Robin Hobb - Renegade's Magic

“Look at Sem,” Amzil said softly. I followed her gaze to the boy who stood, awestruck, by the side of the road. His face shone as he looked up at the passing troops and his mouth was ajar. I saw the last rank of horsemen grinning at the small boy’s worship. The trooper closest to him snapped him a salute as he passed and Sem gave a wiggle of joy. “He looks just like you,” Amzil added, startling me from my reverie.

“Who? That trooper?”

“No. Sem. Staring with his heart in his eyes.” She gave a small sigh. “You’ll have to temper the tales you tell him, Nevare. Or somehow make him understand that only a soldier’s son can become a soldier.”

“That’s not always true,” I replied, thinking of Sergeant Duril. “One of the best soldiers I ever knew was really the son of a cobbler.”

“You’re the son of a soldier,” Amzil said quietly.

“And now I’m a hired hand for a cattleman,” I said without rancor.

“But you shouldn’t be,” she said.

I made a sound of dismissal and gave a shrug. Her grip tightened on my arm as we walked. “Do you think I never heard Epiny and Spink talk about you, and how much you dreamed of a career? They often spoke of what it would be like if you could come back, clear your name, and serve alongside Spink. I don’t think they could imagine you doing anything else except being a cavalla officer.”

“That’s gone,” I said.

“Why? Why couldn’t you enlist here? Use your real name; you’ve never signed up with it before. I don’t think you’d be a common soldier for long. You might not be an officer, at first, but even if you never rose to the rank you were born to, you’d still be what you’d dreamed of being.”

“Amzil—”

“Don’t you think I know how important that is?”

“I’ll think about it,” I said quietly. And truthfully, for I knew I could not help but think about it. We collected Sem and headed back to Thicket. The ride home was quiet, the children asleep in the cart bed while I was caught in my own thoughts.

Two nights later, at dinner, Amzil abruptly asked me, “What holds you back from doing it?”

“Fear,” I said shortly.

We both noticed the children listening to us, and let the conversation die. But later that night, as we nestled together, Amzil asked without preamble, “Fear of what?”

I sighed. “When my father first disowned me, he was very angry. And very thorough. He sent out letters to the commanders of various forts, letting them know he had taken his name away from me.”

“You still managed to enlist at Gettys.”

“Oh, yes. He left me that, telling them that if they could give me any sort of a life as an enlisted soldier, he would countenance that. Even so, I had to use a different name. He’d forbidden me his.” I sighed again. “Amzil, I don’t want to go back to living under that shadow. I don’t want to enlist as someone’s failed, disowned son.”

She was quiet for so long that I thought she had fallen asleep. Then she said, “You’re already living as someone’s failed, disowned son.” She softened the words by putting her arms around me. “You should stop doing that,” she said quietly. And then she kissed me, and for a time I failed at nothing.

When the month had passed, I returned to Mendy to see if I had any replies to my letters. Amzil rode along, tight-lipped and fairly quivering with excitement. In her lap, she carried two paper-wrapped dresses she had sewn. She intended to show them to the dressmakers in Mendy, to see if one of them might take her into his shop as an assistant. Kara and Sem each clutched two precious pennies they might spend. Dia held hers in a tiny cloth bag Kara had sewn for her. I left them to their errands and went to the letter-writer’s shop.

He charged me threepence for holding my post for me, and I thought it an outrageous sum until he reached under his counter and brought out the stack of envelopes he had carefully tied up with string. “You’re a popular man,” he observed, and I dazedly agreed with him. I left his shop. Across the street, there was an open-air booth where a man was selling sweet tea and brown cakes. Feeling guiltily self-indulgent, I handed over one of Amzil’s hard-earned coins for a cup of tea and a cake with raisins in it. Then, my courage bolstered, I went through my stack of post. There were five fat envelopes from Epiny and two from Yaril. One of the ones from Yaril had been sent from Old Thares.

