Liar's Oath

Chapter Twenty-two

Luap returned to Fin Panir while the canyons of his own land were still choked with snow. This time, the guards at the High Lord’s Hall merely shrugged when he appeared. The Marshal-General, he was told, was “in conference,” too busy to see him; Luap found someone who claimed to know where Binis was. He went down to the lower city to visit Eris. Dorhaniya had left her enough to live on, she had said after the funeral, and her own skill at needlecraft would help.

“Sir,” she said, when she answered his knock on the door. From her expression, she had not expected to see him again. Then she relaxed. “You’ve come for the banner?”

He had forgotten it, in the sorrow of Dorhaniya’s death and the difficult trip with Binis. “No—or rather yes, I will be glad to have it, of course, but that’s not why I came. How are you?”

“I miss her,” Eris said. Then she stood aside and beckoned him in. “There’s lots of them don’t understand, you know. Why I ever stayed with her after the war, why I stay here now. She was just another rich mageborn, they say, just another foolish old rich woman.” She led Luap back to the small sitting room he had seen before. “Of course that’s true: she was old, and rich, and foolish, and mageborn, but that wasn’t the half of it. You know: you met her.”

“I know.” Luap looked around. He had thought he could forget nothing he had seen, and yet he could not be sure nothing had changed. The embroidery frame was missing . . . but what else?

“I didn’t stay just because she was rich, and I never wanted for anything while she was alive. It wasn’t that.”

“I know,” Luap said again. He had never completely understood the bond between Eris and Dorhaniya, but it had nothing to do with gold or comfort: he knew that much.

“She was so—so dithery, sometimes. Her family—her own and her husband’s—they both thought she was short of wits. That’s why her father sent me to her when I was just a child, and she had only married the year before. Keep her going, they said, as long as you can; she’s got no sense of her own. But they were wrong.” Eris sat down, and smoothed her skirt. Luap didn’t know what to say. He felt that he should comfort her, but she needed nothing he could give. Except perhaps his listening ear, at the moment. “She knew people,” Eris said. “She couldn’t always say what she meant about them, but she knew what they were like inside. She knew her husband was a silly fool whose pride would get him in trouble with the king, but she never complained about it. She knew that sister of hers, the one who didn’t marry Arranha, was mean to the bone, but she never complained about that, even when her sister cheated her out of her mother’s jewels. I won’t say she was never wrong, for she had a soft heart, but she wasn’t wrong often.”

Luap wanted to ask what Dorhaniya had thought of him, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. She had seen through him several times that he knew of, commenting on fear or anger that no one else had ever seemed to see. She had scolded him, too; he would like to have known that he’d satisfied her afterwards.

Eris looked at him. “She liked you,” she said. “She didn’t think you were perfect, mind, but she liked you.”

“I wish she’d lived to see our place in the mountains,” Luap said. “I wish you would come.” That popped out before he thought, and he wasn’t at all sure he meant it. But Eris shook her head.

“I don’t want to leave Fin Panir; I lived here in this house with her and it’s got my memories. But I thank you for the offer; ’twas generous. She always said you were generous.”

“Are you getting along all right?”

“Well enough. There’s some as think I shouldn’t be living in this house alone, that it’s too much space for one person, but my lady left it to me, and the courts upheld that—” Luap had had to use all his influence there, for some considered mageborn wills to be invalid, and this was not an area Gird had thought much about. “—so I’ll be all right. I may take lodgers, later, when I’ve decided what to do with the rest of her things.”

She took him around the house, then, showing off the treasures of a vanished aristocracy, things that had survived because Eris and Dorhaniya’s other servants had defended the house and her. Much of it did not interest Luap at all: the cedarwood needleboxes carefully notched for knitting needles and embroidery needles of all sizes, the little bags of fine grit for cleaning and polishing the needles, the many boxes of colored yarn and thread, narrow bands of lace and embroidery for decorating garments, and small rooms full of Dorhaniya’s best gowns.

“I could cut these up for the cloth,” Eris said, rubbing the skirt of one blue and green brocade between her fingers, “but I can’t bear the thought. No one wears such clothes now; they’d be used for patches, or rags, and it’s a waste.” They were beautiful; he remembered how Dorhaniya had looked, and how the mageladies of his childhood had looked . . . how their gowns had rustled, how he had reached out to finger the cloth, the lace, and been slapped away.

