when he was a bonded boy like Venture, waiting to turn nineteen so he could be free to go elsewhere, had such an effect on Able that to this day he couldn’t bear even to utter the man’s name.
“You go around acting like a ruffian, and people find out who you are—you’re tarnishing a good man’s name.”
Venture rubbed his chafed knuckles. “What about my name?”
Able shook his head at him, then turned his back. Venture followed, steaming mad at Able, at the street kid, but mostly at himself.
“He’s going to see my face,” Able said, still without looking at him. “I got to tell him. And then what’s he going to do with you?”
Venture crouched outside the door to Master’s office. He’d taken off his noisy boots and now he dug his bare toes into the fine woolen rug and braced his palm against the plastered stone wall in order to lean his ear closer to the door without casting a shadow they’d see through the crack underneath it. Jade crept over to him and put her hand on his, but he jerked it away.
“Vent,” she whispered. “You have to stop.” She rubbed her dainty, freckled nose and sniffed back a growing sob.
“Let them send me away if that’s what they want.” He was nothing but trouble now. Nothing but shame to his mother’s memory. When he was little, he used to cause the sort of trouble that made Master laugh, but now he was half grown and squandering his opportunity for an education—the very thing his father had died trying to provide for him. Somewhere in the heavens the God of Atran was surely frowning down on him.
“They can’t,” Jade said, but she knew very well that they could. That anyone else would have, long ago.
From the other side of the door, Master said, “I’m not going to work him all day. He’s just a boy! You know I only contracted him for his mother’s sake.”
The grandson of bondsmen, but the son of free parents, at six years old, Venture had become what they’d all worked so hard for him not to be—bonded. His mother had signed a contract pledging her service to Grant Fieldstone for the rest of her life, and Venture’s until he was nineteen, in exchange for the provision of all their physical needs. Prone to chest pains she tried to hide from her boys, she had chosen this for herself and Venture. Grant had interviewed her at the resort he owned in their hometown of Calm Harbor, and brought them back home to Twin Rivers with him—a nurse and a playmate for his daughter.
“Yes,” said Mistress Rose, “and he’s the only child in this house, besides Jade. You must consider the effect he has on her.”
Venture’s face burned, and he buried it in his sleeve. It was stained with ink and blood and street grime.
“Grant, I’ve tried. I’ve done all I can do.”
“You know,” he said gently, “how much his mother would appreciate what you’re doing. Tutoring him right alongside Jade.”
“I know you hoped it would occupy him, tame him somehow. But what good is that break with custom really doing him? He’s impulsive. Reckless. And now, brawling like a street boy! This is the second fight in as many months.”
“It would only be worse otherwise.”
“Worse! Stop making excuses for him—for both of them—and start being his master.”
There was an unintelligible mumble from Master. Then Mistress replied softly, “You’ve let yourself get too attached to him. The widow Ratchet could give you a fine son. When are you going to let Jewel go?”
The last sentence was barely above a whisper, but Jade startled at the sound of her mother’s name, and her pale green eyes filled with new tears. Venture reached for her hand, and she rubbed her fingers between his the way she always did when she was anxious.
Mistress’s voice had risen again, in response to some remark Venture had missed. “Teaching them all to read a bit is one thing, but educating Venture as though he were a man of Society is going too far. And it hasn’t taught him how to behave like a proper young man, let alone a proper servant!”
“It’s only right to teach a boy that bright, no matter what the Cresteds think. Who are they to judge anyone’s potential? Every privilege they hold comes from ancestors dead and turned to dust hundreds of years ago.”
“They’ll judge whether you like it or not. Venture is getting older. More noticeable. If it gets out, what I’ve been doing—and him a troublemaker, too—the Fieldstone name will be ruined.”
Jade squeezed his hand through the long silence that followed. She smelled like warm bread and honey, not like sweat and street filth.
“Vent,” she whispered at last, “You can’t leave.”
He pulled her head onto his shoulder and kissed her hair. He was a selfish idiot. Why couldn’t he have stayed out of trouble, at least for her? It might be too late for him to do anything about that now, but— “I’ll come back,” he said, “even if I can’t ’til I’m grown.”
