“Burvelle.”

I turned back to him. “Yes, sir?”

“You’re not very good at deception, are you?”

I stared at him, flummoxed. He said nothing. I think it took over a minute for me to comprehend what I’d done. He’d called me by my proper name and I’d responded. I looked down at the floor. “No, sir. I suppose I’m not.”

He sighed. “Neither am I. Your father would prefer that you not know he’s aware you are here. But I’m in command of this fort, not him. And I’m not going to play cat-and-mouse with any of my troopers.” He turned and looked back at the fire. “He must have sent the dispatches out the same day you left. I suspect he sent them to every place he thought it likely you’d try to enlist. He stated, quite coldly, that you had no right to call yourself his son or to use his name anymore.”

I felt like someone had fisted me in the gut and driven all the air from my lungs. I hadn’t thought my father’s ire would push him so far. “That’s my father,” I said quietly. “Always smoothing the path for me.”

“Indeed,” Colonel Haren replied grimly. “But I should let you know that he also wrote that you were a soldier son, destined by the good god to serve as a soldier, and that if any of us saw fit to sign you on, wretchedly unfit as you were, we had his blessing to do whatever we thought best, no matter how harsh, to hammer some sort of a soldier out of you. Even so, when I first set eyes on you, I didn’t want to take you in. He’d made you sound like a whining spoiled rich man’s son, hiding from his duty. You impressed me when you said you’d take any post, no matter how dirty. So I signed you on. Today you’ve surprised me. In a good way, I’ll add. I don’t regret letting you enlist with my regiment.”

There was an awkward pause between us. Then I said quietly, “Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t thank me. It’s not a favor to you. It’s a matter of my own ethics.” A hint of steel was shining through the rust on the officer. Truth to tell, I was glad to see it. I remained at attention, looking straight ahead at the dim tapestry on the wall. I wondered if he’d report back to my father. Did I want him to? I kept my mouth shut. He’d tell me what he wanted me to know.

He took a breath and then let it out rapidly, as if he’d decided something. He changed the topic abruptly. “Burvelle, I deplore the ‘initiation’ that most of our recruits are put through. But I assume you endured it. What did you think of it? Speak freely.”

“It was horrible, sir. But it did do what everyone told me it would do. I now understand our mission. And how hopeless it is.”

“I was afraid you’d come to that conclusion. Far too many of my officers and men have. I sit here, day after day, and ponder my dilemma. I’ve a road to build. But no one can get close enough to the end of it to push it any further. We can’t even seem to finish the approach to it. You’re academy-trained, in leadership as well as engineering, I assume. So with all that fancy schooling, I’d hope that you’d have an insight for me, perhaps.”

I didn’t, but I didn’t want to state it that baldly. “I only went for a year, sir. And it was interrupted by the plague.”

“Nonetheless, you come from a good bloodline. New noble’s son or not, the blood of the old Burvelle line runs through you. Continue as you’ve begun, and I’ll see that you get a chance to rise through the ranks. You’ll have to earn it, but I want you to know that I’ll not hold you down because of your father’s ire. Nor raise you because of your name.”

“Thank you, sir.” His words kindled something in me, a hope that I’d thought had died. I suddenly burned with the need to distinguish myself before this man, as more than just a cemetery guard. “Sir, I see three ways to approach the dilemma of the road.”

“Well. Let’s have them.”

“The first is obvious and I’m sure it has been tried. Go around whatever it is.”

He shook his head. “The road’s development follows the old trading trails that go up and eventually through the mountains. There is one good pass fit for the King’s Road. Unless we intend to level hills and fill in valleys for miles, this is the best and only approach. What are your other two thoughts, trooper?”

I’d heard as much from the other men. There was seldom a night that the dilemma of the road was not discussed in every tavern. Farleyton Regiment had fallen on hard times, but they still had their pride. If there was a way to succeed at this damnable mission, they wanted to find it.