'In fact,' Kellen added virtuously, 'I'll help you, Idalia. I've never seen the Centaur village. I'd like to.'
'You'll love it,' Idalia said, turning to him with a smile. 'We can get a good hot meal and a proper bath there. I'll get some things I'd been saving to trade and then we can be on our way.'
THEY reached the gates of Merryvale about an hour before sunset, but for almost an hour before that they'd been walking through the groves and fields that belonged to it.
Harvest was still a few sennights away, and the orchards and fields were filled with ripening crops and the villagers who were tending to them. Young children, both Centaur and human, stood out among the trees and in the fields armed with tall straw-brooms to scare away birds. They waved excitedly when they saw Idalia, and Idalia waved back. Some of them, released from their duties by their elders, ran on ahead to inform the village of the approach of the visitors.
Kellen stared at the neat orderly fields in wonder as they passed. Each field was edged in low stone fences topped with split rails. It seemed like a lot of extra work to him, but Idalia told him that the stones came out of the plowed field itself—a new crop each spring—and were stacked along the boundaries to save the farmers the work of carrying them farther away. The rail fences helped to keep the sheep and cattle out of the crops as well.
As they came closer to the village, he saw other buildings, which Idalia also identified in answer to his incessant questions—sheepfolds and cow-byres, dairies, communal barns for hay and grain, a shearing-barn. Most were, like Idalia's cottage, made of logs or rough-hewn planks, and thatched with straw. Old roofs were a silvery grey, new ones the color of pale gold. Gold patches marked the spots where roofs had been mended, and he actually saw a thatching crew at work on one of the dairies, packing in the straw bundles and cutting them with their curved thatching knives.
'And on the other side of the town, up along the river a way, is the cider-house and the mill, and the blacksmith's! So many questions, little brother! Don't tell me you've always nourished a secret desire to become a farmer!' she finally said, caught between irritation and amusement.
'It's not that,' Kellen protested sheepishly. 'It's just that… I've never seen anyplace like this.'
Though Kellen knew of the lowland farming villages that had supplied Armethalieh with food, he'd never seen anything other than the illustrations in books of wondertales, so Merryvale was as strange and alien a world to him as the Wildwood itself had been. No one possessed thatched roofs in the City, and there were very few wooden buildings. Armethalieh was a city of stone. 'And humans and Centaurs live here? Together?'
Another thing he'd been told—it was one of the central teachings of the Temple of the Light—was that humans and the creatures he'd learned to call Otherfolk (instead of Lesser Races) could not possibly live together in peace because of the utter incompatibility of their natures.
'Yes, yes, and yes,' Idalia said. 'And we'll be there soon—look, there's the gate, just ahead. And dozens of people, all of whom will be delighted to answer all your questions.'
She pointed up the road, and Kellen could see the palisades of the village ahead. Idalia had told him that the Centaurs were famed for their wood-carving skills, and the walls of Merryvale were certainly proof of that, for certainly only master craftsmen would waste their skills decorating the walls of a village.
The walls and gates of Merryvale gleamed as smooth and polished as fine cabinetry. At this distance, they looked as if they had been carved from the trunk of one great tree, weathered by time and the passage of the seasons to a soft mossy grey-green. The entire surface had been made smooth and even, the logs planed smooth and fitted together in just the way Kellen was planning to fit the logs for the addition to the cabin floor, and then a design had been carved into the resulting smooth surface. As they got closer, Kellen could see that it was a depiction of a harvest festival, with flower-garlanded Centaurs and humans carrying baskets of fruit, bushels of wheat, barrels of drink, and the carcasses of deer, pheasants, and rabbits to a communal feast.
'Oh,' Kellen said softly, enchanted. 'That's—amazing.' He wasn't just talking about the artistic quality of the carving. There it was, depicted for all to see—Centaurs and humans living together, happily and at peace. And while he'd realized that everything the Temple taught was carefully designed to serve the ends of the Council and the City, and so probably wasn't actually true, it was one thing to know that in theory, and another to see the proof right in front of you. Idalia grinned and poked him in the ribs with an elbow.
'Thought that would shut you up.'
The gates—wide enough for two large carts to pass through them side by side—stood open, and Kellen could see no guards or soldiers anywhere.
'Isn't anybody going to stop us?' he asked when they reached them.
'Why?' Idalia said blankly. Then her gaze filled with understanding and compassion. 'Kellen, this may be a city—well, as close to one as the Wildwood gets—but it is not like the City. Nobody's going to ask for your name and family here, demand your address, or make you show your citizen-token. They don't even have a City Guard. People come and go as they please—except you, Cormo,' she added abruptly, reaching out to put a hand on the Centaur's arm. 'I think it would be better if you stuck around until we saw Haneida and the Council, don't you?'
'I… of course, Idalia. Happy to,' Cormo said with ill-concealed gracelessness. The three of them walked together through the open gates.
There they paused for a moment. They were standing in what Kellen guessed must be—from his limited
