I strode down quiet streets lit only by the lamplight that seeped out from houses. Far too many of them were dark and abandoned. Even when I reached the main street of the fort and turned, an eerie quiet prevailed. There were no longer that many soldiers to be out and about in the evening, and Captain Thayer’s strict rules had reduced even that number. He disapproved of drunkenness, gambling, and even rowdy songs and lively dances. With the town outside the fort reduced in population, there were few places for the soldiers to go, and little to do once they got there. No wonder Kesey’s graveyard card parties had become so popular.
The cooling night air was settling the dew. The moisture woke the odors of burned timber and abandoned buildings. As I drew closer to the jail where I had been held, I debated with myself, and then decided that a bit of reconnoitering might not be a bad idea. I walked past it and then approached it again from the alley. I walked as quietly as I could through the coarse grass and the uneven debris there.
The uppermost floor had been burned away to timbers and rafters. The ground floor was mostly intact, but no lights showed through the broken panes of the windows. That left the foundation level, the cells built mostly belowground. The fire would not have bothered them. I halted and stood still, listening, but no sound came to me. The walls, I recalled, were thick blocks of stone mortared together. If Amzil wept, ranted, or screamed, I could not hear her. My heart stood still at that thought, and squeezed at the idea of her in a tiny, lightless room, waiting to die in the morning. I drew in a silent shuddering breath.
I nearly tripped over a broken piece of stone, and in the darkness, I walked right into a tree branch. I caught myself against the building before I fell and froze there, hoping I had not made too much noise. My eyes were adjusting to the dark and I suddenly knew where I was. The rubble that had tripped me had come from the escape hole that Lisana’s roots had torn in the side of my cell. Daring to hope, I knelt in the darkness, but the wall had been roughly but effectively mended with stone and mortar. I’d find no easy entry there. On the ground, I could still feel the lumpy cascade of root that had torn the walls apart.
Then, with a strange shiver, I touched the trunk of the tree that had sprung up from it. In the darkness, I stood up, feeling the bark, then pinching a glossy leaf. The aroma from it was unmistakable. A kaembra tree was growing from the roots Lisana had sent to free me. Strange thoughts rushed through me. I felt that somehow I closed a circle. Touching this tree, I touched Lisana, I touched Soldier’s Boy, and beyond them, the ancestor trees in the distant vale. Even, I thought to myself, Buel Hitch. But more than that, I suddenly thought. Touching this tree, I touched both forest and Forest. I touched a life left behind, and just for a moment, I yearned for it.
Then, “Good-bye,” I told them all. “Chances are, I won’t free Amzil. Chances are, I’m condemning myself to death tonight. But it’s nice to think that you’ll go on together, even if I don’t. So I forgive you for taking what you could get of each other, even if it left me on the outside. I even forgive you, Soldier’s Boy. Farewell. ”
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I heard something then, a soft shifting in the darkness. I froze. I waited. I breathed quietly, counting my indrawn breaths. Nothing. There was no more sound, and I judged that I’d heard a cat, or more likely a rat creeping down the alley. Silent as a shadow myself, I completed my circuit of the building. Very gently, I tried the door at the end. Locked. But I recalled there was another one. I went around the side to it and down a short flight of stone steps. Well did I recall trying to negotiate those steps with painfully tight shackles around my ankles. I went down them and tried the door handle. It, too, was locked. Captain Thayer’s sentries would be inside, guarding her cell.
Well, then, it was time to get the keys.
I walked quiet as a ghost as I left the vicinity of the jail, and then, as I neared the headquarters building, I lifted my head and put a bit of the soldier into my stride. I knew from Spink that Captain Thayer had left the house he had shared with Carsina and taken over the commander’s quarters. Those rooms I knew from my days of reporting directly to Colonel Haren.
I was surprised to find a lamp burning in the office, and when I entered, a grizzled sergeant sitting at the desk. He looked both bored and alert, as only old soldiers know how to do, and did not startle in the slightest when I came in. His gaze took in my civilian clothes but he gave me the benefit of the doubt. “Sir?” he addressed me.
