by Robin Hobb
“So I’ve heard. From both the doctor and my servants. And before that, Cadet Burvelle? What did you do before that? Did you attempt to keep him from drinking so much? Did you think, perhaps, that it was unwise to urge a boy of Caulder’s years to consume an entire bottle of rot-gut liquor?”
“Sir, that was not my doing!”
“That isn’t what I asked you!” the colonel shouted at me. “Answer my question! Would you have done the same thing to another boy of his years? Don’t you think that pouring liquor down a lad is a poor revenge for childish thoughtlessness?”
I stared at him, unable to comprehend what I was being accused of. My silence seemed to feed his fury.
“He’s a boy, Cadet Burvelle. Still just a boy, prone to a boy’s mischief. He is my son, but even I will admit that he does not have the best judgment. But what do you expect of a growing boy? Whatever grudge you imagine you have against him, it isn’t worth his life. You’re older than he is, and a cavalla cadet. He looked up to you, wanted to be like you, and trusted you blindly! And you betrayed that innocent, boyish trust! For what? Revenge for some minor prank on your fat friend? You went too far! Here!” He suddenly snatched up the paper he had been writing on and thrust it at me. “Those are your discharge papers. You are to be gone from the Academy before classes resume. Pack yourself up and get out of here. There is no room at the King’s Cavalla Academy for men like you.”
“I’ve been culled,” I said dully. I’d been expecting it. I hadn’t expected to be the first officially sent packing.
“No! That would be too good for you. You’ve been dishonourably discharged from this Academy. I trust you know what that means. I intend that you never hold a position of power over any man. You’ve shown that you are not worthy of it, nor to be trusted with it. Take your discharge and go!”
My head was reeling. I did know, very well, what a dishonourable discharge from the Academy meant. It would disqualify me from all military service. I would not be allowed to enlist even as a foot soldier. Oh, there were romantic tales of young men changing their names and enlisting to prove they had reformed themselves, and it was rumoured that some of the civilian scouts who served the military in the more dismal regions were actually dishonourably discharged soldiers. But I knew what the discharge would mean for me. It meant no career, ever. I would go back to my brother’s holdings, and slink about them to the end of my days, a useless son. My father’s line would have to wait an extra generation before my brother’s second son, if there was one, could redeem our honour. I felt physically ill. I’d done a good deed and lost my future. Too late now to go to Captain Maw and tell him I’d be a scout. Too late for everything except disgrace.
I had nothing left to lose. I disobeyed my commander. I did not take the papers he was waving at me, but spoke, unbidden.
“Sir, I fear you have been misinformed about what happened last night. I did not take young Caulder to Dark Evening. I did not even know he was there until I saw him in the company of some other cadets. I did not give him drink. All I did was to go to him after he had drunk a full bottle of liquor and passed out, and see that he got safely home. I swear to you, sir, on my honour, that I had nothing to do with your son’s downfall.”
I felt as if my body were literally burning with my fervour. I know I swayed on my feet and prayed I would not disgrace myself by falling. Colonel Stiet looked at me in disbelief. “Must you compound your failures by lying about them? Do you think my son is unconscious still? Do you think I don’t know everything? He has confessed all to me, Burvelle. All. You were the one who bought the liquor and put it in his hands. You and your friends urged him to drink, even when he told you he had had enough. The others will be discharged as well; they were to be culled anyway.” He looked down at the paper he still gripped in his hand. “I only wish there were something more severe than a dishonourable discharge that I could inflict on you. I will be notifying your uncle. By this afternoon’s mail, he will know of how you have shamed his name.”
“I didn’t do it,” I said, but my words sounded feeble and uncertain. My guts seemed to squirm inside me and I felt a tearing cramp in my side. I could not help myself. I clutched at my belly. “Sir, I’m feeling ill. Permission to leave, sir.”
“You have it. Take your papers with you. I never want to see you in this office again.”
He thrust the paper into my slackened hands. I held it against my complaining stomach as I staggered from the room. In the outer office, the colonel’s secretary stared at me as I passed him by without a word. I hastened out the door and down the steps. Sergeant Rufet was waiting for me, his face impassive. I began a quick march back to the dormitory, but after a few steps I faltered. A wave of vertigo swept over me and I halted, swaying on my feet.
