Fall of Angels

XLV

A LOW FIRE burned in the bathhouse stove, but the building-still open inside except for the three jakes stalls at the north end-remained chill.

Nylan washed and shaved his several days’ worth of beard in one of the laundry tubs. He looked wistfully to his right, at the unfinished showers, and at the piles of slate stone and powdered mortar heaped in the middle of the room. While there was water to the ceramic nozzles, he and Huldran still had to finish the stone floors, or all they would have would be frozen clay. He took a deep breath and splashed away skin, whiskers, and blood.

After washing, he rinsed his waste water down the floor drain, with a breath of relief as the water gurgled out of sight. He hoped the combination of deeply buried drain lines and the outfall covering-and oversizing-would be enough to get them through the winter.

Wearing just a tattered pair of trousers-spoils, again-he walked the length of the bathhouse, along the already packed clay of the east side, and through the archway intothe tower and up the stairs, all four flights to the top level.

Ryba had already dressed, and was pulling on her boots as Nylan stripped off the leather trousers and donned his working shipsuit. She stood and straightened the blanket as he struggled into the leather boots.

“It looks like a storm is coming in hard,” she said. “Can you finish the bathhouse?”

“The inside will take a day or two more. We’ve got the jakes and the laundry area finished.” Nylan walked over to the sole armaglass window and looked up at the dark clouds boiling out of the northwest, cloaking Freyja in blackness, with snow thickening and dropping to shroud the lower parts of the western peaks and the heights behind the tower.

A thin layer of ice covered the window ledge outside the casement, and the engineer watched as one flake, then another, dropped onto the ice, melding with it and turning transparent, the black-gray stone showing through.

The flakes thickened, and even the lower sections of Freyja disappeared in the snow that seemed so white near the tower and so dark in the distance. The ground remained brown, with a few white patches.

Nylan closed the armaglass window, and the shutters. When he looked down, he realized that he had stood before the open window long enough for a small pile of flakes to accumulate, but as he watched, the whiteness faded into a damp splotch on the roughly smoothed plank floor.

“Why did you close the shutters?” asked Ryba, fully dressed in her shipsuit, and even wearing a black ship jacket. “It looks like midnight in here that way. I can’t see in pitchblackness, the way you can.”

“We’re going down to the main level, and no one’s going to be here.” He walked around the couches toward where the marshal of Westwind stood.

“That makes sense, but it still bothers me when it’s so dark.”

“It’s going to be a long and dark winter.”

“You are so cheerful this morning.”

“I try,” he answered.

They walked down the long stone steps, the sounds of their boots echoing away from the stairwell and into the open levels they passed. Several marines were still dressing on the third level, but none looked toward Nylan and Ryba.

The tables were largely full, and even Murkassa sat at the end, on Istril’s right, while Hryessa sat on the slim trooper’s left. Istril looked at the bread on her trencher, but had not lifted it.

Did she look pale? Nylan smiled, getting a quick and faint smile in return as he followed Ryba toward the head of the table and the hearth.

After he slid onto the bench, Nylan poured the bark-and-root tea into the dark brown mug. The tea’s taste was still bitter, but warming. He reached for the dark bread.

“A storm like this won’t last,” predicted Relyn, sitting at the last seat on the window side of the first table. “The snowflakes are too large.”

“The snow will bring a long rest,” pronounced Narliat. His cloak was wrapped tightly around him, and he glanced toward the cold hearth.

“I’m glad for the rest,” announced Huldran.

“You don’t get one. Not yet,” said Nylan. “We’ve still got the shower floors and partitions to install.”

“Cessya can help.”

Cessya looked at Huldran, her eyes dark.

“It’s easier than clearing and packing snow,” intervened Nylan.

“What are you talking about?” asked Gerlich.

“We still have to keep the area around the doors, the outfalls, and the trails to the stables and down to the forest open.” Nylan pulled at his chin, then looked toward Ayrlyn, then Ryba. Both nodded.

