Damon said, “Zandru’s hells, it’s Julian!” He got up from his seat and hurried to his friend’s side. Dyan was standing over him, looking grim.
“Back to your seat, cadet. Finish your meal.”
“He’s my friend. I want to see if he’s hurt.” Ignoring Dyan’s angry glare, Damon knelt beside the fallen cadet; the other cadets, craning their necks, could see the bright smear of blood where Julian’s head had struck the table. “He’s bleeding! You’ve killed him!” Damon said in a shrill, shaking voice.
“Nonsense!” Dyan rapped out. “Dead men don’t bleed like that.” He knelt, quickly ran his fingertips over the boy’s head and motioned to two third-year cadets. “Take him back to the staff offices and ask Master Raimon to have a look at him.”
As Julian was carried out, Gabriel Vyandal muttered across the table, “It’s not fair to pick on us at this hour of the morning when we’re all half asleep.” It was so quiet in the mess room that his voice carried; Dyan strode across the room and said, looking down at him with a curl of his lip, “Times like this are when you should be most on guard, cadet. Do you think that footpads in the city, or catmen or bandits on the border, will pick an hour of your convenience to attack? This part of your training is to teach you to be on your guard literally every moment, cadets.” He turned his back on them and walked out of the room.
Gareth muttered, “He’s going to kill one of us some day. I wonder what he’ll say then?”
Damon came back to his seat, looking very white. “He wouldn’t even let me go with them and hold his head.”
Gabriel laid a comforting hand on his arm. He said, “Don’t worry, Master Raimon will take good care of him.”
Regis had been shocked at the sight of blood, but a sense of scrupulous fairness made him say, “Lord Dyan is right, you know. When we’re really in the field, a moment of being off guard can get us killed, not just hurt.”
Damon glared at Regis. “It’s all right for you to talk, Hastur. I notice he never picks on you.”
Regis, whose ribs were chronically black and blue from Dyan’s battering at sword practice, said, “I suppose he thinks I get enough lumps working out with him in armed-combat training.” It occurred to him that there was an element of cruelty in this too. Kennard Alton had taught him to handle a sword when he was believed to be the best swordsman in the Domains. Yet in daily practice with either Kennard or Lew for two years, he had collected fewer bruises than he had had from Dyan in a few weeks.
A second-year man said audibly, “What do you expect of the Comyn? They all hang together.”
Regis bent his head to the cold porridge. What’s the use? he thought. He couldn’t show everybody his bruises—he shouldn’t have opened his mouth. Danilo was trying to eat with trembling hands. The sight filled Regis with distress but he did not know what he could say that would not be an intrusion.
In the barracks room, Regis quickly made up his bed, helped Damon fix up Julian’s cot and arrange his possessions; when Julian returned, at least he would not have to face demerits for leaving his bed and shelf in disorder. After the other cadets had gone off for arms-drill, he and Danilo remained. It was their turn to sweep the room and clean the fireplace. Regis went meticulously about the work of scraping ashes from the fireplace and cleaning the hearth. You never knew which officer would make inspection and some were stricter than others. He did the work with all the more thoroughness because he detested it, but his thoughts were busy. Had Julian really been hurt? Dyan had been too rough.
He was aware that Danilo, shoving the heavy push-broom with scowling determination at the far end of the room, was filled with a kind of sullen misery that overlaid everything else. Regis wondered if there was any way to block out other people’s emotions, for he was far too sensitive to Danilo’s moods. If he knew what Dani was thinking, or why he was so angry and miserable all the time, it might not be so bad, but all Regis got were the raw emotions.