“And he went to the infirmary for it?”

“Not him. One of his friends lost his temper, and shouted that they were trying to kill him and charged at the third-year who had started it. The third-year and the other second-years jumped him and beat him up pretty badly. Now he may be discharged from the school. For insubordination.”

“That’s one new noble’s son gone,” Kort said quietly. “They don’t bully their own first-years like that. Oh, they have to scrub the steps or sing a song for an hour. But they don’t feed them soap or trip them on the stairs. Or half-drown them.”

“But it’s not fair,” Spink said. He sounded both hurt and bewildered. “Our older brothers are heirs and will be lords, just like theirs. By the King’s own word, we have as much right to be here. If it hadn’t been for our fathers and their deeds, this academy wouldn’t even exist! Why should we be treated so badly?” I could hear the anger building in his voice.

I heard Rory’s puzzlement, too, when he objected, “Aw, Spink, it’s only six weeks. Another two weeks to go and we’ll be past it. Besides, I think they’ve slacked off after the river incident. They didn’t hurt Nevare. Just chilled him down a bit and made him sing. I don’t even know why that Lieutenant Tiber stepped in. It was just fun for them, and test a first-year’s mettle. That’s all. You aren’t hurt, are you, Nevare?”

“No. It wasn’t that drastic. But it seemed important to Tiber that he stop it.”

“Well, he’s touchy about such things,” Trist said softly as he joined our group. He had glided up behind us in the darkness, already dressed for bed. He sank down on the hearthstones beside me, putting his back to the warmth of the fire. He spoke so knowingly that he immediately gained all our attention.

“Why?” I asked him when he’d let the silence stretch.

“Well, he’s like that. I don’t know him that well, but I’ve heard my brother’s friends talk about him. He’s a new noble son, like us, but he’s dead brilliant at engineering, and that’s what he gets by on. Even before Stiet came, when it was Colonel Rebin in charge, he came close to being kicked out. And Rebin really liked him and knew his family well. But Tiber just likes to stir things up. He’s always saying that the new nobles’ sons aren’t treated fair, here or when we go out into the cavalla. He says we draw the bad postings and move up slower than old nobles’ sons. And because it’s how he is, he made up this big chart on paper to prove it, and presented it to Rebin last year as part of his project in military law.”

“Is it true?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t lie about it!” Trist declared angrily.

“No, I don’t mean that. Is it true that we get the bad posts and don’t move up as fast?” Suddenly, the disparity was personal to me. Carsina awaited me only if I showed her father I could win rank quickly.

“Well, of course it is, for most of us. I even heard that when Roddy Newel’s family tried to buy him a captain’s commission, the regiment declined to have him. There’s a lot of political stuff like that, Nevare. I guess you don’t hear about it much, out on the frontier. But those of us who grew up in Old Thares know.” He leaned closer to me. “Haven’t you noticed? Our corporal is old nobility. So are all the cadet officers. They never put us with our own kind, or let us have officers from amongst the second- and third-year new nobles. All the second-years and third-years in Carneston House are old nobility. Next year, when we’re second-years, do you think we’ll be here again, or in one of the nice, new houses? No. They’ll put us across the grounds in Sharpton Hall. It used to be a tannery, and still stinks of it. It’s where all the second-and third-year new nobles’ sons are housed.”

“How do they fit them all?” Gord asked wonderingly.

“All?” Trist said snidely. “Listen up, Gord. Rory told us about culling at the beginning of the year. What do you think it’s about? It’s about having more old nobles’ sons go on as officers than new nobles’ sons. Come the end of the year, a lot of us won’t be here any more. It was bad enough when Colonel Rebin was in charge. I’ve heard that Colonel Stiet would be just as happy to find ways to clear all of us out.”

“But that’s not fair! He can’t exclude us or kick us out of the Academy just because we aren’t from old noble stock.” Spink was shocked and angry.

Trist stood up, tall and lean, and stretched casually. “You keep saying that, Spink, lad. But the fact is, fair or not, he can do it. So you’d best find ways to make it less likely it will happen to you. That’s what my father advised me before I left. Make the right friends. Show the right attitude. And don’t make trouble. Or be seen with trouble-makers. A little free advice: Going about whining ‘that’s not fair’ isn’t going to endear you to Colonel Stiet.” He rolled his shoulders and I heard his spine crack.

“I’m off to bed, children,” he informed us archly. I liked Trist, but his superior manner at that moment grated on me. “I have to be up early, you know.”

“So do we all,” Rory observed cheerlessly.

We dispersed from our hearth into the chill of the bunkrooms. I said my prayers and got into my bed but could not fall asleep. Spink seemed to share my insomnia for he whispered into the quiet, “What happens to us if we get sent home from Academy?”

I was surprised he didn’t know. “You’re a soldier son. You enlist as a common soldier and do the best you can from there.”

“Or, if you’re lucky, some rich relative buys you a commission and you go off as an officer anyway,” Nate added into Spink’s despairing silence.

“I don’t have any rich relatives. At least, I don’t have any who like me.”

“Me, neither,” Kort observed. “So perhaps we’d better sleep tonight and study hard tomorrow. I don’t like the idea of marching for the rest of my life.”

We all fell asleep to that thought, but I think I lay awake longer than the rest of them. Spink’s family had no money to buy him a commission if he were culled from the Academy. My father did, perhaps. But would he? He had never intended that I should overhear his doubts of my ability to be a leader and hence an officer. But once I knew that he had them, it had made my golden future shine a little less brilliantly. In the back of my mind, I had been consoling myself that graduating from the Academy virtually guaranteed I would be at least a lieutenant, and both my father and Sergeant Duril had said that even the most idiotic lieutenant could usually make captain, by attrition if by no other means. But what if I were culled? Would my father judge me, after that failure, worth the cost of a good commission? The positions in the best regiments were very dear, and even in the less desirable ones, they were not cheap. Would he think I was worthy of that expense or would he consider it good money thrown after bad, and leave me to enlist as a common soldier? Ever since I had been old enough to realize I was a second son and meant by the good god to be a soldier, I had thought my future assured. On my eighteenth birthday, I had thought I grasped it in my hands. Now, I perceived that golden future could be lost, and not even through my fault, but purely by the politics of the day. Prior to the Academy, I had given little thought to the prejudice I might encounter as the second son of a new noble. During my training with Sergeant Duril it had seemed a thing I could easily overcome by dint of solid effort and good intentions.

I hovered at the edge of sleep. I think I dozed. Then I felt a sudden sting of outrage. I sat up in the dark. As if from a distance, I heard myself speak. “A true warrior would not put up with continued humiliations. A true warrior would find a way to strike back.”

Spink shifted in his bed. “Nevare’s talking in his sleep again,” he complained to the quiet room.

“Shut up, Nevare,” Kort and Natred said in weary chorus. I lay back in my bunk and let sleep take me.