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Yet the instant I returned to the dance floor, my mother found me, and suggested that courtesy demanded I partner several of her older friends in dances. I saw my father invite Carsina to the floor, while my sister Yaril looked almost desperate to escape Major Tanrine’s plodding performance. The night stretched before me, both endless and desperately short. The musicians had announced the final dance when my mother suddenly appeared at my elbow with Carsina at her side. I blushed as she set my betrothed’s hand in mine, for I was suddenly certain she knew of our loitering in the garden and even of the kiss.
I was tongue-tied by Carsina’s glowing beauty and the way she gazed up into my eyes. It seemed the dance turned around us rather than that we whirled around the floor. At last I managed to say, ‘I found your kerchief.’
She smiled and said softly, ‘Keep it safe for me, until we meet again.’
And then the music was ending, and I had to bow to her and then release her hand and let her go. Ahead of me stretched the three years of academy and three more of service before I could claim her. I suddenly felt every day, every hour of that distance. I vowed I would be worthy of her.
I did not sleep that night, and arose very early the next morning. Today I would leave my family home behind me. I was suddenly aware, as I looked around my bare room, that ‘home’ would be a place I would visit now, during my breaks from the Academy, and that I would not know a true home again until Carsina and I made one for ourselves. My narrow bed and emptied wardrobe seemed but shells of my old life. A single wooden box remained on one shelf. My rocks were in it. I had started to throw them out, but found I could not. Yaril had promised to take custody of them. I opened the box to take a final look at all of my avoided deaths. The rock I thought of as Dewara’s stone, the one from my boot, glinted as I opened the box. I stared at them all for a moment, and then selected that one to take with me. I slipped it into my jacket pocket, a reminder that I was always but one caught breath this side of death. It was a thought to make a young man seize his life in both hands and live it to the full. Yet when I closed the door of my room behind me, the snick of the door catch seemed to echo in my heart.
Father and Sergeant Duril were to accompany me on the first stage of my journey. My chest of fine new uniforms was loaded on a cart pulled by a sturdy mule, along with a smaller chest that held my father’s wardrobe for the trip. I wore a white shirt and blue trousers, a blue jacket to match, and thought I looked rather fine. My father and I wore our tall hats. I recall that I had only worn mine twice before that, once to Colonel Kempson’s anniversary ball at his home, and once to a funeral of one of my mother’s friends. Sergeant Duril was attired as humbly as ever, for he was to accompany us only as far as the flatboat to see us loaded.
I had made my farewells to my mother and sisters the night before. I had tried to have a private word with Yaril, but I suspected that she avoided giving me the opportunity. If Remwar’s father had spoken to mine, I’d heard nothing of it, and dared not ask my father about it for fear of plunging Yaril into disgrace with him. I had not expected the rest of my family to rise with the dawn to bid me farewell. Even so, my mother, already in her morning gown, descended to kiss me goodbye and offer me her blessing before I departed from her doorstep. I almost wished she had not, for it brought a lump to my throat. I did not want to leave my home with boyish tears on my cheeks, but I narrowly escaped doing so.
The rains of winter had not yet swollen the river. I was just as glad that we would not be travelling when the current was full swift and strong amongst the heavy cargo barges. Instead, it was a time when flatboats plied their trade, carrying families back west to visit relatives and buy the latest fashionable attire for the winter season to come. I confess that I rather hoped our flatboat would hold some of the young ladies from up the river, for I thought it would be pleasant to let them see me in my fine new attire. But the flatboat that Sergeant Duril loaded our trunks on was a simple ship with only four cabins for passengers and most of the deck left open for cargo. The captain and his two crewmen quickly erected the temporary stall walls that almost all the flatboats carried, and Sirlofty and my father’s grey gelding Steelshanks were put up side by side in roomy boxes on the deck. The crews of the flatboats were very familiar with cavalla men and their needs when they travelled. Some had become almost too familiar, but I was pleased to see that even though my father was retired, they treated him with the respect due his former rank, as well as the courtesies owed a ‘battle lord’, as the newer ranks of the King’s nobility were sometimes affectionately known. Two of the deckhands were plainsmen. I had never seen such a thing before, and I think Captain Rhosher knew my father disapproved, for he took the time to point out that both of them wore thin necklaces of fine iron chain, a sign that they had voluntarily given up all association with magic. My father pointed out to the captain that there were many Gernian men who would have welcomed the work, and that he could have allowed the plainsmen to remain with their own kind. It was their last exchange on the matter, but in our cabin, my father later commented to me that if he’d known of the plainsmen working the deck, he’d have booked passage on a different flatboat.
Despite this, our journey soon settled into a pleasant routine. The river was low, the current calm but steady, and the steersman knew his business. He kept us well in the channel, and the deckhands had little to do other than keep a watch for snags. The captain was brave enough to keep us travelling at night when the moon was full, and so we made excellent time. The other passengers were two young gentleman-hunters from Old Thares and their guide. The young nobles were returning home with several crates of antlers, horns, and pelts as souvenirs of their Wildlands adventure. I envied them their fine muskets, and elegantly tailored hunting jackets and gleaming boots. They were both first sons and heirs to old names and fortunes. I was a bit shocked to see them out and about in the world, enjoying life and having it all their own way, but they both gave me to understand that in their circles, young heirs were expected to go out and do a bit of adventuring and sowing of wild oats before settling down in their thirties to the serious business of inheriting the family name. When I compared them to my elder brother Rosse, I found them very lacking.
