Winter came to Ryswyck with a bluster. Students dug out their thicker uniforms and wrapped themselves in red scarves under their hoods, as much to spare their ears a boxing from the wind as to keep out the cold rain. The sky closed over and grew dark; lamps were lit under their blackout shades in mid-afternoon. The geothermal vents, which usually served the drying-cupboards only, were rattled open to pour their warmth into corridors and classrooms; the native scent of the school took on tinges of moistened dust and drying wool. Captain Wallis urged people to take longer showers under the panel lamps, and to make use of the sun-room in the infirmary if they found themselves falling behind in exposure time.
The storms broke over them in somber waves. It rarely got cold enough for a hard freeze on the south coast, but the rain fell thickly, an ever-present threat of the ice that coated everything in the northern regions. It drummed on the arena dome as if with twice its actual weight, and Speir had to pitch the arena chant to pierce its numbing burr, listening for the responses under the pallid indoor lights.
Nothing was heard from Lord Selkirk or Central Command, and as the days and weeks slipped past, Ryswyck’s latent worry submerged itself again. By Lightfall, Jarrow’s brief stint at Ryswyck had been nearly forgotten, and everyone adjusted once again to the shorthandedness of the teaching staff.
The day of deepest winter found the rota captains working hard to coordinate the feast: after dinner the tables and benches were moved to the end of the mess hall and stacked; the kitchen team hastened to finish the confections for which Ryswyck had saved a month’s sugar ration; Ryswyck’s musicians collected on the dais for a last rehearsal; and there was a flurry of candle-counting as midnight approached.
When the hour came, the lights of the hall were turned out, and all voices dropped to a hush as Ryswyckians took candles from the cadets with baskets at the door and picked their way through the darkness to find places to stand, around the walls and closer in. Speir already had her place, close to the small brazier that had been set up in the center of the room.
She could tell when everyone had arrived, because the shuffling stopped and the whispers died. She waited until the silence was complete, let it soak in for a few more breaths, and then opened the chant, her voice a clear cadenza in the darkness, soft and then growing in strength.
This was the hour, she sang, when darkness seemed to have mastered all. When all that had been home was a country of forgetting. When the air was a burden and the ground an uneasy resting place. An hour when even the balefires were dimmed to ashes, swallowed in the wake of the poisonous inferno.
The bad times had made it so that the only possible worship was to make a virtue of loss: in the long generations since, every people had crept their way out of darkness little by little, but no one ever forgot that the love of wisdom was found in making offering. And there was always something one could give over. To make an offering, even of defeat and loss, was to kindle a light. All darkness apprehends its own ending.
When her chant reached that point of offering, there was the harsh sound of a tinderbox, and in the sudden glow Barklay was lighting the candle Marag held. In turn, Marag kindled the light of the shadowed person near him, and the bright stars multiplied, flame to flame. They had reached the responsory, and voices joined Speir’s as the rite swelled to its conclusion, many candles concentering until they all were lit.
Tradition had shaped it so that the chant would accompany them outside to light the bonfire, processing single file with their little lights. But years of blackout conditions had forced the ceremony indoors, so instead Marag used his candle to light the little brazier. The flames crackled up merrily, just as the chant finished with everyone at full voice. Sudden silence followed, the illuminated faces of the Ryswyckians composed in one last moment of solemnity. Then breaths were drawn as one, and they all cried out in a bloodcurdling yell that made all the little flames shudder and even the immovable timbers reverberate. The yell was broken up by hilarious laughter, someone turned up the lights, and it was time for the Midnight Reel.
No sooner had the brazier been removed to burn out on the covered side porch than the drums struck up the call to dance. Ellis had got out his rebec for the occasion, and his bow cut the air, introducing the measure with his inimitable clarity.
Ryswyckians scrambled to make up lines for the reel, hardly caring who they faced for the first set, hastily tossing their snuffed candles into the baskets before leaping into place. Speir, caught up in the melee, found herself opposite a cadet from Ahrens’s section. They made deep bows to one another, one hand open on the heart and the other swept back in equal salute; and the dance began.
Speir danced with Cameron next; then with Cadet Corda; then with Stevens: each set forming and reforming like a cloud of starlings choosing shape in unison. After a bit she tumbled out and helped herself to some mulled cider and a soft cake glistening with sugar and icing. Taking her refreshments out of the way of traffic, she found herself next to Barklay along the wall.
“Are you not dancing this year, sir?” she asked him, aiming her voice for his ear through the din.
Barklay shook his head with a little smile. His eyes, she saw, were drawn to where Douglas had challenged Ahrens to keep up with him in a wild and complicated sequence of footwork. They were both sweating and trying not to waste precious breath on laughing, and a circle was forming round them, clapping and stamping to keep time. As they watched, they danced harder and faster till Ahrens finally stumbled; Douglas flung up a hand with an ear-splitting whoop and let himself fall backward, where he was caught by three Ryswyckians and restored to his feet.
Speir looked away from Douglas and Ahrens embracing and laughing, to find that a deep sadness had crept into Barklay’s gaze. Presently he blinked and turned to her, hitching up a smile. “Are you not going to dance more, yourself?”
“By and by,” Speir said. “After the break.”
