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took a breath, licked his lips, and then hesitated again. Finally, as I squinted up at him, he said, “You did nothing shameful, Nevare. You protected a woman, and you spoke the truth. Both of those traits are things I value in my son. Once you had witnessed what was happening, you could have done no different. But your witnessing that, and your speaking up, caused, well, difficulties for all the officers there. It would have been better if you had obeyed my command and stayed with Parth.”
    “But that girl would have been hurt.”
    “Yes. That is likely.” My father’s voice was tight. “But if she had been hurt, it would not have been your fault, or our business at all. Likely no one would have questioned her father’s right to punish the offender. The scout hurt that soldier’s son over a mere threat to his daughter; his right to punish the man was less clear to the men. And Commander Hent is not a strong commander. He seeks his men’s permission to lead rather than demands their obedience. Because you protected her and offered testimony that the threat was real, the situation had to be dealt with. That man and his family had to be banished from the fort. The common soldiers didn’t like that. They all imagined the same happening to them.”
    “The commander let the soldier hit the scout,” I slowly realized.
    “Yes. He did it so he would have a clear reason to banish him, independent of the insult to the scout’s daughter. And that was wrong of the commander, to take such a coward’s way out. It was shameful of him. And I witnessed it, and a bit of that shame will cling to me, and to you. Yet there was nothing I could do about it, for he was the commander. If I had questioned his decision, I would only have weakened him in the sight of his men. One officer does not do that to another.”
    “Then…did Scout Halloran behave honorably?” It suddenly seemed tremendously important to me to know who had done the right thing.
    “No.” My father’s reply was absolute. “He could not. Because he behaved dishonorably the day he took a wife from among the Plainspeople. And he made a foolish decision to bring the product of that union to the outpost with him. The soldier sons reacted to that. She displayed herself, with her bright skirts and bare arms. She made herself attractive to them. They know she will never be a Gernian’s rightful wife, and that most Plainspeople will not take her. Sooner or later, it is likely she will end up a camp whore. And thus they treated her that way today.”
    “But—”
    My father nudged his horse back into motion. “I think that is all there is for you to learn from this today. We shall not speak of it again, and you will not discuss it with your mother or sisters. We’ve a lot of road to cover before dusk. And I wish you to write an essay for me, a long one, on the duty of a son to obey his father. I think it an appropriate correction, don’t you?”
    “Yes, sir,” I replied quietly.

H ARBINGER
    I was twelve when I saw the messenger that brought the first tidings of plague from the east.
    Strange to say, it left little impression on me at the time. It was a day like many other days. Sergeant Duril, my tutor for equestrian skills, had been putting me through drills with Sirlofty all morning. The gelding was my father’s pride and joy, and that summer was the first that I was given permission to practice maneuvers on him. Sirlofty himself was a well-schooled cavalla horse, needing no drill in battle kicks or fancy dressage, but I was green to such things, and learned as much from my mount as I did from Sergeant Duril. Any errors we made were most often blamed on my horsemanship, and justifiably so. A horseman must be one with his mount, anticipating every move of his beast and never clinging or lurching in his saddle.
    But that day’s drill was not kicks or leaps. It involved unsaddling and unbridling the tall black horse, then demonstrating that I could still mount