"The Trick Is Not Minding That It Hurts"

February 475 I.C., Odin

The envelope in Reuenthal’s pocket felt like it was on fire. He had been checking the mail on a daily basis, sometimes several times a day, waiting for this letter. Now, he had it in hand.

Unfortunately, he had promised Count Mariendorf that he would not open the letter until he came to have dinner with him and his family. Reuenthal was mildly annoyed at the implications of that request (the idea that he might need to be consoled if the contents of the letter were unpleasant) but he gritted his teeth and bore it as he “borrowed” his father’s car to drive to the Mariendorf estate. If his father woke up before Reuenthal returned, there would certainly be hell to pay, but Reuenthal considered that a worthwhile trade to make. He had no money for a taxi, little desire to hitchhike the twenty miles in the snow, and even less interest in begging the Mariendorfs to send one of their servants to pick him up.

He drove quickly, almost recklessly, though he liked to think of himself as a precise driver, one who didn’t make mistakes, even if he only had gotten his license recently. That was another thing that had grated him to rely on the Mariendorfs for, but it had been worth it.

Reuenthal knew that he should be grateful to have allies. Friends. In a sense, he was. But he disliked the need for them all the same.

The headlights cut through the dark winter air as he drove, snowflakes beginning to fall and land wetly on the windshield, reducing visibility to almost nothing. He didn’t slow down.

The Mariendorf estate came into view, a shining beacon against the snow, and Reuenthal pulled the car up into the looping driveway. He got out, braced himself against the cold, pulled his black jacket up around his chin, and rang the doorbell. It took just a moment before their butler opened the door to let him in, and only half a second after that for the youngest Mariendorf, the five year old Hildegarde, to barrel into his legs.

“Good evening, Fraulein,” Reuenthal said.

“Hi, Oskar,” she said. Even as Reuenthal moved further into the hallway to take off his coat, she didn’t let go of his legs, so he ended up dragging her around. They made a funny,mismatched pair.

Hilde was small and chubby-cheeked, with a shock of dirty-blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She barely came up to tall Reuenthal's waist. He, on the other hand, had dark brown hair, always neatly combed to the side, and a narrow, mean face. People often told Reuenthal that his eyes were disconcerting: one was blue, while the other was so brown it was almost black.

Hilde was a sweet kid, but Reuenthal had very little interest in children. He could tell that it was her mother who had dressed her today, because she was wearing a dress. Usually, if one of the family's servants dressed her, they deferred to her father and allowed her to wear pants, which she preferred.

Like every observation he made about people, this fact lived in his mind and transmuted itself into a list of rules about how the world operated, and instructions for himself on how to best move within those rules. Although it was Countess Amelie who had known Reuenthal’s mother, and thus considered herself Reuenthal’s protector, it was Count Franz who was more generous, and safer, in some ways. He would look to the countess for the way he ought to behave, but it was the count who might rescue him should he fail.

Of course, Reuenthal was not going to fail.

Hilde didn’t let go of his leg, laughing even as he stomped with her attached towards the drawing room. The count was there, frowning slightly as he thumbed through a sheaf of papers. Even from across the room, Reuenthal could see the letterhead— it was something the count had brought home from his office in Neue Sanssouci. He looked up when he heard Hilde’s peals of laughter.

“Oskar,” the count said, standing with a smile, clearly relieved to have an excuse to divest himself of his troublesome papers, at least for now. “I’m so glad you could make it. I wasn’t sure if you were going to brave the weather.”

“The drive wasn’t that bad, sir,” Reuenthal said.

“Are you doing well?”

“Yes, sir,” Reuenthal said. “How have you been?”

“Oh, fine, fine,” Mariendorf said. “Hilde, how about you let go of Oskar before you manage to pull his pants down and embarrass the both of you.”

Somewhat reluctantly, Hilde let go of Reuenthal’s leg and made her way over to her father, who scooped her up in his arms, where she clung onto him like a limpet. “Amelie should be down for dinner in a minute. I believe she was getting changed.”