They drifted apart then, and soon after the musicians took their break, crowding at the table to slake their thirst and devour what remained of the sugar cakes. Someone, feeling the loss of the music, started up a winter song, and was joined by several others. When that was finished someone else started one of the more bawdy winter songs, which generated much snickering. A lot of Ilonians were born nine months after Lightfall, and not even the awareness that every man and woman in military service bore a contraceptive implant could dampen the sense of precarious mischief evoked by the lyric.
When the musicians returned to the dais for the last set, there were fewer Ryswyckians there to make up the dance, enough to be noticeable but not enough to diminish the hilarity. The dance wouldn’t finish till nearly first watch, but the dancers would dwindle as more and more would carry one another off for more private revelry, or duck out to catch some sleep before going on duty.
Speir danced a few more dances, then volunteered herself and two of her cadets for cleanup as the feast began to wind down. At last the music ended on a replete and weary chord, and the remaining Ryswyckians stopped what they were doing to applaud and cheer. The musicians took their bows, some still looking fresh and bright-eyed, some much less so. Ellis was one of the latter; he dropped step by step down from the dais with his rebec slung in its bag over his shoulder. “Ach, Ellis,” said Stevens, who was helping Speir wrangle a table down from its stack, “how very obliged to you we are. You deserve a proper rest. Or to get laid, if you have it in you.”
That brought a tired grin to Ellis’s face. “Oh, I’ve made arrangements, never fear. Else I’d ask you if you were offering.”
Stevens was too tired to come up with a suitable retort, so he pulled a face instead.
Besides Speir and Stevens, very few remained to set the room to rights; Barklay had gone, along with most of the senior and junior cadre. Cameron, Ahrens, and Douglas were gone too. Speir did not try to parse the meaning of their absences. She said goodnight to Stevens and went yawning to her own quarters, where she turned in and slept hard.
~*~
She didn’t catch up with Douglas till the following afternoon, when she found him coming out of the junior officers’ com kiosk, looking tired but calm. “Talking to your family?” she asked him.
“Aye,” Douglas said. “Got a call through to my mother, to speak of miracles.”
“And how does she fare?” Speir asked.
“Well as usual.” Douglas flicked her an interrogative glance, which she knew was meant to gauge whether to ask her if she’d put a call through to the Med House to look in on her father. She hadn’t; Douglas saw her pursed lips and decided to speak more of his mother instead. “She got the news that the capital’s cut subsidies again. Her neighbors are sorely wrought up, she says; there’s going to be a winter council to pool resources and possibly send someone down to argue for Arisail. But my mother thinks it’d be a fool’s errand to send someone on a rough winter journey only to find out that they’ve cut subsidies everywhere. She said it doesn’t take a sage to figure that the Berenians have tightened their blockade to keep us from bringing in supplies. I couldn’t give her confirmation of that, but there’s no denying she’s right.”
Speir nodded ruefully.
“She said I should expect a parcel in the next post or so. Oh, and she sent her greetings to you, too.”
“Tell her I thank her,” Speir said with a smile.
“Then—” Douglas flushed a little— “she asked if I had a notion of starting a family.”
“With me, you mean?” Speir was amused. “Well, there’s no doubt you’re a promising specimen, Douglas—” he gave her a shove, and they both snickered— “but we’re not like to make fast and nest together. What did you tell her?”
“That,” he said, gesturing at her. “More or less.”
“And she accepted it?”
“Oh aye,” Douglas said. “She’s not one for sentiment, my mother.” He heaved a little sigh after this; Speir wondered if he edited what he disclosed to his mother for more than military security. Then realized the question was whether he actually fooled her.
Their ways lay separately when they reached the cloister. With his hand on the door to the arena quad, Douglas asked: “You coming to sparring court?”
Speir shook her head. “Still a Lightfall dinner to prepare. You probably won’t see any of B Rota today.”
“Right. See you at dinner, then.”
Speir continued into the main block and swung by Barklay’s office on her way to the kitchen. Barklay wasn’t there: his door was open wide and the only light was the dim afternoon light pouring in through the white drapes. Tentatively, Speir went in; if he returned right away she’d be able to ask him her question about the dinner menu—and incidentally check up on his mood. She drifted closer to his desk, which had not been tidied, and saw an image-book lying open on its surface. Even as she submerged a flinch of memory from that terrible file, she stepped nearer and bent her head to look.
She saw right away the reason for the subliminal flinch. There were three men in the snap, and one of them was Barklay, familiarly young and vigorous. The other two, who bore an obvious family resemblance, were on either side of him, leaning close in his embrace for the picture. Speir recognized the location: it was the main HQ building, and they were on one of the landings of its planed-stone steps. Then Speir realized that she knew one of the other men, though it had been years since their paths crossed in her father’s office at HQ. It was Alban Selkirk. Lord Commander Selkirk, now. And the younger man must be a brother or cousin; his figure was more agile, but he had the same dark eyes and hair. And a sidelong, mischievous smile that reminded Speir of Douglas in his roguish moments.
They all looked happy, and innocent. This was probably taken, she thought, before the war.
“Were you looking for Barklay?” someone said. Startled, Speir looked up to see one of Cameron’s lieutenants from E Rota.
“He’s up the tower,” said the lieutenant. “I’m still waiting for him to call me back up.”
