Day Boy (2 page)

DAIN SAYS WE fight to breathe. We fight to be born and forever after we're all rage
at the brevity of the world and its multitudes of cruelties. I'm not sure about that.
But we fight. And we Day Boys fight like we're men angry and sanguine. Little soldiers
marking doors with chalk, sketching the seven-pointed Sun upon the wood. Working
and walking, all strut and talk—until we fight. And then the talk doesn't matter
anymore.

My punch catches him in the mouth. The force of it runs up my arm; his teeth clack
together. And he stumbles backwards, hat flying. But he recovers almost at once.
I stand there a moment to see what I have done, shaking my sore hand. Dougie blinks
a slow blink and touches his lip a little hesitant, but only I'm close enough to
read that. He studies the blood on his fingers. Then he rolls his shoulders.

I start swinging again, but he's ready. I've had my shot and he's coming at me. And
I'm not fast enough for those fists.
Not the first hit or the second or the one after.

All I can do is grin and take it. Day Boys don't run.

I don't know what Dougie's problem was before but he's mad as a snake now. I shouldn't
be showing my teeth like I am. But the bastard looks like an idiot when he swings
his heavy fists: knuckles gritty with chalk. He shouldn't look so dumb because those
knuckles offer a hell of a lot of hurt. But then again pain can be funny. And you
gotta laugh, don't you?

There's nothing worse than the dog that's not the top but wants to be, and that grin
of mine makes him swing harder. I spit blood in his face, and he snarls at me, offended:
a beaten boy should just take it.

I'm on my rear, and the Sun's beating down almost as hard as Dougie, and blood's
flowing, nose, split lip, grazed cheek, and every time I try and get up, Dougie pushes
me back onto that hard-packed earth. And I sit up again: blinking out sweat and dust
and the cruel Sun.

I take myself a glance past the prick.

There's his stovepipe hat, skew-whiff in the dirt. An affectation, Dain calls it.
Well, I belted that affectation right off his skull.

Past that sad old hat it seems like half the town's youth are watching. Two circles,
orbits Dain would say, and it's always what Dain says, he's the one that sees how
the town works. Two circles like they're two worlds, and they are. A circle of Day
Boys. And in a wider circle the other lads of Midfield—keeping back, all big eyes
and gentle bones, and I don't blame them. To be such a boy, possessed of such timidity,
scared of the dark, scared of what might be coming, rising with the night and creeping
through the window.

I know what's coming. Oh, I know! All us Day Boys do. And it doesn't creep.

There's a few girls there too, but I don't see Anne. I don't see Grove, either. Interesting.
Chief Day Boy, and he isn't here to see my beating.

There's another orbit further out. So far we can't see it, beyond the dry woods,
circling where the cold children are in their ditches and drains long forgotten.
There's always things circling.

I blink. And I blink.

‘Are you done?' Dougie says, his lip fat because I got in that good hit myself—just
the one. But I'll take my delights where I can, and that swelling mouth of his is
a joy to see; a radiant hurt that I've made, me and my raw stinging fists. He lifts
me by my shirtfront, the cotton tearing, and growls straight in my face: all hot
foul breath. ‘You done?'

I'd not done anything, far as I can tell. I spit another gob of blood in his face,
and he thumps me again, twice, and then drops me so I can't help but fall. I'm seeing
constellations, and I'm hitting that dirt hard with my spine, and laughing. True.
I still can't stop laughing.

He takes another swing, and I kick him in the shin.

‘Stupid little shit,' Dougie hisses, and I kick out at him again. He's ready for
it, gives me a good boot back and it knocks the wind from me.

I scramble away best I can, trying to draw breath, and Dougie picks up a bit of wood,
solid bit of wood, two-by-four. I close my eyes, raise my hands, wait for it to come.

It doesn't.

I crack those lids a bit. There's Grove. My mate Grove,
standing over Dougie. There's
a hardness to Grove's eyes that you don't often see with him, a look of disgust.
No, disappointment. He holds the two-by-four in one hand: an accusation. Taps it
hard into his palm with a satisfying sort of a slap.

‘Enough,' Grove says. He's got a good foot of height over Dougie, and he isn't tired
from thrashing me.

