Ryswyck

by L D Inman

  “May I join you a moment?” he said.

  “Certainly, sir.”

  He crossed the pavestones and took his seat next to her on the bench, settling himself with a sigh. The lamplight picked out the lines at the corner of his eye, the marks left by years of smiling, of squinting into light. He’d seen more summers than she.

  She had thought at first that he had something to say to her; but minutes passed and he merely sat there, soaking in the evening quiet. She relaxed into the stone wall at her shoulderblades; the bench had either warmed under her or her backside had grown cold to meet it.

  After a while he said softly: “How does your father do?”

  “Very ill,” she answered. She could give him the sorrow and leave the shame for herself. “He doesn’t know me anymore.”

  He made a little sound, not quite voiced, as if taking a blow to the solar plexus. That was all; that was enough.

  If she had been a little younger, she might have wanted to accept shelter from him against the howl of grief. If she had been younger, and if he had not known better than to offer it. But quite apart from the upright pull of responsibility, Barklay was not a soothing presence, even if he wanted to be. Even as she relaxed Speir could feel her mind coming more awake, seeking out the higher spaces above the immediate stream of daily experience. She ceased to think only of the next day’s classwork and training, and was aware again of the world around them, of the gaps in her knowledge there, and of the urgent feeling that she was not yet ready for what was coming next.

  When he spoke again his query seemed native to her own thoughts, as if they had been sharing a subject of contemplation. “What do you want to do, Lieutenant?” he said. “After Ryswyck, I mean. In the war. What is your thought?”

  Speir thought of Cameron as she answered. “When I first joined the army, I told my father I wanted to be an honest soldier. I think that hurt him, though I didn’t mean to.” She had wanted to find a life in the military that was clear of the subterfuge that Speir associated with her father’s suffering; her father had probably guessed at her thoughts, for he had not opposed her. Cameron probably hadn’t meant to hurt her family either, at least more than she had to in order to court the Navy. She smiled ruefully at the memory of Cameron, alone and upright. Jarrow wouldn’t dare try to bribe Cameron, if he had his wits about him; her scorn would shrivel him to a wisp, Speir felt sure. “But now,” she said slowly, “I begin to think even an honest soldier needs to know how subterfuge works. I wish I had listened to him more, when I had the chance.”

  Barklay grunted, still listening.

  “I want—” Speir groped for the right words— “I want to do something wholehearted, something worth giving myself to. If that’s simply to fight and die on a battlefront, I’d be content; but in the meantime—” She stopped, and could not think how to go on.

  “In the meantime, you give yourself to this,” Barklay answered softly, gesturing outward at the dark quad. “I’m told you have done very good work in cartography and meteorology.”

  “I’ve enjoyed the coursework, and I like getting the feel of a place in all its layers.” Then she sighed. “But there are things yet that I don’t know how to make maps for.”

  “I wish I could tell you,” Barklay chuckled, “that the problem diminishes with age.”

  They sat in companionable silence for a little longer; and then Speir said, “I had better get along to the archive room. I’m on duty at breakfast tomorrow.”

  “Mm,” he said. “I shan’t keep you.”

  Speir got up achingly and stretched herself; the stone seat had done its best to give her its chill in trade for her warmth. She looked back at Barklay where he sat with his hands quiet on his knees.

  “Good night, General Barklay, sir.”

  He smiled; and the smile seemed to her a little sad. “An honest soldier you are, without doubt. Good night, Lieutenant.”

  They saluted one another gently; and Speir left Barklay to his vigil.

  ~*~

  Stevens might have missed the original quarrel, but the following morning, when Douglas stopped on his way to the rota captains’ meeting to gather him up from the infirmary, Stevens was humming with anticipation of his front-row view.

  “This is one meeting I’m looking forward to,” Stevens said, breaking down the last of the supply cartons with an efficient flourish. He gathered up the pile in his mountainous grasp, called a farewell to Captain Wallis within, and carried them down the corridor to the incinerator hatch. Douglas helped him feed them into the opening.

  “Mind you,” Stevens said, “I’d prefer a positive ending over all. Breaches of courtesy are best in the mending.”

