Songs of Experience

Camille woke in one of the quiet, timeless hours between dusk and dawn, when Maman returned and laid down on their pallet beside him.

It was nothing new; he always woke at any little sound. It had been that way ever since she had told him that soon she couldn’t come home at sundark anymore, and he would need to be very careful at night because he’d be alone. So he practiced sleeping up in the hollows of roofs and the branches of trees, practiced sleeping around loud noises and in bright spaces. At last he could doze with his mind skittering around watchful just below the surface of sleep, like a rat running around inside a wall waiting til the coast was clear.

The first night she came in late, he was ready. He sprung up at the creak of the door, clutching a big stick he’d sharpened up good. He was sure he could stab the bad guy before he took any of their things; he’d hidden them all in the corner under the blanket. But it was only her familiar shadow that fell over him, tense with surprise in the doorway.

She laid him back down and hugged him close, whispering “My little Knight” into his hair. He wriggled in her arms at the odd feeling of hot tears on his scalp, wondering why she was crying when he’d done so good. But that had been a whole year ago. He’d been just a baby then; he hadn’t understood -anything-.

Since then it had been like this every night. She would come and join him on their pallet, and her long ropey arms would wrap around him just so, her lips descending on his forehead for a soft wet kiss. Then he would fall asleep again, not even minding how warm it was with her hugging him so tight. In the short, clammy winter, it’d been wonderful and he’d drift off at once.

Tonight, though, he kept himself awake. He held his breath to listen to his Maman’s, to see if she was going right to sleep or if he could ask her his question. His heartbeat pounded loud against his skull, and colorless patterns flashed and swam on the inside of the eyelids he held so tightly closed. No, he had to ask it or it would just explode right out of him.

Her breathing didn’t slow, her hand skating over his hair. The caress seemed heavy with the words he was holding in, and he shivered.

“Maman?” he whispered.

“Yes, my Camille?”

His throat tightened, his stomach twisted. He used to love his name and how she said it, the syllables taking flight from her lips. He didn’t know anybody named anything as fancy as Camille. But that was the problem now, wasn’t it? Now he hated how weird it was, and he didn’t want to hate his own name.

“Do I have to… can I… -not- go to school anymore?”

She tensed all around him, limbs taut and hard as iron. His Maman was so strong, bigger and stronger than anybody, even other people’s dads. “Camille, why do you ask that?”

“I don’t like it,” he miserably told her, hoping against hope there wouldn’t be questions. But it was wrong, what he’d just said; he didn’t dislike it. He hated it. She didn’t seem to catch a lot of things he didn’t say, he thought, but she would catch that.

“Don’t you want to learn?” Her hand stilled, hovering at his temple, and he had to swallow past the lump in his throat. He loved learning. If it had been just him, alone, with the books and maybe Mistress Halleah, it would have been fine. She never treated him any different from any of the others, and she had a pretty smile when he answered questions correctly, so he answered as many as he could.

“I want to,” he mumbled, “But I…” The words choked him.

“You can tell me, little sweet boy.” His eyes were tight but he could hear the smile in her voice as she cupped his cheek in her hard hand. But she didn’t sound happy, not for real. More like she was trying to be, to hide it from him. He had known he shouldn’t have said a thing.

He shouldn’t have. But he had to. Helpless anger rose in his throat, and suddenly he heard himself speaking. “They laugh at me, Maman! They make fun of me for my name and my raggedy clothes and how I smell all the time and how little I am and how I speak! They make fun of me when I don’t know the answer and they make fun of me when I do know the answer! I hate them, all of them, and I don’t want to go back there!”

She sighed, just a rush of breath that ruffled his hair. “They hate you because you’re special, Camille. Because you’re a gentry and they’re just commoners.”

It’s gentry, Maman, he thought. Gentry, not a gentry. He had just learned that the other day in Tubori class, and learned that gentry didn’t speak the way they did. Every time he opened his mouth he gave it away. Not that it needed to when he hadn’t had a bath in months. Some of the kids at school probably bathed every -week-.

“I’m not, Maman,” he told her at last, dread coiling heavily in his stomach. “I’m not gentry. Papan was, but he’s dead. To be gentry you need to have money and we don’t have money. It’s not like nobles where your parents are nobles and that’s enough.”

