by L D Inman
“If I can figure that out,” Barklay said, “I’ll know how to duplicate it.”
~*~
Speir arrived back at the east door to find Barklay waiting for her alone. He had put his hood up, but had made no other concession to the weather; Speir had long since dispensed with pride and started using the standard-issue hooded cape for this task, her equipment bag slung across her shoulder underneath. “We’ll cut across the presentation ground and down to the path, that way, sir,” she told him.
“Lead on,” Barklay said.
They edged their careful way single-file down the rocky slope. But even once they’d reached the path and set off walking abreast, Barklay did not immediately open the conversation. Speir did not try to draw him out. She was not afraid of Barklay…or at least, she had thought she was not afraid of him…no, not of Barklay himself, but of something beyond Barklay, something unknown signaled by his mere presence—that old broadening of her consciousness when she was near him, now tinged with anxiety and grief. They reached the first data post, and Speir unlocked the casing without ceremony and took out the tools she would need to check the calibration. The wind veered round and drove into her face; she shook rain and sea spray out of her eyes and bent to her work. Next to her, Barklay stood, his abstracted gaze skipping the heave of waters further down. What are you doing here, Barklay? She was not going to ask.
She finished the post, locked it back up, and moved on; Barklay moved with her.
“Are you well, Speir?” he asked her, finally.
“Yes, sir,” she answered, neutrally, “quite well,” and he gave her a sideways look.
“General Inslee speaks very highly of your work,” he said, “which doesn’t surprise me at all. Though—” he hesitated— “he did say that you and Douglas had been unfortunate enough to lose your sparring privileges.”
“Of course he told you about that,” Speir said, her face warming against the wind. “Is he still angry with us for breaking the rules?”
“I think not. Though he’s a bit miffed at me for encouraging my students’ independence of mind.”
Speir couldn’t help a small snort. Barklay glanced at her again and added, “And he was rather mystified by your attitude about the affair. His interpretation seems to be that you both were bored.”
It seemed to Speir that she should not be this nettled to hear her relationship with Douglas so discussed. She pushed the feeling aside and tried to answer Barklay in the same tone. “Not bored, just keen. We had a great deal of fun. Though if I’d known we were going to lose our sparring privileges over it I’d probably have thought twice. Or,” she amended, “once,” and Barklay’s smile flashed. But it subsided quickly, and Barklay cast his gaze unhappily out to sea again, as if looking for the salvage he had lost hope of sighting.
He hadn’t stopped missing Douglas, Speir thought. She shouldn’t have answered him with any substance; she should have known it would hurt him; unless she’d meant to hurt him without knowing it. Barklay had more reason to envy her than she had to envy him. She didn’t want from Douglas what Barklay wanted, and she didn’t want from Barklay what Douglas wanted.
So then what was this bereft feeling pricking her soul to fury?
They had reached the bottom of the path, sheltered from wind and much of the rain by the rise of the island’s peak, and visible only from the weather tower itself. Speir unlocked the sensor point and got out her tools again; Barklay found a seat on a rock nearby and put his hood back.
He watched her silently. When she finished she tucked her tools away and turned to face him. “So then,” she said, and waited.
“I’m leaving Ryswyck,” Barklay said. “I’m convening a council to make the necessary decisions for its future.”
Speir was not surprised. She said nothing, waiting for the rest.
“I’m having to move quickly. Trying to stay a step ahead of Lord Selkirk, but it’s difficult.”
“He’s forcing you out?” Speir asked.
“No, he wants to take me and the Academy both down together. I’m trying to stop that from happening.”
She scrutinized him: he was looking down at his hands, wiping at spicules of dirt from the rock, avoiding her gaze. “Why now?”
He opened his mouth briefly, but then shook his head without looking up.
“Something’s happened,” Speir said.
He did look up at this. “Will you be on my council, Speir?” he pleaded. “I need your balanced mind.”
“Barklay.”
He looked away. “He’s not himself,” he said. “He’s grieving. I can’t get through to him.”
