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It was flattering when Raven deigned to notice me. ‘Little silver jingly things, woven in her hair, supposed to protect her. Plains magic. But someone tamed her. Put an iron collar on a plainswoman, and she can’t use her charms against you. She’s ripe for the picking, that hinny is.’
‘Picking what?’ I boldly asked. There was no hinny to be seen, only the girl walking past us. I was confused and resolved to get an explanation. I did not know at that time that my bold assumption of not only equality but superiority to these sons of common soldiers would be resented by the older boys. Raven brayed a laugh out, and then said to me earnestly, ‘Why, to picking out her friends, of course. You seen how she looked at you? She wants to be your friend. And you want her to be friends with us, right, ’cause we’re your friends, too. Whyn’t you just go out there and catch her by the hand and lead her back here to us?’
Raven’s voice was sugary, but his words fell somewhere between a compliment and a dare. As he spoke, he gestured to the other boys, and they all retreated more deeply into the alley between the buildings. I stared up at him for a moment longer. His cheek was downy, and the fine hair held the dust of the street. The corners of his mouth were caked with dust that had been trapped there by stray, sticky crumbs. His hair was shaggily cut, his clothing dirty. But he was older than I was, and he’d been playing with a knife, and thus I yearned to distinguish myself in his eyes.
The girl walked like a gazelle going down to water. She was intent on her quest, and yet both wary and aware of what was around her. She did not look at us, but I knew she had seen us. She probably knew we were talking about her. I darted out a few steps into the street to intercept her, and when she looked at me, I smiled at her. She smiled down at me. It was all the encouragement I needed. I hurried up to her, and she halted in the street.
‘Hello. My friends want you to come and meet them.’ Such an ingenuous way for me to greet her. I had no idea I was leading her into a vile trap.
I think she did. She looked past me at the loitering boys inside the alley mouth, and then back at me again. I hope she saw I was innocent of their scheme. She smiled again but her words dismissed me. ‘I don’t think so. I’m going to the market. Goodbye.’ Her voice was clear and unaccented, and obviously intended to reach my playmates’ ears.
They heard her words and saw how she strode off. One of my erstwhile companions gave a catcall and Raven laughed at me. I couldn’t stand it. I ran after her and seized her hand. ‘Please? Just come over and say hello.’
She did not react with alarm, or take her hand from mine. She considered me kindly for a moment and then offered, ‘You’re a friendly little cub, aren’t you? Why don’t you come to the market with me instead?’
Her invitation instantly attracted me more than the company of the boys. I loved going to market almost as much as my sisters did. Exotic goods and trinkets demanded to be handled and explored. Market food was always exciting; I loved plains food, the spicy root-paste rolled in terna seed, sweet and peppery meat sticks, and little buns of salty ember-bread, each with a lump of carrada in the middle. My gaze met her grey eyes and I found myself nodding and smiling. I forgot the boys and their stick-knife game. For the moment, I ignored the knowledge that not only Parth but also my father would disapprove of me wandering off with a half-breed plainsgirl to saunter through the market.
We had gone less than five paces when my earlier companions suddenly ringed us. They were smiling, but their grins were wolfish, not friendly. Raven stood directly in front of us, forcing us to stop. Carky, his cut foot tied with a rag, stood at Raven’s elbow. The girl’s fingers twitched in mine, and as clearly as if she had voiced it, I felt the little jolt of fear that shot through her. My half-formed honour came to the fore and I said importantly, ‘Please step out of our way. We are going to the market.’
Raven grinned. ‘Well, listen to him! We’re not in your way, colonel’s son. In fact, we’re here to guide you. There’s a short cut to the market. We’ll show you. Right down that alley.’
‘But I can see the market from here!’ I protested stupidly. The girl tried to take her hand from mine, but I held on tightly. I suddenly knew my duty. A gentleman always protected women and children. I instinctively knew that these fellows meant my companion some sort of harm. Innocent as I was, I did not know what they intended for her, or perhaps I would have been more sensibly frightened. Instead, I only grew more determined to guard her. ‘Step out of our way,’ I commanded them again.
