Bastion Page 12
As they rode out of the stable, there was no one to bid them goodbye. Even the Guards at the gate merely waved them through without a farewell or a greeting.
And Mags had absolutely no doubt in his mind that this was the way Jakyr wanted it.
• • •
Perhaps if it had been anyone other than Mags who rode at Jakyr’s side this morning, they would have been out of sorts by now. Possibly even angry. Jakyr had done everything possible to prevent friends from making their farewells and waving them off. He’d made sure all the Trainees were in class. He’d prevented Amily from knowing exactly when they were going to leave. Not even the stablehands had been around to say goodbye to Mags, and Mags knew every one of them by name, all about their families, and as much about them as he knew about any friend.
Many entirely reasonable people would have reacted poorly to this sort of treatment.
But Mags had spent most of his life fundamentally friendless. He didn’t remember his parents. Farewells were things he just wasn’t used to getting, so not having them didn’t particularly bother him. The people he most cared about he was going to be seeing again in a few days anyway.
:As you are thinking, that is one reason among many why Jakyr has never been asked to be a mentor,: Dallen said dryly.
:You know, I could do with a bit less mystery, horse,: Mags responded. :If you know what the devil happened between him and Lita, I’d like to hear it.:
:It wasn’t anything dramatic,: Dallen said. :No great tragedy, no sudden misfortune that befell a friend and made him rethink things. I think perhaps Lita got a little aggressive about wanting some sort of formal acknowledgement, but I don’t know for certain. All I do know is that things cooled off rapidly enough that it was the cause of gossip for some time, and things have been uncomfortable between them ever since.:
Mags felt a certain amount of sympathy for them both. Who knew? There might not have been any great tragedy, but certainly every Herald and Trainee knew that the nickname for those in Whites among the Guard was “moving target.” Maybe Jakyr had been having second thoughts about having a romance with anyone when he might be killed without warning.
And maybe, after the blowup with Lita, it just became a lot easier for him to prevent any further ties from developing.
:It did happen about the same time that Nikolas recruited him. That might have had something to do with it,: Dallen observed.
Hmm. Perhaps Lita had known and objected. Perhaps Jakyr had just been made aware that his potential to be a target had just increased a lot when Nikolas recruited him as an intelligence agent.
Perhaps Lita had known and wanted to be included.
I think I am just going to stop speculating and enjoy this ride. It ain’t my business, it’s his. I don’t like it when other people get all up in my business, and I don’t reckon he likes it either.
“We don’t get too many chances to enjoy ourselves, youngling,” Jakyr said aloud, in an uncanny echo of Mags’ own thoughts. “I don’t know how much of this expedition of ours is going to be pleasurable, but right now, it’s a treat. Take my advice and drink it in.”
They were practically the only people on the road, in fact. The fields to either side were full of farmworkers getting the last of the harvests in. A little while ago, they’d passed workers drying hop cones, stirring the cones on their drying sheets. The air had been scented heavily with the pleasant bitterness. At the moment, they were passing through apple orchards with some folks gathering up the windfalls to feed to pigs and cattle, some up on ladders getting down the last of the ripe and green apples. The green were just as good as the ripe ones, if you knew what you were doing, as Mags had found out when he’d helped in the Collegium kitchen. The farmer had a press going in there, just out of sight of the road. The winey scent of freshly pressed cider was enough to intoxicate.
Jakyr inhaled deeply. “There’s the thing I think about come autumn! Now, I like cider better when it’s had a chance to age,” he said, philosophically. “Just hard enough to make a man feel pleasant.”
“I like it hot, with spices,” Mags said. “Maybe a drop of mead in it. Like Master Soren sets out at his Midwinter parties.” He sighed. “I am going to miss that. Midwinter, we’ll probably be living in caves. Master Soren sets a mighty table at Midwinter.”
