Volithur limped throughout the dark barracks, trying to ease the pains of his body through movement. His efforts saw mixed results. The steady ache receded somewhat, but more acute discomfort arose in specific muscle groups. His calves protested each step. His abdomen hurt when he tried to straighten his back. His chest, triceps, and shoulders protested anything beyond a narrow range of motion. Even his back and sides hurt.
He had thought that the two weeks of exercising with Thassily had gotten him into better shape, but now he wondered why he had ever regarded their feeble attempts as anything akin to actual exercise. He’d moved until he grew tired and stopped. When the Sergeant led exercises, there was no stopping allowed until the end came and their terrifying shouts were incredibly motivating.
By the time breakfast arrived, Volithur was wishing he’d managed another hour of sleep. He ate, did another hour of Instructor Lisbet’s movement training, then two hours of Instructor Gordo’s weaponless combat training. The stretching felt good in a semi-painful way, but getting punched in the face with his nose still tender he did not appreciate. Eating punches happened a lot when you were too tired to keep your hands up, and those ‘soft’ punches landed with enough force to bruise.
Mopping the barracks almost proved more than he could handle after taking his beating and Volithur actually found himself missing the days before they started normal training. He would rather return to septic duty rather than endure the torture of the trainers.
He collapsed during conditioning training, earning him a punishment. For hours after everyone else finished conditioning, the instructors took turns making him alternate between running in place with high knees and doing a squat-and-jump. They only released him when dinner time arrived, and Volithur barely managed to choke down some of that day’s cabbage and venison stew. Mental cultivation was the only thing that let him move past the pain of his body into slumber.
The days blurred together into an achy haze. Volithur hurt every moment he was conscious. He struggled through training with a steely determination to avoid being detained for extra exercise. His efforts came at the cost of further running down his body. Pain, exhaustion, and hunger came to dominate his thoughts.
It wasn’t until they reached seventh day and had a break from the normal training routine that Volithur emerged from the haze of misery. He returned to the hammock after breakfast that day, sent himself to sleep with a bout of mental cultivation, woke for lunch, followed by another nap. Then came dinner.
Thassily sat across a table from him and practiced sullen silence in solidarity with Volithur’s griefs, though Thassily had adapted to their new lifestyle much better than he had. The sudden arrival of Clerk Anadra interrupted their quiet meal.
“Ward Harridan, the Marshal requires your immediate presence in the office,” the clerk announced. “Please follow me at once. Someone else can clean up after you.”
Volithur sullenly rose to his feet to follow the clerk. He suspected he knew what this was about. Not only had he failed the test with the moon water elixir, his performance in training was abysmal. No doubt the Marshal wanted to lay down some sort of ultimatum. ‘Do better or get kicked out of the household.’ He couldn’t imagine living on the streets would be much worse than the training he was forced to endure daily.
They didn’t even leave the building, going to the secondary office the Marshal maintained in the barracks rather than the one in the palace. Clerk Anadra knocked on the door jam without stopping his march into the room. “Master Marshal, Ward Harridan is here.”
The Marshal looked up from a document, hard eyes fixing on Volithur. He tapped on the paperwork with two meaty fingers. “Why did you not inform anyone of the terms of your wardship?”
The meaning of the question escaped him. Volithur looked to the clerk for help.
“Uh,” Clerk Anadra said, “the Marshal is asking about the stipulation that you be educated.”
“Yes, that.” The Marshal rapped his knuckles on the table. “The fifth household has been in violation of the Lord General’s instructions for three weeks now. Why did you not speak up?”
Volithur’s mind began to turn over at a rapid pace. He sensed danger, but also opportunity. “Forgive me, Master Marshal. I was placed on septic duty my first day for improper decorum, so I feared drawing any further attention to myself.”
The Marshal sat back in his chair, placing his fingertips together in thought. “The Castellan intimidated you. Yes. That shifts some of the blame away from us.” The man compared two documents side by side. “Why did the Lord General decree for you to receive an education and not Ward Thassily?”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Time to make his move. Volithur scratched his head to avoid direct eye contact as he wove his narrative. “The Lord General observed that I looked like his deceased footman. He gave me the man’s name and suggested I might become his footman once my wardship ended.”
