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"Then you think the ruress with the Specks?" My brother, usually so cal closer to theAt that age, I had no personal experience of sexual congress at all I was shocked to hearof such perversions as coupling with a lesser race Like any lad of s I held my breath and listened

"How else?" my father asked heavily "The Specks are a ver in the deep shadows under the trees until their skin one toconditions than what the Specks prefer Yet their wo, can be co, they seeress was a flogging when I was stationed on the edge of the Wilds The distances were kept, and we had no plague

"Now that General Brodg has taken over as coood soldier, Rosse, a da have thinned in his line He h so insulted the nobly born soldier sons when he raised a coeneral I ht to pro served hi man But as a ranker rather than an officer born, he has far too much sympathy for the common soldier I suspect he hesitates to apply proper punished in"

My brother spoke but I could not catch his words My father’s disagreement was in his tone "Of course, one can syood commander must be aware of the privations histheir plebeian reactions to them One of the functions of an officer is to raise his men’s standards to his own, not to s that they have no standards to aspire to"

I heard my father rise and I shrank back into the shadows under the , but his ponderous steps carried hilass as he poured "Half our soldiery these days are conscripts and slu such ood officer can iven a free hand to do so! In the old days, any noble’s second son was proud to have the chance to serve his king, proud to venture into the wilds and drag civilization along in his footsteps Now the old nobles keep their soldier sons close to ho up colurounds of the summer palace at Thares as if those were true tasks for an officer The common foot soldiers are worse, as a in the border settlements that would have made old General Prode ith fury He never per to do with the Plainspeople beyond trade, and they were an honorable warrior folk before we subdued thei the females into their households as ood can co, neither to the Plainspeople nor us It will ry for all they don’t have, and envy can lead to an uprising But even if it doesn’t come to that, the two races were never meant to traffic with one another in that way"

My father was gathering momentum as he spoke I am sure he did not realize that he had raised his voice His words carried clearly to my ears

"With the Specks, it is even more true They are a slothful people, too lazy to even have a culture of their own If they can find a dry spot to sleep at night and dig up enough bugs to fill their bellies by day, why, then they are well content Their villages are little more than a few hammocks and a cook fire Little wonder that they have all sorts of diseases a them They pay them no moreto their necks Soo on breeding as happily as a tree full of monkeys But when their diseases cross over to our folk, well…Well, then you have just what you have heard froiue now spreading a the women and children of the settlement And likely all because soer than the honest whores at the fort brothel"

My brother said so I could not quite hear, a query in his voice My father gave a snort of laughter in reply "Fat? Oh, I’ve heard those tales for years Scare stories, I think, told to new troopers to keep the I’ve never seen one And if the plague indeed works so, well, then good Let theuess what they’ve been doing Perhaps the good god in his wisdom chooses so to es of sin"