The day before Marag returned from the Amity council, Ahrens and Cameron had a toe-to-toe shouting match in the training room. Speir and Douglas had both come to sparring court, to assist with the weekly transition of sections, and were among Cameron’s rota directing the opening exercises when it happened.
Speir saw Ahrens come into the training hall, spot Cameron, and make toward her like a heavy arrow straight to its target. Speir didn’t stop her sequence of baton thrusts, but hers wasn’t the only attention drawn toward the two of them; and soon many had stopped even pretending to train as the level of their voices escalated.
Cameron was taller; Ahrens, broader; and their voices rang out like the high and low impacts of a dragon missile mine. “Well, if you’re not grateful for the kindness,” Cameron said, not troubling to keep her voice low, “you could at least consider my convenience. It was much easier to do my work once I’d done yours.”
“You’d no call to be doing work that wasn’t yours to do!” Ahrens roared back.
“What, and wait for you to forget like you’ve done before?”
“That was a whole bloody year ago, Cameron. You’ve such a long memory for other people’s failings—”
“I was trying to be helpful—”
“No, you weren’t. You were trying to exercise your shining virtue at everyone else’s expense. Well, I thank you very much, but no thank you.” He gave her the mockery of a bow and arrowed back the way he came. At the door he turned and shouted, for good measure: “No one else’s broken courtesy enough to tell you to stop being such an insufferable busybody, but they’d all say the same!”
The silence lengthened behind the thunder of his departure. Cameron’s face was very red. She snapped around to look at them, and they all jumped to avoid her gaze.
“Time for sparring court,” Cameron said, holding her voice quiet and level. “Get your partner and make your queue. Douglas—”
“Yes.” Speir could tell when Douglas was being consciously calm.
“If you would take the whistle for this end, I would be grateful.”
“Certainly.”
Sparring practice never did quite get up to its usual energy that day.
The rumor turbine turned on practically nothing else at dinnertime; Stevens held gleeful court in the corridor (“Saw that coming. But why do I always miss the fun?”), and a number of the cadets, some of whom were unfortunately partisan, looked forward to witnessing a possible rematch in the mess hall. Speir deprecated this kind of talk as a widening of the original breach of courtesy, but she was secretly glad to be listening to gossip that had nothing to do with Jarrow for a change. Possibly Douglas felt the same, because he said little and merely looked rueful whenever the subject was brought up at table, which was often. Douglas had worked with Cameron as a colleague for longer than anyone except Ellis, and they were known to get along, primarily (Speir thought) because Douglas was naturally pacific. That, and he had plenty of practice fending off prying instruction from his elder siblings without losing his temper.
Those who wished to see Ahrens and Cameron meet at dinner were disappointed. Ahrens was there, laughing and talking over his stew as if all were well; but Cameron was notably absent. By the end of the meal Speir saw Ahrens glance around once or twice, his look not so much hunted as worried; to his credit, he shrugged off any sympathetic sallies impatiently and changed the subject.
Speir finished her stew quickly and excused herself; she had two sets of cartography scoresheets to update before she briefed Jarrow in the morning. On the way back to her quarters she was waylaid twice by cadets in their section asking for her on-the-spot view of the afternoon’s conflagration, to which Speir gave as brief an answer as possible. But she couldn’t help noticing that despite the obvious breach of courtesy Ahrens had committed, most Ryswyckians’ sympathies seemed to lie with him.
It was late when she emerged again to log her scoresheets with the archives and check her post. The corridors had cleared and most of her comrades were studying in their rooms or over at the arena complex. She passed into the cloister, savoring the quiet evening air; the lamps were pleasantly dim, and the cricket song mixed with a light patter of rain on leaves.
She was not the only one in the cloister. Halfway along, Speir recognized Cameron, sitting very upright on one of the benches between lamps. Her head was up, her uniform was smartly brushed, and her hands were folded together in her lap. It needed only a pair of gloves in her grip and her dress blues to complete the image of waiting to be called.
As she drew level Speir slowed and paused to greet her. But then she saw the glint of tear tracks on Cameron’s face, and drew back with her hand to her heart. “Excuse me,” she said softly, “I intrude.”
“No, you don’t.” Cameron’s voice was as upright as her posture. She had not stopped crying: as Speir watched, she closed her eyes briefly and the glimmer on her face freshened. Speir would rather have gone on, but she could not ignore the request behind the courtesy. She waited; the silence filled with the sough of the crickets.
“You’re one who tells the truth, Speir,” Cameron said after a moment. “Was he right? About me.”
The truth she wanted, Speir didn’t want to give her. “He was unkind,” Speir said.
“But not wrong.” Cameron’s voice was still calm and self-possessed; Speir never sounded like that when she was crying, but she had in this moment ceased to envy Cameron, and in the sudden shock of envy’s absence she realized how close she had come to despising her, and was ashamed.
“Unkindness is wrongness,” Speir said. “No offense could have given him the right to throw courtesy to the winds and shame you in front of the whole school.”
“May be,” Cameron replied. “But would I have listened to him if he hadn’t?” She looked away briefly, and then back. “I’ve heard what people are saying about it.”
“Forget them,” Speir said. “Cameron…have you spoken with him since?”
She saw Cameron’s chin lift. “Not yet. But I will. I just needed a moment to regroup.”
Speir gave a half-breath of a laugh, in recognition. “The truth is,” she said, “that you have nothing to prove.”
“I think I do, though,” Cameron said, musing. “I got into Ryswyck by my own skill, and I mean to get a commission by my own skill, too. I don’t want anything handed to me. If I’m not going to live the life my family planned for me, I want to make a good show of it.” She sighed. “Their plan was for me to take a plummy assignment in the capital for my national service and then choose from among a handful of dynastically approved boys to write down my name with. Instead I did my national service at Kinstock shipyard and studied my brains out to clear Ryswyck’s entrance exam.” She spoke slowly, as if turning over the facts in the present light of the cloister and observing the difference. “It’s not that that other career would have been so horrible,” she said finally. “It’s just that I loved the Navy more.”
“And wouldn’t it be a great discourtesy to court your love too importunately?” Speir said, gently.
To her great relief, Cameron broke into a little smile. She swept to her feet and went to Speir where she stood at the railing, took her by the shoulders and kissed her on both corners of the mouth: the salute of a friend. Speir returned the courtesy without reserve. Without another word Cameron released her and went back the way Speir had come, toward the junior officer block. Speir watched her go, striding comfortably and buoyantly to her task of reconciliation. A moment to regroup, Speir thought.
Instead of continuing on her way to the archive room, Speir sank down on the bench herself, her tablets on her lap. The stone was cool to her seat but for the place where Cameron had warmed it. A moment to regroup. Speir gave herself till the stone was a uniform warmth beneath her; then she would go on.
