The Complete Soldier Son Trilogy: Shaman’s Crossing, Forest Mage, Renegade’s Magic. Robin Hobb
been forthright with him from the beginning, and told him not only about the séances but also that Epiny was writing to Spink. To tell it now made me feel I had been a party to his daughter’s deception, as indeed I had. He listened in silence as I told the tale, passing lightly over Epiny’s efforts at being a medium and dwelling charitably on how impressed Spink had been with her. My uncle lifted his brows in surprise when I told him that Spink’s mother and elder brother would surely write to him any day now to ask permission for Spink to court Epiny. It was only surprising that he had not already received their letter.
‘Perhaps I did,’ he said when I paused. ‘Perhaps it is in my wife’s secretary, with our correspondence. Perhaps it is what triggered this whole incident. Let me be blunt with you, Nevare. Marrying the soldier son of a New Noble and living hundreds of miles away from Old Thares and the court is not what my wife has in mind for her elder daughter. She takes Epiny into situations that I think ill-advised, to try to advance her socially. This séance nonsense, for instance … if only the girl were not so childish. Other girls her age are already young women, formally presented to the court and already spoken for. But Epiny …’ He sighed and shook his head. In the darkness, I caught his rueful smile. ‘Well, you have seen how she is still a little girl in all the important ways. I tell myself that, in her own good time, she will grow up. Some flowers bloom later than others and some say their fragrance is sweetest. We shall see. I have forbidden Daraleen from rushing Epiny into womanhood. Childhood is too brief and precious a thing to waste.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I thought that my lady wife had come round to my way of thinking when she suggested that Epiny be sent off for some time with other girls her age. Epiny objected, with one of her harangues about being trained to be an ornament for a rich man’s mansion.’ He glanced at me and his smile was small and a bit bitter. ‘I suppose I should have guessed that she was already imagining herself dominating a poor officer’s quarters instead.’
I walked on with him, arm in arm, and my tongue felt thick with ashes. Epiny deceived her father, and by my silence, I contributed to it. Yet what was I to say? That when she was alone with Spink and me, she behaved not only as a young woman, but also as something of a coquette? I kept my silence and my guilt.
‘So, I can see how your friend’s infatuation with her and his prompting of his family to seek permission to court would have been upsetting to Lady Burvelle. She has not even had a time to display her precious treasure at court, and some New Noble upstart is trying to claim her and carry her off to a life on the wild frontier!’ My uncle almost made a joke of it. He sounded amused, but regretful that it had happened.
I took a breath and plunged in. ‘Spink is very taken with my cousin, Uncle. That is true. But he has not written to her. The correspondence has been one-sided. It is true that he asked his mother and brother to speak for him, but surely, that is what any honourable man would do; first, to attempt to secure permission before he began any courtship of the girl.’
I thought I had carefully led him up to seeing the truth of it: that Epiny only pretended to be childish. But he would not drink of that idea. Instead, he said, ‘Well, at least my little girl has had her first childish infatuation. Surely I can take that as a sign of her growing up. And she chose a handsome soldier lad in a bright uniform with shiny buttons. I suppose I should have expected it. But I had no sisters, you know. Your father and I and our two younger brothers were like a den of bear cubs growing up. My mother despaired of ever teaching us anything about young women and how they should be treated. Epiny and Purissa are delightful but mysterious to me. They play at dolls and tea parties… it is an enchanting thing to watch, but how, I ask you, can that consume hours of their time? But doubtless you think me indulgent. I suspect your own father takes a firmer line with his offspring.’
‘He does, sir, in some ways. And in others, he is indulgent. Once, when Elisi asked him to bring her back blue hair ribbons from his trip to the city, he brought her, not two, but twenty, in every shade of blue that the millinery had offered him. I do not think it a fault for fathers to dote on their daughters.’
We had drawn near to my dormitory. We halted on the walk. The tips of my ears and my nose stung with cold, but I sensed my uncle had not said all he wished to say.
‘Let me change the subject, Nevare. Your letters were very detailed, and I assure you that your keen observation of how cadets are treated here will benefit those who follow you. But bring me up to date on yourself. How have you fared over the last week?’
‘Oh, it has been nothing out of the usual, I suppose. The last few days have been a bit frantic. We’ve heard there is to be a culling, not by student but by patrol, based on our upcoming exams. It has all of us a bit worried, for there is not a cadet here who does not have a weakness of some kind. A failure by any of us could bring all of us down.’
‘A what? A culling? Explain this to me, please.’
And so I did, as best I could, adding several times that it was only a rumour, but one spread by Caulder himself. My uncle’s expression only grew darker as I explained it to him. At last he spoke. ‘I, myself, think this is a useless and destructive way to “cull” weak cadets from the ranks. That the good and solid should perish with the lazy and the weak simply because of how your rooms were initially assigned seems but random cruelty to me! I know two members of the Academy board. I will use what authority I have to persuade them to look into this. As I have no soldier son in attendance, they may wonder why I take such an interest. Worse, I fear they may see that I am trying to advance the cause of the battle lords’ sons over their own soldier sons. At the best of times, the board does not move swiftly. Any action they take may be too late to save you this time. All you can do is study, pray and, of course, encourage your fellows to do the same. At least you’ve a holiday to look forward to when exams are done. You’ll have a few days of leisure over the Dark Evening observances. Shall I come and fetch you to my house for them?’
I squirmed a bit. I enjoyed visiting my uncle, but I’d been looking forward to an opportunity to see Old Thares in holiday guise with my fellows. After a moment, I admitted that to my uncle, who laughed genially and said, ‘Of course! How could I be so forgetful of what it is like to be a young man? Enjoy your time, then, but be cautious as well. Pickpockets and worse will be out and about on Dark Evening.’
I hesitated, dared myself and then blurted out, ‘Is it true, what the lads have been telling me about women and Dark Evening?’
That made him burst out with a ringing laugh that turned the head of the night watchman on his early round. A blush warmed my wind-chilled face. I was certain my schoolmates had played a prank on me. When my uncle could speak, he replied heartily, ‘It’s true and it’s untrue, as most holiday traditions are. At one time, generations ago, the Long Night had several pagan rituals attached to it, and women who served the old gods as priestesses were said to seek out the favour of any man they wished. There was some old legend … what was it? That on that night of the year, they were the goddesses incarnate and thus not bound by the rules that bind mortals from day to day. We all serve the good god now, and a day does not pass that I do not thank him that we are freed from ritual sacrifice and scar oaths and sacrificial floggings. Those were bad days, and if you go far enough back in our family history and read the soldiers’ logs, you will see that even then, the common men regarded those practices as a burden and a scourge. Some, however, will make out those to be “the good old days” and speak of freedom and the power of the old gods. I think they are fools. Licentiousness and drunkenness and whoring and public floggings were the order of the day. But, I’m lecturing you, when all you want is a simple answer.’
I nodded, mute.
He smiled at me. ‘It’s mostly a joke now, lad. Sometimes a ribald jest between man and wife. She may disappear for that evening, to try to prick her husband with jealousy. Or sometimes a man’s wife will come to him, masked and mysterious, on that night, as a way to bring back a bit of the romance to a marriage become commonplace. It is a night for masks and pretence and wild whims. People take to the street costumed as the kings and queens of old, or as heroes from the old myths or as the nightshades who served the old gods. But do respectable women actually wander about and offer themselves like common whores? Of course not! Oh, one or two perhaps might tempt themselves with that fantasy, but I am