More interesting to Luap were the bowls and vases and trays, the sets of fine tableware, the silver spoons. “She had to sell some of it, the last few years,” Eris said. “But most of it’s here. You don’t have to worry that I’d go hungry, sir, not with all this.”

“I’m glad,” Luap said. He would have felt obliged to help her some way, and yet he had no wealth to be generous with. He touched one of the bowls almost guiltily . . . as a child he had been delighted with the beautiful things he saw, fascinated by the fine detail of tiny carvings, the play of color and gleaming light in rich fabrics and embroidery. Other things were more important, of course, but he wished that Gird had not been so convinced that plainness was a sort of virtue in itself. The peasants had made beautiful things as well, as beautiful as they could within the limits of the materials they had. They had never had silver and gold enough to make it into spoons or dishes, but he had no doubt they would have . . . how could anyone not prefer the feel and glow of silver, which never changed the flavor of the food being eaten.

Eris watched him, musing. “She would have liked you to have some of her things,” she said finally. “But she did not know what you would like; you never said much.”

Luap shook his head. “How could I? As a child, I had one life, and in manhood another: there was no bridge between them until I met her. I found it hard to talk about, as you know.”

“But your eyes speak, and your fingers when you touched that bowl. I have more than I need . . . would you take a few things, in her memory?”

“She made the banner,” Luap said softly; tears stung his eyes. “I have no right to anything . . .”

“Nonsense.” Eris brushed her hands down her apron. “You have not asked; I have offered. That makes the difference. And since you have no right, as you say, you have no right to choose: I will choose, and you will take what I give you.” Luap wanted to laugh, she must have spoken in just that tone to Dorhaniya when that lady “dithered” as she put it. He could easily imagine her settling her lady’s mind to a decision. If Dorhaniya had felt half the relief he did now, it was no wonder she had been as loyal to her servant as her servant was to her.

“Thank you,” he said, feeling less guilt and more anticipation. “I do—I would be happy to accept whatever you choose.”

“Very well,” Eris said. “You’ll take her needlework for you back this trip; I’ll make my selections and have them ready for you next time. Not more than a quarter-year, either—is that clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Luap said. She shook her head, smiling.

“And don’t be saucy with me: you were her prince, but to me you’re just another half-mage.” The joy fell from him like a dropped cloak; she saw it in his face and came at once to put her hands to his cheeks. “No—I didn’t mean it like that. I cannot feel for you what she did; I have no magery. But you are more than just another half-mage to me: you are a man she trusted and admired, a man who was kind to her beyond the requirements of his place. I would not give you anything of hers if I did not also respect and admire you, in my own way.” She gave his head a little shake. “Though if you could laugh a bit at yourself, it would be better for you.”

“I’m sorry,” Luap said, tasting the bitter salt of unshed tears.

“No—don’t waste your time being sorry. Go and do what you need not be sorry for.” Gird’s advice, from another peasant, but this one had given him respect and admiration; Luap lifted his head and smiled at her.

“I will,” he said.

Binis in the spring was slightly less sour than Binis in deep winter; she actually smiled at Luap briefly. He had debated walking the whole way to Cob’s grange to accommodate her, but decided it would simply take too long. She had ridden it in bad weather; now she could ride in good. She did not argue or complain; perhaps she had anticipated this and practiced in the meantime. Despite the usual spring mud, they made good time, rising early to ride all day. They stayed in different granges than they had in winter, since they covered more ground each day, so Luap did not have to deal with the same Marshals. And this time, when they rode up to Cob’s grange, Binis took both horses’ reins without asking, and led them around back while Luap went in the open grange door. They had ridden late; Cob had started drill with three hands of yeomen who were bending and stretching together.

“Luap! I’ve been expecting you.” He turned the group over to his yeoman-marshal, and came forward to clasp arms. “Where’s your watchdog?”

“Putting the horses away,” Luap said. Cob grinned at him.

“Getting her trained, eh? Using your charm on her?”

Luap winced and shrugged. “Don’t say that; it sounds bad. And you know better. She rides better.”

“She needed to.” Cob looked him up and down. “And you could use some exercise, after days spent in the saddle, I daresay. Work out the stiffness, remind your legs what they’re for?”

