Second Draft Chapter 20

I walked into the Cadet locker room one day to find everyone clustered around Christopher, who was reading from a newspaper. Immediately I knew what had happened before I even heard a word of what Christopher was reading.

Christopher’s voice trembled with excitement as he read out the words. “At least our troops are going to know the delights of massacre. Let the blood of the Amicaens flow in torrents, in waterfalls, with the divine fury of the flood! Let the wretch who merely dares to utter the word ‘peace’ be immediately shot like a dog and flung into the sewer!”

Christopher paused to take a breath, and as he adjusted the paper for a minute, I saw the headline in big bold black letters. Not that I really needed to see it. “WAR”.

During the pause, people noticed I had walked in. “Hey, what do you think about this Jon?” someone asked me.

“It shouldn’t be a surprise,” I said, taking off my coat. “Now those Amicaens are going to get what’s coming to them at last.”

“Damn right!” the Cadet on my left shouted. He let out a whoop, and the room started erupting into spontaneous cheering. It was a little bit silly, but everyone was so energized by the news that they needed some outlet.

And then Orion walked through the doors, and the cheering stopped immediately. The crowd disappeared from around Christopher, and people began clustering around Orion.

At first, Orion had on his usual neutral expression. But as everyone was leaning forward to hear what he had to say, he broke into a smile. “I see you boys have heard the news,” he said. This produced another round of cheers, which Orion silenced by holding up his hand. “Training has been cancelled for today boys. Instead you need to clean your uniform, and polish your buttons and sword. Zeus himself will be inspecting afterwards. The troops are being sent off tomorrow, and we’re going to be part of the parade.”

Not even Orion could silence the cheering after that.

*****************************************************************

The next day couldn’t have been more perfect. The sun was out, the air was warm, and it felt like spring again. You would hardly have known it was almost winter.

The Cadets marched through the parade first. I guess we were supposed to warm up the crowd before the actual fighting troops marched through. It was an honor to be in the parade at all, but as people cheered us from both sides, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who felt embarrassed. Why were we getting cheered? We weren’t doing anything. We should be going off to the front to fight with the troops. It suddenly didn’t feel right to stay here at the University. I was nineteen years old after all. I was older than some of the troops who were going off to fight.

We marched down the whole street to cheering crowds. Some people even threw flowers on us, which was a further embarrassment. And then at the end of the parade we went off to the side and formed up in our lines, to become part of the crowd ourselves. And then we cheered ourselves horse and waved our hats as the real troops marched by.

The whole crowd was ecstatic as the troops marched by. The troops were all in green uniforms, except for their officers, who wore the same blue uniform as us Cadets. The officers would always turn and salute us, and we would offer a crisp salute back, and then with that formality over, we could cheer and yell for our brother soldiers to our hearts content. It was like being at a sports match.

Unfortunately, I was standing next to Christopher in the formation, [because Christopher was second to me in our year.-too wordy?] And Christopher felt the need to explain everything that was going on to me. God knows why. He was just one of those people who assumed everyone else always wanted to hear his opinion about everything.

“Those officers have the blue uniform because they used to be Cadets,” Christopher said. “The soldiers are mostly off from the street or from the slums. Almost none of them are university educated.” I tried to tune out Christopher as he went on to explain who the different officers were.

I was relieved when I heard shouting down the road, and I had an excuse not to listen to Christopher. I leaned forward and turned my head sideways to try and make out what it was. At first all I could make out was what looked like a white bed sheet tied to two different poles and hoisted up by a couple of men. Both of them looked old and gray enough to have been my grandfather. Everyone was yelling and screaming obscenities at them as they walked calmly on. As they got a little closer, I saw what all the commotion was about. The bed sheet had one word written on it in large black letters: “Peace”.

And then as they continued to come forward, I noticed a third man was helping to hold the sheet up, my old classmate LJ. These must have been part of the new crowd he had started hanging out with since his expulsion from the University.