But presently the door at the other end of the cloister clacked open, and Barklay emerged into the night. He was moving without hurry, as Speir had done herself, and when he reached her he slowed to greet her. “Lieutenant.”
“Good evening, sir.”
He glanced out at the deep dark, filled with the sounds of the rain and the nightcreepers. “It’s a fine one,” he said. His shadowed gaze returned to her, touched with the same mild humor she felt herself: it seemed she was always meeting Barklay in in-between places, and she wanted to laugh.
“May I join you a moment?” he said.
“Certainly, sir.”
He crossed the pavestones and took his seat next to her on the bench, settling himself with a sigh. The lamplight picked out the lines at the corner of his eye, the marks left by years of smiling, of squinting into light. He’d seen more summers than she.
She had thought at first that he had something to say to her; but minutes passed and he merely sat there, soaking in the evening quiet. She relaxed into the stone wall at her shoulderblades; the bench had either warmed under her or her backside had grown cold to meet it.
After a while he said softly: “How does your father do?”
“Very ill,” she answered. She could give him the sorrow and leave the shame for herself. “He doesn’t know me anymore.”
He made a little sound, not quite voiced, as if taking a blow to the solar plexus. That was all; that was enough.
If she had been a little younger, she might have wanted to accept shelter from him against the howl of grief. If she had been younger, and if he had not known better than to offer it. But quite apart from the upright pull of responsibility, Barklay was not a soothing presence, even if he wanted to be. Even as she relaxed Speir could feel her mind coming more awake, seeking out the higher spaces above the immediate stream of daily experience. She ceased to think only of the next day’s classwork and training, and was aware again of the world around them, of the gaps in her knowledge there, and of the urgent feeling that she was not yet ready for what was coming next.
When he spoke again his query seemed native to her own thoughts, as if they had been sharing a subject of contemplation. “What do you want to do, Lieutenant?” he said. “After Ryswyck, I mean. In the war. What is your thought?”
Speir thought of Cameron as she answered. “When I first joined the army, I told my father I wanted to be an honest soldier. I think that hurt him, though I didn’t mean to.” She had wanted to find a life in the military that was clear of the subterfuge that Speir associated with her father’s suffering; her father had probably guessed at her thoughts, for he had not opposed her. Cameron probably hadn’t meant to hurt her family either, at least more than she had to in order to court the Navy. She smiled ruefully at the memory of Cameron, alone and upright. Jarrow wouldn’t dare try to bribe Cameron, if he had his wits about him; her scorn would shrivel him to a wisp, Speir felt sure. “But now,” she said slowly, “I begin to think even an honest soldier needs to know how subterfuge works. I wish I had listened to him more, when I had the chance.”
Barklay grunted, still listening.
“I want—” Speir groped for the right words— “I want to do something wholehearted, something worth giving myself to. If that’s simply to fight and die on a battlefront, I’d be content; but in the meantime—” She stopped, and could not think how to go on.
“In the meantime, you give yourself to this,” Barklay answered softly, gesturing outward at the dark quad. “I’m told you have done very good work in cartography and meteorology.”
“I’ve enjoyed the coursework, and I like getting the feel of a place in all its layers.” Then she sighed. “But there are things yet that I don’t know how to make maps for.”
“I wish I could tell you,” Barklay chuckled, “that the problem diminishes with age.”
They sat in companionable silence for a little longer; and then Speir said, “I had better get along to the archive room. I’m on duty at breakfast tomorrow.”
“Mm,” he said. “I shan’t keep you.”
Speir got up achingly and stretched herself; the stone seat had done its best to give her its chill in trade for her warmth. She looked back at Barklay where he sat with his hands quiet on his knees.
“Good night, General Barklay, sir.”
He smiled; and the smile seemed to her a little sad. “An honest soldier you are, without doubt. Good night, Lieutenant.”
They saluted one another gently; and Speir left Barklay to his vigil.
~*~
Stevens might have missed the original quarrel, but the following morning, when Douglas stopped on his way to the rota captains’ meeting to gather him up from the infirmary, Stevens was humming with anticipation of his front-row view.
“This is one meeting I’m looking forward to,” Stevens said, breaking down the last of the supply cartons with an efficient flourish. He gathered up the pile in his mountainous grasp, called a farewell to Captain Wallis within, and carried them down the corridor to the incinerator hatch. Douglas helped him feed them into the opening.
“Mind you,” Stevens said, “I’d prefer a positive ending over all. Breaches of courtesy are best in the mending.”
“I prefer the security of never hearing ‘em split when I crouch, myself,” Douglas said.
Stevens sputtered into a laugh. He was still chortling when they emerged from the arena complex into the quad, where Cameron and Ellis stood waiting for them. “‘Breeches’ of courtesy,” he muttered, and snickered again.
Douglas grinned, just as Ahrens came out of the main doors of the arena complex and joined his fellow rota captains on the quad.
“And there’s Lieutenant Split Trousers himself,” Stevens said. Cameron turned to him a deprecating look. “You can’t deny me the entertainment,” he said to her.
“Oh, yes I can. Good morning, Lieutenant Ahrens,” Cameron said, utterly composed.
Ahrens returned her greeting with equal composure. The air between them was pregnant with conscious courtesy, as if it filled a gap left behind by anger and tension.
“Unless I miss my guess, Stevens,” Douglas said as they ambled together toward the main compound, “you missed the whole thing.”
“Damn!” Stevens turned to Ahrens. “So you and Cameron have mended it between you, then?”
Ahrens blushed suddenly. Cameron turned her head to hide a smile.
“Oho, so that’s the way of it, is it?” Stevens grinned. “Solved it in the other arena, did you?”
“Well, that’s hardly fair,” Douglas said, grinning himself. “I was looking forward to seeing some pretty baton work this week.”
“I’m sure there was baton work involved,” Stevens sniggered. “Just not for public consumption.”
“Presuming all’s well at the end.” Douglas cocked a look of mock skepticism at Ahrens. “Is it?”
“Yes, it is, blast you,” Ahrens said, lunging to give Douglas a heavy shove. Douglas reeled back a few steps and went down with a splash in the wet grass, but he made sure to take Ahrens down with him. They rolled over together, laughing.
“Boys,” Cameron said, but neither of them heeded her. “Here comes General Barklay!” and at her sharper voice Douglas struggled up to look. It was indeed Barklay headed toward them across the quad from the senior officers’ block: and Marag was with him.
