I slowly sank back into my seat, the page still clutched in my hands. There was a humming in my ears and stupidly I thought of the Spindle and its endless dance. My mouth felt dry and I could not form any words. My father had no such problem. He continued castigating me for my irresponsible, self-indulgent, foolish, selfish, senseless ways. I finally found a breath and remembered how to move my mouth.
‘I don’t know what this is about, Father. Truly, I don’t.’
‘It’s about the end of your career, you fool. It’s about no future for you, and shame for your family. A medical discharge for being too fat! That’s what it’s about! Damn you, boy. Damn you. You couldn’t even fail with dignity. To lose your career because you couldn’t refrain from stuffing food in your mouth. What have you done to us? What will my old comrades think of me, sending them such a soldier son?’
His voice ran down. His hands, still clutching additional papers, were shaking. He felt this as his personal failure. His shame. His dignity. The honour of his family. Never had he considered how this might feel to me. My father had gone to stand by the window. He read through his handful of papers with his back to me, the writing tilted towards the light. I heard him give a small grunt, as if he’d been struck. A moment later, I heard the gasp of an indrawn breath. He turned to look at me, the papers still held out before him. ‘Filth,’ he said with great feeling. ‘Of all the disgusting behaviours I might fear a son of mine might indulge in, this! This!’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ I said again, stupidly. I wondered why the doctor hadn’t spoken to me before I left. I knew a wild moment of hope in which I wondered if it were all a mistake, if this discharge had been written when I was still terribly ill. A glance at the date on the paper ended that dream. The good doctor had signed it several days after I’d left the Academy. ‘I don’t understand,’ I said, more to myself than my father.
‘Don’t you? It’s here in black and white. Read it for yourself.’ He left the window and as he angrily strode from the room, he hurled the papers at me. It was not a satisfactory gesture. Not one even reached me. They fluttered out around him and settled on the floor. When he slammed the door behind him, that brief gust of wind stirred them again. I bent over to pick them up, grunting as I did so. My belly got in the way, and the waistband of my pants seemed too tight. I scowled as I painstakingly gathered up what proved to be my transcript and all my records, including my medical file.
I took them to the table and sorted them. Strange. All these papers were about me, and yet I’d never seen most of them before. Here was a secretary’s copy of the accusing letter that Colonel Stiet had sent to my father over the incident with Cadet Lieutenant Tiber. Here was, surprisingly, a letter of commendation from Captain Maw, saying that I had shown extraordinary ability as an independent thinker in his engineering and drafting class, and suggesting that I might best serve the King’s Cavalla as a scout on the frontier. Was that what had so upset my father? I sorted more paper. There were tallies of my test scores for my various classes. My grades were all exemplary. Surely they had been up to his expectations, not that I’d ever expected him to acknowledge it.
The medical file on me was thick. I had not realized that Dr Amicas had kept such complete records. There was a log of my illness. It began with great detail, but by the fourth day, when cadets were dropping like flies with the plague, the entries were abbreviated to ‘Fever continues. Tried giving him mint in his water to cool his systems.’ Towards the end of the file, I found notes on my recovery, and then more notes that tracked my increasing weight and girth. He’d graphed it. The continuing climb of the line was undeniable. Had that angered my father? He now knew that I had lied when I said the doctor had expected my weight gain to be temporary. Looking at the evidence, I felt a sudden sinking of heart. The line did not falter. It had risen every day since my fever had subsided. Was that what the doctor expected it to do? How long would it continue? How long could such a trend continue? could such a trend continue?
Towards the bottom of the stack, I found what had damned me in my father’s eyes. This document was not in the doctor’s handwriting. My name was marked on the top of the sheet, and a date. Below it was a set of questions, questions that rang oddly familiar in my mind. An aide’s notes below each one recorded my answer.
‘Did you go to Dark Evening in Old Thares?
Yes.
Did you eat or drink there?
Yes.
What did you eat? What did you drink?
Potatoes, chestnuts, meat skewer. Cadet denies drinking anything.
Did you encounter any Specks there?
Yes.
Cadet specifically mentions a female Speck. “Beautiful”.
Did you have any contact with any Speck that evening?
Cadet evasive.
Did your contact include sexual congress?
Cadet denied. Continued questioning. Cadet evasive. Cadet eventually admitted sexual contact.’
I stared at the damning words. But I had not. I did not. I hadn’t had sexual contact with a Speck on Dark Evening, and I certainly hadn’t confessed that I had to the aide. I remembered him now, vaguely, as a dark shape silhouetted against a window that was too bright with light. I remembered him badgering me for an answer when my mouth was dry and sticky and my head pounded with pain.
‘Yes or no, Cadet. Answer yes or no. Did you have sexual contact with a Speck?’
I had told him something to make him go away. I didn’t remember what. But I’d never had sexual contact with a Speck. At least, not in real life. Only in my fever dreams had I lain with Tree Woman. And that had been only a dream.
Hadn’t it?
I shook my head at myself. It was becoming more and more difficult for me to draw a firm line between my real life and the strange experiences that had befallen me ever since the Kidona Dewara had exposed me to plains magic. In her medium’s trance, Epiny had confirmed that I had indeed been split into two persons, and one of me had sojourned in another world. I had been willing to accept that. I’d been able to accept it because I thought it was over. I’d recovered the lost part of my self and made it mine again. I had believed that my Speckself would merge with my real self, and the contradictions would cease troubling me.
Yet time after time, that strange other self intruded into my life, in ways that were becoming more and more destructive to me. I recognized him when I’d lain beside the farm girl, and he’d triumphed at Dancing Spindle. That Nevare, I felt, that ‘Soldier’s Boy’ had been the one to spout anger so drastically at Carsina. I’d known him by the anger pulsing in my blood. He’d had the courage to free the dove from the sacrificial hook. I’d felt him again whenever I’d found words to confront my father in the days since the wedding. He wasn’t a wise influence on me. But he could rally my courage and foolhardiness and suddenly push me to assert myself. He relished confrontation in a way I did not. I shook my head. In that, he was a truer son to my father than this Nevare was. Yet I had to admit there had been times when I’d valued his insight. He had been with me the first time I glimpsed a true forest on my river journey to Old Thares, and it had been his anger I’d felt over the slain birds at Rosse’s wedding. In quieter moments, his vision of the natural world replaced mine. I would see a tree sway or hear
