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  He grew braver as he spoke, and perhaps he thought my gaping mouth indicated shock at his words. Then the scout, who had walked up behind Raven in utter silence, seized the boy. In one fluid motion, he spun Raven around and backhanded him across the face. The scout held nothing back from that blow, did not temper it at all for the sake of it being a boy he was hitting instead of a man. I heard the crack as Raven went down, and knew he had mouthed his last foul words until his jaw healed. As if the sound were a charm to bring witnesses, men left the shaded porches of the barracks and canteen to gather in the street. Darda was there, pulling his father Vev along by the hand. My father was suddenly there, striding up angrily, spots of color on his cheeks.

  It seemed that everyone spoke at once. The girl ran to her father. He put his arms around her shoulders and, bending his head, spoke quietly to her. “We’ll be leaving now, Sil. Right away.”

  “But…I never got to go to the market! Papa, it wasn’t my fault!”

  Vev had knelt by Raven. He turned and shouted angrily, “Damn it all, he’s broke my boy’s jaw! He’s broken it!”

  Other men were flowing out of the canteen now, blinking in the daylight like a pack of nocturnal animals stirred to alarm. Their faces were not kindly as they looked at the scout and then at the boy writhing on the ground.

  My father demanded, “Nevare, why are you involved in this? Where is Parth?”

  Parth, his mustache still wet with beer, was behind my father, a latecomer to the scene. I suspected he had stayed to down the last of his mug, and perhaps Vev’s, too, when the man had abruptly left the table. Parth shouted, loudest of all, “Praise to the good god! There’s the boy. Nevare, come here at once! I’ve been looking all over for you. You know better than to run off and hide from old Parth. That’s not a funny trick to play in a rough town like this.”

  My father’s voice, pitched for command, would have carried through a battlefield. Yet he did not shout. It was the way he said, “Praise whomever you like, Parth, but I’m not deceived. Your time in my employ is finished. Take your saddle off my horse.”

  “But sir, it were the boy! He run off, almost as soon as you went inside…”

  Parth’s voice trailed away. My father was no longer listening to him. No one was. The commander of the outpost had come down the steps of his headquarters and was striding down the street toward us, his aide speaking quietly and rapidly as he trotted alongside the older, taller man. The aide pushed ahead of his chief, clearing a way through the gawkers until the commander reached the front of the crowd. The commander, to his credit, did not look or sound the least bit excited as he halted and demanded, “What is going on here?”

  Everyone fell silent save for Vev, who howled, “He hit my boy, he busted his jaw, sir! That scout done it! Just walked up on my lad and hit him!”

  “Scout Halloran. Would you care to explain yourself?”

  Halloran’s face had gone carefully blank. Something in me felt shamed at the change in the man’s demeanor, although I did not understand it in a way I could put words to. The scout said carefully, “Sir, he insulted and threatened my daughter.”

  The commander scowled. “That was all?” he asked, and awaited clarification. The silence grew long. I squirmed, confused. Insulting a girl was a serious thing. Even I knew that. Finally, I did my duty. My father had always told me it was a man’s duty to speak the truth. I cleared my throat and spoke up plainly.

  “They grabbed her arms, sir, and tried to pull her into the alley. Then Raven called her a hinny, after she threw him off, and said he would ride her bloody.” I repeated only the words I had understood, not knowing that the adult context of them escaped me. To my childish interpretation, he had called the girl a mule. I knew I would have received a whipping if I’d called my sisters any such animal name. Plainly, the boy had been rude and been punished for it. I spoke my piece loud and clear, and then added, more to my father than to the commander, “I was trying to protect her. You told me that it’s always wrong to hit a girl. They nearly tore her blouse.”

  A silence followed my words. Even Vev stopped his caterwauling, and Raven muffled his groans. I looked round at all the eyes focused on me. My father’s face confused me. Pride warred with embarrassment. Then the scout spoke. His voice was tight. “I’d say that’s a fair summation of what my daughter was threatened with. I acted accordingly. Does any father here blame me?”

