Into the West, page 7
He had learned early not to fling himself on the bed as was his habit; any sudden movement rocked the barge, and since the barges were all jammed up against one another, had the potential to make it knock into the neighbors. So he slid down onto it instead.
It might have seemed more logical to put the “master’s” bedroom at the rear of the barge rather than the front, because this certainly did limit privacy, but he was glad the builders had not. He knew what he had been like at the boys’ age, sneaking out in the middle of the night to have adventures . . . but he had mage-locked the sliding glass in place in their room, and to get out, they’d have to get past him and Isla.
“What are they doing back there?” he asked her, a little awkwardly. This was literally the first time since the boys were born that he and Isla had actually lived with them. In order to safeguard them, they’d been passed off as Hakkon’s bastards and had been living under the auspices of a nurse and tutor with the other youngsters of the manor; otherwise the Emperor would have demanded their presence at the Capital as hostages, as he had been. The children that the Emperor demanded weren’t openly called hostages, of course, but that was what they were.
Special students.
He had been one. It had been bad then, and he had gotten the feeling conditions had only gotten worse since he’d been allowed to go home at the death of his father.
“Playing three-man marbles with that set that uses pegs in a tray, that Petrof whittled for them,” she said. “I thought it would be a disaster with Jon always losing and crying, but he beats his brothers almost as often as they beat him.”
Petrof was the oldest man in his Guard, and by rights he should have been enjoying his old age in a snug little cottage, perhaps with an equally snug little widow to marry and keep his bed warm.
But at least he could put Petrof on the light duty of keeping an eye on the boys and supervising their chores—everyone had chores—and letting him bed down in the second of the baronial barges with some of the other servants.
Still . . .“I hope he doesn’t mind what I’ve assigned him to do, because I never asked him, I just ordered him,” Kordas sighed.
Isla laughed. “He loves it. He’s teaching them archery already, and getting them to do their letters by reading to him.” He piled pillows against the wall and reclined against them. She snugged in next to him. It occurred to him that if only they could stay here, this was probably the happiest he had been in his entire life. Even with having to fight with his temper. All his life the Plan had been hanging over him, like a wave that never fell, or a black storm that moved in but never opened up with a deluge. And so had the Emperor and the Empire loomed, a maze of knives he danced through. Now both of those were gone. He’d done it. He’d saved his people, and foiled the Empire. He was under no illusion that the Empire was no longer a threat, it was just no longer an immediate threat.
“Do you think the Empire will forget about us?” she asked, as if she was following his thoughts.
“Well, I’d like them to—but the Emperor was just the most rotten of the barrel of bad apples,” he replied frankly. “And we would be stupid to assume that once all the infighting sorts out, and a survey of all of the territories is made, whoever is in charge is going to overlook that the population of Valdemar is something significantly less than half what it should be.”
“But—” she frowned. “Aren’t the top men literally going to go to war over who sits on the throne?”
“Not if they’re smart, they won’t,” he replied, creasing his brows as a headache started between his eyebrows. “So, they’ve probably begun it, right? No, the likeliest things to happen are an end to the southern war, followed by the generals down there deciding amongst themselves who to make their leader. The Princes and Grand Dukes are going to start making alliances, but the Emperor kept them short of weapons and soldiers. So what’s most likely to happen, at least according to all the strategic things I learned, is that there will be one man from the blooded royals, and one general, and if they are smart, they will work out some way to share power between them. Then they’ll go consolidate and survey everything else. That’s what they’ve most likely been doing since we got here. Merrin Sends me regular reports, and he hasn’t got much to tell me, since his information agents either died in the Capital or have been back at the Duchy with him. All he knows for sure is that things are very quiet. Quiet is not good for us. Actual fighting among the factions would be good for us.”
“Actual fighting among the factions would be disaster for the people caught in the middle,” she said after a while. “No one suffers in war like the common folk do.”
He took her hand in both of his and kissed the back of it.
“So the sands are trickling through the hourglass,” he continued. “Now, what I hope is, because the alliances are all so fragile, and because they are all involved in an incestuous dance of power, they’ll put off looking at the borderlands like Valdemar long enough that by the time they go pay a visit to Merrin and find out that things are not what they are supposed to be, the Gates here will be long gone, and all the people who remain here at the lake will be able to pass themselves off as natives. I won’t leave any Golds with them, just a couple of heavy horses, enough to start their own breeding herd, enough to put enough land under a plow that the whole village can stay fed. So there won’t be anything overt to identify anyone here as Valdemaran.”
“Can the mages trace us here?” she asked.
“What I said about the Mage War territories was true—we found Crescent Lake by luck. If we’d actively looked for it, the territories would have confused targeting. So that helps us. We left more than enough things behind that they could come after us using those objects as links to locate us,” he reminded her. “Now . . . do they still have mages good enough to construct an entirely new Gate to here? I don’t know. But I’m not willing to tell anyone that they can’t. There were still plenty of competent people in the Empire, even with the Capital destroyed. If anything, the most competent ones stayed out of the Capital.” He made a motion as if he was tipping an hourglass. “Time is not on our side.” He thought a moment longer. “But Merrin will warn us if he learns anything.”