“I’ll be too old then. Married and long gone.”
“I guess I’ll have to make sure I’m in time to marry you first, then.”
She laughed softly and looked up at him. “Promise?”
As he opened his mouth to answer, Mrs. Bright appeared in the corridor, and Jade jolted upright.
“Aren’t you in enough trouble, Vent, without getting caught eavesdropping, too?” Mrs. Bright whispered fiercely. “Mistress Jade, you get that boy out of here this instant if you care for him at all!”
Jade scrambled to her feet, tugging Venture along with her. He barely had time to grab his boots as she pulled him away.
Venture lunged past the boulder he and Jade had made their finish line and slowed to a stop. “I win!”
She knew he needed to burn off some of what was raging inside him, so she’d challenged him to a race.
“One more time,” Jade insisted.
“Sure.”
He kicked a loose stone from the cobbled driveway to the Big House, as everyone called the Fieldstone mansion. A three-story sandstone with arched windows and doorways, it sprawled over the hill in such a way as not to loom over, but to nestle in its natural beauty. Inside, Rose and Grant Fieldstone were still arguing. Venture felt the throbbing start again, that thing inside him that kept swelling up, threatening to eat him up, and he broke into a run.
“Don’t wear yourself out! I’m going to dust you this time!” Jade called.
Venture forced out a laugh. He stopped at the front walk and waited for her to get back to the starting line. She was taking her sweet time, picking little blue bits off the grape hyacinths along the way. Pretending she wasn’t tired.
She frowned and rubbed at her nose. “I might not be as fast as you, but I know I can outlast you. What we need is a longer distance.”
“Like what?”
“Down the road, all the way to the bend and back.”
“That’s halfway to town!”
“I know.” Jade tossed her blond hair back with a smirk. “You’ll never make it. Too bad.”
“All right, let’s do it then. Just don’t expect me to carry you back up the hill when your legs give out.”
She gave him a shove and gathered the long waves of her hair together at the nape of her neck, then took a bit of cord she kept around her wrist and tightened it around it. “Let’s go.”
“Aren’t you going to get some shoes first?”
Her plain blue linen dress belied her status, as did its dusty calf-length hem and her dustier bare feet, their soles so thickened by long, shoeless days that they didn’t mind hard, stony earth. She looked more common than he did.
“You know perfectly well my shoes are useless, and I don’t have time for riding boots. You might lose your nerve if I take too long.”
Venture rolled his eyes. He pulled off his sweater and tossed it onto the boulder, next to her cloak.
It had been dry, but not particularly sunny this first week of the new year, and the dirt road was hard and cool. He kept a steady pace right beside Jade. It was a long way, and he was breathless and sweaty by the time the bend came into view. He caught Jade eyeing him, measuring him up, and he gave her a confident smile. Her cheeks were bright red and her smile looked more like a grimace. She stuck her tongue out at him and he let her sprint ahead. She was only ten and it took two of her strides to match one of his.
He could see the valley below, where the Swift and the Sweet Rivers met. Twin Rivers Town had grown from a village into an important center of trade and transport, filling that valley. In Twin Rivers goods were brought in and sent out by keelboat, and the vessels of the locals, from little two-man rowboats to elaborate pleasure boats, lingered on the riverbanks. From downtown a cobblestone street narrowed into a dirt road and threaded its way up a green hillside to the Fieldstone family property.
The blue-gray of the sky was deepening and Venture’s stomach was aching for supper. Going back uphill was going to wear him out, but it was going to kill her. He’d be lucky to drag her back home before dark, and then he’d be in even more trouble. Unless Master already had Able packing his things for him.
Venture pushed out a burst of speed and reached out to grab the back of Jade’s dress and pull her back a step.
“Ha! Now who’s ahead?”
“Let go!”
He did, and she fell right on her rear. Venture collapsed next to her, laughing. When he looked up, they weren’t alone. Three older boys, about thirteen or fourteen, skulked around the bend. They glanced from Jade and him to each other and smiled the sort of smiles that weren’t really smiles at all.
