Tamora Pierce - Tempests and Slaughter

The bags contained the food specially made up for the birds: small bits of vegetables, fruit, and fat, as well as seeds of all kinds. Arram ended up scattering his to the birds that swarmed around his feet while he watched Ozorne and Varice. They knew the animals so well that they could get them to do tricks for a bite of something.

One large golden peacock strutted over to Arram. To the boy’s surprise, the other birds backed away from him. A student attendant who had been keeping an eye on them all hurried over. She passed Arram another bag of feed. ‘This is his,’ she said, nodding to the bird. ‘His lordship doesn’t like to share with the others.’

Arram poured the bag’s contents into his hand to find it was mostly brightly coloured food: melon, squash, orange, and bits of small golden fish. ‘He’s very particular, isn’t he?’ he asked.

Ozorne wandered over. ‘One day I’ll have a menagerie of my own, and I’ll have all of them,’ he announced. ‘They’re called goldwings. They come from all the way across the Emerald Ocean.’

‘I only see this one,’ Arram said, looking around.

‘We have two here, and the emperor has the other four. Now, come, have you seen ordinary peacocks before? I’m sorry, your lordship,’ added the prince, bowing to the goldwing, ‘but you have to admit they’re pretty, too. Or at least the males are.’ Ozorne hooked Arram’s arm and dragged him off to view birds with more colours in them than he’d ever seen in his life.

They barely made it to supper on time. Varice had refused to go until she’d changed her gown. Boys might be happy enough simply to dust themselves after birds had shed all over them, she informed her two friends, but she was not. They made it to the dining hall just before the monitors closed the doors.

‘Close one,’ a monitor chided as they skidded into the huge, noisy room.

Ozorne grinned at the older boy. ‘Close still counts!’

Arram had thought they might have trouble finding a table, particularly with him in tow, but it seemed that Varice was as confident in the dining hall as Ozorne was in the menagerie. She swept through the lines of serving plates and dishes, not only making sure of her own choices, but seeing to it that the boys took proper foods as well. Then she led the way to a small, shockingly empty table near one of the doors that led to the outdoor tables and a garden. The door was open, but no one took advantage of the tables outside: the air was cooling off. Instead Varice and Ozorne sat at that empty little table and pointed Arram’s new seat out to him. Only when everyone had eaten at least half of their dinners did Varice allow Ozorne to open the subject of water magic.

It was the best evening Arram had enjoyed at the university. Ozorne had some clever ideas on how to harness the power that had gone wrong that morning. Varice gave Arram some spells and charms for the manipulation of water she had learned from cooks and cook mages. If he worked hard he’d have them memorized by the end of the week. The water spells wouldn’t get away from him any more!

They chattered outside one of the school’s many libraries until the end-of-study bells told them it was time to get back to their rooms. The boys escorted Varice to her building, where she was housed with older girls, then ran for their dormitory. Ozorne showed Arram a shortcut by way of the gardens behind the buildings. They were approaching their own place when Ozorne held out his arm to stop Arram. They halted in a grove of lemon trees planted in the edges of the garden. Two figures in the brown shirts and breeches of the university stable and field staff were standing at Ozorne’s window. The shutters were open; Ozorne had told Arram he always left them that way.

‘I’ll get the guards,’ Arram whispered.

Ozorne put a hand on his arm. To Arram’s shock, the older boy was chuckling softly. ‘Just wait,’ he murmured.

One of the would-be thieves boosted himself up and over the ledge. The second followed. There was a yelp.

‘Come on!’ Ozorne said. He raced for the door to the building; Arram followed, wondering if he knew any battle spells. He’d learned Ozorne had fighting lessons after university classes four days a week, but he’d had nothing of the kind.

When they entered their room, Ozorne produced a ball of light, one of the few magics they were allowed to do outside class. Arram gasped. Two ragged men lay on the floor. They looked as if they’d fallen into bronze spiderwebs and been rolled up in them.

Curious, Arram went over and poked at the substance. The man inside it spat at him. The webbing itself was far thicker than spiderweb and not sticky, but these men would not be going anywhere until they were freed by a mage. He looked at his new friend.

‘I thought we weren’t allowed to cast anything but tiny spells in our rooms, and only with permission,’ he said, curious and awed.

Ozorne chuckled. ‘Silly lad, I know that. But the university understands I might be a particular temptation to those who don’t value their positions here.’ He walked over to the other bundled thief. ‘Master Chioké cast this trapping spell for me. Would you let the housekeeper know we’ve caught fish in our net?’ he asked Arram. He nudged the man with a toe.

Arram was at the door when he heard his new friend ask softly, ‘Are you Sirajit? I’ll know if you lie.’

That’s right, Arram thought as he knocked on the housekeeper’s door. Ozorne’s father was killed fighting Sirajit rebels. Arram had only been in Carthak for a year then, but he remembered the student in black, and the memorial celebrations for the hero father. Even though Siraj had been part of the empire for years, its mountain people still resisted imperial rule and frequently tried to fight it off.

When he returned with watchmen, Arram found Ozorne still questioning his captives. As far as Arram could tell, the men were unharmed.

Feeling himself to be in the way, he retreated to his own part of the room as the guards chained the would-be robbers and took them out. Ozorne followed them to the door and slipped a few coins into one guard’s hand. ‘For your trouble,’ he told the man.

After closing the door, Ozorne flung himself into Arram’s chair. ‘Gods save us, why are you reading that dusty old thing?’ the prince demanded, looking at a book on Arram’s desk. ‘You don’t even have any class studies – you could read whatever you want. You could read something fun!’

Arram grinned at his new friend. ‘But this is my idea of fun. Is trapping robbers yours?’

‘I don’t like strangers handling my things,’ Ozorne said with a shrug. ‘And now you needn’t worry about more thieves. Once word gets around that our place is trapped, they’ll think the better of it.’

‘Were they actually servants here?’ Arram asked, concerned. ‘I wouldn’t have thought it.’

‘More like family of servants, or acquaintances who overheard who the servants wait on. Word will get around. And I can tell Master Chioké the traps didn’t even leave a mark.’ Ozorne grinned. ‘You now live in the safest room in the dormitories!’

The next morning was their day of worship, for those who chose to do so, and a day of rest for those who chose to relax. Arram heard Ozorne rise early and dress, but he went back to sleep. He had given up religious services not long after his arrival at the university, preferring to take one morning to loll in bed.

It wasn’t long before someone tapped on the door. Ozorne, who had returned, opened it and spoke softly to his guest: Arram recognized Varice’s reply. She asked him something, and Arram heard Ozorne walk closer. He turned over towards the wall and made a grumbling sound, as if he were still asleep. If they were going somewhere, he didn’t want them to feel obligated to ask him along simply because he was Ozorne’s roommate.