Luap groaned. “You—you’re as bad as Gird himself. All right.” He put off his cloak, loosened his belt, and joined the others. He had not really drilled in a long time; he had lost, he discovered, the suppleness he had had in youth and he could feel the tightness in his legs every time he leaned over.

But he recognized Cob’s purposes. His yeomen might remember the man who had helped Cob in the blizzard . . . they would certainly remember the man who drilled with them, claiming no special place. He caught the sidelong looks; some of them knew his name. When Binis came in from putting up the horses, Cob asked her to lead the stick drill as if she were his own yeoman-marshal. Luap saw resignation and grudging respect on her face. She proved to be a reasonably good drill leader. Luap had not drilled with sticks in years; his palms soon felt hot. But he was determined not to quit, not with Binis leading. Cob limped around, giving advice to all, until he came to Luap.

“Take a breather; you’re as old as I am, and this is young man’s work.”

Luap glared at him, half-amused and half-angry. “You got me into this.”

“So I did, but I don’t want you going back bloody-handed. I’d forgotten about the burn scars. You never did develop good calluses after that, did you?”

“Not on the one hand, no.” Luap stopped, loosened his grip, and flexed his fingers. That would hurt in the morning; it hurt now. Cob took his hands and looked at them, lips pursed.

“Lucky we’ve a cold stream. Just wait for me.” He stumped up to the front of the grange. “Binis, I want you and Vrelan to have them pair off for fighting drills. No broken bones, but a few raps in the ribs won’t hurt my yeomen.” Binis looked at Luap, and Cob turned to her. “You may not know it, yeoman-marshal, but in the war he had both hands burned. And you don’t build callus on burn scars—I saw him try, in the war. Gird himself finally told him to drill only as much as his scars would bear. If you want to argue that—” He looked as dangerous as he ever had, Luap thought, a man sure of himself and his place in the world.

“No, Marshal,” Binis said.

“Just keep in mind . . . Gird didn’t say pain was good, only that getting good usually involved pain. Those aren’t the same thing.”

“Yes, Marshal.” A dark flush mounted up her face; Cob put his hand on her shoulder.

“Sorry. We veterans can be rough-tongued; if I didn’t think you knew what you were doing, I wouldn’t let you supervise section drills.” He gave her a little shake and came back to Luap. “Come on, now; we’re getting those hands in cold water.”

“You should have been a healer,” Luap said. Cob had insisted that he keep his hands in cold springwater until his bones ached; then he’d put a salve on the worst places, and given Luap soft rags to wrap around his hands.

“I wish I were,” Cob said. “You know, young Seri insisted that all Marshal-candidates learn something of herblore and healing. . . . I wish the gods would grant us just a bit of Aris’s talent.”

“I wish the gods would give everyone Aris’s talent,” Luap said. “He’s always busy—too busy—and even working all day every day he can’t possibly heal all he’d like.”

“Is there no way to misuse it?” Cob asked. “Of course I don’t accuse Aris—I know Aris—but if everyone had the power, could it be misused?”

Luap shook his head. “I don’t see how. It can’t be hoarded for self-healing; Aris can heal his own injuries, but it’s painful, as is withholding healing from others. Aside from healing someone the gods want to call—Aris told me about a child kicked in the head, whom he healed but who never completely recovered—I don’t see how anyone could misuse it. That doesn’t happen often.”

“Perhaps you’re right. I know we need more healers, more who can do what Aris does. Herblore has its place, but it can’t cure many things.” Cob turned away a moment, rummaged in a basket, and came up with a lump of soil. “Here now—smell this, and see what you think.”

Luap sniffed. It smelled earthy, alive, the way soil should smell. It was a dark, heavy clod, more clay than loam, but it would mix with the sand in the canyons, he was sure. “Good,” he said. “In fact, better than good. Where’s it from?”

“Southeast. Unclaimed land between granges, just as the Marshal-General required. I’ve found a cart and stout horse you can hire, although how you’re going to get them into your cave . . .”

“I gave up on that,” Luap said. “I’ll take a sackful, or maybe two, on a pack animal. I can drag the sacks into position by myself.” Or he could travel the mageroad alone, and bring back someone from the other end to help, but he did not tell Cob that. “We’ll see what Arranha’s mathematics does. According to him, we could start with this single clod.”

