P. Hodgell - Honor's Paradox

They swung around Old Tentir to its southern side. The right flank hugged its wall, the left veered into the wild moraine area where the egging exercise had taken place. Jame’s horse dodged trees and leaped over rocks. An outcrop of the latter separated her and her stirrup mates from the others.

Fash rammed the chestnut, lifting it half off its feet. On the other side Higbert lashed at her with his whip. Suddenly she was in a running battle through undergrowth, over treacherous ground. What in Perimal’s name . . . ? The other horses crowded in on her. Fash grabbed her jacket and jerked. Already off balance, she fell between his mount and her own, down among the pounding hooves.

They thundered over her head.

Jame lay very still for a long moment, waiting for the stab of pain. In its place came a dull ache across the shoulders and down the back. All of her limbs still seemed to work, her brain as well (or ill) as usual. Only when she sat up did she remember the phantom touch of a tree trunk at the back of her neck . If she had fallen a moment later, it would surely have broken her neck.

“Hoom.”

Jame looked up at the sound of someone nearby clearing his throat, but no one was there.

Before her lay a steeply ridged, wooded landscape sprinkled with spring flowers, patches of vivid green, and a few pockets of late snow in the deep kettles. In the distance, Perimal’s Cauldron fumed and muttered.

“a-HOOM.”

Pebbles and dirt clods rattled down the nearest slope, expelled from a hole under a stone ledge. Boulders on either side gave the impression of puffed up cheeks. Shifting her position, Jame could make out two deep nooks above that might almost have been sunken eyes.

“Mother Ragga?”

“Hack, ack . . . ack . . . pu-toom!”

A family of hedgehogs, unceremoniously expelled, tumbled down the slope, unrolled at the bottom, and hastily shuffled off single file.

“So, this is the sort of game you cadets play.”

The Earth Wife’s voice came from the back of the hole, muffled, as if it spoke within close-set walls.

“Not usually,” said Jame. She started to rise, but realized that with her change of perspective the earthen face had disappeared. When she subsided, it was back.

“Humph.” More debris spat out. “I have a warning for you, missy: don’t forget Summer’s Eve in the hills.”

“That’s only twelve days away. What’s so important this time?”

“Remember last Summer’s Eve? That idiot Chingetai tried to claim the entire Riverland by laying bonefires up its length instead of using ’em to close the boundaries of his own land.”

“Surely he’s not going to try that trick again.”

The hillside rumbled. Stones rattled down it. “I should hope not. This time he’s got to do it right or stay open to more raids from both north and south. But the Noyat are already on Merikit ground, waiting. He’s going to need help.”

“Will he accept it from me?” For that matter, Jame thought, given past experience, was it wise to ask her for anything short of an apocalypse?

“He’s a fool if he doesn’t take all the help he can get.”

Of course, they both knew that Chingetai was a fool; how big a one remained to be seen.

Voices called her name through the trees. Jame rose to answer them. In so doing she lost sight of the Earth Wife although a subterranean mutter pursued her:

“Remember Summer’s Eve.”

Brier and Rue rode toward her leading her horse, in a high lather with wild eyes and a limp. Rather than mount him again, Jame swung up behind Rue. The randon instructor was waiting for them by the north gate where they had started their chaotic run.

“So there you are,” he said to Jame while the other Caineron snickered.

Fash and Higbert looked at Gorbel as if expecting him to speak, but he continued to glower into space, jaws clamped shut.

“I think you Knorth have had enough excitement for one day,” said the randon. “Here. You’ve earned this.”

Jame stared at the black pebble that he had dropped into her hand.

“What was that all about?” she asked as they led their horses back down the ramp to the stable.

Brier regarded the stone with lowered brows. “So. The final testing has begun.”

Seeing that Jame was still confused, Rue rushed to explain. “The first time we competed against each other, remember?”

“Oh yes. Vividly. I barely earned enough points to enter the college.”

The horse-master shook his bald head at the state of her mount and felt his hock, but didn’t comment. She led the horse into his stall and began to rub him down. He still quivered whenever she touched him.

“Then the Randon Council cast the stones,” continued Rue, busy in the next stall.

Another near miss, thought Jame. If she hadn’t redeemed the Shame of Tentir in the person of Bel-tairi, even the Commandant had been prepared to throw her out.

The chestnut continued to fret. Losing patience, Jame slapped him on his sweat-slickened barrel. “Behave!” He bounced nervously and settled down somewhat.

“Then there was the Winter War.”

“But that didn’t count, did it?”

“Not officially. It should be good for something, though, shouldn’t it?”

Rue called to the other cadets for confirmation. No one knew for sure, but it only seemed just: after all, the Knorth team had won, if through a series of maneuvers on Jame’s part that still perplexed most of her house.

“So,” said Rue, finally getting to the point, “this time the instructors have most of the say.”

“Each senior randon is given six pebbles,” cut in Dar from across the aisle. Trust him not to be able to keep quiet. “Three white and three black, for the best and worst performances in their classes. They can give them out all at once, but more likely one at a time. The Commandant has a set too.”

“Randon aren’t supposed to give white tokens to their own house,” Mint added from her other side, “but they can give black.”

“Anyway,” said Rue, “how many white you get by Summer’s Day determines where you go on graduation.”

“If you graduate,” muttered Damson.

“True, some don’t,” Erim agreed. “Next worst is to have to repeat your first year here at the college.”

Which Tori would never let her do, Jame thought.

“Kothifir is for the best,” said Mint. “Next best is some other foreign post. Then there are the cadets who are sent home to join their house garrisons.”

“How many white pebbles qualify you for Kothifir?” asked Jame.

“It varies from year to year. Usually one white will do it, or one black for failure. There are some twenty randon with six tokens each. Most of us never get one at all, which means that we get sent wherever we’re needed. That could be good or bad. Ten-commands may also get broken up as in the second cull, say, if the commander gets a black, or a commander’s white might pull through his or her entire ten-squad intact. Then too, black cancels white and vice versa, so you’re already one behind, Ten.”

“Lovely,” muttered Jame.

It wasn’t until she and the others were on their way to the next lesson that it struck her: if she was going up into the hills for Summer’s Eve, she would miss the last day of classes with its potential tests. Well, never mind, she thought, setting her jaw; she would just have to earn enough white tokens before then.

From then on, each lesson taught by a randon became a test of nerves, if nothing else. Would the instructor award a pebble or not? Which color, and to whom? Some handed out all six immediately, based as much on past as present performance. Others seemed to be waiting until the last minute. A few with particularly strict standards had the reputation for only distributing as many as they truly believed to be earned, black or white.