Chapter Thirty-Eight
“That’s enough for today, Yfin. Fetch us some water.”
Orval looked up from his book as Roth and Yfin ended their sparring session. They’d begun by clearing a large space in front of the guardhouse, sweeping the thin snow from the cobblestones. This was followed by work on developing Yfin’s fighting skills. The sounds of their practice had been an oddly peaceful backdrop to Orval’s study of a section of the Epic of Xyson .
Now he checked the baskets at his feet, where the babes slept in the sun, bundled against the chill. Here in the courtyard, out of the wind, it was warm enough to give them a bit of sun and air.
It also gave Amari and Rosalind a bit of privacy as they saw to Aunt Xydell’s needs.
Yfin ran off to the well inside, bucket in hand.
Roth settled on the bench next to Orval, removing his helmet and pushing his sweaty hair back. He lowered his head, hiding his face and making a fuss over checking the helmet’s lining. “They’re watching us,” he murmured.
“Oh? Where?” Orval looked around.
“Don’t do that,” Roth growled.
Orval flinched. “Oh, yes, of course.” He pretended to focus on his book.
“You are the oddest combination of book smart and street stupid,” Roth said.
“Sorry,” Orval said.
“You don’t look for watchers. We don’t want them to know that we know,” Roth said. “As far as I can tell, they aren’t there now. Probably getting their nooning and giving a report. They’ve been watching for days.”
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” Orval bit his lip. “Are we at risk?”
Roth snorted. “We’ve been at risk from the moment we were abandoned here,” he reminded Orval grimly. “So far, they are just watching from a distance. A few high in the Keep windows, some from the far walls. No threat. Yet.” Roth set his helmet down. “We are going to have to confront them at some point.”
“No,” Orval said firmly.
“No?” Roth asked, shocked.
“I want them to see us,” Orval glanced at Roth. “I want to look…harmless. Not vulnerable, mind.” He pointed with his chin at the swords beside Roth. “But not a threat.”
“Confusion to our enemies?” Roth asked.
“More like curiosity,” Orval said. “They know even less about us than what we know about them. We have limited ability to seek them out, so I need them to come to us.”
“You hope not in the night, with daggers out.”
“I hope that instead of attacking us outright, they will want answers.” Orval said. “So it’s a good sign that they are watching.”
Roth gave him a long, steady look, then nodded. “You’ve brought us this far,” he said grudgingly. “But time is against us,” he added, brushing his hair back off his forehead. “We’ve food for another, what, five days?”
“I know,” Orval said.
Yfin emerged from the gatehouse and headed toward them, full bucket in one hand, dipper in the other.
“The lad seems good with a sword.” Orval said.
Roth nodded. “He comes to it late, but he’s learning. He’s better with his knives. Learned that when he was on the streets.”
Orval raised an eyebrow and Roth lowered his voice and answered the unspoken question. “He was running with other children, all orphaned by the Sweat, for a long time, Finally King Xywellan had the guards round them up and put them to work.”
Yfin set the bucket at their feet and offered Roth the dipper. “Did ya see?” he asked Orval, wiping his forehead with his hand. “I almost scored on him.”
“Almost,” Roth snorted, but Yfin’s grin was infectious. Orval grinned back at him, sharing his delight.
“Good for you,” he said as Roth offered him the dipper. Orval set his book aside and drank deep of the cold, sweet water.
“What ya reading?” Yfin asked.
“The Epic of Xyson ,” Orval said, and waited for the usual eye-roll and exclamation of disdain. Yfin just cocked his head.
“What’s it about?” he asked.
“Didn’t you read it in—” Orval started but stopped when Roth nudged his knee. But Yfin wasn’t embarrassed at all; he just looked curious.
“It’s a very old, epic saga from a very long time ago, of a King that went to face his enemies.” Orval glanced at Roth. “You can read it, if you wish.”
“Can’t read,” Yfin shrugged. “Never learned.”
“Well,” Orval said. “We will have to see to that.”
Yfin gave him a skeptical look. “Reading is for smart folk.”
“Reading is for all folk,” Orval said. “It just takes practice.”
Yfin wrinkled his nose.
Roth spoke up. “If you’re going to insist he learns to read, then he should teach you some knife moves. Only fair.”
Yfin perked up.
Orval gave Roth an uneasy glance. Weaponsmasters in the past had tried to “teach the cripple to fight.” He wasn’t eager to deal with that again.
Roth shook his head, as if reading his mind. “Knives, not swords,” he said, and there was understanding in his eyes.
Orval still frowned. “The boy needs to know how to read.”
“You need to know how to defend yourself,” Roth added. “All it takes is practice.” He repeated Orval’s words with a grin. “You can learn from each other.”
Yfin’s frown probably matched his, but Orval couldn’t help himself.
Roth laughed, his voice echoing on the cobblestones. The door to the gatehouse opened and Amari and Rosalind emerged. Rosalind carried a tray of food, Amari a basket of wet clothes.
“What is so funny?” Amari asked. She’d stripped down to her bodice and skirt, leaving her arms bare. She put down her basket and started to spread the freshly-laundered clothing out on the cleared cobblestones so it could dry in the sun.
“The goose and the gander both cook in the same grease,” Roth said, then explained.
Rosalind was setting out their meal, with Yfin’s eager help. But Orval only had eyes for Amari.