He pushed Ahrens off him; Ahrens rolled to his feet and helped Douglas up. Douglas brushed at the beads of water on his uniform, but it had soaked through the wool in places and was soon going to be very chilly. Ahrens, he noticed, was wet through all across the backside. He was still grinning when the forces met.
Barklay greeted them with an indulgent smile, and they all continued together to the cloister entrance. The meeting commenced in Barklay’s office, around his conference table; Marag listened to the giving of reports with his usual quiet attention, as if he’d never been gone.
For a while it looked to Douglas as if the meeting would pass without acknowledgment of yesterday’s conflict. Stevens’s disappointment might have been wholly complete, except that Barklay chose to skip Ahrens’s rota for Cameron’s, and end the round of briefings with Ahrens. Ahrens gave his report as if ducking his head below the level of invisible fire, and Barklay listened serenely. In the silence after Ahrens finished, Barklay shuffled a few papers and then nailed him with a glance.
“I understand there was an incident yesterday involving a breach of courtesy,” he said, and everyone, Marag included, shifted weight and grew attentive. “Is that correct, Lieutenant Ahrens?”
Ahrens changed color again. “Yes, sir.”
“And has that been addressed?”
“Yes, sir,” Ahrens said, quietly.
Barklay’s glance shifted to Cameron’s face, and everyone’s eyes followed. “Yes, sir,” Cameron said, her chin resolutely up.
“Mm. And who owned fault?”
“I did,” they both said, their voices and then their glances crossing, before they looked back at Barklay silently.
“That sounds encouraging,” Barklay said. “What’s been done to mend it?”
Stevens sucked in his lips against a smile. Cameron glared at him briefly across the table and then said: “We chose to mend it privately, sir.”
“To both your satisfactions, I take it.”
Stevens made a tiny fricative noise, which drew a united glare from both Cameron and Ahrens. “Yes, sir,” Ahrens said.
“I’m glad to hear that the matter was so expeditiously resolved,” Barklay said mildly. Douglas saw Marag cast his gaze down with a dry half-smile, just before Barklay went on: “And what is being done to mend the example you set for your comrades and subordinates?”
His voice and gaze had turned utterly arid: Cameron and Ahrens did not linger on chagrin, but straightened up in their chairs; Douglas could see them both thinking quickly.
Barklay was a fine one to talk about mending examples: after all, it had taken an incident of this magnitude to push his quarrel with Jarrow out of the center of gossip. Douglas looked at him pointedly, but though he was sitting directly in Barklay’s line of sight, Barklay’s eyes missed meeting his.
“I would be glad to acknowledge my fault before the assembly,” Ahrens said slowly.
“I’m not sure that would work,” said Ellis, before Cameron could protest. “Or at least, I’m not sure it would be sufficient to restore Cameron’s standing in the general opinion.”
“Which is why I should be the one to acknowledge fault,” Cameron said.
Stevens shook his head. “Even worse.”
“My reputation is not Ahrens’s fault,” Cameron said grimly, “nor was it the work of a day.”
“Perhaps they should go to the arena,” Ellis said.
“That’s precisely what we wished to avoid,” Cameron said.
“But why?” Ellis said, and, “Other than the obvious reasons,” Stevens murmured, earning another united glare.
“Maybe because we’d had our fill of public embarrassment?” Ahrens said, still glowering at Stevens. “Thanks very much for your assistance on that score, by the way.”
“I don’t pass on malice,” Stevens protested.
“You don’t smother it either,” Ellis pointed out; this, plus a raised eyebrow from Barklay, made Stevens drop his eyes and accept the rebuke with closed hand to heart.
Cameron, keeping to the point, said: “I don’t want to go to the arena. It’s our example as rota captains that needs mending here, not my reputation.”
“It’s my example that made your reputation an issue,” Ahrens corrected her. “Just because I lost my temper doesn’t mean you should spend your last year at Ryswyck generally disliked.”
“That’s my adventure if I like to take it,” Cameron said tartly. “Butt out, Ahrens,” and the whole table started to laugh.
“Cameron is right,” Douglas said, speaking for the first time, “or—she would be, if Ahrens’s reputation weren’t also at issue.”
“Ahrens’s courtesy and competence are not what most people have been talking about,” Stevens said.
“No, but they will as soon as everything calms down. I think Cameron damaged his standing as much as he did hers.”
“That, I would mend if I could,” Cameron said.
“So then, we agree,” Ahrens said.
“We agree about mending our example,” she answered. “Not about pushing off our proper work.”
“Our proper work?” repeated Ahrens. “What, even if we do it badly?” and Cameron made a face at him.
“So then, what?” Stevens said. “An announcement at assembly?”
“Perhaps you should say something, sir,” Douglas said to Barklay. He managed finally to capture Barklay’s eye, but Ellis answered first.
“That might be all right as a start. But, at the risk of belaboring the point, there is only one place where everyone in the school will be present and attentive for such a reconciliation, and that is the arena.”
“He’s right,” Marag said quietly.
Cameron said, frustrated, “I don’t want to fight Ahrens.”
“You don’t want to lose to me?” Ahrens smirked.
“As if I would,” she retorted, and he grinned at her.
“There are ways in which putting them to a match might exacerbate the problem,” Douglas said dryly, and half the table chuckled. “Perhaps if they went to the arena and didn’t fight.”
“Hm,” Barklay said.
“Has that been done?” Marag asked him.
“Well, there have been matches ended early by the combatants before, to declare satisfaction before the traditional three rounds are ended….” Barklay tapped his lips thoughtfully. “It’s been rare, though. It does require confidence in one’s own courage.”
“So then, the whistle would blow and I would concede in the first instant?” Cameron said. “I suppose I could do that.”
“And I would concede likewise,” Ahrens said.
“In which case there’s little point in my blowing the whistle at all,” Marag said. “You should just break your batons and call it well.” Cameron and Ahrens were both nodding.
“I notice no one’s questioning what the format would be,” Stevens grinned, and was not at all put out when the others ignored him.
“That’s a short match to disturb the schedule with,” Barklay said, and waited.
Cameron was quick on the uptake. “I could give up my place in the schedule a few weeks from now,” she said, with a gesture of chastened resignation.
“And if I do the same, our opposite numbers would each have someone to pair with,” Ahrens added, with equal regret.
“Provided they haven’t already met in the arena in the recent past,” Marag said. “I’ll check that out this afternoon and we’ll make the changes before the next junior officer meeting.”
“Well,” Barklay said briskly, “that all sounds like a satisfactory arrangement. Does everyone agree?”
Everyone nodded.
“Very well, then. Let us adjourn. Marag, if you would stay briefly….” They all rose and pushed in their chairs. Douglas rubbed at the drying damp spots on his trousers; they were still cold, but they might warm up on his walk down to the farm to check up on his responsibilities for the week.