“Barklay,” Speir said. “What happened?”
A long pause. Then: “His brother John committed suicide last month. John…helped me found Ryswyck. He was with me across the strait.”
Speir had a sudden flash of memory, of the snap on Barklay’s desk: a younger Barklay, a man she had seen at Naval HQ and knew to be the future Lord High Commander—and a third man, junior to them both, with the same features as Alban Selkirk.
“I promised Alban I’d look after him, for his mother’s sake,” Barklay was saying.
It always came back to Solham Fray. “And Lord Selkirk blames you for what happened?”
Barklay made a negating gesture. “He felt as responsible himself. He knew what happened to my village—he did his best to imagine himself in my place. John and I—we talked about founding a school for courtesy. Alban didn’t understand but he left us room to work. He thought—we thought—it might help John heal.”
He looked up at Speir; his eyes seemed as washed of color as the rocks and the sea around them, a monochrome grief. “John was broken by what he did, you see. Broken in mind and soul. And it seemed to help him, building Ryswyck’s traditions, writing chants, constructing the training modules and the arena. John was…the most vivid of men. His lightest smile was like—a holy light. He gave the law of courtesy a weight, made it real in the room with you. He was Ryswyck itself, to me. And I’m the only one left to remember him. Except for Alban.” Barklay laced and unlaced his fingers, stared again out to sea. “Because it all fell apart after a few years. John grew…erratic. He would do things on purpose to break courtesy, and then grovel in apology. He’d be all right for a while, then he’d do something even worse, fly into a rage, abandon his duties to leave campus for some inn to plaster himself in. Finally, he…mistreated a student, and I had to ask Alban to find him another commission. He was bitterly angry about leaving Ryswyck. But I didn’t have any choice.
“He bounced himself down the ladder rung by rung, and within a few years he’d fouled himself out of the army altogether. I’d hear from him from time to time; he borrowed money and never paid it back. Last year, after the mess with Jarrow, Alban insisted I stop contact. John grew desperate. He—tried blackmail. I told him to go ahead and speak out, if that was what he wanted. Then he threatened to hang himself. I didn’t think he’d go through with….”
The silence between them was not empty; the wind and the surf kicked up, and a billow of rain and spray rolled over the face of the cliff. Speir said: “He was going to blackmail you for Solham Fray?”
“No,” Barklay said. “Not for what I did at Solham Fray. For what I did at Ryswyck.”
“You mean….” Speir didn’t want to think of it. “You mean—Douglas?”
Barklay’s shoulders were bowed, an attitude she had never seen in him before. “John didn’t know about Douglas,” he said quietly. “Though he…suspected Douglas’s existence. And yours as well. He…knew me very well.”
“I don’t understand,” Speir said. But it wasn’t true: her body was already telling her to walk, fast and far, and leave Barklay behind. She firmed her boots on the rock, and forced herself to listen.
Barklay wasn’t looking at her. “John left a letter behind. He rambled. He said…he said that he bore the secret cost of sustaining Ryswyck, that I had taken all my discourtesy and fastened it upon him, that—” he swallowed ha
rd— “that I used him up and cast him aside. The worst possible complexion…but I can’t—”
“Deny it?” Speir said. Secrets that were not secrets. Douglas had suffered for Ryswyck, had covered for Barklay, borne his trespasses, absorbed his faults. But Douglas— “But Douglas is stable,” Speir said. “You said that, sir. You said—that was why—” But it couldn’t have been the only reason why, she thought now. It hadn’t been a coincidence, John Selkirk’s dark eyes and mischievous smile. “You’re telling me that John Selkirk’s mind was broken, that his soul was unstable—and you took him and made use of him anyway?” Speir could hear the horrified plaint in her own voice. “I don’t—why would—why would you do such a thing?”
“Because I was broken too,” Barklay said softly.
Speir couldn’t help it; she had to turn away. I don’t want to know this. She swallowed; swallowed again. “Why do you tell me this?” she said, her voice harsh against the whispering surf.