“Good evening, Sergeant. I’ve come to call on Captain Thayer. I’d present you with my card, but I’m afraid that bandits robbed me of everything I owned on my way here. ” I let enough displeasure creep into my voice to suggest that perhaps I blamed him or Captain Thayer for that. In truth, one of the duties of the regiment was to keep the King’s Highway free of brigands, so if it had happened, I would have been justified in my displeasure.
The Sergeant stiffened slightly. “I’m sorry to hear that, sir. And I’m sure Captain Thayer will want to hear of your experience. However, it’s a bit late for this sort of call. Perhaps you—”
“Had I not been set upon, beaten, and robbed, I assure you I would have arrived much earlier and would have had the leisure to observe all the courtesies of such a call. As it is, I’d like to see the Captain this evening. Tonight, and now would be preferable. ”
It was too easy to slip back into that arrogance of the nobleman born, and even easier to take it the two steps into insufferable spoiled prig. I gave my head a slight toss and preened my hair back from my face as I had sometimes seen Trist do in our cadet days. I saw a cold flicker of disdain in the back of the Sergeant’s eyes. He knew now that I would not leave until the Captain himself had sent me away, and he was resigned to it. He came to his feet and politely asked, “What name shall I give the Captain when he asks who is calling?”
“Rosse Burvelle. ” I had not known I was going to steal my dead brother’s name until that very moment. To this day, I cannot say why I did it. It stuck to my tongue and I would have called it back if I could. Several people had already heard me called Nevare. And yet there it was, done in that moment, and the Sergeant had already turned, tapped at the door, and then entered to the gruff command from within.
I stood for a few moments, sweating in a dead man’s good coat, and then the Sergeant returned. His manner had changed. He bowed to me and wide-eyed told me please to enter right away. I thanked him and did, closing the door firmly behind me.
When those chambers had been Colonel Haren’s, they had been a retreat from the primitive conditions at Gettys. They had been carpeted, tapestried, furnished from floor to ceiling, and always there had been a great fire burning on the hearth that made the room seem an elegant furnace. I wondered what had become of all Colonel Haren’s furnishings. Perhaps they had been shipped back west after he died, or merely packed away into some forgotten storage. In any case, they were gone. The room looked barren; deliberately barren.
A tiny fire burned on the hearth. There was a heavy wooden desk and a straight-backed chair, very similar to the Sergeant’s. For visitors, there was a simple wooden chair facing the desk. At the other end of the room, a narrow bunk was neatly made up next to a very plain dresser. His sword belt and saber were hung neatly on a hook next to his overcoat. A stand held a tin washbasin and ewer. The doors of his wardrobe were closed. It could have been a cadet’s room at the Academy. It smelled of wood polish and the candles that burned there; there was no friendly scent of tobacco, nor any sign of a bottle of sherry or brandy to welcome a guest. Discipline. Penance.
The man seated at the desk was as austere as the room. Despite the evening hour, Captain Thayer still wore his uniform, with his collar buttoned tight. His hands rested side by side on the desktop before him as if he were there to recite a lesson. Despite his sun-weathered skin, he looked pale. He licked his lips as I came in. I’d taken my hat off and now I stepped toward him, my hand held out. “Thank you for receiving me
, Captain Thayer. I’m—”
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Before I could introduce myself, he looked at me and said, “I know who you are. And I know why you’ve come, Mr. Burvelle. ”
My heart sank. He knew?
