"I may find a place and come back after the thaw," Luap said. "I have no intention of breaking my oath." Before the Marshal-General could say more, he added, "And I will of course find yeoman-marshal Binis if that is necessary, so that she can supervise."
He turned with a conscious flourish and left the Marshal-General's office—Gird's office, as he himself still thought of it. He spent the rest of that day with Eris, and greeted those who came to speak of Dorhaniya as if he were a family member.
At dawn on the second day, he came into the kitchen with his gear packed and ready to go. Binis was gossiping with a cook kneading dough, an older woman who gave Luap an open grin.
"We miss you, Luap! Do you still like fried snow?" He saw Binis stare at the woman as if she'd turned into a lizard. So . . . not everyone remembered, or knew, that he had had his own friends here? That not all of them had left?
"Ah . . . Meshi, no one makes fried snow like yours. This Midwinter Feast I wanted to come back for it. I don't suppose you saved any?"
"Saved! Fried snow keeps about as well as real snow in high summer, as well you know. If you want my fried snow, Luap, you'll just have to come when it's ready." She flipped the mass of dough into a smooth ball and laid a cloth over it. "I suppose you want breakfast before you leave, eh?"
"Anything that's at hand." Anything at Meshi's hand would be delicious; she had a double parrion of cooking.
"First bread's out." In a moment, she had sliced a hot loaf and handed it to him with a bowl of butter and a squat stone jar. "Spiced peaches," she said. "From our tree."
"You shouldn't," he said, as he always had, and added, "but I'm glad you did. Spiced peaches again!" He let a lump of butter melt into the hot bread, then spooned the spiced peach preserves onto it. The aroma went straight to his head.
"You don't have spices in that godslost wilderness?" Meshi looked shocked.
"Not yet; I'll buy some in the market to take back." The first bite, he thought, was beyond price; his nose and his tongue contended over ecstasy. Then he noticed Binis standing stiffly to one side, and gestured. "Come, don't you like spiced peaches?"
"Never had any," she muttered, but sat across from him and took a slice of the hot bread. When she'd put a small spoonful on it, she tasted it; her face changed. "It's—I never had anything like that."
"Can't make much," Meshi said shortly, setting down two bowls of porridge with emphasis. "Takes time, makes only a little. Can't serve it all the time."
Or to everyone
came across clearly in the little silence that followed. Luap wanted to eat the whole jar of preserves, but took the hint and started on the porridge. Meshi's gift held even with that. She waited a moment longer, for courtesy, then took the stone jar back and capped it. "It dries out," she said. Then she turned to Binis. "He tried to talk me into going with them, you know. Flattered my cookery, said how they wouldn't have proper foods for the holidays—"
"We don't," said Luap.
"—And I almost went," Meshi said, as if she had not heard the interruption. "But I had too many friends here who weren't going, and even for old Luap I wouldn't give them all up." Then she winked at Luap. "And, to tell the whole truth, I was scared of that magery—being taken by magic to some place I'd never seen gave me the shivers. So I couldn't. But I miss Luap, that I do, for he's one to notice who does the work, no matter what it is."
"He's mageborn," said Binis, around a mouthful of porridge.
"He's
half
," said Meshi firmly, giving Luap another wink. "Half mageborn, which he can't help any more than any of us can choose our fathers, and half peasant-born, which isn't to his credit any more than his father is to his blame. And I'll tell you this, Binis, to your face and in front of his, if you have the sense you should have, you'll forget whatever our Koris said about him, and look at the man himself. I was here when Gird was still alive, and Luap's worth a gaggle of your Marshal-Generals."
Binis looked at Luap, then at Meshi. "Was he your lover?"
Meshi glared. "He was not. Is that all you girls can think of, these days, but who crawls in whose bed?"
Binis shrugged. "You seem fond of him, is all I meant."
"I like him; I trust him; and it's not his fault he's in bad with the Marshal-General."
"Mmm." Binis was not convinced; Luap didn't know if Meshi's words had made things better or worse.
They left the kitchen, bellies full and foodsacks stuffed, and walked down to the lower city. Binis walked a step behind, Luap noticed, and would not come up beside him even though the streets were not yet crowded. He had not been surprised to find that the Marshal-General would not lend horses from the grange stables; he had arranged to hire mounts and a pack animal from a caravan supplier. He had no intention of walking those trails in winter if he could help it.