She was brilliant, there in the sun, dark skin glowing against the snow and stones. She moved with unconscious grace, absorbed in her task.
Catching him staring, Amari smiled widely. Orval flushed and looked away. “How is Aunt Xydell?” he asked to cover his confusion.
“She’s clean and warm, sleeping by the hearth.” Amari’s smile vanished. She spread out the last few tunics and continued, “We got her to take some porridge and water. She even managed a few steps to the privy.”
“She barely stirred when we bathed her,” Rosalind sighed. She folded up to sit on the ground by Yfin. “And she’s not talking to us at all. Not sure she knows us. That letheon is dreadful stuff.”
“It’s not good at her age to lay about like this,” Amari came to sit on the bench beside Orval, who shifted to make room. “She just doesn’t seem to be all there.”
Orval tucked his book safely between them, feeling the warmth of her body. “As nasty as Aunt Xydell is, she didn’t deserve this.”
“There is still hope,” Amari reassured him. “The hearth heals in its own way.”
“The warmth?”
“And the life around the hearth.”
“Where there is life, there is hope.” He frowned at Amari. “Umm - are you - umm - warm enough, like that?”
“Hard work,” Amari said. “I’m fine for the moment.” She checked the babes in their baskets, still sweetly sleeping. “It’s warm enough here in the sun, for now.” Her gaze drifted to the well in the center of the courtyard.
“That still bothering you?” Roth asked gently as Rosalind handed out bowls from the tray, filled with hard crackers, sausage and cheese.
“What kind of people fill a perfectly good well with stones?” Amari’s eyes were shadowed. “What kind of hate sparks that kind of cruelty?”
“It was done to prevent anyone from sheltering here,” Roth said. “A common enough tactic, I’m afraid.”
Orval nudged Amari to take her bowl from Rosalind.
“This is the last of the spicy sausage,” Rosalind told Yfin.
Yfin bit into a link. “Is good,” he mumbled, then cast a look at Amari and straightened, chewing with his mouth closed.
“You can have mine.” Amari laughed, adding one of her links to Yfin’s bowl. “I’ve enough flour to make pigeon and dumplings.”
Yfin nodded, then swallowed before he spoke. “I love pigeon n’ dumplings. My ma made the best, but,” he hurried to assure her, “yours is good too.”
“There’s only so much pigeon a man can eat,” Roth said. “Maybe we could try to snare some rabbits.”
“Rats are good,” Yfin piped up. “There’s quite a few rats.”
Orval wasn’t the only one to look at him with horror.
“No really,” Yfin said. “You gut them and then roast’em whole. Stinks something terrible as the hair burns off, but they taste really good.”
Orval started choking at Amari’s expression.
“No rats,” she said firmly.
“But—”
“No,” Amari said.
Roth was looking off into the distance, clearly trying not to laugh out loud.
Yfin looked so disappointed.
“It’s a good thought, Yfin.” Orval said. “Shows you are considering all the possibilities.”
Amari and Rosalind gave him horrified looks.
Orval bit his lip, trying not to laugh, but the truth was, if they had to, they would. Best to change the subject. “You haven’t killed the royal pigeons, have you?” he asked.
“Nay,” Yfin said. “Been feeding them and watering them, like you said.”
“Good,” Orval said. “I am tempted to send a message to Edenrich. ‘All’s well. No marble to be found. Yours, sincerely, Orval’.”
Rosalind snorted out a laugh, spewing crumbs, then covered her mouth, her eyes dancing. They all joined in, merriment with just a touch of hysteria.
Lara stirred in her basket.
Amari brushed the crumbs off her lap and reached for her. “Time to go back inside. We’ll need to build up the fire.” She arched an eyebrow. “And you gentlemen are overdue for a bath yourselves.”
“Really?” Yfin said with dismay.
“Yes, really.” Rosalind confirmed. “But before you do, help me hang the last of the tapestries. They do warm a room, and it’s better for them than lying heaped on the floor.”
“Will you tell me more of the stories?” Yfin asked. “The one about Uppor stealing the stars?”
“Of course,”
As they gathered the tray and the babes, Roth lowered his head again. “Our watchers are back, no, don’t look,” he said to Rosalind with a long-suffering sigh.
Orval hated the way that the light drained from Amari’s eyes as her sense of safety—false though it might be—disappeared.
“Higher in the Keep,” Yfin twisted to pull the bucket of water closer and offered the dipper around. “Not sure how they get up there.”
Orval looked at the Keep towering over them. “How much of it is sound, do you think?”
“Not sure,” Yfin said. “Some walls tumbled,” he explained. “I couldn’t get much higher than the second floor. Lots of moldy cloth and broken furniture and bats and pigeons. There’s a weird room with a lot of pillars. There are stars painted on the ceiling.”
“An old shrine to the Lady of Laughter,” Orval said. “I’d like to see that.”
“There’s stairs,” Yfin warned him, then added, “They’re fairly clear. I can take ya.”
“No,” Orval shook his head and brushed crumbs from his own lap. His stomach was in knots but he could see no other path forward. Needs must when the snows come. “Let’s get you all inside. I was just telling Roth I hoped they’d come to us, but I don’t want to wait any longer. If they won’t come to us, the Lord High Baron must go to them. Alone.”
Roth glared at him and stood, looking around. “We need to move inside for this argument. Now.”