Legacies (17 page)

By the time they had gotten their orders, drawn their winter parkas and gloves, and reclaimed their sabres and rifles, almost two glasses had passed before Alucius and Kypler were actually mounted and on the road east from Sudon. Alucius was particularly glad for the inner warmth provided by his nightsilk undergarments, since the wind had come up and was more like a winter gale than the merely brisk gusts of late fall. But then, as Alucius well knew, in the Iron Valleys, late fall and early spring might as well be called winter. The two rode side by side, separated from the nearest other group of riders headed on furlough by a good hundred yards.

“It'll be good to get back home,” Kypler offered. “Even for a week.”

“Your sister will have all her friends waiting,” predicted Alucius.

“That won't be so bad. I can't get married until I'm through with my first three years.”

“You thinking of staying in?”

Kypler shook his head. “Don't know why I said that. Estepp has me thinking like the permanents. No, I'll do my time and go back to the mill. What about you?”

“I'm a herder. They need me on the stead. Grandfather can't keep doing it forever, and Mother can handle the equipment and the processing, but not the herding.”

“Do herders have to be men?”

Alucius shook his head. “Grandsire said his mother was the herder. So was his grandmother. I think there are fewer women who have…who can herd.” Alucius still had to remind himself to take care in the way he talked of herding and Talent. It was harder with friends, because that meant always being on guard.

Riding from the camp to the main road took more than a glass, and neither spoke much, not riding almost directly into the wind. Once they reached the eternastone pavement of the main north-south high road, they turned northward toward Iron Stem, unlike the majority of the new cavalrymen leaving the camp, who headed south toward Dekhron.

In time, the wind abated slightly, and shifted more to the east.

“Seems to me,” Kypler finally offered, “that the cavalry needs a lot of replacements.”

“I wondered about that,” Alucius admitted. “Then, maybe they're pulling out some of the more experienced men as the backbone of those new companies they're forming.”

“Hadn't thought about that. You think so?”

“I don't know, but it doesn't seem likely that they'd make them up from all new conscripts, does it?”

“Wager it's going to be colder than the Ice Sands in Soulend when we get there.”

“Could be. We could also get a thaw. You never know.”

“You think we'll have more trouble from Dolesy and Ramsat?” Kypler asked.

“They'll be careful when we first get to Soulend,” Alucius predicted, “but I don't think they'll change.”

“Makes you wonder…” mused Kypler. “Me…been Estepp…I'd have thrown them out.”

“The militia's short-handed,” Alucius replied. “Dolesy can be mean enough in a fight.”

“He won't last his term,” Kypler predicted.

Alucius shrugged. He had his doubts, but he also understood that actual combat could change anyone—for better or worse.

The glasses passed, and fine flakes of snow drifted around them as they neared the south end of Iron Stem. The shutters of the stone and brick houses were fastened tight against the wind, yet thin lines of gray smoke rose from but a handful of chimneys. The square was empty. Usually, there were at least a few peddlars or carts in the square, and in winter, there was always a coal wagon or two.

“Almost deserted,” commented Kypler.

“It is.” Alucius nodded. “I'm going to stop at the cooper's.”

“I know what you have in mind.” Kypler grinned. “I'll see you in a week.”

“A week,” affirmed Alucius.

As Kypler turned west, Alucius reined up outside Kyrial's shop, where he could see his mount from inside, since he didn't want to march in, rifle in hand. He tethered the gray carefully, and looked around the square and adjoining streets. He saw no one. Then he hurried up onto the narrow porch and into the shop.

“Welcome! You're now a full-fledged cavalryman.” The cooper looked up from the staves he was smoothing with a plane—laboriously, because the stave was hard black lorken.

“More like barely fledged, sir.” Alucius glanced toward the door to the back room. “Sir…I wondered…”

Kyrial shook his head. “Wendra took some work out of town for the next few days, Alucius. She'll be back on Duadi. I'm sure she would have liked to see you, had she but known you'd be here. You're certainly welcome here anytime.” He grinned ruefully. “Not that you'd want to be seeing Clerynda and me.”

