“You don’t want to be a guard? You’ve already put in nearly a year toward becoming one, Vent. When did you decide you didn’t want to be one?”
“I never really wanted to.”
“Well, that would’ve been nice to know a year ago. A year ago, when I tried to tell you it wasn’t a great idea. One error in judgment, one false accusation, and they could take your weapons away, forever.”
“I know. You wanted me to pick something more reliable, given my status.” Venture virtually spat out the last word. “But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
Venture didn’t want to have that old argument again. To hear Justice accusing him of making his choice only so he could stay on at Beamer’s, stay with his friends. To have to pretend Justice wasn’t right. Except that it wasn’t just about friends. It was about being on the mat, somehow, even if it wasn’t the way he really wanted.
“What is it about then?”
“I don’t know,” Venture said, stalling, trying to get up his nerve.
Justice’s gray eyes flashed. He pushed his mug aside. “What do you think you’re going to do instead?”
Venture gulped, or tried to. His throat was so dry. “I—I don’t know.”
“Well, then I guess you’re going to be a guard.” Justice crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair with finality.
Venture slumped over, weary arms on the table, heavy head on his arms.
Where’s your fighting spirit now?
he recalled Beamer shouting at him. He wasn’t fit to be a fighter if he couldn’t face his brother with this.
Justice groaned, then pushed his chair back and stepped over to him. He tousled Venture’s hair, then put his hands on his shoulders. “I’m sorry, Vent.”
Venture lifted his head and shoulders and turned around in his chair to meet Justice’s eyes. He looked more tired now than angry.
Justice pulled his chair closer and sat down, facing him. “I know it’s hard, being your age, having to commit to what you’re going to do for the rest of your life.”
“I know what I want to do. I know exactly what I want to do.”
“What is it you’re trying to tell me? I’m listening, really,” he added when Venture looked away, his nerve wavering once again.
“I want to be a fighter. I want to win the All Richland Absolute Fighting Championship.”
Justice took this latest revelation in for a moment and stared at him. Then he burst out, “You think you can just do that, just because you want to? You can just decide to be Champion of All Richland and it will be so?”
“No, I think it will take years and years of hard work, but I know I can do it, if I just have the chance to try.”
Justice jumped up, shoved his chair back with a scrape of wood against wood. “How can you ask me that? After everything we’ve been through, how can you even ask?”
There it was. The protest he’d expected. Venture had rehearsed responses to this over and over in his head, and now the moment had come. He stood, too. His voice rose with him, and what came out of his mouth wasn’t the planned calm and unselfish argument he’d intended about how he shouldn’t squander his God-given talent, and how he’d be able to help others if he made it big, but the true, deep desire of his heart.
“Because it’s that important to me! I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t. I wouldn’t even think about it. But I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve been trying for years. I’ve put up with punishment from Beamer and everyone else at the center because I wouldn’t even discuss it. I wouldn’t even consider trying to be a prize fighter, because I love you, Justice. But what about me? Don’t I mean anything to you? This is my life!”
“It’s all about you now, is it Vent? And I’ve done nothing for you but hold you back? Well, I have news for you. Your life doesn’t belong to you, just like my life doesn’t belong to me. You don’t exist in this world just to do whatever you please!”
Venture stormed out the front door, grabbing his coat from the hook on his way out. On the porch, he nearly collided with Grace. She stepped back, startled, and clutched Tory tighter to her shoulder.
“Vent, what—”
“I’m going out. I’ll be back late.”
He hurried across the meadow, through the trees, to the creek, where he sat on a rock for a long while, limp with disappointment. Each time his thoughts drifted toward his future, he sensed something that felt frighteningly like dread grasping at him. Before, he’d had some small hope. He’d had prayers waiting to be answered. He’d had more faith than he’d recognized; he knew it now that it was gone. He was just one life among so many in this world, so many who wanted things, who wanted to matter. Now his heart was broken and so was Justice’s, all for nothing. Things would never be the same between them again.
