Epiny sighed and tears started under her eyelids. She was tired, so very tired, and her head hurt. Spink had stopped taking the Gettys Tonic and forbidden it to everyone in his household. Amzil had nearly left over it; if she’d had anywhere else to go, she would have. The whole household had been miserable since Spink had decreed it, and he had been so unreasonable. He wouldn’t allow it in the door, not a drop, not even to soothe the children when they had nightmares.

“But you know, he’s right, Epiny.” I inserted myself into her meandering trail of thoughts.

“But being right doesn’t get him far. When he was right about the dangers of a Speck attack, it only brought him blame for not shouting more loudly and taking more action.”

“What did Spink do that night?”

She sighed. The baby on her breast was not quieting but only wailing in an endlessly hopeless way. With the toe of one foot, she started the rocker moving again. “He said he’d dreamed of you that morning, and asked me if I had. I thought I might have, but I couldn’t remember details. Only that you were very agitated and kept saying that I had to warn everyone. So he tried telling people that he had a bad premonition and that we must all be extra wary that night. But of course everyone just laughed at him. The Specks go away in winter; everyone knows that. But he made Amzil and me take the children, some bedding, and some food and go spend the night in a little stone cottage outside the gates. The cottage was abandoned years ago, and it was so cold and he forbade us to have any fire or light at all. We ended up huddled together like mice under a doormat. He told his men, soldiers accustomed to working in supply, and announced that he was having a night drill, and that all must turn out for it armed and uniformed for the cold. And he took them outside the fort, too, and made them march a patrol around the town outside the fort. He thought that when the attack came, it would be noisy, with guns firing and men shouting. He never even knew that the Specks were inside the fort until the fires blazed up. He was riding back toward the fort when—Nevare? You are here? Really here with me?”

“Yes, Epiny. I’ve dream-walked to you. I wanted to be sure you had all weathered the attack intact.”

“Small thanks to you!” she said with sudden deep bitterness. “Nevare, Spink saw you that night! He says that you looked right at him, eye to eye. He had been on the point of firing, and then when he saw your face, he could not!” A shiver of outrage ran over her. “Some have faulted him for that, calling him coward or traitor! Yet none of them faced up to you, either. How dare they speak so about him, how dare they! And how could you have put him in such a position, Nevare!”

“Epiny, you know how I am bound! I did all I could, to come and warn you both. It was as much as I could do!” The accusing tone of her words tore me. How could she believe I had done that of my own will? “Even now, I am held! My time to speak with you is short.”

“I know. I do know. But still, it is a heavy thing for him to bear, for there is no possible way he could explain it. Others saw you, Nevare. Or what they said was your ghost, come back as a Speck. The heaviest losses were taken by the men who were in the mob that night when you fled Gettys; only five now survive who witnessed your death. Rumor mutters about the town. Some say your ghost led the attack to take vengeance on the town. The barracks where the men were massacred as they tried to escape? Those soldiers were under Captain Thayer’s command. You remember who he was, don’t you? Carsina’s husband? The monster that was going to let his men rape and murder Amzil, simply as a way of tormenting you before they beat you to death! Now, whenever he sees Amzil on the street, or even little Kara sent out on an errand, he glowers and stares like a madman! He rules his own troops like a despot. I fear him, Nevare. I fear that he will stop at nothing to feel he has avenged himself. He says that Amzil is worse than a whore and he will prove it. Oh, how could you take vengeance, and then leave us here to bear the brunt of the ill will you woke?”

The agitation of her thoughts rose and with it the tempo of her rocking. Little Solina had not ceased wailing the whole time and now, sensing her mother’s upset, cried even harder.

“Epiny, please! I took no vengeance! That was not me. No matter what they had done to me, they were still the King’s soldiers, the men of my own regiment. I would not slaughter them like that. I cannot describe what it was like for me. I witnessed how they were murdered, with no chance to defend themselves. I would not massacre our soldiers like that, the innocent alongside the guilty. I would not choose to see anyone die like that! Surely you know me that well.”

“I thought I did,” she said in a low voice. “Hush, child, hush. Please hush!” The cries of her baby were jarring to her, agitating her in a way almost beyond my understanding. I knew she was not asleep, but in the light trance of a medium.

“Be calm, Epiny. Be calm for your child’s sake, and for me. Stay with me. Stay.” I breathed calmness at her. “Think of a good time. Think of—” I scrabbled through my knowledge of her, trying desperately to find a calm and happy memory for her. Nothing came to mind. Everywhere Epiny was, turmoil seemed to follow her. “Think of that first evening when we played Towsers on the floor of the drawing room in your father’s home. The first night you spent any time with Spink. Think about that; hold to the good memories.”

A wave of sadness washed through her, dulling her agitation. Her rocking slowed. “Will I ever live in such a house, so comfortably, again?” she asked me plaintively. “Will I ever be free of counting each slice of bread, of having to say to my household, ‘That is enough now, you’ve had your share, no matter what your belly says’? Oh, hush, baby, please hush. Sleep for a little while. Please let me rest.”

“Are things so difficult now?”

“Difficult? ‘Difficult’ is a word that only applies where there is hope. Nevare, we are starving. Unless the lands warm soon and the fear ceases to keep our men from hunting, we will all die. Yesterday, Amzil went walking outside the fort and came back with some wild greens for us. Oh, they tasted so wonderful, but there were not much of them. Gettys is shattered, Nevare.” She gave a small, bitter laugh. “We missed our cemetery soldier after that attack. No one had thought to do as you had done, and dig extra graves for the winter or stockpile lumber for coffins. Folk used to say you were morbid, waiting for us to die. After the fires, there were huge arguments over whether it was more important to build coffins for the dead or use whatever wood we could salvage to keep warm. The ground was too frozen to dig graves; the bodies had to be stored. I’ve heard it said there is a wall of coffins out at the cemetery now; the thaws have softened the ground somewhat, but fear and discouragement boil out of the forest there like a poisonous spring. It is hard to get anyone to work there and harder still to find someone who works hard enough to get anything done.”

I thought of Kesey and Ebrooks and pitied them both. I was sure that particular duty had fallen on them.

“We are in a bad way for any sort of supplies. The Speck seemed to know exactly where to strike; they burned the warehouses, and the barns and the stables, and so many homes! Those who stayed have had to crowd in together as best they might. Many others chose to flee when the fear came back. They could not tolerate it, not even with the Gettys Tonic. Not just families, but soldiers deserted by the dozen. I’ve no idea what became of them; I expect a lot of them simply lay down in the cold and snow and died.”

“Epiny, Epiny, I am so sorry.” As I listened to her thoughts wander, it seemed very unlike the usual meandering of her previous prattling. There was nothing fun or gossipy about her words; it was a recounting of an endless circle of despair. I could not think what else to ask her. Did I want to know the details of how badly Gettys was damaged? No, I decided. Belatedly, I wished she had not told me where Spink had hidden them, for whatever was in my mind might be ferreted out by Soldier’s Boy.