“That’s a comfort. I take back every evil thing I ever said about that man.” She kissed his hand.
He laughed. “Oh, he’s ambitious, and he’s tickled to be a Duke after all, and we didn’t exactly strip the countryside bare when we left. He’s got the barge-makers, who all stayed. That’s a reliable source of income. There were still crops in the fields, and plenty of herds that stayed there—he’s in a very good position to make some shrewd alliances himself. Fundamentally he seems to be a good man, and the Dolls agree with me on this. Hellfires, for all I know, he has some plan to throw anyone who figures out we deserted off of our track. He gulled me for years, so I expect he can pull the wool over other eyes than mine.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said slyly. “I’ve always found it quite easy to gull you.”
“Wench.” He took a moment to cast his ear in the direction of the end of the barge—and sadly, could still hear talking and giggles. Alas. He settled for kissing the top of her head, a private signal that said I would really like to have some fun with you, but three large-eared imps would be certain to break out of their room wanting a snack or a drink.
She sighed. And as if on cue, the door to the last room slid open. “Mama!” called Restil as he tumbled out, followed by the other two. “Can we have some clover tea?”
“You can have some water,” she countered. “Remember what I keep telling you. We need to be careful about the things we use. Wood, food, everything. You won’t want to be shivering in the cold later because we burned wood to heat the water for tea now.”
“Yes, Mama,” Restil said with resignation, and although Kordas could not see them from where he was lying, he could certainly hear the boys when they went to get their water. And they were surprisingly mannerly. Restil remained firmly in charge of the water jug, and insisted they use only one cup, each in turn, to keep from dirtying more that would have to be washed later.
“Who kidnapped our children and left changelings?” he asked her, although he could practically feel his heart swelling with pride and joy. The boys had accepted the information that he and Isla were their real parents, and not Hakkon, with a matter-of-fact attitude that made him think the two oldest at least had figured it out on their own and had realized that the deception was keeping them safe. And they had flung themselves into being a family with all the enthusiasm he could ever have dreamed of.
“It’s exhaustion. They spent the entire day gathering deadfall with Petrof, and every day they have to go farther to find any. Just like everyone else.” She patted his cheek. “But at least that leaves all the children run off their feet by the end of the day.”
They didn’t say anything else as the children put everything away, went back to their room, and slid the door shut. And when the murmurs grew sleepy, and then grew silent, with a single thought he extinguished the rest of the mage-lights and turned his attention to much more pleasurable things than worries about the Empire.
Quietly.
The next day, Kordas held an actual Court. He set himself up in a seat at the prow of his family barge, using a piece of stump discreetly covered with a fancy blanket, and told the Dolls to let it be known that in light of last night’s speech, he would hear the petitions of anyone who had changed their mind about going “home.” He was making a formal exercise of it this time; until now, anyone could leave without asking for permission. All they had to do was show up at the Gate, which was locked to the one in Valdemar near the barge-maker.
And he’d intended to have that Gate dismantled this morning, but after yesterday, he was going to give people who had gotten a sudden case of cold feet a final chance to leave. But this time, he was going to exercise his authority as Baron and make them ask him for it. And there was something more, something that as Baron, he needed to do. And for that, he needed Dolls and his Guard. As he prepared his improvised “seat of state” in the wan autumnal sunshine and ate still-warm bread and a handful of nuts and small, wild apples, he explained to Rose what he was going to do.
“We can arrange that, Baron,” she said, with that uncanny calm the Dolls never lost. “I will make sure it is done.”
As he expected, before he’d finished eating his breakfast, there was a queue of people waiting, arriving one at a time to line up politely just off the path that ringed the lake. Not as many as he had feared. And no one that he knew personally, which would have been very awkward indeed. He relaxed a little bit. This was a good time to hold his “court,” since most people were still getting their food at the communal kitchens, and there wouldn’t be a lot of gawkers around.
He took his seat, glad for the heavy knit tunic that was over his linen shirt. It wasn’t Court garb by any means; in fact, it wasn’t much of a step above what everyone else was wearing. Virtually all of the “good” clothing he had was packed up in one of the storage barges, and by look he couldn’t have been told from one of his servants. But that “commoner’s clothing” was all to the good on two counts—first, it was doing an excellent job of keeping the chill breeze at bay, and second, it brought home to everyone that he lived no better here than any of them, and he was prepared to share their hardships. Indeed, he already was.
“Well,” he said, as leaves drifted down from the trees and the breeze carried the bitter scents of the ones already fallen toward him. “Let’s begin.” He heard the first petitioner, who stammered out his request to leave, blaming his wife’s supposedly sudden “bad feelings” about the expedition. Kordas listened gravely, then nodded. “You can leave, of course. I’ve not stopped anyone from leaving before, and I don’t intend to now. However, everything that is not part of your personal household belongings will be staying with us. This especially includes food.”