The contrast between LJ’s group and the rest of us could not have been more pronounced. The road was filled with soldiers, officers, and Cadets, all of us strong men in the prime of our life willing to go off and fight and die for our country. And here was LJ, as skinny and pale as ever, walking next to two old grandfathers who looked like they barely got out of bed every morning. The three of them looked pathetic.

“He’s gone too far this time,” Christopher said.

“Permission to break ranks Jon,” said a voice behind me. I looked back, and there was Ajax. I didn’t understand what he was talking about at first, and then I realized he was asking my permission to step out of formation. Since I was the top Cadet for our year, he had to ask my permission first before he did anything unorthodox. I’m sure he hated having to ask me, but he put up with it rather well. His tone was civil, and the only hint that he begrudged my authority was that he still addressed me by my first name instead of “Sir”.

And then he even managed to give me a comradely smile as he added, “This will only take a minute.” He put his right fist into his open left palm and rubbed it there, and any doubt I may have had about what he was talking about vanished immediately.

I wasn’t technically sure I had the authority to allow a break in formation, even a brief one, but somebody had to do something about LJ, and it might as well be Ajax. Ajax had always enjoyed keeping LJ in his place. I gave him a small nod. As I turned around to look forward again, I added, “Make it quick. I don’t want to catch hell from Zeus because you disrupted the parade.”

As LJ and the two old men walked by us, Ajax leaped out. I deliberately looked the other way down the road, but I could see everything out of the corner of my eye. Ajax moved fast, just like I told him to. Within seconds he had ripped down the sign and knocked the two old men onto the ground. Then he turned on LJ and with a quick downward motion of his hand, he broke LJ’s nose.

Ajax stepped back into formation to the sound of applause from all around. The two old men got back to their feet with difficulty. Blood was pouring out of LJ’s smashed nose. As the crowd cheered Ajax, the irony of the situation registered briefly in my brain. I used to pride myself on protecting people like Joshua and LJ from bullies like Ajax. Now I was authorizing it. It’s strange how quickly loyalties and alliances can change when you’re growing up.

The rest of the Cadets had managed to kick the fallen peace sign to shreds, mostly without even breaking formation. The old men and LJ walked off. LJ was trying to use his handkerchief to mop up the blood around his nose, but Ajax had known right were to hit him. His nose would probably never look the same again, and already his handkerchief had enough blood on it that it seemed to have been used in an amputation. The crowd, who had so wildly cheered the soldiers, drew back in disgust as he passed. “He should hide his nose,” I heard a bearded civilian say as LJ passed.

“Does he think he has the right to scare swans and children?” another woman asked.

“Serves him right,” Christopher remarked to me as LJ walked away. That was Christopher, always trying to take credit for everything. You would have thought it was Christopher who punched LJ in the nose.

All the soldiers had passed by now, and the parade came to a halt in front of the town hall. Caiaphas (check spelling, also too obvious?), the head of the minister’s conference, was standing on the balcony with his hands outstretched to offer his blessing.

The cheerful tone that had been on the streets immediately stopped, and everyone tried to assume a tone of reverence. We Cadets held our hands behind our back, bowed our head, and closed our eyes.

Caiaphas began his blessing. “May God protect the brave soldiers of Fabulae as they go forth into battle. May God safeguard you against every enemy. May God grant you victory against our foes. Amen.”

I think I was not the only one who was surprised by how short the prayer was because we all opened our eyes and unbowed our heads cautiously, looking around at each other to make sure this hadn’t been some sort of trick or minister’s joke.

“Children of God,” Caiaphas shouted to the soldiers, “Go forth and be victorious for the glory of Fabulae and for the glory of the Duke.” The crowd erupted into wild cheers.

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[Leave this in for the time being, but seriously think if this and the following section could be removed without harming the story at all. Everything in here is a bit redundant. Also if do leave in, it is severely compromised by being too close to first draft. Redo].