“Good. We’ll start in the morning, if that’s all right with you.” Cob leaned back in his chair. “Binis seems a bit less touchy this time.”

Luap shrugged. “She’s fine. The winter trip was my fault; it would have made anyone difficult.”

“No—there you wrong yourself. You’ve never been one to complain about that kind of thing. But we’ll see in the morning.”

They arrived at Cob’s chosen site, a meadow already greening, with new grass and pink flowers peeking through the dead grass of winter, by nightfall. Binis looked around. “Are you sure no one claims this, Marshal?”

“Very sure. I checked with the next Marshal over. There’s a village blasted by magery between us, fields poisoned and dead, so there are fewer people than some years back, and neither of our granges spread this direction. This is just outside the dead zone, but you can see the land is well alive. Luap?”

Luap dismounted and dug his dagger into the turf, bringing up a small lump of thick dark soil. It smelled rich and fertile. “It’s perfect,” he said. He pulled out the two sacks he’d bought, and unlashed the shovels from the pack pony’s saddle.

“You’re not going to dig it now,” Cob said.

“We’re camping here, aren’t we?” Luap asked. He grinned wickedly at Cob. “What was the first thing Gird taught all of us?”

“You give Vrelan that shovel and help me cook,” Cob said. “I trust your cooking.”

The next morning, Vrelan and Binis—she surprised Luap by offering—dug another narrow trench to fill the sacks with earth. “I know it’s harder this way,” Luap had said, “but a narrow trench will quickly heal; we don’t want to leave the land open to harm.” Soon they were done; Luap nicked his finger to produce a drop of blood which he squeezed into the trench. Binis stared at him, and he explained. “Alyanya’s blessed me; when I was a farmer, I blooded my blade like everyone else.”

They returned to Cob’s grange that night, and the next day Luap and Binis set off for the cave, more than a hand of days away. He felt almost smug about surprising her with his willingness to drill, to dig a jacks trench, to offer his own blood in return for the earth. “I thought you would destroy all the old ways,” she said as they rode. “Our old ways, I mean.”

“Did you ever meet Arranha?” Luap countered. She looked blank. “The priest of Esea in the High Lord’s Hall?”

“That old man in the white robe? No. They said he was a magelord who followed the Sunlord. That’s what the war was against, magelords and bad gods.”

Luap closed his eyes, fighting off a wave of anger. How could she be that ignorant, that stupid? “Arranha,” he said between clenched teeth, “helped Gird fight that war. Arranha is the one who took Gird to the gnomes. You do know about that?”

Binis nodded. “They hated the magelords too, so they gave him pikes.”

“No. They gave him training, and maps, and advice. Duke Marrakai of Tsaia gave him gold to buy pikes.”

“Duke Marrakai? Gird took gold from a magelord? I don’t believe it!”

“He did,” Luap said. “And his son visited Gird after the war, in Fin Panir; Gird liked him.” He glanced at Binis; her lower lip stuck out, and she looked like someone determined not to believe that night follows day. She was certainly not going to believe that Gird, hero of the peasants’ war, considered a Tsaian magelord and his son friends. “But about Arranha: Gird rescued Arranha from the mageborn who hated him—the priests who really did follow bad gods, as you call them—and they became friends.” He thought a long moment. “Binis—did you ever meet Gird?”

She reddened. “No, not to speak to. I saw him a few times, in the city, but he was . . . you know, he was the Marshal-General, and I was a child.”

Hard to believe the years had gone that fast. Hard to believe that someone could be a yeoman-marshal, yet never have drilled with Gird, never have struck a blow in real battle. He’d known she was younger, much younger, but . . . We’re getting old, he thought suddenly. All of us who knew Gird; all of us who really know what that war was about, and who was on which side.

“Were you in the city the day Gird died?” Luap asked. Binis nodded. “And did you feel it?”

