Bastion

by Mercedes Lackey

  The actual moving of things out of storage and into the main cave took most of the morning. There were a lot of heavy objects, at least when it came to the kitchen area—Mags had seen the inventory, but he hadn’t quite believed what he’d read. Yet, there all those things were . . . they were going to have a kitchen that many housewives in cottages would envy.

  Jakyr made them all lunch, then they all worked on set-up. By the time night fell . . . well, you would not have been able to tell the main cave area from the interior of a very comfortable cottage.

  Mags discovered that his construction of the stone oven was entirely unnecessary. There was an iron stove that somehow had come packed in pieces that fitted together with sturdy metal pins, and a load of firebricks to stack around it and act as a heat-mass the way the chimneys in the stable did. The kitchen was moved to one side, though still situated where the chimney crack would take the smoke from the stove, and the firepit they had used to cook in was turned into a communal fireplace with heavy rugs and cushions stuffed with hay around it. Everyone now had more blankets, more pillows, waxed canvas to put on the ground under the hay in their beds, and feather comforters. There were cleaning supplies tucked away in their own area, a canvas sink for actually washing dishes in, and the aforementioned canvas bathtub waiting to be set up next to the fire when someone wanted it.

  At the entrance of each of the sleeping caves, Amily had found sockets carved into the rock to hold poles. Bear went out with the measurements for each of the cavelets in use, and cut poles to fit from the piles of wood that the Guard had left for them. Now there were canvas curtains hung up across the opening of their sleeping caves, for privacy.

  The Guard hadn’t just left fodder for the horses and the Companions. In the piles of supplies there were storage chests that could be sealed against vermin thanks to gaskets of tarred rope around the lids, and each of these chests was already laden with foodstuffs like dried fruits and vegetables and dried meat.

  There were chests of candles and lamp oil, chests of lanterns, the chests they had already robbed of their blankets and ground canvas, an entire chest of soap. . . . In short, everything you could possibly want to turn a cave into a home was here.

  “Why would a Guardpost have all this stuff?” Mags wondered aloud, as they put the finishing touches on the central space.

  “Because the highborn have been known to want to come on a campaign,” Jakyr grunted, “And the comfort of the highborn must be seen to. All of the extra stuff—the rugs, the folding furniture, that sort of thing—is kept in storage in a Guardpost in case it’s needed. Milles tells me that, packed away, it doesn’t take up much room, so no one really objects to keeping it around.”

  “Can’t object much when we’re gettin’ to use it,” Mags pointed out.

  With a reluctant smile, Jakyr agreed.

  At that moment Amily discovered, with a cry of joy, that there was a little chest of books among the candles, and Mags found himself grinning.

  A proper stew had been simmering all afternoon once they got the stove set up, and the aroma was enough to drive a person half mad. Jakyr was still puttering with his kitchen, Amily had settled with a book, Lena and Lita with their instruments, and Bear with his herbs. Mags decided to go look for that bathing area before the stew scent drove him to eat something he shouldn’t—like the last of the bread. He took a lantern and went out into the valley.

  The Companions and the horses were cropping contentedly enough at the tall, withered grasses, which were roughly knee high in most places. The sun was somewhere on the other side of the hills and sinking fast. Not much time to look.

  But then, he realized he didn’t have to look.

  :Dallen. Have we got a running spring in one of them caves?:

  Dallen’s head came up. :I’ll ask Jermayan to help me search. Shouldn’t take long.:

  The two Companions split up and checked the entrance to each cave in turn, using their superior senses of hearing and smell. They would hear the spring or smell the water long before Mags could.

  Mags took the opportunity to explore the little valley while they hunted.

  He thought he could see signs of where the enormous trees that the Hawkbrothers were said to live in had once stood, but there was no trace of them now. There didn’t seem to have been too many of them, either, and that made him wonder if they had also lived in the caves, as their hertasi did. The valley had definitely been cleared of anything like a tree at or around the time the bandits took it over, but it had been long enough for trees to have reseeded themselves in several places, making compact little groves here and there.

