NaNoWriMo Story - Witch, Prince, Guard ch. 3

                                        The Tests
Tristan laid a hand on the prince’s shoulder and gave him a slightly toothless grin. Of course, he assumed that they would be testing in the same group, but when the lady Cathada started separating all the children into groups she made a point of placing them in different groups. Even when Tristan opened his mouth to complain, Cathada silenced him with an expression that only a seasoned teacher knew how to use. Eli did not mind the placement two of them , after all, he would being seeing his friend again in an hour or two. Tristan, however, crossed his arms and pouted his lips as he trudged over to the little flock of children, he was told to go to. What he saw made him grumpier.

      Zeena was just as unhappy to find that horrid boy in her testing group as Tristan was to look up and see that strange rat girl would be with him for the next hour or so. All the groups were herded over to the testing arena. Some of the test were knowledge based to try to learn what each student already knew while others, including the Ability Test, were talent based to try to discover what each child was naturally adept at.

       Tristan could no longer see Eli when his group reached the literacy test site. Tristan pulled his lips into a half smile. He and Eli already knew basic reading and writing because of the private tutors the Queen had hired to teach them at the Summer Palace. Also, he was excited to see if the rat could really write. They all lined up along a table and were each given scrolls or book passages that they were asked to read out loud. Despite the feeling that she might smell, Tristan made sure he stood next to her. He wanted to watch her stumble over her words.

        But Zenobia did not stumble, not one bit. She read her passage clearly only have to slowly sound out two words. Zeena’s half smile mirrored Tristan’s from just moments ago as she turn to look at him expectantly. She knew that he was hoping for her failure and that made her success all the more sweet. Tristan was a bit miffed at her accomplishment but now it was his turn to show off his admirable reading skills. Except when Tristan went to read his excerpt, he bumbled all too confidently over words he truly should have sounded out like Zeena had. He mispronounced words to the point that they were not understandable.

       “Well, at least one of us can read. You surprised that it wunndan’t you?” she teased. This was not as amusing as Tristan had thought it would be.

      “Well, at least one of us is dressed good! You surprised that it isn’t you?” he spat back mocking her. Given the situation, Zeena did the most sensible thing she could think to do. She leaned toward him, hands on hips, and protruded her tongue through her lips. She is such a baby, Tristan thought. Then still bent close to him, Zenobia looked down his clothes and when her eyes reached his again her lips curled into a wicked knowing grin.

     “You sure ‘bout that?” she giggled, pointing down where Tristan had grass painted in skid marks all over her his pants. Tristan flushed both embarrassment for being outwitted and anger because if had been for that...that filthy rat... he would never had rolled on the ground in a fit of laughter. Zenobia turned on foot and gracefully followed the others the writing test.

     Try as they might neither Tristan nor Zeena could see the other’s paper while the orator dictated their group. They could not see how the other did on the arithmetic test either. But as the two left their individual history testing booths, Tristan noticed that the girl seemed a little more deflated than before and took that as a good sign. Not that it really mattered, Tristan already knew that he and Eli would beat out everyone at the history testing. Considering that the two of them grew up in the royal palace and were trained since birth to be the leaders of the kingdom, the two boys knew everything there was to know about their beloved country’s history. The tales of past wars and warriors, kings and company, princes and politics were bedtime stories to the future king and his best companion.

     Zenobia, Tristan and the others of their testing group were finally being led to the center of the arena where the real interesting testing took place. The Combative Test and the Magic Ability Test were the most anticipated tests of the day. Zeena pulled easily out of her defeated mood and burst into a wide smile. It lit up her entire face to the point that she looked almost pretty despite her tattered, filthy clothes and her crazy, loose hair. Of course, Tristan did not think that. He was too busy holding back his own smile and trying to keep himself from bouncing on the balls of his feet. His eyes frantically looked for Prince Eli. Tristan wanted his friend to watch him be tested.