“Caves with villages near enough that we can buy ourselves the makings of a nice little Midwinter feast,” Jakyr reminded him. “And caves we can make all cozy before then. I’ve spent many a Midwinter in a Waystation that hadn’t been kept up as well as it should have been, and I’d prefer a nice dry, draftless cave any day over a Waystation with holes in the wall you can stick a finger through.” He paused a moment in thought. “Now that I consider it, if we offload everything from the caravan into the caves, we can drive that caravan to one of the biggest villages and load it up well—and do it over again at another village. If vermin turn out to be a problem in the caves, we can keep it all safe in the caravan. I think getting a cat would not come amiss. She can live in the caravan and keep out the mice.”
“I know you can’t cook,” Mags said. “I can, but not a lot of things.” He made a rueful face. “Wish I could say different, but if we depend on me, we’ll be eating a lot of porridge, beans, and eggs.”
“I can cook very well, actually, although I would really rather people think I can’t. My mother and father are both cooks, they run a good inn, known for its food.” Jakyr flashed a grin at him. “Don’t fear you’re going to starve around me. What you will do, is learn to cook as well as me.”
“I’d like that,” Mags said honestly. It seemed not only a generally useful skill, but a skill he could use. He could walk into just about any inn and have a job, if he could cook, and inns were fine sources for information. If he were to be sent someplace where he wasn’t supposed to be known as a Herald, he wouldn’t have to concoct much of a disguise at all if he could cook.
“I was cooking before I learned to read.” Jakyr shrugged. “Ma was either cooking, having a baby, or both, and once you were old enough to be trusted in the kitchen, it was your job to feed yourself. Once you could feed yourself, you had a job, either cleaning or cooking, and I hated cleaning, so I learned to cook well, and that right soon. At least with so many of us, we weren’t worked past what was reasonable for a youngling.
“I just let people think I am a terrible cook so no one argues with my choice of eating at inns.”
Mags nodded. Though the highborn would have been astonished at such a statement, to him, it seemed normal for kiddies to begin work as soon as they could walk. The difference between a good home and a bad one, or a good master and a bad one, was whether they made sure you got your basic learning, good food, and plenty of rest. And, of course, if it was your own family, love, and plenty of it. He, obviously, had none of these things. “Must have been good to be working alongside your kin.”
Jakyr snorted. “There were so many of us you almost couldn’t call us ‘kin’ at all. Half the time Ma and Pa called us kids by the wrong names. It wasn’t that they had so many because they needed that much help at the inn, either. They’d have done just fine with only half of us. It was religion. They belonged to some religious sect that said you had to have as many younglings for the Glory of God as you could manage.”
Mags blinked at that. “Uh. Why?”
Jakyr shrugged again. “I have no idea. They were so busy having the kiddies, they never bothered to teach us why. Seems a backward way to go about things, to me. Every sennite there they were, in the Temple, telling everybody how much they loved God and us. Oh, how they loved God, giving Him so many children! When I left? According to the brother I still talk to, they never noticed. He says they still haven’t noticed. And as for their God, whenever I see one of their Temples, I turn around and ride in the other direction.” Abruptly, he changed the subject. “Anyway, since I know good cooking when I taste it, I make a habit of keeping track of good inns. The one we’re heading for right now
is excellent for plain, farmer food, and they make a specialty of pocket pies.”
:Pocket pies?: Dallen’s head came right up, and his ears perked.
Jakyr noticed, and laughed. “You’ll get your fill, Dallen. They love to spoil Companions there.”
:Tell him I approve of such attitudes.:
“Dallen can’t wait,” Mags said.
“My Jermayan is looking forward to it too.” Jakyr patted his Companion’s neck. “It’s a fabulous place to eat. Terrible rooms, though. Maybe because people rarely stay there. It’s situated just close enough to Haven that people coming out get there about luncheon time, and people coming in want to press on and get to Haven proper. I got stuck there in a blizzard once.” He shuddered. “Never again. Two tiny rooms, the mattress on the bed was practically flat, the pillows were like boards, and it was like sleeping in a shed, it was so cold. I ended up taking my pack and curling up in my cloak by the hearth.”
