Interlude: Numbers and blades - Part 1:

It is midday.
How do I know?
I know because of the train horn, because of the children heading to school…
I also know because I can read.
How do I know?
Because I read my parents’ names after writing them on a sheet of paper the other day.
They loved it.
How do I know?
I don’t.
I just like to believe so.
Also, the look on their faces was that of pride.
Though I may not ask them, for they have already died.

“That Rhymes!” said the child who lay down on the green grass of the yard of a public school. The clothes he wore were like those of his classmates, but they were not his; in fact, he did not belong there; he was only brought there for reasons he, at that time, did not understand.

Public schools were where the social hierarchy peaked. Even the noble elite could not hide behind their families and titles. They had systems that favoured the older over the younger, the senior over the junior, and discipline was the only crown to be worn.

School remained an academy. This one, however, was not meant to allow intellects to flourish, it was meant to create those who will wield the sword and draw the gun for the British...

As a son of a poor family, Theodore had a good instinct to stay out of trouble; he knew how to obey and comply. In the public school, to which he was brought by the church after they claimed, “the child was brilliant!” So long he did what he must, listened and stayed cautious, he was granted food, shelter, and books. And before he realised, his parents’ death became more distant in his mind than it was in time.

Some of his dormmates and students from other dorms gathered in the train station in not-so-large numbers. He did not know where he was taken, and he did not bother to ask either; on many occasions, he discovered that most of the students were bullies, power freaks and lunatics. He could not know what to expect, so he limited his interactions; so were the arts of survival in the streets.

It's midday, once more, I know because of the train horn.
The one that I heard from outside, marking the time, and triggering an odd rumbling in my insides.
I now hear it from inside, and it’s no better.
The train is shaking too much…
I can’t read.

After a ride of hours, the train stopped at a rural station. The landscape marked a handful of buildings confined within infinite greenness. The students gathered and walked for minutes, then there were walls.

“Lorn Thornwood was waiting for your arrival,” said a tall, skinny, black bearded man as he took his watch out of his pocket, “waiting a little more than he’d wished to.”

Embarrassed, the teacher apologised to the man who called himself Altham.

He accompanied the group to the manor. And it was not far from what you’d expect an aristocrat’s mansion to be. But perhaps because he hadn’t been in one beforehand, when the rest didn’t pay attention to it, Theodore noticed that the number of weapons hanging on the walls was more than he’d expected. He dismissed that feeling as all he knew about such manors was from the fictions he read.

That feeling was revived on multiple occasions thanks to all the paintings themed around cavalry, and the kinds of books hanging on the shelves.

A dying art that is fighting its way into, or perhaps out of, history, fighting guns and cannons.
The man who wields it invites young students to his mansion.

Theodore had his way of getting information without asking for it.

Mr. Altham, the butler, knocked on the door, “My Lord, your guests have arrived.”

He entered and led the rest into the room that contained the usual combination of a desk and a medieval armour.

No one had time to be impressed by the size of the room or the quality of the equipment, as the entrance was directly followed by a slight bow, one that Theodore did his best to mimic.

“Does any of you know why you’re brought here?” questioned the aristocrat rhetorically; the students were not informed of the reason for their trip after all.

A boy raised his hand, and the intrigued lord Thornwood asked, “What is your name, boy?”

“Wycliffe,” he answered.

“Do you know why you’re here?” One could not say for certain how annoyed the man was.

“I have no more than just wild guesses,” he continued when he shouldn’t have, “You are trying to teach about cavalry.”

Because what else is there to be taught to school kids in this place?

Again, he probably shouldn’t have spoken; his survival depended on staying out of the lights… but he was only a child, and that was the cry of something he suppressed inside for longer than he should.

“That… is correct,” the surprised man eyed his butler, who confirmed once more that he’d not told anyone of the purpose of the invitation, “What exactly made you think so?”

“We are students, everything we do is learning, I merely asked the question: ‘what are we supposed to learn here?’ and the rest was closer to an intuition than a deduction.”

The now uninterrupted host explained how he uses his connection to the school as an “old boy” himself, to invite promising juniors to his manor and teach them what he knows about cavalry for a week. It was no habit of his, but it was not something new to him either. The students were guided throughout the manor as each of them found himself a room.

I’m scared…
I don’t know why, but I’m scared…
Something is wrong, I made a mistake, and it will backfire.