Speir nodded. “Thank you. I’ll catch up with him later, then.”
Pensively, she followed the lieutenant out and resumed her course for the kitchen.
~*~
“It is not wise,” Barklay said, “to call me on an open line.”
“Would you have preferred I leave a message with your lieutenant?” The resentment in John’s eyes was as intense as Jarrow’s had been. How forcefully love turns to hate, Barklay thought, grieving.
“I would have preferred that you took me at my word when I wrote you to stop contact.”
“You don’t want to talk to family at Lightfall?” Sarcasm skidding along the edge of desperation. Barklay ignored the desperation and spaced his words clearly in answer.
“I am not your family.”
“To be sure, now that it’s not convenient. We have only each other, you used to say.”
“It wasn’t true,” Barklay said. “You have a brother. Who has forbidden me to speak to you. I’m going to catch hell for this.”
“Oh, my sympathies. Alban’s washed his hands of me, his mother’s son. But he might crimp your prerogatives a little bit, so let’s be concerned about that.”
“I doubt very much Alban’s washed his hands of you. You could ask him for proper help—”
“Because I’m the problem, of course. I’m more than just an inconvenience, Thaddeys—”
“No one thinks that—”
“But you shuffled me off easily enough, so you can continue to play at courtesy. You—”
“That is not—”
“—gave up on me. Because I couldn’t play the role you pricked out for me—”
It was past time to end this conversation. Barklay drew a harsh breath. “That’s your idea of an excuse, is it, John? I won’t listen to any m—”
“And what’s your excuse, Thaddeys? You haven’t one that would stand up to any scrutiny.”
“You’re not getting any more money from me. I don’t care what excuse you think I’m making. You can apply to Alban for help if you—”
John’s clenched teeth flashed in a snarl. “You owe me, Thaddeys.”
“We’re done here,” Barklay said curtly. He reached for the com-pad.
“Who have you got now?” The desperation had outcurved the sneer now. “Is he a handsome lad? Does he look at you with worship in his eyes? Or has he seen past your lies yet?” Barklay’s anger choked him silent for a taut moment, leaving John to go on. “Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you’ve put your soul in a pair of young maternal hands. I’ll bet you know just how to make her feel sorry for you.”
“Don’t,” Barklay said, “call me. Again.”
“No one’s going to grieve for me when I hang myself,” John snarled back. “But when the day comes I hope you’ll know who’s to blame.”
He cut the connection before Barklay could reply.
The projection dropped, and Barklay put his elbows on the console and his head in his hands.
What he ought to do, he knew, was to call Alban, tell him about John’s call, and enlist his help in getting his brother some proper medical assistance. Which was almost certainly bound to antagonize both of them. John had mouthed petulant threats before, usually just before he changed situations as the pressure mounted. Well, Alban didn’t want Barklay relieving the pressure, so Barklay would give him what he wanted. He shouldn’t have let John anger him—though of course John knew what would hurt him most. I was responsible for him, and I failed him. For John to cling to that bitterness was understandable, even though it was wrong.
There was nothing Barklay could do about it now—any of it. He felt small, tired, and corroded in spirit. Instead of attempting to compose a communication to Alban, he heaved in a breath and got to his feet.
There was no going back. He would just have to go on.
~*~
“I’ve had a glance at the new list of position openings,” said Commodore Beathas. “I didn’t see anything in operations, Lieutenant.”
Douglas sighed. “That’s all right, ma’am. It was worth asking.”
He had caught Beathas after the morning class session, waiting till she had dealt with the questions of a few cadets before approaching her alone. Douglas had hoped that with the turn of the season a new crop of likely commissions would give him some options, but it seemed not. He sighed again.
Beathas paused a moment, the crow’s feet round her eyes gathering up in shrewd scrutiny. In the next moment, Douglas thought, she was going to ask him why he wasn’t having this conversation with Barklay. But she didn’t. “Are you sure you are interested in operations, Douglas?” she said. “I would have thought officer training more in your line. Something with more oversight.”
“With more oversight comes more visibility,” Douglas said.
“I understand why that would be unappealing to you.” Was that irony, or just her usual wry tone? It was hard to tell, with Beathas. “Still and all, Douglas, it’s poor service to yourself if you don’t stand forth eventually. Not to mention the army.”
“I don’t—want—” Don’t want to draw Selkirk’s fire. Don’t want to help Barklay get himself in more trouble. Don’t want to play whatever game of diplomacy Jarrow thought he was playing. “It seems too easy to put a foot wrong, right now,” was all he could come up with.
“It’s a valid consideration.” Beathas never pretended not to know what he was talking about. “But only up to a point. After that point you simply have to do what presents itself as necessary. If it turns out to be a role more visible than you like, then so be it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Douglas said reluctantly.
“I will keep an eye on the list for you, and let you know if anything suitable comes up.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Douglas said.
Douglas had to be content with that. But as days and weeks passed, he found himself looking around at his surroundings and wondering: What would a true ambassador for this place look like? What did Barklay really have in mind for Ryswyck? Did he think it would continue exactly like this till the war ended? After the war ended? Was courtesy meant to be cultivated like a greenhouse fruit tree, or could it even survive in the elements? He thought of his mother’s open orchards, the trees that survived gnarled and fascinatingly twisted. What would courtesy look like, in the field?
