I returned to my life slowly, almost reluctantly, over a period not of days, but of weeks. Dr Amicas told me that my case of the plague was unique; that I had passed from the Speck plague into a brain fever that had sent me into a coma. I did not one day ‘awake’ from it. Rather, I slowly drifted out of it and back into my life. The doctor was surprised to see me live, let alone slowly recover my faculties. By the time I was aware of myself, I found I had been moved to a comfortable room in the guest wing of my uncle’s house. Nonetheless, the good doctor came to visit me often during the days of my convalescence. I think he enjoyed seeing me, for I was one of his few successes in a season of terrible failures.
A hired nurse cared for me at first. Either she did not know anything or she had been told to say nothing that I might find distressing. I know that some days of awareness passed before I came to myself enough to know that I should worry about my family and friends. To my halting questions she would only reply that I should not fret, soon I would be better and be able to get about and discover things for myself. If I’d been able to get out of bed, I think I would have throttled her.
But I could not. I suffered a general weakness in my limbs and an aggravating confusion with my speech. When the doctor visited me, I was able to convey both my frustration and my fear to him. He patted my hand condescendingly and told me that I was fortunate, that after a fever such as mine, some men awoke half-wits. He told me to work on my speech, perhaps by reading aloud or reciting familiar poetry. Then he left me and I had to deal with the hired nurse again.
I did not see much of my uncle. Considering the trouble I had brought into his life, I was surprised that he took me into his home at all. My aunt never visited me. Uncle Sefert did not visit me often, and his visits were short. I could not blame him. He was still kind to me, but in the new lines in his face I could see that Epiny’s impulsive act had cost him much in sleep and worry, not to mention heartbreak. Under the circumstances, I kept my concerns to myself., He had enough burdens of his own. I would not tell him that I had been culled, and that as soon as I was well enough to travel, I’d be taking Sirlofty and heading home. I tried several times to write to my father, but my wandering handwriting looked like the scrawl of an irresponsible boy or a depraved old man, and my hand always grew too weary to hold a pen long before I found the words to explain to my father how I had fallen. My nurse often exhorted me to take hope for the future in how the good god had preserved me, but most days it seemed to me that continuing my life was the cruellest jest the good god could have played upon me. Whenever I looked at the days of my life that stretched before me, I felt discouraged. What was I to do with them all, now that I’d ruined my prospects?
Epiny herself came at least once a day, to chatter at me until I was exhausted. She herself had been ill for several days with a much milder case of the plague. During recovery, when she had still been too weak to resist him, the doctor had sternly and firmly returned her to her family home. Her mother had reluctantly received her, she claimed.
To me, she seemed completely recovered now. She read the worried letters that my family had sent to me, and took it upon herself to send replies to them, assuring them of my steady recovery and fond thoughts of them. She did not comment that there were no letters from Carsina. That was a small mercy. She told me that during the days of my coma, she had sat by my bedside and read poetry to me for hours on end, hoping that I would take comfort from the sound of a familiar voice and that it would help me to recover. I don’t know that it aided my recovery, but it possibly accounted for several rather peculiar dreams from that haunted wandering of my mind.
In her own careless way, she tried to be considerate of me. She made an effort to always be cheery and pleasant in the time she spent with me, but sometimes the rims of her eyes were pink, as if she had been crying, and she now seemed older than her years rather than younger. She wore sedate women’s clothing, and kept her hair up and pinned in a style so tidy that it bordered on severe. I think the conflict with her parents over the choice she had made weighed on her more than she wished me to know.
Epiny waited some time before she judged me well enough to have news. She was worse than the hired nurse. She nearly drove me mad by changing the subject whenever I asked for tidings of my friends. One day, when she had provoked me to a coughing fit by refusing to answer my repeated questions, she relented. She shut the door, sat down by my bedside, took my hand in hers and proceeded to sketch in the ten days that had vanished from my life.
She began with what she called ‘the mundane’. Spink had survived and was recovering, but the plague had taken its toll on him. He was thin, wasted to bones, and still so weak that he could not stand. He remained in the infirmary. She had not been able to see him, but was able to send and receive letters from him. Her father had forbidden her mother from blocking them. The letters he sent to her were short. His joints were swollen, and even small movements were painful to him. Dr Amicas had told him regretfully that he would probably never have a military career of any kind, for even after full recovery, he doubted that Spink would have much stamina. My friend could look forward to life as an invalid, depending on his brother for sustenance and keep.
Epiny, of course, did not put it that way. She blithely informed me that as soon as Spink felt well enough for the ceremony, they would have a small wedding, and she would then join him for the journey to his home. She had already been in correspondence with his mother and sisters and found them, “Delightfully modern. They are capable women, Nevare, and I cannot tell you how I will welcome being in their company. It is a great pity that his family cannot afford the journey to witness our wedding. I am sure it would do my mother great good to see that women can do more than gossip, snipe, and plot their daughters’ marriages to their best political advantage. And I am sure it would reassure Papa greatly if he could see that I am going to a worthwhile productive life, rather than being sentenced to endless embroidery, small talk, and child-bearing.”
“Epiny,” I ventured to ask her. “Are you certain you will be happy in such a situation? You will not truly be mistress of your own household. Rather, you and Spink will have to live on his brother’s charity. You speak of his mother and sisters doing useful work. I am sure that the harsh demands of frontier life will be taxing to you. And your circumstances will be far reduced from what you are accustomed to. Perhaps you should think carefully before you plunge yourself and Spink into a life of unhappiness.”
I meant my words well, but she wilted before them. She shook her head at me and tears welled in her eyes. “Must everyone harp on what I already know? I know it will be hard, Nevare, far harder than I first imagined when I cast my lot with Spink’s. But I think I can do it. No. I know that I must do it, and therefore I will find the strength to do it.” She clenched her hands together in her lap. “I know you think I am impulsive and will live to regret my decision. I know you think I am weak. Perhaps I am, and perhaps I will be miserable. But I know that no matter how hard it is, I will never return here and beg my parents to take me back under their roof.” She lifted her eyes to meet mine and I saw an angry determination burning there.
