by Robin Hobb
I heard him pour water into the glass by my bedside. I lifted my hand and nudged aside the greasy poultice across my eyes. My entire face had been blistered from sun and the healing skin itched. My father watched as I very carefully levered myself into a more upright position. It was awkward to take the glass from him with both my hands in their mittenish bandages, but I saw that he was pleased to see me doing things for myself. That made it worth it. I drank and he took the glass from me quickly as I tried to fumble it back onto the bedside table. Beside it was my only souvenir of the experience. Sergeant Duril had insisted on helping put me to bed. He’d saved one of the rocks they’d dug out of my flesh and set it aside for me. It wasn’t much of a rock; some sort of quartz, I suspected, flecked and streaked with other minerals, but his reminder that I had once more cheated death was oddly cheering to me. Duril, at least, expected that someday I would look back on this painful time and find a bit of humor in this trophy.
My father cleared his throat to draw my attention back to him. “So. Feeling a bit more yourself now?”
I nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Think you can talk?”
My lips felt like burnt sausages. “A little, sir.”
“Very good.” He leaned back in his chair and thought for a bit, and then leaned toward me again. “I don’t even know what to ask you, son. I think I’ll leave it to you to tell me. What happened out there?”
I tried licking my lips. It was a mistake. Ragged bits of skin rasped against my tongue. “Dewara taught me Kidona ways. Hunting. Riding. How they make fires, what they eat. Bleeding a horse for food. Using a sling to hunt birds.”
“Why did he notch your ear?”
I tried to remember. Parts of my time with him had gone muzzy and vague. “He had food and water, and would not share. So…I left him, to go find water and food of my own. He told me I couldn’t leave and I went anyway. Because I thought he’d let me die of thirst if I didn’t.”
He nodded to himself. His eyes were alight with interest. He didn’t rebuke me for disobeying Dewara. Did that mean he thought I had learned the lesson he’d sought to teach me? Was what had befallen me worth that lesson? I felt a sudden spark of hatred toward him. Resolutely I quenched it and forced myself to hear his question. “And that was all? For that, he did this to you?”
“No. No, that was just for the first time.”
“So…you left him. But then you went back to him for food and water?” A bit of disappointment tinged his question, as well as confusion.
“No,” I denied it quickly. “He came after me, sir. I didn’t crawl back to him and beg him to save me. When I rode away from him that first time, he followed me. He chased me on horseback and notched my ear with his swanneck as I fled. I didn’t go back to him and stand still for him to mark me like that. I’d have died first.”
I think the vehemence in my voice shocked him.
“Well, no, of course you didn’t, Nevare. I know you wouldn’t do such a thing. But when he came after you…?”
“I rode a day and a half, and then found water for myself. I knew then that I’d survive. I thought I’d just come home from there. But he came after me, and that night I fought him, and then we talked, and after that, he taught me things, about how the Kidona survive and how they do things.” I took a deeper breath and suddenly felt very, very tired, as if I’d fenced for hours instead of just conversing for a few minutes. I told him that.
“I know, Nevare, and soon I’ll let you rest. Just tell me why Dewara did this to you. Until I know, from you, I don’t know how to respond to what he has done.” A frown furrowed his brow. “You do understand that what he has done to you is a great insult to me? I can’t ignore it. I’ve sent men to find him; he will answer to me. But before I pass judgment on him, I must know the full tale of what drove him to this affront. I’m a just man, Nevare. If something passed between you that drove him to this fury…if, even unintentionally, you offered him great insult, then you should tell me that, to be an honorable man.” He shifted in his chair and then scraped it across the carpet to come a bit closer to my bedside. He lowered his voice, as if sharing a great confidence with me. “I fear I learned a greater lesson than you did from Dewara, and one that is just as hard. I trusted him, son. I knew he would be harsh with you; I knew he would not compromise the Kidona ways for you. He was my enemy, never my friend, and yet he was a trusted enemy to me, if those words can ever be spoken together in such a way. I trusted his honor as a warrior. He gave me his word that he would teach you just as he would teach a young Kidona warrior. Then…to do this to you…I erred in my judgment, Nevare. And you paid the price.”