     Elijah was looking for Tristan as well. The boys had trained together over the summer for hours a day with short wooden swords. It would be more than exciting to see if all of their hard work had paid off. Eli skipped over to his friend to make sure they stayed together for these last two tests. Teacher Cathada called for silence over the mob of children’s chatter.

     “Attention younglings! Quiet now, quiet. Now that you have all finish your academic testing, we will begin talent tests. I sure this is what some of you have been waiting for all day, so let’s get started, shall we?” Some of the children giggled, hooted and hollered their approval of this idea. Teacher Cathada continued, “Alright then, now, if you have some experience with swordsmanship or hand-to-hand combat training, please join Swordmaster Wilhelm  over by the practice pavillion.”
 
     She pointed to a younger man with a boyish grin and sword sheathed at his hip. He was neither too tall nor too short with muscles that were neither too lean nor too bulky. With his short sunny hair, his strong physique, and youthful smile, Master Wilhelm  looked like a knight or the hero from one of the picture books all little girls seemed to love. Some of the little ladies blushed at him while others tried to their eyes or their shy smiles.
Zenobia did not flush, or embarass, or suddenly become shy. Instead, she straightened her tiny shoulders and held a harsh gaze on the sword he wore. The prince saw and noted that her reaction was so different from the other’s. He was going to point the fact out to Tristan, but his friend’s hand wrapped firmly around his while Tristan dragged Eli over to the pavillion. Tristan probably would not of seen what Eli had seen in Zenobia expression, or if he did notice he wouldn’t care.

     What Tristan did notice was the fact that every other boy, with exception of a set of twins and the boy that was sickly and frail looking, was also by the pavillion waiting to fight. He smiled wickedly at Elijah.

    “Look at all the fools that we’re gonna beat!” Tristan exclaimed.

   “I bet you can’t beat anybody!” said a voice from behind them. Tristan whipped around so fast he felt a little disoriented. Zenobia let out a chuckle at his dizzied expression.

     “What are you doing here?” he asked with spite. Eli looked on expectedly.

     “I’m here for the combat test, why else?” Zeena rolled her eyes dramatically raising her eyebrows with them. Her hand was on her narrow hip and she looked like she was just trying too hard to appear grown up.

     “But you’re a girl! Girls can’t do combat.”

     “Well, I can!”

     “Well, you’re not allowed to!”

     “I am to! Teacher Cathada never speck-tafied that only boys could go. She only said that if ya knew how’ta fight then you come here! I know how’ta fight so I’m here!” Zeena smiled knowing she had won.

    “Well, that’s not what I h…”

    “She is right,” Eli interrupted. Tristan looked at him with betrayal and Zeena smiled his way when they both got out of their shock of hearing him speak. Tristan had forgotten his quiet friend was there, and Zenobia had never heard him say anything before. Eli continued, “She probably isn’t as good a fighter as we are though.”

      Tristan was the one smiling smugly now, while Zeena flushed a livid ruby and clenched her tiny hands into tight fists. The prince did not mean to offend the girl, he was just telling the blunt truth. He and Tristan had the resources to have much better combat teachers then the girl’s family could have afforded. After all, her family didn’t even have the money to buy a boat that would stay afloat or not wreck. They did not even give her money so that she might find herself new, nice clothes. But, alas, Zenobia was deeply offended that the first thing this weird pale boy would say to her was to undermine her skills with a sword.

      Eli was about to explain his statement before Zeena would yell at him, when a shadow hovered over them and cleared its throat. The three children looked up to Master Wilhelm  peering down at them, one light eyebrow raised, amusement eminent in the curl of his mouth.
“Now, what is so important that you three decided is worth more of your attention than what I was saying?” he asked with a stern tone and a smile. The children noticed that twenty or so other boys that came for the combat testing were also staring at them. Each blushed in his or her own shade of pink at this great embarrassment. Tristan was the first to recover his pride enough to speak.

