The Monk's Habit (The Disinherited Prince Series Book 2) Read online

  “Pakkingail did a credible job, but as you said, you cheated. I wouldn’t call it cheating, since our graduates use whatever they can to succeed. We encourage such creativity, if that’s what you call it. Well done.”

  Pol finally broke into a grin.

  “Yeah, well done,” Paki said putting his arm on Pol’s shoulder.

  ~~~

  Chapter Three

  ~

  TEN DAYS LATER, ACOLYTES FILLED THE DORMITORY. None of them wore an orange belt like Pol. Evidently there were no new Third Level acolytes. Perhaps now that magic classes were to begin, Pol could learn what the levels actually meant.

  Gorm instructed Pol to follow two acolytes who joined them as Gorm escorted Pol to the first magic class right after breakfast. Both of them were in their early twenties, and Pol felt like a little puppy following his masters as they walked through the keep towards the administration building. They looked alike with dark hair, tall and thin. One had blue eyes and the other brown.

  The plaque that had said ‘Testing’ had been replaced with one that had the single word ‘Magic’. Pol let the two men proceed before him as they entered the large room. It looked as it had before, but now Pol noticed that the wooden paneling had been removed, revealing stark stone walls. Magic lights still lit the room, and the table and chairs still remained, with more chairs lined up against the walls.

  One monk sat behind the table, and three chairs had been drawn up on the other side.

  “Pol is new, so I will do the introductions,” the monk said. “I am Vactor.” Pol nodded to the monk. Vactor had been the one he had moved in the courtyard when he first came to Deftnis. “Sakwill is on your right, and Coram is on your left.” Vactor turned to the older acolytes. Sakwill had the blue eyes and Coram had the brown. “Pol Cissert—”

  Vactor’s eyebrows turned up, but then he nodded. “I amend myself. The Emperor’s Processional discovered Pol. He has raw talent, but was under the informal tutelage of one of our former monks. He has mastered patterning to the point he has created his own tweaks.”

  The two men, still standing, looked at Pol with new eyes.

  “A prodigy, eh? Don’t see those often, do you, Vactor?” Sakwill said. “We’ll take care of you.” Sakwill’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.

  Pol had been ‘taken care of’ by his brothers, and he didn’t want a repeat. He felt his temper rise. “And I’ll take care of you, in my own way,” he said with a little too much heat.

  “You may sit,” Vactor said. “We don’t permit animosity in our little group. Is that clear?” The monk looked at Sakwill.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pol scrunched down in his seat a bit. “Yes, sir.”

  Vactor stood. “Pol, I want you to move me like you did in the courtyard.”

  “Can I sit?” Pol did not want to faint or collapse in front of his two classmates.

  “Of course.”

  He lifted Vactor up and moved him to the left and to the right and diagonally from where he started. Pol had to grip the edges of the chair to keep from swaying.

  “How about you, Sakwill?” Vactor said. Pol could hear the challenge in the monk’s voice.

  Sakwill moved Vactor to the right and the left. Pol could hear Vactor’s boots sliding on the floor, so he didn’t lift him up.

  He looked over and saw sweat beading on Sakwill’s face. At least he didn’t faint, Pol thought. He felt a little angry, or was he jealous? He wished that Paki sat next to him. Pol felt isolated and lonely for the first time since he had arrived at Deftnis.

  “I hope you don’t mind, Pol,” Vactor said. “We had a detailed report from Pol’s teacher. One problem with learning magic so young is that Pol can’t tweak on a sustained basis. He loses energy quickly. As you can see, he is powerful, but only in spurts. It will be useless to put him in a lower class, since he can already do or find out on his own what he needs at the lower levels, so he will practice along with you.” Vactor said.

  Sakwill grunted, and then Coram did as well. Pol felt badly about having his weakness so blatantly discussed, but what alternative did he have? The pair would see him collapse when he overdid it soon enough. At least he had an excuse, although Pol didn’t put his weakness down to being almost fifteen. He knew it was because of his ill health.

  “This year, we will be looking more deeply into patterns.”

  “It’s always patterns,” Coram complained.

  Pol thought the man’s voice sounded a little whiny.

  “You’ll be able to put patterns into your swordsmanship soon enough,” Vactor said.

  Pol raised his hand up to shoulder level. “You mean anticipation magic?”

  Vactor nodded. “Pol has used it before.” Vactor turned his gaze toward Pol. “Will you help me teach it to these two? They are both wanting to become pattern-masters.”

  Pol really hadn’t heard of that category before coming to Deftnis. Pol realized how little he understood his capabilities, of what he knew and what he didn’t. He couldn’t refuse Vactor’s offer to demonstrate in front of his fellow students.

  “I’d be happy to.”

  Sakwill snorted. “Taught by a snot-nosed kid?”