I considered my words carefully. I’d already thought through my experience. If I ever told my father how close I’d come to “going native,” he’d never respect me again. I found as much of the truth as I thought he could accept. “Dewara kept his word, Father.”
“He went past his word. To notch your ear…I had the doctor put a stitch in each, son. There will be scars, but less than Dewara intended. That I could have accepted, since you admitted you disobeyed him. In truth, I expected you to come home with a scar of some kind. A scar is no shame to a soldier. But deliberately to expose you to the sun when you were helpless, to leave you parched and burning…he said nothing of that, nor have I ever heard of it as a punishment applied to Kidona warriors-in-training. I think he struck you in the head. Do you have any recollection of that?”
When I shook my head, mutely, he nodded to himself. “Perhaps you would not recall it. Head injuries can erase part of a man’s memory. I judge that you must have been unconscious for some time, to burn as you did.”
My thoughts swirled around his earlier admission. I said it aloud, to make him hear it from me. “You knew I’d disobey him. You knew I’d come home at least with a notched ear if he caught me.”
He paused a time. I don’t think he’d expected to have to admit that to me. “I knew that might be a consequence of your training.” He drew back a bit and looked at me, his head tilted. “Do you think what you learned from him was a fair exchange for that?”
I thought for a bit. What had I learned from him? I still wasn’t sure. Some physical skills in riding and survival. But what had he done to my mind? Had he taught me something, shown me anything? Or only drugged and deluded and abused me? I didn’t know but I was certain that my father would be of no help to me in answering those questions. Best not to even raise them. Best to make it possible for him to let it all go. “Probably what I learned is worth a few scars. And as you’ve told me before, a soldier must expect scars from his career.” I hoped he would ask no questions when I added, “Father. Please. Just let him go. I wish this to be the end of it. I disobeyed him. He notched my ear as he said he would. Let it end there.”
He stared at me, torn between bewilderment and relief. “You know I should not do that, son. This leaving you next to dead on our doorstep…If we allow a Kidona to do this to the soldier son of a noble family and take no action…well, then we invite other Plainspeople to do the same, to other families. Dewara won’t understand tolerance or forgiveness. He will respect me only if I command that respect.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose as he added wearily, “I should have considered that more deeply before I put you in his power. I fear I see what I’ve done too late. I may have created unrest among the Kidona. Having done that, I cannot deny it or step away from it and leave it to others to handle. No, son. I must know the whole tale, and then I must take action on it.”
During his speech, I had begun to scratch gently at the sodden blisters, long burst, on my left forearm. The grease and butter treatment had left me sloughing soggy bits of skin like a river fish at the end of its migration. The temptation to peel it free was as great as it was juvenile. I was nudging gently at an itchy patch, not quite scratching it, and thus avoiding meeting his eyes.
“Nevare?” he prompted me after I had let a moment pass.
I made the decision. I lied to my father. I was surprised
at how easily the words fell from my lips.
“He took me up to the plateaus. He was attempting to teach me a maneuver for crossing a chasm. It seemed unwise to me, unnecessarily dangerous, and I refused to perform it. I was, perhaps, too outspoken. I told him it was stupid, and only a fool would do it. He tried to force me; I struck back at him. I think I hit him in the face.” My father would know that was a mortal insult to a Kidona. Dewara’s reaction would now seem plausible. I paused, and then decided that was story enough. “That’s the last thing I remember until I woke up here.”