They left the orchard and entered fields that had been recently reaped. The grain was standing in shocks, waiting to be collected. Off in the distance was the grain wagon, and people tossing the shocked grain up to the man on top of the growing mound. All the colors seemed to glow in the sunlight—the golden grain, the yellow and red of leaves on the trees, the green of the hedgerows between the fields.
“We’ll be in inns until we break our trail, so enjoy it while you can. Now, when Heralds are actually on their Circuit, they don’t stay in the inns, unless there is no other choice. They stay in the Waystations or occasionally Guardposts. This is to prevent people from trying to bribe them with comforts and luxuries,” Jakyr went on. “On the way to and from a Circuit, though, you can stay in inns, Waystations, or Guardposts, it’s your choice. Most of us prefer the inns or the Guardposts. It always seems to happen that when you hit the worst weather and choose a Waystation, the one you get is the one that somehow got neglected on the last inspection. Innkeepers get a chit out of it, lets them out of some taxes, so they’re happy with the arrangement.”
Mags scratched his head. “Seems like a good one to me,” he ventured.
“It’s terrific if you know the good inns,” Jakyr agreed. “Not so good if you don’t. That’s why we’re going out on this road—I know all the good ones here.” He paused a moment. “Huh. I wonder if the reason my parents never noticed I was gone and that instead they were getting the Trainee Stipend was because they thought it was part of the chit system. We always had Heralds coming through.”
“Trainee Stipend?” Mags asked.
“If you lose a working youngling, the Crown compensates you while he’s a Trainee. They figure once a Trainee goes into Whites, he’d have been old enough to strike out on his own, so you couldn’t count on having him. Of course, if he’s an only child, and you figure he’d have been supporting you in your age, you get a different sort of stipend.” Jakyr waved his hand in the air. “I don’t know who figured all that out, but it’s all to make people happy about their offspring haring off on the back of a white horse. Or, at least, not unhappy.”
“You mean—” Mags said, something suddenly occurring to him. “If Cole Pieters had been treating us decent—paying us wages—feeding and clothing us proper—”
“As your guardian, he’d have gotten a stipend, aye.” Jakyr snorted. “In fact, that just proves how damned stupid he was. He would never have gotten exposed at all if he’d just been smart about things. When Dallen first showed up, all he needed to do would have been to let Dallen have you, shut up, and present his papers to Haven. He’d have been collecting a nice little packet every year until you got your Whites, and all for doing nothing. If anyone asked about the shape you were in, he could have found a way to explain why you were in such bad condition. Orphaned and running the streets alone or something. The smartest thing would have been if he’d claimed he’d only just gotten you when Dallen showed up for you. You wouldn’t have told the truth, would you?”
Mags shuddered. Even now, sometimes, he had fleeting nightmares about Cole Pieters. “Never. I’d’a been sure no one would believe me. Not even Dallen could’a got me to tell.”
“So, there you are. Dumber than a box of rocks.” Jakyr snorted. “And how many younglings of his own did he have?”
“A lot,” Mags told him, though he had no idea why Jakyr had asked that question. “A whole lot. He was under the skirt of every maid in the house, plus the ones from his wife.”
“And there you have it!” Jakyr exclaimed, throwing his hands up. “Like my parents. Just because you can have a quiverful of youngsters, it doesn’t mean you should. Or any. Right?”
“I guess,” Mags replied, completely bewildered now as to where that statement had come from. What on earth had prompted it?
:Huh . . . I wonder . . . : Dallen said.
:You wonder what?: Could it be Dallen had gotten some insight about Jakyr that would explain . . . a lot? :Care to let me in on the secret, horse?:
For once, Dallen seemed reticent to say anything. :Right now it’s just a . . . speculative insight. I’ll let you know if it comes to anything useful.:
• • •
The inn was as good as Jakyr had said it was. To Dallen’s intense pleasure, they indeed made pocket pies—but, oh, such pocket pies!
These were not just the tasty, but unvarying treats made by the Collegium kitchens, nor the pies of uncertain quality you found at Fairs, whose contents could be dubious.
Oh, no.