  Vactor stood. “I’ll have none of that. Arrogance, or rather the lack of arrogance, is what we are known for. I’m not asking you to bend a knee to Pol, but once you have left Deftnis, you need to seek out knowledge wherever you can, and anticipation magic is known only to a limited number of magicians, and fewer can put it into practice. I’ll bring practice swords tomorrow. It’s not something you can do without a lot of practice.”

  Pol looked at Sakwill, who didn’t look very friendly.

  The monk went over the magic program. It looked like variations on what Pol already knew, but with only the three of them with one teacher, Pol hoped Vactor would teach him more efficient magic like Val and Malden had done with locating.

  They were dismissed, and Pol decided to seek out Darrol to learn more about magician-swordsmen. Darrol didn’t claim to be one, so Pol wanted to know why. Perhaps he could better understand Sakwill’s personal pattern if Darrol helped him.

  The monastery had changed with the monks and acolytes returning from Harvest Break. It seemed that all the empty spaces had filled up, and that would make it harder to find Darrol.

  Pol returned to the armory where he had previously interviewed with Edgebare.

  “I am looking for Darrol Netherfield. Do you know him?” Pol asked an older monk.

  “He’s just finished evaluating new swords in the practice room.” The monk pointed towards a pair of double doors. One was partially open, leaking young acolytes. They wore tan leather belts. Pol looked down at the orange cord. Belts and cords. He shook his head. He’d have to figure all of that out.

  Pol wished that he were taller. It would ease looking past the young men coming out of the practice room. Finally the stream became a trickle, and Pol slipped inside. Darrol stood at a table putting away various kinds of swords.

  “Coming to spar?” Darrol said. “How are you doing? We haven’t seen each other since arriving at Deftnis.”

  “I’m doing okay. No one has threatened to take my life… yet.” Pol smiled at Darrol. “Are you adjusting to the monastic life?”

  Darrol laughed. “Not really monastic. Many monks and acolytes have families living at Deftnis Port or at Mancus on the mainland. I can go to the pub whenever I’m not teaching.” He shrugged. “To tell you the truth, it’s a fine life, but a bit boring. I came to make sure you are treated fairly. Had a talk with Edgebare. He was impressed after I backed up everything you told him. The man thought you were lying.” Darrol nodded. “I set him straight.”

  “I liked him. He reminded me of an older Kelso Beastwell.”

  Darrol shook his head. “I hope Kelso hasn’t been sacked from his Captaincy by your father.”

  “It is my intent never to know,” Pol said. “That is all behind me.”

  Darrol grimaced. “The past is never behin
d you. One just has to put the past into the proper perspective. You learned a lot of valuable lessons that probably aren’t apparent right now, but they will be as you get older.”

  Pol felt he had had enough ‘life lessons,’ but he recognized Darrol’s advice. Perhaps he was too young to think much of anything but the past year.

  “I wanted to ask you about anticipation magic and pattern-masters. Are you one?”

  Darrol scrunched up his eyebrows. “Me? Not at all. Having a little magic and being a Deftnis magician—anything requires third or fourth level magic.” His eyes went to Pol’s belt. “They rated you third level, eh? Malden would be proud. I’ll bet you made them think hard about how to classify you. Val thought if you had more endurance, they would have to rate you a Level Four. That is monk-level competence.”

  “And a Third Level isn’t?”

  Darrol shook his head. “Not by itself, it isn’t. The leather belts are monks who fight with little or no magic. That’s me. Black is a Master. I wear the green. It’s the lowest for a monk, and I never thought I’d get higher, so I left. It’s different with you around. I’ll get to see you grow.”

  “Why don’t you get married and have boys of your own?” Pol said. He realized that he had probed too far with the look on Darrol’s face.

  “Not something I want to talk about, at least not now,” Darrol said. “So there are white, yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, gray, and black that correspond to each magic level. For fighters, it’s tan, brown, green, red, purple, and black. Less colors to confuse us that use more muscle and less magic.” Darrol laughed.

  “What about pattern-masters?”

  “Level Four is probably the minimum rating for true competence, although a Third Level can learn it. Anticipation magic, what you just talked about, has to be mastered, and it generally takes a Level Four.”

  “So I’m between a Three and a Four.”

  Darrol nodded. “At fifteen,” he rubbed Pol’s hair since he knew Pol’s birthday would be in the next few weeks, “there has never been a Level Three, to my recollection.”

  Now Pol understood Sakwill and Coram’s resentment. Pol knew anticipation magic well. His life had depended on it fighting in the tourney King Colvin had arranged for Emperor Hazett’s visit.

  “Got time for a little sparring? I’ve got a couple of practice swords that are waiting to be broken in.”

  Pol grinned. “A bit for as long as I last. We’ve never really sparred before.”

  “No, we haven’t, although I’ve certainly seen you in action.”

  This was an opportunity to think about and practice anticipation magic before he had to show Sakwill and Coram. He’d make the most of it.