But they were bunching closer, and unwillingly both the girl and I stepped back, trying to gain space. They came on and again we stepped back. We were being herded toward the alley mouth as surely as dogs herd sheep into a pen. I glanced over my shoulder at the boys behind me, and Carky laughed an ugly laugh. At the sound, the girl beside me halted. Despite my grip on her fingers, she drew her hand free of mine. The boys advanced another step on us. They suddenly loomed larger and uglier than they had when I had watched them play. I could smell them, the cheap food on their breath, their unwashed bodies. I glanced quickly around, seeking some adult who would intervene, but the sun was hot and this part of the street was deserted. People were either inside the cooler buildings, or at the market. Down the street, the lounging soldiers on the canteen porch were talking amongst themselves. Even if I shouted for help, I doubted that anyone would respond. We were very near the alley mouth; we could quickly be dragged out of sight. I summoned the last of my quavering authority. ‘My father will be very angry if you do not let us pass.’
Carky showed his teeth. ‘Your father won’t even find your body, officer’s brat.’
I had never before been called such a name, let alone threatened with it. My father had always assured me that a good officer earned his troopers’ affection and loyalty. Somehow, I had thought that meant that all soldiers loved their officers. In the face of this youngster’s schooled hostility, I was struck dumb.
The girl, however, was not. ‘I don’t want to hurt anyone,’ she said quietly. She strove for calm, but her voice broke slightly.
Raven laughed. ‘Think we don’t know nothing, hinny-breed? You’re collared. Iron-tamed. You can’t do no more to us than any other woman. And a little kicking and screaming won’t bother none of us.’
He must have given some sort of signal. Or perhaps, like a flock of birds or a pack of wild dogs, the boys acted in concert by instinct. Two of the younger boys, both larger than I, tackled me and bore me, kicking and shouting, toward the alley’s mouth. Raven and Carky seized hold of the girl, one on either side of her. I had one horrible glimpse of their dirty fingers clenching hard against her soft white sleeves. They gripped her upper arms and near lifted her off her feet as they moved her toward the alley. The other boys followed in a mob, their eyes bright, laughing excitedly. For a second, she looked delicate as a frightened bird in their grasp and then instantly furious. As I was dragged backwards, she gave one of her arms a twist and a shrug, snapping it free of her captor’s grip. I saw her slender fingers weave a small sign in the air. It reminded me of the little charm my father always performed above his cinch-buckle whenever he saddled a horse. But it was not the familiar ‘keep-fast’ charm. This was something older and much more powerful.
It is hard to describe the magic she did. There was no lightning flash, no roar of thunder, no green sparks, nothing like the old Gernian tales of magic. All she did was move her hand in a certain way. I cannot describe it, I could never imitate it and yet some old part of my soul knew and recognized that sign. Even though she had not targeted me, I saw the sign and I had to react to it. Every muscle in my body gave an involuntary twitch, and for a terrible moment, I feared I had lost control of my bowels. I jerked in my captors’ grip and if I’d had my wits about me, I probably could have escaped them, for they, too, twitched as if jabbed with pins.
The two boys holding her reacted far more strongly. At the time, I had never seen a man fall in a seizure, so I did not realize until years later what I was witnessing. Their bodies contorted as their muscles spasmed wildly; Raven and Carky literally flung themselves away from her, landing several feet away and hitting the ground hard enough to raise dust from the street. One of the younger boys, Raven’s brother Darda from the resemblance, gave a howl of dismay and scampered off toward the canteen.
She stumbled as they dropped her, nearly going to her knees, but in an instant she was on her feet again. She tugged at her blouse, for they had dragged her sleeves down her arms to expose her shoulders and part of her bosom. Covered again, she took two swift strides forward. ‘Let him go!’ she commanded the two young ruffians who held me, and her voice was low and threatening through her clenched white teeth.
‘But … your iron collar!’ Only the one boy objected. He gaped at her, dismayed and offended, as if she had broken the rules of a game. The other released my arm and fled, howling like a kicked dog, although I am almost certain nothing had been done to him. She made no reply to the boy’s protest. Her fingers began to weave, and the protesting boy did not wait for her to complete the charm. He knew as well as I did that a plains charm had a limited range. He thrust me at her so suddenly that I dropped into the dust at her feet, and then he raced full tilt after his friend. Carky had already disappeared, scrabbling to his feet and darting around the corner of a building. As Raven got to his feet, she helped me to mine. Then she turned to him, and as if she were wishing him good day, said, ‘Black paint over bronze. Not iron. My father would never put iron on any of us. He does not even bring his iron into our home.’