He was never going to be a fighter. He had what it took. He didn’t doubt that. Couldn’t doubt it. His doubts were of a different sort. Maybe it was just a cruel world. There were plenty of boys with families who wanted them to be champions, boys who wanted it too, but who would just never be good enough. Why should he expect things to go right for him?
He considered going into town to see Earnest, whose family lived on the banks of the Sweet River, where the rest of the Goodview family’s business was transporting cargo by keelboat. But tomorrow was the weekend. Earnest had the next couple of days off, and he was probably out carousing with some of the other trainers.
Venture leaped up from the rock, turning his back on the stream. A new spirit of rebellion emerged out of his disappointment, joining with with that old reckless streak, and he strode off toward the Big House. Exactly what he was going to do, he wasn’t quite sure. He was certain, though, that one way or another, he was going to see Jade.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Supper was being cleared and dessert was about to be served when Venture reached the servants’ door and walked through the washroom into the kitchen, trying to look casual.
“Hey, Mrs. Bright.”
“What are you doing here, Vent? I thought you had this evening off.” She set a covered plate on the table. “But Master just got back from the coast. I’ll bet he’d be glad to see you.”
Venture pushed back a stab of guilt. Grant Fieldstone wouldn’t be glad to see him if he knew what he intended to do tonight. Even less if he knew about the things he kept having to assure himself he did not intend to do.
“I thought so. I just came to see him.”
“You sure you didn’t come to see me?” Marina winked at him from the cupboard, and she added one more plate to the stack in her hand.
A shapely girl with seductively narrow brown eyes, Marina enjoyed shifting her hips and her bust just so, to draw the attention of men. Venture ignored her completely.
“Is that raisin cake?”
“It sure is,” Mrs. Bright said, “but why aren’t you really at home?”
Mrs. Bright was no novice at spotting a lie, especially in him. “Justice and I are having a disagreement,” he told her quietly, hoping to leave Marina out of it.
“What on earth about?”
“I can’t say.” He picked up two empty pitchers. “I’ll fill these up for you.” He went into the washroom and began to pump.
“Did he throw you out, then?” Marina said from the doorway.
“No,” he snapped. Did she have to hang on his every word?
“Either way, why don’t you come spend some time with me?”
Venture brushed her out of his way with a glare, then set the full pitchers on the kitchen table.
“Does Justice know you’re here?” Mrs. Bright said.
“Nope.”
“Venture Delving, he is probably—”
“Worried sick about me? I don’t think so. Anyway, I told Grace I was going out and I’d be back later. It’s not like I ran away or something.”
“Vent.” She put a hand on his arm and looked into the storm in his eyes with a perceptiveness that always made him squirm. “The way you’re so full of—” Her eyes flicked sidelong at Marina and she stopped.
“They probably think you’ve gone out drinking and brawling with those friends of yours from Beamer’s,” Marina finished for her. That stupid smile played on her lips.
Don’t you wish
. “Now there’s an idea,” he said. “But you forgot about whoring. Drinking and brawling and—”
“Venture Delving!” Mrs. Bright gasped.
He shut his mouth.
“I expect better from you, Vent.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you shouldn’t,” he grumbled under his breath.
Marina, either too dense or too brazen to be offended by his intended insult, laughed. But
thunk
! Mrs. Bright knocked him on the back of his head with the heel of her round hand.
“Ouch!”
“What’s gotten into you?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and he really was. What had gotten into him? What was he even doing here?
“You keep that up, and I’ll make sure there’s no cake left by the time the dish gets to you.”
“Yes, Mrs. Bright.”
The other servants came in and gathered around the table with pieces of cake.
“Vent,” Connie said, “Master stopped to watch a tournament on his way home. He’s dying to tell you about it.”
“Fighter’s Face-Off,” Able put in.
“Dasher Starson won,” blurted Herald, beating the others to the news.
“He beat Will Fisher?” Venture’s fork stopped with the bite of cake midway to his open mouth. “The reigning Champion?”