  No one spoke against him, but if he had hoped for support, no one gave that, either. The commander observed coldly, “All this could have been avoided if you’d had the good sense to leave her at home, Halloran.”

  That statement seemed to give Vev permission to be angry again. He leaped up from where he had been cradling Raven, wringing a yelp from the boy as he jostled him in passing. He advanced on the scout, hands hanging loose at his side, his knees slightly bent, and all knew that at the slightest provocation, he would fling himself on the man. “It’s all your fault!” he growled at him. “All your fault, bringing that girl to town and letting her loose to wander, tempting these lads.” Then, his voice rising to a shout, “You ruined my boy! That jaw don’t heal right, he’ll never go for a soldier! And then what’s left for him, I want to know? The good god decreed he’d be a soldier; the sons of soldiers is always soldiers. But you, you’ve ruined him, for the sake of that half-breed hinny!” The man’s fists shook at the end of his arms, as if a mad puppeteer were tugging at his strings. I feared that at any second they would come to blows. By common accord, men were moving back, forming a ring. The scout glanced once, sideways, at the commander. Then he gently set his daughter behind him. I looked about wildly, seeking shelter for myself, but my father was on the opposite side of the circle and not even looking at me. He stared at the commander, his face stiff, waiting, I knew, for him to give the orders that would bring these men to heel.

  He did not. The soldier swung at the scout. The scout leaned away from the swing and hit Vev twice in the face in quick succession. I thought he would go right down. I think the scout did too, but Vev had deliberately faked his awkwardness and accepted the blows to bring Halloran to him. The scout had misjudged him, for the soldier now struck him back, an ugly blow, his fist coming fast and hard, to strike the scout solidly in the midsection and push up, under his ribs. The blow lifted Halloran off his feet and drove the wind out of him. He clutched at his opponent as he came down and staggered forward, and Vev hammered in two more body blows. They were solid, meaty hits. The girl gave a small scream and cowered, covering her face with her hands as her father’s eyes rolled up. Vev laughed aloud.

  He fell to his own trick. The scout was not close to falling; he suddenly came to life again. He fisted Vev in the face, a solid crack. Vev gave a high breathless cry. Halloran took him down with a sweep of his foot that knocked Vev’s feet from under him and sent him sprawling in the dirt. Several men in the crowd shouted aloud at that, and surged forward. Vev wallowed in the dust for a moment, then curled up on his side, hands to his face. Blood streamed between his fingers. He coughed weakly.

  “Halt!” The commander finally intervened. I do not know why he had waited so long. His face had gone dark with blood; this was not something any commander wanted happening at his post. Halloran might be only a scout, but he was a noble’s soldier son and an officer all the same. Surely the commander could not have deliberately permitted a common soldier like Vev to strike him. From somewhere, uniformed soldiers had appeared. The aide had gone to fetch them, I suddenly saw. Backed by his green-coated troops, the commander issued terse orders.

  “Round them up, every man here. If they’re ours, confine them to barracks. If they’re not, put them outside the walls and instruct the sentries that none of them are to reenter for three days. Sons to follow their fathers.”

  I knew he had the right. Soldiers’ sons would one day be soldiers. As he commanded their fathers, so could he order their sons in times of need.

  “He struck an officer.” My father spoke quietly. He was
not looking at the commander or the scout or me. His eyes were carefully focused on nothing. He said the words aloud, but there was no indication he was intending them for the commander.

  The commander responded anyway. “You there!” He pointed at Vev. “You are to pack up yourself and your whelps and take them all out of my jurisdiction. Because I am a merciful man and the result of your actions will fall on your wife and daughters as well, I will allow you time to take your boy to a doctor and have his jaw bound and gather what goods you rightfully own before you depart. But by nightfall tomorrow, I want you on your way!”