     “Well...you see- um- sir, that…” Tristan straightened up to make himself a little taller. “She,” he started again pointing his finger at Zenobia, “is a girl!” Tristan had miscalculated how close he stood to her and had accidently poked her with his outstretched finger. Zeena oomphed once from the pain and again when she saw Tristan shaking his hand in disgust as if he was trying to remove the invisible filth received from touching her.

     “So I noticed. Why is the fact that she is a girl so important, might I ask?” Master Wilhelm  chuckled internally at the boy and girl’s juvenile antics.

     “Because girls can’t fight!”
     
     “I see no reason why she should at least be tested.”

     “But she can't be in the combat class, girls aren't allowed!” Tristan was exasperated that the swordmaster did not agree with him.

    “Let’s let me decide that, okay? Right now actually. Why don’t you two go first and show the rest of your classmates how it’s done?” Tristan opened his mouth to object, but Wilhelm  continued. “Unless his Royal Highness, has anything to say about the matter.”

   His Royal Highness? This boy is the prince, Zeena thought as she eyed Elijah asking herself how she could be so foolish not to have known. The smallest bit of panic pulsed through her. Yet, Eli looked up at the man calmly. They had same sunny colored hair except Eli’s was longer and curled around his temples and the back of his neck. After a moment of furrowing his brow in thought, the prince tilted his head back to fully view Master Wilhelm  and nodded sagely. The two shared a smile, before the swordmaster clapped his hands together.

     Placing his hands on Zeena and Tristan’s shoulders, he led them to the front of the group to a ring of dirt with tented artillery of harmless to its left. Eli followed close behind, he did not want to miss a moment of this.

      Master Wilhelm  directed Zenobia and Tristan to stand in the center of the ring of dirt and then left to get some things needed for the tests. Zeena already set her face into a determined grimace. Tristan almost laughed at how serious her expression was. He had long gotten over the fact that he would be fighting a girl and was more anticipating watching her fail.

     The young man came back with a set of small wooden practice swords and two thickly filled sacks that dragged along side him. He put a sack in front of both children then laid the practice swords on the ground between them. Some the boys that looked upon them giggled to see a girl in the dirt sparring ring.

     “Now boys and girl, look here for a moment. As you know I will be testing your combative skills and training today. I will be testing you in two forms of combat in two different ways. First, you will be fighting hand-to-sack with one of our lovely dummies,” several of the boys laughed as he pointed to lumby sacks in front of Zeena and Tristan, “I will ask you to execute, or do, a certain maneuver, such as different style punches and kicks, to see if you recognize them. We will do this a second time but when do that I will be giving to a practice sword to attack the dummies with.

    “Once you finished with the dummies, you and your partner will fight each other in both styles. After I finish my evaluation of you, you may either walk to the other side of the arena to wait to go through your Ability Test or you may stay and watch the others fight it out.”

    Everyone set about nodding their heads with a few “yes, sir” s and “of course, swordmaster”s added in. Master Wilhelm  gave Tristan and Zenobia a questioning look that asked them if they were ready, and when they both nodded he began to call off names of different ways to hit the sack. The longer they went through the called out moves the more obvious it was that Zeena did not know any formal maneuvers. Sometimes she wait for Tristan to move first and then try often successfully to copy him, other times though it seemed as if she was guessing what to do from then name of the move. It was the same for the swordplay as well. Eli thought it might have to do with the fact that she is an ambassador’s daughter and might have been trained in another country’s traditional fighting style.

    But then, the interesting half of their testing began. Wilhelm  moved Zeena and Tristan to opposite sides of the ring of dirt.

  “Now, when I say ‘go’ you may begin to spare, but you may not hurt the other person. The goal is to get each other on the ground. We will do up to three rounds unless I can get a good enough sense of your fighting style in the first round. Alright, ready and…...GO!” Master Wilhelm  exclaimed as the two ran toward each other.

     As Tristan ran toward Zenobia she dropped suddenly and quickly to a spin with her leg out at the end. Tristan could not stop himself in time and he tripped over her leg. He landed with puff as a small cloud of dirt billowed around him for moment and before he could move to stand up a heavy weight popped daintily on his back. Zeena had sat on him. The first round was won easily by Zenobia. Tristan was not happy about this situation even it was obviously just a fluke that she beat him.

