Shaman's Crossing (36 page)

Sergeant Rufet distributed our mail to us. Often we returned from our morning classes to find whatever we had received set precisely in the center of each bed. In my dream, there was a letter addressed to me in my sister Yaril’s hand, but I immediately knew that it held tidings from Carsina. I slipped it inside my uniform jacket, resolving to open it alone and unobserved so that I could privately savor whatever she had written to me. In the golden last light of the afternoon, I slipped away from the dormitory to a peaceful copse of oak trees that graced an expanse of lawn to the east of Carneston House. There, I leaned against the trunk of a tree and opened my long-awaited letter. Light filtered down through the canopy of autumn leaves. A light layer of fallen leaves on the ground shifted softly in the evening breeze from the river.

I drew the longed-for pages from the envelope. My sister’s letter was a large golden leaf. As I looked at it, it turned brown, the inked lines fading with the color change. The edges of the leaf curled in, until it resembled the dry husk of a butterfly’s cocoon. When I tried to unfurl it, it crumbled into tiny brown bits and blew away on the wind.

Carsina’s letter was written on paper. I tried to read it, but her handwriting, once so large and looping, crawled into tiny spidery letters, the characters becoming so ornate they defied my eyes. But within the page was a pressed trio of violets. They were carefully enfolded in a sheet of fine paper. When I opened them and put them on my palm, I could suddenly smell their fragrance as strongly as if they were freshly bloomed. I put my nose close to them, breathing in their perfume and knowing, somehow, that Carsina had worn this tiny bouquet pinned to her dress for a day before she had pressed them and sent them to me. I smiled, for the scent of the flowers was the air of her love for me. I was so blessed that the woman destined to be mine regarded me with affection and anticipation. Not all arranged partners were so fortunate. My future was gold before me and assured. I would be an officer and I would lead men and acquit myself well in feats of war. My lady would come to me, to be my wife and to fill my home with children. When my days as a cavalla officer were done, we would retire to live out our years in Widevale in a gracious home on my brother’s holding.

As I thought these thoughts, the violets in my hand began to grow. They budded and more blossoms joined the three, and the three eldest blossoms formed tiny seeds, which dropped on the palm of my hand. There they germinated, sinking tiny roots into the lines of my palm and opening small green leaves to the sunlight. Flowers with the faces of children began to open. I watched over them, cherishing them, as I leaned on the trunk of a great oak.

I do not know what made me look up from them. She made no sound. She stood, unmoving as a tree, looking at me with great determination. Tiny flowers bloomed in her hair. The robe that draped her was the gold of birch leaves in autumn. The majestic tree woman shook her head in slow denial. “No,” she said. Her voice was quiet, and not unkind, but her words reached my ears with absolute clarity. “That is not for you. That may do for others, but a different fate awaits you. There is a task to be done, you were chosen for it, and even now it awaits you. Nothing and no one shall lead you away from it. You will go to it, even if you must go as a dog that flees from flung stones. It is given to you to turn them back. Only you can do it, soldier’s boy. All else must be put aside until your task is done.”

Her words horrified me. It could not be so. I looked back at the future I held so securely. Cupped in my hand, the foliage of the tiny offspring of our love thrived briefly, then, horrifyingly, yellowed and shriveled. The little faces closed their eyes and grew pale and wan. The blossoms bent, withering, and then suddenly subsided into rotting foliage in the palm.

“No!” I cried, and only then felt how the oak had taken me in. Its bark had grown over my shoulders and engulfed my torso. Years before, my brother and I had left a rope swing tied to the branch of a gully willow. As time had passed, the tree’s limb had swelled up around the rope until the constricting line was invisible. So was this tree engulfing me, growing around me and taking me inside it. It was too late to struggle. Bemused by the flowers in my hand, I had been unwary.

