“Silence!” My father roared the word. His face had grown starker and whiter with every detail of my story. I had thought it filled him with horror for what he had unwittingly done to me. For an instant, his mouth trembled, and then he demanded, “Are you mad? Is that what ails you? Insanity? What is all this talk of magic and Dewara? You are going to blame your gluttony on something that happened years ago, and make it my fault? Nevare! Look at yourself! Look at your belly, look at the mess you’ve left on that table, and then tell me you haven’t done this to yourself! Magic! What idiocy! Or have you somehow gulled yourself into believing it has power over you and thus it does? I’ve heard of such things, men convinced they were under a curse and dying from it because they believed in it. Is that your problem, Nevare? Truly, you think magic did this to you?” He laded the word with scorn.

I took a deep breath and clenched my hands, but my voice still shook. “Magic is real, Father. We’ve both seen it; we’ve both used it! The ‘keep fast’ charm over our saddle cinches, and the wind wizard flying his boat upstream despite the river’s current, and—”

“Nevare! Shut up! ‘Keep fast’ is just a soldier’s superstition, one of the sillier bits of our traditions. You’ve believed it, all these days, even when you are a man grown? And that wind wizard was a Plainsman, so, yes, he could work his pathetic little magic. In the end, it couldn’t save him, could it? Because what we have, our technology and our faith in the good god, is much stronger. Son. Listen to me. Magic didn’t make you fat. It has no power over you. You listen to me and do as I say, and I’ll prove it to you.”

His voice had gone gentler, ever since he had said the word “son.” I so wanted to simply agree with him, to put him back in charge of my life and let there be some sort of peace between us, even if it was a peace born of deception.

I couldn’t do it. Was I finally finding what he had once sent me out with Dewara to seek, the courage to make my own decisions when I knew my commander was less informed than I was?

“I’ll do as you say, Father. I’ll confine myself to my room and subsist on whatever you judge is right for me. If that is what it takes to prove to you that I am correct and you are wrong, I will do it. But in the end, I think we will both have to admit that when you entrusted me to Dewara, you began the chain of events that did this to me. If anyone bears the fault for what I have become, Father, it is you, not me.”

He slapped me. He didn’t hit me with his fist. I think if he had, I would have struck him back. He slapped me as if I were an upstart child, and I knew I was not that, and so I let him. I felt it as a small triumph when he shakily told me, “Yes. We will prove which one of us is right. Go to your room and stay there, Nevare, until I myself come to your door. And that is an order.”

I went, but not in obedience. I went with defiance, determined to let him regulate me as he wished and so prove to him that I was correct. I went to my room and shut the door firmly behind me. I seethed as I stripped off my bloodied clothes. I should have shown them to him, I thought furiously, and then realized that the dried blood on the dark fabrics could have been nearly any dark liquid. I lifted the side of my belly and pulled hard at where the wound had been, halfway hoping that it would suddenly open and gush blood that I could present to him as evidence of the night’s adventures. It didn’t. There wasn’t even a mark there. I prodded it with my fingers and woke only a vague pain inside me. My body told me that nothing had happened tonight. I thought of getting up and going to Duril, but suspected that if I stirred out of my room, my wakeful father would descend, accusing me of more deceptions. The only thing that would possibly convince my father was allowing him to control my life and seeing that not even he could take the fat from me. I was not resigned to it. I was eager for it, in the way a warlike man is hungry for a confrontation.

I lay down to sleep on my bed. As I closed my eyes, I told myself that only the outside of my body had changed, that within I was still Nevare, and if my father could not see that, then he was both blind and stupid. But before I drifted off to sleep, I finally admitted that I had changed. My body had healed itself tonight of a potentially fatal wound. The fat and the shape of my body were an external change, but internally, I had changed also. The Nevare he had sent away to the academy would never have stood up to him as I had tonight. It was ironic that my father had finally got what he wanted out of me. He was not enjoying it very much.

And so began our battle of wills. The next morning, I awoke early, as I always did, and dressed and sat down on my bed wondering what the day would bring. Several hours later, my father entered my room, a very burly man at his heels. He didn’t address me, but spoke to the servant. “He’s to chop wood all day. He can have three water breaks. No food. At the end of the day, you’re to bring him back up here. That’s all.”

The man knit his brows. “That’s all I’m supposed to do? Watch him and make sure he chops wood and only drinks three times and doesn’t eat anything?”

My father spoke in a flat voice. “If you don’t think that will tax your abilities too much, Narl.”

The servant scowled. “I can do that. Just seems like you’d want me to do more.”

“No. That’s all.” My father turned on his heel and left the room.

I pulled on my boots and stood up. “Let’s go chop wood,” I suggested.

The man scowled so that his forehead stood up on ridges. “You want to go? I don’t have to force you or nothing?”

“I assure you, I’m as eager to do this as my father is. Let’s go.”

“He’s your father?”

I gave up trying to converse with Narl. “I’m going downstairs and outside to chop wood now,” I told him. I started out the door and he followed me like an obedient dog.

I chopped wood all that day. No one spoke to me or paid me much attention. Once, Sergeant Duril wandered casually by and then walked away again. I suspected he had some thought or news he wanted to share with me, but I wouldn’t acknowledge him in front of my guard. Blisters came up and broke on my hands and were torn away. Knowing that I could only ask for water three times, I schooled myself to wait until my body demanded it. Then I drank deeply. Evidently my father had not given the man any limit for how much water I could have.

It must have been boring duty for Narl. He sat on a section of log and watched me. He wore a floppy brimmed hat, and as the shade of the woodshed moved, he scooted his log section along to stay within it. Most of our wood was either skinny pole wood that I could chop with almost one blow or long heavy logs of spond wood salvaged from the river.

At the end of the day, Narl escorted me back to my room. As I entered, I noticed that a large, new hasp had been fitted to the outside of my door. So I was to be locked in at night, to prevent any midnight kitchen visits. Thank you, Father. My room was stuffy when I entered it. The window was shut, and a quick glance showed me that it, too, had been fastened closed from outside. My father wasn’t taking any chances, not even that I would risk a drop from my upstairs window to the gardens below. I could vividly imagine what that would do to my knees and ankles.

My guard shut the door behind me, and I sat down on my bed. I waited to hear the hasp secured in some way, but all I heard was the guard’s departing footfalls. The maid had refilled my water ewer. I noticed with distaste that a chamber pot had been added to my room. The wash water was welcome, though I would have preferred a bath or even a dip in the river shallows.

I did not wait long until I heard a different step on the stair. There was a tap on my door, and when I opened it, my father himself entered with a covered tray. He didn’t look at me. I think even he was somewhat embarrassed by what he was doing to me. “This is your food,” he announced, as if I could have mistaken it for something else. I could smell meat, and instantly my mouth began to water. My hunger, which I could somewhat ignore in the absence of food, became an obsession the moment I could smell or see anything edible. I was glad that he set the tray down without uncovering it. I feared that if he had shown me what he carried, I could not have focused on his words.