Liar's Oath

Chapter Twenty-one

“You can take a wagonload of soil, but no more,” said the Marshal-General when he summoned Luap. By his expression, he expected Luap to argue.

“Thank you. Marshal-General,” said Luap, “for your generosity.”

“And you can’t take it from any working farm,” the Marshal-General went on, “or from any grangeland. You must find unclaimed land, and take it there.”

“Of course, Marshal-General.”

“And take it out the other way—we don’t want a wagonload of dirt in the Lord’s Hall.”

Luap started to say that a wagon wouldn’t fit into the little cave chamber, and realized that was what the Marshal-General hoped he’d do. He bowed instead. “Of course, Marshal-General; that would not be fitting.”

“And,” the Marshal-General went on, as if reaching for something at which Luap would balk, “and you will have a yeoman-marshal with you, to ensure that you take your soil as I said, from unclaimed land only.”

Luap shrugged, as much in anger as resignation, but managed not to say what he was thinking. The Marshal-General stalked to his door, opened it, and beckoned to a short muscular woman wearing the blue shirt that most yeoman-marshals wore these days. Apparently he had already explained her task, for now he simply pointed to Luap and said, “Make sure, Binis, that he does what I said.”

“Right, Marshal-General.” She looked at Luap as if he were a thief on trial; he could feel his ears growing hot. He would, he decided, change her mind before he left, if he could not change the Marshal-General’s. “When do we leave?” she asked Luap.

“After a friend’s funeral,” he said. “An old lady I’ve known a long time, a friend of Gird’s—she died yesterday.”

“Who?” asked the Marshal-General.

“Dorhaniya, who made the altar cloths for the Lord’s Hall.”

“A magelady,” growled the Marshal-General.

“Gird thought of her as a pious old woman who cared more about the gods than any quarrel of men,” said Luap, putting a bite in it. “He enjoyed talking to her—but you weren’t in the city then, were you?” He regretted that even as it popped out, for it would do no good to remind the Marshal-General that he had never been close to Gird. The man scowled even more darkly.

“Even Gird made mistakes,” he said.

“I must go,” said Luap, “but we can leave at dawn, day after tomorrow. Meet you in the kitchen?” He looked only at Binis, who glanced uncertainly from him to the Marshal-General. The Marshal-General nodded, then she did.

“But don’t try to sneak out without me,” she said. “I’m a tracker; I would find you.”

“That’s as well,” said Luap, “since we’ll be traveling in the midst of winter storms. I will depend on your tracking ability when the snow flies.”

The Marshal-General grinned at him. “That’s right . . . how are you going to dig your soil while it’s frozen? You can’t use your magery here; it’s against the Code and your own oath forbids you.”

“I may find a place and come back after the thaw,” Luap said. “I have no intention of breaking my oath.” Before the Marshal-General could say more, he added, “And I will of course find yeoman-marshal Binis if that is necessary, so that she can supervise.”

He turned with a conscious flourish and left the Marshal-General’s office—Gird’s office, as he himself still thought of it. He spent the rest of that day with Eris, and greeted those who came to speak of Dorhaniya as if he were a family member.

At dawn on the second day, he came into the kitchen with his gear packed and ready to go. Binis was gossiping with a cook kneading dough, an older woman who gave Luap an open grin.

“We miss you, Luap! Do you still like fried snow?” He saw Binis stare at the woman as if she’d turned into a lizard. So . . . not everyone remembered, or knew, that he had had his own friends here? That not all of them had left?

“Ah . . . Meshi, no one makes fried snow like yours. This Midwinter Feast I wanted to come back for it. I don’t suppose you saved any?”

“Saved! Fried snow keeps about as well as real snow in high summer, as well you know. If you want my fried snow, Luap, you’ll just have to come when it’s ready.” She flipped the mass of dough into a smooth ball and laid a cloth over it. “I suppose you want breakfast before you leave, eh?”

“Anything that’s at hand.” Anything at Meshi’s hand would be delicious; she had a double parrion of cooking.

