The Goatherd and the King by Julie Steimle (read an ebook week .txt) 📖

nothing more than back stabbing snot boys that couldn’t care about anything more than their pocketbooks and their reputations.”
“I would that you should care about your reputation more,” his father replied. “I heard you got into a fight with that friend of yours, that Ferr. What was that about?”
“Nothing I can repeat,” Zeldar replied darkly, turning to glare at the wall.
Cul’rii remained silent for some time before saying, “Are you indeed refusing to attend the university simply because of some fight you had on the last day of school?”
Turning back around, Zeldar shook his head adamantly. “No, sir. I’m refusing Ferr’durnak for many reasons.”
“List them and enlighten me,” Cul’rii replied. “It was my university after all.”
Nodding and taking a breath, Zeldar held out his fingers to count.
“First off,” he said, taking courage to speak his mind, “Ferr’durnak houses the biggest windbag teachers this side of Arras. Namely: Prof Tharser Ben, Prof Pransk Hiilt, and old Mr. Quordisii. Secondly…”
“What is wrong with Quordisii?” his father exclaimed at once. “I don’t personally know this Tharser or that Pransk, but Quordisii taught me when I was young, and he is one of the best Sociology instructors I ever knew.”
Zeldar rolled his eyes. “He’s outdated, Father. His information is thirty years old, and he hates those of Orr’ras tradition.”
That silenced his father who knew Zeldar was very sensitive to any criticism over his Orr’ras heritage.
“As for Pransk, he’s not so bad, just stupid.” Yet Zeldar’s face hardened afterward as he said, “But Tharser is a villain. He gave lectures to all the school halls last year and the year before that, promoting this new social theory he had come up with; and that man endorses the deification of the wealthy over the common people. He seems to think that birth in certain social classes dictates some genetic superiority, and I can’t stand listening to nonstop nonsense.”
His father remained silent. Then he closed his eyes and asked, “Is that all? Three professors?”
“No,” Zeldar replied, lifting his hand again. “I also do not like the company. So yes, do not wish to attend two more years of my educational experience with those pompous pricks anymore. I’d rather go on foreign exchange to the Aba than attend another year with Ferr, Culsii, and spoiled Terrnaq.”
“I never knew you thought this way,” his father replied, sitting back in his chair now. “But don’t you think you could always make other friends?”
“With the others remaining around? They’d know something was afoot,” Zeldar replied sourly.
His father raised his eyebrows. “Then they don’t know they fell out of your favor?”
“They know,” Zeldar snapped to the floor, for he dare not speak so harshly to his father. “But for face sake, they’d not let me alone if I sought other company after so many years.” He paused. “You know they call me goat-boy behind my back.”
His father shook his head. “Well, that is your own doing. You keep quoting the goat herding philosophies to them all the time. Young men that are not in the trade generally do not understand the nobility of it.”
Zeldar snorted and looked more directly at his father. “Oh? Father…they call me goat-boy because they envy me and my inheritance, and they have nothing on me to truly vex me, excluding my lineage.”
“Which they do not hold against you?” Cul’rii Tarrn asked with mild curiosity.
Shaking his head, Zeldar replied, “Who would dare? They know that if they did, I would no longer hold them in my favor. Calling me goat-boy is safe.”
“So then why did you strike young Ferr Wil? Did he make such a remark?” his father asked.
Drawing himself up, Zeldar said, “No sir. But he offended my sensibilities and honor by talking dirty about our steward’s daughter, Darrii.”
Cul’rii stood up from his chair at once. “What did he say?”
“I won’t repeat it,” Zeldar said, looking away and folding his arms. “It is entirely detestable.”
“You will tell me,” his father demanded. “If our steward’s daughter has a tainted reputation—”
Zeldar turned at once and snapped back, “It was nothing that she did! Ferr tried to take advantage of her when he was visiting us last break, and I didn’t find out about it until that last day. He was bragging about how much he grabbed before she got away—crying. He’s nothing more than a loathsome fiend, and I will have nothing to do with him anymore.”
His father’s silence spoke for him. Zeldar was believed utterly. Cul’rii turned and sighed. Shaking his head, he said slowly, “Has Darrii said anything about it?”