I thought I'd seen Dougie mad, but I hadn't seen anything. He's back on his feet,
snarling and spitting (not a drop of blood in that spit, even with his fat lip).
Grove pushes him back down. Easy. Like he could do it all day, and Dougie lands hard,
and winded. He stays there. Pinned beneath Grove's glaring eyes.

‘Enough,' Grove says, and Dougie nods.

Grove's my best mate. If we're allowed such things, which we shouldn't be since his
Master, Egan, and mine rarely see eye to eye. He offers me his hand, and I take it.
Trust is the only thank you I can give him. He yanks me to my feet and it hurts a
bit but I don't show it. Grove's still got a good grip on that two-by-four with his
other hand.

He waves it in Dougie's direction. ‘Stay down, Dougie.' Dougie seems to think about
it, but not for long. He does as he's told. I can see it's killing him and I try
not to smile, I really do, but I can't help it.

‘Stay down,' I say.

Grove frowns at me, pushes me in front of him. ‘Get walking, Mark.'

‘You weak little boy,' Dougie shouts. ‘Like your Master. Hating what you are. Come
back and fight me fair.'

‘Keep walking,' Grove says, looking capable with that two-by-four in his hands, looking
like he knows what to do, because Grove always does, even if it's the wrong thing.
He's slowing
his stride for me like he does. I always feel like I'm playing catch-up
with Grove.

His slowing burns me a little. How can kindness be an insult? Grove's like that,
though. That's what gets him into trouble, because there's all sorts of ways trouble
will find you. And kindness is one of them.

‘Thank you,' I say. I have to say something.

‘You'd do the same for me, Mark.'

No, I wouldn't. We both know that, but I nod all the same. Hell, maybe I would.

‘You right?' he says.

I've got a bit of a limp, there's bruises and lumps fattening up all over. And flies
keep scrabbling at my juicy lip; it hurts when I brush them away. ‘I'm right.'

‘You gotta stop doing that.'

‘Stop what?'

‘You know.'

But I can't say that I do.

CHAPTER
3

DAIN'S ON THE roof. The sound of him striding about up there in the dark is louder
than a possum and more sure-footed, there's no need to pretend he's got any reason
for stealth. There's no weight to him; it's his presence that shifts the iron roof
sheeting, it bends and shudders beneath him. They do that, they change the world
just by being, and the world rushes to fit them, to do their bidding. That is their
mastery.

He descends, pushing his mood before him, and I can tell he's aggrieved. He doesn't
conceal the clatter in his bones, there's no fluid to him right now. He's chosen
to discard it and I can feel the certainty of trouble. He descends and I don't bother
hiding, there's nowhere to hide. Not from him.

The night's hot and bright, and there's a moon shining in the window, he's caught
in it for a moment, and there's him cast across the room like a scattering of deeper
night given shoulders, and long, long arms. A head dipping towards me. Then he's
through the window.

I lie in bed staring (been too hot for sleeping anyway) and he lifts me up. Hefts
me easily as if I don't weigh anything at all. ‘I know you're awake. I—' His eyes
widen, and then narrow. It would be comic on someone more human. ‘There's blood on
you, you—'

Dain knows blood. He's defined by it, you might say, it is his food and fury. There's
blood on him too, I can smell it. Fresh from George.

‘Nothing, it's nothing,' I say.

‘Doesn't look like it.'

Dain lets me drop. Back onto the bed, and none too gently. I sit up with some effort,
not much of it exaggerated.

‘Come with me,' he says, and I follow him downstairs and into the kitchen.

He clicks his tongue at the mess. The unwashed plates, two-day-old stack. Most of
it mine. The Master takes his teas, his liquors, his thin broths, but scarcely any
real food passes his lips. He has no need of it. Doesn't mean he hasn't taught me
to cook. The Masters don't eat as we do, but they like the smell of good food cooking,
and fine brandy; well, Dain does, and I've seen Sobel guzzling down his dusty old
wines by the bottle. Dain's a good host, on the rare occasion it's called for, which
means I have to be too, so I'm set the task of practising most nights.

Doesn't mean I like cleaning up after.

‘Why didn't you drink with him, boy?' His voice is all clear in my ears, all insinuated
there, working its way deeper. All those Masters' voices settle in you, threat and
terror and charm.