“The times are changing, Nevare. It is time for men as well as women to assert that they will make the decisions that forever change their lives for themselves. I know that no matter how hard this goes with me, Purissa will see what I have done, and perhaps take strength from it when her time comes to defy tradition and live her own life.”
“Will you tell her if you are unhappy?” I asked cautiously. I was not certain that what she was doing was a good example to set for her young sister.
Epiny straightened her back and squared her shoulders. “I take responsibility for my own happiness or unhappiness, Nevare. Every morning, when I look at Spink, I will see the man I chose above all others. And he will know the same of me. Will you have that comfort when you look at Carsina after a quarrel or a difficult day? Or will you have to wonder if she would be there if her parents hadn’t decided for her?”
She was edging too close to a subject I had lately found painful. I had no future with Carsina. Slowly I was admitting that to myself. When I’d been discharged from the academy, I’d forfeited her. I shifted the topic abruptly. “Can you tell me about my friends at the Academy besides Spink? How are they doing?”
“Are you sure you are well enough for such news?” she asked me. I immediately knew it would be far worse than I had thought.
“Perhaps you should let me be responsible for my own happiness or unhappiness and just tell me,” I said, speaking more sharply than I intended.
She looked at the floor and then back at me. “Spink knew you would want to know. He told me so the last time I visited him. So he told me the names of the boys in your patrol who died and of some others you would want to know about. I wrote them down because I knew I could never remember all those names.” She reached into her dress pocket and took out a much-folded slip of paper. As she opened it, my heart sank. “Are you ready?” she asked me.
I clenched my teeth to refrain from shouting at her. “Yes. Please, Epiny, just tell me.”
“Very well.” She cleared her throat, coughed, and then cleared it again. When she read the names, her voice was tight and choked. Tears brimmed and then ran down her cheeks as she recited the names. “Natred. Oron. Caleb. Sergeant Rufet. Corporal Dent. Cadet Captain Jeffers. Captain Maw. Captain Infal. Lieutenant Wurtam.”
The first three names stunned me. I lay back on my pillows, and as she went on, I felt each name like a fist blow to my heart. So many dead! So many!
“I’ll get you some water,” Epiny said abruptly. “I’ve been a fool. Father said you were too weak yet for such tidings. I judged that knowing these things would be less trying for you than living in suspense. I was wrong, and now you shall have a relapse and undo all your healing and my father will once more berate me about acting on my own with too little experience of the real world.”
I sipped from the glass she had poured from my bedside ewer. When I could speak, I said, “No. You were right, Epiny. Like you, I hate it when people try to make decisions for me. Tell me the rest. Now.”
“Are you certain?” She took the glass from my shaking hand and set it on my sick table.
“Very certain. Tell me.”
She again consulted the page she held. “Of your other fellows, Kort never caught the plague. Rory had only a mild case. Trist took sick and recovered, but like Spink, he will never be as hearty as he was. Spink thinks they will send him home. Gord and his family have still not returned to the city, so they have missed the plague. Colonel Stiet and his son Caulder were both sick for days. Both will recover but the colonel has given up commanding the Academy. Control of it has passed back to Colonel Rebin. Spink has heard rumours that Rebin is glad to have it back and intends to ‘put his house in order’ as soon as most of his cadets have recovered. There were deaths throughout the city from plague, but it was worst within the Academy walls. My father says that it has depleted the ranks of up-and-coming officers substantially. He thinks that many soldier sons will now forego the Academy and simply purchase commissions as they used to, for the competition for positions will not be as fierce as it was.” She cleared her throat.
“Spink spoke about that, too. He says that the distinctions between old nobles’ and new nobles’ sons have worn thin, for the sickness made all of them comrades for a time. And he also says that politically, the Academy can no longer afford to be choosy about students. He has already heard rumours that Rebin will recall many of the culled cadets from previous years, to try to rebuild a corps of officers for the future. Spink says there is talk around the Academy that if it does not take action to demonstrate that Academy-trained officers are superior to those who buy their positions, the existence of the Academy itself may be called into question. It is not a cheap institution to run.”
I was silent for a time, absorbing that. It was strange to hear Epiny speak so knowledgably of the Academy and the long-term effects of the plague upon our military structure. I reflected regretfully that she would have made a good cavalla wife. “Spink must be heartbroken to have his career cut short before it started,” I said to myself.
“It might be easier for all of us if he were,” Epiny said. “No. He is not heartbroken. He is furious whenever anyone suggests that he will not recover enough to serve. He will go home, as he has small choice in that. But he says that he will recover his health, and when he does, he is determined to return to the Academy. He is a soldier son and will be a soldier, despite what others may do in this difficult time.”
“What others do?” I asked.
“Oh. I forget that you have been isolated. The Academy suffered, but so did Old Thares. A number of noble families lost their heir sons. In some cases, the lord died as well. The hole that creates in the Council of Lords is a gaping one. With the support of the priesthood, many families are naming a younger son as heir rather than bringing in a cousin to inherit. It has caused quite a bit of discord, for many a hopeful cousin is seeing an inheritance snatched right out of their jaws. But in every case that has been challenged, the priests have supported the families in naming a younger son as first son.”
“That’s insane!” I could not believe what I was hearing. “It flies in the face of the good god’s will! How can the priests allow it?”
“My father says we must trust that the priests know the will of the good god. But I think—‘ Epiny halted suddenly, and looked uncomfortable.
“What do you think?” I prodded her.
“I think that, perhaps, large donations were made to various priestly orders. And in a number of cases, priest sons have been elevated to the status of heirs. They will, by a special allowance, serve in both capacities in their lifetimes.” She frowned to herself for a moment. Thoughtfully she took up her whistle and put it in her mouth, much as a cogitating man might light his pipe. She breathed through it, whistling softly, and then spoke around it, “I think it might be a matter of influence and power and wealth. Even priests are human, Nevare.”