Their guide was a well-seasoned hunter who made our shared meals interesting with his tales. My father enjoyed the man’s tall tales as much as any of us did, but privately he warned me that there was little truth to them, and that he had small use for such idle dandies as his clients were. They were only a few years my senior, and although they several times invited me to their cabin for brandy and cigars after dinner, my father had instructed me to find excuses to refuse their invitations. I regretted it, for I would have liked to make friends with them, but my father’s word on this was final. ‘They are dissolute and undisciplined, Nevare. Young men of their years have no business drinking themselves senseless at night and bragging of their conquests. Avoid them. You will lose nothing by doing so.’
I had made two previous trips to Old Thares. One was when I was three years old, and I remembered little of it, other than the sight of the river slipping placidly by us and the crowded cobbled streets of the capital city. I had made another journey with my father and brothers when I was ten. We had taken my younger brother Vanze to the Ecclesiastical School of Saint Orton to register him with the priesthood. It was a prestigious school and my father wished to enter his name in the enrolment lists well ahead of time, to be sure he would be admitted when the time came for him to attend.
During that visit, we stayed with Uncle Sefert Burvelle in his elegant townhouse with his gracious family. His wife was a very fine lady, and he had a son and two daughters. My uncle welcomed us warmly, and spent several hours with me, showing me the extensive journals that had been contributed to his library by the soldier sons of the Burvelle line, as well as the numerous trophies won by them. There were not just the jewelled swords of noble adversaries defeated in battle, but the grislier trophies of earlier disputes with the savage Cuerts to the southeast. Necklaces of human neck vertebrae and beads of lacquered hair were among the prizes claimed from them. There were hunting trophies as well, bison pelts and elephant feet and even a wide rack of barbed antlers from a humpdeer that my father had sent back to his ancestral home. My uncle took care to let me know what a valorous family history we shared and that he fully expected me to contribute to it. I think I sensed then his disappointment that he had produced no soldier son of his own. Until his son and heir sired a soldier son, there would be no new journals. For the first time in more than one hundred years, there would be a gap in the Burvelle’s military history. No son of his would send back the written record of his exploits, and clearly that saddened him a bit.
Even then, I sensed that my father’s sudden change in status had caused a ripple of discord in the extended family. It had been decades since any Gernian king had established new titles and granted land. King Troven had established a double dozen of new lords at one bestowal. The sudden influx of aristocrats diluted the power of the older houses. His battle lords felt a higher degree of loyalty, perhaps, to the King who had so elevated them. Prior to creating his battle lords, the Old Nobles on the Council of Lords had been muttering that perhaps they deserved more than an advisory status with the monarchy; that perhaps the time had come for them to wield some true authority. The King’s newly created nobles diluted and muted that rebellion. I am sure that King Troven was aware he was creating that solid block of support for himself. If there is one thing that military men know how to do, it is to follow their rightful leader. Yet I still believe that King Troven was not merely playing political chess, but was sincerely rewarding those who had served him well in difficult times. Perhaps he recognized, too, that the former borderlands would need nobles who understood the rigours of survival. Nonetheless, I am sure that it had crossed my uncle’s mind, and certainly Lady Burvelle’s mind, that the King could just as easily have granted those lands to the Burvelle family of the west, that they might fall under his control. It must have been odd for him to look at his soldier brother, the second son born to serve, and see him now as a peer. Certainly it seemed to fluster his lady-wife to greet my father as an equal at her table and introduce him as Lord Burvelle of Widevale in the east to her guests.
My mother had included a packet of gifts for my female relatives. She had chosen plainsworked copper bracelets for my two girl cousins, thinking that they would be unique and interesting to them, but there was no such homely gift for my Aunt Daraleen. For her, my mother had chosen a string of freshwater pearls of the highest quality. I knew the pearls had been costly, and wondered if they were intended to buy me a welcome in my aunt’s home.
These were thoughts I mulled as our barge made its placid way down the river toward Old Thares. I knew I would be expected to call upon my uncle and his wife on a regular basis while I was a student at the Academy. Selfishly, I wished it were not so, that I could have all my time to devote to my studies and to socializing with my fellow students. Many a young officer who had paused on his journey east to share our table had spoken glowingly of his days at the Academy, not just of the lifelong friendships he had discovered there and the demands of the studies, but also of the high-spirited pranks and general good fellowship of the mess and barracks life. Our isolated lifestyle at Widevale rather than any inclination of my own had forced me into a solitary boyhood. I’d always enjoyed my brief opportunities for socializing with lads my own age. I felt some trepidation about being plunged into the communal life of the Academy, but mostly I felt anticipation and excitement. I was ready for a change from my quiet rural ways.
And I knew that the days of my boyish freedom had dwindled to a close. There would be no more long rides with Sergeant Duril; no idle evenings spent listening to my sisters practise their music or my mother read aloud from the Holy Writ. I was no longer a lad to sprawl on the hearthrug and play with lead soldiers. I was a man now, and days of study and work awaited me. Yet even as that thought weighted me, my fingers found the tiny snowflake of lace in my pocket. Carsina, too, awaited me, once I had proven myself worthy of her. I sighed as I thought of her, and the long months that must pass before I even saw her again, let alone the years of duty I must serve until I could claim her. I had not realized that my father had also approached the rail of our vessel until he asked, ‘And why do you sigh, son? Do you not anticipate your days at the Academy with eagerness?’
I straightened to stand tall before I spoke to my father. ‘With great eagerness, Father,’ I assured him. And then, because I feared he might not approve of my soft sentiments toward Carsina before I had rightly earned her, I said, ‘But I shall miss my home while I am gone.’
