Read Sword Mountain for Free Online Page A

illuminating her stiffness.
    â€œ If you stay, they’re just going to make a fool of you. A valley fool .” Olga’s words rang in her ears. Olga, now, was smirking in amusement as she painted in the back row.
    Tutor Simplicio weaved in and out of the rows of students, cackling, “Very good, very good!” like a gleeful merchant.
    What in the mountain range makes them so terrible? And what is wrong with coming from the valley? Dandelion wondered. After all, it was the mountaintop that was uncomfortable—rocky, cold, barren, and ever so windy, while the valley bloomed and flowered, lush and green.
    It is me, then? What’s wrong with me?
    Suddenly the quiet was broken by a small clatter, as if somebird had dropped a paintbrush. It came from the dark side of the room, but when she looked over in that direction, she just saw Pudding. The noise hadn’t come from him. Pudding was busy adding rough, broad strokes to his artwork, a horrid look on his pudgy face. In the shadows next to him, somebird moved and straightened, looking directly at her with a familiar, friendly smile.
    Her heart leaped, and for a moment she felt joyful. It was Cloud-wing! She hadn’t noticed that he was in the class. Then a small doubt stirred in her—was he as nice as he had seemed to her before, or was he really just another spoiled young lord? Cloud-wing whispered some words to her, but she couldn’t hear. Since she wasn’t allowed to move, she blinked a few times.
    â€œMr. Simplicio?” Pudding spoke out again, loudly, holding his palette. “I have a question.”
    â€œYes?” the tutor said.
    â€œI painted next to her a scroll about the uses of manure in farming,” Pudding announced. “But can valley eagles read?”
    â€œNo, of course not,” said Simplicio crisply. “Get a scraper here, or some of this base paint, and cover it up!”
    Cloud-wing frowned a little and watched carefully as Pudding squeezed himself out of his row. Cloud-wing hunched over and rapidly did something to Pudding’s stool in the darkness.
    The birds sitting behind Cloud-wing straightened, attentive, yet they kept curiously quiet. Dandelion was struck by a thought. Perhaps Cloud-wing was the son of a prestigious official as well, as high as Pudding’s father, the treasurer, and lower-ranked court eaglets dared not offend them. Indeed, now that she was paying closer attention, she saw that Cloud-wing had four miniature gold acorns pinned around his collar, as did Pudding. Olga had only half an acorn pin.
    So, the higher ranked the eaglets were, the more acorns pins they had and the closer they sat to the front, Dandelion decided. Olga, in the back, was not so important then, though she had put up such a grand facade. Then Dandelion noticed that there was a gap in the front row, where two or three stools might fit. Places for the highest , she thought. Princes or princesses. But neither Prince Fleydur nor Forlath had children. Dandelion looked back at Pudding’s empty stool.
    Oblivious, Pudding returned to his seat. Cloud-wing withdrew to his own painting. Pudding sat down, with a discernable squish. The birds nearby held their breaths. Yet he showed no sign of noticing. The whole class was tense, as if on puppet strings.
    When Simplicio hit the side of his desk with his cane, class was finally over. “Bring your canvases to me if you are finished,” he called, drawing open the curtains of the room. The first to go up was Pudding. Everybird else stayed seated. Pudding held his painting aloft, immensely proud of himself as he ran up to display his work to the tutor.
    â€œOh!” Olga shrieked, bobbing her lace-capped head. “Look!”
    Pudding’s back was to the rest of the eaglets, and encrusted on the feathers of his behind was a huge circle of pink paint. The class erupted in laughter. “Look, a tutu!” And the son of the treasurer ran in circles,