  “I prefer the security of never hearing ‘em split when I crouch, myself,” Douglas said.

  Stevens sputtered into a laugh. He was still chortling when they emerged from the arena complex into the quad, where Cameron and Ellis stood waiting for them. “‘Breeches’ of courtesy,” he muttered, and snickered again.

  Douglas grinned, just as Ahrens came out of the main doors of the arena complex and joined his fellow rota captains on the quad.

  “And there’s Lieutenant Split Trousers himself,” Stevens said. Cameron turned to him a deprecating look. “You can’t deny me the entertainment,” he said to her.

  “Oh, yes I can. Good morning, Lieutenant Ahrens,” Cameron said, utterly composed.

  Ahrens returned her greeting with equal composure. The air between them was pregnant with conscious courtesy, as if it filled a gap left behind by anger and tension.

  “Unless I miss my guess, Stevens,” Douglas said as they ambled together toward the main compound, “you missed the whole thing.”

  “Damn!” Stevens turned to Ahrens. “So you and Cameron have mended it between you, then?”

  Ahrens blushed suddenly. Cameron turned her head to hide a smile.

  “Oho, so that’s the way of it, is it?” Stevens grinned. “Solved it in the other arena, did you?”

  “Well, that’s hardly fair,” Douglas said, grinning himself. “I was looking forward to seeing some pretty baton work this week.”

  “I’m sure there was baton work involved,” Stevens sniggered. “Just not for public consumption.”

  “Presuming all’s well at the end.” Douglas cocked a look of mock skepticism at Ahrens. “Is it?”

  “Yes, it is, blast you,” Ahrens said, lunging to give Douglas a heavy shove. Douglas reeled back a few steps and went down with a splash in the wet grass, but he made sure to take Ahrens down with him. They rolled over together, laughing.

  “Boys,” Cameron said, but neither of them heeded her. “Here comes General Barklay!” and at her sharper voice Douglas struggled up to look. It was indeed Barklay headed toward them across the quad from the senior officers’ block: and Marag was with him.

  He pushed Ahrens off him; Ahrens rolled to his feet and helped Douglas up. Douglas brushed at the beads of water on his uniform, but it had soaked through the wool in places and was soon going to be very chilly. Ahrens, he noticed, was wet through all across the backside. He was still grinning when the forces met.

  Barklay greeted them with an indulgent smile, and they all continued together to the cloister entrance. The meeting commenced in Barklay’s office, around his conference table; Marag listened to the giving of reports with his usual quiet attention, as if he’d never been gone.

  For a while it looked to Douglas as if the meeting would pass without acknowledgment of yesterday’s conflict. Stevens’s disappointment might have been wholly complete, except that Barklay chose to skip Ahrens’s rota for Cameron’s, and end the round of briefings with Ahrens. Ahrens gave his report as if ducking his head below the level of invisible fire, and Barklay listened serenely. In the silence after Ahrens finished, Barklay shuffled a few papers and then nailed him with a glance.

  “I understand there was an incident yesterday involving a breach of courtesy,” he said, and everyone, Marag included, shifted wei
ght and grew attentive. “Is that correct, Lieutenant Ahrens?”

  Ahrens changed color again. “Yes, sir.”

  “And has that been addressed?”

  “Yes, sir,” Ahrens said, quietly.

  Barklay’s glance shifted to Cameron’s face, and everyone’s eyes followed. “Yes, sir,” Cameron said, her chin resolutely up.

  “Mm. And who owned fault?”

  “I did,” they both said, their voices and then their glances crossing, before they looked back at Barklay silently.

  “That sounds encouraging,” Barklay said. “What’s been done to mend it?”

  Stevens sucked in his lips against a smile. Cameron glared at him briefly across the table and then said: “We chose to mend it privately, sir.”

  “To both your satisfactions, I take it.”

  Stevens made a tiny fricative noise, which drew a united glare from both Cameron and Ahrens. “Yes, sir,” Ahrens said.

