by Robin Hobb
“I thank you, sir, for sharing these things with me, also.” Spink spoke grimly. “My family’s holdings are closer to the borders, and I know that often we have had to defend our people, not from savages but from roving bands of outlaws. To hear the other cadets speak of their homes and peaceful upbringings made me wonder if perhaps we are the only folk so troubled. Now I see that we are not. But I still do not understand why brother should stand against brother in this. Surely the nobles, closely related as they are, could band together to act for the greater good of their king and themselves.”
“Some of us believe that to be true. Obviously, my brother and I have kept our close bonds, and feel it is in our best interests to continue them. But other families felt betrayed when the king stole their soldier sons. Many nobles felt that the lands granted to the soldier sons as their noble portions should have instead been given to the first sons of the families, to hold in trust for their soldier brothers. Why, they wonder, did the king not enrich them instead of their soldier brothers?”
“But the soldiers had earned both honour and estates! They were the ones who shed their blood and risked their lives to gain those lands for the king.”
“So the soldier son sees it, of course. But tradition was that honours and rewards that the soldier son earned were for his family, not himself. There are now noble families who have sons who have openly expressed the ambition that if they do great deeds in battle, they too may rise to the status of lords. And, I fear that not all soldier sons who have risen to noble titles have conducted themselves nobly. Many were ill prepared to deal with wealth and power. They have squandered what was granted to them, and are now in debt or disgrace. Yet even so, they are lords with the option of voting in the Council of Lords. They are vulnerable to those who would buy influence. Thus it is that many old families feel vulnerable to the new nobility in many ways.”
“But… but how do we threaten them? Or our fathers, I mean.” Spink was genuinely puzzled.
“The new nobility threatens our power and in some cases, our dignity. But most of all, they cripple our ability to advance our own goals, which may be different to the king’s. For the king, the benefits of division among his nobles are undeniable. The Council of Lords is seldom able to achieve a majority vote with a quorum on any question, let alone the questions that relate directly to taxation or the king’s authority. But even on matters such as boundaries and regulating the trade guilds and constructing works for the good of all, such as building bridges, we now have difficulty in reaching a consensus. Often new nobles in the outlying areas have no care to attend the sessions or vote on things that seem not to have any impact on them. Why should they be taxed to lay rail lines in Old Thares? Then, to accomplish these things, we are forced to send an advisory to the king, who then commands that things should be so.”
“If the nobles get what they want, why do they care?” I asked. I knew the answer but I was suddenly feeling stubborn. Were these the reasons that soldier sons of new nobility were treated poorly at Academy? Things that we had no control over?
My uncle gave me a long look. Then he answered and did not answer me at once. “All men long to be in control of their own lives. Even a loyal servant, given authority over his master’s business, will soon wish for more authority, and the right to profit when he runs it well. It is human nature, Nevare. Once a man has had authority over his own affairs, he does not surrender it easily.”
Saying that seemed to rouse some strong emotion in him. He stood, rolled his shoulders, and then strode across the room. He refilled his glass of brandy. When he turned back to us, he said more calmly, “But I remain one of the old nobles who is convinced of the wisdom of the king’s current ambitions. I think there is wealth to be found in expanding our borders. I think that if we can gain a seaport on the Rustian Sea, on the far side of the Barrier Mountains, we could gain trade contacts and alliances with the people of the far eastern lands. I know his dream seems far-fetched to many, but we live in a time of great change. Perhaps one must have big dreams and take large risks to increase our stature in the world.” He lowered his voice suddenly. “And here at home, I think we would be wiser to unite and support him in it than oppose him. And I am troubled that this jockeying of first sons has led to a division in the Academy, and trouble amongst our soldier sons. That should not be. It starts with hazing at the Academy, but where does it stop? That I do not even wish to consider.”
I think I learned that evening the difference between how first sons and second sons were educated. My uncle had taken something I had perceived as a problem that existed in the Academy among the students there and extrapolated the consequences of it into the greater world of our military. I am not sure at all that my father would have done so. I think he would have seen it as a lapse of discipline in the school and a flaw in the administrator. My uncle saw it as a grave symptom of something already affecting the larger community, and I could feel the depth of his concern.
I could think of nothing to reply to his remarks and afterward we subsided into more general talk. When he bid us goodnight Spink and I were subdued, and parted to our separate rooms without any further discussion.
Habit awoke me early the next morning, the one day of the week when I could have slept late. I tried to huddle back into my pillows, but my perverse conscience reminded me that today I must return to the Academy grounds and that I had not yet completed my schoolwork. With a groan, I stretched and rose. I was splashing my face at the washbasin when the door opened and Epiny sailed into the room. She was still in her nightgown and wrapper, her hair in long braids past her shoulder. She greeted me with, “What shall we do today? A seance, perhaps?” Her question was teasing. My reply was not.
“Absolutely not! Epiny, this is completely inappropriate! At your age, you should never enter a man’s bedchamber unannounced and still in your nightclothes!”
