by Robin Hobb
“Oh, and your shirt, too, Cadet. Didn’t I mention his shirt, too, Miles?”
“I thought certainly you had. An extra demerit for you, Cadet, for not obeying promptly. Shirt off.”
I hoped an instructor might venture by and put an end to their pleasure in tormenting me, but I had no luck there. By a series of commands, they reduced me to my underwear. I stood barefoot on the cold gravel, trying to maintain a pose of attention without shivering, and blessed my good fortune that my small clothes were new and free from holes. Rory would not have been so fortunate. They had added three more demerits to my original one, and now charitably suggested that I could immediately work them off by marching round them in a circle, singing my house song at the top of my lungs. Again, there was no help for it. Within, I seethed, but outwardly I kept a good-natured air of tolerance for this silliness as I began my circuit. The cold gravel bit into my bare feet, every inch of my skin was up in gooseflesh, and I had two quizzes I desperately needed to study for. Instead, I marched round them, singing the Carneston House loyalty song at the top of my lungs as they exhorted me to “Get your knees up,” “March faster,” and “Sing louder, Cadet. Are you ashamed of your good House?”
They were standing in the center of my orbit, enjoying my discomfort and embarrassment, when another cadet came hurrying along the pathway. The stripes on his sleeve proclaimed he was a fourth-year cadet, and I braced myself for him to heap some new ignominy upon me. Instead, as he approached, I saw the faces of the two cadets who had been afflicting me darken into antipathy. He came abreast of us, and I was forced to halt my silly circuit, come to attention, and salute the newcomer. But his attention was not fixed on me but on my tormentors.
“I’ll trouble you for a salute, gentlemen,” he said coldly to them, and I heard the frontier in the way he stretched his words and softened the ends.
They grudgingly came to attention and saluted him. He left them standing that way and turned to me. There were not many fourth-year cadets at the Academy. Those who stayed on for that extra year did so by invitation only, due to academic excellence and potential that could not be fully developed in a field situation. Technically, he had already graduated from the Academy and achieved a lieutenant’s rank, though he would wear the uniform of a cadet until the end of his schooling. I noticed the gear emblem on his collar, the sign of the Engineers’ Regiment. That was where he would be bound upon his completion of this extra year, and he’d probably wear a captain’s insignia soon after he got there. He looked me up and down and demanded my name.
“Cadet Nevare Burvelle, sir.”
He nodded to himself. “Of course. I’ve heard of your da. Put on your uniform, Cadet, and be about your business.”
Honesty demanded that I tell him, “I’ve three more demerits to march off yet, sir.”
“No you don’t, Cadet. I’ve canceled them, and any other silly waste of time these two were imposing on you. Stupidity.”
“It was just a bit of fun, sir.” The words were marginally respectful. The tone was not. The engineer glared at the third-year who had spoken.
“And you only wring your ‘bit of fun’ out of new nobles’ sons, I’ve noticed. Why don’t you go pick on your own, Cadet Ordo?”
“We’re third-years, sir. We have authority over all first-year cadets.”
“No one spoke to you, Cadet Jaris. Keep silent.” He turned away from them and looked at me. I was tying my bootlaces as fast as I could. The tormentors were eyeing me with cold hatred that I had witnessed their humiliation. I wanted to be away from them as swiftly as I could. “Cadet Burvelle, are you dressed yet?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I order you to go directly to your dormitory and commence your studies.” He glanced at the two still standing at attention. “If you are stopped again by either of these two cadets, you are to respectfully inform them that you are already on an errand for Cadet Lieutenant Tiber. That’s me. Then you are to continue about your business. Is that clear, Cadet? Your command from me is that you are not to waste your time by participating in this foolish ‘initiation.’ ”
“Yes, sir.”
He turned back to his captives. “And you two, are you clear that you are not to haze Cadet Burvelle?”
“We are permitted, until the sixth week, to initiate the first-years.” A moment passed, then, “Sir.”
“Are you? Well, I am permitted, for this entire year, to issue commands as I see fit to third-years. And my command is that you are no longer to participate in the ‘initiation’ of any new nobles’ sons. Are you clear on that, Cadets?”
