The Soldier Son Trilogy Bundle Page 33

  Two months into my first year, those hopes were dashed when Colonel Stiet proclaimed that all privately owned horses in the stables would be returned to their owners’ homes and replaced with Academy-owned mounts. The long announcement about it cited cost advantages due to the uniformity of tack, veterinary care, and the use of a horse through several classes, and made much of the concept that all cadets would be equally mounted. To me, it well and truly proved that Stiet had no concept of what it meant to be a cavalla trooper. It undermined morale in a way that perhaps only a horse soldier could understand. A cavalla trooper is half horse; unmounted, he becomes an inexperienced foot soldier. Mounting us on uniform but mediocre horses was tantamount to giving us medium-grade weapons or tatty uniforms.

  This was the subject of one of the letters I sent to Carsina. I judged it neutral enough that her parents would not disapprove, and that her father might find it of interest also, as Carsina’s younger brother would one day attend the Academy. Twice a month I sent correct missives to her, in care of her father. I wrote them with the knowledge that they would be paternally perused before she received them. It was frustrating not to be able to share all that overflowed my heart, but I knew that her father must consider me a purposeful cadet and a man of focus if I wished to win her. Flowery phrases and reminders of how I cherished that tiny lace handkerchief would not win me his respect. The brief missives I received from her in response were very unsatisfactory. She always inquired after my health and told me that she hoped I was doing well in my studies. Sometimes she mentioned some useful pursuit of her own, such as learning a new embroidery stitch or supervising the kitchen girls as they put up berry preserves for the winter. I cared very little for embroidery or preserves, but those stiff little notes were all I had to sustain me.

  I carried her token with me always, folded carefully and wrapped in a sheet of thin paper to preserve its scent. At first, I spoke little of my love to my fellow cadets, for fear of teasing. Then one evening I walked in on a conversation between Kort and Natred. They were speaking of home and loneliness, and one another’s sisters. Kort was holding a tiny square of linen with a forget-me-not embroidered on it. Natred’s token from Kort’s sister was a cross-stitched bookmark in the Academy colors. I’d never seen him use it and suspected that he probably regarded it as too precious for such a mundane task.

  There was a strange relief and pride in presenting my own lady’s token and speaking of how it had been given to me. I confided to them that I, too, missed my sweetheart more than was seemly in one who was promised but not formally engaged yet. In the course of discussing how carefully I must tread in that situation, each of them sheepishly produced a small packet of letters. Kort’s was bound with a lavender ribbon and Natred’s was scented with violets. They were in league with their sisters, who received letters from their brothers and then exchanged them. Thus Kort and Natred not only could write of how they truly felt but also were privileged to hear from their darlings without any parental censorship.

  The obvious solution to my dilemma immediately presented itself, but for several weeks I procrastinated. Would Yaril go to my mother with my request? Would Carsina think less of me for trying to evade Lord Grenalter’s monitoring of my correspondence? Most difficult of all was the ethical question of whether I was leading my sister in my attempt to enlist her in my plot. I was still agonizing over it when I received a very peculiar letter from Yaril. My family took turns writing to me, so that I had a good chance of receiving at least one letter a week. Yaril’s notes had been dutiful and rather perfunctory up to that time. The missive that came that week was fatter than usual. I weighed the envelope in my hand, and when I opened it I caught a waft of scent that was at once unusual and yet delightfully familiar. It was gardenia, and I was instantly transported back to my last night at home and my stroll through the garden with Carsina.

  Inside was my usual dutiful missive from my sister. But folded within that letter was a second letter. The borders of the notepaper had been painstakingly decorated with butterflies and flowers. Carsina had used violet ink, and her penmanship was almost childishly large and very ornate. Her spelling errors would have been laughable in almost any other setting, but somehow they only added to the charm of her message as she told me that “every momint seems an age until I shall puruse your face agen.” The intricacy of her illustrations spoke to me of hours spent on the two pages she sent me, and I studied every tiny picture. She had a wonderful eye for detail, and I could name the various flowers she had so carefully reproduced.