Barklay leaned away from Marag for a moment. “Douglas, did you have something for me?”
He clearly hadn’t missed Douglas’s attempts to pin him during the meeting. Douglas didn’t feel like pursuing it, and especially not in private. “No, sir,” he said.
Not that Barklay was fooled. “Every day a new tradition. Well, then.”
“Yes, sir.” Douglas saluted him and made his escape.
On his way to the cloister he found himself falling into step with Cameron, whose way lay with his till they reached the arena walkway.
“Thanks for being a voice of reason, by the way,” Cameron said.
Douglas gave her a sympathetic look. “Well, I suppose it could have been worse, though you didn’t quite get the private settlement you wanted.”
“No.” She heaved a sigh. “Ah, well.”
He couldn’t stop from making a small face. “Did you really go to bed with him?”
Cameron shrugged.
“Thought you didn’t like him.”
“I like him fine,” she said. “It seemed like a simple enough way to work off the energy after we’d owned fault. And,” she added with a small sniff, “I was keen.”
Douglas chuckled. “Fair enough.”
“We can’t all bring Ahrens to heel with a single glare,” she said.
“Ah, now—”
“—Unless rumor has it wrong, and you slept with him, too.” Cameron shot him a wicked little grin.
“Get on with you!” But he was smiling too.
“I’d have been surprised to hear you had,” Cameron said, “speaking of reputations.” He cast her a sidelong wary look, but she went on equably: “Stevens reckons you are continent by nature, but I think you probably got it out of your system at university. And now, you’re only keen for people you already love.”
That was not at all how Douglas would have chosen to put it, but she was more or less correct. So he held his peace.
“And not even all of those,” Cameron mused on. “The word is you haven’t sought Speir out for a bedfellow.”
“Nor I have,” Douglas said. They passed into the cloister, temporarily deserted although Douglas expected any moment to hear the carillon signal the change of classes.
Cameron was sizing him up shrewdly. “Because you’re not keen? Or because you’re far too keen?”
“Because it hasn’t been a pressing necessity,” Douglas said, dryly. “For either of us.”
“Mm,” Cameron said. “Well, word to the wise, Douglas. If that ever changes you may well find yourself having to compete for her attention.”
“Well, that’s in accordance with reality,” Douglas agreed. It pleased him to think of his friend as the object of well-deserved admiration.
“Indeed. She’s not even come to her full strength yet, and she already commands a following. Barklay included.”
Cameron hadn’t been expecting him to stop. She retraced a pace and a half to level with the place where he’d halted, and looked at him warily.
“What about Barklay?” Douglas said, very quietly.
Cameron looked as though she regretted the turn of this conversation. It was about two turns too late as far as Douglas was concerned, but under his intent gaze she produced a reluctant answer. “He…takes note of her. When she’s present.”
“Says who?”
Cameron lifted her hands as if to fend off his glare with her palms. “Just,” she said, “my own observation. It’s not been generally canvassed. He’s very discreet about it. Not offensive. Well, this is Barklay we’re talking about; I’m sure he could commit a great offense without making himself offensive. But I don’t think that’s what this is.”
Douglas wished he shared her confidence. He was visited with an unexpected urge to tear his hair and howl. As if it hadn’t been wrack to his nerves enough, worrying about the scandal lurking in Barklay’s interest in him. Now Barklay had kindled an interest in Speir as well?
He couldn’t pretend that this turn hadn’t upset him, so instead of prevaricating he said shortly: “I’ll see about it. Thank you for telling me.”
“She won’t thank you for protecting her,” Cameron warned him. “Let Speir take care of herself. She’s perfectly capable.”
Douglas shook his head, beleaguered. “No,” he said. “It’s not—” Not Speir I want to protect. He held the words in, and swallowed the sense of betrayal that crept in with them. He had no rightful possession in Barklay, no reason—Cameron was right—to meddle, on the strength of a mere casual observation.
But he must have shown something of that hurt on his face, because Cameron’s head canted back in sudden understanding. “It’s not just duty,” she breathed. “That keeps you close to him. Is it.”
There was a deadly silence, and then Douglas said evenly: “I don’t know that that’s any of your business.” He turned and walked on.
“It isn’t.” She jumped to catch up with his heavy stride. “Douglas, it isn’t. I’m sorry.”
He didn’t respond.
“Douglas!”
He stopped again, rounding on her. “What.”
She gulped. “I should not have treaded so heavily in your affairs,” she said, looking him in the eye. “I am sorry.”
Douglas considered. Cameron was not less of an ally for being the bearer of bad news. He spoke to her with conscious gentleness. “You haven’t done me any wrong. Let it be.”
“So all’s well, then.” She raised one pretty eyebrow in a skeptical arch.
“Between you and me? Yes,” Douglas said, and turned to go on again.
“So then, there is something going on.” She followed him doggedly. “I thought there probably was. Does this have anything to do with Commander Jarrow?”
Douglas stopped again. “What makes you say that?”
“Oh, come,” she said, with a careless gesture. “The rumor turbine’s been going on nothing else but that shouting match he had with Barklay last week.”
Indeed; Douglas had been quietly gritting his teeth for days.
“They say that now Jarrow’s looking for any excuse to make a bad report about Ryswyck to the Council.”
Douglas looked away, back down the length of the cloister, at the raindrops winking from the eaves, and sighed. There were so few actual secrets at Ryswyck, he thought. His anxiety suddenly seemed strangely misaligned.
When he looked back at Cameron, she lowered her voice and asked: “So does Jarrow know about…?” She pointed to Douglas with her gaze, and to the direction of Barklay’s office with a faint tilt of the head.
“I’m sure he does by now,” Douglas said, with another resigned sigh.
She grew bolder. “And what are you doing about it?”
“Avoiding him,” Douglas said. “And Barklay too.”
“That…is no long-term strategy, Douglas.”
“I’m aware,” he said levelly.
She regarded him for a long moment, and then said: “Well, I won’t butt in—”
“Because you mark your own advice?” Douglas said. They exchanged a fraternal smirk.
“—but if you happen to come up with a slightly less abysmal plan for dealing with the problem, and want volunteers for the execution, I would be happy to oblige you,” she finished, with gentle sarcasm.
He answered her in kind. “And if you decide you want to get laid without setting the whole school by the ears, I would be pleased to assist you.”
Her lips twitched into an amused smile. “You sure you wouldn’t be too preoccupied?”
He bowed to her, with his hand open on his heart. “Believe me, Lieutenant Cameron, I would find it no difficulty to summon a keen intent, so to oblige you.”
“Thank you, Douglas.” Her smile was still very dry, but he suspected that his gentle courtesy had touched her, as he’d meant it to.