“First bread’s out.” In a moment, she had sliced a hot loaf and handed it to him with a bowl of butter and a squat stone jar. “Spiced peaches,” she said. “From our tree.”

“You shouldn’t,” he said, as he always had, and added, “but I’m glad you did. Spiced peaches again!” He let a lump of butter melt into the hot bread, then spooned the spiced peach preserves onto it. The aroma went straight to his head.

“You don’t have spices in that godslost wilderness?” Meshi looked shocked.

“Not yet; I’ll buy some in the market to take back.” The first bite, he thought, was beyond price; his nose and his tongue contended over ecstasy. Then he noticed Binis standing stiffly to one side, and gestured. “Come, don’t you like spiced peaches?”

“Never had any,” she muttered, but sat across from him and took a slice of the hot bread. When she’d put a small spoonful on it, she tasted it; her face changed. “It’s—I never had anything like that.”

“Can’t make much,” Meshi said shortly, setting down two bowls of porridge with emphasis. “Takes time, makes only a little. Can’t serve it all the time.” Or to everyone came across clearly in the little silence that followed. Luap wanted to eat the whole jar of preserves, but took the hint and started on the porridge. Meshi’s gift held even with that. She waited a moment longer, for courtesy, then took the stone jar back and capped it. “It dries out,” she said. Then she turned to Binis. “He tried to talk me into going with them, you know. Flattered my cookery, said how they wouldn’t have proper foods for the holidays—”

“We don’t,” said Luap.

“—And I almost went,” Meshi said, as if she had not heard the interruption. “But I had too many friends here who weren’t going, and even for old Luap I wouldn’t give them all up.” Then she winked at Luap. “And, to tell the whole truth, I was scared of that magery—being taken by magic to some place I’d never seen gave me the shivers. So I couldn’t. But I miss Luap, that I do, for he’s one to notice who does the work, no matter what it is.”

“He’s mageborn,” said Binis, around a mouthful of porridge.

“He’s half,” said Meshi firmly, giving Luap another wink. “Half mageborn, which he can’t help any more than any of us can choose our fathers, and half peasant-born, which isn’t to his credit any more than his father is to his blame. And I’ll tell you this, Binis, to your face and in front of his, if you have the sense you should have, you’ll forget whatever our Koris said about him, and look at the man himself. I was here when Gird was still alive, and Luap’s worth a gaggle of your Marshal-Generals.”

Binis looked at Luap, then at Meshi. “Was he your lover?”

Meshi glared. “He was not. Is that all you girls can think of, these days, but who crawls in whose bed?”

Binis shrugged. “You seem fond of him, is all I meant.”

“I like him; I trust him; and it’s not his fault he’s in bad with the Marshal-General.”

“Mmm.” Binis was not convinced; Luap didn’t know if Meshi’s words had made things better or worse.

They left the kitchen, bellies full and foodsacks stuffed, and walked down to the lower city. Binis walked a step behind, Luap noticed, and would not come up beside him even though the streets were not yet crowded. He had not been surprised to find that the Marshal-General would not lend horses from the grange stables; he had arranged to hire mounts and a pack animal from a caravan supplier. He had no intention of walking those trails in winter if he could help it.

As much to annoy her as because he had planned to, he stopped to buy spices—perhaps someone out west would take the trouble to make spiced preserves—and tucked the expensive packets deep in his clothing. The horses he had arranged for were saddled when he arrived, two stocky beasts and a smaller pony. He lashed the foodsacks and their other gear to the packsaddle, and handed the caravaner the sack of coins. He mounted; Binis still stood, holding the rein of the other horse, with a dubious expression. Finally, flushing, she scrambled up so awkwardly he realized she might not have ridden before.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Do you not like riding?” it was the most diplomatic way he could think to ask.

“Never did.” She sat lumpishly, her stirrups far too long and her grip on the saddle too tight.