  “I’m glad to hear that the matter was so expeditiously resolved,” Barklay said mildly. Douglas saw Marag cast his gaze down with a dry half-smile, just before Barklay went on: “And what is being done to mend the example you set for your comrades and subordinates?”

  His voice and gaze had turned utterly arid: Cameron and Ahrens did not linger on chagrin, but straightened up in their chairs; Douglas could see them both thinking quickly.

  Barklay was a fine one to talk about mending examples: after all, it had taken an incident of this magnitude to push his quarrel with Jarrow out of the center of gossip. Douglas looked at him pointedly, but though he was sitting directly in Barklay’s line of sight, Barklay’s eyes missed meeting his.

  “I would be glad to acknowledge my fault before the assembly,” Ahrens said slowly.

  “I’m not sure that would work,” said Ellis, before Cameron could protest. “Or at least, I’m not sure it would be sufficient to restore Cameron’s standing in the general opinion.”

  “Which is why I should be the one to acknowledge fault,” Cameron said.

  Stevens shook his head. “Even worse.”

  “My reputation is not Ahrens’s fault,” Cameron said grimly, “nor was it the work of a day.”

  “Perhaps they should go to the arena,” Ellis said.

  “That’s precisely what we wished to avoid,” Cameron said.

  “But why?” Ellis said, and, “Other than the obvious reasons,” Stevens murmured, earning another united glare.

  “Maybe because we’d had our fill of public embarrassment?” Ahrens said, still glowering at Stevens. “Thanks very much for your assistance on that score, by the way.”

  “I don’t pass on malice,” Stevens protested.

  “You don’t smother it either,” Ellis pointed out; this, plus a raised eyebrow from Barklay, made Stevens drop his eyes and accept the rebuke with closed hand to heart.

  Cameron, keeping to the point, said: “I don’t want to go to the arena. It’s our example as rota captains that needs mending here, not my reputation.”

  “It’s my example that made your reputation an issue,” Ahrens corrected her. “Just because I lost my temper doesn’t mean you should spend your last year at Ryswyck generally disliked.”

  “That’s my adventure if I like to take it,” Cameron said tartly. “Butt out, Ahrens,” and the whole table started to laugh.

  “Cameron is right,” Douglas said, speaking for the first time, “or—she would be, if Ahrens’s reputation weren’t also at issue.”

  “Ahrens’s courtesy and competence are not what most people have been talking about,” Stevens said.

  “No, but they will as soon as everything calms down. I think Cameron damaged his standing as much as he did hers.”

  “That, I would mend if I could,” Cameron said.

  “So then, we agree,” Ahrens said.

  “We agree about mending our example,” she answered. “Not about pushing off our proper work.”

  “Our proper work?” repeated Ahrens. “What, even if we do it badly?” and Cameron made a face at him.

  “So then, what?” Stevens said. “An announcement at assembly?”

  “Perhaps you should say something, sir,” Douglas said to Barklay. He managed finally to capture Barklay’s eye, but Ellis answered first.

  “That might be all right as a start. But, at the risk of belaboring the point, there is only one place where everyone in the school will be present and attentive for such a reconciliation, and that is the arena.”

  “He’s right,” Marag said quietly.

  Cameron said, frustrated, “I don’t want to fight Ahrens.”

  “You don’t want to lose to me?” Ahrens smirked.

  “As if I would,” she retorted, and he grinned at her.

  “There are ways in which putting them to a match might exacerbate the problem,” Douglas said dryly, and half the table chuckled. “Perhaps if they went to the arena and didn’t fight.”

  “Hm,” Barklay said.

  “Has that been done?” Marag asked him.

  “Well, there have been matches ended early by the combatants before, to declare satisfaction before the traditional three rounds are ended….” Barklay tapped his lips thoughtfully. “It’s been rare, though. It does require confidence in one’s own courage.”

  “So then, the whistle would blow and I would concede in the first instant?” Cameron said. “I suppose I could do that.”

  “And I would concede likewise,” Ahrens said.

  “In which case there’s little point in my blowing the whistle at all,” Marag said. “You should just break your batons and call it well.” Cameron and Ahrens were both nodding.

