House Valemont

There were many advantages to growing up in House Valemont.

Privacy was not one of them.

By the time Cedric and I had crossed half the gardens, two servants had noticed the state of my clothes, one gardener had smiled knowingly at the dust on my knees, and a stable boy passing in the opposite direction had taken a single look before wisely deciding that silence was more valuable than whatever joke had entered his head.

I respected him immensely.

The path curved between flowerbeds arranged so carefully that I sometimes wondered whether the gardeners measured them while we slept. Roses climbed wooden frames along the eastern wall, hedges divided one section from another in perfectly straight lines, and almost every tree had been trimmed into obedience.

Only the old oak tree near the eastern wall seemed to have escaped.

A year earlier, I had climbed into its branches after deciding that history lessons were an unreasonable use of a perfectly good afternoon. My plan had been excellent: the leaves hid me from below, my tutor was too old to climb after me, and I had even remembered to bring something to eat.

Mother found me in twenty minutes.

She did not shout or order me down; instead, she folded her arms beneath the tree and waited with the patience of someone who knew hunger would eventually accomplish what authority could not, and it did.

Getting down took nearly five minutes, cost me one shoe and left a tear in my trousers from a branch I was certain had not existed on the way up.

Mother watched the entire struggle before asking whether I was finished, which was somehow worse than being scolded.

“You’re smiling,” Cedric said.

“I was remembering something.”

“The tree?”

“How did you know?”

“Your mother told me.”

Wait.

How?

“She promised she wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Perhaps she doesn’t consider me anyone.”

I spent several steps deciding whether he had just insulted himself, but the manor came into view before I could reach an answer.

Its pale stone walls rose above the gardens, with dark timber framing the upper floors and ivy climbing the western side despite what appeared to be a long-running dispute with the gardeners.

Above the main entrance rested the crest I had seen every day of my life.

A silver wolf beneath a crown.

Father had explained the meaning more than once. The wolf was ours; the crown represented the Empire, which our family had helped create alongside the royal line and three other houses. Those families were still called the Founding Houses, which Father considered important enough to repeat whenever my history lessons came up. The rest involved duty, service and several other important ideas I had forgotten about, because a beetle had been crawling along the windowsill during that part.

I remembered the beetle perfectly.

Visitors often became quiet after entering the manor. The marble floor, sweeping staircase and rows of ancestral portraits apparently inspired respect in people who had not once attempted to slide across that same floor in their socks.

I had.

The table survived. The vase did not.

“He still looks disappointed,” Cedric said, glancing towards my great-grandfather’s portrait.

“He looked like that before I broke anything.”

“Perhaps he knew.”

I gave the painted man another look and decided not to explore that possibility.

The smell of roasted meat reached us as we left the entrance hall, prompting my stomach to announce that sword training had consumed whatever breakfast was meant to last until dinner.

Cedric heard it.

“Don’t.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You were going to.”

Elara appeared from the corridor ahead carrying folded linen. She had worked in the manor for longer than I could remember, which gave her two unfair advantages: she knew almost every embarrassing thing I had ever done, and Mother trusted her version of events more than mine.

“Master Leon.”

Her gaze dropped towards my clothes.

“I assume training was productive.”

“Very. He threw me onto the ground twice.”

“Once,” Cedric corrected.

“The first still counted.”

“You tripped over your own foot.”

“You encouraged it.”

“Never mind how many times you ended up on the ground,” Elara concluded, her mouth twitching. “I suggest changing before dinner.”

“I’ll wash my hands.”

Elara’s eyes travelled down the front of my shirt.

I followed her gaze and discovered considerably more dirt than I had realised.

“Well, I think you may need to do a little more than that.”

Before I could develop a better plan, the dining-room doors opened, and Mother appeared. Her eyes moved over me once.

“I assume Elara has already explained the problem.”

“She has some opinions.”

“Elara is usually very sensible.”

There was no recovering from that.

When I returned several minutes later, Cedric had left, and Father was already seated at the head of the table with several folded papers beside his plate. I noticed them immediately, and Father caught my reaction.

“You’re not in trouble.”

“I didn’t think I was.”

“You changed remarkably quickly for someone who wasn’t worried,” Mother teased.

