by Robin Hobb
Gord’s hand softly came down on Spink’s paper, covering the problem. We both looked at him hostilely, believing he was going to complain about our whispering. Instead, he looked at Spink and said quietly, “I don’t think you understand exactly what exponents are. They’re supposed to be a shortcut, and once you understand them, they’re easy to use. Shall I show you?”
Spink glanced at me as if he expected me to be irritated. I turned a palm up to Gord, inviting him to go ahead. He did, speaking softly, his own books ignored on the table before him. He was a natural teacher. I saw that. It made him want to help Spink before he began his own work, despite his late start at it. He didn’t do Spink’s work for him, or even work the problem himself to demonstrate it. Instead, he explained exponents in a way that enlightened me. I was good at math, but I was good at it in a rote way, just as a small child can recite “nine plus twelve is twenty-one” long before he knows what numbers are or that they signify quantities. I could manipulate numbers and symbols accurately because I knew the rules. Gord, however, understood the principles. He explained exponents in a way that made me understand that I had been looking at a map of mathematics and Gord knew the countryside of it. That is an inadequate explanation for such a subtle awakening, but it is the best I can do.
Gord’s mathematical expertise woke a grudging admiration for him in me; grudging because I still could not condone how he maintained his body. My father had always taught me that my body was the animal the good god had settled around my soul. Just as I should be shamed if my horse were dirty or sickly, so should I be shamed if my body were unkempt or poorly conditioned. All it required was common sense, he had taught me. I could not understand how Gord could tolerate life in such an ungainly body.
Curiosity kept me at the table as Gord walked Spink through each set of exercises and explained why and how the numbers could be manipulated. Then he turned to his own books and lessons. We were nearly alone at the table by then. Even the proctor had pulled a chair over by the fire and was dozing, a military history book open before him on his lap.
Spink was a quick study. He worked rapidly through the exercises, only occasionally asking for help when a problem presented a variation, and even then, it was most often to confirm that he had correctly solved it. Spink did suffer from weakness in his command of his basic math facts. Several times I quietly pointed out small errors to him. I had my grammar book open before me with the letter I’d composed, as if I were checking it a final time, out of loyalty to Spink, I suppose. He and Gord had just finished their work when the proctor suddenly snapped his bobbing head upright and then glared at us as if it were our fault he’d dozed off. “You should be finished by now,” he informed us curtly. “I’ll give you another ten minutes. You have to learn to use your time wisely.”
In less time than that, we had packed up our books and papers and shelved them. The three of us had only a few moments to ourselves before it was time to go down the stairs and form up for our march to the mess hall. This evening meal differed substantially from the welcoming dinner of the previous night. Tonight we were given a simple repast of soup, bread, and cheese; our noon meal was expected to be our major nourishment for the day. We all ate heartily. I would have enjoyed a more substantial dinner, and I do not think I was the only man at the table who felt that way. “Is this all there is?” Gord asked pathetically, both alarmed and disappointed at the modest meal, and there was some jesting and laughter at his expense over it.
After dinner, we returned to the parade ground. After a brief flag-lowering ceremony by an honor guard of older cadets, Dent dismissed us, cautioning us that we had best tend to our uniforms and boots and extra studying that we would need for the morrow rather than wasting our time in frivolous socializing.
