“Spink’s family doesn’t. What becomes of him?”
Captain Maw cleared his throat. “I suspect he will be a Ranker. He’ll enlist as a common soldier, for he will remain a soldier son. And on the basis of his talents, he will rise. Or not. The military has always provided those alternate paths for men of talent and determination. Not all officers are born of nobility. Some come up through the ranks.”
“At the cost of years of their lives. Sir.”
“That’s true. That has always been true.”
I sat there, no longer liking a man whom I had admired for most of the term. A private congratulation on figuring out his puzzle, and a recommendation to a scout’s lieutenancy. That was all he was offering me. I’d be a leader without troops, an officer who rode alone. I thought of Scout Vaxton and his rough manners and worn uniform. I thought of how my father had invited him to our table, but kept my mother and sisters away from his company. That was my fate. It was already determined that that was the best I could do. I could not force them to keep me at the Academy. I had done my best and passed every test they had given me. Yet I would still be discarded, because the tight ranks of the old nobility feared that the king was becoming too strong.
I dared a question. “And if I go out now and tell what I know?”
He looked at me sadly. “Now you sound like Tiber.” He shook his head. “You wouldn’t be believed, Burvelle. It would sound pitiful, as if you were trying to make excuses for your own failure. Go quietly, son. There are worse things than being culled. You’re leaving with an honorable discharge. You don’t have to go home with your tail between you legs. You could leave here with a posting to one of the citadels in the east.” He suddenly leaned toward me and tried for a smile. “Think on it for a night. Come back to me tomorrow morning and tell me that you’ve decided youdo want to be a scout. I’ll see that your transfer papers are written up that way. There will be no mention of a culling on them.”
He waited for me to reply. I could have thanked him. I could have said I needed time to think. Instead, I said nothing at all.
Captain Maw spoke very softly. “You are dismissed, Cadet Burvelle.”
I heard it as my sentence. I rose without acknowledging his words and walked out of his office, out of the engineering building, and into the cold of Dark Evening. Tonight, in Old Thares, people caroused and celebrated the longest night of the year. Tomorrow, they would breakfast together and exchange good wishes for the first lengthening day of the year. Before the week was out, Sirlofty and I would be on our way back to my family home. All the years my father had prepared me had been for nothing. The golden future he had promised me was dross. I thought of Carsina and tears pricked my eyes. She would not be mine. Her father would never give her
to a cavalla scout. I suddenly knew I would die childless, that the soldier son journals I sent home to my brother’s house would be a story that dribbled away with no ending at all.
CHAPTER 21
Carnival
Carneston House was deserted. An unhappy cadet corporal sat in Sergeant Rufet’s chair behind his desk. Surely that was a punishment duty. I surmised he had been given the night shift so that even our dour sergeant could partake of the pleasures of Dark Evening. He gave me a dispirited stare as I trudged past him. I could not find the energy to hurry up the steps. All around me, the dormitory was unnaturally quiet.
Upstairs, my bunkroom showed all the signs of a hasty departure. No one had waited for me. They’d all racketed off together for a wild night of town freedom without even a thought for Nevare Burvelle. I suspected that all the hire carriages would be gone from the cabstand. Even if I’d wanted to go, it was too late now. But I was hungry. I decided I’d leave the Academy grounds and walk to a nearby public house for a beer and sup. Then I’d simply come back to the dormitory and go to sleep. If I could.
I took my greatcoat from its hook, and as I thrust my arms down the sleeves, a folded bit of notepaper fell out. I picked it up from the floor. My name was on the outside of it, in Spink’s handwriting, blotted as if he’d done it hurriedly. I unfolded it and stared at the horrible words that sealed my fate. “I’ve gone to meet Epiny. It was none of my doing, Nevare. She sent me a note by messenger saying she would find me on the green by the Great Square so we could celebrate Dark Evening together. I know I’m a fool to go to her; it will seal your aunt’s opinion of me. But I dare not leave her alone there among the types of men who will be roving the streets tonight.” The note was signed with a slopingS.