And the waiting dragged on, day after day, with no one seeing fit to inform me of anything. The guard who fed me and checked on me refused to exchange a single word with me. I lost track of the days. Sometimes I dozed and thought only a few moments had passed, only to hear the rattle of an insipid meal being pushed through my doors. At other times, I could find neither sleep nor true wakefulness, but lay on my cot suspended, feeling as if all time had stopped. The waiting came to an abrupt end when I jerked out of such a reverie to find Spink once more peering through the barred window.

“I thought I told you go to away,” I greeted him, even as I could not deny the relief I felt to see a friendly face.

“Well, you’ve been outranked. I’m here under orders.”

“From Epiny?” I jested, and he almost smiled.

“If her commands could have gotten me through the doors to you again, I’d have been here a hundred times. No. From Major Helford. His search for anyone willing to act as your defense finally discovered me. And here I am.”

“But…” Dismay filled me. “You’re in supply. How on earth could they select you to act as my counsel? Do you know anything about military law?”

“They did not select me so much as work their way down to me. I’m afraid everyone above me who was asked begged off. Man after man said that he could not defend you impartially. As depleted as the ranks of our officers are, you should probably be grateful that you don’t have Ebrooks or Kesey in this role.”

“How do you know Kesey and Ebrooks?”

“I was given this task yesterday. I immediately rode out to the cemetery to interview them.”

I’d sat up too suddenly. I closed my eyes to let the dizziness pass, then opened them and asked, “And what did they tell you about me?”

“That they had liked you. Not at first, but when they saw you doing your best at a task no one else wanted, and living out there despite the forest so close by, they came to admire your ‘guts,’ as they so elegantly put it. They said it was hard to believe you had done such a thing.”

His tone told me everything. “But not impossible. They do believe it.” He folded his lips tightly and then gave a curt nod. “The evidence is against you. Every man who has held the post of cemetery guard before you has come to a bad end. Desertion or suicide. One man simply drank himself to death. They found him neatly laid out in the grave he’d dug for himself.

Kesey and Ebrooks both think you went mad.”

“How do they explain the injury to my head?”

“Self-inflicted.”

“They think I hit myself in the head with a bucket?” I was incredulous.

“It’s the only possible explanation, Nevare. And therefore, as unlikely as it is, they have to believe it.”