He gave me a look that might have meant he divined the true centre of my thoughts, for he added wryly, ‘I am sure you will. But in the months to come you must take care to concentrate your mind on your lessons and duties. If you are homesick and pining, you will not focus, and your instructors might believe that you do not have the devotion to be a good officer. It takes independence and self-reliance to be an officer in the forefront of battle or stationed at our farthest outposts. I do not think you would be content to earn a less demanding post, attending more to bookkeeping and supplies than to actual confrontations with the foe. Let them see your true mettle, my son, and earn the post that will bring you the most glory. Promotions come more swiftly at the border citadels. Earn your assignment there, and you may find that your ambitions are more swiftly satisfied.’
‘I will heed your advice, Father, and try to be worthy of all you have invested in me,’ I replied, and he nodded to himself, pleased with my answer.
Our river journey was the least eventful part of our travels. It might have even become boring, for that part of Gernia is much the same. The Tefa flows steadily along through the wide plains, and the little towns and villages that cluster at likely landing spots resemble one another so much that most of them have large signs posted along the riverfront to announce the name of the town in no uncertain terms. The weather continued fair, and though the foliage along the more deserted stretches of riverbank grew denser than it did on the prairie, it varied little.
My father saw to it that I did not waste my travelling days in idleness. He had brought with him his copies of the texts he had helped approve for the Cavalla Academy, and insisted that I attempt the first several chapters in each book. ‘For,’ he warned me, ‘the first few weeks of living in a barracks and rising before dawn to rush to breakfast and then classes will be a foreign experience. You may find yourself wearier than usual, and distracted in the evening by the company of other young men at the study tables in your barracks hall. I am told that promising young cadets often fall behind in their first weeks, and never catch up, and hence earn lower marks than might otherwise be expected of them. So, if you are already versed in what you will study in those first weeks, you may find yourself on a more solid footing with your instructors.’
And so we went over texts on horsemanship, and military strategy and the history of Gernia and its military forces. We worked with map and compass, and several times he awoke me late at night to come onto the deck with him and demonstrate that I could identify the key stars and constellations that might guide a horse soldier alone on the plains. On the occasions when our boat docked for a day in small towns to take on or unload cargo, we took the horses out to stretch their legs. My father, despite his years, remained an excellent horseman and he lost no opportunity to share the secrets of his expertise with me.
Early in our journey, there was an incident that disrupted our crew and justified my father’s reservations about Captain Rhosher employing plainsmen as deckhands. It happened as evening was creeping over the land. The sunset was magnificent, banks of colour flooding the horizon and echoing in the placid waters before us. I was on the bow of the ship, enjoying it, when I saw a lone figure in a small vessel on the river coming toward us, cutting a path against the current. The little boat had a small square sail, not even as tall as the man himself was, but bellied out with wind. The man in the boat was tall and lanky, and he stood upright, my view of him partially obscured by the sail. I stared at him in fascination, for despite the current being against him, his boat cut the water briskly as he steered up the main channel of the river.
When he saw us, I saw him perform some task that made his little boat veer to the left, so that he would pass us with a generous space of water between us. As I stared at him and his unusual vessel, I heard heavy footsteps on the deck behind me. I turned to see my father and the captain tamping tobacco into their pipes as they strolled toward the bow for their evening smoke together. Captain Rhosher gestured with his unlit pipe and observed genially, ‘Now there’s a sight you hardly see any more on this river. Wind-wizard. When I was a youngster, we often encountered such as him, in his calabash boat. They grow those boats, you know. The gourds from such a vine are immense, and they fertilize them with rabbit dung and shape the fruits as they grow. When the gourds are large enough, they cut them from the vine, let them dry and harden and then shape each one into a boat.’
‘Now that’s a tale,’ my father challenged him with a smile.
‘No, sir, as I’m a riverman, I’ll tell you it’s true. I’ve seen them growing, and once even watched them cutting the gourd to shape. But that was years ago. And I think it’s been over a year since I’ve seen a wind-wizard on this river,’ the captain countered.
The little boat had drawn abreast of us as he spoke, and a strange chill ran up my back, making the hair stand up on my neck and arms. The captain spoke true. The man in the boat stood tall and still, but he held his spread hands out toward his little sail as if guiding something toward it. As there was every night on the river, a gentle breeze was blowing. But the wind that the plains mage focused toward his sail was stronger than the mild breeze that barely stirred my hair. His wind puffed his sail full, pushing the boat steadily upstream. I had never seen anything like it, and I knew a moment of purest envy. The solitary man, silhouetted against the sinking sun, was at once so peaceful and so powerful a sight that I felt it sink into my soul. With no apparent effort, one with his magic, the wind and the river, his shell-boat moved gracefully past us in the twilight. I knew I would remember that sight to the end of my days. As he passed us, one of our polemen lifted his hand in greeting, and the wind-wizard acknowledged him with a nod.
Suddenly there was a gun blast from the upper deck behind me. Iron pellets struck the wind-wizard’s sail and shredded it. As my ears rang with the shock, I saw the craft tip and the man spilled into the river. A moment later, a cloud of sulphurous smoke drifted past me, choking me and making my eyes water. The angry shouting of the captain and raucous laughter from the upper deck barely reached me through the ringing of my ears. The two young nobles stood on the upper deck, arms about each other’s shoulders, roaring with drunken laughter over their prank. I looked back toward the wind-wizard’s boat, but saw nothing there but blackness and water.
I turned to my father in horror. ‘They murdered him!’
