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"Blindly loyal!" Rory was incensed "What’s blind about knowing that e the king our loyalty? What is blind about knowing our duty?"

Gord sat back in his chair Soed in the last couple of weeks, in a way I could not clearly define He was still as fat; he still sweated through drill and panted with the effort of heaving his bulk up the stairs But so of steel in hi with his ht, and sometimes even made fun of himself Now he kept silent and merely stared at those who baited hiry, as if he had no right to stand on his dignity and refuse to accept their mockery as his due Now he looked round the table at those of us gathered there, and I suddenly perceived that it was not just gy little eyes than I had credited hi whether to speak or not Then the words seemed to break forth from him, not in a torrent, but in a deliberate cascade of derision

"I said blindly, not stupidly, Rory I don’t think it’s stupid for us and for our fathers to give loyalty to a reatly But we should not be blind to what he gains by it, nor to what it does to others Did none of your fathers ever discuss politics with you? When we take our history lessons, do any of you listen? We are to be officers and gentle is done Loyalty is fine, but it is even better when it is backed up with intellect My dog is loyal to o with no questioning of whether I kneas best for hio where he is ordered and do as he is told, I do not think he norance of what propels his commander’s decisions"

Caleb had never been especially quick-witted, and that day he decided that Gord’s words had insulted hi, skinny fra, but he knotted his fist and said, "Are you saying norant just because he didn’t talk politics at me? Take it back!"

Gord did not stand up but he didn’t back down He leaned back in his chair as if to disarression, but spoke firmly "I can’t take it back, Caleb, for that isn’t what I said! I was speaking in generalities We all ca process We expected to be hazed and to have strict teachers and boring food and a burden of assign and tasks that no sane i full well, I trust, that they deliberately make it more difficult and stressful than it needs to be They are hoping that the weak and even the not-very-determined will be dissuaded by the process and turn away Better to cull them out now than to have a battle whittle the their lives in the process! So we do obey, but we do not obey blindly That is what I a That we endure e endure here because we know the reason for it And when I am a cavalla officer in the field, I expect that I will do the same there I will obey ent enough to discern the reasons behind my orders"

He looked round at us all Despite ourselves, ere hanging on his words He nodded, as if in appreciation of that, and went on, al us, "And thus we come back to Oron’s question: what makes the old nobility first-years dislike us so much if we are all cadets here? And the answer is, they are taught to Just as we are subtly schooled to resent the the best out of us, just as they encourage each house and troop to coainst their fellows But the politics of our fathers have infected it now, and lier"

"But why? Why does someone want us to hate each other?" Oron clasped his cheeks and practically wailed the words

Gord gritted his teeth for a hed "I didn’t say that anyone had deliberately set us against each other in a serious way Iaan as healthy co more ominous because of the political situation in the streets That itso far more vicious than our superiors ever intended It is in the king’s best interest to have his cavalla officers enjoy solid camaraderie It is certainly in the cavalla’s best interest, and hence the Academy’s But there will still be some, old nobles and neho think we should despise each other because our fathers voted against each other in the Council of Lords And if soe the power of the new nobles, if someone wanted to find a way to weaken our father’s alliance, they’d find a way to turn us against each other That hasn’t happened yet, but it will be very interesting to see what pressures are applied to us That is all I’"