Whispers followed wherever he went: Tarq's feet pounded the ground, he wasn't waiting for the command to begin, he had to run for the next four hours. They called him a bigot, said the Masters were wrong to choose such a hateful, vengeful boy.
His dark skin set him apart from the others. There were others, but they were older and there were none in his training group. He hated training with women: he has always been told a woman's place was in the kitchen or with the children. He had never known his mother or sisters to do anything else. And yet, his eyes went briefly to the top of the wall, little Mackinley was running the top walls while his Masters had him running the lowest.
He was determined to be the best: he ran on, he could settle for nothing less. Two days earlier Master Daphne had dumped him on the ground and pummeled him when he'd commented that women had no place in the fighting arts. He was still smarting from the humiliation and he was angry. Philip had chastised him too while they'd watched the female masters spar. Philip had insisted that Tarq would see how women were their equals. It was a beautiful and deadly combination he'd decided but they still didn't belong.
Running the wall for the next four hours was part of Master Daphne's way of accepting his apology to her: he also had to help in the kitchens and take meals with the servants. "A Hushai cannot be belligerent and apologize later. a Hushai is accepting and kind to a fault" she had told him. "until you learn humility you cannot be a Hushai."
She had been disappointed in him: so had Master Evans when the man had come to check on him. Evans hadn't said anything, his emotions were hidden behind that wall of nothing that Hushai trained to use to remain neutral. Tarq didn't care what the woman thought but Master Evans being disappointed mattered.
Master Evans, he'd found out, was very nearly a Legend--he'd turned it down. To the young dark skinned boy that meant something. Not wanting to disappoint the Master was what decided him. He would tolerate the women and do as they instructed without arguing so that one day a great Hushai like Evans would train him personally, even if he didn't like it.
"Watch yourself," he snapped as a little blond girl walked past him along the wall. He recognized her from when they'd been chosen but he couldn't remember her name and didn't care. He kept running. Two hours left.
------
Tarq disgusted him, but Philip knew a Hushai could not allow personal feelings to interfere with anything. He had truly hoped the challenge Master Kurt had given them that first day they'd arrived had changed him but the thrashing Master Daphne had given him had proved otherwise.
Tarq was arrogant, "women shouldn't be training us," he'd told Philip over lunch, "Where I'm from women and servants are seen, not heard and they play with string not weapons."
"Did I hear you correctly?" Master Daphne had asked. Tarq had pretended not to hear her, but she'd twisted his ear and dragged him bodily from the dining hall. "Stand ready, insolent pup."
Her face was calm as she settled into an opening pose. Tarq didn't mask the snarl and mirrored her. Daphne had toyed with him for a quarter of an hour before she completed a roundhouse kick as she moved from one pattern into another faster than Tarq could anticipate. Tarq had flown backward and smashed into the side of the dining hall. When he tried to rise she rested her forearm across her throat and got right on his face. "I should kill you and save the world from your bigotry. I should wipe your home and family off the earth, but I won't: it's not the Hushai way."
"You're a coward and you're weak," Tarq had spat on her as the Master had eased back.
Master Daphne wiped the spit from her face, settled into another pattern and began again. Tarq's dark skin hid the bruises, but blood tricked down his face from cuts on his cheeks and forehead, he nearly stopped breathing when her foot connected with his groin. When he couldn't stand anymore she stopped, "You must learn that the women here are your equals and betters in some cases." she bent down to check his breathing herself and sent for a cart to take him to the healers. "there may be some who are too weak or too little," she told him, "but we grow and learn. Learn or some woman somewhere will be your downfall."
She was publicly chastised by the Council for her methods but thanked in private. The boy was a problem.
The Healers reset and wrapped his ribs and refused to do more than wash his wounds. He had made enemies within the Hushai compound.
Mackinley visited him, "I heard you were here," she said simply, yet bluntly, "for speaking out of turn and being rude about women and out abilities." She wiped sweat from his forehead when he shifted and upset the ribs. "You're a jerk and a bully" she told him, "I have put up with jerks and bullies my whole life. One day someone without Master Daphne's control will kill you if you can't figure out how to get along."
"Go away, wench." Tarq snarled, "I don't need your pity."
"Pity?" Mackinley shook her head, remembering Maybeth and the other girls from orphanage, "I have no pity for you Tarq, you deserved what you got and more. You deserve to be thrown out. One day, when you're not so weak as to say a woman is less than a man, I would gladly spar with you and be your friend. Until then," she pushed a little on his chest to aggravate the ribs, "until then you're just a spiteful bully who is not worth the effort."
Tarq groaned in pain and then Mackinley was gone.