Because you asked. He didn’t say it, or answer right away; though she could not hear anything over the race of wind, she thought he was swallowing tears. Finally: “Because if you join the council for Ryswyck, you will hear all of what I just told you, and worse. I couldn’t stand for you to be blindsided.”
Or to miss your chance to tell your side first. The thought popped spontaneously into Speir’s mind. She turned around. “Are you going to ask Douglas to your council?”
Barklay looked at her helplessly, and Speir answered her own question, growing more angry with every word. “You want him there. But you can’t bear to ask him. You want me to ask him for you. Well, what if I said no?”
“That is your right,” Barklay said, quietly.
“I don’t need you to tell me what my right is, sir!”
“I know.” Barklay’s voice was almost inaudible now. “But I thought you might like to hear me acknowledge the fact.”
“That’s a pretty safe acknowledgement, sir,” Speir said, “given that people so rarely say no to you. For things great or small.”
“Speir—”
“Barklay, you don’t need a council. You need a massive acknowledgment of fault! You say John Selkirk was Ryswyck to you—well, you are Ryswyck to us. What do you think is going to happen when all this comes out? You’re not going to be able to sing fast enough or loud enough to weave that spell over again. They won’t be able to turn a blind eye anymore. Your trespasses won’t seem an accident anymore. Your own students will ask if your courtesy was just a cover for cruelty. And that’s just Ryswyck. Never mind what others will think!”
“Yes,” Barklay said.
“And without Solham Fray it won’t make sense. And if you try to go back and explain that, it’ll only make it worse. Barklay, you owed it to your own vision to keep your trespasses to yourself. And you didn’t do it.”
“You are right,” Barklay said.
“Douglas is your test case. He believed in the courtesy of Ryswyck with his whole heart, and now he can’t bear to hear the word spoken aloud. What happened between you to break his trust like that?”
He looked away, shutting his eyes against her demand. “I can’t discuss it. It’s for Douglas to say.”
“Did you tell him about your past with John Selkirk?”
“No,” Barklay shuddered.
“Well, he’s going to hear about it soon enough, whether he agrees to be on your council or not. Did you ever acknowledge fault to him?” At her words Barklay turned and looked mutely up at her, and she went on, “I can’t imagine you would; you’ve never acknowledged fault to me, after all.”
“Have you given up on Ryswyck, too, then, Speir?” he said, his eyes sad and direct.
There was no obvious answer to this. No seemed closer to the truth, or it had until this moment; yes seemed realistic but cruel to her own hopes. “Ryswyck…is all I have left,” Speir said finally.
Barklay spread open his hands. “You see why I need you.”
Am I nothing to you but what you need? Speir still couldn’t weep, but she felt that if she opened her mouth at just the right instant, her soul might decant a long cry of anguish and rage. But the right instant passed. Like Barklay’s chance at amendment? She shouldn’t compare her fault to Barklay’s, or at least she knew that was what Douglas would say. The Douglas, that is, who knew her as his friend and not as Barklay’s surreptitious agent.
“I will come to your council,” Speir said. “I will try to save what I can from the wreckage. And I’ll inform Douglas that you’ve invited him.” Which will not go well. “And that is all I will do. The rest is up to you, sir.”
“Fair enough,” said Barklay.
That made her angry all over again. “It’s more than fair, General Barklay, sir,” she bit off.
Barklay bent his head, but he didn’t say anything else. After a moment Speir resettled her equipment bag across her shoulder and moved on; Barklay got to his feet and rejoined her on the path.
They rounded the bottom of the path; as they emerged from the protection of the island’s promontory, the wind buffeted them harder. It tore at Speir’s rock-gray hood, and she pulled the strings tighter. Barklay fastened the snaps of his. Speir stopped at another sensor point; when she was done she looked up at him where he stood a few yards away, staring out to sea again, his profile half-obscured by his dripping hood. She followed his gaze: the mist and spray had cleared enough to reveal a long distance of heaving horizon. On the other side of that horizon lived their enemy; their other enemy, the enemy not at home.