Her fingers tightened on his cheek, so sharp and forceful his eyes watered. “You -are- a gentry, Camille! Just like your father. You are an Orban!” she cried. “One day the old man will accept you and you will come into your own. And because of that, you go to school. You will keep going to school. Just remember what you are!”

“Maman,” he whispered, voice trembling like a little kid’s, “Maman, you’re hurting me.”

She released him at once, her eyes widening. He could hear the breath hitch in her throat, see the bright dampness well up below her lashes. “Oh my sweet boy, I’m so sorry.” Her arms pulled him in, head cradled up against her, and her lips fell on his cheeks and forehead to kiss again and again. He squirmed in her arms, uncomfortably aware that this was a little kid thing too, being kissed so much by your Maman. But he did kind of like it, so he slid his arms around her in return and clung on tight.

“I’ll keep going to school,” he promised her quietly, because anything was better than making Maman cry.

—–

The next day dawned brutally bright, and he tried his best to cling to his promise. He hadn’t gone back to sleep even after Maman had started to softly snore – by now he had learned to ignore that sound, but he couldn’t stop thinking. What was he going to do? Things couldn’t stay the way they were. That’s why he’d told her in the first place.

Finally he’d decided that he would be quiet, quiet and invisible, and not give anybody a reason to notice or care about him. He was good at being invisible, when he heard fighting nearby or when he’d snuck something off a street cart and had to get away. You just became part of the scenery… maybe part of the shadows, or part of the mud. There weren’t as many shadows or as much mud at school as there was at the docks, but there was the other, harder kind of cover: people. If there were enough people around, you could fit in even when you didn’t.

Maman had packed him a lunch, when she only did on special days; peeking inside, he found fresh bread and cheese. Every time somebody shouted something at him, he thought of the bread, still a little soft. How sweet and rich it was without that funny barf taste it got when you had to buy it moldy. And the cheese… a whole slab, crumbly and strong and sharp in his mouth.

His stomach rumbled hollowly, even wrenched at him as the day got later, but anybody knew food mattered more than words and if he was thinking about lunch nothing could make him upset. Part of the background, he thought. You don’t need to talk to rocks or trees or wagons, and you wouldn’t need to talk to him. And the longer he stayed quiet and ignored them, the fewer jabs they bothered to send his way.

Mistress Halleah looked sad, he thought, when he didn’t answer any questions in Tubori language class. And he didn’t like that. But it was better this way, being somebody everybody overlooked. Had Maman been wrong all this time, saying he should always, always, always remember he was special? Then he remembered he wasn’t gentry, so of course she had been wrong because he wasn’t special in the first place. Tears smarted in his eyes at that, but he quickly looked down at his desk before anyone could see them.

It didn’t matter; nobody was watching, since he wasn’t playing along with them anymore. By lunchtime, he could be glad about that again. A wave of students scurried out under the blue sky, and he went with them. Inside, the schoolhouse was stifling; the long wooden lunch-tables in the open air at least had a breeze. Normally he tried to sit with everyone else, but today he broke away to climb the biggest tree in the schoolyard, sack in his mouth. He was drooling all over it, he noticed with disgust, thinking about his bread and cheese.

One foot up in a junction of branches, the other leg lifting to join it – and fingers closed around his ankle, pulling. His foot slipped and slid; he opened his mouth to shout. The lunchsack fell and so did he, barely twisting out of the way in time to avoid squashing it.

The sun was in his eyes, but the shadow lurking over him was unmistakable. Jolen Amarant stood there smirking down at him. He was just a little bit older than Camille but twice as big, round and red-faced and his clothes only had a couple little holes, so tiny you could barely even see them. Nothing about him was fair at all. Everybody hated Jolen, even all the people who made fun of Camille too, and Jolen hated them all right back. But for some reason Jolen hated Camille more than he hated anybody else.

“Has fancy Camille got a fancy lunch?” he cooed, looking over at the damp sack.

Camille didn’t know what was happening. He’d been quiet. He hadn’t let a single thing they said get to him. If being smart didn’t work, and being silent didn’t work… what was he supposed to do? He had been so sure this was it, the way out, but Jolen would never, ever, ever leave him alone even if he never said another word. The tears welled up again, and all his panic just seemed to make them worse. Such a good lunch must have cost his Maman so much of their food money, if Jolen took it away before he could eat it…

“Well? Rat got your tongue, young Master Orban?” Jolen bent down, reaching. His fist closed around the neck of the burlap bag and lifted it, letting it dangle from his fingers.