I lifted my head and opened my mouth to scream. Instead, soundlessly, I vomited forth a cascade of green tendrils. They dove into the earth at my feet, and then rose again as saplings. On the lawn before me a forest sprouted, and I felt them drawing sustenance from my body. As Nevare, I dwindled to nothing, and became instead a green awareness. My tree selves grew and first encroached on the campus buildings and then enfolded them. My roots buckled the walkways and cracked foundations. My branches thrust into glassless windows. I sent wandering yellow tendrils across the dusty floors of empty classrooms. The Academy fell before me and became a forest, a forest that slowly began to climb over the walls of the grounds and spread out into the streets and byways of Old Thares.

I felt nothing about all this. I was green, alive and growing, and that meant all was well. Everything was safe. I had protected them all. Then I felt footsteps pacing slowly through me; someone moved through the forest I had become. Slowly I became aware of her. With great fondness, I turned my attention to her.

The immense tree woman of my spirit dream turned her face up to the lances of sunlight that shafted down onto her through my many leafy branches. Her gray-green hair cascaded down her back. She smiled up at me, and the flesh that wreathed her face echoed her smile. “You did it. You stopped them. This is your success.” I felt a surge of pride in myself. I understood. The healing of the earth that I worked in my world would be a healing of this other world as well.

A moment later a wave of horror replaced it. My enemy had corrupted me. I did not love her and her forest. My love was for my homeland, my loyalty to my king. I saw her as she really was. She was fat and disgusting, her many chins wobbling like a frog about to croak. I could not give my life to
that
.

I woke to Spink gripping me by the shoulders and shaking me roughly. “Wake up, Nevare. You’re having a bad dream!” he was shouting at me as I became aware of the darkness of the dormitory. I fell back into my crumpled blankets gratefully.

“A dream. Oh, thank the good god, just a dream. A dream.”

“Go back to sleep!” Natred pleaded in an agonized groan of weariness. “It’s still a couple of hours before reveille. I need all the sleep I can get.”

In a few moments the room was quiet around me again, save for the heavy breathing of my roommates. Sleep was a very precious commodity to cadets; we never seemed to get enough of it. Yet the rest of that night, it eluded me. I stared into the dark corner of my dormitory room and told myself over and over that it had only been a dream. I wrung my hands together, trying to eliminate the itching feeling that the roots had left on my palms. But worse was the burning in my heart. I had fretted before that I did not possess the natural leadership Spink and Trist manifested so plainly, but I had never doubted my courage. Yet in my dream, I had clearly chosen to ally myself with the tree woman. Was my dream a truth from my soul? Did cowardice lurk in me? Could I be a traitor? I could conceive of no other reason that I would turn away from patriotism for king and family.

The next day was torture for me. I could scarcely keep my eyes open, and earned demerits for myself in Varnian and math classes. I was both exhausted and ravenous when we returned to the dormitory at noon. I could not decide which I wanted more, my lunch or a brief nap, until I spied the envelope awaiting me on my bunk. Spink and Natred had also received mail, and tore into it joyously. I realized I was standing and staring at mine when Kort nudged me. “Isn’t that something you’ve been hoping for?” The smile he gave me was both warm and teasing.

“Perhaps,” I said guardedly. He was looking at me expectantly, so I picked it up. It was addressed to me in my sister’s familiar hand, but it weighed more than one of her perfunctory messages would have. Kort was watching me avidly. I couldn’t send him away, for I realized belatedly that I had watched him with the same envy when he had received mail. At any other time I would have resented his vicarious sharing of this moment, but it was suddenly comforting to have him there. Last night had been a dream, and Kort standing next to me anchored me in reality. This envelope might well hold a message from Carsina. A message from my future bride and the woman who would be mother to my children. I tore open the envelope and coaxed out the contents.