Luap caught the eye of the caravaner, who bit his lip and said, “Just wait, yeoman-marshal, and let me get at them stirrups. You looked longer-legged than that standing on the ground.” The man adjusted the stirrups, then said, “Bein’ as it’s winter, you might want stirrup-covers, eh?” He ducked back into the stable entrance, and came out with fur-lined leather hoods that tied to the stirrups and protected their feet from the worst winds. They would also, Luap knew, keep Binis’s feet from sliding too far into the stirrup.

By the end of the first day’s riding, he wondered why he had ever thought midwinter a good time for this. They had had no more than ordinary winter weather, snow no deeper than usual, but they arrived at the village’s small grange stiff and sore. Binis could hardly get off her horse, but flinched away when Luap tried to help her. Luap would have had more sympathy for her if she had not made it clear that she blamed him for her discomfort, as if he had chosen to travel horseback because she could not ride. The Marshal, new here since Luap had left, made it clear he thought they were both crazy to be riding around the countryside in the wintertime. He was inclined to blame it all on Luap’s magery.

“You may be able to keep yerself warm wi’ your magicks, but ye might have had some concern f’the yeoman-marshal here.” The Marshal had wrapped a blanket around her; she gave Luap a venomous look out from under the Marshal’s elbow. Luap wondered if it would help to tell them he had not kept himself warm—his feet felt frozen, despite the stirrup-covers. From the look on both their faces, they wouldn’t believe him.

“I’ll see to the horses,” he said, and went out. He was tempted to spend the night in the grange’s lean-to barn; the horses were friendlier than his companions. But they would probably think he was performing wicked magicks out here by himself; he had better not.

When he came back inside, he heard the murmur of voices; it ceased when they saw him. The Marshal’s own yeoman-marshal had joined them. He looked at Luap with the same accusing gaze, and Luap knew they had been discussing the wicked mageborn while he was outside. He found it hard to swallow his supper of ill-cooked porridge and heavy bread amid barbed comments about the luxuries he must be used to. He bit back one retort after another; his jaw felt sore. He tried to remind himself that all peasants weren’t like this—Dorhaniya’s Eris, for instance, or Cob or Raheli. But these three, and the present Marshal-General, exemplified everything he disliked about his mother’s people. By the time he rolled himself in a blanket on the floor (Binis, of course, had the spare pallet), he was thoroughly disgusted with them.

That day and night set the tone for the whole miserable journey. Binis felt the cold more than Luap, but remained convinced that he was using magery unfairly to keep himself comfortable. He had no way to prove he was not. As his anger grew, he would have used his magery that way if he had known how. He tried, surreptitiously, but succeeded only in giving himself a throbbing headache made worse by the glare off the snow. And he was just as cold as Binis, he told himself, but she wouldn’t believe it. He remembered, with a burst of satisfaction that he knew was unwise, that the woman whose complaints had driven Gird to a fit of rage had also been named Binis. It wasn’t the same Binis, of course, but this one might have been that one’s daughter. He didn’t ask. He preferred to imagine it, in the privacy of his own head.

They arrived, two days later than he had expected, in Cob’s grange. Here, at least, the welcome was as warm for Luap as for Binis. Cob, always lamer in winter, stumped awkwardly into the snowy lane to greet them.

“Luap, you look like a frozen sausage. Get off that horse, and come in to the fire. Vre—” That was his yeoman-marshal, a brisk young man. “Take their horses around back. Bring the packs inside. Ah, Luap, I’ve missed you. That scribe you left in charge is slower than a pregnant ox at a gate. And who’s this?” Luap explained that the new Marshal-General had insisted he have a yeoman-marshal escort. “You? What does he think he’s about? No insult to you, Binis, but no one needs to watch Luap. Alyanya’s grace, Gird trusted him. That ought to be enough for anyone.”

Luap took a step and staggered; he knew his feet were at the end of his legs, but he hadn’t felt his toes since the village before. Binis, looking from him to Cob with a scowl, had made it to the grange door. Cob shook his head.

“You’re going to look like me, if you keep that up. Need an arm?”