Venture stood up quick and, without taking his eyes off them, held out a hand to help Jade up. He didn’t like the looks of them, but Jade didn’t seem to notice. She was still laughing as she brushed off her skirt, still calling him a dirty cheater. Once she was on her feet, she moved to pull her hand away, but he squeezed it hard.
He gave the boys a polite nod and whispered to Jade, “Let’s walk back.”
She glanced from him to the boys and nodded. They looked like the drifters that stowed away on barges and popped up around the river. What would bring them up the hillside, unless they were looking for trouble? Livestock and tools to steal. He’d warn Master about them, make sure the outbuildings were locked tonight.
He and Jade turned to head back up the hill, and the boys split up. One moved swiftly behind them, the other two in front, between them and the way home.
“I don’t know.” One of them shoved his hands into too-big pockets. “She’s pretty enough, but she’s still a scrawny little thing.”
“You take care of him, then. We’ll take care of her.”
Before he could think, Jade pulled away from Venture and broke into a run, but one of the boys caught her arm, twisting it so that she cried out. Venture tried to run after her, but a shock of pain stopped him mid-step as knuckles slammed into the base of his back. A hand grabbed the back of his collar, and he felt a hot, reeking breath of laughter on his neck.
“Get your hands off me,” Jade screamed. “What are you—stop! Vent! Please!”
Venture pivoted around and buried a fist in the older boy’s gut and he doubled over, but as he tried to run for Jade again, the boy recovered and kicked his feet out from underneath him, sending him sprawling onto the road. Venture scrambled on the ground, trying to stand, but the boy kicked him in the side and called out to the others, “Help me out here. This one wants to fight.”
“Does he?” Another of the boys joined him and shoved Venture back down into the biting rock and dirt as soon as he found his feet.
Every time he got up, they punished him for it with a fist or a foot. But worse than the pounding of their blows, than the taste of the dirt and the blood in his mouth, was the sting of Jade’s screams.
“Stay down,” one of the boys told him, “and it’ll be over soon enough. You and your little friend can go on your way and we’ll go on ours.”
“No!” Venture screamed. “No!”
Someone shoved his face back into the dirt. When he lifted it, there was his mother’s pendant, lying on the ground beside him, the ribbon snapped. He scraped it into his fist along with a clump of dirt. He hurt like he never had in all his life, but he hated those boys even more. With his eye swelling shut and his head spinning, he rose and took a swing at the closest boy, the pendant pressing into his hand.
“I’m going to kill you! You hurt her, and I’m going to kill you!”
He missed, and all three boys laughed.
The boy who had Jade let go of her arms. “Let me have a crack at him.”
Run, Jade, Venture wanted to say. Please. Just run. But he didn’t dare call their attention back to her. He cursed at the boys instead, swung wildly, and managed to make contact with one of their noses, but then he took a boot right in the gut for it. He had to get up before they noticed her again. Had to. He breathed in dirt and he coughed it out and he kept getting up, and they kept pounding on him.
Then one of them said, “Hey! She’s gone!”
“Never mind her. Let’s finish him.”
Thank God, she’d gotten away, disappeared into the roadside brush. He imagined her slipping through the weeds and into the trees, soundless and quick like the rabbits she liked to help him track. When the time was right, she’d get up and run, taking the shortcut home.
But he was still here, still breathing dirt, still going to die with the pounding of their fists and the roaring of their laughter like the throbbing triumph of darkness itself in his ears. Even the ground shook with their blows—no, that wasn’t it. It was the pounding of hooves. Someone was coming.
The boys backed away, and he rose again with renewed fury, spat out a mouthful of grit and blood, and hurled himself at them, screaming and swinging.
Venture had never thought he’d be standing here, on the front steps of Beamer’s Center, that his master would bring him here. But things were different now. His hand went to his arm, and he felt a phantom flash of pain, though it was healed well enough. It had been nearly six months since it had been broken, along with several of his ribs. But Jade had gotten away in time, before they could do what they wanted with her, and now those boys were rotting in the lockup.
“Listen to me, Vent.” Master rested a steady hand on his shoulder.