A dutiful letter from my sister, several pages longer than usual, enclosed another written on fine onionskin paper. I forced myself to read my sister’s missive first. She did, indeed, know of several things I could send her from Old Thares, should I have the opportunity to get into town. Her list was quite specific and occupied two pages of her letter. Beads, in certain colors, sizes, and quantities. Lace, no more than one inch wide, in white, ecru, and the palest blue I could find, in quantities of at least three yards each. Buttons shaped like berries, cherries, apples, acorns, or birds, but not like dogs or cats, please. At least twelve of each, and if they came in two sizes, an additional four in the smaller size. After the sewing notions, there followed a list of drawing pencils and then several nibs she would like to have. I had to smile at her cheerful avarice. I suspected she well knew that I would do my best to get her some, if not all, of her heart’s desires.

Shaking my head, I refolded her letter and turned my attention to the packet of fine paper within it. A drop of crimson wax sealed that missive, and lacking a ring to seal it, the delicate imprint of a small finger. I tried to leave it intact as I opened it and failed utterly. It cracked into red crumbles. As I unfolded the pages, a fine dust of brown flakes cascaded from them onto my bunk.

“Look at that! His girl has sent him snuff!” Kort exclaimed in amazement. Several heads turned to see what he was talking about. I was already making my way through the maze of Carsina’s looping handwriting. The fallen fragments did indeed resemble snuff, but I could not imagine that she had sent me such a gift.

I read through two flowery pages of endearments and loneliness and anticipation before I solved the mystery. “And herein I enclos several pansies from my garden. These are the largest and brightest blooms I have ever rased, and I have presed them carefully for you so that they held their colors. Some people fancy that pansies have little faces. If these ones do, then each one holds a kiss for you, for I have plased them there myself!”

I smiled. “She has sent me pressed flowers,” I said to Kort.

“Oh, posies for her sweetheart!” he mocked me, but even in that mocking there was an acknowledgment that we shared something, and I felt manlier for him knowing that there was a girl who waited for me. I slit the other side of the envelope and spread it open carefully, looking for my keepsake. But all I found was brown dust that dribbled out to float on the air before settling onto the floor. I looked at it in dismay.

“The flowers must have dried away to nothing.”

Kort raised one eyebrow. “How long ago did she send them to you? Has the letter been delayed?”

I checked the date. “Actually, it’s traveled quite rapidly. It has taken only ten days to reach me.”

He shook his head at me, a smile on his face. “Then I think your lady is having a bit of a joke with you, Nevare. Nothing decays that fast. Now your dilemma: do you thank her for her pretty posies, or ask her why she sent you a thimbleful of compost?”

Others of my schoolmates had overheard now. Rory had come into the room and brayed out his laugh with, “I’m thinkin’ that she’s testing you to see how honest you are, brother!”

I brushed the fine debris from my bed. It clung to my palm. My hand tingled strangely. I resisted the urge to stare at it and managed a weak smile. “We’re going to miss our meal if we don’t leave now.”

“And we’re going to fail our inspection if you don’t sweep up your ‘flowers’!” Spink added heartlessly.

I did as Spink advised, and then hastily washed my hands as they all waited on me. By late evening I had convinced myself that it was silly to think my dream had foreshadowed this or that there was any significance to it at all. It was awkward to write to Carsina and tell her that her gift had arrived in the form of dust, but I was determined to be ever honest with her. I read her letter over several times before I slept that night, fixing each phrase in my mind and surreptitiously kissing her looping signature before I slipped it under my pillow for the night. I fell asleep determined to dream of my future bride, but if I dreamed at all, I did not recall it.

I
entered my third month at the Academy with the expectation that my life would now settle into a predictable pattern. Initiation was behind us, and I had survived the first culling. The shock of that experience was followed by a period of gloom that engulfed us all. But it eventually dissipated, for no group of young men can remain downhearted for long, and all of us seemed determined to set it behind us and get on with our schooling. My marks in all my classes were better than average, and I definitely excelled in my engineering course. Whenever Carsina visited my sister, she managed to send me a warm note. I enjoyed my friends, and my problems seemed limited to occasional recurrences of sleepwalking and the fact that I was growing again and my new boots now seemed a bit tight. Winter was on our doorstep. There were bright blue days of snapping cold interspersed with gray skies and icy rain. Our fireside studies seemed almost cozy when we gathered near the hearth every evening. For a brief time, all was peaceful in my life.

