Noblesse Oblige
The Imperial Academy did not admit students lightly. Final acceptance rested on a careful weighing of how many from a given house had graduated before, what their academic records had been, and what reputation the family carried.
Donation admissions were another matter entirely. History of the house, grades—none of it mattered. Only money. Vast, staggering sums of it.
No ancient or illustrious line would ever choose that route, so the boys before her were almost certainly new nobility. Maeve was thoroughly familiar with the type.
She swept her gaze over the cluster gathered behind the main building. Stepping in herself would only put the young duke on his guard. She needed someone who could resolve the scene so naturally that no one would question the interference—someone whose presence would raise no suspicion at all.
It was a bright day, the sun fierce enough that every lady present carried or wore a parasol. That was the clue.
Maeve studied the crowd with deliberate care, searching for a woman whose attendant held the parasol, or who carried none at all.
“⋯⋯Found her.”
A true lady neither leaned on a parasol nor held one herself. The custom was ancient and largely impractical, so few still observed it. Those who did fell into only two categories: women who took immense pride in their rank, or women who believed keeping the old forms was the same as keeping their house’s tradition. Either sort would prove useful now.
Maeve moved toward the noblewoman who had left her parasol with a servant and was laughing softly behind a fan.
“Pardon me, my lady.”
The woman turned at the sound. Their eyes met; Maeve curved her lips and inclined her head.
“I know it is impertinent, but might I ask a moment of your time?”
Still shielding her mouth with the fan, the lady looked Maeve up and down.
“⋯⋯Speak.”
“I attend a young lady enrolled here. She believes she dropped her pass behind the building. I meant to retrieve it myself, yet several young noblemen are blocking the way, and I dare not approach. If a lady of your standing would lend her aid, I swear the debt will be repaid.”
The noblewoman fluttered her fan a few times, gave Maeve a brief, assessing glance from head to toe, then answered with a pleased little smile.
“⋯⋯In that case you are in a difficult spot. A commoner has little place in a quarrel among nobles.”
Unlike the calculating, practical nobles of the present day, the older houses that still clung to tradition retained a certain romantic streak—exactly the sort that, in a moment like this, would uphold noblesse oblige to the letter.
Maeve was a noble herself, yet she made no effort to correct the assumption. The instant she was recognized as an equal, the woman might draw a line. So she simply smiled and offered her thanks.
“Lead the way.”
“Yes, my lady. This way.”
Maeve guided her toward the rear of the grounds—the very place where the upperclassmen had been tormenting Aern Cardenas. The closer they came, the clearer the arrogant voices grew.
“Raising your voice to a senior without even knowing your place—common blood will out, I suppose.”
The older boys snickered among themselves. The young duke leaned against the stone wall. His right cheek was slightly swollen and blood ran from his nose; he had clearly taken a fist. Damn it—she hoped she was not too late.
“What good is Cardenas blood if it’s only half of it?”
“Several seniors cornering a single underclassman is hardly the conduct of gentlemen.”
At the name Cardenas the noblewoman’s face hardened at once. Exactly as Maeve had expected. A woman who prized tradition would never stand by while new money questioned legitimacy.
She elegantly raised her fan to hide her expression and studied the nameplate of the boy standing farthest forward. Joshua Steil.
Unlike traditional houses that had received their surnames from the emperor, common-born families often had none; when they did, the name usually came from a trade or a physical trait.
Steil. Maeve turned the word over once. It meant “steel.”
The noblewoman snapped her fan shut with a sharp click. Judgment complete, she stepped between Aern and Joshua and faced the boys with a resolute expression. The smiles that had been on their faces a moment earlier began to freeze.
“The young gentleman appears quite angry.”
Her elegant voice filled the alley. She let her gaze travel once along the rear path of the main building before continuing.
“Yet to hear the name of House Cardenas in a place like this⋯⋯”
Aern’s eyes went round with confusion; he shifted as if to push himself off the wall.
Leaving Joshua’s group to the noblewoman, Maeve moved to Aern’s side, caught his wrist, and met his gaze. Red eyes, black hair—he resembled the Duke of Cardenas more than a little.
“Who the hell are you?”
Aern’s voice was wary and rough. Maeve said nothing; she simply took the handkerchief she carried and wiped the blood from the boy’s nose. There was more of it than she had expected.
The child in front of her showed not the slightest sign of pain, only watched her steadily. No one this young should already be so accustomed to suffering⋯⋯ Maeve locked eyes with him.
When Aern’s face twisted and he looked ready to shout, she raised a finger to her lips in a silent command for quiet, then pointed toward the noblewoman and Joshua.
“Your father is Baron Steil of the west, is he not? I hear he is one of the wealthiest men in the iron trade.”
Aern’s gaze flicked toward the voice.