  He was sure he found the place where the legendary bathing pools had once been. On the one part of the valley wall that wasn’t sheer rock, there was a sloping hill, with six basins built into it. He could see where water would have started at the top, cascaded down to the next two, and then into the last four. But if there had been a spring that fed these basins, it had dried up a long time ago. The basins themselves were more like depressions, partly filled in with soil, and covered with turf and weeds.

  This would be a nice place in summer though, and was not bad now.

  He also inspected the huge pile of wood that had been left for them by the Guard. The bigger logs had been chopped up and split and piled in several pyramids off to the right of the entrance of the cave they were using. Branches had mostly been cut into fire-sized pieces, but there was a pile of uncut ones as well; this was what Bear had used for their curtain poles, and Mags expected there would be other uses for them. It looked like an impossible amount of wood, but he knew from experience that keeping fires stoked used a lot of fuel. His best guess, though, was that there would be enough here to keep them through spring. It looked as if the Guard had dragged every dead tree within easy reach of the entrance inside, and chopped it all up here. There was a substantial pile of wood chips that would make good kindling.

  It didn’t take long at all for the Companions to find the hertasi bathing room. The cave in question was along the same wall as their living cave but deeper into the valley, located behind one of those little groves of trees, but Jermayan found it quite quickly. Mags went in to inspect it as the shadows deepened and the light began to fade from the sky.

  He was glad he had the lantern; it was dark, and although you could hear the spring faintly from the entrance, it was around several draft-killing twists and turns in the tunnel. It was a tunnel and not a natural cave this time; he spotted the telltale signs that someone had been working the rock.

  When he emerged into a small room, he knew immediately that the place was going to take some work before it was usable.

  There had been some rockfall along the wall, which made the footing a little treacherous there and diverted part of the water. But more importantly, the basin—which was rather like a huge bulge in the middle of a small stream—had a thick layer of fine mud on the bottom. Certainly no one had cleared it since the bandits called this place home. And the water was just one step above ice. He hurried back to report to the others.

  “I think maybe they was using it for a lotta things,” he said, after describing what he’d found. “I think washing clothes and maybe watering horses. Diggin’ the mud out ain’t gonna be nice, cold as that water is.” He sat down on one of the wool rugs with his back to a hay-stuffed cushion the size of a horse’s torso. The hay smelled nice; he suspected Bear had packed some herbs in there as well. The cushion rustled a little as he settled himself.

  Jakyr dished him up a bowl of stew, stuck a chunk of bread in it, and handed it to him. “Maybe that portable tub is a better answer then.”

  Mags took a bite of gravy-soaked bread. “Well,” he said, “I can tell ye, as some’un who’s had his arms in cold water in winter, that it won’t be but a couple of moments afore your hands start to hurt like fury. And then you start to get cold all over, once yer arms get cold. We didn’t have a choice back then but to do it, but I don’t think none of us now could
work for longer’n a verse in a drinkin’ song afore we’d have t’quit.” He shivered, feeling chilled just thinking about it. “That mud’ll be packed in there good. It’d take candlemarks t’ get it all out. I’m thinkin’ that’s a job for warmer times.”

  Lita gave him an I told you so look. She didn’t say it. She didn’t have to. It was Bear who quickly defused things before they started snapping at each other again.

  “We got a lot of these sleeping caves,” he said. “Any reason why we couldn’t heat up rocks an’ use one of em for a steambath? I liked the one we used back at that inn.”

  “Huh. We’d want one far enough away from where we’re actually sleeping that the damp doesn’t get into our bedding, but . . .”

  “I hope this doesn’t immediately make you against the idea,” Lita said dryly. “But I like it, I like the idea a lot. I favor steam baths in winter. We could set up the canvas tub in there to use for water for the rocks and to wash in. Plus, steam is good for winter ailments.”

