There, Dealdron was working on planing sections for foot chests for the newer guards. At the other end of the shop, Vierna was instructing two new guards on what looked to be the proper way to sharpen a saw. Dealdron stopped and set the plane on the workbench. “Commander, ser.” He looked Saryn directly in the eyes.
Since she’d been gone, he’d had his hair trimmed short and shaved off the short beard. Without it, he looked older, surprisingly, and passingly good-looking. She pushed that thought away, even as she sensed that the directness of his gaze was anything but a challenge. She realized that he was making a determined effort only to look into her eyes. “You seem to be doing better with the exercises and the sparring.”
“I could not have done worse than when I started.” A faint smile followed his words. “I wake up sore every morning from the bruises that the girls have given me the day before.”
“How did you end up sparring with them?”
Dealdron shrugged apologetically. “There was no one else. The older guards are beyond me. The newer guards are not so strong as me and could not teach me what I need to know.”
“What do you need to know?” pressed Saryn.
“Enough to defend myself when attacked. More would be better.”
“You think we will be attacked here?”
“You will be attacked. That is certain. I thought Lord Arthanos would have no trouble reaching Westwind. Now…I am less sure.”
“Why?”
“Your Marshal, she is…” Dealdron paused. “She is the spirit of the mountains. There is no other way to say it. She is like the winter storms. No one ever defeats winter.”
Saryn hadn’t thought of Ryba that way, but the image fit. She didn’t see how Dealdron could have formed such an impression, so seldom did the young man even see Ryba, except from a distance. “How did you decide that?”
“I can see what I see, Commander.”
That was all he was going to say, Saryn realized. “Where are you sleeping now?”
“I have a corner here in the shop. That seemed better.”
“It probably is.” After the briefest pause, she asked, “Dealdron…what do you know about masonry…stonework?”
“A little, ser. Sometimes, my da…my father, he had to redo some of the stonework when he was replastering older places. He spent a little time as a stonemason’s apprentice. He didn’t like it. So he became a plasterer’s apprentice. He taught me some stoneworking because my brother had trouble handling the heavier stones. Getting the stones cut right is hard, and when they’re not finished proper-like, over time they can settle and crack any plaster laid over them…”
As she listened, it appeared to Saryn that plastering in Candar included what she would have called outside stucco as well as interior wall finishing. “It sounds like you know more than a little about stonework.”
“I know some things.”
“In another eightday, or so, once you finish more of the foot chests, and your leg is stronger, you’ll start working with Siret on stonecutting.”
Dealdron frowned, and Saryn could sense his concern.
“No…you haven’t done anything wrong,” she replied to his unspoken question. “We need to finish at least part of the barracks before winter. If we don’t, we’ll lose horses to the cold because we’re using parts of the stables to shelter refugees-”
“Refugees?”
Saryn realized that the Rationalist word for “refugee” wasn’t in the local vocabulary. “The women and children who fled Analeria because Arthanos tried to kill them.”
“What is the word the angels use?”
Saryn told him the word in Temple, then asked, “Are you trying to learn Temple?”
“As I can, Angel,” he replied in Temple.
“Keep at it. Istril or Siret will tell you when you’re to start at stonecutting.”
“Yes, ser. What ever you think best, ser.”
As she turned and headed out through the archway from the carpentry shop, Saryn was struck by what lay behind his words-or what did not. There was no feeling of resentment or anger, just a calm acceptance of her decision. She also realized how wasteful traditional low-tech cultures could be. Dealdron was intelligent and talented-and he’d accomplish far more in Westwind than he ever would have been allowed to do in Gallos…even with Ryba’s concerns.
And Istril was right. For all his background, Dealdron was a good man.
XXX
Ryba did not return from the heights until late afternoon, and then she sent Aemra to fetch Saryn from the armory. Saryn set aside the blade she was sharpening and hurried up the stone steps that seemed to get longer as the day progressed.
Ryba was seated, waiting. The table was bare. She gestured to the chair across from her.
Saryn seated herself, and since Ryba did not speak, asked, “How are you finding the ice fields?”
“That suggests you want to know why I’ve been riding to the heights. Do you really think that knowing that would be useful to you as arms-commander, Saryn?”
“I couldn’t say without knowing what you’re accomplishing up there…besides returning with ice to preserve various foods.”
Ryba smiled, a distant expression. “Do you know why I need to ride up there?”
Wasn’t that what I just asked, if more politely? “I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me, ser.”
“Don’t humor me, Saryn.”
“I already asked, politely…Ryba.”
The iron in Ryba’s voice began to soften as she spoke. “The more bodies that are crammed into Westwind, the harder it is for me to sort out what I truly see from what I worry about. I find that in the quiet and the cold amid the ice, matters become clearer.”
Are matters ever really that clear? Or are they just clear for you?
“You will find, in your own time, Saryn, that clarity of vision and purpose are everything. You cannot be distracted by what might be, or what might have been. There is only what was, is, and will be. All the rest are either wistful thoughts or useless nightmares.” Ryba smiled, an expression filled with a mix of emotions that Saryn wasn’t certain she wanted to know. “That doesn’t mean you won’t have both, in great measure. You just have to learn to know what they are and set them aside. One of the great weaknesses of most men is that they fail to recognize early enough which dreams are possible and will become real, and which are vain hopes.”
“Was the engineer that way?” Saryn kept her voice low.
Ryba looked hard at Saryn before her expression changed to one more amused and enigmatic. “The engineer was the kind of man who is the most dangerous. Upon occasion, he could turn unreality of the most impossible kind into hard accomplished fact, but he never understood the longer-term implications of each of those transformations.”
“The longer-term implications?” prodded Saryn gently. “Doesn’t every action have a consequence? Why would there be greater implications from a set of acts that appear at first sight to be less probable to result in success?”
Ryba laughed. “You’ve seen it, and you don’t understand? How likely was it that a single engineer who barely understood the natural laws that enable magery on this world and a singer could destroy the mightiest power on the continent of Candar?”
“Rather unlikely, but they did,” Saryn pointed out.
“Precisely. And what has happened as a result?”
“Lornth is weaker, but it remains independent.”
Ryba smiled coldly. “Had Cyador taken even the southern half of Lornth and held it, Lornth would have been forced to accept a position as a vassal state to Cyador, and Suthya would not even be attempting designs on Lornth. In turn, Arthanos would not even be considering moving a force into the Westhorns. By accomplishing the improbable and what was considered impossible, the engineer created a set of circumstances that actually weakened Westwind.”
“Weakened us? We would have had Cyador as a neighbor.”