“No. I’m fine.” He could walk, if he kept a surreptitious eye on his feet to be sure where they were. He made it to the door, across the grange, and into Cob’s office. There a fire crackled busily on the hearth. Binis had already crouched beside it. Cob pulled a chair near, and waved Luap into it.

“Let him get his feet to the fire, yeoman-marshal—he’s twice your age.” Binis looked startled.

“But Marshal, he’s a mageborn—he can use magicks to warm himself. . . .”

Cob snorted. “Does it look like it? Use your wits, Binis—he’s famished with cold, as bad as you are.” She looked at him, as if seeing him anew. Luap found it embarrassing.

“I’m warm enough,” Luap said. Cob’s welcome was as good as any fire, and his feet were already beginning to throb. Cob’s yeoman-marshal, Vrelan, came in with the packs.

“Shall I fetch something to eat, Marshal?” Vrelan sounded eager to prove himself; Luap realized he was very young, probably born after the war. Cob sent him to the local inn—Luap had not realized there was an inn—and turned back to Luap.

“So how is the settlement coming? Will you get a crop in this next year?” With that opening, Luap could explain that he had come for fertile soil, and needed only a little. Cob grinned. “Take what you like—we’ve plenty in the grange fields.”

“I can’t do that. The Marshal-General specified I was not to take so much as a clod from farmland or grangelands, only from waste ground.”

“Even if the Marshal offered?” Cob looked angry.

“That’s right, Marshal,” Binis said. Luap thought she would have been wise to hold her tongue. “That’s what I’m to do, watch to be sure he doesn’t take the wrong soil.”

Cob looked at her; Luap recognized the look Gird had given that other Binis and held his breath. But Cob was not drunk, as Gird had been; he merely shook his head. “I didn’t ask you,” he said. “And I don’t think that frog-eyed fool has the right to tell me what I can and can’t do with a bit of earth from my own drillfields. He wasn’t with Gird as long as I was.” It was exactly what Luap had hoped he would say, all the long, cold, miserable trip from Fin Panir, but now he felt a hollow open inside him. Cob meant what he said, and he could take his soil and go home—but that would leave Cob in a mess.

“No,” Luap said. “I didn’t come here to start a quarrel between you and the Marshal-General.”

“You didn’t start it,” Cob said, reddening. “That—” Luap was aware of Binis’s interest, her ears almost flapping wide on either side of her head. And Cob had been Gird’s friend, with Gird longer than almost anyone else still alive.

“No,” he said again, and let a little of his power bleed into it. On Gird it had not worked; on Cob and Binis it worked well. Both sat quiet and stared at him. “I will not disobey the Marshal-General’s orders on this, though I thank the friend who cared more to help me than advance himself.” Neither of them said anything, and he was afraid he had put too much power on them . . . but then Cob shook himself, like a wet dog.

“All right,” he said gruffly, not looking at Binis. “But I want you to know that I trust you. Now—where’s that boy with the food?” He got up and left the office to Luap and Binis. Luap stretched luxuriously. The fire’s warmth crept over him in exquisite waves; he could feel not only his throbbing feet, but a blanket-like warmth on his knees and thighs. He had not been this warm for days; the other Marshals had pushed Binis close to the fire. He glanced at her. One side of her face seemed flushed—from the fire or embarrassment, he could not guess.

“Are you warm enough?” he asked her.

“Did you really not have magicks for the cold?” she asked, without answering him.

“No,” Luap said. He was not really surprised at her question; from the little they’d talked he had discovered her to have a literal mind and a tenacious grasp of the trivial. “I’m glad of a fire,” he added, hoping this would divert her from the question he saw hovering on her lips. “If you are still cold, why not get a blanket?”

“I’m all right,” she said. “Are you really twice my age?”

She was so predictable. She would ask next if Meshi were really his friend, and if he had slept with her, and then why the mageborn had gone to his stronghold . . . and so on, no doubt for hours.