Was it a true medicine for Solham Fray, or only a logical extension of it?
He felt his soul peeling away from Ryswyck, and perhaps because of that he threw himself into his work: not just his course of study, which was close to finished, but the work of his cadre, the work of maintaining all the little details that kept the rule of courtesy smooth and strong.
He was conscientious with Barklay, too. Douglas could see in Barklay’s eyes a running undercurrent of perplexity, even distress. He was afraid to ask for Barklay’s confidence; but he could give him occasional relief, which Barklay asked for, first with reluctance, then with a growing confident comfort.
Which was easier, as Douglas had anticipated. For some reason Barklay could not afford, could not bear, to love him. Once Douglas had absorbed the shock of that wounding truth, he had felt relief. Relief from the burden of pretense, from the discomfort of uncertainty. With the terms of their understanding thus simplified, Douglas could treat his obligations to Barklay as acts of courtesy, and in return Barklay offered him the courtesy of detachment. It was not what Douglas really wanted, but neither was it a tormented imitation of it, and that would be enough to see him through to when he left.
Barklay held private conferences with Speir, too, now and again; Douglas did not comment on it again, either to Speir or to Barklay, but he watched her carefully to see if her eyes took on any shadow of discomfort. But she seemed fine. Well, Barklay wasn’t her beloved, he thought; giving him counsel and kindness would be less of a snare to her than to Douglas. Or, he thought, a different kind of snare. And perhaps it was better for them to divide the labor of looking after Barklay’s soul, an easier burden for them both.
So Douglas told himself.
~*~
The betrayal happened so casually that Barklay later wondered whether it had really been an accident.
Who do you have now? John’s words had scorched him and left painful scars on his memory. Is he a handsome lad? Barklay wanted to argue the point: Douglas had never blindly worshiped him, was nearly impossible to lie to—successfully—but he loved Barklay anyway, faithfully, almost relentlessly. Which raised a question Barklay could not brush off, in quiet moments: why put Douglas to the test? So it was harder to break Douglas; why even risk it? What would it prove?
Would it really show that Barklay could be loved even at his worst?
But Douglas hadn’t really seen Barklay at his worst. Douglas had never committed cruelties under Barklay’s direct orders. He had not been dragged into complicity as those cruelties were covered up; he had not had to listen to Barklay’s anguish in favor of venting his own; he had not given in to Barklay’s ravenous, questing kisses and taken him to bed in secret; he had not found himself borrowing Barklay’s enthusiasm for an affair in which he bore no power or influence; he had not bled off the pressure by acting out elsewhere; he had not wept, abjectly and repeatedly, in Barklay’s office, either for what he’d done or what he’d suffered.
No, since then Barklay had learned how to restrain himself, how to halter and break his own need. He had learned to pay attention to what people could bear and to lay no heavier burdens on them. He had rejoiced in the times when his need had ebbed and tethered himself tightly when it was in full spate. He had found a way to stabilize himself; it wasn’t perfect but at least it wasn’t doing anyone active harm.
Still, putting Douglas’s love to the test was an unworthy thing to do. And there was nothing casual about Barklay’s own feelings; he had left casual behind long ago. He would gladly have given himself to Douglas, if he had had a different self to give. The best he could do was honor Douglas’s wish not to be given pleasure without love.
What he should have done was cease to ask Douglas for private favors at all. But instead, he foolishly opened the door and let his betrayal slip out.
It was an early morning, toward the sobbing lukewarm-dark end of winter, and he had had a bad night. The old hateful dreams had invaded his sleep, mixed with new ones: John’s accusations, multiplied and bloated; Speir’s equanimity shaken at last by boots stamping through Ryswyck’s corridors, beating down walls and students with equal callousness. Douglas’s voice raised in cold reproach. He had woken distressed by an unbearable grief, which propelled him to get up and dressed and go out to his desk to work.
Douglas came down from his duty at the tower and, seeing the lights in Barklay’s office, came in to make his report to him. He took one look at Barklay’s face and shut the door without being asked. Abandoning the report, he approached Barklay at his desk.
“What’s wrong, sir?” he asked softly.
He had never been closer to collapsing and throwing his whole weight upon Douglas’s immovable strength. With an effort, he fought the urge down, pressed his lips hard together and shook his head.
After a moment without an answer, Douglas said: “You don’t want to tell me.” The farthest thing from petulant, Douglas’s voice was an infusion of ruth into his welter of ruthlessness. Only because he was listening for it could Barklay hear the tiny note of bewildered pain, buried in the gentle words. Water takes the lowest place. Oh, Douglas.
“There’s nothing to tell,” Barklay said. His voice sounded brittle in his own ears. “Or nothing to be done, anyway. But thank you.”
He dared to look up, and caught Douglas in the act of looking away, his eyes dark and troubled. Feeling Barklay’s glance, he looked back again, his impassive calm restored as if it had never been interrupted. Barklay longed to know what Douglas was thinking, but he’d forfeited the privilege.
“The obligation is mine, sir,” Douglas said.
“No, it isn’t,” Barklay said unsmiling, and let that stand as his request.