   “Get off!” he yelled, but she just nestled her bum deeper into his spine. All the other boys surrounding them burst into fits of giggles, even Eli’s snorted laughter could be heard in the din of it. Zeena smiled triumphantly at her audience and did not remove herself from his back until Master Wilhelm  told to get up for a second round.

     This time when the swordmaster said, “Go!” Tristan walked over to the center of ring instead of running and that stupid, horrid rat girl did the same. Zeena watched him very carefully waiting for him to make the first move. After a minute or so of just circling each other, Tristan’s patience wore thin and he thrust his hand out to the girl. Zeena saw the punch coming at her and dodged it.

     This made Tristan quite upset though, so he threw out his other hand to hit the girl but all his fist caught was empty air. He mindlessly kicked out his leg and this time it landed on Zenobia. More accurately it landed into the palm of her hand and once she had caught his foot she twisted and pulled until Tristan was lying with his back in the dirt with Zeena on top of him.

     Tristan was not going to lose a second time in a row and he twisted and rolled so that he was on top and that horrid rat girl was below him with confusion contorting her face. The look of shock and confusion melted away quickly though and was replaced with a furrowed brow and pouty lips. Her tiny arms knotted across her little chest. Tristan won this round and thrust his fist in the air in his victory. All of the other boys clapped and cheered and hollered. Eli realized as he was cheered for his best friend that no matter which person won, everyone cheered and rooted for the victor. That nugget of wisdom sounded very important in the little prince’s head, something worth remembering.

    “Good job, both of you!” Swordmaster Wilhelm  beamed at Tristan and Zenobia, “I will need to see you fight a third round so if you could pick up a practice sword and back to your starting places.” They both did as they were told. Tristan took the largest of the set of wood weapons and Zenobia, the smallest. He wanted power and strength. While, she wished for speed and agility. When they reached their places, the young master spoke again, “When sparring with swords, a ‘kill’ is whenever your blade hits any of your opponent’s vital areas that is to say if one person hits the upper torso or neck of the other, than that person wins that round. Are we clear?” Again there was nodding all around the ring.
   
      “Alright, ready and… Go!”

      All the timid, passive, and evasive fighting that had been the theme of their hand-to-hand combat was completely defenestrated. Their attacks were bold, aggressive, and direct. They parried and blocked each other’s onslaught with the same nature. Tristan struck hard enough to knock someone to the ground, but Zeena had lightning fast strikes that just never seemed to stop. Eventually though, Tristan wooden blade tapped at his enemy’s neck, but in that same moment he felt the jab of the tip of Zenobia’s practice sword in the the center of his chest. Every single one of the boys around the sparring ring went into an uproar.
     
    Eli was impressed. He had never seen anyone fight the way Zeena did. The technique with which she maneuvered her weapon looked nothing like how all of his previous tutors and masters taught him to fight. Eli was not the only one who noticed her different style.
“That was fantastic. Both of you did an amazing job, so you will not have to go another round,” Master Wilhelm  grinned at them both and took their wooden practice swords away from them. He asked Tristan, “You’re Lord Fabian's boy, right?”

  “Yes, my name is Tristan, sir,” Tristan replied. The mere mention of his father brightened his mood.

    “Well Tristan, you fight just like your father. I can tell he has taught you himself. You have the same power and poise in you,” the swordmaster chuckled jovially, happy to have such talent students. Tristan blushed. To be compared to his father was the greatest compliment a person could give him. He was proud to be the son of the legendary Anthony Fabian. “And what is your name young lady?”

        “Zenobia Fitzworth, sir.”

“Well, you certainly have a very unique way with a weapon. Closer to the style of a streetfighter than to any type of formal training I have seen.” Eli heard this and was very interested to hear this. Why would a girl of noble birth fight with the prowess of someone off the street? Zeena blushed at the compliment and looked to the ground to hide her stained cheeks. Master Wilhelm  continued, “Well, that is all I will be needing from the two of you, so if you like you can go over to the Ability Test now.”