We did both, of course. Our floor was a jostle of cadets cleaning their boots, comparing impressions of the day with each other, waiting in line for the washbasins, and speculating on what tomorrow would bring. Dent was correct, however. When he came up to give us our ten-minutes-to-lights-out warning, half of us hadn’t finished those basic tasks. We all used up what time we had left as best we could, and then Dent ordered the lights-out immediately, regardless of how any of the cadets were engaged. There was much stumbling and muttering in the dark as we made our blind ways to our rooms and beds. In the darkness, I knelt by my bedside to say my prayers. My roommates did likewise, each confiding his own thoughts to the good god and then climbing wearily into bed. I remember thinking that I would have a hard time falling asleep, and then nothing more until the drum awoke me to the dim dawn of another day at the Academy.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
INITIATION
That first day at the Academy set the indelible pattern for the days that followed. Five days a week we had classes and drill. On Sixday, we had chapel and religious study, followed by mandatory recreation in the form of music, sport, art, or poetry. On the Sevday of each week, we ostensibly had the day to spend as we wished. In reality, it was a day for study, laundry, and haircuts and any other personal chores that had been crowded out of the frantic schedule of academics and drill. On that day, too, we received mail and occasional visits from family or friends. First-year cadets were only allowed to go into town on holidays, unless it was a necessary errand for laundry or a seamstress or the like. But as the year progressed, we came to know some of the second-years, and they would, for a small fee, bring back tobacco, sweets, spicy sausages, newspapers, and other luxuries for us.
It sounds a rigid and bound existence, and yet, as my father had foretold, I formed friendships and found life both exciting and pleasurable. Natred, Kort, Spink, and I got along famously, and our comfort with one another made our dormitory room a pleasant place. We shared the chores without shirking. It did not mean that we passed inspection effortlessly, for those who inspected us delighted in finding forgotten tasks: we had not dusted the top of our door, or perhaps there were a few drops of water on the sides of our washbasin. It was virtually impossible to pass an inspection unscathed, but we did our best. Marching off demerits became part of our routine. There was no shame associated with earning the demerits, only annoyance. Strange to say, the hardships we endured did unite us, as I am sure they were intended to. We shared the same complaints about the food, the early hours, the unreasonable inspections, and the stupidity of marching off demerits. Just as an old leather shoe can distract high-spirited puppies from chewing on one another, so I think the unnecessary hardships the Academy meted out to us kept quarrels from fomenting among ourselves. We became a patrol.
Even so, within our group we had our special friendships and our rivalries. I was probably closest to Spink and, through him, to Gord. Life at the Academy did not become easier for our portly friend, for despite drilling and the marching of his numerous demerits, he grew no leaner, though he did seem to become stronger and gain more endurance, both for physical exercise and for the routine harassment that came with his girth. Gord was something of an outcast even from his bunkroom. Sometimes he sought sanctuary in our room for evening conversation, but just as often he would sit by himself in a corner of our common study room reading letters from home and replying to them. Trist disdained him, and Caleb followed Trist’s example when the golden boy was present. Rory was affable to everyone, and he often joined us at studies or conversation in our room, and sometimes Caleb came with him. Both Rory and Caleb were weathervanes, courteous enough to Gord on their own, but apt to laugh riotously at Trist’s mockery of him, and to needle Gord with apparent disregard for his feelings.
Trist remained somewhat aloof from my roommates and me. He seemed to think us beneath him. Oron trotted at Trist’s heels like a pet dog, and when he was not present, Rory snidely referred to him as Trist’s redheaded orderly. Trist continued to bend rules, as much to defy Spink’s iron code of conduct as to enjoy his misdeeds, I think. He was more worldly and sophisticated than the rest of us, and sometimes used that to his advantage. Early in the year he proposed that we h
ire a laundress to do our shirts for us. We all contributed money, and Trist volunteered to be the one to take our shirts in and to pick them up as well. To volunteer to do such a menial task was unlike him. The first week, the neatly folded shirt I received back from him looked no cleaner than when I had turned it in. The second week, a smudge on the cuff made me wonder if it had been washed at all. But it was Trent, the clothes dandy, who finally spoke out his criticism of Trist’s laundress. Trist laughed out loud at us, and then asked if we had seriously thought that he cared enough about laundry to make a weekly trip into town with it. It turned out we had been paying for his whore. The reactions within the patrol ranged from Spink’s outrage to fervent curiosity from Caleb, who rattled off questions that Trist answered so wittily he soon had all of us roaring with laughter. We forgave him his ruse, and it was Spink who sought a reliable laundress’s name from Sergeant Rufet and took over seeing to our clean shirts. Only later did I discover that Rory, Trist, Trent, and Caleb continued to “take their laundry” by turns to Trist’s laundress.
