She had fallen back against her pillows again. “You will use the crest I made?” she asked, her voice unsteady. “You will be loyal?”
He kissed her hand. “I will use it,” he said. “I will carve it into the very rock, if that will please you. And I will serve Gird’s memory as I served him in life.” He meant that, and his voice carried all that conviction.
“Esea’s light guide you,” she said. She lay for awhile, eyes shut, breathing shallowly. Eris came in to sit beside Luap.
“It won’t be long,” she murmured. “Today, perhaps tomorrow.”
Luap forgot time, and sat silently, holding that old hand with its soft loose skin, until the light failed outside. Eris went to fetch candles; when she came back, Dorhaniya’s breathing had changed. She seemed to struggle, panting, then all at once lay motionless, each breath slower than the last. Luap waited long for the last, before he realized it had already come and gone. Beside him, Eris sobbed.
Chapter Twenty-one
“You can take a wagonload of soil, but no more,” said the Marshal-General when he summoned Luap. By his expression, he expected Luap to argue.
“Thank you. Marshal-General,” said Luap, “for your generosity.”
“And you can’t take it from any working farm,” the Marshal-General went on, “or from any grangeland. You must find unclaimed land, and take it there.”
“Of course, Marshal-General.”
“And take it out the other way—we don’t want a wagonload of dirt in the Lord’s Hall.”
Luap started to say that a wagon wouldn’t fit into the little cave chamber, and realized that was what the Marshal-General hoped he’d do. He bowed instead. “Of course, Marshal-General; that would not be fitting.”
“And,” the Marshal-General went on, as if reaching for something at which Luap would balk, “and you will have a yeoman-marshal with you, to ensure that you take your soil as I said, from unclaimed land only.”
Luap shrugged, as much in anger as resignation, but managed not to say what he was thinking. The Marshal-General stalked to his door, opened it, and beckoned to a short muscular woman wearing the blue shirt that most yeoman-marshals wore these days. Apparently he had already explained her task, for now he simply pointed to Luap and said, “Make sure, Binis, that he does what I said.”
“Right, Marshal-General.” She looked at Luap as if he were a thief on trial; he could feel his ears growing hot. He would, he decided, change her mind before he left, if he could not change the Marshal-General’s. “When do we leave?” she asked Luap.
“After a friend’s funeral,” he said. “An old lady I’ve known a long time, a friend of Gird’s—she died yesterday.”
“Who?” asked the Marshal-General.
“Dorhaniya, who made the altar cloths for the Lord’s Hall.”
“A magelady,” growled the Marshal-General.
“Gird thought of her as a pious old woman who cared more about the gods than any quarrel of men,” said Luap, putting a bite in it. “He enjoyed talking to her—but you weren’t in the city then, were you?” He regretted that even as it popped out, for it would do no good to remind the Marshal-General that he had never been close to Gird. The man scowled even more darkly.
“Even Gird made mistakes,” he said.
“I must go,” said Luap, “but we can leave at dawn, day after tomorrow. Meet you in the kitchen?” He looked only at Binis, who glanced uncertainly from him to the Marshal-General. The Marshal-General nodded, then she did.
“But don’t try to sneak out without me,” she said. “I’m a tracker; I would find you.”
“That’s as well,” said Luap, “since we’ll be traveling in the midst of winter storms. I will depend on your tracking ability when the snow flies.”
The Marshal-General grinned at him. “That’s right . . . how are you going to dig your soil while it’s frozen? You can’t use your magery here; it’s against the Code and your own oath forbids you.”
“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.”