My father sat very still. His silence radiated disappointment in me. I did not wish I had told him the truth, but I did wish I had found a better lie. I waited for him to think it through. The blame for what had happened to me had to fall on either Dewara or myself. I took it upon my shoulders not because I felt I deserved it, but because even at that young age, I could see far-reaching repercussions if I did not. If Dewara had injured me without serious provocation, my father must be relentless in his pursuit and punishment of the warrior. If I had brought it on myself, then it would be possible for my father to be less vengeful in his hunt. I knew, too, the far-reaching implications of taking the blame on myself; that others must then wonder why my father did not pursue Dewara implacably. There would be a taint of doubt about me; what had I done to the Kidona to deserve such insult and injury? If my father could tell his associates that I had brought it on myself by striking the Kidona in the face, then it became understandable. My father would be a bit ashamed of me that I had not ultimately triumphed in a physical battle with the warrior. But he could take a bit of fatherly pride in that I’d struck Dewara. Belatedly, I wished I could revise my lie for I had said I’d refused to cross a chasm, and that did make me sound a bit of a coward. But it couldn’t be changed now, so I pushed those thoughts aside. I was in pain and weary and often, during my convalescence, felt that my thoughts were not quite my own.
I did not, for even an instant, consider trying to explain my truth to my father. That was how I had come to think of it in the days of fitful wakefulness after my return home. My truth was that, in a dream, I had failed to follow Dewara’s command to kill the tree woman. I had disobeyed him, thinking I knew better. I hadn’t. He had warned me that she was a formidable enemy. I’d not struck when I had the opportunity to kill her. I would never know what would have happened if I had rushed forward the moment I first saw her and slain her. Now I would live with the consequences. I’d died in that dream place, and as a result, I’d nearly died in this world, too. I wondered if there was any way I could even discuss that “dream” with my father. I doubted it. Ever since I had learned my father’s secret opinion of me, ever since I’d heard him express to my mother his reservations about my fitness to command, I’d felt an odd distance from him. He’d sent me out to be tested by a hostile stranger, with never a word of warning. Had he ever even considered that I might not come back from such a test? Or had that been an acceptable risk? Had he coldly judged that it would be better to lose me now as a son than risk disgrace from me when I was a soldier? I looked at him, and felt sick with anger and despair.
I quietly spoke the first words that came to me. “I don’t think I have anything else to tell you right now.”
He nodded sympathetically, deaf to the emotion of my words. “I’m sure you’re still very weary, son. Perhaps we’ll talk about this again another time.”
The tone of his words sounded as if he cared. Doubt swirled through me once again. Had I met at least part of his challenge? Did he think I had it in me to command men? Worse, I suddenly doubted my own future. Perhaps my father saw me more clearly than I could see myself. Perhaps I did lack the spark to be a good officer. I heard the door of my room close softly as if I were being shut off from the future I’d always assumed I would have.
I leaned back on my pillows. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. But even though I could force my body to relax, the thoughts in my mind only chased one another more swiftly. I felt they had worn a rut in my brain with their endless circling. During the days I lay in bed, strangely weak beyond my injuries, I had handled the memories over and over, trying to make sense of them.
But I couldn’t. Logic failed. If it had all been a dream, then I could blame none of it on the Kidona. Obviously Dewara had drugged me, first with the smoke from the campfire and then, if truly he had, when he put the dried frog in my mouth. But everything after that had been illusion, of course. It had all been my imagining; none of it had really happened. But why then had Dewara been so angry with me? For I was certain of that. He had been so angry that he would have killed me if he had dared. Only his fear of my father had made him spare my life. But why would he have meted out punishment for an imaginary transgression that he couldn’t have known about? Unless it was possible that he truly had followed me into my dream; unless, in some peculiar way, we had entered some Plainsfolk spirit world and sojourned there together.
That circle of illogic gave way to another conclusion. The dream I’d dreamed hadn’t been mine. I was convinced of that in a way I could not dispute with myself. It had been fantastic in a way that was foreign to my thinking. I would not have dreamed of such a peculiar bridge or such a chasm. I would certainly not have dreamed of a fat old woman as the nemesis I must fight! A two-headed giant or an armored knight of olden times would have guarded a river ford or bridge if it had been my dream. Those were the challengers of my legends. And my own reaction had been wrong. I felt puzzled, as if I’d read a tale from a distant land and not understood the hero or the ending. I could not even decide why the dream seemed so important to me. I wanted it to fade as my other dreams did when I woke, but this one lingered with me for days.
