you hit—”
“Did you throw a rockt Torm demanded of me,” and both Tib and I were denying it, saying we had just thrown clods, when suddenly Torm’s face changed, and he too stood at attention.
His father, our Father, the Father of Arcamand, Altan Serpesco Area, walking home from the Senate, had seen us by the fountain. He now stood a yard or two away, looking at the four of us. His bodyguard Metter stood behind him.
The Father was a broad-shouldered man with strong arms and hands. His features—round forehead and cheeks, snub nose, narrow eyes—were full of energy and assertive power. We reverenced him and stood still.
“What is this?” he said. “Is the boy hurt?”
“We were playing, Father,” Torm said. “He got a cut.”
“Is the eye hurt?”
“No, sir. I don’t think so, sir.”
“Send him to Remen at once. What is that?”
Tib and I had tossed our headgear into the weapon cache, but Torm’s crested helmet was still on his head, and so was Hobys less ornate one.
“Cap, sir.”
“It’s a helmet. Have you been playing at soldiers? With these boys?” He looked us three over once more, a flick of the eye. Torm stood mute.
“You,” the Father said, to me—no doubt assessing me as the youngest, feeblest, and most overawed—'were you playing at soldiers?”
I looked in terror to Torm for guidance, but he stood mute and stiif-faced.
“Drilling, Altan-di,” I whispered.
“Fighting, it looks like. Show me that hand.” He did not speak threateningly or angrily, but with perfect, cold authority.
I held out my hand, puffed up red and purple around the base of the thumb and the wrist by now.
“What weapons?”
Again I looked to Torm in an agony of appeal. Should I lie to the Father?
Torm stared straight ahead. I had to answer. “Wooden, Altan-di,” “Wooden swords? What elser”
“Shields, Altan-di.”
“He’s lying,” Torm said suddenly, “he doesn’t even drill with us, he’s just a kid. We were trying to climb some trees in the sycamore grove and Hoby fell and a branch gashed him. ”
Altan Arca stood silent for a while, and I felt the strangest mixture of wild hope and utter dread thrill through me, running on the track of Torm’s lie.
The Father spoke slowly. “But you were drilling?” “Sometimes,” Torm said and paused—'sometimes I drill them.” “With weapons?”
He stood mute again. The silence stretched on to the limit of endurance.
“You,” the Father said to Tib and me. “Bring the weapons to the back courtyard. Torm, take this boy to Remen and get him looked after. Then come to the back courtyard.”
We all ducked in reverence and got away as fast as we could. Tib was crying and chattering with fear, but I was in a queer, sick state, like a fever, and nothing seemed very real; I felt calm enough but could not speak. We went to the cache and hauled out the wooden swords and shields, the helmets and greaves, and carried them round the back way to the rear courtyard of Arcamand. We made a little pile of them there and stood by them waiting.
The Father came out, having changed into house clothes. He strode over to us and I could feel Tib shrinking into himself with terror. I reverenced and stood still. I was not afraid of the Father, not as I was afraid of Hoby. I was in awe of him. I trusted him. He was completely powerful, and he was just. He would do what was right, and if we had to suffer, we had to suffer.
Torm came out, striding along like a short edition of his father. He halted by the sad little heap of wooden weapons and saluted him. He kept his chin up.
“You know that to give a slave any weapon is a crime, Torm.”
Torm mumbled, “Yes, sir.”
“You know there are no slaves in the army of Etra. Soldiers are free men. To treat a slave as a soldier is an offense, a disrespect to the army, to the Ancestors. You know that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You are guilty of that crime, that offense, that disrespect:’
Torm stood still, though his face was quivering terribly.
“So. Shall the slaves be punished for it, or you?” Torm’s eyes opened wide at that—a possibility that clearly had not occurred to him. He still said nothing. There was a long pause.
“Who commanded?” the Father said at last.
“Me, sir.”
“So?”
Another long pause.
“So I should be punished.”
Altan Arca nodded very briefly.
“And they?” he asked.
Torm struggled, and finally muttered, “They were doing what I told them to, sir.”
“Are they to be punished for following your orders?”
“No, sir.”
The brief nod again. He looked at Tib and me as if from a great distance. “Burn that trash,” he told us. “Consider this, you boys: obeying a criminal order is a crime. Only because your master takes the responsibility do you go free.—You’re the Marsh boy—Gav, is it?—And you?”
“Tib, sir, kitchen, sir,” Tib whispered.
“Burn that stuff and get back to work. Come,” he said to Torm, and the two of them marched off side by side under the long arcade. They looked like soldiers on parade.
We went to the kitchen for fire, brought back a burning stick from the hearth there, and laboriously got the wooden swords and shields to burn, but then we put the leather caps and greaves on the fire and they smothered it. We scraped up the half burnt pieces of wood and stinking leather, getting a lot of small burns on our hands, and buried the mess in the kitchen midden. By then we were both sniveling. Being soldiers had been hard, frightening, glorious, we had been proud to be soldiers. I had loved my wooden sword. I used to go out alone to the cache to take it out and sing to it, smooth its rough splintery blade with a stone, polish it with grease saved from my dinner. But it was all lies. We had never been soldiers, only slaves. Slaves and cowards. I had betrayed our commander. I was sick with defeat and shame.
We were late for afternoon lessons. We ran through the house to the schoolroom and rushed in panting. The teacher looked at us with disgust. “Go wash,” was all he said. We hadn’t looked at our filthy hands and clothes; now I saw Tib’s face all smeared with soot and snot and knew mine was like it. “Go with them and get them clean, Sallo,” Everra added. I think he sent her with us out of kindness, seeing we were both badly upset.
I had seen Torm in his usual place on the school-room bench, but Hoby had not been there. “What happened?” Sallo asked us as we went to wash, and at the same time I asked, “What did Torm say?”
“He said the Father ordered you to burn some toys, so you might be late to class.”
Torm had covered for us, made us an excuse. It was a great relief, and so undeserved, after my betrayal of him, that I could have cried in gratitude.
“But what toys? What were you doing?” I shook my head.
Tib said, “Being soldiers for Torrn-di.” “Shut up, Tib!” I said too late.
“Why should I?”
“It makes trouble.”
“It wasn’t our fault. The Father said so. He said it was Torrn-di’s fault.”
“It wasn’t. Just don’t talk about it! You’re betraying him!” “Well, he lied,” Tib said. “He said we were climbing trees.” “He was trying to keep us out of trouble!” “Or himself,” Tib said.
We had got to the courtyard fountain by now, and Sallo more or less pushed our heads underwater and
