The Soldier Son Trilogy Bundle

by Robin Hobb

  I played such scenarios over and over in my mind, until I was forced to admit that they would not have given me such pleasure if I were not still fixed on possessing Carsina. It was not, I realized one day between shovels of manure, that I loved her. It was simply that she had been part of the perfect future I’d envisioned for myself. In that golden fancy, I completed the academy, gained a good post as a young lieutenant, moved up in rank quickly, and then claimed the young woman of good family who had been promised to me. Any modification to that future somehow lessened it. I could no more imagine substituting another woman for Carsina than I could imagine following a different profession than soldiering. And anytime I imagined that Carsina’s father might cancel his understanding with my father and bestow Carsina on Remwar instead, my blood seethed. I could not tolerate the idea that they might speak of me with laughter, or that Carsina might thank Remwar for rescuing her from the dismal fate of being my wife. The blow to my pride had quenched any love or affection I might have had for Carsina, but it had only sharpened my sense of possession of her. Sometimes I wondered what my Cousin Epiny would have said to me about such an attitude.

  It bothered me that my mother and siblings never sought me out at all. I supposed that my father had forbidden the contact lest they be moved to bring me food. I don’t know how many days I was into my ordeal when my guard asked me, “So your Pa is trying to make you lose some weight, right?”

  “So it seems,” I grunted. Narl was watching me load rocks onto a wagon, to be hauled off to build a stone wall.

  “You don’t look any thinner since you started.”

  I heaved a particularly large rock onto the wagon. I caught my breath. My mouth was dry, but I didn’t want to use up one of my precious water breaks yet. “Yes,” I agreed. I walked back to the pile to pick up another rock.

  “So, you can tell me. Where and when do you get the food?”

  “My father gives me one meal a day.” I wondered if my father had directed him to ask me that question. Did he set a spy upon me now? I squatted down and maneuvered another rock up onto its side and then into my arms. I grunted as I stood up, crab-walked with it to the back of the wagon, and heaved it in. “That’s a load,” I gasped.

  “Reckon it is. Follow ’long, now.” In his wisdom, the guard had decided that I would benefit more from staggering along behind the wagon than riding on it to our unloading site. I hadn’t argued. Perhaps some part of me now hated my body as much as my father did, and desired to punish it as severely as possible.

  “Then why aren’t you getting skinny?”

  He stood with one leg up on the wagon, ready to mount to the seat. On a whim, I told him the truth. “I’m under a curse. It’s magic. I’m doomed to be fat forever.”

  “Huh,” he said. And that was all. Narl didn’t talk to me much more that day, but almost every day after that, he ventured some conversational gambit. I learned that he was an orphan and abandoned and had no idea whose son he was or what he was supposed to be. So he’d come east, looking for a life, and found Burvelle’s Landing and a job with my father. He’d been a pig tender before my father chose him for this task. He chuckled as he said it, and I suppose to him there was some humor in it. He had a girl across the river. She was a shopkeeper’s daughter, and he hoped that when he got enough money, her father would let him marry her. Her father had no sons, so maybe any sons they had could be shopkeepers and have a real place in the world. He envied sons who knew what they were born to be.

  He was good for bits and pieces of news from time to time. From him, I learned that the Kidona had simply vanished from the Bejawi village. One day they’d been there; the next time someone had visited the village to deliver supplies, they were gone. They hadn’t even taken the tents or supplies that the troops at Franner’s Bend had given them. Ungrateful savages. He told me, too, that the reinforcements for the fort at Gettys were due to pass the Landing any day now. For a moment my heart leapt as I recalled how I’d used to sit Sirlofty on the hill overlooking the road and watch the passing of the regiments on their way to assignments in the wild east. The rows of horse, the marching men, the wagons decked out with their regimental colors were as much pomp and heraldry as our part of the world ever witnessed. But I wouldn’t even get to see Cayton’s Horse and Doril’s Foot as they passed, let alone have dinner with the officers if they paused at the Landing. It was likely my father would do all he could to keep me out of their sight.