Raven backed slowly away from us. His face was flushed with fury, and his black eyes gleamed with it. I knew exactly when he thought he was beyond the range of her magic. He stopped there, and cursed her with the foulest names I’d ever heard, names I did not know the meaning of, only that they were vile. He finished with, ‘Your father shamed himself when he dipped his rod in your mother. Better he had done it with a donkey, and produced a true mule. That’s what you are, hinny. A mule. A cross-breed. A freak. You can do your dirty little magic on us, but one day one of us will ride you bloody. You’ll see.’
He grew braver as he spoke, and perhaps he thought my gaping mouth indicated shock at his words. Then the scout, who had walked up behind Raven in utter silence, seized the boy. In one fluid motion, he spun Raven around and backhanded him across the face. The scout held nothing back from that blow, did not temper it at all for the sake of it being a boy he hit instead of a man. I heard the crack as Raven went down, and knew he had mouthed his last foul words until his jaw healed. As if the sound were a charm to bring witnesses, men left the shaded porches of the barracks and canteen to gather in the street. Darda was there, pulling his father Vev along by the hand. My father was suddenly there, striding up angrily, spots of colour on his cheeks.
It seemed that everyone spoke at once. The girl ran to her father. He put his arms around her shoulders, and bending his head, spoke quietly to her. ‘We’ll be leaving now, Sil. Right away.’
‘But … I never got to go to the market! Papa, it wasn’t my fault!’
Vev had knelt by Raven. He turned and shouted angrily, ‘Damn it all, he’s broke my boy’s jaw! He’s broken it!’
Other men were flowing out of the canteen now, blinking in the daylight like a pack of nocturnal animals stirred to alarm. Their faces were not kindly as they looked at the scout and then the boy writhing on the ground.
My father demanded, ‘Nevare, why are you involved in this? Where is Parth?’
Parth, his moustache still wet with beer, was behind my father, a latecomer to the scene. I suspected he had stayed to down the last of his mug, and perhaps Vev’s, too, when the man had abruptly left the table. Parth shouted, loudest of all, ‘Praise to the good god! There’s the boy. Nevare, come here at once! I’ve been looking all over for you. You know better than to run off and hide from old Parth. That’s not a funny trick to play in a rough town like this.’
My father’s voice, pitched for command, would have carried through a battlefield. Yet he did not shout. It was the way he said, ‘Praise whoever you like, Parth, but I’m not deceived. Your time in my employ is finished. Take your saddle off my horse.’
‘But sir, it were the boy! He run off, almost as soon as you went inside …’
Parth’s voice trailed away. My father was no longer listening to him. No one was. The commander of the outpost had come down the steps of his headquarters and was striding down the street toward us, his aide speaking quietly and rapidly as he trotted alongside the older, taller man. The aide pushed ahead of his chief, clearing a way through the gawkers until the commander reached the front of the crowd. The commander, to his credit, did not look or sound the least bit excited as he halted and demanded, ‘What is going on here?’
Everyone fell silent, save for Vev, who howled, ‘He hit my boy, he busted his jaw, sir! That scout done it! Just walked up on my lad and hit him!’
‘Scout Halloran. Would you care to explain yourself?’
Halloran’s face had gone carefully blank. Something in me felt shamed at the change in the man’s demeanour, although I did not understand it in a way I could put words to. The scout said carefully, ‘Sir, he insulted and threatened my daughter.’
The commander scowled. ‘That was all?’ he asked, and awaited clarification. The silence grew long. I squirmed, confused. Insulting a girl was a serious thing. Even I knew that. Finally, I did my duty. My father had always told me it was a man’s duty to speak the truth. I cleared my throat and spoke up plainly.
‘They grabbed her arms, sir, and tried to pull her into the alley. Then Raven called her a hinny, after she threw him off, and said he would ride her bloody.’ I repeated only the words I had understood, not knowing that the adult context of them escaped me. To my childish interpretation, he had called the girl a mule. I knew I would have received a whipping if I called my sisters any such animal name. Plainly, the boy had been rude and been punished for it. I spoke my piece loud and clear, and then added, more to my father than to the commander, ‘I was trying to protect her. You told me that it’s always wrong to hit a girl. They nearly tore off her blouse.’