Venture tried to listen, tried not to attempt to peer through the fogged-up windows instead. The windows were high up on the walls, right up under the eaves, presumably so that no one would go crashing through them. This complex of plastered stone buildings and wooden add-ons was the best center for training boys in the fighting arts in all of Richland. Vale Beamer, the center’s director and head coach, even had a female instructor at the center to teach girls self-defense and swordplay, and Jade had started taking lessons here shortly after the attack.
“This isn’t just about what happened to you and Jade. It isn’t just about you learning how to fight.”
Venture shoved his hands into his pockets and lowered his head. “It’s about me messing up all the time, isn’t it, sir?”
Master pulled him in closer, against his fine linen shirt, just for a second. And just for a second, Venture allowed himself to imagine that it was coarse, homespun wool. Master had hugged him, really hugged him, after he and the other men had chased down those boys who’d attacked him and Jade. Hugged him like he was a son and not a servant.
“It’s about what’s going on with you, yes.” Master pulled away a bit. “It’s either this, or . . .”
Master’s hand left his shoulder. Venture looked back at him and watched him rub at his temples. He seemed to do that a lot lately.
“This needs to work out.”
Work out? How could bringing him here possibly work out? He wanted to learn to fight properly more than anything now, but this was crazy.
“I know you’ve heard things about Vale Beamer.”
Venture had heard that he’d been Champion of All Richland back in 632 and again in Thirty-Five. What would a great fighter like him want with an out-of-line bonded boy, other than to remind him that his place was elsewhere? Had Master told him about the things he’d done? Did Beamer enjoy beating the trouble out of troublemakers?
“The other boys might not make this easy for you, but Beamer is a fair man, and you’re strong. And there are no Cresteds in there.” He pointed to the heavy wooden doors, painted bright red. “There never will be, because they think they’re above it. Do you know what that means?”
Of course Cresteds would never stoop to come here. They were the descendants of renowned warriors, called Crested for the family emblems their ancestors had marked themselves and their men with in the Wartimes. They now held the highest positions of power in Richland. The Cresteds had training rooms in their homes, and practiced their fighting arts there, away from the unworthy eyes of the common.
“I don’t know, sir,” Venture replied.
A muffled bang came from the building. Venture glanced at the windows again, but could make nothing out. There may not be any Cresteds in there, but there certainly weren’t any bondsmen either. Surely Master knew better than to expect anyone to want to teach him how to fight.
“Beamer only cares what you can do. He’s not like the others. It’s a different world in there, as much as he can make it. He’s agreed to give you a try, but only you can convince him to keep you here.” Master’s eyes filled with something that could be desperation, that could be hope. “It’s the last thing I can think of to do for you.”
He led Venture inside, into the foyer, and through another door, whose window was clouded over with steam. A dark-haired, sinewy teenage boy whose clothes clung to him with sweat shut it behind them.
He shook Master’s hand and said his name was Earnest Goodview. “So this is Venture. Beamer’s expecting you.”
The plastered walls of the training room, stained with the greasy marks of sweaty bodies that had brushed and slammed against them, were marked here and there with blood-brown smudges. Except for a narrow strip of wooden planks, the floor of the long room was covered in canvas-covered straw mats, and those mats were covered with boys, right around Venture’s age, some on their feet, some on the ground, all in pairs, grappling, struggling to gain the upper hand. The room throbbed with their energy, with effort and impact, with frustration and victory.
Earnest raised his hand and caught the eye of a massive figure on the other end of the training room. He turned his close-cropped, graying head in their direction and raised a hand back before working his way toward them. Vale Beamer. As he walked, a short reed whistle, hanging around his neck by a leather cord, swung against Beamer’s chest.
Venture bowed, but after Beamer shook Master’s hand, he held it out to Venture too. It was big and gnarled and heavy around Venture’s fingers, and his face was so unreadable as he looked him up and down that it was all he could do to make himself stand tall, to not squirm under his gaze.
Earnest took him to a changing room and outfitted him in the same lightweight shorts and shirt as the other boys.
“This your idea or your Dad’s?”
“Huh?”