  “If we get sick, steam’s good for carrying medicine into the lungs,” Bear pointed out.

  “In that case, I appoint you in charge of seeing it done,” Jakyr said, handing Bear his dinner. “Try to find one where the damp will be carried farther into the caves rather than toward the living space.”

  “I can do that,” Bear nodded.

  Amily looked around, and sucked in her breath. “I never would have thought we could do anything like this,” she said. “I thought—well, I thought things would be harder than this.”

  “More primitive, you mean?” Jakyr laughed. “They still will be. When we go out to the villages, Mags and I will still be using the Waystations, and you and Bear and Lena and Lita will be living in the caravan. We just have this very comfortable place to retreat to, and if the weather looks like it’s going to close in, we’ll leave the village to sort itself out for a time and get ourselves back here.”

  Amily chuckled a little. “I wouldn’t call the caravan primitive.”

  “You won’t have to cook for yourselves if you don’t want to, either,” Jakyr pointed out. “Mags and I will.”

  “If you youngsters get on my nerves, I can trade a room at the inn, if there is one, for singing,” Lita pointed out. “That’s pretty standard for Bards. Well, so is trading music for a space on the hearth, but I think I am going to hold out for rather more than that. I’m not exactly the average traveling musician.”

  “You have a far better command of music and speech than that. One sharp, scolding sentence from you will have them offering you the inn to go away,” Jakyr replied.

  “I’d take that as a compliment,” Lena put in before Lita could respond. “That sort of command would take a Gift.”

  “Oh, she has a Gift, all right,” Jakyr said. “The Gift of flaying someone’s hide from his back with a few words.”

  Lita was opening her mouth to respond when she was interrupted by the sharp stamping of hooves on stone and two explosive equine snorts. She snapped her mouth shut, as Jakyr’s head jerked up.

  :Chosen,: said an unfamiliar Mindvoice, :You can stop being an ass, or you can walk to the village in the morning. It’s up to you.:

  Mags hid a smile. He’d bet that Jakyr had forgotten that Mags could Mindhear any Herald or Companion. He’d also bet that Jermayan bloody well remembered.

  • • •

  “Why’re we leaving now?” Mags asked Jakyr, as they rode out through the entrance into The Bastion in the thin light of early morning. “I thought we were gonna let the Bards an’ Bear go in first.”

  “I don’t think we’ll need them,” Jakyr scoffed. “They can be just as useful finishing up making our headquarters fully functional. More.”

  :Someone has his knickers in a knot,: Dallen sniggered.

  Mags couldn’t disagree. But he also didn’t mind seeing what happened if they approached this as if it were just any ordinary Circuit, and not one where the locals considered them intruding strangers. He wanted to see how Jakyr handled that, because that was the hallmark of a good Field Herald.

  Mind, Mags was unlikely to be called on to fulfill the duties of a Field Herald . . .

  But unlikely things had happened to him in the past.

  It took them all morning to get to the Waystation just outside of town. Jakyr had told Mags that the condition of the Waystation, which the locals were required to keep supplied and tended, told you a great deal about the attitude of the locals toward Heralds.

  So the condition of the Waystation they approached didn’t bode particularly well for their reception.

  It was shuttered up tight, and while it wasn’t dilapidated, it was not by any means in particularly good shape. The pile of firewood beside it was meager. There was barely enough hay for a few days, and it looked and smelled like last year’s. When they opened the Waystation and checked the supplies, it was clear that no one had restocked this one since the last Herald had come through, about six months ago. There were no human supplies there, only grain for the Companions. Last year’s, just like the hay.

  “We anticipated this,” Jakyr reminded Mags, as indeed they had. There was still enough green browse to satisfy the Companions without resorting to the dubious hay. They had brought their sleeping rolls and plenty of food for several days. They left the Waystation and proceeded to the village.