I did not like to think about the implications of that. I gestured at the whistle. “I thought you had given that annoying thing to Spink.”
She gave another long low whistle through it, and then spat it out. She smiled at me oddly and then leaned closer to my bed. “And why did you think that?” she whispered to me.
“Because I saw him wearing it,” I replied in annoyance at her sudden air of mystery, and then suddenly recalled where I had seen him wearing it.
“I wondered how much you recalled,” she said softly.
I don’t know what you are talking about. That was what I wanted to say, and yet I could not bring my lips to shape the words. That denial, I suddenly knew, was a legacy of the division that Tree Woman had inflicted on me. I did know exactly what she was talking about. I was still reconciling the pieces of myself. Sometimes I woke deep in mourning that I had killed my lover and mentor. At other times, I almost wished I could believe it was all fever dream and hallucination.
Epiny smiled sorrowfully at my silence. “Is it still so hard for you to admit it, Nevare?” she asked me. “Then I will not force it from you. I will only say that you saved not only yourself, but also Spink and me. It was when you acted that I suddenly perceived that some items were links between this world and that one. For you, it was your hair and your sabre. When you cut the bridge, you cut her off from our world, didn’t you? My task was different. Spink and I were already bound. I had to seize and hold fast to the link that bound us to this world. In our case, it was the imaginary whistle he wore in his mind. He held fast to it in that world, and when I came out of my trance, I was gripping the chain around my own neck. But Spink had come with me. I sat up from the floor and discovered, to my great delight, that both of you were breathing, though not well. The nurses were shocked. It was the second time they had declared you dead, you know. I think you had remained longer in the land of the dead than either of you could have survived in ordinary circumstances.” She leaned closer to add, “I think you did more than you intended. Prior to our return, several cadets in your ward also gasped in breath at almost the same time. I think your severing of the bridge sent the souls on it back to their bodies.”
“That’s preposterous!” And I truly did. But I smiled at her as I said so.
She did not reply for a moment. Then she leaned forward and before I could react, she gave the hair on top of my head a firm tug. “Not as preposterous as this!” she told me. “The scar was gone, Nevare, when you awoke. I noticed it immediately. What she took from you, you took it back. And now, when I look at you, I see no trace of her aura. Only that your own has grown much stronger. And yes, stranger.” She leaned back and looked at me so consideringly that I almost expected she would tell me how much I’d grown. “Definitely a strange aura. But then, you are a strange person and you definitely had a strange experience. Or we did.”
I gave in and asked her. “Does Spink remember any of that?”
She pursed her lips. “Not that he admits. I wonder about it. I wonder what any of the others on that bridge remember— Oh!” She thrust her hand back into her pocket. “I nearly forgot this. It is from Caulder. It came for you two days ago. I think perhaps he had a very strange dream that he wishes to discuss with you.” She smiled cattily as she handed it to me.
I took the envelope from her, noting that the seal on it was broken. “You already read it, didn’t you?”
“Of course. As it was from Caulder, I doubted that it could be extremely personal. And I had to read it, to be able to judge whether or not to pass it on to you. But I think you are as ready for it as you will ever be.”
The note inside was on rich and heavy paper, marred only by Caulder’s childish handwriting. “Please come to visit me at your earliest convenience. I have something for you.”
I tossed it down upon my bedding. “The only thing that I could possibly want from him is an apology, and I very much doubt that I shall get it.”
“I should have thought you would have said you wished him to tell his father the truth. If only Caulder would tell the truth, his father might still rescind your dishonourable discharge.”
I looked at her speechlessly. To hear those two words spoken aloud were akin to having them branded into me. That she knew and had spoken it aloud made the reality freshly horrible to me. When my shocked silence grew long, she confided calmly, “Well, I found the paper when I hung up your uniform jacket. Someone had to see to your things; some of the nurses they brought in to the infirmary during the worst of the crisis were thieves and worse. They stole anything they could carry off, including the blankets that covered the dead. It was horrible. So I gathered up your things to keep them safe and—”
“And naturally you went through my pockets.” I was offended.
“Yes. Naturally,” she retorted. “So that if there was anything of value, I could be sure to keep it safe. The only thing I found was that horrid discharge paper. So I burned it, of course.”
“You burned my discharge papers!”
“Of course.” She was so calm.
“Why?”
She shrugged one shoulder and did not meet my gaze. Then she turned back, looked me in the eye and said flatly, “I’m not a fool. I knew Colonel Stiet was very ill. I saw that those papers were dated the same day that the plague broke out. I judged that in the midst of all that, there was a chance he hadn’t recorded his tantrum anywhere else. And if he died, and there was no record of it, then I saw no reason for you to be burdened with it. So I burned it. No one else saw me do it. And as Spink had not mentioned it to me, I judged you had not told anyone else about it, either.”
She sat back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. She looked pleased with herself. Then she gave a little sigh. “Unfortunately, he didn’t die. But we can hope that with all else that has happened, he won’t have time to trouble you.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I said at last.
“Then say nothing!” she advised me insistently. “Nothing at all. When you are well, go back to the Academy. Resume your life as if it had never happened. I really doubt that Stiet will take time to impart details like that to his successor. Ignore it. And if anyone is stupid and vicious enough to attempt to send you away from the Academy, you should fight it. Tooth and claw.”
I scarcely heard it. I was still mulling over what she had suggested. “Just ignore it? That seems… dishonest.”
“No, you dolt. Dishonest is a spoiled child lying about you and having you dishonourably discharged from the Academy.” She stood suddenly and then shocked me by leaning down to kiss me on the brow. “That is quite enough for one day. Think about what I’ve said, and then sleep on it. And for once, do what is sensible.”