“We get a lot of boys coming in here because their fathers have some sort of idea in their heads. Hardly ever works out the way they expect.”
“Oh.” Venture’s face grew hotter. “He’s not my dad.”
Earnest squinted at him for a moment, and Venture was afraid he was going to have to explain, but then he shrugged and said, “Well, you’re your own man in here, either way. You have to be.”
On their way back, they passed another room, also with a little window in its door. The same sort of noise was coming from there as from the other training room. Venture wiped the glass with his forearm to get a quick peek before Earnest noticed. There were bigger boys in there, about fifteen years old, fighting with an even higher level of sophistication and intensity.
“You want to be a prize fighter?” Earnest said.
Venture jumped and pulled back from the window. “Me?”
Venture’s stomach did a little flop. Was it that obvious? He’d always wanted to be a professional fighter, and when he was little he used to really think he could be one. There were fighting styles in which points were awarded for using one technique or another, but no one could make a career of point-fighting. The awards were a pittance compared to the winnings of the absolute professional fighter, the prize fighter. There were no points in absolute fighting. In these fights to the surrender, nearly anything was allowed, though the only weapons used were the mind, the might, the skill, and the will of the man. Venture had often thought he might grow to have more of each of those attributes than any other man, that he could become the best fighter in the world, the Champion of All Richland. Sometimes he still dared to think it, even though now he knew that it was impossible.
Prize fighting was the last thing he should be contemplating now. He shouldn’t be watching these older boys, these future prize fighters. He shouldn’t be here at all. That’s what his brother Justice would say. But you’re not my Dad, Justice. The lump formed in Venture’s throat almost too quickly for him to stop it. But he was good at stopping it.
“Why not?” The expression in Earnest’s deep brown eyes seemed to reflect exactly what Venture was feeling. “You’ve got the build for it,” he said with a sad smile. “By the time you’re my age, you’ll be big like those guys, the elite boys. You’ll be getting ready to move on to Champions Center like them. To train with the best prize fighters in the country.”
“Is that where you’re going?”
“No. I’m too small. Looks like I’m going to stay that way.” Earnest shrugged and gestured for Venture to follow him back to the training room. “But maybe I’ll get to be one of their trainers one day.”
Venture entered the training room again and joined the boys his age, not aspiring prize fighters—yet. Boys too young to choose a career, learning to fight for fun. They put an opponent in front of him, just like the others, only unlike the others, Venture had had no instruction, and he had Vale Beamer watching him, and his master, too.
Lance, a lanky boy just his size, but about a year older, shook Venture’s hand and gave him an appraising look. The whistle blew, sharp and clear. Lance ducked under Venture’s arms and picked him up off his feet and slammed him to the mat. Venture’s body rattled against the firm straw and his palms scraped painfully over the rough canvas as he tried to prevent himself from falling. Lance let him up, only to sweep him to the mat with his feet. Venture got up again and tried to nail him with a right jab, but Lance was too quick; his fist met Venture’s eye instead, and he took Venture down again before he could even think.
From the matside, Earnest said quietly, “Come on, Lance, it’s his first day.”
Lance shrugged apologetically, and Venture shot back up to his feet, grabbed Lance’s legs, and pulled them out from underneath him, sending him to the mat this time. He took a swing at Lance while he had the chance, and his knuckles connected with Lance’s cheek with a satisfying burst of pain. But Lance, more accustomed to having his face bruised than Venture was to smashing his knuckles, blocked the next swing. Using his feet to lift Venture’s body and sitting up at the same time, he reversed their position so that he was on top. Lance’s left arm was under his neck; his right was under Venture’s left. Venture couldn’t move. Lance let go his right and pulled it back, as though to get another punch in, but he just tapped Venture’s cheek playfully.
“Hey. Calm down.” Lance stood and held his hand out.
Seeing that Lance’s smile was nothing but friendly, Venture grudgingly allowed him to help him up.
“You weren’t supposed to bust your hand,” Earnest said.
“Not on my face, anyway.” Lance rubbed the red spot on his cheekbone. “We’re not supposed to make contact, not like that.”
