Robin Hobb - Renegade's Magic

It was too easy to slip back into that arrogance of the nobleman born, and even easier to take it the two steps into insufferable spoiled prig. I gave my head a slight toss and preened my hair back from my face as I had sometimes seen Trist do in our cadet days. I saw a cold flicker of disdain in the back of the Sergeant’s eyes. He knew now that I would not leave until the Captain himself had sent me away, and he was resigned to it. He came to his feet and politely asked, “What name shall I give the Captain when he asks who is calling?”

“Rosse Burvelle.” I had not known I was going to steal my dead brother’s name until that very moment. To this day, I cannot say why I did it. It stuck to my tongue and I would have called it back if I could. Several people had already heard me called Nevare. And yet there it was, done in that moment, and the Sergeant had already turned, tapped at the door, and then entered to the gruff command from within.

I stood for a few moments, sweating in a dead man’s good coat, and then the Sergeant returned. His manner had changed. He bowed to me and wide-eyed told me please to enter right away. I thanked him and did, closing the door firmly behind me.

When those chambers had been Colonel Haren’s, they had been a retreat from the primitive conditions at Gettys. They had been carpeted, tapestried, furnished from floor to ceiling, and always there had been a great fire burning on the hearth that made the room seem an elegant furnace. I wondered what had become of all Colonel Haren’s furnishings. Perhaps they had been shipped back west after he died, or merely packed away into some forgotten storage. In any case, they were gone. The room looked barren; deliberately barren.

A tiny fire burned on the hearth. There was a heavy wooden desk and a straight-backed chair, very similar to the Sergeant’s. For visitors, there was a simple wooden chair facing the desk. At the other end of the room, a narrow bunk was neatly made up next to a very plain dresser. His sword belt and saber were hung neatly on a hook next to his overcoat. A stand held a tin washbasin and ewer. The doors of his wardrobe were closed. It could have been a cadet’s room at the Academy. It smelled of wood polish and the candles that burned there; there was no friendly scent of tobacco, nor any sign of a bottle of sherry or brandy to welcome a guest. Discipline. Penance.

The man seated at the desk was as austere as the room. Despite the evening hour, Captain Thayer still wore his uniform, with his collar buttoned tight. His hands rested side by side on the desktop before him as if he were there to recite a lesson. Despite his sun-weathered skin, he looked pale. He licked his lips as I came in. I’d taken my hat off and now I stepped toward him, my hand held out. “Thank you for receiving me, Captain Thayer. I’m—”

Before I could introduce myself, he looked at me and said, “I know who you are. And I know why you’ve come, Mr. Burvelle.”

My heart sank. He knew?

“You’ve come to inquire into the death of your brother, Nevare Burvelle. Your sister knew he was here, enlisted under a false name. I knew that eventually there would be this reckoning. And I am ready for it.”

Despite his brave and honest words, his voice shook slightly. He swallowed, and when he spoke again, his voice was a bit higher. “If you wish to demand satisfaction of me, you have that right.” His hands moved very slightly on the desktop, a faint scrabbling motion. “If you wish to bring formal charges against me, you have that right also. I can only tell you that when I took action that night, I believed I was acting in the name of justice. I’ll admit to you, sir, that I killed your soldier-brother. But it was not without provocation. I was deceived, sir. Deceived by your brother’s false name and deceived by the harlot I had taken for my wife.”

He suddenly lunged for his desk drawer, jerking it open and reaching inside. I took two steps back, certain that he would pull out a pistol and kill me where I stood. Instead, his shaking hands pulled out a packet of papers bound with a piece of string. He pulled the knot, the string came undone, and they spilled across the desk. Only then did I know them. Why she had kept them, I’ll never know, but I would wager that every one of them was there. All the letters I’d written to Carsina from the Academy. On the top of the pile, smudged as if it had been opened and read many times, was an envelope addressed to Carsina in my sister’s hand. He coughed as if trying to clear his throat of a sob. He took another document from the drawer. I recognized the enlistment papers I’d signed when I joined the regiment. And with it, an envelope addressed in my father’s hand.

“I didn’t know he was a noble’s soldier son.” Thayer’s voice was choked. “I didn’t know that he and Carsina had previously been…together. I had no idea until I took over as commander. Haren’s records were a mess. And the command had changed so often since he died, no one had put things in order. So it was up to me. First, I found the letter from your father, warning Colonel Haren that your brother might try to enlist. It was in the Colonel’s private papers. I thought it a sad little document and wondered why he’d kept it. But on the back of the envelope, he’d made a note.”

His hands spidered over to pick up the envelope and turn it over. My blood moved cold through my veins. I tried to take slow breaths, to stand as Rosse would have stood as this tawdry little story unfolded. Thayer swallowed loudly. The envelope fell from his nerveless fingers. He took a shuddering breath. “I could scarcely believe what I read, sir. But when I looked up the enlistment papers for Nevare Burv, there was no denying it any longer.” He looked up at me and strain tightened every muscle in his face. In a strangled voice he said, “It was bad enough to know that your brother had been a noble son, a soldier son gone bad. I felt terrible that we, that he had died as he did. But worse was to come, sir. Far worse for me.”

His voice faded. He looked at his desk. His hands crept across the scattered papers there. “I felt terrible, sir, but it was sorrow for what your family had endured. I tried to write to your father and could not. Simply could not. I thought perhaps it was better that he never know the fate his errant son had met. But then, in early spring, a courier came. And I could scarcely believe my eyes. For there was a letter for my Carsina, my beloved dead wife. And it came from the sister of the man who had tormented her with his attentions and then desecrated her body. I could not believe it. How could she even have known Carsina?

“Curiosity overcame me. I opened it. And what I read tore the heart out of me: it made clear the connection between the man I’d killed and the woman I’d loved. It made a lie of the love I’d had for Carsina. I’d been a fool. She’d probably been laughing at me all the time when I offered her my name. I went through her things then, and found other letters. I found an earlier letter from your sister, one that had concealed a letter for that man, a letter she trusted that my Carsina would hand to him. I knew then she had been seeing him. And beneath her night things, tied with a ribbon, as if they were a treasure, I found all these. Letter after letter from Nevare. Highly improper correspondence.

“She had lied to me. The heartless bitch. She led me to believe she was untouched and pure. But here we have the evidence of her perfidy. She was a lying, cheating slut. And because of her, I took a man’s life!”

Outrage filled me. “She was nothing of the kind!” I barked. I had never imagined that I would be defending Carsina’s reputation, let alone to her husband. But as I recalled her, I could not keep quiet. “She was a frightened girl, terrified that if you knew she’d been engaged to a man you despised, you’d break your word to her. She was not wise or temperate, but she was certainly not a slut. I knew her since she was a little girl, and I can vouch for that. She’d thought she’d found true love with you.” I’d advanced to the edge of his desk. Now I leaned over it, hands braced on it as I forced the truth on him. Epiny was right. Some people definitely deserved to hear the truth. “Her dying words were spoken of you, with love. She asked me to go and fetch you, because you’d promised you wouldn’t leave her side. Yes, I gave her my bed to lie down on. But I never touched her that night, sir. And when we were engaged, I might have stolen a kiss or two, but certainly no more than that!”