Foundation

He blinked, and fell out of the entrancement as easily as he had fallen in, staggering a little at the abrupt transition, and looked around to find that he and Dallen were surrounded by a ring of people, all watching them closely.

Everything seemed sharper, clearer; he was aware of the things around him in a way that he had not been until now. The chill against his skin, the soft hide of Dallen under his hand, the way Dallen’s breath, hay-scented, huffed against his shoulder.

He looked up into the skeptical eyes of the Herald. Jakyr said memory. Herald Jakyr. “His name’s Dallen, Herald Jakyr.” Mags muttered, still trying to sort through the most immediate of the things dumped into his mind. “I’m ... Mags. Don’t got no other name.” He caught a flicker of something from the Herald and scowled, feeling insulted. This man had no call to think of him as some sort of idiot! “And I mebbe scrawny, but I ain’t lackwitted,” he added with irritation. Then, belatedly, he realized that he had just been impudent to a master; he paled and appended, “Sir.”

And involuntarily cringed, waiting for a blow that was, in his mind, inevitable. He had been insolent. He would pay for that.

He couldn’t help himself. When you answered smart, you got smacked, if you were lucky, and beaten if you weren’t. But Herald Jakyr only chuckled. “Aye, I’ll take your word for it, Mags.” He placed a hand on Mags’ shoulder and his eyes went sad as Mags winced without thinking. “I can see you’ve had a hard time of it. Well, from now on, things will be better. You have my word on it.”

Jakyr’s words startled Mags, despite all that knowledge that was in him now. So many things he hadn’t expected, well, this was one of many. That someone he didn’t even know would be kind to him. He felt the stirring inside of nameless emotions, things he had not felt, and had not dared to feel, in ... in as long as he could remember, really. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. His mouth went dry and his eyes wet. It had been so long since someone was kind ...

A long-ago dim memory half came to the surface and then subsided. Rough hands, but a soft voice, comfort and protection. Not complete protection, though, for that voice in memory sometimes sobbed, and sometimes wheedled, and after that had sometimes come pain. Being hidden in a corner by a fire ... he knew that fire, he knew that place. It was the kitchen of the Big House at the mine. Someone there had been kind to him, had cared for him. He remembered a wordless crooning, and warmth.

But the memory slipped away, overwhelmed by the immediacy of the present. He dared to glance sideways at the Herald. The man’s eyes looked weary, but not impatient, and his hand was still firm and warm on Mags’ shoulder. “All right, Mags, let’s get some food into you, since I took you away from that pig slop they were calling a noon meal. Judging by the look of you—” Jakyr sighed. “My heart tells me to stuff you with things you’ve likely never tasted before, but my head knows very well what will happen if I do. You’ll be sick and miserable, and there will be all my good intentions gone wrong. So. You eat bread, yes?” Mags nodded. “And something like porridge?”

“Not often, sir,” Mags replied truthfully. “Most times what you saw. Soup. Barley bread. What we could find.”

The men surrounding them murmured to one another, grimacing, and Jakyr winced. “All right, then. Let’s start you out with bread and some soup and see how that goes.”

Still leaving his hand on Mags’ shoulder, Jakyr steered him through the crowd of curious Guardsmen, most of whom were no older than the Pieters boys, and back into the building. Seeing these Guardsmen so young did not give him any measure of comfort; there was no telling what they might or might not do. Dallen seemed to think they were all wonderful people, but ...

Then that calm came over him again. But as the Herald tried to urge him along, Mags turned—again, involuntarily, not wanting to leave Dallen. It was more than a “want,” it was a need, the farther he got from Dallen. He felt as if he had to be with Dallen, every moment, every instant. He felt anxiety rising in him, almost to the point of panic, about leaving Dallen alone. What if something happened? What if they tried to persuade Dallen to go? What if they treated the Companion like a mere horse?

:I’m fine, Chosen, they cosset me here like a bride on her wedding day,: the Companion reassured Mags with amusement. :And I am never more than a thought away from you. You go on, eat, then sleep.:

Again, that cushion of calm came down over him. So Mags let himself be steered down that long corridor for the second time, until they came to an enormous white-walled, black-beamed room, the biggest he had ever seen, with nothing in it but Guardsmen eating and talking, with row after row of tables and benches. The smell of food was so intense it came near to making him faint. He couldn’t identify any of the smells, only that they all made his stomach knot with hunger, and his mouth ache to taste what made all those smells. Rich smells, savory and sweet, and spicy, all blending somehow. Jakyr guided him to the nearest empty seat, and one of the young men that had been with them went away and came back without prompting with an enormous bowl and four thick slices of bread, and a spoon. He put it all down in front of Mags. And when Mags looked into the bowl, he could hardly believe his eyes. It was full of the kind of soup he only saw once a year, when the strangers came to look them all over. Vegetables floated so thickly in the broth that they were pushing each other up to the surface, carrots and peas, three kinds of beans, lentils, bits of chopped root, and soft cooked barley, all in a broth so rich it looked like gravy, not like the watery stuff in the cabbage soup.

But even if new memories hadn’t told him that Jakyr was right about getting sick if he ate too much, too fast, his own experience did. Don’t gobble, or you’ll be sorry. So he took the spoon in one hand, a slice of the bread—wheaten bread—in the other. The only time he had seen wheaten bread was when it was burned and thrown in the pig slop. He and the other kiddies got barley or rye bread, coarse stuff that somehow failed to satisfy. He dipped a corner of the bread and sopped up broth. Ate the bite. Took a spoonful of soup that made his mouth sing with flavor and filled his whole head with the intoxicating aroma. Ate that. Dipped the bread again. He repeated this pattern, slowly, carefully. Even though his empty stomach screamed at him to fill it, faster, now, he went slowly. He hadn’t gotten as far as he had without being able to master his gut. Besides, you didn’t gobble food that tasted like this ... you gobbled food that tasted horrible so you could get it into your stomach before your mouth could protest.

Jakyr watched him, eyes narrowed at first, then relaxing. An approving smile touched his lips. Somewhere under the calm, Mags wondered—why did he care if Mags got sick or not? But the calm said, Of course he cares. He’s a Herald. He just does. “There’s a good lad,” he murmured. “Don’t worry, there’s more where that came from, as much as you want, and when you’re used to being better fed, butter for your bread and meat, and—” He grinned then. Mags paused between bites and found himself stretching his mouth in a return smile. It was a peculiar feeling. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled. It made him feel strange, but good, to do so. But he didn’t have a lot of attention to spare for feelings, not when there was good food to be eaten.

When Mags reached the bottom of the bowl, sopping up the last little bits of broth with the last bite of bread, he sighed, and pushed the bowl and spoon away.

“Had enough for now?” Jakyr asked. Mags nodded. One of the young Guardsmen came over with something,