I had barely even set foot into art guild when a voice boomed out. “Where is he?” I recognized Hermes’s voice almost immediately, but it took me a few seconds to orient myself to the room. “Over here Jon,” Hermes called out. Hermes was sitting in a chair at the part of the circle farthest from the door. He rose and walked towards me. The room, which had gone briefly silent after Hermes’s initial outburst, returned to the familiar chattering sound of many different private conversations occurring simultaneously. “Well don’t just stare blankly at me Jon. Let’s have an answer here.”

I laughed. “What are you talking about?”

Hermes gave me a playful shove. “Orpheus. Don’t even tell me you came to art guild with out him.”

“Hermes, I-“

Hermes pushed his hair out of his eyes and with his hand brushed it back over his head. He assumed a look of mock horror. “Oh no! Oh no, you did, didn’t you? No, no Jonny. No need to make up excuses. I can read you like a book.”

Hermes expected me to play along in this little charade. I knew my part was to act appalled at the lack of trust, but I couldn’t force my smile down, so I just gave up. I ended up shrugging. “What can I do? If he doesn’t want to come, then he doesn’t want to come.”

“You’re the one who knows him Jon. Find a way.”

If I did know Orpheus, it was only slightly. Orpheus spent most of his time with his girlfriend Eurydice, and hardly ever hung out with Clio, let alone with me. “I don’t know how to get him here.”

“Well, there’s got to be some way. How much money do we have in the art guild budget? We could pay him to come.”

“Are you serious?”

“Half serious. Okay, maybe that’s not a good idea, but we have got to get him here. Do whatever you can, or I’ll track him down myself.”

********************************************

Later that evening I went with Clio to visit Orpheus’s room. His roommate Dagon {name roommate earlier on?} always studied in the library, and so his half of the room was vacant when we arrived. Orpheus himself was sitting at his desk, which was covered with opened books. It created at least the impression that he had been studying very hard, although Clio was fond of complaining about how little Orpheus studies. Perhaps, like Icarus, Orpheus had the habit of starting books and not finishing them.

Orpheus was so into his book he didn’t notice us come in until Clio said something, and then he jerked his head up. I noticed Eurydice was sitting in a corner reading a book, but she stubbornly kept her head buried between the pages. If she saw my wave, she didn’t acknowledge it. “What are you two doing here?” Orpheus asked.

“Jon wants to talk to you,” Clio answered.

Orpheus blinked a few times, his eyes wide with confusion, and then turned to me. “Yes, what is it Jon?”

I tried to make small talk first. “What are you studying?” I asked.

“Oh, this? This is just art history.”

“Is it pretty interesting?”

“It’s okay. I think it sucks that I have to take it though. It’s an entry-level class, and most of the beginning art classes I got waved through. Not this one though.”

“Why is that?”

“Oh, the art department didn’t think I knew this stuff well enough. And I guess I don’t. It’s mostly useless though. I mean, if the class focused on the different types of art that have appeared throughout history, and on how to interpret it, I could understand that. That’s important stuff. The thing is they really don’t. This class is mostly names and dates and useless stuff like that.”

I looked over his shoulder at the book. “Sorry to hear that.”

“So what brings you here Jon?”

“They want you at art guild Orpheus. They really want you at art guild.”

He smiled. “I don’t know what to say. I’m flattered I guess. It’s always nice to be wanted.”

There was a moment of silence before I spoke again. “I don’t really care myself. I mean I’d love it if you were there, but I can understand if you get bored. Besides, I can always see your stuff here on my own. It’s the others who are really concerned about it. Hermes, really. Did you ever met Hermes?”

Orpheus picked up one of his books and put it on his lap in an absent minded sort of way. Apparently somewhere in his brain he thought he should be studying while he talked to me. “I don’t think I ever did.”

“Well, Hermes would really like you to come to art guild. At least once.”

Something in Orpheus’ brain told him it was time to turn the page in his book, and so he did, and then he turned another one just for good measure. “I don’t know what to say Jon. I mean I’m really not sure it would be worth my time.”

“I’m just here to warn you, because if I’m not able to convince you, pretty soon Hermes will track you down.”