I felt a strange sense of trepidation as I turned them over in my hands. Did I want to open these things, open the door and admit the Nevare I’d been? For a moment, I considered tearing them up and tossing them to the wind. I could walk away from that Nevare just as I’d walked away from Soldier’s Boy. Amzil and I had begun something new together. Did I want to risk unsettling that? Then I decided that I already had, when I’d sent my first two letters. I sighed, carefully arranged my post by the date it had been sent, and opened the first one.

It was from Epiny, and she went on for seven closely written pages about how she had worried about me, and the conditions of chaos at Gettys on the night that we had fled and in the days since then. Tiber had indeed called on them that evening, and made her so nervous that she had scarcely been able to eat a bite of the meal she prepared. As the scout had told me, the fort was now under the command of Captain Gorling and had returned to a modicum of military stability. She and Spink were delighted to hear that Amzil and I were safe and doing well. They missed the children dreadfully, and was I keeping up with lessons for Kara and Sem? She went on for two pages about what I should be teaching them before saying she’d had several delightful letters from my sister, who had tremendously enjoyed her visit to Old Thares and was getting along famously with Epiny’s mother and sister. She closed with an admonition that I should write back immediately to let her know how we were doing, and in detail. I smiled and set it aside.

The second letter was from Yaril. She first assaulted me for leaving her in ignorance so long, and then begged me to forgive her for responding with such a short note. She was packing to go to Old Thares with Aunt Daraleen and Cousin Purissa. Uncle Sefert would be staying on at Widevale for an extended visit. He seemed to feel his presence could help his brother and that the holdings there needed a man in charge for a time, with all the new developments going on due to the gold discovery. (She trusted that Cousin Epiny had informed me of those and she wouldn’t bore me with the dull details.) Father did seem much better when Uncle Sefert was with him. Uncle Sefert suspected he had suffered a stroke that had affected his mind, but hoped that company, the conversation of his brother, and a gentle resumption of a complete life might restore him. Uncle Sefert had commended her for choosing Sergeant Duril as her overseer and promised to keep him in that capacity. Oh, and Uncle Sefert said he would be writing to me very soon, and Sergeant Duril was overjoyed to hear of my survival and Aunt Daraleen sent her very best wishes to me as well. And that was all she had time to write as she was to leave for Old Thares on the morrow and wasn’t half packed yet, and she wanted to take a goodly selection of her frocks, even if Aunt Daraleen thought them a bit provincial and wanted her to buy all new ones as soon as she reached Old Thares.

I both smiled and frowned to hear Yaril sound so giddy and girlish again. I had left her with heavy responsibilities. Belatedly I thought we should have brought our uncle into our difficulties months ago. I was glad that Yaril could have some time free of worries and that my father was in good care.

With a smile, I opened Epiny’s next letter. She missed me. Spink missed me. They both missed the children horribly. Solina missed Kara. Why had not I written back yet? Was all well? Gettys was in a state of flux again. It looked as if they would all be shifted back to Franner’s Bend to rejoin the rest of the regiment. She did not bother to tell me which regiment would be coming in to replace them. Instead, she was bubbling with the idea that Spink was very likely going to become a captain much sooner than they had expected. After several delays, the new rules of male succession had been approved by the Council of Lords and sanctioned by the priesthood of the good god. For a change, a church decision made sense to her. Now younger sons could be legitimately moved up to be heirs, for if the good god did know all, then he undoubtedly knew which heir sons would die young and had, in his wisdom, decreed that noble soldier sons could also serve as heirs. It would not affect Spink, of course, for which they were both grateful. He loved his elder brother far too much to wish to take his place. But it had affected a number of the officers in the regiment, and some of the older officers would be leaving the military to go home and assume the duty of being heirs. Spink had told her it greatly increased the chance that he would be promoted when the regiment was reunited, and oh, wasn’t the prospect of Franner’s Bend exciting? She’d be able to visit Yaril from time to time and get to know her properly. She, too, scolded me for not writing back more quickly.