“What’s Berenia like, Barklay?” Speir asked, as if it were a normal question, as if the space between their souls were not broken. She badly needed the pretense, for the moment.
He answered in kind. “Climate’s very different than it is here, of course. Sun nearly all year round. In the northern districts there are vineyards, rows and rows and miles and miles of terraces with green vines shining in the sun.”
“Where the reservoirs are.” It was an academic exercise to Ilonian weather cartographers, to map places where people worked to conserve water. The surveillance images hardly did justice to Barklay’s description.
“Yes,” Barklay said. Unspoken between them was the knowledge that those reservoirs would be the immediate first object of any attack.
“And what are the people like?” Speir asked.
“Not so different from us, really. More…contained, I suppose. Precise. Great lovers of the foil.” Speir smiled sadly at his return to the old preoccupation. “At least they were; I don’t know what may have changed. But twenty years ago no one’s training was complete unless they worked with one of the Bernhard masters. It was one thing they all had in common, whether they counted themselves from the houses or the militant orders or the laborers or the monks.”
Barklay had taken his share of such training, that much had always been clear. “Could you meet a master-trained foilist in the arena?” she asked.
“Well,” Barklay said, “if you could get him to overcome being appalled at my renegade designs. But probably. I’d have liked the opportunity.” Speir noted the elegiac verb tense; the cry rose again within her, but she still could not give it voice.
They finished her rounds in silence; the rain set in again and poured down in sheets, so that even as they passed other soldiers at the top of the path, everyone’s heads were bent and their glances incurious; Barklay’s insignia were wetted by the rain and half-obscured under his hood, his stride no more authoritative than any other soldier’s. He probably wasn’t even aware that he had retreated into camouflage; not that it would work, Speir reflected, her heart aching afresh.
She caught her breath from the ascent and looked up; through the haze of rain she could see Inslee waiting under the covered walk outside the main block.
“I’ll leave you here, sir,” she said; “I must go to the weather tower to decant my data. I wish you a safe flight home.” Home. It was as hard to imagine Barklay without Ryswyck as it was to imagine Ryswyck wit
hout Barklay.
“Thank you, Speir,” Barklay said. “I’ve asked General Inslee for your leave to attend council at Ryswyck, and I’ll send an official request soon. I….” He stopped, began again. “I know I have not justified your generosity. But still I’m grateful for it.”
She couldn’t think of anything to say, except, “Thank you, sir.” But as they both began to turn away, she said abruptly, “Sir?”
“Yes?”
“Did you intend me to take this commission? Am I here at Cardumel because you wanted me to be?”
He gave her a pained smile, framed by the narrow darkness of his hood. “I wanted a number of things. Half of which were in conflict with the other half. You…between the two of us, it’s you who’s the honest soldier. That,” he said, “is its own vindication. I want you to hold to that. More than anything else.”
He had answered her better than he knew. She closed her wet hand and laid it against her heart: a stricken look came into his eyes as she met them with her own firm gaze.
“I’ll see you at the council, sir,” she said. And walked away without looking back.
5
It took two days for Speir to work out how to get a moment alone with Douglas. She needed every minute of those two days: Barklay’s confession ate down into her like acid, and she went about her duties feeling stricken and ill. If he had drawn an unwell man like John Selkirk into his needs; if it hadn’t mattered after all that she was strong enough to bear such burdens for him, then the only other reason for him to have asked it of her was…that he had felt sure she would yield. Honest soldier. What was an honest soldier worth? Oh, Barklay.
Ryswyck is all I have left, she had said, and Barklay had once said: There’s nothing heroic about trying to save one’s own life. He had been talking about his reasons for founding Ryswyck, but he had meant this too, she saw now. Had he told her these things thinking it wouldn’t really harm her? She thought: You were incorrect, Barklay. I’m not enough to master this.
