Sergeant Duril was supervising the work. The first time he rode by to check on our crew, I don’t think he recognized me. I was glad to escape his notice. The second time he rode up to ask how many wagon loads of stone we’d hauled since he last spoke to us, he stared at me and then visibly startled.
‘You. Come here,’ he commanded me roughly. He didn’t dismount, but rode his horse a short distance while I walked beside him. When we were out of earshot of the work crew, he pulled in and looked down at me. ‘Nevare?’ he asked, as if he could not believe his eyes.
‘Yes. It’s me.’ My voice came out flat and defensive.
‘What in the good god’s name have you done to yourself?’
‘I’ve got fat,’ I said bluntly. I was already tired of explaining it. Or rather, I was tired of not being able to explain it. No one seemed able to believe that it had simply happened and that I had not brought it on myself by sloth and greed. I was beginning to wonder about that myself. How had this befallen me?
‘So I see. But not in a way I’ve ever seen a lad put on weight! A little gut from too much beer, that I’ve seen on many a trooper. But you’re fat all over! Your face, your arms, even the calves of your legs!’
I hadn’t stopped to consider that. I wanted to look down at my body, to see if it was truly so, but suddenly felt too ashamed. I looked away from him, across the flat plain that soon would be a pasture. I tried to think of something to say but the only words that came were, ‘My father has sent me out here to work. He says hard work and short rations will trim me down before Rosse’s wedding.’
His silence seemed long. Then he said, ‘Well, a man can only do so much in a few days, but the intention is what matters. You’re stubborn, Nevare. I would never have imagined that you’d let yourself go like this, but I know that if you’re determined to get back to what you were, you’ll do it.’
I couldn’t think of any response to that, and after a short time, he said, ‘Well, I have to finish my round of the crews. Your da says that a year from now, this will all be alfalfa and clover. We’ll see.’
Then he tapped his horse and rode off. I walked back to the work crew. They had been loitering, watching us talk. I went back to levering up stones and loading them on the wagon. They didn’t ask any questions and I didn’t volunteer anything.
We worked the rest of the day, until Duril rode past again and gave the sign for quitting time. We still had to unload the rock we had on the wagon at the fence line. Then we all rode on the wagon back to my father’s manor house. The other men went off to the help’s quarters. I entered the back door of the house and went up to my room.
I blessed my mother when I arrived there. She had left out wash water and towels, and some of my old clothes, along with an old pair of plains sandals. I could see that she had hastily let out the seams of the trousers and shirt as far as they could go. I washed. When I dressed, I found that my old clothes were still snug on me, but they were bearable and far more presentable than Rosse’s cast-offs had been.
I had come in late and the rest of the family was already at dinner. I was in no hurry to join them. Instead, I crept into my sister Yaril’s room.
My father had always said that vanity was too costly a vice for any soldier to afford. In my own room, I had a mirror large enough for shaving, and that was all. My sisters, on the other hand, were expected to be continually aware of their appearances. They had full-length mirrors in each of their bedrooms. When I stood in front of Yaril’s, I had a shock.
Duril was right. The weight I had put on was distributed all over me, like thick frosting on a cake. No wonder others had been reacting to me so strangely. No part of me had escaped. As I stared at my face, I was certain that instead of losing weight on my journey home, I’d added to it. This was not the face I’d seen in my shaving mirror at the Academy. My cheeks were round and jowly and my chin was padded. My eyes looked smaller, as if they were set closer together. My neck looked shorter.
The rest of my body was even more distressing. My shoulders and back were rounded with fat, to say nothing of my chest and belly. My gut was more than a paunch; it was starting to hang. My thighs were heavy. Even my calves and ankles looked swollen. I lifted a fat hand to cover my mouth and felt cowardly tears start in my eyes. What had I done to myself, and how? I could not grasp the changes the mirror showed to me. Since I’d left Old Thares, I’d ridden each day and my meals had been ordinary ones. How could this be happening?
Prior to looking in the mirror, I had planned to go down and join my family at the dinner table, if only for talk. Now I did not. I hated what I had become and heartily endorsed my father’s plan. I went to the kitchen, intending to get a mug of water. A kitchen maid and a cook stared at me, surprised, and then looked aside. Neither spoke to me, and I ignored them. The sight of a bucket of fresh milk temporarily overwhelmed my resolve to fast, and I took a mug of that instead. I drank it down thirstily, and yearned for more. Instead, I contented myself with plain water. I drank mug after mug of it, trying to assuage the feeling of emptiness in my belly. It felt as if the liquid splashed into a void. At last, I could drink no more, and yet felt no fuller. I left the kitchen and went upstairs to my room.
There, I sat on the edge of the bed. There was little else for me to do. I had emptied my room before I left for the Academy. I had my schoolbooks and my journal from my panniers but little else. Doggedly I sat down and made a complete entry in my journal. Afterwards I sat with no refuge from my nagging hunger or my dismal evaluation of myself.
I could not recall that I had changed any habit that would lead to this result. I had eaten the same rations allotted to any man at the Academy mess, and done the same marching. How had I swollen up to this toadish size? Belatedly, it occurred to me that I’d never seen Gord eat more than what was portioned to us at the mess, and yet his bulk had persisted. I had to wonder if mine would do the same. In sudden fear, I resolved it would not. I had three days before Rosse’s wedding, three days before Carsina and her family would arrive to be guests. I had three days to do something about my appearance before I was disgraced before all our friends. I firmly resolved that not a morsel of food would pass my lips for those days, and yet oh, how I ached with hunger. I rose abruptly, determined to go for a brisk walk to distract myself. Standing up quickly woke every aching muscle in my back and legs. I gritted my teeth and left the room.
I didn’t wish to face anyone. I stood silently in the hallway for a few moments, confirming that my father and Rosse were in his study. My father was talking, his words indistinguishable but his disapproval plain. Obviously Rosse was hearing a lecture on all the ways I had failed the family. I strode quickly past the door of the music room. I heard Elisi’s harp and recalled that often my mother and sisters gathered there to play music or read poetry after dinner. I opened the front door quietly and slipped out into the Widevale night.
My father had created an oasis of trees around his house. It was an island of illusion, a way to pretend that we did not live far from civilization on the endless sweep of prairie. Over one hundred carefully nurtured trees cut the wind and screened a nearly flat vista. My father had even had water piped up from the river to form a little pond and fountain for my sisters’ pleasure in their private garden. The soft splashing drew me towards their bower.
I followed a gravelled pathway through an arched gateway. The latticework I had helped to erect years ago was now completely cloaked in vines. Small night lamps with glass chimneys hung from the branches of a golden willow, illuminating their silver reflections in the pond’s surface. I sat down on the edge of the stone-banked pool and peered into the dark water to see if the ornamental fish had survived.
‘Planning to eat one?’
I