by Robin Hobb
When I came in, Spink told me that Epiny had a severe headache and would not be joining us for luncheon. When we saw my uncle at the table and I passed on this message, he nodded calmly and said that she was often plagued with headaches. He seemed to find nothing odd about it, and turned the talk to plans for when we might next come to visit. Spink could not seem to find a response or an appetite. He pushed his food about on his plate, and when I said we had been warned that our studies would soon become more difficult and that we should save our free time for our books, Spink nodded unhappily.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
TIBER
The carriage ride back to the Academy was a quiet one. It seemed to pass very quickly, as time does when one is dreading something. Both Spink and I were subdued, and my uncle very thoughtful. The bizarre séance and Epiny’s abrupt withdrawal after it filled my thoughts. I struggled with whether it was my duty to tell my uncle of all that had transpired. The worst was that I could not in good conscience talk about it without revealing to him my subjective experience of it. I dissected the “séance,” trying to recall every word Epiny had said to me. Slowly, I began to see that it was my interpretation of her words that was so otherworldly and strange. She had never said, “I am Tree Woman, reaching for you from your past!” I had supplied all those connections myself. All she had done was look at me with a strange expression on her face and mutter some vague references to magic and “keep fast” charms.
I felt swept by a tide of revelation. I had created it all in my mind. That was all. Nothing had really happened. Charitably, I decided that Epiny did believe that spirits were invading her mind and making her say and do strange things. She was not a conscious fraud. I had been drawn in by her playacting or delusion, and I had provided the unspoken details that had made the séance so alarming. If, as a rational and modern man, I looked at what she had said and done, there was really very little to it. I drew in a deep breath, and with great relief, rejected my fears. All my anxiety was of my own making, the penalty I must pay for having indulged in her ungodly game of séance. The next time, I would know better. I was older and a man. I had set her a bad example by participating. I would not make that error again.
Spink, too, was silent and withdrawn, staring out the window wordlessly at the passing scenery. I think my uncle mistook the cause of our gloom. As we drew closer to the Academy gates, he took a deep breath and then warned us that he had sent a messenger ahead that morning, to request “an hour of the commander’s time.” Then he added, “I know you two are dreading what your honesty may have brought down upon you and your fellows. If Colonel Stiet is any kind of true officer, then he will appreciate knowing that there are abuses going on within his command. Lieutenant Tiber deserves to be treated fairly, as do all first-years of any parentage. Stiet should take steps to assure equity, and I intend to ask him to keep me informed of his progress in dealing with the offenders. If what I hear does not satisfy me, then I will write to your father, or go directly to the board that oversees the Academy. If it comes to that, you both may be called on to testify. I don’t think it will go that far, but I want to be honest with you. Through no fault of your own, you have entered difficult waters. Nevare, I want you to write to me daily and with honesty. If letters do not arrive from you as expected, I will be visiting here again, so see that you do not neglect this task.”
My heart sank at his words, but I dutifully replied, “Yes, Uncle.” To have him remind me that there were other, weightier matters hanging over my head dampened my spirits even more thoroughly.
We bade him farewell at the entrance to the administration building. Spink and I watched him as he strode up the steps and entered. I thought I caught a brief glimpse of Caulder when the door was opened. I hoped not. I’d seen as much of that youngster as I wanted, and desired still less to have anything to do with him after I had seen how Epiny disdained him. I wished I had not witnessed the scene between them; Caulder would not forget that I had seen his humiliation. Spink and I shouldered our bags and headed back toward Carneston House. Halfway there, Spink spoke up suddenly but quietly.
“Epiny stays in my mind. She…defies comparison.”
I felt myself flush slightly. “That’s a kind way to put it,” I replied gruffly. I felt it a bit unfair of Spink to point out just how oddly she had behaved. Surely he could see it was not my fault, and that I had suffered just as acutely as he had.