Captain Rhosher had already left us and was running toward the ladder that led to the upper deck. One of our plainsmen polemen was faster. He did not use the ladder, but scrambled up the side of the cabins to the upper deck, where he seized their gun. The poleman threw it wildly away from him, and it sailed over the side of the boat, splashed and sank. A moment later the guide, probably alerted by the gunshot, was on the scene. He seized the plainsman and spoke to him in his own language, forcibly holding him off the two young nobles as the captain hurried up the ladder. Down on the deck, the other poleman was running frantically up and down the length of the flatboat, scanning the river for any sign of the wind-wizard. I ran to the railing and leaned out as far as I could. In the darkness, I could barely make out our wake. ‘I can’t see him!’ I called out.
A moment later my father joined me at the railing. He took my arm. ‘We are going to our cabin, Nevare. This is none of our doing, and none of our business. We shall stay clear of it.’
‘They shot the wind-wizard!’ My heart was hammering with the shock of what had happened. ‘They killed him.’
‘They shot his sail. The iron pellet destroyed the magic he was doing. That was all,’ my father insisted.
‘But I can’t see him!’
My father glanced at the water, and then pulled firmly at my arm. ‘He’s probably swum to shore. He’d be far astern of us by now; that’s why you can’t see him. Come on.’
I went with him, but not eagerly. On the upper deck, Captain Rhosher was shouting at the guide about keeping ‘those drunken youngsters under control’ while one of the young men in question was complaining loudly about the cost of the gun that had been thrown overboard and demanding that the captain compensate him. The poleman on the upper deck was shouting something in his own language and angrily shaking a fist. The captain still stood between him and the others.
I followed my father numbly to our cabin. Once inside, he lit the lamp and then shut the door firmly as if he could shut out what had happened. I spoke determinedly. ‘Father, they killed that man.’ My voice shook.
My father’s voice was thick but calm. ‘Nevare, you don’t know that. I saw the pellet shred his canvas. But even if some struck him, at that range it would probably barely penetrate his skin.’
I was suddenly impatient with his rationality. ‘Father, even if they didn’t shoot him, they caused him to drown. What’s the difference?’
‘Sit down.’ He spoke the command flatly. I sat, more because my knees were shaking than because I wished to obey him. ‘Nevare, listen to me. We don’t know that any pellet hit him. We do not know that he drowned. Unfortunately, the current is in command of us at the moment. We cannot go back to be certain of his death or his survival. Even if we could go back, I doubt that we could be certain. If he drowned, the river has taken him. If he lived, he has reached the bank and is probably gone by now.’ He sat down heavily on his bunk, facing me.
I was suddenly at a loss for words. The amazement I’d felt at the sight of the wind-wizard and the callous way in which the two hunters had ended his remarkable feat warred in me. I desperately wanted to believe my father was right, and that the wizard had escaped lasting harm. But I also felt a strange hurt deep inside me, that they had so thoughtlessly snuffed out a wondrous thing. I had glimpsed him so briefly but in that moment I had felt I would have given anything, anything at all, to know the power that he channelled so effortlessly into his craft. I clasped my hands in my lap. ‘I’ll probably never see anything like that again.’
‘It’s possible. Wind-wizards were never common.’
‘Father, they deserve punishment. Even if they didn’t kill him, they could have. At the very least, they sank his boat and caused him needless injury with their recklessness. For what? What had he done to them?’
My father did not answer my last question. He said only, ‘Nevare, on a ship the captain is the law. We must let the captain handle this. Our interference could only make matters worse.’
‘I do not see how they could be worse.’
My father’s voice was mild as he observed, ‘It could be worse if the plainsmen were stirred to outrage over this incident. If our captain is wise, he will swiftly shed those two and their guide, but before he does, he will see that they pay an ample amount of coin to the two plainsmen who witnessed it. Unlike Gernians, plainsmen see nothing dishonourable about being bought off. They feel that as no death can be righted and no insult completely revoked, there is nothing wrong with taking coin as an indication that the culprit wishes he could undo his mistake. Let Captain Rhosher handle it, Nevare. This is his command. We shall not say or do any more about this incident.’
I did not completely agree with his argument, but I could think of no better alternative. At the next town, the hunters, their guide and their trophies were unceremoniously off loaded. I did not see the plainsmen polemen after that, but I never found out if they quit or were discharged or simply took their bribe and left. We picked up two more deckhands and departed within an hour. The captain was obviously disgruntled about the whole incident. None of us spoke about it again, but that is not to say it did not trouble me.
We were the sole passengers for the rest of the journey. The weather turned rainy and cooler. As we slowly approached the juncture where the Tefa River meets the surging flood of the Ister River, the land changed. Prairie gave way to grasslands and then forest. We began to see foothills and beyond them distant mountains to the south. Here the two great rivers converged around a rich isthmus of land to form the Soudana River that flows in a torrent to the sea. Our plan was to disembark at the city of Canby and there change to a passenger jankship for the remainder of our journey. My father was very enthused about this next leg of our trip.
It had become quite fashionable for touring parties to come upriver by carriage and wagon, seeing all the country and staying at inns along the way. Canby was gaining the reputation of being both summer resort and trade centre, for it was said that the best prices in the west for plainsworked goods and furs were there. The jankships that moved slowly upriver by the ponderous processes of poling, sailing, and cordelling went downriver a great deal faster. Once they had been almost entirely sheep and cargo vessels. Now the eighty foot vessels were grandly appointed with elegant little cabins, dining and gambling salons, and deck-top classes in watercolours, poetry and music for the ladies. We would make the final leg of our journey to Old Thares on such a vessel, and my father had emphasized that he wished me to show well in this, my first introduction to society.