  And from Narl, I learned that there was sickness in Franner’s Bend. Some poor families, half-breeds most likely, had come down with it first. Rumor was that they’d recently arrived at Franner’s Bend. Dirty folk, was what he’d heard. And they’d brought a sickness to Franner’s Bend, and rumor had it that those who caught it were dropping like flies from it. Fever, he told me, and vomiting. Diarrhea, too. That’s what came of living dirty like that.

  A chill went up my spine. “Does my father know about it? That there’s disease in Franner’s Bend?”

  My guard shrugged. Narl hadn’t supposed that my father took an interest in such things.

  That night, when I was returned to my room, I paced it until my father arrived at my door with dinner. When he finally opened the lock and came in, I greeted him with, “Speck plague is spreading through Franner’s Bend. I fear Burvelle Landing will be next.”

  “What?” He set my dinner tray down with an angry clack. He never received bad news graciously.

  Tersely, I told him what I knew.

  He shook his head at me. “That could be any of a dozen maladies, Nevare. When did you become such a nervous Nellie? Those people could have drunk bad water, or eaten spoiled meat. You’d do better to be focusing on what we’re trying to accomplish here instead of imagining death and disaster on your doorstep. Speck plague. How would Speck plague come here?”

  Then he added, coldly, “Stand straight. I want to look at you.”

  I made no verbal response. I stood as if at attention while he walked a slow circle around me. When he came back to face me, the color in his face was higher. “You haven’t lost a pound that I can see. You’ve corrupted your guard, haven’t you? He’s bringing you food. That’s the only possibility. What are you bribing him with, Nevare? Promises of money to be given to him later? Or do you have resources that I don’t know about?”

  Rage roared up in me, stronger than the hunger that still clawed at my inner ribs. “I’ve done no such thing! I’ve held myself exactly to our bargain. I’ve worked each day as you commanded me, and eaten only what you’ve brought to me with your own hands, Father. It’s as I’ve tried to tell you; my weight has nothing to do with greed or lack of self-discipline. It’s magic. What will it take to convince you of that? Or is it impossible for you to ever admit that not only are you wrong, but that your actions are responsible for how I look?”

  His face contorted with rage. “You superstitious ignoramus!” He snatched up my food tray so hastily that the wine glass fell over. I smelled the sharp scent of the spilled wine. Against my will, my hands flew out to clutch at the tray and keep him from dumping the precious food. With a roar of fury, he snatched it away from me. It tipped and he deliberately swung the tray to dash the contents against the wall. I stared in horror at the splattered food and broken crockery. A large piece of the wine glass had stuck in the thick gravy of the meat pie. As I stared, its weight pulled it free and it fell to the floor with the rest of the mess. I turned my aghast gaze on my father.

  His face twitched. For a moment, he struggled for control and then he released his temper. “There’s your dinner, Nevare! Enjoy it! It’s the last morsel of food you’ll see for a time.” He drew in a sharp breath through his nose. “I thought I could trust you to adhere to our agreement! Will I never learn? You haven’t a scrap of honor left, have you? You’ll lie, you’ll cheat, and you’ll steal in whatever way you must in some idiotic effort to prove your ridiculous claims! And why? Because you are so desperate to make your failure my fault! Because you can’t
accept responsibility for your own mistakes. You always have wanted someone else to be in charge of you and I fear you always will! You will never lead, Nevare, because you cannot command yourself!

  “But I will show you what it is a true officer does, and that is, he does what must be done to keep his troops prepared. There will be no more trust between us. You will stay here in this room, and I will supervise your fast. You will see that no magic is at work here, only your own sloth and greed.”

  He’d run out of breath. I remained standing and staring at him. May the good god help me as I recall that it was all I could do not to fling myself on my knees and snatch at the spilled food that was seeping across the floor. As if he knew the true focus of my attention, he pointed at it and snarled, “And clean that up!”