Douglas nodded simply. It was easier, Barklay thought, to accept compassion on these terms than to let his soul disintegrate before Douglas’s level gaze. Barklay closed his eyes as Douglas bent close and reached down. Then Douglas settled gracefully on one knee, and Barklay gave himself over to solace with a shaky sigh.
It was good, oh, it was so good, for just one moment not to act, not to seek restlessly for some escape from his predicament, but to fall slack in his chair, wholly patient to Douglas’s gifted fingertips and tongue. A temporary relief, but intensely needed while it lasted: the flood tide of his pleasure carried away even thought, and when at last it reached its ebb, and he lifted his head from where it had fallen back, he drew in his first breath of peace in hours. Days; years, it felt like.
He opened his eyes. Douglas had released him, but was still close, still within Barklay’s warmth, still within reach, his brow smooth, his eyes downcast. Douglas never gave churlishly. His every motion a grace, his every act a benediction, his very steadiness of soul a breathing shock of reality, of every good thing that was made. Without thinking, Barklay reached out his hand and laid a tender caress over Douglas’s cheek.
And Douglas flinched.
He jerked, in a hard motion, a recoil impossible to conceal, and in the wake of that flinch there was a terrible stillness.
Barklay had frozen in the act of snatching his hand away; after a moment, he tried an experimental breath. Nothing happened, so he breathed again. Douglas’s eyes were still cast down; he too seemed to be testing his breath. The silence attenuated, and they seemed to reach a moment where they could keep up a pretense that nothing had happened. Douglas took out his handkerchief and tidied them both. Barklay sat up in his chair.
And then Douglas was on his feet and Barklay’s clothes were fastened, and Douglas looked up at last: his eyes were calm as ever and completely opaque of expression, his face free of any sign of trouble. “Was there anything else, sir?”
“No, Douglas. Thank you,” Barklay said, colorlessly.
Unhurried, unanxious, Douglas went away.
~*~
The day passed. By the end of it, Barklay had almost convinced himself that nothing bad would come of that moment. Such a small moment, considered in proportion; it was bound to be lost in the day’s work, blinked and slept away. He wouldn’t do it again, and they would go on.
He saw Douglas at a distance at dinner; he was laughing with his fellow junior officers at something Stevens was saying. He didn’t look drowned in misery; he didn’t look like Barklay felt; perhaps it really would be all right after all.
By the next morning, the incident had subsided in Barklay’s mind to an uneasy forgetting. It would pass; they would go on. He addressed himself firmly to his work. He signed off on two adjustments to the arena schedule; reviewed the latest scores for the second years’ general-exam prep; heard a report from Oisel about his development of the cartography curriculum; and by midmorning was well into his rhythm when Douglas came in with the morning’s dispatches. His expression was still serene; but he did not shut the door or even look at it.
He stood quietly at attention before Barklay’s desk while Barklay opened the pouch and paged carefully through the dispatches.
“Anything to go back, sir?”
“It doesn’t look like it…no. No, nothing to go back. Thank you, Douglas.”
After a moment he realized that Douglas had not moved; he looked up. “Was there something else?” Even as the words left his lips, Barklay’s breath died.
Douglas was actually shaking. As Barklay watched, he held himself straight and took in a hardy breath. “Yes, sir. There was something else. I have a request.” Douglas’s eyes were fixed over Barklay’s head, gazing through the sheer white of the drapes behind him to the wet quad outside. A mottled flush crept up his neck.
Barklay knew it must be a great anguish to escape Douglas’s control. “What is it, Douglas?” he asked, in a small voice.
Douglas swallowed noisily, as if parched. “I would like,” he said, “to be excused from my personal duties to you. Sir.” After delivering this hoarse request, his lips clamped shut and his eyes glittered.
Oh, no. No, no. Oh, my dear. Barklay had been wrong; he had wounded Douglas past all concealing; the moment had seemed to dissipate into serenity only because it could never be retrieved. The new awareness raised the prickles on Barklay’s scalp and sympathetic tears to his eyes. He was a moment gathering himself to reply.
“Then of course you may be excused,” he said, softly.
Thank you, sir, said Douglas’s lips; he could not summon the voice to support the words. He knocked at his heart with his closed hand, as if repenting a great wrong against Barklay and not the other way around. And almost in the same motion, he turned and left the room swiftly, before Barklay could speak again, before Barklay could even move.
Barklay wiped the tears off his cheeks, but he kept shedding more of them, and he finally gave up and put his face in his hands. I should not. Should not have done that. Should not have done any of it. Oh, Douglas.
No amount of meretricious reasoning would rescue him now. He could not even spare heart to be disgusted with himself. He could only think that he had hurt the one he loved, that he had done it wilfully, that Douglas had been hurt and it was his fault.
He wanted to go after Douglas and own the fault properly, but a more thorough way of compounding the fault he couldn’t think of right now. He would have to control himself and wait his chance, if there was one. But his knees shook; it would be hard.
Barklay took his hands away and wiped uselessly at his eyes. Then he got up altogether and went into his quarters to wash his face.
~*~
That afternoon, Speir headed to the records room with a fresh set of scorebooks, having spent the morning hard at it helping Captain Marag update them from the latest briefings. When she came out, she ran into Barklay in the main hall. He glanced at her, irresolute and distrait.
“Speir,” he said, “have you seen Douglas at all?” It was a measure of his distraction that he addressed her abruptly, without her rank.