Despite Trist’s deception, he had such a high-spirited and pleasing personality, I knew that in other circumstances I would have quite enjoyed his company and temperament, and probably followed him willingly. But I had met and been friends with Spink first, if only by a few hours, and I did not feel I could be Trist’s friend without offending Spink, and so I did not attempt it.
It was strange to watch our alliances and rivalries build, and I was grateful for the insights that both Father and Sergeant Duril had given me, for I was able to see the interactions almost impartially. I knew it was Trist’s natural leadership clashing with Spink’s that made them antagonistic toward one another, rather than any real flaw in either fellow. I could even see that, as a future commander Spink might have to learn to bend his will to accommodate the real conditions of life, while Trist might have to curb his own satisfaction with himself lest it lead him into prideful risks for the men under his command. I wondered, too, if I lacked leadership, because I did not feel obliged to challenge either of them. More than one night, I lay awake and pondered it. My father had often said that an officer’s ability to lead was based not only on his drive for it, but also on his ability to make others wish to follow him. I ached for an opportunity to arise that would let me show I could lead, yet knew, in my heart of hearts, that fellows like Trist did not await a chance to lead. They simply led.
As if the pressures of a new life away from home, stiff classes, and long study hours were not enough, we had six weeks of initiation to endure as well. During that time we had to bow our head to whatever tasks or humiliations the older cadets chose to heap on us. Some of it took the form of pranks. At other times it was simple harassment, unreasonable orders, and silly demands we were forced to obey. That kind of teasing came most often from older cadets of other houses, but the second- and third-years of Carneston House did nothing to shield us from it. Some of the ridicule was harmless and even humorous, especially if it was happening to another fellow, but at other times the pranks were almost vicious. The bar of soap that found its way into our pot of coffee one morning only sickened two of us; the rest of us tasted it and set our mugs aside as soon as we realized something was wrong with it. I do not know who was more annoyed, the cadets who spent the days out of class, or those of us forced to forgo our morning coffee. The doors to our study room were booby-trapped one afternoon with buckets of filthy water that drenched Nate and Rory as they charged through them. Sticks of stinkwood mixed in with our regular firewood drove us out of the room another evening. A trip wire stretched across our stairs combined with the landing lamps blown out bruised Rory, Lofert, and Caleb badly. For three days running, we were sabotaged immediately before inspection, with our closets emptied onto the floor and our bunks overturned. Another night, we all found our bedding liberally doused with very cheap and very strong perfume. “Whorehouse in June,” Rory dubbed it, and the pervasive fragrance was something we had to live with for the week.
The second- and third-year cadets who lived on the lower floors of Carneston House seemed to consider us their “personal property” during our initiation period, and enjoyed relegating us to the status of servants. Our patrol blacked boots, carried firewood, and endlessly polished anything wood or brass an older cadet pointed to. They found ways to steal any free time any of us might have. Third-year cadet officers had the power to issue demerits, and did so liberally.
The endless demerits we had to march off cut deeply into our study and sleep time. I felt I could never completely relax, and often arose in the morning feeling as weary as when I had gone to bed. When I found dirt, leaves, and a stone in my bedding one morning, I at first thought it was another prank, and wondered not only how it had been done without waking me, but why I had been singled out. Several nights later I had my answer. I jolted out of a dream I could not recall to find Sergeant Rufet’s hand on my arm. He was speaking in an uncharacteristically calming voice as he said, “Easy now. Easy. No harm done. You’re sleepwalking, Cadet, and we can’t have that.”
