Shaman's Crossing
Instead, brow knit, he began to question us about the distinctions made between old and new nobility soldier sons, and how Colonel Stiet ran the Academy and even about his son Caulder. The more we told him, the graver he looked. I had not realized what a relief it would be to unburden myself about the inequities at the school. I had believed the Academy would be a place of high honor and lofty values. Not only had I discovered that was not so, I had besmirched my own honor in my very first year there. I had not realized how troubled I was nor how disappointed until we were given the opportunity to talk freely.
Small things bothered me almost as much as the larger injustices. When I told him that in all likelihood we had brought Sirlofty all the way to Old Thares for nothing, for I would be forced to use an Academy mount, he did not smile, but nodded solemnly and commented, “Giving you that horse was a very significant act for your father. He believes that a worthy mount is a cavalla man’s first line of defense. He will not approve of this new regulation.” I felt a great relief to know that he, a first son and never a soldier, could grasp the depth of my disappointment.
“Doings at the Academy only reflect what goes on in the wider world of the court,” he told us. “When King Troven created a second rank of nobility and gave it equal status to the first, he well knew what he was doing. When he elevated those soldier sons to lords, he won their hearts and their loyalty. The old nobility families could find no grounds to refuse them admittance to the Council of Lords. In ancient days, we of the old families had won our nobility on the battlefields, just as the new lords had. And Troven did not elevate anyone who was not the second son of an old lord. No one could say that the men he raised were of inferior blood without leveling the same accusation against their brother nobles. It divided many a family, as Spink here knows too well. In other families”-he shifted uncomfortably in his seat-“well, it is not coincidence that I have chosen to invite you to my home when my lady wife is away. She is one of those who feels that her own status was diminished when others were elevated to share it.”
He almost smiled. He shook his head fondly at me and shocked me by saying, “Let it go, Nevare. Among any group of men there will always be those tussles, the shouldering and jockeying for power. Spink here had the common sense to keep it within bounds. It might surprise you to know that I’ve seen a few fistfights in my time, and most of them were a lot bloodier and dirtier than what you described to me. I don’t think anyone’s honor is broken or even tarnished by it. No. What the honor code tries to prevent is the sort of thing that happened to your friend Gord or the young lieutenant. From what you say, they took serious beatings, and not from some individual whom they clashed with, but from a group of cadets that singled them out. What happened to your friend Gord might have been the impulse of the moment, but it sounds as if Tiber encountered a plot against him. That should have been reported; I am still shocked that the doctor didn’t take it upon himself to question you more thoroughly. I fear that the third-years that you spoke of may have been more forthcoming as witnesses. That you did not speak differently from what they might have said…well. I think I will have a word with him, when I return you two to the Academy.”