“I don’t know how old you are,” he said. She scowled at that, looking for trickery in it. “And I don’t really know my own years.” Which was not quite true, but saved discussing it. She scowled again, not because she detected a lie, but because she had not been answered.

“Is Meshi, that cook, really your friend?”

He uttered a silent prayer to any god who might be listening to bring Cob back into the room. She would go down the predictable list, and it would drive him to saying something he would regret. For the first time, he felt he really understood Gird’s rage that night in the forest. He answered all in a rush. “Yes, she’s my friend; we met during the war. And she’s not my lover and never has been, just as she said when you asked her.”

Binis looked shocked; Luap stared her down. Cob came in, followed by Vrelan with a kettle wrapped in cloths, which he unwrapped and put on the hearth. “Better stew than I make; the inn’s cook has the true parrion. And new bread, and a pot of custard.”

“Marshal-General says Marshals should make their own meals,” Binis said primly. Luap closed his eyes a moment. Didn’t she realize—? Cob merely grunted, though his yeoman-marshal stared at Binis as if she’d sprouted green horns.

“I’ve cooked enough meals in Gird’s army to last me, yeoman-marshal. When there’s a good cook, who knows what she’s doing, and needs the trade, I’m not going to eat lumpy porridge and soggy bread to please someone as won’t get out of bed before midday. Gird could’ve milked a herd and ploughed two fields before Koris finishes breakfast.” He dished out stew for everyone, breathing a little hard, and handed Binis her bowl with a stare. “And you go ahead and tell him, Binis, all I’ve said—he knows how I feel about him, and I know how he feels about me. But when all’s said and done, he knows who fought beside Gird from the first day. I didn’t want to be Gird’s successor, but it was offered me. He had to argue his way into it.”

Binis turned redder than the fire could explain, and ate her stew without looking up. Luap burned his mouth on the first bite, and slowed down. Cob was right—the cook had a parrion. Mutton stew could be almost as bad as lumpy porridge, but this had a savor he liked. Cob pushed over a half-loaf of bread and a dish of butter.

“You spoil me,” Luap said, carefully not looking at Binis.

“No—we eat this well almost every day.” Cob buttered a hunk of bread for himself and stuffed it in his mouth. Luap winced inwardly. He liked Cob, but the man had never acquired even as much polish as Gird. When he had refused the Marshal-General’s position, he had apparently returned to his rural grange determined to be as much a peasant as possible.

Vrelan, meanwhile, sat in the corner opposite Binis, eating as rapidly as any hungry young man just past boyhood. He smiled shyly at Luap when their eyes met. He will want tales, Luap thought to himself. He will want stories of Gird, and stories of my distant land—he’s got those dreamer’s eyes.

Cob swallowed, then belched. “So—tell me, Luap, is that land what you hoped it would be?”

Luap nodded, and swallowed the stew in his mouth. “Yes—although it’s even colder than this. I’ve never seen snow so deep. Luckily we need not travel in it, and the stronghold itself doesn’t freeze. Though it’s not really warm, either.”

“Magic, is it?” This with a quick sidelong glance at Binis.

“No, the elves said it was the depth of stone. It stays about the same all year.” Luap scooped up more stew before it cooled. His feet had quit throbbing and he felt almost sleepy. “We spent the time before snow building terraces,” he went on. “Piled the rock up, had Arranha telling us how to level them.”

“I thought you’d just level the valley floor,” Cob said. “Isn’t it a small valley?”

“Small and steep. Not just the sides, the floor as well. Level the whole thing and the new floor would be halfway up the mountains at the low end.” Not quite, but it made a vivid image; Cob nodded, mouth pursed. “So we’re doing smaller terraces, none more than three men high at the low end. Most less than that—it’d take too much soil to fill them otherwise.”

“A lot of work,” Cob said. “And so few of you—I suppose you found a way to use your magicks?”

Luap grinned at him. Cob would not demand, from a friend, but he was as curious as anyone else. “Yes, we did, though it still takes a lot of sweat and blisters. I must admit, it’s good to see magery used the right way, for breaking stones and not people. And it keeps the few with magery too busy for mischief.”