In the silence, they could hear the carillon chiming the change of watch. In another few moments this cloister would no longer be a place for private words.
“Wisdom speed you,” he said, as the door clacked open at the far end behind them.
“And you,” she answered.
They parted at the end of the cloister, where the covered walk diverted toward the arena complex, and Douglas continued up the path to the farm alone.
~*~
Though publicity hadn’t been discussed, none of those who had been at the junior rota captains’ meeting let on to the school at large that the combat appointment made between Cameron and Ahrens was going to be anything but a normal match. As Barklay observed, even Stevens cocked a silent eyebrow when invited to speculate on the likely outcome in the arena.
Ryswyck’s spirits therefore ran high on the day of the match. The pitch and volume of the chatter as the student body gathered in the arena was double its usual strength, and when Barklay stepped onto the dais, they rose to attention for the briefest of silences before the tide of murmurs returned. Ellis led the chant, and then climbed to his place as second marshal, facing Stevens where he perched in the first marshal’s chair. The murmurs spread.
Barklay looked to where Douglas sat among the junior officers, but Douglas did not make himself aware of Barklay’s gaze today. His eyes were on the combat pit, a faint frown between his brows. Beside him Speir was taking thoughtful measure of Stevens’s and Ellis’s profiles; unlike Douglas, she seemed more fully present to the moment, not occupied with inward thoughts as she had too much been lately.
Barklay was not the only one whose gaze lingered on the two friends. On the opposite side Barklay noted Jarrow among the senior officers, staring at Douglas with narrowed eyes as if the combat pit were a gulf across which he longed to reach him. And good luck to you, Barklay thought. Douglas had a way of not being there to take even the surest foil thrust.
The doors clacked open, and the students hushed as Cameron and Ahrens came forth. The observant among the crowd saw that although they were dressed for combat and their wrists taped for baton work, neither of them was wearing a headguard. There was a voluble murmur as they came to their marks and faced one another; with a fine sense of theatre Marag let the silence gather before he said: “Lieutenant Cameron. Lieutenant Ahrens. Is all well?”
Cameron acknowledged Marag with a cool nod, and then, with a swift and shocking motion, broke her baton against the floor with her foot. Then she laid the pieces at Ahrens’s feet and stepped back with her head bowed and her closed hand upon her heart.
In reply to Cameron’s gesture, Ahrens broke his baton, laid the pieces at her feet, and retired also with closed hand to heart. A smile tugged at Barklay’s lips as he heard the effect reverberate through the arena: disappointment mingled with wonder and soon gave way to understanding.
“Lieutenant Cameron, you are the challenger,” Marag said, in a clear, carrying voice. “By this do you signify satisfaction?”
Her head was high and her gaze unwavering from Ahrens’s face. “Yes, sir. And I lay claim to whatever fault Lieutenant Ahrens will allow me, by his grace.”
Barklay saw the flicker of a great emotion cross Ahrens’s face at her words. Good: this was not merely a form of ritual to them.
Marag turned to him. “Lieutenant Ahrens?”
“I declare myself fully satisfied, sir,” he said shakily. “And I beg the same grace of Lieutenant Cameron for my discourtesy.”
They could all see Cameron bite her lip until the glitter subsided in her eyes. When she spoke her voice was husked. “All’s well.”
“Then with your consent—” Marag’s glance took in them both— “I call this match ended without issue.”
They both bowed to him, and then faced Barklay as he rose and saluted him crisply.
He returned their salute. “Dismissed,” he said, and the utter stillness that had possessed the arena broke in a collective chastened sigh. Students began to move, though some kept still to watch the combatants gather the pieces of their batons and leave the combat pit together. Cameron said something with a wry face, and Ahrens’s grin flashed. Barklay could feel the frisson of chaos that had run through the school for three days resolve into its native coherence.
He looked at Jarrow to see how he had received this: after all, here was an instance in which a quarrel had been resolved without resort to grisly violence, in which courtesy surely showed to its best advantage. But Jarrow’s expression was still austere and grim. It seemed Jarrow had not been dissuaded from thinking Ryswyck’s traditions a frivolous waste. Or—what was it he’d said? A perversion. Some people join the service for the excuses it affords them, he had sneered. There was little doubt in Barklay’s mind what Jarrow meant by that. He wondered if Jarrow’s security clearance went up that high, or whether someone had been pouring unauthorized tales in his ears. Whichever it was, Jarrow had arrived at Ryswyck already jaundiced, and personal experience had only made it worse. His references to sickness were instructive. Yet he wasn’t simply imitating Selkirk, who for all his suspicion had demonstrated a grim understanding of the events that had driven Barklay to found his school. Selkirk, at least in part, trusted him still. Jarrow’s revolted reaction was all his own.
People couldn’t always help their compulsions, Barklay thought. But some, like Ahrens and Cameron, made a good-faith effort to work with and around them. Come on, Jarrow, mark their example. Give me something to work with.
Jarrow was looking at Douglas again, who had risen and was chatting with Speir as he slung his scrip over his shoulder. As Barklay watched, Speir bid Douglas a cheerful goodbye and edged quickly toward the nearest exit aisle.
Unerringly, Douglas’s glance went straight to Barklay, just as Barklay drew his gaze back from watching her go. Their eyes met for a brief, troubled instant before Douglas broke the contact. The frown was back between his brows, and he cut his glance to Jarrow, who pretended to be looking another direction. Douglas’s face became utterly unreadable, which Barklay knew to be a very bad sign. Without a backward glance Douglas turned from them both to follow Speir out of the arena.
It hadn’t occurred to Barklay to worry about losing Douglas’s fundamental good will. He wondered suddenly why not. He had no fear that Douglas would let his mind be poisoned against Barklay by someone like Jarrow with an obvious agenda. But that didn’t mean Douglas didn’t have limits that could be breached in other ways. Barklay suspected he had not been treading carefully enough. And he had better find out quickly where he stood.
Oh, my dear, he thought, as Douglas disappeared into the exit. Don’t let me wound you.
~*~
After supper that evening Barklay left a message for Douglas to come to his office, and then tracked Marag to his study. “Yes, come in,” Marag said at his knock, and half-rose in chagrin from his desk when Barklay entered. He was in his shirtsleeves and looked very tired…and hunted, Barklay thought. Barklay waved him down comfortably.
“I won’t trouble you long,” he reassured him. “I merely wanted to be sure you had been fully briefed for the week’s work.”
“Yes, sir,” Marag said, looking relieved. “I am quite reacclimated. Thank you.”
“We’ve all been very busy this week, but sometime when you have time, soon we must sit down for tea and you can tell me about the strategy summit.”