“We’ll need to have ways the horses can travel. They’ll need some exercise,” pointed out Ayrlyn. “We’ll need them to bring up more wood.” She cleared her throat. “Hryessa, Siret, and Murkassa need to gather more cones.”

“Cones?” asked Nylan.

“They have seeds, and they’ll help feed the chickens,” Ayrlyn said.

“Your chickens, they will taste like the pine trees.”

“I’d rather have live pine-tasting chickens than dead tasty ones halfway through the winter. We don’t have near enough food for the livestock, and that will help,” answered Ayrlyn. “If the traders come back, they’re supposed to have some more dried corn. If they come back …”

“We can’t have people sitting around all winter,” added Saryn. “They’d be at each others’ throats.”

“They can’t sit around anyway,” said Ryba. “We’ll need some additional food, something from hunting, and probably more firewood.”

“A lot more firewood,” predicted Nylan. “We probably ought to require dragging as much up here as we burn.”

“How?”

“If we keep doing it, we should be able to keep a path clear to the forest at the base of the ridge. Ayrlyn-you said we could drag trunks with the horses, and cut them outside the causeway.”

“The guards can only stay out so long, and we don’t have enough cold-weather clothing for everyone,” pointed out Saryn.

“We have wool and thread and needles,” said Ayrlyn.

Nylan cleared his throat. “We could dry some of the wood near the furnace, and we need a lot of furnishings-tables, even dressers.”

“We don’t have that many nails,” said Ryba.

“They used to put things together with pegs. We can do that,” Ayrlyn pointed out. “It takes more time, but we’re going to have a lot of time.”

“You can make glue,” added Relyn. “The crafters dry and grind hooves, I think, and some parts of the hides and boil them.”

“Arms practice. For everyone. I don’t want a tower full of crafters come spring,” added Ryba. “They’ll have to be better than any of the locals when the battles resume.”

“I think archery is out,” said Nylan.

“Because of the weather? No. There will be enough clear days …”

“The clear days are cold enough to a freeze a man’s lungs,” said Relyn.

“Woolen scarves would help,” Ayrlyn said, “but you’d have to hold down heavy exertion and mouth breathing.”

“We’ll take it as it comes.” Ryba broke off a chunk of bread. “There’s a lot we can do to get ready for next spring and summer.”

“How are we going to get around in this stuff?” asked Huldran, with a gesture toward the window. “We don’t have skis or sleds or sled dogs.”

“Slowly,” says Hryessa. “In the lower Westhorns, the snow gets deeper than a horse’s head.”

“Snowshoes,” Ryba said, “and old-fashioned wooden skis with leather thongs, just like Gerlich and Saryn have been making.”

Nylan frowned. Would he have to learn to ski? He didn’t look forward to that at all, not at all.

“Have you ever skied?” Ayrlyn asked him.

“No. I never saw the joy of slogging through powdered ice for fun.”

“I can learn it, and I’m not even Sybran,” insisted Ayrlyn. “I’m mostly Svennish. You’re at least half Sybran, aren’t you?”

“About half and half. It gets complicated. But my grandfather Weryl was a Svenn. He came to Heaven as a boy. Does that make me more Sybran than if he’d come as an adult?” Nylan laughed. “He didn’t ski, either.”

“Was he a blond, too, ser?” asked Istril. “Like you used to be?”

“I think so. He died when I was little.”

“Just because he didn’t ski doesn’t mean you can’t,” pointed out Ayrlyn.

“Especially since you’ll have to if you want to go anywhere in the wintertime,” added Ryba.

“You make it sound so attractive. I’ll have to.” Nylan frowned. “Either freeze or be stranded in the tower.”

“It’s not that bad,” said Saryn.

As Nylan thought about a response, he saw Istril hurry from the table, toward the north door, and disappear. Her bread was untouched.

“You’ll like it,” added Ryba.

Ayrlyn gave a quick grin.

Nylan took a sip of tea, warm tea, and wondered just how badly he would freeze learning to get around on wooden slats.