Without even looking at the book, Orpheus flipped through several pages. “Well, I guess I’ll just wait for him to come to me, in that case.”

Clio, who had been watching us silently, at last spoke up. “We should go,” she said. “Orpheus has a lot more studying to do. And I’m sure Eurydice does too.” She added the last part sarcastically, but Eurydice didn’t even look up from her book.

As we walked down the stairs, Clio once again began talking about her favorite subject: how Eurydice was no good. “He doesn’t have time for a girlfriend in the first place with all his art work and his studying. But if he is going to have a girl, it should be someone who can help him. Eurdyice gives him nothing. He spends all of his energy making sure she’s okay.”

“At least she’s quiet,” I remarked.

“She only pretends to be quiet,” Clio said. “She talks his ear off when they are alone. Her life is always in one crisis or another that he either has to rescue her from or calm her down from. He doesn’t have time for her dramas.”

I had stopped listening because I saw a stack of leaflets resting on the stairway banister. “What is this?”

“Those have been all over campus,” Clio remarked. “Haven’t you seen them yet?”

I picked one up. It was printed on one side of a white unfolded piece of paper. The heading read, “Message to the People of Amicae.”

“Message to the people of Amicae? Why would someone print this up? There aren’t any Amicaens here on campus.”

“Keep reading,” Clio said.

“The following message was sent off last week to the Amicaen Universities and Working men’s councils by the Central Student Committee,” I read aloud. “Oh.”

“I’m not sure why he’s dating her in the first place. She has absolutely no interest in art, and art is his life. I’ve tried to talk to him about her several times, but he won’t listen to me. Maybe you should talk to him Jon. He won’t listen to me because I’m his sister but-.”

“Did you read this thing?” I asked.

“I read the headline like everyone else.”

“Who is the Central Student Committee?”

“How would I know? You know I don’t pay attention to that stuff.”

“ ‘We wish to extend a message of peace and friendship to the Amicaen people, and let them know that this war of aggression by the Fabulae government in no way reflects the opinion of the Fabulae people.’ The hell it doesn’t. Who appointed these guys to speak for the people?”

Clio yawned. “If it makes you angry Jon just don’t read it.”

“Hold on one sec.” I stopped reading aloud, but my eyes continued to scan over the page. “Brothers, we protest against the war, we who wish for peace, labour, and liberty. Brothers, do not listen to the hirelings who seek to deceive you as to the real wishes of Fabulae.” Then in bold type: “The people are our brothers, and the tyrants our enemies.”

The bottom of the page contained one last paragraph. “The following message was received by the from the working men’s council of Amicae last week: ‘We too wish for peace, labour, and liberty. We know that on both sides of the river there are brothers with whom we are ready to die for the Universal Republic. The people are our brothers, and the tyrants our enemies.’”

I was so angry my hands were shaking. Everyone knew all the horrible things the Amicae people did. Wasn’t it in the newspapers everyday? Even I knew that, and I didn’t read the newspapers. Everyday someone would come into the Cadet locker room with a new story about a fresh atrocity committed by the Amicaen army. How could anyone think of expressing a message of peace and friendship across the river? And especially now, when war had already been declared, and our troops were in harms way, how could they undermine the war effort like this?

Bile rushed into my mouth. I thought of the old expression, “I’m so mad I could spit.” I had always thought that was a silly thing old ladies said, but suddenly I felt an urge to spit on the ground in anger. If I hadn’t still have been inside the dormitory, I would have.

I didn’t know who the Central Student Committee was. This was the first I had heard of them, but I knew LJ was involved in this somehow. Everyone would know. He might just as well have signed his name to it.

*************************************************************

The clang of the rifle hitting the floor aroused me from my slumber. I turned over and saw Orion lighting the lamp. “Wake up Jon,” he said. “Your training’s not over yet.”

“What time is it?”

“Almost two.”

“At night?” My head was still heavy with sleep, so I asked stupid questions. Instead of answering, Orion just picked up the lamp. Except for the fire from the lamp, the room was pitch black. “Is this a drill?”