Marag’s relief fled. He opened his mouth, and then shut it again without answering, looking strained.
Barklay sighed. “The upper brass asked you not to discuss it with me,” he said.
It was so obviously the truth that Marag didn’t even speak to acknowledge it. He looked away.
“That was very unkind of them,” Barklay said.
At this Marag did look back at him. “I was told, sir,” he said, “that you would be receiving your own briefing on the matter.”
“I meant, unkind to you,” Barklay said gently.
Marag winced. He turned his gaze away again, and his fingers tapped abstractedly on the surface of his desk. He looked as though he were trying to bring forth something unpleasant. Barklay waited.
At last Marag’s fingers went still. “I was offered a permanent position,” he said. “At Naval HQ. Liaison to Amity for requisitions.”
There was a small silence as Barklay took the hit. “I must congratulate you,” he said finally. “You deserve no less, Marag.”
“I refused it,” Marag said, miserably.
A longer silence. “Why?” Barklay said.
“I should say, I asked to defer it,” Marag went on. “Though it amounts to the same thing. I told them I am too much needed here.”
“It shouldn’t matter how much you are needed here.” Barklay was angry. “You can’t risk throwing away your whole career for a rotational teaching post—”
“It was a calculated risk, sir,” Marag said. He was pale and upright in his chair, and though it had cost him something to answer Barklay back, he didn’t back down.
That, and his words, together told Barklay all he wanted to know. “You’ve figured out the strategy, then,” he said quietly. “The one to pare Ryswyck of its best teaching resources, before Selkirk moves to force me out.”
Marag’s level expression did not change.
Barklay let out a long, painful sigh. “You can’t protect me, Marag.”
“Though I respect you, sir,” Marag said, “it wasn’t you I was thinking to protect.”
“You can’t protect Ryswyck either.”
“May be,” Marag said, quietly. “But I’m going to be here.”
There seemed nothing to say to that. After a silence Marag went on. “I hear Commander Jarrow took offense at the arena.”
“He did. Spectacularly. Did Stevens also tell you how well Douglas judged?”
“I didn’t hear about it from Stevens,” Marag said. He left it at that, and Barklay understood.
“For what it’s worth, Marag,” Barklay said, “I am sorry.”
“I know, sir,” Marag said. A mordant smile played at his lips. “If it’s not costly, it’s not courtesy—eh?”
“Quite.” With a wry smile, Barklay withdrew.
~*~
He had forgotten his appointment with Douglas. Going to his office to make a cup of tea and lick his wounds, he pulled up short when he found Douglas standing by his desk, waiting quietly.
“Douglas.” After the initial check, Barklay continued to the tea station by the wall. He didn’t shut the door behind him, and a covert glance at Douglas found him looking relieved. The echo was oppressive.
“You wanted to see me, sir.”
“Yes.” Barklay considered him over his shoulder. “Would you join me in a cup of tea?”
“Certainly, sir.”
Barklay made them both cups of tea and carried them to the table. Douglas sat down at the place where Barklay had put his tea, but unlike Marag he did not relax collegially in his chair; he picked up the cup and sipped abstractedly at it, and was silent.
The thought of soliciting Douglas for truth was now unutterably wearying to Barklay. But if he did not do it now, it would only be worse later. He fortified himself with a sip of tea, both hands guiding the cup, and spoke.
“So has Jarrow yet offered you a lifeboat out of here?”
It was late evening now, and Douglas’s brown eyes looked black in the dim light of the office. He kept them fixed on Barklay as he sipped. “I suppose he would have,” he answered—his teacup made a gentle click as he set it in the saucer— “if I hadn’t managed to avoid him all this time.”
“That’s not going to work forever,” Barklay grunted.
“I’m working out how I’m going to tell him no,” Douglas said. “And you’re the second person who’s said that to me.”
Barklay looked up curiously. “Who was the first?”
“Cameron.” Douglas’s hand paused briefly lifting his cup.
“She’s very observant,” Barklay said, after a moment’s surprise.
“Yes,” Douglas said into his tea, “she is.”
Barklay drew a long breath. “Douglas…if Jarrow is willing by his favor to smooth your way to a good commission…why not—?”
“I don’t want Jarrow’s favor,” Douglas said steadily. And then as Barklay was trying to form an answer, he looked up. “Has it really gotten that bad, sir?”
Barklay held his gaze. “Well, I didn’t think it had. But I’m starting to wonder.”
It was Douglas who broke eye contact. He stared down into his tea, and as Barklay waited, he took a breath as if he were about to speak. But then he gave the faintest shake of the head, and lifted his cup for another sip. If it’s not costly, it’s not courtesy, Barklay thought. Marag had let Ryswyck become the gravitational weight of his career: he wanted Douglas’s gravity to be stronger than that, and maybe it was better that he could neither fathom nor predict Douglas’s thoughts. He circled back to a question he had asked Speir.
“Douglas, what is it you want to do in the war?”
Douglas cocked his head and stared probingly at him for a long moment, as if trying to work out why Barklay was asking before he made answer. There was a protracted silence. Come on, boy, my motives aren’t that twisted. As if he read Barklay’s thought, Douglas’s expression settled somewhere between engaged intent and quizzical amusement.
“Win it,” Douglas said.
For the first time in…a long time, Barklay broke into unrestrained laughter. Douglas blinked, and looked down, abashed.
“Oh, Douglas,” Barklay sighed, after he recovered. “If I had back the years between you and me…I would take care not to squander them.”
Douglas had recovered his blush and looked up at Barklay with a small smile. No, Barklay thought, he hadn’t lost Douglas yet: the same grace that made his anger so powerful also made his humility generous. For a brief moment Barklay wished he could drop all command and tell Douglas everything—about Marag and Selkirk; about John. About Solham Fray.
The urge passed; Barklay couldn’t tell if what he felt was relief or despair. Perhaps it was both; perhaps there was no way forward without committing some discourtesy against the one he loved.
Douglas couldn’t read Barklay’s thoughts, but his own must have been traveling in a similar direction, because he toyed briefly with his teacup and then said: “Can courtesy win a war?”
“Let’s find out,” Barklay said.
~*~
It was another week before Jarrow finally pinned Douglas down. This time, far from attempting to evade him, Douglas simply walked into the contact.
The morning class had finished and he was helping Commodore Beathas to gather up exam papers. Beathas said: “Oh, and Douglas. If you see Lieutenant Speir at lunchtime, ask her if she would mind collecting these maps to return to Commander Jarrow for me. I’d do it myself but I’m in tutorials all afternoon.”
“I could do it, ma’am,” Douglas said. “Unless you need Speir particularly.”
