here’s one for Yaril from Carsina. They’ve become quite the correspondents in the last few months.’
I scarcely heard her words after she handed me my letters. The first one was in a dove-grey envelope, a very heavy paper, but the return address was what shocked me. Caulder Stiet was writing to me, from Newton. So he had gone to live with his scholar uncle, after all. His proud father had wanted nothing to do with his soldier son after the plague had wasted him away to a shadow and broken his spirit. The boy had been a nuisance and a pest to all the new noble first-years at the Academy, and to me in particular. Still, I despised Colonel Stiet for what he had done. He’d literally given his son to his younger brother, to raise as a scholar instead of a soldier. Immoral. I shook my head and looked at my other two letters.
One was from Epiny and the other from Spink. It seemed odd that each would write to me. Usually Epiny penned me a lengthy epistle and Spink just added a postscript. I studied the envelopes. All three had been sent to my Academy address, but forwarded to me at home. I scowled at that. What was Rory thinking to send my mail trailing after me? I’d be back soon.
Curiosity made me open the letter from Caulder first. His penmanship had not improved. His very short and polite note said that his uncle studied rocks and was very interested in the one I had given Caulder. Would I be so kind as to send them a detailed map that showed where I had found it? He would be ever indebted to me if I could, and remained, my friend, Caulder Stiet. I scowled over it and wondered what sort of mischief or game this was. Although we had parted on decent terms, I did not trust the little weasel and had little inclination to do him this favour. I would have set it aside, but it contained a second note from his uncle, carefully penned onto very expensive paper, noting that geology and the study of minerals was his area of scholarship, and my rock was quite an interesting mix. He would greatly appreciate my time and effort to comply with Caulder’s request. I set it aside with a growl of irritation. I owed Caulder nothing and his uncle even less. The only reason I did not discard it was that I knew Caulder’s father and my Aunt Daraleen were friends. Any rudeness I committed might find its way back to my Uncle Sefert’s doorstep. And I did owe debts of courtesy to him. I would reply to this. Later.
Next I opened the letter from Spink. The first few lines made my breath catch. ‘The Speck plague has come to Bitter Springs. Epiny has become very ill and I fear for her life.’
The pages fluttered from my hand to the floor. Heart hammering, I snatched up the envelope from Epiny and opened it immediately. There was her familiar handwriting, perhaps a bit more scrawling than usual, and the first line read,
‘I do hope that Spink’s letter did not overly alarm you. The spring water treatment proved nothing less than amazing.’
Heart still pounding, I gathered up the scattered pages of Spink’s letter and took all of my mail into the parlour. I opened the curtains to let in more light, and sat down on a cushioned chair. I spread out my mail on a low table and pieced together the puzzle. Spink’s letter had arrived at the Academy days before Epiny’s had, but they had been sent on together. Relieved of the worst of my fears, I sat down to read the missives in order.
Spink’s letter was wrenching, and not even Epiny’s letter that proved her survival could eliminate all his bad news. He had no idea how the plague had come to their little settlement at Bitter Springs. No one had reported seeing any Specks, or even any ill persons. He himself had continued to make a slow but steady recovery from the illness, despite occasional bouts of night fever and sweats. He had thought he had left the dread disease far behind in Old Thares. A small group of plainsmen who lived near Bitter Springs had succumbed to it first. It had devastated their little settlement, swiftly reducing it from seventeen families to seven. Before anyone had realized they were dealing with Speck plague, it had spread. Two of Spink’s sisters had caught it. Epiny had insisted on nursing them, saying that as she survived the plague once, she was probably immune to it. She had been wrong. When Spink had mailed his letter to me, both his sisters and Epiny were severely ill and not expected to recover. His mother was struggling to care for them with Spink’s help, but he feared that she would exhaust herself and also fall to the sickness. He strove to nurse Epiny just as faithfully as she had cared for him in his time of sickness.
‘It is a terrible irony that the disease that helped bring us together may now part us forever. It was so hard to write to her father and warn him of her decline. I tell you truthfully, Nevare, that if she dies, the better part of me will die with her. I do not think I will have the courage to go on. In a last effort to save them, we will resort to practices that my mother deems “little better than superstition”. I will take her and my sisters to Bitter Springs and their supposedly healing waters. Pray for us.’
So his letter ended.
I set his heart-broken letter aside and eagerly took up Epiny’s missive. It was written in her usual rambling style, very frustrating to someone who simply wanted to know how everyone fared there. Nevertheless, I forced myself to read it slowly and carefully.
‘My dear cousin Nevare,
‘I do hope that Spink’s letter did not overly alarm you. The spring water treatment proved nothing less than amazing. Having had the plague before, albeit in a much milder form, I was perhaps more aware than anyone else of how severely it had stricken me this time. My cousin, I did not expect to survive! I do not even remember the wagon journey to the springs, nor even the first time they immersed me. I am told that Spink carried me bodily into the water, and putting his hand over my nose and mouth, pinched them firmly shut, and then carried me under with him, where we remained for as long as he could hold his breath. When we emerged, he gave a similar treatment to each of his sisters. Others from the family settlement had journeyed with us and were similarly treated.
‘Then they set up a camp for us, unfolding cots under the wide blue sky and making of the meadow near the springs an open-air infirmary. On the first evening I awoke there, I already felt a lessening in my disease. Nonetheless, I was quite wilful and difficult, and poor Spink was obliged to hold me down and force me to drink a large quantity of the spring water. Oh, it tasted foul and smelled worse! My fever was not entirely abated, and I called him names and scratched his poor dear face for his troubles with me. Then I fell again into a sleep, but it was a deeper, truer sleep, and when I awoke, feeling ever so much better, the first thing I demanded to know was who had scratched him so, that I could take revenge on her! I was so abashed to be told I had done it!
‘We remained encamped by the springs for almost a week, and every day we forced ourselves to drink that noxious water, and most of our food was cooked with it. When I realized how much I was recovering, and how swiftly, I demanded that Spink join me in this water cure. Nevare, you cannot imagine the change it has wrought in him! I will not say he is his old self, but he has begun to eat more heartily, to walk with more confidence, and most important to me, the light is back in his eyes and he laughs often. Already he speaks of returning to the Academy and his studies and career. Oh, if only that dream can come true for him!
‘And now I must tell you—’
* * *
‘What is the meaning of this?’ My father’s roar of fury and anguish tore my attention from Epiny’s letter. Loose pages in my hand, I looked up to find him glaring from the parlour door. He bore down on me like a cavalla charge. In one hand he held the large envelope from the Academy. In the other were several sheets of paper. He shook them at me. His face was red, the veins standing out on his temples, and I would not have been surprised to see froth fly from his jaws, so wroth was he. ‘Explain this!’ he roared again. ‘Account for this, you young scoundrel!’
‘If you would let me see what it is, perhaps I could,’ I said to him. I did not mean to sound impertinent, but of course I did.
In fury, my father lifted his hand as to cuff me. I forced myself to