Judging by the way the Marshal’s jaw dropped, his words had had an effect. As the man’s panic increased, Volithur came to the queasy realization that he may have oversold his relationship with the Lord General.
“You are to be trained as a footman in the Lord General’s retinue?” The Marshal stood suddenly. “We need to see the Castellan. Clerk, free up Harridan’s afternoon schedule so he can attend classes in the palace. Remove him from the duty roster and assign a personal cultivation lesson for the hour before lunch. He is to receive tea powder elixir monthly, and to make up for the three weeks of lost time he will be given blood boiling elixir tomorrow morning. Come along now, Harridan.”
They rushed across the yard to the palace. “Ward Harridan, the blood boiling elixir is a mid tier cultivation resource. It is what myself, the Castellan, and the family members typically receive as resources for body enhancement. It more than makes up for what you were denied the past weeks. If you can retain even a tenth of its potency, your cultivation will leap ahead.”
Volithur struggled to keep up the pace while his thoughts ran in circles. I should not have claimed the Lord General wants me as his footman. If these men discover I exaggerated, it will be very bad for me. On the other hand, if they never hear otherwise I will be handed power on a silver platter. I was either very smart or very stupid, and I won’t know which it was for a while. It’s too late for me to be honest now, I’ll just have to hold fast to my story.
Within the palace, they climbed a set of stairs and moved directly to a large door with gleaming silver handles. A clerk sat outside the office at a small desk comparing tables of numbers to a ledger. The clerk barely glanced up before speaking. “Master Marshal, the Castellan is in meditation and has no time to entertain you tonight.”
The Marshal leaned ominously over the small desk, placing the knuckles of his massive hands onto the wood and bringing his face unreasonably close to that of the clerk. “It has come to my attention that the explicit instructions of the Lord General have been disobeyed. Your master is implicated in the situation. I will speak to the Castellan at once.”
The clerk leaned away from the hovering figure. “Very well, Master Marshal. I will announce your visit.”
“I’ll see myself in.” With a gesture, the door slammed open. The Marshal stomped into the expansive chamber within to face a man reclined upon a couch with a book in his hands.
The Castellan’s face grew red. “What is the meaning of this?”
The Marshal held up Volithur’s wardship contract. “The Lord General decreed for Ward Harridan to receive an education. He intends for the boy to be trained as a footman in his retinue.”
The Castellan flew to his feet, dropped the book to the floor as he glanced at the clerk on the other side of the open door. “Breathe a word of this to anyone and your life will be misery,” he snapped at the clerk as he shut the door. Turning back to face the Marshal, he snapped his fingers and began to read the document.
“It says nothing about training a footman.”
“Harridan, what did the Lord General say to you?”
Can’t change my story now, he thought. “Well, Master Marshal, Master Castellan, the Lord General said I looked like his footman Harridan, who had died recently. He changed my name to Harridan then and said he hoped I would be his footman.”
The Castellan placed the contract down and glared at the Marshal. “How long did you hold onto this before you actually read it?”
“Three weeks, almost to the day.”
“This is on you, then. I have nothing to do with it.”
“Harridan told me that he never spoke up because he feared you after being punished for displaying improper decorum. Before he even knew our ways, you frightened him into silence.”
The two powerful men glared at each other for at least a minute, neither yielding in their silent battle of wills. Finally, the Castellan folded his arms. “He can join the classes as of tomorrow. You can compensate him for those three weeks out of your budget as he falls under your command.”
“I have already promised him a vial of blood boiling elixir.”
The Castellan rolled his eyes. “A waste of resources. Has he even shown proficiency in cultivation?”
“When Harridan has the ear of the Lord General, I do not intend to be portrayed in a negative light,” the Marshal said.
“How calculating of you,” the Castellan said. “Fine. I will match your grandiose gesture. Ward Harridan may spend fifteen minutes in the cosmic chamber. After he demonstrates proficiency in aural cultivation. Does this satisfy you, Ward Harridan?”
“Yes, Master Castellan.”