Renegade's Magic

A tiny fire burned on the hearth. There was a heavy wooden desk and a straight-backed chair, very similar to the Sergeant’s. For visitors, there was a simple wooden chair facing the desk. At the other end of the room, a narrow bunk was neatly made up next to a very plain dresser. His sword belt and saber were hung neatly on a hook next to his overcoat. A stand held a tin washbasin and ewer. The doors of his wardrobe were closed. It could have been a cadet’s room at the Academy. It smelled of wood polish and the candles that burned there; there was no friendly scent of tobacco, nor any sign of a bottle of sherry or brandy to welcome a guest. Discipline. Penance.

The man seated at the desk was as austere as the room. Despite the evening hour, Captain Thayer still wore his uniform, with his collar buttoned tight. His hands rested side by side on the desktop before him as if he were there to recite a lesson. Despite his sun-weathered skin, he looked pale. He licked his lips as I came in. I’d taken my hat off and now I stepped toward him, my hand held out. “Thank you for receiving me, Captain Thayer. I’m—”

Before I could introduce myself, he looked at me and said, “I know who you are. And I know why you’ve come, Mr. Burvelle.”

My heart sank. He knew?

“You’ve come to inquire into the death of your brother, Nevare Burvelle. Your sister knew he was here, enlisted under a false name. I knew that eventually there would be this reckoning. And I am ready for it.”

Despite his brave and honest words, his voice shook slightly. He swallowed, and when he spoke again, his voice was a bit higher. “If you wish to demand satisfaction of me, you have that right.” His hands moved very slightly on the desktop, a faint scrabbling motion. “If you wish to bring formal charges against me, you have that right also. I can only tell you that when I took action that night, I believed I was acting in the name of justice. I’ll admit to you, sir, that I killed your soldier-brother. But it was not without provocation. I was deceived, sir. Deceived by your brother’s false name and deceived by the harlot I had taken for my wife.”

He suddenly lunged for his desk drawer, jerking it open and reaching inside. I took two steps back, certain that he would pull out a pistol and kill me where I stood. Instead, his shaking hands pulled out a packet of papers bound with a piece of string. He pulled the knot, the string came undone, and they spilled across the desk. Only then did I know them. Why she had kept them, I’ll never know, but I would wager that every one of them was there. All the letters I’d written to Carsina from the Academy. On the top of the pile, smudged as if it had been opened and read many times, was an envelope addressed to Carsina in my sister’s hand. He coughed as if trying to clear his throat of a sob. He took another document from the drawer. I recognized the enlistment papers I’d signed when I joined the regiment. And with it, an envelope addressed in my father’s hand.

“I didn’t know he was a noble’s soldier son.” Thayer’s voice was choked. “I didn’t know that he and Carsina had previously been…together. I had no idea until I took over as commander. Haren’s records were a mess. And the command had changed so often since he died, no one had put things in order. So it was up to me. First, I found the letter from your father, warning Colonel Haren that your brother might try to enlist. It was in the Colonel’s private papers. I thought it a sad little document and wondered why he’d kept it. But on the back of the envelope, he’d made a note.”

His hands spidered over to pick up the envelope and turn it over. My blood moved cold through my veins. I tried to take slow breaths, to stand as Rosse would have stood as this tawdry little story unfolded. Thayer swallowed loudly. The envelope fell from his nerveless fingers. He took a shuddering breath. “I could scarcely believe what I read, sir. But when I looked up the enlistment papers for Nevare Burv, there was no denying it any longer.” He looked up at me and strain tightened every muscle in his face. In a strangled voice he said, “It was bad enough to know that your brother had been a noble son, a soldier son gone bad. I felt terrible that we, that he had died as he did. But worse was to come, sir. Far worse for me.”

His voice faded. He looked at his desk. His hands crept across the scattered papers there. “I felt terrible, sir, but it was sorrow for what your family had endured. I tried to write to your father and could not. Simply could not. I thought perhaps it was better that he never know the fate his errant son had met. But then, in early spring, a courier came. And I could scarcely believe my eyes. For there was a letter for my Carsina, my beloved dead wife. And it came from the sister of the man who had tormented her with his attentions and then desecrated her body. I could not believe it. How could she even have known Carsina?

“Curiosity overcame me. I opened it. And what I read tore the heart out of me: it made clear the co

“She had lied to me. The heartless bitch. She led me to believe she was untouched and pure. But here we have the evidence of her perfidy. She was a lying, cheating slut. And because of her, I took a man’s life!”

Outrage filled me. “She was nothing of the kind!” I barked. I had never imagined that I would be defending Carsina’s reputation, let alone to her husband. But as I recalled her, I could not keep quiet. “She was a frightened girl, terrified that if you knew she’d been engaged to a man you despised, you’d break your word to her. She was not wise or temperate, but she was certainly not a slut. I knew her since she was a little girl, and I can vouch for that. She’d thought she’d found true love with you.” I’d advanced to the edge of his desk. Now I leaned over it, hands braced on it as I forced the truth on him. Epiny was right. Some people definitely deserved to hear the truth. “Her dying words were spoken of you, with love. She asked me to go and fetch you, because you’d promised you wouldn’t leave her side. Yes, I gave her my bed to lie down on. But I never touched her that night, sir. And when we were engaged, I might have stolen a kiss or two, but certainly no more than that!”

He stared at me in consternation. “But…your brother…” He leaned back in his chair, tipping his head up to lock eyes with me. I stared back, made both fearless and foolish by my anger. “No,” he said, and his voice quavered. “It’s you. It was you. You’re Nevare Burvelle. But…you were…you were—I killed you.” He rose from his desk, nearly knocking his chair over as he scrambled away from me. He held his hands, fingers crooked, out in front of him. They were shaking. “I choked you with these hands. My fingers sank into your fat throat, and you screamed for mercy, even as I imagined that Carsina had screamed. But I gave you no mercy, for you’d had no mercy on her—”

“I never hurt Carsina. And you didn’t kill me,” I said flatly. “That’s a false memory.”

“I killed you.” He spoke with absolute certainty. “You pissed yourself and when I let your body fall to the street, my men cheered. I’d done what any honorable man would do. I’d avenged my wife’s violation.” His voice faded. He looked at his desk. His face was pale and sweat stood out on his forehead. “But then I found the letters. She’d made a fool of me. All those sweet words, all her shyness and hesitation—all to mock me.” His voice dropped on those words, chopping them out. “Did you laugh at me together, when she crept off to see you? Did you enjoy your charades in the street, to make everyone think you did not know each other? Did you laugh at me when you were touching that body, kissing those lips? That harlot’s lips!”