The convening of the Council of Lords, scheduled for that month, was a double disappointment to me. All the patrols, new and old alike, competed in horse drill to see who would be in the honor parade that welcomed the nobles to Old Thares. The Carneston House Riders were not chosen. Since we were first-years, our chances had been slim, but we had hoped for that distinction. A second disappointment was the news that my father would not make the journey to the Council of Lords this year, for he had pressing problems at home. It seemed our tame Bejawi had been poaching cattle from a neighbor’s herd, and could not grasp why that was unacceptable to my father. My father had to stay and sort it out, with both our Plainsmen and the irate cattleman.

I envied the other cadets who would enjoy visits from fathers and elder brothers or other extended family coming to Old Thares for the gathering. We were to be given several days off to leave the Academy and visit with relatives. But not all of us had invitations to go anywhere. Gord would be so favored, as would Rory. Nate’s and Kort’s fathers were journeying together, and bringing their families for a brief stay in the city. The friends were light-headed at the thought of seeing their sweethearts, no matter how brief and well chaperoned the visit might be. Trist’s uncle lived in Old Thares and he saw him often, but he was excited at the thought of his father and elder brother sitting at table with them. Trist’s family had invited Nate’s and Kort’s fathers to accept their hospitality for a dinner, and the three cadets were looking forward to a convivial Sevday dinner. Oron’s and Caleb’s fathers did not expect to come to the Council meeting, but Oron’s aunt lived in Old Thares, and she had invited him and Caleb to come and spend their extra days off with her. Nobly born, she still led what we regarded as an eccentric lifestyle. She had married a noble’s youngest son, a musician, and the couple was renowned throughout Old Thares for the musical gatherings they hosted. Oron and Caleb both looked forward to a lively break from their school routine. Spink had not a prayer of seeing anyone from his family; the journey was too arduous and expensive. So he and I commiserated on being abandoned and anticipated a couple of days on our own in the dormitory. We fantasized about sleeping in and hoped we could get leave to visit some of the small shops in town. I still had to make good on my promise of buttons and lace for my sister.

As the Council’s opening day drew closer and nobles both new and old flocked to Old Thares, their political differences came to the fore in the press and on our campus. The friction between old and new nobles’ sons that had died down stirred again in small, unpleasant ways. There were several thistly decisions facing the Council of Lords at this gathering. I refused to bother my head with them, and only by a forced osmosis of overheard discussions did I know that one had to do with how the king would raise funds for his road building and his forts in the far east. I was also vaguely aware that there was a large disagreement about some tax revenue that the old nobles said traditionally belonged to them, a percentage of which the king was now claiming. Although politics were not discussed in most of our classes, there were plenty of hallway debates and some of them became heated. The issues seemed complicated to me, and as they had absolutely nothing to do with soldiering, I ignored them. The sons of old nobles, however, seemed to consider such issues as personal affronts, and said such things as, “The king will beggar our families building his road to nowhere!” or “He will use his pet battle lords to vote in a law allowing him to siphon our income away.” None of us liked to hear our fathers referred to as “pets,” and so the discord was awakened between us again. It grew as the end of the week approached, for many of the cadets anticipated eagerly their first overnight away from the dormitory since we had arrived. The fortunate ones would be allowed to leave the campus on Fiveday afternoon and could be away with their families until Sevday evening.

The coming break was on everyone’s mind as we queued up for the midday meal that Threeday. The mess had always been “first come, first served” in the sense that as each patrol arrived, it was allowed to join the line for entry. As we had to enter in an orderly and quiet manner, it could sometimes entail what seemed a substantial wait to hungry young men. Worst were the days when chill rain fell on us as we waited. A cadet could not even hunch his shoulders, but must stand with correct posture. That day, a chill wind was blowing and the sleet that pelted us was trying to turn into wet snow. Thus we were not pleased when Corporal Dent abruptly ordered us to move aside of the main line to allow another patrol to precede us. Disgruntled as we were, we still had the sense to keep quiet, except for Gord. “Sir, why do they have priority over us?” he asked almost plaintively from the ranks.

