“You shouldn’t have left Parth’s side. Then none of this would have happened.”

I thought about that for a time. It didn’t seem quite fair. “If I hadn’t been there, they couldn’t have sent me out to the girl. But I think they would have tried to get her in the alley, even if I wasn’t there.”

“Perhaps so,” my father agreed tightly. “But you wouldn’t have been there to witness it.”

“But…” I tried to work it through my mind. “If I hadn’t been there, she would have been hurt. That would have been bad.”

“It would,” my father agreed, after the clopping of our horse’s hooves had filled the silence for some time. My father pulled his horse to a stop, and I halted with him. He took a breath, licked his lips and then hesitated again. Finally, as I squinted up at him, he said, “You did nothing shameful, Nevare. You protected a woman, and you spoke the truth. Both of those traits are things I value in my son. Once you had witnessed what was happening, you could have done no different. But your witnessing that, and your speaking up caused, well, difficulties for all the officers there. It would have been better if you had obeyed my command and stayed with Parth.”

“But that girl would have been hurt.”

“Yes. That is likely.” My father’s voice was tight. “But if she had been hurt, it would not have been your fault, or our business at all. Likely, no one would have questioned her father’s right to punish the offender. The scout hurt that soldier’s son over a mere threat to his daughter; his right to punish the man was less clear to the men. And Commander Hent is not a strong commander. He seeks his men’s permission to lead rather than demands their obedience. Because you protected her and offered testimony that the threat was real, the situation had to be dealt with. That man and his family had to be banished from the fort. The common soldiers didn’t like that. They all imagined the same happening to them.”