“You’ve come to inquire into the death of your brother, Nevare Burvelle. Your sister knew he was here, enlisted under a false name. I knew that eventually there would be this reckoning. And I am ready for it. ”
Despite his brave and honest words, his voice shook slightly. He swallowed, and when he spoke again, his voice was a bit higher. “If you wish to demand satisfaction of me, you have that right. ” His hands moved very slightly on the desktop, a faint scrabbling motion. “If you wish to bring formal charges against me, you have that right also. I can only tell you that when I took action that night, I believed I was acting in the name of justice. I’ll admit to you, sir, that I killed your soldier-brother. But it was not without provocation. I was deceived, sir. Deceived by your brother’s false name and deceived by the harlot I had taken for my wife. ”
He suddenly lunged for his desk drawer, jerking it open and reaching inside. I took two steps back, certain that he would pull out a pistol and kill me where I stood. Instead, his shaking hands pulled out a packet of papers bound with a piece of string. He pulled the knot, the string came undone, and they spilled across the desk. Only then did I know them. Why she had kept them, I’ll never know, but I would wager that every one of them was there. All the letters I’d written to Carsina from the Academy. On the top of the pile, smudged as if it had been opened and read many times, was an envelope addressed to Carsina in my sister’s hand. He coughed as if trying to clear his throat of a sob. He took another document from the drawer. I recognized the enlistment papers I’d signed when I joined the regiment. And with it, an envelope addressed in my father’s hand.
“I didn’t know he was a noble’s soldier son. ” Thayer’s voice was choked. “I didn’t know that he and Carsina had previously been…together. I had no idea until I took over as commander. Haren’s records were a mess. And the command had changed so often since he died, no one had put things in order. So it was up to me. First, I found the letter from your father, warning Colonel Haren that your brother might try to enlist. It was in the Colonel’s private papers. I thought it a sad little document and wondered why he’d kept it. But on the back of the envelope, he’d made a note. ”
His hands spidered over to pick up the envelope and turn it over. My blood moved cold through my veins. I tried to take slow breaths, to stand as Rosse would have stood as this tawdry little story unfolded. Thayer swallowed loudly. The envelope fell from his nerveless fingers. He took a shuddering breath. “I could scarcely believe what I read, sir. But when I looked up the enlistment papers for Nevare Burv, there was no denying it any longer. ” He looked up at me and strain tightened every muscle in his face. In a strangled voice he said, “It was bad enough to know that your brother had been a noble son, a soldier son gone bad. I felt terrible that we, that he had died as he did. But worse was to come, sir. Far worse for me. ”
His voice faded. He looked at his desk. His hands crept across the scattered papers there. “I felt terrible, sir, but it was sorrow for what your family had endured. I tried to write to your father and could not. Simply could not. I thought perhaps it was better that he never know the fate his errant son had met. But then, in early spring, a courier came. And I could scarcely believe my eyes. For there was a letter for my Carsina, my beloved dead wife. And it came from the sister of the man who had tormented her with his attentions and then desecrated her body. I could not believe it. How could she even have known Carsina?
“Curiosity overcame me. I opened it. And what I read tore the heart out of me: it made clear the connection between the man I’d killed and the woman I’d loved. It made a lie of the love I’d had for Carsina. I’d been a fool. She’d probably been laughing at me all the time when I offered her my name. I went through her things then, and found other letters. I found an earlier letter from your sister, one that had concealed a letter for that man, a letter she trusted that my Carsina would hand to him. I knew then she had been seeing him. And beneath her night things, tied with a ribbon, as if they were a treasure, I found all these. Letter after letter from Nevare. Highly improper correspondence.
“She had lied to me. The heartless bitch. She led me to believe she was untouched and pure. But here we have the evidence of her perfidy. She was a lying, cheating slut. And because of her, I took a man’s life!”
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Outrage filled me. “She was nothing of the kind!” I barked. I had never imagined that I would be defending Carsina’s reputation, let alone to her husband. But as I recalled her, I could not keep quiet. “She was a frightened girl, terrified that if you knew she’d been engaged to a man you despised, you’d break your word to her. She was not wise or temperate, but she was certainly not a slut. I knew her since she was a little girl, and I can vouch for that. She’d thought she’d found true love with you. ” I’d advanced to the edge of his desk. Now I leaned over it, hands braced on it as I forced the truth on him. Epiny was right. Some people definitely deserved to hear the truth. “Her dying words were spoken of you, with love. She asked me to go and fetch you, because you’d promised you wouldn’t leave her side. Yes, I gave her my bed to lie down on. But I never touched her that night, sir. And when we were engaged, I might have stolen a kiss or two, but certainly no more than that!”