“I felt . . . something,” she said. “I remember how hot it had been, sticky. There’d been quarrels all day, up and down the street. My aunt got on me about something—I don’t really remember—and I threw a pot at her. I knew it was wrong; I knew she’d tell my da, and my uncle, and the Marshal and they’d all be down on me again. I ran out the back way, up the alley toward the old palace, and I thought I’d run out in the meadows. They wouldn’t know where to look. Everything was unfair; everybody was angry with me and it wasn’t any of it my fault.” Her voice had risen, remembering old grievances. Then her face smoothed out again, and her voice softened. “I remember . . . I’d run too fast, I couldn’t seem to breathe, and I felt squeezed somehow, like stones were on me. And then all at once it was over. Like a storm passing, but there wasn’t any storm. Stillness, but not sticky, not so hot. Calm, I guess you’d say. I had stopped running, and now I thought I’d go back.”

Luap was afraid to break her mood, so they rode in silence some distance until the pack pony stumbled, and he reined up and dismounted to check it. Binis stayed on her horse, and as he lifted each of the pony’s hooves in turn, she went on.

“I didn’t know what’d happened right then. Not till after I was back at our house. My aunt—she came to me as I came in, said she was sorry, and I was sorry too, for breaking a good pot. I felt—I don’t know how I felt, except that nothing hurt inside, the way it had since my mother died. All the quarrels seemed silly, but not anything to grieve over. Just put them aside and go on. Later the Marshal said something about Gird having taken a kind of curse off us, but in your Life of Gird it’s not a curse.”

“No one really knows,” Luap said. “If it was a curse, or an evil spirit, or just ourselves . . . but we know whom to thank for lifting it.”

“Yes, but—but I still get angry. I still see things go wrong, things happen that aren’t fair.”

“Gird didn’t heal us, the way Aris heals,” Luap said, thinking it out as he spoke. He swung back up onto his horse and nudged it into motion. “Maybe he couldn’t; maybe even the gods can’t. But he gave us a respite, and a taste of what real healing is. I think we’re supposed to do the rest.”

“Hmph.” Binis scowled again. “But we’re not Gird.”

“True enough. But Gird wasn’t Gird all along.” Which was, he realized, just the point Raheli had made about his Life of Gird. Could she be right about that? No. She had been right about many other things, but on that he would not change his mind. No amount of talking or writing would convince people who had not known him that Gird had begun as a perfectly ordinary man . . . they would simply decide that he had not been a hero. Just as Binis could not accept a Gird who befriended mageborn and Sunlord priests, later generations would deny either Gird’s early life, or his later accomplishments. And he could not take the chance that they might deny what Gird had done. He must make sure that Gird lived through the ages as the hero he had really been, even though that meant shaping his early life. He wasn’t pretending Gird had been perfect—he understood how people could love someone more for his faults—but Gird’s life had been entirely too unformed to last as a story.

“Cob says the magelords mistreated you,” Binis said. “So why didn’t you turn against them?”

Luap turned in the saddle to see if she was serious. She was. “Binis—what else would you call joining Gird’s army, than turning against them?” He had been so careful to keep himself out of the telling of Gird’s life—he had been trying to make Gird the center, as he should be—but if people like Binis didn’t even know what Gird’s luap had done, perhaps he should make another revision. She looked unconvinced; Luap tried again. “Binis, Cob is my friend from those days—from Gird’s army. We fought on the same side. The magelords killed my wife, my children—” As always, tears came when he thought of that; he blinked them away. Binis was the sort to think he had pretended grief. “—And I did turn against them, the ones who had done it. I have the scars to prove it.”

“But then why did you take up with them again afterwards?” The depth of ignorance in that question took his breath away. How could he possibly explain? “I mean,” she said, putting the final peg in her assembly of faulty logic, “everyone knows you’re the mage-king’s son, and if you’d really turned against the magelords, you wouldn’t have anything to do with them.”

Among the rush of emotions came the cold thought that he’d never known one who needed Arranha’s classes more: even he, not the brightest of Arranha’s pupils, had learned not to use one word with two meanings in the same argument. Would she ever understand that the “them” he knew now were not the same “them” who had abandoned him in childhood and destroyed his family? Gird had known that. Raheli understood that; he realized how different she was from this sort of peasant, and how unfair he had been to blame her for the minds of those like Binis.

He even felt a trickle of pity for Binis herself, cramped into a narrow mind and unlikely to find a way out. In her, Gird’s insistence that right was right and wrong was wrong, that compromises always cost more than could be easily reckoned, had turned to a rigid system unlike anything Gird himself would approve. What could he say to open a window in her head? Gird would have used his fist, likely enough, claiming that it took hard knocks to crack thick-shelled nuts . . . but that was not his way, nor would Binis learn that way from him.

