The Complete Soldier Son Trilogy: Shaman’s Crossing, Forest Mage, Renegade’s Magic. Robin Hobb

for nothing, for I would be forced to use an Academy mount, he did not smile, but nodded solemnly and commented, ‘Giving you that horse was a very significant act for your father. He believes that a worthy mount is a cavallaman’s first line of defence. He will not approve of this new regulation.’ I felt a great relief to know that he, a first son and never a soldier, could grasp the depth of my disappointment.

      When both Spink and I had talked our way to silence, he leaned back and sighed heavily. For a brief time, he stared into the shadowy corners of the room as if seeing something there that was invisible to us. Then he looked back at us and smiled sadly.

      ‘Doings at the Academy only reflect what goes on in the wider world of the court,’ he told us. ‘When King Troven created a second rank of nobility, and gave it equal status to the first, he well knew what he was doing. When he elevated those soldier sons to lords, he won their hearts and their loyalty. The old nobility families could find no grounds to refuse them admittance to the Council of Lords. In ancient days, we of the old families had won our nobility on the battlefields, just as the new lords had. And Troven did not elevate anyone who was not the second son of an old lord. No one could say that the men he raised were of inferior blood without levelling the same accusation against their brother nobles. It divided many a family, as Spink here knows too well. In other families,’ he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, ‘well, it is not coincidence that I have chosen to invite you to my home when my lady-wife is away. She is one of those who feels that her own status was diminished when others were elevated to share it.’

      He sighed again and looked down at his hands folded between his knees. Spink and I exchanged glances. He looked more bewildered than I felt. From my father’s conversation with my uncle when we first arrived in Old Thares, I’d had an inkling that the schoolboy politics at the Academy were connected to the larger unrest among the nobles. I still had not expected my uncle to take our account so seriously. And I was surprised that my uncle reacted as if our breaking of the honour code were of little importance. I wondered if he really understood the honour code, if a man not born a soldier son could grasp how important it was. I was tempted to let sleeping dogs lie, but my father’s instruction had ground honour into me. I suddenly knew that I could not carry that guilt for the next two years. I lifted my head and met his eyes squarely. ‘What about the fight in our dormitory?’ I asked. ‘Neither Spink nor I reported it.’

      He almost smiled. He shook his head fondly at me and shocked me by saying, ‘Let it go, Nevare. Among any group of men, there will always be those tussles, the shouldering and jockeying for power. Spink here had the common sense to keep it within bounds. It might surprise you to know that I’ve seen a few fistfights in my time, and most of them were a lot bloodier and dirtier than what you described to me. I don’t think anyone’s honour is broken or even tarnished by it. No. What the honour code tries to prevent is the sort of thing that happened to your friend Gord or the young lieutenant. From what you say, they took serious beatings, and not from some individual with whom they clashed, but from a group of cadets who singled them out. What happened to your friend Gord might have been the impulse of the moment, but it sounds as if Tiber encountered a plot against him. That should have been reported; I am still shocked that the doctor didn’t take it upon himself to question you more thoroughly. I fear that the second-years that you spoke of may have been more forthcoming as witnesses. That you did not speak differently from what they might have said … well. I think I will have a word with him, when I return you two to the Academy.’

      I was struck dumb for an instant and looked at the floor. I desperately did not want him to do any such thing, but could not think of any reason I could give to dissuade him from it. An instant later, to my shame, I realized I was afraid that if he confronted the doctor and forced him to investigate it, the second-years would know I was the source of the conflict, and that retaliation might befall me.

      I glanced back at my uncle to find him nodding at me. ‘You are too honest, Nevare. Your thoughts parade openly across your face. But this is not something that should be up to you and Spink and Gord to solve for yourselves, though I do fear that you may have to face, alone, the repercussions of my attempting to solve it. Yet attempt it I must, and do what I can afterward to protect you. You are students at the King’s Academy. If true justice does not prevail there, then what can we hope for when you enter the greater world as soldiers of the King?’

      He sounded so solemn and so sad that it sent a chill of premonition up my spine.

      ‘What do you fear?’ I asked him, and found I was speaking in a hoarse whisper.

      ‘I fear on a large scale what you are experiencing on a small scale. I fear old nobility facing off against the King’s battle lords, in a power struggle that will eventually come to violence, and perhaps even civil war.’

      ‘But why would that happen? Why would it ever come to that?’ I asked, startled.

      ‘Even if they dislike sharing nobility with us, why should it come to bloodshed?’ Spink asked also. ‘It seems to me that there is land in plenty for the King to grant to his New Nobles; and of honour, there is no limited supply that men must fear to receive a lesser share.’

      ‘Not for land, for most of the Old Nobles perceive the lands granted to your fathers as wasteland and desert. Not for honour, for though all nobles should possess that, few think it a goal to be struggled for. No, young sirs, I fear that we speak only of money, of common coin. The King lacks it; old nobility has it, though not in the quantity that we did at one time. If he tries to squeeze it from us, as our families were squeezed through so many years of war and bloodshed, I fear we—that is, some of us, will turn on him. But his battle lords, they would stand with him, perhaps. And in so doing, stand against us, their brothers.’

      Spink knit his brow. ‘The King lacks for money? How can that be? He is the King!’

      My uncle smiled weakly. ‘Spoken like a true New Noble, I fear. The final twenty years of war with Landsing beggared the monarchy, and everyone else. King Troven’s father did not hesitate to borrow from his nobles. He threw all he had into his war with Landsing, hoping to leave his son a triumph and a treaty. He did neither, but he spent a great deal of money attempting it. The debts the monarchy owes to the old nobility are many and heavy. And, some on the Council of Lords say, long past due for repayment. Troven’s father was willing to grant his nobles much greater autonomy in exchange for their “generosity”. But the more free rein he gave to his lords, the less inclined we were to tax our vassals for his benefit. When his father died and Troven came to power, one of the first things he did was to end the war that had drained our coffers for so long. We were glad to have the war over, yet those of us with holdings in the coastal regions were dismayed to find ourselves stripped of our estates there. Our ports, our warehouse, our fishery and our trade were all surrendered to the Landsingers. Many Old Nobles still say that in his haste to end the war swiftly, Troven gave away too much, and that much of what he gave was not his to cede.

      ‘Then, when he turned his eyes to the east and began a determined expansion, we had to ask ourselves, who would pay for this new war? Will the King bully us to lend money again, just as our own fortunes are starting to recover? The Council of Lords were determined it would not be so. We had grown stronger and more resolute in limiting what percentage of our taxes we would turn over to the monarchy. Even when the wars in the east went well, and we began to see the profits of victory, some nobles asked one another, “Why do we need a king at all? Why cannot we govern ourselves?”’

      Spink and I had remained as still and silent as children listening to a bogey tale. This was certainly not the history I had been taught. I suddenly wondered if this was yet another of the differences between first sons and soldier sons. The treason of that thought shocked me at first, but I faced it in my heart. Then I wondered at how naïve I had been, that one talk with my uncle could re-order my whole view of the world. I asked my question carefully, fearing he would think me a traitor. ‘Does the King deliberately cultivate fractiousness between his Old Nobles and his battle lords?’

      ‘It would be in his best interest to keep them at odds,’ my uncle replied carefully. ‘If ever all his nobles united … well. Some would say, not I, of course, but some would again say “what use do we have for a king?”

      ‘When