Cob shot another glance at Binis, who had finished her stew and was munching the end of a loaf of bread. “When you’ve finished, yeoman-marshal, you and Vrelan take back this pot and then check the horses. You can trust me not to let Luap out of my sight.” His tone was pleasant but firm; she could neither resent that order, nor disobey it. Cob turned to Vrelan, “Since we have guests, get us a pot of their good ale, and see if they’ll send a loaf of bread fresh from the morning baking.” He gave the yeoman-marshal a few coins. Binis and Vrelan went out with the kettle, one cheerful and one scowling. When the outer door had shut behind them, Cob turned to Luap.

“There’ll be things you don’t want her repeating to the Marshal-General, I daresay, but you might share with an old friend. Tell me: did you find you had all the royal magery?”

For answer, Luap freed his light, and grinned at the expression on Cob’s face. “I know—I shouldn’t do that here, even though we are alone and you are a friend. You’re a Marshal first, and I’m not supposed to use my magery. But I thought you’d like to see it.”

“I’m glad for you, since you wanted it, but—glad to see it?—not really. Although it must be handy to have your own light, if you live underground. There are times I could use that. But—you built the terraces that way?”

Luap damped the light; the room seemed dark without it, despite the fire burning cheerily on the hearth. “We did,” he said. “Some of us—it’s strange, Cob, who has which magery. Our people have not tried to use it for work for a long time; I think that was a mistake. Some can move stones the size of this room—” Cob looked around, the whites of his eyes glinting in the firelight, as if worried that the room might take flight. “—And others can hardly shift a pebble. Most that have any magery at all can call some amount of light, enough to start a fire with. Aris, as you know, can heal. Were you in Council when he described his attempts to train others?”

“No. I missed that one.” Cob prodded the fire and laid another split log on it.

“To make it short, he’s found no one else who can do what he does. Some can heal lesser things, but at greater cost to themselves. He’s hoping that some of the children will have that talent, that he can find it early and train it.”

“I thought there was a girl—”

“Yes, so did the others—so did she, for that matter. It wasn’t really healing; she could convince people they were not feeling pain, but what caused the pain got no better . . . unless it would have anyway. A useful skill, certainly, and a better use of it than charming someone into handing over their purse, but not true healing. Aris has worked with her, so she now recognizes when she needs to call him in and when it’s safe to relieve the pain and wait for a natural healing.” Luap sighed. “It’s sad—the one magery we all wanted to have, that most people trusted, is the rarest. I had hoped to learn it; I can’t. And Aris, so gifted, has little else but his light.”

“I miss that lad,” Cob said, shaking his head. “He loved Gird so, and Gird loved him like a grandson.”

Luap felt a pang of envy and wrestled it down. Everyone liked Aris; he did himself. “We’re lucky to have him,” he said.

“And how’s Seri doing, out there with all you mageborn?”

“Well enough. She has Aris, after all; they’re still like two burs, though they don’t seem likely to marry.”

“Why not? Would you object?”

“Of course not,” Luap said. “But since they came back from that long journey, back when she was still a Marshal-candidate, they’ve been different. I can’t explain it, nor can the Rosemage, but we both recognized it.”

“It’s too bad,” Cob said. “I was hoping their child might combine the two of them. Squeeze Aris and Seri into one person, and you’d have quite a Marshal-General.” He stretched his legs to the fire. “You’re looking better, now you’ve eaten—that sour-faced yeoman-marshal you’re traveling with must have sucked the blood out of you.”

Luap laughed. “It’s not that. I didn’t know she didn’t ride, and she took it as an insult . . . and then she has trouble in the cold.”

“She’d have died in the bad winter camps of the war,” Cob said. “Or she’d have gotten over her foolishness. I hate to think of women like her becoming the next Marshals.”

“How’s Raheli?” That was the natural transition.

