On Wooden Wings

The Fleet. Eight Months Ago.

When Clarita was young, she'd been fascinated by Scheherazade. Now, all of fifteen years of age, Clarita liked to think that she and the Queen were very much alike. After all, Clarita had read the books of literature, philosophy, and, well... mechanics, in her case. She knew gears by heart, had studied Da Vinci's notebooks, and was acquainted with the works of Albertus Magnu. She was--or at least liked to think of herself as--intelligent, knowledgeable, and refined.

Definitely refined. After all, this was the only reason that she was knocking, for the fifth time, on Domingo Malong's door, instead of breaking it down with Nur's Guericke-pump catapult.

"I know you're in there kafir!" Sometime during the five minutes she'd been standing outside the door to Domingo's room, her polite knocking had turned into a vigorous battering. "I can keep this up all day!"

"Go away!" answered a deeper voice from behind the door, in heavily accented Arabic.

Clarita gave the door a final kick then stepped back. "Fine. I'm coming back with a Çelebi." While standing in place she began to stomp her feet, gradually decreasing the force of her steps to mimic the sound of receding footsteps. With her right hand, she took a brass ruler from her sidebag and stopped moving. She waited crouched before the door. One... two...

The door opened just a crack, and a suspicious eye peered out at the corridor. Before the door could slam shut Clarita lunged forward and wedged the ruler in the gap.

"Ha!" Clarita shouted, using the ruler as a lever to pry open the door. Defeated, the boy stepped back and crossed his arms, glaring at Clarita as she entered his room.

Clarita tapped the tip of the ruler against her forehead, flushed with pleasure at her success. "You've got a lot to learn before you can best me."

"My apologies," Domingo said, his jaw jutting out like the bow of a galleon. "I forget how good you Spaniards are at invading the homes of others."

And that was the reason that Clarita and Domingo could never be friends. It wasn't the fact that Clarita was the best student in the Fleet, or that the Çelebi had turned her into Domingo's personal overseer and tutor. No, it was the simple fact that Domingo was a Filipino, and Clarita was "Spanish"--never mind that she had never seen Spain, or that her father was French, or that her mother came from a Muslim minority that was more persecuted in Spain than Domingo's people were in Luzon. It was obvious to Clarita that as far as Domingo was concerned, she was The Enemy. Considering that many of her fantasies involved using the Tagalog as a test subject for one of Nur's more unstable inventions, maybe he was right.

Clarita let her eyes roam around Domingo's room. It was the first time she'd ever been inside, and, except for canvas sacks piled in the corner, the small space looked surprisingly clean.

"You've been here three months now, and you still haven't unpacked?"

"I don't see how that's any of your business." Domingo took a step back as she moved forward, eyes flicking away then back at her.

"And I don't see how my question is a call for rudeness," she snapped.

"Rudeness?" Domingo laughed. "You're a Spaniard. That's a wrong which calls for a wrong. Why are you even here? I don't have falsafa scheduled today."

"Would it even matter to you if you did?" She pointed a finger at the younger boy. "You haven't met with any of the Çelebi for a week--and I know that Çelebi Jalal was supposed to see you yesterday, so don't even try to lie."

Clarita heard some of her anger creeping into her voice. She couldn't help it. Here he was, with access to a level of instruction that was the envy of the world, and he seemed dead set on squandering it. Why the Çelebi had granted Domingo admission was a mystery to Clarita, but less so than the fact that they seemed so invested in his academic advancement. If I missed two falsafa in a row, Clarita though bitterly, they'd have me on a ship to Jolo within the day, best student or no. The thought of having to leave the Fleet and face her father under such a circumstance, even imagined, stoked the fires of her anger even higher.