Then he said shyly, “She’s so sensitive, and so lovely. Like a butterfly, wafted on the wind. I think she feels things much more keenly than the rest of us.”
For a time, I was quiet. I was shocked. Sensitive and lovely? Epiny? I had felt mostly irritated and embarrassed by her. But Spink had enjoyed her company? Strange thoughts were suddenly unfolding in my mind. To be certain, I asked him, “You liked her, then?”
A wide and foolish grin spread across his face. “Oh, more than liked! Nevare, I am smitten with her. Smitten. I always thought that was a silly word. But now I understand completely what it means.” He took a deep breath and gave me a sorrowful look. “And now you will say that you are sorry, but that she is promised already and has been since she was a child.”
“If you asked me, I would say she is still a child. If she is promised, I do not know of it, and I doubt it would be so.” There was a much larger obstacle, one that I was loath to point out to him, but I was equally reluctant to leave him ignorant. I gathered my courage. “The problem would not be that she was spoken for, Spink. It might be that my aunt would be unwilling to consider an offer from a new nobility family. My uncle did not speak of it directly, but it is an open secret within our family that she resents my father’s elevation and allies herself only with old nobility.”
He shrugged, almost dismissing my concern. “But her father seemed to like me, and Epiny herself…well…” He stopped short before he said anything indelicate.
“Epiny obviously likes you,” I admitted. “I thought her rather too forward about indicating that to you.”
His face and tone lightened, as if I had just given a brother’s consent to his courtship. “Then if I could win your uncle’s regard and goodwill, I might have a chance with her.”
I doubted it. I suspected that my aunt had a will of steel. Seeing how Epiny had ridden roughshod over my uncle, I doubted that he would stand up to my aunt well. And even if my uncle were well disposed toward Spink himself, all he had told me of his family made me sure that he was a poor prospect as a match for my cousin. No money, no influence, new nobility…“You might have a chance,” I heard myself concede, simply because I lacked the courage to point out to him that his odds of success were less than a whisper’s chance against storm winds.
He looked at me oddly, as if he had somehow managed to hear my mental reservation. “Speak to me plainly here, my friend. Do you feel I set my sights too high? Would you oppose my courting your cousin?”
I laughed out loud. “Spink, no, of course not! I can think of nothing I would like better than to call you cousin as well as friend. But what I might oppose is my cousin courting you! My friend, in temperament and manners I think you could do far better than Epiny. Even if you were thinking of taking a Plains wife.”
He looked shocked and then gave an odd laugh. “A Plains wife? My mother would kill me. No, she wouldn’t have a chance. My brother would do it first.”
Our steps had carried us to the door of our dormitory. We checked in with the sergeant and then went up the steps to our room. Spink asked me not to speak too much of Epiny before the other fellows, and I was only too happy to comply. We greeted Oron and Caleb. They were both finishing their assignments at the study table. They kept us listening for some time as they recounted their stay with Oron’s aunt. She had hosted a musical gathering at her home, and they were full of stories of ribald songs, risqué dancing, and a young woman who had bedded both of them on the same night with neither the wiser to it at the time. Even now, they were astonished, scandalized, and delighted to have such a w
ild adventure to tell. It made the tales from Caleb’s penny adventure books pale by comparison.
I was almost relieved that they gave us no room to talk of our own time away from the dormitory. Spink and I were talking of settling down and getting our assignments finished before the evening meal when we opened the door to our room. There we halted, filled with dismay that rapidly turned to anger.
My bunk had been overturned and all my books strewn about the floor. My carefully pressed and brushed uniform parts were scattered around the room. It looked as if someone had thrown them down and then trampled and kicked them about. There was a dusty footprint clearly outlined on the back of my jacket. Spink’s things had suffered similar vandalism. The bedding from the other bunks in the room had been flung about, but Natred’s and Kort’s belongings still rested on their shelves. Whoever had done this had targeted Spink and me for most of the mayhem. Spink recovered first, beginning to curse savagely in a low voice very unlike his normal tone. I stepped back into the common room and called Oron and Caleb. They came quickly, wondering what could be wrong, and then stood in shock when they saw the mess in our room.
