“It’s not really me, sir; it’s the power,” said Aris. He was too old to let himself be comforted like this, but he wished he weren’t. He had never had that much of it. “It’s the light—”
“I don’t doubt it’s some god’s power,” said the Marshal-General. “But you’re the one they gave it to, and you’re the one must decide how to use it. Now: the two of you will come with me, and have more to eat than you’ve had lately, by the look of you.”
Aris found himself standing, but with the Marshal-General’s arm half-supporting him. His vision reddened, then cleared; he looked at the youth on the bed, who had slept through all this undisturbed. He’s tired, Aris thought. Seri gave him one of her looks; he was not sure what it meant, but he would find out. She always told him. The other man, the Marshal-General’s luap, had another look, or series of them, that flickered across his face like cloudshadow over a meadow. In the aftermath of using his power, when he felt unusually sensitive, he felt the man’s own magery as something cold and hard, and wondered that he could have missed it before.
“Food,” said the Marshal-General, and urged him forward. Then, to his luap, “I’ll take care of these two for now, but find them a place to sleep. Wherever they’ve come from, they aren’t going back today.”
Out in the passage, with its scuffed patterned wood, and along it to the right. The Marshal-General said, as they passed a door, “That’s my room, if you need me later, but I think you should eat and rest now. The kitchen’s down this stair.” Aris stumbled in the change from lighter passage to darker stair, and the Marshal-General’s arm steadied him. Seri padded behind, silent for once.
The kitchen, warm, smelling of rising bread dough, some kind of stew, lit by both fire and windows open to an enclosed courtyard, promised safety and comfort. Aris sank down on a bench beneath a window and let himself relax. Seri sat beside him; the Marshal-General murmured to someone working at a long table, and fetched a cut loaf of bread. The other person vanished into a dark door, then reappeared with a jug and brought over jug and several mugs. A tall woman, that was, wearing an apron over trousers and tunic. “Milk,” said the Marshal-General, pouring it into the mugs. He handed one to each of them, and then lifted his own. Aris sipped, cautiously. Sometimes his belly objected to milk or meat after a healing; this time it lay quiescent. The milk slid down, cool and sweet. The Marshal-General sliced the loaf, and offered it. Seri fished a dirty lump of salt from her pocket and offered that on an open palm. The Marshal-General pinched off a bit without speaking, sprinkled it on the bread, and waited until she took a slice to bite into his own. Aris swallowed the last of his milk, and filled his mouth with bread and salt.
They had eaten bread and stew, and drunk more milk than Aris had had in several years, before Gird let them talk more about it. Aris felt sleepy with all the food; Seri looked ready to leap at some task, her braid already more than half loosened, the tendrils curling around her face, her eyes sparkling. In the kitchenyard, in the shade of an old apple tree, the Marshal-General looked like an old farmer, not a judicar—and certainly not like what he was. But food had not dulled his wits, Aris found.
“—and your father was a mageborn noble?” he asked. “Did he have the power of healing?”
“No, sir.” Aris numbered his father’s magery, what he knew of it, on his fingers: light, fire, sending arrows where he would. “He died when I was very young—” In the Marshal-General’s war against the magelords, though it would be rude to say so. “—but no one ever said he could heal. Nor my mother either.” Seri made a small noise; Aris hoped that would be enough for her. She had never liked his mother.
“And both are dead now?”
“No, sir.” He said no more, even when Gird’s eyebrows rose in a clear demand for more information. Seri took over.
“She went off with another ’un, sir, after the old lord was killed. He didn’t want Aris, her new man didn’t.”
Gird looked at Aris; Aris said nothing. Whatever Seri thought, his mother was his mother, and he would not speak ill of her. Gird turned to Seri. “So, then—how long ago was this, and how long have you known him?”
Seri grinned, glad to take over “I’ve known him always; we grew up in the household together. Aris was youngest, and they were always busy—”
“And I was small for my age,” Aris added. “Easy to misplace in a crowd.”
“And you had none of your father’s magery,” said Seri. “He didn’t know what you did have.” She turned back to Gird. “My mother’s sister was Aris’s nurse; ’twas not her fault he grew no larger. But she was blamed for it, and then his mother wouldn’t have him by because he fretted so about sickness. They thought he was afraid of it.”
“I am,” Aris said. “I didn’t know what to do, then.”
“And now you do?” asked Gird.
“Not . . . completely. There’s too much—Seri’s people have ways of healing with herbs I don’t know, and she’s told me of hearth-witches who can draw pain and lay it on stone or iron. But I know some of what I can do with magery.” He yawned, fighting the sleep that tried to overwhelm him. He felt he’d been running for hours, or heaving stones. Why was healing, that required only concentration, such hard work?
“He needs to sleep,” he heard Seri say. A chuckle shook the shoulder he leaned against.
“I can see that for myself, child. Let the lad rest, then, and you tell me your tale. You’re not mageborn-bred, are you?”
A snort from, Seri. “No, sir. Not a drop of magic in me, just peasant common sense.” You have magery, Seri, but it’s not my kind, Aris thought, then drifted into sleep.
He woke on a pallet on the floor, a clean soft pallet. The room was almost dark; the window above him glowed deep blue: late evening. He heard no one near, and stretched at leisure, his spine crackling. He loved to think of the little spine-bones clicking against each other in some language he didn’t know. Cats stretched, but he never heard their spines crack. He blinked at the window; one star had pricked dusk’s curtain. As he watched, another, and two more. He felt safe, and happy, and thought of going back to sleep. He would wake early, if he did, but no matter. Then he heard voices in the distance, coming nearer. Seri and the Marshal-General, still talking. He grinned in the dark. Seri could talk all night and half the day; now that she’d decided she liked the Marshal-General, he’d have a time getting rid of her. She had missed her grandfather after he died.
“He should be awake,” Seri was saying. “And if he goes back to sleep now, he’ll wake with a headache before dawn. He always does.”
The Marshal-General’s voice carried a hint of humor. “So what should we do, lass, to keep the lad healthy?”
“Feed him. He won’t think he’s hungry, but he needs it.”
The light they carried warmed the passage outside, began to gleam on the edges of the furniture. Aris grabbed his wandering mind by its scruff. This was not the time to fall into a trance and let the light play in his mind. So far the Marshal-General had been understanding, but he mustn’t push his luck too far. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, as they came in. With the candlelight, the window looked darker, more true night.
“Aris—” An edge to Seri’s voice, a warning. Did she think he’d let himself be caught by light-trance in front of the Marshal-General?
“I’m awake,” he said, yawning hugely. “Just woke.” He looked for the Marshal-General; in candlelight, his broad lined face looked entirely different. “I’m sorry, sir, I fell asleep and keep yawning.”
“Seri explained.” A long pause during which Aris wondered if Seri had explained too much, then, “Come, lad—there’s soup and bread left for you.”