Shaman's Crossing

Spink and I crowded through the door and into the small room. Gord sat on the edge of a narrow bed. He was dressed, but his buttons were not fastened, and he sat with his upper body tilted forward and his head drooping. The knees of his uniform trousers were wet and muddy. He did not look up at us as we came in, but the man attending him did. “Thank you, Caulder. You should probably go home now. Doubtless your mother will be wondering where you are, out so late.” The man’s words fell somewhere between a polite suggestion and a steel command. I judged that he was not fond of Caulder and anticipated an argument from him.

He got it. “My mother has not ruled my hours since I was ten, Dr. Amicas. And my father-”

“-will, I am sure, be very glad to see you and to hear how helpful you were in letting us know that you had found an injured cadet. Thank you, Caulder. Please give your father my regards.”

Caulder stood stubbornly a moment longer, but as we all kept silent and avoided looking at him, he soon realized that he would witness nothing interesting by staying. “Good evening, Doctor. I shall convey your regards to Colonel Stiet.” He added his last words pointedly, as if we could somehow have forgotten that his father was the commander of the Academy. Then he about-faced smartly and left the small room. We listened to the clacking of his boots as the sound receded, and then heard the door shut behind him. Only then did the doctor look at us.

He was a spare old man with a fringe of trimmed gray hair around a bald pate. He wore rimless spectacles and a white smock over his uniform shirt. A spattering of faded brown on the smock showed that it was well used. The hand he held out to each of us in turn was veiny but strong. “Dr. Amicas,” he introduced himself gravely. He smelled strongly of pipe tobacco. He nodded his head almost continuously. He looked at us more over than through his spectacles when he spoke. “Young Caulder came racing in here close to an hour ago, abrim with the news that he’d found a new noble cadet trying to crawl back to Carneston House.” The doctor worked his mouth for an instant as if wishing for a pipe that wasn’t there. He seemed to choose his words carefully. “Caulder seemed to know a mite too much about this cadet for someone who’d just chanced upon him. Course your friend there hasn’t said anything different from Caulder’s tale, so I’ll have to take it at face value.” He gestured at Gord as he spoke, but Gord still didn’t look up at us. He hadn’t made a sound since we entered the room.

“What happened to him, sir?” Spink asked the doctor, almost as if Gord weren’t sitting there.

“He says he slipped on the steps of the library and fell all the way to the bottom, and then tried to crawl back to his dormitory.” The doctor gave in to himself. He took a pipe from one trouser pocket and a pouch of tobacco from the other. He loaded his pipe carefully and lit it before he spoke again. Then his tone was clinical. “However, it looks to me like he was attacked by several men and restrained while someone hit him. Repeatedly, but not in the face.” The doctor took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily. “I’m afraid that in my years here, I’ve become an expert in the bruises that a bushwhacking leaves. I’m so tired of this sort of thing,” he added.

“Caulder told us that Gord was beaten,” I said. At my words, Gord lifted his head and gave me a look I could not interpret.

“I suspect he witnessed it,” the doctor said. “Caulder is often the first one to run and tell me of injuries to first-year cadets. Lately he has reported several ‘accidents’ befalling new nobility cadets, accidents he claims to have witnessed. The first-years from Skeltzin Hall seem to be remarkably unlucky about falling down stairs and walking into doors. I’m distressed to see that clumsiness spreading to Carneston House.” The doctor set his glasses firmly back on his nose and clasped his hands in front of himself. “But no one ever contradicts what that little gossipmonger lad says. Thus I have no basis on which to attempt to put a stop to it.” He looked pointedly at Gord, but the fat cadet was working at his buttons and didn’t meet the doctor’s gaze. Gord’s knuckles were scuffed and grazed. I folded my lips, guessing that he’d gotten in a few licks of his own before he went down.

“New noble first-years are being beaten?” Spink sounded far more shocked than I was.

Dr. Amicas gave a brief snort of bitter laughter. “Well, that is what I would say, based solely on my examinations. But it’s not just first-years experiencing this plague of ‘accidents.’ My written reports speak of everything from falling tree branches to tumbling down a rain-soaked riverbank.” He looked at us severely. “That second-year cadet nearly drowned. I don’t know what makes all of you keep silent as you do; will you wait until one of you is killed before you make a complaint? Because until you speak up on your own behalf, there is nothing I can do for any of you. Nothing.”