“Well, what do you expect?” Amzil asked me later as we prepared for bed. “When it is the only sort of story you tell him? You make it sound so exciting that I’ll be surprised if Dia and Kara don’t try to enlist as well.” She said the words with humor, but I suddenly perceived a lack in my life. The tales I told the boy were the ones I had best loved when I was that age. Buel Hitch had perhaps been wrong. Soldiering might have been the only future that was ever offered to me, but that did not mean that it had not been my dream as well.

I lay awake that night after Amzil slept and considered my life. We were thriving. If Amzil continued to have as much work, we’d soon have enough saved to find a little place of our own, and then I could start to really build something. I lacked for nothing. I had a woman who loved me for who I was, and three fine children. Sem was as smart as a whip, Kara would soon be as skillful with a needle as her mother was, and Dia was everyone’s sweet little despot. What more could I ask for that the good god had not already given me?

And yet, I was not as content as I should have been. There was an empty spot inside me, and I wondered at nights if it were because Soldier’s Boy had taken some essential part of me or because of some shallowness in myself. I threw myself more earnestly into my work, repairing and improving the little house we rented until even the landlord commented that it didn’t look like the same place.

Several times Amzil reminded me that I had promised to write to Epiny. There was no mail or courier service out of Thicket, and I had neither pen nor ink, I would remind her. But one day close to the end of summer, she abruptly declared that I had procrastinated long enough and that it was cruel of me to leave my cousin and my sister wondering what had become of us. Besides, she wished to see a larger town, and there were things she needed that the small store in Thicket didn’t carry. So we loaded the children into the repaired cart, hitched up our nag, and made the trek to Mendy.

Mendy was a serious citadel, three times the size of Gettys. A prosperous little town surrounded it, a place of straight streets and tidy buildings with a bustling population. I found a letter-writer’s stall without difficulty, and bought paper and ink and pen from the proprietor. I composed letters to both Epiny and Yaril, begging forgiveness both for the delay and for the brevity with which I updated them. I also asked each to write to the other with my news, in case either of my posts went astray. I paid the substantial post fee for each letter, and made sure that the owner of the shop knew I’d be returning in a month to check for a reply. “Likely it will come faster than that, young man. We’ve got a good service now between here and Franner’s Bend, and they send out regular deliveries from there,” he assured me.

That business tended to, I went to meet my family. Amzil had told me she would be visiting a large dry-goods store that we had seen, and there I found her, Dia in her arms, driving a hard bargain with the harried man behind the counter. She was buying fabric and notions, as well as a number of minor household goods we’d been unable to obtain in Thicket.

When she noticed me watching, it seemed to give her more energy for the bargaining, and shortly after that, she’d reduced the poor man to compliance. That finished, she collected Kara, who was lovingly surveying a display of sugarplums, and declared she was ready to go.

“Where’s Sem?” I asked her.

“Oh, he saw the sentries changing, and nothing would do but he had to stand and gawk at them. No doubt he’s still there.”

I took the heavy basket she carried on one arm and she claimed the other. Dia filled her other arm and Kara trailed after us as we walked to the cart. “Do you know, there are only two dressmakers in this town, and one is so expensive that only the wives of the officers can afford her services?” Amzil told me in a hushed voice. “I visited the other’s shop, and while he sews a fine seam, he doesn’t really have an eye for how he puts his dresses together at all. Fancy a yellow dress, with red cuffs and collar! And that’s what he had in the window. Nevare, if we saved a bit more and moved here, and if Kara practiced her embroidery stitches a bit more, we could do quite well here. Quite well indeed.”

I scarcely heard her. A mounted troop of cavalla came up the street behind us, returning to the citadel from some mission. I turned to watch them come. The men had weathered faces, and their uniforms were dusty, but they rode as cavalla should, and their proud horses, however weary they might be, held up their heads and trotted in ranks as they came. Their colors floated over them, a small banner held aloft only by the wind of their passage. I watched them pass, a boy’s imagined future come to life. A young lieutenant led them, and just behind him came his sergeant, a husky man with long drooping moustaches and a permanent squint. At the end of their line, with them and yet apart, came a scout. With a lurch of my heart, I recognized him. More than a decade of years had been added to his face since I’d seen him stand up for himself and his daughter at Franner’s Bend. As he passed, he glanced my way. I suppose I was staring, for he gave me a nod and touched his hat to Amzil before he rode past, following the troops. I felt as if hooks dragged at my heart as I watched them go by. There, but for strange luck and stranger fortune, went I.

“Look at Sem,” Amzil said softly. I followed her gaze to the boy who stood, awestruck, by the side of the road. His face shone as he looked up at the passing troops and his mouth was ajar. I saw the last rank of horsemen grinning at the small boy’s worship. The trooper closest to him snapped him a salute as he passed and Sem gave a wiggle of joy. “He looks just like you,” Amzil added, startling me from my reverie.

“Who? That trooper?”

“No. Sem. Staring with his heart in his eyes.” She gave a small sigh. “You’ll have to temper the tales you tell him, Nevare. Or somehow make him understand that only a soldier’s son can become a soldier.”

“That’s not always true,” I replied, thinking of Sergeant Duril. “One of the best soldiers I ever knew was really the son of a cobbler.”

“You’re the son of a soldier,” Amzil said quietly.

“And now I’m a hired hand for a cattleman,” I said without rancor.

“But you shouldn’t be,” she said.

I made a sound of dismissal and gave a shrug. Her grip tightened on my arm as we walked. “Do you think I never heard Epiny and Spink talk about you, and how much you dreamed of a career? They often spoke of what it would be like if you could come back, clear your name, and serve alongside Spink. I don’t think they could imagine you doing anything else except being a cavalla officer.”

“That’s gone,” I said.

“Why? Why couldn’t you enlist here? Use your real name; you’ve never signed up with it before. I don’t think you’d be a common soldier for long. You might not be an officer, at first, but even if you never rose to the rank you were born to, you’d still be what you’d dreamed of being.”

“Amzil—”

“Don’t you think I know how important that is?”

“I’ll think about it,” I said quietly. And truthfully, for I knew I could not help but think about it. We collected Sem and headed back to Thicket. The ride home was quiet, the children asleep in the cart bed while I was caught in my own thoughts.

Two nights later, at dinner, Amzil abruptly asked me, “What holds you back from doing it?”

“Fear,” I said shortly.

We both noticed the children listening to us, and let the conversation die. But later that night, as we nestled together, Amzil asked without preamble, “Fear of what?”

I sighed. “When my father first disowned me, he was very angry. And very thorough. He sent out letters to the commanders of various forts, letting them know he had taken his name away from me.”