  Yaril had committed no guilty word of her own to paper, and so when I replied to her, as I did immediately, I made no direct mention of the enclosure. I did mention that I had heard that first-years were sometimes given a day’s liberty in town at the turn of the semester, and that I would be happy to buy her some lace or other trinkets if she told me what might please her, for it always delighted me to be kind to a sister who had in turn done so many kindnesses for me. Mindful that, even though Carsina’s father might not see it, it was very possible that my sister might be tempted to read my letter before passing it on to Carsina, I spent an agonizing two days composing my first missive to my love.

  I tried to balance manliness with tenderness, respect with ardor, and passion with practicality. I spoke of our future together, the children we’d have, the home we’d establish together. I stopped when I realized I had run to five pages of finely written script. I folded it inside my letter to my sister, and sealed it separately from my letter to her, hoping that my parents would notice neither the uncharacteristic length nor promptness of my response. Feeling extremely guilty, I then composed an equally long and detailed missive about classes and the Academy’s decision regarding our mounts and sent it off to my father, hoping that it might prove a distraction from the letter I sent Yaril.

  I had never thought that receiving and then replying to a letter from Carsina would prove such a distraction to me. After it was posted, I could not stop thinking about it, and wondering how many days it would take to travel to her on the mail boat, and if it must dawdle long with my sister before a visit brought them together and Yaril could pass it on. At night I lay awake, imagining her receiving it, wondering if she would open it while Yaril was there or wait for a quiet time alone. I longed for both, for if she wrote a response while they were visiting, Yaril could immediately send it along to me, yet I also hoped she’d read it privately and keep its contents to herself. It was a delicious agony and a serious distraction from my studies. It became my nightly ritual: evening ablutions, night prayers, and then staring into the darkness listening to the deep breathing of my slumbering roommates and thinking of Carsina. I often dreamed of her. One night, as I hastened myself toward sleep with thoughts of Carsina, I dreamed, vividly, that a letter had arrived from her. The detail of that dream was extraordinary.

  Sergeant Rufet distributed our mail to us. Often we returned from our morning classes to find whatever we had received set precisely in the center of each bed. In my dream, there was a letter addressed to me in my sister Yaril’s hand, but I immediately knew that it held tidings from Carsina. I slipped it inside my uniform jacket, resolving to open it alone and unobserved so that I could privately savor whatever she had written to me. In the golden last light of the afternoon, I slipped away from the dormitory to a peaceful copse of oak trees that graced an expanse of lawn to the east of Carneston House. There, I leaned against the trunk of a tree and opened my long-awaited letter. Light filtered down through the canopy of autumn leaves. A light layer of fallen leaves on the ground shifted softly in the evening breeze from the river.

  I drew the longed-for pages from the envelope. My sister’s letter was a large golden leaf. As I looked at it, it turned brown, the inked lines fading with the color change. The edges of the leaf curled in, until it resembled the dry husk of a butterfly’s cocoon. When I tried to unfurl it, it crumbled into tiny brown bits and blew away on the wind.

  Carsina’s letter was w
ritten on paper. I tried to read it, but her handwriting, once so large and looping, crawled into tiny spidery letters, the characters becoming so ornate they defied my eyes. But within the page was a pressed trio of violets. They were carefully enfolded in a sheet of fine paper. When I opened them and put them on my palm, I could suddenly smell their fragrance as strongly as if they were freshly bloomed. I put my nose close to them, breathing in their perfume and knowing, somehow, that Carsina had worn this tiny bouquet pinned to her dress for a day before she had pressed them and sent them to me. I smiled, for the scent of the flowers was the air of her love for me. I was so blessed that the woman destined to be mine regarded me with affection and anticipation. Not all arranged partners were so fortunate. My future was gold before me and assured. I would be an officer and I would lead men and acquit myself well in feats of war. My lady would come to me, to be my wife and to fill my home with children. When my days as a cavalla officer were done, we would retire to live out our years in Widevale in a gracious home on my brother’s holding.