  Shepherd’s Crossing was two streets crossing the main road, with a village square. A little girl out herding geese spotted them first, in the distance, and they could see her shooing her birds on ahead of her as she ran to report their arrival.

  “I want you to keep your mind open for what you can pick up,” Jakyr said, a little grimly, as they watched the little girl disappear into a cottage. “I don’t need to tell you what and what not to do, just Mindspeak me if they’re hiding something.”

  Mags nodded. The bells they had hung on their Companions’ bridles when they left the Waystation chimed cheerfully; they were the only thing cheerful hereabouts. The sky was overcast, and the village itself was anything but welcoming as they rode into it.

  They were met at the village square by an authoritative man and four others. There was no sign of anyone else, not even peeking out windows or doors.

  “Gi’ye afternoon, Herald,” the man said, his closed face revealing nothing.

  “Afternoon, Headman Blakee,” Jakyr replied with casual cordialness. “When and where will your people hear the reading?”

  “Here and now,” the headman said. Jakyr tsked.

  “You know better than that, and I know you know,” he said immediately. “The law is the law. All your people above the age of ten years are to hear the reading of the King and Council’s Will in the new season. So, when are you gathering them, and where?”

  There was some discontented muttering among the men; Jakyr waited while they talked, patient and stolid as an ox, without the least sign of impatience on his face. Mags brought all his shields down and allowed a few thoughts to brush against his, but it was all sullen resentment that every six months some white-clad busybody would show up, interrupt everyone’s working day, and waste their time reading out new laws that almost never applied to them.

  “Inn, one candlemark,” the headman said, finally. “Get this over with.”

  The inn was obvious by the wheat sheaf tied up over the door. Jakyr nodded acknowledgement, and the Companions moved the few paces over to it.

  No one came to take them; Jakyr dismounted and began to lead Jermayan around to the back. Mags followed his example. There was a small lean-to stable and no visible stablehands. Jakyr left Jermayan under saddle but heaped both mangers with hay and a measure of grain—only fair considering the state of things back at that Waystation. Mags brought buckets of fresh water, and the two of them went around front and entered the common room.

  The innkeeper took his time in coming over to them, considering there were no other customers at the moment. Jakyr ordered beer for both of them and paid for it on the spot before payment
could be demanded.

  Technically they were entitled to be served for nothing, and the chit Jakyr would leave would more than cover whatever they got. Obviously, though, the innkeeper would have been unpleasant about the chit. Jakyr anticipated the trouble and cut it off before it arose.

  Gradually the room filled. Mags was pleased to see that both men and women were coming. At least the Headman was going to abide by the letter of the law.

  At last the Headman reappeared. “This’s all my people,” he said gruffly to Jakyr, his eyes resentful. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Jakyr stood up and read out the new laws, slowly and carefully, into the silence. Mags sensed some amusement over things that didn’t apply to these people—regulations regarding the number of goats that could be pastured on common land, for instance, since a village this far out didn’t have or need a commons—and some irritation over things that did, even when the law was a good one, like the yearly marking of borders by a surveyor from the Guard. But he didn’t pick up anything that seemed to require Jakyr’s attention.

  As soon as Jakyr finished and sat down, people began deserting the room so quickly that you would have thought he had an infectious disease. Jakyr kept his face expressionless, but Mags sensed his irritation.

  “Is that all, Herald?” the Headman asked, starting to move toward the door himself.

  “I would be a poor Herald if it were,” Jakyr replied, with the unspoken and you know that very well, implied by the silence at the end of his sentence. He let that silence hang for a moment, waiting for the Headman to volunteer, and sighed when he did not. “I’ll be needing the records of your judgments for the last six months, if you please. We’ll be going over them together.”

  Well, I don’t please! the man’s thoughts shouted, but with a great sigh, he pulled a large book out of a satchel at his side, and sat down across from Jakyr and Mags.

  One by one, with his finger tracing under the words, the Headman read out the date of his judgment and what it was.