A silence followed my words. Even Vev stopped his caterwauling, and Raven muffled his groans. I looked round at all the eyes focused on me. My father’s face confused me. Pride warred with embarrassment. Then the scout spoke. His voice was tight. ‘I’d say that’s a fair summation of what my daughter was threatened with. I acted accordingly. Does any father here blame me?’
No one spoke against him, but if he had hoped for support, no one gave that, either. The commander observed coldly, ‘All this could have been avoided if you’d had the good sense to leave her at home, Halloran.’
That statement seemed to give Vev permission to be angry again. He leapt up from where he had been cradling Raven, wringing a yelp from the boy as he jostled him in passing. He advanced on the scout, hands hanging loose at his side, his knees slightly bent and all knew that at the slightest provocation, he would fling himself on the man. ‘It’s all your fault!’ he growled at him. ‘All your fault, bringing that girl to town and letting her loose to wander, tempting these lads.’ Then, his voice rising to a shout, ‘You ruined my boy! That jaw don’t heal right, he’ll never go for a soldier! And then what’s left for him, I want to know? The good god decreed he’d be a soldier; the sons of soldiers is always soldiers. But you, you’ve ruined him, for the sake of that half-breed hinny!’ The man’s fists shook at the end of his arms, as if a mad puppeteer were tugging at his strings. I feared that at any second they would come to blows. By common accord, men were moving back, forming a ring. The scout glanced once, sideways, at the commander. Then he gently set his daughter behind him. I looked about wildly, seeking shelter for myself, but my father was on the opposite side of the circle and not even looking at me. He stared at the commander, his face stiff, waiting, I knew, for him to give the orders that would bring these men to heel.
He did not. The soldier swung at the scout. The scout leaned away from the swing, and hit Vev twice in the face in quick succession. I thought he would go right down. I think the scout did too, but Vev had deliberately faked his awkwardness and accepted the blows to bring Halloran to him. The scout had misjudged him, for the soldier now struck him back, an ugly blow, his fist coming fast and hard, to strike the scout solidly in the midsection and push up, under his ribs. The blow lifted Halloran off his feet and drove the wind out of him. He clutched at his opponent as he came down and staggered forward, and Vev hammered in two more body blows. They were solid, meaty hits. The girl gave a small scream and cowered, covering her face with her hands as her father’s eyes rolled up. Vev laughed aloud.
He fell to his own trick. The scout was not close to falling; he suddenly came to life again. He fisted Vev in the face, a solid crack. Vev gave a high breathless cry. Halloran took him down with a sweep of his foot that knocked Vev’s feet from under him and sent him sprawling in the dirt. Several men in the crowd shouted aloud at that, and surged forward. Vev wallowed in the dust for a moment, then curled up on his side, hands to his face. Blood streamed between his fingers. He coughed weakly.
‘Halt!’ The commander finally intervened. I do not know why he had waited so long. His face had gone dark with blood; this was not something any commander wanted happening at his post. Halloran might be only a scout, but he was a noble’s soldier son and an officer all the same. Surely the commander could not have deliberately permitted a common soldier like Vev to strike him. From somewhere, uniformed soldiers had appeared. The aide had gone to fetch them, I suddenly saw. Backed by his green-coated troops, the commander issued terse orders.
‘Round them up, every man here. If they’re ours, confine them to barracks. If they’re not, put them outside the walls and instruct the sentries that none of them are to re-enter for three days. Sons to follow their fathers.’
I knew he had the right. Soldier’s sons would one day be soldiers. As he commanded their fathers, so could he order their sons in times of need.
‘He struck an officer.’ My father spoke quietly. He was not looking at the commander or the scout or me. His eyes were carefully focused on nothing. He said the words aloud, but there was no indication he was intending them for the commander.
The commander responded anyway. ‘You there!’ He pointed at Vev. ‘You are to pack up yourself and your whelps and take them all out of my jurisdiction. Because I am a merciful man and the result of your actions will fall on your wife and daughters as well, I will allow you time to take your boy to a doctor and have his jaw bound before you depart and gather what goods you rightfully own. But by nightfall tomorrow, I want you on your way!’
The crowd muttered, displeased. It was a severe punishment. There was no other settlement for several days journey. It was effectively an exile to the arid plains. I doubted the family had a wagon, or even horses. Vev had, indeed, brought a severe hardship down on himself and his family. One of his friends came forward to help him with his son. They glared at the scout and at the commander as they picked up the moaning Raven, but they did as they were told. The ranks of uniformed soldiers had fanned out to be sure it was so. The crowd began to disperse.