  As I thought these thoughts, the violets in my hand began to grow. They budded and more blossoms joined the three, and the three eldest blossoms formed tiny seeds, which dropped on the palm of my hand. There they germinated, sinking tiny roots into the lines of my palm and opening small green leaves to the sunlight. Flowers with the faces of children began to open. I watched over them, cherishing them, as I leaned on the trunk of a great oak.

  I do not know what made me look up from them. She made no sound. She stood, unmoving as a tree, looking at me with great determination. Tiny flowers bloomed in her hair. The robe that draped her was the gold of birch leaves in autumn. The majestic tree woman shook her head in slow denial. “No,” she said. Her voice was quiet, and not unkind, but her words reached my ears with absolute clarity. “That is not for you. That may do for others, but a different fate awaits you. There is a task to be done, you were chosen for it, and even now it awaits you. Nothing and no one shall lead you away from it. You will go to it, even if you must go as a dog that flees from flung stones. It is given to you to turn them back. Only you can do it, soldier’s boy. All else must be put aside until your task is done.”

  Her words horrified me. It could not be so. I looked back at the future I held so securely. Cupped in my hand, the foliage of the tiny offspring of our love thrived briefly, then, horrifyingly, yellowed and shriveled. The little faces closed their eyes and grew pale and wan. The blossoms bent, withering, and then suddenly subsided into rotting foliage in the palm.

  “No!” I cried, and only then felt how the oak had taken me in. Its bark had grown over my shoulders and engulfed my torso. Years before, my brother and I had left a rope swing tied to the branch of a gully willow. As time had passed, the tree’s limb had swelled up around the rope until the constricting line was invisible. So was this tree engulfing me, growing around me and taking me inside it. It was too late to struggle. Bemused by the flowers in my hand, I had been unwary.

  I lifted my head and opened my mouth to scream. Instead, soundlessly, I vomited forth a cascade of green tendrils. They dove into the earth at my feet, and then rose again as saplings. On the lawn before me a forest sprouted, and I felt them drawing sustenance from my body. As Nevare, I dwindled to nothing, and became instead a green awareness. My tree selves grew and first encroached on the campus buildings and then enfolded them. My roots buckled the walkways and cracked foundations. My branches thrust into glassless windows. I sent wandering yellow tendrils across the dusty floors of empty classrooms. The Academy fell before me and became a forest, a forest that slowly began to climb over the walls of the grounds and spread out into the streets and byways of Old Thares.

  I felt nothing about all this. I was green, alive and growing, and that meant all was well. Everything was safe. I had protected them all. Then I felt footsteps pacing slowly through me; someone moved through the forest I had become. Slowly I became aware of her. With great fondness, I turned my attention to her.

  The immense tree woman of my spirit dream turned her face up to the lances of sunlight that shafted down onto her through my many leafy branches. Her gray-green hair cascaded down her back. She smiled up at me, and the flesh that wreathed her face echoed her smile. “You did it. You stopped them. This is your success.” I felt a surge of pride in myself. I understood. The healing of the earth that I worked in my world would be a healing of this other world as well.

  A moment later a wave of horror replaced it. My enemy had corrupted me. I did not love her and her forest. My love was for my homeland, my loyalty to my king. I saw her as she really was. She was fat and disgusting, her many chins wobbling like a frog about to croak. I could not give my life to that.

  I woke to Spink gripping me by the shoulders and shaking me roughly. “Wake up, Nevare. You’re having a bad dream!” he was shouting at me as I became aware of the darkness of the dormitory. I fell back into my crumpled blankets gratefully.

  “A dream. Oh, thank the good god, just a dream. A dream.”

  “Go back to sleep!” Natred pleaded in an agonized groan of weariness. “It’s still a couple of hours before reveille. I need all the sleep I can get.”

