Instead, brow knit, he began to question us about the distinctions made between old and new nobility soldier sons, and how Colonel Stiet ran the Academy and even about his son Caulder. The more we told him, the graver he looked. I had not realized what a relief it would be to unburden myself about the inequities at the school. I had believed the Academy would be a place of high honor and lofty values. Not only had I discovered that was not so, I had besmirched my own honor in my very first year there. I had not realized how troubled I was nor how disappointed until we were given the opportunity to talk freely.
Small things bothered me almost as much as the larger injustices. When I told him that in all likelihood we had brought Sirlofty all the way to Old Thares for nothing, for I would be forced to use an Academy mount, he did not smile, but nodded solemnly and commented, “Giving you that horse was a very significant act for your father. He believes that a worthy mount is a cavalla man’s first line of defense. He will not approve of this new regulation.” I felt a great relief to know that he, a first son and never a soldier, could grasp the depth of my disappointment.
When both Spink and I had talked our way to silence, he leaned back and sighed heavily. For a brief time he stared into the shadowy corners of the room as if seeing something there that was invisible to us. Then he looked back at us and smiled sadly.
“Doings at the Academy only reflect what goes on in the wider world of the court,” he told us. “When King Troven created a second rank of nobility and gave it equal status to the first, he well knew what he was doing. When he elevated those soldier sons to lords, he won their hearts and their loyalty. The old nobility families could find no grounds to refuse them admittance to the Council of Lords. In ancient days, we of the old families had won our nobility on the battlefields, just as the new lords had. And Troven did not elevate anyone who was not the second son of an old lord. No one could say that the men he raised were of inferior blood without leveling the same accusation against their brother nobles. It divided many a family, as Spink here knows too well. In other families”-he shifted uncomfortably in his seat-“well, it is not coincidence that I have chosen to invite you to my home when my lady wife is away. She is one of those who feels that her own status was diminished when others were elevated to share it.”
He sighed again and looked down at his hands folded between his knees. Spink and I exchanged glances. He looked more bewildered than I felt. From my father’s conversation with my uncle when we first arrived in Old Thares, I’d had an inkling that the schoolboy politics at the Academy were connected to the larger unrest among the nobles. I still had not expected my uncle to take our account so seriously. And I was surprised that my uncle reacted as if our breaking of the honor code were of little importance. I wondered if he really understood the honor code, if a man not born a soldier son could grasp how important it was. I was tempted to let sleeping dogs lie, but my father’s instruction had ground honor into me. I suddenly knew that I could not carry that guilt for the next two years. I lifted my head and met his eyes squarely. “What about the fight in our dormitory?” I asked. “Neither Spink nor I reported it.”