As much to annoy her as because he had planned to, he stopped to buy spices—perhaps someone out west would take the trouble to make spiced preserves—and tucked the expensive packets deep in his clothing. The horses he had arranged for were saddled when he arrived, two stocky beasts and a smaller pony. He lashed the foodsacks and their other gear to the packsaddle, and handed the caravaner the sack of coins. He mounted; Binis still stood, holding the rein of the other horse, with a dubious expression. Finally, flushing, she scrambled up so awkwardly he realized she might not have ridden before.
"I'm sorry," he said. "Do you not like riding?" it was the most diplomatic way he could think to ask.
"Never did." She sat lumpishly, her stirrups far too long and her grip on the saddle too tight.
Luap caught the eye of the caravaner, who bit his lip and said, "Just wait, yeoman-marshal, and let me get at them stirrups. You looked longer-legged than that standing on the ground." The man adjusted the stirrups, then said, "Bein' as it's winter, you might want stirrup-covers, eh?" He ducked back into the stable entrance, and came out with fur-lined leather hoods that tied to the stirrups and protected their feet from the worst winds. They would also, Luap knew, keep Binis's feet from sliding too far into the stirrup.
By the end of the first day's riding, he wondered why he had ever thought midwinter a good time for this. They had had no more than ordinary winter weather, snow no deeper than usual, but they arrived at the village's small grange stiff and sore. Binis could hardly get off her horse, but flinched away when Luap tried to help her. Luap would have had more sympathy for her if she had not made it clear that she blamed him for her discomfort, as if he had chosen to travel horseback because she could not ride. The Marshal, new here since Luap had left, made it clear he thought they were both crazy to be riding around the countryside in the wintertime. He was inclined to blame it all on Luap's magery.
"You may be able to keep yerself warm wi' your magicks, but ye might have had some concern f'the yeoman-marshal here." The Marshal had wrapped a blanket around her; she gave Luap a venomous look out from under the Marshal's elbow. Luap wondered if it would help to tell them he had not kept himself warm—his feet felt frozen, despite the stirrup-covers. From the look on both their faces, they wouldn't believe him.
"I'll see to the horses," he said, and went out. He was tempted to spend the night in the grange's lean-to barn; the horses were friendlier than his companions. But they would probably think he was performing wicked magicks out here by himself; he had better not.
When he came back inside, he heard the murmur of voices; it ceased when they saw him. The Marshal's own yeoman-marshal had joined them. He looked at Luap with the same accusing gaze, and Luap knew they had been discussing the wicked mageborn while he was outside. He found it hard to swallow his supper of ill-cooked porridge and heavy bread amid barbed comments about the luxuries he must be used to. He bit back one retort after another; his jaw felt sore. He tried to remind himself that all peasants weren't like this—Dorhaniya's Eris, for instance, or Cob or Raheli. But these three, and the present Marshal-General, exemplified everything he disliked about his mother's people. By the time he rolled himself in a blanket on the floor (Binis, of course, had the spare pallet), he was thoroughly disgusted with them.
That day and night set the tone for the whole miserable journey. Binis felt the cold more than Luap, but remained convinced that he was using magery unfairly to keep himself comfortable. He had no way to prove he was not. As his anger grew, he would have used his magery that way if he had known how. He tried, surreptitiously, but succeeded only in giving himself a throbbing headache made worse by the glare off the snow. And he was just as cold as Binis, he told himself, but she wouldn't believe it. He remembered, with a burst of satisfaction that he knew was unwise, that the woman whose complaints had driven Gird to a fit of rage had also been named Binis. It wasn't the same Binis, of course, but this one might have been that one's daughter. He didn't ask. He preferred to imagine it, in the privacy of his own head.
They arrived, two days later than he had expected, in Cob's grange. Here, at least, the welcome was as warm for Luap as for Binis. Cob, always lamer in winter, stumped awkwardly into the snowy lane to greet them.
