I could not move or speak. “Thank you,” she said. She leaned forward and her lips barely brushed my cheek, a kiss as chaste as a sister’s that still caused my heart to hammer in my ears. Then she leaned back suddenly, lifting her fingertips to her lips in surprise. “Oh! Whiskers!”
I lifted a hand to my cheek in horror. “I did shave!” I exclaimed, and she laughed, a sound that reminded me of skylarks soaring into a morning sky.
“Of course! I did not mean your face was rough. Only that there is a trace of them, still. You are so fair that I did not think you would be shaving yet.”
“I’ve been shaving for almost a year now,” I said, and suddenly it was easy to talk to her. I rose, brushing at my knee, and sat down on the bench beside her.
She smiled at me and asked, “Will you grow a mustache at the Academy? I’ve heard that many cadets do.”
I ran my hand ruefully over my nearly bald head. “Not in my first year. It isn’t allowed. Perhaps when I’m in my third year.”
“I think you should,” she said quietly, and I suddenly resolved that I would.
A little silence fell as she looked out over the night garden. “I dread your leaving tomorrow. I suppose I won’t see you for a long time,” she said sadly.
“I’ll be home for Rosse’s wedding in late spring. Surely you and your family will be there.”
“Of course. But that is months and months away.”
“It won’t be so long,” I assured her, but suddenly it seemed like a very long time to me also.
She looked aside from me. “I’ve heard that the girls of Old Thares are very beautiful and dress in all the latest fashions from the coast. My mother says that they wear musk and paint their eyelids and that their riding skirts are almost trousers, for they don’t care at all that men may see their legs.” Worriedly she added, “I’ve heard they are very forward, too.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Such things may be true. But I’ll be at the Academy. I doubt I’ll catch so much as a glimpse of a woman there.”
“Oh, I’m glad!” she exclaimed, and then looked aside from me. I had to smile as her tiny flame of jealousy warmed me.
I glanced at the dim path that led toward the greenhouses. I could not see my sister. I did not want to leave, but I knew my responsibility. “I’d best go look for Yaril. Finding an earring should not take her this long.”
“I’ll come with you,” Carsina offered. As she stood, she took my arm, her hand light as a little bird perched there.
“You should go back inside while I find Yaril,” I said dutifully.
“Should I?” she asked me, looking up at me with wide blue eyes.
I could not bring myself to answer that, and so we ventured down the path together. It was narrow and so she had to walk close to me. I went slowly, for fear she would stumble in the dark. Then we came to the turn in the path, and as I feared, I saw Yaril standing very close to Remwar and looking up at him. As I watched, he stooped and kissed her.
I froze in horror. “He has no right!” I gasped in disbelief.
Carsina’s grip on my arm had tightened. “No right at all!” she whispered in shocked agreement. “Unlike us, there is no understanding between the families. They have not been promised to one another, as we have.”
I looked down at her. Her eyes were very big, her breathing rapid through her slightly parted lips.
And then, without quite knowing how, I had taken her in my arms. The top of her brow came just to my nose, so that I had to stoop and turn my head to kiss her mouth. Her little hands gripped the front of my new uniform coat, and when she broke the kiss, she hid her face against my shirtfront as if overcome by what we had done. “It’s all right,” I whispered into the curls and pins of her soft hair. “We are promised to one another. We’ve done nothing shameful, save steal a taste of what our lives will bring.”
She lifted her face from my shirt and leaned back from me. Her eyes were shining and I could not resist her. I kissed her again.
“Carsina!” a voice hissed in rebuke. We sprang apart guiltily. Yaril seized her friend by the elbow and looked at me in sisterly rebuke. “Oh, Nevare, I never would have thought it of you! Carsina, come with me!” Then, like petals blown on a sudden wind, the two girls swept away from us. At the turn in the path, one of them laughed musically, the other joined in, and then they were lost to my sight. I stared after them for a moment, and then turned to confront Remwar. My eyes narrowed and I took breath to speak, but he laughed lightly and punched me in the shoulder.