He stared at me in consternation. “But…your brother…” He leaned back in his chair, tipping his head up to lock eyes with me. I stared back, made both fearless and foolish by my anger. “No,” he said, and his voice quavered. “It’s you. It was you. You’re Nevare Burvelle. But…you were…you were—I killed you. ” He rose from his desk, nearly knocking his chair over as he scrambled away from me. He held his hands, fingers crooked, out in front of him. They were shaking. “I choked you with these hands. My fingers sank into your fat throat, and you screamed for mercy, even as I imagined that Carsina had screamed. But I gave you no mercy, for you’d had no mercy on her—”
“I never hurt Carsina. And you didn’t kill me,” I said flatly. “That’s a false memory. ”
“I killed you. ” He spoke with absolute certainty. “You pissed yourself and when I let your body fall to the street, my men cheered. I’d done what any honorable man would do. I’d avenged my wife’s violation. ” His voice faded. He looked at his desk. His face was pale and sweat stood out on his forehead. “But then I found the letters. She’d made a fool of me. All those sweet words, all her shyness and hesitation—all to mock me. ” His voice dropped on those words, chopping them out. “Did you laugh at me together, when she crept off to see you? Did you enjoy your charades in the street, to make everyone think you did not know each other? Did you laugh at me when you were touching that body, kissing those lips? That harlot’s lips!”
“Don’t say those things about her,” I warned him in a quiet, deadly voice. I defended the thoughtless, careless little girl I’d known. “She was no harlot, sir. She was alone. Childish,” I said. “Frightened. Too filled with heart and not enough head. Dreaming of romance with a handsome cavalla officer. A girl forced by circumstance into a woman’s role. ”
I doubt that he heard a word I’d said. The man was unhinged. “I killed you,” he repeated, staring at me. “I remember that night so clearly. I stood like a man and took a man’s vengeance. But now it’s all changed to shame and dishonor. Because she lied to me. She lied to me. ” His eyes lit with a sudden, cruel hope. “But you did those other things, didn’t you? You killed that whore, Fala. You poisoned those men. You still deserved to die!”
“No,” I said quietly. I was edging slowly around the desk, moving toward him. I’d take him down quickly. I didn’t want him to shout for the Sergeant. “I didn’t do those things. And I didn’t deserve to die. ”
He looked at me. His breath was comin
g in little shaking gasps. “How can you be here?” he asked, and his voice broke on the words, going high as a boy’s. “I killed you. How can you be here, so changed from the monster you were?”
“Magic,” I said flatly. I was suddenly finished arguing with him. Logic has no impact on a crazy man. I felt only disgust for a man who would blame his bad choices on his dead child-bride. I had no time to bother with him. “Magic has brought me back. And I’ve come for only one thing. I’ll keep you from killing another innocent person. Give me the key to the jail where Amzil is held. Give me the key, and we’ll both vanish from your life. You’ll never have to think about us again. You can forget all about us. ”
His hand betrayed him. It darted toward his coat pocket, as if to protect the hidden keys from me. Then he caught himself and suddenly quiet seemed to flow over him. “No,” he said softly. “No. You aren’t real. This is another dream, isn’t it? Another nightmare. ” He pointed an accusing finger at me. “The doctor said the tonic was supposed to stop these nightmares. ” He seemed to expect I would vanish.
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“It’s not a dream. I’m real. ” I thudded my fist against my chest. “But I’m not here to hurt anyone. All I want is the key. Why not give it to me? Why not let it all be over?”
His eyes darted around the room. I wondered if he’d even heard my words. Was he looking for escape? A weapon? If he shouted for the Sergeant, he’d probably be heard. I didn’t want to deal with both of them at once. I turned abruptly and headed toward the door. He probably thought I was leaving; instead I stopped, bolted it, and then spun back to him. He hadn’t moved. But his eyes got larger.
I kept my voice calm as I moved slowly toward him. “Thayer, all I want is the keys to the jail. That’s all. No one else needs to know anything else about this. You can burn those letters. You can remember Carsina as she was, sweet and pretty and very in love with you. Forget the ugly lies you’ve grown in your mind. Go back to being the man you were. ”