“No, sir,” Speir said. “Not since yesterday afternoon when he got up from his sleep shift. Our schedules are out of phase just now.”
“Beathas hasn’t seen him,” Barklay said. “Nor Stevens. He was expected to join their tutorial before lunch, but he didn’t show up.”
“That’s not like him,” Speir said thoughtfully, “not without leaving a message of some kind. Did he fall asleep in his quarters?”
“I sent someone to knock.”
You didn’t go yourself? Speir didn’t say it. “But they didn’t look in—” She broke off as Marag approached them.
“Marag, have you seen Douglas?”
“No, sir, I was just coming to look for him. I had an appointment to consult with him for a lesson plan for next week.”
“And he didn’t show?” Barklay was looking truly worried now.
“I can go and check his quarters again, sir, if you wish.”
For all he clearly wanted her to do just that, he hesitated over his reply. “If you would, Lieutenant,” he said finally.
Speir turned and went swiftly out into the cloister and down the junior officer block. The door to Douglas’s quarters was closed; she knocked on it briskly. “Douglas?”
There was no answer. Carefully, Speir turned the latch—no one at Ryswyck locked their doors—and put her head in. “Douglas?”
The room was empty, the lights off, everything as normal, the bed neatly made, with Douglas’s Arisail banner standing serene sentinel on the wall over the bunk. She sensed an odd feeling of waiting in the room, as if Douglas’s presence hadn’t entirely deserted it and it was poised for his return; but clearly Douglas wasn’t here. She withdrew, closed the door, and returned to the main hall, where Marag, Beathas, and Barklay were clustered. Stevens came in the door from the tower quad. Barklay looked to her anxiously. Speir shook her head. “He’s not there.”
“Not up the tower either,” Stevens reported.
“Find him.” Barklay turned sharply and strode back into his office.
“Do you know why he’s so upset?” Stevens murmured to Speir.
Speir gave him a nonplussed look and shook her head.
“I mean, it’s just Douglas, isn’t it? He disappears sometimes. Though usually,” he added pensively, “not without making sure his schedule is covered.”
In the end, no one found Douglas before he returned. He wasn’t in any of the training rooms, or any of the classrooms, or even in the chapel. “I’m sure he will turn up, sir,” Marag said, frowning closely at Barklay. “Are you sure you want to put out a bulletin? If he doesn’t come to dinner, perhaps—”
Barklay gave his head an impatient shake, but made no answer.
“I’ll go find Cameron and Ahrens and check with them,” Marag said. “I really shouldn’t worry, sir.”
Left alone with Speir, Barklay turned and searched her face, as if her friendship with Douglas might give him some small thread to guide him to where Douglas was. “He’s right, sir. Don’t worry. I’ll go to my quarters and leave the door open in case he comes by.”
He gave her a cornered look. Clearly he wanted to sound the alarms and turn Ryswyck upside down until Douglas appeared, but he did not want to explain why. “All right,” he croaked after a moment.
He went back into his office, and Speir headed back toward the junior officer block. Passing through the cloister, she could see Douglas himself coming in down the path from the farm at an unhurried pace. She breathed sudden relief; Barklay’s fear had been more contagious than she thought.
She waited until she was sure he was headed toward the cloister door, then went back to Barklay’s office. “General Barklay, sir? He’s back.”
He looked up with a small, stifled cry; then rose up and went out past her without a word.
She followed him out into the main hall, in time to see him accost Douglas on his way to the records room. “Douglas,” Barklay said, “where have you been?” Then, noticing that they had an audience of cadets returning from sparring court to the mess, Barklay forcibly damped his agitation.
Douglas looked at him blankly. Neither of them marked Speir’s presence at all. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, voice quiet. “I ran an errand down to the farm.”
“Nobody could find you,” Barklay said, matching Douglas’s tone with an effort. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes, sir. I’m perfectly all right.”
Which ought to have eased Barklay’s anxiety, but Speir could see that Barklay’s distress had, if anything, increased. “Douglas—”
“I’m sorry, sir. I should have made sure my schedule was covered before I went out. I apologize for putting you all to the trouble.” He put his closed hand to his heart, and Barklay flinched.
“No,” he said, “—no. I mean—it’s easily mended. So long as you’re all right. Are you all right?”
“Yes, sir,” Douglas said gently, “I’m all right.”
“So then all’s well.” It sounded more like Barklay was asking for confirmation than giving it.
“Yes, sir.”
Another distressed silence. Then Barklay turned abruptly and went back into his office. Speir stared after him, then turned to Douglas. “Douglas,” she said, “what just happ—”
Douglas wasn’t there either. The cloister door was just falling shut.
Speir blinked around at the suddenly empty space.
~*~
She half expected Douglas to duck out of their study time that evening, but at the appointed hour, he knocked and sidled in. To look at, he was not in any way upset, but Speir could still feel his inward disturbance, like an aureole of trouble, radiating toward her as he entered the room. She sat back in her chair, her elbow on the desk, and looked at him, waiting.
“I really did just run an errand to the farm,” Douglas said.
“I believe you.” She continued to wait.