We were a few days away from making port at Canby when I awoke one morning to a smell at once strange and familiar in my nostrils. It was scarcely dawn. I heard the lapping of the river against the drifting flatboat, and the calls of early morning birds. It had rained steadily through the night, but the light in the window promised at least a brief respite from the downpour. My father was still sleeping soundly in his bunk in the flatboat cabin we shared. I dressed quickly and quietly, and padded out onto the deck barefoot. A deckhand nodded wearily at me as I passed him. A strange excitement that I had no name for was thrilling in my breast. I went directly to the rail.
We had left the open grasslands behind in the night. On both sides of the river, dark forest now stretched as far as the eye could see. The trees were immense, taller than any trees I had ever imagined, and the fragrance from their needles steeped the air. The recent rains had swollen the streams. Silvery water cascaded down a rocky bed to join its flood with the river. The sound of the merging water was like music. The damp earth steamed gently and fragrantly in the rising sun. ‘It’s so beautiful and restful,’ I said softly, for I had felt my father come out to stand on the deck behind me. ‘And yet it is full of majesty, also.’ When he did not reply, I turned, and was startled to find that I was still quite alone. I had been so certain of a presence nearby that it was as if I had glimpsed a ghost. ‘Or not glimpsed one!’ I said aloud, as if to waken my courage and forced a laugh from my throat. Despite the empty deck, I felt as if someone watched me.
But as I turned back to the railing, the living presence of so many trees overwhelmed me again. Their silent, ancient majesty surrounded me, and made the boat that sped along on the river’s current a silly plaything. What could man make that was greater than these ranked green denizens? I heard first an isolated bird’s call, and then another answered it. I had one of those revelations that come as sudden as a breath. I was aware of the forest as one thing, a network of life, both plant and animal, that together made a whole that stirred and breathed and lived. It was like seeing the face of god, yet not the good god. No, this was one of the old gods, this was Forest himself, and I almost went to my knees before his glory.
I sensed a world beneath the sheltering branches that crossed and wound overhead, and when a deer emerged to water at the river’s edge, it seemed to me that my sudden perception of the forest was what had called her forth. A log, half-afloat, was jammed on the riverbank. A mottled snake nearly as long as the log sunned on it, lethargic in the cool of morning. Then our flatboat rounded a slight bend in the river, and startled a family of wild boar that was enjoying the sweet water and cool mud at the river’s edge. They defied our presence with snorts and threatening tusks. The water dripped silver from their bristly hides. The sun was almost fully up now, and the songs and challenges of the birds overlapped one another. I felt I had never before comprehended the richness of life that a forest might hold, nor a man’s place in it as a natural creature of the world.
The trees were so tall that even from the boat’s deck, I craned my neck to see their topmost branches against the blue sky of early autumn. As we drifted with the river, the nature of the forest changed, from dark and brooding evergreen to an area of both evergreen and deciduous trees gone red or gold with the frosts. It filled me with wonder to stare at those leafy giants and recognize the still life that seeped through their branches. It was strange for a prairie-bred youth to feel such an attraction to the forest. Suddenly the wide sweeping country that had bred me seemed arid and lifeless and far too bright. I longed with all my heart to be walking on the soft carpet of gently rotting leaves beneath the wise old trees.
When a voice spoke behind me, I startled.
‘What fascinates you, son? Are you looking for deer?’
I spun about, but it was only my father. I was as startled to see him now as I had been surprised not to see him earlier. My conflicting thoughts must have given me a comical expression, for he grinned at me. ‘Were you day-dreaming, then? Homesick again?’
I shook my head slowly. ‘No, not homesick, unless it is for a home I’ve never seen until now. I don’t quite know what draws me. I’ve seen deer, and a snake as long as a log, and wild boar coming down to water. But it isn’t the animals, Father, and it’s not even the trees, though they make up the greater part of it. It’s the whole of it. The forest. Don’t you feel a sense of homecoming here? As if this is the sort of place where men were always meant to dwell?’
He was tamping tobacco into his pipe for his morning smoke. As he did so, he surveyed my forest in bewilderment, and then looked back at me and shook his head. ‘No, I can’t say that I do. Live in that? Can you imagine how long it would take to clear a spot for a house, let alone some pasture? You’d always be in the gloom and the shade, with a pasture full of roots to battle. No, son. I’ve always preferred open country, where a man can see all around himself and a horse goes easily, and nothing stands between a man and the sky. I suppose that’s my years as a soldier speaking. I’d not want to scout a place like that, nor fight an engagement there. Would you? The thought of defending a stronghold built in such a thicket as that place daunts me.’
I shook my head. ‘I had not even imagined battle there, sir,’ I said, and then tried to recall what I had been imagining. Battle and soldiering and cavalla had no place in that living god. Had I truly been longing to live there, amongst the trees, in shade and damp and muffled quiet? It was so at odds with all that I had planned for my life that I almost laughed out loud. It was as if I had suddenly been jarred out of someone else’s dream.
My father finished lighting his pipe and took a deep draw from it. He let the smoke drift from his mouth as he spoke. ‘We are at the edge of old Gernia, son. These forests used to mark the edge of the kingdom. Once, folk thought of them as the wild lands, and we cared little for what was beyond them. Some of the noble families had hunting lodges within them, and of course we harvested lumber from them. But they were not a tempting place for farmer or shepherd. It was only when we expanded beyond them, into the grasslands and then the plains that anyone thought to settle here. Two more bends of the river, and we’ll be into Gernia proper.’ He rolled his shoulders, stretching in a gentlemanly way, and then glanced down at my feet and frowned. ‘You do intend to put on some boots before you come to breakfast, don’t you?’