The scout was standing silently, his arm around his daughter’s shoulders. He looked pale, his face greenish from the blows he had taken to his gut. I did not know if he sheltered his daughter or leaned on her. She was crying, not quietly, but in great sobs and gulps. I didn’t blame her. If someone had hit my father like that, I’d have wept, too. He spoke low, comfortingly, ‘We’re going home now, Sil.’
‘Halloran.’ The commander’s voice was severe.
‘Sir?’
‘Don’t bring her to my post ever again. That’s an order.’
‘As if I would.’ Insubordination simmered in his voice. Belatedly, he lowered his eyes and voice. ‘Sir.’ It was at that moment that I suddenly knew how much the scout now hated his commander. And when the commander ignored it, I wondered if he feared the half-wild soldier.
Nothing more was said that I heard. I think all sound and motion stopped for me as I stood in the street and tried to make sense of what I had seen that day. Around me, the uniformed troopers were dispersing the mob, harrying them along with curses and shoves. My father stood silently by the commander. Together they watched the scout escort his daughter to their horses. She had stopped crying. Her face was smooth and emotionless now, and if they spoke to one another, I did not hear it. He mounted after she did, and together they rode slowly away. I watched them for a long time. When I looked back to my father, I realized that he and the commander and I were the only ones left standing in the alley mouth.
‘Come here, Nevare,’ my father said, as if I were a straying pup, and obediently I came to his side. When I stood there, he looked down at me and setting his hand on my shoulder, asked, ‘How did you come to be mixed up in this?’
I did not even imagine I could lie to him about it. I told him all, from the time Parth had shooed me into the street until the moment that he had come on the scene. The commander listened as quietly as he did. When I repeated the threat that he’d never even find my body, my father’s eyes went flinty. He glanced at the post commander, and the man looked ill. When I was through, my father shook his head.
I felt alarm. ‘Did I do wrong, Father?’
The commander answered before my father could. But he spoke to my father, not me. ‘Halloran brought the trouble to town when he brought his half-breed daughter here, Keft. Don’t trouble your boy’s head over it. If I’d known that Vev was such an insubordinate rascal, I’d never have let him or his family on my post. I’m only sorry your lad had to see and hear what he did.’
‘As am I,’ my father agreed tersely. He did not sound mollified.
The commander spoke on, hastily. ‘At the end of the month, I’ll send a man with the forms to fill out for the military requisition of the sheepskins. You’ll not have any competition for the bid. And when I deal with you, I’ll know I’m dealing with an honest man. Your son’s honesty speaks for that.’ The commander seemed anxious to know he had my father’s regard. My father seemed reluctant to give it.
‘You honour me, sir,’ was all that my father said, and gave a very small bow at the compliment. They bid each other farewell then. We walked to our horses. Parth was standing a short distance away, his saddle at his feet and a look of forlorn hope on his face. My father didn’t look at him. He helped me to mount, for my horse was tall for me. He led the horse that Parth had ridden and I rode beside him. He was silent as the sentries passed us out of the gates. I looked wistfully at the market stalls as we rode past them. I would have liked to explore the vendors’ booths with the scout’s pretty daughter. We hadn’t even stopped for a meal, and I knew better than to complain about that. There were meat sandwiches in our saddlebags, and water in our bags. A soldier was always prepared to take care of himself. A question came to me.
‘Why did they call her a hinny?’
My father didn’t look over at me. ‘Because she’s a cross, son. Half-plains, half-Gernian, and welcome nowhere. Just like a mule is a cross between a horse and a donkey, but isn’t really one or the other.’
‘She did magic.’
‘So you said.’
His tone indicated he didn’t really care to talk about that with me. It made me uncomfortable, and I finally asked him again, ‘Did I do wrong, back there?’
‘You shouldn’t have left Parth’s side. Then none of this would have happened.’
I thought about that for a time. It didn’t seem quite fair. ‘If I hadn’t been there, they couldn’t have sent me out to the girl. But I think they would have tried to get her in the alley, even if I wasn’t there.’
‘Perhaps so,’ my father agreed tightly. ‘But you wouldn’t have been there to witness it.’
‘But …’ I tried to work it through my mind. ‘If I hadn’t been there, she would have been hurt. That would have been bad.’
