To Luap’s surprise, the other Marshals slowly came around to the same decision, and for much the same reasons. No one wanted to say good riddance to the mageborn—he was not even sure they thought that inwardly. Instead, the boy and his uncontrolled powers became the reason to agree that the mageborn needed a place to be trained properly. And they trusted Luap and Arranha to oversee that training and determine who might come back to the eastern lands.
“Will you take everyone? All the mageborn?” asked Bald Seli finally.
Luap shook his head. “I will take all who want to come, and try to persuade the younger ones that it’s best. But some are too old, at least until we have established a settlement. Most of you know Lady Dorhaniya, for instance: she will certainly not come at first. Others are happy here, and get along well with those who are not mageborn—either they have no magery, or they are content not to use it. Unless you demand it, I expect they will choose to stay. Those who have little mageborn heritance, and whose families have no other mageborn blood, will almost certainly stay.”
“I like that.” Bald Seli said. “I remember old Gird saying we needed most to get along with each other; I’d hate to see that dream abandoned.”
“So we’ll give you all the troublemakers,” Cob said to Luap with a grin, “and keep all the good ones—except you and Arranha, of course. And I suppose young Aris will come with you?”
Luap didn’t want to start on that. “I thought to invite all mageborn who wanted to come—”
“But no others?” asked Raheli.
There was the crux of it. “I hardly thought any but mageborn would want to come,” Luap said carefully. “Surely it would be as strange for them as a society wholly without magery is for the talented among us.”
“But who’ll do the work you mageborn don’t know how to do?” asked Bald Seli. “Your folk don’t know cooking and building and such, do they? They couldn’t yoke a span of oxen and use a plough. . . .”
Luap nodded. “Some of those I think will want to leave are half-bloods, as I am . . . remember that I was fostered among farmers; I farmed, before the war.” From the look on Bald Seli’s face, he didn’t quite believe it. Luap let a little humor seep into his voice, as he broadened his accent. “Aye, Var, coom up there; steady, Sor. . . .” His hands clutched imaginary plough handles, and his use of the traditional names for oxen brought smiles to more than one face. He grinned at Bald Seli. “My foster-father had me make my own yoke, same as anyone else. I’ve no doubt there are better farmers among you, but I made my crops and paid my field-fee and fed my family from my own work.”
“I thought you’d been brought up in a big house.” That was Kevis, who knew Dorhaniya.
“Only as a small boy. Then it was off to the farm, and no more big house for me until I came here.” Luap glanced around the room. “I won’t say all of us are farmers, or have such skills, but even for those who don’t, it won’t hurt them to learn.” A shuffle of feet at that, agreement too strong for silent nodding. “We won’t have to take the farmers and crafters you need here.” Phrasing it that way, it could seem he was concerned for the welfare of those left behind. Which he was, in a way.
“But if someone wanted to come—I’m thinking, Luap, that if Aris goes with you, Seri will want to go too. You can hardly expect to separate those two.”
“I wouldn’t forbid it, certainly.” Certainly not now, not when it could cause the failure of the whole plan. “But we don’t want youngsters who wish they had magic powers wasting their time out there, when they could be learning good crafts here.” Others nodded, seeing the point of that. “As well, since it is for our people to learn to use magery, it could be more dangerous for those without it. What I’m thinking of is more—more an outpost, say, where our people go for special training. When they have it, some of them—if you permit—will no doubt want to come back, and use their powers for good purposes.” More dubious looks, at that, eyes shifting back and forth under lowered brows. All the better: if they forbade mageborn to return, then it was not his fault that the peoples sundered.
“What about the archives?” asked another Marshal. “How can you keep the archives and lead your settlement?”
Luap relaxed. This was something he had planned carefully. “We have many good scribes now, those who can not only copy a text accurately, but understand how to organize the archives. I can’t do both jobs—certainly not in the first few years out there—but I will always be available for questions. Frankly, I think my successors—those I will recommend—are as skilled as I am, if not more skilled. I will continue to write, of course, but I doubt you’ll miss my contributions.”
“But are these scribes Marshals?” asked the same man.
“No,” Luap said. “Although there are at least three who have been yeoman-marshals and might qualify for the new training, if you felt it important. Certainly there are advantages in having an Archivist who is also a Marshal . . . even though I’m not.”
“As good as,” Raheli said. “We’ve granted you Marshal’s blue, and the authority within the archives. I, for one, would prefer an Archivist to have Marshal’s training.”
The Marshals discussed that for a time, and Luap realized that they had made their decision, made it far more easily than he had ever expected. They would argue about when he should go, and who should be in charge of the archives after him, and how often he should report . . . but they were letting him go.
So he told Arranha that evening, trying to cheer him up. Arranha’s thumb had swollen to twice its size, and a red streak ran up his arm. Suriya, the woman Aris had worked with in herblore, had come to poultice it, but so far without effect.
“She didn’t have to tell me it was a bad bite,” Arranha said. He sat with his eyes almost closed and the tense expression of real pain on his face. “I knew that, from the malice on his face, the way he ground his teeth on it, the way I felt.”
“I wish Aris were here.” Luap tried to sit still; he knew that Arranha needed quiet, restful companions.
“I, too. Young Garin has a lovely voice, but not a tithe of Aris’s healing power. He eased the pain awhile . . . suggested I have Bithya in, that girl Aris worked with . . . but I’ll wait. Perhaps I won’t need her.”
“Do you want us to send after Aris? Although I don’t even know for certain which way he went.”
“No . . . no, don’t trouble the lad. He needs this chance to show what he can do somewhere else, and if the gods don’t choose to send him back . . .” Arranha’s voice faded. Luap felt a stab of worry. The old man could die of this, and then what? He needed him; they all needed him. Mageborn and peasant alike, they needed his wisdom, his determination to find the light in any tangled darkness.
“Rest now,” he said to Arranha. “Is there anyone or anything . . . ?”
“No . . . don’t bother.”
Luap wondered if anyone else might help. Raheli, he remembered, had had a parrion of herblore. When he found her, she shook her head. “The woman Aris studied with knows more than I did, she and her daughter both. We talked about it.”
“There’s nothing more—?”
“Not without taking his hand off, and that’s chancy, as you know. Sometimes it saves lives, but some die anyway.”
“I thought of sending for Aris, but we don’t know where he went, and Arranha says not to.”
“Arranha’s getting feverish. But you’re right, we don’t know where Aris is, and we have no way to find him.” Rahi sighed. “It seemed like such a good idea, giving Aris his chance to travel and test his healing—and he and Seri might make a good partnership, if they had time together—but now I wish we’d waited.” She stalked restlessly about the room for a moment, then said, “Well—and when do you think you’ll start resettling your people?”