Reuenthal nodded.

“I assume you got in,” Mariendorf said, smiling at Reuenthal as he walked past, heading towards the dining room.

“You told me not to open the letter, sir.”

Mariendorf laughed. “I fully expected you not to listen to me.”

“Oh?” Reuenthal asked, unable to keep some of the sardonic tone out of his voice.

“If I were you, I would have ripped the letter open immediately, promises be damned.”

“I would not be so incautious, sir,” Reuenthal said. “Your respect means a great deal to me, and I would not like to break my promises.” Really, what Reuenthal should have done was carefully melted the glue holding the envelope together with the iron on its lowest setting, and pulled the whole thing apart, but that would have involved much more danger than just the Mariendorfs’ broken trust. Getting the iron out from the closet would have risked waking his father, which might have meant that he didn’t make it to the Mariendorfs’ house at all.

Mariendorf’s smile was genuine, even if Reuenthal’s voice had been strained. “I’m sure you got in.”

“I hope so.”

“What are you getting?” Hilde asked.

Mariendorf ruffled his daughter’s hair with a free hand. “Our friend Oskar is going to go to school to learn how to be a famous admiral.”

She narrowed her eyes at Reuenthal. “On a ship?”

“The school is on Odin,” Reuenthal said. “But yes, eventually, I would go into space. If I get in.”

“You will. You did," the count said, correcting himself, since the contents of the letter were fixed already.

“And if I didn’t, I would simply enlist,” Reuenthal said.

This made Mariendorf frown. “Oskar, I’m not going to say you shouldn’t— you’re your own man— but the universe is a lot easier place to be if you finish your secondary schooling before you join the fleet. There’s a reason compulsory service isn't until twenty.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Reuenthal said.

It was at this point that footsteps sounded on the huge wooden staircase, and Countess Amelie Mariendorf swooped into view. She was a vivacious woman, several years younger than the count, and she had a gleam in her eye when she looked at Reuenthal.

“My lady,” Reuenthal said, giving her a slight bow. She laughed.

“Charming as ever, Oskar. I hear you got into the IOA?”

“I haven’t opened the envelope.”

She clucked her tongue. “And yet I opened a bottle of wine to celebrate. Well. I’m sure we’ll be celebrating anyway.”

The group made their way at last into the dining room, where the servants had already put dinner on the table. They all sat, and the countess lit a blessing candle in the center of the table, then poured the wine.

It seemed that, now that they were seated and eating, the tense subject of the envelope in Reuenthal’s pocket was disallowed, as it might spoil the mood of the meal. Instead, the countess jauntily discussed various goings-on in her day, including the latest trends at the finishing school where she “worked” teaching music to the youngest cohort of students. The count had more interesting things to say, describing the trouble in the colonies that his office was attempting to deal with. Nobility with only outlying holdings and with nothing tying them to the capital often got ideas, which it was then the work of minor diplomats like Mariendorf to smooth the rough edges off of.

It amused Reuenthal that the young Hilde asked questions of both her parents, as though the subjects discussed were of equal importance. The mother and father both answered clearly, and in great detail, but for very different reasons.

In Reuenthal’s eyes, there seemed to be a slight battle being waged over the soul of this child, and he had to wonder how it would have been played out had the child not been both so bright, and so unfortunately female. Perhaps if Hildegard had been a Harold, it would have been the mother who was lenient, and the father who was strict. But perhaps not.

He wasn’t so invested in the outcome of the battle. He liked the child well enough, but they had little in common aside from association. Besides the misfortune of her sex, the circumstances of their lives were different enough to bring bitterness to the surface of Reuenthal’s heart. He wasn’t stupid enough to refuse to acknowledge it, so he sat with the feeling. If there had been a war waged for his own soul, it was one he was conducting on his own. It was perhaps that bitterness, more than anything else, that made him dislike the pity that the Mariendorfs were generous enough to give him.

Reuenthal answered the anodyne questions asked of him: if he had improved his lap time on the swim team, what he was learning in math class, what he thought of a book that the count had loaned him. The conversation never strayed more personal than that, because they had a mutual understanding of which lines should not be crossed.