Sergeant Rufet spoke in a low voice. “That must have been some dressing down. Taking it hard, I see. Buck up, Cadet. Be a man.”
Be a man. Stupid, useless advice. “Yes, Sergeant.” I kept walking. Blackness kept trying to close in from the edges of my vision. I would not faint. Never before had foul news had such a profound physical effect on me. My belly boiled with acid and my head spun. I focused my eyes on the path and staggered on.
“So. How many demerits will you be marching off?” he asked. His tone was genial, as if to make light of whatever had befallen me, but I thought there was an edge of concern in it, too.
I could scarcely find breath to answer. “I won’t be marching at all,” I managed, ashamed of how my voice hitched on the words. “I’ve been dishonourably discharged. They’re sending me home in disgrace. I’ll never be a soldier, let alone an officer.”
The sergeant halted in surprise. I think he thought I would stop too, but I kept on walking. I feared I would collapse if I did not. One foot in front of the other. He caught up with me and asked me in a toneless voice, “What did you do, Cadet, to merit that?”
“Nothing. It’s what Caulder accused me of doing. He said I’m the one who got him drunk at Dark Evening. I didn’t. I was just the one who dragged him home.” When the sergeant said nothing, I added bitterly, “His old noble friends are the ones who took him to town and got him drunk. They wanted him to pass out, so they could get into a whorehouse without him. I heard them talking about it. Those old noble bastards left him to freeze on the ground. I picked him up, I obeyed the doctor’s order, I dragged him home, and I’m the one to be kicked out. All because I’m a new noble’s son.”
“Caulder.” The sergeant growled the word like it was curse. Then he added, in a low vicious voice, “New noble, old noble, that’s all I hear and not a damn bit of difference do I see between the lot of you. Any noble’s son is the same to me, born to lord it over me. Damn lot of you wet behind the ears still, but in three years you’ll be polishing your lieutenant’s bars while I’m still riding a damn desk and babysitting youngsters.”
A fresh wave of misery washed over me. In all the times I’d walked past the sergeant’s desk, I’d never stopped to wonder what he thought of us. I glanced over at him. There he was, a man grown, years of service behind him, and in two years of Academy, I would have outranked him. That injustice suddenly seemed as great as what had just befallen me. I drew a breath against the misery that had swollen my throat shut and tried to speak.
“Shut up, Cadet,” he said coldly before I could get a word out. “I’m not any kind of a noble’s son, but I know an injustice when I see it. Listen. Listen to me. Don’t say a damn word about that discharge. Fold it up and shove it in your pocket. And don’t do a damn thing until someone commands you to do it. Shut up and sit tight. Caulder’s been a thorn in my flesh since he and his old man got here. Maybe it’s time I had a word with that pup, and let him know that I know what’s what with his trotting about here and there. I see a damn sight more than I say. Maybe it’s time I put a word in his ear about what I know. Maybe he’ll say something to his father to make him change his mind. But the less people the Colonel has to explain that change to, the easier it will
be for him to do it. So you, you just lie low and don’t do anything for a while. Do you understand me, boy?”
“Yes, sir,” I said shakily. I should have felt better for his words of support. Instead I only felt fainter. “Thank you, sir.”
“You don’t call a sergeant ‘sir’,” he pointed out sourly.
I don’t know how I made the rest of that long march back to Carneston House. He left me at the door and went, with a heavy sigh, to sit behind his desk. I still clutched the my discharge paper in my hand. I started up the stairs. They had never seemed so steep or so long. Sternly, I ordered my body to behave itself and tried to get a grip on myself. On the first landing I paused to catch my breath. Sweat was pouring down my back and ribs. I crumpled up the paper I didn’t have the energy to fold and thrust it into my pocket.
I have climbed cliffs that were less demanding than those remaining flights of stairs. When I reached our rooms at last, I stumbled past Spink sitting at our study table. “You look awful!” he greeted me worriedly. “What happened?”
