Chapter 4: The List

For two days Linnea made herself a shadow in Major Valerius's yard.

She carried water to the stable when he stood at the stable.

She mended a strap on the bench by the officers' hall when he ate in the officers' hall.

She learned to sit with her back to him and her eyes on her bowl.

The gift worked at about ten paces.

Past that, his thoughts thinned out to nothing.

Inside it, every word was plain.

At breakfast he smiled at a cook and thought, Two more on the list after Beauvoir. Good intake this year.

At midday he corrected a boy's sword grip with patient hands.

Don't let the captains choose first again, he thought. Last time they took the best.

Linnea put her spoon down and kept her face still.

By evening she had the shape of it.

The year of trials ended with the night trial, and the night trial was a summons.

A recruit received a card in the officers' hand.

It told her to report to the major's quarters at the ninth bell.

It said nothing else.

A woman who went was passed.

A woman who did not go was failed.

She was written up as unsteady or slow or unfit, and a wagon took her to the road.

Valerius had a name for the ones who said no, and it was a clerk's name.

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