It was after the meal had been finished, dessert brought out, and a second glass of wine poured for the three adults, that the count finally asked about the envelope.

“So, Oskar, may we see your acceptance letter?”

“Let me see,” Hilde demanded, though Reuenthal wasn’t sure that she understood what the adults wanted to look at. Reuenthal pulled the envelope out of his pocket and handed it to her.

“Can she read?” he asked.

“Sight words, mostly. But she can sound things out,” the countess said. “Go ahead and open it, Hilde.”

Hilde’s little fingers clumsily picked at the envelope’s seal, and Reuenthal wanted to take it back, but then her father helped her slice it open with a butter knife, and she pulled the letter out.

“Im-per-i-al…” she began, sounding out, starting at the top of the letterhead. Her father leaned over next to her and scanned the letter even as Hilde’s unsure voice reached Reuenthal’s name. “Oskar! That’s you!” she said.

“The suspense is killing me,” the countess said.

“Yes,” the count said, “See, there, Hilde, what number is that?”

“One,” she said, clearly annoyed at such a simple question.

“That slash, you would read that as ‘out of’. So, what’s that bigger number?”

She frowned at it. “One, five, zero, zero.”

“Congratulations, Oskar!” the countess said. She raised her glass. “And to think there was any talk about you not getting in.”

The count extracted the letter from Hilde’s hands, causing her to grumble a bit, though she then became distracted by the cake on her plate, and the count handed the letter back to Reuenthal. He glanced at it, confirmed what had been written, and then slipped the letter back into his pocket. His heart was beating unexpectedly quickly.

“If you’ll forgive me for saying so,” the count said, “I’m glad that we have some assurance that you won’t do anything rash.”

Reuenthal’s expression was tight, though he tried to smile. “I always consider my options very carefully.”

“Hm, I suppose so.”

After they finished their dessert, the count went to take Hilde up to bed, which left Reuenthal and the countess alone. “How have you been, Oskar?” she asked, stressing the question to indicate that she wanted a genuine answer.

“Fine,” Reuenthal said. “Nothing has changed, except for this.” He fingered the envelope in his pocket.

“Does your father know you took the entrance exam?”

“No,” Reuenthal said. “I told him I had a meet that day.”

“Are you going to tell him that you got in?”

“I was going to wait until the end of summer. He’ll be glad to be rid of me.”

The countess pursed her lips. He knew that her instinct would be to say something to the contrary, but claiming that Reuenthal’s father cared for him would be a stretch that strained even the countess’s generous imagination. “It’s nice that you have a career made for you already.”

Reuenthal nodded, looking at the candle in the center of the table, now almost burned down to nothing. The bright light of it left a black spot in his vision, and when he looked away from the candle at the countess, he moved that black spot over her face.

“How many people take that entrance exam?” she asked, when he said nothing.

“Hundreds of thousands,” Reuenthal said, though that was a random guess. Still, considering that the Imperial Officers’ Academy was the most contested placement for those seeking to become officers in the imperial fleet, and there were many billions of people living in the Empire, that was a reasonable number.

“And you came out first…” the countess said. “It’s a testament to a lot of things about you, Oskar.”

“Someone had to be first,” Reuenthal said.

The countess couldn’t resist saying something infuriating. “Well, your mother would be proud.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Reuenthal said, his voice bone dry.

She sighed a little. “You’ll just have to trust me on that, then.”

“Of course, my lady.”

“Will you be doing anything this weekend? I’m leading a little expedition for my schoolgirls to see Das Rheingold on Saturday evening, and I would love to have your accompaniment.”

“I’m afraid I have a swim meet,” Reuenthal lied. He did have a meet that Saturday, but it was in the afternoon. He almost regretted the lie, because it wasn’t as though he had anything better to do on Saturday night, but the idea of being a charitable tagalong on the countess’s school field trip, and the idea that she would attempt to set him up with one of her students, sounded terrible. He didn’t mind Wagner, but it wasn’t worth it.