"Luap, you look like a frozen sausage. Get off that horse, and come in to the fire. Vre—" That was his yeoman-marshal, a brisk young man. "Take their horses around back. Bring the packs inside. Ah, Luap, I've missed you. That scribe you left in charge is slower than a pregnant ox at a gate. And who's this?" Luap explained that the new Marshal-General had insisted he have a yeoman-marshal escort. "You? What does he think he's about? No insult to you, Binis, but no one needs to watch Luap. Alyanya's grace,
Gird
trusted him. That ought to be enough for anyone."
Luap took a step and staggered; he knew his feet were at the end of his legs, but he hadn't felt his toes since the village before. Binis, looking from him to Cob with a scowl, had made it to the grange door. Cob shook his head.
"You're going to look like me, if you keep that up. Need an arm?"
"No. I'm fine." He could walk, if he kept a surreptitious eye on his feet to be sure where they were. He made it to the door, across the grange, and into Cob's office. There a fire crackled busily on the hearth. Binis had already crouched beside it. Cob pulled a chair near, and waved Luap into it.
"Let him get his feet to the fire, yeoman-marshal—he's twice your age." Binis looked startled.
"But Marshal, he's a mageborn—he can use magicks to warm himself. . . ."
Cob snorted. "Does it look like it? Use your wits, Binis—he's famished with cold, as bad as you are." She looked at him, as if seeing him anew. Luap found it embarrassing.
"I'm warm enough," Luap said. Cob's welcome was as good as any fire, and his feet were already beginning to throb. Cob's yeoman-marshal, Vrelan, came in with the packs.
"Shall I fetch something to eat, Marshal?" Vrelan sounded eager to prove himself; Luap realized he was very young, probably born after the war. Cob sent him to the local inn—Luap had not realized there was an inn—and turned back to Luap.
"So how is the settlement coming? Will you get a crop in this next year?" With that opening, Luap could explain that he had come for fertile soil, and needed only a little. Cob grinned. "Take what you like—we've plenty in the grange fields."
"I can't do that. The Marshal-General specified I was not to take so much as a clod from farmland or grangelands, only from waste ground."
"Even if the Marshal offered?" Cob looked angry.
"That's right, Marshal," Binis said. Luap thought she would have been wise to hold her tongue. "That's what I'm to do, watch to be sure he doesn't take the wrong soil."
Cob looked at her; Luap recognized the look Gird had given that other Binis and held his breath. But Cob was not drunk, as Gird had been; he merely shook his head. "I didn't ask you," he said. "And I don't think that frog-eyed fool has the right to tell me what I can and can't do with a bit of earth from my own drillfields. He wasn't with Gird as long as I was." It was exactly what Luap had hoped he would say, all the long, cold, miserable trip from Fin Panir, but now he felt a hollow open inside him. Cob meant what he said, and he could take his soil and go home—but that would leave Cob in a mess.
"No," Luap said. "I didn't come here to start a quarrel between you and the Marshal-General."
"You didn't start it," Cob said, reddening. "That—" Luap was aware of Binis's interest, her ears almost flapping wide on either side of her head. And Cob had been Gird's friend, with Gird longer than almost anyone else still alive.
"No," he said again, and let a little of his power bleed into it. On Gird it had not worked; on Cob and Binis it worked well. Both sat quiet and stared at him. "I will not disobey the Marshal-General's orders on this, though I thank the friend who cared more to help me than advance himself." Neither of them said anything, and he was afraid he had put too much power on them . . . but then Cob shook himself, like a wet dog.
"All right," he said gruffly, not looking at Binis. "But I want you to know that I trust you. Now—where's that boy with the food?" He got up and left the office to Luap and Binis. Luap stretched luxuriously. The fire's warmth crept over him in exquisite waves; he could feel not only his throbbing feet, but a blanket-like warmth on his knees and thighs. He had not been this warm for days; the other Marshals had pushed Binis close to the fire. He glanced at her. One side of her face seemed flushed—from the fire or embarrassment, he could not guess.
"Are you warm enough?" he asked her.
"Did you really not have magicks for the cold?" she asked, without answering him.
"No," Luap said. He was not really surprised at her question; from the little they'd talked he had discovered her to have a literal mind and a tenacious grasp of the trivial. "I'm glad of a fire," he added, hoping this would divert her from the question he saw hovering on her lips. "If you are still cold, why not get a blanket?"