Camille could only stare, flat on his back, the treebark rough on his neck. All those wrinkles in Jolen’s flabby pink hand, where it folded in and on and over itself. A thought wormed its way into his head, a thought he’d never had before.

I bet he’s never robbed a cart and had to run away. I bet he’s never climbed a tree fast as he can and jumped back down to do it all over again. I bet he wouldn’t have any idea how to stab a bad guy if they broke into his house at night. I bet he’d pee his pants and start crying.

Jolen’s bigger than me… but he’s all soft and wobbly and… pink…

“Oink oink.” Camille was -good- at pig calls; sometimes he fed the pigs for a silver a day, when the keepers needed an extra hand. His nose could crinkle up and push out a long stuttery snort just like a real snout. Even Jolen wasn’t dumb enough to not know what that sound was, and a blush pooled in his cheeks as he stared slack-jawed down at Camille. The lunchsack fell from a slack hand, forgotten.

“What’d you just…”

“You must be pretty hungry to steal -my- lunch, Jolen. Hungry like a big fat pink pig.” Camille oinked louder this time, snorted in a breath from deep down at the bottom of his lungs. Giggles sounded all around him, and he saw heads turn to watch them just out of the corner of his eye. Good. Fine. If being invisible didn’t help, he’d be just every bit as visible as he wanted. It didn’t matter if he was a gentry or not. All that mattered was nobody was going to take away his bread and cheese and -especially- not Jolen Amarant.

“You… you…” Jolen couldn’t even come up with a reply, he noticed in utter satisfaction. He just stood there gawping, as red as a Lithmorran who’d been out in the sun. But Camille knew he had to watch, and wait, and so he saw the moment when the bigger boy lunged his way with hands clenched in fists. He darted low and ducked, wriggling right between Jolen’s big hammy legs – and snatching up his lunchsack on the way.

He couldn’t spare time to look behind him. He just took off running. He heard an enraged bellow, and footsteps, and people cheering – cheering? Were they cheering for him? No time to check. There was a smaller tree in the opposite corner of the schoolyard, one that would never bear Jolen’s weight. But it would bear him, and it did as he vaulted right up into it, scrambling up narrow branches that sagged beneath him. His heart thudded painfully in his throat, but he wasn’t even all that scared; he was angry too, and excited, and maybe even a little bit happy. It felt like his quick breaths were singing.

He hit the last branches that he was sure could take him and turned around, pressing his back up against the trunk. Jolen was standing below, hopping up and down. “Come down! Come down here and I’ll make you sorry! I’m not a pig, I’m not a pig!” he yelled, only it was more like a shriek, and suddenly Camille wanted to giggle. How had he ever been scared?

He could see the smiles now and the grins, the cheers, and they were all directed toward him. It was like the tree was his legs and he was ten feet tall, invincible. They all hated Jolen and because of that, right now they loved him. Nothing had ever been so good. Now he knew why his Maman wanted him to feel special, if feeling special in everybody’s eyes was just like this. He wanted to feel it for the rest of his life.

Just as he’d hoped, he saw a teacher running closer – and even better, it was Mistress Halleah with her long braid bouncing. Everybody knew Jolen was a big stupid bully, but nobody ever dared to tell on him. Now he was caught well and good and nobody could say Camille’d done anything wrong.

Camille opened his lunchsack, pulled out his bread and cheese, and took a great big bite. Nothing had ever tasted better. He leaned down, let his mouth hang open so just a few crumbs would fall on Jolen, and let loose the biggest, loudest oink of them all.

Mistress Halleah got there just in time to watch Jolen hurl himself up into branches that snapped like twigs under his weight, collapsing in the dirt below the tree. “Camille, are you alright?” she gasped up at him, without sparing much attention for the other boy. He chewed and swallowed, reluctant to say goodbye to that first bite, and nodded.

“I’m okay, Mistress Halleah. But, um, it was really scary.” He widened his eyes just a little, the same way he did whenever somebody caught him doing something wrong. He wished she wouldn’t call him Camille, though. That wasn’t him. Fancy special gentry boys were good boys. They didn’t do things like this, with tricks and lies.

