Chapter Text
“After life’s fitful fever, he sleeps well.”-Macbeth, William Shakespeare
Demerits and Drama
Neal was supposed to be focusing intently on the review Master Payne was providing on basic anatomy and physiology. Instead, he was sitting in the back of the lecture hall crowded with student healers, eyes shut. Mind and body resting after a night spent late in the university library, preparing for the exams that would take place in two weeks and writing the end-of-term essays for his masters.
Masters that included Master Payne, who did have a lovely, luting voice–almost like a lullaby–to drift off to. He was grateful that there were women such as her–both male and female teachers at the Royal University were referred to by the title of Master, a peculiar custom he understood was modeled after the practice in Carthak– on the faculty. It added some romantic passion and interest to a course that would have been immensely boring otherwise.
Basic anatomy and physiology being a subject he was already comprehensively familiar with given that his father was chief of the Crown’s healers. Not that this very convincing fact had been able to argue him out of the need to enroll in the mandatory for all future healers basic anatomy and physiology course.
At least Master Payne’s above average attractiveness made the class less boring than it otherwise would have been. She was certainly easy to look upon. When he had his eyes open, of course.
The bell tolled from its tower in the center of the green. Ringing across the campus. Ending Neal’s first interminable lesson of the day. Summoning the students who had wisely signed up for later classes from their dormitory beds.
“Why did I sign up for a class this early?” Neal grumbled to his friend and deskmate, Hamlin of Princehold, as they both shoved inkpots, quills, and notebooks into their satchels. He considered any class that started before the noon bell rang as too early for his tastes.
He had intended this as a rhetorical question. A complaint designed to infuse drama and flare into their conversation, which might have been dull without it. Unfortunately, his friend was merrily oblivious to such nuances. Perhaps the anatomy and physiology review had leaked all traces of wit and humor from Hamlin’s brain.
“Because it was a required course, a prerequisite for any more advanced anatomy and physiology courses,” Hamlin reminded him tartly, as they slung their satchels over their shoulders and joined the press of pupils streaming out of the classroom door. “And this was the only time slot in which the class was offered.”
“Thanks for reminding me.” Neal’s lips quirked. By mutual, unspoken consent, they stepped out of Queen Thayet’s Hall–every building at the university was named for some monarch, living or dead–into the inadequate warmth of a feeble midwinter sun in a charcoal gray sky hung over a green speckled with dirty snow. Strode down a shoveled path past a marble statue of Thayet that hadn’t been able to fully render her transcendent beauty and charisma. No chisel, wielded by however devoted an artisan, could hope to capture her elusive charm.
Continued toward the King Roald Dining Hall, where they could partake of such delicacies as burned toast and watery porridge for an hour before the servants closed the hall to students to prepare for lunch.
Never reached the dining hall and the lackluster breakfast prospects it promised because a student who had to be at least two years younger than him snaked out an arm to stop him.
“Dean Harailt of Aili asked me to give you this.” The blonde girl thrust a scroll of parchment between his fingers. Not meeting his eyes or offering any form of farewell before she melted like a snowflake into the swell of students thronging the pathways that crisscrossed the green.
Neal drifted out of the crush of fellow pupils who had flocked to the university in the same vain search for shallow enlightenment that he had before they could curse at him for impeding their progress on their journeys to their very important destinations. Unfurled the parchment with a mental, portentious drumroll. He had to provide the drama and color in his own existence when others refused to do so, after all. Read the message’s contents. Stifled a groan.
“Dean Harailt wants to see you at once.” Hamlin elbowed Neal none-too-gently in the ribs. Plainly, he had been reading over Neal’s shoulder. Reading over someone else’s shoulder to obtain confidential and sought-after information not being as massive a breach of etiquette at the university as it was elsewhere. It was understood the pupils at Royal Univeristy were a curious lot with little appreciation for privacy. Not that there was much space for privacy when they were jammed cheek-and-jowl up against each other in their tightly packed dormitories. “Can’t believe Master Payne reported you to him for sleeping in her class already.”
