"Almost," said the Rosemage when he found her in his office. "Four days is too long to stand waiting."
Quickly, Luap told her what he remembered of his meeting with elves and dwarves and the gnomish Lawmaster. He found it hard to believe it had been four days . . . but he could not remember everything. Something about danger, about
drossin
and
nedrossin
, about which of the Elders cared most about which aspect of creation . . . but none of that mattered, compared to the final agreement. The Rosemage grinned; she looked almost as excited as he felt.
"Well, then—and where is this fabulous place, now that we have permission to use it?"
At that moment, Luap realized he had not asked—that he had not been given a chance to ask. And he doubted very much that the Elders would answer any such question now.
Arranha was the least concerned about that; he was sure, he said, that he could figure it out by means of celestial markers. Luap, annoyed with himself for being so easily enchanted by the elves, grunted and left him to it.
"What happened?" asked Aris, as Seri came out of the Council meeting room. She grinned, stuck up her thumb, and then put a finger before her mouth. They scurried down the stairs like two errant children, across a court, through another passage, and then found an empty stall in the stable.
"It went just as we hoped," Seri said, when she'd thrown herself down on the straw. "I'm glad you suggested starting with the history, though."
"Makes you seem older," Aris said. He sat curled, with his arms around his knees. It had been Seri's idea, all of it, but she had let him help her shape it.
"They had to agree with that, of course, since they knew it: that all the Marshals now were Marshals or yeoman-marshals under Gird himself, they'd all led soldiers in the war. And they had to agree that weaponsdrill in the barton, and marching in the grange drillfields, isn't much like battle. Even Gird had to get them out of the bartons and into mock battles before real ones. So they could see where I was going, and some of 'em—Cob, for instance—were already nodding when I said the granges needed something more. He started in to propose just what I'd planned, so I didn't have to bother."
Aris chuckled. "They'll like it better from Cob; he's one of them."
"And it doesn't matter to me," Seri said, with a wave of her hand, "as long as we have that kind of training. After all, he was
in
the war, not just scrubbing pots and carrying water like we were. He'll know better how to set it up, now he's thought of it."
"But about the other—" Aris prompted.
"You won't believe it." Her grin lit up the stall. "He had just gotten well started on laying out a training plan when the Rosemage raised her hand and said she thought perhaps I'd had more to say. Cob stopped short, shrugged, and asked if I did. So I told them about our plan—"
"Your plan," Aris said firmly. "I didn't think of that."
"My plan, then. I told them how future Marshals would need more training than just leading a gaggle of farmers around a hayfield, or even fighting in a mock battle once a year or so—that they needed to be real Marshals, well-tested before being given command of a grange—and Aris, they
listened
to me. I said it all, all we talked about: working up from yeoman-marshal, spending time in two different granges, and then talked about having a place for concentrated training." She paused so long that Aris had to speak.
"Well? What did they say?"
"Five or six of the older ones all started talking at once, about how they didn't have to worry as long as they had veterans, and how much it would cost, and that Gird never meant to have armies roaming around stealing from honest farmers—then Raheli stood up and they were all silent." Seri lay back in the straw and stared at the high roof far overhead. "You know, I never realized how much she's like him."
Aris sat up straight. "Like Gird?" He thought about it. They saw her only when she came to Fin Panir, and often enough only from a distance. They had heard stories, of course, but none of them made her seem much like her father.
"I know, it surprised me, too. All we'd seen, after all, was her from a distance, walking around. That great scar on her face, and her dark hair—she doesn't
look
anything like him. But when she looked at me, it gave me the same sort of feeling as the first time we met Gird. I don't know how to say it better than that she's an opposite of Luap."
"Warm, not cold," Aris mused, and looked up to see if Seri agreed. She was nodding vigorously.
"She has Gird's directness. I liked her at once, but if
she
was my Marshal I wouldn't dare try anything." She didn't have to elaborate on that; he knew about the tricks she'd played on her Marshal. It had been, she'd explained from time to time, the result of being separated from Aris. He had always kept her out of mischief. Not long after, they'd been reassigned to the same grange.