Venture blinked his watery eye. It stung, but mostly, he realized, because Lance had inadvertently scraped it. His knuckles were red and his hand was throbbing.
“Do this,” Earnest said, opening and closing his fist.
Venture did. He shrugged as though it didn’t hurt.
“Can we keep going?” Venture dared to look Beamer in the face. “I want to try again—please.”
“You’re not done, Delving,” Beamer said. Beside him, Master had that half-smile on his face, the one that meant that Venture had surprised him, impressed him.
This time, Beamer said, “Look at your opponent, but listen to me.”
Venture did. He focused on what was going on on the mat, right now, and nothing else. There was just him and Lance, and Beamer’s voice warning him, advising him, correcting him. And every time he managed to do what Beamer said, it worked. Sometimes he did something all on his own, without thinking, because his body knew that was what he should do, only it didn’t work. But Beamer said, “That’s good. Again. Try it again,” and eventually, it did work.
Lance stepped it up a notch and got him back, harder and harder. Venture didn’t mind the pain of those falls, the kicks to his shins, the half-strength jabs, because everything else was gone. The only thing in his head was this puzzle that he was working out bit by bit. Now he saw how every time Lance stepped forward with his right foot and leaned just so, he was going to grab him around the head. Now he could block it, at least some of the time. It made sense. He realized that it would make more sense the more he worked at it, and he wanted to work at it; he wanted to master it. Wanted the rough canvas under his feet and the sweat in his eyes and blows to dodge.
And then Lance picked him up around the waist and lifted him up in the air, tilting him to the side and jumping a little to give the throw more power and height before he came crashing down on top of him. Lance’s head slammed right into Venture’s chest, burying him into the mat. Venture tried to breathe, but the breath wouldn’t come.
Lance got up, swearing and apologizing.
Earnest hurried over. “You just got the wind knocked out of you,” he said. “You’ll be all right.”
Venture made himself stand up. He didn’t feel all right. He didn’t feel like he’d ever breathe normally again.
Beamer blew the whistle, and all the boys stopped. “Delving,” he said. “That’s enough.”
Venture willed the burning color from his face, to no avail. He couldn’t look at Beamer, at Master. Lance found another partner and Beamer blew the whistle again. All around him, boys began another round without him. Vale Beamer, one of the best coaches in Richland, had actually tried to teach him something, and still, he’d merely managed to embarrass himself, to let everyone down, again.
“Delving,” Beamer said sternly. “Are you listening to me?”
“Sir? I’m sorry. I’m listening.”
“So I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”
Venture allowed that to sink in, let the smile spread across his face. “Thank you, sir.” He held out his hand, and Beamer looked at it, and Venture momentarily reconsidered whether he should’ve done that, whether he was being presumptuous, and he began to pull it back and to bow instead, but Beamer grabbed it and shook it.
Master thanked Beamer, then squeezed Venture’s shoulder as they left the matside. “It’s just for a while,” he said. “Until you’re ready to train for a career. I don’t know exactly what your mother wanted for you when—when things were different. Before she came to us. But I promised her I would do whatever I could for your future.”
“Yes, sir.” Venture didn’t care about his future. He only cared that he was coming back here, tomorrow. That tomorrow, he could be a fighter.
Venture’s hand tightened on the leather shoulder strap of his bag as he neared Beamer’s Center for his first real practice. Many boys with hopes of becoming guards, warriors, lawmen, or fighters boarded at Beamer’s, choosing to train here rather than at a less reputable center closer to home. A handful of them were running in and out of the dormitory, shouting and tossing a ball around the surrounding lawn.
On the path ahead of him, several boys his age laughed and shoved each other toward the red doors of the center. He quietly followed them inside. In the foyer, some of them stopped at the shrine to Heval, the Trytlon god of war, and kissed it before entering the training room. The bronze head of the mountain lion, mounted on the chest-high stone pillar, stared at Venture disapprovingly.
He hesitated, watching the others enter the training room. The training room door swished shut behind the other boys, right in his face, and he jumped back. Then, feeling like an idiot, he gave Heval an irreverent shove and went to peer through the small leaded window pane set into the door. Earnest had told him most of the boys wore their workout clothes under their street clothes, and only used the changing room to change out of them and clean up when they were done. It was true; a couple dozen boys were pulling off boots and peeling away extra layers matside.