She did not give me a chance to agree with her. She walked to the window, drew the curtains to put the room into darkness, and left me there. I didn’t sleep. I thought it over. I calculated my odds like a gambler. Sergeant Rufet had known, but he was dead. The doctor knew, but as he had not mentioned it, perhaps he had forgotten my words to him. Colonel Stiet knew, of course, as did Caulder. But would they linger at the Academy or would they swiftly depart and allow Colonel Rebin to move into the living quarters? I tempted myself with the notion that perhaps the colonel had been too distracted to note my discharge down into the daily log of the Academy. Perhaps with all that had happened, he would forget the incident of his son’s drunkenness.
Or perhaps not. I decided sternly that it was a foolish thing to hope for. I also decided I would be equally foolish not to attempt to ignore the discharge. What more, after all, could Colonel Stiet do to me than what he had already done? And so as the days passed and I grew stronger, I kept Epiny’s counsel and did not speak of the discharge to anyone.
Perhaps the slim hope I felt speeded my recovery. A day came when I could rise from my bed without assistance. The doctor began to allow me regular food instead of the bland soups I’d been subsisting on. My appetite returned with a vengeance, and to my nurse’s delight, I ate heartily every meal and put on flesh. I had lost muscle during my wasting illness, and of course that would have to be rebuilt by strenuous exercise. I was not yet up to it, but after another week had passed, I was able not only to stroll through my uncle’s gardens with Purissa but also to ride sedately with Epiny in the park. I did not even much mind that she assigned me her docile mare and rode Sirlofty.
My uncle’s home was not a happy place in those days. I did not take my meals with the family, but ate alone in my rooms, glad that I had the excuse of my continuing convalescence. My uncle said little of the misery that Epiny had caused her family, but she spoke of it frankly with me, and at greater length than I enjoyed. I was sorry to have been the indirect cause of my uncle’s tribulations, and yet in a quiet corner of my soul, I rejoiced that at least Spink would have the joy of a wife who doted on him. I feared his life would offer him little else in the way of consolation.
The wedding was small and so subdued as to feel almost dreary. Spink’s older brother had made the journey to witness the ceremony, and also, as Epiny so crudely put it, “to pay for the bride”. I am sure his family had offered what it could but it was not a substantial amount and of influence they had even less to barter. I went and stood up with Spink’s brother and listened to the priest say the words that bound them to one another. Epiny’s dress was simple as was the lace veil she wore, and yet it still looked extravagant next to Spink in his even more ill-fitting uniform. Worse, I suspected it would be the last use he would ever have for it. It was the first time I’d seen him since the infirmary. He looked as if a good gust of wind could carry him off. His eyes were still shadowed and his cheeks sunken, yet he spoke clearly when he thanked Epiny’s parents for giving her, and still managed to look happier than I’d ever seen him before. So did Epiny, and despite my misgivings, I envied them both.
I had very little time alone with Spink. He wearied easily and Epiny was determined both to baby him and to have him to herself as much as possible. When I found one quiet moment, I gave him my personal good wishes, and then suddenly found myself saying, “It’s strange. Things matter so much, and then suddenly they don’t matter at all. On the day of our examinations, I agonized that you and Gord had found a way to cheat. It seemed of such great importance to me then, a life-or-death matter. Well, now I know what a life-or-death matter is. Does everything seem different to you since we came so close to dying?”
He gave me a soul-baring look. “Since we died and came back, you mean? Yes, my friend. Everything seems different to me. And things that bothered me a great deal then don’t matter to me at all anymore.” He gave a small snort of laughter. “But I will confess the truth to you. Yes. I did cheat. But Gord had nothing to do with it. I wrote “6x8 = 46” on the inside of my wrist.”
“But six times eight is forty-eight!” I exclaimed.
For a long instant, Spink just gaped at me. Then he burst into a hearty laugh, and that brought Epiny sweeping up to us to demand how I had managed to win that response from him. Very shortly after that, they left on their wedding trip, which was only to last two days before they journeyed east again with Spink’s brother. The little gathering dissolved almost as soon as the bride and groom departed, and I was happy to seek my room under the pretence of being wearied by all the excitement. My uncle excused me easily, and actually looked as if he wished he could go with me. He appeared bedraggled in that harried way of men whose wives are intensely unhappy with them. My aunt was dressed in a severe dress in a grey so dark it was almost black. She had not spoken one word to me and I was able to bow silently over her hand and escape.
In my bedchamber, I sat and stared out of the window until the day faded to night. Then, my decision made, I took paper and pen and wrote a careful but blunt letter to Carsina. I addressed the envelope plainly to her, care of her father. The next day I arose early, dressed meticulously in my uniform and left my uncle’s house.
The first thing I did was to post my letter. Then, having faced that particular demon, I rode Sirlofty to the Academy where I called at Colonel Stiet’s residence, desperately hoping to find that he and his family had already moved out.
But they were still there, and so I forced myself to do what I had promised myself I would do if I ever had the opportunity. I would confront Caulder with his foul lie. I presented the note he had sent me to the servant who answered the door. The man expressed polite surprise and told me that he would first have to seek permission from the boy’s mother. She had given orders that he was not to be allowed to do anything that might excite him in any way. His health was still far too delicate.
And so I was kept waiting for some little time in a finely appointed parlour. I looked at the expensive prints on the walls but did not sit in any of the grandly upholstered chairs. I recalled bitterly that in my cadet days under the colonel, I had never been judged worthy to be invited here. I would not sit on his fine cushions now.
I had expected that Caulder’s mother might come in to see who was visiting her boy. But it was the servant who came back, with the simple request from his mother that I not weary Caulder nor stay too long. I assured the man that I had no intention of making a lengthy visit, and then followed him upstairs to a sunny sitting room.
Caulder was already there. He was sitting on a lounge with a counterpane over his legs. He looked even worse than Spink. His arms were bony, so that his wrists and elbows looked unnaturally large. A table with a pitcher of water, a glass, and the other accoutrements of a sick room stood handy to him. His knees made mountains beneath the coverlet, and he had perched several lead soldiers on top of them. Yet he was not playing with them, but only staring at them fixedly. The servant knocked gently on the frame of the open door. Caulder started, and two soldiers fell to the floor with a clatter. “Beg pardon, young sir. You have a guest,” the man told him, crossing the room to gather up the toy soldiers and hand them back to Caulder. The boy took them absently and did not speak a word to me until the man left the room.
