“If you want,” I said, for there seemed nothing else to say.

“I’ll be right back,” he told me, and turned to lead his horse off to Clove’s lean-to. I shut the door to hold both the cold and my past at bay. And then I did something that was probably childish. I went to my table and drank down my hot soup as fast as I could, and gobbled down as many of my hearth cakes as I could manage, listening always for the sound of Spink’s boots outside. It was not greed. I was hungry, and I did not want to be thinking about food while Spink was there, nor did I want to watch him watching me eat. It was going to be hard enough to sit across from him and try to ignore how his eyes would wander from mine to the rest of my body, wondering and speculating on how I could have changed so much.

When I heard his footsteps outside, I went to the door and opened it. “Thanks!” he exclaimed and came quickly in, immediately opening his coat and moving closer to the fire. “That’s the coldest I’ve ever been in my life, and I’m afraid the ride back to town will be worse. It’s absolutely clear outside; the stars seem like you could reach up and pick them out of the sky.” He drew off a set of heavy mittens, and then awkwardly peeled off his gloves before thrusting his hands toward my fire. His fingers were nearly white. His breath came in shuddering sighs.

“Spink, why did you come out here tonight?” I asked him sadly. I dreaded the confrontation that I knew must follow this meeting. Why couldn’t he just have let things alone?

He mistook my meaning. “Tonight was the first chance I’ve had to slip away without Epiny demanding to know where I was going and why. She’s having some kind of meeting at our house tonight, with women from all over Gettys. All sorts of talk about bettering their lot and providing more opportunities for soldiers’ widows and daughters. We don’t have a large house; in fact it’s quite small, even by Gettys standards. Fill it full of women who all seem to be talking at once and it gets even smaller. When I told Epiny quietly that I simply must leave for a time, she scowled at me, but let me go. And here I am.” He smiled sheepishly, as if loath to admit that Epiny had so much management of his time.

I had to smile back. I’d never imagined it would be any other way.

The moment I smiled, Spink burst into a grin like a sunrise. He came quickly to me and seized my right hand in both his icy ones and shook it, saying, “Nevare, I’m so glad to see you alive! Everyone thought you were dead!” He let go my hand and flung himself into my spindly chair by the fire.

“Even Yaril has given you up for dead,” he went on, “for she said you had promised to write to her, and that it was a promise you would not break. Your father told her your horse came home riderless. That made her nearly certain. Epiny has shed buckets of tears over you. When I saw you in the mercantile, I could not believe my eyes. Then, when you refused to admit it was you, it was so…peculiar! I didn’t know what to think. I nearly told Epiny but then I decided that before I allowed her to leap blindly into this, I’d find out exactly what was going on. It’s just so hard to get a few hours away without having to explain to her where I’ve been every moment that I’m gone. But here I am, blathering on, when what I really want to hear is, what has happened to you?”

I tried to consider my response. As I took a breath to speak, Spink broke forth again. I stared at him, somewhat astounded. I supposed that living with Epiny, he had had to learn to speak all his thoughts whenever he had the chance, or forever give up the opportunity. “We had your letters from Widevale, of course. Then they just stopped, but after a time, we began to receive letters from Yaril. Then they stopped. That really worried us, but finally we had a stern letter from your father, returning a letter that Epiny had sent to Yaril and telling her that he would not brook anyone interfering with his daughter’s proper upbringing. Epiny had only said that we’d welcome a long visit from Yaril if she felt she needed some time away from home. Well…I’m making it much milder than what Epiny actually wrote, to be honest.

“She actually wrote that if Yaril felt she could no longer tolerate living under your father’s roof, she could come and live with us.” Spink sighed abruptly and then drew a breath. He shook his head. “My dear wife is sometimes a bit too frank, I suppose. Not that I’m telling you anything you don’t already know. Her exhortations to Yaril to think for herself offended your father. He wrote that Epiny’s letters were unwelcome, that Yaril would not receive them, and that he was going to be sure his brother knew how far his daughter had strayed from her upbringing.” The lines around his mouth deepened as added. “You can imagine the sort of storm that provoked in our home.”

“Yes, I can,” I said quietly. My father was still a good soldier. He unerringly aimed for the weakest point in the enemy’s defences. Diverting Epiny’s attack on him to make it a battle between her and her own father was a brilliant tactic. I could imagine how he would sit, pipe lit, eyes narrowed, smiling and nodding to himself over it. Telling Yaril that Sirlofty had come back without me was the perfect way to end her hopes.

“I did write to Yaril,” I told Spink. “Several times. The news wouldn’t be what she hoped for, for I told her of my situation here and pointed out that it was impossible for her to come and stay with me as we’d discussed. I assumed she didn’t write back because she was angry or disappointed. Obviously, she never received them. Since my father has disowned me, he will not feel I deserve the courtesy of a reply from him. Very neatly done. I imagine he’s letting Yaril expend a lot of energy writing letters to Epiny, which he then diverts. If Yaril thinks that I am dead and that Epiny no longer replies to her letters, she will become very discouraged. And probably much more tractable.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” Spink asked me.

I looked at him in surprise. “Do? What can I do? Nothing.”

His manner toward me stiffened slightly. “You didn’t give up so easily when you were a cadet. I recall how you stood up to the old noble second-years when they persecuted us. And how you solved the bridge problem in engineering.”

I shook my head at him. “Those were schoolboy solutions to schoolboy problems. And all of that happened before I was the size of a barn door, and when I still had the prospect of a good commission and a real life before me.” All my bleakness came flowing back. “You shouldn’t be here, Spink. You’ll only damage your career by associating with me. I’m a fat cemetery soldier, an enlisted man with no prospects save grinding toward a stripe or two. The last thing I want is for people to know that we are related, even if it’s only by marriage.”

He looked at me for a time in utter discouragement. Then he shook his head and said quietly, “I should have known it would get to you, too. It weighs us all down, but I thought you would see through it. The discouragement you feel isn’t natural, Nevare. I’m not sure that I agree entirely with Epiny’s analysis of it, but one can’t argue at all with the end product.”

I sat like a sack of oats, refusing to be prodded by my curiosity. Spink gave in before I did.

“Morale here is terrible. It isn’t just the prisoner-workers or the soldiers who guard them, though they have the worst problems. Did you know, in the last two years, there has been no substantial progress made on pushing the road up into the Barrier Mountains?”

I looked at him. “I was initiated,” I said. “I’ve broken a Gettys sweat. I know about the terror at the end of the road. I’m not surprised that we’ve made no progress. But what does that have to do with me?”

“The discouragement you feel, the horrible depression, it’s not just you. It’s every man who is assigned here. How much of Gettys history do you know?”