what dignity I could muster, I turned and walked away from her.
‘Nevare.’
It had been years since I had heard her speak my name in that tone. It was to my anger as iron was to magic. Despite my inclination, I turned back to her. Her eyes were bright with both tears and anger.
‘A moment ago, you said that nothing in this room could save you. You are wrong. You are my son, and I will save you. Whatever it is that has caused such a change in you, I will oppose it. I will not back down, I will not flee, and I will not give up on you. I am your mother, and for as long as we both live, that is so. Believe in me, son. I believe in you. And I will not let you ruin your life. No matter how often you turn away from me, I will still be here. I will not fail you. Believe that, son.’
I looked at her. She held herself straight as a sword and despite the tears that now tracked down her cheeks, her strength radiated from her. I wanted to believe that she could save me. So often when I was small, she had swept in and stood between my father’s wrath and me. So often she had been the steadying influence, the true compass for me. There was only one answer I could give her. ‘I will try, Mother.’ I turned and left her there, with her incense and her smoke and her good god.
As I left the room, I knew I was as alone as I had ever been. Regardless of my mother’s good intentions, my battle to regain my life would be a solitary one. She was my mother and she was strong but the magic was like an infection in my blood. Oppose it however she might, she could not cure me. The magic had taken me, and I would have to battle it alone. I sought my room.
I found no solace there. The neglected letters still rested on the desk. I longed to sit down and immerse myself in them but I had no heart to answer them just now. My bed complained as I lay down on it. I stared around at the bare walls and simple furnishings and the single window. It had always been a severe room, a place of minimal comfort, a room that would train a boy to embrace a soldier’s life. Now it was a bare cell. In this room, I would live out the rest of my days. Every night I would lie down here alone to sleep. Every morning, I would rise to do my father’s bidding, and when he was gone, I would have to accept Rosse’s authority over me. What else was there for me? For a flashing moment, I thought of running away. I had a childish image of myself galloping away on Sirlofty, going east towards the end of the King’s Road and the mountains beyond. The thought lifted me and for an instant, I actually considered rising from my bed and leaving that night. My heart raced at the wild plan. Then I came to my senses and marvelled at my foolish impulse. No. I was not going to give up my dream just yet. As long as I had my mother’s belief to sustain me, I would stay here. I would resist the magic and try to reclaim my life. I closed my eyes to that thought and without intending to, drifted off into a deep sleep.
I did not dream. The awareness that flowed through me was as unlike dreaming as waking is to sleeping. Magic worked in me, like yeast working in bread batter. I felt it quicken, and grow, swelling in my veins. It gathered strength from my body, roiling through my flesh, drawing on the resources it had gathered against this necessity. With growing trepidation, I recognized that I had felt this sensation before. The magic had moved in me before, and it had acted. What had it done, without my knowledge or consent? I recalled the young man on the jankship, and how he had fallen after my angry words with him. That was one time, but there had been others.
The massed magic did something.
The languages I knew did not have words to express it. Could my flesh shout out a word, voicelessly, soundlessly? Could the magic, a thing that resided elsewhere than the physical world, speak a command through me, so that somewhere, something it desired happened? That was what it felt like. Dimly I sensed that something had begun. The first event that would trigger a chain reaction of responses had occurred. Finished, the magic pooled to stillness in me. Weariness washed through my body. I sank into an exhausted sleep.
When I awoke, the sun had gone down. I’d slept the rest of the day away. I got up quietly and crept down the stairs. At the bottom, I paused to listen. I heard my father’s strident voice in his study. Rosse was gone; I wondered whom he was lecturing. After a moment, I heard my mother’s soft response. Ah. I walked quickly past that door, and past the music room where Elisi drew a melancholy melody from her harp. The young fellow at Rosse’s wedding had made no offer for her. Was that my fault? The house was a pool of unhappiness and I was the source of it. I reached the door and strode out into the night.
I wandered through the dark familiar garden and sat down on a bench. I tried to grasp that my future was gone. I could think of nowhere to go tonight and nothing to do. The ferry stopped at night, so I couldn’t cross the river to Burvelle’s Landing. I’d long ago read most of the books in our family library. I had no projects. I had no friends to visit. This was a foretaste of the rest of my life. I could do manual labour on the holdings and then wander aimlessly about at night. I’d be a shadow in my old home, a useless extra son and nothing more.
I gave myself a shake to rid my head of melancholy foolishness. I hitched up my trousers, left the garden and walked over to the menservants’ quarters. My father had built them as a structure separate from the house, and my mother still complained that it looked more like a military barracks than servants’ quarters. She was right, and I was sure that it was deliberately so. One door led into a long open bunkroom for seasonal workers. At the other end of the structure, there were private apartments for married servants and rooms for our permanent help. I went to Sergeant Duril’s door. Strange to say, in all the years he’d taught me, I’d only rapped on it half a dozen times.
For a moment I hesitated before it. For all I knew of the man who had taught me, there was much I didn’t know. I wondered if he was even awake or if he was off in the Landing. At last I damned myself for a foolish coward, and knocked firmly on the door.
Silence from within. Then I heard the scrape of a chair and footsteps. The door opened to me, spilling lamplight into the night. Duril’s eyebrows shot up at the sight of me. ‘Nevare, is it? What brings you here?’
He was in his undershirt and trousers, with no boots on. I’d caught him getting ready for bed. I realized that I’d grown taller than Sergeant Duril. I was so accustomed to him in his boots or on horseback. He had no hat on; the substantial bald spot on his pate surprised me. I tried not to stare at it while he tried not to stare at my stomach. I groped for something to say other than that I was horribly lonely and would never be able to go back to the Academy.
‘Has your saddle cinch been coming loose lately?’ I asked him.
He squinted at me for a second, and then I saw his jaw loosen, as if he’d just realized something. ‘Come in, Nevare,’ he invited me, and stood back from the door.
His room revealed him. There was a potbellied stove in one corner of the room, but no fire at this time of year. A disassembled long gun dominated the table in the room. He had shelves, but instead of books they held the clutter of his life. Interesting rocks were mixed with cheap medical remedies for backache and sore feet, a good-luck carving of a frog jostled up against a large seashell and a stuffed owl, and a wadded shirt awaited mending next to a spool of thread. Through an open door, I glimpsed his neatly made up bed in the next room. A bare room for a bare life, I thought to myself, and then grimaced as I realized that his room had more character than mine did. I imagined myself as Sergeant Duril years from now, no wife or children of my own, teaching a soldier son not mine, a solitary man.
The two of us filled the small room and I felt more uncomfortable with my bulk than ever. ‘Sit down,’ he invited me, drawing out one of his chairs. I placed myself carefully on it, testing my weight against it. He pulled out the other chair and sat down. With no awkwardness at all, he launched into talk.
‘My