Caulder stared at me for a time, and then said hoarsely, “You don’t look like you’ve been sick at all.” There was wonder in his voice.
“Well, I was.” I stared at the boy who had done me such a monstrous injustice, who had roused such hatred in me, and felt only a great coldness inside me. I had feared I would lose my temper and shout at him. Now, looking at his wasted body and bloodshot eyes, I found that all I wanted was to be away from him. I spoke brusquely. “You wrote to me. You wanted to see me. You said you had something for me.”
“I did. I do.” The boy had managed to go paler. He turned to his bedside table and rummaged about in the mess there. “I took your rock. I’m sorry. Here it is. I want to give it back.” And with, that, he held it out to me.
I crossed the room in three strides. He almost cowered away from me as I took it out of his hand. “I know it was wrong to take it. I’d never seen one like it. I only meant to find out what it was from my uncle. He studies rocks and plants.”
I looked at the rough stone with its coarse veins of crystal and recalled too well how I had come by it. Did I really want anything that reminded me of that? A little shudder ran up my back at the thought of Tree Woman and her world. Well. I was done with that now. Epiny had said so, and although I did not want to believe her about anything else to do with her seances and spirits, I clung to that. Tree Woman’s shadow was no longer cast over me. I was free of her. I set the rock back on his table with a loud clack. “Keep it. I don’t want it anymore. Was that the only reason you wanted me to come?” My words came out more coldly than I’d intended. The memory of the tree woman was a chill one. I had loved her. I had hated her. I had killed her.
A tremor shook Caulder’s lower lip. For a terrifying moment, I thought he would crumple up and cry. Then he mastered himself, and said in a stiff, almost angry voice, “I sent you that message because my father said I must. I told him I had lied about who got me drunk. So he said I must write to you personally, and when you came, I must apologize. I do. I apologize, Nevare Burvelle.” He took a deep and ragged breath. As I was still reeling from that revelation, he shook me further when he added in a whisper. “And I told him the rest about Jaris and Odon. About them beating up that fat cadet, and Lieutenant Tiber. I apologize for that, too. But even though my father made me send you that note, that isn’t why I wanted you to come. There is something else I must say.”
He stared at me, and the silence grew uncomfortably long. I think he was waiting for me to say something. At last he said in a hoarse whisper, “Thank you for sending me back across the bridge. If you hadn’t, I would have gone on to that place. I would have died.” He suddenly hugged his arms around himself and started to shiver so violently that I could see it. “I have tried to tell my father about it, but he just gets angry with me. But I know… That is—” He halted his words and looked desperately around the room, as if to reassure himself it was there. His shaking became more pronounced. “What is real? Is this place more real than that one? Can the whole world suddenly give way around you and then we are somewhere else? I think about that all the time now. I cannot sleep well at night. My father and the doctor drug me to make me close my eyes, but that is not the same as sleep, is it?”
“Caulder, calm yourself. You are safe.”
“Am I? Are you? Do you think she couldn’t just reach out and snatch either of us back if she wished it?” He began to weep noisily.
I stepped to the door of his room and looked out into the hall for help. No one was in sight. “Caulder is not feeling well!” I called out loudly. “Could someone please come and take care of him?” I went back to his bedside and set a hand to his shoulder, feeling nothing of warmth toward him, only alarm. “She is gone now, Caulder. Forever. Calm down. Someone will be here soon to take care of you.”
“No!” Caulder wailed. “No. They’ll drug me again. Nevare. Please. Don’t call them. I’m calm now. I’m calm.” He hugged himself even tighter, and held his breath in an effort to stop his sobs.
I heard a door open and close and then footfalls in the hall. They seemed to be coming very slowly. I scrabbled desperately for a way to distract him from his terror. I did not wish to be blamed for working an invalid into hysteria. Awkwardly I asked, “Where will you be going now? To a family estate?”
It was the wrong question. “My father is, and he’s taking my mother. But he’s sending me away. I’m no good now. He hates me. He says I quiver like a lapdog and see danger in dustballs. A soldier son who will never be a soldier. What use am I in the world?” He picked up the rock and set it down again. “He was furious that I stole this from you. He thinks he will punish me by sending me to my uncle. Uncle Car has written to say he will be glad to have me and will adopt me so that he has a son to follow him. He says the scholar son has no need of a strong back or great courage, only a good mind. I don’t think I even have that any more.”
“What is all this!” Colonel Stiet demanded from the door. But his voice was only an echo of his old bark. When I looked at him, I saw an old man in a dressing gown, leaning on a cane. He had two days’ growth of greying stubble on his chin, and his hair was uncombed. When he recognized me, he growled, “I might have known it would be you. Well. Do you have your satisfaction?”
I held up the letter Caulder had sent me. I did not intend that it slip from my hand, but it did, and it wafted through the air to lie at the colonel’s feet. “Your son asked me to come here. I did. I now understand that you made him extend the invitation.” I was surprised, not at the depth of my anger, but at the cold control I could maintain over my voice. I spoke flatly and met the old man’s eyes with a neutral stare.
He looked away from me to his son, and I saw horror and disgust was in his eyes. Then his mouth turned down in anger. “Well. I see you’ve had your revenge on him. I hope you enjoyed it, kicking a cringing puppy like Caulder. Are you satisfied, sir?” He repeated the word as if all of this were my fault.
“No, sir, I am not.” I spoke precisely. “You gave me a dishonourable discharge based on a lie. Am I still under that onus? Will it be a part of the record I must always carry with me? And what will you do about the cadets who were truly guilty of poisoning your son with cheap liquor and beating other cadets?”