‘It would,’ my father agreed, after the clopping of our horses’ hooves had filled the silence for some time. My father pulled his horse to a stop, and I halted with him. He took a breath, licked his lips and then hesitated again. Finally, as I squinted up at him, he said, ‘You did nothing shameful, Nevare. You protected a woman, and you spoke the truth. Both of those traits are things I value in my son. Once you had witnessed what was happening, you could have done no different. But your witnessing that, and your speaking up caused, well, difficulties for all the officers there. It would have been better if you had obeyed my command and stayed with Parth.’
‘But that girl would have been hurt.’
‘Yes. That is likely.’ My father’s voice was tight. ‘But if she had been hurt, it would not have been your fault, or our business at all. Likely, no one would have questioned her father’s right to punish the offender. The scout hurt that soldier’s son over a mere threat to his daughter; his right to punish the man was less clear to the men. And Commander Hent is not a strong commander. He seeks his men’s permission to lead rather than demands their obedience. Because you protected her and offered testimony that the threat was real, the situation had to be dealt with. That man and his family had to be banished from the fort. The common soldiers didn’t like that. They all imagined the same happening to them.’
‘The commander let the soldier hit the scout,’ I slowly realized.
‘Yes. He did it so he would have a clear reason to banish him, independent of the insult to the scout’s daughter. And that was wrong of the commander, to take such a coward’s way out. It was shameful of him. And I witnessed it, and a bit of that shame will cling to me, and to you. Yet there was nothing I could do about it, for he was the commander. If I had questioned his decision, I would only have weakened him in the sight of his men. One officer does not do that to another.’
‘Then… did Scout Halloran behave honourably?’ It suddenly seemed tremendously important to me to know who had done the right thing.
‘No.’ My father’s reply was absolute. ‘He could not. Because he behaved dishonourably the day he took a wife from among the plainspeople. And he made a foolish decision to bring the product of that union to the outpost with him. The soldier sons reacted to that. She displayed herself, with her bright skirts and bare arms. She made herself attractive to them. They know she will never be a Gernian’s rightful wife, and that most plainspeople will not take her. Sooner or later, it is likely she will end up a camp whore. And thus they treated her that way, today.’
‘But—’
My father nudged his horse back into motion. ‘I think that is all there is for you to learn from this today. We shall not speak of it again, and you will not discuss it with your mother or sisters. We’ve a lot of road to cover before dusk. And I wish you to write an essay for me, a long one, on the duty of a son to obey his father. I think it an appropriate correction, don’t you?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I replied quietly.
TWO (#ulink_e43bf943-2cde-51e6-8506-2fab10092ea3)
Harbinger (#ulink_e43bf943-2cde-51e6-8506-2fab10092ea3)
I was twelve when I saw the messenger who brought the first tidings of plague from the east.
Strange to say, it left little impression on me at the time. It was a day like many other days. Sergeant Duril, my tutor for equestrian skills, had been putting me through drills with Sirlofty all morning. The gelding was my father’s pride and joy, and that summer was the first that I was given permission to practise manoeuvres on him. Sirlofty himself was a well-schooled cavalla horse, needing no drill in battle kicks or fancy dressage, but I was green to such things and learned as much from my mount as I did from Sergeant Duril. Any errors we made were most often blamed on my horsemanship and justifiably so. A horseman must be one with his mount, anticipating every move of his beast, and never clinging nor lurching in his saddle.
But that day’s drill was not kicks or leaps. It involved unsaddling and unbridling the tall black horse, then demonstrating that I could still mount and ride him without a scrap of harness on him. He was a tall, lean horse with straight legs like iron bars and a stride that made his gallop feel as if we were flying. Despite Sirlofty’s patience and willingness, my boy’s height made it a struggle for me to mount him from the ground, but Duril had insisted I practise it. Over and over and over again. ‘A horse soldier has got to be able to get on any horse that’s available to him, in any sort of circumstances, or he might as well admit he has the heart of a foot soldier. Do you want to walk down that hill and tell your da that his soldier son is going to enlist as a foot soldier rather than rise up to a commission in the cavalla? Because if you do, I’ll wait up here while you do it. Better that I not witness what he’d do to you.’