  “I notice no one’s questioning what the format would be,” Stevens grinned, and was not at all put out when the others ignored him.

  “That’s a short match to disturb the schedule with,” Barklay said, and waited.

  Cameron was quick on the uptake. “I could give up my place in the schedule a few weeks from now,” she said, with a gesture of chastened resignation.

  “And if I do the same, our opposite numbers would each have someone to pair with,” Ahrens added, with equal regret.

  “Provided they haven’t already met in the arena in the recent past,” Marag said. “I’ll check that out this afternoon and we’ll make the changes before the next junior officer meeting.”

  “Well,” Barklay said briskly, “that all sounds like a satisfactory arrangement. Does everyone agree?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Very well, then. Let us adjourn. Marag, if you would stay briefly….” They all rose and pushed in their chairs. Douglas rubbed at the drying damp spots on his trousers; they were still cold, but they might warm up on his walk down to the farm to check up on his responsibilities for the week.

  Barklay leaned away from Marag for a moment. “Douglas, did you have something for me?”

  He clearly hadn’t missed Douglas’s attempts to pin him during the meeting. Douglas didn’t feel like pursuing it, and especially not in private. “No, sir,” he said.

  Not that Barklay was fooled. “Every day a new tradition. Well, then.”

  “Yes, sir.” Douglas saluted him and made his escape.

  On his way to the cloister he found himself falling into step with Cameron, whose way lay with his till they reached the arena walkway.

  “Thanks for being a voice of reason, by the way,” Cameron said.

  Douglas gave her a sympathetic look. “Well, I suppose it could have been worse, though you didn’t quite get the private settlement you wanted.”

  “No.” She heaved a sigh. “Ah, well.”

  He couldn’t stop from making a small face. “Did you really go to bed with him?”

  Cameron shrugged.

  “Thought you didn’t like him.”

  “I like him fine,” she said. “It seemed like a simple enough way to work off the energy after we’d owned fault. And,” she added with a small sniff, “I was keen.”

  Douglas chuckle
d. “Fair enough.”

  “We can’t all bring Ahrens to heel with a single glare,” she said.

  “Ah, now—”

  “—Unless rumor has it wrong, and you slept with him, too.” Cameron shot him a wicked little grin.

  “Get on with you!” But he was smiling too.

  “I’d have been surprised to hear you had,” Cameron said, “speaking of reputations.” He cast her a sidelong wary look, but she went on equably: “Stevens reckons you are continent by nature, but I think you probably got it out of your system at university. And now, you’re only keen for people you already love.”

  That was not at all how Douglas would have chosen to put it, but she was more or less correct. So he held his peace.

  “And not even all of those,” Cameron mused on. “The word is you haven’t sought Speir out for a bedfellow.”

  “Nor I have,” Douglas said. They passed into the cloister, temporarily deserted although Douglas expected any moment to hear the carillon signal the change of classes.

  Cameron was sizing him up shrewdly. “Because you’re not keen? Or because you’re far too keen?”

  “Because it hasn’t been a pressing necessity,” Douglas said, dryly. “For either of us.”

  “Mm,” Cameron said. “Well, word to the wise, Douglas. If that ever changes you may well find yourself having to compete for her attention.”

  “Well, that’s in accordance with reality,” Douglas agreed. It pleased him to think of his friend as the object of well-deserved admiration.

  “Indeed. She’s not even come to her full strength yet, and she already commands a following. Barklay included.”

  Cameron hadn’t been expecting him to stop. She retraced a pace and a half to level with the place where he’d halted, and looked at him warily.

  “What about Barklay?” Douglas said, very quietly.

  Cameron looked as though she regretted the turn of this conversation. It was about two turns too late as far as Douglas was concerned, but under his intent gaze she produced a reluctant answer. “He…takes note of her. When she’s present.”

  “Says who?”

  Cameron lifted her hands as if to fend off his glare with her palms. “Just,” she said, “my own observation. It’s not been generally canvassed. He’s very discreet about it. Not offensive. Well, this is Barklay we’re talking about; I’m sure he could commit a great offense without making himself offensive. But I don’t think that’s what this is.”