  In a few moments the room was quiet around me again, save for the heavy breathing of my roommates. Sleep was a very precious commodity to cadets; we never seemed to get enough of it. Yet the rest of that night, it eluded me. I stared into the dark corner of my dormitory room and told myself over and over that it had only been a dream. I wrung my hands together, trying to eliminate the itching feeling that the roots had left on my palms. But worse was the burning in my heart. I had fretted before that I did not possess the natural leadership Spink and Trist manifested so plainly, but I had never doubted my courage. Yet in my dream, I had clearly chosen to ally myself with the tree woman. Was my dream a truth from my soul? Did cowardice lurk in me? Could I be a traitor? I could conceive of no other reason that I would turn away from patriotism for king and family.

  The next day was torture for me. I could scarcely keep my eyes open, and earned demerits for myself in Varnian and math classes. I was both exhausted and ravenous when we returned to the dormitory at noon. I could not decide which I wanted more, my lunch or a brief nap, until I spied the envelope awaiting me on my bunk. Spink and Natred had also received mail, and tore into it joyously. I realized I was standing and staring at mine when Kort nudged me. “Isn’t that something you’ve been hoping for?” The smile he gave me was both warm and teasing.

  “Perhaps,” I said guardedly. He was looking at me expectantly, so I picked it up. It was addressed to me in my sister’s familiar hand, but it weighed more than one of her perfunctory messages would have. Kort was watching me avidly. I couldn’t send him away, for I realized belatedly that I had watched him with the same envy when he had received mail. At any other time I would have resented his vicarious sharing of this moment, but it was suddenly comforting to have him there. Last night had been a dream, and Kort standing next to me anchored me in reality. This envelope might well hold a message from Carsina. A message from my future bride and the woman who would be mother to my children. I tore open the envelope and coaxed out the contents.

  A dutiful letter from my sister, several pages longer than usual, enclosed another written on fine onionskin paper. I forced myself to read my sister’s missive first. She did, indeed, know of several things I could send her from Old Thares, should I have the opportunity to get into town. Her list was quite specific and occupied two pages of her letter. Beads, in certain colors, sizes, and quantities. Lace, no more than one inch wide, in white, ecru, and the palest blue I could find, in quantities of at least three yards each. Buttons shaped like berries, cherries, apples, acorns, or birds, but not like dogs or cats, please. At least twelve of each, and if they came in two sizes, an additional four in the smaller size. After the sewing notions, there followed a list of drawing pencils and then several nibs she would like to have. I had to smile at her cheerful avarice. I suspected she wel
l knew that I would do my best to get her some, if not all, of her heart’s desires.

  Shaking my head, I refolded her letter and turned my attention to the packet of fine paper within it. A drop of crimson wax sealed that missive, and lacking a ring to seal it, the delicate imprint of a small finger. I tried to leave it intact as I opened it and failed utterly. It cracked into red crumbles. As I unfolded the pages, a fine dust of brown flakes cascaded from them onto my bunk.

  “Look at that! His girl has sent him snuff!” Kort exclaimed in amazement. Several heads turned to see what he was talking about. I was already making my way through the maze of Carsina’s looping handwriting. The fallen fragments did indeed resemble snuff, but I could not imagine that she had sent me such a gift.

  I read through two flowery pages of endearments and loneliness and anticipation before I solved the mystery. “And herein I enclos several pansies from my garden. These are the largest and brightest blooms I have ever rased, and I have presed them carefully for you so that they held their colors. Some people fancy that pansies have little faces. If these ones do, then each one holds a kiss for you, for I have plased them there myself!”

  I smiled. “She has sent me pressed flowers,” I said to Kort.

  “Oh, posies for her sweetheart!” he mocked me, but even in that mocking there was an acknowledgment that we shared something, and I felt manlier for him knowing that there was a girl who waited for me. I slit the other side of the envelope and spread it open carefully, looking for my keepsake. But all I found was brown dust that dribbled out to float on the air before settling onto the floor. I looked at it in dismay.

  “The flowers must have dried away to nothing.”

  Kort raised one eyebrow. “How long ago did she send them to you? Has the letter been delayed?”