“Yes, sir,” was the sulky response.
“Cadet Burvelle, you are released to follow my orders. Dismissed.”
As I walked away and left them there, Lieutenant Tiber kept the other two cadets at attention. I was grateful that my torment was over, but feared also that his actions would make me a target of the third-year cadets.
His intervention and subsequent comments had given me much to think over, but it was late that night before I found a chance to talk to Rory. It was after lights-out, and technically against the rules, but our patrol was already making its own adaptations of the rules for our floor. Our proctor, as was his custom, had extinguished the light precisely on time, ignoring those of us who were still at minor tasks. He left us to bumble our way to bed in the dark. Instead, we congregated on the floor of the study room by the dying embers on our hearth. Speaking in a hushed voice, I recounted my mishap and also my rescue by Lieutenant Tiber. After they’d finished snickering at my embarrassment, I asked Rory, “Did your cousin ever tell you anything about hostility between the new nobles’ and old nobles’ sons?”
In the shadows, he lifted one shoulder carelessly. “He din’t need much to tell me, Nevare. Course it would be toughest between old nobles and first-years that are new nobles’ sons. They’re at the top of the top here, and we’re at the bottom of the bottom. Not only first-years, but new nobles’ sons, too.”
“But why does that put us at the bottom of the bottom?” Spink asked earnestly.
Rory lifted his open hands, lost for words. “Just because we are, I guess. ’Cause it’s always been that way. Old nobles’ son know the ropes, and they’re going to know each other from balls and dinners and all that social stuff. So they’ll look out for the old noble first-years, and not ride ’em so hard. But us, well, they just have at us. You don’t hear much about any old nobles’ sons in the infirmary from initiation.”
“That’s so,” Gord agreed.
“Someone ended up in the infirmary?” I hadn’t heard of this.
Natred nodded soberly. “A first-year from Skeltzin Hall. Their third-years marched them out into the river fully dressed, up to their chests, and made them stand there for an hour. When they finally gave them the command to come in, one of the cadets slipped and went under and didn’t come up. He was cold, the river rocks were slippery, and his uniform was heavy with water. I guess he couldn’t get back on his feet. I heard some of the older cadets laughing about it, that he’d nearly drowned in four feet of water.”
“And he went to the infirmary for it?”
“Not him. One of his friends lost his temper, and shouted that they were trying to kill him and charged at the third-year who had started it. The third-year and the other second-years jumped him and beat him up pretty badly. Now he may be discharged from the school. For insubordination.”
“That’s one new noble’s son gone,” Kort said quietly. “They don’t bully their own first-years like that. Oh, they have to scrub the steps or sing a song for an hour. But they don’t feed them soap or trip them on the stairs. Or half drown them.”
“But it’s not fair,” Spink said. He sounded both hurt and bewildered. “Our older brothers are heirs and will be lords, just like theirs. By the king’s own word, we have as much right to be here. If it hadn’t been for our fathers and their deeds, this Academy wouldn’t even exist! Why should we be treated so badly?” I
could hear the anger building in his voice.
I heard Rory’s puzzlement, too, when he objected, “Aw, Spink, it’s only six weeks. Another two weeks to go and we’ll be past it. Besides, I think they’ve slacked off after the river incident. They didn’t hurt Nevare any tonight. Just chilled him down a bit and made him sing. I don’t even know why that Lieutenant Tiber stepped in. It was just fun for them, and tests a first-year’s mettle a bit. That’s all. You aren’t hurt any, are you, Nevare?”
“No. It wasn’t that drastic. But it seemed important to Tiber that he stop it.”
“Well, he’s touchy about such things,” Trist said softly as he joined our group. He had glided up behind us in the darkness, already dressed for bed. He sank down on the hearthstones beside me, putting his back to the warmth of the fire. He spoke so knowingly that he immediately gained all our attention.
“Why?” I asked him when he’d let the silence stretch.
