Putting such a young child to rest put me in mind of Amzil and her brood. I had not thought of her in weeks, and her carry sack that I had borrowed still hung on my wall. That day I resolved I would make good on my promise to myself, and also attempt again to win an audience with the colonel. I saddled Clove in the dim afternoon, and rode to town.

I was less of a spectacle than I had been when I first arrived. I still heard the occasional sniggering remark as I passed, but fewer folks stopped and stared. They’d probably had their fill of doing it. Now that I lived among them, I’d lost my novelty. I came to town several times a week to take a meal in the mess hall with the other troopers. I’d found Rollo’s Tavern and claimed my beer and admitted my Gettys sweat. People knew me as Nevare the cemetery guard, and some I called friend. It did not mean, however, that everyone regarded me kindly or even neutrally. It still unnerved me to find that my size stirred feelings of extreme dislike in people, even when I had given them no other cause to take offense.

My pay as a common soldier was not generous, but I had relatively few wants, and I’d been very stingy with the money that Yaril had slipped into my pack, so I still had a small cache of funds. I took my saved money to town and tried to be wise in the gifts I bought for Amzil and her children. In the mercantile, I bought red woolen fabric, four loaves of barley sugar shaped like flowers, a box of tea, and a small round cheese. I’d already spent more than I’d intended when I saw the book of nursery tales with hand-colored pictures in it. It would be a foolish gift, I told myself. None of them could read it, and the price was very dear. Nonetheless, I found myself giving over the money for it and sliding it into the worn rucksack with the other items. “That’s more than I meant to spend,” I observed innocuously as I counted out the scrip on the counter.

“What you want it for, anyway? Going to read stories to the dead?” The young son of the storeowner had been waiting on me. He looked as if he were about twelve, or perhaps a very unhealthy fourteen. Since I’d walked in, he’d regarded me with the same disdain he exhibited to me every time I came in for supplies. I was weary of him, but his father’s store had the best supplies in Gettys. Nowhere else could I have found a picture book, let alone barley sugar shaped like flowers.

“It’s a present,” I said gruffly.

“For who?” he demanded, as if he had the right.

“Some children I know. Good day.” I turned to leave.

“A bit early for Dark Eve gifts,” he observed to my back.

I shrugged one shoulder by way of response. I was nearly out the door when another voice spoke behind me. “Nevare?”

Despite myself, I turned to my name. A young man in a lieutenant’s uniform had stepped out from behind a tall rack of tools. The moment I recognized Spink, I turned away again. I headed for the door as if I’d never paused.

“Wait!” I heard Spink exclaim. I didn’t.

I was out the door and mounting Clove before he caught up with me.

“Nevare! It is you! It’s me, Spink! Don’t you know me?”

“Excuse me, sir. I believe you’re mistaken, sir.” I was shocked he knew me. I scarcely would have recognized myself as the trim academy cadet I’d once been. I avoided looking at him.

Spink looked up at me incredulously. “Are you saying that I don’t know who I am, or that I don’t recognize you?”

“Sir, I don’t think you know me. Sir.”

“Nevare, this is ridiculous! I can’t believe you’re going to insist on this bizarre charade.”

“Yes, sir, I am. May I be dismissed, sir?”

“Huh.” He breathed out in a harsh sound of disbelief. “Yes. Dismissed, soldier. Whatever is the matter with you? What’s become of you?”

If he expected an answer, he didn’t get one. I rode away from him. The afternoon was already dark, the yellow lights of Gettys leaking out from the small houses and businesses. The streets were all dirty churned snow over hard ice ruts. Clove’s big round hooves threw up chunks of frozen muck as I urged him into a ponderous trot. I rode him toward the gates, but when I judged that Spink would no longer be staring after me, I turned him aside to go to Colonel Haren’s headquarters

I resolved that I would not let my encounter with Spink rattle me from my course. I told myself that I’d done what was best for both of us. Spink was a lowly lieutenant, still new to Gettys, an officer with no years of experience behind him nor good social connections. It would not do him any good to admit that he was related by marriage to the fat gravedigger.

No. It was best to leave everything as it was. My life served a useful purpose. Actually, I was more than useful. I was succeeding at a task where all others had failed. Perhaps I was not serving my king as an illustrious officer; perhaps I would never lead a battle charge or win the day for Gernia. But then, neither would Spink, in his role overseeing food supplies and deliveries for the fort. In reality, how many soldiers ever did win a burst of glory? Even if I’d completed the academy, like as not I’d have ended up doing some mindless task, much as Spink had. It was not so bad, what I did. It was necessary.

Even Colonel Haren said as much. That day, I finally managed to get in to see him. I think it was more his sergeant’s decision than his. I’d been coming in every third day, and each day been turned away. When I’d tried to voice my concerns to his sergeant, he’d gravely informed me that as I was outside the chain of command, reporting directly to the colonel, he could not help me. That afternoon when I walked into his room, the sergeant had sighed heavily, flipped a hand at the door, and suggested sourly, “Go ahead. Try your luck. Don’t blame me if it’s all bad.”

“Thank you.” I’d immediately crossed to the door and knocked briskly. When the colonel barked irritably, “What is it?” I’d taken advantage of the query to enter and present myself.

Colonel Haren did not look surprised to see me. He was exactly as I’d seen him weeks before, as if he hadn’t moved the whole time. He still wore his smoking jacket and cavalla trousers. This time, at least, he had two slippers on his feet. As before, the warmth in his room was overpowering. After a glance at me, he went back to staring at his roaring fire. “Well. I knew you’d be back, trying to go back on your word. ‘I’ll do anything,’ you said, didn’t you? Now I know what you’ll say. Can’t cut it, can you? Did you come to me to beg me to reassign you, or threaten to desert? Or will you say you’re ill? I’ve seen better men than you fail at this assignment. ‘He won’t last,’ I told myself when I gave it to you. And here you are.”

I was startled. “Sir?”

“Now you’re going to tell me all the same stories I’ve heard before. Haunts and ghosties wafting out of the trees at night. Loneliness that cuts to the bone. Strange chill winds when you walk through the cemetery, even on a sunny day. Odd scratching sounds at night, and an utter discouragement with your life that you cannot shake. Thoughts of suicide. I’m right, aren’t I?”

Although all of those things sounded somewhat familiar, I shook my head. “No, sir. I’m here to discuss gravedigging, coffins, and what I am allowed to do about renewing the markers on the old graves. Some are scarcely legible anymore. Were any written records kept of who was buried where?”

His eyes widened at me. “Well, what would be the sense in that?”

“For their relatives, sir. So they might know where their sons are buried. In case they came to Gettys to visit the grave.”

He shrugged that off. “The ones that really care about such things pay to have them carted home. The others…well. If you’ve the time and it gives you comfort, repair the markers as best you can. Dismissed.”

“Sir, that isn’t the only reason I came.”

He compressed his lips and knotted his fists. Then he swung his feet off his hassock and sat up straight to face me. “Do your duty, soldier! If graves are being desecrated, then it’s your own fault for not guarding them well enough! If a body is taken, it’s up to you to track it down, untangle it from the tree, bring it back, and rebury it. Quietly. And I for one do not care how many times you have to do it! So do it and don’t complain.”