Beathas looked up. She studied Douglas silently for a moment and then said: “So then, you’ve made up your mind, have you?”
Not for nothing was Beathas one of the wisest tactical minds in the service. Douglas did not bother feigning confusion, but merely shook his head. “There was never any choice that needed making.”
“You’ve far harder choices before you than the ones Jarrow presents,” Beathas said, agreeing. “Fortunately for you, perhaps, Jarrow is quite vulnerable.”
“Is he?”
“You’ve noticed how alone he is.”
“I don’t think Ryswyck’s culture has agreed with him,” Douglas said cautiously.
“I don’t mean only at Ryswyck,” Beathas returned.
“I thought he had the ear of the Lord High Commander.”
“So does General Barklay,” Beathas shrugged. Douglas couldn’t help but see her point.
“People who stand alone,” she went on, “are often placed to do a particular job. If they fail, or their usefulness ends, their aloneness becomes their weakness.”
“So, what’s the answer?” Douglas said. “—Don’t be alone?”
“May be,” Beathas said. “But you aren’t. To be blunt, Douglas, don’t corner Jarrow where he can’t back up. He’ll bite. He’ll have to.”
“I’ll be careful.” Douglas gave her a small bow. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Don’t mention it.” Beathas so clearly meant that phrase on all its levels that Douglas was moved to a mordant smile as she placed the file cases in his hands.
As he made his way out of the classroom block and toward Jarrow’s study, Douglas reflected on Beathas’s advice. He wondered what she would make of Barklay’s strategy of undefendedness. Was that a strategy that one shouldn’t pursue alone? In a way, Douglas thought, Barklay was just as alone as Beathas claimed Jarrow to be. Placed to do a particular job, Douglas thought. Surveillance and sabotage. Douglas could feel the shift in his own thinking: he was moving from defense to offense. Beathas had seen it before he had. Surveillance and sabotage. She had pointed out to him where the line of thrust went, and then warned him of its dangers.
Jarrow wasn’t capable of undefendedness. Douglas knew that much. Even Barklay had hedged on his own strategy. That, Douglas realized suddenly, was because undefendedness was an offensive strategy: not a defensive one. Jarrow and Barklay were both on defense. So then, who was on offense?
So musing, he came to Jarrow’s door and knocked.
“Enter,” came Jarrow’s voice.
Douglas went in. “Commander Jarrow, sir,” he greeted him. “Commodore Beathas asked me to return you the maps she borrowed, with her thanks.”
Jarrow looked up, and the surprise and interest was plain on his face. “Lieutenant Douglas. Yes, of course. Come in.” He pushed away from his desk and leaned back to take Douglas in. “Just set them on the desk, will you? Thanks.”
Douglas advanced into the room, aware in detail of the ground, Jarrow’s simple furnishings…something was niggling at him as he set down the map cases on Jarrow’s desk. But it wasn’t until Jarrow said, “I’ll put them away later,” that Douglas realized what it was.
“I haven’t seen Ensign Bright this week, sir,” he ventured.
“No,” Jarrow said, “I sent him back to the capital for the time being. My need has been very light, and he’ll have more to do at HQ than he will at Ryswyck.” Most senior officers, including Barklay, dispensed with auxiliary staff here: Douglas wondered if Jarrow had taken any chaff from his colleagues about bringing Bright along. He was alone, Beathas had said, and it was even more true now.
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” Douglas said, and made his bow preparatory to leaving. He would leave the opening, but he wouldn’t tarry for it.
Sure enough, as he turned to go, Jarrow said: “Douglas….”
“Yes, sir?”
“I wonder…” —Jarrow spun his words out slowly— “if you had given any more thought to the things we talked about, the last time we spoke.”
“There has been much to think about since then,” Douglas said. “I have heard that you found our single-combat training offensive.”
Jarrow waved a dismissive hand, though his eyes narrowed. “It seems of a piece with General Barklay’s primary aim. A return, may be, to the old traditions of honor. A very heroic enterprise. He seems to have weathered the skepticism over the years.”
“Well,” Douglas said slowly, “there is skepticism, and there is antipathy.” Don’t corner him where he can’t back up, he warned himself.
“I’ve no quarrel with the old traditions,” Jarrow said, blandly.
“But with General Barklay himself…?”
It was Jarrow’s turn to answer questions with silence. Silence, and a thin smile.
“I have also heard, sir,” Douglas pressed, “that you were looking to make an unfavorable report to our superiors and the Council.”
“Rumors can be misleading,” Jarrow said, still smiling thinly. “Yet there is usually some truth to them somewhere. Don’t you think?”
There was no doubt what he meant by that. If Douglas responded with care, both he and Jarrow could walk with dignity away from the engagement.
“I wish you well in your search for truth,” he said. “But I won’t help you prosecute an action against Barklay.”
“Then you are not committed to the truth yourself?”
Jarrow clearly expected Douglas to fall back before that stroke. But Douglas looked him directly in the eye and answered with calm. “I have no greater commitment than to the truth,” he said. “It is that I know of nothing for which General Barklay would deserve to be denounced.”
“Nothing?” The ghost of a sneer crossed Jarrow’s face, and Douglas saw that Jarrow’s respect for him had dropped away like a dead branch. So be it.
“Nothing, sir.”
Jarrow toyed with the stylus on his desk. “Well. You must do as you see fit.” A silence, while Douglas waited for a clear dismissal.
“Douglas,” Jarrow said, after a moment, “you completed your studies in cartography, did you not?”
“I did, sir.”
“There is one quality of a map that is vitally important, and yet it appears nowhere on it. That quality,” Jarrow said, “is time. Time alters many positions. Rethreads watercourses. Makes old perspectives unrecognizable. Be careful of the maps you use, Douglas.”
“That is wise advice, sir,” Douglas said. “Thank you.”
“The pleasure is mine,” Jarrow said.
~*~
Time passed. The last vestiges of summer were lost in cloud cover, and the autumn term lost its newness. Jarrow taught several highly challenging and interesting lessons that greatly enhanced Ryswyck’s curriculum, but his supercilious manner alienated most of the cadets and even the junior cadre. Speir often found herself fielding questions and smoothing communications as Jarrow’s nearest assistant, which was wearisome; neither Jarrow nor the Ryswyckians were attempting more than surface courtesy, and Speir couldn’t tell which had caused which, so she sighed, and endured.
Cadet Corda made satisfactory progress in sparring court, enough to return to the regular training schedule where he was welcomed with great pleasure by his peers. Though he held off on moving in with Rose, they became a familiar pair in the mess hall and the classroom block, and where you found one, the other was not far away.