“Any ideas on who might have done this?” I asked them.
Oron spoke first. “We only returned to Carneston House about an hour ago. And I had no reason to come in here.” He looked at Caleb.
Caleb was as mystified. “Our room was fine when we unpacked. Nothing was touched in there.”
“Check the other room,” Spink suggested brusquely.
In the room Gord shared with Rory and Trist, Gord’s bedding and possessions were the only ones that had been disturbed. The mess in there was even worse than in our room; Gord’s books and personal items had been heaped on top of his bedding on the floor, and someone had urinated on them. In the closed room, the smell was overpowering. We quickly backed out.
“I’m reporting this to Sergeant Rufet,” I announced.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Caleb asked me. The gangly cadet looked even more anxious than usual.
“It’s going to be seen as tattling,” Oron added, scowling. “And no one likes a snitch, Nevare.”
In one sense, I knew he was right. A deep dread surged in me. This was how they reacted simply because we knew what they had done. This was how they sought to cow and silence us. When they discovered that we had talked to my uncle and that he had taken the matter to the commander, what would they do then? Abruptly, I knew that keeping silent about this and accepting their abuse would not stop it. My uncle’s complaint to Colonel Stiet might stir them to worse things, but keeping silent hadn’t made them leave us alone. Reporting this was the only way I could stand up to them. Difficult as it was, even though my fellow cadets might see me as weak, I held myself to what my uncle had said I must do. “It’s not ‘snitching,’ ” I told Caleb and Oron. “It’s a cadet reporting vandalism to the dormitories while we were gone.” They just stared at me, unconvinced. Why was this so difficult? My uncle had said it was the right thing to do. “I’m going downstairs now. Leave this mess alone until Rufet has seen it.”
“Should I go with you?” Spink offered quietly.
“I think one of us is enough,” I told him, but he knew I was grateful for his offer.
With every step I took down the stairs, doubts assailed me. Reporting it seemed a whining and babyish thing to do, running to the sergeant to tattle. I knew the others might speak with disdain. Were we too soft to take a bit of pranking in stride? Yet the early months of school were past, and what had been done to our rooms went beyond ordinary hazing.
I stood before the sergeant’s desk until he looked up at me. Then, in as calm a voice as I could muster, I reported the damage to our rooms and possessions. He heard me out, his face darkening with anger. Then he led the way back up the stairs to survey the mess for himself. He questioned Oron and Caleb, but they had nothing to tell. The mess could have been made at any time. When he realized there would be no easy discovery of the culprits, his orders were terse. “Clean it up. Have Cadet Lading report to me. I’ll see that you get fresh bedding. There isn’t much more I can do.”
Spink and I set to work on our area immediately. As our other roommates trickled in, they expressed various levels of outrage or amusement at our predicament.
“It isn’t just the time lost when we should be doing assignments,” Spink complained as he pulled the bedding tight on his bunk. “It’s the feeling of invasion, and of being the butt of a joke with no chance to hit back.”
Rory had come into the room. Without anyone asking him to do it, he began to put Natred’s and Kort’s bedding back on their bunks as he spoke to us. “At least your stuff is just tossed about. Our room reeks like a sty and it’s freezing in there. Oron says he just about passed out from the smell when he first walked in, so he opened our window. That didn’t help much. Trist is furious with Gord; he says if he don’t come back soon and clean up the mess, he’s just going to toss all his stuff. And I’ll be there lending a hand!”
“It’s not Gord’s fault!” I said. “Not any more than this is our fault. Trist should be mad at whoever did it.”
“Well, I sort of see it both ways,” Rory replied obstinately. “Obviously you and Spink and Gord made someone really mad at you that night. Gord’s never said what happened, but I don’t believe he fell down the steps. Now they’re getting their own back at you all, but Trist and I are the ones who are paying for it.”
