"We're going to have to eat with our hands, you know," Javier said after a moment.
Kiram shrugged.
They ate messily, sitting side by side, grabbing handfuls of pie and licking gravy and cherry filling from their fingers. Kiram's mother would have been horrified. Actually he couldn't think of many civilized people who wouldn't have been appalled at the sight of the two of them.
When Javier leaned over and sucked a blob of cherry off of Kiram's thumb the action seemed innocent and indecent at once.
"How do I taste, Lord Tornesal?"
"I think I would need another sample to form an opinion."
There was a moment, with Javier so close, that Kiram almost leaned into him, almost kissed his mouth.
Then the night warden's voice boomed through the quiet hallway. He pounded on the door and both Javier and Kiram bolted apart.
The warden pushed the door open and peered in. Kiram shouted out a little too loudly in response to his name. Javier simply rolled his eyes and glared at the old man.
"Lights out," the night warden snapped, then slammed the door closed.
Kiram's heart hammered. What had he nearly done?
He was no longer in the Haldiim district of Anacleto. He wasn't in the company of the young men he had grown up with. He was in the very midst of a Cadeleonian institution with a man who he hardly knew and certainly didn't trust.
He wanted to believe that Javier felt something for him, that Javier was somehow immune to the hatred and prejudice of his society, but he couldn't be sure. From what he did know of Javier, he would be as likely to laugh at Kiram as to kiss him. Either way he would probably confess everything when he attended chapel. That could get Kiram thrown out of the academy or worse, put on trial for corrupting a Cadeleonian.
Kiram stood quickly. "I should wash my hands."
Javier stared at him for a moment and then simply bowed his head.
"Scrub hard and use lots of cold water. You don't want the cleaning women wondering how your sheets got so sticky," Javier called after him.
When Kiram returned from his bath, Javier was already in his own bed, feigning sleep. Kiram wished him goodnight but wasn't surprised when Javier said nothing in response.
Chapter Eleven
It took Kiram a few days to fully realize the importance of Javier inviting him to the third table. It wasn't just a matter of better servings of meat or glasses of red wine every Sacreday. It signified his allegiance with the men at that table. It meant that the other students at the academy, from first year to fourth, now considered him one of Javier's circle, one of the Hellions.
No one attempted to trip him as he passed and no one taunted him to his face. At the same time, some youths who had been cautiously friendly towards him no longer engaged him in debates during law class. Watching two of them slink away as he sat down at a study table in the library, Kiram couldn't help but feel uneasy about his new alliance.
Nestor was delighted. The fact that his mother would have been incensed seemed to make it all the more exciting.
"She'd be furious if she knew Elezar and I were called Hellions." Nestor smiled as he glanced up from his sketch of a man in armor. "She's a very religious woman, you know. Doesn't allow anyone in the household to have sweets the entire week of Our Savior's Misery. She would piss blood if she found out."
Kiram's own mother had apparently laughed when she received his letter informing her that he was now considered a Hellion.
Along with her letter, Kiram's mother had sent a package of fresh pen nibs, dried tea, and hard candies. Beneath the satchel of candy was a note from his father.
It congratulated him on making friends and fitting in so quickly with the Cadeleonians, but also warned against getting any tattoos that he would regret later. Apparently one of his cousins was now wearing long sleeves to hide the bare breasted mermaid emblazoned on his forearm with the words 'wet fuck' written beneath her. His uncle Rafie was looking into the removal of the image.
Then, in closing, Kiram's father had encouraged him to keep up his good grades.
Kiram sucked on one of his apple candies and scowled at the thought of grades.
He was doing very well in most of his classes. Now that he was training daily with Javier, he was even beginning to improve in the war arts. Master Ignacio no longer scowled at the mere sight of him. But in history he seemed unable to score the kind of grades he was used to.
He had worked harder on his essay analyzing the reign of King Nazario Sagrada than he had ever worked on any assignment. He'd spent a week combing through the library for original source material. He'd searched through old diaries and ancient tax records.
It had been with a sense of triumph that he had detailed and documented, on page after page, how Nazario Sagrada's excessive violence and persecution of even his own nobles had set in place all of the elements of the civil war that unseated his heir. He had even felt confident enough to point out that the divisions that Nazario had created had later contributed to certain noble families choosing to support the Mirogoths against their fellow Cadeleonians during the invasion nearly a hundred years later.
Kiram had never been so proud of an essay. It seemed nearly as perfect as one of his mechanisms.
And then it had been returned with the lowest mark Kiram had ever received. The ugly red note scrawled across the last page informed him that his lack of understanding of his subject obviously revealed the failings of his earlier Haldiim education.
A month before, such a comment would have made him want to weep. Now-he didn't know if this was a result of constant battle training or just the extent of his outrage-he wanted to beat Holy Father Habalan to a pulp.
He had been so angry that he had paced through the room ranting while Javier sat at his desk, looking on in amusement.
"Would you like me to kill him?" Javier offered offhandedly.
"No, I'd like to kill him myself."
"Ybu can hardly wrestle Nestor to the ground by yourself," Javier replied. "Holy Father Habalan is about three times Nestor's weight."
"I'll roll him into the lake."
"He'll just float on the water like a bloated pig bladder," Javier said. And Kiram laughed in spite of his anger.
"You've got to consider these things when you plan a murder, you know," Javier had added.
A little later, after Kiram calmed himself by bolting together a small housing for a miniature glass boiler, Javier had tossed him an essay of his own.
"What's this for?"
"To keep you from failing Holy Father Habalan's class." Javier hadn't looked up from the book he was reading. Calixto Tornesal's diary. Again.
"I can't just copy one of your essays."
"I didn't say that you should. Read it. Then write your own."
Kiram had read the paper and several others of Javier's since then. They were the funniest and most scathing criticisms that he had ever encountered. Javier described King Nazario Sagrada's reign entirely in terms of the advances made in chastity belts and dog breeding during the king's lifetime.
Kiram remembered snorting with laughter as he read the conclusion:
While other rulers may have contributed more to the art, science, medicine, law, irrigation, architecture, agriculture, political stability and economy of our great nation, it is Nazario Sagrada to whom so many a virginal girl owes her greatest happiness as she cuddles one of this nation's many three-to-seven pound lapdogs.