‘Yes, sir. Of course.’
‘Well, then. I will see you at table, shortly. Beautiful morning, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
He strolled away from me. I knew his routine. He would next check on the horses in their deck stalls, he’d have a sociable word or two with the steersman and then return to our stateroom briefly and thence to the captain’s table for breakfast, where I would join them.
But I still had a few more moments to enjoy the forest. I reached for that first consciousness that I’d had of it, but could not reattain that state of heightened awareness. The old god that was Forest had turned his face away from me. I could only see it as I had seen it all my life, as trees and animals and plants on a hillside.
The sun was rising higher; the man on the bow was calling his soundings and the world glided past us. As my father had predicted, we were nearing a slow bend in the river. I went back to our stateroom to put on my boots, and to shave. My hair was already growing out to annoying stubble that could not be combed. I hastily made the bed I had so quickly abandoned at dawn and then headed to the captain’s small salon for breakfast.
The captain’s salon and table were unpretentious on such a small vessel. I think my father enjoyed the informality. As they did every morning, he and Captain Rhosher exchanged pleasantries about the weather and discussed what the day’s travel might bring. For the most part, I ate and listened to the conversation. The meal was not elaborate but the portions were generous and the food was honest. Porridge, bacon, bread, fresh apples, and a strong morning tea made up the most of it. I was happy to fill my plate. My father praised the ship’s rapid progress through the night.
‘It was a good run, with a strong moon to light our way. But we can’t expect the same tonight, or even for the rest of the day. Once we go past Loggers, the river will be thick with log rafts. Those are bad enough to get around, but worse are the strays. The river has gone silty, with shallows growing where they never were before. Wedge a stray log in a sandbar, let us run upon it blind, and we’ll hole our hull. The lookout and the sounder will work for their wages today, as will our polemen. Still, I foresee that we’ll make Canby as scheduled.’
They went on to discuss our disembarkment there and which jankship my father should book our passage on. Our captain made gentle mock of the big vessels, saying that my father was not interested in their speed but only desired the novelty of the experience and the company of the lovely ladies and elegant gentlemen who preferred such distinctive travel to his own simple ship.
As my father was laughingly denying this, I became aware of a very unpleasant smell. Manners required that I ignore it, but it quickly quenched my appetite and soon began to make my eyes tear. With every passing moment, the smoky odour grew stronger. I glanced toward the small galley, wondering at first if something had been neglected on the ship’s little oil stove. But no visible smoke was emanating from there. The stench grew stronger. It had the most peculiar effect on me. It was not just that it greatly displeased my nose and irritated my throat. It woke in me a sense of terror, a panic that I could scarcely smother. It was all I could do to stay in my chair. I tried to dab at my streaming eyes discreetly with my napkin. Captain Rhosher grinned at me sympathetically. ‘Ah, that’ll be the sweet aroma of Loggers getting to you, lad. We’ll have thick breathing for the next day or so, until we’re past their operations. They’re burning the trash wood, the green branches and viney stuff, to get it out of the way so the teams can get up and down the hills easier. Makes for a lot of smoke. Still, it’s not as bad as that operation they had going on further down the river two years ago. That company would just set fire to the hillside, and burn off the underbrush. Anything big enough to be left standing, they harvested right away, to beat the worms to it. Fast money, but a terrible lot of waste, that was how I saw it.’
I nodded at his words, scarcely comprehending them. The end of breakfast could not come too soon for me, and as soon as I politely could, I left the table, foolishly thinking to find fresher air outside.
As I stepped out onto the deck, an inconceivable sight met my eyes. The day was dimmed by wood smoke hanging low in the air. The lower half of the hillside on the port side of the boat was stripped of life. Every tree of decent size had been cut. The raw stumps were jagged and pale against the scored earth. The remaining saplings and undergrowth were crushed and matted into the earth where the giants had fallen and been dragged over them to the river. Smoke was rising from heaped and smouldering branches; the hearts of the fires burned a dull red. The hillside scene reminded me of a large dead animal overcome by maggots. Men swarmed everywhere on the hillside. Some cut the limbs from the fallen giants. Teamsters guided the harnessed draught horses that dragged the stripped logs down to the river’s edge. The track of their repeated passage had cut a deep muddy furrow in the hill’s flank, and the rainfall of the last few days had made it a stream, dumping into the river that here ran thick with muck. The brown curl of it wavered out into the river’s current like a rivulet of clotting blood. Stripped logs like gnawed bones rested in piles at the river’s edge, or bobbed in the shallows. Men scuttled about on the floating logs with peevees and lengths of chain and rope, corralling the logs into crude rafts. It was carnage, the desecration of a god’s body.
On the upper half of the hill logging teams ate into the remaining forest like mange spreading on a dog’s back. As I watched, men in the distance shouted triumphantly as an immense tree fell. As it went down, other, smaller trees gave way to its fall, their roots tearing free of the mountain’s flesh as they collapsed under its mammoth weight. Moments after the swaying of branches ceased, men crawled over the fallen tree, bright axes rising and falling as they chopped away the branches.