“The sword of justice falls swiftly in these hallowed halls of learning.” Neal embedded his words with a false gravitas. According to his calculations, he could afford to be flippant. This term, which would be a mere memory in two weeks, he had accumulated a trifling five demerits.
All in one fell swoop for missing an anatomy and physiology lesson after a rowdy night drinking in a Corus tavern with his friends. That morning, he had been too hungover to even attempt to cure his throbbing headache and had been reluctant to visit university healers regarding the issue. Healers were oath-bound to discretion about their patients’ ailments, but somehow that discretion seemed to end in loosened tongues whenever his father asked questions. It could be a nuisance–a headache in its own right–to have a father as respected in the healing profession as his was.
At any rate, the five demerits would be erased at the conclusion of the term as they always were. He would be granted a clean slate, and he had another twenty-five demerits as a buffer from any real consequences this term. Sleeping in class was a scant two demerits (and only if a hawk-eyed master happened to notice the transgression), and it took thirty demerits in one term to face expulsion.
The expulsion, of course, could often be avoided in the case of all but the most severe infractions if the miscreant agreed to submit to a caning. Royal University grapevine had it that most offenders did choose the cane. A caning being preferable to the shame and pain irate parents would doubtlessly inflict when the expelled scapegrace was sent home.
After all, Royal University rumor also had it that Dean Harailt didn’t swing his cane too harshly. Was too soft-hearted and sympathetic to the rambunctious excesses of youth for that. Besides, Neal wasn’t particularly afraid of any punishment his father’s best friend might inflict on him. There were offsetting benefits to his father being a respected healer. Life was filled with such balancing equations.
Hamlin snorted as if he could read Neal’s thoughts easily as a library tome. Maybe he could. They were friends, after all, and what were friends for except to read one another’s minds and sometimes copy each other’s coursework?
“I must hasten to my own beheading.” Neal waved his hand in a sardonic farewell. “Remember to wear all black for a year to mourn me.”
As Hamlin called good luck to him, Neal spun on his heel and directed his resigned footsteps toward the King Jasson Research and Administrative Building, where the majority of the masters had their studies.
In less than twenty minutes, he would come to regret that jest. The levity with which he had treated the gutting, soul-destroying reality of death. A death that came all too quickly for kinghts fighting unleashed Immortals with centuries of pent-up fury at their confinement. Twenty minutes. That was all the time it took to hear devastating news. To ruin and uproot a life with a turbulent grief too profound for expression.
Looking back, he could feel searing remorse and guilt for that characteristically sarcastic remark. He was a clever boy at a university. Old enough to understand how much more clearly everyone could see the patterns–the bright and dark threads–weaving the tapestry of their lives looking back. With the benefit and wisdom only hindsight could provide.
His Gift–emerald as his father’s–was not of the stripe to grant him prophecy. Perhaps that was a mercy from the gods though they seemed little enough disposed to pity him in other aspects of his existence. He did not have to look ahead, know, and dread the pain that would come. He could remain blessedly ignorant in the present moment.
Imagining a mild scolding and two demerits (if he couldn’t argue his way out of receiving them) in his future as he climbed the stairs to Dean Harailt’s office and knocked on mahogany door carved with an impressive depiction of the university’s seal. Could picture no greater horror awaiting him than that. Felt no true fear.
The confident and innocent swagger that defined his youth. That hadn’t quite developed into the full-fledged cynicism that would become his dominant trait after grief and loss befell him. The cynicism that was an outgrowth of that grief and loss. An effort to escape a repeat of that pain. A tough exoskeleton constructed to conceal a too-tender, too-vulnerable interior.
He knocked on the door to Dean Harailt’s study. Blissfully ignorant of the fact that the Old Ones would have said that he was opening a portal to death.