Turnbull tried out several more jokes at junior officer meetings. All of them were terrible, but Turnbull’s effort had become somewhat of a punchline in itself. By the time Turnbull finished his course of study and was due to leave, teasing him had become a regular line item in the junior officer meeting agenda. “Well, let’s see you try it!” he cried at the last one. That outburst got the biggest laugh of all.
That was when Ahrens, who was in the seat at Speir’s left, let his square hands fall open on the table in exasperation. “Turnbull,” he said, “has it not occurred to you that you could have sorted the whole thing by lifting a joke from the winter songbook and changing a few details?”
“Wouldn’t that be cheating?” Cameron observed.
“I think that could be excused,” Douglas said, “if he sang it for us at dinner.”
“Aye, but which one?”
“Well, which one has the most hand motions?”
Ahrens started up in a rusty tenor with the song about the man who, improbably, had to cross a bridge and climb a hill to get to his privy, and was there on winter’s deepest night when a gale blew the privy house away. The next verses were about various people attracted to the shining glow on the hill, and they were all singing the refrain when Barklay looked in on the meeting.
“What, is it Lightfall already?” he said.
The raucous tumult died briefly. “We’re just helping Turnbull mend his fault, sir,” Ahrens said.
“Good. It doesn’t do to leave with faults unmended. Carry on,” and Barklay withdrew, smiling.
“‘What Shining Light’ is good,” someone said, “but I think Turnbull should sing ‘O Fire of Love.’”
Turnbull flushed, giving illustration to the bonfire of the song. “I am not singing ‘O Fire of Love’ in the mess hall.”
“I’ll sing it with you,” Ahrens persuaded. “I owe Douglas a fault anyway.”
“In that case, Douglas should join you,” suggested Stevens with a snicker.
“I will if you do,” said Douglas. “There’s four parts, after all.”
“And four sets of fine thighs,” said Fia slyly, and the meeting broke up in ribald sniggering.
~*~
A Rota’s week to handle communications rolled around again, and deep night found Speir working the com tower. It was a shift most people preferred to avoid, but Speir had come to like the darkness and silence of the small hours. She used the first half of her shift to get her coursework done and to update scoresheets for the cadets’ work, and the second she used to look out over the night-lights of Ryswyck and let her thoughts settle. The com tower loft was not much like the chapel to look at: but the solitude, the sense of readiness for a word of action implied in the lighted transmission screens, and the womblike resonance with humming reality, were much the same.
It was her mother who had taught Speir the methods of prayer; and it was the prayer that remained when other memories had sunk beneath the rolling purl of waters. Tonight, however, it was her father who was on her mind, as she looked out past the blinking lights of the console into the rainy dark. This would be a good opportunity to record her father a message and send it to the Med House. It wouldn’t do any good; her father was no more likely to recognize her now than he had during her failed visit; but it would be an easy thing to do, the least she could do. A thing she couldn’t fail in doing.
Her hand lay near the console of the com-deck station; it would be easy to key up the command to record. But she didn’t reach for it.
Presently the transmission light came up. She’d been expecting it: it was the weekly dispatch from the security clearinghouse at Central Command, bearing the latest news and disseminating the new briefing codes. Her job was to take delivery of the transmission, read it through to make sure there were no missing or misordered pages, and log it for access by every student code in the Academy.
She stirred herself and keyed in the decryption codes. The transmission began; it took a long time—a lot of boring news this week, she thought. She watched till the file was complete and decanted it onto her tablet.
As she’d predicted, there were a great many pages to get through. She skimmed carefully from dispatch to dispatch. Reports on the parade review in the capital, briefings from the unit sent out from Amity to assist with the channelbuilders in the southeast quadrant…. It was the middle of her shift, and Speir’s eyes were gritty.
She advanced another page. This one was a report on the investigation of incidents at a place called Solham Fray. It wasn’t a name Speir knew, but she read on, expecting another light-security account of turbine repairs. The page numbers had disappeared, which was irritating; sometimes they forgot to paginate everything after it was collated, and it meant having to read extra carefully.
Then she advanced to the first image.
Her brain locked as she contemplated the haggard face of a man strung up by his wrists, naked and smeared with filth. What was this? Propaganda against Berenian torture of Ilonian soldiers? But she read the image heading, and realized with horror that the man was not Ilonian at all.
She flipped back to the beginning of the report. The report had no security listing, which was normal for a bundled dispatch, but also no date. What in hell was this? She advanced to the next page of text and was seared by a litany of sickening phrases: intelligence mission…bunker in enemy territory…Berenian village leveled…methods of torture—and a list of them, sober and exact descriptions of things that were done to civilians and captured soldiers—by Ilonians, she thought. Our people did this?
This had no business being in a benign weekly dispatch. This was either a repulsive falsehood circulated by an enemy, or a security breach of the most disturbing magnitude. She needed to alert Barklay at once; this was beyond her. She couldn’t imagine who would visit such a thing on the students of a military academy. And why?
She flipped one more page, and the image there told her why.
Another Berenian man bent groveling on a white floor in a windowless room. With him were several men in Ilonian army fatigues of a half-generation ago, smiling at one another over his naked misery. It was what looked like a unit of young men, all wearing special forces insignia, a mix of lieutenants and privates.
And with them was Barklay.
The age of the image was evident; Barklay’s hair was darker, his figure trimmer. The expression on his face was one Speir knew well: it was a look of triumphant and feline enjoyment. She had seen him look like that after a coup of wit, or when one of his students had exhibited a great feat of prowess or courtesy.
Courtesy. Speir’s stomach revolted, and she swallowed down her gorge with an effort.
Taking this to Barklay now seemed precarious in the extreme. Yet what else could she do? If this was a true report, he would know not only the contents of this file but also its context. He might even know where this—attack? was it an attack if it was a revelation of a filthy truth?—had come from.
She sat for a long moment with her eyes on the damning image. Then she reached for the com pad.
“Cadet Lang?” She was pleased to hear her voice come calm.
“Yes, Lieutenant Speir,” came Lang’s voice from the cadet runner’s desk.
“I want you to rouse Lieutenant Douglas and have him come to me at the tower summit,” she said. Better not try to frame an explanation; whatever Lang would think, it wouldn’t be anything like this.
“Yes, ma’am,” Lang said.
She waited, the shadows of the com tower creeping around her, for what seemed like an age. When she heard the clank and rattle of the ascending lift, she turned over the tablet, to guard it from Douglas’s view.
A moment later Douglas emerged, neatly if hastily dressed.
“Speir? Did you want me for—what’s wrong?” His expression flattened when he saw her face.
“I need your advice,” Speir said shakily. “Douglas…what would you do, if you found out something terrible about General Barklay?”