“Haven’t seen her since the Council when she spoke for you. She’d mellowed a lot then, I thought. We talked a bit about Gird. I thought she should have been the next Marshal-General. She thought it shouldn’t go from parent to child—but she has no children, so I didn’t think that was a problem. She wouldn’t do it, though.”

“I thought the objection would come because—”

“Because she’s a woman? So did I, though I don’t agree. But she wouldn’t take it. She nominated me, in fact, but—I don’t know, maybe I should’ve done it. It just didn’t seem right. I knew Gird; he threw me flat on my back the first day he came into our camp, and I’m no more fit to take his place than . . . than a cow is. Nobody is, when you come to it, but I couldn’t.”

The door opened, and the two yeoman-marshals came in, shivering. “A wind’s got up,” Vrelan said “Old Dorthan says he reckons another storm’s coming.” Cob looked at Luap, his brows raised. Luap shrugged.

“I didn’t like the look of the sky behind us today, but that’s all I can say.”

“You’re welcome to stay all winter, if that’s what it takes,” Cob said. “But if a storm’s coming, we’ve some work to do, with two extra beasts in the barn. No—” Luap had started to stand, but Cob waved him back down. “If this is a big storm, your help will be welcome come morning, but stay warm now.”

“I’ll bring more wood, at least,” Luap said.

“If you’re determined on it . . . there’s a stack in the barton corner.”

Outside, in the blowing dark, the cold wind took his breath away. Binis had gone with Cob and Vrelan; he found the woodstack on his own, and thought about moving some in by magery. But Binis might see, and that would do Cob no good. He lugged in several armloads before Cob returned. By then it had begun to snow, small dry flakes that stung his face.

Morning’s light barely penetrated the blowing snow; Luap and Cob fought their way around the end of the grange and into the barn built against it, carrying buckets of hot water from the hearth. “We should have built peasant cottages, wi’ inside ways to the cowbyres,” Cob said, struggling to shut the door against the wind. The horses whickered, their breath pluming into the cold air. When they drank, their whiskers whitened almost at once. Cob nodded to the ladder. “If you can make the climb, it’ll be easier for me.” So Luap climbed into the narrow hayloft, and threw down enough for all the beasts at once, then climbed back down to help Cob feed them.

Later, the snowfall lessened, though the wind still scoured flurries off the drifts. All four of them went out to check on the poorer folk in the village. Luap had never had a clear idea of what a rural Marshal did when not holding court or drill. Cob apparently thought that a Marshal’s job included everything no one else remembered to do . . . he was remarkably like Gird, Luap thought, in the way that he had made himself a caretaker for the whole village. He had Vrelan chop firewood for a family in which the man had a broken arm, and the mother was pregnant. He and Luap climbed up to mend a gap in the roof of one cottage, where slates had blown off overnight. Cob himself dragged one drunk out into the street and made him fetch clean water from the public well to clean up the mess he’d made on the floor, while the man’s wife tried to make excuses for him. Binis, clearly astonished that Cob considered her available for such work, was kept as busy as the rest of them.

“It’s like this,” Cob explained after darkness had fallen and they were eating in the inn. “Some Marshals think we’re just judges and drillmasters, but someone’s got to do all the rest. Back afore the war, each village had its headman or headwoman, and in some places, even the magelords took care of their people. Everyone knew what needed doing and how to do it. They knew who really needed help, and who was a wastrel. But the war changed that. People may not live in the village they were born in; we’ve got crafters and merchants and gods know what all, living all amongst each other. And whatever you say about one fair law for everyone, some things just plain aren’t fair. You don’t make it fair by treating everyone alike, either. That’s all I do—what the village head would have done, or a good lord: either one. Know the people, know who needs help, and who needs a good knock on the head to straighten ’em up.”

“But you can’t do it all yourself.” Binis looked tired, but less sulky than the days before. Perhaps work agreed with her; Gird had always said it was good for the sulks.