“Tell her that I'll be back to see her on Duadi.”

“I'm most certain she'd like that very much. She talks of you often. She'd be most pleased to learn that you stopped here before heading home, and I'll make sure she knows that.”

“Thank you, sir.” Alucius glanced around the shop. There were few barrels in sight, and those few were all lorken quarter barrels in various stages of assembly.

“Aye,” Kyrial said ruefully. “Business is slow this time of year—except for Gortal. The dustcats still shed their dreamdust, winter or summer, and the southerners still buy it.”

“Perhaps things will pick up,” Alucius temporized. “Please tell Wendra I was here.”

“That I will. I surely will.”

After he left the shop and as he remounted the gray, Alucius frowned. Kyrial had been hiding something, yet he hadn't seemed at all angry or displeased or sad. And the cooper had certainly felt welcoming. He'd been telling the truth about Wendra taking some work, but there had been more than that, and Alucius hadn't wanted to press for details.

He rode to the water pump in the square. He had to break a thin layer of ice to make sure the gray could drink, and he watched his mount carefully, with both eyes and senses to make sure the gelding had enough, but not too much.

As he rode headed northward away from the square, he shook his head. Having the Talent was useful, but at times he still felt it wasn't very helpful, perhaps because he still couldn't always figure out the meanings behind what he sensed.

Even the Pleasure Palace seemed nearly deserted with the few grimy windows shuttered and only one chimney showing a thin line of smoke. There were only two mounts tied outside, and the stable doors were closed. The tower to the north was as empty—and as unchanged—as ever. On the other hand, every chimney at Gortal's dustcat works showed a plume of smoke, and Alucius saw several scutters wheeling carts.

The road north was empty, and the thin dusting of snow on the unchanging gray stone pavement showed no tracks at all, either of mounts or wagons. The air held the faint and acrid scent of the Aerlal Plateau, although Alucius could not see it through the low-lying clouds and the ground haze to the northeast.

While the distance from Iron Stem to the stead was shorter than what he had already ridden, riding it alone made it seem longer, and he wished he'd been able to see Wendra for at least a few moments. He still wondered what she was doing, and why she'd had to take work elsewhere. Were times getting that tight, just in the two seasons since he'd left?

Finally, Alucius reached the lane to the stead and guided the gray along the rougher and narrower way. The wind picked up once more, and he had to squint to see more than a few hundred yards ahead through the blowing snow. When he could at last see the buildings, his eyebrows were coated with icy snow and his ears felt frozen despite the winter cavalry cap.

Even before he reached the stable, he could see three figures in winter coats walking from the main stead house to meet him. Had someone told them to expect him?

His grandfather was the first to greet him, even before he dismounted.

“Delar had a man stop by last week,” Royalt said. “Told us you'd done fine and would be getting furlough today.” He smiled, knowingly.

Alucius blinked as he took in his mother—and Wendra.

Wendra stepped forward, but not in front of or closer to Alucius than Lucenda, and smiled broadly, with a hint of mischief in those golden-green eyes.

“How…?” Alucius stammered.

“I brought her back when I went to town early this morning,” Lucenda explained. “We've been needing help, and there wasn't that much for her to do there in town. Clerynda was happy to have her help me with the looming. You can drive her back the day after tomorrow or on Tridi, whenever we're through this batch.”

“Got a contract with a young trader out of Borlan,” Royalt explained, “but he wants the nightsilk before winter.”

Alucius nodded, then frowned slightly, sensing more behind the words. “Grandma'am?”

“She's up at the house. Getting to be a chore for her to move around much, but she's looking forward to seeing you.”

“I'd like to see her.” Alucius swung down out of the saddle.

Royalt stepped forward and, with a smile, took the reins, and murmured in a low voice. “You can greet 'em before you take care of your mount.”

Alucius first gave his mother a gentle hug, but the embrace—and the kiss—he bestowed on Wendra lasted far longer.

“Can't tell he missed her or anything, can you?” Royalt laughed.