Mentally he went through all his names. Camille Ariel Frances Ira Orban. None of them were very good. Ira was maybe okay but it really sounded like a girl’s name even more than Camille, and so did Frances. Ariel… Ariel was very fancy… maybe if it was just a little shorter…

“…I’m okay, but could you, maybe… could you maybe call me Ari from here on out?”

——-

When Maman came home the next night, he rolled across the pallet to her, still half-asleep. “Maman? Maman, I don’t want to be a knight anymore. Now I want to be a bard.”

Dimly, as if in a dream, he felt her hand pass over his brow. “My little Camille, you can be anything you want to be, because you are special.”

“Come along.”

The young man has been shivering for two hours in the hall, thanks to wearing nothing better than rags with a spattering of blood from the nose to lend color. No doubt they had thought he’d slink out of the cheerless marble antechamber before now. Clutching his papers in his hand, he goes where he is directed, all strength leached from his passions in the interminable wait. Now he wonders dully why he came, what he expected to accomplish, why they are even bothering to escort him from one appallingly expensive room to the next when everyone knows none of them will ever be his.

Alastair le Orban is not the imposing figure he had expected; at seventeen, Ari is taller than his grandfather, taller and leaner as if somebody seized him by the head and feet and wrung him out. He is much darker than his grandfather too, as if the ubiquitous mud of his upbringing got under his skin somehow. That’s silly, though; he knows it’s because of his mother. Then again, she is also intimately familiar with mud.

But Alastair does look like the miniature of his father that his mother keeps safely buried in the corner, all ruddy cheeks and wood-brown hair and eye. Ari’s spent evenings turning it over in hand, wondering that this stranger could be half of him, hunting for commonalities. So he can recognize the line of Alastair’s and Raymond’s and Ari’s jaw, the heaviness of their brows and the thickness of their hair, and for a moment a relief he is ashamed of floods through him. He -is- an Orban, not a delusion.

“I have consented to give you a moment of my time, Camille, because to my ever-lasting shame we are indeed connected in a way no dictate of man can erase.” Alastair’s voice is low and infinitely cultured. “So say your piece and have done.”

He will not allow himself to care that he is sore and exhausted, that this is his only chance at ever seeing Faia again, that his voice has a hopelessly thick dockside twang even after all of his lessons. He definitely won’t allow himself to care about how much he hates that name. He unfolds the papers and throws them down, right there atop the nightpine desk. “I am your grandson, Master le Orban – your only grandson. I have the Orban blood  and there’s the proof. My father, your son, his name is right there on my papers. I want to be acknowledged. I can be useful to you. I’m clever, and I know how to get things done. Maybe I don’t know anything about business, but I can learn. Take me in. You need me.”

“I… need you,” Alastair muses, toying with his quill. Ari has never seen anything like it; the spine of the feather is layered with gold, the edges too. He’ll have one just like that, himself. “You, an ignorant gutter rat? Aye, you have the Orban blood. Mingled with filth. I do -not- need you, child. Petyr will marry, and have fine sons of his own, and you will be forgotten.”

“I won’t let myself be forgotten.” He’s getting angry now, which he can’t. He has to show him he’s worthy. Cool, controlled,  always in command. “I’ll tell them. I’ll tell everybody that I’m the grandson of Alastair le Orban: and if I am a gutter rat, you are the man who left your legitimate grandson in poverty. The papers prove that. I can be useful to you, Grandfather… or I can be useful to your enemies. It’s your choice.”

“A strategy indeed worthy of your upbringing. Allow me to make something clear to you now, Camille.” Alastair’s hand closes on the papers. He is not old, not truly; it is no wizened claw, the parchment crumpling under his strength. “Blood is destiny. One must make allowances for the confusion of one such as yourself, born with one foot in squalor and the other in greatness. There is no place set aside for such people in this world… but there is a reason for that.”

He turned to the hearth, gold against his black velvets, and tossed the papers into the fire. The flames hungrily accept them, seeming to roar – but no, it’s the blood in his ears, the pounding of his heart. The only evidence of his birth is gone before he can force words through the sickening bile in his throat.

“You should have never been born.”