“The people who hurt me, who killed my family,” Luap said, “were killed in the war. I saw their bodies, many of them. The mageborn who survived were children and the very old, some women who had not even known me, let alone caused me harm. Should I hate them? Gird did not hate them.”

“But they were the same sort. Magelords!” She made it a curseword. His magery growled within him, as if it could respond of itself to an insult. He fought it down, telling himself she was only saying what she had been taught.

“Are all peasants fair, kind people?” he asked instead. “Surely you’ve known some who cheated, who stole, who were unfair—?”

“Ye-esss . . .” She dragged that out, as if it came unwillingly. “But they’ve been cheated by the mageborn; it’s not their fault.” She eyed him, looking for a reaction. “The Marshal-General says most real thieves and brigands are part-mageborn anyway; that’s why they’re too lazy to work and be honest.” That’s why he doesn’t trust you, half-mage, was as clear in her gaze as if written on parchment.

“You insufferable fool!” Luap’s anger roared past his knowledge that losing his temper would only cause trouble. This time it was not Gird; this time it was not someone he respected; this time—this one time, maybe—he was wholly justified, completely right, and he was not going to pretend a subservience and shame he did not feel. He would wipe that smugness off Binis’s face, that sly satisfaction in catching him off guard, that intolerable superiority. “The Marshal-General himself has mageborn blood—is that why he can’t get up until midmorning? Does that make him dishonest enough to steal from the grange-sets honest peasants have sent in to buy himself fancy foods rather than eat porridge and stew with the rest? Or didn’t you know any of that?” By her expression she had not known, and didn’t believe. “Look it up in the archives,” he said bitterly. “If you can read. His grandmother was raped by a magelord, just as my mother was. It’s in the records, the great accounting Gird held after the war. His own mother reported it.”

“You made that up,” Binis said. “It can’t be true. Besides, the Marshal-General’s special: he has a right to sleep later and eat better food.”

“Really! Gird didn’t . . . but then you didn’t know Gird, more’s the pity.” That rush of anger over, Luap felt the first twinge of fear. Lazy, selfish, and misguided the present Marshal-General might be, but he still had to work with him. So far the Council had sided with Luap on the larger issues, but he must not strain their patience by angering the Marshal-General on minor matters. He looked at Binis with more loathing than she perhaps deserved. She was the Marshal-General’s tool, less culpable because she was both younger and subordinate. He hated her. If not for his oath to Gird, he would use his magery now, and compel her to agree. He toyed with that idea for another furlong or so, imagining sending her back to the Marshal-General as a spy, as a mageborn tool. If she had said anything more, he might have, but she had the prudence of the naturally sly, and said nothing.

So the rest of the day passed, in uncomfortable silence. She asked once, in late afternoon, what grange they would stay at that night, and he replied that they would camp. He managed not to add, with the sarcasm he felt, that she should have realized that from the supplies he’d bought in Cob’s village. He attacked the jacks trench as if it were a buried enemy, raising another blister on his hand, and she watched sullenly. They ate their supper in silence, and in silence passed the night and the morning’s rising. Binis filled in the trench without commenting.

Luap rode in morose silence all that morning, inquiring of all the gods he could think of—and Gird—what else he could have done. The explanations and excuses looked shabby, spread out in his mind; he knew that Gird would have swept them away. Yes, the woman was stupid, smug, and difficult: that was her problem. He had not made things better with his flare of temper. He found himself arguing that Gird, too, had lost his temper with a difficult woman named Binis, but it would not work, and he knew it. All at once he was plunged into internal darkness, a wave of despair. How could he think of leading his people to any good purpose? Everything he’d ever done wrong came back to him in vivid pictures; he hunched over the horse’s neck, wishing he could spew it all out and die, have it all over. The Rosemage would lead his people better. Or Aris and Seri, in partnership.

He had no thought of food, and Binis finally said, plaintively, “Aren’t we going to stop and eat?” Another stab of guilt—had he compounded anger and rudeness with cruelty?

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I—lost track of time.” He reined in and looked around. At least he wasn’t lost; he still recognized the shapes of hill and field. Beneath him, his horse sighed and tugged the reins, wanting to graze the fresh spring grass. “Yes. We can stop here, or go on a bit to that creek.” He pointed.

