“Like we did back in Triskelle as a guest of His Majesty’s?” he asked. “The only reason why they found us there is because it was the logical place for us to go next on your little gizmo quest.”
“Rest is always better than eating part of a cube. We also don’t know when we’ll be able to buy thonite again,” she pointed out. “As for the next logical place, we haven’t had a chance to think about all the legends we pored over, going through the Trionan king’s somewhat confusing, contradictory archives, so we don’t know where we’re going next.”
“Copious and confusing,” Kiers agreed. “I’m the one who’s been carrying most of the notes, remember?” Stopping her near the hearth, a blue gray stone construct set with a wire mesh screen in front, he gestured at it. “As for our current sheltering spot, this, Miss Vielle, is the single smartest piece of survival equipment Mister Horgen owns. A genuine soapstone fireplace.”
She gave him a curious look. Not because she didn’t know what it was, but because he seemed so proud to know it. He took that as encouragement to continue.
“Even when the hearth fire dies down at night, the properties of this particular stone will keep this place warm for hours—I only know about it because I chatted with one of the palace servants in Triskelle while he was stoking the fires in the reading hall.” Kiers wrinkled his nose as he said it, grinning at her. “There’s some strange mix of Earth and Fire affinities in the stone itself; it absorbs heat and holds it inside, never quite getting too hot, and then it slowly releases all that kept heat over time. That’s a very good thing to know, because we won’t have to worry so much about having to get up in the middle of the night to stoke the fire.
“I had to ask the footman what kind of stone it was, since I hadn’t seen the like before . . . which is true of a lot of things down here on the ground, under the Vull. I only got to see new things up in the sky when they were painstakingly imported up there, or when I was on a diplomatic trip. Since my exile, I’ve needed to know these things a lot more than I’ve needed to avoid looking like an ignorant, pompous fool.”
That self-deprecating quip at the end made her smile. He wasn’t much of a fussy, status-conscious prince anymore—he still insisted on some formality between them, but he wasn’t nearly as arrogant as before. She wouldn’t have wished on him the pain of having his own sister frame him for treason if it could have been prevented, but Vee could admit the hardships he’d endured and his efforts to blend in with the common sort were making him a better man.
His comment about needing to know things made her look around, examining their new, temporary home. The front room had two deep bays. One held a sort of crafts nook, with tools scattered over a workbench lining the alcove, and a stool with a clever padded seat that looked like it could rotate so the sitter could face any of the three sides. The windows were also glazed with expensive sheets of glass, she realized. Doubly so, because the hunter would have had to carry them into the mountains by hand, hopefully without breaking any. But if the shutters were open, the window over the bench would have let in a great deal of natural light.
The other alcove, framing the boxed-in space of the entry room, held a padded bench on one side, a paper-strewn table across from it, and bookshelves overhead crammed with tomes, scrolls, and stacks of writing supplies. Some of which were maps, she realized, moving a little closer. Some of the wood on the hearth snapped, and she shook herself out of her curiosity. Turning around, she surveyed the rest of the room.
The hearth of course was central, but above it sat a balcony with banisters and railings made from thick, peeled tree limbs. The A-frame was crossed by antler – and horn-decorated rafters high up, and stout logs served as columns and posts, giving the interior enough structural support to withstand all that snow piled over the roof. But beyond what lay directly overhead, she couldn’t yet say because she couldn’t see much more. There weren’t any lamps up there to illuminate what lay on the floor above. Disappointed, but knowing she would soon find out, Vee lowered her gaze again.
To either side of the hearth, short sections of slender logs had been laid almost to within touching distance of the hearth, dividing the front room from the back by forming two little walls between the stout pillars supporting the upper floor. Flanking them were doorless openings on either side.
Picking the left one, she stepped beyond the wall and found herself in a kitchen. One with a fire crackling away cheerfully . . . in the same hearth, Vee realized belatedly. It had two openings, one to the front parlour, such as it was, and the other to the largish kitchen in the back of the cabin. It also had more of those soapstone blocks, this time forming a sort of soot-stained table over the hearth. An actual cooking stone. She’d heard of such things, but hadn’t seen one until now. Most people used sensible iron cookstoves these days.
Behind the cooking stone, Kiers had hung an iron pot filled with water with a bit of stout chain, since this side of the hearth mouth was bigger than the other side. The support stones for the cooking surface looked to be granite stapled in place with iron bolts, and more granite had been used to form another flat stretch to one side, no doubt meant as a good spot to transfer hot cooking pots to a cooler surface. From the hints of burn marks in the large table occupying the center of the kitchen, she guessed the owner of the cabin hadn’t always remembered to do so.
The work-scarred surface of that table held two more lit oil lamps, adding to the light from the open hearth. At the back of the kitchen area lay a stairwell leading to the next floor, and along the right-hand wall, a sink. A real sink, with a built-in metal pump and a set of shelves, one broad enough to serve as a counter.
Odds were, the pump had been frozen before he’d gotten it to work, since it was still cold enough in the cabin for her to see her breath frosting. Still, the sight of that pump, the cauldron of water, and the various washtubs tucked under the stairs reassured her that they would be able to do things like bathe and scrub their clothing while they were here. Kiers, she knew, liked to be clean and tidy whenever possible. So did she, so a bath would be most welcome.
At the foot of the stairs, in the back left corner, was a stout, fitted door. The cabin’s owner had taken the trouble to cover it with a narrow strip of polished metal; as far as mirrors went, it was a little blurry compared to a glass mirror, but she could see Kiers in his gray waistcoat and trousers, and herself in her white Courier’s leathers, with the black-stitched outline of a winged scroll of parchment on the shoulders. She didn’t look very feminine, but she thought he looked rather manly in his shirtsleeves. Like he belonged, rather than like he was trying to hold himself aloof.
He had come far in his exile. She approved.
Kiereseth, watching her look around, nodded at the door when she glanced that way. “That leads to a corridor cut into the mountainside. A little ways inside on the left is another door leading to a small privy room, and at the back is another door leading to Mister Horgen’s larder. I’ve already had a look at both.
“Either Mister Horgen or his predecessor had a fair touch with Earth, since it all has the clean-cut look you’d get from someone used to manipulating stone via thon,” the ex-prince added. “Even the shelves in the pantry section were formed out of stone, and the privy hole looks like it goes down a long ways, given there’s almost no smell, so be careful you don’t drop anything important down there. I doubt we’d be able to get it back up, since I don’t know if it ends in a pit, or if it’s a sluice that opens up somewhere outside.”