  The crowd muttered, displeased. It was a severe punishment. There was no other settlement for several days’ journey. It was effectively an exile to the arid Plains. I doubted the family had a wagon, or even horses. Vev had, indeed, brought a severe hardship down on himself and his family. One of his friends came forward to help him with his son. They glared at the scout and at the commander as they picked up the moaning Raven, but they did as they were told. The ranks of uniformed soldiers had fanned out to be sure it was so. The crowd began to disperse.

  The scout was standing silently, his arm around his daughter’s shoulders. He looked pale, his face greenish from the blows he had taken to his gut. I did not know if he sheltered his daughter or leaned on her. She was crying, not quietly, but in great sobs and gulps. I didn’t blame her. If someone had hit my father like that, I’d have wept, too. He spoke low, comfortingly, “We’re going home now, Sil.”

  “Halloran.” The commander’s voice was severe.

  “Sir?”

  “Don’t bring her to my post ever again. That’s an order.”

  “As if I would.” Insubordination simmered in his voice. Belatedly, he lowered his eyes and voice. “Sir.” It was at that moment that I suddenly knew how much the scout now hated his commander. And when the commander ignored it, I wondered if he feared the half-wild soldier.

  Nothing more was said that I heard. I think all sound and motion stopped for me as I stood in the street and tried to make sense of what I had seen that day. Around me, the uniformed troopers were dispersing the mob, harrying them along with curses and shoves. My father stood silently by the commander. Together they watched the scout escort his daughter to their horses. She had stopped crying. Her face was smooth and emotionless now, and if they spoke to one another, I did not hear it. He mounted after she did, and together they rode slowly away. I watched them for a long time. When I looked back to my father, I realized that he and the commander and I were the only ones left standing in the alley mouth.

  “Come here, Nevare,” my father said as if I were a straying pup, and obediently I came to his side. When I stood there, he looked down at me and, setting his hand on my shoulder, asked, “How did you come to be mixed up in this?”

  I did not even imagine I could lie to him about it. I told him all, from the time Parth had shooed me into the street until the moment he had come on the scene. The commander listened as quietly as my father did. When I repeated the threat that he’d never even find my body, my father’s eyes went flinty. He glanced at the post commander, and the man looked ill. When I was through, my father shook his head.

  I felt alarm. “Did I do wrong, Father?”

  The commander answered before my father could. But he spoke to my father, not to me. “Halloran brought the trouble to town when he brought his half-breed daughter here, Keft. Don’t trouble your boy’s head over it. If I’d known that Vev was such an insubordinate rascal, I’d never have let him or his family on my post. I’m only sorry your lad had to see and hear what he did.”

  “As am I,” my father agreed tersely. He did not sound mollified.

  The commander spoke on, hastily. “At the end of the month, I’ll send a man with the forms to fill out for the military requisition of the sheepskins. You’ll not have any competition for the bid. And when I deal with you, I’ll know I’m dealing with an honest man. Your son’s honesty speaks for that.” The commander seemed anxious to know he had my father’s regard. My father seemed reluctant to give it.

  “You honor me, sir,” was all that my father said, and he gave a very small bow at the compliment. They bid each other farewell then. We walked to our horses. Parth was standing a short distance away, his saddle at his feet and a look of forlorn hope on his face. My father didn’t look at him. He helped me to mount, for my horse was tall for me. He led the horse that Parth had ridden and I rode beside him. He was silent as the sentries passed us out of the gates. I looked wistfully at the market stalls as we rode past them. I would have liked to explore the vendors’ booths with the scout’s pretty daughter. We hadn’t even stopped for a meal, and I knew better than to complain about that. There were meat sandwiches in our saddlebags and water in our bags. A soldier was always prepared to take care of himself. A question came to me.

  “Why did they call her a hinny?”

  My father didn’t look over at me. “Because she’s a cross, son. Half-Plains, half-Gernian, and welcome nowhere. Like a mule is a cross between a horse and a donkey, but isn’t really one or the other.”

