Foundation

whirled, and grabbed in the direction he had wanted to reach in the first place.

He caught an arm, and the owner stood stock still. It was female and covered in velvet, which didn’t help, since all the girls were wearing velvet. She was about Lydia’s height, but so was Saski. Before he had arrived, they had all been outside around a bonfire after having a mock fight with snowballs, so they all smelled faintly of woodsmoke. But he knew her by her breathing, and by the suppressed nervousness of her giggle.

“Saski,” he identified at once, and with a crow of laughter, the girl whipped the blindfold off his head.

“You cheated!” she accused playfully, her gray eyes dancing as she tossed her head. “You used some Herald thing! How could you possibly tell between me and Lydia?”

He shook his head and smiled slowly. She did not really mean that he had done something wrong. This was what was called “teasing,” and it was completely unbarbed and without venom. “I didn’ cheat,” he replied without a trace of anger. “I heerd ye giggle. Lydia’s more on a chuckle.”

“He has you fair and square, Saski,” Tomas observed. “No point in arguing.”

She made a face at them both, then waited for Tomas to tie the blindfold on her. Mags took his place in the ring and felt something odd happening to his face. Muscles he rarely used stretched, and he realized that he was not just smiling, he was grinning.

Now he had smiled a hundred thousand times more often since he had come to the Collegium than he ever had until that moment. And that felt good. But then, as he tried to evade Saski’s outstretched hands and still remain inside the ring chalked on the stone floor, he realized something else.

His heart thudded with excitement, he was smiling and he felt a strange sensation in his chest, as if something was trying to get out. Then it did get out, an odd gurgle of a noise, rusty with disuse, that he would never have recognized as a laugh in anyone else.

But it was a laugh.

He was enjoying this. He was having fun.

He had never had fun before. He still hardly understood what it was, he only knew that he was certain he was having it. Dallen’s memories told him as much, but his experience made it real.

Nor was that the end of it. When the others tired of the blind-man game, they settled down for something a little quieter. They all moved to Soren Mender’s library, a wonderful warm room lined with books interspersed with curios. The floor was completely covered in carpets, and besides three desks and matching chairs, there were padded benches and large cushions for sitting on beside the fire. The ceiling was much lower here, and painted all over with pictures.

That made it eminently suitable for their game. “I Spy,” it was called, where one of them chose what it was he was looking at—without looking at it directly—and gave the first letter of what it was. And the rest of them would have to try and guess what it was. Now since the object could be very small indeed (like the tiny bead that had somehow rolled onto the hearth to get lodged between two of the stones) or just as large as anyone pleased (like the pictures in the ceiling!) in a room as full of so many things as the library, it was possible to go for quite some time without a correct guess. And the game kept getting put aside when someone would spot something they didn’t recognize and ask Lydia about it. She always knew what it was—she had lived here most of her life—and there was generally a story about it.

And that game was fun. He was not the best at it, but he was not the worst by any means, it stretched his observational ability and his deductive reasoning, and it was fun. Lydia’s stories were fun, too.

Master Soren did not serve regular meals at this “open house,” preferring instead to have tables spread with food that was constantly renewed over the course of the afternoon and evening, rather like what was being done up at the Collegia right now. Except, of course, that the food on these tables was a cut or more above that which was being put out for the workmen and those few Trainees, Heralds, Bards, and Healers that were still here instead of going home or had not made other arrangements. Mags hardly ate anything at the Collegia now, knowing what was waiting for him when he got to Master Soren’s place.

There were roast fowl, for instance, brought there so fresh from the roasting oven that their skins were crackling and still sweating golden droplets of fat—roasts of beef and pork—entire hams. These would have been perfectly delicious had they stood there long enough to grow cold, but there were so many people in and out that they never got a chance to drop below “warm.”

There were plenty of breads of many kinds—the usual wheat loaves that Mags was used to, barley bread that was utterly unlike what had been served at the mine, pungent rye bread, golden egg bread, hard-crusted rolls covered in seeds, sweet bread almost as tasty as pastry.

And then there was the cheese. Mags was used to seeing two or three kinds of cheese at a time up at the Collegia (if one could say that someone who had been starved most of his life could ever “get used” to such a thing)—Master Soren served a dozen or more. And, oh, those cheeses! Mild white ones. Sharp yellow ones. Smoked cheese. Pungent cheese with veins of blue running through it. Cheese that crumbled at a touch that was meant to be sprinkled over things. Hard cheese grated and also meant to be sprinkled on things. Soft cheese meant to be spread on bread ...

Mags loved cheese. This was heaven.

Then there were several kinds of sausage. Sliced thin hard sausage, meant to be eaten cold. Tiny sausages kept warm over candles. Sausage stuffed in pastry. Sausage on skewers with vegetables, and ground sausage stuffed into other good things.

And there were dozens of other tidbits, whole trays that got rotated out as they emptied or grew cold. Vegetables rendered into crunchy little snacks. Tiny meat pies, equally tiny egg pies. Hard boiled eggs and eggs in crust.

Then there were the sweets, an entire table of pastry alone. Cookies, tiny pies and tarts. Tiny cakes, some iced, some stuffed with candied fruits, some so rich they didn’t need anything. Candied nuts, fondant balls flavored with spices, little jellies, and syrups poured over clean snow.

The drinks were just as plentiful, although none were terribly strong. Dallen had told him that very strong drink was a hallmark of some of these Midwinter parties, as was the associated intoxication. Mags was just as happy about that; when the Pieters men got drunk, things always turned out ... ugly. Master Soren’s table was meant for tasting, not gulping. There was beer and ale, mulled wine and cider, hot tea of many sorts.

What the guests didn’t eat, Mags came to discover after the third day, was gathered up thriftily and