There was no doubt at all as to the quality and provenance of the contents of these pies. You could taste every ingredient, separately and as a harmonious whole. And the list of what you could get filled two boards on the wall of the inn.
Mags hardly knew what to choose. There were pies full of chopped beef or pork, minced carrots, onions, peas and barley, all seasoned and savory, with just a touch of juice, enough to keep it all from being dry. Pies full of something like stew, only thicker; “gravy pies,” those were called. Chicken pies. Game pies. Egg-and-cheese pies, flavored with bacon. Apple, currant, blackberry, quince, pear, and cherry pies. Mince pies. The crust was amazing, and for any other pie that Mags had ever tasted, it would have been the best part, but here it was something that was part of a delectable whole. Mags had a half-and-half—half chopped beef, half chopped pork—and a cherry pie. These astonishing pies were washed down with exactly the sort of cider that Mags like best—spiced, with a touch of honey, and served warm. Evidently the beer was just as good, as Jakyr sipped his as slowly as Mags sipped his cider.
The fruit pies would keep and were just as good cold, so they rode off with some for later. Dallen and Jermayan were stuffed full, and Dallen didn’t complain in the least that he hadn’t had enough. Mags was just glad that the constitution of a Companion was a lot more robust than that of a horse. That many pocket pies would have sent horses straight to the Healer.
They rode past sunset to reach the next inn, but it, too, was worth it. It didn’t have the variety of fare that the first inn did. The custom here was that everyone was offered the same thing, and tonight it was roast pig with roast vegetables and very good bread. But the food was cooked perfectly, the beds were good, and there was a bathhouse.
If Jakyr had been conducting a pleasure trip, the next three days could not have passed better. Sometimes they ambled, sometimes they went at the Companions’ ground-eating lope. Jakyr said this was to throw off anyone who was attempting to follow them, but Mags secretly suspected their varied pace had more to do with Jakyr’s favored inns than the stated reason.
He didn’t mind. He was enjoying himself to the top of his capacity. The weather remained fine. He studied the people around him assiduously, keeping in mind he might have to pass as one of them some day. He took pleasure in the good food and the comfortable accommodations. There was something to be said for Jakyr’s philosophy of enjoying oneself as one could, in the moment.
After three days, they cut North and spent two nights in Waystations rather than inns. This w
as to break their trail; Jakyr was, indeed, a very good cook, and he’d made certain to get provisions before they went off the roads. He introduced Mags to a fantastic dish made of white beans and a little sausage that Mags thought he could probably eat five or six days in a row before he grew tired of it.
Then they cut West again, this time back to the pleasant pattern of using inns—but under different names. Jakyr was “Herald Boyce,” and Mags was “Trainee Hob.” Mags could only assume that either Jakyr was known by that name on their new route—entirely possible, since he was an intelligence agent—or he had made very certain not to be memorable on his last visits to these inns. Whichever reason it was, no one hailed him by his real name, nor did anyone look puzzled when he gave the false names.
They were not going truly West; it was a bit North as well. Mags was very glad that they were staying at inns at this point, as the leaves were starting to drop rapidly from the trees, and the nights were getting bitter. When they stopped it was lovely to walk into a warm common room, full of the smell of cooking food, knowing you wouldn’t have to tend the Companions, build a fire, and wait until your dinner was cooked before you could eat it.
“We’re close,” Jakyr said, one morning as they rode out under a sky that was overcast and leaden instead of cloudless. A wind too cold to be called “brisk” was finding its way down Mags’ neck past the upturned hood of his cloak.
“How soon will we catch up with them?” Mags asked.
“Tonight. It’ll be after dark, but if we ride good and hard, we’ll meet them at the Waystation tonight.” Jakyr glanced at Mags for a reaction. “I imagine you’ll be glad to see Amily again.”
Hang you and your problems, Mags thought, with a touch of irritation. Whatever they are, that’s no cause for me to pretend I’m indifferent. “Very,” he said, “It can’t be soon enough, in fact.”
“In that case—” Jakyr didn’t do anything, but his Companion surged into a lope that was almost a canter. Dallen snorted and matched the other, pace for pace.