“I’m sick,” I said and no more than that. I stumbled to our room, let my coat fall to the floor, kicked off my boots and lay on my bunk face down. I’d never felt so wretched in my life. Yesterday, I’d learned that I’d likely be culled, and it had seemed the worst possible fate. Today, I knew how foolish I’d been. Culled, I could have been a ranker or a scout. At least I’d been left a chance to prove myself a proper soldier son. Dishonoured, I was nothing except an embarrassment to my family. My guts squeezed inside me. I only knew that Spink had followed me into the room when he spoke.
“You’re not the only one sick. Trist is down bad, with something a lot worse than a hangover. Oron went to fetch the doctor. And Natred left an hour ago to go to the infirmary. What did you eat at Dark Evening? Natred said he thought he got some bad meat.”
“Leave me alone, Spink. I’m just sick.” I wanted desperately to confide in him about what had just happened, but didn’t even have the energy to unfold the story. Besides, the sergeant had told me to say nothing. Lacking any better source of advice, I’d take his. I tried to take slow calming breaths and regain some sort of control over myself. Nausea surged in my gut. I swallowed and closed my eyes.
I don’t know how much time passed before I admitted to myself that I truly was ill. It seemed fitting that I should be as physically miserable as I was mentally. I could hear Trist retching across the hall. I dozed off, and woke to a hand on my brow. When I turned over, Dr Amicas was looking down at me. “This one, too,” he said tersely to someone. “What is his name?”
“Nevare Burvelle,” I heard Spink say dully. A pen scratched on paper.
When he saw my eyes were open, the doctor demanded, “Tell me everything you ate and drank at Dark Evening. Don’t leave anything out.”
“I didn’t give the liquor to Caulder,” I said desperately. “All I did was bring him home. Like you told me to. He was passed out on the ground when I found him.”
Dr Amicas stooped and peered into my face. “Oh. So that was you last night, was it? You still owe me some cab fare, Cadet, but we’ll let it pass for now. I saw Caulder early this morning. Worst case of alcohol poisoning I’ve ever seen in a boy that young. But. he’ll live. He just won’t enjoy it for a while. Now. What did you eat and drink?”
I tried to remember. “A potato. Some meat on a stick. Something else. Oh. Chestnuts. I had chestnuts.”
“And to drink?”
“Nothing.”
“You won’t be in trouble for it, Cadet. I just need to know. What did you drink?”
I was getting very tired of people thinking I was a liar. But instead of getting angry, I felt weepy. I ached all over. “Nothing,” I said again, past the lump in my throat. “I didn’t drink anything. And Caulder lied about me.”
“Caulder lies about a great many things,” the doctor observed as if that shouldn’t surprise me. “Can you get yourself undressed and into bed, Cadet? Or do you need help?”
I groped at my chest, surprised to find that I was still dressed. When I began to fumble at my buttons, the doctor nodded as if satisfied. I heard someone gag and then begin to retch again. It sounded close by. The doctor scowled and spoke sternly, and this time I realized he had an assistant standing at his elbow. “And there’s another one. I want this whole floor quarantined. No. I want the entire hall quarantined. Go downstairs immediately and tell Sergeant Rufet to post a yellow flag by the door. No one comes in or out.”
I think the assistant was happy to leave judging by how quickly he fled. I sat up to take off my boots and the room spun around me. Nate and Kort were both lying on their bunks. Nate was hanging, head down, over the edge of his mattress, retching into a basin on the floor. Kort was motionless. A frightened-looking Spink was standing near the window, his arms crossed on his chest.
Doggedly, I went to work at getting my shirt off my arms.
“Dr Amicas! What are you doing here? I sent for you an hour ago!”
I flinched at the sound of Colonel Stiet’s voice. As he advanced into the room, his boot heels clacking on our floor, I wondered if it were all a dream. The colonel looked both distraught and furious. His face was red with exertion. Plainly he had hurried up the stairs. The doctor spoke flatly. “Colonel, remove yourself immediately from this building, or risk being quarantined here with me and these cadets. We’ve a grave situation here, one that I will not approach with half-measures. All of Old Thares is at risk.”
“I’ve a grave situation of my own, Doctor. Caulder is ill, seriously ill. I sent my first messenger for you more than an hour ago. He came back to say only that you were ‘busy’. When I came to the infirmary to fetch you myself, they told me you were at Carneston House. I find you up here, mollycoddling hung-over cadets while my boy burns with fever. That is not acceptable, sir. Not acceptable at all!”