“You look sick,” Binis said with her usual tact.

Luap shrugged. “I’m sorry,” he said again. He thought of apologizing for yesterday’s anger, but Binis was not one to inspire selflessness; she absorbed it as her due. He dismounted, and let his horse graze. Binis found a convenient rock and settled to her food; he had no appetite for his, but realized he should eat anyway. He choked down some mouthfuls of bread and cheese. This would not do; they had several more days of travel together, and he had to find some way to get along with this woman.

He tried asking questions about life in Fin Panir; Binis gave short answers, and made it clear that he should know the answers already. He tried telling her about the war, how it had been to march these very hills and river valleys with Gird’s army. She listened to that, but her questions revealed no grasp of tactics—he became very tired of her “Why didn’t Gird just—?” She seemed to think all battles were great set pieces, with armies lined up on either side; she was sure that any villagers who didn’t support Gird’s army must have been part mageborn.

“They were hungry and frightened,” Luap tried to explain. “Someone had to stay and plant the fields, but if the magelords caught them sharing food with us, they’d be killed—worse than killed.” He remembered the thin faces, the desperation, the bodies displayed on hillsides. “Look there,” he said, pointing to an ox-team busy with spring ploughing. The farmer had made a grisly decoration of skulls turned up by the plough. Binis shuddered; Luap thought he might have pierced her determination to simplify the past. He hoped so.

By the time they reached the cave, in a misting rain, Luap felt her presence as a great weight on his neck. He made a last try. “We had several cohorts in here,” he said. “Worse weather than this, but also early spring. Gird had a bad cold. Lots of us did.”

“Which spring?” she asked. This time she took the shovel to dig the trench; he thought that was a good sign.

“The spring before Greenfields,” he said. While she built a small fire in the familiar ring of stones, he dragged first one sack of soil, then another, back to the chamber. She did not offer to help. The feeling grew on him that this was the most significant of his visits to the cave: the season, the weather, and the sullen peasant were all the same. Binis could easily stand for some hundreds of her fellows.

He felt this even more when he discovered that she expected him to take the soil to his stronghold by the mageroad, then return and go back with her to Fin Panir to report to the Marshal-General. “That way I can be sure you don’t return and steal more,” she said. Luap wondered briefly if she had anything between her ears but malice and stubbornness.

“Binis, if I had wanted to disobey the Marshal-General and steal more earth, I could have come here in the first place and never travelled with you at all.”

“You wouldn’t have dared,” she said. “You can’t disobey the Marshal-General.” She said it in the way she would have said that stones fall or water is wet, someone stating a natural law.

“I could,” Luap said flippantly, and instantly wished he hadn’t. He already knew Binis had no sense of humor. She was scowling now, as if he had insulted her. “Listen to me: I did what your Marshal-General asked because I swore an oath to Gird. Not an oath to obey his successor, an oath to support him, and do no harm with my magery to his people. I saw no reason to quarrel with the Marshal-General; I have fulfilled his requirements, and I am going back to my land.” To stay, he almost said. But he would return, to continue his work with the archives, and he did not mean to cause more trouble than he had.

“I won’t let you,” Binis said. “You have to take the sacks there and return.”

The sheer stupidity of it, her inability to see that she had no way to compel him, almost made him laugh. He thought of agreeing, and then not coming back, which might at least teach her something about the limits of her power, but in this place he could not lie to one of Gird’s people, not even one he was sure Gird himself would have knocked in the head. Gently, as if speaking to a dull child, he said “Binis, I am going and I am not coming back. You have food, two horses and a pony, and a clear trail. You’re a yeoman-marshal and it’s peacetime. You will be perfectly safe travelling alone, and there’s a grange not a day’s ride away. Now sit down and eat your supper.”

“You’re not going to do it,” she said. She moved over to block his way to the chamber. Luap felt again the anger he had felt at Gird—and she was no Gird; he lifted his fist, and she blinked but stood her ground. He could not hit her. He had sworn not to use magery in this land . . . but it was gentler. His power flowed out and around her like honey around an ant; she struggled, but could not move.

“Farewell, Binis,” he said, stepping past her. He moved quickly past her, into the chamber, and laid a hand on either sack as he called on his power.