He stood silent for a time. The sound of Caulder’s ragged breathing as he huddled in his chaise dominated the room. Then I clearly heard Colonel Stiet swallow. In a quieter voice he said, “No record remains of your dishonourable discharge. You can return to the Academy at any time, although I do not know when classes will resume. That is up to my successor. He is currently searching for instructors to replace the ones who died. Are you satisfied?”
Each time he asked me that, it was like an accusation. Did he think I was greedy, to demand justice and the return of my honour? “No, sir. I am not ‘satisfied’. What will become of the cadets who were truly guilty of poisoning your son with cheap liquor?” I repeated my question as carefully and coldly as when I had first asked it.
“That is none of your affair, Cadet!” He coughed on his own vehemence. Then he added, “In my judgment, nothing is to be gained by profaning the honour of the dead. They are both dead of that foul pestilence. The good god will judge them for you, Cadet Burvelle. Will you be satisfied with that?”
I came as close to blasphemy as I ever have in my life when I replied, “I suppose I will have to be, sir. Good day, Colonel Stiet. Good day, Caulder.”
I walked past Colonel Stiet to reach the door of the room. As I passed out of it, Caulder showed that he did, perhaps, have a glimmer of a soldier’s courage in his soul. He lifted his shaking voice to call after me, “Thank you again, Nevare. May the good god protect you.” Then Colonel Stiet shut the door too firmly behind me. I listened to the sound of my boots as I thudded downstairs and I let myself out of the colonel’s fine house.
I rode Sirlofty back to my uncle’s home and stabled him myself. I had thought myself well recovered, but the encounter had exhausted me. I went to my room, slept through the afternoon, and then rose wakeful to the evening sky glowing in my window. My trunk had been brought to my uncle’s house, probably at the same time they’d delivered me to him. It looked as if everything from my bunkroom had been hastily thrown into it. I repacked it carefully. When I came to Carsina’s letters that I had bundled together, I opened them and deliberately read through each of them in order. What did I know of her? Next to nothing. Yet I still felt a sense of loss as I put each missive back in its envelope and once more tied them into a packet. I felt that Epiny and her attitude and her questions had taken something from me and made my life a bit harder. I found I still wished her and Spink the best of luck. I suspected they would need it.
I think that the horseback ride and my confrontation with Caulder and Colonel Stiet taxed me more heavily than my health was ready to bear. The next day, I found myself sweaty and sick again, and I kept to my bed for that day and the two that followed. Epiny and Spink were gone, and though my uncle visited my chamber, it was a brief visit. I believe he thought me moping more than ill.
On the third day, against my inclination, I rose and forced myself to go for a walk in the garden. The following day, I took a longer walk, and by the end of the week, I felt that my recovery was once more on track. My appetite returned with a vengeance that startled me and frankly amazed the kitchen staff. My health came roaring back, and I felt that my body suddenly demanded both exercise and food to restore itself. I was very happy to give it both. When Dr Amicas paid me a surprise visit, he bluntly said, “You’ve not only recovered your weight from before your illness, but added a layer of fat to it. Perhaps you should consider controlling your appetite.”
I had to grin to that. “It’s an old pattern in my family, sir. My brothers and I always put on a bit of flesh right before we shoot up in height. I’d thought I was finished growing, but I daresay I’m wrong. Perhaps by the time I return home for my brother’s wedding, I’ll be the tallest man in the family.”
“Well, perhaps,” he said guardedly. “But I shall want to see you in my offices every week after classes resume. Your recovery is unique, Cadet Burvelle, and I’d like to document it for a paper I’m writing on the Speck Plague. Would you mind?”
“Not at all, sir. Anything I can do to help bring an end to the disease is no more than my duty.”
When, a week later, a servant brought me a letter from the King’s Cavalla Academy, I stared at it with misgiving for a long time before I could bring myself to open it. I dreaded that it would contain some final vindictive act from Colonel Stiet, a bad report and a dishonourable dismissal. Instead, when I opened it, it was simply a notice that the new commander had scheduled a re-opening date for the Academy. All cadets were to report to their dormitories and be in residence within five days. He was reinstating military protocol regarding the gates to the Academy, and some cadets would be experiencing a change in quarters. I stared at it for some time, and I think that was when I finally realized that disaster had passed me by. I was alive, my health was returning, and I was still a cadet. The life I had always imagined for myself might still await me.
I went down to my uncle’s library and spent the entire night reading through my father’s military journals. If he had ever questioned his fate, it was not confided to paper. He wrote as a soldier should, impassively and concisely. He went there, he fought with those people, he won, and the next day he and his troop rode on. There was a lot of war and very little of life in his accounts. I set my father’s journals back and randomly pulled down several of the older ones. I found cramped handwriting, fading ink, and more accounts of dealing death. I admired Epiny’s ability to read them. Much of it was dull, and it surprised me that the business of killing people could become so commonplace as to be boring.
Toward morning, my uncle came down with a candle and found me there. “I thought I heard someone moving around down here,” he greeted me.
I finished shelving the journals I had pulled out. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to wake you. I couldn’t sleep and so I came here to read.”
He gave a dry laugh. “Well, if those journals didn’t put you to sleep, nothing will.”
“Yes, sir. I tend to agree with you.” Then we stood there, awkwardly.
“I’m glad to see you recovering so well,” my uncle said at last.
“Yes, sir. I plan on returning to the Academy tomorrow. If I may have the use of your carriage.”
“I think you should ride your horse, Nevare. There will be room for Sirlofty in the Academy stables now. Just yesterday, Colonel Rebin held a big auction of the Academy riding horses that Colonel Stiet had acquired.” He actually smiled. “He advertised them as ‘suitable mounts for delicate ladies and very young children’. I do not think he was impressed with Stiet’s choice of horseflesh.”
“Nor I, sir.” I found myself grinning back at him. It was such a small thing, to be able to ride my own horse in our formations, and yet it lifted my spirits tremendously.
My uncle laughed softly and then said, “Sir this. Sir that. Am I no longer your uncle, Nevare?”
