Shaman’s Crossing. Robin Hobb

that the adult context of them escaped me. To my childish interpretation, he had called the girl a mule. I knew I would have received a whipping if I called my sisters any such animal name. Plainly, the boy had been rude and been punished for it. I spoke my piece loud and clear, and then added, more to my father than to the commander, ‘I was trying to protect her. You told me that it’s always wrong to hit a girl. They nearly tore off her blouse.’

      A silence followed my words. Even Vev stopped his caterwauling, and Raven muffled his groans. I looked round at all the eyes focused on me. My father’s face confused me. Pride warred with embarrassment. Then the scout spoke. His voice was tight. ‘I’d say that’s a fair summation of what my daughter was threatened with. I acted accordingly. Does any father here blame me?’

      No one spoke against him, but if he had hoped for support, no one gave that, either. The commander observed coldly, ‘All this could have been avoided if you’d had the good sense to leave her at home, Halloran.’

      That statement seemed to give Vev permission to be angry again. He leapt up from where he had been cradling Raven, wringing a yelp from the boy as he jostled him in passing. He advanced on the scout, hands hanging loose at his side, his knees slightly bent and all knew that at the slightest provocation, he would fling himself on the man. ‘It’s all your fault!’ he growled at him. ‘All your fault, bringing that girl to town and letting her loose to wander, tempting these lads.’ Then, his voice rising to a shout, ‘You ruined my boy! That jaw don’t heal right, he’ll never go for a soldier! And then what’s left for him, I want to know? The good god decreed he’d be a soldier; the sons of soldiers is always soldiers. But you, you’ve ruined him, for the sake of that half-breed hinny!’ The man’s fists shook at the end of his arms, as if a mad puppeteer were tugging at his strings. I feared that at any second they would come to blows. By common accord, men were moving back, forming a ring. The scout glanced once, sideways, at the commander. Then he gently set his daughter behind him. I looked about wildly, seeking shelter for myself, but my father was on the opposite side of the circle and not even looking at me. He stared at the commander, his face stiff, waiting, I knew, for him to give the orders that would bring these men to heel.

      He did not. The soldier swung at the scout. The scout leaned away from the swing, and hit Vev twice in the face in quick succession. I thought he would go right down. I think the scout did too, but Vev had deliberately faked his awkwardness and accepted the blows to bring Halloran to him. The scout had misjudged him, for the soldier now struck him back, an ugly blow, his fist coming fast and hard, to strike the scout solidly in the midsection and push up, under his ribs. The blow lifted Halloran off his feet and drove the wind out of him. He clutched at his opponent as he came down and staggered forward, and Vev hammered in two more body blows. They were solid, meaty hits. The girl gave a small scream and cowered, covering her face with her hands as her father’s eyes rolled up. Vev laughed aloud.

      He fell to his own trick. The scout was not close to falling; he suddenly came to life again. He fisted Vev in the face, a solid crack. Vev gave a high breathless cry. Halloran took him down with a sweep of his foot that knocked Vev’s feet from under him and sent him sprawling in the dirt. Several men in the crowd shouted aloud at that, and surged forward. Vev wallowed in the dust for a moment, then curled up on his side, hands to his face. Blood streamed between his fingers. He coughed weakly.

      ‘Halt!’ The commander finally intervened. I do not know why he had waited so long. His face had gone dark with blood; this was not something any commander wanted happening at his post. Halloran might be only a scout, but he was a noble’s soldier son and an officer all the same. Surely the commander could not have deliberately permitted a common soldier like Vev to strike him. From somewhere, uniformed soldiers had appeared. The aide had gone to fetch them, I suddenly saw. Backed by his green-coated troops, the commander issued terse orders.

      ‘Round them up, every man here. If they’re ours, confine them to barracks. If they’re not, put them outside the walls and instruct the sentries that none of them are to re-enter for three days. Sons to follow their fathers.’

      I knew he had the right. Soldier’s sons would one day be soldiers. As he commanded their fathers, so could he order their sons in times of need.

      ‘He struck an officer.’ My father spoke quietly. He was not looking at the commander or the scout or me. His eyes were carefully focused on nothing. He said the words aloud, but there was no indication he was intending them for the commander.

      The commander responded anyway. ‘You there!’ He pointed at Vev. ‘You are to pack up yourself and your whelps and take them all out of my jurisdiction. Because I am a merciful man and the result of your actions will fall on your wife and daughters as well, I will allow you time to take your boy to a doctor and have his jaw bound before you depart and gather what goods you rightfully own. But by nightfall tomorrow, I want you on your way!’

      The crowd muttered, displeased. It was a severe punishment. There was no other settlement for several days journey. It was effectively an exile to the arid plains. I doubted the family had a wagon, or even horses. Vev had, indeed, brought a severe hardship down on himself and his family. One of his friends came forward to help him with his son. They glared at the scout and at the commander as they picked up the moaning Raven, but they did as they were told. The ranks of uniformed soldiers had fanned out to be sure it was so. The crowd began to disperse.

      The scout was standing silently, his arm around his daughter’s shoulders. He looked pale, his face greenish from the blows he had taken to his gut. I did not know if he sheltered his daughter or leaned on her. She was crying, not quietly, but in great sobs and gulps. I didn’t blame her. If someone had hit my father like that, I’d have wept, too. He spoke low, comfortingly, ‘We’re going home now, Sil.’

      ‘Halloran.’ The commander’s voice was severe.

      ‘Sir?’

      ‘Don’t bring her to my post ever again. That’s an order.’

      ‘As if I would.’ Insubordination simmered in his voice. Belatedly, he lowered his eyes and voice. ‘Sir.’ It was at that moment that I suddenly knew how much the scout now hated his commander. And when the commander ignored it, I wondered if he feared the half-wild soldier.

      Nothing more was said that I heard. I think all sound and motion stopped for me as I stood in the street and tried to make sense of what I had seen that day. Around me, the uniformed troopers were dispersing the mob, harrying them along with curses and shoves. My father stood silently by the commander. Together they watched the scout escort his daughter to their horses. She had stopped crying. Her face was smooth and emotionless now, and if they spoke to one another, I did not hear it. He mounted after she did, and together they rode slowly away. I watched them for a long time. When I looked back to my father, I realized that he and the commander and I were the only ones left standing in the alley mouth.

      ‘Come here, Nevare,’ my father said, as if I were a straying pup, and obediently I came to his side. When I stood there, he looked down at me and setting his hand on my shoulder, asked, ‘How did you come to be mixed up in this?’

      I did not even imagine I could lie to him about it. I told him all, from the time Parth had shooed me into the street until the moment that he had come on the scene. The commander listened as quietly as he did. When I repeated the threat that he’d never even find my body, my father’s eyes went flinty. He glanced at the post commander, and the man looked ill. When I was through, my father shook his head.

      I felt alarm. ‘Did I do wrong, Father?’

      The commander answered before my father could. But he spoke to my father, not me. ‘Halloran brought the trouble to town when he brought his half-breed daughter here, Keft. Don’t trouble your boy’s head over it. If I’d known that Vev was such an insubordinate rascal, I’d never have let him or his family on my post. I’m only sorry your lad had to see and hear what he did.’

      ‘As am I,’ my father agreed tersely. He did not sound mollified.

      The commander spoke on, hastily. ‘At the end of the month, I’ll send a man with the forms to fill out for the military requisition of