“What kind of game is Grant Fieldstone playing at, sending you here?”
Venture jumped again. It was Border, the son of Grant Fieldstone’s former business acquaintance, Representative of Springriver County Grover Wisecarver. Venture thought he’d recognized his thick shock of straight dark hair and his smug smirk here yesterday. And clearly Border recognized him, though Venture hadn’t gone near the Wisecarvers since he’d gotten into what Mrs. Bright had tried to reassure Master was “just a scuffle” with Wisecarver’s servant boy while they were visiting the Big House last year.
“What’s the matter, Border? Afraid to find out what he can do to you?”
Lance. Venture smiled cautiously.
“He’s a bondsman,” Border said.
Lance looked from Border to Venture expectantly, as though waiting for Venture to deny it. And for the first time in his life, he wished he could. He’d always been proud to serve Grant Fieldstone, but now, here . . .
“Why should I be afraid of him?” Border stuck his chin out. “You can’t get any lower than that.”
Venture was about to show Border just how low he could bring him, but Lance stepped in front of him.
“You should be.” Lance folded his arms and nodded at Venture. “He’s going to be good. He’ll be thrashing you in no time, which is fine with me. I’m getting tired of having to do it myself all the time. Come on, Venture. Beamer’s putting you in my group.”
Part of Venture wanted to smile, part of him wanted to thrash Border right now, and the rest of him was queasy at the thought that Lance could be wrong, that he could fail to live up to everyone’s expectations, his own most of all. So he just straightened his shoulders and turned his back on the seething Border and followed Lance.
“Your group?” He asked.
“Well, Earnest’s group. He’s in charge of me, Pike, Nick, Colt, and now you. Watch out for Colt.” He nodded subtly toward a fair-haired, sturdily built boy who looked too old to even be there. “He’s good, and he’s tight with Border.”
“What does Earnest do?” He said as they entered the training room, the hot, heavy air enveloping them. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Venture noticed Earnest, right next to him, entering with a stack of towels.
Earnest raised his eyebrows at him and set the towels on a scarred matside shelf near the door. “I’m your trainer. I bring you ice and dry your tears.” He gave the back of Lance’s head a playful shove. “Right?”
“Ha! Pike’s tears. Not mine.” Lance turned to Venture. “Earnest makes what Beamer says make sense.”
“Meaning, I yell at you so Beamer doesn’t have to strain his voice. Now hurry up and get on the mat.”
After warm-ups, then some time striking at the air on Beamer’s count, they were partnered up to do groundwork sparring, to work to hold their opponents down, choke them, armlock them, ankle-lock them. Make them tap, giving the universal signal that meant I surrender, release me. His first round, Venture was paired up with Lance, who tried to teach him a few things as they went, but mostly managed to make him painfully aware of just how much he didn’t know.
When it was time to switch partners, Border picked Venture. Facing Border on his knees, ready to start, Venture regarded Border’s eager, narrowed eyes. Border was quite a bit smaller, especially if he didn’t count the hair. Venture wanted to reach out and flatten it. No, he wanted to flatten Border.
When the whistle blew, Venture tried everything he’d seen, everything he’d just learned, he put everything he had into the round, but his hands slipped off of whatever he reached for, and all he could do was scramble like an overturned crab to push Border away and to keep off his back.
He pulled his arms in tight, on his knees, and tried to think of something he could do that Border wouldn’t have an answer for. Border’s hands dug mercilessly under his chin in search of an opening for a choke, and Venture fought them. Then—too late—he sensed himself tipping over. Venture hustled to get back up, but Border scooped one arm under the back of his neck, the other under one of Venture’s legs. He knelt at his side, leaning all his weight toward Venture’s head and chest.
Border had him pinned. With his cheek pressed against the side of Venture’s face, he exhaled a low laugh, which Venture felt and smelled more than heard. Sweat dripped from Border’s hair into Venture’s eyes, and when Venture moved, Border rammed his shoulder into his chin and smothered his face with his chest instead. Venture threw all his energy into trying to turn away before he remembered that Lance had said to turn the opposite way, toward his opponent.
