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Vanessa Margrave, and this is my husband Dave." The man dropped onto the fingers of both hands and flicked himself upright, using the strength of his arms only.
    "That's Miz Margrave to yo' little horrors. We're goin' to get on fine, as long as certain things are remembered. Back home on Pappy's plantation, yo're all princesses an' the apple of every eye.
    Here, we learn discipline." She grinned, and a few of the girls swallowed nervously. "Yo've all had seven years of the basics; now Mr. Margrave an' I are responsible fo' turnin' y'all into killin'
    fighters. Yo' will do it, and all become credits to the Race. And in the process, yo' will suffer. Understand?"
    "Yes, Miz Margrave!" they chorused.
    "Now, it's six kilometers befo' breakfast, and I'm hungry.
    Let's go ."
    Yolande hesitated at the entrance to the refectory, one of several scattered throughout the complex. There were seven hundred students at Baiae School, half of them in the Senior years, and Draka did not believe in crowding their children. In theory you could pick the dining area you wanted, from among half a dozen. In practice it was not a good idea to try pushing in where you were not wanted, and she had tagged along with Myfwany's group from the baths where they had all showered and swum after the run.

    I feel like a lost puppy following somebody home , she thought resentfully. Back at the old school she had had her recognized set, her own territory. Here… Oh, gods, don't let me end up a goat , she thought. Yolande knew her own faults; enough adults had told her she was dreamy, impractical, hot tempered. School was a matter of cliques, and an outcast's life was just barely worth living.
    The dining room was in the shape of a T, a long glass-fronted room overlooking the bay with an unroofed terrace carried out over the water on arches. Yolande hesitated at the colonnade at the base of the terrace, then closed the distance at a wave from one of Myfwany's friends. There were four of them, five with her, and they settled into one of the half-moon stone tables out at the end of the pier. It was after seven and the sun was well up, turning the rippled surface of the bay to a silver-blue glitter that flung eye-hurting hints of brightness back at her like a moving mirror, or mica rocks in sunlight.
    There was shade over the table, an umbrella shape of wrought-iron openwork with a vine of Arabian jasmine trained through it. The long flowers hung above their heads translucent white, stirring gently in the breeze that moved the leaves and flickered dapples of dark and bright across the white marble and tableware. Yolande stood for a moment, looking back at the shore. You could see most of the main building from here, stretching back north. It was a long two-story rectangle like a comb with the back facing Vesuvius; the teeth were enclosed courtyards running down toward the sea. The walls were pale stone half-overgrown with climbing vines, ivy or bougainvillea in sheets of hot pink, burgundy, and purple.
    Formal gardens framed the courts and the white-sand beach.
    At the north end of the main block another pier ran out into the water from a low stone boathouse; little single-masted pleasure ketches were moored to it, and a small fishing boat that supplied the kitchens with fresh seafood. Beyond that she could see a pair of riders galloping along the sea's edge, their hooves throwing sheets of spray higher than the manes.
    "Pretty," she said as she seated herself.

    "Hmmm? Oh, yes, I suppose it is," Myfwany said, pressing a button in the center of the table. "Everyone know what they want?"
    "Coffee, gods, coffee," one of the others said as the serving wench brought up a wheeled cart.
    Yolande sniffed deeply, sighing with pleasure. The scent of the brewing pot mingled with the delicate sweetness of the flowers over their heads and the hot breads under their covers, iodine and seaweed from the ocean beneath their feet, and suddenly she was hungry. For food, for the day,