by Robin Hobb
“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.