The man—and everyone else in line—gaped at him.
“You know quite well that there were crops still in the fields back home that are awaiting harvest,” Kordas continued blandly. “You aren’t going to starve, and you’re going to find plenty of seed-stock waiting for you. But we might starve, and we will need every grain of wheat and turnip where we are going. I certainly won’t demand the tools of your trade, but if there are duplicates, we’ll be having them, too. And firewood. And if you have uncut fabric, we’ll be having that as well. You can take just enough of your herds, if you have any, to start again, but no surplus. I’ll give you each a voucher for three barges from the makers, which you can sell to compensate for what we’re taking. They can use those vouchers to pay their Ducal taxes. There will be a Doll and a Guard waiting for you back at your boats to assist you in separating your personal belongings from the food and other things that we are going to need. You will be more than compensated for the losses by the barges you have and the three new ones. And, as of today, all food will be held in the common store.”
He had put on that face that said to anyone looking at him that “there will be no argument here.”
He was quite good at reading body language, and he could tell that while the folks waiting to be given permission to go did not like this proclamation in the least, they were not going to argue about it. He’d explained exactly what he meant to Rose earlier.
“I’m not talking about that rare bottle of wine someone is saving for a special occasion, nor about someone’s private hoard of sweets. I am talking about enough food to supply a family over the winter, and seed-stock for planting in the spring, and if it seems to you that they have more of anything than they are likely to need, you’ll take it. After all, my family paid for every one of the barges here, and I am letting them keep all the ones they need to hold the things we’re not taking. Plus three more when they get back. Especially we need food that will keep well or is otherwise preserved. That will go into the stocks for the common kitchens, so everyone who stays will benefit.”
He was well aware that while people were supposed to be getting all their meals from the common kitchens, there were some who were cooking for themselves. Not many, because it was hard to cook on those tiny barge stoves, but enough that he knew not everyone had turned over the food they had brought with them to the common store. And he hadn’t demanded that before. Now he was. There might be trouble from some of the nobles, merchants, and people of relative wealth, he was sure, but . . . they had the option to leave if they didn’t like it, and they would still lose the food.
Food was not one of the things that his father and grandfather had thought much about when they made the Plan, probably because they expected that when the escapees took the Gate to other parts, they’d be staying where they’d found themselves, and that they were not going to find any other humans around. According to the original Plan, his father, grandfather, and he had all assumed they’d be Gating straight into wilderlands. Once there, the Plan assumed they would have one short growing season to get in gardens, and thanks to the preparations the Duke’s family had made, they would all have plenty of grain and other long-term stores to see them through to spring.
Well, there was plenty of grain and other long-term stores, but they were not going to settle in for a long, mostly sedentary winter. They were going to be on the move. Now, in one way, that was good; forage for the animals wasn’t going to run low. But in every other way, it was a problem; moving people needed more food than sedentary people, and people working out in the cold rather than huddled up in their barges would too.
Hence, the sudden edict.
It didn’t go over well, but he hadn’t expected it to. There were long faces, and a little grumbling, and some sour looks cast his way, but no one tried to argue with him.
And they all still wanted to leave anyway.
When the last of the petitioners had gone, he remained where he was, knowing that as the Doll-and-Guard pairs spread out among the barges and began making inspections for foodstuffs, he was going to get some blow-back from the nobles and wealthy.
And he did.
In fact, within a mark, they had organized themselves into a group, chosen a leader, and confronted him, still seated on his stump, as a united front.
He listened impassively while the leader made his argument, which basically consisted of “we aren’t peasants and we don’t intend to live like peasants,” though it was couched in better language than that. All this went on in blithe indifference to the growing crowd of those “peasants” who were watching and listening, possibly expecting him to take their side. And when the leader—the middle-aged Lord Portrain—was finished, Kordas allowed silence to fill the space. Of course everyone within earshot had been paying very close attention to what was said, and there were a lot of people within earshot.
And most of them were . . .“peasants.” Belatedly, the assembled group began to realize that they had an audience for their grievances besides Kordas, and that audience was looking stormy.
Finally Kordas spoke.
“Lord Portrain. What have I done with my horses?” he asked .
“Uh—” The man had pulled himself up and puffed up his chest, prepared to refute whatever Kordas said next. But he hadn’t expected this, and he promptly deflated, caught off guard by the unexpected question.
“What have I done with my horses?” he repeated. “I’ll tell you. I’ve put them out for common use in pulling everyone’s barges, from the Tow-Beasts to my Golds. All of them except for my riding horse, my wife’s, and my ward’s. Two of those will be pulling our barges; the third isn’t even a yearling yet, and is not up to work. All of our food is in the common store. Every bit of it. I didn’t even keep sweets for my children. All of the manor’s crops are in the common store. We are not concealing cakes and hams under the floorboards. I am not telling any of you to do anything I haven’t already done for the common good of us all.”