“Relax, old man. My father is speaking to yours tonight.” Then he met my gaze as an honest fellow should and said, “I’ve loved her for two years. I think our mothers both know. I promise you, Nevare. I’ll never let harm come to her.”
I could think of no reply to that, and he suddenly said, “I hear the music starting again. To the chase, lads!” And he set off down the path in a long-legged stride in pursuit of the girls. I was left shaking my head, dizzied with the kiss and the perfume Carsina had left clinging to me. I tugged my coat straight and brushed a bit of her powder from the front of it. Only then did I discover that she had tucked her tiny handkerchief into the front of my coat. It was all lace, delicate as a snowflake and scented with gardenia. I folded it carefully into my pocket and hastened back toward the lights and music. Suddenly the thought of departing on the morrow was nearly unbearable. I would not waste a single moment of the time left to me.
Yet the instant I returned to the dance floor, my mother found me, and suggested that courtesy demanded I partner several of her older friends in dances. I saw my father invite Carsina to the floor, while my sister Yaril looked almost desperate to escape Major Tanrine’s plodding performance. The night stretched before me, both endless and desperately short. The musicians had announced the final dance when my mother suddenly appeared at my elbow with Carsina at her side. I blushed as she set my betrothed’s hand in mine, for I was suddenly certain she knew of our loitering in the garden and even of the kiss.
I was tongue-tied by Carsina’s glowing beauty and the way she gazed up into my eyes. It seemed the dance turned around us rather than that we whirled around the floor. At last I managed to say, “I found your kerchief.”
She smiled and said softly, “Keep it safe for me, until we meet again.”
And then the music was ending, and I had to bow to her and then release her hand and let her go. Ahead of me stretched the four years of the Academy and three more of service before I could claim her. I suddenly felt every day, every hour of that distance. I vowed I would be worthy of her.
I did not sleep that night and arose very early the next morning. Today I would leave my family home behind me. I was suddenly aware, as I looked around my bare room, that “home” would be a place I would visit now, during my breaks from the Academy, and that I would not know a true home again until Carsina and I made one for ourselves. My narrow bed and emptied wardrobe seemed but shells of my old life. A single wooden box remained on one shelf. My rocks were in it. I had started to throw them out, but found I could not. Yaril had promised to take custody of them. I opened the box to take a final look at all of my avoided deaths. The rock I thought of as Dewara’s stone, the one from my boot, glinted as I opened the box. I stared at them all for a moment, and then selected that one to take with me. I slipped it into my jacket pocket, a reminder that I was always but one caught breath this side of death. It was a thought to make a young man seize his life in both hands and live it to the full. Yet when I closed the door to my room behind me, the snick of the door catch seemed to echo in my heart.
Father and Sergeant Duril were to accompany me on the first stage of my journey. My chest of fine new uniforms was loaded on a cart pulled by a sturdy mule, along with a smaller chest that held my father’s wardrobe for the trip. I wore a white shirt and blue trousers, a blue jacket to match, and thought I looked rather fine. My father and I wore our tall hats. I recall that I had only worn mine twice before that, once to Colonel Kempson’s anniversary ball at his home, and once to a funeral of one of my mother’s friends. Sergeant Duril was attired as humbly as ever, for he was to accompany us only as far as the flatboat to see us loaded.
I had made my farewells to my mother and sisters the night before. I had tried to have a private word with Yaril, but I suspected that she avoided giving me the opportunity. If Remwar’s father had spoken to mine, I’d heard nothing of it, and dared not ask my father about it for fear of plunging Yaril into disgrace with him. I had not expected the rest of my family to rise with the dawn to bid me farewell. Even so, my mother, already in her morning gown, descended to kiss me good-bye and offer me her blessing before I departed from her doorstep. I almost