Venture switched direction, but now the hold was so secure, no matter how he pushed against Border, he couldn’t escape. Border, blasted Border, was in total control. If he were allowed to punch right now, maybe he could fight his way out, but Beamer had been clear about the rules for this exercise—grappling only.
Border lifted his head and grinned his too-big grin, then, with a quick glance at Earnest, who had his back to them, he brought his fist back and slammed it into Venture’s ribs. Venture froze as the trauma to his newly healed injuries sent bolts of fresh pain shooting through his chest.
The whistle blew and Border released him. As soon as he did, as soon as he had the slightest bit of space, Venture sat straight up and cracked Border under the chin with his fist. Border’s head jerked back and he fell on his rear and Venture was ready to jump on him and really pummel him, but Earnest grabbed him under the arms and yanked him back.
“What are you doing?” Earnest pulled his arms up, hard, so he couldn’t swing at anyone, couldn’t wriggle away.
The whole training room watched Beamer work his way over to Venture. Earnest swore under his breath, let him go, and backed away, out of the path of Beamer’s searing gaze. Venture stared at the coach. Pain still echoed in his chest, making each breath an agonizing gasp. Beamer laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and gave him a push toward the wall.
When he had him off to the side, he said in a low voice, “Is this how you want to start out here? Brawling?”
“No, sir.”
“Grant Fieldstone told me all about you.”
Venture’s heart sank and his face felt like it was on fire. “Yes, sir,” he managed to say.
“He’s a good man, Grant Fieldstone. But now you’re here, on my mat, and I can deal with you how I see fit, and maybe I’m not such a good man. Not so patient. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“My fighters don’t brawl. Not here. Not out there. And especially not with each other.”
“Yes, sir.”
Beamer turned around to face the room. “Half circle!” he called as he walked to the center of the mat. “Right here.”
All the boys and the trainers gathered around the coach. The fighters sat in front; the trainers stood behind them to make sure they paid attention. Venture stood by the wall, stunned for a moment, then, with a tinge of relief, hurried to obey. Beamer was dead serious, but he was going to get off with a warning for now.
“Delving,” Beamer said, “come here.”
Venture’s relief evaporated.
“You’re going to help me with my demonstration.” He pointed to the mat. “On your knees.”
Beamer sat down on his rear, facing Venture, his feet inside Venture’s knees, one arm under Venture’s arm, the other over his shoulder, around his head. He pulled him in tight, and Venture tried not to flinch in anticipation of the pain that was sure to come. Beamer wasn’t just going to teach the boys to fight, he was going to teach him a lesson, he had no doubt of that.
“Someone takes you down,” he said to the boys, “you’re going to control his legs like this. And lock your hands.”
Beamer locked his hands on Venture’s shoulder and pulled him into his massive chest, squeezing the breath right out of him. Beamer’s hold had been uncomfortable; now it verged on painful. Instinctively, Venture tried to pull himself up, back away from Beamer, and make some space, just so he could breathe.
“When he pops up, you’re going to duck under his arm like this, press with your head, squeeze with your hands. And a lot of guys will tap out right here. Delving. Don’t pass out on me.”
“Tap, Vent!” Lance said.
Venture came to his senses and tapped. Beamer released most of the pressure, but he didn’t let him go. Oh no, thought Venture. There’s more.
“If he doesn’t tap there, you’re going to put your left leg on the outside and lift up with your right leg on the inside, and roll him to the left just like this. Now you’re going to put your right knee right in his stomach and stretch your left leg out—”
Venture coughed out a breath and groaned. Some of the boys stifled laughter, which mostly had a good-natured tone, with the exception of Border’s unfriendly wheeze and Colt’s distinctive gravelly exhale.
Beamer’s weight pressed right into his gut. Venture’s own right arm was pushed hard across his face, with Beamer’s rough, stubbly head holding it in place. Venture felt himself slipping into darkness. He recognized it this time, and he tapped right away.