Corporal Dent rounded on him. “I’m a corporal. By now you should have learned that you do not call me ‘sir.’ You do not, in fact, call me anything when you are in ranks. Speak when spoken to, Cadet.”

For a moment we were properly cowed. My ears were starting to burn with the cold, but I told myself I could endure it. But when another patrol likewise passed us to join the queue, Rory muttered, “So we’re supposed to starve in silence? And not even ask why?”

Dent rounded on him. “I don’t believe this! Two demerits for each of you for talking in ranks. And if I must explain it, I will. Those men are second-years from Chesterton House.”

“So? That makes them hungrier than us?” Rory demanded. Rory was always antagonized by punishment rather than cowed. He’d keep it up now until he had an answer that satisfied him, even if it meant a dozen demerits for him to march off. I shook my head to myself, hoping I would not have to share the punishment he earned. A mistake.

“Two more demerits for you, and one for Burvelle for supporting your insubordination! Did any of you read your booklets
An Introduction to the Houses of King’s Cavalla Academy
?”

No one answered. He hadn’t expected an answer. “Of course you didn’t! I shouldn’t even have bothered to ask if you had. I’m quickly learning that you’ve done the least you could to prepare yourselves for the year. Well, let me enlighten you. Chesterton House is reserved for the sons of the oldest and most revered of cavalla nobility. They are descended from the circle of knights who were the first lords under King Corag. The nobles were the original founders of the Council of Lords. Learn this now and it will save you a lot of social disasters later. The cadets of that house expect and deserve your special respect. You can either give it to them or they will demand it of you.”

I could feel both confusion and simmering anger from the cadets to either side of me. Not for the first time, I wondered why there was not a house solely devoted to our kind. New noble first-years were housed on the upper floor of Carneston House or in the frigid attic floor of Skeltzin Hall. Second- and third-year new noble sons were housed well away from us in Sharpton Hall, a converted tannery that was a joke among the cadets. I had heard it was run-down past the point of discomfort and verging on dangerous, but had accepted that without pausing to think much on it. Chesterton House, by contrast, was a fine new building, plumbed for water closets and heated with coal stoves. Surely the third-years of the new nobility deserved such lodgings as much as any other. Lowly first-years that we were, we were always being either taunted or tempted by the freedom and better lodgings that awaited us in our graduation year. Slowly it was dawning on me that such comforts were never meant for the sons of new nobility. What I had been accepting as the lowly status endured by any first-year cadets went deeper. I could expect it to last through all my time at the Academy. I suddenly felt queasy as I saw all the lines that had been invisibly drawn to divide us into different levels of privilege. Why had not the Academy given us officers from our own stratum if there was such a difference among the level of nobility? And if this was how they segregated us in the Academy, what did it foretell for us when we were issued our graduation assignments?

As I pondered all this, Dent held us there, letting yet another patrol go ahead of us, mostly to engrave on us his authority over us. We held our tongues and he finally allowed us to join the queue.

After we were seated and served, we were allowed conversation at our table. Casual conversation, beyond polite requests to pass food, was a new privilege for us. Corporal Dent, who was still required to share our table and supervise us, obviously did not enjoy it, and was inclined to stifle our talk at every opportunity. Of late, we had united against him in refusing to be daunted by him. I was too hungry and cold that day to think about further defying Dent. I was grateful to wrap both my hands around a mug of hot coffee and hold them there to thaw.

Gord was the one who foolishly brought up the sore topic as he passed the bread to Spink. “I thought all cadets entered the Academy on an equal footing, with equal opportunity to advance.”