“No, this is the real thing.

“The war?” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized I had asked my second stupid question. The war was something that was taking place at the edge of Fabulae’s boarders, far away from the University.

Orion didn’t mind the questions. “No not the war,” he said. “Not the big one at least. Get your uniform on first.”

I got out of bed and went over to the closet where I stripped off my pajamas and put on a clean uniform. I still didn’t know what was going on. “Is the Corps forming up tonight?”

“No, not tonight. This is a two man job. I’m going because I’m top Cadet. You’re going because you will be the top Cadet someday and you need the practice.”

I started snapping the buttons shut. “So what are we doing?”

“We’re going to make an arrest tonight.”

“Isn’t that the job of the police?”

“The police don’t come onto campus. The Cadets handle all that.” Orion pulled a piece of paper out of his breast pocket, and unfolded it in front of the lamp. With my jacket all buttoned, I stepped forward into the light. Fall had turned to winter, and I could see my breath in the dim glow the lamp gave off.

Orion began reading from the paper. “This hereby certifies that the Cadets are to use any and all necessary force to apprehend one Lucius Junius Brut-.”

“LJ!” Actually I had pretty much known it would be him as soon as Orion mentioned an on-campus arrest. And yet it still shocked me to hear it. Especially the casual way Orion read off the arrest warrant, as if he were reading a grocery list instead of talking about an old schoolmate of ours. “You’re talking about LJ.”

“Alias LJ,” Orion confirmed.

“I can’t arrest LJ. I went to school with him.”

“So?”

“You don’t expect me to arrest a classmate?”

“That’s what we Cadets do. We act as the on-campus police. Everyone on this campus is your classmate.”

I didn’t say anything back to this because I knew he was right. I just nodded and went to put on my shoes. “Don’t forget your rifle,” Orion said, indicating the rifle he had thrown on the ground for me.

I looked at the rifle, but did not touch it. “We’re not really going to need that, are we?”

“Probably not, but you never know. You might finally have the chance to shoot more than cats.”

I bent down and picked up the rifle. My training as a Cadet had made handling the cold metal thing as a second nature. Once I had it in my hands, I found myself cocking open the latch and checking to see if it was loaded without really thinking about what I was doing. It felt natural, and I almost forgot my reservations.

Orion reached over and, just like my father used to do, snapped together my top button, and adjusted my neck collar, which must have been sticking up in the back. Then he nodded his approval and without any further words I followed him out the door.

Perhaps because I was still waking up, I didn’t think to ask Orion where we were going until we were outside the dormitory. After all, it wasn’t like we were going to LJ’s dorm room. LJ didn’t technically live on campus anymore.

“He’s here,” Orion said after I had asked the question. “Just follow me.”

I followed Orion across campus in the dark. He walked, like he always did, as a determined man with long brisk strides. But he didn’t rush. He didn’t seem worried that LJ would get away. He did, however, occasionally depart from the lighted path to take short cuts through the campus gardens. He walked like a cat, somehow instinctively avoiding every obstacle that was in his way, even in the dark. And I stumbled clumsily behind him, tripping over everything.

At last we arrived at the dormitories on the east side of campus. All of the windows from the outside were dark, but as I followed Orion into the lobby, I could see a faint light illuminating the stairwell leading to the basement. Orion double-checked to make sure his rifle was loaded, and then clicked the safety off with his thumb. I did the same with mine.

As we walked downstairs at first the light from the gas lamps hurt my eyes. I put up one hand to shield my face as I blinked into the glare. Orion, as always, did not seem affected by anything and kept walking straight on.

The next thing I became aware of was the sound of female voices and laughter, and as I put my hand down I saw that Rosa, Sophia, Emma, and Vera were all sitting in armchairs, arranged in a circle and knitting as they laughed with each other.

“What’s going on here?” Orion roared.

The girls stopped their laughing, but they did not seem the least disturbed by our presence. “Why whatever do you mean?” asked Rosa sweetly.

