demeaned, whatever her wishes.
“The whole thing is so stupid,” she said, pulling on her boots with brusque impatience. “What does it prove, to answer a riddle, to run a gauntlet, or to go on an unnecessary patrol? For example, you and the rest of my ten-command have proven yourselves over and over, even if most of you didn’t fight at the Cataracts.”
“You did,” said Rue, with a stubborn tilt to her shoulders.
“I slashed my way across a battlefield—Ancestors know how clumsily—to bring my brother an accursed sword that he didn’t know how to wield. Niall was there too, and Brier, after worse than either of us experienced. If the rest of you missed it, well, what about our adventures up and down the Riverland, all the way to the Southern Wastes and back? Sweet Trinity, you helped me to raid Restormir itself to free Graykin! You have nothing to prove either to me or to the Highlord who, incidentally, has forbidden all such hazing. I don’t want to see any randon cadet subjected to it. Do the regular Kendar have to put up with this nonsense?”
“They have their own rites of passage, I suppose.”
“More practical ones than ours, I bet. God’s claws, isn’t the average Kencyr’s life hard enough as it is?”
To her surprise, Rue didn’t agree.
“Of course I don’t want to be beaten or humiliated or whatever the third-years have in mind,” said the towheaded cadet, turning stubbornly to face her. “But what other way is there? In a normal year, we would have gone through this at the randon college, but the second- and third-year cadets were all here by then. Now, how else are we supposed to prove that we belong with the Southern Host?”
“Aaiiee.” Jame threw up her gloved hands in disgust. “Tradition!”
At the south gate to the Knorth compound, she encountered Brier talking to a tall young woman with the dark tan of a native born Kothifiran Kendar and cropped hair the color of wild honey. When the latter saw the Highborn, she smiled and said something to Brier that made the latter stiffen, flushing. Then, with a flipped salute, the stranger walked off.
“Who was that?” Jame asked, coming up.
“Amberley. A regular Caineron. Before I left to become a Knorth randon cadet we were . . . close.”
“Oh,” said Jame, listening as much to the other’s flat, carefully neutral tone as to her words, knowing by now how to read most nuances in the other’s manner. “How did she feel about your leaving?”
“Angry. We fought.”
It couldn’t have been easy for Brier to turn her back on all her former colleagues by changing houses, Jame thought, watching the Southron stalk back into the Knorth barracks. She had thought so before. It just hadn’t occurred to her that there might have been someone special.
The north gate of the Ardeth faced her across the road. She saw Timmon enter his compound’s courtyard wearing what appeared to be a dirty apron and carrying a bucket of steaming slops.
“What in Perimal’s name . . . ?”
He gave her a rueful smile. “I got a note. It seems that all the scullery duty I slipped out of at Tentir has finally caught up with me.”
“And you’ve consented to do it now?”
He shrugged. “You advised me to stop avoiding responsibility.”
“I’m not sure this is what I meant.”
“Should I let them humble me, d’you mean? I don’t know. It’s easier than hunting up some way of my own to prove myself, assuming that’s what I’m doing. Anyway, it could be worse. Did you hear about Gorbel’s challenge? What it told him to do was anatomically impossible. He read it out loud to his house at dinner, then tore it up.”
Jame laughed. “That’s Gorbel. He can get away with it, too, despite his fickle father. It must be nice to be so self-assured.”
“And you aren’t?”
“Sweet Trinity, no.”
Yet she was more so than she had been before her graduation from Tentir, or more specifically before she and her brother had fought to
“The whole thing is so stupid,” she said, pulling on her boots with brusque impatience. “What does it prove, to answer a riddle, to run a gauntlet, or to go on an unnecessary patrol? For example, you and the rest of my ten-command have proven yourselves over and over, even if most of you didn’t fight at the Cataracts.”
“You did,” said Rue, with a stubborn tilt to her shoulders.
“I slashed my way across a battlefield—Ancestors know how clumsily—to bring my brother an accursed sword that he didn’t know how to wield. Niall was there too, and Brier, after worse than either of us experienced. If the rest of you missed it, well, what about our adventures up and down the Riverland, all the way to the Southern Wastes and back? Sweet Trinity, you helped me to raid Restormir itself to free Graykin! You have nothing to prove either to me or to the Highlord who, incidentally, has forbidden all such hazing. I don’t want to see any randon cadet subjected to it. Do the regular Kendar have to put up with this nonsense?”
“They have their own rites of passage, I suppose.”
“More practical ones than ours, I bet. God’s claws, isn’t the average Kencyr’s life hard enough as it is?”
To her surprise, Rue didn’t agree.
“Of course I don’t want to be beaten or humiliated or whatever the third-years have in mind,” said the towheaded cadet, turning stubbornly to face her. “But what other way is there? In a normal year, we would have gone through this at the randon college, but the second- and third-year cadets were all here by then. Now, how else are we supposed to prove that we belong with the Southern Host?”
“Aaiiee.” Jame threw up her gloved hands in disgust. “Tradition!”
At the south gate to the Knorth compound, she encountered Brier talking to a tall young woman with the dark tan of a native born Kothifiran Kendar and cropped hair the color of wild honey. When the latter saw the Highborn, she smiled and said something to Brier that made the latter stiffen, flushing. Then, with a flipped salute, the stranger walked off.
“Who was that?” Jame asked, coming up.
“Amberley. A regular Caineron. Before I left to become a Knorth randon cadet we were . . . close.”
“Oh,” said Jame, listening as much to the other’s flat, carefully neutral tone as to her words, knowing by now how to read most nuances in the other’s manner. “How did she feel about your leaving?”
“Angry. We fought.”
It couldn’t have been easy for Brier to turn her back on all her former colleagues by changing houses, Jame thought, watching the Southron stalk back into the Knorth barracks. She had thought so before. It just hadn’t occurred to her that there might have been someone special.
The north gate of the Ardeth faced her across the road. She saw Timmon enter his compound’s courtyard wearing what appeared to be a dirty apron and carrying a bucket of steaming slops.
“What in Perimal’s name . . . ?”
He gave her a rueful smile. “I got a note. It seems that all the scullery duty I slipped out of at Tentir has finally caught up with me.”
“And you’ve consented to do it now?”
He shrugged. “You advised me to stop avoiding responsibility.”
“I’m not sure this is what I meant.”
“Should I let them humble me, d’you mean? I don’t know. It’s easier than hunting up some way of my own to prove myself, assuming that’s what I’m doing. Anyway, it could be worse. Did you hear about Gorbel’s challenge? What it told him to do was anatomically impossible. He read it out loud to his house at dinner, then tore it up.”
Jame laughed. “That’s Gorbel. He can get away with it, too, despite his fickle father. It must be nice to be so self-assured.”
“And you aren’t?”
“Sweet Trinity, no.”
Yet she was more so than she had been before her graduation from Tentir, or more specifically before she and her brother had fought to
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