“Well, he’s like that. I don’t know him that well, but I’ve heard my brother’s friends talk about him. He’s a new noble son, like us, but he’s dead brilliant at engineering, and that’s what he gets by on. Even before Stiet came, when it was Colonel Rebin in charge, he came close to being kicked out. And Rebin really liked him and knew his family well. But Tiber just likes to stir things up. He’s always saying that the new nobles’ sons aren’t treated fair, here or when we go out into the cavalry. He says we draw the bad postings and move up slower than old nobles’ sons. And because it’s how he is, he made up this big chart on paper to prove it and presented it to Rebin last year as part of his project in military law.”
“Is it true?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t lie about it!” Trist declared angrily.
“No, I don’t mean that. Is it true that we get the bad posts and don’t move up as fast?” Suddenly the disparity was personal to me. Carsina awaited me only if I showed her father I could win rank quickly.
“Well, of course it is, for most of us. I even heard that when Roddy Newel’s family tried to buy him a captain’s commission, the regiment declined to have him. There’s a lot of political stuff like that, Nevare. I guess you don’t hear about it much, out on the frontier. But those of us who grew up in Old Thares know.” He leaned closer to me. “Haven’t you noticed? Our corporal is old nobility. So are all the cadet officers. They never put us with our own kind, or let us have officers from among the second- and third-year new nobles. All the second-years and third-years in Carneston House are old nobility. Next year, when we’re second-years, do you think we’ll be here again, or in one of the nice new houses? No. They’ll put us across the grounds in Sharpton Hall. It used to be a tannery, and still stinks of it. It’s where all the second- and third-year new nobles’ sons are housed.”
“How do they fit them all?” Gord asked wonderingly.
“All?” Trist said snidely. “Listen up, Gord. Rory told us about culling at the beginning of the year. What do you think it’s about? It’s about having more old nobles’ sons go on as officers than new nobles’ sons. Come the end of the year, a lot of us won’t be here anymore. It was bad enough when Colonel Rebin was in charge. I’ve heard that Colonel Stiet would be just as happy to find ways to clear all of us out.”
“But that’s not fair! He can’t exclude us or kick us out of the Academy just because we aren’t from old noble stock.” Spink was shocked and angry.
Trist stood up, tall and lean, and stretched casually. “You keep saying that, Spink-lad. But the fact is, fair or not, he can do it. So you’d best find ways to make it less likely it will happen to you. That’s what my father advised me before I left. Make the right friends. Show the right attitude. And don’t make trouble. Or be seen with troublemakers. A little free advice: going about whining ‘That’s not fair’ isn’t going to endear you to Colonel Stiet.” He rolled his shoulders and I heard his spine crackle.
“I’m off to bed, children,” he informed us archly. I liked Trist, but his superior manner at that moment grated on me. “I have to be up early, you know.”
“So do we all,” Rory observed cheerlessly.
We dispersed from our hearth into the chill of the bunkrooms. I said my prayers and got into my bed but could not fall asleep. Spink seemed to share my insomnia for he whispered into the quiet, “What happens to us if we get sent home from the Academy?”
I was surprised he didn’t know. “You’re a soldier son. You enlist as a common soldier and do the best you can from there.”
“Or, if you’re lucky, some rich relative buys you a commission and you go off as an officer anyway,” Nate added into Spink’s despairing silence.
“I don’t have any rich relatives. At least, I don’t have any who like me.”
“Me, neither,” Kort observed. “So perhaps we’d better sleep tonight and study hard tomorrow. I don’t like the idea of marching for the rest of my life.”
We all fell asleep to that thought, but I think I lay awake longer than the rest of them. Spink’s family had no money to buy him a commission if he was culled from the Academy. My father did, perhaps. But would he? He had never intended that I should overhear his doubts of my ability to be a leader and hence an officer. But once I knew that he had them, it had made my golden future shine a little less brilliantly. In the back of my mind, I had been consoling myself that graduating from the Academy virtually guaranteed I would be at least a lieutenant, and both my father and Sergeant Duril had said that even the most idiotic lieutenant could usually make captain, by attrition if by no other means. But what if I was culled? Would my father judge me, after that failure, worth the cost of a good commission? The positions in the best regiments were very dear, and even in the less desirable ones, they were not cheap. Would he think I was worthy of that expense, or would he consider it good money thrown after bad, and leave me to enlist as a common soldier? Ever since I had been old enough to realize I was a second son and meant by the good god to be a soldier, I had thought my future assured. On my eighteenth birthday, I had thought I grasped it in my hands.
