The Complete Soldier Son Trilogy: Shaman’s Crossing, Forest Mage, Renegade’s Magic

THIRTEEN

Bessom Gord

I entered my third month at the Academy with the expectations 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 down-hearted 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 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 grey 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 honour parade to welcome the nobles to Old Thares. The Carneston House Riders were not chosen. As 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 neighbour’s herd, and could not grasp why that was unacceptable to my father. My father had to stay and sort it out, both with our plainsmen and the irate cattleman.

I envied the other cadets who would enjoy visits from fathers and elder brothers or other extended family come 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 favoured, 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 been married to 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 sort of tax revenue which the Old Nobles said traditionally belonged to them, a percentage of which was now being claimed by the King. Although politics were not discussed in most of our classes, there were plenty of hallway debates and some of them became heated. The sons of the Old Nobles 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 eagerly anticipated their first night 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 mid-day meal that Threeday. The mess had always been ‘first come, first serve’ 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 Nobles 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 Nobles’ 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 about 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 amongst the level of nobility? And if this was how they segregated us in the Academy, what did it foretell for 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 been united 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 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. 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 afterwards.’

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.