As the dreary days of my convalescence passed, the dream merged with recollections of my days with Dewara until all of it seemed unreal. It was hard for me to put the events of those days in consecutive order. I could show Sergeant Duril the skills the Kidona had taught me, but I could not recall the precise sequence of learning them. They had become a part of me, something written into my nerves and bones along with breathing or coughing. I did not want to carry the Kidona into my life with me, yet I did. Something of him had gotten into my very blood, the way he accused my father’s iron shot of staying in his soul. Sometimes I would stand before my rock collection, staring at the coarse stone the doctor had dug out of my flesh, and try to decide how much of the experience had been real. The rock and my scars were the only physical evidence that I had that any of it had happened. Occasionally I would touch the round bald spot on the crown of my head. I decided that I had been unconscious when Dewara struck me there, and my brain had incorporated the pain into my dream.
Only once did I try to speak of my dream journey to anyone. It was about six weeks after I had been returned to my father’s house. I was up and about again and well on my way to full recovery. A few places, such as my forearms and the tops of my cheeks, were dappled pink for many months after the rest of my body had healed, but I had progressed to once more rising and breakfasting daily with my family. Yaril, my younger sister, seemed to have a very vivid dream life, and often bored or annoyed the rest of the family by insisting on giving long accounts of her illogical imaginings at the breakfast table. That morning, midway through one such rambling tale of being rescued from the jaws of ravenous sheep by a horde of birds, my father banished her, breakfastless, to the drawing room. “A woman who has nothing sensible to say should not bother speaking at all!” he told her sternly as he sent her from the room.
After the rest of us were excused from the table, I sought her in the parlor, knowing that she was far more sensitive than her siblings, and wept over rebukes that Elisi or I would simply have shrugged off. My estimate of her temperament was correct. She was sitting on a settee, ostensibly working on some embroidery. Her head was bent and her eyes were red. She would not look up at me as I came in. I sat down next to her, held out the muffin I had filched from the table, and said
quietly, “Actually, I was quite looking forward to hearing what came next in your dream. Won’t you tell me?”
She took the muffin from me, thanking me with a look. She broke off a piece and ate it, and then said huskily, “No. It’s foolish, as Father says. A waste of time for me to prattle about my dreams or for you to listen to them.”
I could not criticize my father, not to my little sister. “Foolish, yes, but so are many things that amuse us. I think he feels the breakfast table is not the best place for stories of that sort. But I’d be happy to listen to them when we have time together, like this.”
My younger sister had enormous gray eyes. They always reminded me of a soot-cat’s eyes. Her gaze was very solemn. “You are so kind to me, Nevare. I can tell when you are just being kind, however. I do not think you have the slightest interest in what I dream at night, or in what I do or think by day. You are only trying to be sure my feelings were not hurt when Father dismissed me.”
She was absolutely correct about her dreams, but I tried to soften my practicality. “Actually, dreams do interest me, mostly because I have so few myself. You, on the other hand, seem to dream nearly every night.”
“I’ve heard that we all dream, every night, but only some people can remember their dreams.”
I smiled at that. “And if everyone forgot all their dreams, how could anyone prove such a thing? No. When my head touches my pillow and I close my eyes, all is quiet in my mind until morning. Unlike you. You seem to fill your sleeping hours with all sorts of adventures and fancies.”
She glanced away from me. “Perhaps I adventure in my dreams because there is so little else in my life to distract me.”
“Oh, I don’t think you’ve got such a hard life, little girl.”
“No. I’ve hardly any sort of a life at all,” she returned, almost bitterly. When I just looked at her, puzzled, she shook her head at me. A moment later she asked, “Then you’ve never had a peculiar dream, Nevare? One that made you wake, heart racing, wondering which was more real, the dream world or this one?”