I don't blame George for telling him. The feed loosens their
tongues, and Dain would
have drawn it out of him along with the blood. Dain's always with the questions.
Did my boy treat you well? Was he respectful?

‘I was busy.' I look down at my feet.

‘You were busy at things you had no right to be busy at, when you could have been
keeping one of mine company.' He crouches down and peers at my bruised face. Clicks
his tongue, again. ‘Unlike that—there's no shame to be had in compassion. No more
than there's shame to be felt in what we do.'

‘But I feel it.' And he can't tell me it isn't the same for him. Dain's lying to
both of us if he thinks that.

‘Course you do, you're a good boy.' He stands slowly. ‘I raised you that way. You'll
go to George's tomorrow, you'll see that he is looked after.'

Dain expects the civilities to be observed, because the core of him is most uncivil
indeed. Anne once asked me, one of the few times she was being serious, what it's
like, being a party to all that terror, the Master and his hungers, being its Day
Boy? And I told her it's very well mannered. Because I know the history of it, how
much greater the terror was before. The dark coming to town, swirling in all unchecked
after that final war was lost. The doors broken down if you locked them, and if you
didn't, sometimes that was just as bad. Things weren't at all civilised then. And
there was nowhere to run, because it was that way everywhere.

Dain holds my chin, jerks me this way and that as he examines my bruises. My skin's
hot and sore, his fingers cold and soothing for all their hardness. His eyes are
dark with disapproval, and the slightest flicker of restlessness. My Master's been
that way of late. ‘You've got to stop doing this.' Everything's an
echo today. I
think of Grove and his disappointment.

‘Doing what? Bruising when Dougie hits me?' It hurts to move my mouth.

Dain's face darkens, but he's already softening, there's no violence to him tonight.
He's at his most human when he is full of blood. ‘Provoking him. The boy's as mean-tempered
as his Master, and not nearly as calculating.'

‘It were just a grin.'

Dain's eyes shift darker still. ‘I know your smiles. Didn't Dav teach you anything?'

‘Dav is long gone.' Dav was the boy before me. Gone to the City in the Shadow of
the Mountain when his time was done. He'd taught me much, all right, but some things
don't stick and anyway Dav was good at trouble too. Just he had an awful good knack
for not being found out. Even now Dain speaks fondly of him.
Dav did this better,
or Dav would never
…Makes a fella sick with jealousy, sometimes.

‘You've a lot of learning to do. And not much time to do it in: a year with me, perhaps
two if I go cap in hand to the city and ask for an extension, and then your tenure's
done. I want you to think on that, Mark.' He brings his full gaze to bear on me,
and I'm swept up in it, my limbs shaking, till he turns his attention away. ‘Your
future—be it Constabulary work, or something…lesser—that's dependent on your actions
as much as any sponsorship of mine.'

He picks up a cup, shows it to me. It's stained with an inch of coffee turned to
silt. He puts the cup down precisely halfway between two stacks of plates, and he
knits his brow.

‘Regardless, there'll be a trip to the City in the Shadow of the Mountain. You need
to see what futures lie ahead for you.
I'm not sure you understand the possibilities.
You've never been one to think more than a day ahead, if that.' He wrinkles his nose.
‘Now, clean this kitchen, it's starting to smell.'

And he's gone to his study and the book he's always scratching at.

Something lesser? What about something greater?

Dav took Change, got his official letter, and went to the city five years back. I
know there's not much chance they'd offer it twice in a row. I'll be sent to the
city, to work there. At the university maybe; apprentice to a tradie.

Which isn't as bad as it could be; Mastery's a grim sort of gift. Dain isn't one
that loves his kind. He's set himself apart from them all the years I've known him,
says what he has is a curse, not a blessing.

I stack those dishes, one by one; everything's hot to touch.

Time's slow, grown liquid like honey with twice the stick. And I stand there, in
soapy water to my elbows. And despite myself I imagine what Dav was given. Mastery
and the shaping of the earth to his will, and the fighting of monsters and the walking
of boundaries. And Day Boys of his own! And all those years and hungers! And to see
so clearly in the darkest of dark. And it gets so much that my head is buzzing. But
it isn't mine to be thinking of. There's all the time in the world.