“No,” Cob agreed, wiping his bowl with a slice of bread. “No, I can’t do it all, not even with young Vre, here. But that’s what I tell them on drill nights—just as in an army, we’re all parts of each other. If you let your neighbor go hungry, he’s not likely to help you when the robbers come. Same way, if you’re always asking for help, but don’t give any, soon no one cares. I went after Hrelis today, you saw—the drunk. His wife’s always coming for grange-gift, says he’s sick. We know what kind of sick; Vre told me last night he was in here drinking and begging. So for him I have a bucket of cold water, but poor Jos, who got his arm broken helping someone reset a wheel, we’ll do what we can for him. When his arm’s mended, he’ll be around here doing chores without anyone saying a word.” He belched contentedly, and smiled at Binis. “But you’re right—I don’t do it alone. I don’t have to check Morlan’s widow any more, and I didn’t have to find homes for the children whose parents were killed by lightning in the pasture last spring. This grange is beginning to function as a village should—with care and common sense.”

“And that’s the other reason you wouldn’t be Marshal-General, isn’t it?” Luap asked. “You had in mind what a grange should be, but you wanted to show it, not tell people.”

Cob flushed and looked away. “I’m no more skilled with words than Gird was,” he said. “It’s what he did, after all. He showed us—”

“And yelled at us,” Luap said, grinning. Cob’s dream was not his dream, but he knew it came close to Gird’s dream . . . and he could see it was a worthy dream. “But it’s going to take unusual Marshals to do what you’re doing.”

Now Cob grinned back. “Oh—well, that young Seri, you know, she used to talk of things like this. Her and me and Raheli and some of the others: we were thinking what a grange is for, when there’s no war. It can’t be just to collect money to send to Fin Panir.” Binis started to say something, then stopped. Luap wondered if Cob had convinced her; he doubted it. But Cob had convinced him.

That day and the next, with the drifts too high for travel, they stayed in Cob’s grange and helped with his definition of grange work. Luap found himself able to admit he had picked a bad time to come looking for soil, but that he’d wanted something to work with for spring planting. “And I was with Dorhaniya when she died,” he said. “I’m glad I was there, though I’d hoped she’d like the new place. . . .”

“Tell you what,” Cob said. “Come thaw, I’ll find you a place to take your soil—there’s unclaimed land between me and the next grange south. If I understand it, we’ll thaw here before you will, so you won’t lose much time. How would that be?”

“I don’t think the Marshal-General would approve,” said Binis. Cob gave her a look Luap would not like to have turned on him.

“I didn’t ask you, Binis, and I’m not asking the Marshal-General. If it’s unclaimed land, he can’t deny it: he’s already given his approval. Whatever his quarrels with Luap, the law says he’s made a contract, and he can’t back out now.”

“But we’re not supposed to help—”

“We’re not supposed to act like bratty children quarreling over sweets, either.” Cob glared at her, red-faced. “D’you think this is what Gird wanted? We won the war; the mageborn aren’t our lords any more. Now it’s time for peace, and peace means helping each other. And you might remember that Luap here was Gird’s closest assistant: he did more for Gird than any of the rest of us, including your precious Marshal-General.”

Luap had not expected that strong a defense, even from Cob. It embarrassed him, shook his certainty in the peasants’ opposition—a certainty that Binis increased whenever she opened her mouth. Now Cob turned to him.

“How about it—will you trust me to find you some good soil, within the Marshal-General’s limitations?”

“Of course, I will,” Luap said. “I will come back to Fin Panir in early spring—your early spring.”

“Good. That’s settled. It’ll save Binis here from riding all over the countryside in winter—I don’t suppose you can whisk her back to Fin Panir by magery, eh?”

“Alas, no. We’ll have to go as we came.”

It was as cold a trip as the one out, but Binis seemed slightly less hostile; at least she seemed convinced that Luap, too, suffered from the cold. Luap hoped that Cob would not get in too much trouble with the Marshal-General while he was gone . . . but when he considered the two men, he thought Cob would come off well in any contest between them. So he returned to the stronghold with the embroidery Dorhaniya had given him, determined to prove himself to Cob as well as his own people.