Epiny herself came at least once a day, to chatter at me until I was exhausted. She herself had been ill for several days with a much milder case of the plague. During recovery, when she had still been too weak to resist him, the doctor had sternly and firmly returned her to her family home. Her mother had reluctantly received her, she claimed.
To me, she seemed completely recovered now. She read the worried letters that my family had sent to me, and took it upon herself to send replies to them, assuring them of my steady recovery and fond thoughts of them. She did not comment that there were no letters from Carsina. That was a small mercy. She told me that during the days of my coma, she had sat by my bedside and read poetry to me for hours on end, hoping that I would take comfort from the sound of a familiar voice and that it would help me to recover. I don’t know that it aided my recovery, but it possibly accounted for several rather peculiar dreams from that haunted wandering of my mind.
In her own careless way, she tried to be considerate of me. She made an effort to always be cheery and pleasant in the time she spent with me, but sometimes the rims of her eyes were pink, as if she had been crying, and she now seemed older than her years rather than younger. She wore sedate women’s clothing, and kept her hair up and pinned in a style so tidy that it bordered on severe. I think the conflict with her parents over the choice she had made weighed on her more than she wished me to know.
Epiny waited some time before she judged me well enough to have news. She was worse than the hired nurse. She nearly drove me mad by changing the subject whenever I asked for tidings of my friends. One day, when she had provoked me to a coughing fit by refusing to answer my repeated questions, she relented. She shut the door, sat down by my bedside, took my hand in hers and proceeded to sketch in the ten days that had vanished from my life.
She began with what she called ‘the mundane’. Spink had survived and was recovering, but the plague had taken its toll on him. He was thin, wasted to bones, and still so weak that he could not stand. He remained in the infirmary. She had not been able to see him, but was able to send and receive letters from him. Her father had forbidden her mother from blocking them. The letters he sent to her were short. His joints were swollen, and even small movements were painful to him. Dr Amicas had told him regretfully that he would probably never have a military career of any kind, for even after full recovery, he doubted that Spink would have much stamina. My friend could look forward to life as an invalid, depending on his brother for sustenance and keep.
Epiny, of course, did not put it that way. She blithely informed me that as soon as Spink felt well enough for the ceremony, they would have a small wedding, and she would then join him for the journey to his home. She had already been in correspondence with his mother and sisters and found them, “Delightfully modern. They are capable women, Nevare, and I cannot tell you how I will welcome being in their company. It is a great pity that his family cannot afford the journey to witness our wedding. I am sure it would do my mother great good to see that women can do more than gossip, snipe, and plot their daughters’ marriages to their best political advantage. And I am sure it would reassure Papa greatly if he could see that I am going to a worthwhile productive life, rather than being sentenced to endless embroidery, small talk, and child-bearing.”
“Epiny,” I ventured to ask her. “Are you certain you will be happy in such a situation? You will not truly be mistress of your own household. Rather, you and Spink will have to live on his brother’s charity. You speak of his mother and sisters doing useful work. I am sure that the harsh demands of frontier life will be taxing to you. And your circumstances will be far reduced from what you are accustomed to. Perhaps you should think carefully before you plunge yourself and Spink into a life of unhappiness.”
I meant my words well, but she wilted before them. She shook her head at me and tears welled in her eyes. “Must everyone harp on what I already know? I know it will be hard, Nevare, far harder than I first imagined when I cast my lot with Spink’s. But I think I can do it. No. I know that I must do it, and therefore I will find the strength to do it.” She clenched her hands together in her lap. “I know you think I am impulsive and will live to regret my decision. I know you think I am weak. Perhaps I am, and perhaps I will be miserable. But I know that no matter how hard it is, I will never return here and beg my parents to take me back under their roof.” She lifted her eyes to meet mine and I saw an angry determination burning there.
“The times are changing, Nevare. It is time for men as well as women to assert that they will make the decisions that forever change their lives for themselves. I know that no matter how hard this goes with me, Purissa will see what I have done, and perhaps take strength from it when her time comes to defy tradition and live her own life.”
“Will you tell her if you are unhappy?” I asked cautiously. I was not certain that what she was doing was a good example to set for her young sister.
Epiny straightened her back and squared her shoulders. “I take responsibility for my own happiness or unhappiness, Nevare. Every morning, when I look at Spink, I will see the man I chose above all others. And he will know the same of me. Will you have that comfort when you look at Carsina after a quarrel or a difficult day? Or will you have to wonder if she would be there if her parents hadn’t decided for her?”
She was edging too close to a subject I had lately found painful. I had no future with Carsina. Slowly I was admitting that to myself. When I’d been discharged from the academy, I’d forfeited her. I shifted the topic abruptly. “Can you tell me about my friends at the Academy besides Spink? How are they doing?”
“Are you sure you are well enough for such news?” she asked me. I immediately knew it would be far worse than I had thought.
“Perhaps you should let me be responsible for my own happiness or unhappiness and just tell me,” I said, speaking more sharply than I intended.
She looked at the floor and then back at me. “Spink knew you would want to know. He told me so the last time I visited him. So he told me the names of the boys in your patrol who died and of some others you would want to know about. I wrote them down because I knew I could never remember all those names.” She reached into her dress pocket and took out a much-folded slip of paper. As she opened it, my heart sank. “Are you ready?” she asked me.
I clenched my teeth to refrain from shouting at her. “Yes. Please, Epiny, just tell me.”
“Very well.” She cleared her throat, coughed, and then cleared it again. When she read the names, her voice was tight and choked. Tears brimmed and then ran down her cheeks as she recited the names. “Natred. Oron. Caleb. Sergeant Rufet. Corporal Dent. Cadet Captain Jeffers. Captain Maw. Captain Infal. Lieutenant Wurtam.”
The first three names stunned me. I lay back on my pillows, and as she went on, I felt each name like a fist blow to my heart. So many dead! So many!
“I’ll get you some water,” Epiny said abruptly. “I’ve been a fool. Father said you were too weak yet for such tidings. I judged that knowing these things would be less trying for you than living in suspense. I was wrong, and now you shall have a relapse and undo all your healing and my father will once more berate me about acting on my own with too little experience of the real world.”
I sipped from the glass she had poured from my bedside ewer. When I could speak, I said, “No. You were right, Epiny. Like you, I hate it when people try to make decisions for me. Tell me the rest. Now.”