  ~~~

  Chapter Four

  ~

  POL TRIED TO TEACH ANTICIPATION MAGIC to the two others in his class, but they didn’t seem to be picking it up, or they chose not to respond to Pol’s effort to teach.

  “We will let the sword masters teach you,” Vactor said after their second session with swords. “I have another task for you three.” Vactor pointed to three square metal tubes about a foot long and an inch wide. “I want you to twist the bar in the middle.”

  His two partners had no trouble putting a single twist, but that particular effort made Pol faint, trying to tweak a twist into a square metal bar.

  Pol woke up a few minutes later. Someone had removed his robe and rolled it up to make a pillow on the hard stone floor.

  He struggled to get up, but his heart beat fiercely in his chest.

  “I think it’s past time you visited our healers,” Vactor said, kneeling next to Pol. He looked up at Sakwill and Coram sitting in their seats. “This is the difference between you two and Pol. He’s got one good tweak in him.”

  “Did I twist the bar?” Pol asked. He wondered if his fainting had been for nothing.

  “Good enough,” Sakwill said, picking the bar up from the top of the table that Pol couldn’t see.

  Pol nodded and closed his eyes, willing his heart to slow and his breathing to even out.

  A healer in a lighter gray robe entered the room, carrying a rolled up stretcher. “Fainted?”

  Vactor nodded. “It happens to him after an ambitious tweak. He successfully performed the spell and then…” The monk shrugged his shoulders.

  Pol didn’t want to be carried anywhere, but he didn’t have the strength to walk and had to put up with the embarrassment of riding the stretcher to the infirmary. They put him in a ward. No private rooms at Deftnis, he thought.

  Three healers, all youngish to Pol’s mind, leaned over to examine Pol.

  “Heart murmur,” one said, laying his hand on Pol’s chest. “It’s a big one.”

  More probing and unintelligible sounds from the healers resulted in another commenting on Pol’s spleen.

  The youngest healer took Pol’s wrist. “We can help with your symptoms, but we can’t offer a cure. There was a monk who had the ability to heal the way you need healing, but he left the monastery five years ago.”

  “Searl?” one of the monks asked.

  The younger one nodded. “He could change the pattern of organs. We haven’t had a monk since then that came close in that ability.”

  “Does that mean I’ll die before I’m twenty?” Pol said.

  “No. It means you’ll struggle with your heart and your lungs, but not as badly with our treatments. I don’t recommend that you go very far from a healer. Stay at Deftnis, and you can live as long as the three of us.”

