Spink, in contrast, was short and wiry and had not shed his boyish proportions. His nose was snub, his teeth a bit too large for his mouth, and his hands too large for his wrists. His uniform had been home-tailored from a hand-me-down and it showed. His hair had begun to outgrow its most recent cropping and stood up in defiant tufts on his head. He looked like a mongrel growling up at someone’s greyhound. The rest of us were wide-eyed in silent apprehension.

Gord’s intervention surprised all of us. “Let it go, Spink,” he counseled him. “It’s not worth getting disciplined over a fight in quarters.”

Spink didn’t look away from Trist as he spoke. “You can take the insults lying down if you want to, Gord, though I’ll own I don’t understand why you eat the dirt they throw. But I’m not about to smile and nod when he insults me.” The suppressed anger in his voice when he spoke to Gord shocked me. It made me realize that Spink was just as angry at Gord as he was at Trist. Trist’s acid mockery of the fat boy and Gord’s failure to react were eating away at Spink’s friendship with Gord.

Gord kept his voice level as he answered Spink. “Most of them don’t mean anything by it, no more than we mean harm when we call Rory ‘Cadet Hick’ or when we mock Nevare’s accent. And those that intend it should sting are not going to be changed by anything I might say or do to them. I follow my father’s rule for command in this. He told me, ‘Mark out which noncommissioned officers lead, and which ones drive from behind. Reward the leaders, and ignore the herders. They’ll do themselves in with no help from you.’ Sit down and finish your assignment. The sooner you sit, the sooner we’ll all get to bed, and the clearer our heads will be in the morning.” He swung his gaze to Trist. “Both of you.”

Trist didn’t sit down. Instead, he flipped his book shut on his papers with one disdainful finger. “I have work to do. And it’s obvious that I won’t be allowed to do it here at the study table in any sort of peace. You’re being a horse’s ass, Spink, making a great deal out of nothing. You might recall that you were the one shoving inkwells about and shaking the table and talking. All I was trying to do was get my lessons done.”

Spink’s body went rigid with fury. Then I witnessed a remarkable show of self-control. He closed his eyes for an instant, took a deep slow breath, and lowered his shoulders. “Nudging your inkwell, shaking the table, and speaking to Gord were not intended to annoy you. They were accidents. Nonetheless, I see they could have been irritations to you. I apologize.” By the time he had finished speaking, he was standing more at ease.

I think all of us were breathing small sighs of relief as we waited for Trist to respond with his own apology. Emotions I could not name flickered across the handsome cadet’s face, and I think he struggled, but in the end, what won out was not pretty. His lip curled with disdain. “That’s what I would expect from you, Spink. A whiny excuse that solves nothing.” He finished picking up his books from the study table. I thought he would walk away and he did turn, but at the last moment he turned back. “Once pays for all,” he said sweetly, and with a graceful flick of his manicured fingers, he overturned the inkwell onto not only Spink’s paper but also his book.

Gord righted the inkwell in an instant, snatching it away from the table. It was good that he did so, for in the next moment books, papers, pens, and study tools went flying as Spink took two giant steps over the table to fling himself on Trist. Momentum more than the small cadet’s weight drove them both to the floor in front of the hearth. In half a breath, they were rolling and grappling. We ringed them, but there was none of the shouting that would ordinarily mark two men fighting in a circle of their fellows. I think every one of us who watched knew that we suddenly had been catapulted to a decision place. Spink and Trist were breaking Academy rules by fighting in quarters. The rules of the Academy said that at least one of the combatants must be expelled and the other suspended, if not both expelled. The rules stated that anyone witnessing such a fight must immediately report it to Sergeant Rufet. By not immediately going to report it, we were participating in the fight. Every one of us standing there suddenly was risking his entire military career by doing so.

I expected Trist to end the conflict quickly. He was taller and heavier than Spink, with a longer reach. I braced to see Spink go flying and hoped there would be no blood. I think if Trist had ever managed to get to his feet, he would have made short work of my friend. But to my astonishment, once Spink had Trist down, he quickly restrained him. Trist, shocked to be borne down and then held facedown on the floor, first thrashed and then flailed like a landed fish. “Let me up!” he bellowed. “Stand up and fight me like a man!”