  He turned on his heel and left me, shutting the door sharply. I heard him snap the lock into place. And the moment I knew it was latched and he could not surprise me, I dropped down to right the remainder of the glass that still cradled a mouthful of wine. The plate had not broken and part of my meal had sheltered beneath it. I cut my finger on the broken wine glass as I snatched up the spoon and carefully scooped as much of the meat pie as I could back onto the plate. Luckily, the flaky crust had kept most of its shape. I was able to gently slip my hand under it and lever it back onto the plate. The crusty seed roll was not damaged at all. The dish that had held my small serving of fruit compote had broken. I studied it, weighing the dangers of eating broken glass against the fragrance and flavor of the lush pieces of plump fruit gleaming with spiced syrup. Trembling with self-restraint, for the tantalizing aromas of the spilled food were all around me now, I forced myself to very carefully inspect each piece of fruit before I salvaged it. I placed my rescued meal back onto the tray and took it to my desk. The sight of the spilled and ruined food on the floor was almost more than I could stand. I draped the soiled napkin over it, and then hurried to my broken meal. When, an hour later, I had finished the last tiny morsel of bread, I sighed and set myself to the task of cleaning up the spilled mess.

  It was only as I knelt like a penitent before the glass-strewn remnants of what should have been my meal that I forced myself to admit that my increased weight was not the only way the magic had changed me. Once I would have been too proud to salvage a meal that had fallen on the floor. Now the importance of food went far beyond its ability to nourish me. Even the pleasure I felt in the sensation of eating was secondary to another, deeper change in me.

  I built my new body to house my magic.

  The moment I framed the thought, I felt the rightness of it. Yes, I was fat. But I was strong now, stronger than I had ever been. And over the days of forced privation and heavy labor, I had noticed changes in myself. My body produced very little waste now. The despised chamber pot had gone largely unused. I noticed a stillness to my body that seemed new to me, in that when I sat still and studied, I felt my body sink into a greater state of rest. It reminded me of being suspended in water, or of awareness hovering in that nether place between sleep and wakefulness. I suspected that my internal workings had become terribly, terribly efficient, and that whenever I was not using my arm or my leg, it went into a suspension beyond simple rest.

  I used what was left of the wash water in my basin to wet the napkin and clean my floor. I put the wet napkin and dishes and broken crockery on the tray and set it aside.

  It took every bit of self-discipline I had to follow my routine that evening. I studied the lessons I’d set for myself, and faithfully entered the whole incident into my journal. I did not write there the questions that swarmed through my brain. How far would my father go in his quest to prove himself right? Would he let me die of starvation? I did not think so, but I was no longer certain.

  CHAPTER NINE

  PLAGUE

  I came to awareness the next morning when the early summer sunlight reached through the window and touched my skin. It was simple comfort, one blessing that never changed. I closed my eyes and steeped my soul in it.

  I arose at my usual time. As always, I washed and dressed and made up my bed. Then I sat down on the edge of it to await what the day might bring.

  Is there anything so tedious as waiting? I tried to occupy my mind, first with my history book, and then by placing my chair near the window and watching the activities in the courtyard below.

  At first, there was little to distract me. I saw a man ride in, a messenger from the town council in Burvelle’s Landing by the armband he wore. He hurried up the steps, but his horse was not led away.

  A short time later, my father and brother emerged with the messenger. My father was still putting on his coat. Two more horses were brought and they all rode away at a gallop. That effectively dashed my hopes of seeing my father that morning. I sat for a time longer, wondering if my keeper would come for me, even though the hour for that was some time past. But no one came.

  After a time, suspense gave way to boredom. Hunger, my ever-present companion, tormented me. The intensity of the pangs always seemed greatest when I had nothing else to occupy my mind. I lay on my bed and tried to read the next chapter in Bellock’s Warfare. The Varnian tangled in my mind, Bellock’s prose seeming stilted and pompous, and after a time I lowered my book to my chest and closed my eyes.