Tristan walked over to Eli. As excited as he was for the Ability Testing, there was no way that he would miss his friend’s combat testing. Zeena, it seemed, was staying too. She had already caused too many scenes today, so she did not want to cause another one by walking into the Ability Test alone. Plus, even this insufferable idiot she now knew was named Tristan and his Royal Highness Prince Elijah were more bearable than the rotten noble girls that had been sticking their noses up in disapprove at her all day. Even if all these two have said to her were insults, they were still the only people besides the teachers to talk to her since she arrived at the Palace Sanction.

Elijah noticed that Zenobia did not go to the Ability Test immediately, but rather decided, though he was not sure if it was a conscious decision or not, to stay relatively close to Tristan and himself. He really ought to have introduced himself properly because out of all the other children that been surrounding him all day, she was the only one he actually found interesting. Since arriving to the school almost everyone had been trying to get his attention or earn his respect or gain his acquaintance. His mother, the good Queen Ingrid, had warned him that this would happen that people would try very hard to get on his good graces because he was going to be king someday. The worst of it was when several of the girls in his testing group would bat their eyelashes at him and fight to sit next to him and would try to get him to talk to them even if it was in the middle a test. Eli enjoyed the fact that the only person to catch his attention all day, the only person whose name he remembered, was the only one that did not try to impress him in any way.

  Tristan also noticed that the little rat, who might or might not have had some reasonable talent in fighting, did not look like she was going to be leaving him alone any time soon. Why did she not just go over to the Ability Test while he watched Eli and save him the trouble of having to look at her? He was not very happy that their only sword fight ended in a draw, nor was he happy about her actually beating him at fist fighting. He hated to admit it, but he almost did not when that second round. She was a girl, and girls should not even to have been able to fight at all. Well, at least Eli was here with him, so he did not have to suffer alone in her company. But that did not last long.

 “How about we have Elijah, our prince, go next?” Master Wilhelm  asked. Everyone clapped in anticipation of another good show. Eli just stepped forward into the sparring ring. “Now, who wants to go up against his Royal Highness today?”

    Several boys raised their hand high in the air, some even stood on the tips of their toes or bounced up and down to be noticed. Master Wilhelm choose instead sturdy, strong looking boy with mop of light reddish blonde hair that in opposition to his stature seemed quite mousey in attitude. Despite how terrified looked, the substantial lad stepped into the dirt ring with the prince. Eli smiled at him, this was another person that did not try to influence his place with a prince’s approval.

  “Now, what is your name, brave volunteer?” Master Wilhelm asked him with that warm smile of his painted across his face.

  “Lucas Remington, sir,” the boy squeaked.

     Tristan muttered something under his about how Eli’s opponent should have been someone that might actually have a chance of beating him. Zenobia heard him and understood enough to make her mad. She marched up to him and bonked him on the head.

  “Ow! Rat, why did you…”

   “You should have learned by now that ought not judge how a person fights by how they look. You said that I couldn’t fight and I beat and tied with you!” Zeena interrupted him. Tristan rubbed his hand through hair where she hit even though it no longer hurt and glared at her. She continued much to his annoyance, “I bet this Lucas boy is a lot better than you are making him out to be.”

  Tristan answered by sticking his tongue out at her, but as it turned out Zeena was half right. When attacking the dummies, both Lucas and Eli executed the maneuvers Master Wilhelm instructed them to perform with some skill, but when the time came for the two to face off against each other Lucas fell short. Eli made sure not to hurt the other boy, but it was hard considering that Lucas refused to make a move against him. The larger boy only moved to defend himself and never laid a hand, or sword, on the prince otherwise. They had to fight all three rounds of hand-to-hand combat and swordplay. Many of the boys around the circle laughed at Lucas’ apparent inadequacy. Nevermind the poor performance, Master Wilhelm smiled at both boys and told they had permission to leave.