I looked down. “After the trouble I brought into your house, I was not sure how you felt about me.”
“If you were the one who brought Epiny here, it escaped my notice, Nevare. No. I made my own trouble, and spoiled her as she grew. I was far too indulgent with her and as a result, I have lost her. I wonder if I’ll ever see her again. It is a long way to Bitter Springs, and a hard life that awaits her when she arrives.”
“I think she’ll be up to it, sir—Uncle Sefert.” I found that I believed my own words.
“I think she will, too. Well. Leaving tomorrow. I know we haven’t seen much of each other of late, but I’ll still miss you. So I will still expect you to spend your leave days here, visiting.”
“Will your lady wife be comfortable with that, Uncle Sefert?” I asked the question plainly, wishing to put it all out in the open.
“My lady wife is not comfortable with anything these days, Nevare. Let’s leave her out of it, shall we? Perhaps the next free day you get, you and Hotorn and I can go out and do some shooting together. I think I would like a bit of a holiday away from this city.”
“I should like that, too, Uncle Sefert.”
He hugged me before we parted for what remained of the night, and saw me off the next morning when I left on Sirlofty. He promised that he would send my trunk by cart within the hour.
I rose early and dressed in my uniform. It seemed snugger than it had when last I wore it again, and I suspected I was due for yet another growth spurt. As I left my uncle’s house, a steady winter rain was falling and the gutters of the city ran full, as did some of the streets. I rode slowly, and tried to come to terms with all the changes that I now must face. My emotions teetered between elation and regret. I was going back to the Academy and my career. But of my patrol, only Gord, Kort, Rory, Trist and I remained. I wondered what the Academy would do with us and had to accept that I had no control over it.
When I reached the gates of the Academy, I found that a second-year cadet stood in the sentry box. He shouted a challenge to me when I tried to ride through. I halted, and when I gave my name, he consulted a list and told me the stall number for my horse and gave me a billet slip and had me sign a roster as “Returning to Duty.” We exchanged salutes and I rode on, feeling as if I had truly entered a military emplacement.
It was the same in the stables. Harried cadets were bustling at work when I arrived. I found Sirlofty’s stall and cared for him and my tack before I left him there. He was in good company. Other horses were arriving—tall, straight-legged cavalla mounts that held their heads high and bared teeth at strangers and occasionally snapped at each other. Mounted drill, I suddenly knew, was going to become a different experience.
My billet slip said that I was now in Bringham House. I wondered if it was an error. I was certain there was an error when I walked up the steps and found Rory standing just inside the door. A newly-sewn corporal stripe was on his sleeve. He gaped to see me and then grinned. “Well, here you are, back again, and healthy as a pig to boot! Look at you, Nevare—last time I had a glimpse of you, well, I thought it would be my last! And here you are, back from the dead, same as me, but fat and sassy to boot!” Then his grin faded as he asked me, “You’ve had the news, haven’t you? About Nate and Oron and everyone?”
“Yes. I have. It’s going to be strange. Is this truly where we’ve been billeted?”
Rory nodded. “Yup. Colonel Rebin’s a pip for organizing things. He came through the dormitories like a tornado, day before yesterday. He says there’s not enough of us left to keep them all open, and that inefficiency kills in the field. Didn’t he swear when he had a good look at Skeltzin Hall and saw them broken windows and such! He can cuss better than my own da! Said he wouldn’t have kept soldiers in what was obviously meant to be a pigeon house. I guess when he turned it over to Colonel Stiet, Skeltzin Hall was scheduled for demolition! Stiet turned it back into housing. Anyway, here we are, and the colonel mixed us all up good. Old blood, new blood, he don’t care. Says it all runs red when you get hurt, so we might as well learn to make sure none of us gets hurt. Hey. A bit of good news. I saw Jared and Lofert already. They’re back and I put your bunk in the same room as theirs. Gord’s back, too. Hey, you’ll never guess. He’s a married man now. Him and his girl got harnessed when the plague was at its worst. Their folks said if they were all going to die, they might as well have a bit of life first. Only no one in their families even got sick out there. You oughtta see him strut now. He looks so happy he almost doesn’t look fat any more.”
I shook my head in amazement. Then, “How’d you get to be a corporal?” I demanded.
He grinned his big froggy grin. “Field promotion is what Colonel Rebin called it. He says that’s what happens when you’re one of the few left standing after the battle-smoke clears. He jumped up a bunch of us. Told us that if we proved ourselves worthy, we could keep the stripes. Bet you wish you’d got yerself back here a day or two early.”
“No,” I found myself saying. “Looks to me like it just means more work for you. You’re welcome to your stripe, Corporal Hart. And here’s your first salute from me!” The gesture I made was not the military one, but Rory laughed and returned the crude sign in kind.
I had never been in Bringham House before. I still felt like an intruder as I crossed the polished stone floor to the sergeant’s desk. An old sergeant I had never seen before had me sign in on a roster, and then handed me a list of my duties to be completed that day. I immediately went to collect the bedding issued to me. It was so clean it still smelled of soap. I hastened up a flight of steps that did not creak or shake under my tread. The smell of lyesoap was everywhere. My billet was on the third floor. Two cadets were on, their hands and knees with scrub brushes in the big study room that took up the entire second floor. I grimaced. A glance at my duty slip told me I’d soon be joining them. Other cadets were dusting books and replacing them neatly on bookshelves. I hadn’t even known that Bringham House had its own small reference library. No wonder the old noble cadets had consistently bested us at academics. The entire third floor was an open barracks, with a row of washstands at one end, flanked by the water closets. It seemed the height of luxury.