It was the usual rough chivvying I received from the man, and I flatter myself that I handled it better than most lads of my years would have. He had arrived at my father’s door some three years ago, seeking employment in his declining years, and my father had been only too relieved to hire him on. Duril replaced a succession of unsatisfactory tutors, and we had taken to one another almost immediately. Sergeant Duril had finished out his many long years of honourable military service, and it had seemed only natural to him that when he retired he would come to live on my father’s lands and serve Lord Burvelle as well as he had served Colonel Burvelle. I think he enjoyed taking on the practical training of Nevare Burvelle, Colonel Burvelle’s second boy, the soldier son born to follow his father’s example as a military officer.
The sergeant was a shrivelled little man, with a face as dark and wrinkled as jerky. His clothing was worn to the point of comfort, holding the shape of a man who was most often in the saddle. Even when they were clean, his garments were always the colour of dust. On his head, he wore a battered leather hat with a floppy brim and a hatband decorated with beads and animal fangs. His pale eyes always peered watchfully from under the brim of his hat. What hair he had left was a mixture of grey and brown. Half his left ear was missing and he had a nasty scar where it should have been. To make up for that lack he carried a Kidona ear in a pouch on his belt. I’d only seen it once, but it was unmistakably an ear. ‘Took his for trying to take mine. It was a barbaric thing to do, but I was young and I was angry, with blood running down the side of my neck when I did it. Later that evening, when the fighting was over I looked at what I’d done, and I was ashamed. Ashamed. But it was too late to put it back with his body and I couldn’t bring myself to just throw it away. I’ve kep’ it ever since to remind me of what war can do to a young man. And that’s why I’m showing it to you now,’ he had told me. ‘Not so you can run tell your little sister and have your lady ma complain to the colonel that I’m learning you wild ways, but so that you can think on that. Before we could teach the plainspeople to be civilized, we had to teach them they couldn’t beat us in a fight. And we had to do that without getting down on their level. But when a man is fighting for his life that’s a hard thing to remember. Especially when you’re a young man and out on your own, ’mongst savages. Some of our lads, good honest lads when they left home, well, they wound up little better than the plainspeople we fought against before we were through. A lot of them never went home. Not jus’ the ones who died, but the ones who couldn’t remember how to be civilized. They stayed out there, took plains wives, some of ’em, and became part of what we’d gone out there to tame. Remember that, young Nevare. Hold on to who you are when you’re a man grown and an officer like the Colonel.’
Sometimes he treated me like that, as if I were his own son, telling me stories of his days as a soldier and passing on the homespun wisdom that he hoped would see me through. But most days he treated me as something between a raw recruit and a rather dim hound. Yet I never doubted his fondness for me. He’d had three sons of his own, and raised them and sent them off to enlist years before he’d got to me. In the way of common soldiers and their get, he’d all but lost track of his own boys. From year to year he might receive a message from one or another of them. It didn’t bother him. It was what he had always expected his boys to do. The sons of common soldiers went for soldiers, just as the Writ tells us they should. ‘Let each son rise up and follow the way of his father.’
Of course it was different for me. I was the son of a noble. ‘Of those who bend the knee only to the King, let them have sons in plenitude. The first for an heir, the second to wear the sword, the third to serve as priest, the fourth to labour for beauty’s sake, the fifth to gather knowledge…’ and so on. I’d never bothered to memorize the rest of that passage. I had my place and I knew it. I was the second son, born to ‘wear the sword’ and lead men to war.
I’d lost count that day of how many times I’d dismounted and then mounted Sirlofty and ridden him in a circle around Duril, without a scrap of harness to help me. Probably as many times as I’d unsaddled and unbridled the horse, and then replaced the tack. My back and shoulders ached from lifting the saddle on and off of the gelding’s back, and my fingertips were near numb from making the cavalryman’s ‘keep fast’ charm over the cinch. I was just fastening the cinch yet again when Sergeant Duril suddenly commanded, ‘Follow me!’ With those words, he gave his mare a sharp nudge with his heels and she leapt forth with a will. I had no breath for cursing him as I finished tightening the strap, hastily did the ‘keep fast’ charm over it and then flung myself up and into the saddle.