  “She did magic.”

  “So you said.”

  His tone indicated he didn’t really care to talk about that with me. It made me uncomfortable, and I finally asked him again, “Did I do wrong back there?”

  “You shouldn’t have left Parth’s side. Then none of this would have happened.”

  I thought about that for a time. It didn’t seem quite fair. “If I hadn’t been there, they couldn’t have sent me out to the girl. But I think they would have tried to get her in the alley even if I wasn’t there.”

  “Perhaps so,” my father agreed tightly. “But you wouldn’t have been there to witness it.”

  “But…” I tried to work it through my mind. “If I hadn’t been there, she would have been hurt. That would have been bad.”

  “It would,” my father agreed, after the clopping of our horse’s hooves had filled the silence for some time. My father pulled his horse to a stop, and I halted with him. He took a breath, licked his lips, and then hesitated again. Finally, as I squinted up at him, he said, “You did nothing shameful, Nevare. You protected a woman, and you spoke the truth. Both of those traits are things I value in my son. Once you had witnessed what was happening, you could have done no different. But your witnessing that, and your speaking up, caused, well, difficulties for all the officers there. It would have been better if you had obeyed my command and stayed with Parth.”

  “But that girl would have been hurt.”

  “Yes. That is likely.” My father’s voice was tight. “But if she had been hurt, it would not have been your fault, or our business at all. Likely no one would have questioned her father’s right to punish the offender. The scout hurt that soldier’s son over a mere threat to his daughter; his right to punish the man was less clear to the men. And Commander Hent is not a strong commander. He seeks his men’s permission to lead rather than demands their obedience. Because you protected her and offered testimony that the threat was real, the situation had to be dealt with. That man and his family had to be banished from the fort. The common soldiers didn’t like that. They all imagined the same happening to them.”

  “The commander let the soldier hit the scout,” I slowly realized.

  “Yes. He did it so he would have a clear reason to banish him, independent of the insult to the scout’s daughter. And that was wrong of the commander, to take such a coward’s way out. It was shameful of him. And I witnessed it, and a bit of that shame will cling to me, and to you. Yet there was nothing I could do about it, for he was the commander. If I had questioned his decision, I would only have weakened him in the sight of his men. One officer does not do that to another.”

  “Then…did Scout Halloran behave honorably?” It suddenly seemed tremendously important to me to know who had done the right thing.

  “No.” My father’s reply was absolute. “He could not. Because he behaved dishonorably the day
he took a wife from among the Plainspeople. And he made a foolish decision to bring the product of that union to the outpost with him. The soldier sons reacted to that. She displayed herself, with her bright skirts and bare arms. She made herself attractive to them. They know she will never be a Gernian’s rightful wife, and that most Plainspeople will not take her. Sooner or later, it is likely she will end up a camp whore. And thus they treated her that way today.”

  “But—”

  My father nudged his horse back into motion. “I think that is all there is for you to learn from this today. We shall not speak of it again, and you will not discuss it with your mother or sisters. We’ve a lot of road to cover before dusk. And I wish you to write an essay for me, a long one, on the duty of a son to obey his father. I think it an appropriate correction, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied quietly.

  CHAPTER TWO

  HARBINGER

  I was twelve when I saw the messenger that brought the first tidings of plague from the east.

  Strange to say, it left little impression on me at the time. It was a day like many other days. Sergeant Duril, my tutor for equestrian skills, had been putting me through drills with Sirlofty all morning. The gelding was my father’s pride and joy, and that summer was the first that I was given permission to practice maneuvers on him. Sirlofty himself was a well-schooled cavalla horse, needing no drill in battle kicks or fancy dressage, but I was green to such things, and learned as much from my mount as I did from Sergeant Duril. Any errors we made were most often blamed on my horsemanship, and justifiably so. A horseman must be one with his mount, anticipating every move of his beast and never clinging or lurching in his saddle.