Joshua, who had been slightly cowed by the sharp-featured lady’s sudden appearance, squared his shoulders the moment his father was mentioned and wore an arrogant smile. He shot Aern a triumphant look. The woman smiled with him and tilted her head.
“A self-made man of that sort leaves an impression; I remember him well. Ah—now that I think of it, I cannot quite recall how Baron Steil obtained his title.”
She opened her fan again as if pondering, shielding her lips while she fluttered it gently. Then, as though the answer had just come to her, she met the boy’s eyes and smiled.
“Ah! Of course—he was granted the barony for the great service of presenting the imperial house with a vast sum of war funds. Surely he did not simply purchase the title.”
Aern watched the exchange in silence. Joshua, who had been standing so proudly a second earlier, and the boys behind him all froze visibly.
“When one thinks of it that way, the phrase ‘common blood’ can be applied rather freely.”
The noblewoman glanced once toward Aern, clicked her tongue, and went on.
“A sudden-rich man who bought both a title and an Academy place with money, or a half-blood mixed with common stock—to someone’s eyes, both are common blood.”
Aern’s and Joshua’s faces darkened at the same moment. The counterattack was far sharper than Maeve had anticipated; even she, who had expected only a few mild words of rebuke, felt her eyes widen slightly.
“Would you not agree?”
The fan closed. The woman’s catlike, piercing eyes fixed on the boys before her.
“Who the hell are you helping—!”
Aern flared up, ready to protest; Maeve covered his mouth and forced him back down. Speaking up here would do no good.
True, the noblewoman need not have been quite so blunt, yet in present society those words were accepted as near-gospel. If Aern intervened now he would only hand her a pretext to turn on him.
More importantly, handled well, the situation might even open a path to the duke himself.
“⋯⋯Even so, I do not believe raising one’s voice to a senior is proper etiquette. Merely the manners of an insolent junior—!”
Openly insulted, Joshua Steil retorted with a face gone scarlet. He was clearly trying not to give her any further opening, yet his voice cracked slightly. The noblewoman did not so much as blink; she cut him off with a soft, even tone.
“You look nearly old enough for knighthood, yet you still fail to grasp the point, so I shall make it plain. Settling a junior’s fault with violence already shows one’s level.”
Joshua drew a deep breath. He opened his mouth as if to speak again, but the boys behind him seized his sleeve and tugged—a clear signal to stop. He glared once more at Aern in frustration, then gave the noblewoman a curt nod.
“⋯⋯Yes. I will remember.”
As he walked away he glanced back; his gaze lingered for a moment on Maeve standing beside Aern. Then he turned and left the alley. The remaining two boys hurried after him and vanished.
Only then did Maeve take her hand from Aern’s mouth and offer it to him. He glanced at the hand, slapped it aside, and rose on his own, brushing dirt from his clothes. Rolling on the bare earth had left him looking thoroughly disheveled.
The noblewoman watched, clicked her tongue, and looked down at him with open distaste—pure, undisguised contempt.
“⋯⋯Unable even to handle a matter like this, young master?”
“Who the hell are you—!”
Aern shouted at the elaborately dressed woman, voice thick with resentment. She gave a short laugh and answered in a cutting tone.
“House Perzen—does that mean anything to you?”
House Perzen. Maeve rapidly ran through the list of families in her mind. Northern, like the Cardenases.
The north, cold and topographically complex, was more closed-off than any other region. Because of that, the great houses whose main holdings lay there were all bound together by intricate blood ties.
House Perzen was almost certainly a distant relative of the ducal house of Cardenas. At last Maeve understood the woman’s excessive reaction: it was not merely factional rivalry; her own family was involved, so she had struck harder.
Aern could not answer; he only lowered his head. The noblewoman snorted as if she had expected nothing else and closed her fan.
“⋯⋯That blank look tells me everything, young master. That is precisely why you will never do.”
Maeve’s brow furrowed slightly. After a year or two inside the ducal house he ought to have known at least this much basic knowledge. At the very least someone should have taught him before he entered the Academy. Yet the young duke appeared to know nothing whatever of noble society.
“This time I had a request,”
the Marchioness of Perzen said, glancing once at Maeve,
“and I disliked hearing the ducal house’s name bandied about by those who do not know their place because of you. So I helped. There will not be a next time.”
She withdrew her gaze from Aern without a shred of regret and turned away. The young duke still kept his head bowed. His fists were clenched so tightly they trembled.
As Maeve turned her back on the noblewoman to check on Aern, a sharp voice struck her.
“And you⋯⋯ a person supposedly searching for a pass who showed not the slightest interest in any pass. Am I not entitled to feel I have been used?”
“⋯⋯.”
“Were you ever a commoner at all?”