Assassination

Chapter 8

Cyrus Anders

Cyrus looked at Holden with an incredulous look on his face. The young boy was complaining that he simply didn’t understand why he had to learn ‘how some stupid plants in a whole other Kingdom grew’.

“You might have to make a trading deal with that Kingdom someday concerning that very plant. The Klassen Rintin is a very important agricultural resource in many parts of the world, you know.” He responded.

“Then why can’t I just learn about it when I have to actually make that deal. IF I actually have to make that deal.” Holden said, giving a smile that showed he had all the knowledge of how much he was annoying his teacher.

He continued, “Besides, our science hour is over.” Cyrus looked at the clock in the corner of the room and realized that he had fallen right into the trap that the little boy had set and wasted the last ten minutes of their lesson on an argument about the material he was learning. He was a slippery little thing.

Cyrus glared at the younger boy before leaning forward and saying, “Pull out your Spanish textbook.”

Holden smiled at that and grabbed out the large book that he had been using to study the foreign language for the past nine months. He was about to open his mouth to ask why he had to learn the other tongue, but then he caught Cyrus with his eyebrow raised; most likely already prepared for the trick he was going to pull again. So, instead, he kept his mouth shut and opened to a random page.

“Page 112, please. We’ll be going over a lot today, so be quick.” Cyrus said, watching as he flipped quickly through the book to try and find the one page that he had just told him to look for.

“Alright, we’ll start with vocabulary and grammar for your test next week-” Cyrus’s words were cut off.

“I have a test next week?!” Holden exclaimed.

“I told you about this test two weeks ago so that you could prepare for it. Don’t you remember?” Cyrus looked down at the eight year old with a suspicious expression on his face. “You did study, no?”

Holden let out a nervous laugh before saying, “Oh, of course. I’ve been studying all night this week for, um…two hours every night.”

“Really? Very dedicated.” Cyrus said.

“Of course, you know me…Always so dedicated to my studies.” Holden smiled, Cyrus choosing to ignore the sweat on the younger boy’s forehead.

“Then I’m sure you won’t mind taking it today while the material is fresh in your brain. Just get it over with.” Cyrus smiled, pulling out some papers from the folder that he had brought to the lesson.

“No! That’s not necessary. We can just hold it off. Just to make sure I have it all down, you know?” Holden’s voice got quieter near the end of his words.

Cyrus laughed and said, “Alright. Page 112, what do you think is grammatically incorrect about the sentence ‘Pedro hizo…’”

♚♕♚

Cyrus lounged back on his bed. He couldn’t sleep no matter how hard he tried, and he didn’t even know what time it was. He would’ve guessed, from the light streaming from the high up window, that it was around midnight or one in the morning. He fought back a sigh, knowing he would have to greet the new recruits the next day with virtually no rest behind his eyes or his bones.

He decided that he might as well use this time to do something useful. He glanced around at his fellow servants sleeping around him. When he was sure that no one would wake up to bother him.