Those who have not ridden the plains of the Midlands will speak of how flat and featureless they are, how they roll on endlessly forever. Perhaps they appear so to passengers on the riverboats that wend their way down the waterways that both divide and unite the plains. I had grown up on the Midlands, and knew well how deceptive their gentle rises and falls could be. So did Sergeant Duril. Ravines and sudden crevasses smiled with hidden mouths, waiting to devour the unwary rider. Even the gentle hollows were often deep enough to conceal mounted men or browsing deer. What the unschooled eye might interpret as scrub brush in the distance could prove to be a shoulder-high patch of sickle-berry, almost impenetrable to a man on horseback. Appearances were deceiving, the sergeant always warned me. He had often told me tales of how the plainspeople could use tricks of perspective in preparing an ambush, how they trained their horses to lie down, and how a howling horde of warriors would suddenly seem to spring up from the earth itself to attack a careless line of cavalrymen. Even from the vantage of tall Sirlofty’s back, Sergeant Duril and his mount had vanished from my view.
The gentle roll of prairie around me appeared deserted. Few real trees grew in Widevale, other than the ones which Father had planted. Those that did manage to sprout on their own were indications of a watercourse, perhaps seasonal, perhaps useful. But most of the flora of our region was sparsely leaved and dusty grey-green, holding its water in tight, leathery leaves or spiny palms. I did not hurry, but allowed myself to scan the full circle of horizon, seeking any trace of them. I saw none; I had only the dry dents of Chafer’s hoofprints in the hard soil to guide me. I set out after them. I leant down beside Sirlofty’s neck, tracking them and feeling proud of my ability to do so until I felt the sudden thud of a well-aimed stone hit me squarely in the back. I pulled in Sirlofty and sat up, groaning as I reached back to rub my new bruise. Sergeant Duril rode up from behind me, his slingshot still in his hand.
‘And you’re dead. We circled back. You were too busy following our sign, young Nevare, and not wary enough about your surroundings. That pebble could just as easily have been an arrow.’
I nodded wearily. There was no use in denying his words. Useless to complain that when I was grown, I could expect to have a full troop of horsemen with me, with some men to keep watch while others tracked. No. Better to endure the bruise and nod than to bring an hour of lecture down on myself as well. ‘Next time, I’ll remember,’ I told him.
‘Good. But only good because this time it was just a little rock and so there will be a next time for you. With an arrow, that would have been your last time to forget. Come on. Pick up your rock before we go.’
He kneed Chafer again and left me. I dismounted and searched the ground around Sirlofty’s feet until I found the stone. Duril had been ‘killing’ me several times a month since I was nine years old. Picking up the stones had been my own idea at first; I think the first few times I was slain, I had taken to heart the concept that, had Duril truly been a hostile, my life would have ended in that moment. When Duril realized what I was doing, he began to take pains to find interesting stones to use in his sling. This time it was a river-worn piece of crude red jasper half the size of an egg. I slipped it into my pocket to add to my rock collection on the shelf in the schoolroom. Then I mounted and nudged Sirlofty to catch up with Chafer.
We rode on, stopping on a tall scarp that looked out over the lazily flowing Tefa River. From where we sat our mounts we could look down at my father’s cotton fields. There were four of them, counting the one that rested fallow this year. It was easy to tell which field was in its third year of cultivation and close to its end of agricultural usefulness. The plants there were stunted and scrubby. Prairie land seldom bore well for more than three years running. Next year, that field would lie fallow, in the hope of reviving it.
My father’s holdings, Widevale, were a direct grant to him from King Troven. They spanned both sides of the Tefa River and many acres beyond in all directions. The land on the north side of the river was reserved for his immediate family and closest servants. Here he had built his manor house and laid out his orchards and cotton fields and pasturage. Some day, the Burvelle estate and manor would be a well-known landmark like the ‘old Burvelle’ holdings near Old Thares. The house and grounds and even the trees were younger than I was.
My father’s ambition extended beyond having a fine manor house and agricultural holdings. On the south side of the river, my father had measured out generous tracts of land for the vassals he recruited from amongst the soldiers who had once served under his command. The town had become a much-needed retirement haven for foot soldiers and non-commissioned officers when they mustered out of the service. My father had intended that it be so. Without Burvelle’s Landing, or simply Burvelle as it was most often called, many of the old soldiers would have gone back west to the cities, to become charity cases or worse. My father often said that it was a shame that no system existed to utilize the skills of soldiers too old or too maimed to soldier on. Born to be a soldier and an officer, my father had assumed the mantle of lord when the king granted it, but he wore it with a military air. He still held himself responsible for the well-being of his men.