“Ah.” She was disappointed, but that wasn’t his fault. “Good luck, then,” she said with a smile. “Who are you competing against?”

“Mandel High.”

“They any good?”

“I don’t know,” Reuenthal said. “I’m sure I’ll find out.” He didn’t actually care. The pleasure of swimming was that it was an individual sport, and the aggregate scores of himself and his teammates didn’t concern him at all.

“Swim well, then,” she said.

“I will.”

The candle on the table was sputtering its last, and so Reuenthal casually reached over and pinched it out. “Oskar!” the countess said, alarmed. “Blowing it out would be just as effective.”

“Sorry,” he said.

“You’ll burn your fingertips right off,” she said, shaking her head.

Reuenthal looked at his fingers. Aside from a little bit of soot, which he delicately wiped off on his napkin, they were fine, as they usually were. The discussion of Reuenthal’s dangerous habits was put on hold when Count Mariendorf returned to the dining room, which caused Reuenthal and the countess to both stand.

“Hilde remains unconvinced that you aren’t about to go to school on a different planet,” the count said. “When you start attending the IOA, you’ll have to take us on a bit of a campus tour to prove her wrong.”

“Of course, sir,” Reuenthal said. “Though I’m sure it won’t be nearly as exciting as whatever she’s imagining.”

The count laughed. “She’s surprisingly more interested in the real than the imagined, so I’m sure she’d enjoy it anyway. I suppose I won’t be able to convince you to stay a little longer.”

“No, sir,” Reuenthal said. “I should be getting back before the weather gets any worse.”

“I think the snow has stopped,” the countess said, walking over to one of the windows and looking out past the heavy drapes. “Still, they say things are as changeable as the weather for a reason.”

Mariendorf smiled. “I’m glad you were able to make it over for dinner tonight. You should come more often.”

“Yes, sir,” Reuenthal said, though they both knew that he wouldn’t.

“Congratulations again on your IOA placement. It really is an impressive accomplishment.”

“Thank you, sir, and thank you for dinner.”

“Of course. Any time.”

“You call us if you need anything,” the countess said. “I mean it.”

Reuenthal nodded. “I hope you enjoy Das Rheingold. ”

She waved her hand, but was smiling. “Oh, I’ve seen it a hundred times.”

Reuenthal took the long way back to his father’s house, avoiding the highway and driving on the backroads the entire route. He drove slowly, though not out of caution for the slick, snowy roads. He just wanted to prolong the trip. He didn’t listen to music, just stared into the dark, tree-lined path in front of him, the hi-beams of his headlights catching the eerie eyes of deer on the side of the road. He imagined one might dash in front of the car, throw itself under the wheels, but none did, and he drove past them and they vanished into the darkness.

The house was quiet when he got back, but the light in the library was on, which meant that his father was awake, which was a bad sign. It was about ten at night. Reuenthal probably should have stayed out longer, but he had had nowhere to go after leaving the Mariendorf house, and he wasn’t going to linger there.

Reuenthal opened the door as quietly as possible, then took off his shoes at the door, picking them up so that he could walk barefoot and silent through the house, free hand steadying him along the wall in the darkness as he climbed the stairs.

His room was as much of a refuge as he could get, though he was careful to stay as quiet as possible, even as he changed out of his formal clothes and into his nightshirt. He had his furniture positioned such that, when he turned his desk lamp on, as little light as possible would shine out underneath the door.

He had homework to do, and even though at this point it was certain that he was not going to graduate from his high school, as he would be attending the IOA starting at the beginning of the next year, he had no reason not to do his homework. Even if he had things he would prefer to be doing, homework was the most innocuous thing his father could catch him at, so everything else would wait until his father went back to sleep.

He almost started to feel like he had gotten away with taking the car for the evening. His father didn’t come barging in while he was doing his chemistry paper, and he had moved on to history when he heard the telltale creaking of the stairs. He held his breath as his father’s heavy footsteps passed by his door, and rubbed his eyes with relief when he heard the bathroom pipes rattle as his father began his night routine.