“Fever! Damnation! I’m too late then. Unless…” The doctor paused, and knit his brows. I managed to get my shirt off. I let it fall to the floor beside my boots. I went to work on my belt.
“I want you to come to my son’s bedside immediately. That is an order.” Colonel Stiet’s voice shook with passion.
“I want the Academy quarantined.” The doctor spoke as if he had pondered all his options and reached a decision. I do not think he had even heard the colonel’s words. “It is essential, sir. Essential. I fear that what we have here is the first outbreak of the Speck plague to reach the west. It matches every symptom I saw in Fort Gettys, two years ago. If we’re lucky, we can stop it here before it spreads to the whole city.”
“Speck plague? It can’t be. There’s never been a case of Speck plague this far west.” The colonel was shocked; the hard tone of command had gone out of his voice.
“And now there is.” The doctor spoke with angry resignation.
I spoke without thinking. My own voice seemed to come from a great distance. “There were Specks there last night. At Dark Evening. In the freak tent. They did the Dust Dance.”
“Specks?” the colonel exclaimed, appalled. “Here? In Old Thares?”
The doctor spoke over him, demanding of me, “Were they ill? Sickly at all?”
I shook my head. The room was swaying slowly around me. “They danced,” I said. “They danced. The woman was beautiful.” I tried to lean back slowly into my bed. Instead the room spun suddenly, and I fell. Darkness closed in around me.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Plague
My memories of those days are distorted, like images seen through a badly ground magnifying lens. Faces came too close, sound was shocking and light pierced my eyes. I didn’t recognize the room. There was a window opposite my bed and bright winter light shone directly in my face. There were other beds in the room and all of them were occupied. I heard coughing, retching and feverish moaning. My own life had vanished. I did not know where I was.
“Please. Pay attention.”
There was an orderly by my bed with an open notebook in his hand. H
is pencil was poised over it. “Concentrate, Cadet. The doctor demands that every patient answer these questions, no matter what condition he is in. It may be the last important thing you can do with your life. Did you touch a Speck?”
I didn’t care. I just wanted him to go away. Nevertheless, I tried. “They threw dust at us.”
“Did you touch a Speck or did a Speck touch you?”
“Rory stroked her leg.” I thought of that, and my memories spun me back to the sideshow tent. I saw the woman’s mouth soften as he caressed her. I opened my own mouth, longing to kiss her.
A voice shattered the image. “So you’ve told me. Six times. You, Cadet. You…” He flipped over a page and likely found my name, “Nevare Burvelle. Did you touch a Speck or allow a Speck to touch you?”
“Not… really.” Did I? In a dream, I had done far more than touch a Speck. She had been lush and beautiful. No. Fat and disgusting. “It wasn’t real. It didn’t count.”
“That won’t do. Yes or no, Cadet. Did you have carnal contact with a Speck? Don’t be ashamed. It’s too late to for shame now. We know that several other cadets bought time with the Speck woman. Did you? Answer me, yes or no.”
“Yes or no.” I echoed the words obediently.
An exasperated sigh. “Yes, then. I’m putting down yes.”
Dr Amicas’s guess had been correct. It was Speck plague. It went against all we knew of that disease for it to strike so far west and during winter. Conventional wisdom at the time said that it flared, up in the hot dusty days of summer and died down during the cool wet days of fall. But all the other symptoms matched and Dr Amicas, who had seen the disease first-hand, was adamant from the beginning about his diagnosis. It was Speck plague.
Those of us who fell to the first wave of illness were fortunate in a sense, for in the early days of the plague, we got good care. The first circle of cadets to sicken was composed only of those who had visited the freak tent. I have a hazy recollection of a rumpled and unshaven Colonel Stiet striding up and down past our beds, loudly denouncing us as perverts and saying we would all be dishonourably discharged for having unnatural relations. I remember Dr Amicas pointing out that, “Numerically, it simply isn’t feasible that all these lads had relations with the same female on the same night. Even if she’d lined them up like ducks, there simply wasn’t enough time. I’m including your Caulder in that line, of course. For him to become infected so swiftly, he, too, would have had to had congress with her.”