Now, I perceived that golden future could be lost, and not even through my fault, but purely by the politics of the day. Prior to the Academy, I had given little thought to the prejudice I might encounter as the second son of a new noble. During my training with Sergeant Duril, it had seemed a thing I could easily overcome by dint of solid effort and good intentions.
I hovered at the edge of sleep. I think I dozed. Then I felt a sudden sting of outrage. I sat up in the dark. As if from a distance, I heard myself speak. “A true warrior would not put up with continued humiliations. A true warrior would find a way to strike back.”
Spink shifted in his bed. “Nevare’s talking in his sleep again,” he complained to the quiet room.
“Shut up, Nevare,” Kort and Natred said in weary chorus. I lay back in my bunk and let sleep take me.
The few weeks of initiation that remained seemed an eternity to me. The pranks grew rougher. One night we were all rousted out of bed in our nightshirts and forced outside in a cold, driving rain and told to stand at attention. Sergeant Rufet had been lured from his desk for that one; he found us when he was doing one of his regular rounds of the building, and angrily ordered us back to bed. I could no longer, as Rory did, shrug off such humiliations as a challenge to toughen me. I now saw them as a small place where the old nobles’ sons could unveil how they truly felt about us. When they taunted me or forced me to behave foolishly or wasted my time with unnecessary tasks, it now burned in my soul. It created a little well of anger in me, one that they fed, drop by drop. I had always been a good-natured fellow, able to take a joke, able to forgive even the crudest of practical jokes. Those six weeks taught me why some men carry grudges.
I began, foolishly perhaps, to take small vengeances. When I blacked the second-years’ boots, I took care to get blacking on the laces so they’d dirty their hands. They caught me at that, of course, and angrily warned me to be more careful the next time. I blacked the boots
meticulously, but pushed a thumbful of pine tar up into the treads of several random boots. They tracked the sticky mess all over their floors the next morning as they left their dormitory, and reaped the punishment for a sticky floor at the noon inspection. That, they blamed on each other, and had demerits of their own to march off. That pleased me. Far better to make their misfortunes seem accidental.
A few nights later, I rose from my bed after I judged the others were asleep. I walked silently through the study room, but just as I reached the door, Rory spoke.
“Whare you going, Nevare?”
He and Nate had been sitting in the dark, talking quietly. I hadn’t noticed them.
“Out. Just for a minute.”
“What you got there? More tree gum?”
When I made no reply, Rory gave a snort of laughter. “I saw you gatherin’ it the other day. Pretty smooth, Nevare. Actually, pretty sticky. And I wouldn’t a thought it of you. What are ya doing now?”
I was torn between reluctance and a certain amount of pride in my cleverness. I came back to the hearth, blew briefly on the coals to wake a feeble flame, and then showed them what I held in my hand.
“Wood chips? What are you going to do with wood chips?”
“Wedge them into a doorframe.”
Nate was shocked. “Nevare! That’s not like you. Or is it?”
I shook my head, a bit surprised at his question, and taken aback for a moment. It wasn’t like me to play such tricks. More like Dewara, I thought to myself. It was a Plainsman tactic, this subtle revenge, and probably unworthy of a gentleman. I tried to care about that, and could not. It was almost as if I had discovered a second me inside myself, capable of such things.
Rory leaned closer to my hand to peer at the chips, and then shook his head. “They’re too little to make any difference. They won’t hold.”
“Want to bet?” I asked him.
“I’m coming with you. I got to see this.”
Rory and Nate followed me as I crept down the stairwell to the next floor. The second-years had a door that opened out from their study room onto the stairwell. They closed it at night to hold the heat in their rooms. I crouched down. The dim lantern in the stairwell barely illuminated my work as I carefully stacked the wood chips into a series of wedges under their door. “Do some in the sides, too,” Rory suggested in a whisper.