I turned aside from the sight, sickened and cold. A terrible premonition washed over me. This was how the whole world would end. No matter how much of the forest’s skin they flayed, it would never be enough for these men. They would continue over the face of the earth, leaving desecration and devastation behind them. They would devour the forest and excrete piles of buildings made of stone wrenched from the earth or from dead trees. They would hammer paths of bare stone between their dwellings, and dirty the rivers and subdue the land until it could recall only the will of man. They could not stop themselves from what they did. They did not see what they did, and even if they saw, they did not know how to stop. They no longer knew what was enough. Men could no longer stop man; it would take the force of a god himself to halt them. But they were mindlessly butchering the only god who might have had the strength to stop them.
In the distance I heard the shouts of warning and triumph as another forest giant fell. As it went down, a huge flock of birds flew up, cawing in distress and circling the carnage as crows circle a battlefield. My knees buckled and I fell to the deck, clutching at the railing. I coughed in the thick air, gagged on it, and coughed some more. I could not catch my breath, but I do not think it was the smoke alone that choked me. It was grief that tightened my throat.
One of the deckhands saw me go down. A moment later, there was a rough hand on my shoulder, shaking me and asking me what ailed me. I shook my head, unable to find words to express my distress. A short time later, my father was at my side, and the captain, his napkin still clenched in his hands.
‘Nevare? Are you ill?’ my father asked solemnly.
‘They’re destroying the world,’ I said vaguely. I closed my eyes at the terrible sight, and forced myself to my feet. ‘I … I don’t feel well,’ I said. Some part of me didn’t wish to shame myself before my father and the captain and crew. Some other part of me didn’t care; the enormity of what I had glimpsed was too monstrous, and suddenly too certain. ‘I think I’ll go back to bed for a while.’
‘Prob’ly the stink from all those fires,’ Captain Rhosher said sagely. ‘That smoke’s enough to make anyone sick. You’ll get used to it, lad, in a few hours. Stinks a lot less than Old Thares on an early morning, believe me. We’ll be past it in a day or so, if all those damn log-rafts don’t block our way. A menace to navigation, they are. Time was, good stone was the only thing a rich man would build with. Now they want wood, wood, and more wood. ’Spect they’ll go back to honest stone when this last strip is gone. Then we’ll see the quarries bustle again. Men will do whatever brings in the coin. I’ll be glad when they’ve cut the last timber on that hill and the river can run clear again.’
EIGHT (#ulink_62783f11-2ffc-5e27-9f10-92a815a27008)
Old Thares (#ulink_62783f11-2ffc-5e27-9f10-92a815a27008)
I lied to my father again that day. I told him that something I had eaten had disagreed with me. That excuse let me keep to my bed for three days. I could not bear to look out the window. The stink of burning branches, the particle-laden air and the cursing of the deckhands as they yelled warnings to the sweepsman and fended us away from the floating log rafts with long poles told me all that I did not wish to know. I felt as aggrieved as I had when the hunters had shot the wind wizard. I had glimpsed something immense and wonderful, and in the next instance had seen its destruction. I felt like a child, shown a most desirable plaything that is then whisked away. I could not discard the feeling that I had been cheated. The world I had expected to live in was vanishing before I could explore it.
At Canby, we disembarked and bid Captain Rhosher farewell. Trade goods and waters converged here where the rushing Ister River met the languid Tefa. The joined rivers flowed west as the mighty Soudana River. Wide and deep and swift, the Soudana was a major trade artery, as well as our boundary with Landsing. The Soudana would make its swift way past Old Thares, our destination, and continue without us to Mouth City and the sea. Mouth City had once been a Gernian town and our best seaport; it had been ceded to the Landsingers at the end of the war and was still a bitter loss for any loyal Gernian to contemplate.
I felt overwhelmed by the masses of people in the street, and walked at my father’s heels as if I were a cowed puppy. People thronged the walkways, hurrying to and fro and dressed in stylish city clothes. Vehicles of every imaginable sort fought for space in the crowded streets. I was impressed with how my father threaded confidently through the crowds to the booking office, and made arrangements for our tickets on the jankship, the conveyance of our luggage and our evening stay at a hotel. It felt strange to be jostled by strangers, and to take a meal in a large room full of people talking and laughing as they dined. Music played and the black-aproned waiters hurried from table to table, behaving in such a grand and proud manner that I felt shabby and rustic and out of place, as if some mistake had been made and I should have been serving them. I was glad to retire to our room for the evening, and gladder still to take ship on the morrow.
Once our horses and luggage were aboard the immense jankship, I reassured my father that I had recovered from my illness. The jankship’s passage down the swift currented river felt much different from our flatboat’s placid journeying, for the wind in our square sails encouraged the ship to outstrip the current’s pace. The horses did not like the creak and rock of the hastening vessel and neither did I, when it was time to sleep. But during my waking hours, I scarcely noticed it, for there was so much else to claim my attention.
Our accommodations were much grander than those we’d had on the humble flatboat. We each had a private cabin, with an iron bedstead that was bolted to the deck and ample room for our trunks. There was a dining salon with white-clothed tables and gleaming silver, and a gaming room for cards and dice, and the company of other travellers to cheer us. My father had chosen a vessel whose captain had a reputation for daring and speed. It had become a point of pride among the captains on the Soudana to compete with one another for the swiftest trip down the river. During the day, I enjoyed the thrilling view of the landscape that seemed to race past us. The meals were meticulously prepared and every evening there was some sort of entertainment, be it music or singing or a play. My father made himself affable and sociable and quickly made the acquaintance of most of the other twenty passengers. I did my best to follow his example. He advised me to listen more than I spoke, and that did seem to be the charm that made my company attractive to the ladies aboard. There was only one awkward moment. A young woman had just introduced me to her friend. At the name Burvelle, her friend had started, and then asked me with great interest, ‘But surely you are not related to Epiny Burvelle, are you?’ I replied that I had a younger girl cousin of that name, but I did not know her well. The woman had burst into laughter and remarked to her companion, ‘Fancy having to own up to Epiny being your cousin!’