She stared at me for a moment and then said, “You’re my cousin. You don’t count as a man. Very well. If you are afraid to hold a seance, shall we go riding?”
“I have a lot of schoolwork to do. Please leave.”
“Very well. I told Spink that you’d probably prefer to stay behind. That leaves Sirlofty free for me, then.” She turned and started to leave.
“You and Spink are going riding? When was this decided?”
“We had early breakfast together.”
“In your nightclothes?”
“Well, he was dressed, but I scarcely see the sense of getting dressed before we’ve decided what to do with the day. Now I shall go and put on my riding skirts.”
“That is scandalous!”
“It’s eminently sensible. If you knew how long it takes for a woman to dress, you would see that I’ve saved nearly an hour of my day. And there is no more precious commodity than time.” Her hand was on the doorknob. She opened the door.
I spoke hastily. “I’m going riding with you. On Sirlofty.”
She smiled at me over her shoulder. “You’d best hurry then if you expect to eat anything before we leave.”
Despite her claim of how long it took for a woman to dress, she was ready and waiting by the door before I had finished a very hurried breakfast. Spink was likewise eager to depart. He and Epiny stood in the foyer, talking and laughing, she with her annoying whistle clamped between her teeth all the while. Her father bade us a good-natured farewell, for he would not budge from his leisurely breakfast and morning newspaper. I envied him, but could not tolerate the thought of Epiny showing off my horse to Spink.
Nevertheless, I was a bit disappointed. I had expected a groom to accompany us, so that Spink and I could safely gallop off without worrying about Epiny. Instead, we were her guardians. Spink was mounted on a borrowed white gelding, a well-trained saddle horse but one completely unfamiliar with any sort of military manoeuvres. And Epiny chose that we would ride on the bridle paths parallel to the Grand Promenade in Cuthhew’s Park. I suspected that she enjoyed displaying herself to the proper
young women riding in pony carts with their mothers or strolling the paths in groups of three or four with an earnest chaperone. And there was my cousin, her riding skirts barely coming to her shins, as if she were a girl of ten instead of a young woman, alone with two young men in cadet dress. I had not considered how we might appear to others when I had agreed to ride with her, and feared I would bring embarrassment to my uncle’s household. Surely rumours of this outing would fly back to my uncle’s wife. How could any of Epiny’s acquaintances know that I was her cousin and responsible for her that day? They would simply see her as out riding with two soldier sons. Epiny’s mother already disdained me. How could Epiny put me in a position where I would appear to deserve that scorn? I did what I could to present a respectable appearance. I kept our pace sedate. Several times she sighed loudly and looked exasperatedly at me. I ignored her, determined to behave properly in such a public place.
She was the one who suddenly put her grey mare into a gallop, forcing Spink and me to give chase and exciting all sorts of cries of alarm and consternation as we raced after her. Epiny clung like a burr to her mount, shrilling wildly through the otter-whistle that she still gripped in her teeth. I wondered if she were too stupid to realize that the sound of the whistle was probably frightening her horse and exciting Celeste to even greater speed. I kicked Sirlofty to overtake her, but the path had narrowed and Spink and his gelding were in the way. I cried out to him to leave the path and give me clearance, but I do not think he heard me. A cyclist coming toward us wailed in alarm and crashed his machine into a laurel hedge to avoid us as we thundered past him. He shouted angrily after us.
Epiny guided her horse away from the commonly used paths and onto a lesser trail. We left the groomed environs of the park behind and soon raced, single file, down a bramble-choked winding path. Spink had his horse between my cousin and me, or Sirlofty could have easily outrun Epiny’s mare and let me catch her. Twice, fallen trees blocked the way, and each time her horse cleared the obstacle in a jump, I feared that I would be bringing her lifeless body home to my uncle. We came to an open area alongside the river, and there it was that she finally pulled in her mount.
Spink reached her first, crying out, “Epiny, are you hurt?” as he flung himself off his horse. She had already dismounted and was breathing hard. Her cheeks were very pink in the cool air and her hair had come undone from her netted hat and tangled about on her shoulders. As I rode up and dismounted, she reached back to carelessly knot it up again and restore it to the snood it had escaped.
“Of course I’m all right!” She smiled. “Oh, what a lovely gallop that was. It did both of us much good. Celeste so seldom gets a chance to really stretch her legs.”
“I thought your horse had run away with you!” Spink exclaimed.
“Well, yes, she did, but only because I urged her to it. Come. Let us walk the horses on the path by the river to cool them. It’s lovely there, even at this time of year.”
I had had enough. “Epiny, I cannot believe your behaviour! What is the matter with you, to give us such a scare? Spink and I were terrified for you, to say nothing of the other people in the park. What ails you, that a young woman of your family and years acts like an irresponsible hoyden?”
