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This time his sigh was pure sea-green envy. To move again!
"And reading in the library here, and talking with the monks, and sitting with Mary a little-she's recovering fast, now."
"How are the others taking it?"
"Pretty well. Odard…"
Rudi chuckled; as he did, he felt sleep coming over him, fading the world-the low shsshs of snow against the window, the muted howl of the wind, the low friendly rippling sound from the closed stove.
"Odard's not a bad sort," he murmured drowsily. "He's just a bit of an asshole at times."
His eyelids fluttered downward. He felt Matti bend to kiss him lightly on the forehead, but her last words faded away.
"Actually, the problem is that he's a lot less of an asshole these days."
Mary rose from the refectory table and wobbled a little. Ingolf stepped in, not reaching for her but putting his steadying presence close enough for her to grab if she had to. The corridor outside was a lot darker and colder than the dining hall; it was a relief to get to the room the two young women shared, which had its own stove. He helped her into bed and pulled up the blankets while Ritva opened the iron door, tossed in a couple of chunks of wood from the basket and then closed it and adjusted the flue. It was an air-tight model based on a pre-Change type, and it could keep the little room at something they all considered good enough-though he'd noticed back home that older people thought that range of temperatures a bit cool for comfort.
There was a heating element on top for boiling water, too. Ritva put the kettle on, and added herbs when it began to jet steam; the willow-bark tea eased the ache and itch of her sister's healing wound.
Time to do my bit, Ingolf thought, and took the lute from a corner and tuned it. And hell, I'm bored.
Winter was the stay-indoors season at home too, but there was always enough to keep the dismals at bay: making things, fixing things, looking after the stock, practicing with arms, some hunting now and then, and the Sheriffs and Farmers visited back and forth, having the leisure and the means for it. Sometimes they'd get sleds and go for a long trip down the frozen river…
And there's making music and telling stories, he thought with a wry smile, and went on aloud: "Like a song?"
Mary smiled and relaxed. "Something from your home," she said.
He started in on one: "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," and then "Northwest Passage." Then he passed the lute to Ritva; she was only passable at playing, but had a fine singing voice, and she did one of the Dunedain songs. He didn't get more than one word in three, but he had to admit that the language was pretty as all hell.
"Tell me more about Readstown," Mary said, when the tune-from something called the Narn i Chin Hurin -was finished.
"Readstown?" Ingolf said, surprised. "Well, it's in the valley of the Kickapoo. The Injuns named it that before white men came there, and it means goes here, then there. That's one twisty river! Just about the right size for a canoe, most of it, but it gets bigger as it goes south and joins the Wisconsin. Sometimes the cliffs close in, and you're between these walls of red sandstone covered with moss, and other places they open out, and the fields go rolling away to the woods and hills and the forests-"
He could see it as he spoke; the flame of autumn on the ridges, the silk of the cornfields yellow with October; the smoke rising from the chimneys of strong stolid yeomen, the smell of the dark, damp turned earth behind the oxen in spring… the ache surprised him, and he was glad to fall silent.
Ritva was reading from the Histories-the Creation of the World, which was more interesting than the Bible version-when Odard came in.
They all looked up at him; a drift of cold air came in with him, and he was wearing his outdoor gear-quilted wool pants and a sheepskin jacket with the fleece turned in, and a hood with a flap that hid most of the face. Snow dripped off him as he triumphantly set the basket he carried on the table at the foot of the bed. It was wrapped in a thick blanket and tied with string; he couldn't get the knots undone and stood blowing on his fingers near the stove while Ingolf picked them free.
"Well, well, well!" the Richlander said, as a savory smell followed the unwrapping; there were a couple of heated bricks in there too, to keep things warm.
His mouth watered. He liked meat too, when he could get it. The Kickapoo was good livestock country, the forests there were thick with game, and he'd been raised a Sheriff's son, after all, in a family who were lords of broad acres and many herds.
"BBQ pork sandwiches," the Portlander nobleman said. " And some fried chicken. And…"
He pulled out four beer bottles, pre-Change glass with modern wood-and-wax plugs.
"Not everybody's a Buddhist around here," he said triumphantly. " And not all the Buddhists are as pure about it as the monks and nuns. There were plenty of them at Ford's Cowboy Khyentse Bar and Grill down in the town."
"You must have been hungry, to go outside in that," Ritva said.
The window vibrated in its frame to illustrate her point, and there were trickles of cold air despite all the thick log walls could do. Odard peeled himself out of his integuments with an effort and then stacked them outside the door-the room was big enough for two beds, but not much more.
"They've got a pathway marked with poles and ropes," he said. "I wouldn't have tried it otherwise; Saint Dismas couldn't find his way through that, and it's getting worse. I'm not going to complain about all the rain in the Black Months back home ever again!"
There were plates in the basket too; they loaded one for Mary, and then dug into the rest themselves. Ingolf took a long drink; the beer went well with the rich spicy sandwich, and he'd missed both-they made a noble brew back home, and Sutterdown, Dun Juniper and Boise had all had maltsters of note. This was different, bitter with something that wasn't hops, but it was definitely beer and welcome after weeks of water and milk.
Mary managed to get one of the sandwiches down-they were little loafs split lengthwise-and a few bites of the chicken as well. The beer on top made her sleepy fairly quickly, and the two men packed up the remainder and stole out into the dim chill of the corridor as her sister tucked her in.
"Thanks, Odard," Ingolf said, and extended his hand.
The Portlander's brows went up, but he took it. "No trouble," he said.
"Hell it wasn't," Ingolf said, gri
He considered the younger man carefully. The slanted blue eyes weren't as guarded as they usually were.
Fu
"Let's say I've had plenty of time to think," Odard said, as they walked back towards the male side of the monastery's guest quarters. "And plenty of distance and deeds to get some perspective on things back home."
"Yah," Ingolf said. "I had the same feeling after I left Readstown. It all seemed sort of… small, after a while."
"Did you ever consider going back?" Odard said curiously.
"Nah. I missed it-the place, most of the people-but it wasn't home anymore, after my father died."
"Ah," Odard said; there was nothing mysterious to him about the plight of a younger son, though he wasn't one himself. "I envy you. My father died in the Protector's War, when I was around eight. I don't remember him well."
Ingolf fell silent for a long moment, remembering the way his father had looked towards the end-the haunted set of his eyes, as his memories went back to the time right after the Change. His son didn't remember the terrible years well at all; he'd been around six, and all he could recall was how frightening it had been that the adults were so terrified. Readstown had been a little rural hamlet surrounded by dairy country and mixed farming. They hadn't been hungry… but there had been a fair bit of fighting with starving refugees. His home was just close enough to the cities that they'd have been overrun and eaten out if they hadn't fought, after they'd taken in every soul they could; he remembered his father cursing the Amish around Rockton because they wouldn't help, and the whispers about the raid…