He didn’t duck her gaze; nor did he offer her any further explanation. Speir sighed and gave in. Well, at least can I carry anything for you? was on her lips to say, but something indefinable in Douglas’s manner held her back. Did he fear she might retail to Barklay what was on his mind? No, surely he knew better than that. But all the same she kept silent as he settled himself on her bench and dug out a set of notes to hand over to her.
Because it was clearly what he wanted to do, she got down with him to work. But she kept half an eye and more than half her thoughts on him as she read. He had been working hard; she could see faint bruise-like marks under his eyes. He’d been driving himself forward—she realized suddenly—because he wanted to finish his course of study as soon as possible. He wanted to leave Ryswyck. The thought gave her a pang, not only because he would be separated from her, but because, more than any other person she knew, he belonged here. Was that what had upset Barklay today? If so, she was more likely to get it out of Barklay than Douglas. You couldn’t outwait Douglas.
But Douglas did confirm at least part of her theory. When she finished with his notes, she sheafed them together and handed them back to him with thanks; he said: “You can keep them. And I’ll give you any other notes you’d like to have when I leave.”
“I’m happy to take whatever you would like to give me,” Speir said.
Douglas didn’t miss the valences of that. “Speir—” he grimaced.
“Don’t worry, I’m not about to push you. But you do realize that you’re not actually alone. Right?”
He looked up then, the marks under his eyes suddenly clear in the lamplight. She had meant her words to reassure him, but he didn’t seem reassured at all.
“Should I be concerned about you?” he said, seriously.
She answered, half-laughing: “Is it that bad, Douglas?”
But he looked away, and her smile dropped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to mock you.”
He waved this away: I didn’t take it amiss.
“Dear friend,” she said, reaching out her hand to give him a gentle poke in the elbow—the nearest bit of him she could reach. “Don’t waste your resources, is all I’m saying.”
He raised his head and looked her in the eye. His import was clear: he would unburden his secret grief if she would unburden hers. Her smile tilted in chagrin.
He reached out a fingertip and poked her back.
~*~
Barklay watched Douglas surreptitiously for the rest of the week, looking for further signs of malaise. But Douglas had completely submerged any sign of the wound Barklay had dealt him; in rota captain meetings, in training, even in his occasional reports to Barklay, there was no further wrinkle in his equanimity. Barklay knew better than to suppose from this that all was well, but Douglas was making clear that he did not intend for the matter ever to be broached again. It was time, Barklay realized achingly, to look for a good placement for him. Douglas would be better off out of Barklay’s ken.
So he was not surprised when Beathas caught him alone after a senior staff meeting and mentioned that Douglas had been asking her to keep an eye on possible commissions as they became available. “His modesty may have been embarrassed,” she said diplomatically, “to ask for full-fledged institutional assistance with his career.”
“Yes,” Barklay said, frowning down at the papers on his desk. “Did he happen to mention what interested him?”
“It appears he is not quite ready to stand forth for a position with visibility,” she said. And that was all she said; but Barklay caught her drift.
“I observe the same,” he said, dryly. “I will bend my thoughts to finding a placement that will suit him.”
Beathas didn’t know the details of what had happened with Selkirk and Jarrow; but Barklay had no doubt that she had put together Douglas’s heightened diffidence with his contact with the fringes of political intrigue. They all ought to be encouraging Douglas to stand forth, damn it. But Barklay knew it would not be wise.
He took to studying the open-commission lists with greater concentration.
~*~
“Lieutenant Douglas,” Barklay said, “could I have a word?”
Douglas paused his hands gathering up his tablet and books, and looked up. The other rota captains, packing up to leave the meeting in Barklay’s office, pretended not to shoot glances between them; only Speir gave them an openly speculative look before hitching up her scrip and continuing out at her usual brisk pace.
“It’ll only take a moment,” Barklay assured him.
“All right.” Barklay retreated to his desk but did not ask Douglas to shut the door, so Douglas breathed a little easier and approached the desk at a close but circumspect distance.
“You are all but finished with your course of study.” Barklay was fiddling with a lone sheet of paper. “Captain Marag and Commodore Beathas and I have been discussing it and looking at possible placements for you.” He twitched the paper hesitantly and then pushed it across. “This one is the first we’ve seen that looks like it might be suitable.”
Douglas took the sheet and scanned its contents. “Cardumel Base?” he said. “That’s in the northeast sector, isn’t it?”
“Yes. An installation guarding Colmhaven Harbor. You’d report to General Inslee and his senior staff. Inslee’s a good man. Level-headed.” Barklay shut his mouth suddenly, as if to guard against voluble nervousness.
“Training and communications,” Douglas said, reading. “Captain.” He read the description of duties through; it sounded all right. He wondered if Barklay was jumpy merely because they were alone, or for some other reason. He looked up and scrutinized Barklay’s face, but could not read any clues there. “What do you think of it, sir?”
Barklay hesitated a moment longer, then sighed and opened one hand. “It’s a good commission. It would also be reasonable for you to wait for something better.”
“And where would something better be?” Douglas asked.
“Probably in the capital,” Barklay admitted.
“Do I have time to think about it?”
“Yes; I asked Inslee to hold the position for me for a few days. You can keep that description if you want to.”
Douglas nodded, reading it again. “Thank you, sir.”
“Thank you, Douglas. You can be dismissed.”