I took a shuddering deep breath and a startled look around. I was in my nightshirt, in the little edge of woods at the far side of the parade ground. I looked at the sergeant and he grinned at me in the faint lamplight from the empty parade ground. “Awake, are you? Good. Then I’ll tell you this is the third time I’ve seen you wandering out and about at night. The first time, I thought it was some damn-fool command you’d been given and let it go. The second time, I was determined to put a stop to it, but you turned about and went back up to your bed, and never awakened at all that I could tell. I would have let you go this time, too, but you were headed for the river’s edge. It’s not too far beyond that belt of trees. Can’t have no drowned cadets, you know.”
“Thank you, Sergeant.” I spoke in a subdued voice. I felt disoriented, as much by the gruff sergeant’s kindness as by the strangeness of awakening outside and so far from my bed.
“Don’t mention it, lad. I see it more often than you might think, especially in the early months of school. Were you a sleepwalker at home?”
I shook my head dumbly, and then remembered my manners. “No, sir. Not that I recall.”
The sergeant scratched his head. “Well, like as not you’ll get over it and stop doing it. If it gets too bad, just tether your wrist to your bedpost at night. I’ve only had one cadet who had to do that, but it worked just fine. Woke him up when he started dragging his bed behind him.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” The dream that had captured me and taken me outside seemed to linger at the edges of my consciousness, like a fog that would recapture me if it could. I felt drawn to it, but I also felt embarrassed to be out wandering about in my nightshirt, and even more so that the sergeant had had to rescue me.
“Now don’t be troubled, Cadet,” he said as if he could read my thoughts. “This isn’t a disciplinary matter. It remains between you and me. And I doubt you’ll keep it up. It’s the pressure of the first few months that brings it out in some cadets. Likely when initiation is over, you’ll go back to sleeping all night in your own bed, and no harm done.”
By then we were walking back up the steps of Carneston House. My feet were bruised from the gravel and I was wet to the knees from the tall grass I’d waded through. I climbed the stairs and got back into my bed, grateful for its warmth, but also with a strange sense of regret for the dream that had been interrupted. I could not recall a moment of it, but a sense of wonder and pleasure from it still echoed in my sleepy mind.
We all knew that initiation “officially” ended after the first six weeks of classes, when the “survivors” were judged to have been introduced properly into Academy life. I looked forward fervently to our lives becoming simpler. Some of us hated the bullying to the point of depression and even weeping, such as Oron. Rory, Nate, and Kort seemed to take the clashes as a personal challenge, and they endeavored to gallop through it as if it bothered them not at all. Told he must eat six hard-boil
ed eggs, Rory swallowed down a dozen. I resented how the inane tasks given me devoured my time for study and sleep. Nonetheless, I tried to keep a game attitude about it, for I did not wish to be seen as a bad sport.
Then a single incident changed my view of the initiation. I was walking alone back to Carneston House after marching off my demerits. The light was fading rapidly from the sky and the fall day was getting chilly. I was looking forward to getting in out of the cold and settling down to my studies for the night. When I saw two third-years coming toward me, I inwardly groaned. As protocol demanded of me, I stepped off the path, came to attention, and, as they passed, snapped them a salute. I prayed they would just keep walking, but they halted and looked me up and down, smiling. I kept my eyes straight ahead and my face expressionless.
“Nice uniform,” said one. “Was it tailored especially for you, Cadet?”
“Yes, sir, it was,” I replied promptly.
“Good boots, too,” the other observed. “About-face, Cadet. Yes, all seems in order from the back, too. All in all, a well-turned-out cadet. My compliments, Cadet.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The first spoke again, and I suddenly perceived that this was a well-rehearsed routine for them. “But we cannot be sure that he is truly well turned out. A book may have a fine cover, but soiled pages within. Cadet, are you wearing regulation undergarments?”
“Sir, I do not understand.” But I did, and my heart was sinking.
“Off with your coat and trousers and boots, Cadet. We cannot have you out of uniform even when you are out of uniform.”
I had no choice but to obey. There, on the path, I took off my jacket, untied my boots and set them aside, and then stepped out of my trousers as well. I folded them neatly and set them to one side and came back to attention.