  Pol didn’t quite know how to take that. They recommended that he stay in bed until dinnertime, and then he could resume his normal activities.

  The bed was more comfortable than the thinly-padded cot in his dormitory, so Pol lay back and thought about what the healers had said. He could live longer if healers were close. Pol wondered what would happen to him if healers weren’t close. Would he be any worse off than he was now?

  He wondered about Searl, the monk. That would be a question for another time. He closed his eyes and let sleep take him.

  ~

  A hearty dinner helped Pol regain his strength. The healers wanted to see Pol once a week, and he had to admit that he felt better than he ever had.

  Pol didn’t want to push his strength in the evening to test his condition, so he waited for morning and the first class for Seekers in the morning. Pol knew Paki among the attendees until Darrol slid up next to him.

  “They’re going to let me attend some of the classes,” Darrol said, grinning. “I enjoyed my time too much on our little jaunt in the woods, except for the Lirro’s death, of course. So we get to learn together.”

  Paki looked excited. “I thought they’d split us up.”

  Darrol shook his head. “Only one master this year for both Seeking and Scouting, Jonness, but he’s a good one. He may do some splitting later on, since he has two monks to help him.”

  The master had tested them when they first arrived in Deftnis, and Pol thought that he had impressed him well enough.

  Jonness stood in front of the participants and had them sit on the floor of the practice room. “We will work together for the first part of this term. I do survival and stealth. There are a number of you who will want to stick with me as we transition into scout training. We start with an introduction to Seeking, as it is less stealthiness and more discerning patterns.

  “Why is everything seemingly disorganized?” Pol asked Darrol.

  “Initially, its a winnowing process. You’d be surprised how many times an acolyte, or even a monk like me, will change their minds about their specialty. That’s why the Abbot is open to the notion to let everyone try what they want. The classes will change, you wait and see.”

  Pol wrapped his arms around his knees and smiled. Now he felt like he could wait for a while. Perhaps he wouldn’t die young. He’d have to think beyond his teenage years, and that made him a little uncomfortable. There was a part of him that had become too complacent about his short life
horizon.

  ~

  Pol settled into his classes. Magic for the Third Levels was moved to late afternoons for an hour and a half. Pol had to work in the kitchens during lunch. He spent all morning long with Jonness and the afternoon with different monks.

  He didn’t know that acolytes had to learn the same things that Mistress Farthia had taught him. He talked to the monks about repeating what he had learned. Most of them told him to wait at least a year before going to the more advanced classes.

  With more time on his hands, Pol decided to practice knife throwing on his own. He found a smaller practice room that was usually empty and moved a few broken-down targets inside. He liked the time alone, so he could just contemplate all kinds of things.

  ~

  One morning just outside the walls of the monastery, while practicing fire-making without magic out of whatever was at hand, something Pol had learned from Siggon Horstel in North Salvan, Jonness stopped Pol.

  “This is Kell Digbee,” Jonness said.

  Pol looked up. He saw a well-built blondish boy, probably eighteen or older, looking down on him with his fists on his hips. “This is an acolyte?” Kell sneered at Pol.

  “He’s the one that’s going to catch you up to the rest of us.”

  Pol sighed. He hadn’t succeeded in trying to teach Sakwill and Coram the basics of anticipation magic, and now he would have another chance to fail at teaching. At least this time Kell was closer to his age. Pol stood.

  “I’m Pol Cissert,” he said, “I learned this last year, so it shouldn’t be too difficult for you.”

  Kell snorted. “Who let you in here? You must be all of thirteen years old.”

  ‘Fifteen, just,” Pol said. “But Master Jonness will vouch for my competence.” Under previous circumstances, Pol’s heart would be racing, and his breathing would be all he concentrated on, but with the healers’ help, he felt his heart beating a bit faster, but that was it.

  Jonness sighed. “Just listen to him.”

  Pol told Kell to bend down, but the boy still stood with his hands on his hips.

  “You won’t learn unless you watch.”