Venture was glad to hear about the upset. He hoped Starson could keep it up and take Fisher’s title next summer. According to the
Capital Crier
, Fisher had been thrown out of a tournament recently for intentionally stepping on his defeated opponent, rather than walking around him, when going to his line to wait for his win to be awarded. He was probably the least likable champion the nation had had in recent memory.
“Yep. Master saw the whole fight. Said it was a real brawl,” Herald said.
“Fisher wasn’t injured going into it or nothing,” Able said. “Just plain got beat.”
Venture cleaned the last bite off his plate. “I’ll go see what Master has to say about that fight.” He gave the cook a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Mrs. Bright. Nobody bakes like you.” Then he whispered, “Don’t worry about me.”
He left the kitchen for the main hallway and quietly passed through to the stairs. He’d just begun glancing into the open doorways upstairs when Rose emerged from Jade’s room behind him. Jade came right after her, and his heart beat double-quick.
“Venture, what brings you up here this evening?” Rose said.
He gave them each a bow. “I was just looking for Master.”
Jade flashed him a smile. She hadn’t been angry with him for disappointing her under the willow tree, thank God. Rather, she found excuses a little too often to exchange an innocent word. He couldn’t help smiling back, couldn’t help holding her eye for just a moment too long. He glanced at Rose, hoping she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
“He’s downstairs, certainly,” Rose said. “I didn’t hear him come up.”
“Oh. Able thought he’d be up here, in his office,” Venture fibbed. He’d come upstairs hoping to find Jade—alone—before he talked to Grant.
“Let’s go see if he’s in the den,” Jade offered.
He stepped aside and allowed her to go downstairs ahead of him. Rose retired to her sitting room.
Halfway down the stairs, just where no one could see them from above or below, Venture whispered, “Jade.” He placed a hand on her back, just above the waist. “Wait.” Still standing behind her, he leaned down. His lips brushed the curve of her ear as he spoke. “I want to see you.”
“When?”
“Tonight. Please, I need to talk to you.”
“Come by the servants’ door at midnight?”
From the quick rise and fall of her voice, he was sure her heart was pounding just like his.
“Of course.”
He needed to talk to her. Needed his best friend. That was all. None of this—this not wanting to pull away, this wanting more—changed that. He straightened up, drawing away from her, and followed her back downstairs.
Grant lounged on the couch in the den, a drink in one hand, a book in the other. “Father,” Jade announced, “Venture’s come to see you.”
“Ah, Venture!” He sat up straighter and motioned vaguely about the room. “Sit down, my boy.”
Venture knew Jade would have loved to stay and listen to them talk about the fight, but instead she said good-night right away, and he realized that she must be just as wary as he was of being together in her father’s presence now.
Venture went to the stack of cushions in the corner, plumped two of them up, and settled himself near the hearth. He and Grant talked on and on about fighting, about whether young Dasher Starson or two-time Champion Will Fisher would take the title of Champion of All Richland next year. They talked about Venture’s friends, who were point-fighting now. There were no absolute fighting tournaments for boys that young, but it was an important step for them. They speculated about how different it would be to move from fighting grappling only and striking only tournaments where points were awarded for technique, to fighting to the finish when they were of age.
The minutes, even the hour passed by. Grant kept Marina, on duty for the evening, busy bringing them drinks and little blackberry cakes and the like to snack on.
“Tonight, you are my guest,” he insisted when Venture offered to fetch a bottle of wine himself.
He did get up to put another log on the fire though, and to prod it with the poker.
“You miss fighting, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” he answered over his shoulder as he pushed the embers into a little mountain against the logs.
“Do you love it?”
Venture turned around. “I do.” Just thinking about it, his heart leaped and burned like the flames at his back.
“Some say you ought to be a prize fighter. You are aware of that, I’m sure.”
Venture’s hand tightened around the poker. “Yes, sir. I am.”
“Well, I can’t say I wouldn’t sorely miss your presence, or, to be honest, your services. You’re the most useful man in this household already, and you’re not yet fifteen. But forget all that. I want you to know that the choice is yours. If you want to be a fighter, I can’t stand in your way. I would be pleased to see you succeed in the arena.”