Now Aris came back to the main subject. "So Rahi stood up, and they were quiet, and then what?"
"She said it was a good plan. She said it should be in Fin Panir, and each grange should have the right to nominate two candidates a year, but not all would become Marshals."
"But you thought three—"
"Two, three, it doesn't matter. The point is, she approved. And—what you won't believe—the Rosemage stood after her, and approved as well.
She
argued for including the study of law and the archives as well. Said that knowledge of war was only part of a Marshal's training; that Marshals had to be able to act as judicars and recognize all kinds of things going wrong. The two of them started in, then, and it was almost as if they'd pulled the details of the plan straight out of my head." She threw her arms out, raising a cloud of dust from the straw, and sneezed. "Of course, I know they didn't, but it means we were planning in the right way."
"Huh. If you said something that got the Rosemage and Gird's daughter working together, it was definitely right."
"They should be friends," said Seri soberly. "They would fit together."
"Luap doesn't think so."
Seri wrinkled her nose. "Luap couldn't do what he does if they did, is what he means. But it's what Gird would have wanted. Think of it—the Rosemage could lead her people—"
"Not while Luap is the king's son, and she's an outlander."
"He could
let
her; he could tell them to follow her, and not him. But he won't." Seri rolled over on her stomach and propped her chin on her fists, as if she were a child again. "He's ruining things."
"He's not!" Aris scrambled nearer and thumped her shoulder, then bent down to look her in the eye. "He's Gird's chosen luap, Seri: he is not ruining things."
She didn't budge. "You don't see everything; you're thick as bone some ways. I think the healing makes you see people differently. You don't see what they are; you see their needs." She rubbed the bridge of her nose for a moment before going on. "I don't think he knows it, I'll say that for him. I think he believes he's doing the right thing, what Gird would have wanted. But he got it into his head a long time ago that the Rosemage and Rahi were natural enemies, like a levet and a wren—"
Aris snorted. "And which of those two is a wren?" Seri smacked him.
"You know what I mean. He thinks that, and he can't see that they're made to be allies. Not friends, maybe, but allies. And so he treats them as enemies, and they see each other through his vision, except sometimes like this."
"Mmm." It was something to think about. Did the healing magery give him such a different view of people? Or was it the magery itself? Could that be why Luap saw the Rosemage and Rahi as natural enemies? But he had no chance to discuss that with Seri, for someone was calling her. She rolled to her feet; he sighed and scrambled up after her. They had little time together these days, and he treasured the brief encounters.
"Seri!" Now the voice was closer: Rahi, Gird's daughter. Aris followed Seri out of the stall. The older woman laughed, the first relaxed laugh he had ever heard from her. "I might have known you'd be off somewhere with Aris."
"Yes, Marshal," said Seri. Her braid had come half undone again, and she had straw in her springy curls.
"Did you come up with all that by yourself, or did Aris help?" Now that she was close, Aris realized what Seri had meant about her being like Gird. A bluntness, but without any brutality, a sense of great strength in reserve, a warmth . . . he found himself grinning back at her, more at ease than he usually was with the older Marshals.
"He did—"
"No, Marshal, it was all hers—" Aris broke off as his voice clashed with Seri's and they laughed. "She will give me credit I don't deserve: we talked about it, but that's all."
"Gird said you two were great friends—but he sent you to separate granges for training, didn't he?"
"Yes, Marshal, but that doesn't matter." Seri might have said more, but another voice hailed them; the Rosemage moved across the stable yard, Aris thought, like one of the graceful horses.
"There you are, Rahi—and with the younglings. They're a pair, aren't they?" Aris felt like a colt up for sale at the market when the Rosemage shook her head at them. "Hard to believe the two of you could be our children, when you come to Council with solutions for problems the other Marshals haven't thought of yet."
Rahi had flushed, but now seemed relaxed and cheerful; Aris wondered what had upset her momentarily. He wanted to look at her scar; he wondered if he could heal it, but he dared not ask. "Fair enough." Rahi said slowly. "One for each of us, that way."
