“I brought something to warm cold hearts,” Luap said, holding up his jug of peach brandy. “Who’d like a sip?” The Autumn Rose held out her hand, and he gave it to her.
After a sip, she handed it on to Seri. “Be careful, girl; it’s stronger than it tastes. Did Meshi make that for you, Luap?”
“Yes; she spoils me.” Safer to say it himself.
“True, she does,” the Autumn Rose agreed. “Do you know I found her making spiced preserves one time, and she told me she didn’t have enough for everyone—but when Luap came down the stair . . .” They all laughed; Luap managed a grin.
“It comes out even—the other cooks don’t like me because she’s so partial, and won’t give them her secret recipe for the spiced preserves. I’ve thought of getting it from her, and telling them, just for peace in the kitchen, but—” He shrugged, and threw his hands out; everyone laughed, but with no sting in it.
“You know what would happen then,” Rahi put in. “They wouldn’t like you more, and Meshi would bang you on the fingers with a spoon every time you came in the kitchen. It is good; reminds me of my mother’s preserves, but there’s something else in it.”
“Whatever it is costs enough to put cooks at each other’s throats,” Luap said. “I think one of the spices must come from over the mountains.” He took a sip himself, that warmed him all the way down. Perhaps it wasn’t a bad thing to have Rahi and the Autumn Rose friends. It seemed less threatening than it had, just as Seri’s—or was it Rahi’s?—ideas about the training of Marshals to replace those retiring seemed less threatening. He looked over at the girl—not really a girl, now. She would make a formidable Marshal in her day. He glanced at Aris. Would he take Marshals’ training as well, or stick with his role as healer? He tried to imagine them both in middle age, and failed.
As sharply as a pinprick, his own vision of his stronghold intruded. He wanted to see Aris there, using his healing magery, teaching others how to heal. Seri did not fit. He had no use for a Girdish Marshal, a peasant with no more magical ability than any other peasant. What could she do? He wasn’t going to raise and train an army; they would have no enemies to guard against, out there. Aris belonged, was one of his people by birth and talent, and she did not belong. She would hold Aris back, prevent him from learning what other mage powers he had. If they did not marry—and he was sure would not, though he could not have said why—it would be best for Aris to learn to get along without her, so that he could be with his own people. She would be happy enough in Fin Panir or elsewhere, busy with a grange.
How was he going to manage that? He watched Rahi and the Autumn Rose; clearly they, like Gird, thought the two belonged together. He would have to find some way of shifting them apart, bit by bit. He looked at Aris; the boy had deep circles under his eyes. This had taken more out of him than Seri; he was not, Luap told himself, as robust. He should be protected, his healing magery nurtured. That was too precious a talent to be squandered in mock warfare.
Chapter Sixteen
“You’re going,” said Seri. Aris looked up from the scroll he’d been studying, Seri looked as she always did when she’d pulled off some mischief.
“And who’s to be my guardian?”
“I am.” She sounded as smug as she looked.
“You? But you’re—”
She pointed to the badge on her tunic. “A Marshal-candidate in good standing, of known good character, approved by the Council. So we can leave whenever you like, and stay as long, and—”
To be free again—to ride out the gates, with Seri at his side, and no one to argue with him whether this one or that needed his healing more, no one to suggest he must conserve his power for greater needs—he felt a childish glee of his own, to match the sparkle in her eyes. “Tomorrow?” he asked, not really believing it.
“Good choice.” said Seri. “I’ll tell the cooks, and get our things ready. You finish that miserable compilation for Luap, and—I suppose you do have to tell him?”
“I should.” Aris sighed. “But surely he knows—he was at the meeting, wasn’t he?”
Seri rolled her eyes. “Meeting? What meeting? Can’t a few Marshals get together and discuss minor matters without holding a formal meeting?”
“But then are you sure it’s—”
“Raheli, the Autumn Rose, Cob, and Garis: is anyone going to argue them down? And they had discussed it with others—not all the others, admittedly, but enough to justify it. My directors agreed—in fact they had brought it up before I had And Rahi did suggest we go on and leave now—quickly—before the decision caused comment.”
Her look said even more: it usually did. “I could leave within a glass or so,” he said softly. “I could leave Luap a note. We don’t need that much—”
She clasped his shoulder, and leaned close. “Even better. We’ll take an afternoon ride.” She waved her hand, “I’ll go get the horses ready.”
Aris turned back to the scroll. He couldn’t concentrate on it; he had read it before, and knew that nothing on it would help him. He rolled it carefully, slid it back into its case, and the case back into the rack. He rummaged on the desk until he found a scrap of old parchment, scraped many times and fraying, to write his note to Luap.
He felt slightly guilty for not taking the trouble to find Luap, rather than leaving the note in his office, but he did not want to discuss his plans with the Archivist. More and more, in the past year or two, he had felt uneasy around Luap, and he could not explain why. Seri, he knew, felt the same way. He put the note where Luap could not miss it, then went to see if Seri had left anything behind. His pack, rolled neatly, lay on his pallet, and his box held only what he himself would have left behind. When he ran his hand into the center of the pack-roll, he felt the hard edges of coins—so she had thought of that, too.
With his pack under one arm, he didn’t look like someone out for an afternnoon’s ride—but then if anyone asked, he had permission to leave for longer than that. He remembered a Marshal saying once that an innocent heart was the best disguise, and on his way to the stables, no one seemed to look at him. Seri had both horses saddled, and her own pack strapped tight. Mischief lighted her eyes; her horse, catching the excitement, jigged sideways.
“I am hurrying,” said Aris, to both horses as much as to Seri. His own snorted, as he snugged the pack straps, and mounted. He didn’t have to ask which way—they would start as they often did, riding west and north into the meadowland beyond the city.
By sunset, they were out of sight of the city, beyond the range of their earlier rides in this direction. They had passed one village to the east, but now saw nothing, not even sheep, to indicate that another was near. Still, they felt safe; they could walk back to the city in one day if the horses pulled loose in the night. But the horses did not escape, and they rode off the next morning in high spirits. All that day they moved into country new to them, rolling land covered mostly in grass, with scattered groves in hollows and along streambanks. In the last span before sunset, they chose a grove near water to camp in.
“It’s almost like being children again,” said Seri. “When we used to go and make houses in the bushes, remember?”
“Yes, but now we know how to do it right.” They had blown fluff from a seedhead for camp chores: tonight Seri had to dig the jacks, and Aris had to take care of the fire. Not that it mattered to either of them, Aris thought, but Gird’s training held to the tally-group system, and it had come to feel natural. With the horses watered and fed, their own waterskins full, and their camp laid out properly, they settled in by the fire to talk.
“I wonder if we should take turns as guard,” Seri said. “I know there’s no war, and this is settled territory, but it’s good practice—”