I spoke up. “I think I could find a mule for myself.”

“Just do what you are told, Nevare. Trust me. I know what is best for you.”

He sighed heavily, and then with the first hint of kindness I heard from him, he said, “Put yourself in my hands, son. I know what I’m doing.” And that was my welcome home.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE FAST

Rosse and I rode silently out to the work site. Several times I glanced at my brother, but he was always staring ahead, his face expressionless. I supposed he was as disappointed in me as my father was. We said a perfunctory good-bye, he rode off leading my mule, and I joined my work crew. I didn’t recognize any of the four men, and we didn’t bother with introductions. I simply joined them at the task.

The future pasture was on a sunny hillside by a creek. Coarse prairie grass and buckbrush grew there now. The ground was littered with stones, some loose on top of the earth and others nudging up out of the soil. The larger ones had to be moved before a team and plow could break the thin sod. I’d watched our men do this sort of work before, though I’d never bent my back to it myself. It should have been well within my ability, but academy life had softened me. My first hour of prying rocks from their beds and lifting them into a wagon first raised and then broke blisters on my hands.

The work was both tedious and demanding. We used iron bars to prise the larger stones from the hard earth. Then each had to be lifted, sometimes by two men, and loaded onto a buckboard wagon. When the wagon was full we followed it as the team hauled the stone to the edge of the field. There we unloaded it in a neat line of rock. It became a rough stone wall to mark the edge of the sown pasture. The other men talked and laughed among themselves. They were not rude; they just ignored me.

Doubtless they had decided I wouldn’t last long and that there was little point in getting to know me. 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 wagonloads 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?”