‘Sadia!’ exclaimed my acquaintance in obvious embarrassment. ‘Have some courtesy! Surely no one can help who they are related to, or I would not have to introduce you as my cousin!’
At that, the second woman’s smile faded and she even became a bit cold despite my assurances that her remarks had not offended me in the least. But for the most part, my interchanges with the other passengers were courteous and interesting, and improved my sophistication, as I am sure my father had intended.
As we travelled west on the river, the land became more settled. Soon the dawns were showing us prosperous farms along the riverbanks, and the towns we passed were populous and large. Fishermen plied the river in their small rowing boats, setting nets or fishing with poles. Our captain, determined that our ship would slow down for nothing, often bore down on them, forcing them to scuttle like water bugs to stay out of our path. The young ladies watching from the upper deck would gasp with trepidation and then laugh with delight as the little boats reached safety.
For the final two days of our journey, there was never a time when I could look out at the riverside and not see signs of human habitation and industry. By night, the yellow lights of homes lit the shores, and by day the rising smoke from chimneys feathered up into the sky. I felt a sort of wonder as I thought of all those people living so close together, and on its heels followed a tinge of fear; soon I must live amongst all those people, day in and day out, with never a respite from human company. I found the prospect daunting. My once-glad anticipation dimmed to a grim foreboding.
I recalled the flatboat captain’s warning that Old Thares would smell far worse than the timber fires had. When I asked my father about it, he shrugged his shoulders.
‘Much coal is burned in Old Thares, and it has been a city for hundreds of generations. It is bound to smell like a city. Old Captain Rhosher probably hasn’t left the river in twenty years. He can’t smell the smells of his own boat and crew, but he’s happy to tell you that the city stinks. It’s all in what one is accustomed to, Nevare, and a man can become accustomed to almost anything.’
I found myself doubting that. My father read my misgivings. He stood beside me as I leaned on the railing, staring glumly across the river toward the rows of smoke-blackened stone buildings that crowded the river’s edge. Scarcely any natural land remained. Stonework lined the banks of the river and the rise and fall of the water was marked plainly by the slime. At intervals, foul coils of thick water oozed into the river from open trenches or gaping pipes, discharging their stench into the air and their filth into the river. Despite this, ragged hooligan youths fished and fought and wandered dazedly along the reinforced banks of the river. Stunted bushes and thick water plants blanketed the muck at the river’s edge. Above and beyond the hunched warehouses and factories was an undulating roof of housetops and smoking chimneys. It was as dreary and forbidding a sight as any I had ever seen, and more ominous to my eyes than any arid stretch of desert or harsh prairie land.
The aromatic smoke from my father’s short pipe was a welcome mask for the lingering odours in the air. After a time, he knocked the husk of burnt ashes from the bowl. ‘I never went to the Academy. You know that.’
‘I know that it didn’t exist when you were my age, sir. And that you had a great deal to do with its creation.’
‘That’s true, I suppose,’ he replied modestly as he tamped more tobacco from his pouch into his pipe. ‘I was educated at the Arms Institute. I attended at a time when those of us who expressed a desire to join the cavalla were regarded as somewhat … above ourselves. Cavalla assignments were the rightful domain of the families who had served the old kings as knights. Even though those families had dwindled, leaving our mounted forces undermanned, some felt it was almost against the will of the good god for a young man to want to be what his father had not been before him. Yet, a soldier is a soldier and I had persuaded my father that I could serve my king as well on horseback as I could on foot. I will admit that I was sorely disappointed when I was marked to be an artilleryman. It seemed the touch of the good god himself when that changed and I was sent off to the cavalla. Well.’ He put the stem of the loaded pipe to his lips, gave flame to it from a sulphur match, and took several encouraging puffs to get it going well before he continued. ‘Here in this city, I fear you will live, as I did during my years at the Arms Institute. No open air, not enough space to run, mediocre food, and living cheek by jowl with your fellow cadets. Some of them will be all a good officer should be, already. Others will be brutish louts and you will wonder why the good god made them soldier sons, let alone destined them to be officers. But when your days here are done, I promise you that you will return to living like a free man again, to roam and hunt and breathe the fresh air of the wild spaces. Think of that, when the city smoke and endless grey nights become oppressive. It may give you heart.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I replied, and tried to find relief in the thought, but it was elusive.
We docked in Old Thares late that evening. My uncle had sent a man with a wagon. He hoisted our baggage into the bed of the wagon and tethered Sirlofty and Steelshanks to its tail. I rode alongside my father on the spring seat of the rather humble wagon and tried not to wonder if this was an affront to my father’s status. The night was chill with a warning of damp in the air that promised that winter would soon arrive. We left the docks and rumbled through the poorer sections of Old Thares, then through a commercial district, quiet in the darkness save for occasional watchmen.
Finally we emerged from the town’s clutter and climbed into the gentle hills to an enclave of manors and estates. When we arrived at my uncle’s home, the great house was dark save for one yellow lantern at the main entry and a single set of windows alight above us. Servants swiftly appeared, including a groom who took our horses. My uncle’s man greeted my father, and told him that his mistress and my cousins were long abed, but that my uncle had had word of our imminent arrival and awaited us in his study. We followed my uncle’s man into his house and up a richly carpeted staircase while behind us servants struggled with our heavy trunks.
