Robin Hobb - The Complete Soldier Son Trilogy - Shaman’s Crossing, Forest Mage, Renegade’s Magic

‘Well, that is a bitter memory for my mother, but no. There are several large springs not far from our home. The water that comes to the surface there tastes terrible, but several plainsmen tribes revere the spot and hold that people can be cured of disease or granted marvellous visions or increase their intelligence by bathing or drinking the waters. They offer my family trade goods in exchange for being granted passage to the springs. I think it is my mother’s sole act of revenge that she will not allow any member of the folk that killed my father to visit the springs. It angers them greatly, for they say the springs are sacred and were always a truce place and open to all. To which my mother replies, “You changed all that when you killed my husband.” Over the years, there have been a few clashes over that, with warriors attempting to make sorties to the springs to steal water. My father’s old soldiers always repel them. They take pride in that.’

I barely heard the last few sentences. I had become aware of an odd sound. At first, I had thought it a distant birdcall from the garden, but now I realized that the soft trilling matched the cadence of breath. The door of the old schoolroom was ajar. I thought I had latched it. I crossed the room silently and pulled the door suddenly open. Epiny stood outside it, her otter-whistle between her lips despite the fact that she was dressed for dinner. She grinned at me, clenching the silver toy between her teeth and letting it wheeze as she did so. ‘It’s time to come down to dinner,’ she said around the whistle.

‘Were you eavesdropping?’ I asked her severely.

She spat her toy into her hand. ‘Not really. I was just standing outside the door listening, so that I could wait for a break in the conversation to announce dinner rather than interrupting you.’

She said it so blithely that I almost believed her. Then I decided that I would follow through on my earlier resolution about my cousin. If she were going to act as if she were an errant ten year old, I would speak to her as such. ‘Epiny, listening outside of rooms for any reason is impolite. At your age, you should know better.’

She cocked her head at me. ‘I do know when it is rude to listen at doors, dearest cousin. And now it is time for us all to go down to dinner. Father enjoys his food and hates to have it served at less than the correct temperature. You do know, don’t you, that it is rude to keep your host waiting for his dinner?’

I could control my temper no longer. ‘Epiny, you are close to my age, and I know my aunt and uncle have taught you manners. Why are you acting like an ill-mannered child? Why can’t you behave as if you were a young lady?’

She smiled at me as if she had finally forced me to recognize her. ‘Actually, I am one year and four months younger than you are. And the moment I begin to behave as if I were some suffocatingly correct young lady, that is how my father will start to treat me. Not to mention my mother. And that will be the beginning of the end of my life. Not that I expect you to understand what I am talking about. Spink. Would you care to escort me to dinner? Or do you find me too childish and spoiled?’

‘I should be glad to,’ Spink declared. To my astonishment, he crossed the room with alacrity and offered Epiny his arm. He blushed as he did so and she seemed likewise ruffled. Nonetheless, she accepted his offer and they preceded me out of the room. Epiny’s long, pale blue skirts rustled against the marble steps as they descended the staircase. Her hair had been brushed and simply confined to a gold lace net at the base of her neck. Spink’s back was straight as a ramrod; he was not much taller than she was. As I followed them, it struck me that they looked like a couple.

Then, abruptly, Epiny ended that illusion. She snatched her hand back from his arm, gathered up her skirts and bustled down the stairs ahead of him, leaving Spink looking confused. I caught up with him as Epiny was disappearing into the dining room.

‘Don’t mind her,’ I told him. ‘It’s as I told you. She’s a very silly little girl at this point. My sisters went through a similar time.’

I did not add that my father’s reaction to my sisters’ flightiness had been far more severe than my uncle’s tolerance of Epiny’s eccentricity. I recalled his stern admonition to my mother: ‘If we do not settle them soon into a becoming and womanly calm, they will never find appropriate husbands. I am a New Noble, madam, as you are aware. Some of their opportunities to rise in society they must create for themselves, and they will best do so by being sedate, tractable, and demure young women.’

‘As I was,’ my mother had filled in, and there was an edge to her voice, bitterness or regret, that I could not understand.

I do not think my father even heard it. ‘As you were, my lady, and continue to be. A fine example of all a noble-woman and wife should be.’

When we entered the dining room, Epiny was standing behind her chair. My uncle was at the head of the table. Purissa waited at his left elbow. The child looked far more groomed than she had earlier. Someone had tidied her hair and put a clean pinafore on her. Spink and I rapidly took our places and I murmured an apology that we had kept my uncle waiting.

‘We are short on formality at family meals, Nevare, and that is what we will enjoy this evening, for you are definitely family, and you appear to regard your friend as if he were almost a brother. I regret that your Aunt Daraleen and cousin Hotorn cannot be here as well. He is away at his schooling, and she has been summoned to serve our queen at court for the days of the Council of Lords. They will not convene it until Firstday, but the women of the court must have at least a dozen days to be dressed for it. And so she has departed, leaving us here to get by on our own. But we shall make do here as well we can in their absence.’

With that, we took our seats and a servant entered almost immediately with the soup. The meal was the most excellent one I had had since arriving in Old Thares. The food had been cooked to be consumed by individuals rather than stirred up in vats for hundreds. The difference in taste and texture seemed marvellous after so many meals produced for the masses. I felt almost honoured to be presented with a single chop cooked to my liking rather than a ladled serving of meat chunks in watery gravy. I ate well, trying to control my greed, and finished the meal with a large serving of apple pan dowdy.

Spink kept pace with me, but also managed to hold up his end of the conversation with Uncle Sefert. He expressed great admiration for my uncle’s home, and asked a number of questions about the house and the estate in general. The gist of his questions seemed to be that he wondered how long it took a noble family to establish such a grand ancestral seat. The answer seemed to be ‘generations’. My uncle spoke proudly of the innovations that he had introduced in his lifetime, from gas piping and lights to his remodelling of the wine cellar to allow for better temperature control. Spink followed his answers with enthusiasm, and I saw my uncle warm toward him.

When dinner was over, my uncle suggested that we might retire to his den for tobacco and brandy. My brief hope of a peacefully masculine retreat was shattered when Epiny protested with, ‘But Papa! You said I might have them to play Towsers! You know how much I’ve been looking forward to it!’

Uncle Sefert heaved a tolerant sigh. ‘Oh, very well. Gentlemen, instead of my study, we shall retire to the sitting room, for sweet biscuits, soft wine, and several hundred rousing games of Towsers.’ He looked ruefully amused as he announced this, and what could we do save smile good-naturedly and agree? Purissa seemed to share her sister’s delight, for she jumped from her chair and ran to catch hands with her. They led us away from the table and into a pleasant room where a little iron stove enamelled with flower-patterned tiles was keeping a teakettle puffing out steam. The floor was layered with bright woven rugs from Sebany. Upholstered cushions in the vibrant colours of that exotic land littered the room. Pot-bellied oil lamps with painted shades flickered in their alcoves despite literally legions of fat yellow candles of all shapes and sizes on holders of all heights throughout the chamber. There were several low tables, little higher than my knee, and on one of these were several platters of biscuits and a carafe of watered wine. A large wicker cage held half-a-dozen tiny pink birds that hopped from perch to perch, twittering as we entered. White curtains had been drawn for the evening across the tall windows.