He did not address his words to any individual, but Dent seized the comment like a bulldog latching onto a shaken rag. He gave a martyred sigh. “I was warned that I’d find you an ignorant lot, but I thought surely a simple process of logic would have shown you that just as your fathers are lesser nobles, their gentility only conferred on them by a writ, so are you at the bottom rung of the aristocracy of command and least likely to rise to power. True, if you manage to complete your three years here, you will begin your military careers as lieutenants, but there is no guarantee you will ever rise beyond that rank, nor even that you will retain it. I don’t have to mince words with the likes of you. Many here at the Academy feel that your presence among us is awkward. But for your fathers’ battlefield elevations, you’d be enlisting as common foot soldiers. Don’t tell me that you yourselves are not aware of that! We will tolerate you at our king’s whim, but do not expect us to lower our standards of academics or manners to accommodate you.”

Corporal Dent was quite out of breath by the time he finished this diatribe. I think only then did he realize that, ravenous as we were, we were all sitting still and silent at the table. Gord’s face was scarlet. Rory’s hands were clenched into fists at the edge of the table. Spink’s shoulders were tight as steel. Trist managed to speak first, all his elegance and usual laconic style erased from his voice. He looked around our table, meeting the eyes of as many of his fellows as he could and thus making it clear he spoke to us rather than replying to Dent. At first, he seemed to be genteelly changing the topic of conversation. “The son of a soldier son is a soldier before he is a son.” He took a sip of coffee and then added, “The second son of a noble is also a soldier son. But perhaps such soldier sons are nobles before they are soldiers. So I have heard it said. Perhaps that is the good god’s way of balancing the advantages a man is born with. To some are given the ability to remember always that their fathers are nobles, while others are soldiers to the marrow. For myself, I’d rather be the son of a soldier first, and the son of a noble second. As for those who are nobles first? Well, I’ve also heard it said that many of them die in battle before they learn to fight first as a soldier and primp like an aristocrat afterward.”

There was nothing humorous about his words; I had heard them before, from my own father, and judged them wisdom, not wit. Yet every one of us laughed and Rory was so carried away as to bang his spoon on the table edge in rough applause. All laughed, that is, save Dent. The corporal’s face first went white, then scarlet. “Soldiers!” he hissed at us. “That was all you were ever born to be, every one of you. Soldiers.”

“And what’s wrong with being a soldier?” Rory demanded bellicosely.

Before Dent could reply, Gord softened the discussion. “The scriptures teach us that the same is true of you, Corporal Dent,” Gord observed mildly. “Are not you a second son, and destined to serve as a soldier? The Writ says to us also, ‘Let every man take satisfaction in the place the good god has given him, doing that duty well and with contentment.’ ” Either the man had excellent control of his features or Gord sincerely meant his words.

The color rushed up to Corporal Dent’s face again. “You, a soldier!” Scorn filled his voice. “I know the truth about you, Gord, at least. You were born a third son, and meant to be a priest. Look at you! Who could imagine you were ever born to soldier? Fat as a pig, and more fit to be preaching than brandishing a saber in battle! No wonder you argue by quoting the Holy Writ at me! It was what you were meant to know, not fighting!”

Gord gaped at him, his round cheeks hanging flaccid for an instant, his round eyes opened wide. Dent’s words were deep insult, not just to Gord but also to his family. If the allegation were true, it would be shocking.

Gord knew it. He knew his status among us hung by a thread. He looked, not at Dent, but around the table at the rest of us. “It isn’t true!” he said hotly. “It’s a cruel thing even to speak of it to me. I was born a twin, and due to my mother’s size, both priest and doctor attended our birth. The doctor cut my mother’s belly to lift us from the womb. He took out my brother first, but he was blue and lifeless and small. I was hearty and strong, and the priest pronounced that by my size and heartiness, I was clearly the elder of the babes my mother bore that day. I am a second son, a soldier son. My poor little brother who died before he drew breath should have been the priest for our family. Both my father and my mother wonder daily why the good god did not bless them with a priest son, but they accepted his will. As do I. I bowed my head to the good god’s yoke and came here, and serve him as I am fated to do, I shall!”