Both Wendra and Alucius flushed as they stepped apart.

Royalt handed the reins back to his grandson. “She can fill you in on what's happening while you take care of the stabling. We'll be waiting up at the house.”

“We won't be long,” Wendra promised.

“We won't,” Alucius added.

After he put the gray in the waiting stall, cleaned out for him by Royalt, he suspected, Alucius did turn to the green-and-golden-eyed young woman for a longer and more personally embracing welcome. Only after that did he begin to unsaddle the gray.

“I would have been here earlier, but I stopped in town,” he said, keeping a straight face. “I thought I might pay a visit to someone, but she wasn't there. Her father said she'd taken some work elsewhere. I worried about that.”

“Oh, Alucius, I would have been there—except I could see you longer if I came with your mother.”

“Things aren't going all that well for your father?” Alucius began to groom the gelding.

“No. I don't think he's sold a quint's worth of barrels in the last month—except to Gortal, and you know how he hates that.”

“How was business during harvest and in the first part of fall?”

“Harvest was a little better than usual, and we even made and sold more of the flour bags for Amiss. By the end of harvest, no one was buying anything.”

“I didn't even see a coal cart in the square,” Alucius said, moving to the far side of the gray with the stiff-bristled brush.

“Coal has gotten very dear,” Wendra said. “Father asked us to be most careful with it, and even your Mother said something about it when we were working the loom.”

“It's probably a good thing she didn't have to do any processing,” he replied. “The wool doesn't set into thread right through the spinnerets if it's too cold.” Alucius didn't mention the obvious—that, if his comparatively more wealthy family happened to be worrying about the price of coal, the cost to those less fortunate could be unbearable.

“We still had to wear those fingerless gloves. It was so cold in the loom house.”

“I imagine. I'd wager you did fine.”

“Your mother seemed pleased,” Wendra admitted. “She explained everything, even the other looms we weren't using. I never realized that there were so many…so much…”

“Didn't your grandfather show you around his stead?”

“I don't recall that. Then, we've never gone there except for gathers and birthdays, and once in a while for a special dinner.”

“And your father wasn't the one to inherit.”

“No, but he does like his work, if…” Wendra shook her head.

“If it were not so uncertain?”

She nodded. “He works so hard. So does Mother.”

“Everyone in the Iron Valleys works hard. Some just get more for their work.” Alucius set down the brushes. “I won't be too much longer.”

“I like your family,” Wendra said after a moment. “They've been so warm to me.”

“Yours has been warm to me.”

“That's different.”

Alucius knew enough not to get into what was behind that. “No…it's not. Even Korcler has been friendly.”

“He sort of looks up to you, Alucius, maybe because he doesn't have a brother.”

“It could be.” Alucius replaced the brushes in their leather case, then checked the manger and the grain and water. “I'm finished here for now.”

He eased the saddlebags over his right shoulder, and carried the rifle in his right hand. Once he had closed the stable, his left hand took Wendra's, and they walked north to the main house through the scattered and tiny flakes of snow. A thick plume of dark gray smoke billowed from the main chimney of the house, and Alucius could smell the burning coal.

In one way, the house and the out-buildings all looked so familiar in the gray mist and early twilight—the oblong stones that formed the walls and pillars, the gray slate roofs. In another, everything looked unreal. There were no trees, no grasses, and even in the dimness before dark with the low clouds, the horizon seemed vingts and vingts away. The air held a bite even more severe than he had felt in the coldest weather at Sudon.

“I need to wash up and take care of a few things,” he said as they stepped onto the porch.

“I'm sure you do. It was a long ride.” Wendra smiled again and squeezed his hand before releasing it.

Once inside, Alucius brushed his boots and trousers, and then washed up, quickly.

Everyone was waiting for him in the great room, where his grandmother sat in the faded but comfortable brown armchair, pulled close to the big iron coal stove. She had her slippered feet on a low stool Alucius did not recall. Her hair was now entirely whitish gray and her face narrow and pinched, but not the broad smile she gave her grandson.