  I tried to think my situation through. Was there an alternative to this futile pissing match? I was virtually my father’s prisoner. I could break down the door now, while he was gone, and then I could run away. Not only did the cowardice of that act repell me, but also the thought that it would confirm my father’s poor opinion of me and dash even my tiny hope of returning to the academy and the future that I had always expected.

  I took a deep breath, and as I sighed it out, I felt a sharp resolution form in me. Keen and hard as a sword’s edge it was. I would persevere. I would not be the one to blink first. I slowly sighed out the air in my lungs, relaxing as I did so, and sank into a stillness deeper than sleep. I would escape hunger there. For a time, I hovered in a place that was quiet, dark, and empty.

  For a time, I waited, feeling a slow peace seep into me. I felt that other me, quiescent for weeks, stir in me again. He was unalarmed by all that had befallen me. He accepted the changes, the thickening flesh that enfolded me, not placidly but with a lucid joy. As I took in another slow breath, I felt him unfold himself like a shadow filling my body. He stretched out into my arms and settled into my legs. He mourned my empty belly but joined me in my resolve. We would wait.

  I felt a shiver of unease at his contentment, and then I accepted him as a passive part of myself. What harm could he do me? I sighed and again sank into his stillness. I dreamed of a forest, peaceful under the summer sunlight.

  When next I became aware of myself, the sun had moved past my window. It was not dark by any means, but the golden square of sunlight that had soaked me had moved. I opened my eyes, blinking slowly. No one had come to my room. My nose told me there was no food to be had, only water. I rose and drank all that was left in my pitcher. Then, moved by an impulse I did not understand, I pushed my bed across the room into the slowly moving rectangle of sunlight from my window. I took off my shirt and lay down again, basking in the warm light on my skin. I breathed out again and once more sank my consciousness to the dim and comfortable place where my other self reigned. He took me in and sheltered me with dreams of deep-reaching roots questing for water. I dreamed of flowers turning toward the sun and of leaves absorbing light, their stoma shut tight to conserve moisture. The forest waited for me. It called me to become one with it. My breathing became an occasional wind that barely stirred the reaching leaves. My heartbeat was a distant, random drumbeat.

  I awoke to darkness and the rattling of the hasp that secured my door. I sat up immediately, swinging my feet to the floor, and then felt a sudden wave of vertigo. Before it could pass, a kitchen servant entered bearing a tray. He lifted the branch of candles he bore, scowling round my dark room. He set down his candles and his tray on my desk. “You
r dinner, sir.” The simple words could barely contain the contempt he filled them with.

  “Thank you. Where is my father?”

  He stooped, full of disapproval, to lift the tray of soiled and broken dishes that I had left by the door on the floor. He was a tall fellow, pale as a mushroom, an unmuscled house servant. He sniffed loudly as if the smell of the stale food scraps disgusted him.

  “Lord Burvelle has a guest this evening. He directed me to deliver this tray to you.” He turned away, dismissing me as beneath his notice.

  I stepped between him and the door. He recoiled from me as if I were a threatening bear. At least my bulk was good for something, if only intimidating servants. “Who is my father’s guest?” I asked him.

  “Well, I scarcely think—”

  “Who is my father’s guest?” I repeated, taking a step closer to him. He backed away, now holding the tray of broken dishes as if it were a shield.

  “Dr. Reynolds from the Landing has come to call today,” he said hastily.

  The mention of the doctor and my recall of the messenger I had glimpsed early in the day mingled and awoke an urgent fear in me. “Is there sickness in the Landing? Is that why the doctor is here?”

  “Why, I’m sure I don’t know! It’s hardly my business to question why Lord Burvelle has a guest at his table.”

  “What did they talk about?”

  “I do not eavesdrop on my betters!” He seemed incensed that I had even suggested such a thing and poked the tray toward me as it he were trying to intimidate a dog. “Out of my way. I have my work to do.”