The Rosemage shook her head. "They come as a pair . . . we've learned that in Fin Panir, if nothing else. Gird himself separated them for a few years, in training, but even he admitted they were the closest he had seen outside a few twins."
Rahi grinned; Aris noticed how the scar pulled at her mouth, making the grin uneven. "They don't look much like twins," she said.
"We're not," Seri said boldly. "We're not alike, but we fit together. Father Gird said that was stronger than two alike."
The two older women looked at each other, a measuring look, brows raised. "That's true enough," murmured the Rosemage. "But again uncanny wisdom for one so young."
Seri shrugged, with a side glance at Aris. "It's not my wisdom, but Gird's."
"Well, yours or Gird's, it's true enough. Now I—we—need to talk to you." The Rosemage looked at Rahi. "Don't we? It's a nice afternoon for a walk in the meadow out near Gird's grave."
"And no one will overhear or interrupt," said Rahi, smiling. "Of course we need to talk to these two. I hardly know them except by what I hear from Luap,"
With the older women flanking them, Aris and Seri walked out the west of the stable complex into the meadows beyond. Once well out of earshot of the stables, Rahi said, "You didn't say all you had planned, Seri; I could tell that. What else?"
"Cob said it well enough," Seri said. "The details don't matter—I mean, they do, but it doesn't matter who does it right, only that it's done. I know I'm too young to be telling Marshals anything, let alone the Council."
"But you were
right
," said the Rosemage. "That's what matters, not age."
"Well . . . it's like food. If I have it, I share it; if they eat it, it's nourishing. It doesn't matter who gave the bread and who gave the salt, so long as the bowl's full."
Rahi chuckled. "Peasant wisdom, lady."
The Rosemage pretended to stumble. "You're calling me lady?"
Rahi shrugged; Aris thought she was embarrassed. "I can't remember your real name."
"I quit using it, it meant something noble in our language I never lived up to." From the tone, she had never said
that
to anyone before. Rahi nodded slowly.
"And my name meant 'fruitful vine'—so I perhaps have no right to it."
"Rosemage," said Aris, trying to head off emotions he did not understand, "is a difficult sort of name to use—I mean in talking
to
you."
"You're right, it is. It's actually Luap's nickname for me, a nickname of a nickname." Aris noticed that the others looked as confused as he felt; she sighed and explained. "Your father knew this, Rahi, but I don't know if you did. The old king of Tsaia, the one I killed, had called me 'Autumn Rose' in a sort of jest. A bitter jest to me, for I loved him. When I killed him, I felt I had killed my old self, with its unsuitable name, as well, and I told Gird I would henceforth be the Autumn Rose in truth. Luap turned that to Rose Magelady, and then Rosemage. As you say, it's more a name of reference than one of address. Arranha told me I was being silly, and now I agree—but it's too late to change back."
"Never mind," said Rahi. "I can call you lady as the others do, without it hurting my mouth. I still have some questions for young Seri."
"Yes?" Seri, like Rahi herself, had seemed less interested in the Rosemage's explanation than Aris.
"You may be right to have the senior Marshals set out the plan themselves, but I'd like to know how you would have done it. Perhaps some of your details need to be included—and I'm a senior Marshal; I could see that they are."
"Oh." Seri paused a moment; Aris could almost see the thoughts in her head, busy and humming like a hive of bees at work. "Well, it seemed to me that we needed Marshals capable of leading out a grange against small problems, like wolfpacks or robbers. And then we needed Marshals, or perhaps High Marshals, who could lead groups of granges against invaders. I know it's peaceful now, but it was peaceful before the mageborn came—excuse me, lady—"
"No need," the Rosemage said.
"—And even though Gird won the war with ill-trained troops, and no cavalry," Seri went on, "it would be easier—it would cost less blood—to have better training and maybe some horse soldiers."
"Knights," said the Rosemage.
"Not too many," Seri said. "Mostly it should be yeomen, as it is now, but there should be a few whose parrion—guild?—it is to learn how to engage in wars, so that we have that knowledge when we need it."