Douglas tucked the paper among his books, gathered everything up, and left, without looking at Barklay again.
A commission. And at almost the farthest possible distance from Ryswyck. Douglas scarcely looked at the paper again, but the details swam continually in his mind. Now that the door had opened, he felt frightened; he knew that he wanted to—had to—leave Ryswyck, but some perverse part of him had skidded his heels into the dirt in terror, urged him to recoil and cling to the place where his soul had been born.
No. The sooner he got clear, the easier it would be to find the right work and keep his head down at the same time. He could sort this out, but first and foremost he needed distance. He had run out of places to hide and think: every time he thought about it, he burned with a little jolt of anger at how thoroughly he had been searched out at the moment when he needed privacy the most. It was Barklay who had sent Speir, he knew, to check his quarters in case he was bent on harming himself; he had retreated to his bathroom with the lights off and crouched in his shower cube to muffle the sobs he could not bottle up, and at her knock he had frozen unbreathing in his hiding-place. She had gone away, but he had felt no relief, and he’d immediately slipped out for a long walk to the farm to compose himself.
To this day he did not know whether Speir had realized he had been there all along, but every time she looked at him he felt—worse than undefended—defenseless; naked. Her compassion was living and active, and only her courtesy kept it from searching him out and scalding him. It seemed to Douglas that it was unworthy of him to run all the way to the other end of the island to get away from his ignominy. But until he got past this bewilderment of grief, what else could he do?
Douglas decided to sleep on it for a night: but the decision was already made, and the sleep was merely to consolidate it.
~*~
It was a measure of how accustomed Speir had become to Douglas’s silence that she was neither surprised nor particularly distressed when the announcement came that he had taken an offer for a captain’s post at Cardumel Base, before Douglas himself mentioned it to her or anyone else.
His fellow rota captains clapped him on the back and congratulated him, and spent half the week’s meeting planning his farewell feast. Douglas received all this with a diffident, indulgent smile.
But the tears stood in Douglas’s eyes on the night of the feast itself, as Stevens and Ahrens got up together on a table and led the whole mess hall in a rollicking ditty to honor him. The cheers and laughter gave way to an earnest, spontaneous versicle from the arena chant, and fully half the room seized any opportunity they could to touch him, thank him for his service to them, and wish him well. Douglas thanked them in as few words as possible, but his gratitude was so nakedly manifest that it hurt Speir to watch.
Later that evening she girded herself up to go and knock on the door of his quarters. “Yes?”
“It’s me.”
“Come in.”
She entered to find Douglas in his desk chair with the Arisail banner spilling over his lap, folding it carefully with the special rolls and twists that would keep out the creases. His duffel waited gaping at his feet to receive the bundle. He looked up and smiled briefly. “Speir.”
She watched him as he finished his task, and then said: “I came to give you my farewell gift.”
He looked up dismayed. “Ach, Speir. You put me to shame. I have no gift for you.”
She shook her head and offered him the small package, still wrapped in the silk handkerchief that cushioned it in her drawer. He took it and unfolded it. The silk fell away to reveal the silver clasp-shut disk.
“I polished it and wound it up for you,” Speir said. “They both work.”
He opened each side to reveal the watch and the compass. “My mother gave it to my father,” she said, “which is why it has his initials on the inside. Then a few years ago he gave it to me. I’d like you to have it. It’s not army-practical,” she added, diffidently, “but it’s sturdy. You’ll always know where north is.”
The open compass seemed to weigh Douglas’s palm down to his lap. He dropped his head mutely, overcome.
Her eyes prickling, Speir bent to grasp his shoulder. She gave him a few gentle shakes, steadying him until he could breathe again; he put his free hand up to cover hers. Finally he looked up, his eyes bright; she released him and straightened up.
“You are so kind to me,” he said softly. “And I don’t have anything to give you that’s nearly this nice. I’m sorry, Speir.”
Speir took a deep breath. “You…might have something to give me, at that. Though, not right now. Or soon. You know, if all goes well I’ll be wanting to start my family, in time. It occurred to me…well, it occurred to me that in a few years, if we are both in a good position, you could give me a child for my name.” The traditional phrase felt strangely wooden, blocky and adult in her mouth. “I’d rather have a child from my friend than anyone,” she added, more easily.
Douglas sat wide-eyed, too stunned even for tears. “Speir,” he managed finally, “that’s not a gift for you. That’s an honor for me.”
“On the contrary,” she replied; “how else am I going to get your mother for a cousin?”
Her assay at brisk humor brought him to a smile, and she smiled back relieved.
“There isn’t any hurry about it,” she said, “at all. But in a few years, may be…we could look one another up and see how it stands.”
She watched his face, concealing anxiety, hoping he would understand that she was offering him the possibility of connection without any coercion. “I would welcome that,” he said, and his sincerity made her eyes smart again briefly, this time in relief.
“Till then, wisdom keep you,” she said. He made an abortive motion, as if to reach for her: understanding what he wanted, she bent close and received his kiss on the corners of her lips, then saluted him in kind. When she straightened again they smiled at one another sadly. “Good night,” Speir said, turning to go. At the door she paused briefly. Glanced back as if to take a memory-snap of him, bright-eyed in his chair with her compass open in his hand. “And good luck.”
“All of the same to you,” Douglas said.