“You’re paying for it? How?” Spink was incensed.
“Our whole room reeks, that’s how! And Gord isn’t even here to clean it up, so we have to put up with it until he gets back. I don’t even want to go in there.”
“You could clean it up for him.”
“It’s his stuff. It’s his mess.”
“You just made Natred’s and Kort’s bed up. Why is that different?”
Rory grinned good-naturedly, but still could not completely admit his hypocrisy. “Well, their stuff isn’t covered in piss, for one thing. And for another, I like them.”
“And you don’t like Gord?” I was surprised.
He looked at me in disbelief that I could be so stupid. “Not much.” He sighed. “Look, Spink, I know he helps you a lot, and I guess you and Nevare both like him well enough. But you two don’t have to live with him. He smells awful when he comes in from marching, like bacon gone bad. And he’s always sweaty. And he’s noisy; his bed creaks under him at night, and he lies on his back and snores like a pig. He’s so damn big that every time he walks in the door, the room feels crowded. I’ve seen you two stand side by side and shave at the same basin when you have to hurry. Can’t do that with Gord. There’s no room. And he’s just, well, annoying. He’s always trying to be too friendly. He invites the things that happen to him with the way he calls attention to himself. Why does he have to be so huge? The first time I saw him nekkid, I just about got sick. He’s all pale and wobbly and…Well, it was Trist that first said it, but I’ll admit I laughed. With the gut he has, we wonder if he even knows he has a cock. He prob’ly hasn’t seen it in a couple of years at least.”
Rory laughed at his own joke. Spink and I didn’t. A week ago I would have, I realized. But now it seemed a personal affront, as if a rough joke about Gord were mockery of us as well. Why? Not because we were his friends; I still did not feel that great a personal attachment to him. It was because whoever had targeted him had attacked us as well, and somehow made the three of us into a single entity now. Like it or not, when they mocked Gord, it was mockery of us as well. I didn’t like it at all.
Rory threw up his hands at our silent stares and shrugged defensively. “Well, take it that way if you want to. It’s not personal, not with me. I like you fellers.” He took a shallow breath as if daring himself to speak. He lowered his voice. “When I was leaving for the Academy, my father said, ‘Son, choose your friends well. Don’t let them choose you; you be the one who decides who your pals are. The needy and weak ones will always be the first to try to beco
me close friends with those they perceive as strong. In the cavalla, a man needs strong allies who will stand back to back with him, not weaklings who shelter in his shadow.’ When I first met you fellers, I knew you were strong, and that I could count on you at my back. And when I first met Gord, I knew that he didn’t have the stamina or strength to be a real officer. He’s a liability to those who befriend him. That’s why he’s always trying to be everyone’s buddy, and doing everyone favors; he knows he’ll need pals to protect him if he ever gets into a tough situation. You know that’s true.”
I put the last book back on my shelf and then stood silent, thinking over what Rory had said. By having Spink as a friend, I’d also chosen to be associated with Gord. And by default, that cut me off from being friends with Trist. If I had not befriended both Spink and Gord, I could have been one of Trist’s companions. I liked Spink and instinctively knew that in many ways our values were more compatible than if I had followed Trist. Yet I also knew that Trist was more charismatic, more social, and more…I searched for a word, and nearly laughed aloud when I found it. Fashionable. Trist was making connections and winning friends among the older cadets, even those of old nobility blood. He’d eaten at the commander’s table, and even now, when Caulder scorned most of the new nobility, he still greeted Trist warmly. If I had been Trist’s friend, those connections and associations would have been open to me as well. But I had met Spink first, and at my father’s recommendation, had chosen him as a friend. Had my father been wrong?
Even as doubt and guilt for feeling that doubt assailed me, I realized that something was missing. “My rock’s gone!”