Reuenthal was bent over his history textbook when the familiar, safe pattern of the night suddenly changed. Instead of leaving the bathroom and heading towards the master bedroom, his father returned downstairs. Deviation from the routine was always bad. Reuenthal stared at the textbook in front of him, not really processing anything being told to him about the Earth-Sirius war, and listened, his ears sharp for any muffled noises from downstairs. The kitchen sink was running. Then footsteps. He couldn’t tell what was happening, but it went on for a while. At one point, he thought he heard the front door open.

The footsteps came back up the stairs again, then past Reuenthal’s door. He relaxed.

Then his father turned and walked back towards his door, and Reuenthal tensed as the knob shook.

The lock on the door had been broken long before, and now the whole handle spun around in its socket uselessly. It was impossible to lock the door, but getting it open while not being intimately familiar with how to do it silently gave Reuenthal a few seconds of warning, at least. The one incriminating thing he had out— his acceptance letter from the IOA— he slipped into his desk drawer before the door finally slammed open.

Reuenthal did not look at his father, but he could tell from the cadence of his speech that he was not drunk. This was more dangerous than if he was.

“Where were you tonight?”

“Out, sir.”

“That’s not an answer. Where did you go?”

His father was still standing in the doorway, and hadn’t yet come into the room itself. Reuenthal didn’t know if he would be able to stop him from crossing that threshold, but it was that crossing that was dangerous.

“I was having dinner at a friend’s house, sir.”

“Too good to eat here, hunh?”

“No, sir.”

“Which friend?”

“Friedric Beaulieu.”

“And Beaulieu lives thirty five kilometers away, does he?”

Reuenthal knew he had been caught, not in the car, which was a foregone conclusion, but in the lie. He didn’t want to dig himself in further, so he stayed silent.

“I know how to read the odometer on my own car. I know you think you can take it for joyrides whenever you please. But it is not your property. And you would do well to learn what is and isn’t yours around here.”

“Yes, sir,” Reuenthal said.

“You will look at me when I am speaking to you,” his father said.

Reuenthal knew that he should turn his head to look at his father. It might prevent the inevitable. But he had no desire to look at his father’s beady eyes, or watch his mouth move as he yelled. It always seemed like, if Reuenthal looked at him, he suddenly stopped hearing him, and of the two sensations, he would prefer to hear what was coming, rather than see it. “Yes, sir,” Reuenthal said, but he didn’t move.

The floor creaked as his father stepped into his room. There. The threshold was crossed. Reuenthal could relax now. He could let the scene play out, as it usually did.

“Where did you go tonight?” his father asked again.

“Count Mariendorf’s estate,” Reuenthal said.

His father scowled. “Was his bitch wife there?”

“Yes.”

“The only reason she likes you is because she thinks you’re her brother’s bastard, you know.”

“You’ve told me, sir.”

“And I’ve also told you not to associate with them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are they generous to you? Is that why you like them?”

“No, sir.”

“You live on my generosity,” his father said. “You live in my house. Not theirs. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t think you do.”

There was a moment of silence. Reuenthal didn’t have an answer for that.

“If you understood that you live here on MY generosity, you would not abuse it by taking my car and lying to me. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Look me in the eye when I am speaking to you,” his father said, and then grabbed Reuenthal’s ear. He winced, then controlled his wince, but it was too late. That wince had looked too much like a closing of his eyes, perhaps, or maybe there was no reason for it at all, but his father slapped him across the face.

Reuenthal held his teeth together so that he didn’t bite his tongue and scrunched up his eyes, as he knew from experience that trying to cover his face with his hands would only make things worse, because his father would try to pry them away. His shoulders involuntarily hiked up, and he dug his nails into his legs as his father hit his ears and face, pulled his hair, and beat his shoulders. He didn’t know how long it lasted, but his father got bored after a while.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Reuenthal said through gritted teeth, though he had entirely forgotten what understanding his father was trying to extract out of him.