I found my bunk easily. A neatly lettered sign on the foot of it gave my name. And on the rolled-up mattress, I found five letters waiting from me. One was from Epiny and Spink. Mr. And Mrs. Spinrek Kester she had written on the envelope, in very large letters. I smiled at that. The smile faded when I saw the next envelope was from Carsina’s father. And the third was from Carsina herself, carefully addressed to Cadet Nevare Burvelle. A flat fourth envelope would probably hold a letter of rebuke from Yaril. She’d had such high hopes for Carsina and me. The fifth was from my father. I set them all aside for the time and turned to putting my possessions away. I wondered what I hoped the letters would say, and had no idea.
I put my books on my shelf and hung my clothing in my cupboard. My trunk went at the end of my bunk. I worked slowly and meticulously as I put every item in its place. Then I made my bed with the fresh bedding I’d been issued. And all the while, my mind ground through every possible answer I might have to face in those letters.
When my bunk was covered with a tightly-tucked blanket, I perched on its corner and opened Epiny’s letter first, as it seemed the least threatening. It had been written on the road and posted from a way station. Everything she saw and did was marvellous and exciting and amazing. They had slept under the wagon during a downpour when bad roads had delayed them from reaching the next town. It had been so cosy, like a wild rabbit’s burrow, and they’d heard the howling of wild dogs in the distance. She’d seen a herd of deer watching them from a hillside. She’d cooked porridge over a fire in an open kettle. Spink got stronger every day. Spink had promised to teach her to shoot once he was well enough to hunt again. She had thought she was pregnant, but then her courses came, which was horribly inconvenient when they were travelling, but probably no worse than morning sickness would have been. I blushed at her bluntness and realized that she wrote exactly as she talked. At the end of her long, closely-written letter was a wavering greeting from Spink and an assurance that he was as happy as a man could be. I folded the pages and tucked them back into the envelope. So, they were happy. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. I decided that they would build a fine life together, and that thought eased my heart.
The missive from my father was next. He wrote that my mother had enjoyed Epiny’s letters but that he looked forward to hearing from me personally. He was glad to hear I had recovered. He’d had a note from Dr Amicas expressing some reservations about my health and continued attendance at the Academy. The doctor suggested that I take a year’s leave from the Academy, return home, and then reconsider my Academy career at that time. That sentence made me frown. The doctor had said nothing of that to me. My father wrote that he had already notified the doctor that he would see me when I returned home for my brother’s wedding in late spring, and that my father would decide for himself at that time if my health had been severely compromised. For now, he trusted I would continue to live sensibly, study hard, and trust in the good god. I decided that perhaps he was referring to an earlier missive from the doctor, one that he had sent before my recovery had become so robust. I set my father’s letter aside and gave a small sign of relief. Other than his mention of the doctor, it sounded as if all were well with him.
The letter from Carsina’s father was written in a bold black hand. He wished me well for my continued recovery. He said that looking at death, in any form, could make a man question his life’s direction, and often that was good. It would also make a man bold.
Foolishly bold in some cases. He reminded me that I had yet to earn the right to call Carsina my fiancée, but that he trusted I would, and that he expected all correspondence I sent her to be as honest and honourable as my first letter had been. My parents were well when he had last seen them. His lady wife sent her best wishes as well.
A drop of perspiration trickled down my spine. I wiped my sweaty hands on my shirt and opened Carsina’s letter.
Dear Cadet Nevare Burvelle,
I am thrilled to receive your letter and to know that you are recovering from your illness. The news we had from Old Thares was very frightening.
You asked me if, freed of all parental constraints, I would still choose you to be my husband. I must remind you that we are still not formally promised to one another. Yet if the good god blesses us and you strive with dedication and courage, I am sure that soon we will be. Then the answer will be, yes, I would choose you. I trust my parents’ judgment to guide me in all things, as I am sure you trust yours.
With great affection and in the good god’s light,
Miss Carsina Grenalter
Every word had been spelled correctly. The penmanship looked like something from an exercise book. Without intending to, they had told me exactly what I had bluntly asked. Carsina chose me because she had never had any other choice. Listlessly, I let the letter fall to my bunk. My heart fell with it.
I had all but forgotten my sister’s letter. It alone remained. I opened it by rote. She was glad I wasn’t sick any more, and could I try to find three more buttons to match the ones shaped like blackberries that I’d sent her. She loved me and wished me well.
And to my shock, there was another page folded within Yaril’s missive. Carsina had written to me with pale blue ink on pink paper. I struggled to make out her words.
“My father was so angry, but my mother said it was the most romantec letter she’d ever seen and that he must let me have it to keep. I am so glad. Every girl who has seen it has turned green with envie. My mother tells me that I did choose well, and that your letter shows it for you wish me to be happy with you. Oh, Nevare, I did choose you. When I was seven, I told both our mothers that I was going to marry you when I grew up, because you picked the ripest plums that I couldn’t reach and gave them to me. Don’t you remember that? My mother told me when my father wanted to match me with Kase Remwar. Well, that would never do, for I knew that Yaril was sweet on him. I begged my mother to make a plee that I be matched with you, and she did. So you see, my darling and brave cadet, I did choose you!!!! My heart beats so fast when I think of you. I have read your letter a thousand times. Even my father was impressed with how boldly you asked that question. Oh, Nevare, I am so in love with you. When your brother marries in the spring and you come home to be there, you must wear your uniform, for I am having a dress made that is the perfect shade of green to compliment it. And when our fathers give them to one another, you must find a way to stand next to me, for I am sure that we will make a lovely pair.”
I folded the letter, saving the rest of its sweetness for later. I tucked it into my breast pocket, near my heart, and sat for a moment. I had not chosen her. But she had chosen me, freely. Chosen me over handsome Kase Remwar. I smiled at the compliment. I would see her again, in a couple of months, when I went home for my brother’s wedding. I suspected that, given all I had learned, I would choose her.
I found myself considering a future that might still be golden. I started when Gord plunked a bucket and scrub brush down on the floor by my feet. He held another bucket in one hand. I had a feeling that I looked as foolishly happy as he did. “Good to see you back, Nevare. I picked up your supplies for you. It looks as if we have duty together.”
“That it does, Gord. That it does.”
Smiling, I went to my task.