“I was hungry.”

That was true enough to serve as a defence.

Dinner began before Father explained the papers, forcing me to sit with the mystery while roasted chicken, potatoes and warm bread occupied the table. I reached towards the chicken with my fingers until Father glared at me, at which point my hand changed direction and collected the serving fork instead.

“How was training?” Father asked.

“I lost.”

“Again?!”

“Yes, but I think I learned something.”

Father’s attention sharpened as I explained Cedric’s lesson, leaving out several details concerning how much time I had spent on the ground. When I finished, he rested his glass beside his plate.

“So Cedric wants you to understand the intention behind someone’s actions.”

“He said watching tells you what someone does, but analysing tells you why.”

“Useful advice for outside a training yard too.”

“I don’t think I’m going to be attacked over dinner.”

Mother laughed.

“People create openings as well,” he continued. “They show you things because they want them noticed, hide others because they don’t, and sometimes reveal more than they intended to. Learning the difference will matter when you’re older.”

There it was again: when you’re older.

Adults used those words like a battering ram, as if repeating them enough times would eventually knock some sense into you.

“I want to learn now.”

“You seem rather in a hurry lately,” Father said.

“To learn?”

“To become whatever you think you’re supposed to be.”

That made me pause.

One day, House Valemont would belong to me, and that meant more than the manor and its gardens. Founding Houses still carried old rights at court and older responsibilities to the Empire. Servants already called me Master Leon, knights bowed whenever Father introduced me to them, and strangers sometimes looked at me with the peculiar expression adults seemed to reserve only for children they expected to become someone important in the future.

Everybody seemed to understand what being a Valemont required, and I wanted to understand too.

“I don’t want to be useless.”

“Being eight does not make you useless,” Father countered.

“I know, but if something happened now, I wouldn’t be able to do anything.”

“What sort of thing?”

“I don’t know.”

There was no particular disaster I was preparing for. I only knew Cedric could defeat me with ease, and Father dealt with responsibilities I barely understood.

Waiting until I was older felt suspiciously similar to doing absolutely nothing.

“There is nothing wrong with wanting to improve,” Mother said. “But you don’t have to earn the right to be our son.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

The question was gentle enough to make arguing rather difficult.

“You’ll have responsibilities one day, and when that day comes, I expect you to meet them,” Father added. “Until then, train seriously, study properly, and stop treating every hour spent enjoying yourself as an hour stolen from your future.”

“So I’m allowed to climb the oak tree again?”

“No!” both of them answered.

I stared at them until Mother laughed.

Father resisted for several seconds before also cracking a smile.

“This is what I mean,” Mother explained. “Enjoy being a child. Preferably without breaking your neck.”

“There are too many conditions.”

“Unfortunately, they just come with being a child.”

Something in my chest eased. They weren’t telling me to stop trying to improve; they simply seemed convinced there was no reason to rush.

At eight, I found this doubtful.

A year already felt enormous, and three years with Cedric contained enough bruises, lessons and arguments to fill most of what I remembered. Perhaps adults experienced time differently, which would explain why they never seemed to notice how much of it they wasted talking.

“We’re travelling to the capital in three days,” Father announced.

“The capital?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Your mother and I have been summoned to the Imperial Palace. The Crown has requested additional men and supplies.”

I stopped with my glass halfway to my mouth.

“Are we at war?”

“No.”

“Then why do they need more knights?”

Father looked down at the papers beside his plate.

“That is one of the things I intend to ask.”

The Imperial Palace existed in stories, paintings and the distant part of the capital I remembered seeing when I was six years old, but I had never been inside.

“Am I coming?”

“Yes.”

That answer created an unreasonable number of questions.

“Will the Emperor be there? Can I see the throne room? Cedric said the western gardens are bigger than ours, but I think he was exaggerating. Is the royal gallery really full of old weapons? How many rooms does the palace have?”

Father slowly lowered the letter while Mother was already laughing.

“You have three days. Try not to ask every question in a single night.”

I looked at the imperial seal pressed into the page.

In the grand scheme of things, three days sounded short.

Now they seemed unnecessarily long, and for once, becoming older could wait. I only wanted the next three days to pass sooner.