By now Darian’s appetite had returned with a vengeance, and the wonderful aromas nearly drove him to distraction. A real meal had been spread out this time, with hot and cold dishes to choose from, instead of just snacks. Darian motioned Summerdance to go in ahead of him, feeling as if he would make a poor showing if he let hunger overcome manners. They took plates made of flat bread from a stack waiting at the side of the table, and heaped them with their choices; at Summerdance’s urging, Darian took portions of things he didn’t recognize. They stood together for a moment, looking around to see if there was anyone here that they knew, then spotted Nightbird. She sat in the middle of a congenial group of young men and women, most of whom were strangers to him. A few of Nightbird’s companions were younger than Darian was, but most were about the same age.
As soon as they’d spotted her, she noticed them, and waved them over. They found a couple of unused cushions and sat down with the rest of the group.
“Everyone, this is Dar’ian,” Nightbird said, giving his name the Tayledras pronunciation. “Dar’ian, pay attention,” she continued, with a giggle. “I’m only going to introduce people once!”
He paid quite careful attention to their names as Nightbird introduced her friends, and fixed names properly with the faces in his memory.
Meanwhile, he ate, enjoying all the new flavors. It was all quite different, except the thick slices of meat - and even that was spiced in a way he’d never tasted before. Round puffs of pastry proved to be breaded and fried slices of vegetable, a green paste that Summerdance had greeted with enthusiasm was probably from another vegetable of some kind and made a fantastic garnish on just about everything, little red. squares were not sweet, as he’d expected, but crisp and jjeppery. He wished he’d taken more of the flat round bread; it was wonderful when wrapped around the meat.
He spent more time listening than talking; for one thing, it was the first time he’d seen so many of his age in one place. For another, he was interested in what they did, since no one was ever idle in a Vale to his knowledge.
This was where he got some surprises. He had somehow gotten the vague idea that most Hawkbrothers were mages - that Snowfire and the other scouts were the exception. In a few moments, he learned that his perception was backward.
“So what’s your next assignment?” Nightbird asked a group of three sitting close together in a way that suggested close friendship rather than an amatory grouping.
“You’ll laugh,” said one of the two girls. “Mushroom hunting. The morels are coming up now, and the cooks want plenty.”
Nightbird didn’t laugh, she shrugged. “You can’t always be the ones patrolling the border,” she pointed out with inescapable logic. “Especially not with seven scout groups in training at the same time. You were just lucky on your first assignment, and got the exciting one. Besides, the cooks aren’t the only ones who want morels!”
“Exactly so,” agreed an older boy. “As I can tell you from my training last year. We spend more time hunting game and finding fungi than we do in patrols - and much, much more time in boring, uneventful patrols than in actually fighting anything dangerous.” He laughed. “As Whitehawk says, ’six weeks of boredom punctuated by half a candlemark of sheer terror.’ I think I’ll volunteer for the next Valdemar expedition; at least they saw some action.”
“Wouldn’t mushroom hunting be more in the line of hertasi?” Darian asked.
“Not really,” the boy replied. “The hertasi have plenty of work here in the Vale, and we can hunt mushrooms and check up on the territory inside our border at the same time. Despite what they might tell you, they can’t do every thing!”
Darian discovered from the subsequent conversation that a little less than half of them, male and female both, were scouts or scouts-in-training - a generic job that included hunting and gathering foodstuffs found growing wild in the woods outside the Vale as well as patrolling the boundaries of k’Vala territory. Two were mages - farther along in their studies than he was, but since they had begun earlier, and had certainly applied themselves better, that was only to be expected. One was a weaver and worker with textiles, which rather surprised him, as he’d gotten the impression that the hertasi did most of the crafting work.
But when he ventured to ask, he found out that the “trades,” so to speak, were practiced by as many Tayledras as hertasi. “Isn’t that dull compared with being a scout?” he asked tentatively.
The weaver laughed. “You heard the others. Now that we’ve got most of the nasties cleared out, and it’s easy enough to discourage poachers, it’s scouting that’s boring! I love what I do, and my teacher is Silverbird, the weaver who made the wedding robes. How could anybody be bored, learning to weave works of art like that? I even get to spend as much time in the woods outside the Vale as any scout, because I’m also working with Azurehart, the dyer, and we’re always looking for new colors.”
“It’s just as good doing metal work,” added another. “The hertasi haven’t got the strength to make anything large, or anything out of iron or steel. If you want a sword with a proper blade of twelve-folded steel, it has to be one of us who makes it - and who could get tired of that sort of work?”
“The hertasi can’t blow glass either. It’s too dangerous for them to get that close tp.(the furnaces,” said a girl with a profusion of scarlet-anoli-gold glass beads strung on the hair of one side of her head. “The glass work has to be done by humans.”
The others chimed in with similar praise for their professions, and he now learned that most of the Hawkbrothers of k’Vala were actually craftspeople, with only minor abilities at magic. In this little group alone, there were the weaver and smith, both in training, as well as Nightbird who trained to care for the gryphons, Summerdance who was going to be a plant worker, and the girl glassblower and a young man who was already a practicing fletcher. A Vale was truly a largely self-sufficient organism; certainly as self-sufficient as Errold’s Grove had ever been.
After they’d all finished eating, the group somehow stayed together, and went off to virtually take over one of the dancing circles. At that point, Summerdance found a partner with as much energy as she, and relinquished Darian’s company to Nightbird. Since Nightbird had not yet heard the tervardi sing, and Darian’s lessons had not included the complicated couple dances the others were performing, he went with her back to the platform and happily sat through two more sessions of their music.
Finally, though, the long day began to catch up with him, and he caught himself yawning.
“I’m ready for more dancing,” Nightbird declared, when the music group took another break. She glanced over at him, caught him in mid-yawn, and giggled. “You look more like you’d rather be asleep.”
Since she’d carefully said “asleep” and not “in bed,” he took the comment at face value and not as another invitation. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and grinned sheepishly. “Well,” he temporized, “I was up at the break of day, and running from the time my feet hit the ground.”