She had begun to walk away, leading her mare. Now she turned back to me. Her face changed as completely as if she had removed a mask, and I think that in some ways, she had. She leaned toward me as she spoke, and had she been a horse, her ears would have been back and her teeth bared. “The day I begin acting like a woman instead of a girl, the day I succumb to the manacles and shackles prepared for me is the day on which my parents will auction me off to the highest bidder. I had heard that on the border, women were allowed to have lives of their own. I had expected a more modern sensibility from you, cousin dear. Instead, over and over, you reveal my worst fears for you rather than my fondest hopes.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I felt angry, indignant, and strangely hurt at her disparaging words.
“I do,” Spink said quietly. “My mother speaks of it.”
“Of what?” I demanded. Was he siding with Epiny again? I felt as I did when I first tried to learn Varnian; that people were talking but that their words conveyed no meaning.
“Of women learning to run their own affairs,” Spink said. “I’ve told you how our first overseer cheated us, when my brothers and I were little more than children. My mother blames that on her education and upbringing. She says that if she had been able to understand the accounts and how the holdings should have been operated, she would have never lost for us what should have been my brother’s fortune. So when she sent for a tutor for my brother, she insisted that she be allowed to sit in on all his lessons. And she has taught my two sisters all that they might need to know, should they ever become untimely widows with small children to defend.”
I stared at him, unable to think of anything to say.
“Exactly,” Epiny said, as if it justified all her strange behaviour.
I found my tongue. “I would blame more your mother’s family, that your uncle did not come to your aid.”
“Blaming them will not undo what is done. And even though I doubt that my elder brother would ever abandon my wife and children to such a fate, no one can predict that he would be alive and in a position to help them in such straits. My mother has said that no daughter of hers will suffer as she did, from ignorance.”
I could think of any number of replies to that, ranging from tactless to cutting. Instead, I turned to my cousin and said, “I cannot imagine what ‘shackles and manacles’ you are so dreading, Epiny. If you behave like a lady, you will marry well and go to a lovely home of your own, with servants to care for your needs. It seems to me that all noble ladies in Old Thares have to do is fix their hair and order new clothing to be made for them. Are those your ‘shackles’ you speak of? It shames you to speak of your parents as ‘auctioning you off’ as if you were a prize cow! How can you say such a cruel thing when your father so obviously loves you?”
“Shackles of velvet, and manacles of lace, dear cousin, can bind a woman as effectively as those of cold iron. Oh, my father loves me and so does my mother, and they will find some noble son of a good family who will be delighted with my dowry and will probably treat me well, especially if I produce children for him in a timely and uncomplicated way. The man they choose for me will become an important political ally, which is where I see all the difficulties arise, for my father and my mother have very different political ambitions, as you undoubtedly know.”
I understood what she spoke of, but I pointed out, “So it has always been. My parents have chosen my wife for me, and my elder brother’s wife as well.”
“Poor things!” she said with heartfelt sympathy. “Assigned to boys before they are even men, with no more choice in their fates than an orphaned kitten has. When it is my time to wed, I intend to choose my husband for myself. And I will get me a man who respects my mind.” And here she looked directly and very boldly at Spink. Spink glanced away, flushing.
I suppressed my anger and merely shook my head to indicate my disapproval, but Epiny and Spink seemed to think I was commiserating with her.
“Let’s walk the horses,” Spink suggested, and they set off side by side. I went to get Sirlofty. When I caught up to them, Epiny was saying, “Well, I admit that women don’t seem to have minds adept at the maths and sciences, but I think we have other talents that men lack. Of late, I’ve been exploring them.”
“My sisters are at least at good at maths as I am,” Spink told her. I commented to myself that that was scarcely an endorsement, but kept my thoughts to myself.
“Well, perhaps it is because they were set to such studies earlier in life than I was. I had but the rudiments when I was small, and my governess made it seem that learning to calculate was far less important than the ten basic stitches of Varnian embroidery. So I learned them for the week and promptly forgot them. Only later did I discover t
hat even in needlework one needs to understand proportions in order to change a pattern, and ratios to adapt a recipe… but that is not what I am speaking about when I mention women’s talents.”
The trail had led us down a gently sloping bank to a wide grassy space. Old foundation stones jutted up from the tall grasses and butterfly bushes that grew there. A corner of a demolished building still stood, and last night’s rainfall had pooled on the unevenly sunken floor. We let the horses drink there; I judged it better than risking the steep bank and stinking river water. I suspected the structure had been an old brewery. Soil had washed over the old stone floor in a shallow layer and grass had sprouted and died there. Without asking us, Epiny slipped Celeste’s bit and let her loose on the brownish tufts.
“We cannot stay long,” I protested, but she ignored me. Epiny seated herself on a wall of exposed foundation stones and stared out over the river. Plainly this was not the first time she and Celeste had come here. I sat down beside her and Spink sat down next to me. She seemed suddenly melancholy and against my better judgment, I felt sorry for her. She was very forlorn and alone. I spoke gently to her. “Epiny. I don’t understand why your future makes you unhappy, but I see it does. And I’m sorry for that. It can be hard sometimes but we must all endeavour to accept the roles the good god has set for us.”