“Where is Lucius?”

“Lucius?” Rosa exchanged confused glances with the rest of her circle before responding, “Oh, you mean LJ.”

I had never seen Orion loose his cool before, but something about Rosa’s attitude was irritating him immensely. “What are you doing?” Orion bellowed.

Again, this question seemed to confuse Rosa. She looked at the other girls again, and then finally said, “Can’t you see? This is our knitting circle.”

“At two in the morning?”

Rosa gave Orion a pitiful smile, such as a teacher might give a child who couldn’t understand the lesson. “Don’t you know there’s a war effort on?” she asked. “We all have to do our part to make sure our troops have warm scarves and blankets out on the boarders.”

Now, besides the obvious, there were several little things that were wrong with this picture, and I’m not sure if Orion picked up on them all because he had been a couple classes above the rest of us. So he might not know, for instance, that although Vera and Sophia were part of Rosa’s little group, Emma never hung out with these girls if she could avoid it. And the friendly laughing and joking that we had heard when we first walked in seemed a little too friendly.

Orion searched the room with his eyes, looking for any possible hiding places. But like all dormitory basements, this was filled with only a few tables for studying and the armchairs the girls had pulled into a circle.

For a moment I thought Orion was mad enough to start smashing everything in the room, and then he seemed to recover himself. “There are guards posted at every entrance and exit to this University. He won’t escape.”

“Who won’t escape what?” Rosa asked. Her attitude had changed slightly. There was a smile on her face which indicated she was enjoying Orion’s frustration.

“We’ll see if you’re still playing games when Flash has you all lined up and shot.” And with that Orion spun on his heels and marched out of the room. As I followed him out of the dormitory, I saw him punch the door in anger on his way out. To my surprise, the wooden door actually splintered and cracked from the force of his blow.

I went around with Orion to all the campus gates. The two regular guards were there like always, but there were also two Cadets stationed at each gate. The Cadets, unused to sentry duty, were usually stamping their feet and blowing on their hands to keep warm in the cool night air. I also noticed that all the other Cadets were fourth years like Orion. I appeared to be the only second year in on this whole thing.

Orion never talked to the regular guards but always went straight to the Cadets. He told them that the target had escaped apprehension, but should still be on campus grounds and that they were to not relax their vigilance. He even checked the chambers of their rifles to make sure they were loaded, and reminded them that all necessary force had been approved.

Once we had made all the rounds, it was about four in the morning and Orion told me I had better get some sleep before Cadet practice started. Of course I was curious to see how it would all turn out, but I thought it was unlikely that anything would happen in the next couple hours. [Double check with earlier chapters for Cadet practice time].

However the excitement of the night had made me wide awake, and once back in my bed I had a hard time falling asleep again. And when I did get to sleep it was only in bits and starts. I had a dream that I was back with Orion overlooking the slums and we were lying on our stomachs and shooting cats again. I didn’t want to shoot the cats, but I did it because Orion told me to. And as often happens in dreams, the mangled bodies of the cats I saw in my head were a lot more terrifying than they had been in real life. And there was the cat I had wounded but not killed. It screamed just like a human would scream, and I wanted to put it out of its misery but Orion forbade me to waste a bullet. So I just listened to the dreadful screams as they grew louder and louder. I put my hands over my ears, but that didn’t stop the sound. Orion told me to pick my gun back up and start firing again, but my hands were shaking so much now I couldn’t shoot straight. I began to wound many more cats, and their screams also filled the air.

I was actually relieved when the time for Cadet practice came, although I knew I was tired enough that I would have trouble keeping up.

Some of the fourth years from last night also looked tired, although if Orion was fatigued at all, he didn’t show it. No one said a word about last night. And as far as I could tell, none of the first, second or third years even knew about it. I wasn’t sure if they had caught LJ in the early hours of the morning or not. Orion didn’t give any indication, and I didn’t get a chance to ask him. And even if they had caught LJ, I wouldn’t have had the first clue what they intended to do with