Shaking his head, Zeldar replied, “I did not think there was a proper occasion to ask. I daresay she would want to forget the incident ever happened.”
They were silent for some time, neither one speaking or moving for several minutes.
At last Zeldar’s father said, “Are those all your objections for attending Ferr’durnak University?”
Wetting his lips, Zeldar replied, “I have one more.”
His father’s silence told him to continue.
Clearing his throat, Zeldar said, “I want to go to Red Hall Academy.”
This seemed a greater shock than being told that he didn’t want to attend his father’s Alma Mater. Cul’rii stared at him for several minutes, wide-eyed and speechless. When he at last found his voice, he said with a slight wheeze, “Red Hall? Why? That place is substandard!”
Zeldar let out a breath and drew up his courage. “Father, it is not. It has the best practical business program in the nation. I’ve studied it for a long time. Almost all successful businessmen that built their way up attended Red Hall. Besides,” Zeldar added, “Supreme Judge Rran graduated from there, and he is the most honorable man of our age.”
“He is also two generations dead,” his father returned. “The Red Hall Academy may have once been one of Arras’ best universities, but now it is a relic of the past. Ferr’durnak University surpasses it ten times over in supplies, faculty and location. Red Hall in the middle of the city near all the ruckus, hardly a good study environment.”
“Father,” Zeldar said back, not giving up, “Red Hall Academy is in the center of things where life really happens, not in some isolated campus where things are green only because some overpaid gardener has free time to spray paint the grass.”
“They don’t do that,” Cul’rii snapped. “That is a false rumor.”
Rolling his eyes, Zeldar continued all the same. “The point is Red Hall Academy accepted me last month, and I’m going at the end of this one.”
“No, you aren’t,” his father said back, standing up. “You are attending Ferr’durnak University like a gentleman, and I will hear no argument out of you.”
Zeldar closed his mouth as if ready to comply with his father’s command. He bowed to him and said, “I will be going to Red Hall. I hate Ferr’durnak.”
Both men stared at each other in silence, neither one stepping down from his position.
“I wish I could blame your willfulness on your mother as your stepmother so frequently does, but I know your mother was an angel,” his father said at last. “You get your willfulness from me.”
Zeldar tried to hide his smile, but it still came out in his eyes. He knew he had won from his father’s words.
“I will make you a deal,” Cul’rii said.
Zeldar nodded back to him.
“I will allow you to attend the Red Hall Academy for one term. Then you must spend one term at Ferr’durnak University,” he said.
His son opened his mouth to protest, but he never spoke a word.
“I think you will be able to see for yourself which one is superior,” Zeldar’s father said.
Snapping his mouth shut, Zeldar took in the offer and bit the inside of his mouth contemplating his response. He said, “If I discover that I do indeed prefer Red Hall to Ferr’durnak, am I allowed to return there the following year?”
Drawing in a breath with a sigh, Cul’rii nodded. “If for some strange reason you do prefer that shambled place then you can go there, but only if you remain within your studies and out of trouble.”
“Not a problem,” Zeldar said at once. “I will go to study, not to seek a different night life than what is acceptable to you, Father.”
“You had better not,” Cul’rii said walking to the door to let Zeldar out. “For you could not afford a scandal with your inheritance on the line.”
Zeldar smiled and then embraced his father with a hug. “Thank you. You won’t regret this.”
“I do,” his father responded with an amused smile. “But I believe in a bit of freedom for the young and impetuous.”
Ignoring his father’s last remark, Zeldar strode out the door and into the hall with a wide grin on his face. He strolled all the way back past the kitchen and stopped. There he stuck his head in and said, “If you took bets on whether or not I’d get punished. I’d say I didn’t.”
With a laugh, Zeldar exited the room and proceeded back to his own room without further interference.
“Pay up,” the porter said to the chef once Zeldar was gone.


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Publication Date: 12-17-2009

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